The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Thursday, April 1, 1982 Vol. 92, No. 124 USPS 650-640
Tenure key to KU's future
By ANNE CALOVICH Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
If you could go through some of those files in the office of academic affairs—the ones that hold in print the careers of those candidates up for promotion and help find out a lot about KU's future.
On file are those who may stay at the University of Kansas until retirement—keeping a teaching position from someone else who may be better.
Therefore, selection by the University Committee on Promotion and Tenure must be done carefully, because more faculty members are tenured and fewer will be entering the ranks, according to Robert Cobb, executive vice chancellor.
To decide whether the University will keep a faculty member for the rest of his teaching
career or promote him to the highest degree, a committee of 11 tenured faculty reviews numerous materials pertaining to each of the courses offered and to the teaching, research and service performance.
THE PROCESS itself has changed in the last 10 years. It requires more documentation from faculty members and concentrates more on new programs. As a veteran of the committee and professor of law,
The decisions must be made more carefully but there are still problems interpreting different methods of teaching and research—a part of a diversified university such as KU, he said.
Usually, a professor is given tenure in his fifth or sixth year as a University, and if he is not appointed then he is usually not given tenure.
a promotion from assistant to associate
president normally accompanies appointees, and appears
in the annual reports.
five or six years after a faculty member is named an associate.
Each member of the committee reviews each candidate's file—this year there were about 70—and votes on whether or not the candidates should be promoted or tenured.
THE COMMITTEE'S final recommendations go to the vice chancellor for academic affairs, the executive vice chancellor and then the Kansas Board of Regents after he approves it.
In choosing faculty members for tenure, the committee faces difficulties, Heller said.
Teaching is by far the hardest aspect of a candidate's performance to judge, he said, and it has become the most important part of a faculty member's job at KU when it comes time to
"In the last six or seven years the committee has been reminded annually that teaching is
See TENURE page ?
Colleagues approve tenure selection
By ANNE CALOVICH Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
A faculty member too sheltered within his own department can learn what goes on with the rest of his colleagues at the University of Kansas if he serves on the University Committee on Promotion and Tenure, according to Francis C. Wilson, a law who has been on the committee for 12 years.
Frances Ingemann, chairman of the committee for the first time this year, she parried.
Faculty members often stay too close to their own departments, he said, and the committee is one way faculty can see the University on a wide scale.
"I enjoy finding out what other colleagues are doing," she said.
DEANELL TACHA, vice chancellor for academic affairs and chairman of the committee, said she thought the committee members had the hardest job in the University. They must decide the future job security and promotion of their colleagues.
This involves reading files submitted by all the candidates, 70 of them this year. There have been as many as 120 to 130 in other years, Heller said.
The files reach the committee after a faculty member is recommended for promotion and tenure by his department chairman and dean, or he can apply himself.
The files are packed with teaching evaluations, published works and lists of services that have been accumulated over the past years, and so the reviewing process takes time.
Individual committee members review each file.
Heller said he spent about 20 to 30 minutes on each file because he has had practice, but said he never took the training.
INGEMANN SAID she made preliminary decisions on each candidate and then went back and reviewed those she was uncertain of and those she decided should not be promoted or
After the initial review by the individual committee members, all the candidates' names are submitted.
The candidates they did not unanimously agree are discussed.
There are always faculty members, Heller said, who do not fit the mold and are real problem candidates who require much discussion.
For example, one professor in a relatively small department spent a great deal of time on an esoteric project. His colleagues in the department felt it was esoteric and their decision to work there was not well known; his name came up in the University committee, some of the members were familiar with the
See COMMITTEE page 7
JOHN HANKAMMER/Kansan Staff
Members of the KU General Union of Palestinian Students end their afternoon rally yesterday in front of the Kansas Union. Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of the killing of four Palestinian Arabs. The rally was also a protest against the killing of six people last week in the West Bank.
Weather
Carlin favors more Med Center funds
Today will be mostly sunny and very mild with the high in the upper 70s, according to the National Weather Service will be from the south at 15 to 28 pm.
Tomorrow there is a chance of
Tomorrow there is a chance of showers and thunderstorms. The high will be in the 70s.
By TOM HUTTON Staff Reporter
KANSAS CITY, Kan.-Gov. John Carlin,
stressing his continued support for University of Kansas Medical Center payroll and scholarship increases, spoke yesterday to more than 200
Carlin, who was invited to speak at the Med Center by the Medical Student Assembly, acknowledged the Med Center's financial complains and promised to help save salary complaints.
"I'm aware of the budget problems here," Carlin said. "But it's difficult to predict financial outcomes when dealing with a Legislature that often rotates its policies."
Recently, a 8 million budget deficit at the Med Center, which was blamed on sagging occupancy rates at the hospital, caused a hiring freeze on employees.
BUT YESTERDAY the House Ways and Means Committee recommended that the Med Center receive no new funds for fiscal 1982, although it did advance the Med Center $1.2 million from its fiscal '83 budget to its 1982 budget.
Carlin, while on the subject of the Med Center basetext, emphasizes the impact of the recently defined criteria for carling.
"If we don't fund education properly," Carlin said, "we're all going to suffer, including the Med Care."
"We are the only oil-producing state that does not tax on the seafood industry, and weSeverance of funding problems in the state of funding problems.
Carlin broke from his approximately 15-minute prepared speech to field questions from
Mike McFarlane, Burlingame medical student and president of the House Staff Association of Resident Physicians, pointed out to Carlin the
Med Center's payroll deficiencies compared to other universities.
USING A CHART of 21 other university medical centers, McFarlane showed that the Med Center ranked 8th in starting salaries and the University hospitals for physicians with three years experience.
A recently graduated physician at the Med Center earns a $15,065 yearly salary, while a recent graduate at the University of Michigan receives $18,770. The difference for a physician at the University of Michigan is even drastic –$15,840 at the Med Center and $20,844 at the University of Michigan.
Carlin used McFarlane's question about increased salaries for physicians to explain a 10 percent salary increase for all classified state employees. Med Center workers are a part of the state, Carlin said, and must settle for this increase for the coming year.
Carlin had he realized the extra financial pressure on Med Center employees from private
hospitals would continue to aggravate the problem.
"If we don't approach the salary problem soon, the return on our millions invested in the Med Center will be less than desirable," Carlin said. "Salaries are an investment and if we are able to keep, to retain, a better force, we're going to be better off."
CARLIN ALSO defended an earlier decision to reduce medical school scholarships for students that agreed to work in medically understaffed Kansas towns. This scholarship program, he said, was evaluated thoroughly to assess its accomplishments before being cut.
The need for doctors in rural Kansas towns has decreased significantly in recent years, said Carlin, and the size of the program was becoming a financial burden.
"Adjustments looking into other areas are going to be made." Carlin said. "General funding and federal cuts--it's going to be tough times getting the necessary funding."
Dine Schneider, KU student and a nun, talks about her studies while sitting in the Smith Hall library. Sister Diane is working toward a degree in occupational therapy.
JOHN HANKAMMER/Kansan Staff
Nun balances college studies with community service work
Bv JIM LEHNER
Staff Reporter
Diane Schneider is a KU student who daily pursues two roles, one getting a degree in occupational therapy and the other being a servant of the Lord.
Sister Diana, a 17-year member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, decided to pursue her degree because she "got sick of being a certified technician for 10 years."
She said recently that her former job as a certified technician entailed working in a hospital operating room handing the doctors the instruments during an operation. She said she saw open-heart surgeries, operations on the brain and orthopedic operations.
"I decided two years age to change careers," the 34-year-old nun said. "I decided that I could use my skills in a professional manner as an occupational therapist."
AFTER LOOKING through many college catalogues, she decided that the University of Kansas had the best occupational therapy program. She said that she talked to her superiors in the community house where she lived and outlined her plans to them.
She said she told them how going to college would be beneficial to her order and how her field of study could best help people. Her permission did save ideas and granted her permission to attend KU.
The fact that no one fold her anything about
When she first arrived at KU, Sister Diane was astounded by the beauty of the campus.
"Being from Milwaukee, I had this vision in my mind that Kansas would be flat and boring. When I saw all these hills I was aweestruck," she said of her school where her was how neatly kept the University was.
how the University looked contributed greatly to her astonishment.
"It was like going to a surprise birthday party—I didn't know what to expect," she said.
SISTER DIANE said her first place of residence at KU was McCollum Hall.
"I felt that living in a dorm would be a good experience for me," she said. "The more people I lived with, I reasoned, the more people I could talk to about religion."
McCollum Hall was a good learning experience, but it placed a strain on Sister Diane's privacy.
The big problem was privacy—you didn't have too much of it," she said. "It was always noisy there. Even though I lived on a women's floor there never was a shortage of men wandering around. I don't dislike men but hearing them at all hours of the night can be a draw."
At the end of last semester, Sister Diane had moved to McColum Hall, so she moved into an apartment.
"I really think I gained a lot from McColum Hall," she said. "Foreign students would always come up to me, asking me what my religion is. I met many people that way. I also would confuse people by wearing my habit some days and not wearing it on others."
SISTER DIANE said what really amazed her all the people who recognized her when she stepped out of the room.
"People come up to me even if I'm not wearing my habit and say, 'Aren't you Sister Diane?' " she said. "It really makes you feel good that people know you.
"In Milwaukee, I was never afforded that pleasure—not as many people would acknowledge my presence like they do here in Lawrence."
See NUN page 5