April 26, 1996
Transcript, Faculty Council Meeting, April 26, 1996
MEETING OF THE GENERAL FACULTY AND FACULTY COUNCIL
Friday, April 26, 1996
Assembly Room, Wilson Library
Faculty Council Attendance: Present 58; Excused Absences 26; Unexcused Absences 7.
I. Memorial Resolutions:
A. For the late Walter Neal Vickery: Lawrence Feinberg for Paul Debreczeny, Chair, Memorial Committee.
[There was a moment of standing respectful silence.]B. For the late Donald Gentry Tarbet: Richard H. Coop, Chair, Memorial Committee.
[There was a moment of standing respectful silence.]Chancellor Hooker.
A. Thomas Jefferson Award.
Chancellor Hooker: It is my happy duty to ask Professor Raymond Dawson to come and join me and to ask Professor Lensing to come and read the citation in awarding the Thomas Jefferson Award.
Professor Lensing: This year’s recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award is made by the Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards from among nominations that came from you, the faculty. This citation was composed by Provost Dick Richardson who, of course, was not himself a part of that selection process.
Many believe that Ray Dawson was born on that fall morning in Arkansas, outfitted in tiny three piece blue suit, vest snugly buttoned and head already full of enrollment figures, budget columns, and “Arts and Sciences” birthmarked across his chest. Alas, the story is only part of the Dawson legend.
It was prophetic that he began on October 12, 1927, for in another section of the South, the University of North Carolina was celebrating its 143rd beginning. October 12 — celebration of two beginnings that would fold into one.
Not much of material worth would attach itself to the gangly young kid, so he came to the Air Force with perfect Dawson timing (1945 to 1947) right after the war was over. He would work his way through the College of the Ozarks and graduate summa cum laude. Long before that day, however, the Dawson character had been established — a private sort of a fellow who was exceptionally gifted in intelligence, unmatched in a work ethic, deeply insightful into others, a captivating wry wit, and ethical standards so high that even he stretched to reach them.
His military service crystallized his intellectual interests in politics and international relations and he earned his Masters in Political Science in 1951 from Vanderbilt. He came to Chapel Hill to receive his Ph.D. in 1958. Many veterans made up the graduate school in those postwar years. A tough lot. One close friend of Ray’s was former tank commander Earle Wallace who was belittled once too often by an arrogant Professor. Wallace grabbed the prof and hung him from the open window on the second floor of Caldwell Hall. Dawson intervened, rescuing the Professor and saving his friend’s graduate teaching assistantship. Other graduate students thought Dawson had intervened much too quickly and on the wrong side.
Except for brief periods away, Dawson bonded with Chapel Hill for the next forty-five years. He joined the Department of Political Science and left for short but prestigious visits as a Mershon Fellow at Ohio State, Fulbright Lecturer at the University of London and Visiting Professor at the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia.
While at Columbia, he was called to be Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences by Chancellor Carlyle Sitterson. Friends say it was his greatest struggle to accept. His wide-ranging and cosmopolitan intellectual interests were in full flower and his research agenda launched with a book and articles in national journals. Moreover, he had received one of the first Tanner Awards for Distinguished Teaching and the only E. Harris Harbison Prize ever given on this campus as National Distinguished Teacher of the Year from the Danforth Foundation.
But as was the case with Jefferson, Dawson answered the call to service and was a distinguished Dean of the College during one of its most important and turbulent periods.
When he was asked by his great friend and mentor, President William Friday, to join the new University system, he went down Raleigh Road (with this campus always in his vision) to help launch the new educational venture.
These were difficult years for the system and for Ray as he became the University’s key negotiator with the federal courts in the desegregation conflict. Friends and family feared for his health as he drove himself month after month, night after night, to preserve the System’s freedom while, at the same time, promoting equal rights for minorities. President Friday called him the “architect of the consent decree” and praised his hundreds of accomplishments in his twenty-year service at General Administration. President C. D. Spangler, Jr. expressed his admiration and personal regard for Ray by establishing a million dollar chaired professorship in his name in the Department of Political Science.
Honored with the Distinguished Service Medal from the Alumni Association and Doctorate of Humane Letters from North Carolina State, he has returned to campus as William Friday Professor to teach here again.
A strong spokesman for academic freedom, he would gladly sign Mr. Jefferson’s Declaration any day. He has been an unfailing supporter of faculty (a role he never left in his heart). Devoted husband to Jo and doting dad to two daughters, he reveres family life. At home like Jefferson in his garden, he grows roses that bloom as though honored to be in his yard. Passionate about animals, he gives more attention to his dogs than Carolina basketball and over many years’ time, fed twenty-three raccoons who, looking for the campus’ most genuine human being, settled in his backyard.
Because Ray Dawson is modest he will be a bit embarrassed to receive this award and be compared to Jefferson. But as it is the only award chosen by this faculty, he will embrace it with deep pride and appreciation.
Chancellor: Ray, Congratulations. Applause. Professor Dawson: Thank you Mr. Chancellor and members of the Council. Only another Razorback could commit that kind of perjury about another Razorback. [laughter] Dick came to work with us one time in the General Administration. We were having some problems with some agencies in Raleigh. He said that he prayed before he agreed to come and do this. Then he asked the Lord to tell him if he should go and if the Lord would go with him. He said that after a while the Lord did answer him. He said, “Yes, you should go.” But there was silence and Dick asked him, “But I asked you another question, Lord.” Again there was a long silence and Dick said the answer was, “My son I’ll go with you — as far as the Institute of Government.” [laughter] I thank you, Mr. Chancellor and colleagues, for this. It’s a great honor, and I’m looking at the list of those who have received it. It’s a humbling experience. I think that your good judgment may well be called into question about what you’ve done today, but I can assure you that your generosity of spirit can never be called into question. Thank you. [applause] Chancellor Hooker: It was a genuine pleasure. Ray was Dean when I was an undergraduate here.
B. Remarks.
Chancellor Hooker: I’d like to thank you for coming. I know that you’re in the midst of grading term papers and that it’s somewhat of a sacrifice to leave that duty and come out today. Thank you for being here. I would like to add my voice to the chorus that has been thanking George Lensing for his marvelous service to the University. It has been a great pleasure getting to know George this year and working with him. And my job has been made immeasurably easier because of George’s competence and his patience with me. I’d also like to thank Jane and the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council in particular for the work this year. This last session provides us an occasion in which it’s appropriate to reflect on our successes for the year, clean up any messes that I may have made in the year, and to look ahead. And I’d like to do those three things.
First, to the cleaning up of messes. I think I have three regrets with respect to this year. One is I would like to apologize to Joy Kasson for a brusque response to one of the questions that she asked which was perfectly appropriate and the response was not. Joy had to apologize. I would like to express regret that my remarks a couple of sessions ago about our research grant writing, or research productivity, were mistaken by some to be criticism of us for slacking off in the volume of proposals that had been submitted. Several people took it that way, and it certainly wasn’t intended that way. My remarks were made following a conversation with Tom Meyer in which we conjectured that the fall-off in grant proposals was a result of demoralization about the funding picture in Washington, and it was my intent to assure everybody that while most of our money comes from NIH, the NIH budget has not been decreased. There were many reasons that the grants have fallen off, and that was only one of them, but that was the one that concerned me at the time. And if I have offended anybody who has been working hard to submit proposals or anybody who is not able to submit proposals because you’ve simply run out of lab space, I apologize. And finally, a regret that the Kenan professors issue played out the way that it did. I think everybody understands now, or at least most people understand, that in announcing that the next Kenan professors to be awarded would be awarded outside, and would be awarded to people who have stellar teaching credentials in addition to their research credentials, I was keeping a covenant with the Kenan Trust, which covenant was in need of repair. I think people do understand that now. But the issue raised the question of whether the Chancellor is adequately appreciative of the teaching quality of this faculty. I am somewhat nonplussed that the question should be raised, because you must remember that I was an undergraduate here. And for those of us who were undergraduates here, there can be no mistaking our appreciation of the quality of this faculty. It was at Chapel Hill that I came of age, intellectually and personally, and I have only the deepest possible respect for the quality of this faculty. It because of my experience here and my appreciation of the quality of the place that I was so deeply moved to have the opportunity to return here as Chancellor. It is an awesome responsibility. Awesome because I understand what a marvelous institution this is and so deeply respect the faculty here. In fact, I still see the faculty here through the eyes of an undergraduate. Unless you have been an undergraduate here you probably don’t understand that, although you might think of going back to your own institution as Chancellor or President and imagine how that would feel. Every day when I walk across campus I have flashbacks to my undergraduate years. In fact, I have always held Chapel Hill as a model of the kind of institution that I was trying to build at each of my three previous posts — four, if you count Johns Hopkins — and if you doubt that, simply call up any member of the faculty who was there when I was there and you will find that I constantly talked about emulating Carolina in its development. So I deeply regret that my raising the issue of recruiting for Kenan professors outside and focusing on teaching, something that I did in response to a request from the Kenan Trustees, was mistaken as an indication that I was not fully appreciative of the quality of the faculty here.
Let me turn to our successes. They’re more fun to talk about. The biggest success is Dick Richardson. I am delighted that Dick has agreed to serve a term as Provost. I have never worked with anybody with whom I felt a greater sense of compatibility, of simpatico, or with whom I enjoyed working more than I enjoy working with Dick. Dick, thank you for agreeing to sign on for a regular term. Another success that we’ve had, and it may seem premature to say this, is on the issue of salaries. Salary compression. I’m convinced that we will make a significant dent in the compression problem as a result of the revenue that will be received from the tuition increase that will go into effect next academic year. It’s still too soon to say how much relief we will get for the general salary problem from the Legislature. Probably you know as much about that as I do if you read the newspapers. We are very close now to the short session, but it is absolutely impossible to tell what the revenue picture is going to be because of the tax cut question and other competing demands. But I am hopeful. I spent the last three hours in fact with members of the Board of Trustees talking about our situation with respect to the Legislature and we are generally optimistic. So I am confident that we are on the road to addressing the salary problem and certainly with respect to the $400 tuition increase revenue. That will make a significant dent, no doubt.
I am very pleased with the administrative reorganization that we were able to design and implement. It clarifies responsibilities. It enables us to be more accountable. It establishes the Provost as the chief academic officer. And so far as I can tell the administrative organization, reorganization, is working well. Another major success this year which you don’t see immediately the effects of is fund raising. Last year we finished a phenomenally successful capital campaign. And if we had behaved as most institutions that have just gone through a capital campaign behave, there would have been a significant falloff in fund raising receipts. In fact there hasn’t been. This year we will have raised, when the year closes, at least much as we raised last year in the last year of the capital campaign, and it has been extremely important to us to sustain that momentum. It will enable us now to continue to build toward the billion dollar capital campaign that is somewhere in our future, probably about five years away. A billion dollars sounds like a lot of money. For a public institution just a few years ago, it would have been a lot of money. But our competitors are now in the midst of billion dollar campaigns. I mean Michigan and Virginia, and we cannot do less. Our success in the media task capital campaign and more importantly our success over the past year causes me to be saying that we will be able to pull it off.
Looking ahead, many of you have heard me say on various occasions, in various ways, and in fact, some of you are getting tired of hearing me say, that there is a tidal wave of change that is going to sweep over higher education in the coming decade or so. I have absolutely no doubt about that, and if we had 30 minutes more than I’m allowed, I would I think be able to convince you of that. Every institution will be profoundly changed, some time over the next decade or so. And we have the luxury at Carolina of being able to put ourselves largely in control of our own fate. This is a fundamentally strong Institution. You have to look very hard to find anything at Chapel Hill that is broken and in need of repair. We have exceedingly strong faculty. We have an exceedingly strong undergraduate student body. We are as competitive for students as any institution in the country. We have a very sound financial base, both with respect to the appropriation from the Legislature and with respect to our new found prowess in fund raising. We have a good physical plant, in spite of the fact that a lot of the classrooms need renovation, the deferred maintenance problem here is significantly less than the deferred maintenance problem of any institution that I’m aware of. So we have a lot of strength. We are not in extremis. We are not in crisis. That means that we have the luxury of taking the time to assess the changing world around us, to determine where we want to go, to decide how it is that we need to get there, and then to begin the process of taking ourselves there. That’s a process of discussion, first of all, which I have begun fruitfully, I think they would tell you, with the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council this year. I look forward to expanding that dialogue next year. And I think that next year will be a year for us collectively as a community to reflect on the world around us, how it’s changing, and how we must change to accommodate it so that we can assure ourselves that we will provide for the State of North Carolina a University that takes a leadership position in higher education in the country for the 21st century, analogous to the leadership position that we’ve had in the 20th century. We are blessed to be able to do this, to undertake this process in a deliberate and deliberative way without the wolf being at the door. Those are my reflections on the messes that needed to be cleaned up, successes that we’ve had and some look at what’s ahead for next year. I’d be delighted to address any subject or answer any questions.
Professor Miles Fletcher (History): I’d like to ask a question about something you just mentioned, which is the renovations of the classrooms. I appreciate very much your responsiveness to this issue which was raised in the fall, and I was very glad to read recently that renovations have become a major item in the budget, and certain buildings are deservedly targeted for overhauls. I wonder if attention could be given to the issue of a new classroom building, and I mention this for two reasons. One is the Legislature, through the Board of Governors, is putting pressure on the whole University System, to deal with a major increase in enrollments for the whole System over the next ten years, perhaps 30%. And then secondly, if a whole building is renovated, that’s going to take a lot of classrooms out of circulation for a year or two, and we already are a bit cramped for space, so I wonder if you have a comment about that. Chancellor Hooker: Well, as you know, or I think you know, and this leads to your compliment, capital renovation and repair of classrooms is our highest priority for the capital budget this year. We have received two fairly strong appropriations over the past — this current year and last year — for our renovation and repair, and we have a new classroom building on the drawing boards. The site is the corner lot where Swain and Abernethy and the Scuttlebutt are located. That’s the reason that we decided to tear down the Scuttlebutt rather than to rebuild it. Tear it down we had to do; the question was whether we rebuilt it or just left the space vacant, and we will leave it vacant because that’s the site of a classroom building. The Kenan-Flagler Business School, as you probably know, will come on line fairly soon, and when that building is complete, if will afford 200,000 square feet of new space, and no new programs. So that’s going to relieve the compression substantially. What will happen is that the Business School will move out of Carroll. Journalism will move into there. That will be done fairly quickly. And then we will have some swing space freed up by Journalism that will enable us to begin systematically shutting down some or all of some buildings for renovation and repair. That’s the plan. With respect to the question of enrollment increases as you appreciate. Right now we couldn’t increase enrollment. For one, we just don’t have the space to do that. And the crunch is going to come on the State before we could reasonably expect to build new facilities to accommodate enrollment increases. So while it is appropriate for us to ask the question — How could we do our part in accommodating this 30% increase in the number of high school graduates between now and the year 2010? — because of our space problems, there’s not a lot that we can do. And I think any significant increase in enrollment would not be appropriate for Chapel Hill anyway. I think what we should be doing and we have begun doing, is to look at alternative mechanisms for addressing this 30% increase such as telecommunications-based courses delivered to the 54 community colleges spread around the state. That would be much more cost-effective. And that’s something that we are doing. But a classroom building is on the drawing boards. The case to be made for it is clear. It’s easy. It will move along through the capital process I am confident. But as soon as Kenan-Flagler opens I think everybody is going to notice a difference on campus. Although, and when we build the Black Cultural Center, of course, it will have a number of classrooms in it as well. We don’t know obviously the target date for that because we haven’t completed the fund raising. But that will provide some relief. Professor Fletcher. Thank you. Chancellor Hooker: Thank you very much.
III. Chair of the Faculty Jane D. Brown.
I wanted to begin by thanking the Chancellor for the reception today. Thank you. And the University Women’s Club for hostessing that. And I also want to recognize the new editor of the Tar Heel, Jeannie Fugate. Jeannie, are you still here? There you are. Congratulations. We look forward to a great year. And I wanted to congratulate Thanassis for doing a great Tar Heel this year. Thank you. [applause] You all have noticed that the Board of Governors accepted a number of reports and have now passed them on to the Legislature in the past week. I have copies of most of those reports. If you’d like to see them, they’re in the Faculty Council office, and I’d be happy to share them with you. I was happy to see as well that the General Administration has recommended only a few of the accountability measures originally proposed, and they’ve also extended our time for a year to look at other accountability measures. So if any of you are interested in working with us about looking about what accountability measures we’d actually like to have and will serve us, I’d be happy to hear from you and we will get that underway. Also, if you have been reading the Gazette accounting of this, there was a slight error in which there was another, there was a faculty workload study that was also reported on, and they have designated course credit, minimum course loads for the different kinds of universities in the system. In the Gazette it said that Research I universities would have a minimum of four credit hours instead of classes. So they’re not being that generous. [laughter] So I wanted to make you aware of that.
Also, Dirk Frankenberg, who is co-chair of the Faculty-Legislative Liaison Committee, asks that I ask you if you were going to be available during the short session, which will begin May 15, and try to get out usually by July 4. If you’re going to be around in May and June and would like to assist in our work with the Legislature, I would be happy to hear from you as well. It will require phone calls, letter writing and some visits over there, which is always educational. So if you’d like to work with us, we’d be happy to have you.
Over the past weekend I was reminded of why I love being at this University. I was engaged in a part of my research project that brought together all three parts of our mission, and it was filming a public service announcement, an anti-violence public service announcement that is funded by the National Cable Television Association. And as you might know, they are trying to reduce the amount of violence on cable television. Part of the project has been to involve us in a research project. We’re evaluating some of the educational programming that it created. And so what we did was get an undergraduate class in the School of Journalism to create public service announcements. And we filmed one last weekend, and it involved an Adjunct Professor from Glaxo Wellcome who brought his professional film crew to work with the undergraduates to film this public service announcement. The graduate students on the project oversaw most of this. We were two faculty members working together, and, we brought high school students in as actors for the PSA. And all of this now will be shown to children who are in after-school programs sponsored by the Governor in a program called “Support our Schools.” So, I thought, “Ah.” I came home thinking what a wonderful project this is. It brought all the pieces together. It is the synergy that Jim Peacock has been talking about that is possible here at a research university where we serve all three purposes of teaching, research, and public service. So it left me optimistic about our future and about what we can do here. So, and what it also did was to give me a good segue to the other thing I wanted to do today, and that is a resolution about support for our graduate students. Because what I also saw in that project is how fundamental they were to both the teaching, research, teaching and research that was going on in that project, and how we need to support them. And so in the resolution I think it says it better than I can at this point. If you would read that, if you haven’t already, read the preamble. And I will simply read the resolution. As you know, the Governor had a week of appreciation of graduate students, graduate and professional students, and I’d like to follow up that by, with this resolution. So I’m now moving this resolution:
Representing the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we the elected members of the Faculty Council lend our strong support to the requests directed to the North Carolina General Assembly by Chancellor Michael Hooker and the University of North Carolina Board of Governors for increased health insurance benefits and tuition remission for our graduate and professional students. We also encourage the University to redouble its efforts to seek further support for them.
Do I hear a second? [seconded] Any discussion? Okay, all those in favor of the resolution, say aye. Any opposed? [unanimously adopted.] Thank you very much.
I also wanted to thank you all as members of the Council for working so diligently, thoughtfully, and civilly with us this year as we have addressed a number of important issues. I especially want to thank my colleague, George Lensing, for his service as Secretary of the Faculty. He is a pleasure to work with. He is marvelous, simply marvelous. And I have a citation to read for you. Just a minute. So now I’ll read it as well, I’ll try to read it as well as he reads citations. And I did the “whereas’s.” It’s very formal here.
Whereas, Professor George Lensing has served as secretary of the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since July 1991;
Whereas, Professor Lensing has been a dedicated, energetic, and active member of the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council, the Agenda Committee, the Advisory Committee, the Committee on University Government, the Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards, and the Commencement Committee; (I probably left a couple out there)
Whereas, Professor Lensing has keep the faculty government office running smoothly, has overseen the move of the offices from Bynum to Carr Building, and coordinated five elections for the 90-member Council and more than 20 committees;
Whereas, Professor Lensing endured 40 Faculty Council meetings [laughter], and turned often convoluted pronouncements and inquiries into understandable prose;
Whereas, Professor Lensing eloquently represented the faculty as honorary degrees were bestowed;
Whereas, Professor Lensing never let us forget our commitment to increasing the diversity of voices in faculty government by consistently nominating and endorsing women and minority faculty for committee assignments, honorary degrees, and administrative posts;
Whereas, Professor Lensing conceived, organized, and hosted a series of small receptions that brought faculty from across campus together;
Whereas, Professor Lensing, an award-winning teacher in the Department of English, has simultaneously maintained his teaching load and continued to be a mentor, a supporter, and an intellectual colleague for students and faculty;
Whereas, Professor Lensing is a leading scholar of modern American poetry, and an expert on the poet Wallace Stevens;
Now, therefore be it resolved by the Chair of the Faculty, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council, and the Faculty Council of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that the faculty of the University honors and praises the services of
Professor George Lensing.
[applause]Professor Lensing: Jane, I just want to say I think you write resolutions very well. [laughter] I would like to say that this being my fortieth consecutive Faculty Council meeting I would like to put the Council on notice that I may be just a wee bit late for the 41st. My successor is going to be selected this afternoon. I don’t yet know for sure who that’s going to be, but I do want to say there is a very able candidate, experienced candidate, and I look forward to helping that person in the transition. When I took over this job five years ago from Lawrence Avery who rather suddenly left the job to become Chair of the English Department, I did so with the understanding that I would fulfill his unexpired term. I wound up staying on for five full years and I’m very glad I did. I think the one memory that I will take away in general from the experience of the last five years is the sense of great commitment on the part of this faculty to the idea of service. It is an amazing thing each year to watch new faculty come aboard to serve as you have done and are doing on the Faculty Council, on the standing committees of the faculty, both elected and appointed, on ad hoc committees, and other special appointments. And that is people, of course, from Health Affairs and Academic Affairs. Many people serve in other ways in their departments and curricula and schools in a similarly quiet way, and most of this work does not receive very much public acknowledgement or recognition. It is done because people believe in the importance of the job to be done. I, too, Jane remember that comment that Jim Peacock made so famous a few years ago, about while we may not be number 1 nationally in teaching, and we may not be number 1 nationally in research, and we may not be number 1 nationally in service. That when you put all those together on this campus we come very close to being, if we aren’t actually, number 1.
I must say watching the service component of so many faculty persons over these last few years convinces me how correct that is. Though we don’t say this very often. I think what motivates many busy faculty serve is a sense of very firm, unsentimental, sometimes critical, but a very real love for this place that we call Carolina. And I think it’s something very special that we have. I owe a very special debt of gratitude to Rosemary Munsat and David Thompson. They’re the ones who really get credit for the things on that citation. They keep the faculty governance office working, day after day, hour after hour, year after year. And I want to add the name of Amy Vaughn who was David Thompson’s predecessor in the job to that also. No Secretary of the Faculty ever had better good fortune that I have in working with two Chairs of the Faculty, Jim Peacock and Jane Brown. These are wonderful human beings who do their work with such cheerfulness and friendliness and unselfish dedication. And I see this every day. And it has been — not only have they made my job easy and smoothed over my mistakes, but they have made it a real pleasure to do this job. I want to say one other thing, too, and that is the experience of working with the Executive Committee. I happened to become Secretary during the last year of the discussions that led to the creation of the Executive Committee, and I was a part of that discussion. And we’re now completing our fourth year of the Executive Committee. And I would like to say to those members, and they’re probably about 20 or 30 of you now who have rotated on and off the Executive Committee, that it has been a privilege for me to work as your colleague and to share with you in a small way your unequivocal, unselfish dedication to the service of this University. And, finally, Jane mentioned that I teach 20th century poetry, and one of the poets I admire greatly, William Butler Yeats, wrote a poem toward the end of his life in which he looked back on the experiences of his life, which included many great awards including the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he concluded that poem with these words: “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends. And say, ‘my glory was I had such friends.'” It has been a joy for me to make many new friends, to renew old friends along the paths of this campus as Secretary of the Faculty. My term expires but those friendships do not. So thank you, all of you, for your help and support. And I’m going to be around until July 1st. Thank you. [applause]
Professor Brown: And, finally, two other invitations, as I like to say. We have a volunteer sign-up form for the May 17th Employee Appreciation Fair. It’s great fun. We would love to have you there. It’s really a wonderful way for the faculty to appreciate the other employees here. So please sign up. I just passed them out this time. May 17th. So everything else is done by then, right? And then Commencement is May 12th, and we, again, are invited to the reception for Seamus Heaney, 3-4:30 in Wilson Library — so we get to meet him.
IV. Request for faculty input and involvement in initiatives for housekeepers: Barbara DeLon, Director of Housekeeping Services; Laurie Charest, Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources.
Professor Brown: Now, Barbara and Laurie. Are you here? Very great. I asked Barbara DeLon and Laurie Charest to come and speak briefly about what they’re going to be doing for the Housekeepers Association, for the housekeepers, and what we might be doing to assist them in that new task they’ve taken on. So, Laurie and Barbara.
Ms. DeLon: First of all I’d just like to say that it is an honor and a great opportunity to have been invited to take on this new challenge. I’ve already started doing and working in job [as Director of Housekeeping Services]. My supervisor currently has been kind enough to help in the transition and Laurie, my future supervisor, has given me material to get me up to speed. All the folks that I’ll be working with are very fine. We’ve done quite a few things already, and I believe Laurie will be talking about some of the things we’re doing and will be doing.
Ms. Charest: Thank you. I just want to say that I don’t believe the University could have a better person to lead the Housekeeping Services Department than Barbara DeLon. We also have an outstanding housekeeping workforce, and Barbara and I are very excited and optimistic about the work that we are undertaking. We wanted to speak just very briefly to you today. And we have not officially started in our new roles. But since Faculty Council will not be meeting during the summer, we wanted the opportunity to ask for your input and involvement in the housekeeping area. I want to recognize and thank just a couple of faculty members who have already contributed greatly to our efforts in this area. And some of you may be aware of this and some of you may not. Professor Emeritus Dick Levin has just completed an outstanding course on owning and operating your own small business. There was standing room only with housekeepers attending. They found the course to be absolutely wonderful, and Dick Levin will be back next year to do a repeat performance. And we’re very delighted about that. Another type of involvement that we’ve had: Dr. Willis Brooks for years has tutored himself in our literacy program, and has worked to recruit other tutors on campus. And he has been instrumental in pulling that program together. Barbara and I know that we have a number of challenges ahead. We know that you have skills and abilities that would help us, and we invite your input. We also invite your comments and criticism. We hope that you will come to us with your ideas, your thoughts and your criticism, and help us. We hope we will be invited back next fall when we have been at this for several months to tell you how things are going and to hear from you how you think things are going. So that’s really all that I have to say today except to invite you to call either Barbara or I and offer assistance or offer criticism or offer ideas. Thank you. Professor Brown: Great. Any questions? Ms. Charest: Sure. Professor Brown: Any comments, questions now? Okay. Very great. Thanks so much for coming. [applause]
Professor Brown: Is Joe Ferrell here? He had to go to another meeting. He’ll be back. So let’s move on to item # VI on the Agenda and we’ll come back to the fixed-term faculty.
V. Amendments to the Instrument of Student Judicial Governance: Robert G. Byrd, Chair, Committee on Student Conduct.
Professor Byrd: I am here to present amendments to the Instrument of Student Judicial Governance on behalf of the Committee on Student Conduct. The Committee consists of six students appointed by the Student Congress, three persons appointed by the Chair of the Faculty, and three persons appointed by the Chancellor. We exercise oversight responsibility of the student judicial system. The Instrument really establishes the student judicial system, defines conduct that constitutes offenses, establishes sanctions that will be imposed, and finally, it sets out procedures for hearings and appeals. The Instrument expressly provides that it can be amended only if approved by the Student Congress, the Faculty Council, and the Chancellor. These amendments have already gone to the Student Congress and been approved by the Student Congress. They have been presented to Susan Ehringhaus and Elson Floyd in the Chancellor’s Office. And from Susan I understand that they are prepared to make a favorable report to the Chancellor. So I bring them to you today to get your approval of these particular amendments. Susanna Matsen, who is chair of the court, is present, and if you have any questions relating to the impact on the court, I’m sure Susanna will be happy to respond to those for you.
Basically, I think the best way to present these amendments is to simply describe what occurs now, and then to indicate what will occur if the amendments are passed. Basically in a typical case today, the case will be heard by the student courts. If the individual is convicted, the individual has a right to appeal to the University Hearings Board, which is a body consisting of students, faculty, and a representative of the Administration. If that Board upholds the conviction, the student has a right to appeal to the Chancellor, and finally, there’s a possibility of appeal to the Board of Trustees. Under the present procedure, at any level of appeal, the student can in effect raise the issue of whether the evidence that was presented in the trial was sufficient to support a finding of guilt. Number 2, the student can raise the issue of whether the sanction that was imposed by the trial court was too severe. And number 3, the student can present the issue of whether of the process of the trial, the student’s basic rights have somehow been violated. Those issues can be raised in the appeal from the student courts to the University Hearings Board, in the appeal from the University Hearings Board to the Chancellor. And basically, even though it’s governed by a procedure of the Board of Trustees, in the appeal to the Board of Trustees as well. If these amendments are passed, they would in effect provide that the student would have a right to appeal one time and present all three of these issues. So, if the trial initially occurred in the student courts, the student would have the opportunity to appeal to the University Hearings Board and in that appeal could raise the issue of sufficiency of evidence, could raise the issue of severity of sanction, and could raise the issue of denial or violation of basic rights. If the amendments are passed, after that any subsequent appeal, the second level of appeal, could be based only upon violation of basic rights.
Let me explain to you briefly why the Committee believes that these amendments are necessary at this particular point. At the time this process was initially put into effect appeals were fairly rare. It was a situation in which the typical case was not appealed, certainly/shortly beyond one level. We are now in a situation in which appeal is fairly routine. Over 50% of the cases in which a conviction of cheating is entered ultimately are appealed. What is happening in this appellate process is that students now are in effect shopping, to get as many hearings as they can, with the hope that eventually they will succeed in finding one court that will enter a finding of not guilty, in effect. It’s no longer a matter of correcting any unfairness or inconsistency that occurred in the trial below, but it really has become a fishing expedition and the hope that somehow they will find one body that will be willing to support their version of what happened. One thing that this does is to really undermine to some extent the idea of student self governance in the judicial area. Because essentially more and more cases are being decided by faculty and administrators rather than by students. That, in my judgment, is unfortunate. In addition, it has a very frustrating impact on student court members who work wonderfully hard to make this system work. And I just am full of admiration for them in terms of the commitment and ability they bring to that particular job.
The other reason that we believe this amendment is necessary is that any system of sanctions and particularly one that involves ideas of suspension or probation is very difficult to put into effect in the context of a semester system. Because basically what is desirable is to have a sanction imposed in the semester in which a cheating or other offense occurs. It’s very difficult sometimes to do that even with one level of appeal. In effect, if you have several levels of appeal the chances are very good that the case will go on into a semester beyond the one in which cheating occurred, and sometimes it means that the case will go beyond that. So that means we are one semester, maybe two semesters, away from the time that the offense was committed before any sanction is ultimately imposed. The Committee endorsed these amendments unanimously, and I recommend them strongly to you for your consideration. I am not a member of the Faculty Council. The Committee on Student Conduct is not a standing committee of the faculty, so I need for someone to move the adoption of these amendments. I’ll be happy to answer any questions or provide any detail I can. Professor Brown: Great. Thank you very much. Is there a motion? [moved] Is there a second? [seconded] Very great. Any discussion? Very great. All those in favor, say, aye. Any opposed say no. [unanimously adopted] Bob, thank you very much. And we appreciate all the hard work you have done with this Committee. Thank you.
[The amendments are as follows:}1) Amend Section VI.A. by deleting the first two lines and substituting therefore the following: “An appeal from a determination of a court exercising original jurisdiction may be filed on the following grounds.”
2) Amend VI. by adding a new subsection B to read as follows and relettering existing subsections B, C, and D respectively as subsections C, D, and E: “An appeal from a determination of court exercising appellate jurisdiction may be filed only on grounds of violation of basic rights.”
VI. Report and Resolution of Faculty Initiative on Teaching Committee: Thomas A. Bowers; Sue E. Estroff.
Professor Brown: Now the report and resolution from the Faculty Initiative on Teaching Committee. I stand corrected that this is not a standing committee from the Faculty Council. This is a subcommittee of the Executive Committee of Faculty Council. It may one day become a standing committee. These have been hard working volunteers who started looking at what we want to do to promote teaching and keep it on the agenda. Tom Bowers is prepared to speak to it, and Sue Estroff is going to introduce the resolution.
Professor Bowers: Copies of the Committee’s report were circulated and basically I will entertain questions. And I’ll just call your attention to a couple of things. One is about teaching circles. We started that program this semester. There is one circle that is now operating. It consists of 7 faculty members from a variety of departments and schools. They’ve been meeting on a regular basis. I went to a meeting yesterday and it seems to be succeeding very well. They’re having a very productive time discussing mutual issues and so forth. The other thing I will mention is the Committee report says something about post-tenure review of all faculty members. This is something the Committee’s belief is that this may be something that will be imposed upon us, and we should be proactive in taking a look at it before it is imposed upon us. I’m not a member of the Council either. I don’t know if you want a motion to accept the report or how you want to do it. Professor Brown: No, we don’t need to do that. Do you have any have comments or questions to Tom, ideas about the future, volunteers for working with the Committee next year? [laughter]
Professor Joy Kasson (American Studies): I’m on leave next year. I’m very excited about a lot of these proposals. And I just wanted to mention I hope you’re not discouraged that there’re not more teaching circles [Professor Bowers: No.] because you probably know that there are a lot of these functioning already informally in a lot of venues. And particularly I wanted to mention the Institute for the Arts and Humanities which has a number of teaching discussions that go on there. And I think that’s a very significant part of your report. And thank you very much. Professor Brown: Thank you, Tom. And Sue. Thanks very much, Tom.
Professor Estroff: Does everybody have a copy of the resolution? Professor Brown: So we don’t need to read it. Professor Estroff: Any questions, comments, changes? Professor Brown: Well, wait, let’s move it, so then we can talk about it. Professor Estroff: Okay, I move that we adopt the resolution. Professor Brown: And is there a second? [seconded] Okay, now we can discuss it.
Professor Steve Leonard (Political Science): Like Joy, and I’m sure other members of the Council, I appreciate the efforts and intentions of the Committee in promoting teaching on campus. There were a couple of points, however, that I was hoping the Committee and others on campus here might consider in greater depth, especially in light of the upcoming institutional review that we will be undertaking. And these points concern the awarding of teaching awards. Teaching awards, just the structure of teaching awards. Currently on campus we have a number of different kinds of awards that recognize teaching, service and research. It strikes me as both odd and to some extent counterintuitive that until this year, with the creation of the new Kenan professorships, that we’ve had no teaching awards that are aptly established to recognize what I think is the cycle of excellence in teaching. And that is a cycle that is continuous over time, that’s sustained over long periods, that tends to build upon itself, and is in essence career long. It just seems, again, counterintuitive to me that where teachers tend to be great teachers for long periods of time, the only awards we have for great teachers are those that may be at most three years or one year…. And so I was wondering if we might think about creating teaching awards that recognize, again, the sort of natural cycle of excellence in teaching, and make these permanent, or at least more long-term than those which we currently have. And this is especially bothersome to me in light of the fact that some of the awards for research, which tends to be more discontinuous in character, tend to be more long term in terms of the recognition…. Professor Estroff: Could I ask just a question to make sure I have this correct? You want the award to last a long time, rather than the time period covered when considering the award being a lifetime, or both? Professor Leonard: Well, both. I mean it would be nice if we would have awards that would both serve to reward people financially and also recognize them symbolically, for career-long contributions in teaching, which tends to be, I think, a certain cycle, the natural cycle of teaching excellence. Professor Estroff. Okay. Okay.
Professor Steve Bayne (Dentistry): Just sort of a friendly comment. This has to do with the last report and the resolution. I was taken when I came to Carolina and the Center for Teaching and Learning was being developed, about the way those two things were coupled together, teaching and learning. I think it’s easy to concentrate on the teaching side and ignore the learning side, which is a critical part of the partnership. And whenever we’re doing anything, I would like to see certain recognition for both parts of that. Anytime that we recognize people that are really good teachers, when you look at the outcome from the students’ side, it’s pretty… So I would like us to sort of begin to consider the outcome parts as well as just the performance end of it. Thank you. Professor Brown: Can you really have a great teacher without great learning? Professor Bayne: Yes, I think you become a performer. Professor Estroff: I thought that learning a word was your degree. [laughter] Professor Bayne: Touche. Professor Estroff: No, that’s a cancerous term. Any other suggestions, comments about the resolution? We wanted to focus in particular here on non-traditional and small-group teaching, which is proliferating and tends not to be recognized because there aren’t large numbers of students who can vote. And that’s what the specific intent was here. Professor Brown: Any further discussion? All those in favor of the resolution on teaching, say, aye. Any opposed, say, no. [unanimously adopted. Great. Thank you very much. [The text follows]:
Teaching is of vital importance to the UNC-CH campus community;
We believe that increased recognition of outstanding teaching, teaching enhancement, and innovations in teaching would contribute to improving the intellectual climate on the UNC-CH campus;
Be it resolved that the Faculty Council calls on Deans, Directors, and Department chairs to recognize small group, individual, and non-traditional forms of teaching, and to create awards for excellence in these areas, especially the following:
1. Faculty advising of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students
2. Contributions to graduate and undergraduate student dissertation and thesis preparation
3. Instructional innovations and development of creative and effective teaching materials
4. Small group teaching
5. Precepting of community-based projects and other hands-on experiences for students
6. Teaching beyond the classroom
VII. Annual Reports of Standing Committees:
A. Status of Minorities and the Disadvantaged: Judith R. Blau, Chair.
[Revised annual report, contains resolutions.]Professor Brown: There’s a substitute motion. You, in your packet received one and we’ve refashioned it, and this is what we’ll be talking about today. It’s called, Substitute Motion, Committee on the Status of Minorities and the Disadvantaged. That’s the one we want to be looking at. It was on the table back there as you came in if you don’t have it. Professor Blau: Let me read the preamble very quickly and the resolutions.
Our committee met with many faculty and professional staff who provide the range of academic support and services for students at the university. This support includes advisement, counseling, tutoring, and supplementary instruction. Committee members were very impressed with the diversity of programs, the high degree of professionalism, and the dedication of these faculty and staff. The university’s excellent record in undergraduate education could not have been achieved without them.
And I’ll read the resolution:
Therefore be it resolved that:
The Faculty Council urges continuing support for the academic support programs.
Professor Brown: Are you a member of The Council? [Professor Blau: No.] But you’re a chair of a committee, so then she can move the motion, can’t she? Professor Lensing: Yes. Professor Brown: She’s moved this resolution, Is there a second? [seconded] thank you. Any discussion of this? So we’re urging continuing support for the academic support programs. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? [unanimously adopted] Very great.
Professor Blau: The second resolution has a preamble.
The Dean of the Medical School (Dean Simmons) has provided funds for supplementary instruction programs in the departments of Mathematics, Biology, and Chemistry, which build on the long-term success of the M.E.D. program in the Medical School and programs that are in place in Mathematics, Biology, and Chemistry. The M.E.D. program has received national recognition. It is based on the principle that qualified [and talented] students who are admitted into the highly rigorous medical school program with initially disadvantaged high school backgrounds can overcome these initial disadvantages, and succeed professionally. This inter-campus initiative is (now) underway with broad cooperative efforts.
Therefore, be it resolved that:
The Faculty Council endorses this inter[intra]-campus initiative and, if it is successful, encourages departments [and schools] to examine the model in terms of their own curricula.
Professor Brown: Very great. Do I hear a second for this motion. [seconded] Discussion? Professor Harry Gooder (Microbiology & Immunology): I offer a friendly suggestion. You might say “departments and schools” because there are some schools that don’t have departments. Professor Blau: That’s a friendly amendment, yes. Professor Brown: Okay, add “schools.” Professor Bayne: I was just confused by the term “inter-campus.” Professor Brown: Can you explain that “inter-campus”. Do you mean “intra”? Professor Blau: Intra-campus. Professor Bayne: Okay. Professor Brown: Intra-campus. Professor Blau: I’ll accept that. Professor Brown: Very good. Anything else? Okay. All those in favor of this resolution with these friendly amendments, “intra-campus” and “departments and schools” say aye. Any opposed, say no. [unanimously adopted] Thank you very much, Judith.
B. Black Faculty: D. Soyini Madison, Chair [postponed from March and February].
Professor Brown: As we have in the past, the last three standing committee reports do not contain resolutions, so we’ll ask if there are any comments of questions about each one of them. Is Soyini here? There you are, great. Are there any comments or questions about the report of the Committee on Black Faculty? Good. I anticipate that there will be a report from a task force on minority student and faculty recruitment and retention in early fall, so we will be attending to some of these matters in a full way in the fall. So thank you, Soyini, for managing this in the meantime.
C. Established Lectures: Arne L. Kalleberg, Chair.
Professor Brown: Any any comments or questions for Arne Kalleberg? Is he here? Arne? No. Anybody else from that Committee here? Do we have any questions or comments for them? Alright, we’ll accept the report.
D. Executive Committee of the Faculty Council: Jane D. Brown, Chair.
And for me, Executive Committee of the Faculty Council. Any comments, concerns, questions? Very great.
Is Joe Ferrell here? Yes, very great.
VIII. Special Report of the Committee on University Government: Amendment to The Faculty Code of University Government to allow Fixed-Term Faculty to serve on and vote for certain standing committees. Joseph S. Ferrell, Chair. [first reading and vote]
Professor Brown: ……..concerns about to include fixed-term faculty in the Council and then we had a question about which committees fixed-term faculty be eligible for as well. And that’s what this is about.
Professor Ferrell: This is the first reading of yet another Code amendment. We’ve probably amended the Code more this year than we have in the typical year. Let me ask for consent to include as a part of the report the separate page that I hope you picked up on the way in and having to do with the College of Arts and Sciences. Now since that was not circulated with the Agenda, [Professor Brown; It says “Addendum”. It’s also back on the table.] if anyone objects to considering that, not having had the opportunity to see it before you got here today, I will not alter that and we’ll do that separately at a later time. Professor Brown: Does anyone object? Let’s do it. Do we need something more formal than that? Professor Ferrell: I would like to move the adoption of the resolution amending The Faculty Code as circulated with the Agenda, with the addition of section 6 dealing with the College of Art and Sciences as is printed on the separate sheet distributed at the beginning of the meeting today. And if someone will second that, I’ll then proceed to explain the proposal.
A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE FACULTY CODE OF UNIVERSITY GOVERNMENT TO EXTEND VOTING FACULTY PRIVILEGES TO CERTAIN FIXED-TERM FACULTY, TO ESTABLISH ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS FOR ELECTION TO CERTAIN POSITIONS, AND TO EXPAND THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE FACULTY GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE.
Section 1. General requirements for voting and office-holding.
(a) Section I.D. of the Faculty Code, as amended on February 23, 1996, is rewritten to read:
“Except as otherwise provide in this Code, the right to vote for and hold offices established by the Code is limited to members holding faculty ranks of Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, and Instructor and those librarians who are members of the General Faculty. Except as otherwise provided in this Code, the Voting Faculty comprises (i) all members of the General Faculty having tenured or probationary-term appointments, (ii) librarians who are members of the General Faculty, and (iii) fixed-term faculty whose positions satisfy the following criteria:
a) The position is for full-time service and is not a visiting appointment; and
b) The duties of the position are primarily teaching, research, or both; and
c) The actual or anticipated length of service in the position is at least three years. This criterion is satisfied if (i) the current term of appointment is for three years or more, or (ii) the appointment is a renewal appointment to the same position and the combined length of the current term and the immediately preceding terms is three years or more.
Only members of the Voting Faculty are eligible to hold offices established by the Code.”
(b) Section II.D. of the Faculty Code, as enacted on February 23, 1996, is repealed.
Comment. The effect of the revision of Section I.D. is to enable fixed-term faculty who meet the stated criteria to vote for and hold all elected positions and to hold any appointive position established by the Faculty Code, except when the Code expressly imposes more restrictive qualifications. The revision of Section I.D. tracks the language of new Section II.D., which now becomes redundant and is therefore repealed.
Sec. 2. Chair of the Faculty. The first sentence of Section III.A.3 of the Faculty Code is rewritten to read:
“Nominations shall be made by the Advisory Committee, which shall select and submit the names of three qualified persons who hold the rank of professor.”
Sec. 3. Secretary of the Faculty. The second sentence of Section II.B.2 of the Faculty Code is rewritten to read:
“The Advisory Committee shall nominate one member of the faculty having permanent tenure to the Faculty Council, which, after opportunity has been given or nominations from the floor, shall proceed to elect a Secretary of the Faculty.
Sec. 4. Advisory Committee. Section IV.B.(a)(i) of the Faculty Code is rewritten to read:
“The Advisory Committee shall consist of nine elected members holding the rank of professor, the Chair of the Faculty (III.A.), and the Secretary of the Faculty (III.B.).”
Comment. This change reflects the major role that the Advisory Committee customarily performs in advising the Chancellor with respect to recommendations for appointment, reappointment, and promotion of tenure-track faculty.
Sec. 5. Faculty Grievance Committee. Section IV.B.(1)(d)(i) of the Faculty Code is rewritten to read:
“(i) The Faculty Grievance Committee shall consist of nine ten elected members. At all times three of the member shall have been Professors when elected, three shall have been Associate Professors, and three shall have been Assistant Professors, and one shall have held a fixed-term faculty appointment. A member’s promotion in rank during a term of office shall not terminate his or her membership. The term of office shall be three years. One Professor, one Associate Professor, and one Assistant Professor shall be elected each year. One person holding a fixed-term appointment shall be elected in 1997 and every third year thereafter.”
Comment. This change was suggested by the Faculty Grievance Committee as an appropriate way to include fixed-term faculty among its membership.
Sec. 6. College of Arts & Sciences.
Comment. This section is in development.
[The section was available at the meeting, and is as follows:](a) Section VI.D.(7) of the Faculty Code is rewritten to read:
“7) All members of the General Faculty holding appointments in the departments within the College of Arts and Sciences are members of the Arts and Sciences Faculty. Only members holding the faculty ranks of Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, and Instructor have the right to vote for and hold the offices of Division Chair and Vice Chair.”
(b) Section VI.E.(4) of the Faculty Code is rewritten to read:
“4) The Chair, after consultation with the Voting Faculty of the department (as defined in Section I.D. of the Faculty Code) shall: (i) prepare and transmit the departmental budget; (ii) formulate and administer departmental personnel policies, including recommendations for appointments, increases, and promotions, provided that in making such recommendations, consultation shall be required only with the assembled full professors; (iii) prepare programs of course offerings and schedule the duties of the departmental staff; (iv) formulate and implement educational policies; (v) maintain instructional facilities, including library resources.”
(c) Section VI.E.(5) of the Faculty Code is rewritten to read:
“5) The Department shall hold regular meetings at least once every three months. Special meetings may be called by the Chair. He or she shall call a special meeting upon the request of one-half of the voting members of the department. The Chair shall preside at all meetings. A Secretary of the departmental faculty shall be elected by the Department and shall keep an accurate record of its proceedings. Those members of the department who are members of the Voting Faculty as defined in Section I.D. of the Faculty Code shall vote in departmental meetings or on departmental matters, except that voting privileges with respect to matters affecting faculty appointments, reappointments, and promotions shall be limited to members holding tenured or probationary-term appointments.”
Sec. 7. This amendment shall not affect the eligibility term of any person holding office on July 1, 1996, to complete the term to which he or she was elected.
Sec. 8. Upon final approval, this resolution shall become effective retroactively for all elections and appointments conducted or made pursuant to the Faculty Code on or after July 1, 1996.
[seconded] [Professor Brown: Thank you.] The effect of this amendment if approved, will make all fixed-term faculty who received voting privileges for the Faculty Council in the February action eligible to vote for and serve on all elected and appointed committees of the faculty, except those for which the Code establishes special criteria. The two primary committees for which the Code now establishes special criteria are the Faculty Hearings Committee and the Committee on Financial Exigency and Program Change. Both of those committees must be staffed by tenure-track faculty, and the Trustee’s tenure regulations require that, so we have no discretion about those two committees. In the course of considering this we identified four other positions that in the view of the Committee on University Government warranted more restrictive treatment than the Code now provides. Those positions are the Chair of the Faculty, the Secretary of the Faculty, the Advisory Committee, and in the case of the Grievance Committee it was a matter of fitting it in. In the case of the Chair of the Faculty the recommendation would limit that to a person who holds the rank of Professor, as I think Harry Gooder observed when we discussed it, it is a somewhat high visibility position that needs to be able to from time to time be confrontational in dealing with the Administration, and is probably unlikely that anyone below the rank of Professor would have that ability. [laughter] So, we suggest that the Code specify that the Chair of the Faculty to be a Professor. The Secretary of the Faculty we suggest needs to be someone who has permanent tenure for the very practical reason that the Secretary of the Faculty serves a five-year term. It would be somewhat awkward to lose a Secretary of the Faculty through non-reappointment. [laughter] With the Advisory Committee we recommend that that consist of nine elected members who hold the rank of Professor. The reason being that probably the most extensive work of the Committee is advising the Chancellor on faculty appointments and promotions. It would be somewhat awkward for a member of the Committee to have to stand down if his or her own promotion were before the Committee. So we felt that it was appropriate that that Committee be staffed by persons holding the rank of Professor. In the case of Grievance Committee, that is one of the few elected committees that’s apportioned by rank. The solution that the Grievance Committee suggests is that to add a tenth member to be allocated to the fixed-term faculty and leave the existing apportionment by rank alone.The College of Arts and Sciences changes were developed in close consultation with the Advisory Committee, Faculty Advisory Committee, and the Chairs Advisory Committee in the College. The recommendation is that voting for and holding the positions of Division Chair and Vice Chair should be restricted to tenure-track faculty. Again, the rationale here is one of the primary functions of that Committee are faculty personnel decisions — appointments, promotions, and tenure — in the College. That is the Arts and Sciences subcommittee of the Committee on Instructional Personnel, although it performs some other functions as well. For general participation in departmental affairs, fixed-term faculty would be voting members of the department on the same basis as everyone else, except for faculty appointments, reappointments, and promotions would be limited to persons holding tenured or probationary term appointments. In other words, tenure-track faculty. We have provided in the amendment that changing the criteria would not disqualify anyone who is presently serving, having been elected and serving on a committee if there are such. They would continue to serve out their term. And finally, the amendment will become effective retroactively because in anticipation of the good will of the general faculty I think we did nominate some tenure-track faculty for some positions and some may have actually been elected. Is that right, George? So we’re going to try to hope that you will approve it and make it effective retroactively. I’ll be glad to try to answer any questions.
Professor Estroff: I’m reluctantly going to speak against the full professor criteria for Chair of the Faculty and the Advisory Committee. When there is parity for women and people of color on this campus at that level, at that rank, then I think it makes sense, but it is de facto an exclusionary criteria for many of us. And I think it would be, all of us would be, hard pressed to see a person who would rise to the rank of Chair of the Faculty or serve on the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee who is such a highly public person be denied promotion based on political reasons. So when there’s parity and when everyone has equal access to those ranks, and we know that’s not the case, I can support it. But in the absence of that, I find it to be an egregiously exclusionary criteria that I think should be struck. Professor Ferrell: Then I suggest that the proper motion then would be to amend the proposal to delete section 2 and to delete section 4, and you could make those either separately or together. Professor Estroff: [unintelligible] [Unidentified male]: Was that a motion to amend or were you accepting it as a friendly amendment? Professor Ferrell: I’m not accepting it. I’m waiting for somebody to make it. Professor Brown: Do you want to make that amendment, Sue? Professor Estroff: Yes, I do. Yes, I would like to propose — I mean it in a friendly way. Professor Ferrell: I understand. Professor Brown: How do you want to do it? Professor Ferrell: Do you want to vote on one vote or do you want separate votes on the Chair of the Faculty and the Advisory Committee? Professor Estroff: Separately. And I think it should say tenured faculty. Professor Brown: Tenured faculty rather than…… Professor Ferrell: Wait, wait, wait. What is the motion now? Professor Estroff: The motion is to change whatever section it is, section 2, that says “Nominations shall be made by the Advisory Committee, which shall select and submit the names of three qualified persons who hold the rank of professor.” To amend that to say “who hold the rank of tenured faculty member.” Or “tenured members of the faculty.” Professor Laurel Files (Health Policy & Administration): One thing is changing this, it may be just to leave the Code the way it was. That may be what the Code already said. For full professor, I think we need to take a look at the Code in there. Professor Ferrell: The Code presently provides, requires only the persons be members of the faculty. So the simplest thing to do be just to delete the section and leave it like it is. Professor Brown: So do you want to say that they should be tenured? Or do you want to just leave it as it is, Sue? Professor Estroff: I guess I’d feel more comfortable hearing comments from other people about this, before we come to some.. Professor Brown: I think we can continue discussing without, we don’t have an amendment on the floor right now. Professor Files: Why don’t we just separate, can we make an amendment just to take, what I think was said in the first place, to separate 2 in this resolution and section 4. Just to take them out, to remove them from this resolution and to deal with them as usual. And then at least we can vote on the rest of it. Professor Brown: Okay, we could do that. We could vote on the rest of the resolution, and then come back to section 2 and section 4. Can we do that? Okay, let’s do that. And so let’s vote on that resolution. That’s been moved and seconded. Is there further discussion on all the sections besides section 2 and section 4? Okay, no further discussion.
Professor Fletcher: I just want to clarify something. Are the qualifications, the new qualifications for Chair of the Divisions in the College of Arts and Sciences limited to tenure-track faculty? Professor Ferrell: Yes. Professor Fletcher: But not full professors? Just tenure track. Professor Ferrell: It makes no change at all in the present practice in the College with Division Chairs and Vice Chairs. The effect of it is to keep– Professor Fletcher: Just tenure-track faculty, although they are involved in personnel decisions, as with members of the Committee on Instructional Personnel. Professor Ferrell: Only tenure-track faculty would be eligible to vote for or to hold those positions. Professor Fletcher: [unintelligible] Professor Brown: Anything else then on all but sections 2 and 4. Okay, all those in favor, say aye. Any opposed say no. [unanimously adopted.] So all but sections 2 and 4 have passed. Let’s come back to section 2 then, Chair of the Faculty.
Professor Estroff: So, it currently reads, “member of the faculty,” right? Professor Ferrell: Presently there’s a period after the word “persons” as you see it here. It now just says “Nominations shall be made by the Advisory Committee which shall select and submit the names of three qualified persons.” The implication is that they have to be members of the faculty. It doesn’t say that specifically. Professor Bayne: It was my understanding in the current Code, the unamended Code, to be qualified you had be a tenured member of the faculty. Professor Ferrell: No. Under the current Code, an Assistant Professor could be elected Chair of the Faculty. Professor Bayne: But we’re saying find some rank, just say tenured. Professor Ferrell: Well, I don’t know what the motion is. My motion is to amend it as you see printed on the page, and I’m awaiting a clear amendment. Professor Brown: Well, there isn’t one yet. We’re discussing section 2, given that you’ve moved that part of this, and you haven’t heard an amendment yet. Professor Pamela Conover (Political Science): A point of clarification. If it’s left the way it is, with the changes you’re now making, will than then mean that fixed-term faculty are eligible for that Committee and for Chair of the Faculty? Professor Ferrell: Yes. Professor Marion Danis (Medicine): I would share Sue Estroff’s concern, but I would broaden, I would say it’s not simply an issue for women and minorities. I think it’s an issue of, I mean there are many men who are not professors. I think there are many individuals who would be excluded from leadership positions. I think that to bring non-tenured faculty on board in terms of having voting privileges and then to narrow the possibility for leadership for all of us would generally diminish the sense of the attempt to bring more faculty into the governing process. So I would share the suggestion that we not say that the Chair of the Faculty should be a professor. And I think, I can think of times I have been concerned about speaking out when I have been worried about promotion, and I think that that’s something that an individual can take upon themselves to, you know, forego the privilege of a leadership position. I don’t think we necessarily want to exclude people from positions of leadership on that basis. Professor Gooder: I may have said what you said I said a moment ago. I’m not sure. [laughter] I think the point that I want to make, and I think Professor Estroff has a very good point, and I think my point was not that the person be, have the rank of professor, but that the person be a member of the tenured faculty. Because I do think it’s difficult to go out in public and criticize one’s Chancellor or the President of the System if you’re not a tenured faculty member. Now, certainly, you can take it upon yourself to do it if you don’t have tenure, and you may come to that decision. But I really think we need individuals who’ve been around here that they would have received tenure, who would eventually become Chair of the Faculty. So I would support an amendment to simply say “a member of the tenured faculty.”
Professor Tony Passannante (Anesthesiol`gy): I would speak against having tenure-track involved. I just think the simplest thing to do is to offer an amendment is to strike where is says “holds the rank of professor” and say, as you said, “who are members of the faculty.” Professor Brown: Or just stop at “qualified persons” as it is now? Professor Passannante: Either way. I think it’s a non-necessary thing that you should have to be a professor to be Chair of the Faculty. Professor Brown: So you’re moving that? Professor Passannante: I would like to move that. Professor Brown: Is there a second? [seconded] Professor Ferrell: I would suggest, Jane, that the simplest thing to do right now is to go ahead and vote on that motion. If you delete it, then things stay the way they are. If the motion fails, then we can figure out how you want to change it. That would be the simplest thing to do right now. Professor Brown: Just vote on that as it stands now? Professor Ferrell: No, the motion to delete it, which is what Tony just made. Professor Brown: To vote on that motion. Professor Ferrell: If it passes, it solves the controversy. Professor Brown: So your motion is to delete the underlined part of the sentence now. Professor Passannante: Yes. Professor Ferrell: To delete the whole section. The motion is to delete section 2. Professor Estroff (and a number of others): No, no. Professor Estroff: It’s not to accept the change. Professor Brown: It’s the same thing. Professor Ferrell: Trust me, trust me, that is what you want to do [laughter], to delete section 2. Even though I even over 40. Professor Brown: We come to the same point. Either we are deleting section 2 which puts us back to getting rid of the underlined section. That’s the amendment. It’s been seconded. Is there further discussion? All those in favor of deleting section 2 …, all those in favor of that say aye. Any opposed say no. [some noes] The ayes have it. So we’ve now deleted section 2. It goes back to how it originally is, which means that any faculty member could be Chair of the Faculty. Professor Files: I would like to follow up on what Harry said and make, have an amendment reads, after “three qualified tenured persons.” Professor Brown: So you’re now introducing an amendment? Professor Files: Right. That’s what Joe was suggesting. Take this out, then we were back where we were. And if we wanted to make a change, then it’s a new amendment. So the new amendment I’m suggesting is that “Nominations shall be made by the Advisory Committee, which shall select and submit the names of three qualified tenured — I guess I’d said “faculty” instead of “persons.” Professor Ferrell: Well, if you wanted to parallel the very next section, it would say “three qualified persons having permanent tenure.” Professor Files: That’s fine. Professor Brown: Is there a second? [seconded] Is there discussion? Professor Paul Farel (Physiology): At first when Sue raised the point I thought it was really crazy. The more I thought about it the more I thought she was right. [laughter] That frequently happens. [laughter] In the spirit of what Sue said I think that we should defeat this amendment. I think that for example in the School of Medicine there are many non-tenure track faculty holding ranks equivalent to professor, who would then be excluded from positions for which they would be qualified. We’re not saying that they would be Chair of the Faculty. We’re saying you could run for Chair of the Faculty, and we would the ones who would determine whether they would be the most qualified people. So I would like to keep this as open as possible. Professor Brown: Further discussion? Professor Estroff: I think Paul Farel is right. [laughter] Professor Brown: Okay, all those in favor of the amendment which would read, “Nominations shall be made by the Advisory Committee, which shall select and submit the names of three qualified persons having permanent tenure.” All those in favor of that amendment, say aye. [a few] All those opposed, say no. [more noes] Professor Brown: The noes have it. So that returns us to not having a section 2. Okay, very good. Any further amendments or discussion about any further amendments about that? Chair of the Faculty. Very good. Then we’ll move on to section 4 about the Advisory Committee.
Professor Estroff: I’d like I’d guess to just to pull, to delete, whatever we said, the addition, the other one. I find the argument about reviewing promotions difficult to swallow since I’m not a full professor and I review promotions all the time in the School of Medicine on a promotions committee. And I work very hard at it, and it takes a hell of a lot of time. So I don’t see why that would be a problem on the Advisory Committee. And the same exclusionary problems prevail here on the Advisory Committee, here so I guess I would propose that we just take out “holding the rank of professor” and if that takes it back to its original, then I would suggest deleting this. Professor Ferrell: So you’re arguing, you think there should be no requirement also that they have permanent tenure. So the Advisory Committee should be open to fixed-term faculty, assistant professors, instructors. Professor Estroff: As advisory to the Chancellor. Professor Ferrell: Then your motion should be to delete section 4. Professor Brown: So do you move that? Professor Estroff: I do move that. Professor Brown: Is there a second for that? [seconded] Discussion? Professor Danis: I think most of the discussion we’ve been having is about whether an individual would want to run and be in one of these positions. I think the other perspective to take is how people on campus would feel about having an Advisory Committee that is advising the Chancellor about major issues that is only composed of professors. I think there are many faculty on campus who are not full professors, and I think, I’m not sure we want to have such skewed representation, you know, a skewed sample of our faculty advising the Chancellor, if we simply let it be full professors. I think that that would really change the composition of the Advisory Committee essentially. I just think we would want to have advice coming from, it may be — Professor Brown: It’s de facto now all full professors. Professor Danis: And do we, I think that’s something that we should examine before we codify that. [Unidentified person]: Just by a point, what does the Advisory Committee do, for us ignorant…? Professor Brown: It meets once a month with the Chancellor. The primary task at this point is to be reviewing all tenure and promotion files coming from all over campus. Professor Files: Could you read what you’re trying to make this? Professor Ferrell: You mean in the present Code? Professor Files: Yes. Professor Ferrell: Well, many of you are not familiar with the underline and strikethrough technique, what it says in the present Code is everything except the underlined terms. [Unidentified person]: Let’s take out “holding the rank of professor,” which just leaves it open. Professor Brown: So all that has been inserted into the Code are the words “holding the rank of professor.” With everything else there is already in the Code. Any further comments? The amendment is to delete this whole section. I’m sorry, to delete — [Professor Ferrell: Section 4.] — section 4 and go back to what’s already in the Code. [Unidentified person]: What’s in the Code? [laughter] Professor Brown: What’s not underlined. [laughter] Professor Ferrell: What’s in the Code is just that it has 9 members. It does not specify what, no other qualifications than that they be voting members of the faculty. Professor Maria Salgado (Romance Languages): [Professor Brown: Who is now Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee.] One of the things that concerns me here is are fixed-term people, do they vote on tenured people. Fixed-term people do they review and vote? Because if we don’t say anything, at least “tenured” or something, that that means you could also have fixed-term people there, no? Professor Brown: That’s right. Professor Ferrell: They would not vote in the College on faculty appointments and promotions under the amendment we just approved. That portion of the Code does not apply outside the College of Arts and Sciences. So with the change it will now be essentially up to the professional schools involved to determine whether and to what extent fixed-term faculty would have a voice in faculty personnel matters. The Code would not regulate that. Professor Brown: Okay. Any further discussion about this? So the amendment is to delete this section, and this would put us back to the Coded language that says “The Advisory Committee shall consist of nine elected members, Chair of the Faculty, Secretary of the Faculty.” It doesn’t designate from what rank. Professor Estroff: Sorry. You said de facto it’s all full professors. How did that happen in the absence of — Is there an unwritten Code? Professor Ferrell: Tradition. And, in fact, it is not now all full professors. There is one Associate Professor who is a member of the current Committee. Professor Estroff: And it is functioning okay? [laughter] Professor Ferrell: It is functioning just fine, and I think he’s sitting in the back of the room. Professor Gregory Strayhorn (Medicine): I’d just like to point out that first I don’t know how I got on the Advisory Committee. And secondly, I am the Associate Professor. [laughter] Professor Ferrell: Which is why the savings clause at the end of the document. Professor Brown: So all those in favor of that amendment, to delete this section, say aye. All those opposed say no. [unanimously adopted] Therefore that section is deleted as well. That’s it. Professor Ferrell: Thank you very much. Professor Brown: Thank you, Joe. Thank you very much. Professor Bayne: I just wanted to thank Joe personally on the Committee, personally, and you and Jim Peacock preceding you, because we started this five years ago, and this has come to just the right conclusion. And I appreciate all your efforts. Professor Brown: Very good. Because we slowly but eventually we make some progress. Thank you.
IX. Election Results for Chair of the Division of the Natural Sciences, Faculty Council and Administrative Board of the Library, and Standing Elective Committees (including Faculty Assembly Delegation and Executive Committee of the Faculty Council). George S. Lensing, Secretary of the Faculty. [attached]
Professor Lensing: Once again this afternoon I want to thank Rosemary and David for their long hours in facilitating the process of these campus elections. I’m not going to take the time at this late hour to read the names of all the persons who have been elected to the elective committees of the faculty governance nor to the Faculty Council. We have a sheet with all those names listed that you should have picked up when you came in. [attached] I would like, and this is the last meeting of the academic year, and I would like to recognize those members of the Faculty Council who are completing their terms this year. And I am just going to quickly call your names and ask you to stand as I call your name and then invite us to offer a round of applause of appreciation to these persons. Thomas Warburton, David Schulenberg, Christopher Armitage, Robert Kirkpatrick, David Ganz, Joy Kasson, Jim Stasheff, Laurie McNeil, Donna Whitney, Arne Kalleberg, Stephen Walsh, Bereket Selassie, Eileen McGrath, Linda Drake, John Workman, Ronald Link, Jack Boger, Thomas Thornburg, Jo-David Fine, Peter Petrusz, Howard Reisner, Peter Gilligan, Henry Hsiao, Estrada Bernard, Lela Brink, Tony Passannante (although he’s just been elected again), Ellen Weiss, Khalid Ishaq, Kenneth Bastow, Laurel Files, Steven Wing, Jan Atwood, Craig Calhoun, Frank Brown, Laura (Lolly) Gasaway, and Bonnie Yankaskas. You all have been — a round of applause of appreciation. [applause] Professor Brown: Thank you all. I really have enjoyed working with you and you’re welcome to come back anytime. I also would encourage you to write to me, email me, call me about any comments you have about how the Faculty Council has run, your tenure on it, what would work better for you, any ideas you have about how we can make this a more effective body. I’d love to hear from you.
X. Nomination and Election of Secretary of the Faculty: Bernadette Gray-Little, Vice Chair, Advisory Committee.
And finally, nomination and election of Secretary, the new Secretary of the Faculty. Bernadette, are you here? No. Whoops. Aw. So, Maria, do you want to stand in for Bernadette? Professor Salgado: I don’t have any report. She chaired the committee because I was out of town. Professor Brown: Well, I guess I’ll punt. [laughter] [some unintelligible remarks from various people] [applause] We have an excellent nominee. It is Joe Ferrell from the Institute of Government. And we technically must ask for nominations from the floor. Are there any other nominations from the floor. So, then do I take a vote? Yes. So, Joe, thank you very much for agreeing to stand for Secretary of the Faculty. And now all those in favor of electing Joe Ferrell Secretary of the Faculty, please say aye. Any opposed say no. [unanimously elected] Joe, thank you very much. We’ll look forward to having you work with us. Thank you. [applause] Professor Ferrell: I’d like to say having been on the Government Committee since before I was born, I have known every Secretary of the Faculty since Monte Howell, although I wasn’t on the faculty at the time. And the current Secretary of the Faculty is one of the best I’ve ever had to work with and he’s going to be a very hard act to follow. [applause]
XI. Old or New Business.
Professor Brown: Is there any other old or new business? Congratulations to you for a successful year, and it’ll be good to see you next year
The meeting adjourned at 4:50 p.m.
George S. Lensing
attachment: election results Secretary of the Faculty
