Faculty Development Council Meeting
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
3:30- 5:00 p.m.
Adelbert Hall, Room M1
Members Present:
Lynn Singer
Diana Bilimoria
Dean Gilmore Gilmore
Sana Loue
Elizabeth Madigan
Chris Ash
Unable to Attend:
Ica Manas-Zloczower
Ronald Occhionero
Daniel Scherson
Amanda Shaffer
B. Jessie Hill
The meeting was called to order by Diana Bilimoria at 3:30 p.m. The minutes from the
last meeting on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 were approved.
Diana updated the committee with the 2011-2012 FDC Report. It was presented over the
summer to the Deans Council, and to the Department Chairs at the first leadership forum
in September. Discussion:
- We recommended that faculty annual reports include a section on longer-term
(5-7 year) career goals for each faculty member.
- Lynn mentioned it should be a 5-7 year aspirational goal
- Sana mentioned that faculty in the SOM are working with Chairs to help them
learn about faculty career goals to help them work with faculty.
- Dean Gilmore added that in his department, a letter for evaluation is required
by Chairs.
o MSASS – asst. professors get feedback on evaluations
o Letters should be consistent with building case of the faculty member.
Agenda for FDC meetings for the year was developed:
- FDC will meet twice during the fall and spring semesters.
- FDC continues to request that Department Chair job descriptions be done by
December 2012 for each school/college.
- Last year’s focus was pre-tenured faculty and associate professors, this year’s
focus will be full professors and non-tenure track faculty.
- Next climate survey will be in December 2013
o We should be thinking of areas of improvement
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Wednesday, October 10, 2012
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o FDC should review the strategic plan
Strategic Planning process will start soon – email from president and provost
went out recently. The plan needs to be ready to be presented to the board by
the end of May. School planning process will begin in Jan/Feb 2013
University-wide plan will go to the board in May
o The committee should go through the current plan to see which goals
were met, then present recommendations to include in the new
strategic plan
Faculty Development Council should have strong input into the new strategic
plan since our work pertains to how faculty are being treated and what they
are experiencing.
Meeting went on to discuss the faculty Development needs of full professors (attachment
describing a caucus of full professors at CWRU in 2010 was emailed to committee)
- In earlier ADVANCE program, it was surprising how many Full Professors
wanted coaching
- If there is no path for development, full professors may feel there is no
movement and move on
- A question was raised how to reach those who fall in the category of not doing
much of anything
o Full professors may be disengaged because of a variety of reasons
- What is the motivation or goal for full rank?
- One concern is not addressing when a faculty member becomes dormant
- Where do we make the investment?
- Professors encounter life events that throw them off track
o How do we revive these individuals?
 Need better ways to help department chairs/deans to do
appropriate interventions
 Also an HR issue
o Some long-term tenured professors may not have the skills to be
engaged at the current level of expectation, and may need skill
development
o Motivation and a culture of support should be built by department
chairs.
- Examples of effective ways of motivating contributing senior faculty
o Engineering does salary adjustments (creates a retention mentality) –
proactive in identifying who they don’t want to lose
o Physics created a small group of faculty to recommend faculty from
the department for a variety of disciplinary awards.
- Tools must be given to department chairs/deans to take corrective action.
o What can be done to help, that is not a punishment?
 Can bring an outside person (mentor, professional coach)
 Be supportive
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Wednesday, October 10, 2012
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FDC recommendations to impact disengaged senior professors
o Make small grants available for individuals
 This requires them to do a project
 Helps them to submit applications for external funding
 These small grants can be a competitive process (through some
kind of internal review)
 It is recommended that these grants should be used to target
faculty with promise who needed a boost.
 Potentially helps them get excited about a new area of work
 Mentoring piece: money for Sr. faculty to get career coaching
For example, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison set up endowment fund for Sr.
faculty
o These funds can be used for career transitions to jumpstart new area of
research
Concern was expressed: is this rewarding the lack of work or disengagement.
Does this causes further resource constraint issues
Some schools may use an incentive model
o Percent salary – base, merit, incentive
o 2-Tier model
 Base increase based on long-term
 Incentive increase based on short-term
Service – National Groups
o Full professors can make contribution
o Adds recognition
School Awards (annual) recognition of service contribution
o Awards such as Million Dollar Professors (SOM)
o Internal service award (only full professors gets this)
 May not have excelled in research, but made a difference in the
school
Main issue faced is the resources. We could create a centralized pool of
money to seek nominations across the university.
Rationale – for pool of resources that is centralized at University and school
level
o Service award (by school)
o Competitive funding (by school)
Chris Ash will provide us with number of full tenured professors (14)
o Small changes possible for deans to invest in
Reactions to university distinguished professor awards
o It is given to star faculty who already get paid a lot
o Not many women have been selected or have been in the pool
Diana will create slide of recommendations for review by the FDC
Need to update our FDC website
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Wednesday, October 10, 2012
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o replace Liz Madigan and Sana Loue on committee members page
instead of Patricia Underwood and Alison Hall
o replace Jessie Hill instead of Jackie Lipton
o Chris said that Amanda manages the FDC website and updates should
be sent to her
o Upload 2011-12 report
Meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 13 from
10:00 – 11:30 a.m. in Adelbert Hall, Room M1. Will discuss full time and non-tenured tract
strategic plan.
Minutes by Elise Johnson, elise.c.johnson@case.edu or (216) 368-2464.