Clearly, the quality of a university depends most heavily on the quality of its faculty. The CSU faculty consists of a dedicated, effective, accomplished and outstanding community of scholars. They have worked diligently over the years, sometimes not under the best conditions, to prepare those students who entered their classes for life and for work. The Task Force on the Faculty was charged by the president to examine the current CSU faculty evaluation processes (DACs), determine if there are common elements and if any aspects should be standardized; to survey the faculty to ascertain: a) their perceptions about their role and working conditions, b) how their perceptions compare to what is done at other universities, c) the current level of faculty morale, d) the accuracy of these perceptions when compared to the assigned duties and working conditions at universities similar to CSU, and e) recommend mechanisms through which excellence in professional performance in all areas of faculty life can be reinforced and rewarded and to provide information as to how the administration and faculty can work together better to achieve their shared goals and objectives. In light of the current negotiations between the union that represents the CSU faculty and the administration, this task force was advised by the university counsel not to collect data or make recommendations on any contractual issues.

The task force reviewed all Departmental Application of Criteria (DAC) and discovered that, in fact, few common criteria could be found. Members further determined that many of these documents lacked specific qualitative and quantitative criteria for evaluation. Despite some differences, the task force members were surprised by the level of agreement among faculty groups to survey questions. Based on responses to these survey questions, clearly CSU faculty perceive teaching and related responsibilities, research/creative activity, and service to the professions as their most important duties. Tenure-track faculty perceive research and creative activity as more important than do tenured faculty. When asked questions about the impact of improved work conditions, faculty did not consider CSU better than similar institutions for any of the work conditions included in the survey. CSU is perceived as equal to similar institutions with regard to fringe benefits. Responses also indicated that tenured and tenure-track faculty perceive salaries, teaching load and physical working conditions as the three most important factors, followed by available support staff,

travel for professional development (tenured faculty) and process for rewarding faculty for good teaching (tenure-track). Faculty indicated that they perceive CSU to be the lowest on all of these factors of the institutions considered.

Faculty indicated that a lighter teaching load would lead to an increase in research/grant writing and professional growth and development activities. Tenured faculty indicated that, to a much lesser degree, improved availability of technology would also lead to an increase in the same two areas. Tenure-track faculty also suggested, again to a lesser degree, that improved availability of technology would also lead to an increase in research/grant writing activity.

Overall, 50% of both tenured and tenure-track faculty indicated a belief that CSU faculty are less satisfied with their jobs compared to those at similar institutions. Lecturers were more positive on job satisfaction while they indicated that they did not know how CSU compared with similar institutions regarding work conditions. The task force reviewed and compared several institutions that it considered similar to CSU on these factors and reported that although data were not available for all factors (such as amount of travel funds), in general, CSU did rank lower on the factors considered.

There is a long history of greater support of the natural and physical sciences by federal government through grant programs. Although some money is available from private foundations and a few federal programs, there are few opportunities for those in the humanities and fine arts to secure funding for their research and scholarship efforts. Therefore, consideration will be given in all CSU grant programs to the use of a weighted evaluation and selection process that will favor grants in these areas where outside grants are less available.