BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2132|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2132
Author: Lara (D)
Amended: 8/24/12 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE : 6-2, 6/27/12
AYES: Lowenthal, Alquist, Liu, Price, Simitian, Vargas
NOES: Blakeslee, Huff
NO VOTE RECORDED: Runner, Hancock, Vacancy
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 51-26, 5/30/12 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Public postsecondary education: tenure policy
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : 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.
Senate Floor Amendments of 8/24/12 change the date by which
the review and dissemination of policies and criteria
recognizing and rewarding "service" in tenure and promotion
decisions be accomplished from the 2013-14 academic year to
the next review of the retention, tenure, and promotion
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policies at each campus, or before the end of the 2017-18
academic year, whichever occurs first.
ANALYSIS : Existing law states that teaching is an
essential function of faculty at each of the public higher
education segments. Existing 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, existing law
expresses the intent of the Legislature that:
1. 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.
2. 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.
This bill:
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
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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
next review of the retention, tenure, and promotion
policies at each campus, or before the end of the
2017-18 academic year, whichever occurs first:
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. Consider the extent to which specified forms of
service may be recognized for purposes of
appointment, promotion, retention and tenure review.
C. 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.
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
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collective bargaining agreements.
Comments
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, 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
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one's discipline.
According to the Senate Education Committee analysis, 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.
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
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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 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.
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
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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.
According to the Senate Education Committee analysis, 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
established criterion in the faculty review process.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/27/12)
California Faculty Association
National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/27/12)
University of California
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : 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.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The University of California
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writes:
Service is a fundamental element of the University's
tripartite mission of teaching, research, and public
service, and as such, service to the University and
broader public is already included as a key criterion in
our academic personnel policies for promotion and tenure.
UC faculty are regularly reviewed by their professional
and academic peers in order to assure quality and the
highest standards at the University. In making decisions
on tenure and promotion, UC faculty are evaluated on
performance in all of the following areas: (1) teaching,
(2) research and creative work, (3) professional
competence and activity, and (4) University and public
service.
Because UC's existing policies comply with the proposed
law, and because the policies and criteria for faculty
tenure are core functions of the University that are
central to UC's pursuit of excellence in teaching,
research and public service, we must oppose this
legislation. Moreover, if enacted, AB 2132 could set a
legislative precedent that undermines the University's
long-held responsibility for establishing the
determinants of tenure and other academic matters.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 51-26, 5/30/12
AYES: Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall, Block,
Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford, Brownley, Butler, Charles
Calderon, Campos, Carter, Cedillo, Chesbro, Davis,
Dickinson, Eng, Feuer, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani, Galgiani,
Gatto, Gordon, Hall, Hayashi, Roger Hern�ndez, Hill,
Huber, Hueso, Huffman, Lara, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma,
Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel P�rez,
Portantino, Skinner, Solorio, Swanson, Torres,
Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada, John A. P�rez
NOES: Achadjian, Bill Berryhill, Conway, Cook, Donnelly,
Beth Gaines, Garrick, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, Halderman,
Harkey, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Logue, Mansoor, Miller,
Morrell, Nestande, Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Silva, Smyth,
Wagner
NO VOTE RECORDED: Buchanan, Fletcher, Valadao
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PQ:m 8/27/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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