Faculty Council debates tenure, discusses health benefits

The Bloomington Faculty Council convened Tuesday afternoon with Interim Provost Lauren Robel as the council’s presiding officer.

The meeting, which was in the Indiana Memorial Union Georgian Room, was the first of the year and raised issues about faculty policy and graduate appointee stipends.

Here’s what you missed:

Non-reappointments for non -tenure faculty and librarians
Academic Guide Policy E-17 is outlines the review process for faculty members and librarians on track for tenure. Approved in 2003, the BFC is seeking to make some revisions to the policy.

A revision to the original policy stated, “If a department or school (for non-departmentalized units) decides not to reappoint a tenure-track faculty member or librarian during the first three years of the probationary period, that decision is final and no further substantive reviews are required.”

Some faculty members questioned the fairness of  a single review, which occurred between the faculty member’s third and fourth years, being a possible deal breaker for tenure.

The BFC reached no definitive conclusion.

Resolution on reporting benefits to IU faculty
The proposed health benefit premiums set for next year reflect a more than 100 percent increase from the year before.

During the meeting, requests from IU President Michael McRobbie and Vice President Neil Theobald were presented for BFC approval.

The requests presented a plan for helping employees understand the reasons behind the increase.

The plan called for faculty councils from each IU campus to distribute detailed cost and benefit analyses of the increase.

The original resolution called for the analyses to be distributed to every employee by Dec. 31, 2011.

A BFC vote approved moving the deadline, and the issue will proceed to the University Faculty Committee for further review.

Student Alumni Association Stipend Review Committee Report
In 2009, the BFC established the Student Alumni Association Stipend Review Committee after the Graduate and Professional Student Organization raised concerns that IU-Bloomington stipends are “not on par with those of peers in the Big 10 and elsewhere,” according to the committee’s report to the provost.

If the school wishes to attract the best students, the report points out, it has to be competitive in the stipends it distributes.

The committee presented four recommendations to ensure that stipends are consistent with other institutions.

The first called for a biannual report from each unit on campus that rewards its graduate appointees with stipends.

The second recommendation would require each organization utilizing stipends to publish policies regarding leaves of absence for students receiving stipends.

The third dictates that when campus-wide salary increases occur, stipends should increase by a corresponding percentage.

The fourth recommendation requests that the University Graduate School gather information about stipends at other universities biannually.