The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 15, Ed. 1 Friday, January 27, 1989 Page: 7 of 16
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THE RICE THRESHER FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 1989 7
Tenure, promotion process explained
by Elise Perachio
The Promotion and Tenure Sub-
committee of the University Council
is currently meeting with deans and
department chairs to review candi-
dates for promotions and tenured
positions. The committee will make
recommendations to President
George Rupp in the latter part of
February.
Because of the confidential na-
ture of the review process, none of
the names of the candidates could be
released.
The three committee members
appointed by Rupp are Provost Neal
Lane, who chairs the committee;
Vice-President of Student Affairs
Ronald Stebbings, secretary of the
committee; and Political Science
Professor Richard Stoll.
The six tenured faculty members
were elected by the entire faculty
body for staggered terms of four
years. The professors currently serv-
ing are Katherine Brown (Art),
Marsha Citron (Music), Ira Gruber
(History), Ronald Sass (Biology),
Bill Wilson (Engineering), and
Stephen Zeff (Managerial Studies).
The first stage of the review proc-
ess takes place within the depart-
ments. The department chair and
senior faculty review all people who
are not full professors.
The chair also convenes all ten-
ured professors in the department to
consider potential candidates for
tenure.
Three categories are used to
evaluate candidates for promotion—
productivity and scholarship, teach-
ing performance, and citizenship.
Productivity and scholarship
concern the research and writing of
the candidate, as well as success in
acquiring outside grants to pay for
research expenses his salary cannot
cover.
To assess teaching performance,
the reviewers rely heavily on student
evaluations of teachers. Stebbings
said, sometimes a department will
decide to ask one of the more re-
spected and awarded senior profes-
sors to sit in a candidate's class.
Citizenship concerns the candi-
date's involvement in the university,
department, or community.
Along with internal information,
the department seeks professional
colleagues' recommendations. The
department lists potential reviewers,
usually experts in the candidate's
field. The candidate also makes a
similar list The chair takes the
names on these lists and sends each
a letter asking for assessments of the
candidate.
Stebbings emphasized that the
letter is unbiased and simply states
that the candidate is being consid-
ered for promotion or tenure and
that an opinion of the candidate is
needed.
Finally, the department will sub-
mit recommendations for promotion
and tenure to the appropriate dean.
Faculty members not recommended
by the department are informed by
the chair.
This is done to keep people ap-
praised of whether they're on track
for promotion, that they're doing fine
or that they need improvement in
certain areas," Stebbings said.
Large
FROM PAGE 1
courses rather than their specific
departments.
"We're going to weaken some-
what the offerings of particular de-
partments in an effort to provide
students who are not in the humani-
ties with courses that are as well
taught and effective as we can make
them," said Dennis Huston, profes-
sor of English and coordinator of the
humanities foundation courses.
Neil Lane, provost, realizes a
problem exists. "It was recognized
that there would be trade-offs," he
said, adding that the academic pro-
fessors are doing a "service" for sci-
ence and engineering courses, as-
suming those students are the ones
taking the course.
This is a frustrating concept for
many upperclassmen with liberal
arts majors. "You have S.E.s in the
humanities taking the course only
because they have to," Eric Davis, a
Wiess College junior and history
major. "Meanwhile they're taking a
group of highly qualified professors
away from the students who are
supposedly specializing in their field
of study."
Rice Professors Too Good?
Many faculty members agree
that the academic departments lack
depth in the number of quality teach-
ers. In the past, this has frequently
resulted in a handful of professors
teaching unusually large classes
while others in their department had
classes not filled to capacity. This
year the problem was exacerbated
because the approximately 20 full-
time professors involved in teaching
the two academic foundation
courses teach one less course in
their respective departments.
Another problem is that some
Rice professors are simply too good.
Three history professors and several
English professors are on fellow-
ships or have been invited to be visit-
ing professors at other universities.
This semester, including sabbati-
cals, seven professors in English,
five i history, and two in political
science are on leave. On the surface,
a portion of the staffing problem has
been eased by new appointments in
these departments. For instance, the
history department hired three visit-
ing and one assistant professor this
year and has two graduate students
teaching regular courses.
As Professor Grob, chair of the
English department, is quick to point
out, the leave situation is "not as bad
as it looks because we have very
good replacements."
In fact, despite shortages of regu-
lar faculty, the department is offering
three more courses this year than
last year. But one problem that Grob
and other professors acknowledge is
that visiting professors often have
smaller classes because they don't
have established repuations on
campus and beyond that, often sim-
ply cannot replace immensely dy-
namic, established professors. The
result, which has been a problem in
the past, has become more exacer-
bated this year because of the in-
creased number of visiting profes-
sors and new full-time staff, in the
respective departments.
While Doody said he enjoyed the
theatricality of teaching large
classes, he does not savor the extra
hours it will take to grade his four
assigned papers. In anticipation of
the 320 essays he has hired two
graduate students to share the work.
Doody said he could manage to
grade the papers alone "if I did noth-
ing else. It's not physically impos-
sible, and it's not morally reprehen-
sible to ask someone else to help
out."
Although Doody enjoys perform-
SEE CLASSES, PAGE 8
RPC
FROM PAGE 1
Although few disputed the need
for change in the RPC, some did take
issue with the first proposed change,
the election of all RPC college repre-
sentatives.
RPC President Alex Flenner said
there was no way of knowing
whether or not elected representa-
tives would be any more effective
than those who have been appointed.
The RPC is responsible for many
on-campus services and events, in-
cluding Saferides, sponsorship of
bands in Willy's Pub, procurement of
discount tickets to Houston-area
events (the Rockets, the symphony),
the RPC calendar of events, Esper-
anza, Rondolet, Beer Bike, and spon-
sorship of student-interest lectures.
After the dean reviews the recom-
mendations, there is a final, formal
vote. The Promotions and Tenure
Committee indicates the exact na-
ture of the vote, if it was unanimous,
or if there were any dissenting votes.
Along with the recommenda-
tions, each department sends com-
plete dossiers on each candidate
recommended. The dossier includes
all documented external and internal
opinions of the candidate, as well as
all pertinent personal information,
writings, and research of the person.
The usual number of candidates
who reach this point is about twenty.
This first phase of the process was
completed at the end of the fall se-
mester.
The nine person University
Council Subcommittee meets for
three hours three times a week
throughout January and February.
During the first meetings, "they in-
vite each divisional dean one at a
time," Stebbings said. Each dean
explains why potential candidates
were not recommended, then re-
views all recommended candidates
in a detailed fashion.
After all the deans have given
their presentations, the department
chairs come before the committee in
the presence of the appropriate dean
and give their assessments.
An advocate chosen by the candi-
date speaks to the committee in the
presence of the dean.
"I think that the advocate is there
primarily if the chair or the dean are
unable to speak authoritatively
about a certain aspect of a candi-
date's record," Stebbings said.
For example, if a physics,teacher
were doing a very specialized type of
research, an advocate familiar with
the candidate's work could be quite
informative.
Stebbings described the final
vote as an "exhaustive process" in
which there is an extended period of
discussion within the committee to
obtain the fairest assessment of each
candidate. Typically a straw poll will
take place early in the discussion to
see where everyone on the commit-
tee stands. This vote is followed by
further discussion and another vote.
The resulting recommendations
go to Rupp, including a histogram
recording each vote on each candi-
date. Stebbings said Rupp often
comes back to the committee with
questions about things he does not
understand.
Stebbings said Rupp will often
become heavily involved with the
candidates, reading the complete
dossier or some of the books and
writings. Stebbings pointed out that
Rupp usually will not go to such
lengths if the committee's recom-
mendation is strongly in favor.
In the final step of the process,
Rupp sends his decision to the Board
of Governors. Stebbings said the
Board rarely deviates from the Presi-
dent's recommendations.
About a month after initial com-
mittee recommendations, the names
are announced.
Errata..
•In last week's Thresher, a
headline was a mislabel. As re-
ported in the story, the Hous-
ton Area Research Center did
not award Rice $3.6 million in
supercomputing time. HARC
has awarded a total of $3.6
million to four universities:
Rice University, Texas A&M
University, University of
Houston, and University of
Texas at Austin. Rice received
$1'60,000 of that supercom-
puting time.
•Both Hanszen and Will Rice
Colleges donated their Christ-
mas trees to members of their
kitchen staffs, as they have
done for the past few years.
Since the WRC tree was not
available, WRC President
Moses Scheinfeld put the
Guadalupe Area Social Serv-
ices in touch with other col-
leges to find a suitable donor.
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McGarrity, Patrick & Sendek, Joel. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 15, Ed. 1 Friday, January 27, 1989, newspaper, January 27, 1989; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245711/m1/7/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.