University of North Carolina
Minutes of the Ninety-Eighth Meeting
September 27, 1996
The ninety-eighth meeting of the Faculty Assembly of the University of North Carolina was held in the Board Room of the General Administration Building in Chapel Hill on February 16, 1996. The meeting was called to order by Chair Peter Petschauer at 1:00 with forty-one delegates in attendance.
Vice President Carroll's Report.
President Spangler was out of town and unable to address the Faculty Assembly. In his absence, Dr. Roy Carroll provided an update to the Assembly on relevant actions on the part of General Administration, the Board of Governor's and the General Assembly and reported on the status of the Faculty Assembly's Resolutions. (A copy of Dr. Carroll's remarks is attached. Not available for www.)
Questions and Answers.
Q. Gordon Mercer(WCU): Are the legislators aware that Post Tenure Review is already effective and well done at some Universities?
A: Dr. Carroll: It is done, but it is being done unevenly. The University System needs to protect itself from those who have an agenda set by the John Locke Foundation and make sure that review is effective across the System.
Dr. Mercer requested a copy of the survey generated for the Post Tenure Review Committee and Dr. Carroll agreed to provide that survey along with the principles.
Q: Steven Lilley(NCSU): Given the difficulty of the University System in meeting its enrollment targets, has there been any additional analysis of the situation at the community colleges?
A. Carroll: The community college data will not be available until the middle of October. It will be carefully analyzed once it is in. One conclusion that can be drawn from the data that is available is that there is price sensitivity. There has been a drop in residential graduate enrollment after raising tuition.
Q. Miles Fletcher(UNC-CH): How does the General Administration explain the current enrollment situation in light of the predictions of 40,000 new students expected to arrive with Tidal Wave II?
A. Carroll: To a great extent, Tidal Wave II is an idea promoted by private colleges to justify requesting more funds from the General Assembly. Growth will be real but most of it will occur after 2000. It is currently predicted that it will be 2004 before enrollment in the system returns to past years' high.
Q. Bonnie Kelley(UNCP): Why did the Legislature make the raises effective only 10 of the 12 months of 1996-97?
A: D. G. Martin(GA): The number of dollars the Legislature would spend this year was set. The General Administration supported a larger percentage increase over the ten month period in order to increase the base on which future salaries would be set.
Mr. Martin noted that the General Assembly is working with the Legislature on the two per cent reversion issue. The first goal is to continue to allow those schools who were identified as having special funding needs to continue to be exempt from the reversion. The second goal is to extend that exemption across the System.
Q. Jane Brown(UNC-CH): What is the status of the Faculty Workload Study?
A. Gary Barnes(GA): The Professional Development Committee will get a full report today.
Q. Henry Ferrell(ECU): Has a general order gone forth on Post Tenure Review? Will the Assembly get a copy of the charge? Has there been an effort to seek input from the AAUP?
A. Carroll: The charge went from President Spangler to the Chancellors and Vice Chancellors for Academic Affairs in July. A copy will be provided and input is being sought from a variety of sources, including the AAUP.
Q. Michael Pearson(UNC-C): Given that there was no consultation with faculty on Memorandum 338, will there be meaningful consultation on Post Tenure Review?
A. Carroll: The Committee working on Post Tenure review includes faculty from each of the campuses who are seeking to forward general principles and guidelines, not a rigid formulation. Each campus makes its own policy based on those guidelines and submits it to GA for approval. It is not a cookie cutter approach.
Dr. Petschauer recognized John Dervin, the student representative on the Board of Governors. He also noted the promotion of Myra Cain to Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Charles Coble to Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.
The Minutes of April 19, 1996, were approved.
The selection process for the next President of the University of North Carolina is under way. As it is currently designed, a Leadership Statement Committee consisting of eight community representatives, three faculty representatives, one student, and four members of the Board of Governors will compose a description of the desired characteristics of the next President. A Selection Committee composed solely of members of the Board of Governors will go through all applications and forward one-third or no more than fifty of them to the Search Committee. This committee is also composed solely of members of the Board of Governors. The Search Committee will then select one or two candidates to submit to the Board of Governors. John Sanders will discuss the current process and past selection processes at the Evening Plenary Session.
The E-mail procedure and Executive Committee authorization that was instituted by the Faculty Assembly last year made it possible to submit a list of six candidates to the Board of Governors for the Leadership Statement Committee. From those six candidates, the Nominating Committee selected Bonnie Kelley(UNCP) and Ken Gurganus(ECU) to serve on the Leadership Statement Committee, with the third faculty representative being Peter Petschauer(ASU) as Chair of the Faculty Assembly.
It was noted that the Leadership Statement Committee sounds like Advisory Committee that was in place in the last search for a President.
A copy of the charges to the committees will be distributed.
Q. Miles Fletcher(UNC-CH): Are there other ways that faculty can aid the process?
A. Petschauer: There are a variety of opinions on the Board of Governors about degree of faculty participation. The Code prohibits faculty voting on this as they are employees of the State.
Dr. Fletcher made the point that the faculty could have a voice even in situations even though they could not vote. Petschauer agreed.
Larry Hough(ECU) graciously agreed to continue through the year as Parliamentarian.
James Nicholl will attend committee meetings as a Faculty Assembly Representative to the Phased Retirement Committee. Ken Chambers will fill that role with the Post Tenure Review Committee.
Planning and Programs has been trying to persuade the various campuses to come up to a standard with the number of class days offered in a semester. While it has been successful in some cases, it was not sufficiently successful to head off a mandate.
It was noted that the resolution on the Wilmington campus issue was an example of an intrusion into campus.
All members who were present received their first choice of committee assignments. (A list of committee assignments is included.)
Larry Hough noted that Ken Chambers, delegate from North Carolina Central, had recently been seen nationally on The Price is Right.
The Afternoon Plenary session was adjourned at 2:30 and the members met in committees.
===============================================
EVENING PLENARY SESSION
This session was called to order at 7:05 PM with 36 delegates in attendance.
Dr. John Sanders, consultant for the Presidential Search Process, shared observations on past presidential searches and information about the current search.
Q. David Olsen(UNC-G): How can faculty make a positive contribution beyond serving on the Leadership Statement Committee.
A Sanders: Faculty can supply nominations and provide supporting information. They can use opportunities to develop factors that are important in a leader.
Q. Michael Pearson(UNC-C): Is the Search more likely to result in a business person or an academic.
A: Sanders: There have been two Presidents from academia and two from outside it. There is no sense of present bias.
Q. Dan Caton(ASU): Is it legal for the Committees to actively seek out promising candidates?
A: Sanders: It would be both legal and appropriate.
Q. Larry Hough(ECU): Isn't the lead time short? It is one week in some cases.
A: Sanders: Yes. But every effort has been made to be inclusive given a compacted schedule for the search.
As part of the Faculty Assembly's response to a call for input, the Faculty Welfare Committee prepared a document. Chair Petschauer called for the Faculty Welfare Committee to give the first committee report.
STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS
Faculty Welfare(Larry Hough for James Nicholl)
After reviewing several handouts on chancellor searches over past three years, the committee discussed desired qualifications in a president. The Committee submitted a list of three desired qualifications.
There was lively and intense discussion of the content and wording of the document.
While members of the Committee worked on the wording, the Faculty Assembly reviewed a resolution requesting adequate support of Faculty and Student Access to Technology that was generated by the Executive Committee in its morning session. The resolution passed as Resolution 96-1. (A copy of the resolution is attached.)
The Welfare Committee submitted the edited version of its resolution and it passed as Resolution 96-2. (A copy of the resolution is attached.)
Further business of the Committee: Kitty McCollum, Benefits Officer, discussed the study presently underway on early retirement incentives. A committee chaired by Judith Stillion has three subcommittees and they have contacted several university systems which have experience with early retirement and phased retirement. This Committee will consult faculty from each campus for a December, 1996, and report to President Spangler. Summaries of both the subcommittee and full committee meetings are sent to each VCAA.
The Faculty Welfare Committee urges and encourages attendance and participation at the Leadership Statement Committee Hearings.
David Olsen(UNC-G) noted that the talents of the faculty might be usefully employed in the selecting process as an asset rather than viewing them as a set to be excluded.
Dr. Petschauer said that faculty could volunteer to be references or to research references. He will speak to the Board and ask if the final candidates might appear before the Assembly.
Planning and Program(Dan Noland)
When Judith Pulley presents more complete figures in November, the Committee will review the current condition of projected enrollments over the next ten years, with an eye to any possible perturbations caused by such unpredictable factors as unforeseen tuition increases, economic fluctuations or demographic changes.
The Committee also decided to review how distance learning initiatives get funded, whether the General Assembly allows constituent campuses to count off-campus instruction in their F.T.E. totals and enrollment figures, and what effects, if any, there are on overall educational quality.
The Committee will gather information from the 16 members on how they are establishing 75 day semesters. Since a study is looking into the advisability of 160 day academic calendars, the Committee would like to find out how 150 day calendars impact on exam schedules, holidays, summer programs and SPA employees.
The Committee would like the System to move toward shielded outdoor lighting to be phased in on new buildings and fixture replacements. A resolution will be forthcoming at a future meeting.
Finally, the Committee is concerned that focusing so much attention on gradation rates, retention figures, accommodating larger student populations and various other quantitative considerations distracts the General Assembly from concerns about the quality of future education.
Faculty Governance(Gordon Mercer)
The Committee decided to recommend that the Chair of the Faculty Assembly compose a letter to thank the N.C. Legislature for the raise, despite some reservations on the amount.
The Committee discussed the need for more faculty input on post tenure review and decided to encourage faculty senates and senate chairs to make reports and get faculty input, and to recommend that post tenure review remain under faculty guidance. If post tenure review is defined as a periodic review after tenure with serious consequences and suggestions as well as possibilities for termination, some campuses already have this. The problem is one of establishing consistent policies across the system that recognize differences in mission at each university.
The committee discussed the need for an effective system of administrative review as an agenda item for the future.
A faculty governance survey to assess the situation with respect to faculty governance was planned. The survey should include some of the following indicators of faculty governance and will be sent to assembly delegates and faculty chairs throughout the UNC System.
Dr. Carroll met with the committee and provided guidance on the UNC Code and legal dimensions of faculty governance. He supported the concept of an active faculty governance system. He answered questions on the UNC Code as related to the UNC System.
Academic Freedom and Tenure(Ken Chambers)
The Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee discussed the implications of the Transfer of Credit Agreement. Among the major issues raised were: How to guarantee the level of instruction received by students taught at the community college? How to match admissions requirements? How to predict the impact on first- and second-year programs at institutions with a lot of transfer students?
Carroll provided some answers. He noted that students must meet the lower level institutional general education requirements and indicated that only 4,200 students transfer per year and of that figure only 700 transfer with an AA degree. But he cautioned that more students are expected when this agreement is put into effect. The Committee agreed to recommend that each campus cooperate with the transfer agreement; however, faculty should maintain the right to control the academic standards of their individual institutions.
Next the Committee discussed the review of the Performance of Tenured Faculty. Carroll passed out President Spangler's memo instructing chancellors to:
1) Nominate a representative to serve on the Ad Hoc Committee to study Post-Tenure Review by September 6.
2) Have all units respond to a survey attached to the memo and submit copies of current policies and procedures for evaluating tenured faculty by October 30.
3) Send a list describing what the principal features of a meaningful system of post-tenure review of faculty should include from the point-of-view of the faculty by November 22.
The Committee agreed that there is need for caution about the possible consequences embedded in post-tenure evaluation. Further, it agreed that post-tenure evaluation is probably best left with the individual institutions. Finally, it agreed that post-tenure review should never interfere with academic freedom because academic freedom is what makes higher education possible and the University system great. Having said this, the Committee agreed to deliberate on the matter further after reviewing the materials submitted by the institutions.
Professional Development(Bonnie Kelley)
Gary Barnes discussed the Teaching Load Study of which the Assembly received a copy of last spring. He explained three forms that will make up the report -- one of those forms will be done by department chairs and will not go forward to GA but will be shared at each campus. The other two will condense the first and will supply information to the General Administration and the Board of Governors.
The chair of the Professional Development Committee distributed a report from the Peer Review of Teaching Conference held at Black Mountain September 13-14, 1996. Members will read the report and discuss it at the next meeting. A study done by Mike Pearson on post-tenure review at universities around the country was distributed for future discussion.
The Committee decided to focus most of its efforts this year on gathering information on the campus Teaching Centers, as it appears that seven of the sixteen institutions have not implemented the mandate of Memorandum 338 to establish a center. The chair will contact Ben Ward of the Institute for University Teaching and utilize the Carolina Colloquium contacts on each campus to begin the process of collecting information on existing or proposed facilities, directors, staff, funding, and services. The Committee plans to use the study to support a later resolution that General Administration encourage institutions to get those centers functioning on all campuses. The information has a potential for sharing innovative ideas from some campuses.
Budget(Lolly Gasaway)
The Committee reviewed its charge and agenda for the year and elected Bruce Larson as vice chair.
The Committee met with Ken Grogan from GA who reviewed the 1996-97 budget and budget process. Copies of the budget and budget process document (prepared last spring) were sent to each library to place on reserve. Each delegation should verify that the documents are available to their faculties in each campus library. Additionally, the budget process document is on the GA home-page at: http://www.NorthCarolina.edu/.
The matrix on faculty participation in the budgeting process on each campus will be sent to the chair of each faculty senate for updating. A new copy will be distributed at the November meeting.
On the matter of the 2% reversion, GA will again ask the General Assembly to eliminate the reversion.
The technology request for the 1997-99 biennium will include support personnel as well as hardware, software and infrastructure.
The Committee will have its own listserv to facilitate conducting its business.
New Business: Care should be taken to make the by-laws and other documents gender neutral in their descriptions.
Chair Peter Petschauer adjourned the meeting at 9:15.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda L. Nelms
Actions to be taken:
Check Libraries for copies of the Budget and the Budget Process Document.