Update from USFFA Weekly Email

Weekly Update

October 29, 2020

Strategic Plan

The Policy Board saw a presentation last week on the University’s nascent Strategic Plan, and members of the committee that’s working to draft it were able to answer key questions.

The planning process is just starting. The group, which includes two USFFA members (along with President Sonja Martin Poole, who serves as an ex-officio member) spent August and September establishing procedures and timelines, and will be meeting with campus stakeholders through December.

In January, the group will begin work on drafting a plan with measurable targets and resource allocation plans, and the plan is slated to be presented to the community and the Board of Trustees in June.

The plan starts with USF’s Mission Statement: “The University of San Francisco will be internationally recognized as a premier Jesuit, Catholic urban university with a global perspective that educates leaders who will fashion a more humane and just word.” The Guiding Values are the Jesuit Tradition, Principles, and Values; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Globally Focused and Responsible; With and In Community; and Resilience and Responsiveness.

Professors Jeffrey Paller and Richard Stackman presented the results of the process so far. Some of the questions focused on the obvious: What does “resource allocation” mean, and how will it be determined?

That, Paller and Stackman said, came from our budget committee’s insistence that future resource decisions should be driven by a strategic plan, and once the working groups and committee come up with that plan, the university’s future budgeting should reflect its priorities.

Others noted that in the past, faculty have devoted considerable time to processes (Magis, the Campus Climate) that have amounted to very little. This time, Paller and Stackman said, the process is being driven by the committee, not from the top down.

USFFA members are encouraged to get involved in the process. The website for the planning process is here. (And many thanks to Profs. Paller and Stackman for all their hard work!)

Access to your assigned offices

Approximately 50 of our members have expressed concern about being restricted from using their personal on-campus offices this semester. The current circumstances are taking its toll as we struggle to manage home and work challenges. President Sonja Poole has been in contact with those for whom not having access to their office poses an extreme hardship and has been working with the administration to identify solutions for each individual. So far 30 members have contacted her. Of those that have already contacted her, twelve (12) members have communicated that their need for office space has been addressed satisfactorily. Five (5) members need only one-time access to their offices to retrieve materials needed for research or teaching; specific dates are being identified for facilities to unlock and turn on elevators, lights, water, and their keycards so these members can navigate the building and offices. For the remaining members, the Association is requesting that the shared offices be assigned to these members on a pre-determined full-days schedule. The administration has assured us that the shared offices are cleaned daily and that our members’ needs for printing, storage, and natural light will be accommodated. 

*** Open office access December 7 through December 12  ***

The administration has announced an "open week" for December 7 through December 12. During this week, all buildings will be brought back online, and faculty and staff may access their offices to retrieve materials needed for work or for the preparation of classes for intersession 2021 or spring 2021. No reservations will be required, but -- of course -- interested individuals will need to complete the Dons Health Check Survey and follow all appropriate safety protocols (e.g., mask-wearing, social distancing, etc.) while on campus.

If you need access to your office prior to December 7th, please click the link below to meet with Sonja to discuss your needs and how they can be met: https://calendly.com/smpoole/usffa

End of Semester (Blue) Surveys

On October 13, VP Keally McBride and President Sonja Poole submitted a request to the administration to waive the Fall 2020 Blue Teaching Effectiveness Survey from promotion and tenure files. They argued that the disruptive conditions under which faculty have had to teach and students have had to learn  this semester have been unduly stressful, and that it is highly unlikely that teaching performance during this time will accurately reflect ability or skill. It is unfair to continue to use the Blues to determine promotion and tenure during a pandemic. Our request was denied by the administration. 

Under consideration by the administration is our proposal that we meet with the administration as soon as the aggregate Blue data for the Fall semester is available in December.  We want to make sure that we understand what the “averages” are and look at whether some members of our faculty will be disproportionately disadvantaged under pandemic conditions.  We aim to reach a common understanding , or MOU, with the administration about how these scores will be handled in their decision making. 

We are also putting a call out to members, particularly those who serve on a Peer Review Committee (PRC), to educate ourselves about how Blue survey scores should be used and reported -- now and always. It is important to recognize that Blue surveys are not designed to be teaching evaluations. Student surveys provide useful data to the evaluation process, but have been shown to reflect students’ gender and racial biases, and their results do not necessarily converge with the results of independent measures of teaching effectiveness. As such, evaluation is done by colleagues on the PRC and by deans. Peers and deans consider Blue survey results as data points in the context of the class, including additional information specified in our CBA that faculty members may provide, and this overall evaluation of teaching is a key determinant of promotion and tenure. We need to make sure that we are aware of the many reasons student opinions of our teaching are inappropriate by themselves for deciding promotion and tenure. It is our peers’ evaluations that matter the most as they are the most equipped to judge our performance.

CORRECTION: 

In last week’s blast we reported that “The current shortfall is $59 million, and USFFA is responsible for $50 million of that. Under the contract, if the USFFA responsibility goes about $47 million, the administration can look at retirement funds – but so far there is no indication of that happening.”

We are not responsible for $50 million. The item should have read that $50 million of the shortfall is in divisions that are represented by USFFA (i.e., the university is estimating a $59 million shortfall, but $9M of that comes from the Law School, Bon Appetit, etc.). So for the purposes of our agreement from last summer, the relevant shortfall is $50 million, not $59 million. This number is important because the size of the shortfall triggers different clauses in the agreement reached last summer (click here to read the agreement).  We apologize for the confusion! 

Submit comments to the Provost Search Committee

If you were not able to attend one of the listening sessions with the Provost Search Committee, or if you have additional comments for the committee, you can submit comments anonymously here: https://usfca.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_07WczSR2RM4VEvr 

We encourage all members to actively engage in this important process. Thank you to USFFA members serving on the committee, who have worked hard to create opportunities for faculty and librarians’ input, and to all those who have participated in listening sessions! 

Call for Members to serve on New Chair Task Force Report 

The USFFA policy board recently moved that the USFFA form a task force that investigates the workload, definitions and structures from the previous Chair Task Force Report in addition to other issues raised and propose CBA revisions for the next contract negotiations.  The task force will work during the Fall semester to gather data and generate proposals.  The proposals will be presented to Policy Board in early Spring 2021 for discussion and revision.  Final proposals will be finished at the end of Spring 2021 for bargaining.  The task force seeks faculty to represent undergraduate and graduate programs from each division:  Arts, Sciences, Education, Nursing, Management.