Academic Senate
Minutes of the Meeting of May 12, 1999

Present: E. Accampo, J.L. Anderson, M. Bolger, A. Crigler, F. Feldman, J.Gates, R. Guralnick, V. Henderson, P. Heseltine, B. Jansson, M. Kann, H. Kaslow, B. Knight, B. Kosko, R. Labaree (and alternate for L. Wegner, J. Nyquist, M. Safonov, G. Schierle, G.A. Fleischer, H. Schor, C. Silva-Corvalan, H. Slucki (alternate for R. Jelliffe), P. Starr, C. Synolakis, W. Thalmann, W. Tierney, M. Weinstein, W. Wolf, M.Zeichner-David, R. Zimmer

Absent: G. Albrecht, M. Apostolos, H. Cheeseman, D. Crockett, T. Gustafson, S. Hamm-Alvarez, D. Leary, L. Miller, A. Mircheff, W. Petak, N. Petasis, D. Polan, K. Price, N. Stromquist

Guests: G. Davis, N. Hanel, M. Levine, S. Pratt, D. Wolf

The last meeting of the 1998-99 academic year was called by President William G. Thalmann to order at 2:55.

Agenda Item #1: Announcements

President Thalmann announced that he had received a response from Michael Jackson, Vice President for Student Affairs, to the Academic Senate resolution recommending spring rush for fraternities and sororities, which was passed at the November 1998 meeting. Rush will continue to take place in the fall for now, but various academic and social problems created by rush have been identified. Fraternities and sororities will be expected to address these problems over the next two years, and if they so not succeed in resolving them the timing of rush will be reconsidered. President Thalmann added that as long as the problems were eliminated faculty probably would not care when rush occurred.

He then drew Senate members' attention to the year-end reports of Academic Senate committees, which had been distributed at the meeting. He summarized the main points of each report and thanked the chairs and members of each committee for their hard and valuable work this year.

Agenda Item #2: Approval of Minutes

Minutes for the April meeting were not ready to submit to the Senate for approval and will be voted on in next September's meeting.

Agenda Item #3: Report: Election Results – Officers and 1999/2000 Executive Board

Robert Labaree, chair of the Committee on Rules, Membership, and Elections, announced the results of the elections for next year's Senate officers:

Academic Vice-President and President-Elect: Gregory Davis, Professor of Earth Science, College of L.A.S. Administrative Vice-President: Ann Crigler, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of L.A.S. Executive Board Members at Large: Jodi Armour, Professor of Law Victor Henderson, Professor of Neurology, School of Medicine, and Professor of Gerontology Austin Mircheff, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine Hilary Schor, Associate Professor of English, College of L.A.S.

Officers continuing next year will be:

President: William Tierney, Professor of Rossier School of Education
Secretary General: Nicos Petasis, Professor of Chemistry, College of L.A.S.
Immediate Past President: William Thalmann, Professor of Classics, College of L.A.S.

President Thalmann thanked all the faculty, elected or not, who had accepted nomination and expressed appreciation for the quality of the ideas they had expressed in their ballot statements.

Agenda Item #4: Faculty Service Award

President Thalmann presented a plaque to the winner of this year's Faculty Service Award, Gerald A. Fleischer, who was selected by an ad hoc committee consisting of Professors Margarita Zeichner-David (Chair), Nelly Stromquist, and Michael Safonov. Now Professor Emeritus of Engineering, Professor Fleischer is a past president of the Faculty Senate. For the last three years he has chaired the Senate Task Force on Retirement, which under his leadership produced a thoughtful and detailed proposal for a Flexible Retirement Option. He worked tirelessly to win its approval by the administration, and most of it in fact is being incorporated into a final proposed retirement plan that is now in preparation by an external law firm retained by the university. Thanks to Professor Fleischer's dedication and leadership, it now seems likely that faculty will have an attractive plan to help them make the transition from full-time service to retirement, and this award is an expression of appreciation for this achievement. In accepting the award, Professor Fleischer made a brief statement concerning service and faculty governance.

President Thalmann then presented a special award on behalf of the Senate and Provost Armstrong to Albert Marston, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Psychiatry, in recognition of his dedicated service for the past five years as the university's first Faculty Mediation Officer. By helping to resolve problems before they reached the stage of formal action and adjudication, he said, Professor Marston has contributed to the improvement of faculty life and of the academic environment at USC. Professor Marston was unable to be present to receive the award in person because he was holding a mediation session at the time of the meeting.

Academic Vice President William Tierney presented a medal to President Thalmann in recognition of his diligent efforts and dedicated service as President of the Faculty for this academic year. Dr. Tierney thanked Dr. Thalmann for the long hours that he had put in everyday during the academic year to deal with Senate issues and the work he did to complete the new handbook. Dr. Thalmann thanked Dr. Tierney and accepted the medal with gratitude. He said it was an honor to hold the position.

Agenda Item #5: Resolution 98/99-11 re Amending Chair Selection Procedure in Faculty Handbook

The next item of business was consideration of a motion proposed by the Engineering Faculty Council and introduced by its Senate representatives to amend the description of selection of chairs in section 2-1(C) of the Faculty Handbook by replacing "and/or" with "and" in the following sentence, which would read:

The chair of a department is appointed by the dean, following selection by (1) departmental election and (2) thorough consultation with the full-time faculty of the department and of related departments. [emphasis added]

Arguments in favor of the motion: a vote by secret ballot is the most accurate way of determining a department's wishes; without an election there is a risk of ambiguity in the results that could undermine the newly appointed chair; there is now no standard by which to determine when a department elects an chair or uses an alternative method of consultation, and consultation of department faculty risks being merely pro forma; an election with other forms of consultation is thus in everyone's interest--the chair, the dean, and the faculty. Opposing arguments: the motion assumes that departments behave rationally and deans irrationally, and neither is invariably true; rather than imposing elections departments should continue to have a choice, and the methods of consultation should be strengthened; in small departments confidentiality is better preserved by consultation than by elections, so that imposing elections is not the best way of determining the department's views. It was also noted that in some units, such as the Medical School, faculty are not consulted at all in the selection of chairs, whether by elections or by other means, and a process for doing so needs to instituted. The motion was passed by a vote of 12 in favor and 8 opposed. There were 7 abstentions.

Agenda item #6: Faculty Handbook Items in Dossier Description and Section 4

President Thalmann brought forward for consideration a description of the dossier for tenured appointments and promotions to tenure. This description was endorsed for inclusion in the Faculty Handbook at the December Senate meeting, to replace a longer description of the dossier that the Senate had recommended for inclusion at its May, 1998 meeting. President Thalmann said that he and Vice Provost Levine were proposing some changes of wording, but not of substance, in the new description. There was, he said, no need to vote again on the proposed description unless the Senate wished to do so. He asked instead if there were objections to any of the suggested changes. After one of the changes was discussed and further altered, no other objections were expressed, and the paragraph as revised will be transmitted to the administration.

A revised draft of Section 4 of the Faculty Handbook, on Faculty/Student Relations, was brought up for a vote and was endorsed unanimously.

Agenda Item #7: Report of Task Force on Medical School Contracts

The final item of business was consideration of the report of the Task Force on Medical School Contracts, which consisted of Professors Thalmann (chair), Tierney, Henderson, and Starr. In introducing the report, President Thalmann emphasized that it attempted to present facts relevant to the contracts issued to Medical School faculty in March and to the structure of salaries in that school. In addition, it identified general issues concerning tenure, compensation, and academic freedom arising from the situation in the Medical School and gave a sample of possible ways to address those issues. The report was thus intended to provide a basis for discussions, extending over the coming summer and fall, by a reconstituted task force, by the Senate, and among Medical School faculty.

Reception of the report was generally favorable, and it was suggested that it be posted on the Senate web site and its presence announced to faculty over various electronic mail list servers. It was suggested that information should be collected on how other major universities deal with issues of tenure and salary guarantees in their medical schools. It was also suggested that, on the view that a grant reimburses the university for a salary obligation, the question should be asked of what the process is by which decisions are made for the use of these funds. It was pointed out in addition that the tuition revenue stream is allocated as it is in the Medical School for historical reasons and not in order to reflect actual contributions to teaching. It was emphasized that the immediate situation of contracts needs to be addressed even while long-term solutions are considered. The contractual relation between tenured faculty in the Medical School and the university is unclear, and there has been laxity about contracts since 1992-93.

Finally, it was pointed out that a considerable attrition of tenured positions has occurred in the Medical School because tenured faculty who depart or retire have been replaced by non-tenure-track faculty. Should this trend be viewed as an erosion of the tenure system and its guarantee of academic freedom or as a reflection of economic reality?

President Thalmann said that all the points made in this discussion should figure in future consideration of these issues.

Agenda item #8: Senate President's Comments

President Thalmann thanked members of the Senate for their contributions to the meetings during the year, and he expressed particular appreciation for the huge contributions of time, energy, and good sense by members of the Executive Board. He closed by saying that one of the rewards of university service was the opportunity to get to know colleagues all across other departments and schools, and that this opportunity was one of many reasons he was grateful for the privilege of serving as Senate president during the past year.

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