Arizona Faculties Council Meeting Minutes
Date: Thursday, March 8, 2007
Place: Ventana Room, UA Student Union
Time Frame: 12:00 noon

Present:
Marcus Ford, NAU, Arizona Faculties’ Council President (2006-2007) and NAU Senate Past President
Marsha Yowell, NAU Senate President
Blasé Scarnati, NAU
John Brock, ASU Polytechnic Academic Assembly and Senate President
Susan Mattson, ASU Downtown Campus Senate President
Wanda Howell, UA Chair of the Faculty
Robert Mitchell, UA Vice-Chair of the Faculty and Presiding Officer of the Senate
J.C. Mutchler, UA South Faculty Forum Past President
William Alexander, UA South Faculty Forum President
Mark Denke, ABOR

Guests:          
            Ken Struckmeyer, Washington State University
            Gail Stygall, University of Washington

AFC Chair Ford called the meeting to order at 12:23 p.m. and members introduced themselves. Chair Ford welcomed the faculty leaders Ken Struckmeyer and Gail Stygall from the Washington schools. Some of the faculty members went to dinner with the Washington visitors last night and observed that the issues facing Arizona universities and faculty are remarkably similar to those in Washington state.

Topic: Academic Bill of Rights:
Chair Ford noted that there is a bill which is currently making its way to the Arizona legislature which essentially makes it illegal for K-12 and university faculty to express their opinions in class about any controversial subjects. AFC and ABOR are watching this issue carefully but are optimistic that it will never make it onto the floor of the Arizona house. AFC members believe that it will not get to the floor of the Senate, but are disturbed that it did make its way out of committee.

Topic: Faculty Evaluation
Chair Ford introduced the topic of faculty evaluation and asked whether UA and ASU have added a fifth category, “Needs improvement” to the other four, “Highly meritorious,” “Above Satisfactory,” “Satisfactory,” and “Unsatisfactory.” G. Stygall said that the University of Washington has merit raises of 2% but the merit money has collapsed such that everybody gets merit. Only a handful ever receives  something more than the ordinary merit. K. Struckmeyer said his university has a scale of 1-5 but no one ever receives the highest rating possible. R. Mitchell commented that the scale can be as expansive as anyone wants, but getting people to use the extreme measures is another story. If a faculty member isn’t carrying his/her weight, then someone ought to be brave enough to note this without firing or getting into a tenure battle.

M. Denke confirmed that Arizona faculty evaluations roll up to ABOR as only three categories, unsatisfactory, satisfactory and above average. Members questioned why the universities should have more than three levels of ranking. S. Mattson suggested that the five levels allow for gradations. Faculty might be more willing to rank a colleague as a “needs improvement” category than as “unsatisfactory.” Chair Ford believes that what is driving the concern is that last year the Board felt that there were not enough faculty ranked “unsatisfactory.” Some Board members believe that university faculty are ranked too highly and that the universities’ performance ratings should look more like industry. A good portion of the AFC-Regents’ Breakfast last year was spent educating the Regents about the life of a professor, hiring practices, what it actually takes to achieve tenure  or promotion, and which in turn explains why there are then so few unsatisfactory tenured faculty.

AFC members also remarked that the faculty are spending way too much time reviewing themselves, and that annual performance reviews are extreme and that time and energy could be devoted to research. A review every three years is adequate. It is particularly absurd for a new promotee to go through an annual review process the very next year. M. Denke said that ABOR staff are also reviewed. ASU and UA Deans and department heads as well as upper administrators are supposed to be reviewed at least every five years. G. Stygall’s University of Washington campus reviews assistant professors every year, associates every two years, and full professors every three years, and a packet must be submitted for a merit raise. Outside reviews are only solicited for tenure or promotion. In Arizona, merit raises are usually only available in election years. Most of UA’s colleges look to the peer institutions to determine promotion raises, because the college has to pay for the raise. At Washington State, promotion to associate or full is accompanied by an $8K or $12K increase, respectively.

Topic: General Education
Chair Ford commented that we should be doing a better job of educating Arizona students in general education, because they don’t seem terribly well-informed about real world issues such as Iraq or global warming. This could be a public relations time bomb when the public finds out they aren’t getting the general education that everyone assumes they are receiving. The Regents are frankly not interested in curricular issues and it isn’t adequate to maintain the status quo.

Arizona Faculties Council Becoming More Proactive
Member Scarnati remarked that the AFC is not engaged as an active stakeholder with issues coming to the Board. The AFC is usually hearing decisions that have already been made for the first time during ABOR meetings. Part of the problem is that AFC isn’t being directly consulted or informed in a timely manner about issues that directly affect faculty. He proposed that an AFC Working Group be explicitly charged to work with Stephanie Jacobsen on issues directly affecting faculty, such as the academic freedom. Rather than the AFC being reactive on a monthly cycle, it could be proactively discussing and working on issues on a daily or weekly cycle. Members discussed that the AFC would get very little notice from such a group’s actions unless the AFC is united on an issue and takes a public position. Informing the AFC to be able to interact on the issues in a more timely manner would help to send a common message resonating among our constituencies on all campuses. Some members would like the AFC’s report to the Board to be more cohesive and representative. ABOR may, in fact, adopt a policy on the academic freedom issue to help circumvent the legislature’s attempts at regulation and constriction. ASU’s Senate assigned a task force to examine and make recommendations about general studies last year, and this year a group is implementing that task force’s recommendations. AFC members agree that our graduating students should be literate and possess a global perspective and critical thinking skills. Given the state legislature’s attention and focus on assessment and accountability, which in principle are quite good concepts, AFC may need to examine what latitude the faculty possess and what level of engagement the AFC should move toward, as faculty face increasingly rigid, one-size fits all accountability structures based in a political arena as attempts to find ways to measure student outcomes. The Regents should be looking at the alignment between high schools and universities. There is greater concern about the low high school graduation rates in Arizona than about getting students ready to attend the University. Arizona ranks 49^th in spending per student. AFC has no formal proposal to put forth but faculty do not want to compromise on the academic freedom issue. B. Scarnati will draft something for the next AFC/ABOR meeting.

This meeting concluded at 1:18 p.m.

Recorded by Pam Bridgmon
Program Coordinator – UA Faculty Center                                                                     AFC/2006-07/afc minutes 3-8-07