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Executive Committee
Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
Annual Report
2002-2003
The Executive Committee met weekly
during the academic year 2002-2003. In addition, members of the Executive
Committee served as liaisons and met with the Educational Policy Committee
(Kathleen Camara) and the Budget and Priorities Committee (David Garman).
Members of the Executive Committee also served as faculty representatives
to the Board of Trustees and met with three of their subcommittees:
Academic Affairs (Kathleen Camara), Finances (David Garman), and
Development (Gregory Botsaris). Emily Bushnell chaired the committee in
Fall 2002. Gary Goldstein chaired in Spring 2003 (E. Bushnell was on
leave). Steve Marrone served as Clerk, keeping summaries of meetings and a
file of formal correspondences. Cathy Doheney provided invaluable
assistance during the year with scheduling, announcements, agenda setting
and information.
In the Summer 2002 some members of the committee met with various chairs
of faculty committees to discuss the transition to new structures. G.
Botsaris reviewed committee annual reports to identify issues that the
faculty considered important and unresolved. This latter process proved to
be quite effective for setting agendas for several AS&E faculty meetings,
as will be indicated below.
The Committee met in August, 2002, with new Provost Jamshed Bharucha to
welcome him, to outline the Committees charge, and to begin a dialog that
continued through the year. At subsequent meetings with the Provost
discussions concerned many issues including faculty governance, hiring and
promotion processes, support for faculty research and financial
implications of new programs.
Major items of business in 2002-03
On Sept.25, 2002 the Executive Committee presided over
an Open Meeting of the AS&E faculty in which several important issues were
brought forward. Some particular concerns raised in the previous year's
various AS&E committee annual reports were discussed. Over the year some
of these issues were resolved. Others were resolved in part, while
particulars remain to be dealt with. Still others have not been acted
upon, as far as this committee is aware. In the latter category are
several major concerns of the faculty that were revisited at the AS&E
meetings.
Issues that were raised and have since been acted
upon by the administration included:
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(Subcommittee on Foreign Programs) setting a policy
for accepting new foreign programs. A moratorium on proposals has been
set.
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(Committee on University Art Collections) setting a
policy for incorporating donations into the collection. The committee
will work with Dean Ernst and a development representative to
determine appropriate placement of gifts.
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(Faculty Research Awards Committee) providing
funding for Senior Scholar Leaves. By the end of Spring term the
Provost announced that the number of such leaves would be doubled. It
had been decided that the Provosts office will pay one third of the
costs, the Deans' office the remaining two thirds. The number of
junior faculty leaves granted by FRAC will also be doubled to four.
There will be no full-time replacements, but coverage will be provided
for the lost courses.
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Providing adoption benefits. Dean Ernst raised the
question of benefits for parents of adopted children at our committee
meeting with representatives of various benefits committees and
Stephanie DiBurro of the benefits office (see below). In April, 2003 a
policy was brought before the faculty by Dean Ernst to extend the
probationary period for tenure consideration by one year for the birth
or adoption of a child for the primary care giver. The AS&E faculty
approved the policy.
Issues that were raised but remain unsettled include:
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(Committee on Budget and University Priorities and
University Benefits Committee) determining possible retirement package
guidelines and post-retirement health benefits. No action has been
taken on early retirement or regular retirement guidelines at this
time, as far as we know. Our committee met November 13 with members of
Faculty Research Support and Facilities Committee, AS&E Salary
Corollaries and Benefits Panel, AAUP, University-wide Benefits
Advisory Committee - Behrouz Abedian, Sheldon Krimsky, Fred Nelson -
and Stephanie DiBurro of the Benefits Office in order to get an
overview of outstanding questions, issues and concerns. It had been
hoped that benefits issues could be brought before the faculty for an
extended discussion. However, the limited number of AS&E meetings made
this unfeasible, given all the other business that had to be covered.
Retirement packages and post-retirement health benefits will be
revisited by the committee in the coming year. We will urge that a
substantial part of the agenda for an AS&E meeting be devoted to a
discussion of benefits.
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Reviewing the new block schedule. There are many
concerns about the new scheme and many suggestions have been made. We
suggested a comprehensive review be undertaken, possibly involving a
consultant.
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Setting the faculty calendar. A considerable amount
of AS&E meeting time was spent on fine-tuning a five-year calendar. In
order that such a protracted discussion not occur at a future faculty
meeting (causing other business to be postponed), our committee
recommended that the responsibility of vetting future calendars be
given to a subcommittee of EPC.
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(Library Committee) setting the library budget.
This was discussed before the faculty at this meeting. The Library
Committee was concerned about insufficient funds for its projected
activities. Perhaps this issue will arise again in committee annual
reports. Two other library issues were the new copyright rules and the
charges for printing at Tisch. These concerns were not resolved.
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(Faculty Research Support and Facilities Committee)
setting benefits for faculty receiving summer salary through Tufts.
There are several members of that committee who think that summer
benefits should be the same as benefits received during the academic
year. This is an unresolved issue.
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(Computer Facilities and Usage Committee) deciding
on an administrator. Many faculty members have argued that there is a
serious need for an administrator with sole authority and
responsibility for Academic Technology. The Computer Committee
reported: "The chronic lack of coordinated leadership in academic
information technology for AS&E has reached a crisis stage."
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(Oversight Panel on Race and Diversity)
facilitating discussion and progress in issues involving race and
ethnicity that effect our students in the classroom. We invited
Yves-Rose SaintDic (Affirmative Action Officer - Office of Equal
Opportunity), Margery Davies ( Director - Diversity Education and
Development for A&S), Jean Wu (Program Director - Office of Dean of
A&S), and faculty members of the Oversight Panel, Marilyn Glater and
Chip Gidney to our Nov.6 committee meeting in order to identify the
major issues and to determine possible actions that can be taken by
the faculty and administration. This led to the structuring of the
Feb.5 AS&E meeting to facilitate small group discussions. The focus
was on problems facing our students in the classroom and in relation
to faculty, staff, advisors and administrators regarding
discrimination related to race and ethnicity. Each of nine groups
considered such problems and discussed some possible actions that can
be taken to begin to alleviate these difficult problems. Reports back
from those groups led to the introduction of three motions presented
by the committee at the Mar.5 AS&E meeting. Those motions were passed,
with minor modification, at the following meeting Apr.2.
See the Appendix below.
Other business of note
A new procedure has been adopted for AS&E meetings,
at the President's urging. Motions that are introduced at one meeting
will not be voted on until the next meeting. This allows time for
faculty to consider the motion and for those who were not present to
apprise themselves of the arguments. This rule was usually followed.
Agenda setting meetings with the President, some members of the
administration and our committee members were appropriately scheduled in
advance throughout the year. This was a better situation than last year,
enabling several of us to attend regularly.
The Committee met with two members of the visiting Accreditation
Committee to answer questions concerning faculty governance, both about
structure and effectiveness. The visitors were dismayed by the
complexity of the AS&E committee structure and wondered how actual
decisions could be made and implemented amidst that complexity. We
admitted that there were problems, but pointed out that the process of
restructuring was underway, although moving in small increments. The
visitors had both been instrumental in major restructuring in their home
institutions and had some useful suggestions.
Our representatives to the AS&E Budget and Priorities Committee and the
Trustees Finance Committee (David Garman), the EPC and the Trustees
Academic Affairs Committee (Kathleen Camara) and the Trustees
Development Committee (Greg Botsaris) reported back to us after the
Trustees meetings.
The restructuring of A&S committees, instituted last year, met with some
disagreement about the new structures from each of the 3 new combined
groups. We met with Montserrat Teixidor, chair of the Academic Standing
and Honors Committee, who expressed the view that the 2 main functions
of this committee were too disjoint to be under the same umbrella. After
some discussion, it was proposed that the committee try to allocate its
time and responsibilities differently and to allow another year of
operation. A similar message was given to Rosemary Taylor, chair of EPC
regarding Plans-of-Study. Early in the year Fulton Gonzalez, chair of
the Academic Review Board, had questions about the merger of several
curriculum subcommittees into one large group. Again we urged another
trial year to work out the difficulties.
The differing responsibilities of the Faculty Advisory Board and this
Executive Committee were discussed again, vis--vis inclusion in
discussions of administration restructuring. Last year we clarified the
distinct roles of the two committees concerning searches for
administrative positions - the Faculty Advisory Board is to be
consulted. However, it was the opinion of the faculty members of this
committee that our committee should be consulted when changes in AS&E
administrative positions are contemplated, or when new positions are
created. Given that there are several positions now open, this issue was
timely.
During the year, the Executive Committee also met in separate sessions
for general information exchange with Dean of the Colleges Charles
Inouye, newly appointed Dean Kevin Dunn, members of the Task Force on
Undergraduate Education, members of the accreditation subcommittee on
faculty governance, and faculty member Jim Glaser (on behalf of AAUP
with regard to faculty salaries).
The faculty needs more time for discussion and action on issues of
considerable interest. Given the crowded agendas of AS&E meetings this
year, we recommend that there be at least two more meetings scheduled
for the next academic year. This recommendation will be implemented.
Dean Ernst and the faculty members of the Committee agreed to assure
(through scheduling) that Deans and faculty be in attendance together at
a number of meetings during the year, particularly when it is important
for advancing the agenda of AS&E business.
Respectfully submitted,
2002-03 Executive Committee
elected faculty members:
Paula Aymer (Spring 2003)
Gregory Botsaris
Emily W. Bushnell, chair Fall 2002 (on leave Spring 2003)
Kathleen Camara
David Garman
Gary Goldstein, chair Spring 2003
Steven Marrone
administrative members:
Susan Ernst
Ioannis Miaoulis replaced by Vincent Manno
Appendix
Proposed Faculty Actions on Race and Diversity Issues
in Students Academic Experience
From the Faculty Executive Committee
A substantial number of AS&E faculty members
participated in a workshop on February 5 concerning Race and Diversity as
it affects our students. Some nine proposals were distributed as possible
courses of action for the faculty to consider. Discussions at eight tables
were summarized and reported back to the Faculty Executive Committee. From
our reading of those summaries, and our own recollections, it seems that
there is considerable support for proceeding with several of the
proposals.
We begin this process with three proposals that received strong support.
We submit these as motions for debate and vote by the faculty. In the
future we will return to other aspects of the discussion that were
particularly important for the participants.
We would also like to inform the faculty that we are pursuing an
examination (elucidation or expansion and clarification) of the process by
which student complaints get heard and acted upon. This will involve the
Executive Committee in further meetings with the Office of Equal
Opportunity, the Office of Diversity Education and Development, the Equal
Educational Opportunity Committee, the Oversight Panel on Race and the
Deans of the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering. We
are also planning to encourage the separate departments to do self-studies
on the departmental atmosphere surrounding race and diversity in
classroom, advising and departmental office business. We endorse the
current initiative of the Oversight Panel on Race to begin a pilot program
directed toward this goal.
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Be it resolved that all departments in Arts, Sciences
and Engineering will by the end of May 2004 devote at least one
departmental meeting (or perhaps a longer "retreat") to issues of race
and ethnicity in the classroom. In preparing for their meetings,
departments are encouraged to work with the Office of Diversity
Education and Development and the Office of Equal Opportunity.
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Be it resolved that all departments in Arts, Sciences
and Engineering will set as a goal having at least 50% of departmental
faculty attend one of the university-sponsored workshops on diversity,
such as those currently offered by the Office of Diversity Education and
Development, before the end of May 2005. To meet this goal, it will be
necessary for the University to engage other facilitators in addition to
the Office of Diversityfor instance, the Office of Equal Opportunity or
outside consultants. The Executive Committee is encouraged to work with
the offices of the Deans of the School of Arts and Sciences and the
School of Engineering to seek financial support through the Diversity
Fund of Arts, Sciences and Engineering.
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Be it resolved that the Faculty request the Deans of
the School of Arts, Sciences and Engineering and the School of
Engineering to ask that chairs include in the annual departmental
reports a specific item addressing departmental efforts related to
diversity. Included in this item would be a report on departmental
progress towards achieving the goals laid out in resolutions 1 and 2
above.
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