October 13, 1995

Transcript, Faculty Council Meeting, October 13, 1995

TRANSCRIPT
MEETING OF THE FACULTY COUNCIL

Friday, October 13, 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 21; Unexcused Absences 8.

Professor Brown: Chancellor Hooker is flying in from Boone where he’s been at a meeting of the Board of Governors, so he will arrive momentarily. But we will proceed with the meeting. We’ll begin with two memorial resolutions. George Lensing will re ad for Alan Keith-Lucas.

I. Memorial Resolutions:

A. For the late Alan Keith-Lucas: George S. Lensing for Dean Richard L. Edwards.

B. For the late Charles Sydney Smith: Laurie E. McNeil, Chair.

[Each resolution was approved with a moment of standing silence following the reading of the memorial.

II. Rachel A. Windham, Chair, Employee Forum.

Professor Brown: So it’s my pleasure to introduce Rachel Windham who is my suitemate up in Carr Building now and also the Chair of the Employee Forum, who gave a rousing greeting yesterday from the staff at the festivities for the installation. And so we’re pleased to have such a great orator with us here again today. Not to set you up or anything, Rachel! But we appreciate your being here. I also want to introduce Scott Blackwood who is the Vice Chair of the Employee Forum. Would you stand? And thanks for being here today. Thanks, Rachel.

Ms. Windham: It ‘s nice to be standing behind a podium where you can see me. Jane and I always seem to have the same problem. And I told somebody that we’ve just go to remind the folks who set these things that they need to understand that the University’s in the hands of two little women, so they need to give us something to stand on or lower the podium a little bit.

Yesterday was a wonderful day, and I didn’t realize how many people really listen to speeches at things like University Day until I got home last night and listened to some of the messages on my answering machine. And I was delighted that some people had taken time to call because it gave me an opportunity to start thinking about my remarks for today. I have to confess that when George and Jane called me and asked me if I would speak to the Faculty Council, I was delighted to do that, but I didn’t realize at the time that I would be doing it the day after University Day or that I would be doing it on Friday the 13th. So when I looked at my calendar last week and it hit me, I said a few Hail Marys just for a little insurance so that I didn’t use up all my words on my remarks yesterday. And also hoping that my rich childhood and my intervening years at Carolina, which some people would probably say were about the same period, would provide me one more time to speak from my heart and my soul and with Carolina on my mind.

George asked that I share with you today a few comments about how the faculty and the employees in the University might work together more fruitfully. Immediately when I received my topic my mind raced to ideas about projects because I tend to be an action-oriented and outcome-oriented person. And when I thought about it for awhile, and yesterday after I got some feedback on my remarks at the event yesterday, I decided that I don’t want to talk to you about projects. I want to talk to you about barriers. In my mind there are three barriers that are central to our working together more fruitfully, and these are what I want to talk to you about today.

These barriers are roles, skills, and manners. If we do something to deal with these barriers more effectively, we will work together more effectively. If we do nothing, it is my belief that we will always be limited in what we can accomplish as a Carolina team. I believe that if we begin to manage these three impediments successfully, the projects will come and the projects will be done. So let’s begin to knock down some of the barriers by looking at roles. In the University we have leadership roles and we have followership roles, and often these are defined by boxes and lines on organizational charts. The people at the top lead, and those at the lower levels follow. We know the position reserved for the faculty and we know the spot occupied by the staff. If there’s anybody in this room that’s not clear about that I’ll be able to clarify from our perspective. We obey those lines and boxes and that may just be what keeps us from solving some of us our problems. Robert Kelly wrote once in the Harvard Business Review that leaders and followers share four essential qualities: they manage themselves well, they are committed to the organizations of which they are a part, and to a purpose or person other than themselves, they build their confidence and focus their efforts on maximum impact, and they are courageous, honest and credible. Please notice that I said that leaders and followers share these qualities. And that doesn’t fit within the boxes and the lines. We seem more comfortable with our stereotype. Leaders lead and followers, by definition, must be led. Poppycock! Our mistake in all of this is that we accept that followers are people and the real truth is that following is a role and what distinguishes followers from leaders is not intelligence or character but the role they play. We would work better together if we all would accept that some days we lead and some days we follow, and it’s situations not boxes that determine if we’re going to lead this day, this minute, or this meeting.

Now let’s look at barriers, the second barrier, which is skills. As I stand here looking into a sea of faculty faces, I’m tempted to ask, “How many of you taught a member of your staff anything this week?” My question is not meant as an admonishment. It’s a thought to ponder. Why, for the love of Mike, do you not share your skills and talents with those who could help you do your work better and do your work faster? At a minimum, you should either teach or see that your staff develop three critical skills. Productive staff function as productive team members if they have solid technical skills, conceptual skills, and human relations skills. We could work together more fruitfully if you would share your talents in the work place, not just in the classroom.

Now let’s turn to the last barrier, which is manners. You might remember that last year we had a joint committee which explored the whole issue of faculty/staff relationships. The findings of that group resulted in a conclusion that many of our difficulties stem from poor manners. Do you, as I do, think it’s remarkable that in this wonderful University which takes such pride in educating and being an example for all that is good, that we have people in some spots who simply do not understand that we must treat each other with dignity and respect? And don’t think for a minute that I don’t know it goes both ways. But I will tell you that it is my perception and that of many of my colleagues the faculty have a decided advantage in terms of how it is tolerated. I won’t share all my war stories with you, but I think you would be appalled at some of the things I have heard, some of the things I have observed, and some of the things I have personally experienced. I’m not pointing fingers because the people on this campus who behave with such lack of rearing, as my Southern belle mother would say, are probably not in this room. The behaviors of these people send a message and they send it loud and clear. They do not love this University enough because, if they did, they would never let their behavior gnaw away at the core of teamwork. They are not in this room because they are not that committed. We would work more fruitfully together if we remember what Eliza Doolittle told the professor at the conclusion of her metamorphosis, “The only difference between a flower girl and a lady is not in how she behaves, but in the way that she is treated.” We can all work long and hard on building faculty/staff relationships. We can hire consultants. We can get trained. And we can send folks for training. But the bottom line to how we can respond is in what Eliza told the professor. The difference between employees who perform well and those who perform poorly is not in how they behave, or even in how much they are paid, but in how they are treated. Roles, skills, and manners. Solving these barriers will go a long way in ensuring that we work more fruitfully together.

In conclusion, I want to share that every day I’m encouraged by the strides we make in improving faculty/staff relationships. It is clear to me that it matters as much to you as it does to us. And on behalf o the staff, I want to thank you for that. We are working together more fruitfully, but with Carolina in my heart and in my soul and in my mind, I envision a time when there will be no need to ask how we might work more fruitfully together. There will be no need to ask because working together fruitfully will be so ingrained in our culture that only the times that we don’t work fruitfully together would be the ones that get noticed. Thank you very much. [applause]

Professor Brown: Magnificent. Thank you, Rachel. I am proud to be on the same team with you. And I was sorry to hear that your term of office is only a year. You’ve accomplished so much. Sigh — But mine’s three. In some ways, I — [laughter], I envy you in other ways.

IV. Chair of the Faculty Jane D. Brown.

I want to move on to some important business today, so I will, I basically have some announcements to make, and then we will move on to the business of the day. I first wanted to say to you all who were at the festivities yesterday that I appreciated your robing and being there, and that I would encourage you to keep your robes — I’m talking to the Faculty Council members now, especially — that there will be two more occasions this year to show our support for the University, and I hope to see you all there again.

I want to invite you all to something special. You got this yellow sheet of paper in your packet. I’ve been working on this for awhile. We’ve talked about it previously and we finally have it on the calendar. The Chancellor has graciously and generously agreed to sponsor these workshops, so it is paid for. We are going to do this in concert with the Employee Forum and the Chancellor’s Administrative Council. So these are diversity workshops that have been occurring around campus for a couple of years now. Pat Fischer, a professor in Public Health, the School of Public Health, will lead the workshops. She’s an expert on diversity training. And I encourage you all to sign up for one of these. I’d like each of the Council members especially to sign up for one of the workshops, and I encourage other faculty to join us as well. So please get your reservation in, and I’ll look forward to participating in those with you. Any comment about that? I hope that at least one of those days will work for you.

I also wanted to congratulate Jim Peacock who couldn’t be here the other day because he was just inducted into the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations. [applause]

Steve Bayne continues to remind us that we should be telling you what the Executive Committee is up to. And so I wanted to do that. We’re going to hear a couple of reports from the Executive Committee today as well. There is another discussion we’ve been having that I’m seeking two volunteers to continue to help us. And that is the alcohol policy that the Office of Student Affairs and Student Government have been working on for the past couple of months. The faculty have only been lately brought into the process, and they have graciously agreed to slow the process down a little bit so that the faculty can be even more involved in it. I’m looking for two volunteers who would be willing to work on this in the next month. If you don’t want to make a public — I won’t ask for a public volunteer, but I would ask you to see me afterward if you’d be interested in working, helping formulate an alcohol policy for campus. And it will be a month’s — I’m sure it won’t be daily work for the next month, but it will be a short-term responsibility. So please see me if you’re interested in
working with Sue Estroff and Pamela Conover on that policy. Thank you.

I also wanted to get back to you that I’ve asked the Educational Policy Committee to look into our concerns about classrooms. They have taken this responsibility, and I hope they will move very quickly. I’ve asked them to move quickly enough so that we will at least have audio visual resources available again for the spring semester. It’s a complicated problem, apparently, and so we need to, and so I’m hoping that we can move to some short-term solutions, and also be involved finding some long-term solutions. So thank all of you who have written to me about that, and we’re moving on that.

V. Reports from Executive Committee of the Faculty Council:

Now a couple other reports from the Executive Committee. As you know, a couple of months ago we formed a subcommittee also in concert with Employee Forum to look into the possibility of increasing benefits for domestic partners of employees of the University. And this was an excellent committee that moved, that worked quickly, and has made some progress, and they want to report today about what progress has been made. Paul Farel will report on that.

A. Statement on Extending Employment Benefits to Domestic Partnerships: Paul B. Farel.

Professor Farel: Since its inception, one of the primary concerns of the Executive Committee has been issues of community, and to try and work to ensure that no member of the University community feels excluded or disenfranchised. And that’s the context in which we approached the issue of domestic partners. You all received the statement. There’s nothing to vote on today. This is just to let you know what we’re doing. Our hope is that we can continue to concentrate on institutions that are part of the University community that we can change, such as the access to gym and pool privileges, membership in the Carolina Club for domestic partners of faculty. The next step is a little harder: to change access to health insurance requires going through the state legislature, and I would hope that we can do that by asking the Faculty Welfare Committee to pursue this issue, by asking the [Employee] Staff Forum to pursue it through their channels, to ask our delegation to the Faculty Assembly to keep it at the forefront, and whatever formal and informal channels we have to General Administration, to make use of those. I think I’ll just stop there and ask if you have any comments.

Professor Joseph Ferrell (Institute of Government): I just want to thank Paul for splendid work. This is something we’ve needed to do for a long time. It’s a very good statement, and it’s exactly what faculty government is about. Professor Farel: I’ll accept your thanks on behalf of both the staff forum and the Faculty Council. This was a joint committee, and all four members of the committee, two staff, two faculty, worked very hard on it.

Professor Julian Rosenman (Radiation Oncology, Medicine): I noticed that you list ten criteria, and it’s at the bottom of the page. Those are possible criteria. Have they all been accepted, or will there be some further discussion on that? Professor Farel: We did not want to set a hard and fast criterion for defining a domestic partnership. The first paragraph encompasses a number of legal definitions, or is a composite of a number of legal definitions of domestic partnerships. Different institutions will want to pick and choose different parts of it. So, for example, the Carolina Club would like to have a domestic partner assume the same financial responsibility for charges that a spouse does. That’s reasonable. To get a gym pass and pool privilege card, that’s less of a concern. So we really didn’t want to say anything hard and fast. We just wanted to give some guidelines, and also to emphasize that declaring oneself a domestic partner is not a casual statement. Professor Brown: Any other comments?

Professor Laurel Files (Health Policy & Administration, Public Health): If you’re not asking for a vote, what’s the next step, what would you like us to do? Right now we have the statement, and I would think we’d like to support it, but it [should be] institutionalized in some way. Professor Farel: I hope that it will be pursued by the committees in the Staff Forum and the Faculty Council, and, as I say, through the Faculty Assembly. These things are, most of what we can do on campus I think is already done. And I’d like to emphasize that everybody to whose attention we brought this was eager to have it included, that there was no negotiation, there was no fighting. There was just a — the response was, “Yes, this is the right thing to do.” And that includes both Chancellor Hooker and Susan Ehringhaus and everyone else to whom we spoke.

Professor Howard Reisner (Pathology): I would hope the Faculty Council would offer a resolution of support. I realize this might not be binding, but I think you’ve done a marvelous job. And I certainly wouldn’t want us to get away today without going on record as supporting this. Professor Brown: Okay. Great. We can bring it back next time in resolution form if you want to do that. Professor Farel: I would hope the resolution included some specific avenues to follow. Professor Brown: Okay. We’ll work on that. Thank you. Great. Anything else?

Professor James Peacock (Anthropology): You could make the motion, and you could get a vote to suspend the rules if you wanted to do that today. Professor Brown: Okay. Do we want to have a resolution today? Professor Steve Bachenheimer (Microbiology)(Chair, Faculty Welfare Committee): I prefer that we delay this and actually get a written proposal. For example, it might be possible that the Faculty Welfare Committee may actually want to formulate such a proposal for voting on by the Council, rather than seeing something not on paper yet. Voting for something that we don’t have written. Professor Brown: Okay, we could do that, and you could do that speedily, so we could have it back next month? Professor Bachenheimer: Yes, our next meeting is October 31st. So that’s before your next agenda meeting. Professor Brown: Our Agenda Committee meeting for the next meeting is on Monday, but we’ll put it on the docket. Okay, can we do that? We have a preliminary statement and then we could put it on the docket for the next meeting, and you’ll prepare a resolution. Professor Bachenheimer: And I’ll consult with you about possible language. Professor Brown: Very great. Thank you. So we will charge the Welfare Committee with bringing back a resolution at the next meeting. Thank you, Steve.

Professor Harry Gooder (Microbiology & Immunology): Just a query. Isn’t the Faculty Assembly already on record as supporting some kind of domestic partnership measures? Professor Farel: I believe they are. I think that the important thing, though, is to go beyond expressions of support as Professor Reisner said. That we need to just keep pushing. It’s something that needs to be continually brought to the surface. Professor Gooder: Because I think that’s the way to the General Administration, that we might get to the Legislature. Professor Brown: That’s right. Their welfare committee had looked into pushing about insurance benefits, and that has kind of been dropped. So this could, we could bring that back, with this kind of resolution. Professor Farel: Perhaps also through our local chapters of the State Employees Association. Professor Brown: Very great. Anything else?

Professor Estrada Bernard (Surgery): There’s been some sentiment expressed in the department, my Department of Surgery, about the definition of the domestic partner in being very specific about it, because looking at the list of ten things, some of them sound like relationships that would lead one to extend benefits to a business partner, and so that there’s some concern about that issue and not being very lucid about, extending employee benefits. Professor Brown: That they’re also financially based. Professor Farel: Well, if you share a principal residence with your business partner and consider yourself a life partner, then it would fit. There’s an “and” there. So financial interdependence is simply one of those criteria. Professor Brown: That’s an interesting point. These were based on many other proposals that have been used in other venues, in other companies and universities as a list that any unit can choose from. They might want to use all of them or some portion of them. Professor Farel: Or none of them. Professor Brown: Or none of them. So if there’re others that you’d like to suggest. Professor Farel: I think the crucial thing is “consider themselves life partners” and “share a principal residence,” as being an important defining characteristic. Professor Brown: Okay. Anything else? Very great. Thanks very much.

B. Proposed Policy on Faculty Salaries: Jane D. Brown.

Professor Brown: Now to the faculty salary policy. Craig, I decided that I’m going to lead the discussion. Craig will be here as an expert witness, having participated in many of the discussions here that lead us to these principles to guide action. Let me give you some brief background as I understand it, and then we’ll open to some discussion here.

This is a matter that I think also comes out of the rubric that Rachel already spoke about: about community, about teamwork, about working together to ensure an environment in which we all feel comfortable, and we feel as though we’re being treated fairly as employees of the University. We have never had a University-wide salary policy, even though the American Association of University Professors has called for such a thing, in the early ’70s. This has been on the books for many years, that a University such as ours should have a salary allocation policy, and that faculty should be involved in the process of establishing criteria for how salaries will be allocated. So I think it’s high time that we had a University-wide salary policy. And over the past three or four years now various committees have studied the question, have done extensive review of salary policies or the lack thereof, of salary distribution, of our competitiveness with other universities, and so on. I’ve made copies of two of those reports here. One of the committees was charged by the Executive Committee of Faculty Council two years ago, was headed by Evans Miller and Jack Evans — I’m sorry — Professor Arden Miller and Professor Jack Evans, and they did an excellent report, and copies are here. They were not charged, however, with making any recommendations based on the data they collected, and so we created a subcommittee of the Executive Committee including some of the members of the Evans/Miller committee. And they worked quickly this summer to put together a set of principles to guide action and implementing mechanisms to satisfy some of the conclusions that the Evans/Miller report had come to. That’s where we are today. No, there’s a little bit more. After that subcommittee created a draft of these, we’ve had extensive further conversation about these. We have decided to bring forward today the draft of “Principles to Guide Action” to get further input from you at this point before we bring the “Implementing Mechanisms.” We’ve found implementing mechanisms to be a much more difficult proposition than principles, basic principles. We think we may be able to agree on these basic principles. But also in the interest of not constraining our conversation today we haven’t called for you to vote on these today, but to simply open the conversation. If, in this conversation, it sounds as though we might be able to agree on these principles, we would be prepared to bring them back to you at our next meeting for a vote, and for confirmation from the Faculty Council that we agree these are principles that we would like to have guide us. We may also, at that point, if the sense of the body today is we need more than principles, we also need implementing mechanisms, we would be prepared to bring a draft of those back to talk about as well.

So. Let us begin. Let me just establish some guidelines for this discussion. This is a sensitive topic. It seems as though it’s especially as sensitive in the staff. I’m not sure if that’s true. But we don’t like to talk about sex, politics, or money. And today we’re going to talk about money. Last October we talked about sex, so it seems appropriate that we deal with the hard stuff in October. So let’s be civil to one another as we were in the consensual amorous relationship policy discussion. Some of us are very angry about this. Some of us feel as though we’ve really been mistreated, with the lack of or inefficient salary policies we currently have. I would like us to temper the anger and speak as civilly about this as we possibly can. What I’m interested in here is that ultimately what we come up with is a set of principles that we can agree to and that are workable and that will lead us to a salary policy that we all find is fair. That’s what I’m interested in. And so let’s see if we can move toward that today.

So I think there are a couple of fundamental questions. First of all, what do you think of these principles to guide actions? Do you think these are something we could all agree on? Secondly, do you think we can apply this to Arts and Sciences and the Academic Affairs side of campus as well as Health Affairs side of campus? We have had Health Affairs people involved in these conversations, and many of them believe that we could include both Academic Affairs and Health Affairs in a pan-University principles to guide action, such as are proposed here. Third, do we need mechanisms, further implementing mechanisms, or do you think these principles would lead us to the fair kind of policy we want? Howard’s not sure. Okay. We’ll get to you, Howard. And finally, I want to say that, some of you will probably bring this up, that I think Arts and Sciences has already made a great deal of progress toward achieving, toward meeting these principles. That Dean Birdsall asked all units in Arts and Sciences to involve faculty in discussing guidelines last fall, last year. And many units have already engaged in this conversation. So I think that it builds on that process and says this is the kind of thing we want. We want faculty involved in establishing the guidelines for how salaries will be allocated. So, let’s — I want to hear now what you think. And I also want to point out some of the people who have been involved in the conversation, and I can turn to when I don’t know the answer. I’m going to try to facilitate the conversation and let others answer questions. Craig Calhoun and Jim Peacock were the co-chairs of this little committee this summer that have drafted these principles. Who else? Who else is here? Will you identify yourselves? Yes. Terry Evens was on the subcommittee. Is Melissa Bullard here? Yes. Melissa Bullard was on the subcommittee. Bob Pulliam. Is Bob here? From Health Affairs, was on that subcommittee. Joe Flora is not here, but he was also on that subcommittee. Anyone else? There are others here who know lots about this. Is Jack Evans here? No, he’s not. Okay. Very great. What do you think of these principles? Let’s start with that.

A consensus. Very great. Let’s move on. [laughter] Professor Barry Lentz (Biochemistry): I have first just a brief question about item #2, item #3, rather. “Long- and short-term indicators of merit.” The others are self evident. I don’t quite understand what went into the thinking of long- and short-term indicators. Professor Brown: Okay. Will someone from the subcommittee speak to that? Professor Peacock: It’s very simple. Let’s say someone takes ten years to write a book. It’s a very significant book, and during those ten years that person is not given credit for the book and then it is produced. So the idea is that the chair might look back over the long term. Professor Brown: Okay. Does that satisfy that? Good.

Professor Reisner: Just another informational point. What is meant by 4.A.? Professor Brown: 4.A., “changing market conditions.” Professor Reisner: Well in terms of “Salary resources are appropriately used to remedy inequities resulting from,” I certainly understand what “changing market conditions” are. Professor Gooder: I’ll try to give you an example, Howard. It is not unusual in many department in Health Affairs where you have a faculty member who derives a significant portion of their salary from grant monies, that it’s possible to conceive, and this has actually happened, that the individual’s been without a grant for a short period of time, say six months, in between submitting grant applications, and the chair has used state money to tide them over so they didn’t have a cut in salary. That prevented a salary inequity and it was a use of state allocated resources.

Professor Hillel Gitelman (Medicine): I have a problem with these, and they sort of mystify me. And the problem is, and I don’t think this gets at, the root cause of our salary difficulties. Willy Sutton was a bank robber and when you asked him why he robbed banks, he said, “That’s where the money is.” If you ask me what the problem with our salaries is, we don’t have the monies to pay the salaries. And I think that’s more the root cause. For, the principles that are enunciated here are terrific — in fairness, in openness, and having a plan that is openly arrived at. I think nobody could have any argument with them. But what do you do when you have an organization to run that needs more funds every year to fulfill its salary obligations and doesn’t get them? That’s where the problem is. That, I think, is by-and-large the main source of our difficulties. And so having all this equity built in doesn’t help us get at that particular problem. And it’s that misdirection that bothers me.

Professor Brown: Barry, do you want to speak to that? Professor Lentz: I have exactly the same problem as expressed by Mr. Gitelman. Not with items 1 and 2, or even with item 3, because they seem to make sense. I think we all should be doing that in our salary deliberations. But items 4 and 5 beg that fundamental problem. And worse than begging the fundamental problem, pass the buck from the state legislature to administrators of this Institution to solve the problem that the state legislature wants a first-rate Institution and wants to pay second-rate salaries. And [the legislature] gives us the problem of how do we do that without having the funds. And it’s the wording here that bothers me, in items 4 and 5, because I don’t want to see us passing that buck. I don’t want to see us letting the legislature abrogate that responsibility.

Professor Craig Calhoun (History and Sociology): I would completely agree. I think I probably speak for the committee but I won’t guarantee that in saying that we would probably all be happy to have a faculty salary policy that also says the state should give the University a great deal more money, and all salaries should be higher. And to have that as a principle. It seems to me that what is at issue is a distinction between two concerns. One is the adequacy of salary support. Is there enough money in the system? And the second is the procedures for allocating such monies as are there. And we understood ourselves to be charged with working on the second of those two issues. The issues of equity, openness, fairness, appropriate procedures for distribution, which are all that these principles are meant to speak to. And I certainly would be open, I think others would be open, to hearing how they possibly prejudice the case on the first issue of adequacy of salary funds — I don’t see it, but we certainly look into changing it if that’s the case. My own view is that the more we can demonstrate that we have effective, clear, open, and fair procedures for allocating salaries, the better the position we are in for calling on external supporters to give us more money.

Professor Joy Kasson (American Studies): I would support that and add to it that I think it’s no coincidence that this subject comes up at a time, or has increased urgency, at a time of financial constraint. I think in plush times these inequities could have been masked by more raises being available. But I think I would agree that we all have been asked to try to deal with the political issue and the kind of question of the adequacy of our funds. But I think that I’m really happy to see today at Faculty Council this issue of inequity coming to the fore, inequity and openness. I think, to me those are the two striking things about this statement of principles, and I think it’s really important for us to discuss it in that light. Professor Brown: Thanks, Joy.

Professor Ronald Link (Law School): Could I just hear a committee comment on 3.B., “multiple criteria of merit”? What was on the committee’s mind? Professor Peacock: Well, for example, teaching, research, and service. [laughter] Professor Bachenheimer: Damn, I thought it was teaching, service, and athletics. [laughter] Professor Brown: Does that satisfy you, Ron? Not to be flip, but I think that is what that means. So that a department would be clear about how those are being, the relative weight of those criteria.

Professor Ferrell: It’s difficult to disagree in principle with anything in the policy. I think we’re certainly all in favor of fairness. We’re all in favor of equity. But to me the important question is what price are we willing to pay for accountability. People who have been involved with public personnel administration are familiar with how the structure is set up to guarantee fairness and accountability. If you have ever gotten involved in the evaluation process staff employees have to go through, I doubt very much that you would see that as a very attractive model. The long-term intent is for fairness, accountability, and impartiality, is to set up a very complex bureaucracy of administrative procedures that everyone must follow. In order in that setting the price of fairness and accountability is elimination of discretion. And I think that is our challenge. How to endorse the principles of fairness and equity to make faculty salaries without putting into place a procedure that we would ultimately find extremely distasteful. I don’t have an answer for that. That is the issue. Professor Brown: That’s probably why we haven’t brought mechanisms to you. [laughter] Do we want to move on to that conversation? Is everyone, all the comments about principles as they stand, or –.

Professor William Smith (Mathematics): I would say one thing about it. I guess I sent you a document, and obviously the kind of thing you’re talking about here is not something that you need for this University, and you mentioned in your opening that the American Association of University Professors addressed this as well as other issues as far as the role and the extent of faculty involvement in various budgetary decisions that affect the University, and this is clearly one. And the document that the AAUP prepared is in the red book with regard to the easy part, as you put it, the statement of principles, does put forth some which I think are wise and in fact, might in the history of this University have been accepted — as to whether or not it would have worked or not is another matter. That is, that essentially at whatever level any, and I’ll restrict myself to salary, decisions are made, they should be made in consultation with an appropriate faculty group. That’s a nice general principle. How one then puts that into action is, I guess, is considered the hard part. The second basic principle I think that they put forth is that there should be clearly stated policies and criteria that are developed with consultation of faculty. And then I think the third and general basic principle they put forth is that although at every level perhaps there is some type of decision affecting salaries made, that the primary or most difficult decisions — we look at them — are made as near to the unit level as possible. And I, myself, think those three principles as very well enunciated in the AAUP document are wise. My only question about principles as stated here I think is in #1, which is perhaps the most important one because it tells you to go about and do what you said to do, namely the hard part. And I think it says something that is very agreeable with the three basic principles I’ve stated, except perhaps that whoever’s drafting this, if it is to come back in the form of a resolution, might work with the wording a little more to make it clear that every unit employing faculty will develop, with faculty consultation, these policies. One could cynically read it as a unit, and I have trouble sometimes figuring out when we tell a unit to do something, that means who’s going to do it. But a unit is going to develop these criteria. You could read that that the rest of us are going to discuss it. I think the policy should be discussed, and the directions from Dean Birdsall and the College, I don’t know how many of our departments followed it. But basically he clearly did direct chairman of the department when it came forth from the salary policy, to discuss this and develop it in conjunction with the faculty in their department. And I think it’s an important ingredient, to back it down to that unit and I would like the basic principle to be clear on that point.

Professor Bachenheimer: I’d like to talk about the flip side of 4.A. [“changing market conditions”]. Now Harry mentioned as an example of 4.A. the situation where there might be a gap in funding, and this is a particularly acute issue for people where 30 to 100% of their salary is soft, comes from research grants or a clinical practice, whatever. The flip side of 4.A. is at some point some faculty member may decide that he wants to give up his grants, because he wants to devote all of his time to teaching or to writing a textbook. And so any part of that grant that went towards his salary would obviously disappear because he would give up his grant. So the question is, where in all these principles do we address the issue of faculty making conscious decisions to make changes in their career which are perfectly consistent with our mission to provide teaching, do service, and to do research — but in the process of changing direction essentially give up a source of funds which the University desperately needs to match its salary obligations? How do we, as a group, or how do individual units address the issue of supporting faculty when they wish to make major changes in their career, different, in the emphasis of their career? Professor Brown: Okay. Do you want to address that? It would seem to me that it isn’t, a faculty member would know what the –. Professor Bachenheimer: But we’re talking about a real dollar issue. Someone brings in a hundred percent of their salary. I have colleagues who bring in 100% of their salary, don’t get 1 cent from the state. It’s all on research grants. One day that person may say that this is too much. You know. The anxiety level is too high. I’ve got to devote my energy to teaching or writing a book or service. Professor Brown: Okay. Great. We got it.

Professor Sue Estroff (Social Medicine): I think that’s the kind of detail that we really thought ought to be decided on the unit basis, rather than coming up with broad, you can’t do that to us kind of principles, that these principles empower the units to have a conversation about that within each unit and to come up with locally agreed upon, locally acceptable rules. So while I take that as an interesting instance of how it might work the other way, I think we feel very strongly that the principle of conversation and consultation would resolve that problem at the unit level, and coming up with broader mechanisms to try to apply to something that specific would keep us at this for five years.

Professor Bachenheimer: It’s clear that the unit can’t make up the difference. We’re not talking about a conversation that can only occur within a unit. We’re talking about a — and I understand the question of detail. I don’t want to get bogged down in detail, but there’s a concept here that may be totally new to some people in this room. Clearly this is not an issue that can be solved within a unit. Professor Peacock: Well it is a tough issue, and a question of detail, but as you suggest, the multiple indications of merit at least begins to address it. In this case if someone — I mean there are three contributions: teaching, research, service, all of which are acknowledged by the University. According to its mission, if a faculty member decides at a certain point to shift emphasis from one of those to the other, which you’ve described, then at least in principle the others should be acknowledged as well as the past research, and given priority up to that point. That’s in principle. In practice it’s difficult to work out.

Professor James Stasheff (Mathematics): It seems to me you’ve raised an issue that’s not matter of salary allocation, because the money is disappearing. It’s a separate issue. Given the money the unit has, how is it going to allocate it? Presented with that scenario, it seems to me it’s up to the unit to go try and find the money elsewhere, i.e., higher up, not by reallocating its own resources. Of course we’re in a department where it doesn’t apply. [laughter]

Professor Gooder: Steve, as you well know I’ve gone through the process in the last few years, having become like Jane heavily involved in University activities and less time in grants. And the only answer is to take it up with the higher-ups, as was just recommended. And I so wrote to the Chancellor a few days ago.

Professor Richard (Pete) Andrews (Environmental Sciences & Engineering, Public Health): It seems to me we’re tying together several interrelated pieces of the conversation about this, one of which is the equity involved in the levels, the actual levels, of people’s salaries, how those are determined. The other has to do with the broader, several broader conversations about the sources of those salaries, one of which is the overall pie, a second is the various specialized pies. We had a conversation in connection with the SACS report, you remember, about the life cycles of faculty members, and how we accommodate those sorts of things. We had another conversation, the Chancellor has spoken to already, about pan-University funding questions, which may be an arena in which to look at how we share funding for high priorities, which might include, you know, dealing with these faculty change-of-life questions under some circumstances. But I do think those are broader questions than making sure we have equity principles here and a conversation about how the decisions made or actually the level of salary that people are awarded. Professor Brown: So this definitely brings up some bigger questions that need to continue to be addressed.

Let’s then focus again on the principles, and do we want to speak for a minute — I don’t want to go all day on this — so are there any more comments about these principles? I think we’ve heard some very good comments. We can go back and rewrite, having what we’ve heard. Unless anybody wants to say anything more about these right now, let’s turn to the other question about — Oh, Melissa does. Very great.

Professor Melissa Bullard (History): I’d just like to add one comment about the larger questions that these principles bring up. And now that the Chancellor is here I can pick up on a theme that he has repeated several times in the last few months, namely the importance of perceptions. And I think having principles and eventually some procedures in place is very, very important such that people will perceive that our procedures are fair and that these allocation decisions are made with equanimity, and I think that in itself will help build trust and perhaps repair some of the distrust that exists, as was, for example, documented in the SACS survey, the survey that Evans/Miller did, also the survey that was done in West House. They showed a very high level of faculty, what should I say, faculty concern, 1, that there was a very clear lack of clarity in salary policies across the campus, and 2, that many people felt that the decisions made within their various units were somehow unfair. A lot of that is tempered by the fact that there is just a basic lack of knowledge. So I think developing this dialogue, this discussion, getting people to talk about these issues, which is, in itself, is a groundbreaking event in the last 200 years of this Institution. I think it’s all for the good in helping us participate, building on our teamwork, our sense of community, that we can have a perception of clarity and fairness.

Professor Link: One other point of information for the committee. Paragraph 5, after the “however, responsible administrators should balance market demands with recognition of the importance of minimizing disparities….” What’s the committee’s intent with that language? Suppose market says salary of $50,000, suppose academic community says salary of $25,000. Is the administrator free to pay 50, or must the 50 be reduced? Professor Calhoun: I’ll try to answer, again, not speaking for the whole committee. I think the idea here is to point out that there are two considerations at a minimum that should be in an administrator’s mind, not just in thinking about the salary of any particular individual, but in thinking about the way salary funds are allocated among units and across fields. Recognizing as these principles do that there are a variety of different reasons for salaries to differ among fields including, but not limited to, market demand, condition of the University, and so forth. The notion is that there is also good reason not simply to say we pay market prices, period. It’s also necessary to think about the fact that within a department, within a school, there is some level of academic community and some need to maintain all the faculty as parts of that community. Does that speak to it? Professor Link: It speaks to — what troubles me is the word “balance” suggests that some of the market demand must yield to the academic community. I agree that administrators should take both into account and make a judgement, but I don’t think their hands should be tied. And I think “balance” suggests some of the market demand salary must yield. Professor Brown: I think that could be changed. Professor Link: Well, I don’t have wording to suggest; they can decide.

Professor Brown: I want to move on now to — What I hear is a lot of sentiment in favor of having such principles — do I see head nods about that? Okay. Very great. Some straw vote. And we’ll bring it back for a real vote. Now I’d like to hear just a little bit about, “Do we need, would you like to see, implementing mechanisms? Would you like to see us then saying, and this is more what we expect here, more concretely?” Professor Steve Leonard (Political Science): The objection from expediency has been made in a number of other venues, that is, the objection to the implementation of any kind of creation, any kind of mechanism that might create cumbersome procedures for considering these sorts of questions, so the argument from expediency has been made elsewhere in other venues. The only point that I would like to make about — Professor Brown: You mean that we would have guidelines only because we can’t achieve mechanisms? Professor Leonard: Well, that this would, that these mechanisms might be particularly cumbersome and difficult to carry out with any efficiency, and so on. That they wouldn’t be expedient. That particular argument strikes me as very odd in light of the importance of this particular issue to the well being of this Institution. If, in fact, expediency were a consideration in the making of policy here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill then, in fact, we could probably get rid of 90% of the faculty committees that we currently have, including this body. So, I’m not sure that expediency alone is sufficient reason for not considering the importance of developing mechanisms that might be unable to address this particular issue, given its importance for the well being of the Institution. Professor Brown: Okay. Thank you. I think expedience is not our strong suit period. [laughter] And I think it is not an appropriate excuse for not moving on mechanisms. So I want to hear more about mechanisms, briefly.

Professor David Pike (German): I’m glad I don’t have to be quite so categorical. I was glad to hear two people refer to the AAUP in connection with this discussion. And in terms of whether or not we should be considering mechanisms that go along with principles and policy I would point out that the AAUP doesn’t just talk of principles. They have procedures and mechanisms, some of which may be applicable to what we do here, some of which may not be, but I don’t think it would ever occur to the AAUP to advance policies absent procedures that are designed to make sure that those policies are implemented. If you want to read a little bit more about it, the gentleman over here knows the red book probably better than I do, but it’s in the red book, and some of it is fairly explicit, and very little of it comports with what we do here.

Professor Smith: If I could be excused from quoting the red book — it’s big — I’d like to say something about the Code which is a little thinner. Professor Brown: Our own Code? Professor Smith: Our own Code, I believe it is referred to as the Faculty Code. In fact, rather than talk, I’d like to just let Joe get up and tell us what it says, since he’s probably memorized it and I haven’t. I made a reference a minute ago that these principles which the AAUP has put forth I think had long been recognized by this University, as a matter of fact formally adopted by the University, in some sense endorsed, and I think highly recognized in the history of this University, going back to when our version of the Code, what 40 years ago? 35? [Professor Ferrell: 60. Professor Brown: Whatever. Move on.] –a long time ago were established. And I think in the context of looking at implementation, in fear of telling people a lot of what they already know let me mention some things that are mentioned in the existing Code. One, there is a faculty Advisory Committee which meets regularly with the Chancellor and is charged to talk about whatever it deems important with the Chancellor, or talk about whatever the Chancellor thinks important to talk about. I think there’s both. That Committee does, in broad strokes, I’ve been on it, talk about budgetary matters, some of which it brings up, some of which the Chancellor brings up. At least in my experience, and I think probably in the experience of others, it probably does not get into salary issues, at least I don’t know that it has except for in very general strokes. The Faculty Code also calls for an Instructional Personnel Committee, although it’s clear the Code was written by a committee itself, it uses various different words in different places, at least by my reading, this is a committee that is chaired by the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, and it is concerning itself with salary matters. It doesn’t use the “s” word but I think it’s clear that that’s what’s meant. That Committee then has a subcommittee which is also mentioned specifically in the Code, for the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. It’s also renamed another committee, but the members are the same — it’s sometimes called the Advisory Committee to the Dean of Arts and Sciences. And I think it is clear that with regard to salary matters that Code calls for the Dean to consult with that Committee. So I think the Code, as it’s now written, does not ignore these matters. However, I think then we would have to say that probably the Code was written at the time that the University was simpler with regard to doing this. That’s one thing.

A second reservation is whether we carry out and actually do what the Code says to a great extent, which is perhaps another question. The other is although the Advisory Committee is an elected committee of the faculty; the Instructional Personnel Committee is not an elected committee of the faculty. As a matter of fact, it’s listed as an ex officio committee, although it contains on it four members who are elected within the College of Arts and Sciences. And that constitutes the bulk of the Dean’s Advisory Committee, which I think we could say was an elected committee. The fifth problem I think you have with the existing structure as it is in the Code is, of course, with the Division of Health Affairs, which probably wasn’t very large when this whole thing came about anyway. It’s not mentioned at all except to say it’s not excluded. Sometimes the Code is very pointed, but it’s not. Professor Brown: So it is not excluded in the current Code? Professor Smith: It is excluded from the Instructional Personnel Committee, as I mentioned. I think when you talk about the mechanism here you are talking about faculty involvement in University affairs. As a result, I think, you are talking about the Faculty Code. The faculty can amend that Code, to change it. I think it has to do so very deliberately, but it indeed can do it. One of the things that it has to look at is: Are there things that are established with the Code that are supposed to be doing what you’re trying to set up another body to do? I think it’s a very complicated thing. The one thing I meant in going through my litany of things that are called for in the Code, and here they do use the “s” word, but again there’s the same problem — it applies only to the College of Arts and Sciences faculty. The Code does require that the professors in the department, those holding the rank of professor, should be consulted in that unit on salary matters.

Professor Brown: Joe — we’re going to need to complete this conversation. We have some other matters to address today. So what you’re saying, Bill, is that we need to be looking at what’s already in the Code, that may already have established some mechanisms. Professor Smith: Among other things. Professor Ferrell: Just, not much to add to what Bill said. It think it would be my preference — and I’m speaking now not on behalf of the Committee, but just as a person who’s been around here for awhile — to, if the faculty’s sense is to endorse the principles, to do that and see what the administrative response is, before the faculty attempts to go ahead and instruct the administration how they would like to see them put into place, one of the things that’s been extremely interesting to me — last year in December you instructed the Government Committee to do a very simple thing, of just simply allowing certain lecturers to vote for Faculty Council. We have worked on that for a year. One thing I discovered in the course of that is that all of us, the view of almost everyone as to how the faculty operates and what the University is like, is based on your departmental experience. And our knowledge of how other parts of the University operate is very, very limited. In the course of just addressing that one simple little thing I learned more about the diversity of this great Institution than any other thing I’d very been involved in. It is not correct for someone in the College of Arts and Sciences to assume that the Business School runs its affairs pretty much the way you do. It is not correct for a faculty member of a department in the Medical School to assume that the Journalism School runs their business pretty much the way you do. It is a very diverse Institution. About the best we can do at this level is to adopt all the policy statements, ask our administration to take those into account and translate those broad policy statements into things will work in individual units, so that mechanisms come from the bottom up, and not from the top down. So I fear trying to go at it from the top down, that may eventually be necessary, if nothing happens from the bottom up. But in thirty-some years of dealing with this administration my experience has been that the administration listens very carefully to what this body says. I’m aware of no instance in which the Faculty Council or the General Faculty have made their views on an important issue known with crystal clarity and have been ignored by the administration. I’ve never seen that occur. What some of us would have liked to see come out of some of those things wasn’t exactly what happened, but there were reasons that it didn’t happen. But I think the best approach would be to give them an opportunity to respond to us before we start telling them what to do.

Professor Leonard: I’m not sure how much longer we should wait until the administration responds to these particular, what should we call them? — principles? I’ve only been here for ten years. Four of those ten years I’ve been involved with a group of faculty who have asked administrators repeatedly to consider these principles in determination of salary. Those meetings, those requests, have not been dealt with, shall we say, expediently. And I think it’s time for faculty to simply provide a statement of what we believe to be an appropriate orientation towards the determination of salary here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and hope that the administrators here can find some way of putting that policy into place.

Professor Reisner: I’d just like to speak to Steve’s point, because I agree. I’d rather see, not to see us just drop the ball, to simply wait for administrators to propose something to us. On the other hand, I do think we’re working in the absence of an awful lot of knowledge. I really don’t have it firmly in my mind how my own department sets salary. I certainly don’t know how Political Science sets salary. I think one thing that we could do would be to establish a fact-finding group which would go at these statements of principles, and try to find out how the administrators who would be sort of compelled to do our dirty work for us intended to do it. I point out that we’re asking responsible administrators to administer our principles. I think it’s fair for us to go and say to the various administrators, “How would you feel about this? How would you administer this? And by the way how do you establish salaries in our particular administrative unit?” And I think this would be very useful information. And I think that would form the basis of trying to establish policy, an actual procedural policy, could be equitable across the entire University. Professor Brown: We have already been in conversation with a number of administrators. Dick Richardson and Garland Hershey both have sat in on a couple of the recent conversations. We’ve been in touch with the Dean of the Medical School about what would occur out of this, and I think they’ve been extremely helpful and generous with their time and thinking about this with us. And I’m sure they would continue to be, continue to work with us about that.

Professor Miles Fletcher (History): I agree the Institution is a very complex one. I personally would like the opportunity to discuss mechanisms as well as principles. I think we need to follow through on this issue and we have the obligation to see if we can make sure that if we believe in these principles we endorse them so that they actually have some effect. And I have confidence that we can decide on procedures that are reasonable in terms of effort and extra burdens on the faculty. Professor Brown: Okay, I want us to have two more comments and then close the conversation. Joy and then Jim.

Professor Kasson: Well, I just wanted to second Miles’s comment and the other people who have spoken in favor of at least bringing mechanisms up for discussion. And Joe Ferrell’s knowledge of the working of the University is clearly something that we all rely on. But I just want to question for a minute his comment about the bottom and the top. In some ways the units are the bottom structurally speaking, but part of the problem is that within those units the decisions are still coming from the top down, and in a way Faculty Council represents the bottom in the sense of the community speaking about these issues. I would like to see us, despite the complexity, the diversity, and the difficulty of this, I would like to see us deal with mechanisms.

Professor Stasheff: I was just going to suggest that, as indicated, current procedures vary greatly from department to department, or unit to unit — excuse me, to use the politically correct terminology. [Professor Brown: We’re just trying to grope for words there.] Right, right, that’s fine. If we’re going to discuss it at all, it might be good to have information about current practices first. Professor Brown: We have that. Professor Stasheff: Then let’s distribute it. Professor Brown: We have a lot of models we could be looking at. So we could do that. Okay, what I hear — I’ll do another kind of head nod vote here — is that we’d like to see, that we’ll bring the principles back in a form that we can vote on, and that we’d bring a draft of mechanisms. And those mechanisms we’ll continue to work with administrators as we develop those, we’ll look at models that have already been developed in departments or units, and bring back a set of mechanisms that we hope will work. And then have a conversation about that. Is that agreeable to everyone? Very great. Melissa, you needed a final word?

Professor Bullard: Oh no. Just a point of information. The Evans/Miller Committee did do a 7-page survey of every single administrator and chair in this University, so there’s quite a lot of data on current practices. Professor Brown: There’s a lot of data, yeah. And these are available here. Anybody can take them and be prepared for our next conversation. And we’ll distribute other information as we proceed. Thank you very much. I appreciate that excellent conversation. We will proceed.

V. Chancellor Hooker.

Thank you. I’m sorry I’m late. I was in Boone at the Board of Governors meeting. I have no report to make. I just want to thank all of you who came to the University Day ceremony yesterday. I was very pleased with it. I hope you were as well. I especially appreciate the faculty showing up. It’s crucially important for many reasons for the faculty to participate in ceremonies like this, and I thought we had a great turnout. And I thank you. I’d be happy to address any questions or comments. Rachel, I haven’t had the opportunity to see you since yesterday — those were great remarks yesterday.

Professor Kasson: I just wanted to ask you, from where I was sitting when President Spangler asked the state legislators to stand, I didn’t see very many. Chancellor Hooker: No, there were very few. There were four/five senators and two reps — not many. Professor Brown: What do you think that means? [laughter] Chancellor Hooker: I spent the previous day in Raleigh meeting with a lot of them, and a lot of them, they all knew that this was going on, and I met with the two key people who weren’t there the previous day in Raleigh and had great meetings with them, so it didn’t bother me. And obviously I’d like for all of them to have been there. I would like for the members of the Board of Governors to have been there, but they weren’t. They were in Boone. And this is not the time of year when legislators are in Raleigh, and so it’s a little harder to get over here when you’re not yet coming over from Raleigh; you’re coming from the far corners of the state, and we have, as you know, a part-time legislature, and most of them are out earning a living at this time. And so I imagine many of them made the calculation that it was not worth their time to leave their gainful employment and journey to Chapel Hill, and if so, I think that speaks well of their sanity. [laughter] I was delighted to see the Senate President there yesterday. I’m told that he is not one for this kind of ceremonial function. So it was a very good sign that he was there. Thanks very much. Again I apologize for being late. Professor Brown: No, thank you. Thank you for your excellent statement yesterday. We all appreciate it.

VI. Annual Reports of Standing Committees:

A. Faculty Hearings: Madeline G. Levine and John V. Orth, Co-Chairs.

Professor Brown: We have two annual reports of standing committees. And if you remember, we agreed that unless there was a resolution attached to the standing committee report, we don’t need to hear the report. We’ve assumed that you have all done your homework and read the report. Usually we also have a committee member here if you have any comments about it. Unfortunately there is no member of the Faculty Hearings Committee here today — they’re all out of town today — but if you have any comment, I’d be happy to take it back to the Committee. Anybody want to say anything about the Faculty Hearings Committee report? Okay. Very great.

B. Faculty Grievance: John E. Semonche, Chair.

And John Semonche is here as Chair of the Faculty Grievance Committee. Any comment for John? Thank you for your good work, John. Thank you for being here.

VII. Old or New Business.

And two updates to finish us off today — or maybe not. Maybe you have some other business as well.

A. Update on Task Force on Women at Carolina: Noelle A. Granger, Chair, and Rachel Willis.

Noelle Granger and Rachel Willis will give us an update on the Task Force on Women at Carolina. They’ve been working hard and they’re up to something right now that we need to be aware of. Come on up here.

Professor Granger: I asked Jane to allow Rachel and me about five minutes. I hope we’ll hold to that. [Willis: Absolutely.] To bring you up to date on what the Task Force on Women at Carolina has been doing. And what I’m going to do is give you a time-line of what we’ve done so far, and Rachel is going to tell you about an upcoming electronic survey. I first would like to recognize that the Task Force came about in part as a result of the submission to the Chancellor from the Women’s Issues Network, a working proposal for a UNC Women’s Center. This was, in part, what I think went into the formation of this Task Force. This was a student initiative, and I want to recognize that. The first of the recommendations that was made in this working proposal was the establishment of a task force to assess campus needs in women’s concerns. The co-chairs of the Task Force are myself and Barbara DeLon, who is Personnel Officer for the Academic Affairs Library. We were named in January. And former Chancellor Hardin gave the charge to the Task Force, to us, at the end of January. And this charge specifically stated: “To produce an inventory and evaluation of existing programs and services that address the needs and concerns of women on campus, and to suggest strategies for improving the quality, coordination, and effectiveness of existing resources for women.” The Task Force had its first meeting at the end of March, and since that time I think we’ve made remarkable progress, and this is due in no small part to the extraordinary enthusiasm and commitment of the members of the Task Force.

Let me report on three things. The inventory of existing programs and services is nearly complete under the subcommittee chairman of Elizabeth Gibson who is in the School of Law. Everyone on the Task Force was given an assignment, to determine the programs and services affecting women in schools, programs, curricula, units, administrative offices, departments, etc. This was really a Herculean job, and it’s still ongoing because we keep finding nooks and crannies in which we have to look. Concerns about the programs and services were also gathered, and a compilation of our findings now exists in a printed inventory, but not the final draft. We also decided to survey other institutions locally and ones of comparable size and character nationally to determine what programs and services for women they have and how they were coordinated, and a subcommittee responsible for this was headed by Steve Leonard, Political Science Department, and that report is also now in hand. And finally, we decided that a third piece of information was necessary in order for the task force to put together its recommendations. And that is, what do women faculty and staff feel they need or don’t know we already have in the way of services and programs and their coordination. This information we are going to obtain by means of a survey scheduled for early November. And Rachel Willis from the Department of Economics is chair of that subcommittee and is going to tell you about that survey. The Task Force, I’m pleased to announce, has kept almost to its original projected time-line. We anticipate having the final report ready by the end of January at the absolute latest. And it’s about a month off from what we anticipated, so we’ve been really chugging along.

Dr. Willis: Every year on my evaluations I get low scores in the University for “talks too fast for a pace for suitable comprehension.” So here I’ll try it for the faculty. You may remember my name. I came to the Faculty Council about service learning in the spring, and got drafted with Donna LeFebvre to serve on the Public Service Roundtable, the committee on service- and community-based learning, so you may have received a survey. Everybody in the Academic Affairs side of campus did, and I got to spend my summer vacation coding and analyzing the survey, and the first draft of the report of that is ready, so I learned. When Noelle Granger came to me and said, “You’ve done a campuswide survey; would you do one for the Task Force on Women?”, I said, “Yeah, if you give me a million dollars.” Well, I’m here to say in person, “Thank you, Chancellor Hooker” because she went, I’m not playing poker with you, and you called my bluff. You gave us remarkable cash resources, and I was able — [Professor Brown: Not a million dollars.] No. I probably shouldn’t reveal this, but I got an all-campus parking permit. [laughter] [Someone commented: That’s worth a million dollars.] And I sell it on different days. [Someone else: You’re retiring so young?] I’m pleased to say that I was also smart enough to hire two of the most remarkable graduate students that we have ever admitted to the University: Felicia Robb, first year graduate student in Economics, who is the founding mother of the Center for Sustainable Development, which is a non-profit that sends internships to Central America. It’s just been profiled nationally. She is writing inventory — I mean the survey instruments. The Task Force has had about three meetings on it, and it’s in final draft, so we’ll clean it up this weekend. Donna LeFebvre, founding mother of the Association of University Lecturers, and cohort in crime on the service learning committee, and I will be finishing that this weekend. We will be testing it. The other more remarkable hire was Gail Corrado, first year graduate student in public policy. We finally, with your money, made a remarkable steal from Duke. She’s the former Associate Vice Provost of Academic Information Technology at Duke University, returning for her doctorate. We are doing the first electronic pulse of the campus. The survey will be conducted by computers. We’re going to use the fiber optic network, and I’m pleased it’s for the Task Force on Women. We had questions about literacy and access, and Bill Graves, courtesy of Jane, has done a remarkable job. We will be able to network this through e-mail, through the department networks, from UNC’s home page on the World Wide Web. Members of the Task Force will staff clusters of computers so that, for example, the housekeepers, during their breaks, in the middle of the night, can get assistance from Task Force members. I think that solves the literacy issue just as well as we can, and possibly better than paper surveys. We’ll be surveying the staff, faculty, and students the first two weeks in November. Watch the Gazette, watch The Daily Tar Heel for it. This is kind of an exciting opportunity. Please get people to fill it out. It’s the only way we know what the broader campus community is thinking on these issues, what they already know about what exists. So that’s it.

Professor Brown: What are the questions, what is the survey asking? Dr. Willis: The survey is focused broadly on awareness of campus resources that are already there for women, concern about specific issues which are not necessarily always gender related: child care issues affect the men. That 4:30 was not because you walked in, it was because day care centers have huge penalties, as you probably recall, for late parents. There are questions about, for faculty, about tenure clocks and maternity leave policies, and how they’re decided. For staff, questions about training and development opportunities. For students, questions about the academic climate vis-a-vis gender issues, not only with respect to faculty, but also with respect to other students, and questions about readmission policies on maternity leaves at the undergraduate level. A broad range of things. Questions about housing. There’s also ten campus commitments that already exist to women, and there’s a little bit of a test of knowledge. One nice thing about the electronic survey is that you can’t do this on a paper survey, you can’t just print volumes and volumes of paper of explanations, but for this, people can say, you know, “What do you mean, ‘Do I know if this exists?'” And they can pull down, just hit a help button and it will pull down and say these are the examples. This is what we’re talking about. So I think it’s really exciting. We’re going to be able to code it every night. We will know which units aren’t responding and can further staff clusters. The real exciting part — Professor Brown: Just stop, Rachel, okay? Dr. Willis: Okay. Professor Brown: And then — [Dr. Willis: I’m sorry.] any questions, comments? Okay. Very innovative. We’ll see if it works. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you both. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off like that, Rachel. It’s just — Dr. Willis: Oh that’s okay. I was just going to say the grad students are dying to staff this in the middle of the night. Professor Brown: Good.

B. Update on Land Use Planning Committee: Thomas B. Clegg, Chair.

And finally, maybe not, we have Tom Clegg with maps. [laughter] Tom has been working so diligently on land-use planning that I think he deserves a round of applause. [applause]

Professor Clegg: Thank you, Jane. When Jane asked me to come, I asked if I could bring my overheads, and she said, “No, we don’t do overheads in Faculty Council.” And I said, “I’ve never given a talk without overheads before.” But George told me I could bring a crutch. Maybe I’ll talk loudly enough. My colleagues say I do. This is the best map I could find from Gordon Rutherford’s office just to give you an indication of what we’re up to. What’s the exercise? The exercise is one of a faculty advisory committee on long-range land-use planning for the whole campus. We’re talking here about planning for the outlying lands, the Horace Williams property, some 940 acres northwest of Chapel Hill. Here’s the central campus. So this, in itself, is already larger than the 700 acres, the 685 acre central campus, and then to the east, southeast of us are the Mason Farm lands, some 1340 acres. So, the charge from the Board of Trustees to this campus is to try to determine what the best long-range use of those lands will be. But those are the properties we’re dealing with. The committee I chair is a faculty advisory committee to the Facilities Planning Committee. Our charge is to determine what the needs of the University will be for these lands. And the time period we’re discussing is one of 25, maybe even 50, years. Certainly 25 years. But if you start thinking about what you do over those next 25 years, there surely will be impact from the decisions coming in the next few decades far beyond that period. The University has hired an external planning firm, JJ&R, which is guiding this process with the campus and with the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

I come to you today with an interim report. I want to take you through the three phases that we’ve been through so far, and then try to sketch for you what I think will happen as this plays out over the rest of this academic year. First, we sat together — the committee is twelve faculty from broadly, equally representing Health Affairs and Academic Affairs. We sat together for the first time; there was only one person from City and Regional Planning. The rest of us come from disciplines where land-use planning is not our forte, and we asked the planners how to do this. The first thing we heard was, “Go figure out what’s growing fastest.” And that wasn’t obvious, but I went back to my office and started thinking it, and I realized I get this book once a year. It’s a fact book about the University, and on page 6 in the fact book is, in fact, a 20-year compilation of personnel, revenues, sponsored research funding, space, etc., and I took out a little graphing package on my computer, and I just started graphing this information. And amazingly, a lot of information was already revealed. First, we find that over 20 years, the last 20 years, personnel growth on this campus, including students, staff, and faculty, has grown about 24%. Revenues, corrected for the consumer price index, had grown about 52%. All right. So it’s grown faster than personnel. And space on this campus has grown faster than the two of them; it has grown 59%. So space is growing faster than revenues, inflation-corrected revenues, is growing faster than personnel. Personnel growth is not being driven by student growth. Student growth is about a percent a year. So, student growth is in fact growing faster than the overall personnel growth on campus. And when I talk about student growth, I’m really talking about head count; I’m not talking about FTEs. Head counts are going up faster than FTEs, because we have a large rate of growth in continuing education. Those are people who don’t bring one full-time equivalent student.

So, the other thing we realized is that these growth patterns are remarkably linear. And even though revenues do go up and down, these growths continue, and they have continued, over the last two decades, and if you project them, you can begin to see that we have things that we must worry about. In particular, if you look at the space growth on campus, you see that within ten to fifteen years, we will on the central campus exceed the infrastructure capacity which exists today: electricity, chiller capacity, roads, parking — the things that are essential for continued growth. We are building 200,000 square feet per year on this campus on average for the last two decades. And you already see in the pipeline other growth, other groundbreakings. We know for at least the next five to six years this growth is going to continue. We see what’s going to happen. This place is getting bigger, and we’ve got to make sure we can accommodate that in terms of infrastructure. That has big monetary impact for the campus because we’re talking about tens of millions of dollars of investment to try to build new infrastructure, and the decision must be made whether this infrastructure is built on the central campus and allow growth here, in downtown Chapel Hill, or whether we put this money into infrastructure on the outlying lands to support growth out away from the central campus. And those are big decisions that will have big impact on all of us, and our generations who follow us.

Okay. So the understanding of that energized us in January and took us into phase two. Phase two had three basic activities. The first was a call by Chancellor Hardin to every member of our campus community, staff, students, and faculty, to respond to me, on behalf of him, and say to this faculty advisory committee what should be done with the outlying lands. And we got some 45 or 50 responses. If I had to characterize them generally, there were very many who said, “Maintain the central campus for the core activities. Protect the natural areas of the campus and these outlying lands.” There were groups who spoke to us about their interests, certainly about the Botanical Garden, the Biological Preserve, on the Mason Farm properties. There were also groups who spoke on behalf of the Athletic Department’s needs for the playing fields and the golf course at Mason Farm, and groups, especially in Health Affairs, who depend so heavily on the presence of the airport. I should say that the airport and its presence at the Horace Williams property was decided early in this process, to be basically a question which has been decided. Chancellor Hardin said at one of the very early meetings last fall he had become convinced that if the University had a general aviation airport, you should keep a general aviation airport, because if you needed it, it was unlikely that he was going to find an easy place to put it. And for right now, in this land using process, we are assuming that the airport will stay for the foreseeable future until some alternative solution to the University’s needs for that airport can emerge.

In phase two the second thing that happened was that we began to interview senior administrators at Duke, at NC State, and the people who represented the early years of the Research Triangle Park. Why Duke and NC State? If you think about our neighboring campuses, both of them operate split campuses. Duke has an East/West Campus. NC State has just recently developed a Centennial Campus for its research interests. We thought we might learn from their experience about what might be facing us as we develop our own plans for outlying land. What were those messages? A couple of messages became very clear. From Duke and NC State we heard very loudly, “Don’t create for yourself a major transportation problem.” Duke spends an enormous amount of money bussing students back and forth between the East and West Campus. You don’t want to split your academic enterprise and have to move lots of people. From the people at the Research Triangle Park and also some from the Centennial Campus representatives at NC State we heard that this, unlike many other institutions in the country, already finds itself in a locale where there are lots of research parks — not only the Research Triangle Park which we know, with all of its industry there. But there are about 30 or 40 other private research parks around the area. These facilities in these parks were, for example, large enough, in capacity to absorb Glaxo when it came until it built its own facilities. Don’t put the University in a situation by saying you will a large tract of this land to research park development, and to be in competition with these existing research parks. We enjoy around UNC-Chapel Hill a large base of that kind of activity already. We don’t want to exclude the possibility for a research development, but we may not have the need here that some other institutions do for that activity.

The other issue in this phase II was to ask unit deans all across Academic and Health Affairs what the needs of their units would be and how these needs might be addressed by development on outlying lands. And those needs came back in many different voices. They fill up a couple of notebooks — I have nine notebooks, big fat ones, in my office now, with all of the paper that this process has generated, but if I were to characterize very briefly what we were told, and in fact, it’s clear once you think about it: many, many academic units at this University have satisfied their space needs within the last decade. Think about the new building projects which you have seen go up around you. The School of Social Work. The Business School has broken ground. The Dental School has broken group. The Law School groundbreaking was last week. Journalism will move into the Business School when the Business School moves out. We are seeing a large number of you whose needs for space for the long foreseeable future are being addressed now. That began to make us clearly aware that had we thought about this kind of process a decade ago, we might have brought much more intelligence to this planning process, and brought some coherence to a — for example, professional school campus on one of these outlying lands, with a cohesiveness and attractiveness which would have made this over the long-term a very interesting place with a very different perspective. It might have been better, but that avenue, if not closed, is much more difficult now.

The other issue, then, was to figure out what’s left. What could go on these outlying lands? What were the remaining pressures? How could they be put together in some cohesive form to make an intelligent use of intellectual units on these outlying lands? And the things which emerged at the end of Phase II, it began to appear as a statement of goals and guidelines which we published last April, where it clearly, continuing education was growing very fast. We should look very hard at the continuing education campus activities both in Health Affairs and in Academic Affairs, at the things going on already around the Friday Center, at the growth of centers and research institutes on campus, and see if there would be a way to bring those together in some cohesiveness intellectual form and place them together so they would become a large enough unit with enough synergy to make real sense. And the obvious thing which became clear was that the Friday Center already exists. It begins today to be quite attractive for that kind of activity. It’s already kind of an outreach campus for this University. And we saw what small remaining acreage exists on Mason Farm to be very importantly directed toward that kind of activity. I might say that out of the 1340 acres at Mason Farm, when you look at the existing Botanical Garden, Biological Preserve, and the golf course, which is out there, which we decided, at least for now, is the proper use of that because it provides good use of floodplain property and good buffer for the Botanical Garden and Biological Preserve, there’s only 40 acres left to develop out at Mason Farm. If you consider there’re only 40 acres out there, you’d better be careful what you want to do with those 40 acres over the next 25 or 50 years, about how you use that space, or you use it up in a hurry. That means that the major focus of this effort is at Horace Williams. The major tract is about three or four hundred acres out there — it’s not quite clear yet how much — and we have to begin to imagine how this University directs itself to develop the Horace Williams property and what goes out there.

So through the summer we entered phase III. We began to look at continuing education activities. We began to look at administrative activities, because many of them occupy space on central campus which might wisely go for some other things. And we began to look at the real research needs. We surveyed interest groups in these particular areas in depth this summer. Again got back two more notebooks worth of paper. Had meetings with a large number of the constituent parties. And the information which was distributed to you before this meeting, members of the Faculty Council, saw our summary of that. The committee expressed general opinions and specific ones. And I’ll wrap up here in just a minute. General opinion is to preserve the central campus for core activities. Favor development “up” over “out.” In other words, there was a strong sentiment coming out of all of this information gathering and synthesizing process that we as a faculty believe that we find very strong need for core instructional activities, core Health Affairs activities, associated with sick patient care, and interdisciplinary research activities which involve many of these people — all those things should stay on the central campus. That’s what people are saying. And we’ve voiced that here. And that sentiment comes, not out of resistance to change, but out of an essential intellectual need that we stay together to enhance the best of this Institution. That means we’ve got to decant programs carefully. Some people would question that metaphor. That means you put the dregs out on the outlying lands and keep the good stuff inside. That wasn’t the sense in which the metaphor was brought up, but it’s a danger that we must be sensitive to. You must be careful that when we do put things out there that they make intellectual sense, that you do create an intellectual whole. We also feel you need to build generic buildings. Buildings change. Manning Hall used to be the Law School. It’s not the Law School anymore. We ought to have buildings built such that as the University’s needs change, we can move things around without enormous cost. Provide effective transportation links — Duke and NC State say that. Provide effective communication links for today’s modern technology. So, we’ve come up with a list which is here of what we think ought to go on the Mason Farm property and ought to go on the Horace Williams tract, trying as best we can to respond to what we hear from our faculty and the University community.

I mean to summarize and wrap up. What’s been the response to this? We’ve published this in the memo to Wayne Jones. It went to the UNC News Bureau, and the local newspapers received a copy. And very quickly there was an article about our recommendations and then we received “raspberries” in the Chapel Hill Herald. [laughter] “Up” versus “out” was severely criticized by the local community, at the faculty not having the long-range view needed to develop the town in which we live. When the September visit of our JJ&R planners was postponed, it was postponed for an explicit reason. The University’s information gathering process had revealed such complexity in this whole exercise that it simply was not possible for JJ&R to synthesize all of this and bring some reasonable guidance on the time scale which had previously been established. So now we’re moving at a more leisurely and more measured pace as we try with JJ&R to develop alternative plans, largely for the Horace Williams property. We are trying to develop alternative plans which reveal the tradeoffs which must be made by this University and its surrounding towns to how we use these lands. These are tradeoffs in terms of density, in terms of transportation impact, and in terms of all of the things that influence our lives. And that’s a hard process. It will hopefully come together when JJ&R comes back in November.

Let me close with the following observation. I mentioned the fact that had we done a better job ten years ago looking at our long-range planning we would probably have had much more freedom to build an intellectual whole for one of these outlying lands, a much more attractive intellectual campus activity out on one of these outlying properties. To say now that we want to build “up” versus “out” continues in some sense that process, whereby I understand and firmly agree with the sense this says about what’s needed to maintain the quality of this Institution. And I respect that and agree with it. I also realize that there are real limits. And this campus cannot grow at the pace it’s been growing and not begin to think seriously about developing the outlying lands. It also must, today, start thinking about how to do that or risk, 10, 15, 20 years from now, having many fewer options to make sensible use of those properties. This is an interim report. JJR will come back with alternatives in the next couple of months. There will be opportunity from all across the campus community to respond and this will play out over the rest of the academic year, with a target now to bring a final report to the Board of Trustees for their adoption in the late spring semester. Thank you.

Professor Brown: Any comments? Professor Leonard: Are there going to be any opportunities for local community to respond to the plans? Professor Clegg: Throughout this process the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro have had matching advisory panels who are involved, and they are seeing these recommendations. They’re involved fully in the process. I’ll say this, that this University has done itself proud in trying to involve the whole community so far in this process. I think we’ve earned a lot of respect for that.

Professor Robert Kirkpatrick (English): I noticed that Battle Park is not mentioned on here. Does that mean that it’s removed from consideration? Professor Clegg: Some of us have stated a personal opinion. Certainly not. We were given the charge to consider Horace Williams and Mason Farm. Some of us who’ve been involved in this from the standpoint of the faculty committee have said to our administration that we believe in the sense of trying to make a long-range plan for the entire campus properties, not only the outlying properties, and the central land. We should also be talking about those other properties in the intervening area. Not only Battle Park, but the old Chapel Hill golf course, Goat Hill, the place behind the Chancellor’s residence. These are particular properties which might, in the long-range, be interesting for the University to use but might not. But there’s no sense, in my personal opinion, of putting those off the plate. We should be planning openly with the towns for that, and I believe that’s beginning to be heard, and I don’t exactly know how that might come out in the whole process. There’s certainly no development plan. You understand how complex this is. There’s really no firm plan yet for all of this. And I think people involved in the towns are beginning to understand — there’s nothing up the University’s sleeve here. But it should be open. That should be on the table, too, I think.

Professor Bachenheimer: My impression is much of the growth that’s happened, at least in the 20 years I’ve been here, has been in the area of research space, [Professor Clegg: That’s true.] much of which is funded by federal dollars. I’m wondering whether your projections about growth actually reflect what other people say may be a leveling off or down-turn in the amount of monies available to continued growth. Professor Clegg: I haven’t projected growth. I mean all I can say, based on the present information of what’s happened in the last 20 years — and I told you 200,000 square feet per year roughly is what we’re doing here — that growth comes from state dollars, from revenue; income streams from federal dollars too. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s part of the puzzle. How do you respond to that kind of uncertainty in this environment. It’s a very, very complex problem.

Professor Harry Gooder (Microbiology & Immunology): Two quick comments. I’m the faculty representative on the Facilities Planning Committee. We gave Tom a round of applause at the beginning. I must tell you he has done an absolutely fabulous job in the last 10 months in bringing all this together. When we first were faced with the deadline of JJ&R by this spring, I didn’t frankly think that one could put together all that’s been put together. The second comment is some of you may remember the disastrous attempt at long-range planning and our reaction with the community of ten years ago. The University has spent over backwards this time to include both the communities of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and if we haven’t heard from them, or they don’t like what they’re hearing, that’s a separate question. But on the other hand, we have done our best, I think, to keep them informed. Professor Clegg: Because of the political impact and the political downside of the last planning effort in the ’80s, and the fact that that was — it was so controversial it was swept under the rug — the one key point that came out of that was not widely understand was the fact that in about ten years we’re going to hit this infrastructure limit. That was not understood. It was known already ten years ago, and here we are closer to it facing this deadline with even a shorter fuse. We need to do a better job of it. Professor Brown: Tom, it’s been exceptional work. You could have another career now. Thank you very much. [applause]

Professor Brown: I want to apologize again to Rachel for cutting you off. [Dr. Willis: It happens every day. — {laughter} Those students are out of there.] This task force has done a remarkable job, and it really has been wonderful amount of effort they’ve already put into it. Steve Leonard has done a survey of other campuses and has done an excellent job. And so I want to appreciate them as well. Is there any other business?

Professor Calhoun: I was just going to move that you make Tom the new chair of the salary committee — Jim and I are willing to step aside. [laughter] Professor Clegg: No thank you.

Professor Brown: Thank you all very much. See you in November.

The meeting adjourned at 5:03 p.m.

George S. Lensing

Secretary of the Faculty

Pdf of meeting materials