Vol. 38, No. 18

2-18-2005
By: Joni Bentz Seal

Committee reviewing ways to ‘enhance’ careers of faculty

A committee convened by Faculty Council, President Karen Holbrook and Provost Barbara Snyder is working on ways to nurture the all-around professional growth of faculty at Ohio State.

The Faculty Career Enhancement Committee, chaired by Christian Zacher, professor of English and director of the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, has completed its data collection and is in the process of generating a list of principles, recommendations and best practices that the council and the administration will use to cultivate opportunities and cultures for the betterment of faculty. The committee will present its final report to the council spring quarter.

“Development as a term of support of faculty careers implies faculty are not developed,” Zacher said. “The term also is often associated only with teaching, and is sometimes confused with fundraising. Enhancement seems a fairer term because it refers to making better something that already exists. We are looking at ways to improve everything faculty do, from research to outreach.”

Zacher said the 12-member committee is trying a different tack than that taken by the 1997-98 Commission on Faculty Development and Careers, chaired by then-Vice Provost for Academic Policy and Personnel Nancy Rudd and Robert Warmbrod, Distinguished University Professor emeritus of human and community resource development, which addressed similar issues but didn’t meet with much positive reception because it was more administration-driven than faculty-driven. While it has the support of Holbrook and Snyder, this committee is composed exclusively of faculty and its recommendations will be implemented chiefly through faculty channels.

“Senate faculty leaders and the president and provost agreed that recommendations that truly come from the faculty for the faculty will most likely lead to a successful outcome of the endeavor,” said committee member Jack Rall, professor of physiology and cell biology in the College of Medicine and Public Health and chair of Faculty Council.

Since much data, on topics such as mentoring, peer evaluation, professional leave, promotion procedures, recruiting and support for interdisciplinary teaching, research and service, had so recently been collected by the previous commission and other bodies from 1998-2003, Zacher said the group didn’t feel the need to repeat the process. After reviewing the earlier compilations, the committee embarked on an interview campaign with various campus officers and leaders, including those of The Women’s Place, the cluster and regional deans, the offices of Research, Minority Affairs and the Provost, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Council on Diversity.

“In contrast to the studies of previous groups, we also polled associate professors because one piece of our investigation concerns whether associate faculty feel departmentally and institutionally supported in their work,” Zacher said.

And the committee has been careful not to overstep the territory of the university’s Faculty and TA Development. “Our concentration is on issues related to faculty research and service, and to a much lesser extent, teaching, since FTAD handles that so superbly,” he said.

The importance of outreach and engagement — one of the three foci of the university’s Leadership Agenda — also has had more prominence with this committee than it has had in the past. Committee member Karen Bruns, assistant professor in the Department of Extension, said a strong faculty with varied skills strengthens the ability of a large, multifaceted university like Ohio State to integrate its assets with its varied constituencies of students and community partners.
Bruns explained that while each faculty member carries out his or her teaching, research and service responsibilities differently, all contribute in very valuable ways to helping achieve Ohio State’s goal of being a top-tier public institution.

“This diversity allows us to have top notch researchers, faculty who excel at teaching and faculty who excel at integrating discoveries into the community,” Bruns said. “If we look at enhancement as a way for faculty to grow at their diverse skills, we build a stronger public university that is best prepared to help students and society grow.”

In preparing its final report, the committee is generating a list — which grows weekly, Zacher said — of principles considered most important in defining faculty enhancement issues. The report also will include perceived obstacles to career enhancement and suggested remedies, and a composite of best practices, collected from both internal and external sources.
Zacher said the committee realizes there is no one-size-fits-all set of recommendations when it comes to what has or will work in individual colleges or departments. “Our recommendations will have both local and campuswide value in their relevance,” he said, adding that the committee also is receiving external feedback and ideas from the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and Ohio State’s benchmark institutions.

Zacher indicated that many of the committee’s findings will most likely echo those of various other university studies, including the Rudd/Warmbrod commission, the annual reports of the Council on Diversity, the 1998 Research Commission, the 2003 Interdisciplinary Committee and the 2003 Faculty Work Environment and Work/Life Quality Report.

“I think we’ll find that the committee will be one more voice reinforcing the view that professional demands and activities are inseparable from work/life and personal demands. The more enlightened universities that we have investigated make that assumption and put the two together,” Zacher said. “The two worlds are intertwined, and we’re doing our best to come up with recommendations that acknowledge that relationship especially in regard to today’s diverse and non-traditional faculty make-up.” In fact, he said, the university’s various work/life surveys and other initiatives, such as The Women’s Place Faculty Cohort project, all address the same concerns and resolutions.
Rall, who commented that this initiative is his number one priority during his term as chair of Faculty Council, said the council was a driving force in the creation of the initiative and he hopes that it will play an important role in implementation of the committee’s recommendations.

“A primary goal of the Academic Plan is to ‘build a world-class faculty’ by implementing ‘a faculty recruitment, retention and development plan,’” he said. “The university continues to work hard on recruiting and retaining faculty and it was felt that now was the appropriate time to concentrate on the ‘development’ aspects.

“The enhancement of faculty life needs to be in the minds of the people doing the hiring and in the minds of the people trying to retain faculty. It’s a seamless, continuous attitude. You have to begin with the new faculty and show, as a university and a department, you have various ways of supporting their career,” Rall said.

Faculty interested in providing input to the committee may contact Zacher at zacher.1@osu.edu.

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