LAUCD Academic Personnel Action Review Board

Annual report 2001-2002

Members:

Chair: Marcia Meister, Government Information

Vice Chair/Chair Elect: Karleen Darr, Catalog Department

Peg Durkin, Law Library

Bob Heyer-Gray, Physical Sciences and Engineering Library

Opritsa Popa, Humanities/Social Sciences

The Review Board had a relatively light workload in comparison with the previous year. We reviewed 12 cases for salary actions. Eleven new appointments were reviewed during the period July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002. With this cycle all librarians have now completed transition to the new salary scale.

Actions:

Promotions: 1

1 step merits: 9

Accelerated merits: 2

Change of Review Initiator’s recommendation: 0

The Library Administration sent Letters in early spring indicating salary actions effective July 1, 2002 in those instances where the University Librarian has the re-delegated authority on salaries. Re-delegated salary actions are one-step merit increases. This was a welcome improvement in timeliness as notification was usually not made until all actions had been completed. In those instances where the Vice Provost has the final decision-making authority, in cases for promotion, acceleration, or contested actions, the salary recommendations were forwarded to the Academic Federation for review by the AF Personnel Committee and librarians were notified as soon as the actions were completed by office the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel.

The Review Board members discussed several issues during the year:

· Self evaluations – The Board discussed self evaluations or self reviews and whether or not they had a place in the official documentation packet. MOU and APM language says that candidates for salary action have the right to submit for inclusion in the record a written statement in response to or commenting upon material in the file. However, individuals being reviewed usually include statements only when there is a disagreement on the recommended salary action. Librarians are encouraged to provide a written summary of accomplishments during the period under review to their review iniators who include pertinent points in the letter of recommendation. The candidate’s statements do not normally accompany the review packet.

· Goals statements – The Board noted that there is uneven use of goal statements included in the official documentation, e.g. some packets incorporate them, and others do not. Statements of goals are often included to identify priorities for future work while the review and recommended salary action relate to activities that have taken place during the period under review. LAUCD may want to further discuss goals to clarify thinking and practices.

· Documentation – The Board used the C-9 Peer Review documents (UC Davis local documentation) for represented Librarians, and C-9 for non-represented librarians. At the present time there was no substantive difference in the documentation although language and organization of the documents varied. The Board did not find it necessary to refer extensively to the original source documentation in the APM and MOU.

Recommendations:

· Review Board members would like to remind Review Initiators that we now need to note whether a candidate for a salary action is represented or non-represented since different documentation applies.

· We have hired more new librarians in the past few years so we have more people who are less familiar with our procedures. We may need to be more proactive in providing consultation and information on procedures, policy and criteria regarding the review process for our new librarians to ensure consistency in practice and criteria for advancement.