Memorandum of Understanding Full-Time Lecturers

This document supplants the original Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) dated May 4, 2000, which describes an agreement between the State University of New York College at Cortland and the Cortland Chapter of United University Professions (UUP) to establish the academic position of Full-Time Lecturer (FTL). Since that time, two additional documents were established to articulate the policies and procedures for the evaluation of FTL's and the advancement of FTL's.

This document creates one MOU inclusive of all three previously established agreements in the following format:

Section I: Establishment and Filling of FTL positions
Section II: Evaluation of FTL positions
Section Ill: Promotion of FTL positions

Section I: Establishment and Filling of FTL positions

The purpose of this section is to specify the principles, conditions, criteria, and procedures for converting part-time positions to Full-Time Lectureships.

I. Principles

1. Full-Time Lectureships are primarily designed to strengthen the faculty by converting part-time positions into full-time positions.
2. No provision of this memorandum shall be construed as a precedent for determining the professional obligations of the tenure-track faculty.

II. Conditions

1. All conversions of part-time faculty to Full-Time Lectureships shall be to the budget title of Lecturer. These Full-time Lecturers will be paid on an annual basis.
2. All such conversions shall be understood as term appointments as defined in the SUNY Policies of the Board of Trustees.
3. The starting salary of each FTL shall be whichever is highest: the salary that the individual made in a part-time position, the minimum salary for Lecturers established in the Agreement between United University Professions and the State of New York, or a salary that the College shall determine. 
4. The responsibilities assigned to lecturers may vary among departments as specified in the job posting, provided they are limited to:
   1. teaching 12 credit hours per semester or the equivalent consistent with the kind of work that the Lecturer used to perform or would have had to perform in a part-time capacity, such as student-teacher supervision, lab instruction, etc.
   2. holding appropriate office hours, and
   3. participating in appropriate committees within the department and consistent with the department's personnel policies.
5. Scholarship, committee work, and other forms of service outside the department shall not be expected of Lecturers. These activities may be considered for reappointment and advancement decisions, but only at each Lecturer's discretion and, as stipulated in the relevant section of this Memorandum of Understanding, when they have made a demonstrable contribution to the Lecturer's teaching.
6. The College may_ offer a Lecturer extra-service pay for advising, additional supervision or activities not specified in #4 above. The Lecturer may decline such offers without adversely affecting his or her retention or advancement in the College.
7. Appointments of this nature shall occur subject to these conditions and upon agreement between the State University of New York College at Cortland and the Cortland Chapter of United University Professions. UUP will endorse all requests for Full-Time Lecturer positions when a departmental structural need is established and when the position is not more appropriately filled as a tenure-track position.
8. Typically, the total number of Full-Time Lecturer positions in each School will not be allowed to exceed 20% of the total full- time academic faculty (full-time lecturers and tenured/tenure track faculty) in that School on the projected start date for the FTL position being requested. The 20% cap may be exceeded only with appropriate justification by the department and with UUP's approval.
9. In the event that a Full-Time Lectureship becomes vacant, the department may request/apply for an FTL position. The request must contain the following three documents:
   1. Request for Full-Time Lecturer (FTL} Position Form (attached as appendix A}
   2. Statement of justification for the FTL
   3. A description of the duties, responsibilities, and qualifications for the position
10. In the event that a tenure-eligible position is accorded to the department in which a Full­-Time Lecturer(s) exists, Lecturers may apply, and their applications shall be considered without prejudice.

III. Criteria and Procedure

1. Full-Time Lectureships shall be granted to departments that have demonstrated a structural need for them by a long-established pattern of hiring part-time faculty.
2. Full-Time Lectureships shall ordinarily be awarded to current members of the faculty who have been serving the College in part-time positions. If more than one part-time faculty member is eligible for a Full-Time Lectureship within a department, seniority within the department shall be a strong consideration. The College has, in the past, created a few FTL positions where those hired were not drawn from the ranks of currently serving part-time employees. While the College itself wishes the number of such appointments to remain as small as possible, it wishes to retain the flexibility to do so again in the future. It will always solicit UUPs endorsement/approval when and if it does so again, subject to the following: 
   1. such appointments will never be used to supplant tenure-track hiring for that position where that is feasible.
   2. such hiring will occur only when no current part-time employee exists who has effectively performed the job, such as having taught the same or similar courses being requested of the FTL. Effectiveness shall be demonstrated by such things as judgment of colleagues, development of teaching materials, and/ or student reaction, as determined by surveys, interviews, and classroom observation.
3. All FTL positions will be advertised as indicated by Human Resources (HR) on the FTL Request Form:
   1. Internally only, internal hire expected - a departmental only posting shall be prepared by HR and provided to the department. The department chair shall ensure dissemination to all adjuncts within the department by posting the position for a period of 10 calendar days, similar to The Cortland Plan. The posting shall minimally be in the form of an email to all departmental adjuncts.
   2. Concurrent internal and external - upon request to HR when there is no likely current departmental applicant, a departmental posting shall still be posted for a period of 10 calendar days but HR will also post externally consistent with its Affirmative Action Plan.
4. A search committee shall be established by the department to review, interview, and make recommendations on any applicants consistent with existing Affirmative Action Plan requirements.
5. Recommendations are made to the department chair for hire. In an instance where there are multiple internal candidates and the most senior candidate is not selected, a specific reason for the non-selection must be provided in writing to the candidate by the department hiring manager.

Section II: Evaluation of Full-time Lecturers

The purpose of this section is to specify the principles, conditions, criteria, and procedures for evaluating FTL's and was initially articulated in the Memorandum of Understanding, Evaluation of Full-Time Lecturers, dated July 6, 2001, and revised July 29, 2004, between the College and UUP.

I. Criteria

1. The necessary and sufficient criterion is instruction (teaching, student-teacher supervision, clinical supervision) suitable to discipline.
2. Scholarship is not expected. It may be considered for reappointment only at the lecturer's request and as a form of faculty development appropriate to instruction and/ or performance in the subject area.
3. Committee work/service outside the department is not expected. It may be considered for reappointment only at the lecturer's request and as a form of faculty development appropriate to instruction and/ or performance in the subject area. An instance of this is the work of the Lecturer Review Committee.
4. Committee work/service within the department may be expected and may be considered for reappointment when it is consistent with departmental personnel policies. 

II. Process

1. Evaluation of Full-Time Lecturers follows the same cycle as the evaluation of tenure-track faculty, on the schedule published in the College Handbook.
2. A lecturer who is eligible for reappointment applies to the department personnel committee.
3. The department personnel committee makes an independent recommendation on the lecturer's application and forwards it, along with the application, to the department chair.
4. The department chair makes an independent recommendation on the lecturer's application and forwards it, along with the application and the department personnel committee's recommendation, to the school's dean.
5.  At the level of the dean and subsequently, the process follows the same steps as with tenure-track faculty.
6. With the same rights of due process as other full-time faculty, the lecturer shall be provided with a copy of every recommendation and decision at each stage of this review. The lecturer's chair shall also be provided with such copies.

Section III: Advancement of Full-Time Lecturers

I. Introduction 

To support Full-Time Lectureships, the College has established opportunities for promotion and a corresponding set of salary increases:

1. the rank of Lecturer I
2. the rank of Lecturer II, with a $1,000 increase in salary from Lecturer I
3. the rank of Lecturer Ill, with a $1,200 increase in salary from Lecturer II
4. and the rank of Lecturer IV, with a $1,400 increase in salary from Lecturer Ill.

The College has provided that a candidate is eligible for promotion one rank at a time.

A Lecturer Review Committee has developed criteria for these promotions and a process for awarding them. It oversees the process, and it has a role in making recommendations. The Full-­Time Lecturers elect the members of the committee to terms of three years. Places are allocated per school, and they are to be reviewed by the College and by United University Professions
(UUP}, with assistance from the committee, as numbers change within schools.

II. General Policies

1. The criteria for advancement are based on the quality of instruction and on activities related to instruction.
2. The process does not require a minimum number of activities or accomplishments. Lecturer 'A' may apply for promotion on the basis of three, and lecturer 'B' may apply for promotion on the basis of one.
3. The process is continuing. The criteria for promotion are identical at every level, as standards of teaching excellence. Lecturers who continue to meet these standards will continue to advance professionally.
4. The process is non-competitive. Each application represents work unique to the lecturer, work that will be judged on its own merit and not in comparison with, or in contrast to, the work of other lecturers.
5. The process is collegial. In meetings with the Lecturer Review Committee and in roundtable discussions under its sponsorship, lecturers may help one another to generate, develop, implement and assess applications for advancement. The Lecturer Review Committee represents this mutual commitment across the College.
6. The criteria for promotion describe teaching. Lecturers demonstrate their abilities as teachers on the basis of discipline-appropriate work. As this memorandum states, the main responsibility of full-time lecturers is "instruction ... suitable to discipline," which includes teaching in the classroom, student teacher supervision and clinical supervision. Lecturers in some departments are expected to participate in certain committees and to serve other departmental functions, and such work may also be evaluated for advancement provided that the applicant demonstrates its relevance to teaching. The memorandum also stipulates that scholarship and "committee work/service outside the department ... is not expected" and that "it may be considered for reappointment only at the lecturer's request and as a form of faculty development appropriate to instruction and/ or performance in the subject area." In keeping with the memorandum, the process described below allows the applicant to demonstrate the relevance of any faculty development activities that have contributed to advancements in teaching, even if that work might otherwise be considered outside the criteria for evaluating Full-Time Lecturers.
7. The process is nonprescriptive. It does not establish a set of conventions for lecturers to observe in demonstrating their effectiveness, because success in teaching often involves innovation and nontraditional forms.
8. The process is inclusive. Lecturers may include in their first application any relevant work within a three-year limit, whether they were teaching at SUNY Cortland part-time or full­time. Under special circumstances, to be negotiated with the department by the Lecturer Review Committee, an applicant may include exceptional work performed between four and five years previously.
9. The process is distinct from OSI. A lecturer who applies for promotion may also apply for OSI.

III. Application Process and Criteria

A lecturer may apply for promotion during his/her current term appointment, in accordance with the schedule for applications published in the College Handbook.

1. A lecturer who wishes to apply for promotion self-recommends to the department Personnel committee. An application has three parts:
   1. A brief cover letter summarizes:
      1. the lecturer's current status
      2. the courses taught since the previous application, and
      3. the principal reason that promotion is now appropriate.
   2. A reflective essay, one or two pages long, explores the lecturer's accomplishments as a teacher. It draws specifically on the semesters under review, and it focuses on the quality of the lecturer's engagement with students and vice versa. Any activities that define excellent teaching, in or out of the classroom, are relevant here provided that the lecturer demonstrates their significance for students. Such activities may include one or more of the following, but are not limited to them:
      1. accessibility
      2. collaboration
      3. contribution to professional organizations
      4. curriculum development
      5. expertise or scholarship
      6. innovative teaching strategies
      7. mentoring or supervision
      8. promotion of diversity
      9. uses of technology
   3. The lecturer presents documentation that he or she finds relevant to the application, either as evidence of continued excellence in teaching or as evidence of a significant innovation: for example:
      1. abstracts of presentations or articles
      2. assignments
      3. classroom observations
      4. course-teacher evaluations
      5. diskettes that show computer-mediated communications, such as PowerPoint presentations or exchanges on the internet
      6. lesson plans
      7. recordings, audiotape and/or videotape
      8. references by colleagues
      9. reviews of publications or displays
      10. special recognitions or honors
      11. student work, with or without the lecturer's comments
      12. syllabi
      13. unsolicited letters or notes from students. A reviewer may request additional materials but not of a specific type.
2. The department personnel committee makes an independent recommendation on the lecturer's application and forwards it, along with the application, to the department chair.
3. The department chair makes an independent recommendation on the lecturer's application and forwards it, along with the application and the department personnel committee's recommendation, to the Lecturer Review Committee.
4. The Lecturer Review Committee makes an independent recommendation on the lecturer's application and forwards it, along with the application and the preceding recommendations, to the appropriate dean. Since the Lecturer Review Committee is charged with helping to develop the institution of Full-Time Lectureships, it has a particular interest in activities that demonstrate a commitment to professional growth. A Lecturer Review Committee member from the lecturer's school presents the specific merits of the application to the committee. Having completed its review, the Lecturer Review Committee votes to support or not to support an application. In the event of a tie vote, an application is not supported. The committee's decision, not the vote by which it was established, is reported to the appropriate dean. A Lecturer Review Committee member who is also a member of the personnel committee in the lecturer's department and who has voted at the department level of the promotion process is recused from the Lecturer Review Committee's vote.
5. The dean makes an independent recommendation on the lecturer's application and forwards it, along with the application and all preceding recommendations, to_the provost.
6. The provost makes an independent recommendation on the lecturer's application and forwards it, along with the application and all preceding recommendations, to the president.
7. The president decides on the lecturer's application for promotion and notifies the lecturer that the application has been approved or declined, with copies to the department personnel committee, the department chair, the Lecturer Review Committee, the dean, and the provost.
8. With the same rights of due process as other full-time faculty, the lecturer shall be provided with a copy of every recommendation and decision at each stage of this review. The lecturer's chair shall also be provided with such copies.

(Approved by President Bitterbaum Aug. 12, 2004)
It is agreed that the contents of this memorandum will be re-evaluated by the parties at least every four years. As part of this review, input shall be solicited from the Lecturer Review Committee.