aes

The college's very conscious effort to proclaim, and act on, the assumption that
we hire competent and responsible faculty must not be sacrificed because our hiring
procedures occasionally have failed us. Look to the hiring process, not to the
carefully designed, checked and balanced non-renewal/firing process - one that is
democratized and seeks to first informally resolve, then remediate, and as a last
resort dismiss.* The negative evaluation procedure really is considered best as a
safeguard should the hiring procedure inadvertently result in the employment of an
incompetent or irresponsible instructor.

What needed amending was the hiring procedure at the college, not the conditions
of the probationary period. It is a dangerous reactionary step for the faculty
association to approve a system of positive evaluation (the length of the probationary
period is not the issue), rather than insist upon democratic, rationalized hiring procedures.

It is clear enough that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the past hiring
procedures. The faculty association is preparing an extensive proposal to reconstitute,
democratize, and rationalize the procedures, and the Engineering Science has distributed
a white paper on the same issue.

The vision which distinguished this college was the principle that we were assumed
to be competent and responsible when hired, and then encouraged to experiment, innovate
and to openly present our views and concerns. Openness, honesty, trust, faith and
innovativeness, as well as responsibility were to be operative factors not rhetorical
vacuities.

The assumption of being "competent and responsible" needed to be extended to
include being "committed to and involved in personal and faculty development". This
would require a democratic, rationalized program of faculty development. Making faculty
responsible for initiating and participating in faculty development programs would help
to ensure that faculty do not "rest on their laurels". This second principle and a
mechanism for implementing it was approved by principal's council and then stalled by
manoeuvers of chairmen/directors unwilling to give up control of faculty development
funds. (I have no idea of the current status of the Sellers/Mansfield motion. )

The combination of aqgreeing to the instituting of positive, continued faculty
evaluation, and the frustration of the democratizing of faculty development means
that the assumption of being hired as a competent, responsible instructor committed
to and involved in personal and faculty development has been devalued, and in the long
term destroyed. Rather than default on such an assumption because the responsibility
for maintaining it can be sometimes painful we should have insisted on the democraticizing
of hiring and faculty development.

* Any “bugs" in the process of implementing the policy should be resolved. Efforts
have been made in this regard and need to be continued instead of compromising the
principle. It is crucial that new faculty feel as free to speak out and learn by their
mistakes as senior faculty.