February 11, 2015 Meeting of Library Faculty Meeting

Call to Order

 

Standing Items:

 

• Adoption of the Agenda – John Wilkin
• Approval of Minutes – John Wilkin
• Introductions  – John Wilkin
• Report of the University Librarian (15 min – John Wilkin)
• Executive Committee Report (15 min – Kirstin Dougan)

 

Discussion Topics

 

• Update from the Specialized Faculty Task Force (20 min – JoAnn Jacoby)

 

Discussion questions attached.

 

• AP Research Survey Report (20 min – Jennifer Teper, Atoma Batoma)

 

For Discussion:

 

1) What are the parameters of APs’ investigation time?

 

2) What is the best way to inform APs about their research time?

 

 

 

New Business

 

Announcements

 

Adjournment

Call to Order

 

Standing Items:

 

• Adoption of the Agenda – John Wilkin

 

Motion to adopt agenda. Moved and seconded.

 

• Approval of Minutes – John Wilkin

 

Motion to adopt agenda. Moved and seconded.

 

• Introductions – John Wilkin

 

No Introductions.

 

• Executive Committee Report (15 min – Kirstin Dougan)

 

EC has met five times since our last faculty meeting in November.

 

As you know, the outcomes of some of EC’s recent discussions have already been made public to the Library as a whole (e.g., hiring plan and separation of RRSS and Scholarly Commons).

 

Topics of discussion (many of which were discussed at more than one meeting) included:

 

Personnel

• Library Budget and position requests; our annual report will go to campus soon
• Sue Searing’s upcoming retirement and filling her role as AUL for User Services
• The use of Specialized Faculty in the Library in place of certain AP positions (more on this in today’s meeting)
• Change in CAPT committee appointments (Content Access Policy & Technology)—Tom Habing has been added to the group ex officio in light of his new role and AULs will rotate chairing the group on an annual basis. EC will have further discussion with AULs about CAPT membership and charge
• Updates from AULs regarding their current approach to collaborating and communication in light of the recent restructuring—updates will be included in future issues of LON
• AUL annual report process

 

Library Planning

• Proposed medical school impact on Library—a small group from the Library led by Mary Schlembach drafted a needs report (funding, staffing, services, space), which came very close to the consultant’s recommendation.
• Library Strategic Planning / Retreat follow-up—feedback was overwhelmingly positive and the SP committee is in the process of analyzing the data
• Separation of RRSS (now RIS) and Scholarly Commons was approved by EC and this has gone into effect
• Digital Production structure/ organizational placement report was approved by EC

 

Other

• Library Innovation Awards evaluation
• The internal Library Faculty Award program has been placed on hiatus and instead the Library will focus on nominating faculty for campus/national/and international awards as appropriate

 

 

Cindy Ingold asked about the frequency of EC office hours.

The EC office hours are planned for once a month.

 

• Report of the University Librarian (15 min – John Wilkin)

 

ClimateQual. We all received a message about this undertaking. It is a very important undertaking to understand a baseline of climate. The benchmarking is a very interesting thing. Please read through the message. Wants broad participation in ClimateQual. Supervisors make sure people have time in taking this. It will be important to make time.

 

Budget. Looks done. Just adding some finishing touches on this. This will get out soon. Expect to see this soon.

 

Hiring Plan. Maintaining flexibility by holding back some positions. There are some budget constraints. Some positions staged in light of this. Some of the positions are contingent on some of the other ones being filled. These are all replacement positions. The titles may be different but responsibilities in the same area.

 

Impact of Governor Rauner Executive Orders. University is not entirely certain how to interpret these. Trying to get clarity. Encouraging critical travel only. Trying to rely as much as possible on non-state funds.

 

Strategic Planning Process. Very pleased with turnout and engagement. The feedback was all positive. Nearly everyone was positive. This is going to be an ongoing iterative process. There will be more activity and sessions as the year goes on. The AULs know they will have more significant roles in their areas as time goes on.

 

Specialized Faculty Discussion. This is a very healthy discussion. Among EC memberships there was a lot of good discussion. The discussion at the faculty meeting was also helpful. In the end concluded this is something that we needed to do. The rationale we do have is that an increasing number of people have formal training as information professionals, their jobs are clearly aligned with this kind of work. This is a natural progression in the library. It is a recognition of one body of professionals in the library. In other settings they would be recognized in professional career tracks. Inventing something new does not seem like a smart way to go. The campus structures around specialized faculty seem to be a good framework for supporting these professionals. As the campus develops the structures, there will be things that benefit the Library and the reputation of these people going forward. A note about scope; this is the union of qualifications of individuals and their job descriptions. Many civil service staff have MLSs. It’s not the person’s qualifications, it’s the work they are doing along with their qualifications. This does not include IT professionals. There needs to be a framework here for IT professionals. This scope is about Academic Professionals with credentials to do librarianship and archives work. We struggled with how we do this. We have established a working group that builds on the previous group to identify the critical path to implement this. John met with the Bylaws Committee and asked them to look at the bylaws and determine where changes would need to be made. They have passed this information on to JoAnn. There isn’t yet a clear timeline on this process.

 

Questions

 

Lynne Rudasill (Global Studies Librarian): Biggest question is that John and EC are behind this. Doesn’t this go to the faculty for a vote? For specialized Faculty.

 

JoAnn Jacoby (Research and Information Services): According to Communications 25 and 26, before we moved forward it’s recommended that the faculty vote on the bylaws changes. To change the bylaws, this is put before the faculty.

 

John: This has been a fulsome discussion.

 

JoAnn: The bylaws changes are the rights and privileges in the bylaws.

 

Cindy Ingold (Women and Gender Resources Librarian): A reminder that the ClimateQual is open to graduate students and graduate hourly to give feedback.

 

Beth Sheehan (SSHEL): Related to the Governor and travel. Is there some sort of General Guideline? Can you get reimbursed still?

 

John: Continue to make travel plans and be thoughtful if the travel is necessary. Travel to conferences is necessary to our careers. We have been given no specific guidelines. There are some places where travel hasn’t been necessary. You can be pre-approved. Think about whether travel is necessary or not.

 

Lynne: There is a side issue with the bylaws changes. Looking to clarify for the Academic Professionals. When you are talking about certain positions being more qualified for specialized faculty positions you are not talking about everyone who has an MLS. You are not talking about being automatically upgraded. You are talking about these strata of employment and looking at who is currently employed and who we are thinking about hiring in this position in the future.

 

John: Yes. It is the qualifications and the nature of the work that we are expecting the person to do. It is going to require a lot of judgment as we move on to discussions that will be tough, but this is important work. We have a lot of interest in and will have more discussion about this and JoAnn’s report will generate more discussion.

 

Discussion Topics

 

• Update from the Specialized Faculty Task Force (20 min – JoAnn Jacoby)

 

 

JoAnn: As John explained, a task force was charged to create recommendations for steps, timelines, and dependencies regarding communications 25 and 26. The group has met only once.

 

Group membership: Susan Avery, Tom Habing, JoAnn Jacoby, Bill Mischo, and Jen Yu.

 

Just started the work at this time. Wanted to point out who is included in this work and who is not. Will want to discuss the inclusion document later. There is an existing document that EC made regarding the distinctions for various expectations of staff.

 

Started to define where clinical faculty focus; the distinction with clinical faculty is a focus on teaching.

 

We have begun to slot this into the document and add the distinctions.

 

Tim Cole (Math): We have an assumption that librarianship can fit into clinical faculty in place of teaching. This is still an assumption.

 

JoAnn: We will circle back to this. We would like to look at the discussion questions from the bylaws committee. Are there any suggestions to be aware of as we move forward? Any things we need to be aware of that will be part of the process as we move forward?

 

Paula Kaufman (Mortensen): Faculty who are tenure track do not pay equal attention to librarianship, research, and service.

 

Mary Schlembach (Chemistry): Especially with the processes for promotion and review. What are the deadlines for how we do these things? Would it behoove us to see how other units on campus do the same thing? Tom did an overview on how other units do this with bylaws changes. One thing to circle back to in March is to look at the various models for the promotion process for specialized faculty in other units.

 

John: There was a request in Council of Deans to synchronize this processes. It will become more consistent and will follow the guides for tenured faculty.

 

JoAnn:  The taskforce has started a review of how other campus units who use the clinical faculty track are handling the promotion review process.

 

Beth Namachchivaya: Ambiguity in the area around the statement – duties of AP may require experience or advance degree. Clinical faculty – advance degree. There is a little bit of ambiguity here. Any discussion of research and publication is not in any of these descriptions.

 

JoAnn: Clinical faculty may also engage in research and professional service.

 

Mary Schlembach: Research and service in some degree. Would this be in any way supervised by a unit head, since it isn’t in their job description is it up to their discretion and how much?

 

JoAnn: We need to look at communication 25 on this. AP description is pretty clear.

 

Qiang Jin: Has the group done any research on how other academic libraries are doing this?

 

JoAnn: The previous task force did some of this work. Some preliminary work at UIC – Purdue has a special academic professional for academic librarians.

 

Lynne: Responsibilities of faculty. A critical function for faculty is to set policy. Setting policy is a part of being a tenured faculty?

 

JoAnn: This is a good segue. Communication 25 speaks to some of this. There are some areas that faculty can set, such as participation in faculty activities.

 

 

Discussion Topic: Would specialized faculty have voting privileges? (The previous taskforce suggested allowing specialized faculty to vote as members of the faculty, except on issues specifically related to tenure)

 

Lynne: It goes back to the earlier statement on tenure track and specialized faculty setting policy. If we do this for tenure do we do this with annual report and other things related to tenure.

Tim Cole: This should maybe be the last question to be considered. The only way people can be informed is if they were on P&T committees.

 

• Discussion topic: Would specialized faculty be eligible to serve on elected committees: NEVP, Bylaws, AC, EC membership be extended to specialized faculty? (The previous Taskforce suggested allowing specialized faculty to serve on the Executive Committee, but only up to two seats.)

 

 

Tom Teper: Maybe AC should be pulled out of this. Division Coordinators have a salary stipend. This should be tabled until the other committees in bullet three are resolved.

 

Cindy Ingold: Did the previous taskforce say which ones specialized could be on?

That these specialized faculty could be on EC groups?

 

JoAnn: Yes, the investigative taskforce recommended up to two seats on EC for clinical faculty.

 

Tom Teper: About faculty Governance and Administrative committee appointments; this depends a little on the range of what we see our specialized faculty doing. There are going to be a modest part of faculty that will be doing some of this work. For tenured faculty who have been here they have moved from job to job in the organization. It might make sense for specialized faculty to sit on EC if they will move from job to job in the organization.

 

Jennifer Teper: Those of us on these committees are frequently overtasked. We see no reason for people with these skills not to contribute to the committees. Taking them out of NEVP makes sense. Would welcome more leadership, and different perspectives.

 

Cindy Ingold: We should be an institution of inclusion. These are intelligent skilled people.

 

Tom Teper: As a clarification – AC is not an elected committee.

 

Steve Witt: At the same time committees are service. If these positions are librarianship we need to be clear about expectations.

 

Cher Schneider: She would welcome the ability to be more involved. As an AP there are things she doesn’t understand because APs are not able to serve.

 

Beth Namachchivaya We are asking all these questions, but we probably need to articulate the kinds of decision-making and expectations of tenure system faculty beyond the tenure process. This may make it easier to know how to be more inclusive. I find myself asking what is the distinction between participating and carrying out the policy and best practice. Feel like we need to identify what tenure system faculty do in terms of service and different expectations.

 

Not just the degree and amount. Practitioners and professionals can also develop best practices. It is the nature and amount.

 

Bill Mischo: We already have language in the bylaws about other individuals in positions other than tenure track. Adjunct is already in the bylaws. We could add specialized to the adjunct. The bylaws are clear about who can be on CDC, PTAC, NEVP. We could add clinical to what the expectations are for adjunct.

 

JoAnn: We could do that and we may come back to the conversation about this.

 

Qiang Jin: We need to be an inclusive organization to be successful. Why not serve on appointed positions too? Now we have one AP rep on RPC. We should talk about appointed committees as well.

 

Susan Schnuer: These questions get us into the nitty-gritty. What would it mean to have specialized faculty? What are the challenges? How might it change some of the ways we do business? Well, what does it mean that we have another category that we will define closely or imagine the possibilities?

 

Bill Mischo: One advantage of this track is there is a promotion capability in this—clinical assistant, to associate, to full. To more consistently have a promotion possibilities.

 

JoAnn: We have been hiring into this area without thinking about promotional paths and what it means to the Library and how it fits with the other things we’re doing. This is an opportunity for us to do that.

 

Susan Schnuer: It is a discussion. It is one of those things where you put ideas on the table and come to agreements about the way we are currently doing things. How might we do things different?

 

Josh Harris: There is currently no unified group of AP’s who would come up with ways for AP’s to look at the issues. Does there need to be a group of AP’s to take a look at the issues raised? We could come up with a list.

 

Cher Schneider: The promotional track is only for the specialized faculty?

 

John: It doesn’t mean non-specialized won’t have a promotional track. We need to identify groups of people, information professionals and other professionals, and determine how we move forward with these groups. This is a very important conversation to have in an ongoing way.

 

JJ Pionke: Are we stratifying more because of the Library? Or is this more so the direction the campus is going?

 

John: For me this is a Library issue where Library professionals need a promotional track. This isn’t about making distinctions, but giving them opportunities. Do you see any timetable for before the next hiring plan?

 

JoAnn: We may have that. We have been asked to wrap up by the end of March. We want discussions to proceed, so a very tentative maybe.

 

John: We have a lot to figure out. We don’t need to rush; it’s important we get this right.

 

• AP Research Survey Report (20 min – Jennifer Teper, Atoma Batoma)

(See PowerPoint attached.)

 

 

Jennifer Teper: Research and Publications Committee (RPC) has done a lot of work on this in the past year. Finally getting around to report what we have done last year.

 

RPC has had repeated requests to fund AP research projects.. They have had to decline.  EC tasked them to investigate this in November of 2013. There are guidelines for AP investigation time. This does differ from faculty research time. AP’s are encouraged to undertake more investigation.

 

Reviewed Survey Results (available here: http://www.library.illinois.edu/cms/committee/rpc/documents/AP_research_survey_report.xlsx )

 

 

For Discussion:

 

1) What are the parameters of APs’ investigation time?

 

 

 

2) What is the best way to inform APs about their research time?

 

Atoma: We haven’t received AP requests for finding, so far this year. They may not be aware that these funds are available to them. What is the best way to inform them? It isn’t clear to us what the parameters are of AP’s investigation time?

 

JJ: How does this benefit APs? If I’m an AP and I have investigation time – why would I do this?

 

Jennifer : In my unit we have conservators with a lot of bench work to do. They will be much better informed by stepping back and learning techniques to apply to their bench work and get comfortable with these models. And inform them on how to apply this to repairs in the future. Strongly encourage AP’s to publish. AP’s have a lot of important things to say.

 

JJ: I was having trouble understanding why this is important. As long as it is sold as it is making them better at their job, and getting more AP tie-in. A lot of AP’s do want to develop professionally.

 

Tim Cole: It’s important in IT, where you have to keep your skills current. Would need to attend conference and publish datasets. IT professionals used to be able to do this with permission. But they didn’t ask very often. It is important to make this regularly occurring.

 

Josh Harris: It’s a time thing. 5%-10% time it is hard to find time to put proposals together for another thing. It may be a resource of time. Technical positions may not be formally trained in research. This does start to fall into the Specialized Faculty tie in.

 

Cindy Kelly: Inform AP’s of investigation time. Cindy discovered it is on orientation sheet for AP’s. It has been added to the general sheet for new orientations. Cindy added this to the script of the things they talk about. Half the people are writing this down. Hope HR is closing the gap.

 

Angela Waarala: Investigation time – the work in our units. To stay current and educated. It is a critical part of us building the programs that we are contributing to. Sometimes that strange grey area not having been hired as a tenure track. Having supervisors and had a unit heads who encourage this and mentoring would be very useful. Sometimes in production units there may not be time in the day to do this.

 

 

 

New Business

 

Announcements

 

Adjournment

4:29pm