Minutes of May 16, 2012 Meeting

Present:

Katie Anderson (remote), Jeanne Boyle, Joseph Deodato, Rebecca Gardner, Melissa Gasparotto, Marianne Gaunt (University Librarian), Jim Niessen (Coordinator), Jane Otto, Roberta Tipton (remote), Ryan Womack (Deputy Coordinator), Tao Yang (Secretary)

Guests:

Stephanie Bartz, Melissa De Fino, Elizabeth Leister, Donna Wertheimer (remote), Mark Winston (remote)

The meeting came to order at 9:37am.

1. Report of the Faculty Coordinator (Niessen)

A special faculty meeting was held to discuss the NTT faculty promotion procedures and criteria on May 11.

Pursuant to a previously proposed agenda item, Gasparotto drafted a document describing the responsibilities of faculty representatives on all kinds of committees (not just faculty bodies). Members made several suggestions about the document:

• Add the responsibility of bringing forward items for consideration from the constituents as a separate item.
• Add "roles" to the document title.
• Add "knowledge and expertise" besides "circumstances and perspectives" in the respective paragraph.
• The staff page has a document about the committee responsibilities that this new document may complement.

2. New Business: Target of Opportunity Hires and Line Conversion (Winston)

Mark Winston was invited to discuss his experience in initiating target of opportunity hires and converting staff lines to faculty lines. He first talked about converting staff lines to faculty lines.

• The IJS Director position had never been recruited in the past. The previous director was in the position for 35 years as a staff member. But the position needs to be a faculty position because it provides direct support for teaching faculty. The required academic background is an MLS or a graduate degree in history, archival studies, jazz, or music. Rank and tenure is an issue that complicates the search.
• The IJS Archivist position was converted to a faculty line because the responsibilities entail a faculty position, even though the prior incumbent was not a faculty member. This will be the only tenure-track archivist position in IJS (the others are grant-funded). It requires a graduate degree in either LIS or archival studies.
• The Digital Humanities Librarian position was recently filled. It is completely new. After the retirement of a library associate who oversaw the media collection in Dana, a new position was freed up through reorganization. Digital humanities librarian positions are being introduced to the profession nationally. The new position brings new expertise to Dana that will meet certain campus needs and also provides a project manager to oversee the digital projects within Dana (including IJS).

Winston then answered two questions about line conversion: Will the faculty line increase the expense? In converting a vacant staff position to a faculty position, the unit must have salary dollars to cover a base faculty position (currently about $60K); central will cover any additional salary as part of negotiations. The benefits are not an issue. Is there access to funding from the Newark campus? Typically there is only funding for one-time requests, except a small budget for the Diversity Research Center.

The target of opportunity program was created by former EVPAA Furmanski several years ago to increase the diversity of faculty. If a department hires someone through the program, Furmanski would fund half of the salary for three years; the unit must have the vacant line and the other salary dollars. It is not intended to replace the diversity hires through the regular process. Winston has initiated target of opportunity hires at Dana twice, first with the Associate Director position and second with the Data Services Librarian position. The success was due to the strong qualifications of the candidates, the support of the previous Chancellor at Newark, and campus needs.

3. Old Business: NTT promotion criteria/procedures

Library NTT faculty shared with the Committee a document they drafted, which was based on the AAUP principles distributed to members and suggestions received at a March meeting with a Rutgers AAUP staffer, Rich Moser.

Here are some of the main issues members discussed:

• Since we are in an applied profession, should there a place for "Scholarship of Librarianship" in the promotion process? Some years ago there was a discussion about the role of "Scholarship of Teaching" in the University, but it did not gain much traction.
• Scholarship is optional in the current NTT reappointment process.
• If the promotion criteria for tenure-track faculty are a three-legged stool (librarianship, scholarship, and service), the criteria for NTT faculty are a two-legged stool. Even though they may be any of the two legs, the expectations need to be defined at the beginning of NTT appointments.
• NTT faculty should be evaluated primarily on their internal impact.
• The library NTT faculty understand that Rutgers AAUP recommends deemphasizing the Librarian V and Library IV levels.
• How should we draw a line between NTT and tenure-track positions (and between faculty and staff)?
• What should we do in the future? One idea may be to grandfather everyone who is currently NTT, but not to hire any new NTT faculty on state lines (the grant-funded faculty positions will still be NTT).
• A multi-year plan, a mentoring program, and regular reviews of NTTs were recommended in the document.

A sub-group will work on the NTT promotion criteria and procedures and the NTT faculty will continue to be involved.

4. June 15 business meeting agenda.

There will be another discussion of the NTT issue. Mentoring program wrap-up will also be on the agenda. Is there any bylaws change? Bartz will follow up on that.

5. Report of the University Librarian (Gaunt)

• The University has sent out RFP to hire a company that would manage aspects of an expanded distance education program.
• Rutgers/UMDNJ and Rowan/R-Camden merger discussions are going on behind the scenes. It is not certain if the Governor will accept the compromise being discussed. In the new scenario, the Camden campus will be given more autonomy (the organization in Newark may be made similar). There will be two new boards: one oversees the Camden campus and the other oversees the collaboration between Camden and Rowan. Rutgers still has the authority over the academic issues in Camden, but not day-to-day operations. The merger with RWJ Medical School is more straightforward. There will be implications for the library.
• The new president has requested a presidential briefing from all academic units.

6. Summary of meeting outcomes (Niessen)

We revised the document on the roles of campus representatives. Winston shared his experience of converting staff lines to faculty lines and initiating target of opportunity hires. The NTT discussion addressed a document presented by current NTTs; we need to move forward in the coming weeks. The agenda for the June 15 faculty meeting has three possible items. The Committee will discuss the NTT issue and the mentoring program in the next meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 12:02pm.

Submitted by Tao Yang, Faculty Secretary.