ADFL Bulletin
20, no. 2 (January 1989): 76-79
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Reports, Resolutions, and Recommendations from the 1988 ADFL Summer Seminars

AT THIS YEAR'S seminars the discussion groups were divided along new lines. In previous years the groups were made up of chairs from PhD-granting departments (group A), BA-/MA-granting departments (group B), and two-year colleges (group C). This year's format, with the groups divided according to the topics to be discussed, allowed chairs from any type of institution to participate in the group of their choice. The topics for groups A, B, and C at Seminar East were special faculty problems; salary, promotion, and tenure; and the hiring process, respectively. For Seminar West the topics were special faculty problems; salary, promotion, and tenure; and faculty development.

Seminar East

From Discussion Group A: Special Faculty Problems

  1. Part-time faculty members. Whereas the extensive use of part-time faculty members does not serve the best interests of students, departments, or the individuals employed, we ask that the ADFL encourage institutions to avoid extensive reliance on part-time faculty members, particularly where consistent course demand justifies full-time lines and where candidates qualified for full-time positions are available. At the same time, we urge the ADFL Executive Committee to look at processes for ensuring honorable status to nontraditional faculty members: to seek ways of encouraging equitable treatment and to foster a positive approach to all categories of teaching positions. In particular, we suggest that the hiring process for part-time faculty members mirror the full-time hiring process insofar as possible, and that departments spell out responsibilities, develop a system of regular review, and institute access to professional support services (including travel funding), merit awards, and some form of job security for part-time faculty members.
  2. Motivating senior faculty members. Whereas the problem of motivating senior faculty members was indicated by many respondents as a particular concern in their institutions, we offer the following suggestions to department chairs, and we request that the ADFL encourage further exploration of this topic.
    1. Seek assistance from deans and other administrators. A dean may support attendance at a workshop on the improvement of teaching, encourage the use of a sabbatical for countering burnout, foster the development of a new interest, such as computer-assisted instruction.
    2. Use the discretionary powers of the chair constructively. A chair may offer a reduced teaching load to encourage a senior faculty member to teach an interdisciplinary course, freshman seminar, or senior capstone seminar; use the department curriculum committee to impose changes in texts, syllabi, and teaching approach where appropriate and feasible. A chair should try specific, fairly narrow assignments for senior faculty members in need of renewal, listening for faculty members' own ideas and interests and offering support and pressure as needed.
    3. Encourage students (discreetly, perhaps through intermediaries) to make formal complaints where appropriate. A chair should keep careful records (letters, memos, notes on conversations, telephone calls, complaints), become informed about possible legal ramifications of forceful action, be prepared for limited success.
  3. Personal problems. Whereas department chairs occasionally confront such faculty problems as substance abuse, sexual harassment, and psychological disorders, we offer the following suggestions.
    1. Chairs should document the instructor's effectiveness in the classroom, using the information gathered as a basis for peer counseling. It is important to state the desired outcomes.
    2. Chairs should recognize that students may be highly effective allies in bringing problems to the attention of the faculty member involved and, if necessary, to the attention of the administration.
    3. Chairs have a responsibility to help educate faculty members about sexual harassment as it is understood in our culture. It is important to make the process of responding to sexual harassment a matter of public knowledge, preferably before an incident has arisen (cf. policies on cheating and plagiarism). The process is depersonalized if everyone understands that the chair is obliged to respond in a prescribed manner to a formal complaint.
    4. Chairs should not let the fear of litigation tie their hands. Problems should be addressed constructively if possible but, in any event, should not be ignored. As with the problem of motivating senior faculty, however, chairs should recognize that success may be limited.
  4. Minority students and faculty members. Whereas questions concerning minority students and faculty members (recruitment, retention, encouragement) arose repeatedly and stimulated extensive discussion in our group, we urge the ADFL to address these issues formally in a future seminar agenda. Meanwhile, we offer the following suggestions:
    1. Chairs should seek ways to reach into high schools, junior high schools, and even elementary schools to encourage minority students to continue their studies.
    2. In our own institutions, we should explore mechanisms for mentoring, counseling, and other support systems. In some contexts, international students can be used as resources, tutors, role models.
    3. We should give careful study to the issue of language instruction for students who have some degree of “native fluency” in the language.
    4. Given changing immigration patterns and the demands of the evolving international marketplace, we should consider how we will respond in terms of the languages we teach.
  5. Institutional name change. Whereas the term foreign in the name of our organization has potentially negative implications, we request that the ADFL Executive Committee consult with members regarding possible alternatives and the desirability of a formal change of name.

From Discussion Group B: Salary, Promotion, and Tenure

  1. Concerned about the problem of compression of faculty salaries at the various ranks as a result of the need to pay dramatically higher entry-level salaries to new faculty, we strongly recommend that the ADFL Executive Committee look into the problem of salary compression, evaluate its effect on faculty morale and productivity at all ranks, and take appropriate action.
  2. We recommend that foreign language and literature departments develop clear written criteria (and, if appropriate, procedures) for promotion and tenure, as well as for merit salary increases. We further recommend that annual reviews be conducted for all non-tenured faculty members on tenure-track appointment.
  3. We recommend that the ADFL collect from foreign language and literature departments and keep on file documents they have developed as guidelines for
    1. the awarding of merit salary increases and
    2. promotion and tenure decisions and make these documents available at cost to interested departments.
  4. We recommend that all tenured faculty members take seriously their professional responsibility to review and evaluate the scholarly work of their colleagues who are under consideration for promotion and tenure. The tenured faculty members should not permit university presses and juried journals to replace them in this role.
  5. When selecting outside reviewers in cases of promotion and tenure, departments should select persons who are at institutions similar to their own. In addition, an attempt should be made to recognize formally the contributions of extramural reviewers (e.g., by sending a letter of acknowledgment to the chair and dean of the reviewer).

From Discussion Group C: The Hiring Process

We offer the following suggestions to chairs involved in the hiring process.

  1. Ask for official transcripts and check candidate's credentials personally before making an offer.
  2. Provide a detailed schedule for every candidate visiting your campus and assign someone to accompany the candidate. Provide some private time (rest) for the candidate.
  3. Do not set deadlines that you cannot keep. Accepting applications after a stated deadline is illegal and could invalidate an entire search.
  4. Consult the “MLA Policy Statements on Recruiting and Hiring,” which can be found in A Career Guide for PhDs and PhD Candidates in English and Foreign Languages, published by the MLA.
  5. Candidates' visits to the hiring campus are necessary. Never hire sight unseen. The campus itself must pay for the trip, which should include at least two nights and one day so as not to exhaust the candidate totally. Take your time, especially when hiring for tenure-track positions, and hire in the context of a long-term strategic plan. Never shorten a visit when (if) the candidate turns out to be obviously inappropriate; grin and bear it.
  6. Candidates may be asked to teach a class and/or make some public presentation about research interests or theses. Students can be very perspicacious in assessing a candidate's commitment to teaching.
  7. Once a candidate is invited to campus, the search enters a recruiting mode. Now you are selling your campus and your job offer, and the candidate is selecting you as much as you are selecting him or her. This is a different situation from the one that existed at the MLA preliminary interviews and requires a different strategy. Some advice for the interview itself: listen, let the candidate talk; ask non-threatening questions that allow the candidate to show his or her best side or spark of originality.
  8. After deciding, make your job offer first by phone and then follow immediately with a letter. The department's letter is a legally valid supplement to the university's standard contract. What that letter details is part of the job description and the official offer. These details could become critical in subsequent tenure and promotion decisions.
Recommendations to the ADFL

  1. Continue the pre-MLA meeting for job candidates and interviewers.
  2. The ADFL should encourage graduate schools to help new PhDs prepare for the hiring process by instructing them in correct procedures and by holding mock interviews.
  3. The ADFL expects all parties involved in the recruiting process to behave professionally.
  4. The ADFL should survey its members to determine what conditions of employment are offered to department chairs (e.g., additional stipends, reduced course loads, more flexible leave policies, etc.). It is important that administrators understand the time and effort required of a department chair during the hiring process.

Seminar West

From Discussion Group A: Special Faculty Problems

  1. We maintain that through creative leadership the chairs of language departments, with the support of enlightened and informed college and university administrations, can best confront the divisions between faculty members in language departments in the varied disciplines of language, linguistics, literature, and foreign language education. Particular attention should be paid to the problems of older, established faculty members nearing retirement, who may be reluctant to participate fully in departmental affairs because of changes in the emphasis of the curriculum.
  2. The ADFL, through its research sources and publications, should encourage chairs to promote faculty renewal by involving all segments of the faculty in planning long-range changes in the curriculum and staff. In this process it is essential to seek both internal and external funding to support faculty development in areas that fulfill the mission of the department as established by the faculty members. The chair has an important role in assessing faculty strengths and encouraging individual faculty members at different stages in their careers to be as productive as possible.
  3. Chairs should be encouraged to make reasonable written assignments for faculty members that relate to the strengths of the faculty and the mission of the department. Faculty members should be evaluated by the chair on the basis of these specific assignments. In the process of assessing performance it is important to develop fair mechanisms for student and peer evaluation.
  4. Similarly, faculty members should have the right to review the performance of the chair through signed evaluations, but with assurances of mutual protection against reprisal. The chair should orient the faculty concerning the nature of the position of chair and, through participatory governance of the department, groom other faculty members for succession to the chair.
  5. The introduction of new languages should be accomplished by hiring trained faculty members or utilizing self-instructional programs supported by trained consultants, according to the standards of the NASILP. Language programs with limited tenure slots should not be expanded at the expense of existing programs. Chairs should, in consultation with the faculty, find means of revitalizing faltering programs.
  6. Search committees should be so constructed as to represent the important segments of the department according to its mission and in such a way that all faculty members may have input into the selection process. Search committees should work closely with the equal-opportunity officers of the university, keeping the faculty fully informed about the affirmative-action goals of the department and the university.
  7. The discussion group strongly endorses the ADFL's previous recommendations concerning part-time staff and encourages continued dissemination of information on this issue.

From Discussion Group B: Salary, Promotion, and Tenure

  1. Whereas the missions of institutions may differ, as may the goals of individual departments, we recommend that the weighting of teaching, research, and service for tenure, promotion, and increment considerations vary accordingly. The criteria for fulfilling these goals should be articulated at the university, college, and department levels and should be applied to decisions about tenure, promotion, and increments.
  2. In recent years many foreign language departments have developed new and innovative programs and curricular reforms, often in collaboration with faculty in other disciplines. Present trends in technology, demographics, and other global realities will continue to influence our profession in terms of the courses we teach and the research we do. Some examples of non-traditional fields related to these trends are women's studies, film studies, literary and technical translation, creative writing, area studies, foreign language methodology and pedagogy, and work in the new technologies. It is essential that teaching, research, and creativity in these new fields be regarded as significant professional contributions when they are evaluated for tenure, promotion, and increment decisions.

From Discussion Group C: Faculty Development

We wish to recommend that foreign language departments explore and consider the following issues:

  1. Every effort must be made to ensure that in their first year all entry-level faculty members are made fully aware of the criteria for promotion and tenure and are provided with all the relevant written documents. These faculty members must also be kept abreast of any changes in these criteria.
  2. Continuous efforts should be made to ensure that promotion and tenure expectations be uniform at all levels in an institution of higher learning, both inside and outside the foreign language department. Institutional documents prescribing criteria for promotion and tenure should be closely followed and faculty members should not be made to confront situations in which the basic institutional criteria as stated in public documents are not followed because a hidden agenda has in fact been implemented.
  3. It is often difficult for junior women faculty members to find mentors within a department. Chairs are urged to seek ways to correct this situation. Furthermore, it is essential that junior women faculty members with service-oriented activities not be overburdened, as they often are.
  4. When requested by a faculty member, institutions should consider longer probationary periods before tenure and promotion review, in order to give more flexibility to this process. At some institutions, for example, “leaves of absence” or other “professional leave” programs already allow for such flexibility.
  5. Creative ways must be found to minimize the effect of departmental salary compression on productive individuals at the senior ranks. Such compensation or recognition could take the form of special grants, reduced teaching loads, public recognition, etc.
  6. Different ways should be explored in which academic institutions are or might be dealing with the issue of posttenure faculty reviews. The purpose of such reviews should be to provide constructive encouragement and to suggest ways for revitalizing the professional work of senior faculty members, if needed. Since senior faculty members are influential in promotion decisions and many are out of touch with today's foreign language priorities, they must be educated about the future needs of the profession and urged to nurture young talent.

In conclusion, the participants felt the most beneficial aspect of these group discussions to be the sharing of concerns and experiences; as a result, a better understanding of one's own departmental situation was achieved and, at the same time, valuable insights were gained into comparable situations at other institutions.

© 1989 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.

ADFL Bulletin 20, no. 2 (January 1989): 76-79

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