This week, the Faculty Senate debated a new policy that could potentially restructure departments across the university and even eliminate some non-tenure positions.

The policy, slated for vote in December, is based on the findings of The Task Force for Examining the Limits on NTE Faculty, a committee organized by the Faculty Senate, whose purpose is to examine the percentage of non-tenure eligible faculty relative to tenure eligible faculty.

The task force is currently trying to find a way to balance the number of non-tenure with tenured and tenure-eligible faculty members with respect to funding that has been reorganized by the new Resource Management Model. They are currently working to understand and justify the number of non-tenure track positions, especially for departments that fall above the proposed goal of 25 percent.

“What the FDAR and the task force has done … is to provide a vehicle for which we can engage in the discussion as to what is actually going on in the departments and the colleges with regard to our tenure eligible faculty,” said Micheal Owen, professor of agronomy and president of Faculty Senate.

The 25 percent goal is based on standards determined by the American Association of University Professors and from 11 other peer institutions. However, some faculty members criticize the goal as an arbitrary number that has no practical application because it is unrealistic for many departments.

“The task force never really knew if these numbers made any sense. They’re just the recommendation of the AAUP,” said John Mayfield, professor of genetics, development and cell biology and former member of the task force.

The task force found that the NTE’s needs vary greatly from department to department, so they plan to shift focus to individual departments, rather than setting university standards, to understand what changes need to be made or whether the goal is unrealistic.

“Clearly a number of departments are [more than] 25 percent, and we don’t know as a Faculty Senate what’s going on, and in some cases, it makes very good sense for it to be at a certain level because actually the expertise is at a different level. That should become evident as the responsibility statements go forward,” said Ann Smiley-Oyen, associate professor of kinesiology and presenting member of the task force.

The new plan states that in order to determine whether or not a department is meeting their goals, the deans of colleges will issue a report called a responsibility statement every three years that will defend why they have not met their goal for NTE positions.

Many senate members were skeptical of the new system and some even went as far as to call it an exercise in futility. Their argument was that if a significant amount of departments cannot meet the guidelines, then this is simply a waste of paperwork.

“There are a lot of departments in this university that cannot meet these guidelines, or if they did so, being a faculty member in that department would not be worth being a faculty member. Wouldn’t it be better to make it public why we’re in this situation?” Mayfield said.

Another criticism is that if we are following AAUP then we should adhere to all of their guidelines, which would make many NTE positions into tenure track positions to make the process easier.

“We’re not sure how this is all going to work out. I would suspect that in some departments this is going to be a smoother process than in other departments and colleges, but at least its a start to get the discussions going and there may be some friction between departments and deans,” Smiley-Oyen said.

One solution Smiley-Oyen later pointed out was that in order to decrease non-tenure eligible faculty, professors would simply have to teach more classes and spend less time doing research.