Scholarship
4. The Task Force recommends that the university implement pre-tenure development leaves to support scholarly productivity. Campaign and endowment funds should also be allocated to support faculty research. Departments should also allocate teaching duties flexibly to allow faculty to complete research and writing projects.Pacific faculty envision a university climate in which scholarly activity is more strongly supported. Given that the university’s new standards for tenure and promotion have higher expectations for scholarly productivity, it is necessary to allocate more resources to these activities.
Pacific faculty strongly favor having a program of pre-tenure leaves, which would be granted on a competitive basis for specific projects and may require hiring part-time staff to maintain program quality. To support this and other initiatives, almost all faculty surveyed agreed that Campaign and endowment funds should be allocated specifically to support scholarship, including things such as funds for summer research, travel, library resources and support of undergraduate co-workers.
Additionally, as far as possible new faculty should be granted lighter teaching loads as they begin their careers at Pacific to initiate and complete research, writing and artistic projects.
Those surveyed also favor generally the idea that flexible teaching duties can be used to promote scholarly productivity. Administering those shifts in teaching load, however, must be done in a way that does not overburden other faculty or detract from the quality of classroom instruction.