BFA End of Year Report to Faculty Council, 2002

I would like to report on the activities of the Boulder Faculty Assembly and its various committees. We have worked very closely with the administration having representation in the Chancellor's Executive Committee, The Provost's Council of Deans, the Provost Budget Committee, the Boulder Campus Planning Commission, and others.

The main effort of the Boulder Faculty Assembly continues to be ``To ensure that salary distributions are based on Unit merit and merit evaluations by faculty peers. We are making progress in this regard. Unit merit is now a standard process whereby units are compared with similar units in peers groups as to market forces and unit quality. We are also studying the 40-40-20 research-teaching-service distribution of faculty effort; we are trying to determine how large a deviation from these guidelines are reasonable. We are trying to provide a minimum salary per class taught for instructors and provide better health insurance support for teaching assistants.

The Budget and Planning Committee continues to work on budgetary and planning matters. One of their main actions involved the Program Review Panel (PRP) process. We have recommended and the Provost has approved to have an in depth review of the process to determine whether we are keeping up with the latest methodologies. Also we have requested that, as part of the unit merit determination, the PRP describe the quality, as compared to our peers, of the unit being reviewed.

The Faculty Affairs committee has raised many issues and brought to the attention of the BFA various issues associated with matters of principles on how we should carry ourselves; like requesting that the secret Hutchinson-Hafer report be made public, improving the Third Level Review Process so that the academic standards of a group be better reflected in the committees, pointing out the deficiency in the salary of instructors, protecting the rights of retired faculty and other matters.

The Administration Appraisal Committee carried out two reviews this year. The salient observation is that Chancellor Byyny has a very strong evaluation by the faculty, an indication of the support and trust that now exists between the administration and the faculty. Shared Governance is now a fixture of this campus, supported strongly by President Hoffman and the Boulder Campus administration. As a result a great deal of progress is being made in improving the quality of our faculty and administrative processes.

The Student Affairs committee, similarly, brought matters to our attention such as the Student Bill of Rights, the campus environmental consciousness, and other matters of similar ilk.

The Minority Affairs Committee brought to our attention the issues associated with diversity awareness and asked that diversity training be part of a faculty's introduction to our institution.

One of our BFA executive members, Martha Hanna, attended a national meeting in which faculty evaluation methodology was discussed. As a result an add-hoc committee will be formed next year to discuss methods by which these evaluations can be improved to avoid biases.

At the beginning of the semester Timothy Foster, CCHE director visited with us, to discuss issues of mutual concern. The meeting was very useful for all sides and we hope to continue this practice at the start of every semester. At the same time we plan to enhance this program by invited other persons involved with the future of our institution so that we can exchange views and at the same time provide the perspective of the faculty on various matters.

The BFA passed a motion in support of Domestic Partner benefits, which the Regents are planning to act on in the near future. We also passed a motion in support of the Honor Code which is now in place since all the colleges have approved it. The Honor Code will be in place starting in August of 2002.

The quality of our institution is improving steadily. Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, Engineering and other units on campus are steadily being rated higher in comparisons with our peers. Examples are the Atomic Physics program which is now rated among the top two or three in the nation; this is a highly deserved ranking since members of that group won the Nobel Prize this year. The Physics department has steadily improved over the years improving from 35th to 20th in the list of ranked programs.

For next year we will engage the state on the ``Vision 2010'' and ``Quality for Colorado'' initiative. The BFA considers this very important and is a solution to the campus difficulties with finite size of the campus and insufficient resources. The process suggested in Quality for Colorado will allow us to realize our aim to be among the top ten public institutions in the U.S. We will invite various influential members of the state of Colorado for exchange of views so that faculty perspectives can be presented.

- Uriel Nauenberg, Chair, Boulder Faculty Assembly