Dear Peter,
I am confused concerning how the Senate Executive committee is proceeding with the revisions of the PTR. My understanding was that the consensus of the Senate was to take the suggestions of Joe Stone, made at the end of the meeting, as the starting point for a new PTR document. My recollection is that Joe Stone suggested that we take the present PTR policy and tweek it in several places--to incorporate some sort of 3rd year review (but, I hope a very streamlined one, not the one envisioned in the Conference committee's proposal) and perhaps to maintain the reward possible at the end of the 6th year review. In other words, that the present policy is a good one, but needs some adjustments and needs to be implemented more rigorously than it has been in the past, as required by Oregon legislation. I certainly did not endorse the Conference committee's version--my understanding of the vote that replaced the December version with that version was simply that it was a necessary parliamentary procedure. I also thought that Nathan Tublitz had endorsed Joe Stone's suggestion and made his own plea to follow it. In any case, I am worried by what appears to be a misunderstanding of what we decided in the last Senate meeting. I think at least some of us had issues with different aspects from each of the PTR policies presented.
I am concerned by the large amount of work that will be instituted by the Conference committee's version--I realize there are reasons why Jeff's proposal concerning this issue has caused consternation, particularly in CAS, but again, that is why I thought Joe Stone's suggestion was an attempt to alleviate some of these concerns for all of us. (and one other thing, I do believe that Jeff's attempt to make clear that PTR should not just be about research, but to be more flexible in terms of each professor's career and choices is important as protection against mere page counting as a way of assessing any individual's contributions.)
I have to admit that I have some misgivings about the reward system attached to any version of the PTR--I worry about the effect it may have on faculty--very nice to receive it, of course, but very distressing to not--and what factors will determine who deserves the reward? What are the expectations? Will there be a defined line of achievement below which faculty will not be rewarded? (and I worry about faculty with health problems, etc. which may affect an individual's productiveness--it would be distressing for any individual to feel punished because of the bad luck of not being healthy or of being disabled). I understand the reasoning behind the reward, but I am concerned about its abuse--perhaps I have become too cynical.
I wish instead that more effort would be made to deal with the terrible salary problems at this institution. No doubt pointless wishing on my part.
Thank you, Mary-Lyon