Academic Senate
Minutes of the January 19, 2000 Meeting

Present: M. Boldger (R. Koda's proxy), A. Crigler, G. Davis, W. Dehning, W. Dutton, F. Feldman, J. Gates, T. Habinek, V. Henderson, A. Hendrick, P. Heseltine, M. Kann, H. Kaslow, D. Kempler, M. Kinder, B. Knight, B. Kosko, J. Kunc, R. Labaree (M. Schuetze-Coburn's proxy), L. Laine, S. Lund, N. Lutkehaus, A. Mircheff, J. Morse, J. Nyquist, W. Petak, N. Petasis, G. Salem, G. Schierle, H. Schor, N. Stromquist, W. Thalmann, W. Tierney, M. Weinstein.

Absent: M. Dudziak, C. Julienne, T. Levi, , J. Manegold, M. Mazon, P. Nosco, D. O'Leary, , R. Patti, A. Pope, K. Price

Guests: M. Chuang, N. Kanal, F. Lee, M. Levine, H. Slucki, J. Zernik.

President William Tierney called the meeting to order at 2:55 p.m.

Agenda Item #1: Approval of Minutes

The minutes of the December 8, 1999 Senate meeting were approved with one amendment to Resolution 99/00-02 regarding the Proposed Retirement Policy. As amended, part 2 of this Resolution should read:

2. recommends that these same principles be extended to all tenured or non-tenured faculty who have worked for 10 years (continuously or not continuously) and reached the age of 59 & 1/2; and

The ammended minutes were approved with 28 in favor, 1 opposed and 1 abstention.

Agenda Item #2: Announcements

President Tierney made the following announcements:

(a) Graduate Student Conference: President Tierney introduced Naveen Kanal, Graduate Student President, who made an announcement regarding a Call for Papers for the 3rd Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference on "New Directions in Academia: Leadership Through Research". The Conference will be held on campus on April 1st 2000 and abstracts will be accepted until February 15, 2000.

(b) Senate web-site: President Tierney introduced Robert Labaree, who gave an update regarding the Senate web-site. He said that, with the help of graduate student from Engineering, the web-site is being redesigned and upgraded to also include a search engine. The web-site should be updated soon and it would be possible to begin uploading documents. A senator asked about the procedure for deciding the authenticity of documents placed on the web-site. President Tierney replied that these procedures are being considered by a Senate Task Force on Communication. He further noted that the President of the Senate will be approve all documents placed on the web-site.

(d) Nominating Committee: The Committee has begun meeting and is now soliciting nominations.

(e) Intellectual Property Policy: The November 11 draft of this proposed policy is currently being considered by the Research Committee. This draft has also been circulated to the faculty.

(f) University Events Center: Carol Dougherty is now the Co-Chair of a new Events Center that is being planned. Since there is no time to have her give a presentation to the Senate, the information on this matter, described in a memo to the Senate given to all senators will be placed on the web-site.

(g) Upcoming Issues/Topics for the Senate - Spring, 2000: The following issues remain to be considered by the Senate during the Spring of 2000:

        Task Force on Tenure and Compensation in the Medical School
        Intellectual Property
        Department Chair Elections
        The Board of Trustees
        Distance / Distributed Learning
        Sabbatical Reform
        Interdisciplinary Initiative
        Handbook Revisions
        Revision to the Tenure Clock
        Hiring Minority Faculty
        Senate Communications
        Archiving Senate Documents

Agenda Item #3: Provost's Comments (Vice Provost M. Levine)

President Tierney said that the Provost was unable to attend the Senate meeting due to a personal emergency. He then introduced Vice Provost Levine, who made some brief comments regarding Interdisciplinary Research and Distance Learning. He said that USC has shown leadership in these areas and that Dean Schapiro said that he plans to focus on these matters as President of Williams College.

Professor J. Zernik asked a question regarding a letter from USC to the AAUP. He indicated that the faculty should be informed on the content of this letter, which relates to the administration efforts to comply with the Faculty Handbook. Vice Provost Levine pointed out that President Sample by signing the Handbook has indicated USC’s intention to follow it. President Tierney replied that this letter is designated as confidential and that it had not been made public, although he believed there is nothing in it that might be considered controversial. Past President Thalmann then gave some background of this issue. He said that during last year he had set-up a Task Force to look into the issue of AAUP’s censure of USC. The task force drafted a statement for the AAUP that was shown to the Provost, who gave his consent. In order to avoid public discussions that might, by reviving a case now settled, embarrass some faculty members, Professor Thalmann and the Provost agreed that the task force's work should be confidential. President Tierney said that he would look into the possibility of making the statement available to Professor Zernik.

Agenda Item #4: Tenure and Compensation in the Medical School Task Force Report

President Tierney thanked the members of the Academic Senate Task Force on the Medical School for their hard work in addressing the difficult issue of Tenure and Compensation. Referring to the report of the Task Force, which was distributed to the senators, President Tierney said that the Senate can either amend it, reject it, or approve it and make recommendations to the administration. He also mentioned that he had discussed the draft report with the Provost who shared his ideas and concerns. President Tierney then introduced Past President W. Thalmann, the chair of the Task Force, to present the report.

Professor Thalmann said that the Task Force had many discussions with people that know a lot about the Medical School situation. He noted that some of the issues are actually issues of principle that may affect all faculty. He pointed out that a central problem is the fact the all Medical Schools need to hire many more faculty than they can afford on the basis of tuition and other unrestricted income. Consequently, Medical Schools need to have a large number of their faculty bring in their salary from grants and clinical practice. Unfortunately, this situation drives a wedge among tenure and compensation. The key question is: should tenure also imply a certain salary guarantee. Clearly there is an important connection among tenure and compensation, because tenure would not be effective without a reasonable salary guarantee. However, it is difficult to determine what would be a "reasonable" salary guarantee since there is no guaranteed revenue for this purpose. In face of the University’s financial situation, the Task Force report makes some recommendations on how this could be done. Of particular concern is the issue of tenure to clinical faculty. Of particular concern is the difficulty of hiring top clinical faculty without also offering them tenure. For this purpose, some of the recommendations refer to new hires and not existing faculty.

Senator P. Heseltine, representative of the Medical Faculty Association (MFA), took the floor to address the Task Force report. He thanked Professor Thalmann and the other members of Task Force for their hard work and for raising a number of important issues for discussion. He hen pointed out that until recently tenure was not granted to clinical faculty. In addition to doing research, these faculty members also had access to a private practice. Tenure became an issue when the conditions for clinical practice were changed when the University became involved in the business of healthcare providing. In order to participate in the University’s clinical practice, the faculty asked for tenure in return. Some say that salary guarantees to such faculty should come from the clinical practice they belong to. Such guarantees are important in cases of lapses in external research funding. However, if the University provides full salary guarantees to these clinical faculty that often have very large salaries, this will lead to a major liability. Therefore, we cannot jeopardize tenure for all faculty simply because the University wants to be entrepreneurial in the area of clinical practice.

A senator asked about the costs involved and he noted that it would be helpful if these date were provided to the senators in pie charts, etc. Professor Thalmann replied that the overall costs of salaries to Medical School Faculty is about $100-125 million, with about $75 million coming from the County contract. He further noted that among the three categories of faculty outlined in the report the greater risk would come from faculty in clinical Departments that may not have enough unrestricted funds to cover salary guarantees. Another senator expressed concern that it is difficult to vote on this issue without knowing what the budget implications would be. He pointed out that the Main Campus should not go bankrupt over the Medical School efforts to solve this problem. It was also mentioned that other Medical Schools (e.g. Stanford) have addressed this situation by incorporating the clinical practice as a separate entity. Unfortunately, at USC the clinical contracts are signed by the Medical School, not a private entity or a separate research institute. Since the clinical practice has over $80 million revenues a year, the Medical School tries to benefit from it.

Another senator pointed out that the Task Force report carefully makes a link between tenure at the Medical School and elsewhere at the University. The biggest problem comes from salary guarantees. If faculty are given positions without tenure, we may loose some top faculty. On the other hand if tenure is given without guarantee, this may affect tenure for other faculty. Therefore, the proposed middle ground, i.e. tenure with some salary guarantee, seems to be the best option. However, due to the risk involved, a special Task Force should asses this risk and make more specific recommendations. Meanwhile, the senator recommended endorsing the report and the principles outlined in it.

Professor Thalmann replied that there are about 300 tenure-eligible faculty in clinical departments and the proposed salary guarantees would present a maximum risk of about $25 million per year. However, he said that if the recommendations of the Task Force are followed, the number of tenured faculty in clinical departments would shrink, and so would the university's risk. Another senator also suggested that faculty that are mostly in private practice are not covered by this, only those in the Medical School's practice. Assuming a potential maximum shortfall of about $10 million, a senator suggested that this can be covered by endowment funds."

President Tierney suggested that the senators endorse the report, as more information is being sought. Much of the requested information we do not have access to and the Senate will look into it.

A senator asked if this approach would be extended to clinical faculty in Departments other than the Medical School. Professor Thalmann replied that the discussions focussed on the Medical Schools.

Another senator expressed reservations about the potential threats to tenure for all faculty, which may be conceivable but not obvious. He suggested that it may be possible to redefine tenure for Medical School faculty in a way that does not affect tenure for other faculty. President Tierney replied that recent experience at the University of Minnesota pertained in part to trying to redefine the University at the unit level.

Senator H. Kaslow from the Medical School pointed out the Senate should realize that previous statements that the Medical School was running a deficit might be misleading. In fact, the Medical School pays tens of millions of dollars a year in indirect costs to the Central Administration. For example, if according to current indirect cost rates the School were taxed $32,000,0000 and could afford to pay only $30,000,000, then it could be portrayed that the School was running a $2,000,0000 deficit. In fact, if the indirect cost rate were an imperfect measure of the costs of running the School, then the School might still be providing a considerable net revenue gain for the University. Thus, over past years and in the long run into the future, the Medical School may not be a drain to the University but instead a source of revenue. Thus, the assumption of the obligation of paying some tenured salaries might be a much smaller risk than portrayed. In fact, in 1996, at a time when it was asserted the School of Medicine was running in a "fiscal crisis" and running a substantial deficit, the December 2, 1996 USC Chronicle (http://www.usc.edu/ext-relations/news_service/chronicle_pdf/1996.12.02.USC_Chronicle.pdf, reported USC generated $1.2 billion in revenues and $1.06 billion in expenses, producing an overall surplus of about $170 million, Senator Kaslow proposed that rather than gutting the economic security of tenure, the University should consider creating positions with titles such as "Life Professor" to indicate cases where a life-time appointment has been made without a salary guarantee. He further expressed concern that the proposal was specifically limited to new faculty. In light of Administration actions that breached the Faculty Contracts of faculty in the School of Medicine, laws regarding statutes of limitations could leave current faculty that once had tenure and economic security with neither. Finally he suggested that the report should be forwarded to faculty councils for further review.

Another senator suggested that since clinical practice is linked to the faculty, the LA County contracts should include the faculty as part of the contract negotiations. Otherwise this would be a violation of the Faculty Handbook. Since contracts of this nature are linked to faculty compensation and tenure, faculty should be involved. In some cases, faculty cannot file grievances with the University on matters relating to these contracts.

In closing the discussion, President Tierney recommended that the report be accepted and forwarded to School Councils for input. Also, the Executive Board should work with the administration to address the outstanding issues. These reports should be completed by March 15 and presented at the April Senate meeting. The Senate accepted President Tierney’s recommendation unanimously.

President Tierney presented the following resolution on behalf of the Executive Board:

Resolution 99/00-03: Proposed Bylaw on Composition of the Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities

WHEREAS, questions have been raised about whether the chair of the Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee should be a tenure-eligible or tenured member of the faculty, and

                    WHEREAS, this committee deals with sensitive matters of tenure,

                    BE IT RESOLVED THAT,

        The chairman of the Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities should be limited  to tenured faculty, preferably at the full professor rank, in order to ensure the ability of the   Committee to deal with delicate problems at the University without undue fear of retaliation.

        At least one member of the Committee should be appointed from a non-tenure-eligible academic position to ensure the representation of the rights and responsibilities of those without the protection of speech granted to those with tenure.

President Tierney explained that this resolution resulted from discussions at the Executive Board and the Rules Committee and that it does not affect the current chair of the Committee. He also noted that this is in no way a reflection on the excellent abilities of the current chair.

The resolution was passed unanimously with the following amendment: the word "should" was changed to "shall."

The meeting was adjourned at 4:30 p.m.

_______________

Respectfully Submitted,

Nicos A. Petasis
Professor of Chemistry
Secretary General of the Academic Senate