President Michael Crow held an open forum to hear concerns, answer questions and "check in" with faculty and administrators at ASU East on Thursday.
Crow announced the Universitywide merit adjustment that will be in effect as of Jan. 1 and also touched on a few major ASU East-specific topics such as re-evaluating the tenure process, East's library and its lack of physical research books and magazines, "insufficient diversified faculty classifications," hiring a new provost and setting up operations at East that would not compete with Main.
According to Crow, Executive Vice President Mernoy Harrison and Executive Vice President and Provost Milton Glick "have found a way to piece this [salary adjustment] together, and they are working with each other and units to figure out how to do this.
"Salary increases [for faculty and staff] will follow the normal approved policies and procedures, and we'll be looking to recognize merit, looking to issues of equity and issues of market," Crow said.
Crow then addressed some of ASU East's major problems.
"One problem specific to [east] campus is that we have insufficient diversified faculty classifications," Crow said. "We've been trying to fit all people into one pathway. We need multiple pathways."
According to Crow, the Arizona Board of Regents recently approved a professor of practice classification.
"We intend to define with more clarity our instructors who are on the prof-essor/lecturer track, including mechanisms for promotion in each of these," Crow said.
"We have aspirations to be an Association of American University-accredited University. We need the faculty sufficient to do the job," he added, "or the technology to support our faculty that would still allow our students to advance.
"I don't believe it is necessarily the case that a faculty member needs to lead every class ... Students can be taught in other ways," said Crow as he explained how each department will be responsible for deciding on the most effective way to advance its agenda and to do what it takes to compete with other similar departments on a national level.
Crow asked department members to analyze how many graduate students, lecturers and teachers are included in their department and then ask themselves, "Who are your peers, what are your goals and what would it take," to make that department be the best in the nation?
"We're not interested in competing with [Main] ourselves," Crow said.
An associate professor of nutrition asked why there weren't more research magazines available for the students at East, and Provost Chuck Backus responded, "We can never have a library like Main; it just won't happen."
Glick explained how a virtual library is more financially and physically practical.
When asked about what ASU will be looking for when selecting a new provost, Crow said, "He or she will carry out the evolution of the polytechnic, responsible for hiring hundreds of new colleagues, handling the growth of the [East] campus from 3,000 students to 18,000 in the next 10 years."
Reach the reporter at erika.camardella@asu.edu.
