With a new semester ahead of them, members of Faculty Senate met Tuesday to evaluate concerns they hope to address in the coming months.
Randall Teal, chair of Faculty Senate, said many of the issues discussed centered around the problem that many faculty and staff feel under-appreciated at the University of Idaho.
“I think it”s very clear that the more important problem is that we as staff don”t feel like we”re valued,” said James Foster, a professor in the College of Science.
Foster said he and Kattlyn Wolf, another Faculty Senate member, had sent out a campus-wide survey to university faculty and staff last year and found that a large portion of people employed at UI didn”t feel valued and more wanted recognition for the work they did.
Donald Crowley, secretary for Faculty Senate, said he had heard from multiple university faculty who switched to work at peer institutions that they had resisted the temptation to leave. But they never felt valued at UI so they followed where the higher salaries were instead.
“It used to be that the U of I was a better place to be, and we all knew that and that”s not the case anymore,” Teal said.
Other causes for low faculty and staff morale were discussed at the meeting, including annual evaluations and inefficiencies in the hiring process.
Megan Gospe | Argonaut
Jeanne Stevenson speaks at the first Faculty Senate meeting of the semester Tuesday. Stevenson was sitting in place of John Wiencek, university provost and executive vice president. Faculty Senate discussed concerns they hope to address this semester.
Foster said professors often find it harder to teach their curriculum because UI has far fewer graduate teaching assistants than other institutions, which makes it harder for departments to grow. Graduate student representative Anthony St. Claire said TAs get paid so little at UI that most graduate students come to the university as their last resort.
“Not only are the numbers abysmal,” said Patrick Hrdlicka, a member of Faculty Senate. “The salaries that we”re offering them are absolutely grotesque.”
Grade inflation at UI was also a topic of discussion at the meeting.
The problems regarding a lack of grade distribution is not one that impacts UI alone, but is an issue on the national scale, Hrdlicka said.
Crowley said while he recognized the issue, he doesn”t know how the different chairs of the university”s various departments could respond to or enforce such a distribution.
“What would a chair say? “You”re handing out too many “A”s?”” Crowley said.
Jodi Nicotra said a more accepted practice to handling grade distribution is through setting clearer guidelines for faculty as to what each grade would require by their students.
Nicotra also discussed distance education as a way to increase enrollment at UI.
UI hired a director for online education last year, but Teal said they should prioritize discussing how to work with enrollment management and resource allocation on the topic.
Teal told the rest of Faculty Senate that the progress of the university”s parenting leave policy would be something they would examine in the future. He said Marty Ytreberg and the rest of the Faculty Affairs Committee were currently looking into it.
Throughout the remainder of the academic year, Teal said Faculty Senate would focus on the issues that are most crucial for the university. He said some of those issues could be topics they discussed at Tuesday”s meeting, and some may be issues that come up later on.
“Nothing seemed to be a higher priority,” Teal said. “But I would say there were a group of things that were a higher priority.”
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ErinBamer