Approval of Previous Minutes —

Minutes from last meeting approved

Unfinished Business —

Repository for SPPT Records

Nisha outlined the page she prepared for the committee on ‘Teams’. The committee agreed this was a promising venue to house the work of this committee, and to further assure that institutional knowledge is accessible to future members of this committee.

Brad and Araceli will put in Teams any items that Suzanne did not include for prior years.

Specific Charges

Jennifer shared a summary of conversations with Lou Moulligan and Nathan Brunsell regarding specific charges for this committee. There are in short, no specific charges beyond continuing with the general charges.

Jennifer will be working with this committee on behalf of the Office of the Provost.

Procedures for Review of Various Types of Faculty Positions that Qualify for Promotion but Not Tenure (continuation of the conversation from our first meeting on December 2, 2022)

Jennifer shared a wealth of background for the SPPT committee to understand how the Office of the Provost is working internally and with departments to gradually respond to the diversity and increasing number of colleagues hired with non-tenure track appointments.  Discussion followed on the challenges of responding to this urgent need, particularly because of the diversity of job descriptions and titles. The Office of the Provost is giving priority to teaching professors and to professors of practice, both eligible to promotion in rank, but with very different expectations regarding parameters of service and scholarship. Jennifer clarified the need for a more comprehensive follow up with departments to assure that bylaws are regularly reviewed and updated, and that processes for evaluation and promotion of non-tenure rank faculty are in place.

The agreement is that this process is outside the purview of the SPPT committee -at least in these initial phases towards policy. Yet, we are available to assist with any specific tasks that may facilitate the process, and that are aligned with the general charges set out for this committee.

The SPPT committee would be happy to add any wording to our regular reviews that could assist the Office of the Provost in encouraging departments to work towards the development of clear and transparent guidelines for the promotion and review of faculty on non-tenure tracks.

Review Process

History

Brad explained that the department had added the feedback requested to their policies, and that their Tenure guidelines now meet the criteria outlined in Article VI.

Araceli and Nisha will communicate this to Ben Eaggleston and to the Chair of history.

Journalism

Limits of time made it impossible to work together on everyone’s review.

All members of the committee, with the exception of ex-oficio members, will be submitting their review worksheet for Article VI on teams, or sending it to Araceli and Nisha via email.

Araceli will summarize the reviews and word an initial response for Journalism.

New Business —

Dates tentatively set for the fourth Friday of each month from 11-noon. Nisha will send out the outlook calendar invites.