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Faculty Senate Retreat 2004

September 10, 2004 - 12:00-4:00 p.m.

Alumni Hall Ballroom Marcia Childress, Chair of the Faculty Senate, called the meeting to order. Ms. Childress gave welcoming remarks, and she recognized members of the University administration and the new Senators that were in attendance. Ms. Childress also gave a brief overview of the agenda, which was to address ways to enrich faculty life at the University, and ways to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

John T. Casteen, III, President

President Casteen gave an overview of the "Academic Charter," which will be implemented, pending resolution. He also talked about endowment targets for the silent phase of the Capital Campaign. And, in keeping with the Retreat theme of Interdisciplinary Collaborations, Mr. Casteen talked about the history of University buildings and schools. He also mentioned interdisciplinary teachings of the past at the University.

Gene D. Block, Vice President and Provost

Gene Block, Vice President and Provost, remarked that strong disciplinary foundations are needed for successful interdisciplinary endeavors, by students and faculty. He also said promotion and tenure policies and processes tend not to favor interdisciplinary activities on the part of junior faculty. Time and space issues can also impede interdisciplinary endeavors; the time issue is especially true in the Medical School, Mr. Block said. These barriers to interdisciplinary collaborations are found at most universities. Finally, though, despite the barriers, Mr. Block said the University is a friendly place for interdisciplinary studies.

Interdisciplinary and cross-University Collaborative Teaching

Milton Adams, Vice Provost for Academic Programs, commented that an investment has to be made to engage effectively in interdisciplinary studies. He mentioned the newly established "January Term," which is a two-week pilot program that will be offered between the New Year and when the spring semester starts. It will involve intensive courses, with such programs as study abroad, intensive language studies, and special travel within the U.S. being offered. The financial model for this program is based on Summer Session.

James Childress, Director of the Institute for Practical Ethics, described projects now being offered at the University that promote interdisciplinary teaching, such as the Common Courses in Arts & Sciences. He said the main components of a successful teaching collaboration are faculty enjoyment, faculty members actively participating in all sessions as a team, and shared preparations by the faculty as a working group for the class being taught. He cited several examples of interdisciplinary teaching being offered through the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life, including the Working Group on Environmental Policy and Ethics, the Working Group on Ethics and International Affairs, and the Working Group in Public Health Policy and Ethics.

Faculty Mentoring

Marva Barnett, Director of the Teaching Resource Center (TRC), distributed handouts that outline the programs offered by the TRC to promote excellence in teaching and to diversify the faculty. These programs include the Excellence in Diversity Fellowship Program, which is a three-year pilot program, with funding from the Provost's Office, the Medical School, the Dean of Arts & Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Fellowships are offered to incoming faculty, usually women or members of underrepresented groups, as a way to help them become established at the university as scholars, teachers, and community members. Other of the TRC's programs, such as the University Teaching Fellows Program, the Teaching Portfolio Workshops, and the new Professors as Writers Program, bring together faculty from across the university and thus are multidisciplinary collaborative efforts.

Anda Webb, Associate Provost for Management and Budget and Chair of the Women's Leadership Council, talked about mentoring at the University. She distributed a copy of the soon-to-be released brochure on faculty mentoring resources and opportunities at the University; the brochure is produced jointly by the WLC and the Faculty Senate.

Faculty Advancement

Gertrude Fraser, Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, talked about her perspectives on advancement of women and minority faculty at the University, including recruitment of women and minority faculty into departments and fields to which they have not in the past had access. Her office is also developing "best practices" guidelines for successful search committees.

Dr. Sharon Hostler, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement from the School of Medicine, discussed what the medical school is doing in the way of faculty development and in ensuring that qualified faculty advance in their careers. She distributed a document outlining the School of Medicine's 11th Annual Faculty Development Program, a year-long series of programs. Dr. Hostler suggested that some of what the medical school is doing could be adapted for use in other places in the University.

Emeritus Community

Yoke San Reynolds, Vice President for Finance, distributed a handout that outlined questions that should be addressed when considering opportunities for interdisciplinary and cross-University collaboration with the emeritus community. Issues that should be addressed are a definition of the role for emeriti in interdisciplinary and cross-university collaboration, the composition of the target emeritus community, the objectives of the program, etc.

George Gilliam, from the Miller Center, discussed how the Miller Center uses the emeritus community. He mentioned involvement of retired faculty in the Jefferson Institute for Lifetime Learning - there are 75 retired faculty now participating in the program as teachers and learners. Miller Center programs also incorporate emeritus faculty into their presentations. Retired faculty also play a role in mentoring, in the Miller Center's education programs, and in fundraising, Mr. Gilliam said.

Diversity

Angela Davis and Michael Smith, Co-Chairs of the Diversity and Equity Commission, talked about the work their commission has done. A full report was presented to President Casteen earlier today, September 10, 2004. One recommendation in the report is for the University to create grants for faculty members to establish programs that will address racial and ethnic diversity issues.

Table Summaries

Jennifer Mnookin, Table 1 (Teaching): This group discussed interdisciplinary teaching, addressing issues such as ways to go about interdisciplinary teaching and obstacles to interdisciplinary teaching.

Ways to go about interdisciplinary teaching:

  • Co-taught courses with members of several departments (We thought James Childress's courses already provided great examples of this; we also heard about some interesting projects in the engineering and architecture schools involving multiple disciplines).
  • special January term short courses
  • explicitly interdisciplinary hires or programs (such as American studies, media studies, etc.)
  • 'common courses' -- an interdisciplinary course that everyone in the university might take in order to have a set of texts and approaches in common
  • the fifth way was not teaching per se, but encouraging interdisciplinary speakers' series, like the Forum for Contemporary Thought, which may (1) introduce undergrads, grad students and faculty to thinkers outside their discipline; and (2) may foster cross-disciplinary faculty connections that could, in turn, spur interdisciplinary teaching and thinking of other kinds.

Obstacles to interdisciplinary teaching:

  • *resources.* This struck us as an enormous issue. In an environment when many departments are understaffed and money is tight, it is very difficult to get resources devoted to interdisciplinary courses. For understandable reasons, chairs can be reluctant to release faculty to teach courses that won't primarily reach department members. Moreover, it often won't be worth the enormous investment in preparation unless there is the chance to institutionalize a course, rather than simply teaching it as a one-time offering.
  • We also recognized, however, that resource concerns can be a bit of a red herring: it may be that even if every department's budget doubled, it would still be difficult to get chairs to support interdisciplinary sharing of faculty, etc; the constraints may be as much about mentality and financial reality. Still, on balance, it seemed to us that at UVA at this moment, resource constraints are a genuine obstacle to increased interdisciplinary teaching.
  • We also talked about how critical it is that interdisciplinary teaching opportunities for faculty not be structured as an overload, either paid or unpaid. Even if paid, it means that some of the most exciting teaching opportunities may only available to those who have sufficient time -- and this may be a particularly acute problem for junior faculty in general and especially for minority and female faculty, who may already be doing more than their share of committee work and may have, on average, greater home responsibilities, etc. Structuring interdisciplinary teaching as an overload puts such people in a bind: either they don't participate and thus miss out on what could be an intellectually enriching experience and a way to contribute to university life, or they DO participate and it reduces their already scarce research time. If we are serious as an institution about committing to interdisciplinary teaching, such teaching needs to be made part of people's basic loads. We also need to make sure we have mechanisms to evaluate people fairly when they teach joint courses; otherwise, again, it may be highly unadvisable for pre-tenured faculty to co-teach with others.

Deborah Johnson, Table 2 (Faculty Mentoring):

  • Issues discussed included housing, programs, and networking for new faculty.
  • Discussion with Marva Barnett, Director of the Teaching Resource Center, about the Excellence in Diversity Fellows Program and the interdisciplinary aspects of the program, since it appears that the program matches faculty with mentors outside their home departments.
  • The table recommended that the Diversity Fellows Program be extended to more new faculty, and ideally to every new faculty member.
  • Investing in mentoring pays in the long run: it helps retain faculty.
  • We all gain from the diversity of our faculty and a good mentoring system, especially one that works across disciplines.
  • Faculty who become enmeshed in a social network are much more likely to stay, and cross-disciplinary mentoring builds networks.

Ricardo Padron, Table 3 (Faculty Advancement):

  • We began by hearing more about the tenure process in the Medical School, with its multiple tracks and its flexibility regarding the tenure clock. The topic fascinated those of us in Arts & Sciences, who all wondered how it could (or should) be carried out in our school.
  • We then turned to the notion that interdisciplinarity and professional advancement (especially tenure) were at odds with each other. The group rehearsed commonplace arguments about how young scholars doing interdisciplinary work could often stumble when it came time for tenure review, because their work might not be valued or might not be truly understood by their more disciplinary-bound senior colleagues, because it was difficult to assess, or because the division of efforts between one field and another had inhibited the candidates attempt to establish a name for him or herself in the home discipline.
  • A wrench was thrown into the works by one group member who noted that UVA has a very good track record at tenuring people, so the notion that we are losing people at the point of tenure review because of the interdisciplinary nature of the work may be false, and bears examination. This person and others also spoke of the ability of responsible promotion committees to solicit external perspectives on people's work, thereby mitigating the possible ill-effects of their interdisciplinarity.
  • The conversation then turned to whether or not interdisciplinary work might present an obstacle to advancement for junior faculty at some point before the tenure review. It was noted that, if junior faculty members who do interdisciplinary work are indeed getting tenure, it bore to ask what effect the pressures of the tenure process might be having on their research agendas. Were such faculty members, for example, trying to make their scholarly square pegs fit into institutional round holes, thereby distorting their own research agendas? Did departmental promotion committees have to do something similar when presenting candidates to the P&T Committee? If we are indeed forcing people to squirm into positions that don't really fit them, what does that mean in terms of professional satisfaction on the part of these faculty members, or on the extent to which the University is really using their knowledge and skills? How likely are such faculty members to leave UVA when and if a better institutional match could be found?
  • Some attention was also given to the topic of joint appointments and interdisciplinary committees. Some members of the group expressed satisfaction with the opportunities that UVA offered for collaborative relationships across departmental lines. Others thought that, in the absence of more joint appointments or formal interdisciplinary structures, we were failing to attract good people or losing others. All were concerned with how promotion and tenure should or could work in order to make joint appointments viable, particularly if such appointments involved junior people.

Robert J. Davis, Table 4 (Emeritus Community): Issues discussed by this group were how to enhance interdisciplinary endeavors with the emeritus community.

  • It was generally agreed upon that the emeritus faculty are an excellent resource for the University.
  • Emeritus faculty could be utilized effectively to enhance alumni relations, teach USEMs, and provide guest lectures.
  • Formalization of interaction between U.va. and its emeritus faculty, i.e. a central data base, central space dedicated to offices and social interactions, and publicizing opportunities for emeritus faculty.
  • Also suggested that the University help emeritus faculty to self-organize into a type of "alumni association" for faculty.

Michael Smith, Table 5 (Diversity): The group discussed opportunities and obstacles to fostering diversity at the University. The Office of Equal Opportunity Programs work with departments and explore various ways to get a diverse pool of applicants. The group also discussed graduate recruitment. One option discussed was the offering of fellowships or release time for interdisciplinary discussions. Also suggested was creating a "Chief Officer for Equity and Diversity," which is also one of the recommendations in the Diversity and Equity Commission's report, Mr. Smith said. The Commission on Diversity and Equity Report will be posted on the web on October 3, 2004.

Marcia Childress thanked everyone for attending the Retreat.

The Retreat adjourned at 4:10 p.m.

Submitted by Deborah Johnson, Secretary of the Faculty Senate