Academic Staff Assembly Document #347

14 March 2005

Proposed Substitute Resolution for the Resolution 
of the Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee
On Mandatory Reviews for Promotion

Whereas, the UW System's Unclassified Personnel Guideline (Chapter 1) states for Category A academic staff titles, "The first three professional prefixes; Associate, No Prefix and Senior reflect successively greater experience, expertise and applied ability in a particular specialty area;"

Whereas, the UW System's Unclassified Personnel Guideline (Chapter 1) further states, "these three prefixes constitute a 'natural career progression' track through which professional academic staff might be expected to progress in the area of specialty;"

Whereas, while promotions are not based on "time in grade," a review for promotion is a reasonable expectation after an appropriate period of time;

Whereas, the UW-Madison has determined the "appropriate" periods of time are one to two years at the Associate prefix and seven years at No Prefix for Category A professional titles;

Whereas, Category B titles have been established with a relationship to faculty titles and do not have the same "natural career progression" concept as Category A titles;

Whereas, Category B titles offer more specific criteria on a title-by-title, and sometimes, unit-by-unit basis to progress in the title prefix;

Whereas, approximately 8% of all academic staff who qualify for promotion review have not been promoted within the suggested time frames;

Whereas, there is no solid evidence to determine whether lack of promotions is due to neglect or to valid reasons;

Whereas, we believe that before implementing an ongoing required promotion review process, more data is needed;

Therefore Be It Resolved, the Academic Staff Assembly requests that APO implement a required one-time review of Category A and B academic staff to determine the reasons for non-promotion of those who might otherwise qualify based on time of service, with a report of the results to the assembly by December 15, 2005.