Present: M. Apostolos, M. Baron, F. Clark, W. Dutton, R. Garet, J. Gates, R. Guralnick, N. Hanel, E. Heikkila, C. Jacob, M. Jorgensen, M. Levitt, G. Loeb, W. Mack, J. Manegold, D. Mayer, E. McCann, J. Moore, S. Murphy, M. Nichol, P. Nosco, J. Nyquist, , M. Renov, M. Safonov, M. Schuetze-Coburn, P. Shrivastava (alternate for W. Mack), G. Siegel, D. Stram, J. Toscan, W. Weber, M. Weinstein, W. Wolf, F. Zufryden

Absent: B. Brown, R. Clark, E. Cooper, W. Handley, B. Knight, D. Larsen, P. Levine, V. Nguyen, P. Pattengale, M. Omar, G. Schierle, M. Stoner, N. Troy, R. Zemke

Guests: A. Capron, P. Chiaramonte, B. D’Autremont, B. Kosko, R. Labaree, M. Levine, C. Zachary

Senate called to order at 2:49 p.m. by President Peter Nosco.

Meeting adjourned at 4:29 p.m.

Minutes approved as written with two abstentions.

Faculty Handbook - Vice Provost Levine stated that the revisions for the 2001 Faculty Handbook, as approved by the Senate last year, have been approved by President Sample. A copy is expected to be posted on the University website soon. He mentioned that the 2002 Handbook is currently being worked on jointly by the Senate Faculty Handbook Committee and University Administration.

Safe E-mail – The Vice Provost mentioned that the General Counsel is considering a policy regarding archiving e-mail. Discussions are taking place with a Senate Committee as well.

Review of the dismissal of tenured faculty – Dr. Levine informed the Senate that the Faculty Tenure and Privilege Appeals Committee has undertaken a review of the dismissals of tenured faculty over the past twelve years. This review stems from some recent charges by an outside attorney that the dismissal process at USC is a sham. This attorney has yet to be successful with any of her suits against USC.

The lawyer has lost four times at the trial level and been assessed a penalty for filing a frivolous claim; has had numerous Court of Appeal rulings against her, and recently lost on requests to the California Supreme Court to review two of these cases.

The following are the statistics regarding dismissal of tenured faculty. During the twelve years of President Sample’s tenure here, there have been thirteen cases in which a dean has initiated dismissal proceedings against a tenured professor. Of these thirteen, President Sample dismissed six tenured faculty. In each of the six instances, the dismissal followed a faculty hearing board’s finding of adequate cause: job abandonment in four cases and serious misconduct in two. In four instances the Provost or President decided not to proceed to dismissal, and three cases did not come to a final decision (in two cases owing to the faculty member’s resignation, with one case still pending.)

During brief discussion following the Vice Provost's comments, a senior senator noted that the Faculty Mediation Office has greatly helped to reduce the number of issues that result in formal grievances. It was further noted that Professor Marshall Cohen has done a remarkable job as the faculty mediation officer. Vice Provost Levine reported to the Senate that, since that it has been about eight years since the last Strategic Plan, and four years since it was updated, the Provost is about to begin the process again to develop a new strategic plan. Faculty input is warmly encouraged.

• Update on Conflict of Interest George Bekey’s Conflict of Interest Task Force is meeting in response to the Senate’s request that they explore the possibility of consolidating the University’s many "conflict of interest" policies. The Committee expects to report to the Senate in April.

• Senate Speakers Series Bruce Zuckermann from Religion gave a splendid talk on "Technology and Texts: Case Studies from Biblical Times." Bruce’s talk, second in the series, was attended by over thirty persons, whom the Senate was also pleased to feed.

• Update from the Nominating Committee President Nosco thanked the Committee (Profs. Apostolos, Garet, Gates, Heikkila, Levine, McCann and Mack) for their excellent work. Voting packets will be mailed to Senators at the end of March, and voting will take place throughout the month of April.

• Reminder of Faculty Luncheon with President Sample on February 27 The annual breaking of bread with President Sample will occur this year at Town n’ Gown at noon a week from today, and President Nosco hoped that the Academic Senate will be well represented.

• Update on the Faculty Handbook Committee The Faculty Handbook Committee, chaired by John Odell, has approved a host of minor changes to the handbook, which President Nosco has reviewed and is comfortable in referring to as editorial. Most of these emerge from the resolutions passed by the Senate last Spring, including the Tenure Clock resolution. The Handbook is a serious matter, and so a copy of the Handbook with the proposed changes will be available for inspection in the Senate Office for the next four weeks. If President Nosco receives no expressions of concern, he will sign the cover page and we will have a new Handbook (2001 edition).

• Archiving of E-mail The Information Services Committee, chaired by Marje Schuetze-Coburn, is discussing the matter of a two-month limit on the archiving of email. They are conferring with Gerald Loeb, who chairs the Research Committee, and Mike Nichol who chairs Faculty Environment.

• Update on the Technology Business Incubator The Research Committee continues its review of the Technology Business Incubator document discussed in January. It has gone through additional fine-tuning. The Senate will discuss the plan at its March meeting.

Professor Nichol, Chair of the Faculty Environment Committee, introduced a resolution calling for the USC Care Board of Trustee to add to its Board a representative from the Academic Senate, and to investigate the feasibility of maintaining primary care services at University Park. The matter is to be reported back to the Senate in April with preliminary findings. Discussion that followed was very brief and the resolution passed with one dissenting vote and one abstention.

An explanation of the proposed parking rate increase of $5.00 per month was provided by Phil Chiaramonte, Associate V.P. for Business Affairs and Brian D’Autremont, Director of Transportation Services. They mentioned that there had not been a parking increase in five years and this increase will permit them to catch up with current costs and provide revenue for new parking structures. They noted that as new buildings are constructed on campus, parking is lost; about 400 spaces have disappeared at the University Park Campus recently. There are current plans to build a structure to hold about 602 cars (off campus) at a cost of $7.4 million. They mentioned that they had discussed these issues with the Senate Environment Committee.

Professor Nichol, Faculty Environment Committee Chair, and Present Nosco commended Mr. Chiaramonte and Mr. D’Autremont for their presentation and their consultations with Faculty Environment Committee regarding the fee increase. At this point the Parking Fee Increase Resolution was introduced. It passed with four abstentions.

President Nosco introduced the Admission to University Events for Faculty resolution which called for the equalization of ticket prices for faculty and staff to that charged to students. Following a brief discussion, the resolution failed to pass with four Senators abstaining.

Professor Dutton presented the resolution calling for the Provost to establish a distance and distributed learning center at USC. During the discussion, it was noted that under the direction of the Provost, Professor Thomas O’Malia from the Business School may already be assuming the role of director of such a center. Many wondered if the resolution was necessary if Provost Armstrong has, in fact, established a distance learning center. The resolution was Tabled (12 to 8 to table). The idea was to invite Professor O’Malley to a future Senate meeting to discuss his role in establishing a center for distance learning.