Attachment B
Faculty Senate Agenda
May 2, 2002

Proposal for Senate Ad Hoc Committee on
Distribution of Research and Creative Activity (RCA) Awards
April, 2002

ORIGINATORS

Tammy Bourg, Chair, Department of Psychology
Ted Lascher, Chair, Department of Public Policy and Administration
Terri Sexton, Chair, Department of Economics

BACKGROUND

Last month, Academic Affairs notified the campus community about the RCA awards for the coming academic year. Almost two out of three assigned time units, over half of the monetary awards, and over half of the summer fellowships were awarded to faculty within a single one of the seven colleges (Natural Sciences and Mathematics). Faculty from at least one college (Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies) received no assigned time or monetary awards, despite the fact that several faculty applied for such grants.

The distribution of RCA awards across colleges has created considerable controversy. Department chairs and others have expressed concern, speculating that the award process may be tilted against faculty from some disciplines. SSIS Chairs have expressed particular worry about the impact of the distribution on junior faculty who were strongly encouraged to apply for awards and are now discouraged about the results. Additionally, some chairs had been highlighting the potential for obtaining RCA awards during the faculty recruitment process, and are now wondering if it is realistic to hold out such hope at least for faculty outside specific disciplines.

The RCA award distribution issue was raised during the Senate's "Open Forum" on April 4, and referred to the Executive Committee for further consideration.

PROPOSAL

The Senate would create an ad hoc committee on the distribution of the RCA awards. The committee would meet during the remainder of the spring and into the summer as necessary. The committee would be charged with: 1) determining the reasons for the wide discrepancy in number of 2002-03 awards made to faculty within different colleges of the University, giving consideration to the pattern of award distribution in recent years; 2) determining if the process for distributing awards across faculty in different colleges is biased or flawed in some manner; 3) recommending an option or options for addressing any procedural problems that are identified; and 4) submitting a report to the Senate at the first regularly scheduled meeting of fall 2002.

The ad hoc committee would consist of:

• seven faculty members, with one representative from each of the seven colleges, 
• the chair of the Research and Creative Activities Subcommittee or her designee,
• membership will include a member from the Faculty Policies Committee,
• the Director of Research and Sponsored Projects (ex officio)

The Senate Executive Committee would recommend to the full Senate faculty to serve on the ad hoc committee.