• Promotion and Tenure Guidelines

For purposes of this narrative, the Constitution's definition is used when referring to faculty. Policies that address adjunct faculty will be discussed in this standard as well.

Tables 1 and 2 provide an overview of the composition of the faculty. The faculty are well qualified based upon degree, institutions granting terminal degrees, rank, and years of experience. One concern that this profile raises is the number of senior faculty who are now approaching retirement. They reflect hiring practices in the 1960's and 1970's when Portland State experienced significant growth, and will now need to be replaced to maintain the faculty complement. Such replacements will require a mix of junior and senior faculty to ensure both longevity of appointments and an adequate mix of seniority and expertise.

• Table 1: Institutional Faculty Profile
• Table 2: Number and Source of Terminal Degrees of Faculty

One of the most significant factors Portland State has experienced since its last review by NWCCU is growth - growth in student population, growth in scope of Portland State's offerings (both programmatic and delivery methods), and accompanying growth in faculty and in research expenditures. If Portland State is going to continue to grow, one of the concerns is what kind of faculty will be needed and will be available to deliver the range of programs. Questions that have been raised include:

• Who will Portland State rely upon as faculty of the future?
• How will this growth affect the proportions of faculty who are tenure track?
• What will be the future roles for fixed term and adjunct faculty?

One of the most dramatic effects of institutional growth on faculty has been the change in the composition of faculty (tenure related versus not). As student numbers have increased, there has not been proportional growth in the number of tenure/tenure track faculty positions. While the institution, in fact, has more tenured faculty at this time than at our last accreditation, the proportion of tenure-related faculty to all faculty has decreased. In some units there has been a decrease in real numbers as well. When the institution has had money, new faculty lines have been added. Most faculty hires, however, have been as a result of retirements or resignations. In order for departments to accommodate the increased student body, they have turned to fixed term and adjunct appointments to create an adequate faculty complement and this is reflected in the changes in student credit hour (SCH) generation. At the time of our last accreditation visit, 70% of SCH were generated by tenure-related faculty; this has decreased to just over 50% at this time. With the shift in the budget model to one based upon SCH generation and enrollment targets, academic units are under pressure to produce significant numbers of SCH. Given a decreasing proportion of tenure-related faculty working in an institution with increasing numbers of students, there is a concern that faculty are stretched too thin with teaching and scholarly expectations to be able to fulfill their many other faculty commitments. Some elements of faculty governance and responsibility remain the purview of the tenure/tenure-related faculty, as determined by departmental policies and contracts.

Unlike the modest gains in tenure-related faculty, administrative staff have not been added to keep up with the demands of enrollment growth leaving administrative and academic units under-supported. The staff are taxed with meeting increased demands from students and faculty and providing support for meeting the institution's priorities. One of the concerns is that the growth in fixed term and adjunct faculty has not been supported by the necessary infrastructure to seamlessly integrate these part-time faculty members into the life and work of the University. As an example, when a department hires four new adjunct faculty to assist in teaching required courses, each of those individuals must have a letter of offer generated, be processed through the Human Resources Department, be provided with identification, keys, mailboxes, and other necessary resources, and then be supported for their specific teaching activities. Each of these adjunct faculty requires the same amount of effort, regardless of their teaching FTE.

There have been several initiatives in recent years to focus discussions around some of these faculty issues. These include: a) the discussions of the Standard Four sub-committee; b) discussions of faculty issues at Faculty Senate prompted by the deliberations of the Standard Four sub-committee; c) a committee of deans chaired by former College of Urban and Public Affairs Dean Toulan to address faculty as related to growth issues, which reported to the Provost in Spring 2004; d) the Fall 2004 Symposium which addressed issues arising from the self-study deliberations, including faculty issues which crossed several of the topical areas; and e) a Salary and Compensation Task Force appointed by the AAUP and the University in 2004 to study faculty salary and compensation issues, which will deliver its final report in the Spring of 2006.

The economic climate and generally low salaries in Oregon, as compared to public higher education institutions in other states, limit the University's ability to offer competitive salaries to new hires (other than in special categories for which there is designated funding). Limited resources also make it difficult to offer competitive moving packages that support relocation costs in full. To date, most faculty are recruited on "hard" dollars (i.e. a guaranteed nine-month salary). Only rarely has Portland State recruited new faculty who are guaranteed only a percentage of their salary, with the expectation that they will generate the remainder through external research funds and other revenues, including tuition. Recently, six new positions were created as "faculty of distinction" where the administration provided half of the funds for the hires. In another case, a research group of several faculty was added to the Graduate School of Social Work, funded by central resources, the school, and faculty research. Such creative new strategies are only feasible in areas where external dollars are available (such as the sciences) and less applicable where external dollars are not as readily available (such as the arts). Other strategies for increasing faculty may include positions shared and supported across academic units, and appointment in conjunction with community colleges or with other area institutions such as museums.

Another new strategy has been the conversion of some fixed-term positions to tenure-line positions as a way of increasing the number of tenure-line faculty. The Guidelines for Promotion and Tenure state that: "a fixed term appointment does not foreclose the possibility that a department may wish to consider that faculty member for a tenure-related appointment. In such cases, the years spent under fixed term appointment may be considered as a part of the probationary period for tenure at the time the individual is placed on the annual tenure track." [p. 14]

One of President Bernstine's initiatives is to increase the diversity of the campus, including the composition of the faculty. Priority resources are provided through the Office of the President for minority hiring incentives to departments. While Portland State has seen an increase in hiring, it continues to face issues of retention. The development of mentoring and support programs for under-represented faculty through the Center for Academic Excellence is an attempt to address retention. Departments and programs are encouraged to use the resources of CAE to help under-represented faculty be successful in the tenure process. The University faculty search process clearly outlines measures to attract minorities specifically and to ensure equity for all candidates.

• Affirmative Action Search Process

The University continues to examine this situation through mechanisms such as the Diversity Action Plan, which includes steps to ensure commitment to diversifying the faculty.

• Diversity Action Plan

Faculty Evaluation and Rewards

One of the most notable elements of faculty evaluation and rewards that has occurred since the last NWCCU visit is the development, adoption and implementation of the document, "Policies And Procedures for the Evaluation of Faculty for Tenure, Promotion, and Merit Increases," adopted May 1996. The new criteria for evaluation were created at an important developmental time for the University with the advent of the new general education program, University Studies (described in Standard Two), an institutional commitment set forth by then President Judith Ramaley to define an urban mission, and a well-articulated commitment to serving the community.

The revised policies were developed through administrative and faculty leadership, and were among the first in the country to be adopted that allowed for scholarship to take a variety of forms. Based upon Ernest Boyer's conceptualization, and further development by Charles Glassick and colleagues, scholarship is viewed through four perspectives: discovery, integration, interpretation and application. The policies are explicit in defining the mechanisms for assessing the quality and significance of scholarship, and set out specific criteria for this assessment. The policies then articulate the processes to evaluate four categories of activity: research and other creative activities; teaching, mentoring, and curricular activities; community outreach; and governance and other professionally-related service.

• Promotion and Tenure Policies (Pages 8-11)

Throughout the policies, examples clarify how options for the scholarship of outreach and the scholarship of teaching can be illustrated. For example, within the section on "Significance of Results" the following examples are included:

• "Faculty engaged in community outreach can make a difference in their communities and beyond by defining or resolving relevant social problems or issues, by facilitating organizational development, by improving existing practice or programs, and by enriching the cultural life of the community. Scholars should widely disseminate the knowledge gained in a community-based project in order to share its significance."
• "As teachers, scholars can make a difference in their student's lives by raising student motivation to learn, by developing students' life-long learning skills, and by contributing to students' knowledge, skills, and abilities. Teaching scholars also can make a significant scholarly contribution by communicating pedagogical innovations and curricular developments to peers who adopt the approaches."

The guidelines encourage faculty to create an individual scholarly agenda and to craft portfolios for review that highlight the unique aspects of their individual contributions to the institution. Model portfolios demonstrate interdisciplinary collaborations, responsibilities to programs outside of their own department (such as University Studies), and scholarly contributions through community engagement. Examples of such portfolios are maintained by the Center for Academic Excellence and are referenced in faculty development activities.

Portland State has been recognized nationally and internationally for the innovative approach embedded in these policies in terms of their flexibility, lack of prescription, and significant recognition of the value of community-based scholarship and the scholarship of teaching. While all units must follow the same guidelines and general processes, criteria are further defined and operationalized at the departmental level, allowing for some variation that acknowledges and respects disciplinary orientation while still adhering to the overall university philosophy. Individual units also define how departmental Promotion and Tenure committees will be formed, who may serve on them, and what roles students will play in the process. Student participation in the consideration of promotion and tenure is mandatory. Departmental guidelines for tenure and promotion are reviewed by, and maintained on file in, the Office of Academic Affairs.

• Promotion and Tenure Policies on Scholarship

Regular faculty evaluations are built into the guidelines in the form of required first year reviews, and reviews each subsequent year. The University guidelines specify that the third year review follow the University procedures. There have been efforts to implement a more routine method for formal communication by deans to the individual faculty member regarding their progress toward tenure as a result of the third year review. CAE has been working with new faculty as soon as they join the institution to help them make deliberate progress toward tenure and promotion throughout their early academic career. CAE also provides a coaching program that connects senior faculty with more junior faculty.

• CAE Promotion and Tenure support

There is no consistent policy that applies to evaluation of adjunct faculty. However, in practice adjunct faculty receive a letter of offer for a specific teaching appointment outlining expectations and responsibilities, have student course evaluations completed at the end of each course, and are then evaluated by the department chair prior to receiving a subsequent letter of offer. Department chairs may conduct this evaluation through a variety of methods, but in general rely upon the student course evaluations at a minimum and may also engage in an interview and/or peer evaluation. Course evaluations are conducted across campus, with different approaches evident in different departments.

Portland State is a unionized campus, with American Association of University Professors (AAUP) representation of all faculty with appointments of .5 FTE or greater (tenure-related and fixed term) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) representation of the part-time faculty with FTE below .5. The unions play a significant role in approval of new policies for faculty evaluation. For example, in recent negotiations (2003-2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement), the University and the AAUP incorporated a clause providing for regular reviews of fixed-term faculty, which has resulted in a new process whereby departments are required to conduct annual reviews of each fixed term faculty member according to guidelines established by the department. AAUP also sponsors informational workshops for tenure-line and fixed term faculty.

• AAUP contract (Page 21)

Financial limitations affect the University's ability to reward faculty and staff. The bargaining units and the University negotiate salary increases, minimum salary levels by rank, and minimum increases for promotion through the ranks. In past years a complex formula was used that included seniority, salary compression, and national averages by discipline to determine salary increases. Given the current Oregon economic environment, there is a freeze upon salary increases imposed by the state governor and legislature. As a result, Portland State is experiencing salary compression. In order to be competitive, new hires are rarely made at minimum levels; as a result some new assistant professors are being hired at salary levels greater than faculty at higher ranks and with more experience, whose own salaries have been limited by these restrictions. In particular, it has been possible to be competitive and hire minority candidates using special funds targeted for minority recruitment, and to recruit new "faculty of distinction" using other designated pools of resources. While these two categories of faculty certainly enrich our faculty complement, there is some resentment among longer-term faculty about the salary levels that can be offered to new faculty using special resources. A Salary and Compensation Task Force is looking into these issues with the goal to address them long term.

The average salaries of Portland State faculty as compared to peer institutions are considerably lower, with Portland State salaries for full professors at 83% of our peer comparators, while salaries for assistant professors are at 86% of peers. Instructors, while small in number, rank most favorably with respect to peers at 94% of comparators. Of interest is the fact that new assistant professors reflect salaries the closest to those of peers (98%), reflecting increased investment in recent recruitments of new assistant professors.

• Faculty Salaries

The increasing cost of benefits, particularly health insurance, is of great concern to the University. To the credit of the institution, Portland State is committed to covering 100% of benefit costs despite the salary freeze. The benefits package is clearly articulated, and faculty receive notification in the Fall of the time period to make changes in benefits. Although there have been fewer choices among options for benefits in the past three years, faculty in general are satisfied with the range of benefits, but are concerned about the rising costs which have resulted in benefits becoming a major item of discussion in union contract negotiations. The recent changes in the state's Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) have lead to another benefit issue of concern to faculty. These changes apply to faculty to varying degrees based upon their date of hire. While currently under court review, if applied these changes will have a measurable affect on faculty retirement benefits.

Faculty Work Life

Portland State has a vibrant and engaged faculty who are very committed to the institution, and are also very involved in the local community. Faculty value the quality of life in Portland (such as location, opportunities for partners and spouses, quality of schools, housing), as well as working at an urban university, and are willing to tolerate some limitations (such as low salaries and limited space) in order to maintain their quality of life.

While there is clarity in terms of the institutional direction, each articulated priority for the institution has an impact on the faculty. New attention to advising resulted in a shift of responsibility for all declared undergraduate majors to the departments rather than a formerly shared system that designated the central Information and Academic Support Center as the prime resource for all general education advising. This is a complex and demanding responsibility for faculty in an institution where a majority of the undergraduate students are transfer students, and many attend school part-time. The establishment of alliances with other educational partners to create seamless learning opportunities between community colleges and four-year institutions has resulted in faculty taking on the responsibility for articulation agreements, offering programs at multiple locations, and advising community college students. A robust growth agenda has resulted in increased student numbers; this has meant that the faculty and staff have the same resources to address the individual needs of more students. Faculty often do not see a sense a commitment from the administration to recognize that these priorities have real implication for faculty workload and address these implications.

The vision and values statement adopted by the University in 2003 identified seven priorities for the University. The first priority is: "Attract and retain a faculty of distinction. The strength of the University is based on its faculty and high quality programs." While this is a priority faculty can clearly support, its implementation raises questions such as whether "faculty of distinction" is a collective descriptor of the Portland State faculty as a whole, or refers only to selected individuals; what resources are designated to support such recruitment; and whether all new recruits under this priority should support the institutional priorities of Portland State.

There is considerable variability across the institution in terms of required teaching loads, student-faculty ratios, percentage of courses taught by tenured faculty, faculty rewards, and ability to bring in and draw upon external funds. Variable teaching loads exist across departments and from unit to unit (from as low as 18 credits per year to as high as 28 credits per year per individual faculty). While this variability allows for flexibility, it also produces concerns about equity across units. There is also no institutional policy for recognizing class size in determination of faculty workload (although that may happen at the unit level), no rewards in some schools/colleges for out-of-class graduate student supervision (i.e. thesis or dissertation), little recognition of teaching of courses by arrangement or independent research as part of faculty load, and no ability to include off-campus students in determination of student credit hour generation (some collaborations rely upon students registering at their home institution but Portland State faculty still have responsibility for teaching, advising and grading).

The University has become increasingly more reliant on the ability of faculty to bring in external funds. That ability varies across departments as some disciplines have greater options, as well as traditions or cultures of external support, whereas others have no experience with external funding. While this is a reality, some faculty view it as creating inequities in terms of faculty expectations and workload. In recent years there have been some internal initiatives to provide additional resources that are linked specifically to the possibility to bring in external funding.

• Great City Great University initiative

There are increasing expectations of faculty to assume more responsibilities with little or no recognition, including the demands of holistically advising a large population of transfer students, assessment, standing committee involvement, annual fixed term reviews, new program development, research proposal writing, and graduate student thesis and dissertation advising. All of these activities consume considerable amounts of time, and some faculty perceive that these commitments take them away from teaching and scholarship. On the other hand, these are all essential elements of faculty participation. Thus there is conflict between a commitment to meet growing expectations for faculty, while increasing research and scholarly work and managing additional expectations with limited rewards.

To support and allow for revitalization, faculty can regularly apply for sabbatical leave, and policies regarding leave are clearly articulated in the AAUP Contract, the P&T Guidelines, and Oregon Administrative Rules.

A major development at Portland State that supports faculty since its last NWCCU visit is the establishment and growth of the Center for Academic Excellence. Many of the activities of CAE support faculty development and provide resources and services that help faculty in their teaching, research, and professional development. The major faculty development activities of CAE include:

• Supporting community-based learning and development of community-university partnerships.
• Coordinating and providing consultation with respect to assessment.
• Offering campus conversations, breakfast forums, and other workshops on topics relevant to faculty work, educational policy, and campus life.
• Providing workshops for new faculty on developing courses and crafting a research agenda;
• Disseminating new teaching and learning technologies.
• Providing consultation and assistance to faculty with respect to tenure and promotion reviews.
• Consulting with faculty on an individual basis around specific teaching and learning issues.
• Offering occasional mini-grants or stipends for specific faculty initiatives.

Examples of CAE's work may be found on its website.

• Center for Academic Excellence

An issue that was articulated at the Fall 2004 Symposium related to faculty life was the lack of a faculty "gathering place" on campus. Some faculty believe that a faculty club would be viable, while others are resistant to the concept. A reality of being an urban campus with variable teaching hours is that there are no uniform times or places where faculty might congregate. A previous faculty dining room was converted into the Multicultural Center as a result of decisions about institutional priorities, as well as underutilization. There has been some suggestion that the new facilities available at University Place, the hotel/conference center that Portland State recently acquired, could become a center for faculty socializing.

Footnotes

1. Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities for the Professorate, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990
2. Charles E. Glassick, Mary Huber, and Gene Maeroff, Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professorate, Special Report of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, Inc., 1997.