Increasingly service to our larger community has become a responsibility of every member of our faculty regardless of the nature of individual appointments. The success of the university in achieving any of its multiple missions rests first of all on the excellence of its faculty. Because the university has multiple missions, each member of our faculty will, in the course of his or her career, engage in a variety of pursuits involving a range of collaborators and audiences. We must be conscious that every member of our faculty occupies a position which could otherwise be held by another individual and that each member of our faculty represents the university in his or her every professional endeavor. The task of determining the individuals who merit career appointments to the faculty reveals and ultimately depends for its success upon the dual nature of faculty identity.
Faculty members derive their identity as members of academic disciplines.
It is the intellectual heritage, the research paradigms, and the continuing intellectual vitality of their disciplines which undergird the accomplishment and growth of individual faculty. Disciplinary colleagues remain key reference groups for strong faculty members throughout their careers. Yet our faculty members are also members of this specific university and must be able to make excellent contributions to its teaching and related missions. Each discipline has its own means of measuring the competence and credibility of its practitioners. If we are to be confident that in their teaching, service, and work of discovery our faculty members can credibly represent and advance the university, we must first be assured that they meet the standard of academic excellence appropriate to their disciplines.