Content
IANR Liaison Committee Minutes
March 8, 2019
1:00-2:00pm
Nebraska East Union, Garden Room
In Attendance: Joel Cramer, Kate Brooks, Jenny Keshwani, Associate Vice Chancellor Richard Bischoff, Anna Lowe (recorder)
Zoomed in: Aaron Nygren, Julie Peterson
Excused: Vicki Schlegel and Don Lee
Main Discussion Points:
2007 Guidelines Document
Bischoff encouraged committee members to review the 2007 Liaison Committee Operational Guidelines document to determine how accurately it reflects current practices. Committee members decided that once new members are in place (see “Developing a ballot to fill vacancies on the committee” below for further details), the committee can review and revise the document.
Developing a ballot to fill vacancies on the committee
Committee members reviewed the nomination and voting procedures for filling vacancies on the committee. The committee did not hold elections for new members in 2018, so Julie Peterson and Kate Brooks served an additional year. They will be rotating off in June 2019. Also rotating off the committee in June 2019 are Don Lee and Vicki Schlegel. To preserve a balanced rotation among terms of service, the committee decided to create a ballot that would result in four new members. Once the new members are chosen, the committee would randomly choose two of the newly elected members to serve two year terms, while the other two will serve three year terms.
Given the need to achieve diversity in committee membership, the committee decided to seek nominations of faculty from among academic units not currently represented on the committee. The appointments/apportionments of the current members of the committee was reviewed. Those to be replaced are identified in italics below:
- Kate Brooks, Ag Econ, tenure track, Assistant Professor, research/teaching apportionment.
- Joel Cramer, NHS, tenure track, fully promoted, research/teaching apportionment
- Jenny Keshwani, BSE, tenure track, Assistant Professor, Extension Specialist/teaching apportionment
- Don Lee, A&H, tenure track, fully promoted, research/teaching apportionment
- Aaron Nygren, Extension, non-tenure track, Extension Educator, off campus (Colfax County)
- Julie Peterson, Entomology, tenure track, Extension Specialist/research apportionment, off campus (West Central Research & Extension Center)
- Vicki Schlegel, FST, tenure track, fully promoted, research/teaching apportionment
The members of the committee will solicit nominations from among their peers. They also asked Bischoff to solicit nominations from leaders of the following units: Ag Econ, Animal Science, Biochemistry, CYAF, Entomology, Plant Pathology, SNR, STAT, TMFD, and SVMBS.
Review of the P&T Ballot Results
The committee reviewed the results of the vote on the proposed Bylaws revision that would create an Institute-wide Promotion and Tenure Committee. Of the 341 faculty casting a vote, 63.9% voted in favor. According to the IANR Bylaws, 2/3 affirmative vote is needed for a revision to the Bylaws.
Bischoff mentioned that he received emails and comments from several Extension Educators that told him that they were not going to vote since their materials would not flow through the Institute-wide P&T committee and they didn’t want to have influence over something that would not affect them. Bischoff pointed out that the ballot did not allow faculty to abstain. This option was not included because it was reasoned that to cast an abstain vote is a vote that would be counted in the total. The committee decided that in the future it would be good to include “abstain” as an option, but that it should include a clear statement that by clicking “abstain” the person is indicating that they are not voting.
Review of the P&T Ballot Comments
It was acknowledged that allowing faculty to leave comments was a good way to obtain feedback. It was also acknowledged that comments were only left by fewer than 24% of those who cast a vote, and that the comments do not capture the thoughts of those who were eligible to vote but who did not do so. Perhaps to have had an “abstain” option would have encouraged those who were not voting to leave a comment.
Institute Wide P&T Committee Next Steps/Brainstorming Ideas:
The committee concluded that it is a good idea to continue to propose an Institute Wide P&T Committee. However, committee members expressed concern over the importance of listening to people’s concerns and making changes to the proposal as needed. There was also discussion about the possibility that the vote reflects some underlying issues and concerns about how faculty are evaluated and about the environment of collegiality that exists within IANR. Debriefing the vote with faculty could help to reveal some of these underlying issues in a way that would allow them to be addressed.
Action items for ACV Bischoff:
- Hold open forums/listening sessions for faculty
- Talk with P&T chairs and unit leaders
- Visit departments again
- Ask Dean Hibberd if he can talk to those with Extension appointments during a Chat with Chuck.
Discussed the timeframe for revisions and bringing the proposal for faculty vote. It was suggested that it might help to bring both the Institute-wide P&T committee and the state-wide Extension Educator Promotion committee to vote at the same time, but this would depend on where Extension is at in their planning. The committee decided an appropriate timeframe for another faculty vote on an Institute-wide P&T Committee would be October or November 2019.
Meeting adjourned at 2:03 PM
Distributed electronically to the IANR Liaison Committee for review.