October 21, 1994

TRANSCRIPT

MEETING OF THE FACULTY COUNCIL

Friday, October 21, 1994

Assembly Room, Wilson Library

Faculty Council Attendance: Present 60; Excused Absences 18; Unexcused Absences 13.
Open Session

I. Provost Richard McCormick for Chancellor Paul Hardin

Professor Jane Brown: Welcome, to a beautiful fall afternoon weekend. I’ve asked, politely asked, encouraged, the Faculty Council members to sit up front. If you would. It’s more for me than anything. It’s just to see who is actually on the Council. And try to get used to faces. And also it facilitates conversation I think. We have a lot of people who come to observe and can’t tell who’s who. And as we learn each other’s names, then we can forego the name tags I hope. We have a full agenda, and today we are honored to have Provost McCormick stand in for Chancellor Hardin. The meeting will begin and then we’ll move through the agenda. Do you all have copies? The agenda is available back where you came in.

Provost McCormick: I appreciate this opportunity to address the Council on Chancellor Hardin’s behalf. He regrets his inability to be here today especially because he rarely if ever fails to attend a Faculty Council meeting. I want to focus my remarks on a single subject, although, of course, if you want, I’ll try to answer questions on anything you want to hear about. And that single subject is the University’s budget. This is an appropriate time for budget talk for a couple of reasons. The Advisory Budget Commission, and I’ll tell you what that is in a second, has completed its tour of the state, receiving budgetary briefings from every state agency. The Advisory Budget Commission is a body of 15 men and women appointed by the members of General Assembly and by the Governor. Most of the members of the ABC are themselves members of the General Assembly, but they include as well some citizens, some representative citizens of the state. They travel around every other fall, they travel around visiting with leaders of every state agency, including all the campuses of the University of North Carolina, in preparation for advising the Governor on what his budgetary recommendations ought to be for coming biennium. As you know, the state of North Carolina develops its budgets on a two-year basis, and so we are now, as we speak, getting ready for budgetary decisions that will shape the University and all the state agencies from July 1, 1995 through June 30, 1997 — the 1995 biennium. So it is in preparation for those budgetary decisions and recommendations and all of those decisions that the ABC travel around the state. Chancellor Hardin made a presentation to the Advisory Budget Commission on behalf of UNC-Chapel Hill a week ago today. So the first occasion for these remarks is I want to tell you a little bit about what he told them. Secondly, the UNC Board of Governors has recently made its biennial budgetary request to the State. These two events, of course, are not unconnected. This document, which I also want to tell you about today, of course includes Chapel Hill and it was approved a week ago. UNC Board of Governors request to the state for dollars — continuing dollars, new dollars, capital construction dollars, for all of UNC for the two years ahead.

So let me tell you first about the Chancellor’s presentation to the Advisory Budget Commission. The first thing he did, and it was absolutely the right thing to do, is thank them profusely for their support of this University in many, many ways. He mentioned specifically the relatively larger number of dollars we got for faculty salaries, the planning money that was provided for several facilities, and the General Assembly’s extension of, really making permanent, budgetary flexibility. That was reauthorized and it appears that it will be with us for the long haul. So, first of all, he thanked them, and I’m sure you will agree that is what he should have done. Then he set out to do the impossible, which is to say, tell them everything of importance about this University in 45 minutes. He had slides, he had the benefit of some help from his staff members in South Building, and he did a very, very good job. His intention was to provide a broad-brush summary of all we do in instruction, research, and service. That being impossible, inevitably he relied on anecdotes and illustrations designed to capture their attention and enhance their support. Knowing that the members of the General Assembly and others in the State have a particular interest in how we’re doing in teaching undergraduates and in our public service and outreach programs. He gave them a good deal of emphasis — not, however, to the neglect of research and graduate education, but turning them over to the subject of graduate education.

Having described what we do in terms designed to appeal to members of the Advisory Budget Commission, he then placed his emphasis on several areas of needs: faculty and staff salaries, support for graduate studies, libraries and information technology, the operational budgets of our departments and units, and renovations and new facilities. I’ll mentioned a couple of those in the context of my summary of the UNC Board of Governors recommendations for the budget for the new biennium. Chancellor Hardin’s report was very well received by members of the Advisory Budget Commission. Despite the fact that last Friday was a rainy day they seemed to have a pretty good time. As soon as the presentation was over they hopped on a bus with Garland Hershey and me and we toured them around in the rain to show them where we wanted them to put all the new buildings we were asking for. They were in good spirits, and I think they enjoyed being in Chapel Hill. It didn’t hurt that we got the opportunity to provide them lunch that day. That was a kind of feel-good thing I guess and it sort of helped.

Immediately after the Chancellor spoke — actually before the bus tour I just mentioned — the Advisory Budget Commission heard a report from President Spangler. Now I will turn to my second subject, a report from President Spangler about the budgetary request that the Board of Governors approved that morning. And here are some of the highlights of the request. There’s a lot of good news in here as a matter of fact. Some of it’s been in the papers over the last, well about last Saturday, so not everything I’m about to say will inevitably be new to you. First of all with respect to EPA salary increases the Board of Governors recommended a package that includes three elements. First, salary increase dollars equivalent to 5% of the salary base for all EPA employees, EPA non-faculty, EPA faculty. Second, an additional 2%, an amount equivalent to 2% of the faculty salary base for all faculty and librarians. So now we’re up to a total of 7%. And in addition, most heartening of all I think though not the largest number, an additional 1% above the base for faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. At last, the argument that faculty of research universities are especially in need because of their competitive situation — we compete for faculty all over the country, indeed, all over the world. There could be no more tangible symbol that that argument has gotten through. So, altogether if this proposal is approved, we’ll have — by the General Assembly — we would have faculty salary increase dollars equal to 8% of the existing faculty salary base, first in 1995, and then again in 1996. Just as in the past, presumably these dollars will be distributed on the basis of academic merit. So the 8% refers not to what each faculty member will automatically get, we don’t automatically get anything so far as I know, but how to describe the dollar amount that we’ll have to work with, it would be equal 8% of the salary base.

I’m happy to tell you as well that in explaining to the Advisory Budget Commission the reasons for strong faculty salary increases, both President Spangler and Paul Hardin, although I have them out of order; both Paul Hardin and President Spangler drew very heavily upon the observations and arguments that were first advanced by faculty on this campus, faculty who took the lead over the past two years in making a case for nationally competitive faculty salaries. If you closed your eyes — well now that’s not quite true — it could have been Tom Meyer making the speech that the President did and the Chancellor did because the arguments were absolutely the ones developed by the leaders of our faculty, and that was just wonderful to behold. I should say that the same arguments appear — I wish I had brought it with me — in the huge printed document the Board of Governors adopted last Friday. What I’m saying is that it is possible — we have proved it over the past two years — to educate the citizens of North Carolina, especially the leaders of North Carolina — about an important University problem, the issue with respect to salaries. We can’t relent, we can’t fail to continue. I think we can make the case just as effectively in any number of other areas. The budget, and I’ll suggest what they might be and in a moment.

The budgetary proposal made by the Board of Governors adopted last Friday also includes several other important elements I want to tell you about. Just as in the past biennium, the biennium that we’re now in, the Board of Governors has asked for significant increases for libraries and information technology; specifically for library acquisitions, the cost of which as you well know has soared in the last decade, and with respect to computers dollars to lay the fiber optic network across the campus and then to wire the buildings; you know the wire inside the buildings — without which the fiber optic network doesn’t mean much, and then for equipment and staff. So there are fairly huge numbers requested for both libraries and computing.

And there’s another very broad category called institutional enhancement. And actually most of the new money except for the salary money is in that category. It includes essentially all the requests made the individual schools and units for faculty, staff, operating expenses for equipment, etc. One item of special interest is a request for an increase in the number of tuition remissions for out-of-state graduate students. Many of you, especially those in Health Affairs know well that the number of tuition remissions that we have to award to out-of-state graduate students has not increased, the number has not increased, since 1983. The amount of the tuition remissions increases with each increase in out-of-state tuition for graduate students, but the number has not increased, and particularly in many of our health affairs graduate programs, to lend support for out-of-state graduate programs. A high proportion of our graduate students are from out-of-state; our ability to support them is far less than it should be.

Let me turn finally to another category in the budgetary request by the UNC Board of Governors, renovations and capital construction. Just like every university in the land, we could use hundreds of millions of dollars for mending our buildings, the windows, the paint is peeling on the windows. In fact one of the slides the Chancellor showed to the ABC was just that, a close-up of a window with the paint peeling. And the Chancellor pointed out that we not only needed the paint, the brush, but we needed the money to hire the staff member at the other end of the paint brush. It was very effective, but he said it better than that. In the area of capital, of new capital facilities, the Board of Governors asked for 8 buildings that were on the top of our list. And I just want to list them so you know what they are. A facility for the Department of Dramatic Art that will be attached to the Paul Green Theatre, that would free up the Graham Memorial Building for the Center for Undergraduate Excellence. Second, an addition to the Law School constructed several decades ago, far bigger than it was then, hasn’t had an addition. This would provide it. An addition to Hill Hall — that’s where our Department of Music is located — to house the Music Library which is, if any of you have been in the basement of Hill know, is sorely endangered by the weather. Whenever it rains there they have those big industrial sized vacuum cleaners along the corridors to get out the water, as much of it as possible, before it damages the books and recordings. It’s insupportable to have a top flight music library in that facility, and this would provide a new one for it. The Knapp Building houses our Institute of Government. It was built in 1953, supports programs of outreach to public officials in municipalities and counties across the state. It needs renovations and an addition. And finally, the Daniels student services building can take a tower on top of it believe it or not, in which we could, if we had $16 million, consolidate all of our non-academic and some of our academic student support programs, thus freeing up space all over the north campus for the College of Arts and Sciences. In the Division of Health Affairs there are three buildings, all three expensive but all absolutely essential to progress in medicine and the other Health Affairs disciplines. A medical biomolecular and neurosciences research building that would be devoted to multi-disciplinary programs in the neurosciences, development of gene vectors in new molecular biological techniques, the testing of new gene therapies, cellular neurophysiology development and neurobiology system neurosciences. The science at the forefront of medicine today. Second, a significant addition to our School of Pharmacy, our top ten School of Pharmacy, that hasn’t been enlarged in the 35 years since it was first occupied by the School of Pharmacy. The size and the number of students has tripled. We’ve got to add to it. And finally, the Medical Allied Health and community programs building designed to include all of our allied health programs, the Area Health Education Centers, community medical education and health promotion and disease prevention. We’re not going to get all of those buildings in a single legislative session. We know that. But it’s important that we got them on the agenda, that the General Administration and the Board of Governors of the University supported our requests. They are in legislative lingo in play. And will be built in due course with support from the people of North Carolina.

In conclusion it’s clear that compared to a couple of years ago we got better budgetary times. The economy of the state has improved, and the University stands, is benefitting, and stands to benefit. It’s also the case, however, that there are competing needs. We saw the amount of money that was spent on prisons last winter, and the needs in K through 12 education are enormous, not to be sneered at, and should have our full support. But there are dollars for us. And finally, to return to the point I made in the context of faculty salaries, it’s propitious that as economic times are good, we’ve also just at this moment, proved to ourselves and to the State of North Carolina, and to the world, that we can make the case for public higher education. We did it with respect to salaries and now I think we’ve got to join to that argument about faculty salaries, without ceasing to make it, we’ve got to join the case for better support for graduate studies and for most of the other things on this list. And if I had a personal suggestion to make, I’d say let’s emphasize, along with salaries in the session ahead, support for graduate studies — it’s not obvious to the people of North Carolina why it is we have such significant graduate studies programs, what they do for us, what they do for the people of the state, nor was it obvious two or three years ago why our faculty salaries had to be made better. I think with a lot of hard work and careful thought about the messages we send out, what we say to whom, and who says them, we can make graduate studies more explicable, more understandable, more obvious, than we ever have in the past. There’s no point in hiding under a bucket, that light under a bushel, anymore. We do do graduate education. UNC-Chapel Hill wouldn’t be the same without the graduate studies research that goes on. Let’s make that case just as effectively as we’ve made in other areas. That’s all I have to say, but I’ll be happy to answer questions on that or anything else — will try to answer questions.

Professor Steve Bayne (Dentistry): Richard, I was looking through Jane’s list of comments collected off the questionnaires, and I notice there are a couple of budget questions on there. One of the things we’ve talked about a lot the last couple years was the actual amount of state dollars that goes towards running this campus each year. And I think that’s a piece that a lot of these people don’t appreciate. I don’t know where we are now, but we were cynically talking about zero-based budgeting a couple of years ago. I have a feeling we’re still drifting in that direction. Would you comment? Provost: Uh, gosh, that’s two. The amount — you’re asking for the number, which I don’t have off the top of my head. Professor Bayne: There are numbers that we bandied around like, if we have a budget in the range $700 million for this campus, only about 20% of it comes from the state. Provost: Yeah, actually it’s more than 20; it’s in the 30’s. It is certainly true that the majority of the dollars we get don’t come from the state of North Carolina. But consider the following: more dollars come from that source than from any other source. Number 2: for many of our programs and particularly in the undergraduate areas, particularly in the Arts and Science areas, the vast proportion of dollars, well over 90% of it in Doris Betts’ department [English], comes from the people of the State of North Carolina, so while we can lament and regret under certain circumstances well, we might as well become a private university, they’re not supporting us, and la da da da. We’re asking, we hope to receive from the State of North Carolina more money every year than we will raise privately — I’m exaggerating just a little bit — almost as much money every single year as we will raise privately in our vaunted Bicentennial Campaign over a period of six years. So, gosh, sure, we should, we need, we must have, we’ll get, the money from the State, but over a 200 year period — no, that’s not true, either — over about an 85 year period, the people of North Carolina have supported this University very well, and haven’t done as much as we’d like them to do, but there’s no other source of support that’s nearly as important.

Professor Richard Pfaff (History): This question I very much wanted to ask the Chancellor but because both the Advisory Committee and the Honorary Degrees Committee are reporting today, I’ll fire at you. It has to do with the decision last announced last May or June to turn the December Commencement exercise into a formal graduation. The first part of the question is what level of faculty, direct faculty, consultation was there? Provost McCormick: Dick, I don’t know the answer to that. I really can’t help you with that. Professor Pfaff: Was the Advisory Committee involved? Professor Doris Betts: I don’t remember. Professor Pfaff: I had always thought that was a faculty decision, and whether it formally is or not, I think it arguably should have been, especially if we want to use occasions like that to build community. Provost McCormick: Yeah, I heartedly agreed. If the consultation was less than it should have been, I regret it. I know Chancellor Hardin does too. But let me put it in context. The driving force behind that came from students who let us know that many of them, about a thousand of them that graduate in the middle of the year, resented and regretted not being treated to a full dress graduation like those who graduated in May did. I’m evading your question about consultation, but that’s where the energy was coming from. Professor Pfaff: The second part of the question has to do with making it a full ceremony. It has always been our custom to have honorary degrees at the full graduation. There wasn’t any consultation with the Honorary Degrees Committee. Is there any thought to have honorary degrees? Provost: Clifton, could you help me with that? Clifton Metcalf: There’s been no discussion about that. Provost: There hasn’t been. Professor Pfaff: Could you include the Honorary Degrees Committee when there is discussion?. Mr. Metcalf: Sure. Provost: Good question. Are there any others I could do as badly with as that? Okay, thank you for the privilege.

Professor Brown: Thank you and thank you for coming. And thank you for making that presentation. Now for a presentation by George Battle, President of student government. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him on the Chancellor’s Search Committee. And so thank you for coming today to speak to us about what you’re up to.

II. Student Body President George Battle.

Thank you very much Professor Brown. And I thank the Faculty Council for giving us this time today to talk about what we’re up to in student government this year. This year we’ve chosen four basic areas of emphasis on which to focus. 1) our most important area of emphasis is improving human relations on the campus. To this end, we have several projects that are going on and that will happen right now, and I’ll touch on some of those. One project that will be forthcoming that will be a major highlight in this administration is the Human Relations Summit on November 18th and 19th. This summit will be held in the Student Union and what this will attempt to do is to bring to campus student-groups together across broad ethnic, ideological, you know, whatever our differences may be — bring those groups together to talk about the problems we have in human relations on campus, such as sexism, racism, homophobia, etc., and to try to form a foundation from which to start resolving some of these problems. Another major focus of this year’s human relations policy, improving human relations policy, is the Women’s Center. This is a very important thing in the life of our University. We have — let me introduce one of our co-secretaries for Women’s Studies, Susan Covington — if you’ll stand. Susan Covington and Joan Petit are our women’s issues co-secretaries, and they’re working very hard to try to make this Center a reality.

Another thing we want to do is help out with the Black Cultural Center fund-raising and we’re currently in contact with the Office of Development to find out ways in which we can better aid this process so that our BCC will become reality as quickly as possible. Another thing in terms of human relations that we want to, that will go off in the coming weeks, is Carolina Impressions, a liberal arts festival which will take place on the 12th and 13th and will allow different campus groups, different artistic type things, to be displayed around campus and give students a chance to see a diversity of what our campus has to offer.

A second area of focus for this year is improving University services. To this end we’ve already had some major accomplishments, such as the Point-to-Point express which travels from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. across campus to aid in transporting students safely to and from the library and wherever they may need to go around campus during those times. The renovation of Lenoir which has been very, very successful, responsive to student needs in terms of what we want to eat. Professor Brown: Do you really like it? Mr. Battle: Oh I love it, I love it. I’m sure not everyone does. But it’s great for us; it’s great for us. Another thing that we are working on that is really going to be very, very positive for the students of this University is some projects that we’re doing with the Registrar’s Office, including a 1-800 number for Caroline, which would allow students for no charge to register for classes, maybe even get grades on Caroline, get where their classes are scheduled, and building locations, professors’ names, etc. This will be helpful because as you know outside the Triangle area if you want to register, it’s long distance. And that costs money, and it’s an additional financial burden for students. So hopefully we can relieve a little of that. Another project we’re working on with the Registrar’s Office is a $5 a semester fee increase in order to pay for, well, in order to pay for transcripts. Right now, current policy has that if you want a transcript, you go to the Registrar’s Office and you pay $5 a transcript. Now for someone like me who’s applying to law school that can get pretty costly. So what this $5 fee would do would, it would be a twice a year thing which would pay for an unlimited number of transcripts for students now as well as students when they become alumni. So that if you change careers and you need a transcript from the University of North Carolina there will be no charge.

A third area of focus is reforming student government, and this has been a little difficult, but we’re working very hard on this. One way we’re looking at to do this is to revise and rewrite the student government Code which is our document for governance. And we’re, Rebecca Moore, who is my chief legal counsel, is working on that, and we will have the revisions ready for Congress to review in the coming weeks. Another way in which we want to reform student government is to increase student participation. We know that if student participation is increased, not only in the level of working in student government, but also in terms of voting, going to Congress meetings, going to cabinet meetings, whatever, the level of accountability and responsibility will increase proportionally, and so that is a major goal of this administration — to increase student participation. And we want to do this by publicizing our events, publicizing what we are doing, as well as going to the students to talk about things that we should be doing, things that we’re not doing. We had our first student body meeting last night, and I don’t think anybody showed up, but that’s all right. I mean we’ll keep going back until we get somebody, because it’s our responsibility to make sure that the message gets out, and over the past few years student government has kind of moved away from the mainstream students’ life and has become increasingly irrelevant, so we want to kind of move back towards the center. And I think we’re going a long way to do that.

A fourth goal this year is to improve academics on campus, and to this end I’ll introduce now our liaisons to the Faculty Council, Stacey Brandenburg and George Jackson, to talk a little about that. Mr. Jackson: I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon. One of the real goals we have is continuing quality improvement of academics in the University. We believe that academics forms a partnership between faculty and students, and in order for students to get the best education they can, that we’re going to have to work together for continued improvement. We’re obviously one of the best universities in the country. But as we move into our third century, we’re going to have to make sure that we continue to stay that way, that we’re going to have to continue to improve. And we’ve got a couple of goals this year. Two of our main goals we’ll talk about today are a student bill of rights and responsibilities and continuing improvement in advising. Stacey will talk a little bit about the student bill of rights.

Ms. Stacey Brandenburg: Thank you. The student bill of rights is a document which we’ve drawn up that includes many documents and many publications, a list of rights and so forth, which, many of which are already stated in other University policies and procedures. Really the document is broken into three parts. The first part is, as I said, things that the University already guarantees to students. For example, there’s a grievance committee. That’s already been established: it’s in University code, policy. So we’re stating that. The second part is a list of responsibilities or suggested policies for classroom behavior, and, for example, the type of thing that we’re trying to achieve is a more cooperative classroom environment. Things like in a syllabus what is helpful for students to have and most of these things we know you’re aware of already. This is a way of just reiterating them and helping you understand a little bit more where students are coming from and vice versa, where the faculty is coming from and what types of issues may be dealt with on both sides. The third portion of the document deals with the responsibility of students in the classroom. And again, these are stated in the Honor Code already. So, again, it’s a kind of a compilation of different types of policies and procedures. Again, the basic premise though of which is to create an environment in the classroom which is cooperative, which is going to enhance the learning environment. It is in no way placing any constraints on faculty or instructors. You have a job to do and students have a job to do. And the purpose is to work together and create an environment in which is most conducive for students to be able to learn. Basically the role that George and I are playing here is one of conveying faculty ideas and faculty interests to the students and vice versa, from the students to the faculty, and George is going to speak a little more on advising.

Mr. Jackson: One of the main goals of student government in the last few years has been improving advising. And the Faculty Council has been very supportive of that with last year’s endorsement of a pilot program for the staff advisers in the General College. This year we really want to focus on getting more resources for advising. Resources so that faculty can do their jobs to help students and so that the system is in a position so that students can get the advising they need to move through our system. We’d like to work on a system with advising improvements. We’d like to make sure that students have access to advisers, that advisers are not overburdened with students. We want to make sure that there is a good relationship, a relationship that’s not: come in 15 minutes, you get your PIN number, and leave. We want to make sure that there is some real advising. And we believe that we can work together to do that. Using both faculty and student input we’re going to try to make sure that we get a knowledge of what’s out there, what needs to be done, and then go look at the resources and the information to get done. Thank you.

Ms. Brandenburg: One last thing. George and I are to serve as your liaisons, again, as I said, between the students and the faculty, so we really welcome your input and encourage you if you have anything, any issues that you would like us to address or to consult the students on, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Thank you for letting us speak. Professor Brown: Thank you. Mr. Battle: Could I have about a minute? Professor Brown: Okay. Mr. Battle: One minute left. I don’t want any overlap on time to affect any of my grades, so. Again, thank you for letting us speak, and I encourage any member of the faculty — well, I welcome any member of the faculty to come and visit us — we’re in Suite C in the Union — at any time of the day, to see what we do, to get a fuller understanding of student, of what’s going on in student government. And before I sit down, I want to introduce some members of my cabinet that are here today: Chief of Staff Philip Charles Pierre, John Dervin, Senior Adviser for Policy Concerns, and Calvin Cunningham, who is Assistant Chief of Staff (Professor Brown: could you stand up, please), and Larry Smar, who’s Co-Secretary for State Relations. And let’s see, did I miss anybody? And I already introduced Susan. Thank you again. Professor Brown: Thank you. [applause] Professor Brown: Next we’ll need a faculty bill of rights as well. I’ll look forward to seeing more about that. Thank you. And now we have the Student Attorney General Shannon Kete who’s going to talk about the Honor Code.

III. Student Attorney General Shannon Kete.

Hi, there. As she said, my name is Shannon Kete. I am a senior from north of Chicago, and I am a Latin American Studies and Political Science major, just to give you some personality with the face I guess. And as the Student Attorney General, I am the head of the judicial branch of student government which is the branch that is responsible for student self-governance and the honor system which is how the Honor Code goes through and cases are processed. And I am the filter through which initial alleged violations are processed, and I make a decision as to whether or not there is an actual charge and we need a hearing. So that’s my role specifically. One of our main goals I had as I came into this office was to improve the communication with the faculty, and so this is a great audience for me, and I’ll try to stick within my 10 minutes. This is not — the comments I’m going to be addressing are not vis-a-vis need to be widespread for use of faculty members, but faculty support of the Honor Code is crucial. Most of our reports do come from the faculty, and, in efforts to have a consistent application of the Honor Code, I would like to address these concerns and maybe you could bring some of this information back to your constituents. It might help you individually or departmentally to understand some issues that may occur about the Honor Code or questions that have come up along the way. And, again, if you’d like to interrupt me any time during this please go ahead and ask questions, because I’m going to give you the best answer I can within this time period, but I’m sure that I won’t be able to answer absolutely every concern that’s been brought up.

I’ll just dive in with some of the comments I’ve heard. One of the first ones is: the system’s unwieldy, overly complex, bureaucratic, and it takes a long time to get through it. There are a couple of reasons for this I believe. First of all, we do have a very thorough document called The Instrument of Student Judicial Governance. And within it there are things like 13 basic rights for every defendant. And in certain cases this can make a case more complex. If you have co-defendants, you have the right to a separate trial upon request. That’s going to mean rescheduling and time organization. Things like: defendants have the right to face any witnesses testifying against them. We’ve gotten a letter about an important piece of evidence. We’re going to need to track that person down, so that in the hearing the defendant can ask questions of them. There are a multitude of other rights and cases that come up, but that’s just an example of logistics that we’re consistently dealing with. Additionally, once I’ve received a report of an alleged violation, I try to make my preliminary investigation happen within a week or so, but once I’ve actually charged, we do allow a minimum of two weeks for preparation, so that the cases go to the hearing prepared as possible. Additionally, we do have two levels of appeal after the undergraduate court. And if you have students going through the appeals process, that’s going to be an additional two to four weeks minimum. So, those are some of the reasons why our process may seem to take a long time. That’s not all the answers but those are just some things built into the Instrument which makes it seem a little bit more complex.

Additionally we have heard that faculty feel it’s very hard to get convictions with our system. My first answer to that I guess would be — we did this informal, fairly thorough survey of 30 other schools, and when we asked what their burden of proof was, 18% had no mention by indicating “other.” Thirty-two percent of schools had a burden of proof of “clear and convincing evidence.” Twenty-five percent was “preponderance of evidence.” But we are among the 14% that has a burden of proof which is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” It is a very high burden of proof, and that is why maybe at times it may seem difficult to get convictions, because that’s the standard on which the Court is working. Additionally, we are committed to these basic rights of defendants which I’ve alluded to. And sometimes cases may be dismissed or remanded or go through again, not because the evidence was shaky or that we questioned the professor’s opinion about answers being similar, but because perhaps their basic rights had been violated. And we are committed to that, so that might make the process either start over again and take more time or a case might in fact be dismissed. That happens rarely but that’s definitely built into the system. Another answer I have to questions about convictions — we are trying very hard to work with departments like Chemistry and Computer Science and Math and things like that, because I understand with some professors you look at two answers and it’s glaringly obvious that they just shouldn’t be the same, whereas initially you might listen to someone and they might say, “Oh, in seventh grade I had this algebra formula and it kind of fits here.” We’ve heard all these crazy explanations, and when you first sit there, you think I might buy that; I’m just a Poli. Sci. major, I don’t really know calculus and things like that. But we try to work a lot more — we’re talking to not only the professor involved in the case, but other professors within the department so that we understand when we look at a chemistry problem what is reasonable and what is not reasonable, so that we can convey that to the court so they’re able to make decisions before their perspective. Are there any questions to this point? Okay, moving right along.

This is a really important one for me. Faculty have had poor experiences with members of the Attorney General’s staff, and that’s kind of a vague comment, but the big nightmare one I heard was that a faculty member arrives for a hearing that had been cancelled and he had not been notified, and they were just sitting at the Student Union and it’s 6:00 in the evening. I’m horribly embarrassed by this. Although I don’t think I’ve heard of that happening in the past three years. And even if that happened eight years ago to one of you, and your experience — you went back to your department and said that happened. That’s pretty valid for you to be angry with us and to not want to work with us again. Again, I haven’t heard about that happening recently, but I’d like to mention some of the ways that I don’t, some of the reasons why I don’t believe that’s going to happen again.

Another one of my goals for the year is to improve customer service. As faculty I know you’re busy enough with your classes and doing your research and things like that to deal with the honor system, to come at 6:00 at night; meeting with lots of counsels and stuff is not something that you probably are real excited about doing. And so as we screened applicants last year, not only did we look for people that could speak succinctly, could make clear and convincing arguments and things like that, we looked for people who had a background in customer service. We looked for people that, I guess our understanding was, when we talked to them we said, “Half the job is case preparation and making arguments, but half the job is helping outside participants feel more comfortable in what may seem a very complex and sterile system and things like that.” So that was something we definitely looked for. We had a very competitive process of 80 applicants, and we have 12 new outstanding people working. And additionally we followed through on this in training. And not only did we talk about preparing our case, but we said, “Okay, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of an outside participant. What do they need to know? What might they find confusing?” Not just where and when is the hearing, but we explain to them, “When you walk into the hearing, it’s going to be kind of like this: the atmosphere may feel like that. Even though the student is right there in the court.” Because it’s very uncomfortable to think of accusing a student and having to sit there and go through all their explanations and knowing you have a student that might be near tears sitting down a table from you.

So we’re trying to give you as much information as possible so that going through the system isn’t confusing; you don’t feel that anything unexpected is thrust upon you. A sign of that is, in our survey we did find that of the universities, 40% of the universities had equal involvement between students and administrators. Thirty-two percent had very little student involvement, and we’re in a group of 18% that is mostly student run. So it’s definitely something we’re very proud of. It’s all students preparing cases, making decisions, giving verdicts, giving sanctions, and all these things, until it reaches the Chancellor’s level, where he has the ultimate decision for someone who appeals that high. So student involvement is something that we are very grateful for. And I think the steps we’ve taken — I think that’s something that isn’t going to be a problem — but if you do have any concerns about experiences you’ve had with staff members, those are things we want to address immediately. So we’ll be very receptive to those.

And my last thing was we’ve heard a variety of critiques about our sanctioning process. The normal sanction for a case of academic cheating is suspension in the class and an “F” — a suspension for the rest of the semester and an “F” in the class. We do – the reason why – you can see by suspension we don’t believe in severing a student’s relationship with the University, which is – at UVA if you are found guilty of cheating you are out of there. You’re expelled, and there’s no discussion. We do want people to come back, which is why we have an opportunity for people to present unusual, mitigating circumstances, which would be an opportunity for them to explain why this sanction might hurt me more than it was originally intended. So in some cases you may have the sanctions given different from what you may have expected. Additionally, something I think is very important, is the fact that we don’t have a hierarchy of sanctions. So you could have cheated on 50% of your Chemistry final or you could have gotten 2 extra points on a lab report due for a Chem lab, so that ultimately comes out to be .005% of your one-hour class, and you will get the exact same sanction. And that happens all the time. So, not all the time, but we definitely have a complete mix of cases coming in. The values of what they actually cheated on differ a great deal. But we have the same sanctions, which I think speaks to our belief in academic integrity and additionally supports our belief in having such a high burden of proof because, if we are going to find someone guilty, we’re going to make sure that we’re darn certain of it.

A last note is it would be really great is if these cases never had to come through. So I’ll give you a couple notes on prevention of just things that have been happening in the past year. It’s the student’s responsibility to ask questions and make sure they know what they need to do on homework and lab work and things like that. But the kind of confusion comes up — people are not sure exactly how much they can work together. If they’re doing homework, can they work together? What if their answers are identical, but they worked out the problem together? Is this going to be graded? When is it due in class? So things like homework or lab reports, study together for tests through study guides — these kinds of things produce answers that are going to be more similar. I’m always asking my professors in some cases. Professors might say, “I’m very glad you’re working together; if it helps you figure it out, that’s fine.” But as much as it is the student’s responsibility to check out — but the more that you can be clear on those types of assignments, the better off we hopefully will be. I don’t know if all my responses answered every question or every one you’ve ever heard. That’s due to time constraint here and, additionally, as much as we’re very proud of our system, it always has little kinds we’re trying to work out. And so I encourage you to come talk to me. And I can speak to you on the phone. I can meet with you individually, or I can come speak to your department if you believe there’s a departmental-wide issue with the honor system. I’ll give you my phone number real quick: it’s 966-4084. And in any old phone book, any — it’s always been pretty consistent; that’s the office of the Attorney General. You can reach me there. And again I’d be happy to speak with you about any of these issues. Additionally, I kind of just dived right in today and addressed concerns, but if some of you feel like you need more of a basic orientation to the system, or anything like that, I’d be happy to speak about that as well.

A final note is that we have honor booklets — again this is speaking to the basic orientation — I’ll have these on the back table, which kind of outlines the process a little bit more: What does it really mean by student involvement? How many different steps we go through in preparing a case? and, What kind of decisions are made? Are there any questions for me at this time?

Professor Steve Bayne (Dentistry): Have you ever had a chance to interview some of the seniors graduating to get a sense of 1) whether the process worked for them, and 2) whether they thought people were really reporting violations of honor? Ms. Kete: You mean just seniors in general? Professor Bayne: Yeah. Ms. Kete: We have not done that. Our big project in the fall is we’re trying to reach all the freshmen at the beginning. It would be great if we could get them on the tail end as well. I think the reporting is a fraction of what’s really going on. I believe that. In terms of the system working for them, a lot of times, if someone’s found guilty, they’re not real quick to be like, “Oh, I went through the system and I was found guilty and even though I was treated really nicely, and it seemed real fair, and I had a lot of rights, and my defense counsel worked really hard.” There’s not a lot of publicity about that. Additionally, people that are found not guilty, no matter how grateful and how successful, in cases like that, they don’t say the University cared and all — they don’t go out and say, “You know what, the system worked for me; I was charged. And I understand that there was evidence.” But if you have a good experience it might not get spread around so quickly. So that’s the answer to your question, sort of from a different channel. In terms of trying to get seniors, that’s a great project, and hopefully we can add that onto our list of outreach. But — Professor Brown: Do you have what the number of cases and the outcomes? Ms. Kete: Yes, I have, I’m not sure — this is student judicial cases starting fall ’93 through this fall, and I’m not sure that I have a summary of stats on it, but we had about 60 cases, and 60% were found guilty. But I think if you broke that down into specifically academic cases, of which we’re having, we’re having more non-academic, more personal integrity cases, I think the number of guilties would be a little bit higher. So I do have this document, and I think there might be a summary somewhere of stats. If that’s something you’d like, I could get some copies for the next meeting. Professor Brown: Anything else? Any other questions? Ms. Kete: Thank you very much for your time Professor Brown. Professor Brown: Thank you, Shannon.

IV. Chair of the Faculty Jane D. Brown.

It’s good to have students here today. I’m just going to speak briefly so we can get on to other business. Last time I spoke to you I encouraged you all to be a participatory body and we started by asking you to fill out a questionnaire where you talked about what your concerns were, what you’d like to see the Council address. I organized those on that yellow sheet you could have picked up as you came in. You’ll notice how I’ve organized them. I want to tell you how I’ve organized them. These are in three broad categories: the University as a Learning Community, Faculty Roles and Rewards, and on the last page, Planning for and Implementing Change. Those three heads, three main topics. How we’re organizing, what’s coming out of the SACS reaccreditation team. The task forces — does everybody know about SACS now at this point, anybody not know what SACS is? Okay, a couple of people. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. There has been a 10-year self-study, focusing primarily this time on teaching. There have been 14 different task forces, spending the last year looking at various aspects of the University. These reports are now ready, and there are about 800 pages of reports. Our task now is to digest those reports and try to come up with some, what we’re calling, implementation strategies. Trying to come up with a list of strategies about where we want to be, where we want to head, in the next decade, over the next 10 years. And what we’ve done is to begin to look at the reports and see what kind of themes emerge. It looks to us that they emerge into these three broad themes and then many of the concerns and issues that you brought up fall into these three broad categories.

We’re now constituting what I’m calling implementation teams that are going to go through all those 800 pages of reports and come up with a list of recommendations. In December there’s going to be a day long meeting when these three teams come together and hash out their list of recommendations. Ultimately what we hope to have as a result is a list of recommendations and implementation strategies so that this document isn’t simply put on the shelf and we say, congratulate ourselves for being reaccredited, which is pretty much a foregone conclusion. That we actually use this great amount of work that’s been done over the past year-and-a-half to lead us into the next decade. So that’s my optimistic goal. What I’d like to point out here is that many of the concerns that you raised in the questionnaire are in the study by SACS. Some of them have already been talked about this morning by the Provost, they’ve already been submitted to General Administration, will go to the Legislature as what we request as a campus, what we’re looking for, and they’ve been addressed by student government already. If you look through, there’s the Black Cultural Center that George spoke about, his Human Relations Summit, speaking to the intellectual and interpersonal climate on campus, creating community across disciplinary and ethnic and racial lines, support for graduate students that the Provost talked about, the advising system has been talked about already today. Under Faculty Roles and Rewards a primary concern that came up is the value of teaching, the role of teaching, and I want to come back to that in a minute. On the back page on Planning and Implementation of Change, the first pieces are about the budget, about support for the academic infrastructure — we’ve already made that plea to the General Administration, concern about the library and maintaining support for the library, maintaining salaries down there on the System Level, and so on.

So a lot of those concerns — it seems as though there is convergence of our concerns and issues coming from the SACS reports, coming from student government, coming from the Provost’s Office, coming from the Faculty Council. So it looks to me an opportune time that we begin to look at all of these concerns. I’ve put them into some kind of form that we can start moving on, that we can actually have some action on. So what I’d also like to ask you is how it does for you in speaking to your constituents. I gave you some homework last time, so I’ll only speak to the Council members for a minute. How many of you actually went and spoke to some of your colleagues? Great, good. I had some calls from you as well. Some of you said that you didn’t know who your constituents were. That’s an issue. We have organized you — you are organized by Division. And if you weren’t clear about which Division you were elected from — you are elected by Division. Professor Bayne: Put that on the name tag. Professor Brown: Let’s talk more about it and we’ll see who your constituency is. Did you all generate any other concerns or issues that you’d like to raise right now that we could put on the list? Other things that you don’t see on the list? [Unidentified]: Someone spoke to me, but it’s regarding an issue that we’re going to be talking about a little bit later. Professor Brown: Okay, great. Tomoko as well. Great. Anything else? Okay, great. So as you go — what I would like you to do is to really do take this on as that you are representing about 25 other people on campus. If you can find them, if you can sort of choose them yourself if you would. And then what I’d like you to do is to really start talking with them about the issues that are raised here. Today we’re going to have a specially interesting issue on consensual amorous relationships. At the November 11th meeting we’re going to be talking about the Black Cultural Center. We’re going to have an informational presentation to bring us up to speed about planning for that, about what it looks like today. And what I encourage you to do is, between now and November 11th, is to speak to your colleagues about their concerns about the Black Cultural Center. A lot of us don’t have a lot of information about what that looks like right now. We’d very much like to have an open conversation about that so you can bring your concerns, and we’ll talk about that at the November 11th meeting.

Professor Bayne: Jane, can we also talk about what the official title may or may not be for that? Professor Brown: Yes, that’s a pertinent point. Absolutely. That’s in question right now and I think that’s the perfect kind of question to raise. Great. I’d also like to call on Ed Galligan very quickly to speak to the issue about teaching. He’s been involved in helping the campus move forward on that. Could you speak to that now, please? Professor Galligan (Philosophy): Sure. I’d be glad to. I’ll be brief because there are matters of greater human interest. The Board of Governors funded some income for the Faculty Assembly on the conference on enhancement and evaluation of teaching. It was held in Cullowhee. Professor Brown: Can we hear? Come on up here, Ed. You’re tall enough. Professor Galligan: As I was saying, the Board of Governors provided funding for the Faculty Assembly’s conference on the enhancement and evaluation of teaching. It was held in Cullowhee in the first week of September. And your local representatives were Laurel Files from Health Policy and Administration, Laura Gasaway from the Law School, Darryl Gless from the General College and the Department of English, Margaret Moore from the Health Sciences Library, Ed and Iola Neal from the Center for Teaching and Learning, myself, Ed Galligan, from Philosophy. The conference was to begin work on implementation of the Board of Governors’ mandate on the evaluation of teaching. We had reports from constituent campuses across the system telling what has been done and what’s in the planning. These were circulated beforehand and discussed in our meetings. The relevant committees of the Faculty Assembly will be in receipt of follow-up reports from the constituent institutions this fall. At that conference we heard, had invited speakers, Professors Peter Selden (Pace University) and Linda Annis (Ball State University), and Chancellor Lloyd Hackley from Fayetteville State University. Peter Selden and Linda Annis — probably some of you may know of them. They talked extensively about the teaching portfolio model. The essential thing that emerged from the conference that is our real goal as faculty members, or should be, is for the enhancement of teaching rather than evaluation for evaluation’s sake. It’s important to me that this effort be faculty driven and as much as possible implementation take place at the department level. Hopefully then the emphasis can be more on enhancement of teaching than summary evaluation. I should say that we at Chapel Hill with our Center for Teaching and Learning, our relatively large and well established awards for excellence in teaching, it has already begun by our several schools and agencies. And we look pretty good by comparison with the reports from the others. I should say that also our plans are underway to tie our campus planning efforts into SACS self-study and SACS review materials, as Jane mentioned earlier. Professor Brown: Thank you. Professor Galligan: Any questions? Professor Brown: So this is in response to the Board of Governors’ mandate that we evaluate teaching and have peer review and so on. And so that a system is beginning to help us figure out how to do that. And what our committee has decided is that it needs to be faculty-generated coming from the bottom up rather than the top down. That’s what we’re working on.

Okay. You also asked me on the back of this, you also asked me about the Chancellor search. Let me talk just a minute about that. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in. I would much rather tell you today who we have and so on. But what I can say is that I am pleased with the pool. We have had more than 150 applicants, and it is an exciting set of people we are now looking at. We’re moving quickly and I am sure that we will have someone by the time Chancellor Hardin retires next year. And the process if you don’t know is that what we as a committee do — it’s a 21 person committee; there are 6 faculty representatives on the committee. We are listened to. And what we do now is to make a recommendation of 2 or 3 people to the Board of Trustees. From that they make a recommendation to President Spangler, who then will interview these 2 or 3 people and he will make the final decision. And so I am pleased with where we are and how it’s moving and with the caliber of people we’re looking at. And I will give you as much information as we proceed as possible, and I will encourage the committee to give all as much information as possible.

And finally I’d like to thank Amy Vaughn. We are unfortunately losing Amy Vaughn to marriage and another job. And she has been a wonderful addition to the Secretary of the Faculty’s Office, and we thank you very much for all the hard work you’ve done for us. Thank you. [applause]

Now we have a couple of standing committee reports which should go quickly. We have the honor of having Doris Betts back to address us about the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee.

V. Annual Reports of Standing Committees

a. Advisory Committee: Doris W. Betts, Co-Chair.

Professor Betts: I know better than to address you. Ann Woodward is also here but you have the report before you and I would simply move its adoption unless there are questions. Move the adoption. Professor Brown: Thank you. It’s accepted. Thank you, Doris.

b. Faculty Grievance Committee: A. Reid Barbour for Janice H. Schopler, Chair.

Reid Barbour is on the Committee and here for John Semonche and Janice Schopler, who is the Chair.

Professor Barbour: I trust you all have the report, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. Do I have to move to adopt as well? Professor Brown: We’ll accept the report if there are no questions. Professor Barbour: Thank you. Professor Brown: Thank you. And you dressed up for that, right? I don’t think the next item will go so quickly.

VI. Policy Statement on Consensual Amorous Relationships Between Faculty or Instructional Staff and Students: Laurel A. Files and Christopher S. Martens.

Professor Brown: We’re now going to have a chance to have a community discussion. And we’re going to participate and we’re going to be civil to each other, and we’re going to practice what we’ve been preaching. The Chancellor’s Sexual Harassment Advisory Committee has spent a significant amount of time this last year considering the issue of faculty or instructional staff involvement in sexual relationships with students at the University for whom they evaluative or have a supervisory responsibility. More than a hundred colleges and universities throughout the country have policies that address this issue, and the committee looked at samples from several campuses and gathered information from colleagues at other institutions. They developed a draft for a proposed policy and after consulting with Chancellor Hardin, began the process of seeking input from various constituencies at the University, including us through the Faculty Council, faculty through the Faculty Council, EPA and SPA staff through the Employee Forum, graduate students through the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, and undergraduates through the Student Government. Now all of you have, got an opportunity to look at the proposed policy draft, and I emphasize the word “draft.” This is a draft, and we are not expected to vote on it today. I would prefer we not vote on it today. I want this to be a conversation about it, what this community would like to see in such a policy, if you’d like to see such a policy. That’s open for discussion as well. Do we need this policy? And if we do, what do we want in it? We have a number of people here who have served on the committee. Let me introduce them because they can be here to speak more clearly about it than — what the intention is and the kinds of debate they’ve been through as they formulated this draft. Jane Burns is here, a Professor in Romance Languages, in Women’s Studies now, Laurie Charest — could you stand up just so we can see who you are, and Laurel Files, Mary Jane Kagarise, Chris Martens, and Judith Scott, who is the University’s Sexual Harassment Officer. Great. And are there any other people here from the committee? Okay, great. So these people can help us know how this policy was drafted, what they intend, and they are here, they assure me, to listen carefully to your concerns, your support, how you’d like to see them redraft the policy. Let me also say that this policy has also come before the Executive Committee of Faculty Council already. We have already registered some concerns and issues that we’d like to see addressed in a redraft. And some of those may come up again today. So with that — Oh, Dick, you also wanted to say something? Provost McCormick: Well, I wanted to say very briefly on the Chancellor’s behalf that he is interested in this policy question, especially interested in hearing your views, has no preconceived notions of what the outcome ought to be, but specifically asked me to report to him on your observations about the proposed policy. So I’m listening heartily. Professor Brown: Some of you have already seen that I’ve been interviewed in the newspaper and this has been near and dear to me. So I’m going to keep also an open mind here today and hear how you’d like to speak about this. So let’s open the conversation with: do we need a policy? and what would you like to have in it? And could you stand up and identify yourself?

I’m not on the Faculty Council. My name is Bob Adler (Business School) and actually I got involved in this because somebody in the locker room asked me my views about this as a lawyer, and then I read it and I did have some concerns which I shared with Jane and some of the other people on the committee. And the first thing I wanted to say was that I want to commend the Chancellor and Jane and the committee for listening to all of my concerns and for undertaking this. I think it’s a terrific first step. I think it’s an important policy. I think we should appreciate the hard work that’s gone into it. And I’m absolutely impressed with the insight they had in due process. Having said that, I do have a strong but narrow concern about one aspect of the policy. You notice that this is a policy that deals in the instructional context, and that’s all my concern. I’m not here as the local snoop or the local prude to tell people how they would conduct themselves with students outside of the instructional context, how they run their personal, private lives. I’m a bleeding heart like a lot of folks in this room, and I value privacy as much as anybody else in the room. But what I want to say is the instructional context is not a private concern. It is a professional concern, just the same way that clergy-congregant, psychiatrist-patient, or doctor-patient relationships — lawyers use the term “fiduciary relationship” — you owe the highest dignity of concern and care to somebody who’s in that relationship and that’s all I’m focusing on.

Just that narrow, professional, instructional context. When I look at the policy, the first concern I have is that it is not really a policy. It is advice. That is to say, and it’s excellent advice. It’s well thought out advice. It’s well founded advice, but the bottom line is all it says is that faculty should avoid. That is not a policy. That — if you want a policy, you should say, faculty shall not enter into these relationships. And I believe for one that we should not be playing Ann Landers; I guess we should be playing Judge Wapner. My plea is that we go beyond simply giving advice, and that there be a meaningful sanction. The way I would describe the sanction is that’s it’s a free fling sanction. Actually that’s not really the way I’ve described it; that’s the way I describe it today. I wanted to ask a question. Jane, you may get upset that I’ve asked it, but I’m curious if there’s a single person in this room who endorses or accepts the idea of a romantic relationship between a professor and somebody over whom that professor exercises fate control in a professional, instructional context. Do we have anybody here who’s prepared to argue in support of that? Professor Tomoko Masuzawa (Religious Studies): Do you mean are they in support of it? Professor Lensing: Name and department, please. Professor Adler: You say that you endorse it, you think it’s okay. Professor Masuzawa: Oh. Professor Adler: You think it’s okay. You may have some disagreements with aspects of the policy, but is there anybody here who says, “Look, it’s okay, it’s my business.”?

Professor Bill Wood (Medicine): It’s not professional to ask a question in this context. Professor Adler: Well it may not be but it drives home a point that I think is uppermost in my mind, which is most of us are not here prepared to endorse that. Professor Wood: That’s a have-you-quit-beating-your-wife question. Professor Adler: Well, I don’t think so. Because if you read the debate in Harper’s Magazine some time ago, they actually found some folks who say it’s good, it’s good for the professor and it’s good for the young student, an educational experience for the student, and it helps the professor, so I don’t think — laughter — I could have believed it at face — And feel free to point out if you think it is restrictive. I’m almost done with my comments. Professor Brown: Okay. Professor Adler: It seems to me that we should do more than simply counsel people who are in that relationship. The reason I say that is that I really do think there’s a very strong consensus and has been for years against entering into those kinds of relationships. And the reason I think that we bring up a policy like this is because we find that there’s still some abuses that occur. And I think in those instances the proper reaction — if you want to counsel, fine — and I don’t believe that we should be out with a bedroom patrol. I don’t think we should be intruding into people’s lives. As, Henry Cisneros and Bill Clinton and Senator Riegle and Princess Di have discovered, sometimes this information comes out. And if it does come out, without a bedroom patrol, then I think the proper and appropriate action is a severe sanction. I, myself, would support dismissal. I could accept suspension. But simply saying, “Please don’t do that,” I think does not go far enough. But let me finish by saying I do commend all the work that’s been done. I really do appreciate it. Professor Brown: Thank you, Bob. Would you care to speak now? And we need names.

Professor Wood: The point I was trying to make — Professor Lensing: Could you give your name, please, sir? Jane: We need you to identify who you are. Professor Wood: And regardless of whether I support this or not, I think it’s a marvelous statement. My point is, number 1 it does say “consensual,” and number 2, to be put on the spot in a room like this is to say you have to quit beating your wife. It’s less than professional. And I think to pose that kind of question in this group is not appropriate. I think it’s perfectly fine to have a discussion on these guidelines or whatever you wish to call it. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to put the whole group here to the yes-no question. Thank you.

Professor Howard Reisner (Pathology): I’d just like to follow up on that. I think there are many things which I personally would not want to engage in. Nevertheless I don’t want to necessarily prohibit out-of-hand. We had a discussion about this. This is by the way, you know, I found out who my constituent body was when this came out. And I might add that I’m in Pathology and some of the comments were amusing. To be serious about it, there have been many long-lasting happy relationships that were founded on a teacher-student relationship. I think it’s much more true it’s probably not going to happen, but I do think that historically it has happened, it’s led to long-lasting, happy relationships. In fact one of the people who discussed it pointed that out and said: “Well, that if this had been forbidden they wouldn’t have any children.” And I do think we have to recognize the fact that as much as we say we’re not endorsing bedroom patrols, what do you mean by coming public? Are you willing to accept the sort of public outcry that’s condemned some of the names that you’ve mentioned? Would you say that if a faculty member’s name shows up in the newspaper that that is evidence of guilt? Or evidence of a consensual amorous relationship? I think the problem is that to say you condemn this out-of-hand, you have to put some sort of a record together to decide if someone is guilty of this offense. I also would like to ask a few questions of the committee because I found that there are many things that are unclear to me. It starts with definitions. I’d like to know the definition of what a consensual amorous relationship really is. I went to my dictionary. It wasn’t much help. Are bestial couplings in the hall in which there is no love permitted? If that isn’t, perhaps we should say so. Are those amorous relationships? I really don’t know. And I think that really brings up an interesting issue. I may make light of it but it’s serious. What is an amorous relationship? We’re allowed platonic relationships. I’m not sure what that is either. One of my philosophical friends said he knew platonic relationships were okay. I didn’t know how to answer that. But I did notice that we have a long list of people ranking from the University Sexual Harassment Officer down to the Dean of Students who I’m sure would be happy to enlighten us. I would feel much happier if you would enlighten me to the document.

Professor Brown: Are you on the Committee? Yes. My name is Steve Hoffmann, I’m the Vice President of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation. We’ve done a great deal of work with Judith Scott and the committee. One thing I want to make sure: that you remain germane to what we believe the policy should be is that being a graduate student at this University you have the maybe bad ability to be on both the student side or a TA can be on the teaching side. So this policy has to help us in both ways. We want the support by being a student, but on the other hand we want the protection for being a teacher and faculty member. I think that it is important that this should be regulated by the Chancellor. When we’re talking about regulating this one-on-one exchange, and whether we’re saying you can’t do that, I don’t know if we’d necessarily want to foster prohibiting that relationship. It’s the consequence of these relationships that we’re interested in. If something happens within the relationship that is bad, you need a venue or something that is University policy as protection that you can take somewhere to get help. Because if that breaks down, that ruins the whole idea of trust and the whole atmosphere of a climate, whether it be in the laboratory or whether it be in a classroom, that also affects everyone else around. As an analogy, you have three graduate students in one lab. A relationship develops between the mentor and a graduate student. Maybe you’re floundering around, maybe they’re going straight on through. Also, they’re done in four years, you’re done in eight. They’re married in eight while you’re still in your lab. It’s a funny example but it puts strains on the whole relationship of a classroom, the whole relationship of a lab. Not just one-on-one. Now you talk about a straight, non-amorous connection. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. What happens if that occurs on one drunken binge of an evening; however you want it say it, it occurs. Where do you go from there? All of a sudden, there’s a strain, or that can break down into harassment. Well, remember when this happened, that can be okay, you’re not doing that anymore. All of a sudden the support and guidance you got as an individual now seems to seep away. And now you feel left out. So as far as being a graduate student representative, I think that there is a idea of giving the greatest degree of freedom of faculty and students to enter into anything that they wish. But there has to be that responsibility, that maturity level, that you have to enter into that. There’s a differential in power that the higher branch definitely has. And acceptance of that responsibility. Get involved as you wish. On both sides. That is consensual. But you can’t use that as a defense if problems occur and such allegations are brought against you later. But you can’t say that it was consensual at the time, because that existed in the beginning. And those consequences and sanctions that can be brought against you need to be a part of this policy.

Professor Brown: Are you speaking for stronger sanctions than are in this policy? Mr. Hoffmann: What I am speaking for is — this is a draft. This draft, and I have seen revisions from the Faculty Council Executive Committee’s had to make it more advisory, to make it shorter. I think this, to realize that this is a draft that needs to contain sanctions, definitions, and also what will happen in all relationships. I mean it cannot be a short, concise statement that just says this is what we think. Professor Brown: So you would like elaboration? Mr. Hoffman: I would like absolute elaboration. I think that’s what the students would really like to see. Professor Brown: Okay, great.

Laurel, you’ve been on the committee; would you like to address some of these issues? Professor Files (Health Policy and Administration, Public Health): Yes, I’d like to address some of the points raised so far. With regard to the comment about definitions, I think the comment is well taken. It’s been made by a number of people, and when we go back to committee with this, that something we’ve already discussed, that we need to clarify not only what the definition is, but distinguishing the definition of amorous relationship from sexual harassment. It’s a fine line and you’re dealt with slightly differently, and we have to make that clear in this policy. The Committee is aware of that. With regards to Bob’s comment about one free fling, I would just like to make the observation that this policy mirrors the sexual harassment policy in terms of what the first steps are to deal with a complaint in this kind of situation. It also mirrors most of the other policies that I’ve seen at other universities, which is the very first step is you attempt to deal with the problem, the complaint, in a non-adversarial way, in an educational way. Find out, investigate, find out what’s going on, advise both parties as to how ill advised the situation may be. In certain instances you might say this is something that needs to — you should not, if it’s an instructional situation, and you say this is a situation that should not continue. But you are correct in terms of further steps, what happened, where it — we allude to that in this policy, but they are not specified in a step-by-step way and I think that also is a suggestion that’s well taken and we need to look at what the procedure is beyond that. But I think that first step is one that is, that we have already incorporated into our sexual harassment and I believe our racial harassment policy, and it’s the way these begin. But we might want to get some more feedback here from others but I think the Committee is comfortable with that.

Professor Brown: Bob, do you want — Professor Adler: Yes, I had this discussion with Laurel and so I went and read the racial harassment policy. I’m not opposed to the idea of counseling and discussing at the outset, but there really is a distinction. In the racial and sexual harassment policy idea of this informal consultation is to make sure that the incident actually occurred and someone isn’t just angry at somebody else. The problem with an amorous consensual relationship — the two parties may be thrilled with each other and so counseling is not likely to produce any further movement in that regard. That what you’re really talking about is just an empirical question. Did the parties engage in an amorous consensual relationship? I can see, therefore, a distinction. On the other hand, I don’t think Laurel and I are that far apart. I’m not at all opposed to a more gradual policy that’s sent in, but at some ultimate point it seems to me there’s got to be sanctions. Professor Brown: Okay, Jane.

Professor Jane Burns (Women’s Studies): I’m also on the Committee. It seems to me that the bulk of the discussion this far is far afield of the real issue in this policy. Because as far as I’m concerned, and I think I should speak only for myself as a member of the Committee, the issue is not who’s doing what with whom, in the bedroom, in the office, or anywhere else. The policy is not designed to control specifically sexual actions. It’s designed to control the grading process. It says absolutely here, number III on page 2, that a faculty member “should avoid any amorous relationship, consensual or otherwise, with a student who is enrolled…” The key factor here is: should you be grading or otherwise evaluating the work of a graduate student or an undergraduate with whom you are sleeping, dating, married to? I think Laurel’s point is well taken that we may want to give a more concise definition of “amorous,” but that will not solve the problem, I think, that you raised earlier. You know, knowing what’s amorous and what isn’t is not the bottom line. The bottom line is, to me, should you be evaluating or grading — should any of us be evaluating or grading someone with whom we’re having an intimate relationship.

Professor Philip Bromberg (Medicine): I simply want to underline the fact that you mentioned the possibility that we’re dealing with a marital couple, a couple that are married under the laws of this great State, and are entitled to do what they wish in their amorous transports. And the point is exactly the one that you’re making. The issue is not to regulate that sort of behavior, but is it having an impact on the academic process? And that’s where the focus ought to be. That’s why I believe many of us who’ve had some contact with the drafts of this policy believe that it should be a clear statement that you cannot allow your personal relationships to have an impact on how you treat a student if you’re a professor. And there has to be the issue of fairness, that all the students, for example, feel that this individual has no unfair advantage. And that can be said and make it very clear where the University will stand if there is an issue of that type that arises. But not try to define consensual amorous relationships.

Professor Bernadette Gray-Little (Psychology): I just wanted to follow up on that comment just made when he said that we should not allow our personal feelings to enter into the evaluation. And I thought what was being said is that we shouldn’t be evaluating anyone with whom an amorous involvement is given. But I think that there is a very important difference.

Professor Masuzawa (Religious Studies): I am actually speaking including myself but for my constituents I believe, and I think first I would like to bring to your attention the fact that there are large numbers, I think, of faculty who are not Council members who are quite concerned — in fact I might say alarmed — that this discussion is coming to the Council without the general faculty not knowing about this. And I have shared this, whether the faculty hasn’t been brought to your attention. Professor Brown: We have, we have been as public about this as any issue I think we’ve ever brought before Council. Professor Masuzawa: Well perhaps it is just that the faculty, hasn’t been public discussion. Professor Brown: This is a public discussion.

Professor Masuzawa: But let me just say that there are, I think the concern is twofold. For one thing I think there is strong support for what seems to be the major intent of what needs trying to avoid. In other words this policy is trying to advance, namely, that the relationship in which the power differential exists in evaluating a relationship. What might appear to be consensual is not really. And to that extent it should be covered and it should be in the province of a sexual harassment policy. And if we do not understand sexual harassment policy at that level, perhaps we need to educate ourselves more and certainly to inform better our students, educate them, about their basic rights and so on. And to the extent that that goes outside of the sexual harassment policy, then I think there are some major problems in these times. And I cannot really summarize all the people that I’ve spoken to about this, but mainly I think that there can be a kind of broad stroke, can be summarized as follows. The kind of, the invocation that Jane Brown has just now given, seems to be quite different from what, especially in page 2, the paragraph on page 2 concludes that it is possible far beyond what the immediate laboratory relationship in a classroom setting. For instance in the first paragraph of page 2, “[Further,] consensual sexual relationships in which one person is in a position to review the work or influence the career of another may also provide grounds for complaint by others outside of the relationship when the [that] relationship appears to give undue access or advantage to the individual involved in the relationship, or to restrict opportunities or create a hostile and unacceptable environment for those outside the relationship.” Now it seems to be the concern here is sufficiently different from the question of whether the relationship in which the power differential is such that the actual genuine mindset, the consensual nature of the relationship is really consensual. Then just think of the hypothetical case situation that, I mean even though my husband probably will laugh at the phrasing, I suppose marriage is a consensual amorous relationship. [laughter] If that is the case, where does this underlying and then increasingly it seems, that it is quite possible within the University in this broad relationship of you know someone who is in a position of influence in the career of another. I mean this is a very, very broad kind of context we’re talking about. And it is quite possible that married persons would be in some way in a relationship in which one who influences the career of another. And suppose if a third party would identify this as a, constitutionally unfair. Well, what would be the implication? I think there is a strong case, a word list for our concern is of this nature. This relates to the first paragraph which is to some extent repeated at the bottom of the paragraph of the same page, which seems to be very, very significant and apart from a specific context in which Jane seemed to be talking about. Professor Brown: Can Jane speak to that right now?

Professor Burns: I think that as far as the paragraph on the top of the page is concerned, what the Committee had in mind — it may be that we should change some of the language. As I remember it, and I would ask anyone else to second me or disagree, what we were thinking of is a relationship, a mentoring relationship between professors and graduate students, so that if you’re in a position of reviewing the work of a graduate student with whom you’re having an amorous relationship, you should not do that. You should either send the student to another adviser or delay your relationship until later. Now, if I agree with you that there’s more here, more influence from your peers, the understanding is that when you’re reviewing the work of the graduate student, you can’t then do exactly what’s best for you. And so that is still an instructional context as I understood it. Does anyone… Professor Brown: So you would include marriage then if there’s … Professor Burns: Well here’s the question. If you’re in a department with someone to whom you’re married and, say, the spouse comes up for tenure. Should you, as the married partner, vote on their tenure and promotion? Well that’s what the policy speaks to.

Professor Files: I think there’s a clear analogy here, and there is University policy on relationships between supervisors and subordinates, which the University does not condone. There are faculty members who are married to each other, but the policy is that you don’t have a married relationship where one person is the supervisor of the other person. So that one person is voting on whether it’s tenure or salary or anything else. And I think that policy is clear, and that this is an extension of that policy to the instructional realm. You simply don’t, if you’re married to a student, you should not be in a position where you are evaluating that student, where you are writing references for that student. I would think that would look suspect. You know it’s just plain old common sense. And I think that the University has made clear what, you know, the belief that some people should get unmarried if you’re going to be in school, but as Jane said, pull yourself out of that relationship; somebody else, take the course from somebody else. That’s just a common sense response to that. You made a comment earlier about harassment. The definition of harassment is if it’s consensual, if it were truly consensual which I assume a married relationship represents, then it does fall under harassment. Harassment is that it is not consent by the subordinate party.

Professor John Halton (Computer Science): I came to this meeting with quite a bit of concern about this policy statement. As I hear the discussion, I am getting increasingly sick about it. I entirely agree with the underlying advisory type idea. It’s a really bad idea to get involved with the students, to get involved with the junior faculty colleagues, and supervisees. I think we all agree about that. In some occasional cases if two people fall deeply in love and can maintain a fairly objective relationship with each other, it can actually be good. And if you want my vote just so you can say that everybody does agree with you, I don’t agree although I feel doubtful. I’m willing, uh, because I’m afraid because of this political correctness thing, that we’re all going to be having to vote for this so people will think that we’re really against it. Well I’ll vote against it. I think that a piece of advice is very nice. I’m very concerned that we are singling out amorous relationships. What about hate? What about business relationships? And if I have a thorough dislike of a student, that person will get F’s in my course every time, right? But wouldn’t you all give “Fs” to your students, if you don’t happen to like the way they dress or the way they look. It may be, I mean we have — let me put it this way. We have rules about sexual harassment. We have rules about conflict of interest. As somebody said, it’s perfectly obvious, you know if my wife is in my course and I give her A’s in every assignment and I write her a great reference, who’s going to believe us — unless she’s awfully good. And that is very difficult. So I would say, look, don’t take my course because even though I know you’re worth the A’s, no one will believe it. Go to this other guy who’s giving a parallel course, you know, do it some other way. I think that the fact, the concerns we have that are expressed in here, are concerns about, as I said, business relationships, hate relationships, as well as love. People pay money to get grades. Actually I don’t have the good fortune to be offered money. You know, I believe these things happen, so isn’t that just the same thing? That to say if two people fall in love, they’re going to say, oh, gee, we can’t do that, because it says here in the faculty policy that this is bad, or worse still, that you could actually get fired for falling in love. It really is repellant to me. I think we’re getting into something we shouldn’t do. We should legislate against abuse, not against feelings. I guess that’s a good place to start.

Ms. Susan Covington: I am Secretary of Women’s Issues, on executive branch of student government, and I’ve read a lot of different policies, students dating faculty policies, from a lot of different schools, and I understand everything you’re saying about grading and all these things are very worthwhile points, but just as an undergraduate I’d like to point out the perspective of how I feel, and I’ve talked to many women this week — and men too – and how they feel. We’ve been talking about the consequences to the faculty, but I just think it’s really important to know as an undergraduate the discomfort that can arise in a situation, not just when you’re in a relationship, but just when you go to a faculty’s office, a faculty member’s office, and you have to sit there — I would feel much more comfortable as your undergraduate knowing there was a strong policy against any kind of romantic involvement between a professor and myself, and knowing that there are strong sanctions that would occur if this were to happen. A lot of women I’ve talked to this week feel that way. They want a strong prohibitory policy. Professor Brown: So has student government already heard this and has encouraged this policy? Ms. Covington: I talked about that at a cabinet meeting in May and a couple of cabinet members spoke to me afterwards. I also spoke to several other women who want a policy.

Professor George Rabinowitz (Political Science): One of the questions I had even before I came in is it seems like it’s a very different situation when you have, if you think of a child going to the University, and being an undergraduate, their situation is a far different situation emotionally than a graduate student or a faculty member. And this policy is very blind to the level or the age of a student. It seems to me that with an undergraduate people can wait till a course is over — you know it’s a short time frame. There are a lot of reasons to have here a clear statement and maybe some sanctions against amorous relationships. While it becomes a much more complex thing as people get further and older and their situations change, and then it seems to be much more in the sexual harassment area. Professor Brown: Because of the other kind of power differential. Professor Rabinowitz: Right. And so .. Professor Brown: So that is one of the issues that I think the Committee wanted to hear, about whether we want to limit it to specific kinds of students rather than all students, and marital relationships as well. Steve, you’ve had your hand up a long time.

Professor Steve Bayne (Dentistry): Two quick things. I sort of reversed the question. I went to people and said, what do you think a policy should be just given the title? And it’s interesting, because I felt that originally that this was very common sense; it was sort of intuitive, and I was fully supportive of it. I wasn’t sure that we needed a policy or not, but what I got back from people was very different, okay? This, to them it wasn’t about common sense at all. I got a lot of arguments, a lot of disagreements from it’s none of your business to why can’t I have a relationship with a student? I can always separate, okay, my ability to grade that student from any sexual relationship I might have going on. So we have this full spectrum of arguments. On top of this, I was trying to look at the situation that we’re involved with, particularly in the Dental School and in the rest of Health Affairs. We have students that range in age anywhere from about 22 up to 50. We have students that are grading students because they’re a year ahead of them, and we’re trying to get them involved in teaching and
whatever, so they’re in this position. We also have graduate students in teaching situations. We have staff in teaching situations. We have technicians in teaching situations. And so we have a cluster of middle aged people, okay, that are going back and forth all the time. It’s very complicated. So if you don’t write down what you can do and you can’t do, I can see that it could be very confusing to a lot of individuals. So I agree with writing the thing down. Now, I took the policy back to some of the faculty and said, okay, now read the policy. How do you feel? They all generally supported the policy but they didn’t want it to say “policy”; they wanted it to say “advice” or “guidelines.” They still felt they were capable of carrying it out on their own without having a policy. So I’m acting as a representative now. Personally, I agree with a couple of the other speakers. I really think to have any substance or guts, you really will have to move more towards a policy than guidelines. But I think the reaction of the poor faculty is they would like to see it as, titled “guidelines” rather than “policy.”

Professor John Workman (Business School): The question I had is it follows up on your idea of who does this apply to and one question I asked the committee is if you all thought of like limiting it to full-time faculty or tenure-track faculty as a separate group with a different set of sanctions than the TA or the student that’s one year ahead of somebody else they have to evaluate. And I think there’s a huge range of instructional contexts. I think an issue you make that only in terms of the traditional faculty-undergraduates, I think there should be a strong written policy there. But when you get into the graduate schools, when you get into people being around 6 or 8 years, you have a lot of varied, the issue about it can influence a career. If you think about how faculty can influence the career of a graduate student, that may have nothing to do with assigning a grade. And so I think there’s a huge range of instructional contexts;, that this policy really does not acknowledge that variety.

Professor Pamela Conover (Political Science): I wanted to address the couple of points concerning the good of a relationship and how some of these relationships may be very loving relationships and may even result in marriage. And one of the things that I think is getting lost in this discussion is that we’re not just concerned here with what is good for the people involved in the relationship. That there are fall-out effects on the classroom climate when it occurs in the classroom. There are fall-out effects in the department when it occurs in the department over the long period of time. So whereas I think George made some very good points about there being different concerns at different levels, one concern that cuts across all those levels is what does having that relationship do to the instructional environment for everyone else? Students in an undergraduate class, other graduate students in a department, faculty who are in a department. When you have that relationship, it makes the other people who are not involved in the relationship skeptical about the overall fairness of grading, fairness of the situation, fairness of assigning benefits. So you have to consider I think both those things.

Professor Bob Adler (Business School): I just wanted to talk to some comments, because it seems to me that what I’m hearing is a loss in focus. Nobody’s against falling in love. Nobody’s against professors and students having relationships. That’s really not the issue. The issue is just this very narrow instructional context. The same way we focus on doctor-patient, clergy and congregant. It’s just when you move out of your private life into your public, professional set of obligations that this arises. No one’s trying to be a prude. Nobody’s against love. Hallelujah for love. The fact is when you’re in this instructional context, and if you don’t think you can control it, then there are easy measures of getting out of that. But if you’re in that, that’s what I think most of us are concerned about. I’m not trying to tell people how to run their lives. It’s when we’re talking about the professional context, the context of instruction, that we get this thing. Professor Brown: I want to spend about two more minutes, and so if those who haven’t spoken..

Professor Debra Shapiro (School of Business): I’m hearing an incredible amount of agreement across the room. Instructional context, I think, has become a term that is ambiguous. What the one thing that everyone who has spoken has agreed on is that while people can consent that they want you to fall in love with each other, that that, that one party in that relationship should not evaluate the other. So if you just maybe want to use that language, get rid of “instructional context”, but that people — one should not be evaluating the other if the nature of the relationship is any way amorous or consensually amorous or whatever you want to call it. It’s the evaluation that’s wrong. Right. Whether the evaluation is a grade or if it’s a tenure evaluation, or any kind of evaluation, it’s one party evaluating the other, that’s wrong, if the nature of the relationship is not strictly business.

Professor Mike Luger (Public Policy Analysis): Several people have dismissed the policy statement as deep guidance, advice, Ann Landers. When I read it, I found it very useful as the University’s explicit statement and the norm. That hasn’t been articulated before, so I would say that is positive. Professor Brown: So you see that as a community’s idea about how we want to conduct our business? and our private lives? Professor Luger: Yes.

Ms. Judith Scott (University Sexual Harassment Officer): Well, I just wanted to say that there are faculty and students who meet and they fall in love and they get married and they’re married 15 years and they have children together, and during that whole time when they’re meeting and falling in love on the same campus or on different campuses, and even sometimes when there are other relationships going on. Even though they know each other they’re scrupulously careful to remove anything that might lend somebody, to seem like conflict of interest in any way. They are not involved in an evaluative or supervisory relationship with someone with whom they are having that affair or that, whatever you want to call it. That policy — we have a policy on nepotism that precludes people from having supervisory or evaluative responsibilities over people in the workplace that they’re married to. We have nothing like that that says that people shouldn’t do that with students. In reference to something someone brought up, there are policies which exclude graduate students and applied to undergraduate students. There are policies that exclude reentry students and older students, though not graduate students. It’s not an attempt to legislate against feelings. It’s an attempt to legislate against this abuse of power in an instructional context. And it doesn’t have to be — abuse of power in an instructional context. And I think there is a question, too, of ambiguity that some people have, and I just raise that, in the kinds of relationships you’re talking about. No one’s talking about these particular relationships. There are people who question whether it can really be consensual given the power differential, whether you can have a relationship between counselor and wife, priest and someone be consensual. Professor Brown: Two more comments.

Professor Chris Martens (Marine Sciences): I think we’re all in line with one of the major objectives of such a policy, which is to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. I’ve heard nothing that says anything other than that. I think, however, to not have a policy is to make a mistake. The mistake is that we don’t deliver some basic information about what the expectations of the University community are. Sometimes we don’t deliver that to young people or to other people who haven’t heard, where lots of mistakes can be made. We need a policy to avoid that. I think a simple kind. Professor Brown: Okay, you want a policy. Good.

Professor Paul Farel (Physiology): I just wanted to remark on what Professor Bayne said about his constituents thinking that there was no need for a policy because they can separate their feelings from their evaluations. And I think that that is the argument why we need a policy. Because anybody who thinks they can do that is really misguided, and I really [dis]trust their ability to steer a moral course. And I would like to reiterate — Professor Brown: Trust or distrust? Professor Farel: Distrust. I’d like to reiterate what Professor Adler said, and for those of you who wonder what men talk about in the locker room, we talk about Faculty Council [laughter]. But I’d like to get back to, I think, at least some of what is really the core of what we should say, and that is the idea of a professional relationship. That there might be something good to come out of a psychiatrist sleeping with his or her patient, there might be something good that could come out of a clergyman sleeping with a congregant, but more often than not, there is not going to be something good coming out of those relationships. And I think to form a weak policy on the basis of what is very likely an infrequent event, that is more likely a relationship of abuse, would be a mistake. And I hope that the policy will emphasize more the professional relationship. I’d like to make a brief point about process. This policy that we’re seeing is a draft from May 8th. It’s been through many groups. It has gotten the feedback that we represent here. We spent a long time on the policy because it can be vague in many ways. And I just hope that the next time the policy comes before us, that it will have gone through a process of successive approximations, that when it goes to the Agenda Committee or the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council, that some of those comments will be incorporated before coming before this large group where discussion itself is perhaps not as precise as it should be.

Professor Brown: Laurel, I ask you to just make a closing comment. Professor Files: The Office of the Secretary of the Faculty has very kindly agreed to give us a transcript of this portion of the discussion some time next week, so I would just like to thank everybody who participated and gave us their opinions, because we will pull these all together, along with comments that we have received from the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, Student Congress, and the Employee Forum. We’ve been working on this for almost two years, and I think the feedback that we’ve gotten from various constituencies on the campus I think will be helpful in us crafting a final document. So I appreciate everybody’s forthrightness in this discussion. Professor Brown: Thank you. I want to acknowledge you all for a very civil debate and one that I think really has covered all the concerns that I’ve heard on both sides. So I would acknowledge you all and thank you very much. And I’m sure we will hear about this again, and we all look forward to a more precise document which we can debate again.

[The following discussion took place after “Old or New Business.”] Professor Henry Hsiao (Biomedical Engineering): I have a comment for the Committee. One thing you don’t have in there at all is how important, why is this important. You need to have something to start off, to say why it is important. Are there documented cases, you know, of problems on this campus, and then we’ll be able to see why it is necessary. Professor Brown: Is that possible? I mean people do raise this, and they say, so how widespread is this and so on. Professor Files: Well, it’s certainly inconsistent with the suggestion from the various faculty committees who said make it a short statement, one paragraph. We can’t go both ways. But I think the Chancellor’s Sexual Harassment Policy is distributed every year — I don’t think it’s every semester. I think it’s every year. And it’s distributed usually with a cover letter. And I think that might be an appropriate place to provide that information. Professor Hsiao: I know, I feel that’s important. But are there documented cases; do you have any evidence? Professor Brown: Well these cases haven’t yet had a policy, so there is no documentation as far as I know. There is documentation about sexual harassment. Professor Files: Let’s put it this way: there are anecdotal cases that people on this campus could tell you informally if you were interested. Professor Hsiao: I believe that. Professor Brown: Okay, great.

VII. Old or New Business

Professor Brown: At this point we have old or new business. Any other old or new business to bring up at this point?

Great. Then we move to a closed session to non faculty persons, non Faculty Council people. Anybody without a formal name tag or one that came in today. We’re going to be talking about honorary degrees. Professor Pfaff: General faculty. Professor Brown: Okay, great. All faculty can stay. Thank you. Okay, everybody who is not faculty out of here. Just a minute, there are still some media back there. Let’s go, Mike.

Closed Session

(to non-faculty persons)

VIII. Presentation of Candidates for Honorary Degrees for 1995 Commencement: John L. Sanders, Chair, Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards

The slate of five persons was approved.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 5:20 p.m .

George S. Lensing

Secretary of the Faculty

Actions of the Council

Date	Action	Destination
Sept. 23, 1994	Resolution of thanks to Senator Howard Lee, Representatives Anne Barnes and Joseph Hackney	To Senator Howard Lee, Representatives Anne Barnes and Joseph Hackney
	Resolution of thanks to General Assembly	To Members of General Assembly
	Resolution of thanks to Elizabeth McMahan, editor of Faculty Handbook	To Elizabeth McMahan
Oct. 21, 1994	No resolutions