THE DAVID R. KELLER CHAPTER OF THE AAUP / AFT AT UVU

RESPECT The  sine qua non  of Shared Governance                   Two years ago, while acting as Chair of the Department of Integrated Studies, I received an email from Human Resources addressed to all “People Managers.” “I’m not a people manager,” I responded, “I’m a department chair at a university. My colleagues are not employees but are members of the university faculty. To redefine those roles in corporate terms is to fundamentally misconstrue the nature of a university.”    There have been achievements in shared governance at UVU over the last few years, including the joint work between Faculty Senate committees and administrators on important new and revised policies. The administration’s record on recent tenure and promotion decisions, however, has been characterized by a distinct lack of respect for faculty judgment.  UVU Policy #635   on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities ...

The following review is the work of UVU faculty, provided here by Alex Simon, former President of the UVU Chapter of the AFT as part of his ongoing research on a subject that has and continues to trouble colleagues denied tenure or promotion largely on the basis of SRI scores and comments  [the AFT and the AAUP have joined forces nationally and at UVU as well] Interpreting Student Ratings of Instruction: A Literature Review by the Utah Valley University Chapters of the American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers     A significant and established body of peer-reviewed research provides the following results and guidelines for interpreting student ratings of instruction (SRIs) / student evaluations of teaching (SETs):     1.       Peer-reviewed research has repeatedly shown that SRIs are not   a highly valid measure of teaching effectiveness . a.       Peer-reviewed resear...