Faculty Advisory Council

Board of Supervisors  University of Louisiana System

Report to the UL Lafayette Faculty Senate, September 20, 2000

New system rules on evaluation of faculty and faculty workload

At its April 27 meeting FAC addressed two new RULES that staff had agendized—one on evaluation of individual faculty performance (hereafter "Evaluation RULE"), the other defining policy on faculty workload (hereafter "Workload RULE"). [You may recall that I had provided full text of both, in the form of a handout, at the March Senate meeting, though absent myself that day to attend other meetings.] A month previously [at the "other meetings" just referred to], Academic Vice President Falcon had assured us that there was no hurry to consider the RULES, so their appearance on the Board's April agenda surprised us. We formally requested the Board to defer consideration of both RULES "until mid-fall semester in order for FAC to give a reasoned response." The next day, Dr. Falcon indeed pulled them from the Personnel Committee's agenda, at our request.

There was no May meeting of FAC or of the full Board.

In June, however, the Workload RULE again appeared on the Personnel Committee's agenda (and hence, the Board's). The Chairman (i.e., I) hastily drew up a brief white paper on what he judged would be practically arguable, short-notice changes in the proposed language, circulated it for approval of reachable representatives, then successfully argued the batch to Dr. Falcon, who recommended our emended text for Board approval, successfully. Most changes altered the logical coherence, focus, and wording accuracy; however, one substantive change successfully removed a patronizing and dangerously restrictive mandate that campus administrators "protect" faculty members from "assuming" responsibilities, duties, etc., beyond their duly "assigned" ones. The RULE now only protects us from being assigned responsibilities beyond defined workload.

The Evaluation RULE showed up, again unheralded, on the Board's June 23 agendas. In committee, two board members argued against the RULE's mandating that for every evaluation and personnel decision administrators explicitly consider student evaluations of the faculty member. Their target was also the only aspect of the proposal that FAC opposed, though we and the two board members had among us three quite different arguments. In the end, no argument carried the day, however, and the original wording passed both committee and Board.

New system rules on evaluation of faculty and faculty workload

Board staff had also agendized back in April, Board approval and support of proposed legislation that would remove the waiting period before a retiree could return to part-time/adjunct status without jeopardizing pension checks and alter existing earning limits, so that faculty could go seamlessly from full professional status to retiree adjunct/part-timer piecework. Needing time to investigate this complex idea and poll your opinion, we asked for—and got—postponement. It's still postponed, as far as we know.

2000-2001 Officers

At the August meeting FAC re-elected Harry Bruder as Chair, elected Dr. Janet Haedicke of UL-M as Vice-Chair, and elected Dr. Subhash Durlabhji as Secretary.

Date last modified: 2 October 2000

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