Skip to main content
Indiana University
Minutes for November 18, 2003 Meeting
Summary of IULFC Meeting with the P & T Review Committee at IUPUI

Present:

Presiding

Suzanne Thorin (Ruth Lilly University Dean of University Libraries)

Members of the P & T Review Committee

Mary Stanley (IUPUI), BJ Irvine (Bloomington, co-chair), Sue London (IUPUI/Law Library), Richard Vaughan (Bloomington/Law Library), Erika Dowell (Bloomington), Judy Violette ( Fort Wayne), Lora Baldwin (Richmond), Chris Long (IUPUI/Law Library);
Over conference phone:
Carol Rusinek (Gary), Diane Bever (Kokomo), Gwen Pershing (Bloomington), Marty Rosen (New Albany)

Members of the IULFC

Jo McClamroch (Bloomington), Andrea Singer (Bloomington), Frank Quinn (Bloomington), Marion Frank-Wilson (Bloomington, secretary), Kevin Petsche (IUPUI), Polly Boruff-Jones (IUPUI, secretary-elect);
Over conference phone:
Kirby Cheng (South Bend)

Representatives of 2002 P&T Committee

Gabrielle Carr (New Albany, chair)
Richard Humphrey (IUPUI)

Guest

Harriette Hemmasi (Executive Associate Dean, Bloomington)

Thanks and opening remarks by Suzanne Thorin.

BJ Irvine, co-chair of the P & T Review Committee, explained the background of the committee's work and briefly summarized the report. She pointed out that the committee found the system currently in place was in principle a good system which just needed to be up-dated and made more precise. She then asked the chairs of the various sub-committees to summarize the work of their committees and explain the documents they drafted as a result of their work. See Appendix 4 of the P&T Review Committee's report for list of sub-committees.

The following is a summary of the issues which require action by IULFC. Please refer to the report for more detailed information on each item.

1. Criteria and related issues, including the balanced case

The committee found the existing documents to be disparate and wanted to make them more cohesive. The committee members aimed at developing characteristics of an effective librarian. See appendix X for the new guidelines, which start with general criteria and then move on to more detailed, precise criteria. Several examples were included to explain service and professional development contributions. These examples represent some typical scenarios, and the committee tried to keep them broad enough to apply to every campus.

Action Item:

Should the criteria proposed by the P&T Review Committee be adopted?

The Committee also developed a new document of Recommendations on "Preparing Your Dossier", which is now all in one document. If the document is approved, the forms need to be online.

Gabrielle Carr asked if there was any information on where librarians' annual review should go in the dossier. She thought this information should be stated somewhere, since it is always asked at the P&T workshops.

Action Item:

Should IULFC consider a language change to the effect "Annual reviews if required...." See Appendix 11, p. 9 of the report.

2. Mid-tenure Review, Mentoring, and Support, including the Role of the Human Resources Office/Officer

The Committee recommends having an IULFC mentoring committee and to also create a website (off the IULFC page) with names of librarians who are willing to be mentors. Another recommendation is that mid-tenure review should resemble the real process more and include more documentation provided by the librarian.

Action Items:

- Should the mid-tenure process be expanded to include more documentation, e.g., should a supervisory statement be included in the mid-tenure review? Should it even be a separate process, in case there are many dossiers?
- Should mid-tenure review be required?
(Background info: P&T representatives thought it should be required, because many dossiers, part. of librarians who did not go through mid-tenure review, are poorly organized; Based on the interviews conducted by the P&T Review Committee, the Review Committee determined that the majority of faculty wants it to be voluntary)
- Gabrielle Carr pointed out the difference in purpose of a letter written by the P&T Committee in reaction to a mid-tenure review to that written as an actual P&T letter. Question: should this distinction go into the guidelines?

3. Role of the Dean and the Human Resources Office/Officer

There was agreement with the Committee's recommendations on the role of the Dean to be an advocate for faculty status of librarians among the university community, among supervisors, et al.; see report p. 9. It was stressed that supervisors need to be encouraged to attend P&T workshops.

Re. the role of the Human Resources Officer, the Review Committee tried to just clarify what is already stated in the existing documentation, i.e., the Human Resources Officer should provide administrative support.

4. Effectiveness of the IULFC Promotion and Tenure Committee, including the role of the Dean, the IULFC and continuity of requested actions, and the mentoring role of the committee

There was discussion as to whether untenured librarians should be members of the P&T committee. Representatives of the current P&T committee were in favor of having untenured librarians, the Review Committee recommended against it, with the argument that it is counter to the faculty model. Arguments for including untenured librarians are that they provide a different (the "untenured") perspective, and that they benefit from this learning experience when preparing their own dossiers. Another argument in favor of including them is that the regional campuses have fewer librarians to serve on the committee and without being able to include untenured librarians, the same tenured librarians would have to serve on the P&T committee all the time.

Action Items:

- Should untenured librarians be able to serve on the P&T committee?
- Re. the role of the IULFC, see point 2 above on mentoring;
- In order to ensure continuity, the outgoing and incoming IULFC secretaries should meet in the summer to exchange information; additionally, the IULFC secretary should meet with the P&T committee before that committee has its first meeting;

4. Promotion to Full Librarian

There was discussion about the proposed criteria for full librarians, and whether they are setting the standards so high that associate librarians may be discouraged to seek promotion to full rank - which would be counterproductive. It was pointed out that it might be difficult to build a case for full rank (which includes being 'exceptional' in secondary area), in addition to being exceptional in performance.

Action Item:

Should these criteria be adopted?

Questions for IULFC:

- The P&T Review Committee's report will be mounted on IULFC's website. Should there also be workshops to discuss the document, and when should these workshops take place?
- How do regional campuses want to distribute and discuss the document - should faculty standards committees on each campus comment?
- What are the issues on which should be voted?
- When will we vote? Is Librarians' Day a possibility?