The Committee on Academic Personnel met 36 times in the calendar year and considered 685 agenda items. This year, CAP was not charged by the Academic Senate with any specific additional responsibilities beyond its usual duties. Nonetheless, a number of issues were addressed by CAP during the course of the academic year, and are summarized in the report that follows for the information of the faculty and for further discussion.

Fast-Track Mechanism to Streamline the Personnel Process.

In consultation with the Vice Provost, CAP continued to streamline the personnel process without compromising the tenets of shared governance. Last year, CAP and the Vice Provost adopted a fast-track process for appointments and cases of faculty retention which allows CAP to review and make recommendations directly without an ad hoc committee. In CAP's view, this expedited process helps the campus compete more effectively with comparable institutions in an increasingly competitive recruitment environment. Indeed, it is counterproductive, both for the campus and for those being reviewed, for normal review processes to consume a large amount of time simply to reach foregone conclusions. Following this procedure, 26 appointments during the 1997-1998 academic year were fast-tracked, a number that increased to 31 in 1998-99. Further, in a third of these cases, CAP recommended appointment at a step level higher than that originally proposed, in order to address any potential equity problems in advance. CAP believes this process is working well. It also reduces the burden of service on ad hoc committees carried by colleagues in the Academic Senate.

During 1998-99, CAP and the Vice Provost agreed to expand this streamlining mechanism to include proposed promotions from associate professor to full professor. Details on the implementation of this mechanism are available on the Web at http:/provost.ucdavis.edu/academicpersonnel/streamcvr.cfu.

Rapid Consultation on Off-Scale Salary Requests

According to long-standing procedures, CAP is consulted on requests for off-scale salary adjustments when the request corresponds to two or more steps in the salary scale. This helps preserve a strong link between step level and salary received. Given CAP's schedule of meetings, however, normal consultation on many recruitment and retention cases is difficult to accomplish in a timely manner. Accordingly, CAP has adopted a procedure for rapid consultation (typically 24 hours) with the Vice Provost in such cases. This procedure preserves consultation with the Academic Senate in the spirit of shared governance and simultaneously enables the campus to maintain a competitive position in the recruitment and retention of high quality faculty.

Elimination of Priority Scores.

In consultation with the Vice Provost, CAP decided to recommend the elimination of Priority scores. At the Davis campus only, these scores had for several years been assigned to summarize additional information from the reviews of normal (i.e., non-accelerated) merit actions not involving promotions below the level of Professor, Step V. Effective with the 1999-2000 academic year, Priority scores have been eliminated and will therefore not be assigned in any upcoming merit actions.

Communication of CAP and CPC/SPC/DPC comments to faculty.

CAP continues to believe that the interests of both the University and of individual Academic Senate colleagues require that confidentiality govern the personnel process. At the same time, CAP believes that the process itself should be transparent to individual candidates for advancement and promotion. While it increases the workload for CAP and other reviewing bodies, such transparency is an integral part of peer review and helps ensure that these candidates understand the basis for decisions about their personnel actions. Accordingly, CAP reaffirms the importance of the principle (embodied in current policy) that each candidate for advancement or promotion automatically receive his or her own copy of the comments on his/her personnel action, whatever the outcome of the action. These comments include those made by CAP and its subcommittees (the various College/School/Divisional personnel committees), along with the comments of Chairs/Directors, Deans and ad hoc committees.

Expansion of the Professorial Series.

An additional step, Professor, Step IX, was approved by the Office of the President during the 1998-99 year. This new step is effective July 1, 2000. With the adoption of this additional step, the normal period of service at the Step VIII level will be reduced from 4 to 3 years, and the normal period of service at the Step IX level will be 4 years.

Clarifications of Existing Policies.

During 1998-99, CAP spent some time clarifying the implementation of existing policies in the following areas:

1. Procedures for fifth-year reviews required of all tenured members of the Academic Senate;
2. Proposed advancements to Associate Professor, Step IV, which are now routinely reviewed by CAP; and
3. Criteria for acceleration.

These clarifications are posted in relevant documents, including the Annual Call and on the CAP Web page, at http:/provost.ucdavis.edu/cap/default.cfm.

Additionally, at CAP's suggestion, the Vice Provost convened a task force that included two sitting members of CAP and two previous members of CAP to review and revise the UC Davis salary scales for the Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, SOE, series. A revised salary scale for this series stemming from the task force's recommendations will soon be adopted. Among other things, the revised scale more closely parallels the UC scale for the professorial series.

CAP urges all colleagues in the Academic Senate to take advantage of readily available information about current UC and campus personnel procedures. These are well summarized in the Annual Call, and are, of course, more completely documented in the Academic Personnel Manual, both of which are available on the Web. Additional information about specific issues is also posted on the CAP Web page (see above).

Other matters considered by CAP during the 1998-1999 cycle are treated in the appropriate places below.

ADDITIONAL MATTERS
This section of the annual report reviews the more routine aspects of CAP's activities during the 1998-1999 academic year.

TURNAROUND TIMES

The above histogram offers a summary of the in-and-out times (calibrated in days) for the 685 actions that appeared on CAP's agendas. The figure shows that the overwhelming majority of cases were promptly handled by CAP, as gauged from the day of log-in to CAP until the day of return to the Vice Provost for processing. Occasionally, cases had to be held over from one meeting to the next out of fairness to the candidate. For example, issues arose during discussion that made CAP conclude that the dossier needed further examination. At other times, ambiguities or lacunae in the file required clarification from the candidate or department. Requests for additional clarifying information from the candidate or department take time, but lead to fairer and more balanced outcomes than would hasty decisions based on incomplete or equivocal data. There was also a two-week period between the Fall and Winter quarters when CAP did not meet.

PERSONNEL ACTIONS

During the twelve month period, September 1, 1998 through August 31, 1999, CAP met 36 times and considered 440 personnel actions (Table 1). Table II provides more detailed information for promotions to Associate Professor and Full Professor. Table III summarizes the normal merit actions considered by CAP. Table IV includes information on accelerations. Table V enumerates Professors proposed and approved to Step VI, VII, VIII, and Above-Scale and lists the total number of Professors at these steps. Table VI indicates the outcome of the responses to preliminary assessment, reconsiderations, and appeals; since many cases were reviewed three or four times, these represent a substantial workload. Appendix I lists the principal tasks of CAP.

Peer review is the basic strength of the academic personnel process in the University of California. During 1998-1999 there were 157 ad hoc committees. Faculty were selected for ad hoc committees on the basis of their judgment and general knowledge of the broad field encompassing the candidate's specialty. CAP wishes to express its thanks to the 396 faculty who served on at least one ad hoc committee for giving so generously of their time and for the high quality and the objectivity of their evaluations and reports. (When service on more than one committee is counted, there were 471 individual assignments).

CAP itself completed most reviews within 2-3 weeks after a file was prepared for action by CAP. Most supporting files were well prepared by the departments and processed expeditiously once received. Where the supporting files were inadequately prepared and CAP or the ad hoc committee had to request supplemental information, extended delays sometimes resulted.

In order to familiarize new faculty with the personnel process, it has been policy to appoint Assistant Professors (Steps III and IV) as observers to ad hoc committees on promotions to Associate Professor. During the 1998-99 academic year, 12 such individuals served as observers on ad hoc committees.

During the year, CAP had an excellent working relationship with Vice Provost Barry Klein in the maintenance of academic standards, fairness and due process. CAP especially acknowledges the close degree of consultation with the committee by the Vice Provost. This consultation epitomizes the system of shared governance that is a cornerstone of the University of California. There were 13 occasions in which the Vice Provost's final decision differed from CAP's recommendation. These typically involved cases with a split vote by CAP.

COLLEGE, DIVISION and SCHOOL PERSONNEL COMMITTEES

College, Division and School Personnel Committees advise the deans concerning personnel actions redelegated to the deans. In 1998-1999 these actions included: Appointment of Assistant Professor, Step I, II, and III; most normal and one-year accelerated merit actions up to and including Professor, Step V; most normal merit actions for Lecturers and Senior Lecturers with Security of Employment; and Unit 18 actions (including appointments and reappointments of Lecturers and Senior Lecturers without Security of Employment). During 1998-1999 these Committees reviewed 385 cases, not including Unit 18 actions (See Table VII). In addition, the Committees conducted 39 appraisals of junior faculty which were conveyed directly to CAP for further evaluation.

Members of the College, School and Division Personnel Committees are appointed by CAP upon the nomination by the Executive Committees of the colleges and schools (Appendix II). CAP appreciates the dedication, fairness, and hard work of the members of these Committees.

OTHER JOINT PERSONNEL COMMITTEES

During 1998-1999 CAP also submitted nominations for the Senate members of the Joint Academic Federation/Senate Personnel Committee.

OFF-SCALE FACULTY SALARIES

To recruit or retain outstanding faculty, the campus administration is authorized to approve off-scale salaries. Table VIII summarizes the off-scale salary actions approved (new or revised) by the Vice Provost during 1998-1999. These actions bring the total number of faculty with off-scale salary to 441, compared to 419 a year ago. As indicated above, CAP review occurs when the proposed off-scale increment corresponds to two or more steps in the salary scale (review of proposals for smaller off-scale increments is delegated to the deans and the Vice Provost).

UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON ACADEMIC PERSONNEL (UCAP)

Jack Reitan and Robert Jackman served on the University Committee on Academic Personnel. Eight full-day meetings were held throughout the academic year. In addition to addressing issues raised by the Office of the President, the Committee considered an extensive list of issues raised by its members, by Senate committees, and by various officers of the Academic Senate. The Committee also helped expand the sharing of information about personnel issues among the various campuses.

OTHER POLICY MATTERS

During 1998-99 CAP also commented on several campus or University-wide policy matters. These included: (1) Proposal for the Addition of Step IX to the Professorial salary scales; (2) Revision of APM Leave Policies 710-20-a-c, 715-0, 760-0, 760-27a, and 760-28-a; (3) Draft report of the Universitywide Task Force on Copyright; Proposed Health Sciences Compensation Plan; (4) Proposed Revision of P&M Manual Section 380-30, Reemployment of Retirees; (5) Proposed New APM Policy 075 on Termination for Incompetent Performance; (6) Proposal for expanding the professional research salary scales; (7) Evaluating & rewarding scholarly outreach activities; (8) Proposed revised APM 662, Appendix B-1 on additional compensation for additional teaching; (8) Request of the Linguistics Program for departmental status; (9) Revised APM-UCD-220E, Exhibit A-Five Year Reviews; (10) Implementation of UC Maternity Leave Policy; (11) commented on draft of UCD-320 & 334; (12) reviewed & revised criteria for advancement of Lecturers, SOE and Senior Lecturers, SOE; (13) draft policy on Endowed Chairs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Members of the 1998-99 CAP received extraordinarily strong support from others without which the committee simply could not have functioned effectively. The fact that this support is invisible to all but a few simply adds to the contribution. In particular, we are greatly indebted to Principal Administrative Analyst Linda Bullard, whose mastery of the intricacies of the personnel process keeps it on track. We also thank Cherie Felsch & Solomon Bekele who provided effective staff support. Finally, we extend special thanks to Brigid Jimenez, who served directly as CAP's Administrative Assistant. Her energy, efficiency, knowledge, thoughtfulness and warmth facilitated our task immeasurably. We also wish to express how much we have enjoyed working with Vice Provost Barry Klein in making the personnel system run smoothly and fairly. We especially appreciate his commitment to shared governance.

Respectfully submitted,

Richard Carlsen
T.C. Hsia
Art Krener
Gyongy Laky
Donald Phillips
Jack Reitan
Merna Villarejo
Michelle Yeh
Robert Jackman, Chair

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS:
CAP=COMMITTEE ON ACADEMIC PERSONNEL
CC0=CHIEF CAMPUS OFFICER (VICE PROVOST)
FTE=FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT
SOE=SECURITY OF EMPLOYMENT

*INCLUDES ACTING, CLINICAL, ADJUNCT, and IN-RESIDENCE TITLES

+=One action is still pending decision

TOTAL NON-ACCELERATED MERIT ACTIONS=22

NOTE: Whereas CPC/SPC/DPCs handle most non-accelerated merit actions, CAP considers Administrative Officers, Dept. Chairs & Faculty who are serving on the CPC/SPC/DPCs, and advancements to Professor, Step VI and above.

*Accelerated actions are summarized in Table IV.
**Includes 1 Removal of Acting Title w/Merits
#Advancement to Professor, Steps VI, VII, VIII and Above-Scale are summarized in Table V.