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Aug. 2, 2021

Dear Faculty:

As the 2021-22 academic year is poised to begin, we return to a campus community that is different from the one we left behind in March 2020. Even with the excitement of a new academic year, we cannot simply conduct business as usual. Rather, we must meet the moment we’re in: a moment that accounts for our losses, embraces the innovations we made amid those losses, and takes more seriously the hard work of transforming our work culture to meet a more complex future than we could have imagined in 2020.

With this in mind, I want to draw your attention to a document that I believe will anchor our work together in forging that new work culture: the Professional Rights and Responsibilities of Faculty Members and Roles and Professional Responsibilities of Academic Leaders document – known in our shorthand as “the PRR document.” Thanks to the work of the Boulder Faculty Assembly’s PRR/PRD Revision Ad-hoc Committee, faculty ombudsperson Jerry Hauser, legal counsel, and members of my team that include Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Michele Moses, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Assessment Katherine Eggert, and Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Support and Director of Faculty Relations Suzanne Soled, the PRR document – approved by BFA on April 29, 2021 and by me on June 8, 2021 – sets forth a marvelous foundation for supporting a positive and respectful faculty work culture.

The PRR document does this by creating basic expectations of cooperation and respectful relationships, a commitment to professionalism and ongoing training, and a dedication to equity. These outcomes are achieved through the PRR by:

• Clarifying language. The PRR is more user-friendly, improving the logical flow of content, updating terminology in more understandable language. 
• Highlighting faculty rights. The PRR is more explicit about defining faculty due process rights and how they work. It is a “how-to” document so that administrators and Responding Faculty Members know what to expect.
• Highlighting faculty responsibilities. The PRR outlines the guidelines and expectations for personal and professional responsibility as a faculty member – the baseline for fostering a climate of cooperation, collegiality and professionalism as a scholar. 
• Providing academic leader training. Part III of the PRR emphasizes and for academic leaders as an essential piece of the PRR and in ensuring faculty rights. This is especially important for informal resolutions and defining the options available for resolving disputes.
• Emphasizing options for resolution. Part IV of the PRR outlines a more flexible and transparent process for addressing unprofessional conduct that gives supervising administrators more avenues to resolve concerns proportional to their level of severity, pattern, or pervasiveness. Part IV also details a range of informal responses for lower-level concerns that can be resolved with informational reminders or warnings about conduct standards. More robust written notice and meeting process are used when higher-level concerns may need to result in more formal consequences, such as a letter of reprimand or reassignment. These responses were designed to help preserve relationships and be fundamentally fair to all participants.
• Creating consistency with current policy. The PRR incorporates updates to Regent Laws, Regent Policies, and university policies, with expanded citations. Together with the BFA, my office is working on revising additional university policies related to the titles, appointment, and reappointment processes for non-tenure track faculty in instructional and librarian roles, as well as faculty grievance and appeals processes. When those policies are formally adopted this fall, part IV of the PRR will be revised to reflect those updates and will apply to all faculty who are not employees-at-will.

It is my hope and expectation that all faculty will read, understand and incorporate the PRR document into the fabric of their research, scholarship, creative work, teaching, librarianship, and service. Training for all faculty in understanding and using the PRR is available through , and this training is now mandatory for Academic Leaders—deans, associate deans, chairs, associate chairs, institute and program directors, faculty directors and center directors. You can also request a presentation by Suzanne Soled and her team in Faculty Relations to help you operationalize the PRR document and make it an effective, dynamic, ongoing tool for transforming and revitalizing the faculty workplace.

As we re-assemble and return to our new workplace, please know you have my gratitude for all your work in leading our campus through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the work to come this year toward achieving our campus goals: continuing in our public mission as one of America’s leading research universities, building a student-centered campus culture that enables the belonging and success of every member of our community, accelerating our vital work in diversity, equity and inclusion, creating campus success through effective management of our physical and financial resources, and sustaining and supporting our community.

With gratitude,

Russ

Russell Moore
Provost