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June 12, 2008
Baylor Line News
A publication of the Baylor Alumni Association
Beginning on Monday, June 9, and continuing for four days, Baylor administrators and faculty gathered at Truett Seminary for an "Academic Summit" addressing the topic of tenure. Those invited by the administration included all deans and department chairs, plus the executive committee of the Faculty Senate, the representative of Baylor's chapter of the American Association of University Professors, all the University and Distinguished Professors, and numerous senior faculty members.
The first day's participants--numbering more than sixty--included fifty-seven faculty members who had been assigned to five different working committees: tenure pathway, research/creative information, external reviews, evaluation of teaching, and annual evaluation process. Each group considered questions and suggestions that had been submitted by faculty and examined the pertinent parts of the university's tenure policy and procedures.
But the documents the groups examined were new ones. Now posted on the website of the Office of the Provost at BUPP 704 Revision History, a new tenure policy was signed by Baylor President John Lilley on June 2. A separate document regarding tenure procedures was dated June 9.
Baylor's vice provost for academic affairs and policy Dr. James Bennighof said that a new tenure policy had been in the works for many months, and that faculty were informed that it had been signed recently. He said one reason the president changed the policy was that the administration wanted the summit group to work on those new documents, rather than the old one. "We wanted to use this as the point of departure for this summit, because it represents the best thinking we had," Bennighof said, noting that the document was created with input from many faculty sources over a long period of time. He said a great amount of work and input had gone into the document and that the president wanted to signal that he appreciated that effort.
Even though the documents have been signed as official policy, Bennighof said, "We are assuming that this policy will not be the one we end up with at the end of the summer. Essentially, we're using it as a temporary document, and it is quite probable that this document as it stands now will never be used."
The summit began with a luncheon on Monday, and break-out groups worked through the afternoon and into Tuesday morning. Before lunch on Tuesday, a session was scheduled for the groups to report on their work and to get input from the other groups.
"Then we expect that they will actually do writing on the policies and procedures," Bennighof said. "And we are hoping to have new drafts by the end of the summit. Then we plan to touch it up, put it up on Blackboard [web access for faculty], and open it up to all faculty to get more feedback, with a view to getting things finalized by the end of the summer."
To read updates to this story or to share your thoughts about Baylor's new or old tenure policies and procedures, go to the Baylor Line Forum.
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