January 20, 2006
Meeting of the General Faculty and the Faculty Council
Friday, January 20th, 2006 at 3:00 p.m.
The Hitchcock Multipurpose Room, Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History
Chancellor James Moeser and Professor Judith Wegner, Chair of the Faculty, will preside.
Agenda
3:00 Faculty Council Convenes.
- Comments from the Chancellor.
- Questions and Comments from the Faculty Council.
3:20 Annual Reports to the Faculty Council.
- Faculty Assembly Delegation.
- Committee on University Governance.
3:30 Resolution 2006-1 Amending the Faculty Code of University Government as it Relates to the Membership of the University Committee on Copyright.
3:40 Briefing and Discussion: Difficult Dialogues Initiative.
- Professor Wegner, Professor Bill Andrews and Professor Margaret Holt.
- UNC Chapel Hill was one of 27 universities nationwide who were successful in securing funding from the Ford Foundation in connection with the launch of its recent Difficult Dialogues initiative. (http://www.fordfound.org/news/more/dialogues/index.cfm) Excerpts from our campus’s application are available online for the information of the Faculty Council. Among other things, our campus will work to develop discussion and moderator materials concerning the issue: how religious belief and intellectual inquiry intersect in a public university setting. In pursuing this objective, we will be working with a consultant from the National Issues Forums Network, Professor Emerita Margaret Holt (University of Georgia and Kettering Foundation). We hope that members of the Council will be personally interested and will become involved in this initiative, since in important ways it is an outgrowth of our work on “controversy in the classroom” over the past two years. We’ll devote an hour of the Faculty Council meeting to
- providing background and answering questions about the National Issues Forums model (using a “starter tape” on immigration or health care). (See www.nifi.org for written materials on these subjects.)
- raising with you some of the questions that we’ll be using in focus groups (relating to the intersection of religious belief and intellectual inquiry)
- asking your advice on key people/places to be involved in constructively framing an issue for dialogue related to academic freedom and religious beliefs, other resources/reports/information that can be brought to bear on this topic; how the Faculty Council and its members might be involved in the ongoing work.
- Institutionalizing Difficult Dialogues: Freedom of Conscience in the Public University
- Information on the National Issues Forums
- Difficult Dialogues Letter (PDF)
- Biographical Information on Margaret Elizabeth Holt
- UNC Chapel Hill was one of 27 universities nationwide who were successful in securing funding from the Ford Foundation in connection with the launch of its recent Difficult Dialogues initiative. (http://www.fordfound.org/news/more/dialogues/index.cfm) Excerpts from our campus’s application are available online for the information of the Faculty Council. Among other things, our campus will work to develop discussion and moderator materials concerning the issue: how religious belief and intellectual inquiry intersect in a public university setting. In pursuing this objective, we will be working with a consultant from the National Issues Forums Network, Professor Emerita Margaret Holt (University of Georgia and Kettering Foundation). We hope that members of the Council will be personally interested and will become involved in this initiative, since in important ways it is an outgrowth of our work on “controversy in the classroom” over the past two years. We’ll devote an hour of the Faculty Council meeting to
4:40 Report on Sustainability at UNC Chapel Hill.
- http://sustainability.unc.edu
- UNC Chapel Hill Sustainability Policy
- Campus 2005 Sustainability Report (PDF)
5:00 Adjourn.
Joseph S. Ferrell
Secretary of the Faculty
Minutes
The Faculty Council of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill convened at 3:00 p.m. in the Hitchcock Multipurpose Room of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.
The following 58 members of the Council attended: Alperin, Barreau, Becker, Belger, Blocher, Booth, Cairns, Chapman, Connolly, Copenhaver, Couper, Dalton, Degener, DeSaix, Dupuis, Eble, Foley, Frampton, Gerber, Gilligan, Givre, Granger, Gulledge, Heenan, Howell, Huber, Jonas, Kamarei, Klebanow, Kramer, Lastra, Leonard, Matson, Matthysse, McGrath, McIntosh, Murray, Papanikolas, Peirce, Perrin, Peterson, Renner, Rogers, Sandelowski, Sawin, Selassie, Smith, Strom-Gottfried, Sulik, Sweeney, Taylor, Templeton, Tiwana, Vick, Wallace, Weinberg, Wilson, Wissick. The following 24 members were granted excused absences: Ammerman, Arnold, Bachenheimer, Bennett, Conover, Ewend, Gasaway, Holmgren, Kagarise, Marshall, Martin, Mesibov, Miguel, Muller, Murphy, Rock, Rustioni, Salmon, Simpson, Tauchen, Tobin, Trotman, Wolford, Yankaskas. The following four members were absent without excuse: Anton, Keagy, Lin, Sutherland.
Chancellor’s Remarks
Chancellor Moeser told of efforts under way to update the data processing systems that support the University’s enterprise systems. Our processes are embedded in systems that are old and reaching the point of no longer being supported by their original vendors. He said that many systems look contemporary on the surface, but underneath is obsolescent technology. Replacing these systems will be costly and painful, but it must be done. One of the challenges will be to charge the way we do business in many of the processes because the more customization that must be done to fit unique circumstances, the more costly. He said that Vice Chancellor Dan Reed has assembled a committee of faculty and staff to assist in the work.
The chancellor reported that the SACS reaccreditation team is scheduled to be on campus April 13-15, 2006. The team is chaired by Michael F. Adams, President of the University of Georgia.
Prof. Andrew Perrin (Sociology) asked for comment on recent demonstrations concerned with working conditions for food service workers in Lenoir Hall. Chancellor Moeser said that the University has had conversations with ARAMARK, the contractor that manages our food service operations, and that we have found that the company is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Unlike State employees, ARAMARK workers have full rights to organize. The University’s position on organizing efforts is strict neutrality.
Prof. Lloyd Kramer (History) reported that he has been contacted by a number of retired faculty members who are upset by the recent change in their access to on-campus parking permits.
Annual Reports to the Faculty Council
Prof. Wegner spoke briefly to the Annual Report of the Faculty Assembly Delegation.
Prof. Michael Lienesch, Chair of the Committee on University Government, moved adoption of Resolution 2006-1 Amending the Faculty Code of University Government as it Relations to the Membership of the University Committee on Copyright. Prof. Lienesch said that Chancellor Moeser had requested that the director of the University of North Carolina Press, or the director’s
designee, be made an ex officio members of the Copyright Committee. The Committee on University Government endorses this request and recommends adoption of this amendment to the Faculty Code.
Resolution 2006-1 was adopted on first reading. See Appendix A.
Briefing and Discussion of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative
Prof. Wegner introduced a presentation on the Difficult Dialogues Initiative. UNC-Chapel Hill was one of 27 universities nationwide who were successful in securing funding from the Ford Foundation in connection with the launch of its recent Difficult
Dialogues initiative. Among other things, our campus will work to develop discussion and moderator materials concerning how religious belief and intellectual inquiry intersect in a public university setting.
Prof. Wegner introduced Professor Emerita Margaret Holt, formerly on the faculty of the University of Georgia and now working as a consultant for the National Issues Forums Network through the Kettering Foundation.
Prof. Holt explained that the National Issues Forum seeks to address controversial issues through deliberation, not debate. The Forum works to frame an issue not as a yes or no, right or wrong dichotomy but as a choice among three or more options. She showed an 11-minute video on immigration issues as an example of the Forum’s work.
Prof. Holt said that when Carolina submitted its proposal to the Ford Foundation, there was a suggestion that it would be beneficial to have issues framed that focus on tensions stemming from students’ spirituality. She said that the Forum is helping establish a process for doing that. Prof. Holt said that the faculty can help address several questions: who are the critical people
to be involved; what are the critical places to be visited; what documents would be helpful to those framing the issues; and how can the Faculty Council contribute to this endeavor, assuming that it wants to be involved.
Prof. Karen Booth (Women’s Studies) said there is a “big elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about,” and that is that two of the incidents that led to this initiative involved actions against gay/lesbian students. She thought it wrong to frame this entirely as matter of religious viewpoint.
Prof. John Sweeney (Journalism and Mass Communication) asked Prof. Holt how the Forum would maintain civil dialogue when one of the obvious options is not acceptable to the University. Prof. Holt replied that the Forum doesn’t conduct votes, it fosters conversation.
Prof. Bereket Selassie (African and Afro-American Studies) said that he is quite interested in the intersection between international issues and national policy. He cited as an example the intersection between Islamic law (Sharia) and international law.
Prof. Andrew Perrin (Sociology) said that he finds the initiative to be exciting. He would like to add a concern that as we enter dialogue, we not minimize how difficult and contentious the issues are. He said we need to deal frankly with the fact that requiring calmness and civility may actually rule out an important element of why people believe and act as they do.
Report on Sustainability at UNC-Chapel Hill
Prof. Douglas Crawford-Brown, Chair of the Sustainability Task Force, distributed copies of the task force report and briefly summarized its recommendations.
Adjournment
Its business having been completed, the Council adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Joseph S. Ferrell
Secretary of the Faculty
Appendix A
Resolution 2006-1. Amending the Faculty Code of University Government as it Relates to the Membership of the University Committee on Copyright.
The General Faculty Resolves:
Section 1. Section 4-25 of the Faculty Code of University Government is amended to read as follows:
§ 4-25. University Committee on Copyright.
(a) The University Committee on Copyright is appointed by the chancellor. It consists of (i) faculty members, (ii) one or more graduate students, serving one-year renewable terms, and (iii) members from campus units, such as the campus libraries and the Office of Technology Development, that are involved in intellectual property matters. The Director the University of North Carolina Press, or the Director’s designee, is an ex officio member. Faculty members constitute a majority of the members of the committee.
(b) The committee represents to the chancellor and the University community the concerns of faculty and other users and creators of scholarly information. The committee’s functions include:
1) monitoring trends in such areas as institutional or consortial copyright use policies, changes in copyright ownership models, and guidelines for fair use of information in all formats;
2) identifying areas in which policy development is needed and recommending to the chancellor new or revised institutional policies and guidelines;
3) cooperating with the administration to propose and monitor the application of University policies and guidelines regarding ownership and use of copyrighted or licensed scholarly works; and
4) assisting in identifying educational needs of the faculty and others related to compliance with copyright policies and guidelines, and advising on appropriate ways to address those needs.
Section 2. This Resolution shall become effective upon adoption.
