Contracts for non-tenure faculty moving forward

University of Colorado leadership is looking to begin offering contracts for some non-tenure-track faculty as soon as fall of 2013, now that guidelines are in the process of being developed.

Kathleen Bollard, vice president for academic affairs, told the systemwide Faculty Council that she’s at work on a draft of an Administrative Policy Statement, which the council will review in the months ahead. She provided an update on the process, which got under way earlier this year, during the council’s Oct. 25 meeting at system administration offices in Denver.

“It’s important to leadership here to have three-year contracts in place,” Bollard said. Not all non-tenure-track faculty will receive contracts, but they will be offered to some who work at least half-time at the university. Contracts will last up to three years.

“It’s going to be great for recruiting and retaining high-quality instructors,” she said.

During Bollard’s regular report to the council, CU-Boulder’s Jerry Peterson raised the idea of revising wording used to credit faculty for their “service contributions.”

“’Service’ is a word that’s a bit too close to ‘servile,’” he said. “The idea has come up, could we change the word to ‘leadership,’ or ‘service and leadership’? Perhaps that would upgrade the level of responsibility associated with that contribution, and upgrade the perceived value.”

Bollard said such a change would require the campus assemblies to make a proposed change to the APS via the Board of Regents’ laws and policies, and that she no reason the change couldn’t eventually be made.

Check CU Connections next week for more news from the Faculty Council meeting.