June 29, 2022 Meeting of Library Faculty Meeting

Time and Location of Meeting

June 29, 2022

Agenda Details

Agenda

AGENDA

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Library Faculty Meeting Agenda
June 29, 2022

3-4:30 pm
via Zoom

 

  1. Call to Order
  2. Standing Items
  3. Adoption of the Agenda
    1. Approval of the Minutes of the April 2022 Faculty Meeting
    2. Introduction of New Employees
    3. Executive Committee Report & Discussion (15 minutes – Mara Thacker)
    4. Report of the University Librarian (15 minutes – John Wilkin)
  1. Discussion items
    1. Professional Development for Research (20 minutes – Lisa Hinchliffe)
  2. Lightning Talks
  3. New Business
  4. Announcements
  5. Adjournment

Minutes Details

Minutes

MINUTES

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Library Faculty Meeting Minutes
June 29, 2022

3-4:30 pm
via Zoom

  • Call to Order – 3:03pm 55 participants
  • Standing Items
    • Adoption of the Agenda
      • No additions
    • Approval of the Minutes of the April 2022 Faculty Meeting
      • Nancy O’Brien: Under University Librarian report (provided by Mary Laskowski), the document was described as not being available for further feedback. Is this correct?
      • Lisa Hinchliffe: The question was about whether the document would be available for feedback before the reviewers visited, so minutes are correct as described.
      • John Wilkin: If the question was about the self-study, then the minutes were correct as described.
      • Nancy O’Brien moves for approval, second from Lisa Hinchliffe.
    • Introduction of New Employees
      • No new employees introduced
    • Executive Committee Report & Discussion (15 minutes – Mara Thacker)
      • EC has met 6 times since last faculty meeting, 4 held without John Wilkin. Given that EC is an advisory body to the dean, but continues to meet when he is not available, the meetings where he was not present were treated as an opportunity to discuss issues in advance and come to a consensus in order to expedite sharing recommendations at meetings where he was able to attend.
      • Reminder of current EC membership:
        • Chair, John Wilkin, Peg Burnette, Joe Lenkart, Bill Maher, Dan Tracy (Secretary), Kelli Trei, Chris Wiley, Mara Thacker (Vice Chair)
        • Membership updates: Dan Tracy and Peg Burnette will be rolling off in August. New members will be MJ Han, Sarah Williams, and Kirstin Dougan Johnson.
      • EC continued the tradition of meeting with AULs, directors and, and the co-chairs of LSSC and LCP once a month to discuss shared concerns. In one joint meeting with the full membership of LSSC and LCP, the salary program for this year was discussed.
      • EC discussed the process for submitting position requests to EC and updated the position request template. There will be a follow-up discussion around visiting and interim positions, particularly around consensus building and documentation. The revised request template is now on the EC website and should be used going forward.
      • EC put out a call for innovation and seed grant funds. Applications for this cycle are due June 30. The next cycle will be in December.
      • Work around committees, tasks forces, and working groups:
        • EC requested documentation on the charge for the Budget Group. This group has existed for a while, but there was a lack of documentation on the composition of the group. EC approved documentation on this group to be posted to the Library’s staff pages, where it is now listed with other committees.
        • EC approved revisions to the Awards and Recognition Committee Charge.
        • EC reviewed and charged a Marshall Gallery Task Force to propose short term changes to the space ahead of Fall 2022, as well as gathering data for a preliminary set of recommendations for longer term changes in the future.
        • EC appointed committee members via the annual volunteer process in June.
      • EC continued to discuss HR DEIA best practices and made additional recommendations to delegate specific tasks to the Dean of Academic Affairs, FRC/PTAC, the Administrative Council, and the Library Committee of Academic and Civil Service Professionals.
      • Position descriptions approved for:
        • Chinese Studies Librarian
        • Head Cataloging Librarian (approved previously by Budget Group)
      • Approved requests for the following positions:
        • Digital Humanities Librarian (committee also invited)
        • Information Sciences Librarian (committee not yet invited)
      • EC voted to approve two emeritus faculty requests (now in process)
      • EC discussed the Library Council Implementation Team draft proposal
        • Opportunities for feedback on the proposal are forthcoming in August.
      • EC discussed the Unit Annual Report process and analysis
      • LC implementation team proposal

 

  • Report of the University Librarian (15 minutes – John Wilkin)
    • Reminder that information shared today has already been shared at the hangout, in effort to be more inclusive in information sharing. Faculty specific items will continue to be discussed in this meeting
    • Academic Program Review:
      • Successful visit from external review team. Expecting report soon, so any updates can be made
      • Visit was positive overall.
    • Salary program:
      • 5% salary program that is fully funded, not self-funded
      • Methodology has been discussed and considering using the same approach this year as last year.
        • Funds divided into two parts, flat increase everyone, with fixed dollar amount increases to recognize merit. Purpose is to mitigate the impact of percentage-based increases on salary equity.
        • Approach was generally well received last year.
        • Announcements expected in late summer with approval from Provost’s office
      • Budget allocation received last week:
        • Salary program fully funded
        • Additional fund for CMER (compression, merit, equity and retention) programming (first time received in years)
        • Increase in collections budget
      • Chair of the University Library Dean search, Tracy Sulkin, Dean of the College of Media will attend the next Hangout to share observations and answer questions
      • No additional questions
    • Discussion items
      • Professional Development for Research (20 minutes – Lisa Hinchliffe, Coordinator for Research & Teaching Professional Development)
        • Program logic model:
          • Resources > activities > outputs > outcomes > impact
        • Resources: library and campus, profession
        • Activities: Programs, classes, resources
        • Outputs: Participants, leaders, accesses
        • Outcomes: Satisfaction, confidence, skills
        • Impact: publications, tenure, promotion
        • Preceding all of this is a needs analysis:
          • Competency frameworks
          • Position descriptions/job classifications
          • Employee and supervisor identified needs
          • Organizational review (drawing from previous work from EC)
        • Domains of learning:
          • Cognitive: Intellectual skills
          • Affective: Attitudinal
          • Psychomotor: Behavioral (not as much here for our work)
        • Currently focusing on activities and what they should be
          • How to prioritize, decide what to do first, based on both individual and collective capacity?
        • Emerging area of emphasis (based on conversations/analysis)
          • Publication process
          • Research methods: lots of methods used in our field, so still need to decide which methods to use
          • Motivation and time management: major challenge, given competing priorities of everyone doing research
          • Acculturation: What does it mean to see yourself as a faculty member?
        • Example workshop:
          • Fitting research into the library practitioner workday
        • Example communities of practice:
          • Writing groups (will be starting in Fall 2022)
            • Writing studio: sharing work in progress, get feedback
            • Parallel writing: Individuals work on their own projects while co-working (aka shut up and write)
            • Writing challenge: Tracking social progress towards a common goal (like NaNoWriMo)
          • Evaluation:
            • Can look at outputs, outcomes, impact for assessing the overall program via the logic model
          • Open for discussion – what would you like to see?
            • Bill Mischo: Has been discussing journal clubs with subject faculty, appears to be growing interest, perhaps because of pandemic and increased Zoom meetings.
              • Lisa Hinchliffe: What is a journal club? Term may not be shared?
                • Bill Mischo: Older approach/practice. Example of grad students getting together to discuss an article from their own literature. Faculty member shares one article for everyone to read.
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: This approach fits well for settings for graduate students, where they can be assigned to participate.
              • Matt Roberts: Can be used to deconstruct an article to identify what works/doesn’t, as a way to learn writing processes.
              • Mara Thacker: Of these options, the shut up and write approach sounds most appealing
              • Kyle Rimkus: Value in thematic working groups, which allows those with more experience to share their knowledge with those newer to the topic and/or writing
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: How do we decide on groups?
                • Kyle Rimkus: open call for groups of interest
              • Kirstin Dougan Johnson: Programming around figuring out relevant research interests and methodology, and how the two fit together, potentially a workshop for newer researchers or those new to an area of research.
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: Would people share experiences or more didactic training?
                • Kirstin Johnson: Could be both approaches, maybe rotating through.
              • Matt Roberts: Expresses appreciation for the approach described. Going back to the question of resources. For other disciplines/campus units can get resources in the way of time, e.g. course releases, which doesn’t really work for our model. How do we approach something like that for our work? Seems like the only way is through sabbatical, currently.
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: Could have a workshop or session on how to navigating existing policies, but actually developing programming for taking time for research is beyond the scope of this current role.
                • John Wilkin: With Lisa’s new role, we may be better able to understand the needs of researchers and look at policies and practices into the future.
                • Dan Tracy: This came up in the previous work to investigate these issues. Going forward, could consider how library uses “course release” fundings to help with backfill
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: There are more resources available at the campus level and within the library, than are known across the Library. We don’t have a good way of sharing information about existing resources to ensure that everyone can take advantage of what already exists.
                • Chris Prom: Would be a good problem to have where someone gets funds that provide course release, since that usually sends funds back to the department. We’d need to figure out how to develop a support plan for their work.
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: This is similar to grant buy out. But having more of the problem will let us see how to solve it. It appears that there is administrative support for leaning into this issue, need trust that we’ll work it out together. We also need to share worked examples so that individuals feel confident in proceeding in applications given the ambiguity of the situation.
              • Lisa Hinchliffe: Sees a need for more guidance in how to work with graduate hourly employees on research projects.
                • Matt Roberts, Yali Feng, and Emilee Mathews agree with this idea in the chat.
              • John Wilkin: When addressing these challenges in the past they’ve all seemed like individual challenges, but having this new position means that we’ll be better able to see patterns and systemic needs.
              • Lisa Hinchliffe: Discussion has been largely framed as being around new, assistant professor, but needs are also there for associate professors working towards full professor promotion. What methodologies are people most interested in learning more about?
                • Mara Thacker: refers back to Kirstin’s point about changing research areas, as well as navigating sabbatical funding
                • Kirstin Dougan Johnson: RPC has done a lot of work in managing grants, will Lisa be taking on these roles?
                  • Lisa is an ex-officio role on RPC, will not be voting on funding proposals, given that she may have been involved in developing proposals.
                • Lynne Thomas: Figuring out sabbaticals, the process seems opaque.
              • Stephanie Luke: OK to email Lisa with thoughts and questions?
                • Yes, or arrange to discuss with Lisa via Zoom.
              • Clara Chu: Question about scope of Lisa’s role. Can we approach you about developing a budget proposal, for example? Will Lisa be doing any sort of advocacy, such as for the use of non-traditional methodologies.
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: Requests clarification of question around budget, what is the need for professional development?
                • Clara Chu: what would I do if I needed help putting together a budget proposal?
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: Would recommend resources for developing grants on general, would refer to budget office for developing a specific proposal. On advocacy, will not be interpreting guidelines on tenure. Would be able to support professional development around new methodologies when there is expressed interest. Skills will be built in different ways, depending on the needs and resources available.
                • John Wilkin: Would not be appropriate for Lisa/this position to weigh in on tenure interpretation.
              • Emilee Mathews: Is there a policy that encourages faculty to pursue opportunities in mind that would support high impact research practice?
                • Chris Prom: Not an official policy, but there should be general encouragement to pursue those opportunities.
                • Lisa Hinchliffe: Needs to be more cultural development around how these sort of things would work, how you think ahead to developing a proposal, budget, etc.
                • Chris Prom: Agrees on importance of socialization. There are campus resources on fellowship opportunities, research advising service.
              • Alex Cabada: Would be helpful to get more guidance on developing NSF and IMLS proposals.
              • John Wilkin: closes conversation, recognizes the strong interest and value of discussion.
              • Lisa Hinchliffe: Reiterates interest in hearing from people in person, via zoom, email, etc.
            • Lightning Talks
            • New Business
            • Announcements
              • David Ward: He and Lisa Hinchliffe will be hosting a discussion of instructional professional development the next day. The conversation around research can continue there as well.
            • Adjournment 4:05pm