January 19, 1996
Transcript, Faculty Council Meeting, January 19, 1996
TRANSCRIPT
MEETING OF THE FACULTY COUNCIL
Friday, January 19, 1996
[meeting postponed from Friday, January 12, 1996]Assembly Room, Wilson Library
[A complete transcript of the proceedings is available in the faculty section of the campus World Wide Web service.]Faculty Council Attendance: Present 56; Excused Absences 18; Unexcused Absences 17.
I. Memorial Resolution for the late Earl A. Slocum: Edgar H. Alden, Chair,
Memorial Committee.
Chancellor Hooker: We will defer till next time the memorial resolution that’s on your agenda. And let me go to my remarks, the second item on the agenda.
II. Chancellor Hooker’s remarks.
I noticed that the Status of Women will be given later today, and I wanted to report to you that when I had report several weeks ago, the draft of the report, I was disturbed, severely disturbed is not putting it too strongly, I think, by the differential rates of tenure and promotion for women faculty. And I tried to conjure up all kinds of explanatory hypotheses that would justify the differential rates. And I was, at the end of the process, bereft of adequate explanatory hypotheses, and so I’ve asked the Provost to look systematically at each of the cases or at as large a sample of cases as he can to attempt to divine through that process an explanation. And he has agreed to do so. And I look forward to hearing the results of that study. But obviously because it involves the laborious process of looking at cases past, it’s going to take quite some time to do, and so we need to be patient in anticipating and awaiting the outcome of that study. I’m also mindful that one of the issues associated with the faculty salary study is the issue of compression, and we discussed several times using part of the proceeds from the $400 tuition increase to address not only bringing ourselves in line with, or closer in line with, our peer institutions in salary competitiveness, but also addressing issues of compression. And the Vice Chancellors for Academic Affairs have been asked to work with their deans to address that issue. And they will do so, and I await recommendations from them.
Another issue that came up is, in fact, the very first issue that I can recall coming to my attention from this body — was that of classroom renovation and repair. And I have spent the last six months walking through, I think, just about every classroom building here and looking in a lot of the old classrooms where I took classes, and they look like not much has been done with them since I took classes there. So I’ve moved classroom renovation and repair up on our scale of priorities for capital expenditures. We’ve put it as the first priority in the capital budget request for next year. But we’re also looking at shifting priorities within existing capital appropriations to see if we can accelerate the pace at which classroom renovation and repair– repair first, renovation later — takes place.
A couple of months ago I mentioned to you the possible use of the Meadowmont, the Dubose property at Meadowmont, the part of Meadowmont that the University owns as an executive conference center for the Kenan-Flagler School of Business. And I just wanted to update you and let you know that that will be presented to the Board of Trustees at their meeting next week as a proposal, and pending their approval, will go to the Endowment Board for final approval sometime in February. The idea would be to build a couple of new facilities, buildings, at Meadowmont, near the existing manor house, and to use the manor house for lunches and for lounges, but we can’t use it for classrooms or for residences for the executive conference facility because the cost of bringing it up to code for those uses would simply be prohibitive. But even still it will require a substantive investment, on the order of $13 to $15 million to provide the executive conference facility at Meadowmont and the School the Business has about half of those funds, or a little more than half of those funds, in donations already provided to them. They are seeking more, and have demonstrated with the performance [in the use of the facility] that satisfies my scrutiny and the scrutiny of people who know these things better than I do, that they can service the debt that would be required to provide for the additional amount of the renovation and new construction. And so I don’t see there being any other use of the Meadowmont property that would satisfy the criterion which I annunciated when I first spoke to you about it, namely that it be able to throw off substantial profits annually that could be plowed back into the maintenance of the property. We have, as I’ve said, an endowment associated with the property, but the endowment really provides for the upkeep of the grounds only and doesn’t provide for reinvestment in the capital structures themselves, but the executive conference facility could do that, I am convinced, and I am convinced in part by looking at the performance associated with executive conference facilities elsewhere, including the one at Duke. This is a very profitable business for schools of business, and I think it can be similarly profitable for our School of Business. And I think it will substantially enhance the School of Business. If you look at the rankings of schools of business, they are discriminated in two large categories, those that have very sophisticated executive conference programs, and those that don’t. And those that do tend to be those that are ranked otherwise in the top of the ranking of schools of business.
I had just returned last week from the annual meeting of the NCAA,the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which is the participatory governance body that regulates intercollegiate athletics, self-governance body. And it was a momentous meeting in that the NCAA, in its constituent institutions, voted to reform radically the governance of the intercollegiate athletics which heretofore has been governed by a principle of “one institution, one vote,” and they are almost a thousand institutions, I think, that are members of the NCAA. And in the future most of the major decisions will be made not by the large plenary session of institutions, with each institution getting a vote, but rather by a fairly small board of directors consisting entirely of CEO’s of the constituent institutions. I think there are seven members of the board, as I recall; maybe it’s 13, some ex officio. And some of the conferences will always be represented, the ACC will be one of them, and it will just rotate among the CEO’s of the ACC, membership on this governance committee. This is the final, and culminating, change, in a series of changes that were begun after the death of Len Bias, which many of you will remember, at the University of Maryland some years ago. And at that time, the then Chancellor of the University of Maryland, John Slaughter, convened a group of campus CEO’s just to discuss the governance of intercollegiate athletics. His feeling at the time, and many of those in attendance, myself included, feeling that we campus CEO’s had lost control of intercollegiate athletics, indeed, if we ever had had control of intercollegiate athletics, and that some reform of governance was needed, and that other reforms were needed as well. And some of the reforms have been far more highly publicized than the governance reforms, such as reduction, substantial reduction, in the number of football scholarships permitted, Division 1A institutions. I think it was from 95 to 75, if I can recall. Reduction in number of scholarships permitted basketball teams. And most, the reform that got the most attention, was imposing substantial requirements on academic eligibility for freshman athletes. Requiring that the 2.0 and 700 composite GPA for eligibility. That, which has been much debated in the press, was actually strengthened at this most recent NCAA meeting. And I suspect that while this is the end of the first phase of the reform process resulting in the governance reform, it is probably just the beginning of the reforms that you will see coming from the NCAA as CEO’s come to grips with the rapidly changing world of intercollegiate athletics.
It’s changing in two respects. The cost of participation is going up sharply. But the revenues associated with intercollegiate athletics are going up substantially more sharply than the costs, and it’s because of television. And it is a system which is really foreign to any campus CEO, and it has been very difficult for us, meeting once a year, to get our arms around the issue of controlling the emerging world of intercollegiate athletics as entertainment. And that is, of course, what it has become. I persist in the view that the only justification for an intercollegiate athletic program is what it does for people who participate, the athletes themselves, though I certainly recognize the value that derives from public visibility associated with intercollegiate athletic programs, and no university, save possibly Notre Dame, is a better example of that than the University of North Carolina. And the visibility that has been brought to the University of North Carolina nationally as a result of its basketball program is a good example of the good that can come from having a successful intercollegiate athletic program. And it also, of course, serves to engender a sense of school spirit, esprit de corps, among present students and alumni. But I want to reaffirm that, in my judgment, the only real justification for it is the value that is produced for the students who participate, and as you know, at this Institution we have a large number of sports — I don’t think there’s any institution in the country that has more intercollegiate sports than we do — and we have an excellent program that is well run, that is clean, and one that serves as a model for other programs nationally. And we’re visited frequently by athletics directors and by CEO’s who look at our program. But it is, it has become, something that few campus CEO’s fully understand or have the conviction that they understand well enough to control adequately, and I think you will see that begin to change as a result of the creation of this board of directors. Because those campus CEO’s will have the time to devote to understanding the emerging, evolving character of intercollegiate athletics as big-time entertainment and presumably will see to our interests as a result. That’s all that I have to report. I’d be delighted to answer any questions or report on anything I’ve missed.
Professor Rich Beckman (Journalism & Mass Communication): I have a question about the draft memorandum on nominations for new Kenan distinguished teaching professorships. And it says that we’re going to try to hire four Kenan professors, nationally distinguished mid-career teachers. And as I understand in a cover letter from my dean, these people will be salaried between $125,00 and $140,000. And the question I will phrase within the context of my faculty where we have a number of mid-career faculty who have numerous teaching awards, who are currently salaried between $45,00 and $60,000, who between them have about 50 to 60 years of service to this University. And I’m wondering about what’s going to happen when we bring people in, comparable people in, who are salaried at at least twice that amount. And in the memo it says the Administrative Council originally recommended that recruitment be from within and without the University, but subsequent conversations with the Chancellor and the review of the intent of the Kenan Foundation suggest that these searches be just from the outside. I wonder if you could comment on those points.
Chancellor Hooker: I can comment certainly on the second point, with respect to outside searches. One of the first things that I did when I arrived here was to meet with Frank Kenan and with other members of the Kenan family, and with Bill Friday, who as you know, is Executive Director of the Kenan Trust, and as a result of those discussions, it was very clear to me that it was the intent of the Kenan Trust that Kenan funds be used to recruit from outside. It was also clear to me that the Kenan Trust had originally intended that we seek not only great scholars but great teachers as well. And so, in order to reestablish in good faith our covenant with the Kenan Trust, I announced that we would establish a few new Kenan professorships, and that we would recruit not only great scholars but people who were great teachers in addition, and that those would be mutually required conditions of appointment to a Kenan professorship. With respect to the salary range, I will ask the Provost to comment. [laughter]
Provost Dick Richardson: First of all that, as you said, Rich, is a draft. The letter was not to be distributed by the deans. I gave that to the deans to look over. We will have a distribution, but I’m glad your dean was… Professor Beckman: Well, it does say, To Deans, Department Chair, and Faculty in Undergraduate Departments. Provost Richardson: Yeah, but it says, “Draft.” Professor Beckman: Right, I understand that. Provost Richardson: There’s nothing in the letter about the salaries. That was in private, that was in communication through the deans. This is a range that we’re working with, are thinking about. The upper ranges of that salary would probably include people which we had to do set-ups or system sites. It would not be probably all salary. But that I think, you know, is a possibility. I would say the lower range is the range of salary that the units have designated. I think it reflects their desire to have the four finest teacher-scholars that we can bring in from the outside at this range. I don’t know that it has to be at that higher range. But I think it does raise, well, you know, it’s true that it is more than your salary, and a number of other salaries of all of us. Chancellor Hooker: The operative locution in your question is comparability. I mean the way you phrased the question I would reject the premise — that is, that we would be bringing in people at salaries twice that of existing faculty who are comparable to existing faculty. I think if we did that we would be making a severe mistake and it would be an indefensible thing to do. We are not committed to appointing any number, particular number, of Kenan professors who will fit this criterion of being great scholars and great teachers because I am going to be convinced that we have appointed really great scholars and great teachers when we make these appointments, and I’ll be reporting them to the Kenan Trust and the Kenan family. And I want to be able to indicate that we have done with the Kenans, with these Kenans, what was done with the original Kenans in the ’20’s and ’30’s which made this a great State university. And that is what, I think, the family thinks has been lost somewhat over the years — is not that we weren’t awarding Kenans to people who were well-deserving of being acknowledge for their scholarly contributions but rather that we weren’t using them to provide the leverage that would be necessary to leverage state funds in order to make this Institution the best of its peers and to assure that it maintains that distinction. Other questions?
Professor Brown: I hate to do this to you, but I’ve heard from a number of faculty concerned about how the snow policy affected staff. [Chancellor Hooker: Yes.] I wonder if you could speak to that because we are sympathetic to their concerns that we have a more flexible schedule and they have to make up the time they missed. Chancellor Hooker: Yeah, I may not get this exactly correct, but let me give it a stab. This is not a campus that is particularly well prepared to deal with snow emergences. [laughter] And we demonstrated that by not dealing with it particularly well. I thought it was a mistake to open on Monday and a mistake to close on Friday. And I am being condemned for opening on Monday and praised for closing on Friday. In fact I didn’t do either. I delegated responsibility to the Chief of Staff and the Vice Chancellors and the Deans, and they had discussions among them, as a result of which we opened on Monday and closed on Friday. So I can’t take blame or credit for either action. The closure on Friday created a difficulty, or perceived difficulty, or an injustice, or a perceived injustice — take your pick — for our staff who are under the state personnel system. And under the State Personnel Policy which governs our treatment of our own employees, we cannot just give them a day off, which is what I would like to do when you have closed for a snow emergency, that should just be a day off in my judgment. But my judgment doesn’t prevail here. What prevails is State Personnel Policy, and the State Personnel Policy says that staff who are forced to take a day off due to weather closure will be required to make up that day or to surrender a day of leave in order to compensate for that lost day. They have a year to make it up. We have done what we can do, which is to urge Deans and Directors and Chairs to be as lenient as possible in enabling staff to make it up. And that’s the limit of what we are able to do in administering what is a state personnel policy. The State Personnel Policy, if you wonder about the rationale for it, is this. I can give it to you. I’m not sure I can defend it. It is that there are some people, essential personnel, who don’t have a choice about not coming to work on a snow emergency day. And those folks would be treated unjustly relative to those who were simply given the day off if those who were simply given the day off weren’t required to make up the day. So. I think I have a fairly well developed sense of justice as a result of a lot of philosophical debate on issues of justice, and I had trouble bringing that into conformity with my sense of justice. But at any rate the policy is what it is. Thank you very much.
III. Chair of the Faculty Jane D. Brown.
Professor Brown: I appreciate your all being here, especially since it’s a postponed meeting, so I appreciate the attendance. I wanted to note that a couple of our colleagues suffered disproportionately from the weather, and I have cards for both of them if you all would like to sign them. Professor Don Reid in the History Department, and Professor [Beverly] Long’s husband, Bill Long. Both were — One was hit by falling ice and the other fell on the ice and are in severe condition at this point. So if we could send them our condolences.
And I also — Is Ann Hamner here? Great. I wanted to welcome you. Ann is the new Chair of the Employee Forum, and we want forward to working with you in the future in the coming year. Thank you for being here.
Last night I also had the pleasure of meeting Professor Gerald Horne who is the new Director of the Black Cultural Center, and we were impressed with a speech he gave at the Kenan Center last night, a reception welcoming him. And there were about a hundred people there supporting his arrival, and prospective donors. It was a wonderful occasion. He’s an impressive person. I hope we can bring him here to speak to us some time soon. And I encourage you all to support his efforts to make the Black Cultural Center even more of a reality than it is today. He will also be speaking at a forum that our Committee on Black Faculty is creating at the end of January. On January 30th there’s going be a forum on “Affirmative Action Under Siege” and the Faculty Council, no, the Chancellor has generously given us money to purchase a videotape that was taped, it was a video conference with the key players who were debating affirmative action on college campuses today. We’ll show that video and then Gerald Horne will lead a discussion about affirmative action. And all this is sponsored by the Committee on Black Faculty, so I encourage you to attend. We’ll send you another announcement. There will be another announcement about that. It will be 6 to 9 p.m. on January 30. So I hope many of you can attend. We’ll be offering another opportunity for you to participate in diversity training led by Professor Pat Fischer. I know a number of you have done this, and the last couple of training workshops have been exceptional from what I hear, and so I encourage you all to sign up for this if you can. It’s February 6; I think it’s a more convenient time than some of the other ones. It’s 3:00 in the afternoon till 9 at night. We will provide you a vegetarian lasagna dinner, and it’s at the Friday Center. The Executive Committee of [the] Faculty Council — we will be there. We’re all going to do it. Lolly’s already done it. And we hope some of the members of the Chancellor’s Administrative Council will be there. We’ve also asked Executive Committee of Employee Forum and we’re asking you. So we would encourage you to join us, and that should be an important event, an illuminating event. Please let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll sign you up.
I also want to thank the Provost and his staff for working with us, and OIT (Office of Information Technology), and the Center for Teaching and Learning in getting audiovisual equipment available to us this semester. I hope it’s always working for you and your colleagues. It’s worked for me this semester, which I am pleased to say. And they also will be distributing a survey to us. I mentioned this before. We’ve got a nice survey. An easy one to fill out. It is going to come to you based on your classrooms. So you may fill out more than one. It depends on if you teach in the same classroom or not. So you fill out one for each classroom that you’ve taught in last semester. And this is going to be important information, and they’ll be able to assess, we’ll be able to see what needs we have as well as what’s already in specific classrooms and what else is needed in those classrooms. So please do fill this out and encourage your colleagues to do the same. It’s an important base of information. The Center for Teaching and Learning — you also should have gotten one of these, that encourages you to come to a workshop the Center for Teaching and Learning is sponsoring on teaching large classes. This is open to faculty across the region, so, and there’s a fee. But we get a subsidy, so it only costs us $35 instead of $85. So please sign up if you teach large classes. I’ve gone to one of these in the past and it was extremely helpful. And some of our own people are talking about what works for them. The Center for Teaching and Learning has also given the Executive Committee of Faculty Council’s subcommittee on faculty initiative on teaching — we have a subcommittee on the Executive Committee about teaching — and we’ve been working with the Center for Teaching and Learning to develop what we’re calling “teaching circles,” kind of a pilot program we want to get underway this spring to see if we might want to expand it in the coming years. They’re basically getting us together as teachers to talk about teaching and to support each other, to encourage each other, to improve our skills at teaching. And we’re going to have two of these going on this spring. The application deadline has been extended from today until next Friday, given the problems with mail over the past couple of weeks. So if you’re interested in that, please, you could let me know if you need more information or just complete the application. Get it into Iola Peed-Neal at the Center for Teaching and Learning. And I think that’s going to be an exciting program.
In reporting on what the Executive Committee has also been up to, we have talked, again, about salary policy. This is the issue that will never die. It probably never will die. But we’re making progress. The conference committee has had a series of successful meetings. They have agreed on four of the six points of implementing mechanisms. They are somewhat different from how we saw them last time. We’re putting the finishing touches on the documents that we will discuss at the Council meeting in February. And we’ll try to get them out to you as soon as possible so you can be talking about them with your colleagues. I’m going to prepare kind of a most frequently asked questions talking guide to these mechanisms as we take them around and talk with people about them. There are always questions that come up. It is not the clearest document. It’s not as clear as it possibly could be given that so many people have massaged it, I think. So I’ll give you some guidance about what we know about what it means before we come back to the Council in February. And I appreciate all the hard work of that conference committee. It was quite an important part of the process.
We have a full agenda today. So, there are three important issues that we’re going to consider, and as I was looking at what we’re going to talk about today, I was reminded that one of the things we were up to here in the Council is creating community. We are, I think about us as sort of the core of it. And three of the issues we’re talking about today are about community. We’re talking about the inclusion, whether we want to include fixed-term faculty in faculty governance. We are talking about faculty-student interaction outside the classroom as part of intellectual climate. And we are talking retention and promotion of women faculty. So these are all three very important issues, and I appreciate your being here to talk about them with us. Are there any comments to me or questions, concerns, celebrations?
Professor Karl Petersen (Math): Jane, I know you didn’t want to talk about the mechanisms today, and I won’t delve into that. I would just implore members of the Faculty Council to discuss the mechanisms, once distributed, with your constituency so that you may be the best representative you can be at the next meeting. I think this is an extremely important issue. It’s a controversial issue, and it’s important that everyone be properly represented. I talked with myriads of people in the School of Medicine. I think we’re at a real watershed in our involvement in our own salaries, particularly in clinical medicine where a new formula for determining salaries is upon us, and how that’s translated into individual salaries. But we may not all agree with the mechanisms. It’s important to discuss this amongst your peers and be prepared to represent them at the next Faculty Council meeting. Professor Brown: Great. Thanks for saying that. I heartily agree. So we’ll get these to you as soon as possible so you can be discussing them and be prepared to represent your constituents at that time. Any other comment about that or anything else? Okay. Very good. So let me introduce Pamela Conover, who has been the Chair of our subcommittee — I’m sorry, I’m out of order: fixed-term faculty comes first.
IV. Special Report and Resolution of the Faculty Committee on University
Government: Amending The Faculty Code of University Government to extend Faculty Council voting and office-holding privileges to Full-Time Lecturers and Lecturer-Equivalents. Second reading and vote: George S. Lensing for Joseph S. Ferrell, Chair.
Professor Lensing: Before I talk about fixed-term faculty, I’m going to take advantage of having the microphone here to remind you of one thing. I could have saved this for old business, perhaps, but we are, today is formally the deadline for submitting nominations for honorary degree recipients for the 1997 Commencement, and also for nominations for the Thomas Jefferson Award which is our campus’s award to an individual who has made singular contributions to the enhancement of our University goals. And the O. Max Gardner Award, which is a system-wide, sixteen campus award. If you have in mind someone for an honorary degree and have just postponed writing that letter of nomination, could I encourage you to do that over the weekend. And if you got it into my office on Monday morning, we would accept it.
You will recall that at the December meeting we had the first reading of these proposed amendments to The Faculty Code. Joe Ferrell made that presentation and he asked me to extend his regrets that he couldn’t be here today. I think he’s the chair of a search committee in the School of Education that is meeting at this hour. He had planned to be here, like all of us last Friday, and so he sends his regrets. And so I’m going to stand in for him, I hope. If you have the blue sheet that we distributed last month in your notes, you might want to make reference to it.
You will recall that we discussed these changes that would offer membership and voting privileges to fixed-term faculty of what the tenure document calls lecturer or lecturer-equivalent faculty under certain conditions, and we discussed a month ago and unanimously adopted this for our first reading. I’m speaking to you now as the General Faculty and not just the Faculty Council. This is a General Faculty vote. There was one amendment that was made from the floor, if you have the blue sheet before you, and it’s the very bottom sentence on that page that reads, “This amendment shall become effective for elections conducted for the 1997-98 academic year.” And we added a clause to that last sentence that reads, “unless eligible faculty can be identified in time to be included in the 1996-97 elections.” And so that amendment also was unanimously adopted.
As prescribed by The Faculty Code, the Committee on University Government met to consider the discussion that had ensued last month and before the second reading today. And we did that and we don’t have any changes in the language or any alterations whatsoever in the document that you received a month ago. We did take up Paul Farel’s question about, you may recall he asked a question about whether fixed-term faculty as voting members of the Faculty Council would be eligible also to serve as nominees for membership in the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council. We talked about that, and I believe there was another related question by Dick Pfaff last month about service on other standing committees on the part of fixed-term faculty people. What we discovered is we’re going to have to review each one of those committees carefully and individually to determine that. There’re some — I think Joe mentioned this last month, but there’re some committees in which fixed-term faculty will not be allowed to serve, committees like the Hearings Committee, perhaps the Advisory Committee because it, too, deals with tenure personnel decisions. Financial Exigency Committee is another similar case. But in many other cases they will be eligible to serve. And probably also on the Executive Committee. So what the Committee on University Government is going to begin doing immediately is to review all of those standing committees and come back to you at the earliest possible date with a further amendment about the inclusion of fixed-term faculty on standing committees, including the Executive Committee. It passed on the first readings and you gave it a unanimous vote. Today it must be a two-thirds approval and we can proceed to that vote unless you have some further questions.
Professor Brown: I’ll move the resolution as written in front of you. Is there a second? Any further discussion? Good. Let’s vote. All those in favor in this resolution to include fixed-term faculty on the Faculty Council say aye. Any opposed. I think that’s two-thirds. [unanimous] Congratulations. I know some of you are here who’ve been waiting for this for many years. [applause] [Attached]
V. Report of Executive Committee of the Faculty Council on Intellectual Climate (including resolutions):
Pamela J. Conover.
Professor Brown: So, Pamela was the chair of the task force on undergraduate programs for the SACS self-study. And as chair of that task force, they identified a number of domains that might enhance our intellectual climate here on campus. We have talked about a number of these already. We’ve already talked about the alcohol policy. The undergraduate curriculum is under review by a special committee appointed by Steve Birdsall. And we have discussed admissions at our last meeting. Now, this is another piece that we want to consider today. It is about how we, as faculty, can enhance intellectual climate by increasing our interactions with students outside the classroom, using our classrooms more effectively, and other ideas here. So I want — Pamela has also served then as chair of the subcommittee in the Executive Committee of Faculty Council generating some of these ideas, proposing these resolutions, and I’ll ask her to lead this discussion today to see what you’d like to do, whether we want to pass these resolutions, these two resolutions, today, or if you have other ideas as well. So, Pamela, thank you. And I want to thank Paul Farel and Sue Estroff who have also worked with Pamela in developing these ideas.
Professor Conover: Well, you all should have the memo prepared by that subcommittee including the resolutions. So by way of introducing these resolutions I want to say just a very few words about intellectual climate and why it is so important for us as faculty to be taking it up now. As Jane mentioned, I’ve been dealing with issues of intellectual climate for several years, and I’m well aware that people often ask, “What exactly do you mean when you talk about intellectual climate? How are we going to know when we’ve got a good intellectual climate?” And I want to be the first to admit such questions are not easy to answer. And in trying to answer them, I have often been reminded of the Supreme Court’s attempts to define what they meant by “obscenity.” You’ll recall at one point the Court suggested that “we will simply know obscenity when we see it.” Well, similarly, I would like to say that we will know that we have an exciting intellectual climate at UNC-Chapel Hill when we can actually feel it. For the essence of intellectual climate is that sense of energy that emanates from a faculty and student body that are actively engaged, together, in scholarly activity. It’s an excitement and sense of purpose that begins with faculty engaged in stimulating research. Their enthusiasm permeates their teaching, exhilarates their students, and in the best of cases simply sets them on intellectual fire. And it’s because intellectual climate begins with faculty that it is so important for us, the faculty, to take active and primary responsibility in consciously shaping that climate. We determine its nature, and we do so through how we approach our roles as faculty in teaching, research and service, and it’s particularly important, I want to suggest, that we seriously reflect on intellectual climate now, because UNC-Chapel Hill, like so many other universities across the country will of necessity be changing as we enter the 21st century. And as we change that will pose new challenges to us as faculty. And so, the ways in which we create a stimulating intellectual environment will also need to change. The resolutions before you today are only one part of a multi-faceted effort to address the challenge of creating and maintaining an exciting intellectual climate that fits with our vision of the university of the future, of this University. And key to that vision is the quality of student-faculty interaction. How students and faculty interact within the classroom, outside the classroom, determines if faculty can actually transmit that intellectual excitement to their students. Student-faculty interaction lies at the core, therefore, of intellectual climate. And it is obviously central to the educational process as well. And that is undergoing considerable change.
To help us deal with this change the first resolution in the packet you received suggests a mechanism for strengthening faculty-student interaction within the context of the current structure of the University. What we are suggesting in the first resolution is a need to strengthen the institutional ties between student and faculty organizations so that we can make better use of existing organizations to stimulate intellectual climate. The second resolution, which calls on the Chancellor to name a task force to study faculty-student interaction, looks to the future. By exploring new ways of structuring those interactions, this task force will address both the changing needs of the University and our desire to strengthen the intellectual climate. I will be happy to answer any questions you might have about those resolutions as well as about the other plans the subcommittee on ECFC has for strengthening intellectual climate that were detailed in the memorandum that you received. Professor Lensing: Excuse me, Pamela, could I ask you for the record to read the resolutions?
Professor Conover:
Resolution I: Faculty Council resolves to strengthen the institutional ties between Faculty Council and those administrative units responsible for student life by charging the Educational Policy Committee with the responsibility of acting as a liaison with committees and institutional offices dealing with student life.
Resolution II: To improve student involvement in the intellectual and Chapel Hill communities, Faculty Council resolves that the Chancellor should establish a Task Force to explore innovative mechanisms for facilitating student-faculty interaction both inside and outside the classroom, and for improving student involvement in the community.
Professor Brown: So should we talk about Resolution I first? Do you want to move it? You can as a member of the Council. Professor Conover: I will move the first resolution. Do we have a second? [was seconded] Professor Brown: This can be a pretty wide ranging discussion, because we have kind of talking points about this resolution. So does anyone have anything they’d like to say about it?
Professor Steve Bachenheimer (Microbiology): Could you give us some examples of what you’d like to see the Educational Policy Committee do? I mean is the Chairman of that Committee here? Does that person have some ideas? Are there people here from institutional offices dealing with student life who could talk about things they don’t see happening now that could happen as a result of this resolution?
Professor Tony Passannante (Anesthesiology): I’m Co-Chairman of the Educational Policy Committee. We received this about ten days ago, and we discussed it briefly at our last meeting. And as far as we understood the intent of this resolution, it would really set up the Educational Policy Committee as a clearinghouse for assistance to students that wanted more input from faculty. That’s how we interpret this. I haven’t spoken with you about this, but that’s how we interpret the spirit of that, and if that’s correct, we cheerfully accept that charge, and I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do, because if we really set up one central point where students could communicate with the faculty and perhaps receive assistance in projects that they wanted to do — I don’t know if that’s what the intent of this resolution is. Professor Conover: I think that certainly was the intent and to broaden that a bit, that one of the problems we’ve discovered is that we have very few institutional linkages between faculty organizations and student organizations, and that we need to build stronger ties between the faculty, Faculty Council, and Student Affairs. And students themselves have expressed disappointment and frustration at the inability of knowing how to reach faculty that may be interested in working with them. So there are many student organizations on campus that would like to have faculty working with them, but don’t know how to go about locating interested faculty. So we’re talking about both sort of grass-roots clearinghouse and helping connect faculty who have interest in particular things with student organizations, and also an institutional tie through which Student Affairs and faculty can work together. Professor Brown: Okay, thanks, Tony.
Professor Paul Farel (Physiology): The resolution is directed primarily toward the College. And the Educational Policy Committee has had some discussion whether that was a University-wide committee, or an Academic Affairs or a College committee. And I’d just like to emphasize that in the professional schools we do try to create an intellectual climate also. And I believe as this discussion continues, that we’ll be able to think about University-wide proposals for creating an intellectual climate. Professor Brown: That’s a good point. We do have some Health Affairs members on the Committee. Tony, you are. Okay very good. So there’s some representation.
Professor Howard Reisner (Pathology): Could I suggest that we onsider the wording of the second resolution to improve student … Professor Brown: Are we on the second resolution? Professor Reisner: Second resolution. Yes, because I think it’s a technical point, but I think we should discuss it a little more … Professor Brown: Does it speak to the first resolution? Professor Reisner: Do you want me to wait? Yes, I’ll wait. Anything else on Resolution I?
Professor Laurel Files (Health Policy and Administration): I have some concern about trying to do anything permanent through a committee, where a committee is the basis of the activity, simply because as compared to, say, an office or some other institutionalized unit on campus. My experience with the committees over many, many years, including very hard working committees and in committees that are very productive, is that the committees, the membership, turns over regularly, many of them don’t meet regularly. They don’t have a place on campus where you can find them. I mean this is, we’re going to depend on that this is going to resolve the problem of how students get in touch with faculty. I think that that’s going to be a weak solution.
Professor Conover: I think that that’s a very good point. And I would suggest here that we keep in mind there is Resolution II. And the first resolution is simply an attempt in the short run say what can we do to improve things and to recognize that what we have available in terms of faculty organizations are faculty committees. And the second resolution would hopefully look to long-term, more creative, innovative solutions for creating permanent or more stable, I should say, avenues and ways of interacting between faculty and students. Professor Brown: There’s another possibility, another model. I was chair of the health care advisory committee, and we worked with people in Human Resources. They should have helped staff our committee, basically. So there might be a way that we could work with someone in Student Affairs to help work with the Educational Policy Committee to be that, to help centralize the process or to have some permanence in the process here. Do you have anybody on your committee at this point from Student Affairs? I know we were reworking who was on the Committee. Is anyone from Student Affairs on it? No. You have the Registrar on it. So that’s something we might look at as helping that committee. Anything else about that?
Professor Miles Fletcher (History): Well, on a slightly different issue. I notice a little bit of a difference between one of the possible charges, #2, and the interpretation of the resolution given by the head of the committee a few minutes ago. The head of the committee said that the committee members thought that they would serve as a clearinghouse, which suggests a kind of passive role, whereas charge #2, and it’s just a possible charge, seems more active in terms of compiling a list of organizations that could use faculty participation. And that seems to be a bit more work than simply waiting for requests to come in and so I was just wondering about that. And then also wondering about the work of the Educational Policy Committee. Earlier in the year, or this academic year, we made it in effect a kind of advisory committee to the Registrar. And is the committee willing to accept these additional tasks if they involve more work? Professor Passannante: I think we’re willing to accept the task. I think if you want to look at how effective this resolution can be, if you expect the Educational Policy to actively improve the intellectual climate of the University of North Carolina it’s not going to happen. For this to work I think both resolutions would have to be implemented. We would be quite willing to serve as the organization that would compile lists of interested people to whom requests for additional input could be funnelled to. We could improve the communication between the students and the faculty. We’re not going to be able to, the five or six regular members of the committee, to do everything, all the requests that come to it. So I think these things have to be considered together. And I think unless Resolution II is implemented, Resolution I will not be successful. Resolution II really implies a level of interest among the faculty at the University of North Carolina. And if that is, in fact, there, I think they can help the situation on this campus.
Professor Joy Kasson (American Studies): I think this is another way of saying something similar. I’m perfectly happy to support Resolution #I, and it seems like a good idea. It seems to me that the heart of it, though, is in Resolution #2 and future plans. I’ve sat on committees to be a faculty member of a standing committee, and I think that’s fine. I think information is fine. The liaison is fine. But the real question is having projects that students and faculty want to work on together, so that’s fine, but I really think that’s not going to change anything. Professor Brown: They may be in the wrong order here. Anything else about this.
Mr. Tommy Koonce (President of the Carolina Union): And I’m excited that our organization is mentioned in the second resolution. I’d like to suggest that perhaps the Carolina Union could be mentioned #I as well, especially if for no other reason that many of the student organizations that you’re interested in working with have their homes in the Union. We see them every day and have a lot of ideas about how you can plug into their activities, so if it’s possible, I don’t know what the correct mechanism is, but if all you need is a list of student government in the Division of Student Affairs. Professor Brown: Well I would assume; I think we could do that; that’s not a part of the resolution, but we could certainly add that as part of the intent. Professor Conover: Yes.
Professor Reisner: About Resolution I. Can I suggest that perhaps Resolution I is putting the cart a bit before the horse, particularly hearing the comments from the Educational Policy Committee? You say that their resources would at best allow them to be perhaps some sort of a clearinghouse. Perhaps what we should really do is delete Resolution I, concentrate on Resolution II, because it may very well be that should that Resolution pass, that one of the things that the task force might want to do is consider whether establishing another committee with a very specific charge and perhaps with the tools that are necessary to support that charge would not be a better way of handling it. I have no objection to Resolution I. I certainly would support it wholeheartedly. But I wonder if perhaps it’s not really the way to go, and we’re not just shackling the task force with a structure which they might not find to be the appropriate structure. Professor Conover: There’s no reason why any task force cannot change that structure at a later point in time, and why that couldn’t be changed. I would argue we need Resolution I, and we need it now because I don’t want to see this University go another week without working and taking some concrete actions to improve those connections between students and faculty organizations. Ms. Carol Jenkins (Health Sciences Library): I call the question. Professor Brown: All those in favor of stopping debate at this point, say aye. So now we vote on the resolution. You’re prepared to vote on the resolution. All those in favor of Resolution #I, say aye. Opposed. So it passes.
Let’s talk about Resolution II. [It was moved and seconded.] Is there discussion on this? Now, Howard. Professor Reisner: Yes, about the wording. “To improve student involvement in the intellectual and Chapel Hill communities” has sort of an unfortunate flavor about it. [laughter] I think perhaps a change of wording which I’m not too certain that I want to suggest. But I also suggest that the limit — I understand the intent of it, but perhaps a true intellectual atmosphere is not limited to the — you know maybe we should extend it to Pittsboro and Saxapahaw, perhaps even to Durham, perhaps. So I think perhaps some thought should be given to that first sentence. I’m not going to suggest a change immediately. Professor Conover: Would you like to suggest a friendly amendment? Perhaps “intellectual and local communities”? Professor Reisner: I don’t even know that we want the word “local.” I think perhaps “intellectual” or perhaps “academic” or “non academic” or perhaps “intellectual” — what was your, I’m sorry, what did you suggest? Professor Sue Estroff (Social Medicine): How about anti-intellect? [laughter]
Professor Harry Gooder (Microbiology): How about simply suggesting students are involved in intellectual activities? Professor Conover: Well, there’s an important reason for the “Chapel Hill.” And that is that one of the roles of the University is to prepare their students to become citizens in the communities they join when they leave here. And that’s a little bit difficult to do when you don’t also encourage them to become involved in the communities while they are here. And particularly as a public university, we have a responsibility, a civic responsibility, to educate students as citizens. And this is what that part of that resolution is directed at.
Professor Craig Calhoun (History and Sociology): I think that Howard has a good point to make. I propose a friendly amendment that, to try to address this issue of phraseology, say, “to improve student involvement in the intellectual communities of the University, locality, and the state”? Professor Brown: Locality? Professor Calhoun: I would be happy with just “the University and the state” if you would think that was enough. Professor Conover: It’s not clearly intellectual, is the problem. I mean we don’t simply want to encourage our students to be involved in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro-Pittsboro, North Carolina communities. We want to encourage them to be involved, I think, in the communities in a broader sense of the word. Professor Calhoun: Oh, I quite agree. I’m not sure that that falls under the heading “intellectual climate.”
Professor Pete Andrews (Environmental Sciences & Engineering): My suggestion was just going to be, without violating in any sense that spirit, maybe the easiest thing would just be to leave out that preamble. And say that the Faculty Council resolves that we establish a task force and that, we’ve got a great deal of language about the, maybe there might be more discussion about what the task force is going to do. Professor Brown: Very great. So you accept that? Professor Conover: I accept that friendly amendment to the resolution. Professor Brown: Thank you, Pete. Okay, let’s discuss the substance of the resolution.
Professor Richard Pfaff (History): Does the resolution as it is now fulfill the intent of the Committee and are we really any longer talking substantially about intellectual life when we’re talking about worthy activities and other important things like that? It seems to me that if one could go back to an old fashioned and almost embarrassing sounding phrase, “life of the mind,” my thought that intellectual life was about encouraging students to live what many faculty members regard, though they no longer say it aloud, as a life of the mind. It doesn’t seem to me that the resolution as it is now stated addresses that fundamental issue. Is this the Committee’s intent?
Professor Conover: Well, the Committee’s intent is definitely to foster improved intellectual climate. There is a second, and I would argue, related goal, and that is to foster community. And the notion being that when we have a sense of community that is primarily engaged in intellectual activity, that then we are also fostering the intellectual climate. So, the reason we have included consideration of broader community and the notion of student-faculty interaction outside the classroom is to recognize the many diverse ways in which by stimulating faculty interaction you set the stage, create spaces, provide opportunities, for the sort of intellectual exchange and the building of the sorts of community relationships that allow for intellectual climate to be strengthened. So I would argue that the broader interpretation is the one in keeping with the Committee’s intent.
Professor Kasson: Just leaving aside the wording of the resolution for a minute, I’m really happy to see us here in Faculty Council discussing substantively some of these initiatives for the future and also ones that presently work well, and I’m happy to see named here some programs that I think are really exciting, by the Living-Learning Center, the a.p.p.l.e.s. program, the Carolina Union and things it includes. I’d like, and for my part I was planning to come today to mention a couple of other kinds of initiatives that I hope we’ll all think about, and include in our thinking on this issue. We used to, a long time ago, have a freshman seminar program. And that was an extremely, I thought that was an extremely successful program. It’s hard on departments because they have to contribute faculty members to teach outside the course requirements, but that was a very direct way to get freshmen involved with teaching faculty on some subject of real substance. So the idea of reviving a freshman seminar program would be one thing I’d like to mention. I also don’t see the Institute for the Arts and Humanities here. And I was thinking about the intellectual climate as also relating to not only faculty and students but alumni as well. And the Institute for the Arts and Humanities has for several years had something they call “Autumn Saturday,” which, when many alumni are coming here to attend a football game, also includes a full afternoon — I think in fact that the Chancellor spoke at the last one — of intellectual substance. So those would just be two more items I’d like to add to the list and to say I’m happy that we’re discussing this.
Professor Brown: Okay, great. I want to say that Dean Birdsall has asked the — do you want to speak to that, Steve? — to the Curriculum Committee. Dean Stephen Birdsall (College of Arts and Sciences): On the issue of the freshman experience and so forth? Following a series of meetings with Arts and Sciences faculty and also with the Executive Committee of Faculty Council, I added to the charge of the committee that is now reviewing aspects of the General Education Curriculum, a charge to consider the freshman academic experience and have that as part of the report that will come later on in the spring. It was an issue that arose in every discussion that we had, and so clearly it was something that should have been in my initial charge, but at any rate, they have accepted that addition and will have that as part of their report. If I may also speak to the sense of the resolution, I met with a group of student representatives recently, and raised the issue of intellectual climate to ask their view. And one of the strongest expressions that came from this group, and I say pretty unanimously so, was the feeling of the wish that there was more involvement between faculty and students on matters of substance. This was very consciously intellectual climate discussion. And so in that sense the wish of the students in that meeting also is to, would reflect the support and sense of what I read in this resolution. Professor Brown: I would anticipate that the task force would include students.
Professor Files: I’m sort of having a hard time with what seems to me — I want to say apples and oranges, but given the — [Professor Brown: We have a.p.p.l.e.s.] Yeah, and that’s the problem. Is it seems to me that while there may be activities, be the student involvement in the community, that will foster the intellectual climate, and there may be faculty-student interactions that would community, increased activities of the community, I think there are really two separate types of, I mean it’s two different focus– you approach them in two different ways. And actually item 3 is the only one that really, that I see that directly involves student involvement, addresses student involvement in the community. And I think especially Steve’s last comment, I think it takes away from the focus on the interaction between faculty and students through whatever mechanisms. And through community involvement or on campus involvements. And I would prefer to see us take that third point and keep it as a separate objective than to kind of mix it. I think it weakens the attention to the student-faculty issue. Professor Conover: Let me address that very specifically, and that is to say that many of the issues that arise when students engage in these community service activities are issues that they then wish to engage intellectually. Many of the questions, for example, about diversity, tolerance, those sorts of things, are questions they meet head-on in a concrete situation when they engage in those service learning activities, that they would then want to come back and talk about intellectually. So that service is actually one way in which students engage intellectually in a lot of the topics that they are talking about in the classroom. And that’s one of the reasons I think it’s very important to keep that in there and to link it, and for us to consciously, as a University, look at service and connections with the community not simply as doing something for the community but as one way, a different way, of engaging important intellectual questions that they have faced in the classroom. So I would argue they are very connected. Professor Files: But that’s not the way it’s worded. What it says here is to improve student relations with an involvement in the local community, and what I hear you saying is to increase student and faculty interactions over issues that involve students being engaged with the community, which is a slightly different twist. Professor Conover: It’s worded that way in the context that the resolution is dealing with intellectual climate and improving student-faculty interactions. I think we can work to figure out a charge that captures that sense perhaps better than this particular wording but I would argue strongly that this should be part of the charge of that committee.
Professor Jim Peacock (Anthropology): Just to underline Pam’s argument and speak in favor of continuing to have both the student-faculty interaction and the inside and outside of your classrooms. Frank Wilson may disagree, but to me the clinical situation is a terrific example of those two things going together, because you have a patient — that’s service — and a physician who is teaching and doing research with the patient simultaneously, so you have all three functions happening at once. That’s the kind of model I believe that you envision. And if you can transfer the clinical model to the Humanities and the Social Sciences, it becomes very exciting. And that entails inside and outside faculty-student relations.
Ms. Rachel Willis (Economics): The good news on this — and we actually met this afternoon earlier on this — is the Public Service Roundtable has done the inventory on campus. Many of you answered it. And the good news is that, not only was this three-way thing happening, but more faculty that were doing service learning, not research projects, out of service learning, then use their research to find a place for it. So the direction is that it actually enriches faculty members’ research agenda, which was a shocking finding for us. It wasn’t something we were looking for, but there were huge numbers involved in it. So this three-way street about the intellectual climate and being one of faculty and students and this concern that it’s sort of one-way imposed on this community, is not the case of what’s happening. Students are going out to service learning placements as co-curricular parts of courses and then it’s coming back to their research agenda. So that’s the good news. And that’s like 150 faculty on campus, already most of them on Academic Affairs side of campus that responded to that. So it’s already happening. I don’t know if you feel it yet, but we were stunned.
Professor Files: Well then I would propose that we amend the resolution in the latter part to say, “and for improving joint faculty-student involvement in the community.” Because that’s what I hear people saying. It’s not just student involvement. It’s student and faculty together. Professor Conover: I have no problem with that as a friendly amendment. Professor Brown: Is that all right? Professor Sue Estroff (Social Medicine): “Collaborative?” Rather than “joint”. It would be better. Professor Brown: For improving collaborative– Professor Files: Collaborative faculty-student involvement. Professor Estroff: No, it’s collaborative faculty-student involvement. Professor Brown: For improving collaborative –, say it again, Sue. Professor Estroff: The collaborative is the adjective for the faculty-student involvement, so that they’re working together on a project with the community.
Professor Farel: In trying to think about situations where I think there’s a vital intellectual climate and in schools where I think there is, that are characterized by substantive student-faculty interaction in those structured and unstructured settings. But what we hear from the Chancellor and from a variety of people writing about the future of the University is, they point out that three-quarters of the cost of educating students is personnel. They speak to the fact of the need for greater faculty productivity which would translate into reliance on technology and decreased faculty-student ratios. So I think it’s really important that we undertake this discussion realizing that the ground on which we stand is shifting and that we will really in intellectual climate that might be, that we tried to develop for the University in the ’80’s, is not going to be the same intellectual climate or the same kind of structure that might work in the future. Professor Conover: I would hope any task force would be looking forward and not here in the present. Professor Farel: But it would not be unprecedented for them not to. [laughter] Professor Brown: But the attempt is the future. Professor Lolly Gasaway (Law Library and Law School) Call the question. Professor Brown: All those in favor of ending debate, say aye. Any opposed? [There was one no.]
Professor Brown:
Faculty Council resolves that the Chancellor should establish a task force to explore innovative mechanisms for facilitating student-faculty interactions both inside and outside the classroom, and for improving collaborative faculty-student involvement in the community.
So all those in favor of that resolution, say aye. Any opposed. Very great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Pamela.
Professor Brown: If you have ideas of people you’d like to see on that task force, I’d be happy to accept those, and we will work with the Chancellor in appointing that task force. He has already agreed to do it, so we’ll work forward on that. Thank you.
VI. Annual Reports of Standing Committees:
A. Status of Women: Laurie E. McNeil, Co-Chair [Rebecca S. Wilder other Co-Chair]
Professor Brown: And now the Committee on the Status of Women has produced quite an exceptional report this year and I want to appreciate how much work this took. I understand that it’s been three or four years in the process of generating the data, of working with a number of people to create the data. It’s been quite a difficult task just getting the information necessary to report this. So I want to thank especially Garland Hershey’s office and the Provost’s Office for working with the Committee on the Status of Women. And I also want to say that we’re, this has told us how much we need to get data systems in place that are going to allow us to continue to monitor these kinds of trends. And I know the people in Human Resources are already working on developing systems that will allow us to do that in the future, so I applaud that and endorse those efforts. So Laurie McNeil and Rebecca Wilder will report. Thank you very much.
Professor Laurie McNeil (Physics and Astronomy): You all have copies of the report. If you didn’t have it before, they’re available on the side table, so I’ll just give you the Russell Baker synopsis version. The Committee chose, a number of years ago, to start looking into the question of glass ceiling, that is, are women at the University being promoted at the same rate as men. And so in the course of trying to do that we discovered that data on review, promotion, and salary history were not available because successive entries in many cases replaced the earlier ones, and so, for, example, time in your previous rank got erased in the data base. So that was why the heroic efforts of the Offices of the Vice Chancellor and the Provost were required to get these data. And in some cases this involved going through minutes of the Board of Trustees meetings in order to find when these decisions were made and because doing this for every faculty member here was obviously beyond the bounds of what one could ask, this was done for a cohort of faculty who entered as Assistant Professors in the period, 1980-1986. So all of the people who came in as beginning Assistant Professors in that period became that part of the data base for this study, and we’re certainly very grateful to the Offices of the Vice Chancellors for the amount of effort that was involved in putting this together. Now obviously as Jane just mentioned, this pointed out a need for a different kind of data keeping, and there’s now been formed a committee, I believe it’s called the EPA Data Needs Committee, and it’s chaired by Laurie Charest, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources. And they are looking into this question of what data of this type do we need to be keeping, how do we do that, where does it reside, etc. So, hopefully in the future we’ll be able to follow this kind of issue in a much more detailed way and without quite so much effort involved.
Okay. First the good news. The good news is if you look at the — I refer you to Table I in the report — if you look at that table you see the good news is that the rates of promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor, that is the rates of granting tenure, for both Academic Affairs and Health Affairs, do not show a marked gender disparity. They’re essentially precisely the same in Health Affairs and very close to being the same in Academic Affairs. And so that means that at this University men and women appear to be achieving tenure at similar rates. The much more disturbing news is if you look at the rates of promotion from Associate to Full Professor in Academic Affairs, you see a very marked disparity. Forty-two percent of the men of this cohort in Academic Affairs who entered in that period have been promoted to Full Professor. Only 17% of the women who — Of the people who had been promoted to Associate Professor from this cohort, 42% of the men in that group are now Full Professors; only 17% of the women in that group are now Full Professors. In Health Affairs the rates, although overall much lower, only 22% of the male Associate Professors have been promoted to Full, the rate for women is essentially the same. So the rates for men and women are essentially the same in Health Affairs although overall lower. The rates are quite disparate in Academic Affairs. And so that’s really one of the primary findings of this report is that rather sharp disparity.
There’s also another disturbing statistic, which is the greater tendency, as opposed to males, to leave this University at the rank of Associate Professor. That is, they’ve been promoted to Associate Professor, they’ve received tenure, and then they now choose to leave the University. And if we project what that disparity, which looks as if it would grow over time, the disparity becomes quite marked if you project it into the future. And so that’s another disturbing point that we draw your attention to.
So we have brought forward to you today two resolutions. The first resolution addresses this point I just made regarding the need to seek additional data as to why women are leaving the University after achieving tenure at greater rates than men are. We don’t have very good data about that. We don’t know if they’re going to a better situation, say with a higher salary, or better opportunities for their scholarship, better employment opportunities for their spouses, for example, or if they’re leaving from a bad environment. That is, are they leaving because they find the intellectual climate not to be welcoming to them as female scholars within this University? Are they leaving because they do not see good opportunities for advancement, say for promotion to Full Professor? Or, in other words, are they going from or are they going to? And those are data that we need to have because particularly if people are leaving because they don’t like what they see here, we need to look into changing those environments so that we can retain our high quality female scholars. Now obviously it’s also important to retain male scholars, male professors at this University, but being the charge of the Committee on the Status of Women we’ve addressed, it fills particularly to the issue of retaining high quality women. So our, there is an exit questionnaire that’s done now by the Affirmative Action Office, but the response rate has been very poor and is in fact declining. It was 55% in ’92-’93, and it’s down to 35% in ’93-’94. I think it picked up a little bit in ’94-’95, but the response rates are very low. And it’s not really very well focused toward this particular question. And so we see a need for improved data gathering both follow-up to the questionnaire so that we get a better response rate, and also to make the questionnaire a little more pointed for this particular issue. And so that’s what Resolution 1 speaks to.
Before we get to the point of discussing and voting, let me go on and describe the purpose of Resolution 2, which addresses the first point I was making about the disparity in promotion rates. And we ask that the heads of units examine the procedures for promotion from Associate to Full, not just the written guidelines, but how those guidelines are actually implemented in the individual decisions that are made in that unit. For example, if the guidelines state that clear excellence must be displayed in scholarship, what does that really mean in each individual unit. And is it possible that the way in which that’s being implemented is different when a woman comes up for evaluation then when a man does. And so we want them to take a look at what’s really happening as opposed to what’s on the books, as to what the criteria are. Are there ways in which the local culture of the unit might be influencing how these decisions are made such that they are made differently when a woman is being evaluated versus when a man is. So the second resolution asks that an examination be made, and, again, this is particularly pointed toward Academic Affairs because this is where we see the disparity occurring, of what’s really going on as opposed to what the guidelines say because obviously the guidelines are written in a way that is gender neutral.
So do we want to discuss the resolutions? Professor Brown: We’ll vote on the resolutions in order. Professor McNeil: Let me move Resolution 1 and let me read it out for you. It’s a little longer, maybe, than it should be.
Resolution 1: The Affirmative Action Office should increase its efforts to obtain information from departing faculty members so that a better assessment can be made of the reasons for observed disparities in the rates of female and male faculty members who depart without promotion. These increased efforts should include more extensive follow-up to increase the response rates, as well as enhancement of the exit questionnaire to elicit more usable data on matters relating to the climate for female faculty at UNC-CH. The information thus obtained should be made available to the Faculty Council (through its Committee on the Status of Women), and to Deans and unit heads on a regular basis so that these responsible administrators can better devise strategies for the retention of women faculty.
Professor Brown: Is there a second? [The resolution was seconded.] Professor Brown: Thank you. Further discussion? Professor Files: Could you describe what the process is that the Affirmative Action Office uses in implementing the exit questionnaire currently? Professor Brown: Is Bob Cannon here? Mr. Cannon (Affirmative Action Officer): We send out a cover letter and we request the information. I think one of the problems with the Resolution is that no one is compelled to respond to an exit survey. And I don’t know what you can do. Former employees or soon-to-be former employees aren’t obligated to respond. And we do have a telephone number. Some decide to come over and talk about it. But the reasons that women give are not necessarily that much different from the reasons that men give. And we do publish the results of the survey every year in the Faculty Employment Review, which is circulated widely in the University. So, we’re open to suggestions if you have any. But I don’t know that you could do a survey instrument that would just be for women. Professor McNeil: That was not the intent. Mr. Cannon: We could perhaps use some statement that you wish on the survey. Professor McNeil: I think that the feeling of the Committee was certainly not that a separate survey should be devised so as to perhaps do a better job of eliciting commentary on these particular issues. And also from the point, you’re quite right that people cannot be compelled to respond to a survey. But we would like to see perhaps a little bit more aggressive follow-up, perhaps telephoning some of the people who did not respond and asking, inviting them once more to respond. Obviously they cannot be compelled, you’re quite right.
Professor Gasaway: A few years ago on CSW we worked with Bob and looked at this issue. And if you have a list of options as to why you’re leaving the University, one of them is you didn’t get tenure, or you have a lot of problems, and another one is by now you’ve finally found another job. Which one are you going to check? So by now they have another job, but the reason that they had to look for a job may be something else. So I think it’s really important that a survey instrument really find out what’s the underlying reason they’re leaving, not that, “Well now I have another job and it paid more.” That wasn’t the real reason to start with. And I think that’s critical. And that’s what this resolution, I think, is trying to get, is to make sure we get at those underlying issues, too. Professor McNeil: That was the intent of the Committee.
Professor Brown: Bob, when you do these interviews, are they interpersonal interviews or are they just a survey. Mr. Cannon: Oh no. The first step is to send a letter and the survey instrument. And we include a telephone number and if a faculty member chooses, they can come over and talk about it. And in some instances they do. But in most instances, they — I mean the normal thing is some of these people are angry because some of you have voted not to give them tenure or promotion. And, I mean, what is, that person is not going to be particularly interested unless they want to take somebody to task in responding to a survey instrument. I mean they— Professor Brown: But that may be the kind of information we need to have, about what has occurred for them. Mr. Cannon: But I don’t know how to get it if a person chooses not to respond. And that’s their right. Professor Brown: Sure. Mr. Cannon: I mean we can revise a survey instrument, but it is their right. And the other part, what decision do you make about publishing some of that data if an individual writes a letter to a chair of a department which is glowing — “I really love what happened to me” — but writes a different letter to us? And some people do write letters, and usually the letters come from people who are genuinely angry. Professor Brown: I think that’s the kind of information we’re looking for, is what made them angry. Mr. Cannon: And we could only share that with you on a very general basis, because we do say that it’s confidential, their responses are confidential. And some people specifically state they don’t want this information shared. They really state that quite clearly.
Professor Debra Shapiro (Kenan-Flagler Business School): You say you assure them confidentiality. Do you also say, “Do not put your name on a survey”? Mr. Cannon: Oh, yeah. It’s optional. You don’t have to put your name or your department. Professor Shapiro: Okay. I just wanted to say I actually know colleagues who have done a survey study of this very issue at another university, and they made a presentation at a national conference in August. And one of the things they said was that they were amazed at how fantastic the response rate was. Now it was for men and women, and that they said people want to talk about this, precisely because they were angry. So they found a survey an opportunity to vent. So what I could do if you’re interested, is ask them for what survey they used and how they’re able — they said they were able — to get such a fantastic response rate. Professor McNeil: that would be very useful.
Professor Files: Well, I wonder if we shouldn’t think about, instead of vesting the responsibility in the Affirmative Action Office, putting it in — despite what I said before about committees — in a committee such as your Committee which a faculty member who is disgruntled might see as potentially more supportive or more willing to listen to the reasons than the way that faculty member might perceive what they think of as a part of the bureaucracy or the establishment. So maybe locating this responsibility in the Affirmative Action Office isn’t the best, most effective place to put it. Professor McNeil: Of course it resides there now. Professor Files: I realize that. But we’re not getting results now. Professor Brown: And that’s not confidential information, is it? Of who’s leaving? That’s public information, so that a committee would have access. Professor Files: It’s published in the Gazette.
Ms. Jenkins: I really am supporting what Laurel said, but I think at the very least it’s important that the Committee on the Status of Women work with the Affirmative Action Office in developing changes to make to the instrument. Some of the kinds of things that are mentioned in the report are “chilly climate” types of issues that don’t really show up in a decision to promote or not to promote but they still very well may lead to someone’s leaving the Institution. And I think the Committee is very sensitive to those issues………………… Professor Carl Bose (Pediatrics): Are you going to offer a friendly amendment? Professor Brown: What’s your friendly amendment? Carl, do you want to? Professor Bose: No, I suggested Carol. Something to the effect that somebody from the CSW be a part of the revision of the questionnaire of the exit interview tools. Professor Brown: Something like, the Affirmative Action Office with consultation from CSW? Would you accept that consultation? Mr. Cannon: Yeah! Professor Brown: Good.
Professor Reisner: I was wondering if I could get some information on Table I. Actually, the reason I’m doing it is because you talk about observed disparities on number 8 here. And as I understand this — it really isn’t very clear to me — it looks like both for Academic Affairs and Health Affairs the actual observed numbers show no real disparity. If there is a disparity, it is excessive men in Health Affairs. And you’re basing this on projections. I don’t argue the validity of the projections, but I really do think you should explain the projections. You should be accurate in stating that this is not observed but rather projected if that is the case. Professor Files: Yes, that is the case, and I’m going to punt this question to my statistician, Michael Lienesch, I’m sorry, Symons. Professor Symons (Biostatistics): That’s absolutely correct. The follow-up on the Associate and Full Professors is only about a third of the way down, so our concern was somewhat visible in Assistant to Associate Professor in Academic Affairs. And the other is projection. So it’s an early reading on what may come to pass. Professor Reisner: Could I just ask you one more question along those lines, and I appreciate that clarification. But if you look at Health Affairs, where essentially the numbers are, let me look, you have 22 and 21% for “number promoted.” The projections show a difference of about, oh what is it, about 9% or something. Is that a base line? I mean could we go back and look at the Academic Affairs and say, well, 16 [the percent of men who exited] 39 [the percent of women who exited] certainly look very bad. But really it might be more like less than that. Do we have any — let me make it even simpler — do we have any idea of how much error is likely in your projections? Professor Symons: There’s a lot here. Because we’re basing what the projection’s based on is the sequence of the five exit and without promotion, five individuals by years, as compared with the 13. And it’s just a slight tendency for these to appear earlier for the women, as footnote b, I’m sorry, footnote c tries to explain. But what you have to look at is the year-by-year follow-up and where these exits fall, and the pattern is just slightly earlier for the women than men. The numbers, comparable numbers, where they’re occurring is slightly different, and earlier for the women. And it’s a slim projection. Professor Brown: And it’s based on small numbers. Professor Symons: That’s right. We’re only a third of the way through in follow-up. Professor Brown: So in statistical talk would you say it’s a large competence interval? Professor Symons: I really don’t want to talk statistical talk because the thing that I would like to say is, you know, each one of these numbers is a career here, and it’s the tabulation of these folks that we’re looking at. And when the day is done and we’ve made decisions on all the ones from Associate to Full, I think that’s the more important point rather than worrying about how accurate these numbers are. The forecast is something to be slightly concerned about, and that precipitates the recommendation, not so much how accurate these figures are.
Professor Marion Danis (Medicine): I wanted to just say that I think that the comparison between Health, between Academic Affairs and Health Affairs here, which seems to show that Health Affairs has less disparity between men and women, I think is the case because there’s something missing from this table, and that’s that many women in Health Affairs do not get on the tenure track. And it is a very, very big disparity at that getting-on-board point. And I think that one thing that we shouldn’t overlook if we’re trying to change the trajectory is that that starting point is a very crucial one. And I wanted to make that point.
Professor Estroff: I’d just also like to point out that while everybody seems to be concerned about the disparity between men and women in Academic Affairs, I would point out that the outliers in Table I are the men in Academic Affairs, and that ought to be problematized. The rates of progression from Associate to Full Professor in Academic Affairs and Health Affairs are the same for women, and men and women in Health Affairs. They’re all about, around 20%. The real outliers there, compare the four groups with the men in Academic Affairs. So one way to think about it, just to try to explain that, rather than to look at the other way. It’s just one way to think about it. [laughter] Look at the tables.
Professor Henry Hsiao (Biomedical Engineering): But what are we voting on at this point, anyway? Professor Brown (or McNeil?): Beg your pardon? Professor Hsiao: I mean clearly there’s no harm in getting more data. And either if we pass it or reject it, I think the Chancellor should direct that more data should be gotten. And I think we should just move on. Professor Brown: Are you calling the question, Henry? Professor Hsiao: No, I wouldn’t do that. [laughter] Professor Conover: I call the question. Professor Brown: Okay, all those in favor of ending debate, say aye. Opposed. Thank you. We’ll now vote on this resolution. Did we amend it? We amended slightly with the Affirmative Action Office in consultation with the Committee on the Status of Women to increase. All those in favor of this resolution, say aye. Opposed. We all gather data. Thank you very much.
And Resolution #2. Professor McNeil: Gathering more data. So I address your attention to the second resolution which directs the Vice Chancellors to direct the Deans to direct the unit heads to examine the actual procedures they use and how they are implemented, and the outcomes of recent decisions in this category. And should I now put forward — there has been a proposed friendly amendment to this resolution. So let me read the original resolution and its friendly amendment which was on the side table here. Many of you have in front of you.
RESOLUTION 2: The Vice Chancellors for Academic and Health Affairs should direct the Deans in their respective Divisions to direct the unit heads under their jurisdiction to examine the procedures in use for promotion from Associate to Full Professor, their strategies and efforts to support women’s access to Full Professor status, and the outcomes of recent decisions in this category (including decisions to defer review) to determine if the present practice could result in a gender differential in the rates of promotion. The report of the Deans to the Vice-Chancellors should be made available to the Faculty Council via discussions with its Committee on the Status of Women [in 1996].
That’s the original resolution. The friendly amendment that has been proposed continues the resolution by stating:
The Faculty acknowledges and reaffirms its prime responsibility for tenure and promotion decisions. Faculty commit to work in their home departments and divisions to support the principle that men and women faculty who perform equally in fulfillment of promotion criteria should be promoted at the same rate.
Professor Brown: You left off “in 1996” from the original resolution. Professor McNeil: Oh, yes. I don’t think I left if off. I think somebody else did. But you’re quite right. That’s an important correction. At the end of the original resolution, “should be made available to the Faculty Council via discussions with its Committee on the Status of Women in 1996.” And not in the sweet bye and bye. Professor Brown: So you’ve moved that. Is there a second? [seconded] Good. Is there discussion of this resolution?
Professor Gasaway: I’d like to speak to the amendment please. Is that all right? It occurred to several of us, and looking at this very fine report with resolutions that were directed toward administrative action, that we the faculty really control tenure and promotion. That’s one of the few things we control in this University. But we do control tenure and promotion. We control through, first of all, drafting the policies for own departments and schools. We control it secondly in that we comprise the membership of the tenure and promotion committees in each department. And we control it because we offer advice to our colleagues who are coming up for tenure and promotion. And lastly we control it because we vote for tenure and promotion. And therefore it seemed that we, the faculty, should take responsibility. It’s not just an administrative matter. And we should take that collective responsibility to see that tenure and promotion decisions are made free of discrimination. And that we really look at this as a task we undertake willingly, that we see that equity prevails in the future, not just these old ones, but from now forward. It is a faculty responsibility I believe.
Professor Brown: Any other comments, discussion? Professor Hsiao: I strongly support this resolution. I hate to bring this up but last time, at the last meeting, I also mentioned the 2 to 1 gender inequity issue, only this was the admission of undergraduates, in gender. And I realized this is, well it’s a matter of being consistent in this case. I realize this body I’m talking to, that this is really tangential to this argument, it really shouldn’t belong. So I really would like to ask the Chancellor if he would just consider this. Chancellor Hooker: I already have, in my opening remarks. I mean, just since you’ve given me the floor — [laughter] the Chancellor being made aware of this data — if the Chancellor doesn’t take action and do all those things that the resolutions recommend, you need a resolution to find a new Chancellor, not to study these issues.
Professor McNeil: If I could just add to the discussion here an interesting thing to note and it’s perhaps also reinforced by the graphs at the end of the report is that in the course of this study I also took a look at the people who had retired from the faculty in the last five years, which gives us some sense of the longevity of this problem. And of the faculty who retired in the last five years, by my best count from the figures I was able to get, 86% of the men retired at the rank of Full Professor. Of the women who retired only 31% of them retired at that rank. All of the rest retired at lower ranks. So this is clearly something, a glass ceiling that’s been in place for a long time.
Professor Catherine Marshall (Education): And also a member of this Committee. When I joined this Committee I was given minutes that started back in 1971, I believe, and I noticed that in 1974 the main topic was rates of promotion and tenure by sex. So this is 22 years we’ve been dealing with this. So I’m encouraged to hear that the Chancellor wants to be very active in devising strategies that will be very activist kinds of strategies that generate, devise solutions to this problem. We’ve been very polite, I think, on this Committee, and very constrained in our agenda. And so I welcome — one of the reasons why we, in Resolution 2 directed people to direct people to direct people and so on, was to make sure that there were people who were specified as responsible, and certainly the faculty is an issue as well. Professor Brown: Very good. Anything else?
Professor Gene Irene (Chemistry): I just find it quite odd that the Committee is asking for the administration to study themselves because these decisions were reviewed and so on. If in fact there’s something wrong with them, you’re asking the very people who will walk this through the system to look at it. Why doesn’t the Committee itself look at this and report to the committee of faculty? Professor McNeil: For one reason because the Committee cannot look at individual cases. Faculty can’t review personnel decisions of faculty except for the cases like the Hearings board and so forth, and so we can’t do that in an individual way the way the Chancellor can charge the Provost to do it. So that that’s part of the reason.
Professor Conover: I’m going to also just add to that that in asking administrators to look at these decisions it’s not necessarily the case that discrimination is blatant, obvious, and intentional, but rather it can often be a consequence of subtle acts of local climate in departments of not encouraging women exactly the same way men are encouraged, but not giving appropriate cues. By asking department chairs and other administrators to look at this, we would hope that they would look at the whole picture, including the subtle cues and the social culture within a department that supports these kinds of …. Professor McNeil: But we’d like to see departments have conversations about exactly this. How do we as faculty members go about applying the written criteria, and are we doing that in a way that does not include any of these subtle differences?
Professor Files: The resolution asks the upper level administrators to direct the lower level administrators to look at this. And then it [requests/requires] a report of the higher level administrators. Maybe we need a link that the unit head should be directed not only to look at these things, but to report to the Deans who will then compile a report that will come back to the Council. Professor McNeil: Is that not implicit? That’s certainly what we meant. I mean if we need to change the wording for that purpose, that’s fine. But that’s exactly what we had in mind. Professor Files: I think it might make it clear. I think that answers the other question. If they’re just looking at their procedure, that’s one thing. If they have to put it in black and white what they’ve done is something else. Professor McNeil: Can you suggest a friendly amendment to make that clearer? Professor Files: To examine, on that second line, to say, “to examine and report on the procedures.” Professor Brown: Okay. Anything else? Very good. Professor McNeil: Do I have to read the whole thing? Does everyone will know what the amendment is, I mean, what the resolution is, as amended, with the date in, and report on which the friendly amendment adds? Very good. All those in favor of this resolution, say, aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much.
Professor Bose: …… retention and tenure. And at the end discussion about projection of number of females at different ranks. All that is predicated upon hiring and attracting good female candidates into the Institution, and Dr. Danis alluded to this. We will never reach 50%, if that’s a reasonable goal, at the rate we hire females into tenure track faculty positions. So part of this is recruitment. It needs to be coupled with recruitment. And I know that that may be dealt with in a different way, a different group of people, but it certainly should be commented on by the Committee at some point. Professor Brown: Excellent. It’s about, at a rate of about 37% hiring now of women. Professor Bose: Well it doesn’t appear to be changing, particularly in Health Affairs. Professor Brown: Right. It’s been about that for about five years now. Professor Bose: So I suggest that the projection that it will reach 50% at each rank by some year — name the year, in any century, will never come about. If that’s the goal, we’ll never reach it unless we recruit more women. Professor McNeil: The projections were based on increase at the same rate, so the increase in recruitment at the same rate that we’ve been increasing recruitment. Professor Bose: Well in Health Affairs we haven’t increased period. Professor Brown: Thank you.
We have two standing committee reports and there are not resolutions connected with those.
B. Buildings and Grounds: David R. Godschalk, Chair.
Professor Brown: Are there any comments for the Buildings and Grounds Committee? Thank you, David, for being here and thank you for your work on the Committee.
C. Advisory Committee: Maria A. Salgado, Chair.
Professor Brown: Maria Salgado is here. Are there any comments or questions? Thank you for your report and your work.
VII. Old or New Business.
Professor Brown: And is there any other business, old or new? Thank you all for being here. We’ll see you in February.
The meeting adjourned at 4:53 p.m.
George S. Lensing
Secretary of the Faculty
