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January 19, 2007

Meeting of the Faculty Council

Friday, January 19, 2007
3:00 p.m.
Pleasants Family Assembly Room
Wilson Library

Chancellor James Moeser and Faculty Chair Joseph Templeton presiding

Agenda

3:00 Welcome, Opening Remarks, and General Questions

  • Chancellor James Moeser

3:15 Carolina North Update

  • Prof. John P. Evans, Executive Director of Carolina North

4:00 Team Cleaning Implementation Update

  • Bill Burston, Director, Housekeeping Services

4:15 Committee Report

4:30 Resolutions

5:00 Adjourn

Minutes

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 59 members of the Council attended: Alperin, Bachenheimer, Bagnell, Balthrop, Barreau, Blocher, Boukhelifa, Cairns, Campbell, Cantwell, Chapman, Connolly, Conway, Copenhaver, Couper, Dalton, Degener, DeSaix, Dupuis, Eble, Gerber, Gilligan, Glazner, Gulledge, Hightow, Hobbs, Kamarei, Kirsch, Kramer, LeFebvre, Lesneski, Maffly-Kipp, Marshall, Matthysse, McCombs, McGrath, McIntosh, Murphy, Murray, Oatley, Peterson, Pruvost, Rustioni, Salmon, Sandelowski, Saunders, Sulik, Sweeney, Taylor, Threadgill, Tiwana, Wallace, Wasik, Wegner, Weinberg, Whisnant, Wilson, Wissick and Yankaskas.

The following 22 members were granted excused absences: Ammerman, Bangdiwala, Belger, Bennett, Chin, Collichio, Fisher, Hendrick, Huber, Jonas, Lastra, MacLean, Matson, Moss, Orth, Papanikolas, Peirce, Selassie, Silversmith, Strom-Gottfried, Temple, Trotman, and Wilder.

The following 5 members were absent without excuse: Arnold, Booth, Ewend, Keagy, and Rosamond.

Chancellor’s Remarks and Question Period

[In the absence of the Secretary of the Faculty, Prof. Joseph Ferrell, the Chair of the Faculty designated Anne Mitchell Whisnant as Recorder for this meeting.]

Chancellor James Moeser focused his remarks on Carolina North and the UNC System Expansion Budget Request that has just been submitted.

Carolina North. The Chancellor thanked Prof. Jack Evans (Business) for his effective leadership of the Carolina North planning efforts. He noted that the Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee had completed its work in creating defining principles leading to the next phase of Carolina North planning.

Chancellor Moeser reported that he had met that morning with Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy and Town Manager Roger Stancil to discuss next steps. Subject to Town Council approval, the University will cooperate in creating a working group to develop a new special zone to cover Carolina North – a process similar to that employed in previous work that created the ONI4 zone that governs campus construction. The working group will collaborate with UNC and Town staff members, but will hire a consultant to do much of the legwork in creating the new zone.

2007-09 UNC System Budget Request. Chancellor Moeser termed the UNC System expansion budget request “exciting,” especially for its “aggressive” approach to improving faculty salaries, which he noted that UNC System President Erskine Bowles heartily supports.

The salary request has two parts: a 4% increase pool that would be allocated to all UNC System campuses during each year in the biennium, and a pot of money keyed toward faculties at system campuses that are at the greatest distance from the 80th percentile of their respective peers. UNC-Chapel Hill has the greatest discrepancy from our peers of any campus in the system, and our portion of this money would be $20 million on top of the 4% mentioned earlier. This would help move campus salaries toward what General Administration defines as the 80th percentile.

Chancellor Moeser noted that because of our more nuanced method of calculating salaries, UNC-Chapel Hill has a different definition of the 80th percentile than General Administration, but he stated that Carolina is pleased with how this budget proposal advances salaries much more than we have seen in recent years.

Chancellor Moeser also highlighted a new Arts and Sciences policy that makes all newly-tenured faculty eligible for a $6,000 research fund during the five years after promotion and tenure as a key step in helping them to keep their research programs active.

Chancellor Moeser pointed out that the budget request also includes an additional $2 million for the distinguished professors matching fund, to add to what has been done through the Carolina First campaign, during which the University has created 193 endowed chairs, toward a goal of 200. The request asks the state to increase that fund from $8 million to $10 million.

The budget request also includes a major push to support research and graduate education, including $30 million to create a new “research competitiveness fund,” $10 million to enhance research computing through support of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), and $10.2 million to underwrite graduate student recruitment and retention in the form of 216 new graduate tuition remissions. The Board of Trustees, the Chancellor noted, is becoming more focused on graduate education as a key part of the university’s mission.

Chancellor Moeser also highlighted the budget initiative that focuses on K-12 education and some critical health care and economic transformation components. He also noted that three major capital budget priorities are the remaining $119 million for the Genomic Sciences Building, $96 million for the Dental Sciences Building, and $12.4 million for Carolina North.

In sum, Chancellor Moeser called this a very strong budget that reflects the needs and aspirations of this university. The 2007-09 budget process begins in the state House of Representatives and will be long and arduous. But, the Chancellor said, he believes the University has never had a better budget package to fight for in his tenure here, and he asked for faculty to stand ready to help talk about it with the General Assembly when called upon.

Prof. Deborah Barreau (Information and Library Science) asked whether the building projects included in the budget process would address the growth of the student population. Chancellor Moeser said that these buildings do address growth; there is a six-year list of new construction that goes further than the projects he mentioned previously. Provost Gray-Little added that if we stay on the expected trajectory both for building and student growth, all will be well, but if either building or student growth rates change, problems will develop.

Prof. Templeton thanked both Dean Linda Dykstra and Prof. Judith Wegner (Law) for moving graduate education to the forefront of the Board of Trustees’ attention and reminded everyone that the budget’s top priority was need-based student aid, followed by faculty salaries.

Carolina North Presentation

Prof. Evans observed that Carolina North means “expansion, innovation, and sustainability” for the University.

  • Expansion. The main campus will soon be built out. The ability to expand is therefore important.
  • Innovation. Innovation is important to expanding research, especially to meet the Chancellor’s goal of greater research income by 2016, and Carolina North will help us do that. Also, it will improve the University’s interface with the private sector through partnerships and independent private sector activities.
  • Sustainability. The University is working with the Town to assure that Carolina North is developed at the best possible environmental level. It will be a “mixed-use academic community,” containing core University activities, housing, and retail, to accommodate at least some of the needs of people who live and work there.

Prof. Evans reported that he and Prof. Ken Broun (Law), chair of the Leadership Advisory Committee, will soon deliver the committee’s final report to Chancellor Moeser. He mentioned the need to create a new planning zone classification for Carolina North and observed that the overall development of the Horace Williams tract will require approvals from both Chapel Hill and Carrboro because the tract straddles the jurisdictional boundary. Evans noted that the Trustees have requested that a master plan be submitted for approval to both towns by October 2007.

In preparation for this, planning has been going on at multiple levels, including a number of supporting studies, other “critical path activities,” and public participation. Evans summarized these activities:

  • The Leadership Advisory Committee, created by the Chancellor about a year ago, whose work has been facilitated by Prof. Broun. This venue allowed the university to get community perspectives on issues such as air quality, water, energy, transportation, and building types/heights. These conversations will influence the drawing of the master plan. We are now ready to have a consulting team and planners begin thinking more concretely about the use of the land over a 50-year horizon.
  • Workshops. Several workshops held last year helped address University and Town concerns about such matters as water, landscape, habitat, nature, open spaces, stormwater, transportation, and building types. These technical workshops have provided a planning framework to evaluate what we are doing.
  • Supporting studies. Several supporting studies are under way, including an ecological assessment by Biohabitats, Inc., a firm located in Baltimore. The goal is to get advice on each part of the Carolina North land, noting which areas are best for development and which for conservation. There is also a transit study under way, jointly steered and funded by the University and Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. A third study in early stages is a fiscal impact analysis, which will look at the direct and indirect impacts of Carolina North activities on Town budgets.
  • Parallel activities. These are other activities whose progress affects the ability to move forward with Carolina North. For example, there is the costly remediation of the 0.25-acre chemical waste site dating from 1960s, which will be finished soon. Another is the process of relocating the Med Air hanger and related activities from the Horace Williams Airport to an addition to a hangar at Raleigh-Durham Airport that is expected to be complete by October 2008. After that, the Horace Williams Airport can be closed. Finally, there is the matter of relocating the Chapel Hill municipal operations center that has been operating on a leased site on the Carolina North property.
  • Potential initial projects. Two projects are at the front of the Carolina North pipeline. One is First School, a joint project between the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Administrative Unit to create a combination instruction and research facility that would serve children ages three to eight. A second early project is the Innovation Center (formerly called a “business incubator” or “accelerator”), where individuals can explore new venture capability while drawing on shared services. These two projects could begin before approval of the master plan by the Town, through zoning regulations and approval processes already in place.
  • Centers and Institutes. Carolina North provides an opportunity for relocating centers and institutes with intersecting intellectual interests to facilitate interactions that are now hampered by spread-out locations. RENCI might be an early occupant. The School of Public Health and the School of Pharmacy also have research programs whose needs might be better realized at Carolina North, and there may be corporate partnerships.
  • Residential / recreational spaces. Carolina North will also have residential space as well as some community recreational spaces.
  • Public participation. The Leadership Advisory Committee began public conversations that must continue. As plans and design scenarios are developed, it will be important to have moments for public comment and discussion.

Prof. Evans concluded by noting that Carolina North presents a special opportunity to apply the principles of sustainability to one of the largest projects of its kind under way in the nation. Carrying this out can bring additional distinction to both the towns and the university, and the prospects are exciting.

Prof. Tom Linden (School of Journalism and Mass Communication) noted the traffic congestion that regularly occurs around 5 p.m. along Martin Luther King Boulevard/Airport Road and a recent Chapel Hill News article highlighting burgeoning development in north Chapel Hill. He asked about latest estimates of the car trips along the MLK corridor once Carolina North is built, and about the current state of mass transit planning. He suggested that the mass transit plan should be nearly complete before anyone takes occupancy at Carolina North.

Prof. Evans responded that there is no present estimate about car trips and that a transit study is just now getting under way. It is particularly important to have accurate estimates on space use, particularly the relationship between residential and office/institutional space, but those ratios have yet to be determined. Prof. Evans noted that Carolina North should be “transit oriented,” but that until the studies are done, we don’t know precisely what that entails.

Prof. Linden urged that full consideration be given to using the Chapel Hill to Hillsborough rail line and bike lanes to cut down on vehicular traffic.

Prof. Evans responded that the transit plan will aim to reduce reliance on single occupancy vehicles, partly by making pedestrian and bike access from outside and within as easy as possible. The rail line is more complicated and using it for passenger service may be prohibitively expensive. There may be other ways to use that corridor/right-of-way for tire-based transit, but we may be able to undertake the early years of Carolina North without resorting to that.

Prof. Richard Whisnant (Government) thanked Prof. Evans and the others involved in planning for their openness to local calls for environmental planning. He asked whether the University would consider permanent protection from development for any of the property and cited what he found to be a disturbing December report in which a University trustee had stated that the University would “never do this.”

Prof. Evans noted that initial analysis had suggested that the university could build what it needed on only 25 percent of the land, and from there came the request that the rest be protected in perpetuity. The university is committed to the notion that there are portions of the other 75 percent that will not be needed within the first 50 years, and the Trustees have indicated willingness to set some of that acreage aside in perpetuity. But they want to do this based on the geophysical features of the land, not on the basis of an absolute percentage.

Prof. Andrew Reynolds (Political Science) applauded the environmental sensitivity of the plans but emphasized that there needs to be a progressive and state-of-the-art marriage of land use and protection of open community-use green spaces. He noted that that the trails in these areas contribute to the general quality of life in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, which help with faculty retention.

Prof. Evans responded that the Biohabitats consulting team talked with the Friends of Bolin Creek and other trail users about how the space is now being used. Prof. Evans also noted that he and Tony Waldrop, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development had asked for (and received) some one-time money to fix up trails and some recurring money to maintain the trails and do some counseling about poor trail use. These funds (an annual sum of $100,000) will begin to be spent this spring on management of the open spaces that won’t be developed. This has potential to enhance and preserve that portion of the land for public use.

Prof. Steve Bachenheimer (Microbiology) asked what Orange County, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro are doing to help connect plans for environmental protection, bike lanes, and transit on the property to the rest of the community’s lands, especially given the importance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Estes Drive to connecting Carolina North with the rest of the world.

Prof. Evans agreed that Carolina North is embedded in a larger town and county system. Although we can only influence what is within that area, we have to take connections to surrounding neighborhoods into account.

Team Cleaning Implementation Update

Jim Alty, Director of Facilities Services, introduced a new cleaning process that has been under study in Housekeeping Services during the past 18 months. He noted that some housekeepers are still nervous about the changes and said he hoped to inform faculty about the changes in the event that housekeepers talk to them about the changes.

Bill Burston, Director of Housekeeping Services, explained that the new system is called Operating System 1 (OS1). It features a systematic team-based process with a simplified cleaning method, standard ergonomic equipment, and standard “green” chemicals, and focuses on health first, then appearance. This replaces the old system of “zone cleaning,” in which a single person does all cleaning tasks in a single building or floor. OS1 requires the same number of people, but much less equipment, because OS1 has specialists, each managing one type of task for a two-week period, then rotating to another specialty area. The program has been piloted in Bioinformatics and Carroll Hall. An evaluation committee concluded that OS1 resulted in cleaner buildings and better working conditions for housekeepers and recommended campuswide implementation as long as comprehensive training was included. In converting to OS1, housekeepers must move to new buildings so as to assure that they adopt new cleaning techniques. A four-year schedule to convert the rest of the campus is now in place. Dorms will be converted last.

Prof. Templeton asked if the OS1 implementation had anything to do with the PACE (President’s Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness) initiative. Alty replied that it did not and that it was not an attempt to downsize, but to offer a higher level of service. This comment was greeted with applause.

Prof. Richard Weinberg (Cell Biology) asked what kinds of training are being provided for housekeepers who do not speak English. Burston said that many employees are attending English as a Second Language classes on and off campus, including within the Division of Facilities Services.

Honor Code Presentation

Prof. Wegner, former Chair of the Committee on Student Conduct, presented a proposal to allow the Kenan-Flagler Business School to develop its own Honor Court parallel to special courts that already exist in several of the other professional schools. The Kenan-Flagler court would be coordinated with the Graduate School Honor Court and the Student Attorney General. The new system would only cover the graduate programs within the Business School (about 980 students). It would create greater visibility for the Honor Code within the Business School, allow participation of student leaders from that population, improve efficiency in hearing cases, and set up a system by which business students would be able to judge cases involving their peers.

Prof. Wegner noted that this proposal has already been approved by the Committee on Student Conduct and the Student Congress, and that is has vigorous support within the Business School, where more than 30 students have volunteered to be involved.

She moved approval of the two resolutions before the Council:

  • Resolution 2007-1. Amending the Instrument of Student Judicial Governance to Create a Graduate Business Student Judicial System
  • Resolution 2007-2. Amending Appendix C of the Instrument of Student Judicial Governance in Conjunction with Creation of a Graduate Business Student Judicial System.

Prof. Templeton asked for questions or discussion, but there was none. Prof. Bob Conway (Business School) seconded the motion for approval. The Council voted unanimously to approve both resolutions.

University Government Report

Prof. Michael Lienesch (Political Science), Chair of the Committee on University Government, noted that today’s presentation is for information only and that the committee invites comments and suggestions for revision before the proposal is presented for formal approval later in the semester. The committee has been working since 2002 at bringing the Faculty Code (little revised since 1942) into conformity with present practices. The proposal now placed before the faculty revises Articles 6 through 12 of the Code. Comprehensive revision of Articles 1 through 5 has been approved by the General Faculty in a series of resolutions beginning in 2002.

Prof. Lienesch presented handouts showing suggested changes in the existing Code in strike-through/underline format and as engrossed. He observed that the changes were not as major as they might appear and were aimed at bringing the Code into conformity with present practices, rather than making significant policy and procedure changes. Most of what appears to be new in these pages has simply been cut and pasted from somewhere else in the document.

Prof. Lienesch noted that the existing Code spells out many things about how the College of Arts and Sciences operates, while saying little about the professional schools. The committee considered writing new articles for each of the professional schools, but decided instead to rearrange Article 6 to cover all the professional schools and the College. Provisions covering deans and department heads, in particular, had to be addressed. This was difficult because not all units are parallel in structure (e.g. some schools don’t have departments). The committee’s objective has been to identify general principles of universal application while leaving room for flexibility in different units.

Prof. Lienesch noted, finally, that the committee had worked to clarify and simplify the Code’s language and had circulated this material widely among all deans and department chairs with a request for comment. He encouraged emails and phone calls with suggestions or questions and stated that all such suggestions will be taken back to the full committee.

Prof. Wegner asked whether representatives of the various units had been polled about Section 6-4, which covers who can vote in school and departmental faculty meetings. She noted that providing that members of the Voting Faculty would be eligible to vote in faculty meetings may run counter to the practices some units have regarding who can vote on matters other than personnel decisions. This especially affects clinical and other fixed-term faculty.

Prof. Wegner also observed that there were some department “chairs for life” in the School of Medicine, and she thought that needed to be investigated so that people would not be surprised by the provisions regarding appointment of chairs. In general, she urged that the schools be notified about what is being proposed, especially around hot button issues like the ones she identified.

Prof. Lienesch said the committee would follow up again and be certain that deans are consulted on these issues. The document has already been circulated to deans throughout the university, but perhaps should be sent again, as only a few comments have been received.

Prof. Wegner observed that cultures are distinct in various parts of the campus, and that there may be a need to highlight these particular sections for deans. She also cautioned that faculty colleagues who are accustomed to running things at the local level may question the right of the Faculty Council to rule on these matters – especially in the School of Medicine, where practices regarding faculty meetings are often very different.

Prof. Steven Bachenheimer (Microbiology) asked a question regarding paragraph 6-4: Is it the expectation that the person who would be elected secretary be a faculty member? He noted that his department usually delegates this task to a staff person. Prof. Lienesch replied that the current language, taken from current provisions pertaining to the College of Arts and Sciences, implied that the secretary would be a faculty member. Prof. Bachenheimer noted that the Code does not restrict attendance at faculty meetings to faculty members, and encouraged allowance for staff to take meeting notes. Prof. Lienesch noted that there will be personnel matters that require confidentiality, but Prof. Bachenheimer reported that even in those cases, the departmental Human Resources Facilitator usually remains, as this is relevant to that person’s job. Prof. Bachenheimer urged the committee to allow some flexibility on these matters.

Provost Gray-Little asked why there continued to be articles mentioning the Graduate School, the Summer School, and the College of Arts and Sciences, but not other schools. Prof. Lienesh responded that this reflects the history of the Code and difficulties in rewriting it. The committee considered moving the section about the College to the Appendix, but decided to follow its usual practice of leaving things alone unless there was a compelling reason to make changes. “We don’t want to revolutionize” the Faculty Code, he noted.

Prof. Lloyd Kramer (History) asked what mechanisms were in place for enforcement of these provisions, especially in the face of differing departmental cultures and less than faithful attention to the Code by chairs. Prof. Lienesch replied that the Code is our constitution as a faculty, a set of bylaws that are largely a set of normative expectations. The Code has a quasi-legal standing that a faculty member can point to in case of an egregious violation.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:57 p.m.

 

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