Conflicting opinions kept the Arts and Sciences Council far from consensus Thursday as members debated the contentious issues of faculty compensation for performing extra duties and student access to course evaluation data.
Currently, rewards for faculty service outside of research and teaching responsibilities—such as serving as director of undergraduate studies or editing a scholarly journal published at the University—vary widely between departments.
George McLendon, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, sought feedback about the possibility of creating a set of suggested compensation rates or offering research funding in place of course relief, or a lighter teaching load, which is currently the most widely used reward. He noted that individual departments would not have to pay for such research funding out of their own budgets.
Under previous administrations, McLendon said, only those who knew that resources were available and asked for them directly received compensation for performing many extra duties. “My concern is, that’s neither transparent nor fair,” he said.
Faculty comments revealed a general lack of knowledge of common practices. Only through informal shows of hands were council members able to find out the policies used by departments other than their own.
“Without transparency, all we have to go on are rumors,” said Chris Conover, assistant research professor of public policy studies.
Several council members said any sort of reward at all would be an improvement for some faculty members, particularly those in smaller departments.
“We have absolute equity—that is, so far as I know, no one gets anything, or ever has,” said Joshua Sosin, associate professor of classical studies.
Many faculty members emphasized the impossibility of offering standard benefits to those taking up certain positions because the duties and time commitments required can differ among departments.
“We really are trying to get standards, and people can buy into those standards or not,” McLendon reassured the faculty. “We don’t anticipate that one size would fit all.”
Kathy Ewing, council chair and associate professor of cultural anthropology, said that in keeping with the council’s goal of being “a truly useful advisory board to the dean,” an ad hoc committee would conduct further discussions with the intent of producing recommendations for McLendon within two months.
Student access to course evaluations was a late addition to the agenda. It was prompted by a Duke Student Government proposal to create an online database linked to reviews posted on the national, independent website www.ratemyprofessors.com about faculty who choose not to make data from student evaluations of their courses available on ACES Web.
The current opt-in policy requires that faculty decide each semester if they want students to be able to access course evaluations. Faculty must then follow a specific procedure to make evaluation information available.
Many at the meeting said they did not know this procedure. Only about 9 percent of faculty have given student access to the data, said Robert Thompson, dean of Trinity College.
McLendon urged the council to thoroughly reevaluate the issue at its December meeting.
“I asked [DSG] as a personal favor not to do anything about this until the faculty have had a chance to discuss this thoroughly,” McLendon said.
Addressing fears that wider availability of course evaluation data would encourage grade inflation, Thompson argued that more openness would not necessarily have such negative effects.
“Students differentiate. We don’t give our students enough credit in this process,” Thompson said.
Owen Astrachan, professor of the practice of computer science, was more skeptical than McLendon.
“There’s a substantive difference in terms of how that [unofficial] data is going to be accessible,” he said. “It smells like blackmail.”
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