Senior vice president and provost Jonathan Wickert presented his annual report on faculty advancement, which included decisions on 72 cases for promotion and/or tenure during the April 20 Faculty Senate meeting.
Among them, 51 faculty were promoted to associate professor with tenure, 17 tenured faculty were promoted to full professor and one associate professor earned tenure. Two cases were not approved and one case was given a two-year extension.
The promotion and tenure cases granted were split between males and females, 36-33. Among those granted tenure and promotion, 43 are white/Caucasian, 23 are Asian/Asian-American, two are multiracial and one is Latino/a or Hispanic.
The bulk of the cases considered were from a large cohort of 123 faculty hired in 2015, of which 101 were tenure-eligible and 22 were hired with tenure. Among the tenure-eligibile, as of this month, 53 cohort members are tenured, 15 have extended tenure clocks, 10 have extended tenure clocks due to COVID-19, 21 left ISU before receiving tenure, one left ISU with tenure and one moved to a term appointment.
Wickert said promotions for 45 of 46 term faculty were approved.
U.S. diversity requirement
Senators will vote in May on proposed changes to the U.S. diversity requirement. From among several working documents, they voted to work with the academic affairs council's version, which would change the number of learning outcomes for students from five to four. As proposed, students would successfully demonstrate an understanding of all four outcomes and how categories like race, ethnicity and gender have historically excluded marginalized groups.
"The U.S. diversity requirement has had no major changes since it was first implemented in the 1990s," said Sarah Bennett-George, chair of the academic affairs council. "[The changes] bring it to a much more modern understanding and more rigorous review in order to have the U.S. diversity tag to have our students fulfil the requirement."
Term faculty advancement
The senate will vote at the next meeting on changes to the Faculty Handbook to add consistency and minimum standards to the advancement process for term faculty. The clarifications add:
- An advancement schedule and credit for prior service
- Documentation for advancement review
- Roles and responsibilities for candidates, administrators and committees
- Communication after each step of the process
- Rank advancement expectations
- Clarity of prior service credit
- The process for each level of advancement
- Establishment of an appeal process
Other business
In other senate business:
- Senators will vote next month on a master of health care analytics and operations in the Ivy College of Business. The 30-credit program would be delivered primarily online for working health care professionals. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for improved understanding of health care operations, supply chains and data.
- Diane Al Shihabi (interior design) was elected chair of the faculty development and administrative relations council, Tim Day (biomedical sciences) was elected chair of the judiciary and appeals council and Ann Oberhauser (sociology) was elected chair of the resources policies and allocations council. Each term is two years.
Senators also approved:
- Changes to the Faculty Handbook on student outcomes assessment following the senate's approval of universitywide learning outcomes: communication, information literacy, critical thinking and problem solving, and global citizenship.
- A new committee under the academic affairs council to oversee the U.S. diversity course requirement. It will review and approve courses proposed to satisfy the requirement for undergraduates. Each college will have a department chair and a faculty member on the committee.
- The 24-credit beef cattle production management, equine science and management, and swine production management certificates in the animal science department. They provide a clear path to specialize and document training and expertise.
- A 15-credit interdisciplinary minor in preservation and cultural heritage allowing undergraduates to learn about the subject. A graduate certificate was created in 2017.
- A minor in fashion, culture, history and social justice in the apparel, events and hospitality management department. The 15-credit minor helps students understand fashion history and cultural studies, and gives them an increased awareness of individuals who historically experience oppression and marginalization.
- Discontinuing the master of school mathematics program due to steadily declining enrollment. Five students have entered the program in the last five years and have yet to graduate.
- A change in the repeated courses policy to increase the limit of credits that can be considered from 15 to 18. Repeated courses initially taken for grade must be repeated as a graded course, but courses taken pass-not pass can be repeated as graded or pass-not pass.
- An update to the graduation with distinction policy that allows satisfactory-fail courses in the 50 course-credit minimum bachelor's degree candidates must have.
