BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
FACULTY SENATE
Meeting of the 2010-11 Faculty Senate
The meeting was held on February 17th, 2011 from 3:00pm-5:00pm in the Heller
Building Room G53
Present: Bishop, Burt, Dibble, Garnick, Hall, Hickey, Lichtman, Meyer, Morrison,
Nandakumar, Ratner, Rosenberg, von Mering
Absent: Flesch, Herzfeld, Molinsky, Nelson, Parmentier,
Guests: Dean Adam Jaffe and Jody Gittell
Approval of Minutes
Senate moved to approve the minutes for the January 20th, 2011 Faculty Senate Meeting.
Review of Recent Senate Council Activity
• The Senate has received nominations for the Dean’s search committee. These
nominations will be ranked by the Senate members. After the February break, the
Senate Council meet with provost and finalize the committee. Tim Hickey
encouraged the Senators to nominate as well, especially if they felt there was a
qualified candidate that had been overlooked or an area lacking representation.
• The search for a head of LTS will start after the break.
• The Senate discussed topics to add to the agenda for the next Faculty Meeting.
o It was suggested that a representative from Psychological Counseling
come to talk to faculty about available resources should an instructor have
concerns about a student.
o Pass/fail issue discussion. The proposal will be discussed to make the
pass/fail option on transcripts only available if the grade received is “C-“
or better. It was suggested that information might be requested from the
registrar on grade inflation. It was also suggested that this could be a
request to the Associate Provost for Assessment.
Workload Proposal
Dean Adam Jaffe joined the Senate meeting to discuss the revised Workload Policy
Document. Dean Jaffe stressed that the revisions to the policy were more about filling in
specifics than making changes. In the fall, Jaffe held discussions with a number of
different groups and as well as the department chairs. While he said the report received a
lot of support from these groups, the committee wanted to make that the procedures and
details of the policies were clear. Steve Berg and Karen Hansen joined the committee to
develop the revised document. The committee thought that the previous document was
too specific in requiring the teaching of the extra course. Though this might be
appropriate in some cases, they felt it would be better to have a broader conception of
ways in which contributions could be increased. This would allow more for qualitative
changes as opposed to simply the quantitative change of adding additional courses. This
revised document is less specific in these regards and more open ended about how results
of reasonable contributions could be achieved. In addition, this version does not specify
the consequences, as the previous document did, with the specific twenty percent pay cut.
Rather the revision states that a faculty member in noncompliance with the requests
should expect no raises, no sabbatical, etc. This document does state that the Dean does
have the authority to cut salaries, but does not specifically say how much or at what level
this would be enforced. Finally, Dean Jaffe emphasized that this document stresses the
ways in which this type of review can be a constructive process. Jaffe said that, while it
is not required under the faculty handbook, he would like the approval of the Senate for
the document.
Jaffe added that the current plan is to have the Faculty Activity report link active the next
week, allowing faculty time to work on these over the break. He suggested the possibility
of sending a notice to faculty regarding the proposed policy, reminding them of the report
from last May, and indicating that the document is in the last stages of finalization. The
date for publication of the report will be prior to the final deadline for activity reports, but
reminding faculty of the proposed policy would enable them to consider this document
when completing the activity report. Though it is still in draft stage, Jaffe said that if
requested he would provide a copy of the document to a faculty member.
After Jaffe left the meeting, the Senate members discussed the revisions. It was agreed
that the Senate would issue a “Sense of Senate” letter to the Dean expressing support for
the document.
HR Policy Report
Jodi Gittell, who served as the Chair of the HR policy Committee, joined the Senate to
discuss the proposal to harmonize harassment policies at the university and the
development of a staged procedure for addressing issues.
A question was raised as to whether or not this policy and procedure sought to address
sexual harassment as well as other types of harassment. Some feedback from the
community has expressed that the policy did not seem expansive enough to include more
dramatic cases of sexual harassment.
Gittell expressed that in regards to matters of academic freedom and free speech, that the
committee chose to treat Brandeis more like a public university than a private institution.
The desire was to protect free speech at Brandeis on an equal footing with that provided
by the law to public universities. A question was raised as to whether this policy protects
all free speech at Brandeis (by students, staff, visiting lecturers) or simply faculty
members. Gittell said it was the intention of the committee to protect all free speech on
campus, but that there might need to be more explicit language in the policy to cover this.
The policy was sent for review by legal counsel at Brandeis, but they deferred review
until after the policy has been passed from the President. The Senate has suggested a
meeting with members of the Senate Council, members of the HR Policy Committee and
President Lawrence to discuss the recommendations of this report.
Meeting adjourned at 5:00pm.