STAFF RESOURCES |
a. The Personnel Policy and Affirmative Action Committee (PPAAC) have been charged to draft a statement by May 11 showing a firmer commitment to Affirmative Action for job postings. PPAAC has also been charged to give a report by June 10 on librarians' starting salaries at Rutgers' peer institutions.
b. J. Cassel has been making revisions to the Libraries Faculty web page, including adding the purpose of committees, and invited feedback.
c. J. Cassel thanked the committee members for their feedback on the mentoring program planned for Tuesday, June 7. In the morning, Mark Winston will meet with the untenured librarians and Kathryn Deiss (ARL) will meet with tenured librarians, with a follow-up session in the afternoon.
d. The next meeting of the Planning and Coordinating Committee is scheduled for May 18, the day of university commencement. We will try to end the meeting by 11:30 a.m. and may have to begin at 9:00 depending on the number of agenda items.
a. At the March 23 meeting, R. Womack reported that the committee could find no documentation of the writing of the preamble of the current by-laws. J. Cassel distributed examples of preambles to libraries faculty by-laws from other institutions, noting that many did not have preambles. Several preambles included a statement about academic freedom. J. Cassel will prepare a revised preamble including such a statement for the committee's review.
b. Voting Rights of Librarian IVs and Vs. The committee agreed that voting should be made more inclusive. It was noted that at the University of Indiana part-time librarians could vote in faculty elections. New Brunswick Libraries has granted the right to vote to both full-time and part-time Librarian IVs and Vs serving for more than 2 years. Librarians of these ranks are assuming increasing responsibilities in RUL. K. Mulcahy moved that Librarian Vs be eligible to vote in faculty elections after 2 years service. The motion was seconded and passed. This change will affect the wording of other statements in the by-laws. Section I.2 can be restated as "Librarian Vs who have served less than 2 years and Librarian IVs who have served less than 1 year are invited to attend but are ineligible to vote." The order of the clauses in Section I.3 can be reversed in the following way: "Unless precluded by university regulations or by these by- laws, invited members shall have all rights, duties and responsibilities…." J. Cassel will draft the changes and distribute them to the Planning and Coordinating Committee before bringing them to the next Libraries Faculty meeting meeting, where we will vote on them. Librarian IVs and Vs will be reminded of their eligibility to vote at the Faculty meeting. The Parliamentarian will have the role of enforcing voter eligibility.
a. Committee Composition and Staff Engagement: J. Cassel reported on the Rules of Procedure Committee's review of RUL committee composition. The Rules of Procedure, Appointments and Promotions, Committee of Review, and Planning Committees are the only committees mandated by university regulations. Other committees are optional. At the University of Maryland, committee composition is very comprehensive, including staff. The University of Maryland Libraries has a representative assembly that includes faculty, staff, and students. M. Gaunt has set up four meetings with staff groups in late April and early May to discuss staff engagement in decision-making. She distributed draft questions to staff for use at these meetings regarding committee membership, information sharing and creativity. Staff concerns may be more due to cultural than structural issues. A question was raised over how much additional responsibility can be imposed on staff. The discussion of staff engagement was tabled by consensus until the next Planning and Coordinating Committee meeting when the results of these meetings will be available.
b. Librarian Workload Issues: S. Harrington and R. Tipton distributed the results of their research on library faculty workload. Some institutions directly equate teaching faculty course load and library faculty reference desk hours. Others specify the percentage of librarians' time to be spent in librarianship, scholarship and service. R. Tipton found many useful documents on the World Wide Web, particularly from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. One survey of the impact of workload on retention showed that non-tenure track librarians were much happier than tenure-track librarians. A lively discussion ensued. Untenured librarians are more concerned with the implications of heavy workload in allowing time for scholarship, while tenured librarians focused on the need to move the libraries forward while maintaining current levels of service. The number of committees is much greater than the number of librarians. Possible solutions include reducing the number of committees, although many committees are necessary, and reducing the number of events. There are fewer librarians than there were 20 years ago, while demands have escalated and become more sophisticated, and the expectations of accomplishment for tenure have increased. Staff members have taken over some activities traditionally done by librarians, while, with developments in technology, librarians are performing activities themselves previously done by staff.
Discussion ensued over how to reduce the burden of committee work. Possibilities include analyzing which committees meet short-term goals and which should be standing committees; which activities need to be done by groups and which should be done by individuals; and whether committees can hold shorter meetings or meet less frequently. Cabinet has also been looking at the committee structure and asking similar questions. The Planning and Coordinating Committee decided to ask each committee to conduct a self-analysis. Members were asked to submit possible questions to be used in the analysis to J. Cassel by April 27, 2005.
M. Gaunt is attending a fund-raiser in Washington, D.C. today for the processing of the papers of former New Jersey senator Harrison Williams.
a. Continuing Business:
(1) Revised Affirmative Action statement.
(2) Review of workload issues.
(3) Feedback from meetings with staff.
Respectfully submitted,
Fernanda Perrone
Faculty Secretary