November 14, 1997
Meeting of the Faculty Council
Friday, November 14, 1997, 3:00 p.m.
Assembly Room, 2nd Floor, Wilson Library
Chancellor Michael Hooker will preside. Attendance of elected Council members is required.
Agenda
INFO 3:00 Memorial Resolution for the late Robert R. Howren, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics
- Craig Melchert, Chair, Memorial Committee
INFO 3:05 Special Presentation
- William M. Moore, Jr., Chair of the Educational Foundation Executive Committee
INFO 3:10 Remarks by the Chancellor
INFO 3:25 Question Period. [The Chancellor invites questions or comments on any topic.]
INFO 3:35 Remarks by the Chair of the Faculty
ACT 3:45 Resolution 97-13. Post-Discharge Hearings Procedure*
- Janet Mason, Chair, Committee on University Government
INFO 3:55 Update on Oral Competency Requirement
- Anthony (Tony) Passannante, Chair, Educational Policy Committee
DISC 4:00 Spousal Hiring Policy*
- Steve Bachenheimer, Chair, Faculty Welfare Committee
INFO 4:10 Personal Identification Numbers
- Robert W. Culp, Assoc. Director Administrative Information Services
INFO 4:15 Annual Report of the Committee on Instructional Personnel*
- Provost Richard Richardson, Chair
DISC 4:20 Annual Report of the Faculty Athletics Committee*
- Audreye E. Johnson, Chair
DISC 4:35 Intellectual Climate Report: Initiative to Improve the First-Year Residential Life Experience
- Susan Kitchen, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
CLOSED SESSION TO CONSIDER SPECIAL AWARDS
(Only members of the Voting Faculty may attend this portion of the meeting)
ACT 5:05 Nominees for 1998 Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Awards
- Joseph S. Ferrell, Secretary of the Faculty
OPEN SESSION RESUMES
ACT 5:15 Adjournment
Joseph S. Ferrell
Secretary of the Faculty
KEY:
ACT = Action
INFO = Information
DISC = Discussion
Minutes
Attendance
Present (55): L. Bailey, Bangdiwala, Barefoot, Bluestein, Bose, Carl, Clegg, Collins, Cordeiro-Stone, Cravey, Crimmins, R. Dalton, Debreczeny, Devellis, Farel, Fink, Fletcher, Foshee, Fox, Gasaway, Gatzy, Haggis, Harrison, Hattem, Holmgren, Hooper, Howard, Hyatt, Jackson, Johnson, Lachiewicz, Loda, Lord, Lubker, Maffly-Kipp, Margolis, Mauriello, McNeil, Melchert, Mill, Pagano, Panter, Passannante, Pfaff, Pielak, Plante, Platin, Rabinowitz, Schaller, Searles, Skelly, Strauss, Tysinger, Vevea, White, M. Williams.
Excused absences (24): B. Anderson, Conover, Covach, J. Dalton, Daye, Eckel, Estroff, Favorov, Graves, Irene, Lentz, Mandel, Marshall, Matson, Moreau, Owen, Raper, Salgado, Shapiro, Shea, Stabler, Stidham, Tauchen, Weiss, D. Williams
Unexcused absences (5): Brink, Bromberg, Hodges, Rosenman.
Memorial Resolution
Professor Craig Melchert (Linguistics) presented a memorial resolution for the late Robert R. Howren, Professor of Linguistics Emeritus.
Gift from the Educational Foundation
Mr. William M. Moore, Jr., Chair of the Executive Committee of the Educational Foundation, announced that the Foundation will contribute $350,000 to the Center for Undergraduate Excellence for renovation of Graham Memorial. This satisfies the terms of the challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation and completes the drive to raise $5.7 million for the Center.
Chancellor’s Remarks and Question Period
Technology grants.
Chancellor Hooker announced that the latest round of awards for faculty technology projects has been completed. He and the provost have added another $400,000 to the $2 million initially allocated in order to fund all projects judged worthy. The chancellor also plans to make funds available to faculty members for courses to be put on the internet. Funding for this will come from additional resources made available by the General Assembly’s action in reducing from 2% to 1% the amount of state funds that we are required to revert at the end of each fiscal year. Later, Prof. Richard Pfaff (History) read portions of the September 18 minutes of the Administrative Board of the Library that suggest that required expenditures on technology have caused the library to forego purchase of twelve to fifteen thousand fewer monographs. The chancellor said he would investigate and report back.
Nike contract.
The chancellor said that he has secured Nike’s cooperation in underwriting the cost of sending a delegation of students and faculty to visit Nike factories in southeast Asia. During the question period Prof. Leon Fink (History) asked the chancellor to comment on reports that Coach Mack Brown had discouraged his players from expressing dissatisfaction with the contract. The chancellor declined the invitation. Prof. Altha Cravey (Geography) asked if there would be special preparations so that students who went on the trip would be able to provide meaningful information to the community. The chancellor doubted that anyone would be able to “pull the wool over their eyes.”
Administrative appointments.
The chancellor announced the appointment of Robert Sullivan as dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School and Madeline Grumet as dean of the School of Education.
Scholarly publishing on the internet.
The chancellor said he will ask the Advisory Committee to consider the possibility of permitting faculty members to submit unrefereed articles published on the internet as part of the dossier submitted for tenure and promotion review. It is his thought that such articles could be submitted for peer evaluation as part of the review process rather than requiring that all scholarly work be published initially in refereed journals.
Courses on the internet.
Chancellor Hooker announced that the university as recently entered into relationships with two companies, University Access and IXL, to assist in developing internet-based courses. University Access develops video-based courses and IXL provides templates for internet-based courses and markets them. Professor Madeline Levine (Slavic Languages and Literature) asked the chancellor to elaborate on how such a public/private partnership would work. The chancellor replied that University Access is now assisting Prof. Robert Connolly of the Kenan-Flagler Business School to put his micro-economics course, Business 18, on video. It is anticipated that compression technology will soon be available to enable the video to be broadcast over the internet. IXL has a model template for the structure of a course on the internet. They would assist a faculty member to enhance a course with visuals. Prof. Levine noted that assistance with visuals is not available without charge from the Center for Teaching and Learning and asked what the cost of doing business with private firms would be. The chancellor replied that there would be no cost to the university; we would “share revenues with them that we derive from delivering internet-based education.” Prof. Paul Farel (Physiology) expressed doubt that the university would be able to market internet courses that are consistent with the values and quality that we expect in traditional instruction. He thought that internet customers are most likely not interested in education but in acquiring marketable skills. He noted that one major provider of internet courses, Phoenix University, employs primarily coaches who lack doctoral degrees. He doubted that we could make such a venture economically viable by doing it with regular university faculty. The chancellor replied that the fact that someone else is doing something poorly should not dissuade us from offering courses that are up to our usual standards. He asked that the faculty “look at some of the internet-based courses before you judge.” Those that he has seen appear to be good. He noted that the university already has a master of public health program that is largely, although not entirely, internet based.
Chair of the Faculty’s Remarks
Prof. Andrews congratulated Prof. Steven Weiss (Computer Science) who has recently been named North Carolina’s 1997 Professor of the Year be both the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Prof. Andrews called attention to a progress report on implementation of the recommendations of the Task Force on Intellectual Climate. He intends to make such a report at regular intervals. [The full report can be found on the Faculty Council Web page.] He noted that the Employee Forum has recently expressed its appreciation and support for the work of the Task Force.
The Executive Committee of the Faculty Council has identified three key issues that it plans to address: (1) commercial relationships between the university and private entities such as Nike, (2) information technology, and (3) diversity and affirmative action. Prof. Andrews invited Council members to communicate their views on these three issues to him or any member of the ECFC.
Proposed Amendment to the Tenure Regulations
Prof. Janet Mason (Institute of Government), chair of the Committee on University Government, presented, explained, and moved adoption of a committee substitute for Resolution 97-13. The original resolution was introduced by Prof. Maffly-Kipp at the April 1997 Council meeting and was referred to the Committee on University Government. As introduced, the resolution called on the trustees to amend the tenure regulations to conform to the standards recommended by the AAUP with respect to the procedure to be followed in a discharge proceeding when the chancellor intends to reject a finding or recommendation of the Faculty Hearings Committee. The Committee on University Government recommends that the Council endorse the policy embodied in the original resolution and now presents a committee substitute that proposes precise language that fits the text of the existing regulations. In response to a question, Chancellor Hooker said that he was in full agreement with the proposed change. Resolution 97-13 was adopted without dissent. [The full text of the resolution is contained in the report of the Committee on University Government on the Faculty Council Web page.]
Update on Oral Competency Requirement
Prof. Anthony Passannante (Anesthesiology), chair of the Educational Policy Committee, reported on the current status of a proposed curriculum change that would respond to a finding by the 1996 Self-Study that our undergraduate curriculum should include more focus on oral communication skills. Prof. Lisa Skow is in charge of implementing this program. She has met with at least sixteen departments and is working with Dean Darryl Gless to design a program that would not impose undue hardship. The goal is to design a program that will be effective across the curriculum. Current plans are to take this to the Administrative Board of the College within the next month or so.
Spousal/Domestic Partner Hiring
Prof. Steven Bachenheimer (Microbiology), chair of the Faculty Welfare Committee, presented a special report that urges the provost to implement a program designed to facilitate faculty recruitment and retention by providing assistance to the spouses and domestic partners of candidates and current faculty members. He asked for comments to enable his committee to prepare a final draft. The fifth paragraph recommends that the special search policy be amended to include spouses and domestic partners of current faculty members “whom the University is attempting to retain the fact of competing offers” as well as those of successfully recruited candidates. Prof. Paul Farel (Physiology), seconded by Prof. Bobbie Lubker (Education), asked that quoted phrase be dropped. Prof. Bachenheimer agreed. The provost said that he will do everything possible to implement the requested program. He has had conversations with the provosts at Duke and NC State on this topic.
Person ID (PID) Conversion Plans
Mr. Robert Culp, Director for Administrative Applications, AIS, briefed the Council on plans to implement a Person ID (PID) system that will replace the Social Security number as the unique ID number of all faculty, staff, and students. The change has been recommended by several campus studies and is needed for several reasons: (1) to protect individual Social Security numbers, as required by the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, (2) to accommodate the proliferation of computer networks and distributed computer systems, and (3) to permit expanded uses of UNC One Cards. Conversion to the new system is planned for Spring 1998. Students will move to the new system in February 1998. New UNC One Cards will be issued in the Spring and will be activated in May 1998.
Annual Reports of Standing Committees
Committee on Instructional Personnel.
The annual report of the Committee on Instructional Personnel was received without comment.
Faculty Athletics Committee.
Prof. John P. Evans (Kenan-Flagler Business School) presented the annual report of the Faculty Athletics committee in the place of Prof. Audreye Johnson, chair, who was unable to attend due to a prior commitment. Prof. Miles Fletcher (History) asked that the committee provide data on graduation rates for student athletes as has been customary in the past. Prof. Evans agreed to do so. Prof. Richard Pfaff (History) asked for clarification of a portion of the report that refers to “self-policing.” Prof. Evans replied that this refers to what are known as “secondary violations.” Our Athletics Department is alert to find and report all secondary violations to the NCAA. We do this routinely. Prof. Steven Bachenheimer observed that newspaper accounts of students who have gotten into trouble always refer to the student as a member of an athletic team if that is the case. Seldom is such a connection made for students who are members of other organizations. Prof. Evans said that the committee has not discussed this, but his personal view is that this is because athletics in general is very much in the spotlight. Prof. Joseph Ferrell (Institute of Government) asked if the committee had been consulted in negotiations leading to the Nike contract. Prof. Evans said that it had not, largely because the negotiations took place in the late Spring and early Summer when the committee was not having regular meetings.
First-Year Residential Life Experience
At the invitation of Prof. Andrews and the Agenda Committee, Susan Kitchen, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Cynthia Wolf Johnson, Associate Vice Chancellor, spoke to the Council about the role of the Division of Student Affairs in the first-year initiative portion of the Task Force on Intellectual Climate’s report. Ms. Johnson focused on the residential component, especially several living/learning programs that have been based in residence halls for a number of years. A full transcript of Ms. Johnson’s presentation will be found on the Faculty Council Web page.
Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Awards
The Council went into closed session to consider nominees for Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Awards to be presented at University Day 1998. Prof. Joseph Ferrell, Secretary of the Faculty, presented five nominees on behalf of the Committee on Honorary Degrees and Special Awards. All nominees were approved.
Old or New Business.
The Council returned to open session. There being no old or new business remaining, the Council adjourned.
Joseph S. Ferrell
Secretary of the Faculty
