BACKGROUND:

At the August 17, 1979 Board of Control meeting the Ad Hoc Board of Control Committee on Faculty Appointment, Promotion and Tenure Policies and Practices presented a report. Recommendations of this report include the following:

1. "Accordingly, it is recommended that the Vice President of (Academic) Affairs deliver a written report annually to the Board of Control reviewing the tenure and promotion system and its operative practices -- of particular importance will be the examination of how the system performs at the Departmental Level, the correlation between Departmental recommendations and the final awards and the steps taken to implement a more effective operation."
   
2. "It also must be the responsibility of the Vice President of Academic Affairs to make certain that appropriate information about procedures for appeal of decisions is disseminated and readily available to faculty members."

These recommendations have not been implemented.

PROPOSAL:

1. The Vice President of Academic Affairs shall present to the Senate at its first meeting in the fall the information about the correlation between Departmental recommendations and final awards of promotion for the previous academic year, including the total number of candidates recommended for promotion by the Departments and the total number of promotions awarded.
   
2. An effective process for appeal of promotion decisions shall be established and information about it shall be disseminated to the faculty.

OPINION OF PROMOTIONAL POLICY & PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS COMMITTEE

The Promotional Policy and Professional Standards Committee believes promotion and tenure policies and practices are in the best interests of the faculty, the administration and the university. Indeed, these policies and practices are of vital importance if the university is to carry out the long range academic plan instituted by Committee C. Furthermore, this committee is of the opinion that the current promotions and tenure policies based on the current criteria are fair and equitable and therefore need no revision providing proper procedures including communication between the faculty and administration are followed. The committee feels that in some cases communication has been poor and proper procedures have not been followed. This breakdown in communication and procedures has been due to vacancies and changes of administrative personnel. This committee feels that unjust procedural practices dealing with the sensitive issues of promotion and tenure, are particularly devastating to the individual faculty, to the university, and to the long range academic plan. In summary, this committee is in agreement with the findings of the Ad Hoc Board of Control Committee as outlined in items 1 through 6 of their report. Therefore, the Promotional Policy and Professional Standards Committee respectfully submit the following resolution to the Faculty Senate for adoption.

RESOLUTION

May 6, 1981

Be it Resolved that the Michigan Technological University Senate fully endorses the conclusions given in the Report of the Ad Hoc Board of Control Committee on Faculty Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure Policies and Practices and presented to the Board of Control on August 17, 1979.

Further, be it resolved that the Vice President of Academic Affairs present to the Senate the written report described in Paragraph 4 of the Committee Report which is presented to the Board of Control as recommended by the Ad Hoc Board Committee.

Finally, be it resolved that if an application portfolio for promotion or tenure has been inadvertently misplaced in the procedure for promotion or tenure, that it be considered individually via an appeals process described in Paragraph 5 of the Ad Hoc Board Committee Report.