A final decision on the Committee on Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure, CAPT, will not come for at least another month as the faculty chose to delay a vote on the latest motion at the faculty meeting this past Friday.
The motion to reconfigure the structure of CAPT -- which includes plans to rename the committee COT (the Committee on Appointments and Tenure), create a separate body for promotions to associate and full professorship, and modify the proposed appointment calendar -- was supposed to finally be decided on at this latest meeting. But after numerous professors voiced a variety of opinions concerning issues, such as the size of the new committee as well as the lack of non-tenured professors voicing their opinions with respect to the changes, President Glotzbach offered to hold a new vote determining whether this debate should be settled another time.
Most of the roughly hour long discussion concerning CAPT revolved around the size of the new committee. Proposals to limit the group to five members, and thus decrease the odds that a reluctant professor will be placed on the committee, were met with arguments that an appointment committee with fewer voices would lose robustness. Ideas to stick with the seven member committee size, or perhaps even increase that number, were discussed as well, but current CAPT member and Management and Business professor Pushi Prasad clarified that an increase in the size of the committee would not result in smaller workloads for those elected to serve in the future.
Other professors also asked to hear specifically from non-tenured professors, who they felt had remained surprisingly silent during previous discussions despite being the ones most affected by the proposed changes. However, non-tenured professors opted to remain quiet during the forum (or at least not publically address the fact that they are not currently tenured).
This debate regarding the CAPT proposal began following open remarks made by President Glotzbach, who touched on a variety of Skidmore and non-Skidmore related developments, including the importance of the college reaffirming its commitment to promote safe, inclusive spaces in the wake of the #MeToo movement. His comments were then followed by updates from Crystal Moore, the interim Dean of the Faculty. Prasad later outlined some of the specifics in the new CAPT proposal before transitioning to the aforementioned discussion and vote.
With voting clickers -- the likes of which certain students who have taken Exercise Science may be familiar with -- in hand, some professors seemed to sigh in annoyance upon seeing the results on the projector screen confirming the delay of this important vote yet again. A number of professors, as well as this author, gradually exited the meeting thereafter, dropping their clickers in bins placed near the exit to Gannett before heading off to enjoy the rest of their Friday afternoon.