Faculty Council Meeting of Tuesday, 22 January 2002
President: Joe Liles; Vice-president: John Woodmansee; Secretary: Floyd Bullard

Minutes

Announcements

The 11th annual Native American Pow-Wow will be held on 9 February, and promotional posters are available to pick up after the FC meeting, or later from Joe Liles. Volunteers are needed and faculty may sign up on the principal's bulletin board.

In admissions, we've applied for a grant for a summer program for middle school students.  The program (if it's funded) would expose middle school students to our school.  The admissions office would like to build on that and, in the summer of 2004, have a summer program for incoming juniors.  The admissions office will seek faculty help in planning these programs. 

The teacher recommendation form for admission to NCSSM is being redesigned, with the initiative for doing so coming from teachers here.  We want on the form questions that solicit from teachers at students' high schools better information about students' academic and social preparation for NCSSM.  Joe would like to have some volunteers to meet just a couple of times to review the existing form and suggest changes.  Gail Hudson, Gloria Barrett, Joyce Rodman, Gretchen Skidmore, and Donita Robinson all volunteered on the spot.

Diane Futrelle reminded everyone that if you shop at Kroger, you can get a green card from her, to use at Kroger, and a portion of your purchases there for several months will go to helping us purchase materials for NCSSM.

Peggy Craft announced that the test schedule on-line sign-up form has been altered to make it even easier to use, and everyone is urged to use it.

Agenda Item 1: Tenure and Academic Freedom

Carol O'Dell (on the governance task force), stated that the following discussion would be to solicit the views of the faculty--philosophical and practical--on having tenure at NCSSM, an option (but not a requirement) if we become a constituent institution of the UNC system.

In our present system, at the end of each term contract, a faculty member has no legal "right" to a renewed contract.  Only during the term of the contract does NCSSM have any obligation to demonstrate a reason for breaking the contract.  With a tenure system, a "show cause" process would be required of any tenured faculty member who is dismissed.  

Q: What is the meaning of "show cause"?  A: There's a whole list in the UNC system, including breaking of ethical obligations, etc.  But the burden of proof would be on the institution, not on the dismissed faculty member.

When tenure is granted is determined by individual institutions.  Typically, it is not over seven years after hiring.

Jerry Boarman: Presently, if someone is not renewed when a contract expires, it is incumbent upon the Executive Director to give "just cause" for non-renewal.  Also, how many people in NCSSM's history have not had contracts renewed? Carol: The first issue is one of law.  "Friendly agreement" is not the same as contractual obligation.  Only the latter provides job security.

Carol: Tenure allows academic freedom because a faculty member may take an unpopular stand on an issue without risking their job security.

Comment: I don't know the answer to Jerry's second question, but another valid question is, "How many people have resigned, or have behaved differently,  because they didn't want to risk their job security?"

Sandy: We have a stronger written statement about renewal than just a "friendly agreement".  In our faculty regulations, we state that non-renewal of a contract requires an explanation: but the burden of proof is on the faculty member, not the institution (as would be the case in a tenure system). 

Carol: I didn't think that a right to grievance or appeal was in the faculty regulations.

Sandy: There are several grounds for appeal, but the faculty member must demonstrate the grounds.  Examples: a person cannot be non-renewed for reasons of personal malice, sexual orientation, first amendment rights, etc.

Carol: A right to respond in writing is not the right to a grievance procedure.  But that is separate from the concept of tenure. 

Comment: Tenure gives some rights to faculty, but it seems like it also ought to give responsibilities.  How would teachers gain tenure?  Surely not simply by staying around for three or five or seven years?

Carol: In a tenure system, typically the first contract is three (or six or whatever) years but with clear written expectations about what is required for tenure.  It requires faculty members to review one another very carefully and critically.  And tenure is not granted by faculty, but only recommended (or not).  The executive director or the Board of Trustees would have the power to grant tenure (or not).

Q: Can you give arguments against having a tenure system?  Carol: My main argument is philosophical (in that tenure allows for academic freedom).  Another is economic: The institution can pay people less.  Another is that it is hard to get rid of tenured people.

Comment (from a member of the faculty evaluation committee): Another negative is that it would be much harder to recommend someone for tenure than it currently is for faculty to write a favorable recommendation.  Now we can write, essentially, "there's need for improvement, but let's give him another three years."  But with tenure, we'd have to be much harsher critics of one another.

Jerry: If the faculty wanted to go the tenure route, what would be the basis for the current faculty?  Would everyone start at zero?  Would those who already had ten years here be tenured automatically?

Carol: There are precedents elsewhere for this, and it is important and would certainly need to be addressed.  And it would be addressed if we decided we wanted to go that route, but deciding whether we want tenure is separate.

Comment: But how people are "grandfathered in" may influence how people feel about having a tenure system at all.

[This was not discussed further.]

Carol: I'd like to discuss another issue now.  If we went to a tenured system, would we rather model ourselves after universities or the public school system?  In public schools, it's "three years and you're tenured".  With universities, it's longer and harder.

Comment: No, that's not true.  In the public schools, new teachers may be put on probation, and they are "on hold".  They do not then automatically receive tenure after three years.  The procedure for this evaluation is strict and strictly determined.

Q:  Tenure would surely require staying current in your field.  How will that be provided for?

Comment: The professional obligations we have are quite different from at other institutions.  Carol: Yes, and we would have to spell out carefully our expectations for tenure.

Comment: Whatever we call it, our present system is an "observation system".  Switching would require a rigorous and strict evaluation system and the faculty would have to do much more.  Forget two evaluators observing you two or three times.  Seven or eight faculty would observe you very critically.

Carol: The maintenance of a portfolio is also required.

Q: Would tenure require publications and grant money received?  Carol: Not all universities do, and we wouldn't have to either.

Q: What does the School of the Arts do?  A: They don't have tenure, but they told us that if they had it to do over again, they would want a tenure system.  Presently their system is patterned on ours: 2, 3, 5, 7 year contracts.

This discussion ended because of time requirements, but Joe announced that we would revisit the issue some time.  Carol said that sooner is better than later, and next Tuesday was proposed as a single-item-agenda faculty council meeting.  Enough people were interested (21) that it was agreed to meet again next Tuesday to discuss this issue only from 4:00-5:00.  Peggy Craft said she would bring food.

Agenda Item 2:  College credit for NCSSM courses.

Charlie Coble, vice president of UNC general administration, raised the following issue to Jerry: our students getting college credit for courses taken at NCSSM.  It is not in our court to make a decision on this issue, and we don't have enough time to discuss it at length now, but we can at least inform the faculty of what's going on.  Joe asked Jerry to address the faculty.

(Jerry first announced that we will save $180K this year by not having to revert money back to the state, for which he petitioned.  This will help pay for some extra expenses this year, like fuel, etc.)

Jerry said Charlie Coble was getting ready to retire, which gives us a reason for wanting to address this issue quickly.

Jerry: Some high schools in NC get college credit and high school credit for their courses.  (This is called "concurrent enrollment".)  Lots of schools in the NCSSSMST do the same, some getting two years of college credit.  The NCSSM faculty acknowledge that many of our courses are "beyond AP".  Our students are stronger than many students in college.  We are not a research institution, but we have better instructors than at many colleges.

Jerry: I want to get ideas from you, explore this issue, then meet with Charlie Coble to discuss it further.

Jerry related a story of an NCSSM alum who visited him, complaining that her college roommate, from Eleanor Roosevelt, entered college with 32 hours of college credit and would be able to finish a master's degree in four years, while she (the NCSSM student) would not.  Why didn't NCSSM students get this advantage in college?

Jerry shared his view that doing this would strengthen our reputation in the state.  The original plan of this school in the 1970's stated that our students should be "aligned with universities", though not with any particular college or university.

Jerry then opened the floor for questions or comments.

Comment: Many schools give college credit for work done already, but students have to petition for it by taking a placement test or showing a course syllabus, etc. 

Comment: We have had instances where students at NCSSM have taken distance learning courses with college students, but not gotten credit, even though the college students did.

Comment: Any UNC school will honor as transfer credits any grade earned with a C or higher in a NC community college.  The credit transfers but not the grade.

Comment: An advantage of this system would be that it would be system-wide.  UNC schools now usually give placement, but not credit, for courses taken here, and placement and credit are not the same thing.  Additionally, we don't get some students applying here because at NCSSM they don't have as many opportunities for AP credits as at other high schools.  And for many parents, college credits = money.

Comment: Not all universities will be happy with having to "swallow" our credits, just as they are not happy with having to accept community college courses.  So this could weaken our relationship with some schools.  Also, this could be done on a school-by-school basis, with some schools accepting the credits and others not.

Comment: I would prefer to see us move toward having college credit granted for our courses automatically rather than becoming AP courses.  For example, our statistics course is tougher than that at many colleges.

Comment: We would really need to make sure our students were really prepared for the next course.  We could seriously harm our reputation by giving credit for courses and having colleges find that our students were not prepared.  But then, recruiting (for NCSSM) is also a big issue [for which college credit would likely help significantly].

Comment: The expectations by colleges of their freshmen are lower than they used to be, and in many, many cases our courses are better.  Our students should be getting credit for them.

Jerry concluded by thanking everyone for their remarks and stating that he would explore the issue further with Charlie Coble and would then return to the faculty for further information sharing and advice.

The meeting adjourned at 5:10PM.