Principles Concerning Lecturer Faculty

The San Francisco State University Academic Senate recognizes the important contributions lecturer faculty make to the educational mission of the university. Many lecturers have served the university on a long-term basis, regularly filling basic and/or specialized curricular needs. Others may serve temporary, intermittent, or emergent curricular needs such as replacements for faculty on leave. While many Senate policies and Collective Bargaining Agreement provisions serve to define and support the professional development of tenured and tenure track faculty, this is not the case for lecturer faculty. The Senate thus adopts the following set of goals and strategies for supporting and enhancing the work of lecturer faculty, thereby enriching the experiences of our students and advancing the mission of the university. The Senate recommends that:

• Upon first appointment, all lecturer faculty should: a) receive an informational packet describing department or equivalent unit policies for instructional faculty, including the department's criteria and procedures for evaluating lecturers and information about benefits (as required by the Collective Bargaining Agreement), and any departmental criteria for determining Faculty Merit Increases, Salary Step Increases, or Range Elevation (as required by Senate policy); and b) have the opportunity to meet with the department chair/program director for orientation purposes. Additional steps to orient lecturer faculty may include a welcome letter, participation in activities of the Center for Enhancement of Teaching, invitations to department meetings, assignment of a faculty mentor, an orientation session on use of department equipment, etc.
  
  
• To facilitate their work as instructors, all lecturer faculty shouldhave, at a minimum, access to a mailbox, desk, phone line, and departmental computer workstation (recognizing that these instructional aids may need to be shared where resources are limited). When resources permit, departments and equivalent units shall equip long-term lecturer faculty with additional instructional aids appropriate to the faculty member's teaching and other responsibilities.
  
  
• To facilitate communication with lecturer faculty, all departments and equivalent units should maintain a current roster of lecturer faculty, including email addresses where applicable, and distribute copies to all lecturer as well as permanent faculty. Where possible, departments should include the names and numbers of lecturer faculty in the information it forwards for inclusion in the campus directory.
  
  
• As an additional aid to communication, all departments and equivalent units should maintain a bulletin board or other permanent space containing the following documents: SF State Academic Senate policies on Temporary Faculty (A.S. Policy F99-160), Range Elevation (S00- 211), Faculty Merit Increase Program (A.S. F99-208), Salary Step Increase (A.S. Policy S00-209 ); copies of Article 12 of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA); and any current documents concerning working conditions, professional development opportunities, or departmental rules and regulations of relevance to lecturer faculty. Departments should update these documents as necessary, and notify lecturers about the housing of the documents and any updates.
  
  
• Departments and equivalent units should, in accordance with timelines established by university policy and the CBA, notify all lecturer faculty of their eligibility for two-year appointments, FMIs, SSIs, range elevation, and professional development opportunities.
  
  
• To facilitate professional development and communication among lecturer faculty, as well as to provide a vehicle for highlighting issues of concern to lecturer faculty, the Academic Senate will establish a Lecturers' Council comprised of lecturer faculty elected/appointed to the Academic Senate and any other interested lecturer faculty. The Lecturers' Council should meet at least once a semester and report as appropriate to the full Academic Senate and/or Senate Executive Committee on progress toward achieving these and other appropriate goals and strategies for supporting lecturer faculty.
  
  
• As an additional level of support for lecturer faculty, the Academic Senate recommends that the Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development maintain appropriate staffing to respond to the specific professional development needs of lecturer faculty. These needs include (but are not limited to) providing orientation materials for newly appointed temporary faculty, coordination with the Lecturers' Council, and disseminating information concerning professional development opportunities for temporary faculty.
  
  
• Lecturer faculty with the appropriate level of training, expertise, experience, and professional achievement should be provided with information about potential tenure track positions in their field.