College of Liberal Arts NTTF Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes
August 29, 2022

Present were: Annie Krieg, AAH – Chair; Ellie Light, Dean’s Office; Aaunterria Bollinger-Deters, ETST; Jamie Switzer, TTF Rep; Debbie Swann, MTD; Thomas Conway, CoNTFF Rep; Gina Robinson, ILA; Jonathan Carlyon, LLC (Chairs Representative); Ashlee Allen, PLACE – Secretary

AGENDA:

 

A. Committee Syllabus: Ellie Light
Ellie shared the NTTF Advisory Committee Syllabus for AY22-23. This semester, the CLA NTTF Advisory Committee has been split into two sub-committees. Given the two sub-committees, there will be a focused approach to Dean Withers’ list of action items for the fall. The focus of sub-committee “A” (the present group) will be the issue of service and clarifying service expectations for NTTF. The focus of the second sub-committee (Group “B”) will be mentorship and communication between the Dean’s office, Departments, and the University. Next semester, the goal is to come back together as one single committee to focus on other action items including, but not limited to, NTTF salary, FTE, and the promotion process.

B. Sub-Committee Charge – Service: Annie Krieg
Our charge is to build upon the work of the service subcommittee from last year, and to create a rubric building upon the Provost Task Force for CCAF. The goal will be to then present this rubric as a resource of recommendations (not a mandate) to the Counsel of Chairs. Guiding questions for this charge are 1) what is service for NTTF and 2) how is service evaluated. First, regarding what constitutes service, there is a movement to make NTTF service resemble tenure track service (types of service, not amount of service), however, some potential service activity for CCAF, such as professional development related to pedagogy, might not be included in tenure track service. Second is how service is evaluated. Some departments, for example, may say that service is a way to categorize what NTTF already do outside of teaching. For other departments, it might be sitting on a committee or other related activities.

Within this charge, it was discussed that this sub-committee should also work on outlining the differences between service, teaching, advising, and mentoring, as well as whether the evaluation system we use for teaching (superior, exceeds, etc.) is also the best way to evaluate service. Furthermore, there needs to be clarification on the impact on percent of service when/if NTTF fall below 100% FTE, and if one can “bank” service from one semester to the next.

Additional concerns raised by the committee related to service:

• Equity: Women and BIPOC faculty are overburdened with asks and service. It’s important, therefore, to have a way to document service.
• What would a rubric look like, and what categories would work?
• Merit raises and the role of service evaluation in these raises.
• Service record and promotion process. Could department chairs check in with NTTF at around year 2 or 3 to check in to make sure NTTF are on track with service for promotion.
• The committee could gather service rubrics from different departments to see how service is evaluated and what constitutes service. From there, the committee could create a resource of “best practices” in which time/effort is one measure, and quality is another.

C. Campus Equity Week (October 24-28): Annie
We are looking for volunteers to work on events for Campus Equity Week. Ellie explained that last year, CoNTTF put on an information session to share data and this advisory committee offered a listening session at Avos. This could be a good opportunity for CCAF to get together in casual settings with no need for a formal schedule of events. If anyone on this committee is interested in volunteering time for campus equity this fall, get in touch with Annie or Ellie.

D. Brainstorming about Communications: Annie
How can we facilitate communication and community building and also prevent miscommunication about CCAF issues? Ellie noted that we don’t have representatives from every department on this committee and asked 1) how do we develop channels with departments not represented here, and 2) how do we represent the interests of all CCAF that we represent?

• Aanterria explained that in the Ethnic Studies department, there are monthly meetings where sharing occurs. During some of these conversations, people have shared that they don’t know about certain opportunities. In response, Annie informed the committee that there will be some committee meetings open to all CCAF.
• In the English department, Tom explained that there are a lot of CCA on faculty, so CCAF issues are often central to discussions. To illustrate, they have a CCAF Committee in English, and Luciana reports from the CLA NTTF Advisory Committee (this committee) to the CCAF English Committee. Then there is a Communicator who emails CCAF regularly. Annie suggested that we could consider “buddy departments”, or departments not always represented on this committee, and have our committee members send emails to liaisons in these departments.
• In addition to reaching out to all departments, how can we also help people communicate within their departments? Ellie informed the group that this committee sends out a newsletter once a semester, and co-secretaries for the sub-committees, Eli and Ashlee, will help write this up.
• It was also suggested that during campus equity week, this committee could host a CCAF happy hour on or off campus that committee members and CCAF could attend to make connections.

E. Wrap up Meeting & Adjourn: Annie
Meeting minutes for both sub-committees will be sent to everyone on the committee and published on the website. Next meeting: Monday, September 26 10-11:am on MS Teams.