March 17, 1995
Transcript, Faculty Council Meeting, March 17, 1995
FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING
3:00 P.M., MARCH 17, 1995
ASSEMBLY ROOM, WILSON LIBRARY
Attendance: Present 51; Excused absences 23; Unexcused absences 17.
Chancellor Hardin: I either have seasonal allergies or a cold. We will begin today with memorial resolutions. Have we any family members of either here? [Family members stand.]
I. Memorial Resolutions:
A. For the late Richard Scott Bear: Charles W. Carter, Jr., Chair.
B. For the late Waldo Emerson Haisley: Everett D. Palmatier, Chair.
[Each resolution was approved with a moment of standing silence following the reading of the memorial.]II. Chancellor Hardin.
It’s well to remember our departed colleagues. I appreciate the committees that offered these memorial resolutions. Those resolutions will be spread on the minutes of the meeting and copies conveyed to the relatives of the deceased colleagues. I apologize for the nasal tone. If it sounds as bad to you as it does to me, I sound as though I’m in a great hollow somewhere. I told Barbara this morning I might excuse myself after my report. She said you can’t do that because people will think you’re going to watch the ball game. I might do both. I did ascertain before I came over here that Murray State was off to a good start and was leading us 17-15. I also report to you that Stackhouse has shaved his head to match Donald Williams, and I hope that’s a good sign.
My whimsical text today was provided by one of the local newspapers. And after I put on the green jacket I learned that St. Patrick was not Irish, Faith and Begorra!, but that he emigrated to Ireland. I learned that nothing was ever written about St. Patrick until something like 200 years following his death, and the only written record we had was his own confessions. I learned he did not chase the snakes out of Ireland. The Emerald Isle never had snakes. It is just one of the charms of Ireland.
My more serious text is the Governor’s budget message and its progeny evolving gradually in the General Assembly. As you may have heard — I just heard today that the Speaker of the House, Mr. Brubaker, and the President Pro Tem of the Senate, Marc Basnight, have agreed upon a tax cut that is considerably smaller than the one recommended by Governor Hunt. I don’t have much else to report except that the conversations that began with what one newspaper editor characterized as my “screed” last month and before this body — it’s a good word, “screed.” I couldn’t resist writing to my friend at the Charlotte Observer and telling him that my name was Paul; so what he heard was the Apostle Screed. And I apologize for that. But after just sort of letting you know how I felt and with the full knowledge and in fact with the expectation that would be reported in the press, we do have the attention of the policymakers in Raleigh, and as conversations proceed, I think you know that my passion last month stems entirely from my devotion to the University and my alarm about what could happen if our policymakers aren’t fully informed and extremely careful. Even more strongly than I felt a month ago, I feel that the early budget proposals are damaging, potentially to the University, and they’re spectacularly damaging to the graduate and research programs. And I have really a fair amount of confidence that the early proposals are not the last word, and about the best we’ll have through the budget process. I will work quietly as I am privileged to do; indeed, working with the General Administration I’ll be keeping your Faculty Council Executive Committee posted through Jane Brown. She and I talk from time to time about these matters. I’ll also be in touch with our Employee Forum, and try to keep the community posted as well as possible. Meanwhile I think there’s no harm whatsoever in thoughtful comment from any of you to persons close to you by representation or reached by your personal knowledge to express concern, thoughtfully and forcefully.
The revenue picture for the state of North Carolina continues to look good, and I think continues to baffle all of us at this such strong urge to cut. One thing that this has occasioned is some very, very careful research that we’ve been able to do with the help of the good number of people on our staff, and even in this room. I find for example that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill spends a lower percentage of its education general budget for management than any other university in our system, and is indeed in the bottom quartile of all the members of AAU. And I’m sharing that information. It’s information gathered by the General Administration, not the parochial here on campus. And I’m sharing this carefully with people who may think that if the record isn’t made clear, that we have some sort of a fat middle management. In universities you really, when you get to middle management you’re dealing with faculty. Deans are usually drawn from the teaching faculty. And continue as part for the teaching faculty. Even chancellors and vice chancellors have that relationship in some cases. And department chairs, a modern manifestation of slave labor, are hard working faculty who take over extra responsibilities. And it doesn’t appear to me, in fact it is clear to me that we do not have a fat middle management layer such as some agencies and some private corporations are reputed to have. And I’m just trying to help people understand that these are the cases, these are the facts. Meanwhile all seems to go well. And I thank all of you for diligence and deliberateness with which you approach your daily tasks. I’ll be glad to answer any questions that I can answer.
Professor John Anderson (Nutrition, Public Health & Medicine): I’d like to plead, at least from one department, that we need tuition remissions for graduate students from out of state. This is an incredibly critical time. We’re going to have outside students who are outstanding come from other places in the country. We just can’t support them now. We’re really hurting worse than ever.
Chancellor: Thank you. For your information we have, I think, 1120 tuition remissions, and we have a much larger graduate student body than that. We have graduate students over and above the 1120 that represent 350-some odd further FTE (full-time equivalent) tuition remissions if we had them. But this is the cohort already languishing without tuition remissions. These facts have been brought to the attention of Governor Hunt and the legislative leaders, and we’ll continue to do that.
As I said, the graduate students are the principal potential victims here, not only because of the proposals that are now being considered in the state, but because, as you know, many of you know, there are new regulations in Washington that for new grants, presently, keep us from writing in our grant proposals support for personnel. We have 169 people representing 55.3 FTEs, who are drawing part of their compensation directly from research grants. And we can no longer put those in new grant proposals. And as of next year, we cannot put them in renewal proposals. So before any state cuts that might cost us any support personnel, before any of those state cuts, we have $1,085,000 problem involving 169 people, mostly graduate students, to represent 55.3 FTEs. Not a reckless use of soft money to support people. But very very few people in this group, and I’m talking about our support personnel, are fully funded by research grants. Those of you who are PIs and who have pushed support personnel into research grants have typically taken the graduate student and put part of that graduate student support in that way, along with whatever else you’ve been able to put together with the package. And I find no evidence of any profligacy; indeed, our graduate students are much less well supported than our competitors support them. And they come here because of the strength of this faculty, and because of the great reputation of UNC-Chapel Hill. And they remain because they’re getting an excellent education at the highest level by a superb faculty. But we really must help. We are pushing very very hard not only — well, in the original proposal, a little money is added to the tuition remission account to take care of the 3.5% across-the-board tuition increase. But specifically, nothing is put into the tuition remission account to take care of the 7+%. And the 10% that gives us that, I guess it’s 7 or so each year, added on to out-of-state students from Chapel Hill and NC State and the School of the Arts. We are also asking the Governor and his colleagues to consider putting all of our graduate students under the state employees health insurance program, something that our graduate students have wanted, and is now in the official conversations and has been extremely well received in a couple of places that are really important. So thank you, John, for calling our attention to that special concern. Are there any other questions or comments?
Professor Steve Bayne (Dentistry): I was watching one of the reports of the Vice President the other day, and his major task during the last two years has been redesigning government. Periodically reports come out on reduced positions, cost savings, elimination of red tape, and all that sort of stuff. As I was reflecting on all the things they’ve been able to accomplish relatively easily, the thought was how come the state doesn’t have sort of a parallel initiative. And maybe they do, but I’m just unaware. But it seemed to me this would be a good time to be taking on a task like that that’s reaped so many benefits on the national scale.
Chancellor Hardin: Steve, if there’s anything that’s bound to come out of this that’s good, and I hope there’ll be a lot of things that are good, for example, revisions of the Governor’s proposal, and kind treatment in the Legislature. But I know that the Governor and some of his staff are interested in some longer range strategic looks at some opportunities to reinvent state government. It’s really unacceptable that they pretend to go along giving everybody a little bit, about the same proportionally, when times are good, and taking away from everybody a little bit about the same proportion, when times are bad. And it’s like some of our agencies in the University are not apples and apples or apples and oranges. It’s like comparing apples with next Thursday. And this has simply got to be understood. And we have to be helpful. We are at the stage where we are not just criticizing. We are at the stage where we are offering positive suggestions to try to help the Governor and the legislative leaders understand the needs of the University. Any other? If you don’t mind I am going to excuse myself and I probably will watch the game as I drift off.
III. Chair of the Faculty Jane D. Brown.
I saw Blake Dickinson noted how good we are to be here today. Did you see this this morning? Thank you, Blake. So I thank you all for being here, especially on a spring day as well as during a Carolina basketball game especially given our conversation last month. So thank you.
I wanted to follow on the Chancellor’s comments. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been talking to many of you, staff, and students about the future, especially how it’s going to be affected by what’s going on in Raleigh. And I did want to thank Paul personally for his speaking out so eloquently about that, and also President Spangler. I think that’s been very important for us to have them leading us that way and speaking clearly about that. Now I want to encourage us to also be speaking. We really haven’t spoken about that before. I think it’s exactly the right time for us to be communicating with the people who are making these decisions. And I’ve provided us with some background material so we can do that. And you could have picked that up as you came in. I appreciate what the Chancellor is also saying about it being a positive message at this point. I think we don’t want to go to Raleigh complaining or seeming to be bitter, but to continue to speak about what we do for the state, how valuable we are, why we need to continue to get this support from the state. So what I’ve provided for you here is a fact sheet that we have already sent to all the people at the Legislature. And some of this may be important, may be valuable to you as you speak with your representatives. It is some of the basic facts about what we do here and what our needs are. And so some of them may be valuable to you.
A couple of points I wanted to draw your attention to here. I also have some supplemental material that speaks to the second point — this is the fact sheet I’m talking about here. It’s the long legal sized. And where we say a recent study called “Impact Carolina” — it is a term that UNC-Chapel Hill generated more than $1 billion for the state private fund. That’s based on a study Michael Luger did, and I wanted to make sure that we’re representing that properly here, Michael, and this diagram, it shows that more clearly. This is the economic argument we can make as well. Is that an investment in UNC-Chapel Hill, an investment in the state university system, brings more money to the state. It is a multiplier effect, and the most recent analogy suggests that the multiplier effect is about, the multiplier is times 4, that for every dollar the state invests in UNC-Chapel Hill, it gets another four dollars back, which seems like a pretty sound investment. And so if we want to speak that language, there is the evidence for that. And I think some of you have personal examples. I have an extremely personal example. My husband was a Master’s student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication some ten years ago. He met a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department. Both of these people are from out of state. They were graduate students. And Jim came from Virginia. Steve Lerner came from New York. They met each other, created a company called FGI which is now an advertising agency in Chapel and employs 125 people full time. That’s the kind of example I think that is evidenced here. That’s a personal example of this effect. And I think all of you may have examples like that where we have educated people from out of state who stay in state and make a significant contribution to the state. Those are the kinds of human faces I think we can put on these numbers if we begin to communicate with our legislators so they can begin to see this really works.
The other thing I have here is a list of who our representatives are, in the local area. I think that especially our Orange County representatives are very much signed on. They are very much in support of what we are doing here and are making our case in the Legislature. It is important if you live elsewhere that we be working with our other legislators as well, in Durham, Chatham, Granville, Wake Counties. So if you have contacts you may find it valuable to be in touch with these people.
We’ve also learned — basically what’s happening now in the Legislature is that the subcommittees on Education in both the House and the Senate are meeting jointly and are discussing the budget. And in the next couple of weeks they will begin to make firm decisions about, they will begin to make recommendations about the budget for the UNC system. And so these people are especially interesting people to be talking with now. So on this sheet it is these people who are on the Education Subcommittee in the House and in the Senate. They are meeting jointly. So if you know any of those people, I would encourage you to communicate your concerns to them. I also want to remind you that we should and it is appropriate that we do this as citizens. We do this on our own time, such as it is, and on our own letterheads. But because we are state employees we should not be lobbying as state employees as much as we may be expressing our concern as citizens of North Carolina.
The other thing I wanted to tell you is that the graduate students have also been doing an exceptional effort to the Legislature. Steve Hoffman, who is one of the heads of the graduate students, has created a wonderful pack of information that he has been making available to the Legislature, and has been making a concerted effort, an excellent effort. We also have been preparing our own larger packet of information that will go to each of the legislators, and I hope we will have enough to also give to each of you so you can be articulate spokespeople for the University as well. That should be out soon, too. So, and then, there are a couple of other opportunities — I say, invitations. The SEANC, which is the State Employees Association of North Carolina, is holding what they are calling a community meeting brown bag next Thursday at noon on Polk Place, right out here, and asking for people who are concerned about what’s going on in the Legislature to come speak about it in an informal way but to be as a community speaking about what our concerns are. So I would encourage you all to be there to support the staff who are also under the gun here and those are people vital to our concerns. And they are facing cuts as well. And so if we can be there and speak both for the faculty and in support of staff I would encourage you to do that. That’s noon next Thursday. SEANC also holds what they call a legislative day, which I think is April 12, is it, Rachel? Oh, May. We’ll come back to you on that, then. I have a couple of other invitations but before we leave that, do you have anything else you’d like to say about that?
Professor Bayne: I just was reacting to you 4-to-1 thing. I think what gets lost sometimes is we generate all the details, and that’s important to feed to committee members and the Legislature, but in terms of garnering statewide support for our cause, you’ve got to have a single focus, something that people can understand, and I really like that 4-to-1 thing, I mean because it translates into some sort of income for virtually everybody in the state. So if we could just somehow make that almost like our banner. I remember two years ago we talked about putting up just 5000 bumper stickers and trying to use that to get it across. That is such an easy thing to sell, to say that for every dollar spent on education another four are generated and pretty soon it will be five. I mean everybody’s got to be on our side. But it’s our voting power that ultimately is going to sell our issue, our cause. And the people out there have to understand it’s to their benefit. And I think that sells it as well as anything. Professor Brown: Good. Michael, have you had success with this as well?
Professor Michael Luger (Public Policy Analysis/City & Regional Planning): Well as the author it’s a little embarrassing. Academic research is so self-serving and then to promote it. This is actually part of a book on changing economics in universities, so it wasn’t done strictly to pad our own nest. But you’re right. This is absolutely being used.
Professor Jim Peacock (Anthropology): One qualification, though. While applauding the idea of the 4-to-1, if we live by the sword we may die by the sword. I fear that if we define ourselves strictly as a cash cow, to use Paul Farel’s term, and then a point comes where we cease to be quite so seductive in money, then we get evaluated in those terms alone. So when our committee made this fact sheet we started out with a mission statement first, which is a bit broader, and then followed by 4-to-1 business. Professor Brown: Thank you.
Professor Hill Gitelman (Medicine): I don’t wish to throw cold water on what you’re saying, but you have to ask yourself a question. The Governor is fully aware that this investment in this place is an investment and returns much more money than it spends. He uses the University to recruit businesses. [Professor Brown: Yes he does.] So here is a man who knows what’s in this document and goes out of his way to do something negative. And you have to ask, what is he thinking about? What — he’s appealing to the grandstands. And that’s a serious issue, because people who are knowledgeable know this already. But I don’t know how to appeal to the people who think we’re elitist; there’s something special here, there’s some local thing rather than statewide. And I — that’s a different issue. But that to me is the fundamental issue we’ve got to deal with. And it isn’t with money. It may be they’re feeling about this as a very liberal place in a conservative state. Those are the kinds of things. And I’m not very effective at dealing with them. But I’m sure those are the kinds of things that people who don’t want to give the University money feel. I don’t want to impugn their motives, but I think they feel that. How can we deal with that?
Professor Brown: Excellent question. It’s one we’ve been grappling with as well. We’re not quite sure at this point, frankly. The economic argument is one, but I think there is a more fundamental emotional negative going on here that I’m not we are addressing fundamentally. It’s about, are we teaching our undergraduates? Are the undergraduates getting our full attention? It’s about, are we so elitist because we’re a research university, and we don’t care truly about the rest of the state? I think some of it is about, is our focus. We have to be very careful about our focus on graduate education. That is not well understood about what graduate education is all about. So while we started this fact sheet about undergraduate education, and I think that is the gut level concern. That is the concern of most of the people in the state — is my daughter or son getting the education they deserve at UNC-Chapel Hill if they come here? Is the reputation deserved to the extent that my undergraduate will get educated? So I think that is the fundamental conservative who speaks into it first. I agree with you.
Professor Bayne: Who’s looking at the image? I mean who’s doing what you’re talking of answering the question? Who’s saying that regardless of what you do, this is the way you’re perceived, and we need to change this image over the next two or three weeks? Is there a piece on campus that does that or…? Professor Brown: Well, we have a planning committee, a planning commission, underway that is taking that on to some extent, would you agree with that, Dick?
Provost Richard McCormick: Well, Steve, I think you’re on a fundamental point, and I would observe there are really several groups on campus working on this. The Faculty Legislative Liaison Committee, which I guess met this morning, has, Jan is here, has that as its scope. The University Planning Committee that I chair is working on it. We in South Building are working on it as well. And Clifton Metcalf’s University Relations operation is an important player there. I sometimes wonder whether — and you should point out the graduate students are having a hand in to the undergraduates as well — and the Employee Forum. I sometimes am concerned about whether the left and right hands know enough about what each other are doing in this area, and whether a more coordinated effort to address what Steve is driving at might not be required. I don’t mean to suggest things are in grave disarray, but we can only gain with this more coordinated effort. Professor Brown: I think we’re having more cooperation than I’ve ever seen before. Provost McCormick: I would agree with that. We could do better still. Professor Brown: And I think you’re right on target about some very fundamental concerns that we haven’t addressed appropriately perhaps. So I encourage you all to be thinking about this and to try your hand at it at this point. And to also be in communication with us and with Jim. We’re thinking about this daily, about how to approach it. None of us are as good as all of us. So let’s all be thinking about it.
I have a couple of other invitations. There is the Martin Luther King Memorial Lecture in Carroll Hall also next Thursday, at 8:00, and it will be Chancellor Julius Chambers, will be speaking, from North Carolina Central University, and I encourage us all to go and hear him. And I also put out a flyer there from the Public Service Roundtable. They’re having a couple of important seminars in the next couple of weeks on Friday afternoon, and I think that we should be supporting what the Public Service Roundtable is doing. I think they’re doing exceptional work. And I think that also speaks to your question about how we can begin communication with the state. I think what they are doing is looking at more effective communication about all the service we do provide the state now, and that we haven’t communicated effectively. And that’s what the Public Service Roundtable is up to. What these seminars are about is if we do continue to do public service, how do we reward us for doing, how do we play that into who we are as faculty members here? We aren’t going to give it short shrift in evaluating ourselves. And what the Public Service Roundtable is looking at is how do we fully integrate that into what we do here as well as communicate about it.
Professor Paul Farel (Physiology): I wonder — we talked about communication, with the faculty. I don’t teach undergraduates, but I was concerned about the article in the newspaper today, The Daily Tar Heel, the report on the self-study, that make it sound as if the undergraduate faculty had a very negative view of the undergraduates. I’m concerned that this perception came across, and is it an accurate representation of the self-study? And if so, is this an accurate representation of the faculty’s feelings? I think that what appears in The Daily Tar Heel — we can talk all afternoon and have less impact than that one article in The Daily Tar Heel. Professor Brown: I didn’t see that, shoot. I’ll find out more about that.
Patrick Link (undergraduate): I’m working for The DTH; that’s why I’m here. But a lot of my friends did see the survey, and they had concerns that the Faculty Council would not have an adverse effect on faculty-student relationships or that other people would see the report and say, “Well, the University of North Carolina is just not a top-notch university anymore.” And say, “Well, the undergraduates there just don’t care about academics.” And that was our concern, that it was giving us a bad reputation, and that faculty relations between students and teachers would be impaired by it. Professor Brown: Okay, I think I’m understanding. I think I may know what part of the report you’re talking about as well. It may have been about the intellectual environment? Mr. Link: Yes. Professor Brown: Okay, I’m not quite sure what to say about that at this point. But I think it’s an important kind of thing to be concerned about and looking into. I will look into where that comes from in the report and how we might think more about that. Mr. Link: It came from students as well as faculty, so it wasn’t just faculty saying that students don’t care anymore. It was also students saying a lot of our peers don’t seem to put effort into this requirement. It was a lot of mixed feelings on both sides.
Professor Bayne: Just following up on what Patrick was saying, it seems like there was almost a nationwide reaction of students to the fact that professors seem to be away from the classroom too much. I mean there was a program on “60 Minutes” two weeks ago or three weeks ago, where they were emphasizing the same thing: research is driving everything, nobody is ever in the classroom anymore. And I’m wondering, it’s not just a characteristic of Carolina; it’s sort of this mass feeling it’s not the way it used to be 20 years ago.
Professor Miles Fletcher (History): I will just point out at Duke University there was a big study about the intellectual atmosphere on campus, and Duke is trying to make efforts to improve the situation there, so evidently this is not a phenomenon that’s unique at this campus. Professor Brown: And they’re creating a freshman campus as well. That is spoken to, the intellectual environment is spoken to; it’s a big piece of the SACS report, and I think there will be recommendations coming out of that. Anything else?
Professor Joy Kasson (American Studies): Just one more thing with respect to that article in The Tar Heel today. It’s interesting to know who read what in it, but the thing that leapt out of the page at me was a reading of the self-study report that said UNC is providing a less-than-adequate education for its undergraduates. And my view of the self-study process is that this was a very involved concept, many meetings where there were undergraduates, and faculty, and staff, and all kinds of people talking constructively about how to make this a better place. It would be really a shame if the results of it turned out to be, you know, “Well, you guys are letting down, you’re letting us down.” No, you’re letting us down. And that part of our need to project more successful image to the state, we can’t ignore the problems, but instead they’re seeing this as kind of a, “We’re sinking down a black hole.” It’s a really, really healthy process, this process of discussion that’s happening, and I would hope that maybe the Tar Heel article would spark more discussion rather than more finger pointing. Professor Brown: Good. Yes, because there were lots of recommendations, there are lots of recommendations in the SACS study about moving the intellectual community further, improving. Not that it’s terrible at this point, but that there is room for improvement on both sides. I’m going to look at other ways we may be discussing the SACS recommendations here. That did come up in our retreat. I’ll use that as a segue to the Executive Committee report.
I have one final invitation. You will be getting a letter from me soon, and Ron Hyatt, encouraging you to participate with us in the May Commencement ceremonies, so do. Bring out your regalia. If you don’t have it, go rent it. Borrow it from someone. Be prepared to have fun with us in May supporting our graduates. Thank you. I think it’s fun. I hope to see you there.
IV. Annual Reports of Standing Committees:
A. Executive Committee of the Faculty Council: Jane D. Brown, Chair.
Professor Brown: The Executive Committee has — let me describe –. We meet twice a month, once with ourselves and once with four key Vice Chancellors, who I want to thank, to take this opportunity to thank now, for meeting with us and for being very open and candid about what’s going on in the University, truly seeking faculty response and input on a number of key issues in the past year. I think it has been a very productive year. As you can see here, the two broad categories we’ve been dealing with are planning and community and diversity. In the planning part we did have a day-long retreat in December that started talking about the SACS report at that point. And we continue now developing what we call “intellectual themes” for the University, but make sure that they, has a common point of vision for the University. That’s being fed into the planning committee process that Dick McCormick is heading at this point. We also continue to talk about salaries, pan-University budget, graduate student support, and so on. A number of our Committee work on the Land-Use Planning Committee at this point, and we also have two members on that electronic rights and responsibilities group. Under community and diversity we helped created these new task forces that are now underway on minority students and faculty and women at Carolina. We also brought you the consensual amorous relationships policy, which I appreciated your full discussion of that. And then we looked at the revision of that based on that discussion. And we were very pleased with how our discussion was taken into account, and have put our stamp of approval on it, so you will see a finished version soon. If you wanted to see that again, I will be glad to bring it back to you. If you are concerned about that, I’m sure Judith Scott would share that with you for final comment.
And then in the future what we will be doing is looking at the Faculty Salary Committee’s report. We’ll be doing that next week, and we plan to be bringing you recommendations about that sometime in the early fall. That committee is providing excellent information about salary allocation within the University, and they’re bringing the report forward without specific recommendations. So there will probably be another committee formed to work quickly to make some recommendations based on those data. I’ve also entertained the notion of us, or at least the Executive Committee — I’m saying us as the Faculty Council perhaps. And at least the Executive Committee of Faculty Council has agreed to participate in diversity training with the Administrative Council in the late summer or early fall. So we’ll all get to know each other better. That’ll be fun. We’re also having an ongoing conversation about fixed-term faculty and how to provide them greater representation in the University. That’s a much more complicated conversation than we anticipated. We’re still working on it. Comments? No, Steve? Professor Bayne: Basketball reigns. Professor Brown: Shame on you.
B. Status of Minorities and the Disadvantaged: Peter I. Kaufman, Chair.
Professor Kaufman: One error: I left Jack Raper, Julius Raper, off the list of those who respectfully submitted. You have had a copy of the report, and so I would move acceptance. Or call for questions or concerns. I move for the second half — I move for acceptance. Professor Brown: Even you, Peter?! Thank you for your good work on that.
V. Old or New Business:
Professor Brown: And finally, we have a couple of presentations from the Office of Employee Services and the Employee Assistance Program. I’ve had the pleasure of working with people in the Office of Human Services recently. They’re doing some excellent work that many of us don’t know anything about, and so I’d like to give them a brief opportunity — they promised to keep it brief — to educate us a little bit about what they are up to and what they can offer us.
A. Brief presentation on programs available to faculty through the Office of Human Services: Patti Smith, Program Manager, Department of Employee Services.
Ms. Smith: First of all, I’d like to thank Jane for allowing me to come today during a basketball game to speak to you about the Employee Services Department. The mission or goal of the Department is basically to provide services and programs for employees in the University to help you balance your work and personal lives. Towards that goal we offer a number of work and family programs as well as recognitions, relocation and recreation programs which you may be familiar with. To begin with we offer the Child Care Resource and Referral Program, which is a consortium of companies throughout the Research Triangle area, a non-profit agency, which works with employees and their families to determine child care options and work with you on an individual basis to look at local child care centers. And we work with child care networks here in Chapel Hill and if any of you need information, come by the office. Our number is 962-1483 if there are any services you’re interested in.
We also offer a work-family library, which is a great resource collection of different books on different topics, primarily on parenting childhood care and also elder care. We are expanding daily so please stop by and check out the information that we do have.
Finally, I’d like to mention the Carolina Kids Summer Recreation Program, which I know some of you are familiar with — your children participate in every year. It’s a wonderful camp. It’s five sessions of two weeks during the summer throughout June and August. A wide variety of sports, games, arts and crafts activities. So if that’s something you are not familiar with, you might want to look into that next year. We have our sessions filled out for this year.
Along the lines of recreation, I don’t know if any of you boat, sail, or camp, but we do have the Kerr Lake recreation area located up in Henderson, North Carolina. And it’s a 200 acre peninsula, basically leased to the University by the Army Corps of Engineers. And we have a recreation advisory board, and we have members each year who come back to camp, boat, sail. And it’s really a great place to go. It’s very reasonable priced. You can purchase a day pass as well as a yearly pass. We’re not leaving, so you name it, we’ve got it. We also offer, we’ve got a group use area if you’re looking for something for a departmental retreat or a large group.
And if any of you have looked on the back and seen the portion under Human Resources for the discount program. We do offer a wide variety of discount programs through Human Resources. Probably the most widely used is the Magic Kingdom club card. We also offer a wide variety of discounts locally throughout North Carolina. For example, the Biltmore House. We just recently started a relationship with the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science. We offer discounts through the Museum. We also have a couple of dining clubs, Universal Studios, lots of Orlando discounts, car rentals and also hotels. So please feel free to give us a call if you’re interested in any of those. Professor Brown: So we just call you up, and you’ll send us a discount. Ms. Smith: Just give us a call. If there’s a discount card, we’ll send you a card, and any information we have. Or if you want to stop by the office, we have a special wall of discounts, up in Human Resources, on Airport Road. And we’d we happy to answer any questions for you.
I don’t know if any of you participated last year in the University-wide sign-up blood drive, but that is held once a year and is sponsored by the Employee Services Department. This year it’s going to be held on Tuesday, July 25th, and it will be at the Dean Smith Center, from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. So please stop by and donate blood. It only takes about 90 minutes and it’s obviously very important. And I would encourage you to do so and also challenge your colleagues to do so. Because we’re really hoping for more student and faculty support this year. Our goal is 1000 pints. Last year we collected 738 pints, and we had 839 donors. So it was a real good turnout, but obviously we’re striving for more this year.
I’d also like to mention if any of you have heard of the Spouse Relocation Assistance Program, what used to be called the Spouse Employment Assistance Program. And what this is is a program that was started in 1985 to basically aid in recruitment and retention of employees here at the University. What we do is provide consultation for spouses of individuals that either just been hired by the University or faculty and staff members that you’re trying to recruit. And what we do is we provide employment information, even information on relocation services, and also ongoing support for a period of 12 months once they have relocated to the area. I also provide shuttle service to the companies that participate in the Research Triangle Area Spouse Relocation Program. So it’s a good networking opportunity for them and oftentimes a very good recruiting tool for you as well, for faculty members. This, again, is open to candidates for hire, so if you’re bringing someone in, please let me know with a call.
Two other things that I’d like to mention quickly is the Chancellor’s Award. This was begun in 1991 in an effort to recognize University employees. The Chancellor’s Award is a great opportunity for you and all of your colleagues to nominate or suggest, recommend, anyone you know that has contributed significantly to the University. We have a Chancellor’s Award selection committee that will choose 5 winners. And those 5 individuals will become the University’s nominees for the Governor’s Award for Excellence. At the beginning of April or mid to early April, nomination forms will go out for the Chancellor’s Award so you will see those in the mail. And please look at those and think about some persons that you might like to nominate.
And finally, I’d like to mention the Employee Suggestion System. The Employee Suggestion System gives you and your colleagues another opportunity to suggest recommendations for cost savings, productivity, ways for you to be recognized for contributions to the University. It’s not necessarily related to longevity which we focus on in another program. This gives you an opportunity to be rewarded with either paid time off or financial compensation as well. Professor Brown: Any questions, comments?
Professor Joy Kasson : The Carolina Kids Program obviously fulfills a great need that we all have. I know that in the past the demand for space has been great. And I guess that was true again this year. And what is being done to increase the availability? Ms. Smith: That’s a good point and actually the number of spaces has increased this year. Demand once again has exceeded spaces available. Professor Brown: But we are serving more than 200 children. Ms. Smith: Correct. We’re actually doing more than 200. And it’s done in an effort to maintain the camper to counselor ratio which is 7 to 1. Professor Brown: It was increased, I think. It’s a great program, and it’s unfortunate that we can’t have more.
B. Employee Assistance Program: Susan Criscenzo.
Ms. Criscenzo: I’m with the Employee Assistance Program, and I’m handing out some brochures that have my name on them. I have tried for the two-and-a-half years that I’ve been here to contact the faculty, so I very very glad for the opportunity to talk to this group. You’re a much harder group to market, if you will. You’re spread out so many different ways. This is one of the few ways I know to group you all together so… What I want to do is give you just enough information to make you feel that you can walk out of here and if you felt you needed the program yourself or if you had a a co-worker needed it, or as a supervisor, if you had an employee needing the program, you’d know enough about it to know how to refer that person or to come yourself. And I think I can do that pretty quickly because most of the information is in the brochure.
The one thing that I want to mention, not to hopefully turn you against me, but to find more of your support, is that I don’t actually work for the University. I work for the Office of State Personnel — as I say it kind of quietly around here. But the advantage there that I find in doing that is because of the nature of the type of program I offer, counseling for personal problems, either work or personal related, I think there’s a big advantage to not being directly associated with the agency that you are. My office serves all state employees. And I am located in Chapel Hill. Any state employee who lives and works in Orange County can come to see me. I see people from the Department of Corrections, Transportation, the Hospital, and the University. And to each person the first thing I say to them when they come into my office is, “I don’t work for the same agency you do, so you can believe me when I talk about confidentiality, that the information you give me does not go back to your supervisor. I don’t put information into your personnel file. And I won’t call anybody unless you want me to.” The kinds of issues that people come to me with are absolutely as varied as you can possibly think of. Probably the biggest category is family problems, people having marital problems, difficulties with parenting, adolescence. I see a number of people with substance abuse problems. Probably about 15-20% of the people I see at the University are coming with alcohol or cocaine generally. I see a lot of people who have mental health problems, anything from mild depression to a major psychiatric breakdown. Financial, legal, I could truly go on and on. We leave the program very wide open, not because I consider myself an expert in all or maybe even any of those categories, but because one of the parts of my job is that I try very hard to continually build a resource network, so that when people come to see me I can steer them in the right direction. If I don’t already know where a resource is, I’ll find it. And we’re in an absolutely perfect place to do what I do because there are so many resources in this area for all the different kinds of problems that I mentioned.
When someone comes to me, it’s free, it’s confidential, it can be done during work time, and I will make an assessment. I’ll help that person decide what it is they might want to do about the issue, and I’ll help them connect with it. If that means getting them to a therapist, getting them to a treatment program, I’ll be able to tell them exactly how much their insurance is going to cover, how much they have to pay out of pocket. If they want me to help them get time off from work to do that, I will do that as well. One more thing. For supervisors, for those of you who might have people under you, a part of the program that I’d like to mention is that you may also contact me to get some advice or consideration about an individual you may be working with. That information, again, is confidential. It may or may not result in a referral. But I can use some information about what you might want to do to work with that person in the workplace. Thank you very much.
Professor Brown: Any other business? Go home and watch basketball. We hope to see you here in April.
The meeting adjourned at 4:07 p.m.
George S. Lensing
Secretary of the Faculty
Actions of the Council: 1994-95
| Date | Action | Destination |
| Sept. 23, 1994 | Resolution of thanks to General Assembly | To Members of General Assembly |
| Resolution of thanks to Elizabeth McMahan, editor of Faculty Handbook | To Elizabeth McMahan | |
| Oct. 21, 1994 | No resolutions | |
| Nov. 11, 1994 | No resolutions | |
| Dec. 9, 1994 | No resolutions | |
| Jan. 13, 1995 | No resolutions | |
| Feb. 17, 1995 | Resolution of Gratitude | William C. Leone II; Alana Ennis, UNC Chief of Police Safety; Edith M. Wiggins, Interim Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs; Frederic W. Schroeder, Jr., Dean of Students; Ronald S. Binder, Director of Greek Affairs; John W. Edgerly, Director, University Counseling Center; Katherine Ney, Associate Director, Student Health Service |
| Resolution Concerning the Location and Number of Faculty Seats in the Smith Center and in Kenan Stadium and Related Issues | To Fred Mueller, Chair, Committee on Athletics | |
| March 17, 1995 | No resolutions |
