Policy for Faculty Development

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Goals

Approved by College Council 18 February 2000

The goal of this policy is to further the University's goals in education and dissemination of knowledge through the following:

  1. Fostering the development and continuance of excellence among the faculty.
  2. Aiding the administration of the College and University in understanding the motivations, strengths, accomplishments, goals, and plans of individual faculty members.
  3. Furtherance of communication and understanding between the faculty and the College and University administrations.

General Principles

  1. Having an administrative hierarchy which fosters understanding of the faculty's motivations, strengths, interests and plans as thoroughly and explicitly as practicable is a desirable goal in that it will help long range planning at the department, college, and university levels reflect those motivations, strengths, interests and plans.
  2. Having a faculty which understands the planning context in which they are operating and the choices being made by other faculty will help faculty who are considering changes in their long term plans to make rational, informed decisions. Furthermore, such an understanding will promote constructive discussion of plans being made at the department, college, and university levels.
  3. It is the responsibility of senior faculty to encourage and facilitate the development of non-tenured faculty members as they strive to achieve excellence in research, teaching, and service to the university.
  4. Any review of senior faculty accomplishments and planning should have as its goal the above types of communications and the encouragement of the faculty to consider, but not necessarily to conform with, the larger planning context of the department, college, and university.
  5. The present policy and its implementation cannot be coercive or violate the freedom of each faculty member to pursue those goals he or she has set as an individual.

Implementation

Non-tenured Faculty Development
Each department in MCS will formulate a process for mentoring and development of non tenured faculty which is consistent with the above goals and principles. "Non-tenured Faculty" here refers to tenure track faculty who are not yet tenured and to faculty in the Lecturer and Research tracks. While details of the process will be determined by each department, responsibilities include holding regular meetings with each non-tenured faculty member. These informal discussions should emphasize how best the department can support the faculty member's efforts to achieve high level contributions to research, teaching, and service. These discussions should also provide feedback to the faculty member as to his or her progress in achieving these goals.

Senior Faculty Planning Review The Dean of the College will hold regular planning review meetings with tenured Associate Professors and Professors in the College. These meetings are to be scheduled on a rotating basis with each tenured professor meeting roughly once every five years. Since the meeting schedule is periodic, the meetings imply nothing about the work or status of the faculty member but rather have as their purpose the types of communication noted above. In preparation for the periodic meeting with the Dean, faculty members are requested to write a retrospective and prospective document giving an overview of the faculty member's work and plans including research, teaching, and service. This document should have a more global perspective than the annual reporting of talks, papers, etc. The faculty member may address any issues of particular interest. This document will serve as at least a partial basis for discussion in the meeting. Additional issues may be broached by either the faculty member or the Dean. The content of the planning review process is expected to be fully consistent with the commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression set forth in the Carnegie Mellon University Policy on Academic and Individual Freedom. Any summary documents which may be produced by the Dean are to be shared with the faculty member.

Additional communications Department heads will annually review the annual reports of all faculty in their department and will provide appropriate feedback. On a more ad hoc basis, the Dean will be informed by department heads of developments in each department and the impact of these developments on long range planning.