Contending the current academic personnel practices are "placing the system under stress" and causing "widespread and unnecessary morale problems," a special committee of the Academic Senate wants to alter the procedures -- and perceptions -- by which faculty members are paid and promoted.

In a report delivered to the Representative Assembly on Tuesday, the Special Committee on Academic Personnel Processes said the salaries of UC Davis faculty are among the lowest in the UC system, principally because of the low average step of UC Davis professors. The report called for changes in the role of the Committee on Academic Personnel, which is responsible for reviewing and recommending faculty merits and promotions.

The way that committee is perceived to conduct its work, the report said, "has caused significant controversy" because it sometimes formed "independent judgments of the quality of scholarship" that differed from the advice of departments, deans, ad-hoc committees and external reviewers. Evaluations of scholarship, the authors of the report said, are best when they are done "closer to the source of expertise than at CAP."

"Sometimes our personnel practices are seen as punitive and not ones that would encourage faculty members to do their best work," said Jeff Gibeling, professor of chemical engineering and materials science and chair of the Academic Senate, in an interview before Tuesday's meeting.

While affirming that the basic structure and standards of the personnel process are sound, the nine members of the Academic Senate's special committee also said the slow pace of advancement is not just a problem of procedure but of attitude as well. UC Davis, the report said, is more conservative than other UC campuses when it comes to recommending advancement for faculty. That means that the Committee on Academic Personnel, which consists of faculty members, is making decisions in a campus climate that has "evolved over many years."

That climate can and should be changed, Howard Day, professor of geology and chair of the special committee, told the Representative Assembly on Tuesday. But it's the faculty's responsibility, he said.

"We're the problem and we are the solution," Day said. "We have a created a conservative and sometimes negative attitude on campus … but we can change that."

Earlier at the meeting, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said he, too, was concerned about the process. "It's deadly with regard to morale if it loses its flexibility," he said. Vanderhoef said he looked forward to working with the Academic Senate on the issue.

The Special Committee on Academic Personnel Processes was appointed last year by the Academic Senate to examine faculty pay and promotion at UC Davis. The decision to create the committee came after faculty members expressed concern about what they say was a growing pay gap between themselves and their colleagues at other UC campuses. Members of the faculty also criticized personnel practices and what they viewed as inconsistent standards at different steps in the review process.

In the report delivered Tuesday, the special committee offered 21 recommendations it said would improve personnel practices.

Among the suggestions:

• Departments should be required to provide a written summary of the nature of scholarship within their academic discipline and their own criteria and standards for evaluating faculty performance.
• The Committee on Academic Personnel should make recommendations about personnel actions in which the campus has a compelling interest such as appointments, appraisals of assistant professors, promotions and merit actions requiring extramural review. All other actions should be left to the colleges and professional schools.
• Only in unusual circumstances should the committee undertake independent evaluations and overturn unanimous or nearly unanimous recommendations of prior reviews.
• Ad hoc review committees should be expanded to five members.

Tuesday's meeting ended before a decision was made on creating a committee to look at implementing the recommendations. An-

other meeting will be scheduled to decide the issue.

The full text of the report is available on the Web at: http://www.mrak.ucdavis.edu/senate/scapp/scappindex.htm.