CFR FACULTY MEETING MINUTES
25 April, 2006
PRESENT : Agee, Allan, Bradley, Brubaker, Eastin, Edmonds, Ford, Greulich, Gustafson, Halpern, Lippke, McKean, Perez-Garcia, Reichard, Ryan, Schiess, Sprugel, Strand, D Vogt, K Vogt, West
EXCUSED: Bolton, Briggs, Fridley , Hodgson, Johnson, Turnblom
ABSENT : Bare, Brown, Doty, Ewing, Franklin , Gara, Harrison, Hinckley , Lee, Mabberley, Marzluff, Manuwal,
Paun, Peterson, Raedeke, Schreuder, Wott, Zabowski
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Rick Gustafson told the faculty that the first half of the meeting, Provost Phyllis Wise would give a presentation
and then there would be a chance for a question and answer session. PMT discussion would resume then for
the remainder of the meeting.
Provost Phyllis Wise
The Provost explained that her visit was part of an effort to get to know more of the UW faculty this year. Her
plan was to make a speech highlighting the major activities of the past 6-8 months and then she would open
up the floor for questions. She began by explaining that $20 million has been set aside to decompress salaries
at the upper level for faculty and that she wants this process to be transparent so that everyone can understand the challenges of allocating these funds for salary as well as other resources. Provost Wise stressed the
importance of adequate mentoring of faculty and administrators so that each person can be poised to take
a leadership role in the future if they choose to do so. This will also involve junior faculty and it is hoped that
mentoring will also improve the undergraduate experience. Currently there is a bit of reorganization in the Student Affairs Office as they are condensing the two offices into one. The idea is to shape Mary Gates Hall into a
“One Stop Shopping” experience at UW for students and parents. And finally, Provost Wise explained that they
are working to meet the needs of teaching research and service for the next 10 years and beyond. At this time,
she opened up the floor for questions.
David Ford inquired about the University reorganization and how that might affect interdisciplinary research.
Provost Wise emphasized that they were carefully looking at optimal organization, but they were not changing
anything yet. They are ‘happy with how things are’ for now. She explained some of the people and processes
involved in this evaluation process. Kristiina Vogt asked about the impact of some of the undergraduate changes and changes to the structure of the administration. Provost Wise said that she they have designated a new
Vice Provost to help her get up to speed with the history of UW as well as considering the desire for change.
There is another VP to assist with faculty and personnel issues, another to focus on global affairs and there are
several more each with a specific focus to make sure that the office is more streamlined, more approachable
and concerns can be addressed accordingly.
Jim Agee asked for clarification about the difficulties experienced by many faculty to coordinate all of the
environmental research activities on campus with little direction and support from the upper administration.
Provost Wise agreed that there were problems, but the newly crafted vision statement addressing a commitment to the environment should help bring groups together instead of being fragmented all over campus. She
added that they cannot be everything to everyone, but that they have the resources now to support stronger
environmental initiatives on campus.
Rick Gustafson told the Provost that the College of Forest Resources was in the middle of hiring several new
faculty. He wondered what qualities the Provost’s office is looking for mentoring from the current CFR faculty.
Provost Wise explained that she had discussed with Dean Bruce Bare that she had some concerns about hiring
so many new faculty – and the fact that many would not have a ‘trial’ time period as a junior faculty member
of CFR. However, she did acknowledge the importance of acquiring new faculty if we wanted to push UW to be
a premier research and teaching university that is nationally and internationally known. Provost Wise suggested that the new faculty should be made aware of what they should do to stay on track for tenure, the types
of funding available for their research, how they should mentor undergraduates and graduates and to advise
them of methodologies and other key elements to help shape their position here and to help shape the CFR
faculty.
Kristiina Vogt inquired about the Provost Office views on UW alumni. Provost Wise stated that there was a
data warehouse of UW alumni who are targeted for annual giving and she believes they have improved their
success rate in the last three years. However, they also hope to break the mold and look for additional funding
sources for the university.
Ivan Eastin asked about the recent survey of international programs and how those results were used. He
noted that with the proximity of the burgeoning Pacific Rim economy, it would be beneficial to maximize this
opportunity for the Northwest. Provost Wise said they do not have a full report back on those results yet,
therefore they cannot develop a plan without knowing more information. She explained that the Vice Provost
for Academic Planning, Susan Jeffords, would be holding a planned retreat on Saturday, May 20 th as a day of
discussion and strategic thinking. She added that if any CFR faculty wished to attend the retreat, they should
contact the Provost’s office. Provost Wise agreed that China and the Pacific Rim are poised to have a significant
impact on the world economy and they will work to create specific programs once they have a full report.
Bob Edmonds asked about the Provost’s office views on environmental and global affairs with regard to sustainability. Provost Wise stated that they are working on solutions of how to be sustainable in the Puget Sound
region and are interested in climate, water, ecogenomics and urban environmentalism. Currently they have too
many other items they are focusing on therefore the office will have just a few topics they will address at this
time. Once they have the ‘house in order’ they can get more organizing units to address the sustainability concerns. Kristiina Vogt added that it would be a great PR tool if UW could get biomass energy or produce some
other type of renewable energy. Provost Wise acknowledged that it would be a good idea, but again, they are
focused on faculty and organizational structures at this time, but will revisit the discussion in the future.
Dan Vogt inquired about what UW/Provost Office has in mind with the talk of an interdisciplinary approach.
Provost Wise said that for now, they are looking at collaborative and interdisciplinary efforts and any hurdles
in teaching courses. Also, if there should be more incentives for an interdisciplinary approach for faculty who
apply as a PI of grants. There is a huge paradigm shift among many granting agencies who want teams of
people all under one grant instead of awarding several grants. NSF is one example of an institution that wants
big groups of people versus 5 individual investigators. There will be some reconfiguring and more will become
apparent in the future.
Stuart Strand noted that there seems to be a tendency that is counter to collaboration with regard to moving
buildings and departments some distance from each other so that easy contact is not possible. Provost Wise
explained that there is more money allocated to restore the core buildings, like those in CFR, and not build new
buildings on campus. However, donors like to see their funds going towards new buildings and not repairing
older ones. Less that 10% of the state capital budget is set aside for maintaining current older buildings. Her
office is investigating ways to manage capital in the most efficient way.
At 11:10 am Provost Wise left the meeting.
Merit Pay
Rick Gustafson explained that the goal of the last part of the meeting is to try to get through the merit pay discussion and find a procedure that everyone can agree upon. Since David Manuwal had a class today, Rick will
be making the presentation on behalf of the committee.
The data sheets for every faculty member will be finalized tomorrow. The FINAL discussion and vote on the
PMT procedures will take place next week. The process MUST be wrapped up next week – end of discussion.
The idea is to find a compromise with what was offered last year and what the current PMT committee propose for this year and to create one method. Rick stated that as department chair, he wanted to know which
faculty the group feels are meritorious. These are recommendations given to Rick and he reviews them and
can reassign the order of merit if he deems it necessary. However, he stressed the need for the categories of
highly meritorious, meritorious and not meritorious as a system of evaluation.
The timeline for this procedure is for the faculty to have a maximum of two weeks to review and complete
their individual information and to turn it into David Manuwal no later than May 9 th . Then the PMT committee will have 10 days to review the information and to translate the quantitative information from the database and put it into an Excel spreadsheet. For the CFR merit review there will be the metrics like last year and a
2 page statement of each faculty member for evaluation by the committee.
Rick wants to have a vote on the recommendations of the PMT committee on May 30th .
The two page statement allows each individual to discuss any unfunded proposals and should be a good way
for faculty to elaborate on their successes. Conference presentations should be formatted exactly like a publication record and the time frame for review is 2003-2005 academic years.
Adjourned 11:35 am