Spring Break
Most of CARS final report endorsed by the provost
by Miranda Neubauer
Senior Writer
News | 5/19/09
Posted online at 12:30 AM EST on 5/19/09
The report also suggested that all majors should have affiliated faculty from outside the department offering the major, Jaffe said. According to the report, affiliated faculty would commit to teaching in a major at a minimum frequency and would vote on curricular issues but not on tenure cases.
The supplemental report also recommends that all majors create curriculum committees to figure out "what courses should actually be offered in any given year over a three-year cycle," Jaffe said, to ensure that necessary courses are still offered after faculty reductions.
Jaffe said departments currently make these decisions individually to update their three-year curriculum plans each December. In fall 2009 he would "ask each curriculum committee in addition to their actual … plan to construct a hypothetical plan [with fewer faculty and more affiliations] that will be a process for stress-testing the faculty numbers" to determine if the new target sizes are viable. A new committee, the Dean's Curriculum Committee, will oversee this process, he said.
Krauss described the details of a voluntary retirement plan. "We're hoping that some faculty will think carefully about whether or not they feel now might be an appropriate time to enter into a retirement agreement because they recognize that the University needs to implement this plan," she said.
In a May 4 e-mail to faculty that Krauss forwarded to the Justice, Krauss offered two options for voluntary retirement plans for faculty. Part of the plan could involve professors retaining tenure while teaching less than full time and still retaining their benefits and receiving a proportional salary, an option Profs. Silvia Arrom (HIST) and Rudolph Binion (HIST) have already taken. Binion said he had been feeling "worn out" working full-time and chose to work half-time. "It's exactly what I wanted. … [I have] time to catch up on other work," Binion said. Another option would be a fixed-duration transition agreement under which faculty would reduce their workload substantially before agreeing to retire at a specified date within five years. Their salaries would be reduced less than their reductions in workload would.
The supplemental report also recommends that all majors create curriculum committees to figure out "what courses should actually be offered in any given year over a three-year cycle," Jaffe said, to ensure that necessary courses are still offered after faculty reductions.
Jaffe said departments currently make these decisions individually to update their three-year curriculum plans each December. In fall 2009 he would "ask each curriculum committee in addition to their actual … plan to construct a hypothetical plan [with fewer faculty and more affiliations] that will be a process for stress-testing the faculty numbers" to determine if the new target sizes are viable. A new committee, the Dean's Curriculum Committee, will oversee this process, he said.
Krauss described the details of a voluntary retirement plan. "We're hoping that some faculty will think carefully about whether or not they feel now might be an appropriate time to enter into a retirement agreement because they recognize that the University needs to implement this plan," she said.
In a May 4 e-mail to faculty that Krauss forwarded to the Justice, Krauss offered two options for voluntary retirement plans for faculty. Part of the plan could involve professors retaining tenure while teaching less than full time and still retaining their benefits and receiving a proportional salary, an option Profs. Silvia Arrom (HIST) and Rudolph Binion (HIST) have already taken. Binion said he had been feeling "worn out" working full-time and chose to work half-time. "It's exactly what I wanted. … [I have] time to catch up on other work," Binion said. Another option would be a fixed-duration transition agreement under which faculty would reduce their workload substantially before agreeing to retire at a specified date within five years. Their salaries would be reduced less than their reductions in workload would.
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