Committee Description—

Members—

Charges—

For further information or to schedule a meeting with FacEx to discuss charges or the committee’s work, contact FacEx Chair Lua Yuille.

• Minutes of each meeting should be e-mailed to the Governance Office (govern@ku.edu) as they are approved.  The minutes will be posted to the Governance web site.
• If the committee is recommending a change to university policy or rules, please contact Kathy Reed at kreed@ku.edu  
• Please send a report of the committee’s actions on each of the charges, as well as any recommendations the committee wishes to make concerning charges or membership for the following academic year, to University Governance, at govern@ku.edu, and submit the final report by April 31, 2021. 

Standing charges:

1. Review department and school criteria and procedures for promotion and tenure pursuant to section 6.3.5.1 of the Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations for consistency with the requirements of Article VI of the rules and regulations, and approve criteria, guidelines, and procedures that are consistent with those requirements.  Identify inconsistencies and coordinate with the Provost’s office to provide feedback to departments, the College, schools, and other administrative units to correct problems.  Submit issues that cannot be resolved to FacEx as provided in section 6.3.5.1 (ongoing).
2. Review guidelines and forms developed by the Provost, and procedures developed by the UCPT, pursuant to 6.3.5.2 for consistency with the requirements of Article VI of the rules and regulations and identify problems or concerns.  Provide comments to the Provost and UCPT, and report issues that cannot be resolved to FacEx as provided in section 6.3.5.2 (ongoing).
3. Promote and facilitate compliance with the standards and procedural requirements of Article VI of the Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations by maintaining and disseminating guidance documents for departments, the College, schools, and other administrative units (ongoing).
4. Monitor the implementation of Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations concerning Promotion and Tenure.  Identify issues and problems as they arise and report recommendations to FacEx as needed (ongoing).
5. In coordination with the Policy Office, annually review technical modifications to Promotion and Tenure polices submitted to the Policy Library.

Specific charges:

1. Report on how faculty members are experiencing the stop in the tenure clock in response to the pandemic. Does the committee foresee any issues or concerns with the break in time?  Make recommendations to mitigate any negative impacts. 
2. Review FSRR VI. Promotion and Tenure, including FSRR 6.4.3.1. ...”its needs should be filled with a different individual.” (See the American Association of University Professors 1968 Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure). 
3. Explore ways to collaborate with UCPT regarding challenges identified by that committee as it applies unit criteria to various P&T decisions; consider joint recommendations for standards or changes that could benefit faculty and units considering promotion and tenure decisions.
4. Consider whether policies and standards are clear when units use “joint appointments”, and what, if anything, could be added to clarify the standards that would control in those situations.
5. Consider broadly how policies address mentoring and annual review; the role of teaching observations, evaluations, and other metrics; and whether these practices can be aligned with existing P&T policies to provide better guidance to faculty and units.
6. Work with the Vice Provost for Faculty Development and FacEx as necessary to finalize a policy that will encourage units to develop and distribute appropriate criteria for the promotion of non-tenure-track faculty as described:

The committee recommends that this language result in an independent policy in the policy library:
“Units shall develop and distribute criteria consistent with position descriptions for promotion of multi-term, non-tenure-track faculty (e.g. multi-term lecturers, senior lecturers, and assistant and associate teaching professors or professors of practice). Units are not required to develop such criteria for GTAs or short-term lecturers. Policies should designate an internal process for promotion recommendations.”

Final Reports and Outcomes—

SPPT FY2021 Final Report