October 13, 2011
University of Nevada, Reno
Faculty Senate 2011-12
Special Meeting
Meeting Minutes
Meeting 5
Roll Call and Introductions:
Gerald Ackerman (SOM) via video, Pat Arnott (COS), Rafik Beekun (COBA), Mike Bennett (A & F), Todd
Borman (IT), Patricia Ellison (CABNR), Isabelle Favre (CLA), Isabelle Favre for Marjorie Vecchio
(CLA),Howard Goldbaum for Donica Mensing (JO), Keith Hackett (Pres), Eric Herzik (Immediate Past Chair),
Stephen Lafer (COE), Kami Larsen (SOM), via video, Amy McFarland (SOM), Glenn Miller (CABNR), Denise
Montcalm for Alice Running (CHA), Vannessa Nicholas (Prov), Louis Niebur (CLA), Louis Niebur for Leah
Wilds (CLA), Elissa Palmer (SOM) via audio, Crystal Parrish (DEV), Chuck Price (SS), Maggie Ressel (Lib),
David Ryfe (Chair),Kerry Seymour for Sue Donaldson(COOP), Valerie Smith (VPR), Claudene Wharton
(Pres), David Zeh (Chair Elect).
Absent: Cathy Goring (SOM), Julie Hogan (DHS), Yanyao Jiang (EN).
Guests: Duncan Aldrich (Lib) Dean Scott Casper (CLA), Executive Vice President and Provost Heather Hardy,
President Marc Johnson, Riley Snyder Sagebrush).
Reassignment
Senate Chair David Ryfe called the meeting to order. Senators and guests were given instructions for using the
microphones. Chair David Ryfe gave senators some background on why a special meeting was called. A
special meeting could be called by 25% of the senate and must be held within 10 days from that time. Ryfe
thanked the senate office staff for their hard work in scheduling this video conference; he also thanked
President Johnson, EVVP Hardy, and Dean Casper for rearranging their time to attend this meeting. Ryfe also
gave instructions on how he would run the meeting. First the senate would hear from Johnson, Hardy, and
Casper, then senators could ask questions. He would consider a motion, then a second and then comments
from senators. Public comment would be accepted, public would write down their comments and those would
be read.
The meeting was to discuss the posting for: Assistant Professor, Gender Race and Identity Program (Women’s
Studies) and the reassignment process.
President Marc Johnson reported that he was very involved in the CR process and said that he would like to
address this issue. UNR followed the NSHE Code in this process, Title 2, Chapter 5, section 5.4.6:
5.4.6 Curricular Reasons for Termination. A faculty member may be laid off because an administrative
unit, project, program or curriculum has been discontinued, reduced in size or reorganized for bona
fide reasons pertaining to the missions of the System institutions resulting in the elimination of the
faculty member's position. Such curricular revisions shall come as a consequence of the academic
planning process as established in writing and approved by the presidents of the member institutions
affected, and which may be set forth in the institutional bylaws. For faculty members of the Desert
Research Institute, however, refer to Section 5.8 of the Nevada System of Higher Education Code.
Following the requirements, Johnson said that we went through the whole curricular review process and
academic planning process as approved by former President Glick. German Studies was one of the programs
eliminated. Valerie and several others were given notices of lay off. There were two provisions that we had to
follow, one was Title 2, Chapter 5, section 5.4.7 c.
1|Page
September 15, 2011
Meeting 4
5.4.7 Procedures for Furlough, Pay Reduction or Termination of Employment Due to Financial Exigency or
Curricular Reasons.
(c) If a faculty member is laid off for the above stated reasons, the faculty member's position will not be filled
within a period of two years, unless a reasonable attempt to offer reappointment has been unsuccessful or
reappointment has been offered in writing and the faculty member has not accepted the same in writing within
20 calendar days of the receipt of the offer. The reappointment referred to herein shall be at the faculty
member's previous rank or salary level.
The Valerie Weinstein position was closed forever and the position line was removed as part of the budget
cutting process. The position at issue was a new position.
The second provision of the code is Title 2, Chapter 5, section 5.4.7 b.
(b) The faculty member shall be continued in employment, if possible and if such employment does not result
in the termination of employment of another faculty member, in an appropriate qualified professional capacity
within the System institution involved.
Administration did attempt to find positions for everyone one the layoff list, they did not succeed in all cases.
They did offer some faculty RCUF (renewable, contingent upon funding), positions. In Supply Chain
Management three faculty members were laid off, two faculty members were retained and one of those
decided to retire, which opened up one position. The unit opened a search among those three and one
applied. Johnson gave a couple of other examples of how administration followed these policies within the
budget constraints.
The reconsideration committee came back with a suggestion regarding the downsizing of a program. The
committee felt that it everyone should have an opportunity to apply. For example, in the College of Cooperative
Extension, all those area specialists were laid off and were able to apply for the open positions in their areas of
expertise. This was now policy and would be written into the Administration Manual. Some implications were
made that since we have laid off any tenured faculty that we didn’t value tenure and that was not true.
Administration did not believe that there would be major budget cuts in the future; therefore, there would not be
layoffs of tenured faculty unless they fell under chapter 6 of the code. Tenure was secure and was a long term
contract and faculty could do things that were controversial and would be protected. The size and quality of the
programs was the point of Curricular Review.
Executive Vice President and Provost Heather Hardy said that she appreciated the opportunity to be here and
hoped to provide some information that would be valuable to the session. She said that another valuable
academic principle was that of shared governance. She then spoke about the search approval process.
Searches were more centralized in the past, now salary savings are handled at the deans level, as well as
searches. Hardy explained that in the month of June she was trying to do the job of provost and dean. On June
29, 2011 Jen Hill the new Director of Women’s Studies spoke with Hardy regarding a faculty member who was
planning on resigning effective December 2011. They discussed the process and then Jen Hill was to speak to
Interim Dean Scott Casper spoke about the process in CLA and things unfolded with this search request.
Search requests go through two phases of shared governance. First the request would come forward from the
program or department and they consult with faculty and the strategic plan. Then the request was submitted to
the dean who then prioritized the requests. The second phase was to go through the college planning
committee. The dean submits a search list to the college planning committee for consultation and then the
dean submits the list to the provost. On July 1, 2011 Casper received a letter of resignation from Rosemary
Dixon and then Jen Hill was told how position requests were done. The request was based on the strategic
plan from 2005 and part of the plan was to create two tenure track joint appointments in Women’s Studies, one
with the social science and the other with humanities. The first position was implemented about five years ago.
September 15, 2011
Meeting 4
Rosemary Dixon’s resignation afforded Women’s Studies and Gender Race and Identity Program the
opportunity to hire. The strategic plan of CLA has been to replace lecturers with tenure track positions as they
opened up. The entry level tenure track position in Women’s Studies and Humanities was placed in the
priorities and submitted to the Planning Committee in August and then submitted to the Provost. Hardy said
that all deans were asked to submit budget lists with the requests. Her role was to make sure they had the
budget numbers in place. In most cases, E-search was used and the department then submitted their requests
electronically, then they were approved at the college level and then approved by Vice Provost Jannet
Vreeland.
Questions and Comments from the senate:
What was Rosemary’s position? She was a lecturer in Women’s Studies.
Could this position have been structured so that Dr. Weinstein could have been hired? There was not a
position when Dr. Weinstein left. This was a college decision, and Casper felt that it was not appropriate to
discuss qualifications of a faculty member in a public setting. It would be more appropriate to say that the
directors of the programs asked for an entry level tenure track position and with shared governance that was
appropriate and not his place to tell them how to write the position request.
The department handbook says that faculty member shall be continued in employment if possible. Dr.
Weinstein had already left when the position opened up.
A few senators expressed dissatisfaction over the way this was handled. Some felt that even though the letter
of the code was followed the spirit of it should have been leaned toward hiring Dr. Weinstein. There was also
some concern expressed over the differing opinion of the spirit of the code and that would be up to
interpretation of each individual.
What classes did Weinstein teach and what classes would this position teach? Casper responded that he felt
that was inappropriate to discuss in this setting as it was a personnel issue.
A senator thanked Johnson, Hardy, and Casper for attending this special meeting and said that they did follow
the code, but there was a perception that the process was flawed and how should they deal with that?
Johnson said that perceptions vary and if the senate would like Hardy and Casper could stay to help narrow
down those perceptions and make sure that we create policy that would be useful as we go forward. Last year
administration changed the policy based on the recommendations of the reconsideration committee. As we get
information through discussion we could certainly be more sensitive to create policies that handle the various
perceptions about these kinds of issues. Hardy responded that she certainly understood the angst this caused
and the timing was unfortunate. No one wanted Dixon to leave and the other individual had already taken steps
to find other employment. There was no advanced knowledge that Dixon would leave and that her last day
would be in December.
This position had not closed yet, had Weinstein applied for it? That was not known and would not be known
until the search closed who had applied.
Ryfe thanked them again for coming.
If there were no more questions that would be addressed to them then the senate could begin to have a free
and open discussion.
Discussion: The senate discussed Weinstein’s teaching qualifications and if she would be qualified for this new
position. It was mentioned that Casper had a meeting with CLA senators last week and he explained why
decisions were made and also that he did not feel comfortable telling departments who to hire and that this
was a completely different job. There was some discomfort about speaking out in front of their dean at this
meeting by some senators. Another senator remarked that he felt it was inappropriate for a dean to call the
senators into a meeting to discuss these issues. It was hard to say that she was not appropriate for the job.
September 15, 2011
Meeting 4
Ryfe said that it appeared that each individual was playing their role, but that there was no conversation in
administration about what was happening.
A senator spoke about a good faith effort and perhaps this should be rectified. It appeared to them that there
was some disingenuousness in this. Some senators were under the impression that once curricular review was
over that administration would bend over backwards to place fired faculty. The term shared governance
seemed to be overused by administration in this presentation.
A senator said that we needed to pause and realize that there was a lot of emotion in this. We are making
judgments about a process that no one looked at as we are now. Administration followed policy and code and
this senator did not see a diabolical or grand scheme to cause hurt. The checks and balances don’t always
work.
There was some discussion about whether or not the senate should be involved in an individual case rather
than addressing the generalities of these issues.
There was more discussion regarding the letter of the code and the spirit of the code and that administration
might have done more in this case. The senate would vote by secret ballot.
MOTION: Miller/Beekun. To have the UNR Faculty Senate support the recommendation to rehire Valerie
Weinstein at previous salary and rank into that position.
A friendly amendment was made to reimburse her for moving expenses. The friendly amendment was not
unanimous, so the motion will stand.
ACTION: Passed 16 approved, 9 opposed.
Ryfe said the issue underneath was the academic planning process. Curricular Review in the code states that
the President must create an academic planning process, but it didn’t have to be in writing. This issue was
regarding reassignment; however there was no language in the code or bylaws regarding this. This policy of
laying off tenured faculty was refined in the second round of curricular review. Ryfe felt that some senate
review of this was important. The senate had more discussion and then voted on the following motion.
MOTION: Beekun/Borman. To revise the academic planning process to include an explicit process of
reassignment that adds some level of faculty senate review.
ACTION: Passed
There was no public comment
Meeting Adjourned 4:19 pm.