Lecturer, Instructional, Research, and Clinical Faculty Task Force

Dear faculty,

As we continue to work together to strengthen shared governance; to chart a more supportive, more inclusive path forward for CU Denver’s IRC faculty; and to ensure a culture of belonging for all faculty, I wanted to share an executive summary of the IRC Task Force Roadmap here:

• To address the issue of salary/pay and benefits, we will:
• Enact shared governance compensation review for all schools, colleges, and the library, as recommended by the IRC Task Force.
• Increase promotional pay for IRC faculty members, as well as provide additional investments in professional development for IRC faculty.
• Take steps to establish a baseline for Lecturer pay rate for courses much earlier and provide compensation to Lecturers for canceled classes.
• To address the issue of job security and protections, we will:
• Establish an Academic Operations Working Group to study the concern of equitable workload distributions, which will be charged this academic year.
• Increase our focus on job security within IRC ranks true to CU Denver’s commitment to being an equity-serving institution. This includes supporting multiyear contracts for IRC faculty, with greater clarity around roles, responsibility, expectations, and accountability; and creating Revision of Contract and LOO templates with welcoming and inclusive language.
• To address the issue of recognition and professional support, we will:
• Enhance our commitment to building a stronger culture of belonging among faculty groups and the university as a whole through network support, recognition of excellence, institutional terminology, and other ways. Examples include establishing the Lecturer Liaisons Committee and the Lecturer Teaching Award, and working with our administrative units to create an inclusive directory template by the end of spring 2024 that we will recommend all departments use.

You can access the full roadmap and the message I sent on October 27 below. 

Sincerely,

Constancio Nakuma, PhD
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs

Dear Colleagues,    

I am pleased to announce that the IRC Task Force presented our IRC Task Force report to Chancellor Marks and Provost Nakuma on Friday, May 6, 2022. We encourage all community members to read the final report which is linked here and below.  

The IRC Faculty Task Force was formed in September 2021 at the behest of Provost Nakuma to investigate the policies and practices that impact the working conditions of CU Denver’s Lecturers, Instructors and Clinical Teaching (aka IRC) faculty, and develop an actionable plan to improve those conditions. 

Over the fall 2021 semester, our taskforce collected data and gained insights into the policies and practices that impact the well-being and working conditions of our IRC colleagues. Throughout the spring 2022 semester we analyzed data, reviewed policies and practices, and considered information our IRC faculty provided in the faculty experience survey we conducted. We submitted our final report to Provost Nakuma on April 1.  

Sincerely,  

Joann Brennan 

Chair, IRC Task Force 

Professor of Photography, CAM