Content
IANR Liaison Committee Agenda
Tuesday, February 18th at 1:30 PM
311 AGH or https://unl.zoom.us/j/255818430
Attended: AVC Bischoff, Jenny Keshwani, Joel Cramer, Stephen Wegulo, and Anna Lowe (recorder)
Attended Via Zoom: Maria de Guzman
Absent: Aaron Nygren, Ron Lewis, Carlos Urrea
Agenda Items:
- Liaison Committee nominations/election of new members
- Senate Executive Committee request about budget oversight (including explanation of RCM)
- State of Graduate Student Health Insurance
- Core expectations of tenure-line faculty members
- Changes to Activity Insight
- Promotion and Tenure processes
- Update about changes to extension and how this affects faculty evaluation (including an update about a proposal to have a state-wide promotion committee for educators)
- Statement of IANR commitment to inclusive excellence to appear in job announcements (including efforts toward inclusivity within the institute)
Liaison Committee nominations/election of new members
Joel Cramer, Jenny Keshwani, and Aaron Nygren will end their time as members of the Liaison Committee on June 30th, 2020. The Liaison Committee will solicit nominations by sending out an email asking faculty to nominate themselves or a colleague to serve on the committee. A request will also be sent to department heads/school directors asking them to nominate faculty. According to the IANR bylaws, the committee shall comprise broad faculty representation by giving consideration to diversity, member’s work location, division/unit of IANR, and academic function. There will need to be at least two nominees for each vacant position. The committee will send out a request for nominations in early March and voting will occur in early April. One thing to note is that the committee currently does not have a faculty practice faculty member on the committee.
Senate Executive Committee request about budget oversight
The IANR Liaison Committee received an email from Nicole Baun, faculty Senate President-Elect asking that the Liaison Committee consider revising the IANR bylaws to form a CASNR Budget Oversight Committee.
The Liaison Committee discussed adding the budget oversight function to the IANR Liaison Committee’s responsibilities. This added responsibility aligns well with the committee’s current function as an advisory group to the Vice Chancellor. If the demands of providing budget oversight greatly increase as UNL transitions to the RCM budget the Liaison Committee will revisit the discussion of creating a separate IANR Budget Oversight committee.
State of Graduate Student Health Insurance
Vice Chancellor Boehm shared an email sent regarding the University of Nebraska Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee. The health insurance advisory committee shared talking points about the committee’s process and progress.
Core expectations of tenure-line faculty members
AVC Bischoff shared a document that outlined core expectations of tenure-line faculty members. He indicated that this is an internal document created by the IANR Senior Leadership Team outlining things that they expect of tenure-line faculty members. The IANR Liaison Committee felt that the document is appropriate and in many ways applies to all faculty. The purpose of the document is to (a) information the development of position descriptions and job announcements, (b) aid in faculty member onboarding and new faculty success events, (c) information annual evaluations, (d) facilitate conversations about retention decision-making.
Changes to Activity Insight
IANR Associate Deans (Erin Blankenship, Tala Awada, and Dave Varner) responsible for shepherding Activity Insight met with AVC Bischoff and Roger Feese, UNL IT programmer who communicates with Digital Measures to discuss potential possibilities for changes to Activity Insight. The goal is to streamline Activity Insight and create a more user friendly program for all to use. The group will meet again to complete an in-depth review of Activity Insight to see where there are duplications, what information really needs to be reported, etc. The group suggested having someone from the Liaison Committee present at this discussion or forming a subcommittee to represent the Liaison Committee at this discussion.
Promotion and Tenure Processes
IANR Guidelines for the Evaluation of Faculty: Annual Evaluation, Promotion, Tenure, and Reappointment
AVC Bischoff shared that there have been some changes made to the IANR Guidelines for the Evaluation of Faculty: Annual Evaluation, Promotion, Tenure, and Reappointment. Some of the changes include comprehensive integration of extension educators into the document and the promotion and tenure process is combined into one description. The revised document can be found on the IANR website: https://ianr.unl.edu/policies/promotion-and-tenure.
Bischoff recently met with the Promotion and/or Tenure Committee chairs from the 15 academic units and the 5 extension promotion committees to discuss the changes to the guidelines document, receive feedback, and answer questions. One of the questions was centered on if a committee member who is not tenured can vote and participate in deliberations for a candidate being considered for tenure. This is has been clarified in the IANR Guidelines document that the committee member who is not tenured is not eligible to vote nor participate in the deliberations of the candidate being considered for tenure. The same is true for a candidate aspiring to a rank not yet achieved by the committee member. Another question was if new hires are able to sit in on P&T committee meetings. The Board of Regents and IANR guidelines are silent on this matter and it is up to the departments to make a judgement. AVC Bischoff did clarify that the new hire should not be providing feedback and/or influencing a decision.
Promotion and/or Tenure Flow of Materials
Visual aids were created to outline the flow of materials of a candidate’s promotion and/or tenure file. These can be found on the IANR website: https://ianr.unl.edu/policies/promotion-and-tenure.
Addition to the 2020-2021 P&T Documentation Request
AVC Bischoff discussed the proposal to modify the IANR 2020-2021 P&T Documentation Request to include a request that each candidate describe their philosophy/approach, efforts, contributions, and/or accomplishments related to diversity and inclusion. The Liaison Committee suggested that AVC Bischoff provide guidance and examples of what this may look like. Some examples could include attended a training, showing examples of this in the classroom, serving on a committee.
Update about changes to extension and how this affects faculty evaluation
Extension currently has 5 promotion committees that are geographically based: Northeast, Southeast/Metro, West Central, Panhandle, and Campus/Statewide. Extension is proposing (still in the planning phase) that there will be (5) promotion committees that will be loosely disciplinary based: 4-H, crops and water, animals, and campus-based. This committee will also complete annual peer reviews. Extension is no longer pursuing a state-wide promotion committee that was intended to pattern the proposed Institute-wide promotion and tenure committee.
Statement of IANR commitment to inclusive excellence to appear in job announcements (including efforts toward inclusivity within the institute)
AVC Bischoff discussed that job announcements will now include verbiage emphasizing the value UNL places on diversity and inclusion. We will be asking candidates applying for faculty and administrative positions to include a statement in which they explain how they see themselves contributing to inclusive excellence. He indicated that eventually this will be the norm across all UNL.
Meeting adjourned at 3:05 PM
Distributed electronically to the IANR Liaison Committee for review.