Date: November 12, 2001
To: Deborah Murphy, LAUC President
From: LAUC Committee on Professional Governance
Raphaela Castro, UCD
Sue Chesley*, UCSC
Cathy Chiu, UCSB
Kuei Chiu, UCR
Ginny Irving, UCB
Rhonda Lawrence, UCLA
Barb Lucas, UCI (Chair Oct-May)
Keir Reavie, UCSF
Jennifer Reiswig*, UCSD (Chair, Jun-Sep)
* rotating off the committee as of October 2001
Re: Annual Report 2000/01
Meetings
The Committee met twice this year: March 12 and August 30. LAUC President Cathy Palmer joined us at the March meeting.
Activities relating to Standing Charge:
Relating to part (c) of our standing charge:
Maintain a Peer Review manual on the web or in electronic format and review those peer review materials on the web site biennially in order to ensure adequacy and currency of materials.
After discussion between committee members, we discovered that our campus procedures diverge to such an extent that a single manual is impractical. Probably the only points at which all campus procedures intersect are those specifically covered in the APM/MOU. A complete revision of peer review documents at all the campuses to harmonize procedures is beyond the scope of our charge and would be an enormous and lengthy undertaking, if it is desirable at all. At our August meeting, we decided that the only feasible thing was to create a Web page that links out to the individual divisional documents. This has not yet been completed.
Activities relating to 2000/01 Charge:
The 2000/01 Committee was charged to re-examine LAUC Position Paper 1, focusing on the criteria for advancement to the Distinguished rank:
[…] Review LAUC Position Paper 1 , Criteria for Appointment or Promotion to the Ranks of Associate Librarian and Librarian and Advancement to Librarian Step V in light of the discussions that have occurred at the 1998 LAUC Fall Assembly led by Kari Lucas and the 2000 LAUC Spring Assembly led by Patsy Inouye about the criteria for achieving the Distinguished Librarian designation. The LAUC Executive Officers agree that there is a sense among LAUC members that excellent and significant accomplishments in Criteria 1, the primary job responsibilities, can be considered as meritorious of recognition by the designation of Distinguished Librarian as excellent and significant contributions in Criteria 2 through 4 are. In addition, the proposed Librarian salary series restructure significantly extends the series and moves the current barrier step from Librarian V (old series) to Librarian VI (new series) which will necessitate a change in the language used in the position paper.
As you review LAUC Position Paper 1, please consider these three questions. 1) Does Position Paper 1 need revision in order to state explicitly that excellent and significant accomplishments in Criteria 1 can be the basis for earning the designation of Distinguished? 2) If Position Paper 1 is written in such a way that it does not preclude consideration of Criteria 1 accomplishments for promotion to the Distinguished designation, does LAUC need to write and adopt a new position paper which explicitly encourages consideration of accomplishments in Criteria 1 as deserving of promotion to Distinguished? 3) If a new position paper is desirable, should it include other considerations for the designation of Distinguished? For example, does the designation of Distinguished have to be attached to promotion to a specific Rank and Step as it is currently? Or could a
librarian asked to be considered for the Distinguished designation at any step in the Librarian series?
At the same time as our group was charged to examine these issues, correspondence was sent back and forth between the LAUC President and the University Librarians’ group on similar issues. Our activities relating to this aspect of our charge fall into two areas:
1. Consideration of Position Paper 1
After polling on some of the campuses, the Committee reached the conclusion that there was not a consensus among LAUC members to support Criterion 1 activities as "the basis" for earning the Distinguished designation, meaning the only basis. The Committee did prepare a draft revision of Position Paper 1, with the removal of several troublesome statements. The Committee also took advantage of the opportunity to look critically at Position Paper 1 and examine the language relating to step numbers as well as the tone of some of the statements. Our proposed revision is provided in Appendix A.
2. LAUC President’s Correspondence with UL group
In December of 2000, Cathy Palmer and Barbara Lucas met with the University Librarians’ group to discuss issues relating to Librarians achievement of the Distinguished designation and the balance of accomplishments in Criteria 1 vs. 2-4 necessary to achieve this designation. The UL group reiterated the importance of accomplishments in Criteria 2-4, stating that outstanding performance in one’s job needs to be translated and shared with the profession. They invited LAUC to provide input to the University Librarians on ways that the ULs could support librarians in achieving excellent performance in Criteria 2-4. LAUC President Cathy Palmer asked for input from the Committee on a letter in response to the ULs, and circulated a draft in June. Because of time constraints in the summer, the Committee was not able to meet and work on a response until late August. The Committee did work with Cathy Palmer’s draft letter and wrote a draft letter outlining some specific actions the ULs could take to facilitate librarians’ ability to participate in Criteria 2-4 activities. The response also provides some context for our request, showing that our working conditions have changed in the past decade, and there are factors at work that now make it harder for librarians to engage in these activities at a sufficiently high level. The draft is attached as Appendix B.
Recommendations for Future Committee
During our discussions relating to peer review procedures in each division, a disturbing trend was noted following the incorporation of text from the APM into the UC-AFT Memorandum of Understanding. Certain campuses have proposed diverging peer review documents and procedures for those represented by the MOU and those not represented. The Committee did come to a consensus that this divergence should not continue. Recommendation: LAUC should issue a position paper or other statement recommending against diverging procedures and documents for represented vs. non-represented librarians.
The 2003 contract represents our next window of opportunity to make modifications to the series. If LAUC conducts a rigorous survey of members’ feelings on the future of the Distinguished designation now, that information could be useful in preparing for the new contract. Recommendation: a survey should be conducted of all LAUC members on preferences relating to the Distinguished designation, providing a spectrum of possibilities including dissociating the "distinguished" step from the series altogether.
The new series structure now includes two new steps: Librarian VI and VII. The transition from Librarian V to Librarian VI relates to the "barrier" step in the old series, and our existing documentation for achieving the Distinguished designation does provide some guidance on this step. However, nothing in our documentation provides any guidance on the step from Librarian VI to VII, and in the series structure, Librarian VI is also an "indefinite" step with no guidance as to how long a person should stay at that step before progressing to the final step, Librarian VII. It will not be long before there are individuals at this step. Is it merely another step for those who achieved Distinguished previously and have continued to demonstrate excellent performance? Or is something else required? If it is a "regular" step for Distinguished librarians, should we recommend a normal time period for this step? Recommendation: LAUC should charge the Professional Governance committee to work with the University Librarians to come to an understanding of what this step means.