Standards:

STANDARD FIVE

FACULTY

5 Description
Faculty Size and Qualifications 
	Eastern's faculty is composed of both full-time and part-time instructors.  
Although the FTE of the faculty remained fairly constant through much of the 
1990s, there has been a recent increase in the number of full-time faculty.  In 
fall 1998, 165 full-time faculty members (compared to 131 in 1990) offered 65 
percent of the credit hours of teaching.  Among the 165 were 8 librarians, 2 
counselors, and 6 coaches and trainers, leaving 149 full-time teaching faculty. 
In 1990, five of the 131 full-time faculty were librarians and the remaining 126 
were full-time teaching faculty (at that time coaches and trainers were teaching 
faculty). In fall 1999, there were 183.5 AAUP full-time faculty, of whom 163 
were full-time teaching faculty. Refer to "Summary of Full-Time AAUP Members, as 
of November 4, 1999" in Standard Five files. 
	All faculty members work under the CSU-AAUP/BOT collective bargaining agreement 
(August 1998-August 2001), which establishes many of the standards and 
conditions of faculty work.  In the 1998-99 academic year, 81 percent of the 
full-time faculty held earned doctorates or terminal degrees in their 
disciplines, an increase of 10 percentage points since 1989. As departments 
recruit part-time instructors, they seek individuals with at least master's 
degrees.  Full-time faculty are evaluated on the basis of quality of teaching, 
creative activity within the field, service to department and the university, 
and professional activity.  The departments that evaluate part-time faculty 
focus on teaching effectiveness.  The CSU mission and the ECSU mission have in 
common a commitment to effective teaching, and the contract provisions generally 
aim to support that goal.
	The workload is 12 Faculty Load Credits (FLCs) for all full-time faculty, 
usually a balance of advanced and lower-level courses, including courses for the 
General Education Requirements.  The contract requires the university to give 
extra load credit for classes larger than 40. This is consistent with the 
university's emphasis on close student-faculty interaction and also compensates 
faculty for the greater workload associated with larger enrollments. Further, 
the university's devotion to writing skills as the basis for academic and career 
success is reflected in the relatively smaller class sizes for writing courses. 
In addition, many other courses requiring close interaction--seminars and 
laboratory and studio courses, for exampleÐhave smaller class sizes.
	From fall 1985 to fall 1992, the student/faculty ratio rose from 16.78:1 to 
18.22:1. See Table 5A  on page 43. By fall 1998, it had dropped down to 16.25:1. 
The average class size, once internships, independent studies and practica are 
excluded, in 1998-99 was approximately 25. A sizeable portion of faculty 
workload relates to supervising interns and independent studies.  Because the 
strong teaching culture that prevails at ECSU values close engagement with 
students as fellow learners, maintaining reasonable class sizes and a favorable 
student-faculty ratio is a high priority.
	Although ECSU focuses on providing a solid undergraduate program, it also offers 
four master of science degree programs and a planned fifth year program in 
education, and master of science degree programs in organizational management 
and accounting.  There is no graduate faculty per se, but departments involved 
in these programs consider their special demands in requesting and recruiting 
faculty.  ECSU uses no graduate assistants for instruction; the undergraduate 
associates assisting in laboratory and writing courses are trained, supervised, 
and evaluated. Undergraduate internships in teaching provide opportunities for a 
few selected students to assist faculty members in the teaching of low- level 
courses or laboratories. 
	Two centers not staffed with faculty share academic support responsibilities: 
the Academic Advisement Center facilitates and augments faculty advising and in 
general assists students in meeting academic requirements; the Learning Center 
facilitates transition to college and offers tutorial services.  Each center has 
a core of full-time employees who enjoy reasonable job security and opportunity 
for professional development. In addition to full-time professionals, the Center 
employs part-time professionals and student employees. Evaluation of the full-
time staff adheres to the standards for administrative staff.
	ECSU has increased the representation on the faculty and staff of Asian 
Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and females. The faculty's concern for 
diversity has an added dimension in that it often translates into intellectual 
and curricular diversity, from which both major programs of study and the 
general education program have benefited. The composition of the full-time 
tenure track faculty in 1990 was 87% White. In 1999, 76% of full-time tenure-
track faculty were white; 5% black; 8% Hispanic; 10% Asian; and 2% Native. In 
1990, 31.5% were female; in 1999, 42% were female. Reference data in Standard 
Five files.

Recruiting and Appointing 
	Departments propose new faculty positions based on the curricular needs of their 
majors and minors, of participation in interdisciplinary work, and of general 
education requirements. Departmental requests for faculty positions are 
submitted to the dean. The dean submits requests and his/her recommendations to 
the vice president for academic affairs, who, with the president, makes 
allocations of faculty lines. Once a position has been authorized, the 
department commences the search process. The University's Procedures for 
Conducting Affirmative Action Searches for Full- time Instructional Faculty 
guides faculty searches insofar as the initiation of the search process, the 
interview process, and the hiring process are concerned. The department drafts a 
position description for administrators to edit and approve and recommends a 
search chair for administrative approval; a departmental search committee files 
a search plan and screens applications. The search committee recommends to the 
department three to five candidates to be interviewed. Following endorsement by 
the department, the search committee chair submits recommendations to the dean. 
Once the administration has approved the interviewees, the departmental search 
committee plans and oversees the interviewees' visits and schedules the 
requisite appointments with each of the specified administrators. The search 
committee recommends a minimum of three unranked finalists to the Dean, 
submitting a statement about the relative qualifications of each.
	The Collective Bargaining Agreement allows special appointments in a finite list 
of circumstances, including emergency cases when the university is unable to 
complete an affirmative action search, and an increasing number of positions 
have been designated for filling this way.  For fall 1998, at least 10 percent 
of the full-time faculty held such positions.  

Salaries
	The following table presents information relative to salaries and total 
compensation for New England Category II A institutions and for Eastern, 1998-
1999. 
Source: Academe, March/April1999.
Governance 
	Faculty members participate in governance of the university in several ways.  
Each department recommends a chair from the ranks of its faculty for approval by 
the administration. Chairs have overall responsibility in heading the department 
and administering the department's bylaws; many departments have vice chairs to 
assist in specific tasks of running the department.  Chairs work collegially to 
oversee the department's curriculum and course offerings; to seek the funding 
and personnel necessary to the department's work; to coordinate departmental 
planning and evaluation, and to ensure that student concerns with the department 
as a whole or with individual faculty members are addressed.  Because all 
academic programs undergo review on a regular seven-year cycle, departments are 
involved with ongoing self-study, outside consultation, assessment, and follow-
up initiatives. The creation of the user-friendly Office of Planning and 
Institutional Research has facilitated curricular evaluation.
	The mechanisms for faculty participation are defined by contract and by the 
constitution of the University Senate. Faculty voice their broader governance 
concerns chiefly through the University Senate.  The current senate, constituted 
to address specifications of the initial CSU-BOT/AAUP contract while embracing 
all university constituencies, provides opportunity for broad deliberation.  
Senate membership is slightly more than half-teaching faculty and includes 
representatives from each academic department. Committees constituted under 
senate bylaws concern themselves with a variety of personnel, resource, and 
programmatic issues and provide in varying degrees for faculty membership. 
Through the University Senate, the faculty have had input in development of the 
mission, and role and scope statements and in the process of academic 
reorganization. For example, in 1993, the senate endorsed the president's 
reorganization plan after thorough campus-wide discussion.  The plan entailed 
the splitting of the Department of Economics and Management Science into two 
departments, the Department of Economics and the Department of Business; the 
creation of the Department of Athletics; and the renaming of the School of 
Professional Studies to the School of Education and Professional Studies. 

Faculty Work and Evaluation 
	Faculty are regularly evaluated for retention, tenure, and promotion.  Tenured 
faculty go through the process of professional assessment every six years if 
they are not evaluated for promotion. The Collective Bargaining Agreement 
defines in detail the entire evaluation process and establishes that the 
criterion is quality within each of the following areas, listed in order of 
importance: teaching, creative work, service, and professional activity. (The 
criterion is modified slightly for nonteaching faculty: coaches, athletic 
trainers, librarians, and counselors.) University Senate Bill 91/92-7 further 
refines the local procedures and lists work that may be considered within each 
of the four areas.  Appropriately, teaching receives the most comprehensive 
review, usually including student-, peer-, and self-evaluation materials. Among 
the activities sponsored by the Center for Educational Excellence to support and 
enhance the work of both new and seasoned faculty have been workshops on 
building teaching portfolios. The teaching portfolio presented within the larger 
professional portfolio documenting work in the remaining areas, increasingly is 
a part of renewal and promotional considerations.  Many departments also 
evaluate their special appointees and conduct annual reviews of part-time 
instructors.
	Despite the heavy demands of their teaching loads, ECSU faculty set for 
themselves a high standard of scholarship and creative activity.  They are 
active regionally, nationally, internationally.  They publish, consult, referee, 
exhibit, perform, and present papers.  The scholarly culture ECSU enjoys--
measured by its faculty's continuous involvement in presenting works and 
publishing findings--represents a handsome return on the investment of 
university resources to foster research and creative activity: 

¥ Competitive sabbaticals are available for tenured faculty. Nine half-year or 
full-year sabbatic leaves were awarded during the 1999-2000 academic year. Seven 
sabbaticals were awarded for the 1998 academic year.
¥ Released time for research is available. The Collective Bargaining Agreement 
stipulates a minimum number of FLCs that must be assigned to research each 
semester, and ECSU regularly meets this minimum.
¥ The Collective Bargaining Agreement also stipulates funds that must be devoted 
to curriculum development. 
¥ Faculty development funds are used for travel, faculty development grants, and 
retraining. 
¥ In 1998, thirteen faculty members received CSU research grants; nine ECSU 
faculty development grants; six ECSU Foundation Grants; and thirteen ECSU summer 
curriculum development grants.
¥ Additional funding is made available by the university to support creative 
faculty projects, joint faculty-student projects and curriculum innovation. 

Faculty Development
	ECSU values faculty development and has invested significant resources therein. 
It established the Center for Educational Excellence, with a director and 
secretarial staff. In consultation with departments, staff, and an advisory 
committee, the director dedicates half time to organizing programs and 
activities. The center offers numerous workshops in teaching and learning, 
including the use of technology, service learning, curriculum development, 
faculty orientation programs, and other forms of support. In addition, in 1999 
ECSU dedicated the equivalent of a full-time technology staff member to assist 
faculty in the use of instructional technology. New instructional technology 
facilities, equipment, and software were made available for that purpose in the 
J. Eugene Smith Library. 
The great majority of full-time faculty have individual offices, and all full-
time faculty have access to appropriate office and computer equipment. 



5 Appraisal
	Eastern's faculty members value and support the university's primary emphasis on 
providing a liberal arts-based undergraduate curriculum that offers 
opportunities for experiential education. Faculty members work within a stable 
framework formed by a highly detailed collective bargaining agreement, a 
University Senate and its elected committees, and a firmly enforced set of 
policies and procedures related to hiring and employment.   
	The same framework that provides stability has, however, some negative 
consequences. It makes it difficult to attract and retain faculty members and to 
respond to programmatic needs. The job of department chairperson has become 
increasingly complex and demanding, especially in relation to the rewards 
offered for taking on this role. In a number of cases, the university has had to 
recruit externally to fill these positions. Eastern has experienced an increase 
in faculty turnover, an increase in the number of temporary one-year positions 
and tenure-track searches, and pressure to use creative means to avoid relying 
too heavily on part-time faculty. 
	Faculty members' support for the university's mission is evident in their 
continued development of new undergraduate programs that offer an experiential 
component. New major or minor programs have been developed in the Departments of 
Health and Physical Education, Economics, Social Work, Business, Fine Arts, and 
others. Interest in developing new programs is indicated by the number of 
applications for funds for curriculum development. Senior faculty members teach 
in the complete range of courses offered in departments, from General Education 
courses for first-year students to senior seminars.  This emphasis on 
undergraduate teaching is complemented by an impressive quantity of creative and 
scholarly activities that are described in departments' annual reports. 
This commitment to excellence in undergraduate education has been and is still 
generally accompanied by an amiable relationship with the administration.  The 
collective bargaining process provides a stable framework for many aspects of 
faculty work encouraging appropriate evaluation and giving faculty a voice in 
shaping their roles, maintaining ECSU's academic vitality, and satisfying 
professional obligations. The collective bargaining agreement and the University 
Senate provide generally effective mechanisms for resolving problems that arise.  
In the past two years, the university (management and AAUP) has used the 
framework of the collective bargaining agreement to resolve issues related to 
faculty. In 1998, these issues included (1) the university policy to require a 
minimum of three unranked finalists in faculty searches, (2) the weight that 
should be accorded in the promotion process to a faculty member's work done 
prior to joining Eastern, (3) the allocation of travel funds, and (4) the 
calculation of exclusions to the part-time faculty ratio. The first three issues 
were resolved and the last one is in the process of being addressed through 
established contractual processes. In 1999, an issue also arose concerning the 
granting of prorated full-time appointments. This was settled by mutual 
agreement in late fall 1999. 

Recruiting, Appointing, and Tenure and Promotion of Faculty
	Concerning the three-unranked-candidates issue: the requirement to submit 
unranked finalists has been included in the Affirmative Action Search Procedures 
for Instructional Faculty since 1990. Faculty committees and departments are 
responsible for conducting searches and for recommending an unranked list of 
three or more finalists for each search. Prior to making offers to candidates, 
the appropriate administrator confers with the search committee chair regarding 
the person who was selected to receive the offer. Some faculty believe that the 
submission of unranked names of finalists inhibits useful give-and-take between 
the search committee and administrators and undervalues faculty professional 
judgment. During 1998-1999, AAUP challenged the policy requiring three to five 
unranked finalists as being in violation of contract language, but the policy 
was upheld by decision of the CSU grievance-arbitration panel at Step 4. 
Another 1998 grievance grew out of tensions over the nature of faculty work and 
how it is to be evaluated. As indicated above, AAUP filed a grievance regarding 
the weight that should be accorded to a faculty member's work done prior to 
joining Eastern. The resolution of the grievance left existing policies and 
procedures unchanged.
	A grievance filed in 1999 challenged the administration's right to grant 
prorated full-time appointments under certain conditions. In a settlement of 
this issue, the administration acknowledged certain process violations, but both 
parties agreed to maintain their respective positions for the future. It is 
expected that this issue will be addressed and clarified in the forthcoming 
negotiations for a successor collective bargaining agreement. 
In recent years some faculty searches have taken a long time to complete and 
many tenure-track searches have not been successful. While a number of factors 
have contributed to this problem, two stand out:

¥ Recruiting and Appointing: Procedural Issues
	Difficulty in completing searches partly resulted from the fact that the 
university increased the number of searches for faculty and staff to fill an 
expanded number of positions. Certain academic departments conducted several 
searches during a year. The greater number of searches requires a greater degree 
of coordination to ensure a smooth and timely process of approvals and campus 
interviews. Issues of timing and coordination delay searches at a number of 
points in the search process. 

¥ Recruiting and Appointing: Salaries and Workload Issues
	In many other instances, tenure-track searches were not completed because 
offers were not sufficiently attractive. This was particularly true in 
departments in the School of Education and Professional Studies and in the Math 
and Computer Science Department. Salaries and total compensation at Eastern are 
close to the average for comparable institutions in New England but may be 
relatively low in some disciplines. Another issue affecting the university's 
ability to recruit and retain faculty members is the 12-credit teaching load. 
	Recently, several good faculty members have voluntarily left tenure-track 
positions at the university.  For some of these faculty, the environment at 
Eastern had been supportive of their scholarly endeavors, which enabled them to 
move on to other institutions. Others left for personal reasons. For some junior 
faculty, schedules and advisee loads have made the adjustment process difficult. 
The departures and the difficulty in completing tenure-track searches point to 
the need to examine the compensation, expectations, and workload at Eastern. 
Additionally, consideration should be paid to streamlining and better 
coordinating search procedures and the conduct of searches for the purpose of 
creating a speedy and aggressive recruitment process.
	Temporary appointments are made when tenure-track searches are 
unsuccessful, as well as in response to retirements and resignations, when there 
are unanticipated student enrollment increases, and when funds become available 
during the latter part of the year. During 1998-1999, more temporary, full-time 
appointments were made at the instructor rank than during any other year of the 
decade. For the four-year period, fall 1997-fall 2000, CSU made a special 
allocation to the university to hire a total of twenty-six new full-time 
faculty. The size of the allocation was limited, and therefore some individuals 
with terminal degrees were hired at the instructor rank. Generally speaking, 
these positions were filled the following year at a higher rank. A few full-time 
instructors on temporary appointments received a second-year appointment at the 
same rank. However, when these positions were advertised as tenure-track, they 
were advertised at the rank of assistant professor or above.  
	Temporary faculty members enable the university to continue to offer 
courses while tenure-track searches are being conducted, but an abundance of 
them creates problems. Tenure-track faculty bear a disproportionate 
responsibility for advising and for university and department service when many 
colleagues are on one-year appointments. Further, temporary faculty must be 
replaced and this requires time spent on searches; departments have less ability 
to make long-term plans for programs, and students have fewer faculty members 
with whom they can develop long-term relationships. The Business Department and 
the Mathematics and Computer Science Department, especially, have had to rely 
heavily on temporary faculty. 

Faculty Size
	Affected by the hiring process and yet also a problem in its own right is the 
matter of the faculty's being "sufficiently numerous."  During the early 1990s, 
the university experienced a series of budget cuts. As a consequence, the number 
of instructional faculty did not begin to grow until 1993. In 1992, there were 
123 full-time faculty, two less than in 1991. As part of an early-retirement-
incentive plan, two positions that became vacant in 1991 due to retirements 
could not be filled. When funding levels began to increase, additional full-time 
faculty members were hired. Faculty count grew by a third between 1992 and 1999, 
from 123 members in 1992 to 163 in fall 1999. The number is expected to grow 
again in fall 2000.
	New funding has also allowed the university to expand the number of professional 
librarians and counselors. In 1992, there were five professional librarians. A 
special legislative allocation to ECSU to staff the new library was made 
available during the 1998-2000 biennium. As of January 1999, the number of 
professional librarians doubled, to ten. Also, support personnel at the library 
grew at a similar rate, as described in Standard Seven. The number of counselors 
increased from one in 1992 to three in 1999. 

Faculty Work and Evaluation
	In their assessments of faculty members for promotion, tenure, and renewal, 
administrators use the same criterion and categories as do faculty committees. 
The contract specifies which recommendations must include reasons. Departmental 
evaluation committees, the only participants in the renewal promotion and tenure 
process who explain in writing their assessments and decisions, vary in 
thoroughness (in April 2000, the Senate passed a resolution calling for the 
Promotion and Tenure Committee to indicate the area in which candidates who are 
not recommended are deemed inadequate.  The resolution has not been considered 
yet by the President).  Contract language and Senate Bill 91/92-7 define the 
assessment process. The process is clear but does not provide for quantitative 
measures other than the relative weight put on each category of activity. 
Inevitably, this results in some uncertainty about how much activity is 
"sufficient" in each category. Some faculty members believe that administrators 
place more emphasis on publication than do the faculty committees. Senate Bill 
91/92-7 states that Òa positive retention, tenure, or promotion decision asserts 
the university's judgment that the candidate has met the standards of excellence 
of the university as well as her or his discipline and department,Ó and that 
excellence in a single area cannot, by itself, carry a career at Eastern 
Connecticut State University.

Governance
	The University Senate plays a critical role in developing policy and programs. 
It is somewhat unique in that its members come from instructional faculty, 
administrative faculty, management, and students, and that plays an important 
role in determining policy. During 1998-1999, the University Senate called two 
university meetings to discuss issues of interest and concern to the 
instructional faculty. The professional expectations of faculty members was the 
main topic of discussion. During the fall semester of the 1999-2000 academic 
year, the university Senate held one University meeting. Issues discussed 
included (1) academic standards and (2) attracting the best and the brightest 
students to ECSU.
	ECSU shares with many universities the anxiety of fitting the newer styles of 
management with the traditional academic styles of collegial deliberation and 
consensus building.  The result is that some faculty members feel that they play 
a less important role in university governance than in the past. Particularly 
with regard to the process of hiring new colleagues, in spite of contractual 
resolutions and senate discussions, there is still some dissatisfaction with the 
process. 

5 Projection
	The University Senate and the collective bargaining agreement will continue to 
provide a framework for governance and for dealing with changes in leadership, 
external conditions, and student needs.  Senate committees, parties to 
collective bargaining negotiations, and administrators need to recognize the 
need to modify this framework to adjust to external conditions and to balance 
structure and rules with flexibility. 
	The current governance structure will allow the faculty to participate in 
adjustments required by the university's refined mission statement, and to 
respond to performance and accountability measures mandated by the state, the 
need to enhance academic standards, and the need to attract good students. 
Recruiting and retaining full-time tenure-track faculty is essential to the 
future of the university, as is the ability of departments to develop new 
programs. The administration and appropriate senate committees need to examine 
whether there has been an undesirable increase in faculty turnover and the 
number of unsuccessful searches and whether our experience is different from 
that of other universities at this time.  This effort will permit the 
development of appropriate changes in policies and procedures. The 
administration is committed to the earlier initiation of tenure-track searches 
each year. Negotiations for the new collective bargaining agreement should 
reflect changed external conditions, particularly with regard to salaries and 
workload. Speedy and aggressive recruitment procedures need to be complemented 
by attractive compensation and working conditions to enable successful 
recruitment and retention of outstanding faculty members.  Support in the areas 
of professional development, instruction and research is essential to enable 
faculty to work with confidence toward tenure and promotion decisions. 
	Investments in multimedia classrooms, science classrooms and laboratories, other 
educational facilities, and office space for newly hired faculty have become a 
priority for the institution. Attention also must be paid to the schedules and 
advisee loads of new faculty members and to possibilities for easing their 
adjustment to Eastern.
	It is anticipated that the number of full-time faculty will grow over the next 
few years to meet contractual requirements and to support programs that will 
have a major impact on the pursuit of academic excellence. Recent allocations of 
tenure-track faculty positions will have a positive effect on the faculty: 
student ratio and on the full-time: part-time faculty ratio and ensure that ECSU 
remains a diverse campus.