(1) 

Comments: I see no time line for time in rank before applying for further
promotion.  ie. Librarian with continuing contract, can they apply for
promotion to associate or primary one or two years after receiving
continuing contract?

Also no mention of time constraints on accomplishments for the dossier.  
Do the accomplishments have to be in the seven years for continuing
contract or can earlier material be submitted?

What about primary librarian promotion? accomplishments over entire career
or just at Miami or just last ?? years.



(2) 
  
Comments: A couple of general questions: 

1. Am I correct in seeing that the Provost is the only person outside the
library who evaluates for P and T and that the faculty Promotion and Tenure
Committee has no role?

2. Will librarians be eligible for service on the Faculty Rights and
Responsibilities Committee?

3. Will the implementation of this new LARPS have any effect on University
statistics on the number of faculty?

4. Do you think that the Personnel Committee has enough members to handle
the increased workload? Have you given thought yet to how its procedures
will be developed-- training, documenting deliberations and decisions,
access to secretarial staff, etc.?



(3)  

Comments: Questions

1. Section I.E.  Visiting. 2nd para., p. 4. My impression is that the
Visiting Librarian position has a little less protection now that it has
heretofore. Could we change the wording: "Visitng appointments may be
either full- or part-time, and A LIBRARIAN MAY BE CONTINUED ON ANNUAL
CONTRACT FOR AS MANY YEARS AS BOTH PARTIES DESIRE." My wording is from the
current MUPIM. I believe we need to make explicit the assumption that
Visiting Librarians (unlike Visiting Faculty) will live out their working
lives here and they cannot be terminated simply "at the will of Miami
University" (and do we need to specify who MU is--the Dean, Provost,
President, a disgruntled Trustee or senior professor?)

2. II.B. Continuing Contract and Time. First para. Do you really want to
let the dept. head, Dean, and Provost--but not the Personnel
Committee--recommend waiving time-in-rank requirement? Seems like a recipie
for divisiveness. And further, it seems clear that it is only time- in-rank
that is waived, not the necessity to apply and win approval.  If the
Personnel Commiittee is not on board to start with, the applicant may have
an uphill battle convincing them.

II.B. Cont Contract and Time, more Fourth para.  Someone wishing for a
one-year extension simply applies to the Provost and may thus blindside
dept. head, Personnel Comm., and Dean. Do you want to ask that the
application to the Provost be routed through the Dept. Head and Dean and
cc'd to the Personnel Committee?

III.A. Criterion 1. First para. Could we add a sentence just before the
last sentence in this paragraph? "The particular nature of each librarian's
assignment shall be defined in consultationbetween the librarian and
department head." This idea simply picks up and foregrounds the point made
on p. 20, Append. II. Dossier, first no. 3: "The description of assignment
as agreed to by the candidate and the department head." My purpose is to
foreground this very important principle, that primary assignments are
mutually and collegially agreed by librarian and department head. I use
"shall" rather than "will" deliberately.

IV.B. Annual Reviews No. 5. Librarians are allowed to dispute errorsof fact
or ommision but not matters of emphasis and interpretation.  If we are
going to continue as a collegial and participatory organization, we need to
reduce the potential for arbitrary, narrow, or misguided evaluations,
especially since we have already included the principle of mutually agreed
upon position descriptions. Here is alternative wording: "A librarian who
believes there are errors of fact and/or ommission or disuptes opinions and
emphases in an evaluation may note them in writing . . . ."

IV.B. Annual Reviews. No. 10.  I think that the Personnel Committee has
been inadvertently ommited in the process described. "In the third, fourth
. . . the Dean forwards a separate written evaluation, the deparment head's
evaluation, THE PERSONNEL COMMITTEE'S EVALUATION, and the librarian's . . .
."

IV. C. Annual Review. No. 2 (first one). I think the department head's
annual review MUST (not "may") include the three elements mentioned. No. 2
(second). I think the Personnel Committee SHALL (not "will") prepare its
own written review.

No. 4. As written, it seems that the PC could meet with either the dept.
head OR the librarian but not necessarily both of them.  I think the PC
must meet with both if it meets with one, but It should have the option of
meeting with them separately or together. New wording:" If deemed necessary
. . . .a meeting with the department head AND the librarian, together or
separately, for clarification . . . . " There's no provision for additional
negotiation at this point, so you might consider making the "meeting" in
the previous sentence an optional plural--"meeting(s)."

No. 7. As in no. 4, the Dean MUST meeting with both or neither, but could
meet separately or together.

IV. D. Application. No. 4. You have a provision for the PC to meet with the
dept head if they disagree but not to meet with the candidate if they
disagree. If the candidate is supported by the dept. head but not by the
PC, then the PC does not agree with the dept head and they can meet to hash
this disagreement out. I think the PC should also, as a courtesy, meet with
the candidate too to explain why they reached a different decision than the
dept. head. "If the recommendation . . . differ, the C may call a meeting
with the dept head and the librarian, separately or together, for
clarification." What is being "clarified"? Some point of fact or
interpretation or why it is that the PC disagrees with the dept. head
and/or the candidate.

No. 3.  Just to remind myself, the PC has a very explicit and responsible
role here: it has to recommend positively or negatively, and its
recommendation must be perfectly clear,especially if it is positve
recommendation in contrast to a dept. head's negative recommendation.

No. 5 and No. 7. After step 5, the candidate sees the dept head's and the
PC's recommendations, but according to No. 7 the candidate never sees the
Dean's recommendations. No. 8 says the librarians is told that the Dean has
made a negative recommendation but the Dean is not required to provide the
text of this recommendation to the librarian. I hope this can be modified.
If the librarian who has been negatived by the Dean wants to reapply in a
future year, he or she must know what the Dean has said and thus be able to
take necessary steps to try to win a postive. No. 16 seems to imply that
the Dean MUST provide a statement in writing; could this be made explicit
earlier too?

No. 10. The Dean retains supplemental materials until a decision is made./
Is it the Dean's or the Provost's decision that is being referenced here?
This question may be answered by implication in No. 11, but it is not
clearly answered.

Appendix 1. PC Intro. para. Not only must PC regard their work as
confidential, they must also recognize how important and stressful it will
be. The PC will need mentoring, training, practice runs so that everyone
reads an applicant's materials and understands them the same way. There
will be, of course, inevitable disagreements about candidates. No. 2. Two
members are to be elected--but by whom? Continuing contract-eligible only
or also the Visitings? Residents? Part-timers? Further, at the moment the
IS department has about fifteen librarians and they could overwhelm the
voting. Do Science, Art, Music, Tech Services, and others need the
protection of representative membership? And also, at some point the
non-heads of the Regional libraries will gain continuing contract and then
should be eligible for PC. Don't limit PC regional's membership to only the
Regional heads.

No. 6. No way. There is going to be WAY to much work for the chair; the
library mustprovide secretarial assistance. This work will be ongoing, not
just a one-time bubble of continuing contract and promotion hopefuls.


(4) 

Comments: The phrase "Continuing Contract" is used throughout this document
but what does that phrase specifically mean?  Section IIA talks about the
purpose and some of the benefits but it never really spells out what it
means once you have a continuing contract.

Once librarians are promoted to Associate Librarians with continuing
contracts, are they then required to apply for promotion to Principal
Librarians within a certain time frame or can they remain at the associate
level indefinitely?


(5)


Comments: What is the exact deadline for final voting? Can it be moved to
January?

Comment:  I feel a little pressed that this is happening during end of
semester, finals, holidays, and vacation time.  I would appreciate more
time (not the busiest part of the semester) to read and digest a document
that is going to determine my future.


(6)


Comments: How (not just why) did the Committee decide on the 5-yr-or-less
employment period for mandatory inclusion in the process?

Comment: All of the 5-yr-or-less employees, whose comments I have heard,
have said that they believed all currently employed librarians would be
"grandfathered."  Why the separate category?




(7)


Comments: 


1) Can you please discuss the reason(s) for requiring librarians employed
here for less than 5 years (I presume from date of implementation) to
conform to the new system? In past proposed plans there were general
grandfather clauses for all current employees. People hired recently did
not accept employment with the understanding they would be obligated to
meet these promotion and continuing contract requirements and may feel a
little blindsided.

2) What type(s) of position would qualify for designation as "visiting"
status?

Committee Members
2001-2003 Belinda Barr, chair Joe Phillips Bob Schmidt Janet Stuckey Scott Van Dam	1999-2001 Belinda Barr, '00 chair Susan Hocker, '99 chair Joe Phillips Janet Stuckey Scott Van Dam