Minutes
Present: K. Alexander, D. Bohlinger,
A. Crigler, W. Dappen, W. Dutton, F. Feldman, J. Gates, D.
Ghirardo, N. Hanel, C. Julienne, H. Kaslow, B. Knight, P. Knoll,
B. Kosko, J. Kunc, R. Labaree, D. Larsen, W. Mack, J. Manegold,
A. Mircheff, J. Moore, S. Murphy, J. Nyquist, F. Potenza, M.
Renov, B. Sarter, D. Stram, D. Walsh, M. Wincor, W. Wolf, M.
Weinstein
Absent: M. Apostolos, F. Clark,
R. Goodyear, H. James, P. Nosco, M. Omar, J. Peters, E. Saks,
H. Schor, D. Sloane, S. Sobel, B. Solomon, F.
Zufryden, B. Zuckerman
Guests: J. Ball, G.
Bekey, Y. Chen, M. Dudziak, J. Hellige, M. Merbaum, A. Michaels,
R. Rodriguez, H. Slucki
Senate called to order at 2:50 p.m. by
President William Dutton.
Meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m.
Action taken by the Senate:
Approval of January 17, 2001 Senate Minutes (Agenda item #2)
Minutes approved with one no vote and one abstention.
Resolution 00/01-05 Health Benefits for Faculty Retirees (Agenda item #5)
The resolution passed
(19 yeas, 4 nays, and 1 abstention).
Announcements by President Dutton (Agenda item #1)
1. New Senate roster is available.
Every school is now represented. The new member from the
School of Music is Frank Potenza.
2. New chair of
the Faculty Rights and Responsibility Committee. Professor
Rino Patti is the new chair and has been filling in for Victor
Henderson who has taken a position at another university.
3
President Sample's address on the State of the University is
on February 27. The Senate agreed to open this up to
trustees, staff, students and friends of the President, given the
special occasion of his tenth address as President.
4. Senate Open House for members and
University Committee members. An open house will be
held from 11.30-2.00 p.m. on 7 March at the Senate Office. Senators
are urged to attend to meet members of our committees and thank
them for their service.
5. University
Calendar has been amended. The Provost has amended
future calendars to accommodate student concerns that weekends
were being counted as "stop days". This is an
excellent example of responsiveness to expressions of concern by
students.
6. University event tickets now
available through the Senate Office. Najwa Hanel,
Chair, University Events/Ticket Committee announced that the
Senate would be provided with 50 tickets to major university
events so that faculty are assured some seating. Essentially,
faculty will purchase tickets from the Senate, with unused
tickets being returned for sale at the event.
Other announcements
Professor George Bekey gave a brief
background on two documents distributed at the meeting. One
was the revised IPR policy, which will be discussed and voted on
in March. The other was a new incubator policy to be
discussed in March for later revision and possible motions.
Austin Mircheff, Chair of the Faculty Handbook Committee, summarized a draft policy on Personal Conflicts of Interest, which will be discussed in March or April.
Provost
Lloyd Armstrong’s Comments (Agenda item #3)
Provost
Lloyd Armstrong attended the meeting; he addressed the
University’s efforts in assessing and improving graduate
programs and the University’s desire to improve its Research
Council (NRC) ranking.
Provost
Armstrong mentioned that over the past eight years the University
has worked to improve undergraduate programs and these efforts
have been very successful. Now his office is turning its
attention to graduate education at the University. The
University Committee on Academic Review (UCAR) is an important
component of this effort. The committee is charged with
reviewing all graduate programs (see agenda item #4 for the UCAR
status report).
Provost Armstrong further reported that efforts to improve the
quality of teaching assistants (TAs ) have also been successful.
TAs stipends have been raised to be competitive and to attract
quality graduate students to USC. There is now mentoring
for TAs to help make the TA experience more rewarding.
The University is in the process of raising $100 million in
endowments for the graduate programs and to date $15 million has
been raised.
Finally,
Provost Armstrong indicated that the National Research Council
(NRC) ranks graduate programs. USC had not paid much
attention to the NRC review process during this last cycle; the
result being that the University did not do as well as it could
have done. NRC rankings may be beneficial to the University
since governmental and other agencies pay attention to these
rankings. The NRC ranks strengths in graduate disciplines
and not departments. The Provost’s office wants to see
an improvement with regard to future NRC rankings and to this
end, his office is taking an internal look at selected graduate
areas including history, economics, and neuroscience to see how
these areas at USC would stand up to an NRC review.
Following
his comments, the Provost entertained questions.
Question:
His position on SATs. The Provost said he was pleased
to see that the last entering freshmen class had an average SAT
score higher than at UCLA. While SAT scores and GPAs are
important, they are not the only criteria for selecting a
freshmen class at USC, where the admissions’ team aims to
read all dossiers as fully as possible.
Question:
His opinion regarding the relative weight of authoring textbooks
when making tenure decisions in that some faculty are being
advised not to write textbooks if they want to achieve tenure.
The Provost acknowledged that textbook authorship does not
generally carry as much weight as other scholarly activities but
writing a textbook can be an important scholarly activity,
depending on the quality and impact of the text. He further
mentioned that the whole tenure system is a conundrum (not only
at USC but also at all institutions) in that it may not be as
supportive in promoting scholarship as intended.
Report on
University Committee on Academic Review (UCAR) (Agenda item
#4)
Vice Provost
Hellige reviewed the UCAR process that consists of a
self-analysis by the program, an internal review (UCAR), and an
external review. UCAR has about 30 faculty members. Currently
there are plans to expand this committee to include additional
faculty as members. Over the next several years the
plan is to review 70 programs that grant doctoral degrees.
Dr.
Michaels, who has chaired a UCAR review, outlined the UCAR
process in some detail. As part of the process a program or
department is to outline a 7-year plan for future greatness.
The UCAR committee will monitor these plans. Professor
Michaels indicated that 14 programs have been reviewed to date.
The UCAR
process:
1. A
chair is chosen among the UCAR members.
2. A
couple of other UCAR members are chosen to join the internal
review team.
3. This
small review team meets with the Provost and the Chair to obtain
a list of possible external reviewers.
4. The
program completes a self-study that addresses the current
strengths and weaknesses. This self-study also includes two
plans for the future greatness and related time frames. One
plan is to anticipate no additional resources while the other is
to include what the program could achieve with additional
resources.
5. After
the self-study is completed, the external review is conducted.
6. Following
the external review, the small committee drafts a report for the
entire UCAR committee to review.
7. After
the program has had a chance to review and comment on the UCAR
report, it is then sent to the Provost. This is the first
time the Provost’s Office is involved in the actual review
process.
Discussion of
the UCAR included several issues:
Would UCAR
actually recommend that a program be closed? Dr. Michaels
indicated that discussions within UCAR often address the
possibility of recommending closure. Provost Armstrong
indicated he was impressed with the reports to date and mentioned
that one program reviewed may be closed in the near future or be
merged with another program.
A Senator
from a department that may be facing closures said it would be
better for the faculty to know sooner rather then later the final
decision about the future of the department. The Provost
stated that these decisions take time since his office must work
through all possible options as well as have meetings with the
chairs, deans, and faculty involved.
The Provost was asked how would affected USC
faculty contracts, especially the contracts of the tenured
faculty, be treated? The Provost indicated that there would
be an attempt to find other positions within the University for
affected faculty, but added that if placement were not possible,
those faculty would no longer have contracts. When further
pressed by a Senate member, Provost Armstrong repeated that, if
placement were not possible, a tenured appointment may be
terminated with the discontinuation of a unit or program.
An inquiry
was made as to whether the library was going to be reviewed by
UCAR. The Provost indicated that a review of the library is
not part of the UCAR charge, but there is a plan to review all
administrative offices
Resolution
00/01-05 Health Benefits for Faculty Retirees (Agenda item #5)
Professor
James Managold presented the resolution. There was
extensive discussion about various aspects of the proposed health
benefits plan for faculty retirees, including eligibility
criteria, when the benefit can be accessed, the window period for
requesting the benefit, and the underlying principles of the
plan. After much discussion the question was called to end
debate, at which time a quorum was questioned. Determining
that a quorum was present, the call for the question passed (19
yeas, 4 nays, and no abstentions). The resolution
passed (19 yeas, 4 nays, and 1 abstention). The approved
resolution is attached.
Task
Force on Family Leave Policy Report (Agenda item #6)
Professor
Dudziak, Chair of the Task Forces, enlightened the Senate about
various aspects of the report; however, this item was referred to
the Senate Environment and Faculty benefits committees for their
review, with the aim of continuing discussion of this issue
around their reports.
Process
for approving Non-/Tenure Track Faculty Policy: The Keck
School’s Process (Agenda item #7)
This item was not discussed.
New Business (Agenda item #8)
No new items
were discussed
Handouts at the Meeting:
1) Minutes of
January 17, 2001 Academic Senate Meeting for approval
2) Health Benefits
for Faculty Retirees Resolution: 00/01-05
3) Updated
Academic Senate Roster: 2000-2001
4) Draft
of proposed Personal Conflict of Interest Section for the Faculty
Handbook
5) Senate
Open House (March 7) invitation letter from President Dutton
6) Draft
Intellectual Property Policy for the University
7) Draft
Incubation Guideline for the University
8) Joint
Provost/Faculty Senate Task Force on Family Leave Policy Report
9) Procedures
for Non-Tenure Track Faculty Appointment, Promotion,
Reappointment, Non-reappointment and Mid-contract Termination at
Keck School of Medicine
10)
December 10, 2000 letter from President Dutton to Professor
Kaslow
11) January
9, 2001 letter from Provost Armstrong to Professor Kaslow
12) Senate
Resolution 96/97-17
13) Copy of Faculty Handbook,
Pages 32-34 with suggested additions
Respectfully Submitted,
Jerry D. Gates, Ph.D.
Secretary
General of the Academic Senate
Resolution:
00/01-05
WHEREAS, USC has established a new health insurance
program, USC Senior Care, which is available to all Medicare
eligible retirees and their spouses or mutual financial
dependents over age 65, and
WHEREAS,
it is desirable to make available a health insurance program
equivalent to USC Senior Care for faculty who must or wish to
retire before they qualify for Medicare, and
WHEREAS,
the post-retirement health benefits policy endorsed by the Senate
in Resolution 99/00-02 proposed to provide better benefits at
lower cost to retired faculty under age 65, as compared to
retired faculty over age 65, and this is not consistent with a
later Federal court ruling, and
WHEREAS,
a special provision in Federal law permits universities to offer
retirement incentive benefits to tenured faculty retiring before
a stated age, provided all eligible faculty have at least one
opportunity to retire and receive such benefits,
BE
IT RESOLVED THAT, the Senate supports the following changes
in the principles underlying a new health benefits policy for
retired faculty,
1.
The health benefits policy for retired faculty should
provide equivalent coverage at equivalent cost for older and
younger eligible faculty retirees;
2.
Faculty members eligible for these health benefits include those
who have attained age 59½ and completed 15 years of full-time
service to the University, the last five of which are
continuous,* and who either are untenured or elect to retire
(a) when the plan is initiated, or (b) when the
individual first achieves eligibility, or (c) before the
individual becomes eligible for Medicare benefits or age 65,
whichever is later.
*Eligibility
criteria are specified instead of reference to another document
for clarity.