FACULTY
SENATE
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
3:30- 5:15 pm
Senate Chamber, Old Capitol
Members Present: David Asprey, Daniel Balderston, Jill
Beckman, Linda Boyle, Kenneth Brown, Christine Catney, Jay Christensen-Szalanski,
Michael Cohen, Steve Collins, Virginia Dominguez, Maureen Donovan, David Drake,
George El-Khoury, Sarah Fagan, Richard Fumerton, Thomas Grabowski, Vicki
Grassian, Ronald Herman, Geoffrey Hope, Bruce Justman, Craig Kletzing, Johna
Leddy, Susan Lutgendorf, Donald MacFarlane, Mazen Maktabi, Steve McGuire, Frank
Mitros, Sue Moorhead, Adelaide Morris, Mary Noonan, Faryle Nothwehr, Michael
O’Hara, Bryce Plapp, Amy Poremba, Catherine Ringen, Gary Russell, Jarjisu
Sa-Aadu, Thomas Schmidt, Kathy Schuh, William Sharp, Linda Snetselaar, Anne
Sullivan, Downing Thomas, Brad Thompson, Tuong Ton-That, Richard Tubbs, Ruth
Wachtel, John Westefeld, Steven Wolfe, and Jerold Woodhead
Members Absent: George Bergus, Susan Birrell, Gloria
Bulechek, Javier Campos, Jonathan Carlson, William Clarke, Jane Desmond, Edwin
Dove, Claibourne Dungy, Robert Garrett, Frederick Goodman, Judith Heggen, Paul
Heidger, Mark Karwal, Yi Li, Thomas Loew, David Min, Jose Morcuende, Thomas
O’Dorisio, Christine Pawley, Beth Pelton, Lynn Richman, Janet Specht, John
Sutphin, Christie Thomas, Geb Thomas, Marcia Ward, and Catherine Woodman
Members Excused: Lioness Ayres, Jeffrey Cox, Donna
D’Alessandro, Lance Lichtor, Rene Martin, Karin Southard, James Tomkovicz,
Steve Vincent, and Walter Vispoel
Faculty Senate Officers in Attendance: Sheldon Kurtz (President), Victoria Sharp
(Vice President), Jennifer Glass (Secretary), and Richard LeBlond (Past
President)
Guests: Pat Cain (Office of the Provost), Lee Anna Clark (Psychology),
Marcella David (Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity), Hillary Dover
(Faculty Senate), Charlie Drum (University Relations), Diane Heldt (Gazette), Michael Hogan (Provost), Cynthia
Joyce (Ombudsperson), Carl Orgren (Emeritus Faculty Council), Craig Porter
(Ombudsperson), and Evalyn Van Allen-Shalash (Faculty Senate)
I.
Call to
Order
President Kurtz called the meeting to order at 3:32 pm. He introduced Evalyn Van Allen-Shalash, new
Program Assistant in the Faculty Senate Office, and Hillary Dover, new student
office assistant.
II. Approvals
A. Meeting
Agenda— Professor O’Hara moved, seconded by Professor Ringen, to approve the
meeting agenda. Motion passed by voice vote.
B. Faculty
Senate Minutes, April 25, 2006 and Organizational Meeting Minutes, April 25,
2006
Professor Cohen moved; Professor Thomas seconded; motion carried by
unanimous vote to approve both sets of minutes. [Subsequently, it was noted
that Professor Collins did in fact attend both sessions on April 25, 2006]
C. Committee Replacements
Vice President Victoria Sharp made the
following recommendations for Committee replacements.
A motion to approve was made by Professor
Steve Collins; seconded by Professor Maktabi; approval by unanimous voice vote.
D. Honorary Degree Selection Committee
President Kurtz proposed the following five nominees
to serve on the new Honorary Degree
Selection Committee:
He announced that the
three remaining nominations, made by the Provost, will include an ex-officio
member from his office, Dr. Susan Johnson of the
Professor McGuire
moved; seconded by Professor Balderston, to approve the five nominees. Professor Ringen commented that there were
too many men on the panel. The motion
was passed by a show of hands—all but one in favor, one opposed.
E. Senate
Replacements
a.
Based on the current
Faculty Senate bylaw concerning vacancies arising between elections, the
position will be filled by the Senate from eligible members of the constituency
affected. Two faculty members from the
President Kurtz
wished to publicly thank them for standing in the election. He suggested that changes to the bylaws might
need to be considered regarding these situations. They were crafted before the wonders of the
technology and internet, which would make a collegiate election a timely and
straight forward process. He will refer
the matter to the Bylaws Committee.
b.
Professor Beckman,
moved, Professor Cohen seconded, a motion to appoint Kennith Culp to the
Senate. Following a unanimous voice
vote, the motion was approved.
c. President Kurtz announced the need for members
on the Faculty Judicial Commission from the Colleges of Education, Pharmacy and
Public Health. He sought Senate volunteers or nominees. He commented that, with hope, there will be
no need to convene the commission, but should a case arise, there need to be
enough representatives across colleges to consider the situation. Interested
parties should send their own name or other nominees in an email to him (sheldon-kurtz@uiowa.edu).
III. Reports
Diversity Action
Committee, Marcella David, Special Assistant to the President, Equal
Opportunity and Diversity and Associate Provost
Professor David
introduced herself as the chief diversity officer at the university. Under the leadership of Provost Hogan and
former president David Skorton, there is a strong desire to further diversity
efforts. The Iowa Promise elevated Diversity to one of its primary goals and, as
such, it is recognized as a key component in achieving excellence and national
prominence. She said she hopes it will
guide all efforts of the university. There are specific targets set forth
there, but the overarching goal is to create a warm and welcoming environment
to underrepresented communities.
To advance these
goals, Provost Hogan commissioned the Diversity Action Task Force, co-chaired by
Sandy Boyd, Raúl Curto, and Professor David.
After nine months of consultation, they provided their results and
recommendations to the Provost.
Hardcopies of the report are available from the Office of Equal
Opportunity and Diversity.
There are three
categories within the report: student
success, faculty/staff success and university climate and coordination.
Recommendations related to faculty success include best practices in faculty
searches, diversity service and faculty evaluation, and providing training to
give faculty the tools they need to promote these goals. She said she looks
forward to input from the Senate on how best to implement the recommendations.
In particular, she called for improvements in faculty hiring and creating a
climate to reduce sexual harassment.
David said that
everyone has responsibilities related to diversity awareness. Faculty have a responsibility to contribute
to a positive learning environment; to facilitate learning to adequately
prepare students to handle materials, the institution has a commitment to
faculty, and she has a commitment to everyone to make sure the environment is a
good one. She added if anyone has been
treated unfairly or has witnessed sexual harassment, she can put them in touch
with people who can help.
This has been a
record year for recruiting underrepresented faculty, especially within CLAS and
the
In response to a
question from Professor Brown, David said there was not sufficient time to revamp
orientation this Fall to include diversity issues specifically related to
faculty or to involve the Center for Teaching.
Although there is a diversity component in the general university
orientation, this is something she would be happy to work on with the Center.
David thanked
Faculty Senator Michael O’Hara for his participation on the Diversity Action
Task Force. President Kurtz noted that
Professor O’Hara is the chair of the former Faculty Welfare Committee (now
known as Faculty Policies and Compensation), which puts him in an excellent
position to discuss these issues.
B. Programmatic
Reviews
Pat Cain, Vice
Provost, oversees all academic reviews.
She noted that there are three upcoming reviews during 2006-07, namely
the Colleges of Law and Education, and University Libraries. She hopes to compile a list of names of
faculty members willing to be called upon to serve on these review
committees. She explained that internal
review committees are comprised of faculty members outside the college in
question, but that external experts are brought in to advise the process. She asked Evalyn to send out a follow-up
message to seek volunteers. She encouraged
senators to self-nominate.
C. Sexual Harassment
Survey and Report
Lee Anna Clark, Department
of Psychology and primary co-author of the report, explained that the Council
on the Status of Women was commissioned in 2003 to conduct a survey on
harassment. 42,839 people received the
survey; over 11,000 responded. Taking into account the nature of the survey,
this was considered a very positive result. While the representation was
generally broad, there was a higher percentage of women respondents and lower
percentage of undergraduates. She noted that the
She was pleased to
report that incidents do not appear to have gotten worse over the past ten
years. Still, it was disturbing to discover that knowledge about where to
report was very low. She said that sexual harassment is a red flag. It is much easier for people to report
specific behavior. Physical assaults of
a sexual nature were reported by 56 people on campus; 334 people said they had
experienced unwelcome comments of a sexual nature about their bodies, but had
not considered it sexual harassment.
From the audience,
the comment was made that tailgating is often associated with sexual
harassment. It was suggested that the new director of athletics should be held responsible
for solving that problem. President Kurtz said he would pass along the
comment.
Asked if there were
differences in the distribution of unwelcome events in one constituent group
over another,
D. Faculty
presentations in the residence halls
President Kurtz read
out a message from Tom Rocklin, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education,
seeking faculty involvement in resident hall programming. Interested faculty members should contact
Kate Sojka (kate-sojka@uiowa.edu).
VI. New Business
A. Photo Identification Policy, Jay Christensen-Szalanski, Management
and Organizations and Josephine Bathke, Assistant Counsel, General Counsel’s
Office
On occasion, the unit which dispenses university identification cards
receives requests from departments to download employees’ university ID photo.
The committee considered whether this was an appropriate use of these
photos. Their recommendation is that the
sole purpose of the photo is for creating identification and badge cards, and
should it should not be released to anyone, except for legitimate security reasons.
Discussion ensued. Christensen-Szalanski
confirmed that faculty will continue to be able to access photos of their
students. Under this proposed policy, the actual image is the property of the
university and faculty members will not be allowed to release it for any other
purpose. This does not affect
photographs that departments/colleges choose to publish on their websites.
A motion was made by Professor Fumerton, seconded by Professor Collins,
to amend the language of the proposal to read:
“The sole purpose of ID Card photos is for creating identification badges or cards. They should not be released unless required by law, except for public safety functions, or with the permission of the individual who was photographed.”
Arguments against the amendment included the potential administrative costs in tracking permissions and that the present language is simple, clear, and easily enforced.
In response to a question about the definition of public safety, Assistant Counsel Bathke said that the policy does not provide a specific definition, but it is not thought that public safety is limited to the Public Safety department. If in doubt, departments should consult with the General Counsel’s office.
Professor Balderston called the question, Professor Hope seconded, in
order to vote on the amendment to the policy.
The amendment failed a voice vote.
Professor O’Hara moved, seconded by Professor Susan Lutgendorf to
approve the policy as proposed. Motion
passed by voice vote.
B. Practice Related to
Faculty/Staff Home Address and Telephone
Currently,
employees’ home address and telephone numbers are publicly available. The employee is given the opportunity to opt
out by restricting access. Jay Christensen-Szalanski, Management and
Organizations and Josephine Bathke, Assistant Counsel, General Counsel’s Office,
proposed that the default on directory
information should be changed so that an employee’s home address and telephone
is continuously restricted, unless and until the employee elects to remove the
restriction on one or both through the self service web site.
This question came to their attention as the result of a new employee
being stalked by access to her public directory information. They noted that
over 50% of faculty members restrict home address, phone number or both. If the
policy goes into effect, all employees will receive email notification that
should they wish to allow unrestricted access to their information, they will
need to indicate so on the self-serve website. They pointed out that employees’
office phone numbers and addresses will remain accessible, unless by special
permission from Human Resources.
Professor Collins called the
question, seconded by Professor Lutgendorf, to end the debate and vote on the
address restriction motion. The motion
carried by voice vote.
VII. From the floor
President Kurtz was asked to share what he knows about the proposed
Strategic Plan Report to be overseen by the President and Vice President of the
Board of Regents together with the presidents of the three regent universities. He responded that he does not know the topics
or what is on the agenda. He does not
know if there has been any press coverage.
The Faculty Senate has not been asked to participate. He did not know if the Deans have been asked
for their input.
VIII. Announcements
A.
Next Faculty
Senate Meeting, October 17, Senate Chambers, Old Capitol
IX. Adjournment
A motion to adjourn was made by Professor Herman; seconded by Professor
O’Hara. The motion passed, the meeting was adjourned at 4:55 pm.