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Attendance: Approximately 50
Announced Agenda: 7 items
1. Approval of Minutes of March 13, 2001
2. Second reading on revisions to Rice University Organization Policy 201-97, 8c, "Termination of Appointments"
3. Report from University Standing Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum regarding motion referred from last meeting: "All Rice language courses may be used by students to count toward Group I Distribution Requirements."
4. First reading on revisions to Rice University Organization Policy 201-97, sections dealing with promotion and tenure procedures for Schools without Departments.
5. Proposed Calendar for AY 2003 (University Standing Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum)
6. Addition to Rice University Organization Policy 201-97, 3.b.4: Assistant professors are appointed for an initial contract of four years. The first review occurs in the third year. If the assistant professor is re-appointed for a second period, he or she may take a paid, one-semester junior leave devoted entirely to research, scholarship, or creative work, usually in the fourth or fifth year. An assistant professor taking such junior leave agrees to return to the University on the expiration of the leave.
7. Revision to Rice University Organization Policy 201-97, 3.b.4: "Assistant professors are appointed for an initial contract of 4 years. The first review occurs in the third year. If the assistant professor is re-appointed for a second period, he or she may take a paid, one-semester junior leave devoted entirely to research, scholarship, or creative work, usually in the fourth or fifth year. [ADDITION PROPOSED:] UNLESS A DIFFERENT AGREEMENT HAS BEEN CONCLUDED, IT IS UNDERSTOOD THAT AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR TAKING SUCH JUNIOR LEAVE AGREES TO RETURN TO THE UNIVERSITY ON THE EXPIRATION OF THE JUNIOR LEAVE AND TO REMAIN IN ITS SERVICE FOR AT LEAST ONE YEAR THEREAFTER.
Final Faculty Meeting of Academic Year: Friday, May 11, 2001, 10:00 AM
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President Malcolm Gillis called to order at 4:03 PM and chaired the meeting in McMurtry Auditorium of Duncan Hall. Alan Chapman served as Parliamentarian. Guests from the media were acknowledged as being present.
1. Minutes of 03-13-01 Faculty Meeting - On motion duly made and seconded, the Minutes were APPROVED as circulated in advance on the web.
2. Organization Policy 201-97, 8c "Termination of Appointments" [second reading] - Speaking for the Faculty Council, Speaker Robert Patten reminded faculty that all University Policies are adopted by the Board. Faculty may provide advice, but adoption is in the Board's hands. Patten expressed thanks to Tom Haskell, Carl Caldwell and Ed Cox for investigating this issue and making the recommendations passed by the faculty at the previous meeting and are now up for a second reading [see APPENDIX A for link to complete set of proposed changes to 201-97]. These provisions are included to protect the university and the faculty in the case of dire financial exigency. The first part applies when departments or programs are considered for discontinuation due to financial difficulties. There must first be a finding of extreme financial exigency, and second, assurances must be provided that these actions are not simply being used as a cover to eliminate one set of faculty in order to hire others. The second part of the Policy confirms that tenure rests with the university and not with specific departments or programs. Such a policy is designed to allow the university to reorganize as may be appropriate in changing times while still guaranteeing the retention of tenured faculty by relocation within the altered structure.
There being no discussion, the question was called. The recommendation PASSED unanimously on second reading and will be forwarded to the Board for consideration.
3. Deferred Motion from March Meeting: "All Rice language courses may be used by students to count toward Group I Distribution Requirement." - At the previous meeting, Jim Thompson made a motion that was ruled out of order by the Chair because it had not been included in the written agenda. Now that his motion has been included as a written agenda item, Gillis then called on Thompson to restate the motion if he so desired. He obliged as stated above and the motion was seconded. Gillis called on Jack Zammito, Chair of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC), to whom he had referred the issue for comments. Zammito said that the UCC had voted unanimously to oppose the motion for two reasons. First, UCC wants to uphold the general policy established for distribution requirements which was approved overwhelmingly by the faculty during Jerry McKenny's chairmanship. That policy leaves up to the Deans the decision about which courses would be included for distribution credit in their respective schools. Second, UCC opposes the idea that the faculty should intervene on a particular set of courses in a specific school or division, which would in effect violate the general policy previously adopted. However, UCC affirms the idea that individual faculty have the right to advise the individual Deans of specific schools, while leaving the final decision up to the Dean.
After ruling this issue to be of sufficient importance to merit two readings if passed, Gillis recognized Alan Grob to begin the discussion. Grob said that when faculty passed the [now removed] Foreign Language Requirement, Rice already had a freshman language requirement mandating that students must demonstrate freshman-level competency upon arrival or take the courses at Rice. If faculty valued at least some foreign language expertise then, why should we now create a disincentive by refusing to count such courses for distribution credit? He argued that most all courses at any level in certain humanities departments, history in particular, could count for distribution whereas in other groups only a few introductory courses may be used. Why can't freshman language courses be counted? He admitted his lack of understanding of the underlying principles that have created such a disparity among groups in the distribution course selection.
While admitting that wide variations exist among the groups, Ira Gruber corrected Grob by saying that only about 10% of the courses in history may be counted for distribution. The discrepancy probably results in which version of the General Announcements one examines. In his department individual faculty members were asked to recommend to the Dean courses they taught that might satisfy the criteria laid out for distribution credit. It was the Dean who made the final decision. For the last few years he (Gruber) had chaired a committee appointed by the Dean of Humanities to help in the selection process. His committee had considered first year language courses and rejected them because so much time was dedicated to technique (grammar, vocabulary, etc.) that there was simply no time left for culture and other facets of general education.
Thompson responded by saying that his motion was an attempt to avoid the faculty going from mandating that all students must have a foreign language proficiency to a policy that makes it extremely difficult for some of our science and engineering majors to gain these skills. Regarding the faculty vote to rescind the language requirement, he paraphrased a statement by Linda Driskill in an earlier faculty meeting that claimed the 7 to 1 vote to rescind was not a vote against foreign languages per se but was a vote against the way in which the policy had been implemented. His motion provides a simple mechanism that would encourage students who wished to develop foreign language skills without making their curriculum too burdensome.
John Ambler recalled that when distribution requirements were instituted many years ago, almost all courses in several departments made the list. This is a natural consequence of individuals behaving in a self-serving manner to promote their own courses. Ambler argued that there must be some key person with a broad perspective to make the decisions about which courses should be included. He is convinced that the Deans are the logical choice and that by-and-large they have made reasonable decisions in consultation with faculty committees. He opposed the motion as setting a precedent for the general faculty to intervene in the inner workings of individual groups/schools perhaps without a comprehensive knowledge of the fine points that might be involved. Grob countered with the reminder that the Language Proficiency originally passed by the faculty allowed second year language courses to count for distribution credit but not first year courses to avoid the situation where ALL humanities distribution courses could be gobbled up in languages. The courses approved by the various Deans in different schools are quite disparate, thus making it difficult for him (Grob) to find the underlying general principles used in the selection process. It is his understanding that the Language Requirement passed two years ago was supposed to accompany the establishment of freshman seminars and a writing requirement, neither of which has been instituted.
Gale Stokes showed a transparency of the guidelines adopted by faculty in the spring of 1999 which place a heavy emphasis on culture. As interim Dean, he used those guidelines in rejecting first year language courses which are focussed on the techniques of language utilization with little time spent on cultural issues. Reports from language teachers have convinced him that the first year courses by themselves are not sufficient either to give students adequate mastery of the language techniques or to introduce cultural aspects of the language. In his view this does not accord with accepting these courses for distribution credit. Don Morrison agreed with Thompson that the faculty has done a flip-flop in going from a position of making language proficiency a high priority to one where students have difficulty in fitting languages into their schedules. He proposed that the UCC be instructed to investigate creative ways of making languages more attractive perhaps without going through the distribution requirements.
Walter Isle supports the present process where faculty suggest distribution courses to a committee which filters them and makes a recommendation to the appropriate Dean for consideration. He offered an explanation for why so many courses were included in the Group I list of acceptable distribution courses. The revised list, which included far fewer courses, simply did not reach the editors in time to be included in the current General Announcements. That is why the Provost has ruled that any course listed for distribution credit in any General Announcements up to the present time will be acceptable. To clarify the point, Gruber said that there were several different lists of courses that appeared in a variety of places, and that is what necessitated the Provost to intervene with his ruling. In the future, there will be only one list of distribution courses from each school.
Feeling empathy with all speakers on both sides of this issue, Patten expressed concern about embarking on a policy where the general faculty could override decisions of schools about which they had little expertise. For example, being in English he would hesitate to make a judgment about specific courses in Statistics that might be considered for distribution. He noted that many students enter Rice with several hours of AP credit, which creates some flexibility in the curriculum of even the most intensive programs. That could make room for desirous students to take foreign language courses whether or not they counted for distribution credit. In fact, he would like to see the general faculty make a statement to the effect that we encourage students to become more proficient in foreign languages.
Grob stated that all the courses which qualify for distribution credit are on the web and are available to all students who are currently registering for courses in the fall. Nevertheless, several questions remain, e.g. can students take all their distribution courses in a particular Group from the same department? Zammito admitted that there has been some confusion this year, but through the new Provost the issue will be streamlined and clarified for the following years. In an attempt to refocus attention on the motion at hand, Herb Ward said it is an attempt to offer an incentive to Rice science and engineering students to pursue foreign languages as a part of their curriculum. In his mind, the question is whether we will create an incentive through passing the Thompson motion or generate a disincentive by its rejection.
Speaking as a longtime member of UCC, Stan Dodds noted the impossible process of attempting to evaluate the syllabi of all possible courses in all divisions for appropriateness of distribution classification. He appealed to faculty to avoid micro-managing the distribution issue and leave it up to the Deans through their committees to make those decisions. Having served on the Dean's distribution committee, Lynne Huffer confirmed the enormous amounts of time spent in trying to apply the general pedagogical principles for determining distribution credit for individual courses. Even though her foreign language department may not benefit, she urged the faculty to defeat the motion because it would violate the principles already laid down by the faculty.
The question was called, and the motion to stop debate PASSED overwhelmingly. The faculty then DEFEATED the motion by a vote of 24 NO, 14 YES. Gillis ruled that there would be no need for another general faculty meeting since the motion failed.
John Hutchinson appealed for clarity because of the rather twisted history of the language requirement. He stated that the faculty has never resolved the status of the 100- and 200-level foreign language courses, nor the jurisdiction of the Deans. This information is needed for next year's issue of General Announcements which is currently being prepared. It was agreed that the Dean of Humanities does indeed have the responsibility for deciding on whether or not both 100- and 200-level foreign language courses can be used for distribution courses.
4. Rice University Organization Policy 201-97, First Reading - Akin mentioned some editorial wording changes have been made to 201-97 to make the document on hiring and promotion internally consistent. In his view, these are not substantive. A new section has been added to deal with Schools within the University that do not have separate departments. The additions are shown in ATTACHMENT A. Some Schools may choose to involve the entire faculty, while others that have more specialized subunits may involve only the subunits in the hiring/promotion process. In either case the recommendation would be forwarded to the appropriate Dean for usual action. In response to a question, Akin said that the Deans of Architecture, Music, and the Jones Schools had input into this section and that all had approved the present form.
After the president ruled this to be a one-reading issue, the faculty present voted unanimously to APPROVE this section of Policy 201-97, which will now be renamed Policy 201-01.
5. Proposed Calendar for AY 2003 - Patten reported for the UCC had prepared a calendar for AY 2003 (see link through ATTACHMENT B). The fall semester is essentially the same as it has been for the last several years. However, the spring semester has been changed significantly in the following ways. The semester will begin on January 13, one week before Martin Luther King Day. That Monday will be the only holiday during the first eight weeks of the semester. The week's Spring Break, March 10-14, will correspond with the HISD Spring Break to relieve pressures on some Rice employees who have child care issues with which to deal. The Calendar eliminates the two-day holiday that formerly has been associated with Easter. Commencement will be at the usual time on May 10. In summary, the new Spring Calendar changes from a 7/7-week schedule to an 8/6-week split to accommodate the HISD Spring Break and eliminates the 2-day Easter break to more nearly equalize the number of teaching days in the two semesters.
Gruber observed that the elimination of the 2-day break at Easter would probably result in very low class attendance during those days. Faculty should be prepared to deal with this possibility. David Scott questioned making the Drop Deadline on March 31. Patten responded that discussions with the Registrar, Academic Advising, and the UCC had assured him that whatever Calendar is adopted, they were committed to make it work. Dodds suggested that UCC review the "policy" on when the Drop Deadline should be. This has not been comprehensively studied.
The question was called, and the faculty APPROVED (almost unanimously) the proposed Calendar for AY 2003.
6. Organization Policy 201-97, 3.b.4 - Patten said this concerns a possible addendum to section 3.b.4 concerning return to Rice after a Junior Leave [see APPENDIX A]. The expectation of the University is that such a junior person is will return and remain at Rice for at least one year following such a leave. Stokes asked if the "one year" means the following "two semesters," as opposed to a calendar year, regardless of when the leave was taken. The answer is yes.
After ruling this issue to be in the form of a clarification requiring only a single vote, he called the question. Faculty voted unanimously to APPROVE the wording as shown.
7. Other Business - Gillis recalled that several years earlier the Board had approved a limited time retirement incentive package. That package was extended for the next year for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to help decrease the average age of faculty at Rice. The package has ended, although the University remains open to individual approaches.
Gillis once again raised the issue of allowing commercial entities to advertise on the web pages of certain departments and/or schools. Feedback was not enthusiastic about the possibility, but respondents would not object if it served as a significant fundraising mechanism. Stating that the Home Page was off limits, Gillis again appealed for faculty input on whether or not to allow advertising on other pages.
In response to a question, Gillis admitted that many universities, Rice included, have had problems with the new computer software such as PEOPLESOFT and EXETER. While our problems with the latter have been fewer than at most universities, they are nevertheless an annoyance to faculty, students, and staff. Rice is working hard to overcome these difficulties.
There being no further discussion, Gillis adjourned the meeting at ~5:15.
Respectfully submitted,
Joe W. Hightower, Secretary of the Rice Faculty
P.S. On a personal note, I would like to thank Mark Scheid for standing in for me to take some of the notes used in preparing these Minutes. Since I will be officially retiring June 30, I also want to express gratitude to Soky Gallevo and Shisha Van Horn without whose help I could not have served as Secretary. Finally, I want to thank all of you for correcting misspelled names and identifying other mistakes that crept into early versions of the Minutes. My best wishes go with whoever takes on this responsibility for the next few years.
ATTACHMENTS - 2
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ATTACHMENT A
Proposed Changes in Rice University Policy 201.97
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ATTACHMENT B
Proposed Calendar for AY-2003 (Fall '02 and Spring '03)