February 26, 2004
Dr.
Chism brought the Faculty Council meeting to order at 3:30 p.m. Topics to be discussed were Research Faculty
and a resolution regarding “critical analysis of evolution.” Forty members were
present.
Dr.
Rall summarized changes that had been made to the proposed rule on Research
Faculty since the last Faculty Council meeting of February 5. The change in (B) under Term of appointment
is meant to address the faculty concern of diverting continuing funds from tenure-track
to research faculty. He explained that
it may not always be possible for an individual to generate 100% of their
salary, and so the sentence was added that other salary recovery/support will
come from extramural funds. He also
noted that Academic Affairs does not tell Deans how they will use their
funds. It was suggested that this
wording could be strengthened. It was
also noted that TIUs could be saddled with a financial “black hole” if monies
originally set aside for tenured faculty were used for a non tenure-track
faculty. Start-up monies for a research
faculty could be as high as $500,000, and if the person leaves after two years,
that is money wasted.
It was pointed out that this position has been in place
for quite some time at other institutions similar to
Questions/comments
raised: We don’t want to see tenure
eroded by replacing tenure track faculty with other non-tenured tracks. Is there any concern that the State
Legislature Board of Regents will see this as further reason to withdraw funds
from public institutions? Dentistry
views this as an opportunity to hire post-docs.
Research
Scientist versus Research Faculty: A key
aspect to this proposal is to be a principal investigator on a grant. Appointment at the research scientist level automatically
grants the ability for the person to be a P.I.
Research
Faculty versus Regular Faculty: These people
are being called “regular” faculty, which seems to be in conflict with some of
the rest of the document about rights and the lack of rights. By calling these people “regular” faculty,
there is suggested more of an alignment with tenure-track faculty. It was pointed out that “regular” faculty are those faculty with a greater than 50%
appointment and are thus entitled to higher benefits.
Graduate
Faculty Status and Governance Rights: If research
faculty are given M or P status by the
Faculty
Council Minutes of February 26, 2004
Page
2
Definition
of faculty: What is a faculty member? What does the term
faculty mean? Someone responded, “Would
this lead to a “teaching” faculty?” It
was pointed out that lecturers are considered to be faculty. Clinical faculty and research scientists, if
they have auxiliary faculty status, can serve as advisors on doctoral or master’s
committees or be on the committee but cannot participate in governance.
Dr.
Fraenkel was very concerned that a new layer of “lower-class” faculty is being
set up. He sees this proposal as a way
of “bringing money into the University.”
There are no guarantees that people with large grants would choose to
come to Ohio State. These people will be
teaching graduate students and should be eligible for tenure. He did not see the need for this track and
recalled that when the proposal came forward several years ago, it was not
supported. In response, it was noted
that the only way to change the research profile at Ohio State is to change the
size of the faculty. The Legislature is
not giving us any more money, and this proposal is a way of “thinking outside
the box.” Other faculty said that if all
universities have Research Faculty, then Ohio State is no better off than it is
now. How is it better to have temporary appointments write grants? What will keep these people here if they can
go elsewhere to get tenure?
Assault
on Tenure: Dr. Pinsky said that the main assault on
tenure exists now with the use of lecturers.
Money that could be used for regular faculty is being used for
lecturers. It would be too costly for a
chair or dean to use Research Faculty to teach, because they are too
expensive. He noted that there would be
very few research faculty hired except perhaps in the Medical Complex. This proposal is not being used as an assault
on tenure track faculty but is intended to bring in researchers with the
ability to obtain large grants.
Dr.
MacBeth countered by saying that the assault on tenure is a budgetary
assault. The argument that this
issue will be marginal to the University
raises the question of why it then is necessary to change University
Rules. However, it was noted that this
proposal will bring in extramural funding, and unfortunate as it is,
universities are ranked by the amount of dollars they bring in. Research faculty will not be interested in
doing what tenure-track faculty do. The
fact that research faculty need to bring in 100% of their salary would limit
their desires to do anything else. Some
senior research scientists on campus now who have adjunct faculty status would
rather be research faculty because it would make life easier for them.
Dr.
Fraenkel was not aware of many colleges that have research faculty in their
Chemistry Departments. He reiterated his
concern about these positions being temporary.
He did not see that the University would achieve higher quality or move
up in the ratings because of this proposal.
Dr.
Olson suggested that perhaps what is driving this proposal is the change in the
nature of biomedical research. The
budget of the NIH has recently doubled at a time when our faculty cannot write
more grants. It takes more than a single
faculty anymore to keep a research program going. Biomedical science is a “team sport”, but the
Legislature does not wish to give the University more funds. Another faculty member noted that while a
large increase in NIH funds took place recently, it does not appear that there
will be such an increase in the next decade.
It is questionable the NIH will be able to maintain the grants that have
already been started in the past four years.
Dr.
Myers warned that as research faculty become more successful, they could put
more pressure on Chairs for more funding.
Dr. Pinsky suggested that the person might choose to stay if offered a
tenure position.
Flexibility: This position is used in other institutions
in the Social Sciences as an administrative position for someone who is working
on a large multi-investigative grant at a research institution such as the
Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. The people are administering the grants and
writing technical reports. This position
can be uses for spousal hires. This
increases the flexibility of the University in being able to recruit a
researcher and increases flexibility in allowing a larger team of researchers
including some administrators to work on large grants.
Faculty
Council Minutes of February 26, 2004
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Dr.
Rall did not wish to see money diverted from tenure track faculty to research
faculty. The hiring of research track
faculty will be programmatic. It should
benefit programs in general and thus benefit the tenure-track faculty who are
involved in these research programs. The
research environment should become better; therefore, there should be better
and more research from Ohio State. Dr.
Stetson felt that adding this track would not be so bad, but the rule needs to
be written as well as possible before going forward.
Cost
Accounting and Oversight: Dr. Macbeth noted that there
is no provision in the Rule for any kind of programmatic statement or any kind
of cost accounting, which seems unusual in the wake of budget
restructuring.
It was noted that underlying costs of doing research in the University are probably as much or more than the salary paid for the research person. Dr. Rall was in favor of strengthening the wording of the Rule that would minimize any abuse of the Rule from the point of using money.
Dr.
Chism asked members to consider what this proposal for research faculty does
that cannot now be done with research scientists. Dr. Lee noted that this proposal can be used
for purposes of recruitment. Dr. Olson
asked if there was any talk about limiting these appointments to Centers, but
it was noted that faculty are appointed to Tenure Initiating Units. Dr. Stetson said if research faculty are not
limited to Centers the Rule ought to be changed so that Centers can hire
them. Dr. Pinsky said that if the Senate
passes this proposal, there are still no research track faculty in the University. A given TIU must pass rules for research
track faculty in their department. If
Centers hire research faculty, the person would still need a home that has
enabled the track.
Oversight
by CAA: Dr. Macbeth felt that the rule has been
written to gag faculty governance because there is no Senate committee or the
Graduate School that gives oversight.
The only review of any changes that a TIU puts forward is review by the
Office of Academic Affairs. This is not
shared governance. Someone suggested
that a sunset clause be added to the rule proposing a five-year review of the
program. Dr. Stetson wondered why this
rule was not completely analogous to the Clinical Faculty Rules. Every proposal
for Clinical Faculty comes to the Council on Academic Affairs for approval and
is forwarded to the Senate for approval and then on to the Board of
Trustees. CAA is the body that will give
oversight to these proposals. It was
suggested that Dr. Macbeth add appropriate language about oversight to the
rule. Members noted that decisions at
the TIU level will have ramifications at the college level that will need to be
worked out. Dr. Stetson said that CAA
would expect endorsement and commitment by the Dean for any proposal to go
forward.
2. Approval of Resolution: Faculty Council members had received a copy
of the resolution and “Background on the ODE Model Curriculum lesson L10H23,
“Critical Analysis of Evolution”. Dr.
Jeffrey McKee presented the resolution to be put forth by Faculty Council to
the Legislature which supports the removal of the “critical analysis of evolution”
module from the State’s Model Curriculum, and supports the addition of new
modules aligned with Standard Indicator 23 that accurately reflect scientific
issues in contemporary evolutionary biology.
Dr.
McKey noted that other Ohio universities and institutions have approved similar
proposals. After some discussion the
matter was put to a vote and passed with one negative vote. Because of time constraints, the recording
secretary was instructed to send the proposed language to all Senators for a
vote by e-mail and to let Dr. McKee know the results of the vote before the
March 9 meeting of the State Legislature.
The
meeting was adjourned at 5:05 p.m. The
next meeting of Faculty Council will be on March 4.