This spring we have a number of important initiatives and planning efforts underway and, finally, a state budget. Because of the Chancellor's announced hiring freeze I know that many of you are wondering about its impact on our hiring plans for this year. Fortunately, the deans and chairs worked conscientiously with department faculty in the fall to focus our hiring efforts this year in areas of the most serious need. We are therefore continuing with over 55 planned searches, provided the pools are strong. Likewise staff searches in areas of critical need will continue.
As you know, the Academic Senate at its December meeting passed without dissention a revised University RTP document, which has been distributed. This proposed revised document will be presented to the full faculty (tenured and tenure track) for a vote in March. If the revised document is accepted by a simple majority, the new revised document will be sent to the Provost and to the President for approval.
Given that we may have a revised University document in place in the near future, the next step in the RTP alignment process will be to develop new or revised college and department RTP documents that align appropriately with the new University RTP document. Associate Vice President Holly Harbinger and I will soon be visiting with each of the college deans, college RTP committees, and department chairs to discuss development and implementation of new or revised college and department documents.
Finally, during the fall semester I visited all of the college advisory councils to discuss a plan for decentralizing to the colleges workload reassignment for research, scholarly and creative activity. I also visited with the Chairs Advisory Council, the Faculty Personnel Policies Council (FPPC) and the Academic Senate Executive Committee on more than one occasion to discuss changes to the workload reassignment program. I will share what I have learned from these conversations and our planning for the program at the Academic Senate at a February or March meeting. In the meantime, Interim Associate Vice President Jim Till and I will be working with the deans to plan a series of forums for college advisory councils and college SCAC committees on this initiative.
I am looking forward to our conversations this semester about these and other important issues for our campus community.
