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October 10, 2002
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October 10, 2002
Attending: Nancy Amstrong, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Richard Fishman, Peter Gromet, John Savage, and Michael White.
Absent: Russell Church, Rajiv Vohra
Guests: Russell Carey, Beverly Ledbetter, Bill Beeman
Modifications to the minimal set of requirements that administrative advisory boards should meet to be recognized by the Faculty were made. We agreed to require that boards meet at least twice per semester and that they have an executive committee consisting of at least the chair and vice chair which sets the agenda for the board. We agreed to require that the Vice Chair of each board present the board's annual report to the Faculty unless unavailable in which case it should be presented by the Chair.
We approved the Faculty Diversity Subcommittee (FDS):
We reexamined language approved at a previous meeting. We also approved item f. in the charge that acknowledges that FDS will be a standing subcommittee of this committee. We also changed the reporting requirement under d. to once annually from twice annually because good data is only available once per year from the Dean of the Faculty's office.
The General Counsel Beverly Ledbetter proposed a number of changes to our previous draft of the Committee on Grievance that we accepted. They include change in the language defining persons other than faculty members who can use the proposed grievance procedures and language that better defines the rights of members of the academic community on which grievances can be filed. The additions also make clear that the new committee is to be used for matters that are unique to the academic community. Finally, the language was changed to recognize that the Committee can find a violation of Brown's non-discrimination policy and not only that discrimination has occurred against a grievant.
The new version of the policy will be available via the website of the Task Force. It will be shown to the Provost for his approval.
The existing policy on sexual harrassment will be continued in some form to be determined later. It should be noted that a determination under this policy that a tenured faculty member should be terminated can be appealed to the Committee on Grievance.
After we split the UCC into the CCC and Graduate Council, changes were not made in their memberships that we corrected.
We added an Associate Dean for Undergraduate Biology Education to the membership of the CCC. This is consistent with a previous recommendation of the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences concerning the UCC.
We recommend deleting the Provost and Dean of the Faculty from the membership of the Graduate Council and replacement of the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences with the Associate Dean for Research. The question was raised if the Vice President for Research should be a member of the Graduate Council. This question and the proposed changes will be addressed to those who might be affected and will be implemented if their approval is granted.
We discussed email that we have received from Prof. Gretchen Schultz concerning an amendment to our motion to replace CONFRAT with TPA. After an exchange with members of the Task Force we understand that she will introduce a motion that will read somewhat as follows:
"The voting members will be twelve tenured faculty of distinction actively involved in research and teaching, three each from the Humanities, Social Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Life Sciences. One member of each academic division shall have the rank of associate professor, and two members of each academic division shall have the rank of full professor. The Vice Chair shall be elected from among the elected faculty in their second year of service on the Committee, and shall become Chair during his or her third year on the Committee.
As a separate motion we understand she will propose the following:
"There shall be at least four women members and two members of underrepresented minorities among the voting members of the Committee."
We noted that Prof. Schultz's language left open the possibility that the Vice Chair and/or Chair might be associate professors, which would impair the work of TPA. We recommend that this matter be brought to her attention.
In the event that not enough qualified associate professors would be available to serve on TPA, we recommend that she think about changing the language to read "no more than one" per division instead of one per division.
To avoid conflicts of interest, we recommend that she consider adding language stating that associate professors must recuse themselves when cases involving candidates in these ranks come before TPA.
Finally, concern was expressed that the number of TPA faculty members from a division could be reduced to one from three were an associate professor to recuse him/herself as well as a member of the candidate's department.
To obtain partial parity with Prof. Schultz proposal except on the matter of rank we agreed to modify the qualifications for membership on TPA to be "full professor active in research and teaching." This would narrow the difference in our statement of qualifications and that proposed by Prof. Schultz.
We agreed that members of TPA must recuse themselves when a case from their department comes before the committee but didn't agree upon language for insertion into TPA's description.
The Task Force discussed email received from Prof. Elaine Bearer, Chair, Committee on the Status of Women (CSW) containing the minutes of the 9/30 meeting of her committee which report that members of the committee will request the continuation of CSW.
The Task Force believes that the FAC, representing all faculty and given a comprehensive charge, will be a much more effective vehicle to deal with the issues that CSW has attempted to address over the years.
We recommend that every Faculty committee that is currently engaged in activities that are not yet completed should continue their work until completed. We also encourage every existing committee to work closely with the committees that will absorb their work. A communique to this effect will be prepared for transmission to CSW.
We agreed that UCC should choose its Chair from among the faculty members on the committee. We also deleted the method of election section that was carried over inadvertently from a previous version of the committee.
We agreed to add to the charge of FEC the requirement that it report annually on the composition of Faculty committees and administrative advisory boards. It was noted that if the nominations process becomes too time consuming for FEC, that it could create an elected subcommittee for this purpose. Also, since a Faculty motion will be introduced to review the effectiveness of the new committees and boards after two years of operation, changes can be made in the charge to FEC if the nominations process becomes burdensome.
The Chair reported on conversations with Dr. Martin Weinstock, Chair of MFEC, who said that MFEC will be discussing the relationship between hospital-based faculty members and the campus-based committees and boards. The Chair informed Dr. Weinstock that suggestions are most welcome but that in the interim, it should be noted that every hospital-based voting member of the Faculty can serve on all campus-based Faculty committees and boards.
We discussed with the Chair of the FEC that we should consider holding a second Faculty meeting in November to ensure that we complete the work of the Task Force, except for the creation of individual administrative advisory boards, by the December Faculty meeting.
We agree with the FEC Chair that we should take up APC, URC and TPA first, followed by UCC, CCC, and Graduate Council. We should also try to pass a motion giving FEC to make cosmetic changes in Faculty Rules at the first November meeting. However, we anticipate putting all the changes on the agenda for the November meeting with the understanding that unfinished business will be carried over to subsequent meetings.
For each proposed committee or board a motion will be needed specifying the new language to be inserted into the rules as well as the language to be deleted. Each motion requires a preamble explaining the motion. The Chair of the Faculty will prepare such preambles.
Submitted by
John E. Savage