The Faculty Handbook Committee would like to propose language for revisions of Section 3-2 (C) (Faculty Responsibilities) and Section 3-5 (A) (Criteria for Academic Evaluation). This commentary is offered to explain our reasoning for the language proposed in Academic Senate Resolution 01/02-09 (attached).

Some changes would only move language from one place in the handbook to another. We have found slight overlap between these two sections that were added to the Handbook at different times. "Faculty responsibilities" (3-2 (C)) lists our duties in detail, specifying practices that can count as "teaching," "research," and "service" in diverse disciplines. "Criteria for Academic Evaluation" (3-5 (A)) includes details that are already elaborated in Responsibilities. This section also includes some detail that seems to fit better in Responsibilities but was overlooked there. Responsibilities ends with the general requirement that faculty be reviewed annually, a sentence that fits more logically at the beginning of the section on Evaluation.

Other proposals are substantive. Under Responsibilities, the paragraph on research states that the specific meaning of this standard varies by discipline. After listing some examples, one sentence reads, "Similarly, as each faculty member may deem appropriate and depending on the field or discipline, research can include considerable effort in the writing of proposals or related endeavors to acquire outside funding as may be needed to conduct a faculty member's research." We propose to delete the phrase "as each faculty member may deem appropriate and." Without that phrase the sentence properly makes clear that a unit may count proposals as contributions to research but does not require any unit to do so. But adding the qualification "as each faculty member may deem appropriate," seems to authorize a professor in a unit that expects proposals to claim a personal exemption from this particular standard by deeming this expectation inappropriate. To us this qualification seems foreign to the purpose of the paragraph, which delegates the specific implementation of the research standard to academic units. Nowhere else does the Handbook delegate standard-setting all the way to the individual faculty member to be evaluated.

Section 3-5 concerns Faculty Evaluation and Promotion. We propose to add a sentence at the end of the opening paragraph that concerns reviews of faculty. It would require that reviewers give feedback to the faculty member and invite the member to reply to the evaluation if he or she desires. The requirement to provide feedback is already formalized in the provost's guidelines to deans, but reportedly this widespread practice has not been observed in every unit. Stating it in the Handbook would strengthen this protection of faculty rights.

Under Criteria for Academic Evaluation (3-5 (A)), the second paragraph reinforces the point that standards vary in their details from discipline to discipline. From a sentence that gives examples, we propose to delete the phrase "national standards adopted by scholarly and professional associations." Standards adopted by national associations do not enter into faculty evaluations in any discipline, as far as we know. The paragraph without this phrase is sufficient to establish the essential point that detailed standards vary by discipline, which has already been made under Responsibilities as well.

Finally, in 3-5 (B), Annual Review and Reappointment Process, we would add a sentence requiring a thorough review of probationary faculty midway through the maximum term, a protection for both faculty and units that is generally observed but seems to have been omitted from the Handbook.

Thank you for considering these proposals.