December 8, 1995

Transcript, Faculty Council Meeting, December 8, 1995

TRANSCRIPT

MEETING OF THE FACULTY COUNCIL

Friday, December 8, 1995

Assembly Room, Wilson Library

[A complete transcript of the proceedings is available in the faculty section of the campus World Wide Web service.]

Faculty Council Attendance: Present 62; Excused Absences 13; Unexcused Absences 16.

Chancellor Hooker: The Chair has asked me to invite those of you who are sitting elsewhere to sit nearer to the front if you would like to do so. In fact, she would like to encourage you to do so.

I’d like to begin by expressing warm thanks for the University Women’s Club for the refreshments, the reception outside, and we appreciate it very much. We’ll begin by hearing a memorial resolution for the Berthe Marie Marti. Professor Philip Stadter, Chair of the Memorial Committee, will read the resolution.

I. Memorial Resolution for the late Berthe Marie Marti: Philip A. Stadter, Chair, Memorial Committee.

[There was a moment of standing reflective silence.]

II. Chancellor Hooker.

The Chair has invited you to sit in the front, those of you who are filing in. I want to make comments about three things: first, salary equity; second, land-use planning; and third, the alcohol policy. With respect to salary, I can report that there’s been a conference committee of deans from Academic Affairs and Health Sciences and members of the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council — I think they’ve met twice — to design implementation guidelines, make further recommendations, I think — implementation guidelines for salary. And their report will be given back to the deans and chairs and the entire Executive Committee for comment, and a final draft of that report should be before the Council at its January meeting.

With respect to land-use planning, most of you, I suppose, have read in the local newspapers about the work that the consulting firm from Chicago, JJ&R, has been reporting to community groups over the past week. I want to make it clear that everybody understands that the University did not engage this firm to design a plan for us to develop the two large tracts of land that we have, the Mason Farm tract to the east and the Horace Williams tract to the north, but rather the firm was engaged to draw up, to investigate, discover, draw up and report to us a set of constraining factors that would inform any use that the University made of that land at any time in the future, so we’re looking at issues such as current transportation access, a possible future transportation corridors, non-tidal wetlands issues, and so forth. And that is the nature of the report that will be presented to the Board finally. But because the community was not adequately involved some years ago, it went through a more formal planning process that was specific with respect to what was to be put where. We decided that this time through the community should be involved as the planning consultant went along, and so that has been done. The community, the town of Chapel Hill in particular, expressed a desire that the land-use planners go away for a while, let various community groups talk about it and come back for an iterative process, and that will, the next phase of that iterative process will be sometime in January. We expect that sometime in May the land-use planning firm will have its final, the draft of its final report, to the cognizant Trustee, Board of Trustee committee, and that it will then go to the full Board of Trustees in June. Now it won’t be, again, I want to emphasize, a plan. What it will be is a document that informs the planning process for the future, and it will suggest some generic, schematic alternatives for what kind of building might be put where. But it won’t suggest any particular buildings to be put any particular place. So it’s a document that we can draw on for the indefinite future as our needs arise. Now, as you know from the presentation last time our own Land-Use Advisory Committee, that is the faculty Land-Use Advisory Committee, has recommended that we plan for these two outlying properties primarily to house or serve the core campus community, that is, we have a significant shortage of affordable housing for staff and for junior faculty as you well know, and so this is one of the uses that the Land-Use Advisory Committee recommended this property be put to. Another is to house University administrative and support functions, and another is for continuing education, such as is now done at the Friday Center, which applies a portion of the Mason Farm tract and to provide independent research activities that are not crucially important to be located proximal to the academic units of the campus.

There was, similarly, a recommendation that all academic, core academic activities, take place here on the core campus and that we, therefore, build up, rather than out. There, of course, is some limit to what we can do. And if you project forward, just linear extrapolation from current trends, then within not too many years, within the careers of many of us in this room now, we will have built out what it is possible to build on the core campus while maintaining the aesthetic integrity of the core campus. So it is reasonable to believe that some group of administrators and faculty at some time in the not too distant future are going to face the question whether to build significantly higher on the core campus or to locate academic activities off campus. And, of course, any design to build significantly higher here will itself affect, or runs the risk of affecting, adversely the aesthetics of the campus, something that I certainly wouldn’t like to see. So that’s an issue. There’s no — It’s a problem. There’s no solution to it or proposed solution to it. But it is something for us to be cognizant of.

Now I want to mention a constraining factor with respect to Horace Williams because everybody is aware vaguely of it but not many people that I’ve talked to are fully aware of the nature of the Horace Williams tract. The tract that I’m talking about, of course, is the 1000 plus acres out near to the west and north of the Horace Williams Airport. And that land was given to us by former Philosophy Professor Horace Williams. It was bequeathed, I think, about 1942 or 43. And it was Horace’s intention that the land should be used in such a way as to throw off cash which would then be used by the Philosophy Department for fellowships. It wasn’t clear whether he was talking about just graduate fellowships or graduate fellowships and faculty fellowships. And if you read various remarks he is purported to have made at various times, you can interpret it either way. But it is clear that he intended that the Philosophy Department benefit, and benefit fairly soon, from the use of those lands. Well, there were, in addition to the Horace Williams tract, the 1000 plus acres, there were a number of houses in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Durham that Mr. Williams, Professor Williams, had amassed, and those were sold. And the proceeds from sales were put into a small endowment for the Philosophy Department that does provide graduate student fellowships, but the price of land being what it was in those days, the price of housing being what it was, the sale price was in no case significant, and back in those days the University invested all of its endowment in government bonds and so the annual yield and growth was miniscule relative to what it might have been had the University been investing in equities at the time. So the Philosophy Department did not benefit significantly. Now, at this point I have to say that I’m in an obvious conflict of interest situation, because I am a member of the Philosophy Department. I expect that one day, hopefully later rather than sooner, I will be a full-time faculty member teaching in the Philosophy Department and doing my research there. And so I have a particular personal interest in seeing that the Philosophy Department grows in quantity and quality, and so I’m in an awkward position as I negotiate on behalf of the University with the Philosophy Department regarding the Philosophy Department’s interests. But I think even unbiased people would say that we have not really fulfilled our moral obligation to the Philosophy Department yet. It is still to be discharged, and there is a question, “How should it be discharged?” It’s arguable, and if I had my Philosophy Department member’s hat on, I would argue that the University should develop the land in the highest and best use possible to return maximum cash to the Philosophy Department. But, of course, there’s no way in the world that we can do that. It would be irresponsible as neighbors in Chapel Hill to contribute to the significant infrastructure burden in the town by adding the usage there that would strain the already strained resources. So we can’t do that as responsible neighbors. And then the question is, “Well, what do we do?”

Ideally, from the perspective of just the University, if Horace had given the land to the University for its benefit and had not specified that it be specifically for the benefit of the Philosophy Department, then clearly we would want to hold the land until we really needed it for our own purposes, for houses for faculty and graduate students and staff, or for academic buildings, or research buildings, or administrative buildings, or whatever. But we can’t do that and fulfill our obligation to the Philosophy Department. And so, the next best thing would be, then, to arrive at some reasonable assessment of the value of the land and, in a sense, buy out the Philosophy Department’s interests in the land. I mean, the Philosophy Department obviously doesn’t own the land because it can’t. It’s part of the University. It’s the University that owns the land, but the Philosophy Department has an interest, and so we should make some effort to buy it out. And that is, in fact, what we’re doing now. We’re trying to arrive at some reasonable assessment of the value of the land. But clearly it can’t be market value because we can’t sell it to the highest bidder. I mean we can’t sell it to Disney to put a theme park there. So how do we determine what a fair market or fair value of the land is, given the constraints that we would face in developing it? That’s the conundrum with which we are wrestling right now. And I wanted you to be fully aware of where we are. We are making an honest good faith effort to buy out the Philosophy Department’s moral interest, let us say, in that land since it’s not a legal interest. And I think we will reach a amicable resolution. Part of the difficulty, of course, is that we don’t have a source of funds to tap to buy out the Philosophy Department’s interest. I mean, what you would want to do is to develop part of the land and use those proceeds to buy out the Philosophy Department. And the Philosophy Department could argue that whatever you realize from developing the land is 100% theirs and the remaining undeveloped land is also theirs. So it’s a challenge. Professor Brown: Are they being reasonable? [laughter] Chancellor Hooker: They are being more reasonable than I would be if I were representing just the Philosophy Department. But don’t tell them I said that. [laughter]

With respect to the other topic, the final topic, the alcohol policy, this is an issue that really deeply concerns me, the issue of alcohol abuse. We have all been educated in the last few years to the extreme importance of alcohol abuse as a contributor to many other social ills, such as child neglect, child abuse, spousal abuse, automobile accidents, and so forth. And so while when I was an undergraduate and for many years thereafter I regarded student drinking as just something that was a part of the coming of age experience of college students and more to be regarded as an amusing source of anecdotes than anything else, that is no longer the view that any responsible person can hold. And we are, all of us who are charged with the education of our students, responsible for taking a reasoned and responsible position with respect to student drinking. And there’ve been a number of surveys in the newspapers from various organizations doing the surveys recently that, each of which is sobering and adds gravity to any assessment of the situation. We are, we have action this term already. We have been working on, and have now developed, a new alcohol policy. Of course, we’ve had an alcohol policy in existence for quite some time. And we’ve taken a number of initiatives. I want to say at the outset that the fraternities and sororities have been working closely with personnel in the Division of Student Affairs to address alcohol abuse in Greek organizations. I don’t want to place the mantle of responsibility or opprobrium just on the shoulders of the Greeks. They certainly are not the exclusive locus of the problem. But it is one locus of the problem. And if you saw the survey in The New York Times — I think it was yesterday or the day before — which indicated that it was the residential aspect of fraternity life that, in the judgment of the study, contributes significantly to alcohol abuse.

But let me just outline some of the initiatives that we have been engaged in, and with respect to the policy let me tell you what the new terms of the alcohol policy which was just given to me last week and which I have approved and will issue and so it becomes University policy. It was, by the way, discussed thoroughly with the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council, though it’s not, to my knowledge, come before the full Faculty Council before this moment. Now here are the conditions of the new alcohol policy, conditions that are new in this policy. The first is that alcohol consumption is prohibited in open spaces on campus. This is a significant change from past practice. The second is that no alcohol can be served or consumed in any University facilities. There are some exceptional guidelines in the June ’95 guidelines that were issued. Third is that no student fees can be used to purchase alcohol. Fourth is that sanctions are provided in the policy for violating the policy, including mandatory alcohol education and community service. And Student Affairs intends fully to implement that aspect of the policy. And finally, the Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention Task Force will monitor the implementation of the new policy, assess its effectiveness, and every two years make a report to the community, to the University community, on the effectiveness of the policy, which will revised as it’s needed. Some other initiatives — Oh, I should before I move on to the initiatives, I should commend especially Student Government, which has worked hard in developing the policy, and really discussed instantiation after instantiation of the changes in the new policy. Calvin Cunningham, the Student Body President, was especially effective in this activity, as was the Graduate Student President Kim Miller. So I want to thank them and recognize them.

There is now a group, under the leadership of the Carolina Union, which has produced a report cataloging alcohol-free community service and recreational opportunities for students. Something that the University has, in my judgment, not done adequately in the past is to provide alternatives, recreational alternatives, to drinking for students. And the Carolina Union is now hard at work at that. Another thing that we discovered is, and Dick Richardson gets credit for bringing my attention to this fact, is that there really was no late night place for people to congregate on campus. And so we’ve now established new late night hours for some of our facilities. Starting in the spring semester the Carolina Union will remain open until 2 a.m. seven days a week. Student Stores, along with the coffee shop, The Daily Grind, will extend its hours, and Carolina Dining has already extended the Union Station’s operating hours until 1 a.m. to provide a late night gathering place. And the Undergraduate Library, which is now open 24 hours a day, will, through the spring semester, serve coffee beginning at 1:30 a.m. We are hopeful that this, having more places on campus for people to congregate, will incline them less toward the downtown bars. But that remains to be seen, whether that will be effective. The Department of Athletics and the Department of Public Safety are working together with respect to the athletic events to inform individuals of the new laws, Chapel Hill’s laws and our own laws, regarding public displays and consumption of alcohol. Student Health Service is working to beef up its education programs, addressing long-term alcohol abuse on campus and beyond. The editor of the Alumni Review has agreed to publish an article that addresses the University’s efforts to deal with this problem and to solicit suggestions from members of the alumni community in providing for us to implement on campus that will change attitudes toward alcohol abuse. The Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs has been involved in discussions with all the schools of the Division or Health Affairs in our efforts to address alcohol abuse among students, providing speakers and so forth.

But ultimately it is, I think, on the shoulders of us all to change, as I’ve said before, the intellectual climate on campus. This is not my discovery. This came from my reading of the self-study, and the more I am acquainted with the atmosphere and the climate on campus, the more convinced I am that that is the biggest challenge that we face in the year ahead, is doing something that will be significant in altering the intellectual atmosphere climate on campus. I look forward to working with you to embrace that challenge, and I’d be delighted to address any topics that anybody has in mind they’d like to hear me address.

Professor Jim Stasheff (Mathematics): Recently we received a memo to nominate candidates for distinguished professorships. This seems fairly often but somewhat unpredictably with short notice. But more to the point, once the nomination is past, the process is very obscure, to say the least. We have these very careful, formal regulations for promotion, for tenure, and so forth, but distinguished professorships just seem to happen. Could you elaborate on that? Chancellor Hooker: I sure can’t. I don’t know anything about the process. Is Dick [Interim Provost Richardson] here? Dean [Stephen] Birdsall [College of Arts and Sciences]: I think, Jim, you’re referring to the call for nominations in the College. There are, of course, distinguished professorships in other units and for the University as a whole, and I can’t really comment on them because I don’t know the processes used for those. Jack Sasson is chairing the committee of distinguished faculty. There’s an ad hoc committee. I’m told that distinguished professorships are appointed every time there is such an opportunity. They evaluate nominations and make recommendations. The recommendations are then vetted by the Subcommittee on Instructional Personnel that advises me on every personnel action. And then the recommendations are forwarded up through the channels, to the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees. So that’s the nature of the process. We can go for more detail if you’d like, but those apply just in the College. Professor Stasheff: That’s fine. Chancellor Hooker: The process should not be a mystery. First I’ve thought of it, and we’ll make sure that everybody understands what the process is — including the Chancellor.

Professor John Anderson (Nutrition): I just want to make a comical remark first if I may. You used the term “beef up” before. I’d appreciate it maybe if you could use the word “veggie up.” [laughter] Aside from that, it leads into my second topic, and that is the upkeep of the fraternities around the campus. I walk to lunch occasionally — I should probably walk more often — but when I do I often walk through these alleyways near the fraternities. And it’s a disgrace to walk through those places. The filth, squalor — you can’t imagine. You think you’re in a ghetto or something. And I think it’d be nice if maybe in the overall plan for all these facilities off campus we could maybe move the fraternities off campus. Chancellor Hooker: Actually they are. The fraternities own their own buildings. Professor Anderson: I realize that. Maybe they could donate them to the University. [laughter] The University could give them space off campus. Chancellor Hooker: There’s a beefy chance that they’ll do that. [laughter] Professor Anderson: That’s a beefy remark and I apologize for bringing it up, but –. Chancellor Hooker: Well I’m on my own campaign to clean up the campus and so every day I spend some time out picking up paper. I haven’t extended out to the fraternities yet– [Professor Anderson: Don’t do it] –and I shudder to think what I’ll find when I get there. Actually, we have a covenant with the Town of Chapel Hill where we have resolved to work with the Greek system to clean up, encourage them to clean up, their houses. The town has complained about this to us at a recent meeting of the town-gown partnership group that meets, and we are in the process — is Wayne Jones [Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance] here? He isn’t. We are in the process of cleaning up the fraternities and bringing order to the chaos that prevailed in that fraternity court over there off Columbia Road. We’ve paved over what was a gravel parking lot and painted lines, so that now people have to park where the lines are painted. And that has made a difference over there. But I understand you’re talking about trash, and not about cars not in order.

Professor Joy Kasson (American Studies): I read in the paper this morning about your remarks to the State Board of Education calling for more contributions by the School of Education to serve the state’s public schools. And I think that sounded like an excellent suggestion and it’s a wonderful thing that you’re the first Chancellor to speak to the State Board of Education. However, your remarks that were quoted in the paper include this comment: It says that you said, “The University has strayed away from its founding mission to serve taxpayers and the public. A public university serves the public.” And I know that serving the public has been one of your themes, and it’s one that we all concur with. To me this is a very serious critique that you’ve made of our current practice. And I just wanted to comment that I would rather see a community discussion within our community of our failings and the ways that we could improve, rather than to open up the newspaper and feel as if a negative impression of the University is being perpetrated. Chancellor Hooker: I’ve never held anybody accountable for what the newspaper reports that they said because I have rarely, myself, been accurately quoted. But let me tell you what I did say. What I said was that universities, particularly the land-grant universities that were established as a result of the Morrill Act in 1862 for the explicit purpose of serving the states that created them, that they had become, had developed cultures over the years that made them look more like private institutions, and that the public founding purpose had been forgotten. I was not talking about this particular University. And this University wasn’t established as a result of the Morrill Land Grant Act, and to look to the purpose of this University, we should go back to the founding documents, which I did in my inaugural address, and which certainly point to a public purpose. But I will not refrain from critiquing the American public higher education system — or this University — in public or in private — because I think that’s my moral obligation to do so. But I do welcome an internal dialogue.

Professor Sarah Chambers (History): Several of my colleagues have expressed some concern, and I share it with them, that there’s been quite a bit of pressure and opposition to you about the resolution on domestic partnerships passed by the Faculty Council, and even many of the graduate students in our Department who drafted you a letter also support, really, the principles of equality and inclusion and tolerance that I think our University represents and that that resolution represents. And so I was wondering if you could speak to how you’ve responded to some of that criticism. Chancellor Hooker: Sometime after the issue first came before the faculty senate the Christian Coalition, which has a communications network throughout the state, apparently — this is my conjecture — got on its network and encouraged people, members, or people who receive their publications — I’m now fairly familiar with the organization — to write to me and to the Governor and to members of the General Assembly complaining that the University was considering taking taxpayer money and providing the same personnel benefits to domestic partners as is provided to marital partners. And so I got a flood of letters, first from members of the, or people who are on the mailing list of the Christian Coalition throughout the state, and then, as could be anticipated, from members of the Legislature who had received similar correspondence from members of the Christian Coalition. So I have written to each person who wrote to me and pointed out that the benefits that the resolution before the Faculty Council talked about were employee-paid-for benefits, not state taxpayer provided benefits, and that this was a matter of University system policy, not the campus policy, and that, addressed in the resolution, and that any change in the benefits structure that involved tax dollars would have to come from the Legislature, not from the University. So that’s been my effort to address it. I did, of course, forward to the General Administration the resolution of the faculty senate, the Faculty Council, as you requested me to do. Anything else? Thanks very much.

III. Chair of the Faculty Jane D. Brown.

I want to congratulate us at the end of a semester for having successfully navigated another semester, and as I was thinking about it, looking at what we’ve done as a Council; we had high ambitions and as, usually when I teach my class and I get to the end of the semester as well, and I look back at my syllabus and I realize that we left off at least two or three topics that I meant to get to. That’s sort of where we are in the Council right now. If you remember that I had put out a list at the beginning of tentative special topics that we wanted to address here at each of these meetings. We are about one Council meeting behind on the topics we wanted to address. But I am satisfied that we are dealing with some important issues, and we have been this fall semester. And these other issues will stay on the docket. I appreciate what you say, Joy, as well, about having this kind of dialogue, and I think we’ll look to how to include the Council in that dialogue. I think we’re being, I think this is being addressed to some extent as we’ve started about planning and priority setting and so I think we’d like to see how, I will think about how we can get that here in the Council as well, so thanks for those remarks. So today we have a number of items that we didn’t get to last time, and let me talk a little bit also about what the Executive Committee has been doing in the meantime.

The salary policy Chancellor Hooker mentioned. You all should have gotten a memo from me encouraging you to continue to think about that. I want to thank Jim Peacock for chairing this conference committee. They’ve already met twice. They’re working hard, looking forward to having something back to us in January. If not, at least by February. We widely distributed what we passed, the principles, at our last meeting, and the draft of implementing mechanisms. I encourage you to continue talking about those with your colleagues, providing any feedback to Jim and the conference committee as they continue to work on those implementing mechanisms. I’d hoped to be able to have a full conversation about intellectual climate at this Council meeting, and what happened is that a subcommittee of the Executive Committee that was working on that got, devoted much of their energy to the alcohol policy this fall. So we’re still working on how to structure that conversation, create some recommendations about improving intellectual climate. I hope that we’ll be able to bring that to you either in January or February as well. So we have some important things on the docket. The Executive Committee worked with some other members of the Council as well to adopt, to be able to endorse this alcohol policy, so I hope it meets with your, I hope it’s satisfactory with you at this point. And I’m appreciative that it will be continued to be looked at in the next couple of years, so there will be room for changing it, making it even better in the future.

The other thing that we’ve been working on is AV [audio-visual] equipment. This came up early this semester. I just learned that the — this is ironic — that the video tape player that I loaned to my classroom this semester did remain there all semester, but last night was stolen. And so it just adds insult to injury, and I think that we have some difficulties with our AV equipment on campus. And I’m pleased to report that the Office of Institutional Technology, Instructional Technology, and the Center for Teaching and Learning, have been working together to see what we could do in the short run, and to begin to develop some ideas about how to satisfy some of the problems with AV equipment and moving into the future with higher tech classrooms and so on in the long run. There really are two issues. One is this AV equipment and how we get upgraded to all of us learning how to use new technology and so on in the classrooms. And there’s a second issue that is about classroom renovations and upgrading our classrooms so our students actually have seats that don’t fall down when you sit in them, and that we have screens that pull down, and so on. Overhead projectors, stuff like that. No, I’m sorry, overhead projectors are AV equipment. But these two kinds of ideas that I think we’re working on, and I want to acknowledge the Provost’s Office for helping pull all the pieces together here and help us start thinking about how we can solve these problems in the long run. There are apparently seven different committees on campus that have been dealing with some aspect of some or one of these issues. And so what we need to do now is to coordinate all these different people and different committees and put them together and see what we can do, both in the short run and in the long run.

So in the meantime, here’s what we can do as faculty. For the spring semester, about AV equipment: The Center for Teaching and Learning has agreed to take on the primary responsibility for making sure that we have the kind of equipment we need in our classrooms. OIT will continue to try to get you equipment so that you have it across the semester. Center for Teaching and Learning will help you get equipment if you need it on a one-time basis or a short-term loan, like that. Larry Rowan — Are you here, Larry? Where are you now? Larry, will you stand up so everybody can recognize you? You are the Director for the Center for Teaching and Learning. I appreciate your willingness to take this on at this point. Did you leave a piece of paper in the back about your e-mail message, your e-mail address? So with his e-mail address you can contact Larry immediately if you already have your classroom assignment for this spring and what you need is not there. Correct? OIT will continue to operate the classroom hotline number. They are there to answer your emergency needs. If your podium isn’t working. If your microphone isn’t working. If your lights have gone out. Your air conditioning doesn’t work. Your heat doesn’t work. Those kinds of issues. They will help you satisfy those problems. The Undergraduate Library will continue to provide non-print materials, videos and films, and they also have viewing rooms in the basement of the Undergraduate Library that they will help you schedule so you can get your class in there if you can’t get the equipment in your regular classroom. Comments about this at this point? We’re working on it. It’s not an easy problem. And as I began to look at it, it was, of course, much more complicated than I thought it would be. And it has long-term implications. And so, many good people are working hard on this issue, so something will happen.

Professor Miles Fletcher (History): Jane, are there going to be more vcr’s available, more equipment? Is that clear? Or not? Professor Brown: Good question. Is that clear, Iola and Larry? Iola: More than what? Professor Rowan: More than now. Professor Brown: More than we have now, so I don’t have to bring my own? Yes? Professor Rowan? Yes. The other thing we’re going to ask CT&L, what else CT&L is going to do this spring is to monitor need. It looked as though there was a decreasing need and it was part of the reason why we changed the way this was done last year. And it may be that we all just got so discouraged that we just stopped using AV equipment? So what we want to do this spring is to really monitor that. Do we have needs that aren’t being met. And CT&L is going to monitor that, may even do a survey to assess the need, so we can make some long-term plans. Okay. Good.

And just a couple of final comments about some things that I’ve been happy about in the past couple of months, as we end. I’m gratified that we are finally going to have a day-care center that houses the Victory Village Day Care Center and doubles their capacity. We’ve been working for this for 20 years. And we have accomplished it. And I want to acknowledge Laurie Charest, who is Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, who really has been instrumental in making this happen. And she, in partnership with Mary Beck at the UNC Hospitals has put together a financial package that’s going to allow this to happen. So thank you very much. This is really exciting. And I also, as a former high school hockey player [chuckles] — I also played basketball, which is hard to believe [laughter] — I want to acknowledge the success of our women’s teams and say that I find it quite thrilling when I open the newspaper and women are getting almost as much coverage as the men, and have really shown how women can be as much fun and as important to watch as men with these athletic programs. And finally, housekeep– I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to say that anymore — a detail. If you are going on leave this spring — and I wish you great Godspeed — will you please let us know so we can find a substitute for you on the Faculty Council. Just what you were concerned about! But David and Roz need to know that so we will have someone in your seats. So please let us know. And finally, in the holiday spirit, the North Carolina Symphony contacted me and said that they would like to give us all discounts for their Nutcracker Ballet, and so, please, if you feel like it, make use of that. Any other comments, questions for me, concerns, things you’d like to see us doing? Okay, let’s move on.

A couple of things that we didn’t get to at our last Council meeting. One that I’m especially pleased about is the possibility of including fixed-term faculty on the Faculty Council. You all have received the Committee on University Government report about that and Joe Ferrell is going to tell us more about that.

IV. Special Report and Resolution of the Faculty Committee on University Government: Amending The Faculty Code of University Government to extend Faculty Council voting and office-holding privileges to Full-Time Lecturers and Lecturer-Equivalents, first reading and vote: Joseph S. Ferrell, Chair.

Professor Ferrell: Thank you, Jane. Anticipating some questions that may or may not arise, I’ve brought some additional information. It’s on the table. They are the colored sheets of paper. There are some green sheets and some blue sheets and some yellow sheets. And depending on the depth of your interest in this subject, you might want to get the additional sheets of paper. Let me begin by reminding us that at this point on the Agenda we are in a meeting as the General Faculty as opposed to the Faculty Council, which means that any person who is a voting member of the General Faculty is eligible to vote when this matter comes to a vote. I will go ahead and present the proposal and explain it briefly under the assumption that you’ve had an opportunity to read our special report. Then I will try to answer any questions. And I may say a word or two about how it may or may not affect your division. First, let’s be clear that the proposal before us is a proposal as it appears on the blue sheet. For those of you who don’t want to get up and get the blue sheet, I will tell you what the differences are. They’re very minor. In the last paragraph toward the bottom of the page, if you have the white sheet, look for the words, “or major fraction thereof.” Simply add before those words, “eligible to vote in Council elections.” And in the next sentence, it will read, “If there are too few eligible faculty members…” One of the sharp-eyed members of the Committee pointed out that technically we had in apportioning the Council not made it clear that we are counting only voting members of the faculty as revised and not all persons holding various ranks. That’s purely a technical change. If the General Faculty approves this proposal today, and again at its next meeting, the effect will be to enfranchise persons holding fixed-term appointments who meet certain criteria as specified in the document.

First, what are the criteria? First, the appointment must be a full-time appointment. That means at least 75% effort. It must not be a visiting appointment. Second, the duties of the position must be primarily teaching, research, or both. In other words, the duties of the position must not be primarily administrative in nature. Third, the anticipated length of service in the position must be at least three years. This is a little complex, so let me go through this one slowly. First, if you are a lecturer or one of the equivalent ranks, and you are currently holding a three-year appointment, then you become eligible immediately during the first year, since the appointment is anticipated to last for three years. If your appointment is for less than three years, the test is whether you are in the third year of continuous service, and in renewal of either a previous two-year appointment or two previous one year appointments. Is that clear? That seems to be a little confusing to some people. What would this give you? It would give you the right to vote for and to serve on the Faculty Council, and that’s it, as the proposal is presently structured.

Now, how would that affect the Faculty Council? That’s what you can figure out on the green sheet and they yellow sheet. The Code asks us to hold the membership of the Council to as near 70 as feasible. The present method of determining how many representatives each division gets is to divide the number of persons in each rank by 25, and you get one representative for each 25 faculty members, or major fraction thereof, in each of the three ranks as they’re presently constituted. To hold the membership of the Council to approximately 70, adding what, I guess to be, and this is a guess, are the number of lecturers who probably qualify, the multiplier, or the divisor, will have to be 33. That will bring the Council to about 73 members. It will have relatively little effect on most units. The School of Medicine will pick up one. The Institute of Government will lose one. And so on. Not a great deal of effect overall. Now. There will be, and you may be, using your division see how it’s going to work out. In some divisions because of the addition of another rank, that is to say, Instructor, which will probably be added together with — I mean, Lecturer, which will probably be added with Instructor in most places, there will be a root redistribution. And I will just give you the School of Medicine as an example. Under the current arrangement, the School of Medicine elects 8 professors, 5, I’m sorry, 11 professors, 7 associate professors, and 6 assistant professors. If the number of lecturers in this information is accurate, and I’ll get to that in a second, the School of Medicine will elect 8 professors, 5 associate professors, 4 assistant professors, and 8 lecturers or instructors as the case may be. Other units that would be affected to some degree but not to that extent would be Public Health, Nursing, Dentistry, Social Work, possibly Education, although that’s hard for me to figure out. You may want to ask what’s the program off of the green document. I must admit to you I do not know. The information was supplied to our Committee by the Faculty Executive Committee. My understanding is it came from Tim Sanford. I think what it represents is the number of full-time lecturers in each of these appointing units. I do not believe it includes part-time people, though I cannot assert that as a fact. And I do not know how many of the persons included here would not qualify on grounds that the duties are not primarily teaching or research. The process of trying to identify who would be eligible is going on, I believe, now, in the Office of the Provost, and in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs. With that explanation — oh, one more point. The amendment as presented to you will take effect next year. The Committee on University Government felt that we needed the time to identify with some precision exactly who we were talking about. We had some extended conversations with Dean Birdsall, the Provost’s Office, the Vice Chancellor’s Office as to how we would go about finding that out. They assure us it can be done. How fast it can be done I do not know. We weren’t particularly interested in overworking Rosemary, so we recommend that it be put off for a year. That is purely a practical consideration. If it’s possible to do it in time for implementation with the elections coming up this spring, that would be just fine with us, but we did not know at the time we presented this to you whether that would be possible or not. I’ll be glad to try to answer any questions about it if anyone has any.

Professor Howard Reisner (Pathology): I’m somewhat concerned about the term “lecturer-equivalent.” I guess I’d like to first is there a formal definition of “lecturer,” and if there is, what is a lecturer-equivalent, and why is there such disparity between departments. It doesn’t seem to go particularly with division, although I note most lecturer-equivalents are, of course, in Medicine. I’m really not certain what you mean by that. Professor Ferrell: The term “lecturer” or “lecturer-equivalent” is defined in the Tenure Regulations. That’s quoted in the report, in the special report, that came along with the November agenda. That’s where that comes from. One of the things we determined or we found out in the process of these deliberations is the academic cultures in Health Affairs and Academic Affairs with regard to this type of appointment are very different. They really are very different. And it is not, it would be a mistake to assume that the criteria for the use of various titles, academic titles, in your department are the same across the Institution. It really does vary widely. And I don’t think it’s possible to say on much of anything that applies to everyone in that position except that they are all on fixed-term appointments.

Professor Ron Strauss (Dentistry): Item 2.1)b) on the blue sheet: “The duties of the position are primarily teaching, research, or both.” Did the Committee give any thought to people who are providing service in the form of clinical service as their primary mission? Professor Ferrell: We consider that to be teaching.

Professor Richard Pfaff (History): I’m aware how complex the deliberations of this Committee are, and so this is not meant as a quibble. Certainly there are procedures to follow. But I’m curious about the decision to exclude or not consider membership on standing committees of the General Faculty. Professor Ferrell: Yes, that’s a very good question. Professor Brown: Are you done, Dick? Professor Pfaff: Well I was going to, if it’s clear, let me just propose a hypothetical case so we can understand. If a fixed-term faculty member in this new, improved division were elected to the Faculty Council and chosen as a member of an ad hoc committee the Council established, the committee was so useful and the person was so useful on the committee that it turned into a permanent committee pf the Faculty, the person would not be eligible to serve on the committee. That person would be withdrawn? Professor Ferrell: That’s correct. That is a good point. We decided that the best thing to do with this was take it one step at a time. First, the Council. The next step may well be to determine on which of the standing committees of the General Faculty service by fixed-term appointments would be appropriate. There are some that we, I think, feel, on which that service would not be appropriate. Faculty Hearings is one. In fact that would not be possible under the Code of the Board of Governors. The Advisory Committee is a question mark, because its duties are primarily to evaluate personnel decisions of tenure-track faculty. The Committee on Financial Exigency and Program Change would be a third since its duties simply have totally to do with the termination of tenured faculty employment. Other committees such as Faculty Welfare, possibly Buildings and Grounds, might be appropriate. But we felt that those needed to be addressed — Educational Policy, I don’t know. They needed to be addressed one by one, and we thought we would just take the first step first rather than trying to bite off more necessary. Professor Pfaff: Can I ask one more question? Is it clear that retired faculty could not be constituted as fixed-term faculty for these purposes, because of a discussion some years ago, you remember, as to whether retired faculty could be included on faculty committees. Is there a sort of loophole here by which they might be constituted fixed-term faculty and therefore be eligible for election to the Council and service on these ad hoc committees? Professor Ferrell: I don’t think I understood the question. Professor Brown: So you’re asking can retired faculty be eligible? Professor Pfaff: Would it be possible to construe retired faculty as fixed-term faculty if they were on a 75% arrangement? Professor Ferrell: Yes, if they hold a lecturer-equivalent appointment, they would be. That’s correct. If they have at least three-quarters time. Professor Pfaff: So this would be a way by which retired faculty could be eligible for Faculty Council, which would not… Professor Ferrell: Yes.

Professor Marion Danis (Medicine): It’s not clear to me. Research Assistant Professors — Professor Ferrell: Are lecturer-equivalents. Professor Danis: Are lecturer-equivalents, and so Research Associate Professors. Professor Ferrell: Yes.

Professor Paul Farel (Physiology): I just wanted to ask about the Executive Committee of the Faculty Council, which is elected by members of Faculty Council. Would lecturer-equivalents vote for those members but not be eligible to serve, or would they be eligible to serve on that committee also? Professor Ferrell: That’s a very good question. I’ll have to think about that. My initial reaction is, no, but that doesn’t make sense. Would not be eligible. But I think that should be fixed. It would not make sense for them to be members of the Council and ineligible to be a member of the Executive Committee. We can probably fix that. Professor Lensing: The Government Committee will have a chance to review a question like that between now and January. Professor Ferrell. Gee, we thought we’d thought of everything. Professor Brown: That’s why we have a discussion. Vice Chancellor Garland Hershey (Health Affairs): Joe, just a very slight “veggie” [Professor Brown: A veggie? Oh.] I think you characterized Health Affairs and Academic Affairs as having very different cultures because of the difference in the number of fixed-term faculty. Professor Ferrell: No, not the number. Vice Chancellor Hershey: But the… Professor Ferrell: Well, the major difference is, my impression is that in many of the schools in Health Affairs, considerable importance is attached to the prefix qualifier, whether one is a Research Assistant Professor or a Research Associate Professor, or a Research Professor. In many of the units in Academic Affairs that is not a distinction that is made. The title is just plain Lecturer. And there is no, in many of the units in Academic Affairs, there are no internal distinctions between different classes of Lecturer, but I think in Health Affairs there are distinctions. Vice Chancellor Hershey: Very well taken.

Professor Brown: Anything else? Have you moved this? Is this moved? Professor Ferrell: Well, it’s sort of automatically moved. It’s on the floor. Well, we’ve had the discussion. Do we have a second for this resolution? [Seconded.] I would like to ask for an amendment, that it may be possible to do this in the next election cycle, and so I would like to ask if we could have an amendment that would add to Section 3 here words something like “This amendment shall become effective for elections conducted for the 1997-98 academic year unless eligible faculty can be identified in time to be included in the 1996-97 elections.” [Moved and seconded.] Any discussion about that? Professor Philip Bromberg (Medicine): Perhaps you could say, “shall become effective no later than…” Professor Ferrell: That makes my lawyer’s scalp itch. [laughter] I think Jane has got it correct. Professor Brown: Okay, any further discussion? All in favor of that amendment, say aye? Opposed? [It was adopted unanimously.] If there are no objections, we’ll vote on the resolution as amended. All those in favor, say aye? Any opposed? [It was adopted unanimously.] Very good. This is the first reading, so this will come back in January. We’ll take it back to the Government Committee to consider at least that question and the other discussion we’ve heard, and they will bring it back for a final vote in January. Thank you. And I want to thank the Committee for your diligent work on that. I know you said that was one of the hardest things you’ve ever tackled within the Committee. So I appreciate that. Now Joe will also present the report of the Committee on University Government.

V. Annual Reports of Standing Committees:

A. University Government: Joseph S. Ferrell, Chair.

Professor Ferrell: You have the report, which I assume you have read. The only thing I want, I’d like to hear some discussion on is the question of the size of the Council. The Code presently provides that we try to keep it as near 70 as possible. The Executive Committee and current Chair of the Faculty are somewhat concerned that the size of the Council has become unwieldy, particularly since we have added a fairly large, a number of ex officio members, that is to say, members of the Executive Committee, who are no longer members of the Council or possibly never were members of the Council. It would be possible to reduce the size of the Council to any number that one might like. We just guessed at 25 as a minimum. What the Committee would like to hear from you is some indication as to whether you would like for us to develop a proposal that would reduce the size of the Council. Now you must realize that when you reduce the size of the Council, it is probable that at least one, and possibly two, of the existing electoral divisions would no longer be large enough and would need to be combined. For example, I think it is almost a foregone conclusion that we would need to recombine Fine Arts and Humanities. Social Work would probably no longer be large enough for a separate electoral division, and Journalism and Mass Communication probably may not be large enough for a separate electoral division. Professor Brown: Dangerous stuff here, Joe. [laughter] Professor Ferrell: Well, I just want you to know what’s involved. Also, when you reduce the size, having added several hundred members to those enfranchised in the lecturer-equivalent category, the number of slots available for all the ranks are diminished. But that may be a price that the Council is willing to pay in return for a smaller number of people, and therefore, in theory at least, a better opportunity to have the kind of dialogue that many people would like for the Council to have. So our objective here is not to get a vote on anything, but simply to get some idea of whether the Council would like for us to look into this and bring you back a proposal for the General Faculty to act upon, or whether this is something you would just as soon we stay out of. Professor Brown: So you’re not proposing this as a motion. Professor Ferrell: Well, the formal way to do it is to propose a resolution. If you think we shouldn’t get into it, you should vote against the resolution. So I move the resolution. Professor Brown: Is there a second. [It was seconded.]

Let’s discuss this. I wanted also to put it in a frame, the Executive Committee has been working on a charge to reconsider The Faculty Code, to revise The Faculty Code and look at how faculty government is currently organized. We haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet. Whether we charge the Committee on University Government to do that, or we create an ad hoc committee, exactly how we phrase exactly what it is we want them to do. We’re still working on that. And this, I think, speaks directly to that kind of thing, is what is it we want to have occur in the Faculty Council. Are we so big that we can’t be doing the kind of work we want to be doing here? Is this appropriate? Is this how we want to keep it in the meantime? And so this gives us a pretty broad range here: 70 but now fewer than 25, and the University Government Committee could come back with some ideas what it looks like at, what can we accomplish when we’re as big as 70, what might be different if we were as small as 25. Is that what you’re asking, Joe? Any comments about that? Professor Farel: I’m just a little concerned if we go toward the lower end of the range, ex officio members will exert a disproportionate weight on Council’s activities. Professor Brown: The Executive Committee, then, as we are — well, we’re not ex officio, but then — Professor Farel: Well, we are. Professor Brown: Yeah, we are.

Professor George Rabinowitz (Political Science): It seems to me that there are two alternatives, one that we seem to play now as largely a role of conduit, where we can feed information that the Faculty Council discusses to the department. And to some extent we’re a large body to discuss some things. But if we went smaller, we would be an elected body that perhaps could do away with the Executive Committee. It seems to me we have to think if we really want to be a decision-making body and if the decision is to be a decision-making body, then the idea would be to make it smaller but also to do away with the Executive Council. Professor Fletcher: I prefer a larger Council. If we were to consider reducing the size I advocate doing so very modestly. We discuss so many different kinds of issues. I appreciate the diversity of opinion, that whatever issue comes up there are people who know about it and have different perspectives on it, and I think some of that would be lost, certainly, if we went to the lower end of this range. I’m not sure that making the Council smaller would make us more of a decision-making body. Our authority is laid out in the Code, and as I understand it, part of the purpose of the Executive Committee is to be able to do things when the Council isn’t in session, and then, of course, the size of the Council doesn’t affect that at all. Professor Brown: Yeah, I think part of what’s going on right now is the Executive Committee has been in operation about three years, and we’re sorting out what the relationship of the Executive Committee is to the Council, and I’m not quite sure we know when to bring it to the Council and when should the Executive Committee just make decisions and vote on things, and clear things up. So I think that’s still in the works.

Professor Kasson: As teachers we all know it’s harder to have a good discussion in a bigger class, but we also know that a good facilitator can make a big group work. And I think it might it might have, one question. I think the question is what do we want the Faculty Council to do, and I’m sure we all want it to have serious conversations, but I’m not sure it has to be smaller in order to do that. Professor Brown: Well right now we actually are a body of almost 90. We’re 20 over the maximum here. So you kind of get a sense of would 20 fewer bodies in these first rows make a difference. Professor Rich Beckman (Journalism and Mass Communication): It would be empty. Professor Brown: It would be empty. Only about two-thirds of us show up every time, that’s right. [Unidentified person]: The room could be smaller, too.

Professor Beckman: I thought I had my thoughts pretty clear on this. I didn’t know you were going to offer me back my Friday afternoons. Professor Brown: Yeah, we could be out of here, Rich. Professor Beckman: I think the real key is the representation. I mean if we are the Faculty Council and we are here to represent our colleagues, and I now represent 25 colleagues and I’m supposed to bring you their opinions and thoughts, I can’t imagine representing 50 colleagues and really bringing you something of value. And so I think there has to be a practical aspect to representing our colleagues. So I think 25 is pretty comfortable, and I think the room is pretty comfortable, and I know what we’re sacrificing. Professor Brown: And, Joe, the way you’re calculating with the fixed-term, you would extend the ratio to 1:33, rather than 1:25, as we are now? Professor Ferrell: Assuming that the numbers on the green sheet are more or less accurate, 1:33 would keep it about the size that it presently is. Professor Brown: 90 or 70? It looks like about 70. Professor Ferrell: Seventy. Seventy. I think you may be counting some people more than once. Professor Brown: Plus the Executive Committee. That’s what happens. That’s what happens.

Professor Jim Peacock (Anthropology): In the course of deciding, I hope the Committee on Government will look at some instances, and I would recommend comparing us and [North Carolina] State [University], for example, because State is smaller and is, I think, more of a decision-making body. On the other hand, State is aspiring to be like us — in their Faculty Council. [laughter] Professor Ferrell: Let me add one consideration that I didn’t get into. To reduce the size to much below where we are now it becomes extremely difficult, as a practical matter, to apportion by rank. We did a lot of talking about how one might address that. One possibility is to apportion by tenure track, non tenure track. We talked about that. There are arguments for and against it. We talked about abolishing representation by rank altogether, leaving it up to the good sense of the nominating committees and the electorate. But a major factor in not coming up with something any sooner than we have is how to continue all the current diverse interests that we have in a smaller body, so there are advantages and disadvantages. Tradeoffs.

Professor Bill Smith (Mathematics): I am strongly opposed to reducing the size of the Council. And you might ask why. I’m saying this because I’m on the University Government Committee. We’re supposed to be listening to you, but I’m going on leave, [laughter] and I expire from the Committee before I get back — I think it’s one day after I get back. But I’m opposed to it for a variety of reasons. In over 30 years I think I’ve been on the Council 4 times, 3 or 4 times, and I can sympathize with how some of you feel. When I remember back some of my most boring afternoons have been afternoons here on the Council, but on the other hand, there are several things that this Council over the years has been very important because it was there. There were some times back when there were things like food worker strikes, political unrest, both here and beyond that very much affected the affairs of this campus in the early 70s. There have been problems that various programs here on the campus identified one or the other. There have been major resource considerations and deliberations that have taken place. Then discussions of policy on faculty salaries. And I think in all those cases this Council has been there and has spoken and been listened to. One reason because of its size and the fact that it does represent every 25 faculty members. It also is listened to because it makes sense — sometimes it does — it has on most occasions, and because there is a diversity on the Council. There’s a diversity in rank, there’s a diversity in discipline, there’s a diversity in interests. And I think that would not be observed by lowering the size of the Council. And, in fact, there is the aspect mentioned of communicating back with people in your department or unit and probably what’s more important, they communicating with you. The conversation which in fact took place at the last Council meeting when we were talking about the salary issue. And all of that I think this Council sacrifices if it becomes too small. The other thing, a strong consideration on this, is the fact that the Executive Committee is not elected by the General Faculty. It’s elected by the Faculty Council, an issue that was raised earlier. Reducing the size of the Council then very much reduces the percentage of this deliberating body that is elected by the General Faculty. A final consideration in my mind is also a consideration of the Executive Committee, is one of the reasons, not the reason why that was put forth, was to have a small body — I don’t know what to call the Executive Committee — a quick strike force or something. But I have this small group, and, in fact, we have operated with it a very small length of time, and I think the idea of having the Executive Committee with the Council just needs to operate longer before we tinker with the size of the Council. Professor Brown: Okay, very good. I said that was the last comment, but —. I’ll go the hands that are up.

Professor Reisner: I guess I fail to see how a modest change in the size really is going to change anything, so I think if you look at the, what do you want to call it, the lower end of reduction, it seems not worth the effort. I don’t think it could be seen as materially changing anything. I think the issue that you brought up is sort of corollary here to something that I would very much like to see addressed before we think about the size of the Council. And that’s the relationship of the Executive Committee to the Council. I think we could be a lot more efficient if we really clarified the interaction of the Executive Committee and the full Faculty Council. I think very often there are problems that could be handled better in smaller groups, but I think we really do have a mechanism. And I think if we really polish this, perhaps somewhat formalize the relation to this Executive Committee and the whole body, we would [operate] in a much more efficient manner and it would allow us to split perhaps into smaller groups working with the Executive Committee to pursue issues that really do need a lot more one-on-one discussions. So if anything, I would offer the alternative of a very careful consideration of formalizing, or perhaps studying, the relationship of the Executive Committee to the full Faculty Council. Professor Brown: And then size could come out of that conversation. Professor Reisner: Yes.

Professor Laurel Files (Health Policy & Administration): I’d just like to say as a new member of the Committee on University Government, I would like to suggest that you not vote in favor of this unless there are very strong sentiments for a smaller Council. I think that just to say, “Well, let’s look at it and look at all the alternatives,” having spent at least a semester, if not two semesters, just on the lecturer-equivalent and figuring out all the permutations of voting and implications, I think it’s going to be an enormous task to figure out to reduce the size of the Council, and especially to figure out all the possible configurations and what the impact would be. I would hate to charge the Committee with doing that just to kind of get a look at it, unless there was very strong sentiment that we need to have a smaller Council. Professor Brown: Okay. Good.

Professor Maria Salgado (Romance Languages): I have a number of very ambivalent feelings about this, but one of the things that particularly concerns me is the fact that if we are now 70-some, and one-third is always absent, then we lower it to 25, and one-third is absent, it seems to me if we were going to do that, then the Executive Committee comes into question. If that Committee was created because this was too large, and in order to manage it and make it function in a better manner, it seems to me that then that small group may want to do the function of the Executive Committee, but you would need a different commitment from the members of Faculty Council, rather than just loosely coming in here once a month and doing something, so.

Professor Danis: I would say that there are two reasons I would say we really ought not to reduce the size. One is that the probability of tenure track faculty being appointed has just been diminished if you add non-tenure track faculty. We need non-tenure track faculty on board because they have not had the capacity to speak for themselves, but in doing so, we diminish our own probability of being here. I think that the second reason is, I think there’s another advantage to being on Faculty Council. And that is I think it’s the only time we as faculty get an experience of an academic community beyond our own academic unit. I, for one, have gotten a perspective on the concerns of the academic community as a whole only from being in Faculty Council. And I think it’s very important that the faculty gets as great a chance to participate as possible. I think it creates a stronger academic community among the faculty, and I think to lose that chance for each of us, the probability of that chance for each of us, is a loss we shouldn’t take.

Professor Brown: Okay. Very good. That’s it. A much more thorough discussion than I anticipated, so thank you very much. What — George has reminded me that this resolution was not circulated the regulated 24 hours in advance — Yes, it was, of course it was. It was in the report. It’s in the report. So let me get this clear. The Committee on University Government will go back and pursue this question given this discussion at this point. If we turn it down, we’ll say, “No, don’t bother yet,” which is what I would suggest is — I’ll say this: If we vote against it, what I would suggest is that then that be a part of the charge of looking at the structure of faculty governance, and that just comes out of the conversation about what’s the relationship of the Executive Committee to the Council and so on. Professor Ferrell: I would just like to vote on the motion that I made. [laughter] Professor Brown: I’m sorry. I stand corrected. I was just trying to understand myself. Excuse me. [Unidentified person]: Would you restate the motion? Professor Brown: The motion is stated in front of you, is it not? The resolution has been moved and seconded. Is there any objection to having a vote on the resolution? Let’s vote on this resolution. All those in favor of this resolution, please say, aye. [There were none.] All those opposed to this resolution, please say, no. [unanimous noes.] Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe.

b. Research: Michael T. Crimmins, Chair.

Our new policy about most committee reports if they have not presented a resolution is to simply ask if there are any questions, and this was the Faculty Committee on Research that was left over from our last meeting. Are there any questions about that? Let me make sure, is Mike Crimmins here?

Professor Steve Bachenheimer (Microbiology): I thought when this Committee would make its report, it might be appropriate to bring up an issue that I’ve been thinking about for awhile, and I don’t know whether other people around here have, and when I’m done with my comments, perhaps Chancellors, or Vice Chancellors, would care to comment on this. But there is a group on this campus who I think are being left out a very important benefit. I will just speak as Chairman of the Welfare Committee. And this is a group of people who have all attained their terminal degrees. The vast majority of them are Ph.D.’s. They’re critical to the research effort at the University. I’m speaking about post-doctoral fellows. They draw their salary, usually, from research grants or from external fellowship source. But they don’t have access to the insurance, the health insurance, either the State plan or any of the HMO plans that most other people on campus have access to. They do have access to the student health insurance plan. But these are people whose functions and duties often overlap those other people we’ve just been talking about, Lecturers, Research Assistant Professors, etc. They often are called upon to do some teaching. They often are the major engines in the research efforts in many of the labs. As I mentioned, they do have their terminal degrees. They’re often, this is their sort of intermediate stage before they up full-time faculty positions somewhere. They often have more credentials than some of the lecturers or people on this campus, and it’s, I’ve heard from many of them that their major disappointment is that they don’t have access to really very good health care, and they don’t have access to the insurance policies that we do. My question is, is it not possible for us to urge the state to create some kind of a personnel position that would, at the very least, allow these individuals to pay, or join a group and pay for health insurance. I’m not asking that the University or the system or the state, in fact, pay for their health insurance, but just give them the opportunity to pay for the same kind of health care coverage that we get.

Chancellor Hooker: I was not aware that post docs didn’t have access to the same health insurance. If they don’t, then obviously it would require an act of the Legislature. Professor Bachenheimer: They do, and just to clarify, they have access to the student — Chancellor Hooker: I understand that — Professor Bachenheimer: But often these are people who are starting families — Chancellor Hooker: But it’s not the same plan that we all have the option of choosing. Professor Bachenheimer: Right. Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Laurie Charest: That’s all correct, that they do not have access to the state health plan. [Professor Brown: Could you stand up, Laurie.] That is because this University has, in the past, considered post doctoral positions an extension of the educational process, and has considered post docs as students. Chancellor Hooker: And there is, presumably, some practical benefit for doing that, right? Or not? Ms. Charest: I don’t really know where that started. My understanding is that that’s a decision that is made on this campus and that it doesn’t require, the Legislature doesn’t have anything to do with the category of post docs. That is something historical on this campus. I don’t think it would have to go to the Legislature at all. Chancellor Hooker: And obviously an issue that needs to be looked at, and we’ll look at it.

Professor Brown: Any other comments for the Research Committee? Professor Barry Lentz (Biochemistry & Biophysics): I don’t know whether this came up last time when this was distributed, but at the bottom of this report it says the Committee is, intends, to look into possible ways to evaluate the mentoring activities which research faculty undertake during their research activities; also to pursue discussions on the issues of teaching and research. You are aware that the Graduate School is leading an effort to do that now? Professor Crimmins: Yes, we are. Professor Brown: Anything else? Thank you very much.

C. Advisory Committee on Undergraduate Admissions: Stephen S. Birdsall, Dean.

Professor Brown: You all have the report. The Agenda Committee had some other questions for the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions, and I’ve asked Steve Birdsall to address those. Dean Birdsall: Before that, let me just comment that I was asked last year to provide additional statistics. I’ve done that. If those statistics and the accompanying maps are not satisfactory, please let me know, and we’ll see what we can do next time. Three of the four issues raised in the self study, last year’s self study, have been addressed, have been discussed at length. We will address the fourth during the course of this year along with other business, the fourth one being the issue of admission criteria effectiveness. We, in effect, began before the self study was published with the other three and were able to carry out those discussions through the beginning of the fall semester. I’ve also been asked to elaborate a bit on the intellectual criteria in admissions decisions and in the issue of attracting the brightest North Carolina students to UNC. We described, I described in the report the nature of the discussion, but asked Jim Walters, who’s the Director of Admissions, to comment on those two topics, that is, the intellectual criteria for admissions decisions and attracting the brightest North Carolina students to Carolina. Jim, would you comment on those two?

Mr. Jim Walters: Yes, I have a series of questions from the Agenda Committee. So let me very quickly, I’ll try to keep it very brief, try to answer those questions. First of all, the intellectual criteria. There was a concern early of the SACS subcommittee in this area that they were not the most prominent criteria, that is, intellectual criteria. There was a concern that other criteria such as leadership, out-of-class activities, was too important a role. I would disagree with that. We do talk 60-20-20 in terms of percentages: 60% of the weight or criteria is placed on the high school academic record. I think this is absolutely appropriate. It’s the best way to predict how students are going to do in college, is how they have done in high school. Study after study, it’s been replicated in institution after institution over the last four years, including this Institution. What do we mean by their high school records? We mean grade point average, class rank, extensiveness and completeness of the preparatory curriculum — in other words, the strength, and the strength of the school. And I’ll comment on how we make that judgment in terms of strength of the school. The question is where ACT or SAT scores fit in. That’s another 20%. It’s true that SATs by themselves are not good predictors. I know no reputable admissions office in the United States that practices highly selective admissions that uses test scores as the lead criteria. It’s true, however, that when you add test scores to the high school record, then one does increase their predictability. That’s the reason why most of us require such examinations. The report, and I won’t go through it, addresses the concern that SACS committee had about intellectual criteria being predominant. We do say that 20% of the weight is out-of-class activities and evidence of leadership. In practice, and I’ll even read this, I won’t go through it all, the fact of the matter is they tend to be tie-breakers. We admit the best students, out-of-state and in-state, academically. There’s no doubt about that. They’re the prominent students. Do we admit the best, the most outstanding students, who might have very little in the way of activities and leadership? Yes. The answer is a definite yes. Do we admit wonderful leaders who are weak academically? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It tends to be a tie-breaker, when we come down to the end of our evaluations and we have equal candidates, then we will start looking at factors such as out-of-class activities, the essay, and evidence of leadership to break that tie.

The question was asked, how do we evaluate schools? And this is, can be a touchy issue. Invariably someone asks me about Chapel Hill High School at this meeting, so I hope someone’s prepared that question. On North Carolina high schools, every school in the State of North Carolina, and main theater out-of-state schools where we have enough numbers, where we have the numbers, the end count. We do real validity studies. How have students, say from Enloe High School, performed here at UNC-Chapel Hill over the last four years. That gives us a mean GPA, a mean grade point average, and then we rank it in our own office, in our office 1-5. Five is high. I might quickly tell you Chapel Hill is a 5 school. And then that factors in when we read that application, and make that evaluation of the competitiveness students, of the schools students studied in. Now what about a school where we don’t have that kind of end count. Then, yes, admittedly we make a subjective judgment. Again, I don’t want to take the time today, but there is a systematic way of doing that. For instance, we ask questions, and we find out these questions from the guidance offices in these schools: what percentage of your students go on to higher education? And to four-year kinds of higher `education? And where do they go to college? And what are the mean SATs at your school? And how many honors and advanced courses does your school make available to your students. And so on. And then we’ll make a, yes, a subjective judgment on Shaker Heights High School or Scarsdale High School or whatever school it happens to be.

The committee said what about this business of dropping the SAT? You’ve been reading about this in The New York Times and other popular mediums. Well, it’s true that several small New England colleges have dropped the SAT, Bowdoin, Lafayette, it’s a small number, I’ve counted about 9 schools, all in the Northeast. One of the things, unfortunately, that reporters typically miss on that — sorry, you Journalism folks — is that Lafayette and Bowdoin require these students, in lieu of the SAT, to take about 3 and sometimes up to 5 SAT II’s, which are the old achievement tests, if you remember that term. So one wonders, have we reduced testing here at all, where I would suggest they have, in fact, increased it. And this — I’m sorry I’m expounding on this — is in some cases, in my opinion — some of you may disagree — is a P-R move. And I say that as a point in fact in talking to two directors of admissions where this, in fact, has happened. It gets headlines, it’s an interesting way to admit students. Obviously you can see where I stand on that issue. I don’t think we should be doing P.R. moves. I think it makes sense to add, to require the SAT because it improves our predictability. And I’m going to stand on that. I might point out that we will be requiring a SAT II in Mathematics. This was just passed on, as Dean Birdsall knows, by the Advisory Committee on Admissions, but it’s not — this will be effective for 1997 — but it’s not going to be used for admissions purposes. It’s going to be used for placement purposes. That’s another whole topic, if anybody wants to talk about that.

Next question: Are we attracting the best students that we can to Carolina? The SACS committee said, well, yes, we see that you’re doing a good job in yielding your admitted students. That’s admissions talk. Yield, I think most of you know, is the percentage of the students that enroll of those that you admit. And our yield is very good. It’s 58%. Fifty-eight percent of our admitted students matriculate here. Now you might say, well, that doesn’t sound very good. Well, let me give you some comparisons. Just for fun. Amherst is 42%. Brown, 45%. Davidson, 47%. Now the place in Durham, 41%. Emory, 28%. Michigan, 38%. UVA, the University of Virginia, 50%. William and Mary, 39%. So it stacks up very good.

But the question that was asked, “But are you doing a lot of work up front to attract them? Yes, you’re doing a good job enrolling your admitted students, but are you doing any work to get the best and brightest to apply here?” And again, I brought along our marketing and recruitment plan. I have copies of it if anybody would want to take this home and take it to bed with them tonight and read it. And so I won’t replicate all those programs. But it shows, for instance, that we visit every high school in the state. We go to 124 college days and college nights, representing the University. We have a very sophisticated mail-marketing program. We have, I think, one of the better minority student recruitment programs in the U.S., in terms of what we do in effectiveness and what we’ve been able to accomplish in the last three or four years in turning that situation around. Could we be doing more? Sure, we could be doing more. And we want to be open to your suggestions, of the faculty, and the University as a whole, if you think we’re missing something.

We need some things. For instance, we’re short a video right now. It’s a visual age. It costs money to do this. We haven’t had the budget to do it. We have no video, and we would like to have the funds to do that. We’re probably about a year away from — we already have a — doesn’t everybody have a website? Well, we have a website. It’s the thing. Not only is it the thing to do, we are now averaging over 30 inquiries a day off the Worldwide Web for applications for admission requests. So, it’s real. It’s working. And that’s going to increase in the years ahead as more and more people use electronics to do these kinds of things. We’re about a year away from an electronic application, where one literally can use a computer to apply for admission to UNC. We thinks that works into that market of the very brightest and the best students. We’re short on scholarships for this campus. There is a dearth of merit-based scholarships, in my opinion, on this campus, compared to our competitor schools. We have done market research and, again, I don’t have time to go through this. Three main reasons why students don’t come here. There is size. Concern about the size of this Institution. Lack of merit-based scholarships. And third, and this is, the third one is interesting: lack of an engineering program. Well, I don’t think we can do too much about the last one. There are probably some things that we can do about the first two. One will take a lot of money. And I understand that. The other is for us to do a better job of depicting this Institution, the kind of place it is, so that it’s not perceived as huge and impersonal, that we are able to present the advantages of this, yes, large research Institution. And that’s, I think, where we’ve got some work ahead, that we can do better. So, yes, we can do better. We want to think that we’re doing a good job, but I think we can do some better work, too.

Professor Brown: Thank you, Jim. Are those, the lack of merit-based scholarships, is that from in-state students as well as out-of-state students? Mr. Walters: Yes. Eleanor Morris is here. She can probably give you better data than I can. But beyond, setting the Morehead aside, the Morehead Scholarships which are about 40 now, 45 a year, and their numbers have been reduced. As some of you may know, because of inflation, they don’t fund the numbers that they did some years ago. I think there’s about 60, wouldn’t you say? — 50, is it, here’s the real word, merit scholarships out of a freshman class of 3200. That’s remarkably small if we look at places like Duke and Vanderbilt, even North Carolina State, the University of Virginia, our main competitor schools, and I’ve just named them — it’s way down. Chancellor Hooker: And how many would they have? Mr. Walters: Well, State is, I think, is somewhere, the direct admission, I think, is a little over 300. My impression — you caught me there, Chancellor Hooker — my impression is Duke is even more. Chancellor Hooker: What about Virginia? Mr. Walters: We could follow that up. I can quote you there. I could show you — we asked students why they didn’t come here, and UVA keeps showing up with, I got a scholarship for UVA. But I don’t know the exact number. Dean Birdsall: I think this last point on the merit scholarships: there really were almost none, and there were a very, very small number at the beginning of the Bicentennial Campaign. We made some progress, but clearly we have a long way to go. It was a priority, and, but clearly there’s a lot to do.

Professor Henry Hsiao (Biomedical Engineering): I have a question concerning the gender distribution. It’s at probably 2 to 1 female. And according to how you might be looking at it, it looks like the numbers are getting worse. [laughter] By worse, I mean, if you took the label, male and female, and reversed it, I’m sure we would be discussing it today. The other thing: I was wondering if that had been discussed, whether in the long term that is good for this University. I wonder if that disparity is linked to the kind of programs we have here, and whether we might look into, looking at things which might attract more men to the University. Mr. Walters: By the way, we’re asked this about every week, by alumni especially, not so much faculty. So, it’s interesting that faculty are into this, too. Our freshman class, if you study the data, have been running anywhere from 56 to 61% women over the last two years. Now, alumni have come up to us and said, “Why don’t you just make it 50-50, that’s what we’d like, why don’t you just do that?” Well, the problem with that is that’s illegal. It is illegal to consider gender as part of an admissions decision. And I might tell you before I took this job I asked about this, because I am not interested in breaking the law. Yes, it’s true. Dartmouth does have a quota, of men versus women. And by the way, what they do is legal. It’s private. They have a special purpose. This has been tested in the courts. But at public institutions it’s patently illegal. What is the proportion of men to women in terms of applications? It’s the same. It’s 59% women last year to men. So, are we favoring the women over the men? No, although we don’t read gender in any way. We pay no attention to gender. There’s just no way we would pay any attention to that. And so the proportions of admission are reflected in our applications. Now, the next thing I’m going to say is, you know, probably some people would find this sexist. Why? Well, I think part of it is programs. If someone said to me, if we had Engineering, that might balance out. And that’s probably true. Now that might say some other things about this society, but I can’t help that. I mean if you look at Engineering education nationally it’s around 90% versus, men to women. And I’m not sure why that’s happened. We’ve seen a big reversal in Business Education in this country, and practically every other field, including Medicine now. But why Engineering is the last hold out, I’m not sure. So, yeah, adding an Engineering School or something like that might reverse it, but barring that, I think this is the way it is. And by the way, even some of our main competitor schools, including flagship state universities, are almost exactly the same position. UVA is 60% women. The University of Michigan is 57% women. I came from the most selective school, a state university in Ohio University. We were exactly 59% women. And I could go on, and I could go on. So I don’t know what all that says. But I’m saying it’s not unique here.

Professor Hsiao: I really asked is there any discussion on whether this in the long term is healthy for this University. Professor Brown: Well, on whether there is a problem? Professor Hsiao: No, whether it is healthy in the long run for this University, the trend, the trend. Mr. Walters: I’m not going to get into that. [laughter]

Professor Paul Lachiewicz (Surgery, hopefully soon to be the Department of Orthopedics): I have two questions. I enjoyed your report. These comments are based on the fact that I actually have two children at the high school. And I can tell you first of all that in general from the perspective of Chapel Hill High, the University does a fairly poor job of representing itself in terms of personal attention to students. At least that’s the impression I get. You’ve mentioned that yourself as some of the students who decline to attend say one of the reasons is that they feel like they’re just a number, that the University’s possibly too big. The other comment I wanted to know is is there any type of quota system for high schools in the state because the apparent word on the street is that they’re only a certain number of students in Chapel Hill High who can get accepted and I have been told by my sources at the High School that for a woman from Chapel Hill High this year you have to have a 4.0 grade point average to get in, and if it’s any less, don’t even bother. That’s obviously hearsay, but I would like your comments on that. [Unidentified person]: This is not good. I have two daughters who are trying to get in. [laughter] Professor Brown: Jim, answer that one! Mr. Walters: Well, first of all, let’s take the quota question first. This is what we call a myth. We usually it the Wake County myth. Apparently it’s spread to Orange County now, and I’m sorry to hear that. We just can’t kill it off in Wake County. The myth is that we will only take a x number of students from a school anywhere in the state or county, and then there was a man who said it was zip code. I guess computers can do things. But no, there are no quotas. We can take anyone, and I’m quite willing to, into our office and prove that. For instance, we will show you that we have students from high schools where we have denied every student from that school. And we can show you where we admitted every applicant from that school. We can show you there are counties where we have admitted no one because they didn’t meet the competition. So we pay no attention. I might point out, for instance, that North Carolina School of Math and Science, we enrolled 127 freshmen just this fall from that high school. It was largest number, closely followed by South Mecklenburg, right over a 100. So, no. Now, what, however, you’re touching on is, and I’m sorry saying this, is quality of high school. There is what is much more important. Chapel Hill High, I’ve said this up front, is one of the stronger high schools in the state. We know that. This means that if we’re going to recognize that competitiveness compared to, say, an average public high school, it may mean we need to go deeper in that class if we’re going to be fair to the student in that school because of where they had happened to be. And, in fact, we do. With the exception of the North Carolina School of Math and Science, it’s the deepest we go in any high school in the state. Now the fact of the matter is that we’re not admitting all the people from Chapel Hill High who want to come here is the rub and will constantly be. I, of course, am sensitive to the remark that we’re not personal. My reference was, by the way, not for necessarily our office, although I’m willing to field criticism like that. It’s a general impression that this is a big, huge, impersonal place. That was the perception why some students are not coming here. That’s their concern, about our size, not necessarily Admissions Office. But we’re certainly open to any criticism about our, the way we treat people. But the way, tht 4.0, which is not true either. Professor Brown: Okay, one last comment, because we have another report as well. Both hands up; I’ll take two. I’m such a wimp.

Professor Files: On page 2, item 7, the reference to the requirements for home-based, home-schooled students. Does that, the requirement that was added for the home-schooled children, is that also, does that apply to the students who are applying here coming from private schools? Dean Birdsall: No. Professor Files: Why not? Dean Birdsall: Because private schools, there’s either a record or, of the quality of the school and the curriculum that that private school offers. A home-schooled student — see, this issue arises beccause home-schooled students are not, do come from an educational context that is directly comparable to more formally structured high schools. And we’re looking for a way to recognize, nonetheless, the quality that might be achieved through that avenue of prepration for college. But a private school, if I understood what you mean by a private school — Professor Files: Well, I’m reading from here, because it says that the State of North Carolina does not apply minimum subject requirements to private schools, and that includes home-schooled children. So, it’s the implication of your answer that you check the private school and make sure that it offers the same minimum subject requirements as a typical state public school would?

Professor Pete Andrews (Environmental Sciences & Engineering): Two quick comments. One is that I hope that this question about being too large and impersonal will draw us back in January to the question of the intellectual climate and how we really can do something about this, and engage that discussion among ourselves in Faculty Council. The other brief question — I’d like to reassure our colleague of, that for many of you who may know the National Research Council report recently came out ranking the different departments on this campus. We actually are ranked having the 15th ranked Civil Engineering Department in the country, above NC State. Even though I don’t believe we have all of those disciplines represented, but if word gets out……..it will help our status. [laughter] Professor Brown: Thank you both. Thanks again very much, Steve.

D. Scholarships, Awards, and Student Aid: W. James McCoy, Chair.

Professor Brown: Can you all bear with one more report? Thank you. The final report is Scholarships, Awards, and Student Aid. Jim McCoy is here to answer any questions you may have. [There were none.] Thank you.

VI. Old or New Business.

Is there any other old or new business? Thank you very much. Happy holidays. See you in January.

The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
George S. Lensing
Secretary of the Faculty

Pdf of meeting materials