TO: Faculty

FROM: Tom Shattuck, Chair, Advisory Committee on Faculty Personnel Policies (ACFPP)

Re: ACFPP Interim Report on Communication with the Candidate during Tenure Review -- January 2007

Last spring the faculty passed a resolution directing: “the Advisory Committee on Faculty and Personnel Policy to deliberate over, and make concrete recommendations on, whether and how to change Colby’s tenure policies, procedures, and practices so that tenure candidates are given detailed descriptions of every significant negative judgment that is identified by members of the Promotion and Tenure committee, the Dean of Faculty, the President of the College, or the Board of Trustees, and that the candidates are given a meaningful opportunity to respond to these judgments before the tenure decision is finalized.”

This resolution was introduced by Randy Jones. The resolution also mandated that an initial report be delivered by January, 2007. The ACFPP would like to submit this interim report on our deliberations.

THE ACFPP REVIEW PROCESS: The ACFPP met with Randy Jones. This past summer, we produced a survey covering these issues that was sent to deans and provosts of liberal arts colleges in the northeast. Responses were received from 22 institutions and were reviewed in detail by our committee. ACFPP met throughout the fall, roughly every two weeks, and once in January to discuss changes to our process. ACFPP also met with President Adams to discuss those aspects of the process that involve communications to and from the President.

THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE ACFPP REVIEW: ACFPP has made no final decisions nor yet formulated any resolutions regarding possible changes in the tenure process. However, the review is nearing completion. We discussed five distinct time points when information about negative judgments could be communicated to a tenure candidate. We present each time point, the current practice, and the tentative outcomes, below.

*The departmental review committee sends its report on the candidate to the Committee on Promotion and Tenure, P/T:

--Current Process: If a candidate is recommended with significant reservations or not recommended, the report letter of the departmental review committee is shared with the candidate in redacted form. Although not required by the Faculty Handbook, it has been the practice of the current Dean of Faculty to provide to the candidate redacted copies of all confidential materials in the dossier unless the candidate does not wish to receive those materials. The candidate may respond to the P/T committee in a timely fashion dictated by the schedule of P/T.

If a candidate is recommended for tenure without significant reservations, the candidate is so notified by the department/program-level committee chair.

--Anticipated Outcome: ACFPP is continuing focused discussions on the possibility that the department/program-level report, in redacted form, be shared with the candidate under all circumstances, i.e., when there is a positive recommendation for tenure as well as when a candidate is recommended with significant reservations or not recommended.

*The Committee on Promotion and Tenure conducts its final vote on tenure.

--Current Process: The consideration of candidates' tenure dossiers is both an iterative and a cumulative process. Each dossier is reviewed individually at a given meeting and an initial, non-binding vote is taken on each. Once all candidates' dossiers have been considered individually, there is a specific meeting held in which all are reviewed together and at which the final vote of P/T is taken on each candidate. It is important to note that under our current procedures, P/T may, if deemed necessary, ask for additional information to be included in the dossier up to the time of its final deliberations and voting.

--Anticipated Outcome: ACFPP is not, at this time, planning any further discussion of possible changes in procedure for this time point. During the deliberations of P/T leading up to the time of the final vote, there does not appear to be a definitive intermediate point where a “significant negative judgment” can be identified. Some current and former members of P/T report that members do not finalize their judgment until the final vote is taken. The final vote is the result of a careful discussion of all the cases and consideration of previous cases taken together.

*Letters and the final votes from the individual P/T members are forwarded to the President.

–Current Process: Each member of P/T presents the reasons for their vote in an individual letter to the President. Each member of P/T also summarizes their reasons for their vote in a separate letter. After the vote of the full Board of Trustees, these summary letters are given to the candidate in the event that they are not recommended for tenure.

--Anticipated Outcome: ACFPP is not, at this time, planning any further discussion of possible changes in procedure for this time point. The letters from the P/T members to the President are a form of communication distinct from the candidate's dossier per se. Clearly, such letters and votes may convey "significant negative judgments" regarding a candidacy. However, ACFPP considers the introduction of information from the candidate at this point in time to be too late in the process to have the effect of causing members of the committee to reach a different conclusion regarding the case. Significant delays at this stage would also delay the final Board decision to the spring (April) meeting.

*The President’s and Dean's recommendations are conveyed to the Educational Policy Committee of the Board of Trustees and the EPC votes on their recommendation.

--Current Process: The Dean of Faculty presents the dossiers for the recommended candidates at the EPC committee meeting at the January Board meeting. The EPC votes on a recommendation to the full Board.

--Anticipated Outcome: ACFPP is not, at this time, planning any further discussion of possible changes in procedure for this time point. The Educational Policy Committee of the Board and the full Board have the serious responsibility of balancing the needs and priorities of the institution and of careful oversight of the tenure and promotion process. However, these bodies are not in the same position as P/T with respect to making detailed assessments of candidate's dossiers. We consider it in the best interests of the faculty as a whole to keep tenure and promotion as much of a faculty-driven process as possible. We believe that deliberations on specific aspects of tenure candidacy must be based on a detailed consideration of the complete records of all the candidates both in the departmental/program-level committee and P/T.

*The vote of the Full Board

--Current Process: The recommendations of the EPC committee of the Board are presented for a final vote of the full Board at the January Board meeting

--Anticipated Outcome: There is not sufficient time to communicate with the candidate at this time point. Doing so would delay the final vote of the Board until the spring meeting.

ADDITIONAL DISCUSSIONS: During our discussions, it was apparent that we needed to enlarge our discussions to include the sixth semester review process to faithfully meet the spirit of the resolution. The interests of everyone involved would be much better served if potential negative issues pertaining to tenure candidacy were identified much earlier, in time for possible adjustments well before a candidate is considered for tenure. A more intensive sixth semester review could be a better approach. In this respect, our survey of the processes at other schools has been instructive. Many schools have a broader review at the half-way point than does Colby. The constitution of an all-college committee that would review the departmental reports for all sixth semester candidates and construct a letter to the candidate is under consideration.

ACFPP looks forward to any comments that you might have. Your divisional representative, as always, can be a useful resource for representing the concerns of the faculty.

Respectfully submitted, January, 31, 2007:

Thomas Shattuck (NS, chair), Alec Campbell (SS), Heidi Godomsky (IDS), Ursula Reidel-Schrewe (H), Duncan Tate (At-L, NS), Edward Yeterian (Dean of Faculty)