November 8, 2019
Meeting of the Faculty Council
Friday, November 8, 2019, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Gillings Auditorium, Rosenau Hall
Gillings School of Global Public Health
Agenda
3:00 p.m. Chair of the Faculty’s remarks [PDF]
Professor Lloyd Kramer
3:10 p.m. Chancellor’s remarks
Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz
3:30 p.m. Provost’s remarks
Provost Robert Blouin
3:40 p.m. Results from 2018 COACHE Survey: Tenured and tenure track faculty
Executive Vice Provost Ronald Strauss
Assistant Provost for Institutional Research and Assessment Lynn Williford
4:10 p.m. Report on AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct [HTML] [PDF of presentation]
Interim Vice Chancellor of WSEE Becci Menghini
Associate Director of Title IX Programs Katie Nolan
4:35 p.m. Report on Tar Heel Bus Tour
Professors Deb Aikat, Lynn Blanchard, Anna Krome-Lukens and Patia McGrath
4:50 p.m. Closed Session: Special report of the Honorary Degrees and Special Awards Committee
Nominees for Fall 2019 awards [PDF] Sakai login required
Ms. Monica Figueroa, committee chair
5:00 p.m. Adjournment
Video of Proceedings
Full video forthcoming
Journal of Proceedings of the Faculty Council
The Faculty Council of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill convened on November 8, 2019, at 3:00 p.m. in Gillings Auditorium, Rosenau Hall at the Gillings School of Global Public Health.
The following 51 members attended: D. Aikat, Anksorus, Austin, Beltran, Berkowitz, Boon, Burke, Calikoglu, Chambers, Chavis, Divaris, Donahue, Falvo, Floyd-Wilson, Gentzsch, Gilland, Graham, Guskiewicz (Interim Chancellor), Halladay, Hessick, Holland, Ives, Koonce, Kramer (Chair of the Faculty), Krome-Lukens, Larson, Lee, A. Levine, C. Levine, Lithgow, Mayer, Mayer-Davis, McGrath, Moon, Muller, Olson, Padilla, Powell, Ramaswamy, Renner, Roberts, Rudder, Thorp, Upshaw, Vaidyanathan, VanDeinse, Vision, von Bernuth, Walter, Willett and Young.
The following 25 members received excused absences: Bloom, Burch, Clegg, Clement, Dobelstein, Entwisle, Fisher, Fry, Gates-Foster, Halpern, Hannig, Joyner, Kris, Meyer, Mock, Moore, Rahangdale, Santos, Scarlett, Scarry, Steponaitis (Secretary of the Faculty), J. Thorp, Watson, Worthen and Zomorodi.
The following 15 members were absent without excuse: J. Aikat, Brewster, Byerley, Coble, Cox, Dewitya, Fromke, Gilchrist, Hobbs, Jeffay, Platts-Mills, Thorpe, J. Williams, M. Williams and Zamboni.
Others in attendance: Peter Andringa (Undergraduate Observer) and Joe Ferrell (Secretary of the Faculty Emeritus).
Call to order
Chair of the Faculty Lloyd Kramer called the meeting to order at 3:02 p.m.
Chair of Faculty remarks
Chair of the Faculty Lloyd Kramer welcomed everyone to the Faculty Council meeting and gave an overview of the agenda. Faculty Council will be presented with broad patterns of faculty satisfaction and dissatisfaction that emerged in the COACHE survey, which is a faculty work-life survey that came out of the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education at Harvard University. A similar report on the COACHE findings of satisfaction among fixed-term faculty will be presented to Faculty Council in the coming months. Students recently participated in the American Association of Universities (AAU) Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct. These issues have a deep impact on the well-being of students and also on the faculty who work with them.
University Day and the Tar Heel Bus Tour stimulated helpful discussions of UNC’s history. Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz is now working with a faculty group to develop new initiatives to help confront the enduring influence of racism, slavery and Jim Crow laws in the history of UNC. This project, led by Professor Jim Leloudis (History) and Professor Patricia Parker (Communication), is entitled “History, Race, and a Way Forward.”
Professor Kramer noted other foundational events that have shaped the University’s legacy. In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 200 enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia. This slave system was part of the University’s history from the day that UNC was founded; and this is a difficult legacy that we are trying to understand and to move beyond. On Monday November 11, the symposium “1619 Collective Memory (ies)” will take place at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. This symposium will include speakers and participants who represent many communities of people who were thrown together and transformed by the legacies of 1619.
One of the 2019 University Day recipients of a Distinguished Alumna Award was Nikole Hannah-Jones—a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media—who wrote the lead article in the New York Times Magazine special issue on 1619. She is an example of how UNC’s graduates are contributing to the honest encounter with our history that we will continue to confront for as long as any of us are at UNC. The history that began in 1619 continued in 1719, 1819 and 1919.
Professor Kramer mentioned this history of events because it is the framework for our own social, political, and educational struggles in 2019. He thanked Joseph Jordan, director of the Stone Center, Nikole Hannah-Jones and all other UNC faculty who are bringing more knowledge of this historical legacy into discussions at UNC. During the bus tour faculty in 2019 also encountered this historical legacy. The travelers on the southeastern bus visited the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro. The Civil Rights Movement is a part of the legacy of 1619 and part of the legacy of 20th-century graduates of UNC-Chapel Hill.
He encouraged faculty to attend the important upcoming symposium on the legacies of 1619 at the Stone Center; and hopes that faculty will find ways to join the new Carolina programs on “History, Race and a Way Forward” and expand the UNC service that is flourishing across NC and challenging complex historical legacies.
COACHE Survey Results (Tenured and Tenure-Track faculty)
Ron Strauss, executive vice provost, presented tenured and tenure-track faculty data from the 2018 COACHE survey. UNC-Chapel Hill has been involved in Harvard University’s research projects on faculty careers since the early 2000s. The University received funding from Harvard to participate in a series of projects documenting tenure/promotion practices and outcomes, including focus groups that led to the development of the COACHE survey instrument. Carolina participated in tenure/tenure track COACHE surveys in spring 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2018. Fixed-term faculty were included for the first time in 2015. Fixed-term faculty at Carolina took the survey in both 2015 and 2018. The fixed-term faculty responses will be shared at a future Faculty Council meeting. Professor Strauss thanked Lynn Williford, assistant provost for Institutional Research and Assessment, for her work on the COACHE survey report.
The overall response rate for UNC-CH was 33%; tenured faculty had a 39% response rate and tenure-track faculty had a 31% response rate. The COACHE peer institutions referenced in the report include Johns Hopkins University, University of California at Davis, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at Austin and University of Virginia. The data cannot be aggregated by specific racial or ethnic groups because the race variables looked at faculty of color versus white faculty, there was no division by race or ethnicity. The full presentation [PDF] can be found on the Office of Faculty Governance website.
Professor Muge Calikoglu (Pediatrics) asked if the data on the health and retirement benefits were influenced by the changes in the Blue Cross Blue Shield health plan over the past two years.
Vice Provost Strauss said the cost of deductibles and copays have increased. There has been little improvement in benefits at universities across the country.
Professor Calikoglu asked if there were verbal comments that can be shared.
Vice Provost Strauss said open-ended questions were included in the survey, but most people focused on the quantitative variables.
Professor Larry Chavis (Business) asked if there is a sense of which portion of non-white respondents were from under-represented racial/ethnic groups.
Vice Provost Strauss said it is impossible for them to disaggregate this data by racial/ethnic group. He talked to Harvard about rectifying this, but they were concerned about preserving the comparability between institutions. Since the number of fixed-term faculty at the University has increased, the leadership team advocated for the fixed-term faculty survey because they had no information about their satisfaction. The idea that fixed-term faculty have a more negative experience than tenured and tenure-track faculty in terms of satisfaction was not found in COACHE data. The major differences are between fixed-term faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences and Health Affairs.
Professor Jacqueline Halladay (Family Medicine) asked if they received errors bars for the data.
Assistant Provost Lynn Williford said they did not receive this information.
Vice Provost Strauss said some of the differences in satisfaction between UNC-Chapel Hill and COACHE peers are small and their significance is up to interpretation. The Faculty Executive Committee recommended that he present the data to the Faculty Council, and not just overall trends, because people are interested in the actual numbers.
Professor Rohit Ramaswamy (Public Health Leadership) asked if the University’s response rate was on par with the response rate of our COACHE peers and if there is a breakdown of response rate by school.
Vice Provost Strauss said some universities had higher response rates because they offered incentives to complete the survey. His team was concerned that incentives would skew the results, so the University didn’t offer incentives. They are willing to experiment with incentives in the future.
Professor Calikoglu was surprised by the low satisfaction with divisional leadership and asked for insights on this trend.
Vice Provost Strauss said senior and divisional leaders were judged harshly. Historical context has to be considered when interpreting the data; this survey was conducted during a turbulent time in the University’s history.
Professor Betsy Olson (Geography) asked about next steps.
Vice Provost Strauss said these data are informing senior leadership decisions and are very important in shaping approaches to faculty retention. This survey is a tool to anticipate issues, respond to issues and create solutions. The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment has been asked to aggregate the data by school or department, but cannot provide this information because the data-use agreement is cautious about the risk of survey respondents being identified.
Professor Eric Muller (Law) was surprised by the data that showed one in five faculty surveyed have renegotiated their salaries in the past five years. Professor Muller asked how we compare to our peers in this regard.
Vice Provost Strauss said they will provide this analysis. He encouraged faculty to share their thoughts about topics in the data that need further analysis. The analysis has to be within the boundaries of COACHE, there are rules in place about data usage and privacy.
2019 AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct
Becci Menghini, interim vice chancellor for Workforce Strategy, Equity and Engagement, presented the findings of the 2019 AAU Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct. Professor Audrey Pettifor (Epidemiology) was the principal investigator of the survey. A total of 33 universities participated. UNC-Chapel also participated in 2015. Pending approval from the AAU, data sets will be available for faculty to do more analysis. About 6,000 of our students participated, with a 20.8% participation rate, which is higher than many of our peers. Private institutions had higher response rates because they provided incentives. The data were compiled by Westat, a data collection and survey company.
The survey was conducted to provide aggregate data about the prevalence of sexual violence, the response of universities to sexual violence and how students use university resources. The climate survey considered two types of behavior: sexual penetration and sexual touching, and four tactics of this behavior: (1) force, (2) inability to consent due to incapacitation, (3) coercion and (4) a lack of voluntary agreement or consent. It was noted that graduate students are unlikely to report sexual harassment and violence because they fear negative consequences to their academic careers. Vice Chancellor Menghini and her team would value the opportunity to talk with faculty about ways to change this culture.
The next steps are to (1) engage faculty to further analyze the data to determine any additional areas of focus; (2) host a working session to review findings, evaluate existing training and prevention programing and identify additional areas of focus and stakeholder need; and (3) bring University constituents together to review working session recommendations, assess additional areas of need for prevention, develop a plan for implementation, oversee implementation and serve as a resource for all prevention efforts on campus. The full presentation [PDF] can be found on the Office of Faculty Governance website.
Professor Halladay asked for a breakdown of graduate-student respondents by school.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said they have a breakdown of graduate respondents by school. They haven’t thoroughly examined this information yet, so she didn’t have specific numbers.
Professor Ricardo Padilla (Medicine) asked if there is any data on the consequences faced by offenders.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said students who experience sexual violence have a few reporting options. The Equal Opportunity and Compliance (EOC) process is not a criminal investigation, and the maximum punishment through this process is expulsion. Students can also go through the Chapel Hill Police. The University has an omnibus policy, which means that students, faculty and staff go through the same process. Last year, about 600 people visited the EOC Office to make claims of discrimination or harassment, about 10% of cases went to formal investigation. The EOC Office has an annual report, which includes the number of people who visited the Office and the number of investigations and sanctions; these numbers are aggregated to protect reporting and responding parties.
Professor Kramer asked if we have information on the where sexual violence against graduate students occur.
Katie Nolan, interim chief of staff in the EOC Office, said they do not have information on the location of the offenses against graduate students, but they have information on which schools the students are in.
Professor Kramer asked if there are differences between schools.
Ms. Nolan said there are differences and they will share this information.
Professor Kramer said there are many venues in which sexual violence against graduate students can occur including research trips and conferences. The main focus of Faculty Council would be to affect faculty behavior, so they need information on where sexual violence is occurring.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said her team can provide data to help drive these conversations. She encouraged faculty to take advantage of information coming from professional organizations, several of which have stopped doing interviews in hotel rooms.
Professor Calikoglu asked about the consequences faculty face for perpetrating sexual violence.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said the EOC Office retains its role as a neutral fact finder. They run into trouble navigating the grievance process, there are times when the EOC Office finds a violation and a faculty hearing panel will not. Faculty have to hold each other accountable.
Professor Padilla said there should be different consequences for people in power who perpetrate sexual violence.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said the EOC policy addresses this power dynamic, but the barrier lies in the initial reporting of the offense.
Professor Mary Floyd-Wilson (English and Comparative Literature) made a comment about the prevalence of sexual violence during study-abroad trips.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said if an incident happens off campus, but it impacts the educational opportunity of a student, the University retains jurisdiction. The EOC Office has handled cases, where the offense happened abroad. The data are limited to the people who actually report sexual violence. Many people visit the EOC Office for resources, support and no-contact orders, but they do not want to go through a formal adjudication process. It is important that the campus community knows the EOC Office can provide support and processes by which these cases can be adjudicated.
Professor Andy Hessick (Law) asked for the definition of harassment.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said they will share this information.
Professor Olson asked if there are data on international students or by ethnicity.
Vice Chancellor Menghini said they have data by ethnicity. Depending on how the data are aggregated the population may be too small, under their agreement with Westat, they will not report a number lower than six. They do not have data by nationality.
Chancellor’s remarks
Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz arrived for the second part of the meeting. He began by presenting some campus updates:
- The Tar Heel Bus Tour ended October 18.
- Professor William Ferris (History) will be the featured speaker at the 2019 Winter Commencement on December 15.
- UNC-Chapel Hill ranked number six on the Reuter’s ranking of the World’s Most Innovative Universities.
- University Research Week started this week on November 4
- UNC alumna and NASA Astronaut Zena Cardman shared her journey from conducting research as an undergraduate and graduate student to training for future space missions.
- He acknowledged Terry Magnuson, vice chancellor for Research, and Troy Blackburn, associate dean and director of the Office for Undergraduate Research, and Abigail Panter, senior associate dean for Undergraduate Education, for their work on University Research Week.
The Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward will continue the work of the History Task Force from 2015-2017. There will be an initiative to hire at least two new faculty members as a part of the Commission’s work. They are gathering data from the community-building forums focused on defining diversity, equity and inclusion goals on campus and reimagining the Office for Diversity and Inclusion, which will be renamed as the Office of Inclusive Excellence.
Last March, Chancellor Guskiewicz commissioned an independent, external review of how the University handled four public-safety incidents, and this work is now complete. It was conducted by Charlotte attorney Chris Swecker, the former assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. UNC Police Chief Perry implemented several of the recommendations to rebuild trust between UNC Campus Police and the campus community. The Campus Safety Commission has held several listening sessions recently and will host a town hall meeting in January to continue the conversation around rebuilding trust. He thanked DeVetta Holman Copeland, resiliency and student support programs coordinator in the Office of Student Wellness, Professor Frank Baumgartner (Political Science) and Manny Hernandez, outgoing president of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, for their leadership as co-chairs of the Campus Safety Commission. George Battle, the newly appointed vice chancellor of Institutional Integrity and Risk Management, will work closely with Chief Perry on campus safety.
Other updates: In two weeks, senior leadership will share the strategic plan called “Carolina Next: Innovations for Public Good” with the Board of Trustees. On September 30, a district judge ruled that the Students for Fair Admission case, which challenges the constitutionality of the University’s admission practices, will go to trial on June 8, 2020. Carolina is proudly defending this case, because they believe the holistic admissions process works well and provides educational benefits that are important to the campus community.
Chancellor Guskiewicz thanked Vice Chancellor Menghini and Ms. Nolan for their work on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct
Report on the Tar Heel Bus Tour
The Tar Heel Bus Tour took place October 16‒18 with 90 faculty members and administrators touring the state on three buses to learn about its history, resources and people. They also visited Carolina research and service projects outside Chapel Hill. A representative from each bus—Professor Deb Aikat (Journalism and Media), Professor Anna Krome-Lukens (Public Policy), Professor Patia McGrath (Business)—along with Professor Lynn Blanchard, director of the Carolina Center for Public Service, who organized the tour, shared their experiences on the Tar Heel Bus Tour while pictures [PDF] from the tour were shown on the screens. Chancellor Guskiewicz thanked Professor Blanchard and Ms. Anna Rose Medley, senior assistant to the Chancellor, for their work on the bus tour.
Approval of the 2020 Edward Kidder Graham Award and Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus Award nominees
Secretary of the Faculty Emeritus Joe Ferrell entertained a motion to go into closed session to prevent the premature disclosure of award nominees. The motion was seconded and approved by the body. Faculty Council went into closed session. Monica Figueroa (Libraries), chair of the Honorary Degrees and Special Awards Committee presented the nominees for the Edward Kidder Graham Award and nominees for Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus Awards. All were approved by the body. The awards will be presented at the 2020 University Day ceremony.
Open session
Secretary of the Faculty Emeritus Joe Ferrell entertained a motion to return to open session. The motion was seconded and approved by Faculty Council. The Council returned to open session.
Adjournment
Its business having concluded, the Faculty Council adjourned at 4:58 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kadejah Murray
University Program Associate
Vin Steponaitis
Secretary of the Faculty
