March 4, 2005

The Faculty Council of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill convened at 3:00 p.m.in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room of the Wilson Library. The following 55 members of the Council attended: Alperin, Arnold, Bane, Blocher, Booth, Cairns, Cantwell, Connolly, Dalton, de Silva, Degener, Eble, Gasaway, Gerber, Givre, Gollop, Heenan, Holmgren, Howell, Jonas, Keagy, Kramer, Lastra, Leigh, Leonard, Martin, Matson, McIntosh, Mesibov, Morris-Natschke, Morton, Muller, Pardun, Parikh, Pittman, Porto, Reisner, Renner, Rogers, Sandelowski, Schoultz, Simpson, slavick, Smith, Sulik, Sweeney, Tauchen, Taylor, Tobin, Toews, Vandermeer, Wallace, Weinberg, Wilson, and Yankaskas. The following 27 members were granted excused absences: Ammerman, Bachenheimber, Bennett, Chapman, Elvers, Foley, Frampton, Gitterman, Granger, Gulledge, Kagarise, Klebanow, MacLean, Miguel, Miller, Nicholas, Rippe, Rock, Rustioni, Salmon, Sawin, Strom-Gottfried, Sutherland, Tiwana, Trotman, Vick, and Whitsel. The following 2 members were absent without excuse: Anton and Lin.

Comments, Questions, and Matters of Concern from Council Members

Prof. Judith Wegner, Chair of the Faculty, called the meeting to order and recognized Dean Bernadette Gray-Little for comment on the proposed Western Cultures minor.

Dean Gray-Little said that copies of the proposal in its current form have been distributed by email to all faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences and copies were available today for members of the Council. She briefly reviewed the components of the proposal, which requests funding for:

• a minor in Western cultures
• first-year seminars
• expansion of the honors program in Western Cultures
• undergraduate research fellowships
• study-abroad scholarships
• faculty fellowships, patterned after fellowships in the Institute for the Arts & Humanities
• a scholar-in-residence program
• a distinguished visiting professorship

She said that all of these components are consistent with the goals of the College. Prof. Wegner called for questions or comments. There were none.

Chancellor’s Remarks

Chancellor Moeser said that Gov. Michael Easley has submitted a budget to the General Assembly that calls for some permanent budget cuts but recommends a 2% salary increases for all State employees (the Board of Governors had requested 7.5% for faculty salaries). The chancellor briefly reviewed the University’s legislative priorities for 2005:

• Additional salary increase beyond the recommended 2% (it would take $44 million for Carolina alone to meet the Board of Governors’ goal of reaching the 80^th percentile of our national peers);
• A request to allow the State to match up to $1 million of a $2 million gift for an “eminent professor” endowment (now, the State can match up to $333,000 for a $667,000 gift for a distinguished professor endowment);
• An increase in graduate tuition remissions;
• New operating funds for the Renaissance Computing Institute (a joint venture among UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, andN.C.StateUniversity); and
• Planning money for a new Oral Health Building for the School of Dentistry.

The chancellor said that is incorrect to portray the preliminary injunction recently issued in the Alpha Iota Omega litigation as a victory for the plaintiffs. The University had in fact recommended that an injunction issue at this stage of the litigation pending a full hearing on the merits. He read from the following statement issued recently: “The judge’s order is consistent with the draft consent order proposed by the university this week. The university will comply with the order as the case moves forward. That means the university is prepared to recognize AIO if it agrees to meet all university requirements and policies applicable to student groups seeking official recognition, including the non-discrimination policy as interpreted in the court’s order. We continue to believe in the merits of the university’s position and the value of the nondiscrimination policy. The university’s goal remains the proper and careful balancing of students’ First Amendment rights with the rights guaranteed by theU.S.and North Carolina Constitutions to equal protection of the laws and freedom from discrimination.”

Draft Proposal for Creation of a Special Committee on Fixed-Term Faculty

Prof. Joseph Ferrell, speaking on behalf of the Committee on University Government, presented a draft proposal that is under consideration by the committee and asked for discussion. The committee suggests a committee created by the Council itself. This approach would not require a formal amendment to the Faculty Code, and would provide greater flexibility. He said that the committee would especially like input on two aspects of the proposal: (1) whether there should be a set number of members, and (2) whether the proposed charge for the committee is appropriate. Prof. Robert Cantwell (American Studies) asked how the proposal being presented differs from Section 6 of Resolution 2005-2 that was re-referred to the Committee on University Government Committee.  Prof. Ferrell responded that the draft proposal calls for an appointed committee drawn from the sitting members of the Council, whereas the earlier proposal called for an elected committee. Prof. Cantwell asked whether such a committee should include both tenure-track and fixed-term faculty. Prof. Ferrell responded that APT Task Force has proposed a ration of six fixed term faculty to three tenure-track faculty. Prof. Howard Reisner (Pathology & Laboratory Medicine) thought that ratio was appropriate but that perhaps the committee should itself make recommendations on this point. Prof. Ferrell said that the draft would allow flexibility for the chair of the faculty, who would be the appointing authority, to experiment with the ratio from year to year. Prof. Richard Weinberg (Cell & Developmental Biology) said he thought that both fixed-term and tenure-track faculty should be represented. Dr. Philip Vandermeer (University Libraries) asked whether there are sufficient fixed-term members on the Council to serve and Professor Ferrell said “yes.” [Twenty-eight members of the 2004-05 Council represent non-tenured faculty, and most of them hold fixed-term appointments.] Prof. Diane Leonard (Comparative Literature) asked about non-salaried faculty. Prof. Ferrell thought that the proposed charge is broad enough to cover them. Ms. Christine Degener (University Libraries) inquired whether librarians would be covered in the membership or topics. Prof. Ferrell said that they would not.

Prof. Ferrell thanked the Council for the discussion and said that the Committee on University Government hopes to present a proposal for action by the Council in April.

Report of the Faculty Assembly Proposal on Shared Governance

Prof. Ferrell then presented a proposal from the UNC Faculty Assembly that would create a framework for evaluating campuses of the UNC System with respect to minimum standards of shared governance. He said that representatives of some of the smaller campuses in the System have reported an uncooperative attitude and even resistance from their administrators to allowing the faculty to share in important questions of institutional governance. They have expressed the desire for help from the Faculty Assembly in making their case. Prof. Ferrell said that he had studied the original draft of this proposal, which was presented to the Assembly at its February meeting, and had developed a number of suggested amendments to it. They are indicated by underline/strike-through in the document distributed to the Council (see Appendix A). He said that he and Prof. Wegner think the document, with the amendments he proposes, comports with our practices at Carolina. He invited the Council to comment on whether the document reflects our experience here, and said that he proposes to bring the revised document to the Assembly’s April meeting with the message that it has the approval of the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill if that is the Council’s will. Prof. James Porto (Health Policy & Administration) moved that the Council endorse the document with the proposed amendments. The motion was adopted.

Faculty Forum: Scholarly Communication in a Digital World

Prof. Laura Gasaway (Law) reported on the Scholarly Communications Convocation that took place at the Friday Center,January 27-28, 2005. She said that the planning committee’s report (attached to these Minutes) is preliminary; the committee intends to prepare a full, comprehensive report that should be ready in April. She said that is likely that the full report will contain recommendations in addition to those included in the preliminary report.

Prof. Gasaway singled out for special praise the disciplinary white papers that were presented at the Convocation by Professors Robert Peet (Biology), Frank Dominguez (Romance Languages), Jack Snoeyink (Computer Science), James Peacock (Anthropology), and Jocelyn Neal (Music). She said that papers of this nature have not been done elsewhere in American higher education.

Prof. Gasaway presented Resolution 2005-7 On Faculty Ownership of Research. Prof. Richard Weinberg (Cell & Developmental Biology) said that he publishes in biomedical journals where it is routine that authors are required to assign copyright to the publisher. He noted that employees of the federal government appear to be exempt from that rule. Prof. Gasaway replied that the federal copyright act provides that works produced by federal employees within the scope of their employment are not eligible for copyright protection. Prof. Weinberg said that he could not imagine why his work, which had been supported by federal funding, should become the property of a privately-owned journal.

Ms. Christine Degener (Health Sciences Library) said that some publishers are willing to negotiate as to copyright ownership, but practices vary widely across the industry. Prof. Gasaway said that the University is creating the position of scholarly communications officer effective for 2005-06 that will be filled by Deborah Gerhardt, who is an intellectual property lawyer. She will divide her time between the Law School and the University Libraries, where she will be available to advise faculty on copyright issues.

Prof. Ferrell said that the wording of the resolution appeared not to take into account publications of the School of Government, where faculty members do the research and writing but the School is the publisher. Typically, the School holds the copyright. There have been isolated instances in the past in which faculty members had wished to challenge the School’s policies in this regard. He asked whether adoption of the resolution would have an effect on the way in which the School of Government handles copyright issues with respect to its publications. Prof. Gasaway said that it would not.

Ms. Degener said that the wording of the resolution seems to imply that use of open access publication venues is the only way to insure that the faculty retain ownership of their research. She did not think the resolution should be so limited. Prof. Snoeyink said that the phrase “open access publication venues” was carefully chosen. The purpose of retaining ownership of research is to facilitate use of it in teaching and wide sharing of the findings outside the classroom. Prof. Wegner suggested that the resolution be rephrased to read: “be it resolved that, to the extent permitted by law, UNC-CH faculty are the owners of their research and should retain ownership, or use other means to foster open access publication wherever possible.” Resolution 2005-7, as rephrased by Prof. Wegner without objection, was adopted. See Appendix A.

Prof. Gasaway presented Resolution 2005-8 On Scholarly Communications.

Prof. Wegner asked what might be the outcome of the proposed task force on scholarly communications. Prof. Gasaway said that the task force would take the recommendations of the final report of the Scholarly Communications Convocation and determine how to bring them to fruition.

With respect to the proposed task force on establishing an institutional repository, Prof. Lloyd Kramer (History) asked whether a faculty member who writes a book would be expected to put it in the repository and forego any royalties. Prof. Gasaway said that is a good example of an issue that the proposed task force would need to address. Mr. Wallace McLendon (Health Sciences Library) said that there are a number of successful models to consider, both national and international.

Prof. Wegner asked Prof. Kramer to respond to the call for department chairs to discuss problems in scholarly communications with their faculties. Prof. Kramer said he thought most chairs would be baffled by the request. Prof. Gasaway said that the idea is to provide chairs with a one- or two-page discussion guide.

Provost Robert Shelton said that he supports the resolution. He said that he understands from the discussion that the task force called for in the first clause of the resolution would have a defined charge, a specific timeline, and would disband after issuing its final report. The task force called for in the second clause would also be of finite duration. The Provost said that he sees one of the tasks assigned to the first task force would be to address the objectives sought by the third and fourth clauses of the resolution.

Prof. Kramer said that the task of collecting information specifically applicable to each discipline would be a large one. He asked whether it would be feasible for the task force to have funding to employ graduate students to do this work or, in the alternative, for funding to be made available to departments to employ one of their own graduate students. He felt that it is not reasonable to expect departmental faculties and chairs to collect the necessary information without assistance. Provost Shelton said he anticipated that the task force would require some funding. He thought that perhaps much of the data to which Prof. Kramer refers is already available.

Resolution 2005-8 was adopted. See Appendix B.

Annual Report of the Faculty Assembly Delegation

The report was received without question or comment.

Annual Report of the Copyright Committee

Prof. Diane Leonard (Comparative Literature) asked about the legal ramifications of posting items on a Blackboard site. Prof. Gasaway replied that the Copyright Committee is at work on policies affecting Blackboard and electronic reserves.

Annual Report of the Faculty Information Technology Advisory Committee

Prof. James Porto (Health Policy & Administration) presented the committee’s annual report.

Annual Report of the Administrative Board of the Library

Prof. Robert Peet (Biology) presented the annual report of the Administrative Board of the Library. In response to Prof. Peet’s remarks about electronic archives, Prof. Leonard asked about reliability and security of the internet. Vice Chancellor Dan Reed replied that multiple redundant copies of all websites are maintained on various commercial and institutional servers across the nation. He said that a more serious issue is maintaining information in a format that can be accessed by equipment currently in use. It is necessary for libraries and electronic repositories to have a long-term commitment to continually migrate information to new technologies as they appear, he said. Prof Peet said that the Administrative Board has discussed issues of this nature. One outcome has been a policy of keeping at least one paper copy of all journals.

Adjournment

Having completed action on its Agenda, the Council adjourned at5:00 p.m.

 

Joseph S. Ferrell
Secretary of the Faculty

Appendix A

Resolution 2005-7. On Faculty Ownership of Research

Be it resolved that, to the extent permitted by law, UNC-CH faculty are the owners of their research and should retain ownership, or use other means to foster open access publication wherever possible.

 Appendix B

Resolution 2005-8. On Scholarly Communications

Be it resolved that the Faculty Council encourage the Provost to:

1. create a task force on scholarly communications to continue the work of the Scholarly Communications Convocation and to report back on the issues, problems and an on-going mechanism to propose and implement solutions,
2. create a task force on establishing an institutional repository to determine the feasibility of such and to outline potential contents, indexing, etc.,
3. work with department chairs to review tenure and promotion standards to recognize publishing in non-traditional sources, and
4. urge department chairs to discuss the problems in scholarly communications with their faculties.