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Inside Iowa State
December 11, 1998

Faculty Senate returns to post-tenure review

by Diana Pounds

A Faculty Senate ad hoc committee will look into a State Board of Regents request that Iowa State develop a post- tenure review policy. The senate's charge to the committee is to recommend a course of action on the regents' request, which came during a board meeting last week.

In a full-faculty vote last spring, ISU faculty turned down a proposal that would have mandated post-tenure review, while approving a new promotion and tenure policy.

During the Dec. 8 meeting, Faculty Senate President Denise Vrchota prefaced discussion of the regents' request with a personal statement on post-tenure review. Maintaining her views had been misrepresented in a letter to a local newspaper, Vrchota said, "I'd like to tell you how I feel about post-tenure review. Yawn. That's how I feel. I'm probably as apathetic as anyone could be about post-tenure review."

However, the regents have requested a policy, Vrchota said, and "I think we can draft a policy, if we choose to do so, that would be agreeable to the board and to us." Vrchota cited a number of universities' post-tenure review policies with such "faculty friendly" characteristics as an emphasis on rewards and professional development, sensitivity to depart-ment and college cultures and ease of use. She also pointed out that the University of Iowa's post-tenure review policy is two paragraphs long.

Senators toyed with the possibility of drafting a policy based on Iowa's version of post-tenure review before opting to turn the issue over to the ad hoc committee. The ad hoc committee members will be appointed soon.

In other business, the senate:

• OKed a resolution calling for ISU graduate students with half-time or quarter-time assistantships to be given full tuition scholarships. John Robyt, who submitted the resolution, said most universities offer this kind of scholarship and Iowa State needs to do so as well to be competitive in attracting students. ISU currently awards partial tuition scholarships to grad students on assistantships. A $200,000 state appropriation was added to the scholarship fund in FY98, and officials are requesting that an additional $1 million be added to the fund for FY2000.

• Approved the appointment of Bonnie Glatz, professor of food science and human nutrition, to chair the committee that will review the office of the provost.

• Thanked John Kozak, who was attending his last senate meeting as provost, for such accomplishments as implementing the University Professor, faculty mentoring and Big 12 Fellowships programs; intro-ducing and supporting the Grinnell Conference; and for "advocacy of a progressively stronger Faculty Senate." Kozak said highlights of his six and a half years with the senate included work on the undergraduate diversity requirements and promotion and tenure policy.

• Approved the 1999-2001 Catalog copy. There will be 450 new courses in the catalog; 309 courses were dropped. (The current catalog has about 4,800 courses.)

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