III. C. 3. Plans for Action: Faculty Retention and Promotion

1. Recommendations made in the 1991 FAAOC Report on Faculty Retention, 1980/81-1989/90, include:

a. Keep salary and fringe benefits strong. Minority and women faculty expressed very high degrees of satisfaction with these factors of their employment at Colgate;

b. Disseminate throughout the university community the findings of the 1991 report on Retention;

c. Provide more orientation and assistance to arriving faculty;

d. Establish programs to prepare women and minority faculty for the additional kinds of advising and monitoring that Colgate students are likely to require of them;

e. Take into account the special burdens (committee service and student advising) of membership in these groups during review and promotion;

f. Continue and expand measures (such as part-time Category I and Category II appointments to the faculty and networks with surrounding institutions) for facilitating the placing of employee spouses in satisfying jobs, especially when this serves affirmative action goals.

2. To the recommendations listed above, this Plan adds the following, based upon the findings discussed above in section III. A.:

a. Further attention to the issue of child care, especially for children under the age of two;

b. Further attention to facilitating spousal employment (including coordinating with Human Resources, and exploring other advertising strategies);

c. Ample funding for travel to conferences and other meetings. The scholarly life of many minority and women faculty at Colgate is marked by an especially keen isolation from those with common academic interests. Maintaining strong links to networks outside Colgate can greatly enhance such faculty's commitment to research and sense of belonging to an intellectual community;

d. Supportive mentoring which consults with junior faculty about ways to manage the inequitable service demands which can follow from minority/ALANA status; women also should receive such mentoring when their situations can lead to comparable pressures;

e. That the University undertake a new professional study of the results of Student Evaluation of Teaching forms from across the University over several years, to search for any factors in the teaching environment that may illuminate the special difficulties reported by minorities and women in adjusting to teaching at Colgate. Awareness of the documentation available in the literature and an understanding of such factors could aid instructors themselves, as well as others conducting review and promotion processes, in interpreting teaching records.

Previous (III.C.2) | Contents Page | Continue (III.C.4)

Page created by Alexander Rehm Questions to Diane Beach, Administrative Assistant to the Associate Dean for Affirmative Action and Employment Initiatives dbeach@mail.colgate.edu Copyright 1997 Colgate University. All Rights Reserved.