June 26, 1991

PRESIDENT DAVID P. GARDNER
Office of the President
300 Lakeside Drive, 22nd Floor
Oakland, CA 94612

Dear David:

I am transmitting to you the Report of the Universitywide Task Force on Faculty Rewards. As you know, this Task Force was established in September, 1990, by Senior Vice President Frazer to review academic personnel policy on criteria for advancement and to review current practice in the implementation of this policy to determine if the reward structure in the professorial series is consistent with the mission of the University.

The Task Force met five times during the year and has, in addition, communicated extensively in preparation and editing of this report.

From the beginning of our deliberations, I have been struck by the seriousness of purpose of the Task Force. The significance of the issues in our charge was reflected time and again in our discussions and was frequently reinforced by the tremendous interest in our work evidenced in conversations that I had with colleagues across the country. Our overriding concern was to ensure that the "proper work of faculty members" was fully supportive of the broad mission of the University and that meritorious achievement by faculty in pursuit of the mission was both encouraged and appropriately rewarded. If I were to paraphrase our recommendations, it would be this: we must restore a more appropriate balance among the traditional categories of scholarly activity of the faculty, and we must exercise more judiciously the flexibility in evaluation of faculty performance that is currently available in our Academic Personnel Manual, yet infrequently utilized.

We invite faculty colleagues and other reviewers to thoughtful consideration of our recommendations. The outcome of this process can have a very significant positive effect on the University, from both internal and external perspectives.

May I conclude by adding my personal thanks to you for meeting with the Task Force to give us a context for our work. I look forward to the opportunity to continue the dialogue after you have had a chance to study the report.

                                       Sincerely,

                                         /s/ Karl S. Pister

                                       Karl S. Pister
                                       Professor of Engineering Science
                                       Task Force Chairman

KSP:gp
Attachment

cc:  Senior Vice President Frazer
     Associate Vice President Moore
     Acting Assistant Vice President Switkes