SLPTR Annual Report - 2016-2017

LFA Committee Annual Report

Committee Name                 Sabbatical Leave and Post-Tenure Review Committee

Fiscal Year                            2016-2017

Committee Chair                  Lyn Wolz

Members                              

Jamene Brooks-Kieffer (2015-2017)

Karen Cook (2015-2017)

Lea Currie (secretary) (2015-2017)

Michiko Ito (2016-2018)

Lyn Wolz (chair) (2016-2018)

Standing Charges

Sabbatical

  • SLPTR reviews and evaluates the merit of each sabbatical proposal. It notifies each applicant in writing of its recommendation and forwards each recommendation to the Dean of Libraries, who reviews and evaluates the proposal before transmittal to the Provost for referral to the University Committee on Sabbatical Leaves for evaluation (see 8.1.1-8.2.7 of the Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations).

We prepared for, but did not receive any, sabbatical applications this year.

  • SLPTR addresses itself to matters of policy pertaining to the sabbatical leave system and reports its recommendations to the Dean.

No policy questions regarding sabbaticals came to our attention this year.

Post-Tenure Review

  • SLPTR reviews the qualifications and performance of all members of the library faculty who are scheduled to be evaluated for Post-Tenure Review.
  • We evaluated the files of the four faculty members scheduled for review.
  • SLPTR addresses itself to matters of policy pertaining to the post-tenure review and reports its recommendations to the Dean.

No policy questions regarding post-tenure review came up this year.

Note: The rest of the standing charges are procedural and do not result in reportable outcomes.

Special Charges

  • Revise the PTR calendar to address the recommendations made in the committee’s annual report last year (FY2016).
  • Accomplished.
  • Work with Human Resources to write a best practices guide for a successful PTR file. In addition to being posted on SLPTR’s webpage, share this information at the fall PTR meeting. (See the committee’s annual report from FY2016 for additional information.)
  • The 2017-2018 committee will work on this charge over the summer.

Other Activities / Accomplishments

General Committee Business

Our first meeting of the fiscal year was convened by LFSA liaison Andi Back. We met on July 18th.

We worked with Mike Broadwell and Leah Nelson to update and correct the list of faculty members scheduled to undergo a post-tenure review between 2017 and 2020. We thought this list should be available somewhere on the committee’s intranet site, as recommended by last year’s SLPTR, but it has since been superseded by a spreadsheet made available on the new Intranet by Libraries’ HR; I reminded them on June 7th that the spreadsheet needs to be updated again.

We had our second meeting on August 8th. Everyone but Michiko attended (she had not yet returned from Japan) to review our charges and procedures.

Sabbatical Leave

We familiarized ourselves with the sabbatical application and review process and the calendar of deadlines. However, there were no sabbatical applications this year, so we did not have any business to pursue in the fall. Also, no policy questions concerning sabbaticals were raised this year.

Post-Tenure Review

On Sept. 20th, we held an open meeting for those who would be undergoing PTR during the spring semester. This meeting was attended by all five committee members, all four PTR reviewees, and Mike Broadwell and Leah Nelson from Libraries’ HR. We handed out copies of the calendar, the PTR review criteria, and the procedures document. While this was not held as early in the year as recommended by last year’s committee, it was two months earlier than last year’s meeting. (In 2017, we will explore the possibility of talking individually to the PTR reviewees, rather than scheduling a meeting that involves at least nine people and is difficult to schedule.)

At the meeting, we opened the floor to questions and the following topics were discussed: General questions about policies, procedures, and dates.

Should the CV should cover the person’s entire career even though only the activities of the last seven years would be evaluated? Yes, the committee members will need to see the flow of the reviewees’ scholarly and professional accomplishments throughout their whole career.

We affirmed that the committee members see the last seven annual reviews for each person being evaluated.

The three statements the reviewees write (for professional responsibilities, research, and service) should only refer to accomplishments that have happened in the last seven years and should be brief (not more than 500 words for each section).

Reviewees should highlight their 2016 accomplishments in their narratives since the 2016 annual reviews will not be finished in time to be used in the PTR process.

On January 9th, 2017, our committee had its first meeting to begin our part of the Post-Tenure Review process. We decided as a group that each of us would be responsible for writing the review of one of the four candidates. (Michiko was excused from participation in the PTR process because she was undergoing review).

We also worked with Dean Kevin Smith to help him learn his part in the process, since he had never gone through a post-tenure review process before.

Before the beginning of the PTR process, we scheduled seven 1-2 hour meeting times during the time frame for the committee’s work. (The reviewees’ materials were due to be turned in to Libraries’ HR by Jan. 10th and the committee’s materials were due to be turned in to Libraries’ HR by Feb. 17th.) It turned out that we only needed three meetings to accomplish the entire review. All documents were turned in on time and all steps were accomplished according to the PTR calendar.

Potential Charges / Recommendations for Future Committees

  • We recommend that the 2017-2018 committee schedule the preliminary PTR informational meeting in August of 2017. This will continue the trend towards earlier dates as recommended by earlier SLPTR committees.
  • We recommend that the 2017-2018 committee develop a best practices guide for a successful PTR file. In addition to being posted on SLPTR’s webpage, share this information at the fall PTR meeting.
  • We recommend that the list of library faculty members coming up for post-tenure review be kept up to date by Libraries’ HR since an accurate list is necessary both for the PTR process and for LFA elections.

Does the Committee’s portion of the Library Governance website need updating or correcting?

Yes.

    1. Some pages still use the LFPA heading, instead of LFA.
    2. The page for standing and special charges is not up to date.
    3. Minutes from 2011-2012 to 2014-2015 are missing.
    4. Some Sabbatical Leave Reports are missing.
    5. The year of the Sabbatical Leave Calendar needs to be changed on the SLPTR main page; it is correct on the SLC page itself.
    6. The PTR calendar needs to be updated.

Does the Committee’s portion of the Library Governance Code need updating or correcting?

Not as far as we can tell.

Prepared by:       Lyn Wolz (chair)