Important Comments by President Lilley

President Lilley, in the January 19 Inside Baylor Weekly Newsletter, repeated some important remarks made to faculty members in a recent meeting. Some of these remarks are repeated here, which clearly reflect a commitment to the Baylor 2012 initiatives concerning research, and making accommodations in helping some associate professors in that regard. The entire remarks are here: January 19 Inside Baylor

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At the last meeting of the fall semester's Faculty Senate, Randall and I heard about the challenge of associate professors in being promoted to full professor with the new research-university expectations. The discussion was extended and was very helpful in defining the problem.

Having clearly heard the concerns at the Senate meeting, I reported in Inside Baylor that I would be talking with you today about a way to assist our associate professors in achieving the rank of full professor. I am announcing today a major financial commitment to provide reduced teaching responsibilities for those associate professors who wish to seek promotion. I also invite the schools, colleges and the Senate to think of other ways in which they can be supportive of our associate professors.

As a part of this year's faculty evaluation in February, Randall and I are asking our associate professors who desire promotion and are willing to meet the new scholarly standards, to prepare a very brief statement about how they would like to go about meeting those standards and over what period of time. If the department head approves the mini-plan, he or she will grant a reduced teaching assignment and will immediately request the funds from the provost to appoint faculty to cover that teaching reduction.

Randall's shop will be responsible for keeping tabs on the cost, but the cost will be met for those associate professors who choose to increase their research productivity.

As I have said repeatedly to the Faculty Senate, Randall and I recognize that such a change in scholarly expectations attached to the university's 2012 vision is difficult. This change in expectations is essential for us to enter the top tier of universities.

This change in research expectations, however, does not diminish our commitment to teaching/mentorship and service. I want to take this occasion to say that we will continue to expect great teaching/mentorship and service, but all of us must recognize that they are not substitutes for scholarship.

I also want to assure our associate professors that when they are ready for promotion to full professor and external letters are requested from experts in the field, we will make clear the circumstances of this change in expectations. We want the external evaluators to do their work with a clear understanding of Baylor's particular context.

Having lived through a similar change in expectations at a former institution, I can tell you that outside reviewers were always quite understanding about the nature of this kind of institutional change as they reviewed the quantity, and the placement of a faculty member's work.

There will be some associate professors who will choose not to follow the path of promotion. They may choose to focus on the very valuable work of teaching and choose to do more of it than those who are seeking promotion. And if that is the road they choose, their annual evaluation weights will be different, allowing them an opportunity to achieve excellent evaluations for a given year.

Our annual review process will recognize the particular contribution those individuals make to our students and to the University community.
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