Origin of Merit Equity Review
The office of the President has mandated that each campus provide a mechanism for “merit equity” reviews (MERs) for ladder track faculty. Guidelines for such reviews at UCLA have been developed through consultations involving the UCLA Academic Senate, the Council on Academic Personnel, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor, Academic Personnel. These guidelines are presented here.
How it works:
A member of the Academic Senate (i.e. Ladder rank faculty; In-residence faculty; Clinical X faculty; Lecturers SOE faculty) may on rare occasions be located at a rank and step seriously inconsistent with attainment. For example, a colleague may have been appointed at a step or rank substantially below that suggested by merit; or a candidate, department, or dean may have failed to identify a series of earned opportunities for accelerated advancement. On those occasions it is appropriate to conduct a career review of the candidate, with the aim of detecting and correcting inequities. The personnel system presently lacks such a mechanism; the procedure set forth here remedies that deficiency.
A candidate may request such a review. Moreover, it is not only appropriate but a responsibility of academic administrators or the Council on Academic Personnel to suggest such a review in cases where circumstances suggest it is warranted. By the same token, however, such reviews are not a substitute for ordinary processes of review. They function as a supplemental process to correct substantial inequity, typically a product of multiple past actions, not as a mean of appeal from or expression of disagreement with a single personnel decision, for which the ordinary channels are available and adequate, or for a change from one series to another.
Merit
Equity Review (MER) Procedure
1. Objective:
The purpose of the Merit Equity Review (MER) is to help assure that all
University faculty are at the appropriate rank and step consistent with
prevailing UC and UCLA standards.
2. Initiation:
A faculty member may initiate a MER
by written request to the department chair or dean, with a copy to the Vice
Chancellor for Academic Personnel. A
MER can also be recommended by the department chair, dean, or other key
administrator (e.g., division chief), the Council on Academic Personnel (CAP),
or the Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel. The final decision as to whether
to initiate a MER rests with the candidate.
3. Content
& Criteria: A request for a MER must be substantive; that is, it must
contain a request for a specific rank and step, with documentation appropriate
to support that request. The review
will proceed by assessing the candidate's overall record, using the University's
established criteria with one exception: where a significantly higher rank or
step is indicated, the case will not require the additional demonstration of a
basis for accelerated advancement.
4. Frequency:
A MER of an individual faculty member cannot occur at the assistant professor
level. A MER can occur only once at the associate professor level,
once at the full professor level prior to advancement to Professor Step VI,
and once after advancement to Professor Step VI.
All MER actions become part of the academic dossier.
5. Role
of Department or Unit: Regardless of the source of the request for a MER,
the department or unit where the faculty member has his or her primary
appointment will review the request and make a recommendation based on the
merits of the case. The process for
a MER will be the same as that established for whatever level the candidate
requests as the outcome of the MER. The department or unit must proceed to
examine the merits of the case in a timely manner.
6. Transmittal:
Once a department or unit recommendation has been determined, and no later than
six months after a request was initiated, it is to be communicated to the
faculty member for his or her response, then to the appropriate dean for the
dean’s recommendation, and to the Academic Personnel Office (APO) for
transmittal to CAP, which will make a recommendation for action by the Vice
Chancellor for Academic Personnel..
7. Council
on Academic Personnel: CAP considers all MERs, and reports its
recommendation to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel for final action.
8. Relationship
to Other Academic Personnel Actions: MERs supplement current applicable
annual and other periodic academic reviews.
MERs neither replace nor affect existing procedures.
If you have questions contact: Judy Nawa by email, nawa@senate.ucla.edu