Items Approved at November 21, 2000 UFS Plenary
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE FACULTY AND ELECTRONIC
SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE ON TENURE AND PROMOTION
The Faculty and Electronic Scholarship Committee of the UFS’ Status of the Faculty Committee would like to make the following recommendations regarding tenure and promotion for faculty who use electronic media in their scholarship as well as the more traditional print sources.
Definition of Electronic Scholarship
Electronic scholarship has been defined by OCLC as the application of the digital electronic computer and telecommunications networking to study, instruction, and research, as well as the use of electronic means to find specific information from a large body of information. Within this domain lie electronic bulletin boards, online catalogs, newspapers, books, mail, and journals, as well as real time downloaded information services, software and even remote conferencing. Some potential benefits of the electronic media are enhanced peer participation, quality, review, navigational design, production costs, and instant access.
Given that electronic scholarship is here to stay, the City University of New York as a whole, as well as the individual campuses, are encouraged to provide support and faculty development programs to all faculty, both full and part time, who wish to pursue their research and/or scholarly endeavors in areas of non-traditional media.
Colleges and departments are urged to provide computer support to their faculty, both full and part time, for the purposes of research, writing, and any other aspect of electronic scholarship that will require hardware and/or software.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1) College Tenure and Promotion committees’ printed guidelines should be revised to include work that is done electronically, as well as the more traditional modes.
2) There should be a University-wide faculty committee to determine if any of the existing tenure and promotion guidelines put out by such organizations as the Modern Language Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Political Science Association, etc. should be adopted or whether new guidelines should be written for CUNY.
3) Candidates for hiring, tenure, or promotion may submit Web-based, electronic, and cyber material as part of the evidence in support of their personnel action. For those materials, the candidate should include an explanation of the work done, and the applications intended for the material. When necessary, peer evaluation committees and outside evaluators should include persons who can assess such material. These materials may be counted as publications, or college and university service as appropriate in the estimation of the candidate and the review committee. The members of such committees should make every effort to familiarize themselves with the new technologies and how they influence currents in scholarship or in the curriculum development of the particular department or program.
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City University Faculty Senate Proposed: November 21, 2000
Adopted: Unanimously
by voice vote
Resolution Rejecting Annual Presidential Reviews of Department Chairs
Whereas, the Chancellor has mandated that college presidents commence an annual formal performance review of faculty members serving as department chairpersons qua department chairpersons, and
Whereas, faculty members who are serving as elected departmental chairpersons are not managerial personnel who report directly to the president, and
Whereas, the Chancellor’s mandate requiring that department chairpersons "be responsive to College and University goals and initiatives" clearly threatens to compromise academic freedom, and
Whereas, since 1938 faculty at Hunter, City, and Brooklyn Colleges* have elected their chairpersons, and the chairpersons are subject to triennial review by their departments which has served sufficiently as the means by which their performance is evaluated, and
Whereas, procedures already exist which enable presidents to reject the results of a departmental election for chair or to remove a chair,
Therefore, Be It Resolved, that the University Faculty Senate condemns this assault on faculty governance, and
Be It Further Resolved, that the University Faculty Senate calls upon the Chancellor immediately to withdraw this initiative, and
Be It Further Resolved, that the University Faculty Senate requests each college council formally to endorse this resolution, and
Be It Finally Resolved, that the University Faculty Senate urges the faculty, by a vote at the next scheduled department meeting, to support department chairpersons in resisting this proposed practice and to refuse cooperation in its implementation.
* The policy has been universally extended to colleges since then.
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All college councils except Baruch’s have so far adopted some version of this resolution as of November 21, 2000. Also, the Executive Committee of the CUNY Association of Scholars, and the UFS Council of Faculty Governance Leaders (comprises top elected faculty leaders from all CUNY campuses).
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City University Faculty Senate Proposed: November 21, 2000
Adopted: Unanimously
by voice vote
Resolution on Proposed Pre-College Basic Skills Pilot Programs
Whereas, research and experience have amply demonstrated the success of remedial courses offered in college programs and taught by college faculty, and
Whereas, research has shown that students in need of basic skills instruction required for successful college study strengthen these skills most effectively in the context of college study, taking college level courses, taught by college faculty, in a college environment, and
Whereas, the transfer of remedial courses and programs away from the academic divisions could limit the ability of those divisions to provide integrated academic content in CUNY’s community colleges and senior colleges with associate degree programs, and
Whereas, the removal of such courses and programs from the academic divisions deprives students of instruction by the highly qualified, expert professional faculty of the academic divisions, and
Whereas, instituting Pre-College Basic Skills Programs threatens to further erode the policy of Open Admissions and its historic tenet of democratic access to public higher education, and
Be it resolved, that the University Faculty Senate urges the continued support of remedial courses and programs within the academic divisions of the colleges and opposes establishment of the proposed pilot programs to be offered through divisions of continuing education.
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City University Faculty Senate Proposed: November 21, 2000
Adopted: Unanimously
by voice vote
Resolution on the Remediation Exit Exam
Whereas, CUNY plans to administer a new "remediation exit exam," developed by ACT, at the end of the current semester, and
Whereas, the new exam is a high-stakes test that will determine whether students can progress with their college coursework, and
Whereas, this exam was promoted by the Mayor of New York City without any demonstrated need, and graduation rates indicate that faculty grading has been accurately assessing students' readiness for college coursework, and
Whereas, the new exam does not meet the criteria for assessment set forth by the International Reading Association (1999) and the National Council of Teachers of English (1995), and
Whereas, the ACT, like the SAT, has generated widespread concern about inherent biases especially against people of color, and
Whereas, this new exam has been developed without meaningful faculty consultation, and
Whereas, the University Faculty Senate has not been presented with any data on the reliability and validity of the new exit exam, and
Whereas, the University Faculty Senate has not been consulted with respect to the number of times a student can re-take the exam or the nature of student preparation for reexamination, and
Whereas, the Board of Trustee Bylaws assign the responsibility for admissions, retention, and curricular matters to the faculty,
Therefore, Be It Resolved, that CUNY postpone the administration of the new ACT "remediation exit exam" until the University Faculty Senate can fully evaluate the extent to which the exam is reliable and valid for CUNY's students.