November 10, 2006
Meeting of the Faculty Council
Friday, November 10, 2006
3:00 p.m.
Hitchcock Multipurpose Room
Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History
Chancellor James Moeser and
Faculty Chair Joseph Templeton presiding
Agenda
3:00 Welcome, Opening Remarks, and General Questions
- Chancellor James Moeser
- Provost Bernadette Gray-Little
3:30 Greetings from Leaders of Campus Constituencies
- James Allred, Student Body President
- Lauren Anderson, President, Graduate and Professional Student Federation
- Tommy Griffin, Employee Forum representative
3:45 Faculty Assembly Delegation Report
- Bonnie Yankaskas, Professor, Radiology (Chair of the Delegation)
3:55 Committee Reports
- Advisory Committee [pdf] (Prof. Ron Strauss, Chair)
- Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure Committee [pdf] (Prof. Lawrence Kupper, Chair)
- Faculty Grievance Committee [pdf] (Prof. William Rivenbark, Chair)
- Faculty Hearings Committee [pdf] (Prof. Linda Spremulli, Chair)
- Status of Women Committee [pdf] (Prof. Susan Lord, Chair)
4:30 New Course Evaluation System
- Lynn Williford, Assistant Provost, Institutional Research and Assessment
4:45 Presentation of Nominees for 2007 Distinguished Alumnus/a Awards (closed session)
5:00 Adjourn
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 57 members of the Council attended: Alperin, Bachenheimer, Bagnell, Bangdiwala, Barreau, Belger, Blocher, Boukhelifa, Campbell, Cantwell, Chin, Collichio, Conway, Copenhaver, Dalton, Degener, DeSaix, Fisher, Gerber, Gilligan, Gulledge, Hendrick, Hightow, Hobbs, Huber, Kamarei, Kirsch, Kramer, Maffly-Kipp, Matthysse, McCombs, McGrath, McIntosh, Moss, Murray, Orth, Papanikolas, Parsons, Pruvost, Salmon, Saunders, Selassie, Silversmith, Strom-Gottfried, Sweeney, Temple, Threadgill, Tiwana, Votta, Wallace, Wasik, Weinberg, Weir, Whisnant, Wilder, Wilson, and Yankaskas.
The following 30 members were granted excused absences: Ammerman, Arnold, Balthrop, Bennett, Booth, Cairns, Chapman, Connolly, Couper, Dupuis, Eble, Ewend, Glazner, Jonas, Lastra, LeFebvre, Lesneski, MacLean, Matson, Murphy, Oatley, Peirce, Peterson, Rock, Rustioni, Sandelowski, Sulik, Trotman, Wegner, and Wissick.
The following 5 members were absent without excuse: Halloran, Keagy, Marshall, Rosamond, and Taylor.
Chancellor’s Remarks and Question Period
Chancellor James Moeser called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m.
The chancellor commented favorably on a recent speech delivered in Memorial Hall by Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the United Nations Millennium Project.
The chancellor announced that Prof. Jay Kaufman (Epidemiology) and Prof. Timothy W. Marr (American Studies) have received Fulbright Scholar awards.
Chancellor Moeser reported that he has endorsed the recommendation of the Tuition Task Force for increases in tuition of $250 for resident undergraduates and $500 for all others. The Board of Trustees plans to discuss various options for tuition increases at its November 15-16 meeting, but will not make a final decision until its January, 2007, meeting.
Without commenting directly on the search for a new football coach, Chancellor Moeser said that he wanted to emphasize two points: (1) he will be directly involved in the search and is taking personal responsibility for insuring that we choose a person of integrity who is committed to the values of this university and to graduating his players; and (2) we are determined to hire a person with a proven record as head coach in a university setting. The chancellor cautioned that, in order to allow Carolina to compete at the highest level, it would be necessary to pay the new coach at market levels, which would be high and would require special fund-raising efforts. He asked for the faculty’s understanding of the realities of the situation.
There were no questions or comments directed to the chancellor.
Provost’s Remarks and Question Period
Provost Bernadette Gray-Little directed her remarks to tuition. For the past five or six years, she said, the Board of Governors has allowed our Board of Trustees to fix tuition rates for resident and non-resident students. In each of those years, the provost has formed a task force to examine our needs and to recommend tuition increases. This year, the Tuition Task Force worked in the context of three new constraints: (1) we were directed to consider tuition and fees jointly rather than independently of each other, (2) the Board of Governors imposed a 6.5% limit on increases in resident tuition and fees combined (this translates to $305); and (3) the Board of Trustees directed that tuition and fees not exceed the 25th percentile of peer institutions with respect to undergraduate resident students nor the 75th percentile for nonresident undergraduates.
Provost Gray-Little spoke to the issue of tuition increases by professional schools for professional degree programs. For the past several years, all of the professional schools have had permission to recommend to the Board of Trustees tuition increases for professional degree programs with the proviso that students in those degree programs would be exempted from any other campus-based tuition increases. Some members of the Task Force felt that this policy has led to a loss of unity among the schools and colleges. Others felt that professional degree programs have special needs that are best served by the policy. The provost said that the general tone of the Task Force favored a recommendation that all students should be subject to campus-based tuition increases, and this is the recommendation that has gone forward to the chancellor.
There were no questions or comments directed to the provost.
Greetings from Leaders of Campus Constituencies
James Allred, President of the Student Body, greeted the Council. He said that he is pleased with the commitment of the faculty to students and has especially valued the cooperative way in which faculty members have worked in tandem with student members of the Tuition Task Force. Referring to the recently revised policy on printing at computer labs and the library, which limits “free” copies to 500 pages and charges $.05 per page for printing in excess of that limit, Mr. Allred asked the faculty to bear printing costs in mind when giving course assignments.
Lauren Anderson, President of the Graduate and Professional Students Association, was unable to be present.
Tommy Griffin spoke on behalf of the Employee Forum in the place of Ernie Patterson, Chair of the Forum, who was out of town. Mr. Griffin spoke favorably of the new UNC Staff Assembly recently organized by General Administration, advocated for a living wage for all staff employees and stressed the need for improved benefits for employees as part of that discussion, and asked the faculty to join the Employee Forum in seeking to defer planned layoffs of in-house dental technicians in the School of Dentistry.
Faculty Assembly Delegation Report
Prof. Bonnie Yankaskas, Chair of the Faculty Assembly Delegation, reported on the November 3, 2006, meeting of the Assembly. She said that General Administration’s 2007-08 budget request is brief and easy to understand. The request lists 10 items in order of priority. The top three priorities are of special interest to the faculty. The first priority asks for $35.6 million in 2007-08 and an additional $19.2 million in 2008-09 for need-based student aid. The second priority asks for $116.8 million in 2007-8 and an additional $115.9 million in 2008-09 for academic salary increases. This funding would be sufficient to increase faculty salaries to the 80th percentile of peer institutions within the next two years, to allow for 4% merit-based increases in each year of the biennium, and add $2 million to the distinguished professors trust fund. The third priority would add $107.1 milliion over the biennium to a number of research initiatives.
Prof. Yankaskas said that UNC System President Erskine Bowles is creating a special task force to consider future directions for the University System. He will appoint 10 faculty members to this group and provide funding to enable them to have release time for the spring semester in order to commit full-time efforts to the task force’s work. He has indicated that the task force’s report will be written by its faculty members. Finally, Prof. Yankaskas reported that the Assembly has begun a practice of having chairs of the faculties of the 16 institutions meet over lunch at each Assembly meeting.
Annual Reports of Standing Committees
Committee on Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure. Prof. Janne Cannon reported for the committee in the place of Prof. Lawrence Kupper, Chair, who was unable to attend. Prof. Cannon summarized the committee’s work during the 2005-06 academic year.
Chancellor’s Advisory Committee. Prof. Ron Strauss, Chair of the Advisory Committee, presented the committee’s report for the 2005-06 academic year.
Faculty Grievance Committee. The Faculty Grievance Committee’s annual report was received by title.
Faculty Hearings Committee. Prof. Michael Votta reported for the committee in the place of Prof. Linda Spremulli, Chair, who was unable to attend.
Committee on the Status of Women. Prof. Susan Lord, Chair of the Committee on the Status of Women, presented the committee’s annual report. Prof. Lord said that this year the committee members realized that they were naïve as to obstacles facing younger women tenure-track faculty and fixed-term faculty of all ranks. To learn more about this, the committee asked Dr. Lynn Williford, Director of Institutional Research, to conduct a survey of faculty members in those categories. A very good response rate was achieved. The results of the survey are summarized in the committee’s written report. Prof. Lord said that as a result of the information obtained from the survey, the committee has three recommendations: (1) the provost will be asked to distribute an executive summary of the survey to deans, directors, and department chairs; (2) the provost is asked to continue to gather data on issues of pay equity for fixed-term faculty, and (3) a task force should be established to investigate the effect of child care issues on work environment. Prof. Lord added that her personal view is that child care is not a gender-specific issue.
In response to a question, Prof. Lord said that the respondents to the survey were not identified by race or ethnicity.
Prof. Sam Weir (Family Medicine) asked whether the University is doing any better on pay equity for women that it was four years ago when the most recent study of this issue was done. Prof. Lord replied that the pay equity study has not been updated.
Prof. Steven Bachenheimer (Microbiology and Immunology) noted that the survey data is broken down by school, but the report makes no school-specific comments. He asked whether the committee identified any school-specific issues. Prof. Lord said that none were identified for junior tenure-track faculty, but that her intuition from reading comments from fixed-term faculty indicates that there are concerns for fixed-term faculty in the Medical School that do not arise in other academic settings. Similarly, fixed-term faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences indicate disappointment that they do not have access to the same administrative support as do tenure-track faculty—a concern that does not appear to be widespread in the professional schools.
Prof. Andrew Chin (Law) asked whether the committee’s survey included fixed-term faculty in the School of Law. Prof. Lord replied that it did not.
Prof. Rebecca Wilder (Dentistry) remarked that she had chaired the Committee on the Status of Women 10 or 12 years ago and that many of the issues identified in this year’s report have been under discussion for many years. She said she would like to see some historical perspective on how these issues have been addressed over time.
Prof. Frank Wilson (Orthopaedics) noted that Prof. Judith Wegner had felt that the need for mentoring for women faculty was a matter of University-wide concern and had assembled a committee to discuss it. He said that the committee had had only one meeting, and that perhaps it would be well to pick this work up.
Prof. Marci Campbell (Nutrition) agreed that better mentoring for women faculty is needed.
Course Evaluation System
The presentation on a new course evaluation system was postponed.
Distinguished Alumna/Alumnus Awards
The Faculty Council went into closed session.
Prof. Joseph Ferrell, Secretary of the Faculty, on behalf of the Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards, presented five nominees for Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus Awards to be presented on University Day 2007. Each nominee was approved.
The Council returned to open session.
Adjournment
Its business having been completed, the Council adjourned at 4:30 p.m.
Joseph S. Ferrell
Secretary of the Faculty
