BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-12 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 2132
AUTHOR: Lara
AMENDED: May 25, 2012
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 27, 2012
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Beth Graybill
SUBJECT : Public postsecondary education: Tenure policy.
SUMMARY
This bill expresses the intent of the Legislature that the
California State University (CSU) and the University of
California (UC) adopt tenure policies that reward service and
requires the CSU and requests the UC to recognize and reward
service as appropriate for each discipline, as specified.
BACKGROUND
Existing law states that teaching is an essential function of
faculty at each of the public higher education segments.
Current law expresses the intent of the Legislature that
teaching is an essential responsibility of faculty employed
by the UC and a primary responsibility of CSU faculty.
Specifically, current law expresses the intent of the
Legislature that:
a) The UC adopt and enforce policies and procedures
which ensure that quality teaching is an essential
criterion, along with research, in the evaluation of
faculty for appointment, retention, promotion, and
tenure.
b) The CSU and each California Community College (CCC)
district adopt and enforce policies and procedures that
ensure that teaching is given primacy in the evaluation
of faculty for appointment, retention, promotion, and
tenure.
ANALYSIS
This bill :
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1) Makes findings and declarations of the Legislature that
restate previous declarations about the need to
encourage policies that enhance the quality of teaching;
restate Legislative intent concerning importance of
quality teaching in the UC and the CSU; and specify that
the willingness to expend time and energy in teaching,
research, and service to the campus community and the
greater community outside of the campus is an attribute
of an outstanding faculty member.
2) Specifies that service may include but is not limited to
serving on community boards and committees, engaging in
civic activities, working in outreach programs developed
to promote cultural diversity in the student body,
consulting with public and governmental agencies
designed to address student and community needs,
developing programs for underserved populations,
research and creative activities that benefit our
communities, consulting with or addressing student and
community organizations, or other service activities
that are focused on improving the health and well-being
of society.
3) Expresses the intent of the Legislature that the CSU and
the UC develop and adopt tenure policies aimed at
encouraging and rewarding service to the campus
community and to the community outside of the campus
that is valuably and selflessly provided by so many
faculty members throughout the segments.
4) Requires the Trustees of the CSU and encourages the
Regents of the UC to accomplish the following during the
2013-14 academic year:
a) Recognize and reward service as appropriate
for each discipline. Requires the significant
service contributions of a candidate for tenure to
be documented before those service contributions
may be used as a basis for a favorable tenure
decision.
b) Develop and distribute throughout their
respective segments, transparent criteria for
tenure that include service if no academically
appropriate criteria for each discipline have
previously been adopted in that segment.
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5) States that service is a critical factor in tenure
evaluations.
6) Requires the CSU Trustees and encourages the UC Regents,
in fulfilling their responsibilities required by this
bill to:
a) Consult with the academic senates of their
respective segments and with student and community
organizations.
b) Take actions that are consistent with
applicable collective bargaining agreements.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill : According to information provided by
the author's office, there is a gap between the
Legislature's public service requirement of public
higher education segments and the Legislature's intent
for teaching to be a cardinal responsibility of faculty.
The author's office indicates that some faculty feel
that their service activities have not been
appropriately recognized for purposes of merit,
promotion, or tenure reviews. By providing examples of
the forms of service that may be recognized and by
requiring the CSU and requesting the UC to recognize and
reward service and to develop and distribute criteria
for tenure that include service, the author hopes this
bill will ensure that service is counted when it is
academically appropriate.
2) The role of service . By tradition, most colleges and
universities have established teaching, research and
service as part of their mission, and by extension, the
mission of their faculty. Most university systems,
including the UC and the CSU, require faculty to provide
a record of their activities and accomplishments in each
of these areas in order to receive tenure or be advanced
through the teaching ranks. Ernest L. Boyer, who served
as the U.S. Commissioner of Education during the Carter
administration and later served as President of the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
noted in his seminal work, Scholarship Reconsidered,
Priorities of the Professorship, that while almost all
colleges and universities establish teaching, research,
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and service as faculty responsibilities, the three are
rarely assigned equal merit when it comes to making
judgments about professional performance. For example,
scholarly research may "count" a little more in a
research university, while effective teaching may have a
little more weight in a liberal arts institution.
Kelly Ward, author of Faculty Service Roles and the
Scholarship of Engagement indicates that while the
meaning of teaching and research is relatively clear,
service is not consistently viewed as clearly because
institutions are not always clear about what it means
for faculty to engage in service. Boyer argued that
service is "routinely praised, but accorded little
attention" noting that its meaning is vague and often
disconnected from "serious intellectual work." In the
1990s, Boyer observed that service covered "an almost
endless number of campus activities as well as
activities beyond the campus such as participation in
town councils or youth clubs and the like." He argued
that there is a sharp distinction between citizenship
activities and activities that are tied directly to
one's special field of knowledge and flow directly out
of, one's intellectual work or professional activity.
To that point, service becomes important not only for
advancement within one's local campus, but also as its
own form of scholarship within the larger "academy" of
one's discipline.
While it is possible that this bill could result in faculty
members having greater clarity around the kind of
service deemed appropriate for advancement in their
discipline, it is unlikely that it will address the
larger question of how one's service will be valued
relative to the other aspects of one's scholarly record,
how the merits of individual service activities should
be gauged by peer reviewers, or how closely connected
service should be to one's intellectual work, all of
which may vary depending on an individual's discipline,
institution, title/rank, and the type of review the
individual is undergoing. Notwithstanding the merits of
the services listed in
� 66054(a)(5), could this bill lead some faculty to
believe that because certain activities are listed in
statute that they will "count" as service when in fact
the institution may expect other forms of public or
community service? Is it the Legislatures purview to
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suggest, even by example, what may be included as
acceptable service activities?
3) Existing UC policy . The UC has adopted policies and
procedures for tenure and advancement that include
service. Faculty in the regular (tenure-track)
Professor series are evaluated for promotion and tenure
on performance in the following categories: 1)
teaching, 2) research and creative work, 3) professional
competence and activity, and 4) university and public
service. Faculty members provide evidence and
documentation of their work in each of these four areas
to support their candidacy for advancement. Reviews for
tenure and for advancement to the very senior
professorial ranks are holistic and encompass the full
scope of an individual's career across the UC mission of
teaching, research, and service. The University's
Academic Personnel Manual (APM) outlines the process for
faculty appointment, promotion, and appraisal (the
process for determining whether an assistant professor
is ready for tenure), and specifies criteria that must
be met in each of the four areas for each level of
advancement. Faculty members are regularly reviewed by
their professional and academic peers, depending on
their rank and step within the series. The
responsibility for faculty reviews is assigned to the
campus's Committee on Academic Personnel (CAP), which is
composed of Academic Senate faculty members. A faculty
member's "service" record each time the member is
evaluated.
The APM articulates the UC's criteria for recognizing
university and public service: "Recognition should be
given to scholars who participate in and provide service
to the University, including serving as administrators
and participating effectively and imaginatively in
faculty government and the formulation of departmental,
college, and University policies. Services by members
of the faculty to the community, state, and nation, both
in their special capacities as scholars and in areas
beyond those special capacities when the work done is at
a sufficiently high level and of sufficiently high
quality, should likewise be recognized as evidence for
promotion. Faculty service activities related to the
improvement of elementary and secondary education
represent one example of this kind of service." The APM
also specifies that contributions to student welfare
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through service on student-faculty committees and as
advisers to student organizations should be recognized
as evidence.
In addition to the APM, which is available to faculty and the
public online through the University's website, the
University also has a Faculty Handbook that is also
available online. Copies of the APM are also available
at each campus. Additionally, the UC distributes the
"Annual Call" to all faculty, which outlines the
process, timelines, and criteria for promotion and
tenure reviews, conducts training workshops on campuses
regarding review criteria, and provides mentors for
junior faculty.
4) Existing CSU policy . Through regulation, the CSU
Trustees authorize CSU campus presidents or their
designees to award or deny tenure to probationary
academic employees, using a consultative process that
includes tenured faculty, department chairpersons, and
academic administrators. The CSU collective bargaining
agreement with the California Faculty Association (CFA)
further establishes the responsibilities of faculty
members and the process for performance review for
retaining and promoting faculty. The CSU/CFA collective
bargaining agreement identifies the primary professional
responsibilities of faculty as 1) teaching; 2) research
and scholarship and creative activity; and 3) Service to
the University, profession and to the community.
Each CSU campus is required to establish and distribute an
academic personnel manual that identifies the process
for evaluating faculty and awarding tenure. While the
process of evaluating faculty for tenure may differ
somewhat across campuses, it generally begins with
department faculty providing information to department
chairs, which make recommendations to the campus
personnel committees, who report to college deans.
Campus presidents are empowered to make the final
decisions regarding the awarding of tenure.
5) What's not working ? Both UC and CSU have adopted
comprehensive policies for faculty appointment,
retention, promotion, and tenure reviews. Systemwide
policies regarding tenure are in place, personnel
manuals and faculty handbooks provide transparent
criteria for tenure review, and service appears to be an
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established criterion in the faculty review process. If
a faculty member's chosen forms of service are not
appropriately counted during a review, is the problem a
lack of information, inadequate mentoring, or is it the
perception that some forms of service should "count"
more than peer reviewers allow? If the latter is the
problem, is it an issue that best addressed at the
campus level?
The establishment of the criteria and process for faculty
advancement, including the process for recognizing
service and awarding faculty tenure has traditionally
been left to the segments where faculty determine the
standards and weights afforded to the elements
scholarship. Opponents argue that AB 2132 could set a
legislative precedent that would undermine that
authority. The Committee may wish to consider whether
the forms of service that could be deemed acceptable
should be specified in the Education code or left to the
faculty of the UC and CSU to articulate in the criteria
developed pursuant to this act. To that end, staff
recommends amendments to delete subparagraph (5) of
66054(a) from the bill and instead require the CSU and
request the UC to consider, as part of their
implementation of Section (a) of 66054.1, the extent to
which the forms of service listed may be recognized for
purposes of appointment, promotion, retention and tenure
reviews.
6) Clarifying amendment . Staff recommends making the
findings and declarations section of this bill
uncodified since some of the findings restate current
law.
SUPPORT
California Faculty Association
OPPOSITION
University of California