Introduction

The Committee on Academic Personnel – Oversight Committee (CAP-OC) advises the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel on promotions, appointments, terminations, multiyear accelerations within rank that involve skipping a step, high-level merit actions, third year deferrals, five-year reviews, appraisals and off-scale requests beyond two-steps for all academic series within the Academic Senate. CAP also recommends membership of ad hoc committees, which are appointed by the Vice Provost. Further, CAP-OC advises both the Academic Senate and Vice Provost on academic personnel matters as they arise. CAP-OC appoints and directs the Faculty Personnel Committees (FPC) that advise Deans on redelegated personnel actions.

This academic year all appeals were reviewed by CAP-AC (Appellate Committee). Other changes included the redelegation of single and multiyear accelerations that do not involve skipping a step to the Deans and Faculty Personnel Committees. In addition, evaluation to Professor Step VIII and IX were redelegated to the Deans this academic year. There was some confusion this year as to which actions had been redelegated to the Deans, so some actions that were mistakenly forwarded to CAP by the Deans were reviewed by CAP at the request of those Deans. In addition, there were some actions handled by the Deans that should have come to CAP and that therefore are still pending as of August 31, 2003. CAP-OC is particularly attentive to issues that impact equity of treatment of Academic Senate members.

During the 2002-03 academic year CAP met 40 times and considered a total of 390 agenda items. The normal turn around time for agenda items remained two weeks. There was an increase in the number of quick turnaround actions requested of CAP this year. In order for CAP to be able to accommodate these quick turnaround times requested by Deans, the files coming to CAP must be complete. A file is reviewed in the first week, and a letter to the Vice Provost that contains the summary of the committee’s deliberations is reviewed a week later, finalized and forwarded to the Vice Provost. CAP must formally request any clarification or missing information from the Office of the Vice Provost in writing. The Vice Provost then requests this information of the Dean who in turn must request it from the Department. The information is then submitted to the Vice Provost who then sends it to CAP. This process can add significant time to the review of an action. Incomplete files delayed many of the quick turnaround actions this year. CAP requests that Department Chairs and faculty make sure that the files are complete before they leave the Department.

This year several cases were quite late in coming to CAP-OC, necessitating the formation of ad hoc committees over the summer. There were various reasons for the tardiness of the files, but it is imperative that cases requiring an ad hoc committee be forwarded to CAP in a timely fashion. As in past years ad hoc committees took anywhere from two weeks to several months to review a file and write their report.

Academic Personnel Actions, 2002-2003

Table 1 provides a summary of CAP’s deliberations by category for the past academic year. CAP considered 86 appointments to various ranks, 120 merit actions and 88 promotions. There were 38 appraisals. Of the 164 merit and promotion actions for the faculty academic series, CAP recommended against the action or was divided in 11 cases (6.7%). Of the 10 cases CAP recommended against, 9 had also been recommended against at an earlier level of review (Department, Dean or ad hoc committee) and the other one had received a divided recommendation at an earlier level of review. CAP recommended less of an advancement in an additional 12 cases (7.3%). In the majority of these cases CAP recommended less of an acceleration, but still supported advancement. In two cases CAP recommended advancement to Associate Professor, Step IV, rather than promotion to Professor, Step I. CAP recommended additional advancement over that requested in 13 cases (7.9%). The final results (Vice Provost’s decisions) are summarized in Table 2. For merit and promotion actions, the Vice Provost denied actions or offered less than what was requested in 19 cases. The Vice Provost concurred with CAP’s recommendation in all but four cases. There were 127actions referred to ad hoc Committees (Table 3).

Promotions: With respect to promotions to Associate Professor, CAP recommended the advancement for 43 of 44 tenure cases (Table 4). In 3 of these cases, CAP recommended a further acceleration of the candidate than was requested. In one case advancement or promotion was recommended that was less than that requested by the candidate.

CAP supported 40 of 42 promotion actions to Full Professor (Table 5). In 4 of these cases CAP recommended a further acceleration than was requested at earlier levels of review. CAP recommended advancement with less of an acceleration in 7 cases. In two of these cases, Associate Professor Step IV was recommended instead of promotion.

High Level Merits: CAP considered a total of 49 actions for Professor, Step VI. CAP supported 41 (84%) of these actions (Table 6). One of these actions recommended additional advancement and one recommended less of an acceleration. Eight actions were not supported.

Above Scale Actions: There were a total of 4 requests for advancement to Above Scale (Table 7). CAP supported all four actions.

Other Merit Actions: CAP considered 29 accelerated and other actions within the Professorial rank (Table 8). CAP supported 28 of these actions, with three actions recommended for additional advancement and three recommended for less of an accelerated advancement. CAP recommended against one action. There were 13 actions for further Above Scale advancement (Table 9). CAP supported 12 of these actions, recommending additional advancement in 2 cases. One case was not supported.

“Overrides”: Of the 390 actions, there were 15 cases in which the Vice Provost’s decision differed from the recommendation of CAP. Two were promotions, three were merit actions and ten were appointments. The Vice Provost awarded accelerations in the case of the two promotions for which CAP had not supported the requested acceleration. For the merit actions, the Vice Provost granted advancement for one negative recommendation, overruled the recommendation of an accelerated advancement suggested by CAP, and awarded an acceleration not supported by CAP in the third case. In the 10 appointment cases where CAP and the Vice Provost disagreed, CAP recommended an increase in the level of appointment in 6 cases and a decrease in 4 cases. In all but two cases the Vice Provost decided in favor of the original level requested by the Dean. In the remaining two cases, one was appointed at a lower level, but at a level still higher than that recommended by CAP and in the other case the candidate was appointed at the higher level recommended by CAP but with an acting title.

CAP Action Data Presented by College, School or Division: The distribution of actions by college, school or division is presented in Table 10. The results of the actions by campus units are presented in Tables 11-20. For units with greater than 10 actions, CAP’s support of advancement ranged from a high of 100% (Division of Biological Sciences) to a low of 89% (School of Veterinary Medicine). Summaries of the actions by the Faculty Personnel Committees are given in Tables 21-30. FPC recommendations for actions ranged from a high of 100% (School of Law) to a low of 66% (School of Education). Some Deans do not keep accurate records of FPC decisions. CAP requested last year that this be done by the Dean’s office staff, and most have. Faculty Executive Committees may need to make sure that sufficient records are kept. Last year Academic Senate office staff culled through each action to provide information on the FPC decisions when such information was not provided by the Deans. It was not possible to do so this year.

Policies, Procedures and Issues Considered by CAP-OC

Resolutions 2 and 6: Last year CAP-OC implemented the recommendations adopted by the Academic Senate in spring of 2001 for reform of the personnel process. There were two items still in progress at the time of submission of last year’s annual report, resolutions 2 and 6. Resolution 2 concerns the request of departments to provide a written summary of the nature of scholarship and the criteria and standards for evaluation of scholarship within their disciplines.

Resolution 2: “CAP shall seek to clarify and publish the standards for evaluating faculty performance taking due account of the differences among disciplines. CAP shall invite each department to provide a written summary of the nature of scholarship within its academic discipline and its own criteria and standards for the evaluation of faculty performance with the goal of articulating the standards and practices so that both a candidate and the review committees have a clear view of expectations for a candidate’s performance.”

Departments were invited by CAP-OC to submit written summaries of the criteria of scholarship to CAP during the 2002-03 academic year. Several departments indicated a preference to not provide any written criteria, and CAP-OC sought clarification of the resolution. In the course of these discussions it was brought to the attention of the committee that the resolution could be implemented solely as defined by CAP-OC. That being the case, the committee re-evaluated implementation of this resolution and decided to interact directly with departments, not involving the administration in the approval process of the submitted criteria. A letter to that effect was sent to department chairs in May (Attachment 1). Some departments indicated dissatisfaction with this resolution citing an inability to provide clear departmental criteria of scholarship. This was particularly true of multidisciplinary departments or those in which diverse modes of scholarship are important such that every faculty member constitutes a unique case. CAP-OC decided that departments would have the option of not providing written criteria of scholarship if that was the will of the faculty of the unit. CAP requested that departments provide CAP with a statement of the intent not to provide criteria of scholarship reporting the vote of the faculty.

Of the 8 departments in the College of Engineering, two have responded indicating that they would not be providing criteria of scholarship. Of the 7 departments in Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 5 have responded that they will not be providing criteria of scholarship. No departmental responses have been received from the School of Veterinary Medicine. Of the 30 departments in the School of Medicine, one has submitted criteria of scholarship. Of the 21 departments in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, three have submitted criteria of scholarship and one has indicated that criteria would not be provided. Four departments in Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies have submitted criteria of scholarship and one has indicated that none will be provided. In the Social Sciences, 2 departments have submitted criteria of scholarship. The Division of Biological Sciences submitted Division-wide criteria. Criteria were also received from the School of Education.

CAP has responded informally to some of these departments regarding their criteria of scholarship. Formal responses to the departments that have submitted criteria will occur once a quorum of departments have responded, to allow CAP to compare expectations across campus units and to use that comparative information to guide departments in the development of their criteria of scholarship.

Resolution 6 instructed CAP to develop and publish polices for itself and Faculty Personnel Committees governing when a participant in the reviewing process must recuse themselves.

Resolution 6: “Consistent with the requirement of the newly adopted bylaw (Ren. 42(B) (10)), CAP shall develop and publish policies for itself, Faculty Personnel Committees, and Ad Hoc Personnel Committees, governing when a participant in the review process must recuse himself or herself because of a conflict of interest.”

This was done last year (Attachment 2) and sent to our subcommittees and to the Vice Provost. The Vice Provost confirmed that similar instructions were already given by her office to ad hoc Committees, which are administrative committees, but they differ in that faculty are allowed to “vote twice” as the departmental representative does not know that they will be selected for ad hoc Committee service at the time votes are cast in the department. The only concerns with the policy statement were raised by the School of Law. All School of Law members participate fully in new appointments and FPC members traditionally vote at the level of the faculty. CAP-OC considered their points, but still elected to retain the stipulation that faculty voting on an action at the departmental level recuse themselves from voting on the personnel committee. In the case of the School of Law, this may result in appointment actions not receiving a recommendation from the School FPC. If such situations arise, the Dean should forward the action to CAP in lieu of the School FPC for Academic Senate input.

Overlapping Steps: The Vice Provost asked CAP-OC’s opinion of the idea of fundamentally changing how overlapping steps are used in the promotion process. It was suggested that all promotion actions be granted to the first step of the new rank. This would mean that all Assistant Professors whether at Step IV, V, or VI would be promoted to Associate Professor Step I, and Associate Professors Steps III and IV would be promoted to Professor Step I. Since this would entail a decrease in salary, it was proposed that the salary difference would be converted into a merit-based off-scale. This plan would allow administrators to initially support faculty out of the regular salary pool by hiring them at step based on salary rather than accomplishment. CAP-OC opposed this idea (Attachment 3). If the administration wishes to eliminate overlapping steps entirely that would be preferable to what amounts to a cut in salary with the portion of that salary converted to an off-scale that could be lost if the faculty member deferred an action or was denied a subsequent action. Numerous surveys indicate that faculty salaries at UC are well below our comparison institutions. The issue of general salary equity needs to be broadly addressed and not coupled to case-by-case advancement through the ranks.

Taskforce on Gender Equity Report: CAP-OC was also asked to comment on the system-wide Taskforce on Gender Equity Report. Our deliberations were summarized in a letter to the Chair of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate (Attachment 4). In that letter CAP-OC made several recommendations that to our knowledge have not been acted upon with the exception of the development of a UCD Equity Review Process.

UCD Equity Review Process: CAP-OC was also asked to comment on a draft of the proposed new Equity Review Process proposed by the administration. CAP-OC’s response to the first draft of this proposal is attached (Attachment 5). In reviewing this proposal CAP-OC also proposed guidelines to be followed by CAP-OC when conducting an equity review. These guidelines were forwarded to the Vice Provost for comment and are also attached (Attachment 6). Concerns were raised about the use and composition of ad hoc committees and the statement in our guideline that they might not follow the criteria of composition currently used for ad hoc committees reviewing promotion actions. The Vice Provost informed CAP-OC that any recommendations for composition of these committees that did not adhere to the administration’s criteria would have to be fully justified. CAP-OC is satisfied with that response and has no problems justifying the composition of an equity review ad hoc committee. CAP is concerned that the nature of some requests for equity review may preclude inclusion of a department member on the ad hoc committee evaluating the scholarship of the candidate. Further, in some cases it may be desirable to appoint faculty to the ad hoc committee who may be at a lower rank than the candidate but who have expertise in the discipline of the candidate. For these reasons CAP decided that the composition of the committees should be flexible.

Staffing Issues: This year was the first year that the organization of ad hoc committees and preparation of ad hoc committee reports was handled by the Academic Senate. CAP-OC continued to question this practice as the ad hoc committees are administrative, not Senate, committees. This imposed a significant increase in workload on the single staff member assigned to CAP-OC and CAP-AC. The Vice Provost provided additional staffing support to the Senate office to assist in the handling of the ad hoc committees.

There are also issues concerning the updating of ad hoc databases and the lack of timely information being provided to CAP-OC on faculty leaves and other issues that preclude service on an ad hoc committee. CAP-OC did not become aware of the problem of inaccuracies in the database until midway into the recommendations for ad hoc committees. Significant time was wasted by CAP-OC members due to the inaccuracies in the CAP-OC ad hoc committee database. The administration is working on linking the two databases that contain faculty data so that information does not have to be re-entered by hand into the CAP-OC database. This should prevent these problems from occurring in the future, and CAP-OC endorses this plan. The Chair of CAP-OC, with the concurrence of the full committee, opposed the suggestion that CAP-OC members be responsible for entering data into the database.

Report of UCAP Discussions: Professor Robert Rucker represented Davis at four meetings of UCAP, and Professor Michelle Yeh from the Davis campus served as Chair of UCAP for the 2002-2003 academic year. UCAP addressed a broad range of issues. Among those of general importance to the UC Davis personnel process were: the relative weight given to service, assessment of electronic communication as a vehicle for dissemination of scholarly activity, criteria in use for evaluating teaching (particularly as it relates to academic freedom), procedures for gender and other equity reviews, off-scale compensation procedures, and evaluation or recognition of those in the professional research, clinical X and CE specialist series. The Office of the President, UCAP members, or other UC Academic Senate committees and officers bring issues to the attention of UCAP. A primary function of this system-wide committee is to facilitate the exchange of information among campuses. Accordingly, CAP was regularly informed of UCAP discussions and through its representative provided input into such discussions, when appropriate.

Acknowledgements:

We thank our staff assistant, Solomon Bekele, for his efficient and professional service, and Don Orescanin for his efforts on behalf of the Ad Hoc committees. We also thank the members of the Faculty Personnel Committees for their hard work, and the faculty who served on Ad Hoc committees this academic year. Their efforts are vital to the success of the review process.

Respectfully submitted,

Anna Maria Busse-Berger

Edward Callahan

Jeannie Darby

Jan Ilkiw

Michael Maher

Thomas Morrison

Robert Rucker

Robert Shumway

Linda Bisson, Chair

DATA FROM PERSONNEL ACTIONS SENT TO CAP 2002-2003

Table 1. Types of Actions including accelerations^*

ACTIONS		ALL	PROPOSED ACCELERATIONS
Appointments
	Change of title	5	NA
	Department chair	1	NA
	Endowed chair	1	NA
	Senior lecturer	1	NA
	Assistant professor	14	NA
	Associate professor	24	NA
	Full professor	26	NA
	Upper level professor	14	NA
	Total	86
Merits
	Assistant professor	1	1
	Associate professor	12	5
	Full professor	68	24
	Upper level professor	30	15
	Lecturer	0	0
	Senior lecturer	2	0
	Redelegated	7	0
	Total	120	46
Promotions
	Associate	47	14
	Full professor	40	3
	Senior lecturer	1	0
	Total	88	17
Appraisals
	Assistant professor	38	NA
	Total	38
Miscellaneous
Deferral 3-year	Associate professor	3	NA
	Full professor	3	NA
5-year review	Associate professor	1	NA
	Full professor	10	NA
	Upper level professor	1	NA
Off-scale salary	All levels	10	NA
Reconsideration	Appointment	2	NA
Removal of acting title	Full	2	NA
Response to preliminary assessment	Promotion	2	NA
POP screening	All levels	8	NA
TOE screening	All levels	7	NA
Reappointment	Department Chairs	8

2002-2003

Table of Contents

Page

Introduction

Academic Personnel Actions, 2002-2003

Promotions

High-Level Merits (VI)

Above Scale Actions

Other Merit Actions Overrides

Attachments

Introduction

Academic Personnel Actions, 2002-2003

Policies, Procedures and Issues Considered by CAP-OC

DATA FROM PERSONNEL ACTIONS SENT TO CAP 2002-2003

Appointments

Merits

Promotions

Total

Appraisals

Total

Miscellaneous

5-year review

Off-scale salary

Reconsideration

Response to

preliminary assessment

POP screening

TOE screening

Reappointment