Tuesday, February 15, 2005

non-reappointment to current position

Reasons given (and response) for non-reappointment to current position:

1) “Lack of sufficient and timely progress toward tenure. Attendance at a Board of Regents meeting for example”
My tenure binder was almost complete, except for the aforementioned Board of Regents meeting and six months of tenure meeting reports unavailable (which is why I petitioned for a one year extension in my letter dated XX/XX/2004). I was told the binder had to be complete to be presented. As I explained in my letter, my tenure chairman was unavailable (on personal leave) for over 6 months.
2) “Failure to advance programs through recruitment, formation of advisory committee”.
This has been a problem area. It is difficult to recruit students AND build a program at the same time. I am a “one-man-shop” at Edison and there are only so many hours available in the day! It was my objective to build the “foundation” (quality courses) before attempting fill the classrooms. It is difficult to recruit students when course offerings and materials are inadequate. One bad experience; one non-relevant class and a good number of students will not only fail to register for another class, but will tell everyone else at the plant what a “waste of time” school is.
Note: When I started the IMT program, I did not even have a classroom and had to apologize during the first years of the program for lack of facilities and equipment. Technical classes are extremely hard to teach strictly from a book with no equipment for demonstration. The first “MC Troubleshooting” class had nothing to troubleshoot; the first “Motors & Drives” class had neither motors nor drives.
In the past five years, I have independently developed seven classes, with labs, which were approved by the curriculum committee. The majority of these classes have been adapted for distance learning. I have collected and assembled over $60,000 worth of industrial equipment (inventoried) with a total cost to the taxpayer of less than $10,000