The results of a major external audit of the University and its policies will be made public Wednesday morning, Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98 announced at a monthly faculty meeting Tuesday. A team from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges visited this past spring to launch the widescale review, which the University spent more than a year preparing for.
The reports have been known to a select group of top administrators and faculty for some time, and the University has begun to respond to some of the recommendations, Kertzer added.
Also at Tuesday's meeting, the body moved to amend rules concerning dismissal of faculty members and heard an update on the recent accomplishments of University research programs.
The NEASC review, which is conducted every 10 years, evaluates schools on 11 different standards, including their academic programs, students, technological resources and integrity. Since teams of administrators from peer schools lead these evaluations, universities like Brown that are virtually assured of formal re-accreditation often use the process as an opportunity to examine their strengths and weaknesses.
The report is "very positive," Kertzer said at the meeting, where he presented some key points and excerpts.
Since its last accreditation, Brown has shown "tremendous progress" in its graduate school and is more directed in its expansion, the NEASC team found, according to Kertzer. "Brown's big ambitions necessitate a strong central organizing focus, and (the Plan for Academic Enrichment) provides such a focused and guiding force," one excerpt shared with the faculty reads.
The report also compliments Brown's "deeply loyal" and "very knowledgeable" Corporation.
But the NEASC team also offered a range of recommendations, including adding more Graduate School alums to the Corporation, increasing faculty participation in University governance and instituting more comprehensive evaluation of "student learning outcomes," Kertzer said.
The evaluation team was particularly concerned that, because of Brown's lack of distribution requirements, many students lack any exposure to the life and physical sciences. According to recent data, 6 percent of students graduate having taken no math or science courses, and 15 percent graduate having taken just one math or science course, Kertzer said.
Another criticism leveled by the NEASC team was that the University's rate of granting tenure to junior professors is unusually high — a point Kerzter shared with the faculty at a meeting earlier this fall. According to the report, 70 percent of academics who join Brown as assistant professors are ultimately granted tenure. The report said that while most faculty are not bothered by this number, a small few are calling for "greater rigor."
That "minority voice," the report said, "must become considerably more forceful."
Kertzer said he was unsure how the NEASC team had determined faculty members' opinions on the tenure rate. "I don't think they took a poll," he said.
Earlier this year, the University formed an ad hoc committee to review its tenure policies, which hopes to present a report to the faculty next semester, according to Kertzer. Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics Govind Menon PhD'01 was recently added to the committee's roster in response to a concern that junior faculty were not adequately represented, Kertzer said. Menon received tenure in 2008.
At least one of the report's recommendations has been addressed entirely, Kertzer said: The University now has high-performance computing capability — which the report suggested it obtain — thanks to a partnership with IBM, he said.
The faculty also voted unanimously Tuesday to recommend that the Corporation amend the Faculty Rules and Regulations regarding the dismissal of a faculty member.
"The spirit is to clarify the situation and correct some of the inadequacies of the previous faculty rules," said Chung-I Tan, chair of both the physics department and the Faculty Executive Committee.
The new language explains the procedures surrounding the dismissal process and clarifies the various causes for dismissal. After lengthy faculty discussion, three "friendly amendments" were added to further clarify the text.
Still, "the guidelines can never be clear enough to tell committees what to do," President Ruth Simmons reminded the faculty. "They have to use their judgment."
Vice President for Research Clyde Briant also updated the faculty on his office's recent accomplishments and spoke about ongoing partnerships and efforts to "develop an entire research culture here at Brown."
The University has already reaped $31 million for research from the federal stimulus bill, he said, adding that the Office of Sponsored Projects is hoping to expand its staff to accommodate the increased workload of submitting more research proposals.
"We're living in a time where regulation is higher than it's ever been," he said, which means the process of compiling a grant has grown increasingly lengthy. "We do want to assist the faculty as much as possible."
Though Simmons was scheduled to give her monthly report at the faculty meeting, she asked to be moved to the end of the agenda after faculty discussion lasted longer than anticipated and ended up without time to speak.
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