RFA Collective Agreement Timelines Affected by COVID-19

Activity

Timeline/Deadline (if applicable)

Instructions

Workload Data

Annual Workload Statement

Faculty members are to receive their annual Workload Statement summarizing their teaching assignment for the prior academic year by March 31.

If Schools/Departments are not able to meet this timeline due to workload challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, they should write to the faculty members in advance to confirm that the Statements will be delayed and that they will be distributed when possible with the goal of delivery by April 30.

Annual Report

Faculty Annual Reports

Faculty members are to submit their annual report by May 15.

The annual report submission deadline will be May 16, 2022 as May 15th falls on Sunday.

Librarian Annual Report

Librarians are to submit their annual report by May 31.

Professional counsellors are to submit their annual report by May 31.

The annual report submission deadline will not be changed.

Extension of Acting Assistant Professor timeline

Acting Assistant Professor

When a faculty member is appointed with the requirement of completing a terminal degree he or she will be appointed to the rank of Acting Assistant Professor for a maximum period of two years.

The University and the Ryerson Faculty Association (RFA) acknowledge that the current COVID-19 pandemic may have caused a negative impact on your ability to obtain your terminal degree within the required timeline. In response to this, the University and the RFA have agreed to provide you, on a without prejudice basis, an extension to your timeline to obtain your terminal degree of an additional year.

This extension to your timeline matches that which was provided to all Acting Assistant Professors who already held Acting Assistant Professor appointments on April 1, 2021.

The terms of  (PDF file) Article 4.5, Acting Assistant Professors, shall continue to apply except for the amendment to the timeline from two years to three years.

The adjustments to your timeline will be confirmed in a letter to you, from your Dean, providing the new dates.

Please note that the agreement to provide this extension to Acting Assistant Professors has been reached without prejudice between the RFA and the University, and it is limited to only those faculty members holding an Acting Assistant Professor appointment on April 1, 2021 or earlier.

Extension of Probationary Period in Light of COVID-19 Pandemic

In the year you are scheduled to be reviewed for tenure, you will be asked to select whether or not you wish to extend your probationary period by one-year.

Normal Tenure Review under the ‘New Tenure Review Process’ commences May 17. If you are scheduled to begin your tenure review in May 2021, you must choose whether or not you wish to extend your probationary period by May 17, 2021. Please make your selection through Extension of Probationary Period form. (external link) 

If your tenure review begins in subsequent years, we will provide you with time to consider how COVID-19 may impact your SRC and potentially your tenure review. You will be asked to choose whether or not you would like to request a one-year extension of your probationary period by March 31 of the year you are scheduled to submit your application for tenure. You will be asked to submit your selection closer to this deadline.

Should you elect an extension, your election will automatically be accepted. The University and the Ryerson Faculty Association (RFA) have confirmed that this is an optional election that does not require you to provide a rationale as to why you are electing to extend your probationary period. Following your election, a confirmation will be sent to you from your Dean’s Office.

The deadline for requesting an extension  is March 31 of the year you are scheduled to submit your tenure application.

In carrying out your Year-End Assessments and Intermediate Reviews, Departmental Evaluation Committees will be advised to take into consideration any potential impact that COVID-19 may have on your Teaching, SRC, and Service responsibilities. As always, you have the option of submitting additional information with your Annual Report, and you may choose to provide an explanation of how COVID-19 has affected your duties and responsibilities.

Should you choose to defer your tenure review please be assured that there will be no negative inference by the evaluation committees, or the Vice-Provost, Faculty Affairs. Further, the criteria to be applied for tenure review will be unchanged as a result of this extension, and what is expected of the candidate will be as if the extension had not occurred.

Agreement to provide this extension opportunity to pre-tenure faculty members has been reached without prejudice by the RFA and the University, and it is limited to only those faculty members who held a pre-tenure appointment on April 1, 2021.

Any questions about this process can be sent to vpfa@torontomu.ca.

Faculty/Course Survey

Paper-based in-class and online Faculty/Course Survey

Winter 2022

• For all tenure-stream (probationary and tenured) and Limited Term Faculty, the FCS will continue to be administered online.
• The FCS will be modified to include only the following five course operations questions that speak to the student educational experience:
• I received feedback on my work prior to the drop date.
• The course handouts/postings contain all the information I need about the organization of this course.
• Students are treated fairly.
• The class meets as scheduled and on time.
• The instructor is available for consultation as specified on the course handouts/postings.
• The other nine questions on the FCS have been removed.
• Information collected through the FCS for Winter 2022 shall automatically be included in faculty annual reports.
• NEW: For all faculty members the FCS will be administered online, during class time. A portion of class time will be set aside for students to complete the online FCS in-class, regardless of whether the class is in-person or remote. For remote, asynchronous course delivery the faculty member will allocate a portion of the lecture time for completion of the FCS.

The RFA and the OVPFA are working collaboratively on a new enhanced process for FCS that we hope to launch in Fall 2022. It will include the above summative course operations survey at the end of the semester, that speaks to the student educational experience as well as voluntary confidential formative assessments of teaching throughout the term that will allow faculty to incorporate ongoing student feedback.

Department Hiring Committee (DHC)

Composition Report

The DHC for the upcoming academic year is to be established by May 15 and the composition is to be communicated to the Dean, the VPFA, and the RFA by June 15.

At this time these deadlines remain in effect. 

EDI Report

In making their appointments to the DHC the Chair/Director prepares a report explaining how appointments to the committee serve the University’s EDI goals. This report is due June 15.

At this time this deadline remains in effect.

Hiring Meetings and Recommendations

As scheduled.

Minimize in person meetings. If possible, carry out interviews virtually and ensure all candidates are treated in the same manner. Committee meetings should be done virtually (if possible) and drafting of the recommendation can be done electronically.

Evaluation Committee (DEC, FTC, FPC)

In-class Teaching Assessments

RFA In-Class Teaching Assessments for Winter 2022

• In the Winter 2022 term, regardless of mode of delivery, in-class teaching assessments for pre-tenure faculty members will take place. The normal process regarding communications to pre-tenure faculty members as to the number of assessments and the scheduling of these will continue as per the Collective Agreement.
• Pre-tenure faculty members who previously elected to either waive the normally scheduled assessments, or chose not to include completed teaching assessments in their PCF, will be required to have additional teaching assessment(s) to make up for the ones that were missed or completed assessments that were completed but the member elected not to be included in their PCF. In these instances, if reducing the number of teaching assessments by one per year would make it so that the pre-tenure member will not reach eight assessments by the end of the fifth year of their probationary period, the DEC does not have the option to reduce the number of teaching assessments by one assessment per year. For pre-tenure faculty members who commenced working at the University during the pandemic, if they did not receive two in-class teaching assessments in their first two semesters, two in-class teaching assessments should take place in each of their next two teaching semesters. There ought to be a minimum of eight teaching assessments (and a maximum of 12) over a standard six year probationary period and this number may be adjusted for a shorter probationary period.
• In the exceptional circumstance where a pre-tenure faculty member is being reviewed for tenure in 2021/2022 and is unable to complete the minimum number of 8 teaching assessments, the faculty member shall nevertheless be reviewed for tenure and no adverse inference shall be drawn based on the fact that they have fewer than 8 teaching assessments.
• For Winter 2022, the pre-tenure faculty member and a prospective assessor are strongly encouraged to have a discussion to determine the most appropriate manner to carry out the assessment, taking into consideration the mode of delivery.
• In Winter 2022, the following statement will be appended to the pre-tenure faculty member’s teaching assessment: “This Teaching Assessment took place during the challenging conditions caused by the pandemic and should be viewed in that light. It is understood that the pre-tenure faculty member may not have had the opportunity to demonstrate the normal range of in-person teaching skills.”

Requests for an extension to provide the written assessment beyond three weeks of the class visit/virtual assessment can be forwarded to vpfa@torontomu.ca.

If a teaching assessment is not completed (e.g. an assessor was not available), the Chair of the DEC must write a letter indicating the assessment was not done and the reason why. The letter must be copied to the Chair of Department/Director of the School, the member’s PCF, the Dean, and the RFA. Such missed assessments are not made up in future semesters.

Promotion Recommendations

See the new Promotion Process Timeline in light of revisions to the Collective Agreement.

TA/GA Supervision

TA/GA performance evaluations

Faculty members who are Supervising Instructors for TAs/GAs are required to complete a performance evaluation of the TA/GA prior to the end of the semester.

For the Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 terms, faculty members and contract lecturers who are Supervising Instructors for TAs/GAs are required to complete a performance evaluation of the TA/GA prior to the end of the semester.

Supervising Instructors are encouraged to communicate with their TA/GA to advise them when they can expect the evaluation. 

An electronic copy of the performance evaluation form that is required to be completed can be found at on the CUPE Local 3904, Unit 3 Collective Agreement web page.