THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA

FACULTY SENATE MINUTES

October 2, 2003

Faculty Senate Members Present:Rich Allen, David Ashe, Stephanie Bellar, Nicholas Boer, Roger Briley, Chris Brockman, Linda Collins, Neal Coulter, Parthansarati Dileepan, Fritz Efaw, Marvin Ernst, David Garrison, Matt Greenwell, Bill Harmen, Jim Henry, Jim Hiestand, Lauri Hyers, Rick Keyser, Anne Lindsey, Terry LeMonye, Claire McCullough, Gail Meyer, Greg O’Dea, Burch Oglesby, Gretchen Potts, Stacy Ray, Sean Richards, Judith Wakim, Randy Walker, Joe Wilferth

Faculty Senate Members Absent:Obasi Haski-Akan, Mike Bell, Anne Johnson, Robin Lee, Joe Owino, John Trimpey, Barbara Walton

Ex-Officio Members Present:John Friedl, Jocelyn Sanders, Bill Stacy, Dan Quarles

Among the Guests Present:Deborah Arfken, Jan Arp, Fran Bender, Herb Burhenn, Chuck Cantrell, Cindy Carroll, Maria Derrick, Maurice Edwards, Gene Ezell, Leroy Fanning, Jennifer Folsom, Danny Grant, Jennifer Hoff, Phil Kazermersky, Robert Keller, Lisa Keylon, Boonie Warren-Kring, Deborah McAllister, Diane Miller, Charles Nelson, Linda Orth, Lynn Ourth, Lindsay Pardue, Meredith Perry, David Pittenger, Verbie Prevost, Mary Tanner, Monty Wilson

With 19 members of the Senate present, President Ernst called the meeting to order at 3:00.

The minutes of the September 18 meeting were approved by a voice vote.

The agenda for the October 2 meeting was amended to include New Business.

Executive Committee Report: President Ernst

Three faculty members were nominated to participate in the presidential search process. Dr. Stephanie Bellar and Dr. Gene Ezell were nominated for the search committee. They are two nominees of eight from which the Governor will select faculty representatives. Dr. Richard Becherer was nominated for the advisory committee which will winnow down the candidate list.

Administrative Reports: John Friedl

Dr. Friedl moved to take motion one from the Sept. 18 meeting off the table. The motion was seconded by Jim Hiestand. The vote to take the motion off the table passed 16-6.

Dr. David Pittenger opened the discussion by reading a statement to the Faculty Senate. He offered:

“Dear Colleagues,

I have been increasingly concerned by the current ill will that pervades the university. It seems clear that a number of events have created an atmosphere of frustration and resentment. One of the more visible consequences of these emotions is an attack on individuals, specifically accusations made against the Chancellor and the Provost. An example is this motion. I do not believe it is appropriate.

I fear that the motion, if passed, will convict without having judged the situation fairly while simultaneously overlooking the actions of others that precipitated the event. Of greater concern is my belief that the motion only increased the pernicious environment created by unresolved resentment. Succinctly, what will the passage of this motion accomplish?

If we censure Dr. Friedl and he leaves UTC, what will we have accomplished? We will hire another provost who will then be required to face and respond to the current circumstances. In other words, we may recognize that there is a new administrator, but fail to recognize that the underlying and systemic problems of the University remain.

If we rebuke Dr. Friedl, will we become enamored by the false sense of power and consequently rebuke any administrator who threatens our sense of civility? I fear that we will become misled to assume that we have a useful tool to further some amorphous cause. Unfortunately, the tool may well become an implement of destruction rather than repair.

At the risk of sounding Pollyannaish, I wish to note that we do not suffer the problems created by a single person. Rather, I believe we suffer from an environment and culture that has lead the university to its current state. To be blunt, we, as faculty, should be willing to accept as much responsibility for allowing conditions to deteriorate to their current state as we ascribe to the administration.

What, then, is the alternative? I recommend that we stop lashing out at individuals and specific circumstances. We must recognize that civil discourse, while polite, has the potential to lay bare certain truths that affect us, sometimes negatively. We must recognize that civil discourse requires that we be willing to participate in the process of making difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions.

To that end, I ask that you vote against this motion.

Furthermore, I respectfully ask my colleagues to suspend superficial attacks against the style of individuals, and that the Senate and faculty collaborate with the Chancellor and Provost on the substantive matters that define this university, its strengths and its weaknesses.

Sincerely,

David J. Pittenger

Professor and Head

Department of Psychology”

(The secretary thanks Dr. Pittenger for providing the actual text of the letter for the record.)

After Dr. Pittenger’s statement, there was a wide ranging discussion of the merits of the motion and the intent of the motion. Those issues included concerns about:

  • In favor of the motion although there may be a need for an amendment to make it clear that the problem revolves around a disparity of power that makes this deserving of special attention.
  • There may be uncivil behavior on all sides, but the position of the Faculty Senate is to defend the faculty against a misuse of power.
  • We must make sure that any changes we propose keeps the integrity of message.
  • Stand in opposition to our addressing this issue because Provost has not had a chance to respond to the accusations.
  • We need to move on everyone should know you must watch what you say on Raven
  • We should not censure the Provost since he was placed on the agenda to address the twenty questions.
  • The motion is about the behavior of the Provost at a public meeting, not about a faculty member baiting the Provost.
  • Would I have behaved differently, probably but I don’t find the behavior as horrible as depicted.

Dr. Friedl clarified that he had been asked to respond to the twenty questions.

Given that the discussion was becoming circular, President Ernst offered a substitute motion:

“Faculty Senate regrets that the situation of the change in the Honors Program became a personalityconflict and we hope that we can return to the state of collegial interaction.”

Dr. Friedl stated that he did not support a substitute motion.

The substitute motion failed a voice vote.

The question on the main motion was called for.

Linda Collins requested a secret ballot which requires one-fourth of the Senate present and voting to approve.

There was then a discussion of the nature of a representative body and secret ballots and the extent to which representatives vote their individual conscious or vote as charged by their division. (Cool debate for a scribe who is a political scientist.)

The vote, by show of hands was 10yea -17nay, thus the one-fourth standard was met.

Ballots for the main motion were made and distributed.

Two, non-faculty, guests were asked to serve as the official counters. The result was 10 in favor of the motion, 16 opposed to the motion, 2 abstaining. The vote total is correct. The Senate Secretary, as a member of the Senate hasvoting privileges. She does not vote when counting votes but since she was not counting ballots, she voted.

Extra Service Pay: Two guests from Knoxville were here to explain the system response to Federal Circular A21. Bob Levy—Academic Affairs and Ron Maples-- Comptroller

Dr. Levy began the discussion by saying there are various issues surrounding the system policy. They were not here to usurp decision making responsibilities that lie here at UTC. Overall the general issue is not settled. Dr. Levy said he thought that Chancellor Stacy’s email to the campus was right in its basics. The problem is that not everyone agrees with Chancellor Stacy and Dr. Levy. Dr. Levy suggested that there are five major points.

  1. UTC system campuses must be in compliance with FederalRegister Circular A21. Failure to comply can result in loss of funds.
  1. In addition to compliance, the spirit is we should be working full time at our jobs.
  1. Strictly construed this applies only to federal and federal flow though grants and contracts.
  1. But, a UT system campus would be smart to follow A21 in grants other than federal or flow through treat all government grants the same.
  1. The campus may elect to handle non-governmental grants differently. But, we would be well served to follow the federal guidelines.

Ron Maples provided background as to what happened on the other campuses. Knoxville and Memphis had to do a cost disclosure statement. Memphis was audited and found lacking. They changed policies and procedures. Knoxvilleis still waiting on their audit. Then we—the system-- implemented Iris. They also hired a consultant HURON who quickly pointed out that one thing which needed to be fixed was extra service pay

HURON offered that they believed UT should revise to restrict 9 month employees from using extra service pay. Their statement is:

“Additional Considerations

We understand that faculty currently receiving extra service pay for work performed on grants and contracts will resist a change to current practices even though current practices are inconsistent with UT’s Fiscal Policy. We encourage the University to consider alternative incentives to reward faculty actively engaged in sponsored research activities. Suggestions include:

  • Increase the base pay of research faculty to reflect the time spent working on grants and contracts.
  • Encourage faculty members to “buy out” time spent on other activities in order to conduct sponsored research.
  • Develop an incentive program (such as the program offered by The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture) that rewards faculty engaged in sponsored research activities by distributing payments from the E&G accounts.
  • Increase (or redirect) indirect cost recovery funds allocated to the investigator for use at their discretion.
  • Provide non-monetary benefits such as new equipment, improved lab space, etc.”

Dr. Levy and Mr. Maples emphasized that they encourage the university to reward faculty with other incentives.

On the Knoxville campus, they have restricted extra service pay on federal and other government.

They cautioned that they were not sure if we needed to have different rules for each campus or it may need to be system wide.

One point is clear 100% effort is 100%,that is the nature of a job and work.And that is the logic of the rule: we cannot overlay a grant job on top of full time employment.

However, if we wanted to use a policy like Memphis or the Agriculture Institute, we could.

Dr. Friedl inquired about the issue of indirects. We should not be stricter or more lenient than the other campuses?

Faculty can earn up to one third of their annual income forsummer work that comes through the university.

Outside compensated work has no dollar amount as long as it does not exceed the 20% time limit and is related to your profession.

Faculty restated that a summer timeframe is unrealistic for a lot of grants. Mr. Maples suggested that it would be appropriate to have release time in the academic yearand be compensated with money in the summer. Faculty pointed out that some grants require the principle investigator be paid throughout the grant period in regular increments. This rule will make some grants impossible to administer.

When asked about the implementation date, Mr. Maples replied that September 1, 2003 was the date. They have been treating grants in operation before September 1 as grandfathered in with the conditions of the grant as awarded in effect.

Senate members asked “how soon can we have a policy for our campus?” President Ernst said he had asked the Chancellor to invite someone from the Agriculture Institute to come speak to the Senate. Dr. Levy recommended Tom Klindt. Senators further requested that the administrationseek faculty input in the policy.

A different concern was that participants remember we have a culture of being a teaching school and we may need an incentive package that helps us recognize that history and the need to engage in research.

Dr. Keller offered that NSF had a different take on the problem. He asked

“why isn’t the university more proactive in lobbying government to remove the roadblocks?”

There was a more general discussion about the disconnect on our campus. We currently have people well compensated with the hopes they will be big grantees while we have people who are successful as grants men, compensated more modestly, who are seeing their incentive, extra service pay, being taken away from them.

Some faculty members, who have been awarded grants, said that PI’s have to be paid to be PI---- buying out a class can ruin the grant. In short, this policy will prohibit some grants from being awarded.

Dr. Levy and Mr. Maples suggested we go back to the HURON report and use it as a template.

President Ernst appointed an ad hoc committee which will try to have draft policy by November 1. Dr. Friedl will help job it.

Jim Henry, Chair

Claire McCullough

Sean Richards

Marvin Ernst

Diane Miller

There was a question about what happens to the compensation when you are written into the grant as a consultant? Mr. Maples was very clear that it had to be across department lines.

Senators reminded Dr. Levy and Mr. Maples that faculty are impacted—not universities. Therefore, faculty need the advocate.

Our guests left to return to Knoxville

Continuing Business

SGA proposal for rating courses is not ready yet.

New Business: There was no new business.

Faculty Concerns:

Where is the committee on administrative raises? They are working on it, expect a report within a reasonable time frame.

On the issue of union membership, faculty can be members but cannot be compelled to be a member.

About the 120 hour rule, President Ernst has asked Curriculum and General Education committees to start investigating how to comply.

Dr. Friedl announced that Joe Johnson has drafted a letter saying fall 2005 is the deadline for getting in compliance with the 120 hour rule.

Motion was made and passed by voice vote, the ballots are to be destroyed.

Adjourned, voice vote,4:38