College of Liberal Arts NTTF Advisory Committee
Meeting Minutes
January 28, 2022
Present were: Margaret Miller (chair), Pam Duncan, Kyla Masciarelli, Courtenay Biser-Suarez, Debbie Swann, Dani Castillo, Sadie Kinney-McGrath, Ellie Light, and Tom Conway.
1. The minutes from November 12 and December 3 were approved.
2. Committee vacancies: Luciana Marques has gone on family leave and nominated James Roller to represent her department. We voted to affirm James and will welcome him at our next meeting. Andrea Duffy has been named to a new position as Assistant Vice Provost for Student Success. Her place on this committee will remain vacant for now, to be filled in the upcoming Spring election.
3. Vote on MOO revisions: We lacked the quorum necessary to vote on this, so it will be done by ballot (Margaret and Sadie to implement). However, discussion on the proposed MOO changes ensued. Margaret noted that past input has supported revising the MOO to add committee representation for non-faculty teachers, as well as changing the overall representation to be based broadly on historical NTTF headcounts in the different parts of CLA.
Considerable discussion focused on the notion of swapping the compensation that we currently receive for committee membership in favor of service credit. Ellie informed us that Dean Withers wants some kind of “deliverable” (such as a report) if monetary compensation is to continue. Pam pointed out that each of us receives $500 per year for service on this committee, which she believes is not worth the intensity of the commitment required. She would be in favor of trading the compensation for service credit, especially provided that the relatively high time commitment is adequately recognized. Dani expressed similar sentiments. Debbie took the opposite position, noting that her service requirement of 10 percent is more than met without being on this committee so she would prefer the compensation. Tom reminded us that service requirements vary among departments. Margaret suggested that, if we opt to retain the compensation, perhaps getting the specifics of the service requirement figured out could be our “deliverable.”
Ellie said that all official changes to the MOO will be voted on at the big CLA meeting in April, so any decisions we make need to happen well before then. She will ask Dean Withers to join us to discuss and answer questions surrounding the issue of service vs. compensation.
4. Mentorship: Following up on the work done by last year’s subcommittee on mentoring for NTTF, Tom reported on its implementation in the English Department. He established a new mentoring program there for first-year NTTF and those going up for promotion. All participation is voluntary. The faculty in his department preferred forming “pods” rather than straight one-on-one mentoring pairs, and this has worked well in English which has a high number of NTTF. There was discussion of how this model might accommodate departments with too few NTTF to form pods. The notion of inter-department pods was suggested and well received.
5. New Business: Ellie provided an updated committee “syllabus” with topics for our upcoming meetings. She put a link to this into the Chat.
Respectfully submitted by Pam Duncan