Minutes Present: Virginia Gray (chair), Carl Adams, Carole Bland, Victor Bloomfield, W....

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Present:

Minutes

*

Faculty Consultative Committee

Thursday, April 24, 1996

1:30 - 4:30

Room 300 Morrill Hall

Virginia Gray (chair), Carl Adams, Carole Bland, Victor Bloomfield, W. Andrew Collins,

Gary Davis, Sara Evans, Dan Feeney, Russell Hobbie, Laura Coffin Koch, Michael

Steffes, Craig Swan, Matthew Tirrell

Absent:

Guests:

Michael Korth, Fred Morrison, Harvey Peterson

Senior Vice President Marvin Marshak

Others: Kim Isenberg (Regents' Office); Martha Kvanbeck (University Senate); Maureen Smith,

Mary Shafer (University Relations)

[In these minutes: Committee business; use of faculty email lists; (with Senior Vice President Marshak:) flood relief, legislative activity, ICR funding, transition, relationship with MnSCU; All-University

Honors Committee; grants management information access; tenure discussions; searches for new senior officers; Addenda]

1. Membership

Professor Gray convened the meeting at 1:30 and accepted a motion to close the discussion for personnel matters. The Committee identified the names of individuals who would be nominated to serve as vice-chair of the Senate (and a voting member of the Committee) and to replace Professor Evans, who will be on leave next year. Professor Gray said she would contact the individuals to ascertain their willingness to serve.

2. Lame Duck Procedure

Professor Gray reviewed with the Committee the process by which the chair and vice chair of the

Committee are selected (the "lame duck" procedure, by which those ineligible to serve as chair nominate the chair and vice chair for the following year); there were no indications that anyone wished the procedure changed, so she agreed to convene the lame ducks in the near future to nominate next year's chair and vice chair. The "lame ducks" are Professors Adams, Collins, Davis, Evans, Feeney, Gray,

Koch, Morrison, and Steffes.

*

These minutes reflect discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the University of Minnesota

Senate or Twin Cities Campus Assembly; none of the comments, conclusions, or actions reported in these minutes represent the views of, nor are they binding on, the Senate or Assembly, the Administration, or the Board of Regents.

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3. Protocol on the Use of the All-Faculty Email List

Professor Bloomfield noted that the Committee had wrestled with the issue of who should be able to make use of the University's all-faculty email list for governance business. The point of agreement earlier was that official business would be transmitted to all faculty; other messages can be authorized by the chair of FCC. Faculty opinion pieces, on the other hand, would not be transmitted; for that there will be a website created by the Senate office.

There may be a legal issue with respect to the Data Practices Act, Professor Adams said; the understanding of individuals is that such an all-faculty email list constructed by the University would be used for official institutional purposes. Other uses could perhaps be construed as inappropriate. The subjects of messages from the governance system, however, would clearly serve institutional purposes, and should not present any problem. It was noted that email addresses are public information, and anyone could create a list of University faculty, but those would be lists not compiled or maintained by the University.

Professor Gray contended that this skirts the real issue, which is that faculty become annoyed and angry when they are involuntarily subjected to volumes of email messages. This is about junk mail,

Professor Evans added. What they will say is that they never agreed to receive all these messages when they provided their email address, Professor Gray said, so the decision to send out messages is very selectively made. Even so, every time a message has come, she receives messages from faculty asking that they be removed from the list. The governance system does not want to contribute to the problem of faculty receiving more email than necessary; the question is where to draw the line. The Senate is often asked to send out materials from other groups and individuals; the question is whether care should continue to be taken, and messages restricted to "official" Senate business, rather than distributing whatever anyone wished sent out.

Now that the tenure debate has died down, Professor Bloomfield pointed out, there have been fewer requests for transmission of messages to the faculty at large. Earlier there was discussion of what disposition would be made of a faculty member's op ed piece; the proposal was to have a website maintained by the Senate office for faculty contributions. It might also be possible to notify faculty, perhaps monthly, of the items that have been posted to the website (which would be permissible as governance business), although some Committee members thought periodic notice would be a form of junk mail. Notice could be routinely attached to FCC minutes, however.

There was discussion about the necessity of having documents web-ready; to require the Senate office to prepare them would be a considerable burden. That problem may be obviated by new software that permits automatic translation of regular word-processing documents into web-ready (html) text. But staff time, however, should not be used for manual translation of documents to html text.

After making brief editorial changes (calling for the status of any communication to be made very clear, and others), the Committee unanimously approved the following protocol. It was noted that this protocol does not apply to all-faculty email lists that may be compiled and maintained by other individuals or groups, nor does it apply to such lists developed and maintained by others that may be developed for subsets of faculty.

Faculty Consultative Committee

April 24, 1997

PROTOCOL ON USE OF FACULTY EMAIL LISTS

University shall be governed by the following principles.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Use by the governance system of any all-faculty email list maintained by the

Generally, given the volume of email that faculty receive, transmission of email messages to all faculty should be reserved for only the most important matters.

Formal action taken by any committee created by the Senate bylaws may be transmitted to all faculty, if in the judgment of the committee it is sufficiently important to warrant the attention of all faculty. The chair of the committee shall make the final determination whether to distribute an action to all faculty.

Issues which require notification to the faculty, or the advice of the faculty, may be transmitted by a committee of the Senate. (For example, as important draft documents are being considered, such as semester standards, tenure code amendments, and the like, drafts may be distributed to the faculty for review and comment). The chair of the committee shall make the final determination whether to distribute a draft policy or proposal to all faculty.

In the case of transmissions from chairs of Senate committees, the chair of the committee shall take special care to clarify the status of the message or statement or policy (i.e., it is a statement adopted by a committee, not by the

Senate or a campus assembly; it is a draft policy being considered by a committee and comments are requested, and so on).

The Faculty Consultative Committee may at any time transmit messages to the faculty if the chair believes a message should be sent. Other committee chairs may transmit messages to all faculty that do not fall within the provisions of sections (1) or (2) of this protocol, subject to the approval of the chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee or his or her designee.

Actions or proposals from Senate ad hoc or temporary committees, task forces, working groups, etc., may be transmitted to all faculty with the approval of the chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee or his or her designee.

Official notices of Senate and other meetings of importance to faculty may be transmitted to all faculty by the Senate office.

Messages from any other source will not be transmitted to all faculty by governance system faculty participants or staff.

This protocol shall also apply to email lists of subsets of the faculty developed and maintained by the University (e.g., all faculty in the Academic Health

3

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Center, all faculty in the College of Liberal Arts, all Twin Cities campus faculty, etc.)

Professor Bloomfield suggested that the protocol itself be distributed to all faculty. He said it is paradoxical that a university, which is dedicated to communication and discussion of issues, tries so hard to restrict it. The new technology provides marvelous opportunities to share opinions. Faculty should not have their email cluttered with junk mail, but there must be identified mechanisms for presenting opinions and exchanging views; they should also be reminded that FacultyWrites still exists. After brief additional discussion, it was agreed that the protocol should not be distributed to all faculty, but that it should be posted on the website and presented to the Senate for information.

4. Discussion with Senior Vice President Marshak

Professor Gray welcomed Professor Marshak to the meeting, and reported that the University is organizing a flood-relief effort for the northwestern part of the state, once the flood waters begin to recede. Faculty are requested to excuse students who wish to leave class to participate (it would be a

Friday or a Monday), and faculty and staff who wish to participate would also be excused. FCC members endorsed the idea.

Professor Marshak reported that Chancellor Sargeant personally has been active in flood relief efforts, and that the Crookston campus helped about 1500 people affected by the flood. The immediate problems are in hand, but the University can assist in the clean-up as well as with stresses on domestic relationships caused by temporary lack of residence, with contamination of field areas by sewage, and immunization. There are a number of areas where the University can contribute.

It is hoped that the ditch around Winnipeg holds; if not, the population that would be affected is ten times larger than that which has already been, and the toll of human devastation would be much greater. There are a number of opportunities for University students, faculty, and staff to help.

Crookston serves as a good base of operations; it is as close as one can get and still obtain clean water, as well as meals and lodging. Professor Marshak agreed to look into the possibility of making available dormitories on the Crookston and Morris campuses.

* * *

Professor Gray next asked about what has been happening at the legislature. Professor Marshak said there are two bills, a Senate bill and a House bill. They provide about the same amount of funds,

$130 million in new recurring base funding. The House provides an additional $38 million in one-time funding; the Senate bill gives to state grants money not given to the University and MnSCU. The Senate bill is more a high-tuition, high-aid bill; if it is to help the institutions, the schools will have to raise tuition. The House bill puts the money into the institutions.

There is a public policy question posed by the two bills. For purposes of comparison, for every dollar put in the state grant program, approximately 13 cents to University students; 35 cents goes to

MnSCU students, and the balance goes to private college students. The House splits the additional money between the University and MnSCU; about half the money in the Senate bill will flow through students to the private colleges.

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Another difference in the state grant program is that it targets the money to the lowest-income students. The current combination of state and Pell grants and the state subsidy of public institutions provides about $700 more to low-income students who attend private colleges than it does to middleincome students who attend the University. The question is whether that is good public policy, and whether there ought to be an increase in that kind of subsidy of low-income private-college students, or if the available funding should be more directed to public college students. Family income of students at the University is, on average, slightly higher than that of private college students; the reason, probably, is that private colleges do a lot of income-shifting. They charge high tuition to people who can pay, and use the income to subsidize low-income students. The University, on the other hand, gets more middleincome students; high-income and low-income students are less likely to come to the University, because it does not have as much student aid to provide on either end of the spectrum.

The President is considering what the University's response ought to be. If the House bill is passed, the University has pretty well decided it will commit to a tuition increase of no more than 2.5%.

But if the Senate bill is adopted, the tuition increase to be recommended to the Regents is uncertain.

There are also earmarked funds in both bills, none of which overlap, so the conference committee may very well include all of them. Some of them are recoverable (they may substitute for other programmatic funds), but some are not. It appears that the steam plant will be allowed to progress as planned.

Professor Swan then reported that he had always understood that aid to private college students was capped at the cost of public college tuition; it is not. Aid to such students depends on estimates of total state support to public institutions; it has been suggested that grants are capped at about $6700, while tuition at the University is significantly less than that.

The calculation of that amount, moreover, is a result of certain manipulation of money; the result is the distribution of aid that Professor Marshak described. Whether the legislature will address this public policy issue now is unclear. The House has lower numbers for financial aid because it has a strong interest in reforming student aid.

Professors Marshak and Swan also commented on a proposal in the legislature to establish an endowed chair in honor of Coya Knudsen.

* * *

Professor Bloomfield next asked about the University's proposal to the legislature to remove the restriction on using Indirect Cost Recovery funds for research purposes. Professor Swan said that provision is in the House bill.

Professor Marshak said that the reason the federal government pays institutions ICR funds is to pay for indirect costs associated with research. There was a time when the University did not receive its

ICR funds; it was an offset against the state appropriation. Gradually the University has received the money; the existing language is a remnant of the earlier era.

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In terms of the IMG model, one would rather have the flexibility to give ICR money to the units to use as they see fit, without the legislative mandate on how it is used. That general feeling is the reason the University supported the proposal; it would be one less mandate to have to comply with. If the proposal is not adopted, there is one college that might suffer a considerable impact, because it has a much larger research enterprise. Even there, the situation could probably be dealt with.

Professor Swan said he would talk about this slightly differently. When the offset existed, the

University argued that it should be eliminated. The argument was that the money would be used as a research investment fund, and generate more money. It is not the legislature lifting something; the

University has ASKED the legislature to lift the requirement. In that sense, it is a change in University policy that has not been fully aired before faculty committees. One could argue that the University should have more flexibility, but at the same time one can argue that what the University should DO with that flexibility should be determined in open discussion between faculty and administrators. That latter step has not taken place.

Professor Marshak suggested it may have taken place in the Finance and Planning Committee as part of the discussion of IMG; Professor Swan said the topic has never been raised with the committee.

This is not part of IMG, he said. It may have been included in the numbers somewhere, and supposedly

Associate Vice President Pfutzenreuter has had a conversation with Professor Morrison about it, but the committee has not had a discussion about it.

Professor Hamilton reported that it was promised for the agenda of the Finance and Planning

Committee, but it never appeared. It was on the agenda of the Senate Research Committee (of which he serves as chair), and there was an animated discussion. There was a concern about the lack of consultation by the administration with the governance system; the Research Committee passed unanimously a resolution asking the administration not to continue seeking a lifting of the legislation until full faculty consultation had occurred. He said he has not determined where the resolution should be sent, but used the occasion of this meeting to notify Professor Marshak that the resolution has been adopted.

Professor Marshak suggested Professor Hamilton send the resolution to him.

This arose directly from the University, Professor Hamilton recalled, during President Keller's administration. It was the way the University was able to obtain ICR funds without having them be offset in the appropriation. The question of the one college that could be a problem is a red herring, because although they are heavily leveraged in grants, the only reason they might have to use ICR funds for teaching is BECAUSE OF IMG and the way 0100 money has been withdrawn from the college. The problem has been resolved, but there must be above-board, honest consultation with the faculty about this. There is a lot of anger among the faculty about ICR in general; for faculty to learn that ICR money will be used at the discretion of the administration--central or at another level--will be even more inflammatory.

The Committee discussed the status of the proposal. Professor Gray said that if it is too late to stop a change at the legislature, it is incumbent on the University to set up the right rules about how the money will be used. There must be full consultation on that point. In retrospect, she agreed, there was no need for the train ever to have left the station.

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In terms of the message to the legislature, Committee members suggested that the problem was a procedural one of the central administration; it did not behave properly. Now, the discussion must be about what the rules are going to be. Professor Marshak said he understood the point.

* * *

Professor Feeney inquired how tenure decisions are being handled, especially in terms of the advice from the provosts. Professor Marshak said he has read every file sent to him--about 15 cartons' worth, probably several hundred. In general, he has concurred with the provosts--who have concurred with the deans, who have concurred with the departments. There is one case where the provost was encouraged to change his mind; there is one where something happened other than what the provost recommended; there remain about a half-dozen hard cases about which he is trying to decide. He affirmed that he would serve as the final authority.

If people are being notified that they have been promoted, there has been a misunderstanding,

Professor Marshak said, but he has only in the last few days sent out letters. His is the final letter, but the appointments are subject to final approval by the Board of Regents. If people are being congratulated on promotion, then the process is not understood by the dean. Professor Dempsey added that she had been concerned by what she has been hearing, but she affirmed that Professor Marshak is following the procedure that is called for.

Asked about the role of the Graduate School, Professor Marshak affirmed that Dean Brenner and his associates have provided comments to the provosts, which were also forwarded to him.

* * *

When he agreed to take this position for a year, Professor Marshak reflected, there were three main issues that the President emphasized: the biennial budget and legislative request, the transition to the new president, and tenure. He said he has been pleased that progress has been made on two of the three, and actually progress has been made on all. None are done, all are in progress, but the University is in a better position than it was nine months ago in a number of areas. This is particularly true with respect to the legislative request, in part because of help from Professor Swan.

There remains work to do on the transition, and the momentum must be maintained on several issues (e.g., semester conversion). He said he looks forward to working with Dean Bruininks--presuming he is appointed as Executive Vice President and Provost. The University will have a group of new students who are very good; they will show up in August and the University must be prepared for them.

The important tasks in the provosts' offices must be continued. Thus far the transition has gone well.

There have been meetings with the Group of 8 on tenure, and progress is also being made on that front.

The University is stronger than it was nine months ago, and it is set to move ahead. The faculty salary increase will happen as advertised (despite the DAILY article about skeptical faculty). Professor

Gray commended him on the change that allows 9-month appointees to be paid over 12 months;

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Professor Marshak affirmed, in response to a question, that in essence the University will be advancing money to faculty by paying them over the summer.

* * *

Professor Koch recalled that Professor Marshak had talked at an earlier meeting about relationships with MnSCU vis-a-vis metropolitan higher education; have there been additional discussions?

Professor Marshak noted that MnSCU will have a new chancellor, and that it has retained a demographer to work on a metropolitan higher education strategy. The goal is to have that ready, working with the University, by the next legislative session. One can be optimistic about the new

MnSCU leadership, because a number of the issues they face are organizational and information management; the new chancellor can perhaps address them in a short period of time. There remain many strains associated with the merger; as one listens to the legislative testimony about MnSCU, one comes to understand the meaning of constitutional autonomy. Its biggest effect with regard to MnSCU (and an advantage the University has over Wisconsin as well) is that almost everything requires legislation: sale of land, every building (including kiosks), etc.

Professor Koch asked if money is legislated for campuses rather than MnSCU; Professor Swan said the allocation is to MnSCU, but there are very tight limits on what can happen on individual campuses--limits imposed by legislators on the MnSCU system. At the operational level, Professor

Marshak concluded, constitutional autonomy is very important to the University.

Professor Swan pointed out, with respect to the demographer MnSCU has hired, that it is NOT that

MnSCU is supposed to do a study and consult with the University. The House legislation charges the

Boards of both systems with developing a report; if that language stays, it implies a partnership.

Professor Marshak said he understood, and that MnSCU appears to be working hard not to keep that language; this seems to be a bigger issue for MnSCU than for the University.

Professor Marshak thanked the Committee for the meeting.

After Professor Marshak departed, the Committee voted unanimously in favor of a resolution thanking him for stepping in at a difficult time and for the service he has provided the institution. It was agreed an appropriate resolution would be drafted after the meeting.

5. All-University Honors Committee

Professor Gray now circulated copies of a letter from Duluth campus Chancellor Martin asking that a separate process for designating honors for Duluth be created, rather than using the (Senate) All-

University Honors Committee. The President had asked her advice, she reported, and she wished to raise the matter with the Committee.

Committee members raised several points in the discussion:

-- Decisions about honors should not be made by individual campuses, but should be an all-

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University decision. There should be an all-University policy on honors, Professor Hobbie argued; if Duluth faculty are not part of the Senate, then a way to make them part of it should be created or a way to appoint them to all-University committees should be established. But all-University committees should not be abandoned. Professor Swan and others on the Committee expressed strong agreement with Professor Hobbie's views, urging that FCC resist diminution of the role of all-University committees.

Current Senate policy allows for the appointment of additional (voting) members to committees, where appropriate; Duluth representatives could be appointed to the All-University Honors

Committee to discuss issues with respect to Duluth. Several Committee members argued that such representatives should participate in ALL decisions about honors, not just those that pertain to the

Duluth campus. (Professor Davis inquired about how Duluth had sporadic representation on the

Committee, as Chancellor Martin maintained; either they were represented or not. It may be that there is a coordinate campus seat that has rotated among campuses.)

-- Professor Adams made the point that the authority to make recommendations about University honors is vested in the Senate through the All-University Honors Committee by the Board of

Regents. To change the process would require the Senate to relinquish authority, and it is the

Senate that should make a decision to do so. The letter from Chancellor Martin went to the

President and Board Chair Thomas Reagan, which disregards the authority of the Senate.

Presumably the Regents would consult with the Senate before changing their regulations.

Presumably, any proposal for change would be preceded by consultation with the Senate.

-- In decisions which are more "local" (such as the naming of buildings), it is expected that the

"local" constituents would participate significantly in the deliberations of the All-University

Honors Committee. An alternate view was that all major honors, including buildings, should be decided at the all-University level.

The Committee contemplated a motion reaffirming all-University participation in such decisions, consonant with Senate and University policy, and then decided instead to ask that Professor Gray should write to the President outlining the points raised by the Committee, with the endorsement of FCC. She agreed to do so.

This is not the only issue that has arisen with respect to Duluth, Professor Koch noted; there are others. She asked that the possibility of having the Duluth faculty re-join the Senate be explored. It was noted that they have been invited repeatedly to join the Senate, and the union, on behalf of the organized faculty, has declined the invitations. It is true that the Regents originally removed them from the governance structure when the union was elected, but that prohibition has (apparently) been relaxed or dropped in the intervening years (because the administration has never objected to the extension of the invitation). The Committee discussed this issue for some time, including the status of the Duluth campus assembly and possible faculty perceptions of the advantages or disadvantages of increased participation.

There was no conclusion or consensus reached or sought.

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6. Meeting Schedule

The Committee reviewed briefly a proposed meeting schedule for next year, and agreed that there should be an email poll of Committee members to determine which of three options would be selected.

7. Grants Management Information Access

Professor Hamilton explained that the issue is access to information about grants, information that is already statutorily public. Some wish to restrict access to this information. The work done indicates that installing and maintaining the "filters" necessary will cost up to $500,000 per year; both the enterprise group (working on all of the systems redesign) and the grants management group have concluded the "filters" should not be continued and that restrictions on access should not be imposed.

(There is, by statute, private information, and access to it would continue to be filtered.)

Asked why the issue is before this Committee, Professor Gray was told that the administrators responsible for the decision want to know if they should come and present the issue to FCC; the question is whether FCC wishes to endorse the recommendations of the Senate Research Committee and the

Senate Committee on Finance and Planning to endorse the administrative proposal or if FCC wishes to hear the issue itself.

Professor Evans promptly moved to endorse the actions of the other two committees. The resolution was adopted unanimously with no further debate.

8. Report on Tenure

Professor Gray turned next to Professor Evans and asked if she wished for an open or closed discussion of the work of the Committee of 8. Professor Evans said she would report in open session, and then continue discussion in closed session.

Professor Evans told the Committee that there have been three meetings of the Committee of 8 with the administration. The administration has reported on the concerns raised by the Regents about the

Faculty Senate proposed revisions. Those issues have been discussed in great detail, and things remain

"in process."

Professor Bland asked with whom the Committee of 8 is meeting and if they understand the administration to be representing the Regents. Professor Evans said they meet with the President, Senior

Vice President Marshak, and Dr. Bognanno; they have offered a number of comments, in detail, on the proposal.

The Committee of 8 has not seen the memo from the Regents critiquing the Senate proposal. The

Committee discussed with Ms. Isenberg the status of a memo prepared for the Regents, a memo that apparently has no formal status and has become outdated because of changes in views about the Faculty

Senate amendments.

The Committee of 8 lacks clarity on a number of things, Professor Evans said, including what it is

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April 24, 1997

11 they can talk about. The Regents have sent two very different letters out: one to the President, asking for his opinion; the other saying the Board will only entertain housekeeping amendments. There is an issue about what can be discussed.

The Committee deliberated whether to continue discussion, with Ms. Isenberg present, but concluded that it would put her in an awkward position and would also be an inappropriate channel of communication. What it is important that faculty know is that something is happening and that the issue has not fallen into a black hole.

The Committee also discussed the memo indicating the Board would only discuss housekeeping changes; the statement came from Regent Reagan to other members of the Board. Ms. Isenberg said it had been strictly an informational memo to update the Board on what is happening on tenure. Professor

Evans said the concern of the Committee of 8 was that that was not their understanding, and that the opinions of the Faculty Senate had been sought. Professor Bland inquired about the meaning of

"housekeeping"; the Committee had no indication of what the term meant. There has been no formal indication that there were restrictions on what would be considered, and Professor Evans said the

Committee of 8 is proceeding on the good faith assumption that the Board will consider all of the Faculty

Senate proposals.

At this point the Committee voted unanimously to go into closed session to discuss further the tenure issue.

Professor Evans commended the work of Professor Morrison in the deliberations.

9. Voting on Tenure

The Committee next considered whether to bring to the Faculty Senate a constitutional amendment providing that only faculty members of the Senate (not P&A staff elected to the Senate) could vote on tenure code amendments, inasmuch as the Senate does not vote or determine terms and conditions of

P&A employees. There are complexities in faculty appointments, however, that make classification of faculty difficult (e.g., clinical faculty in the AHC, faculty without tenured or tenure-track appointments).

The point is that only people who affected by the tenure code should be voting on it. After deliberating the idea, trying to edit a possible amendment, and noting that the amendment would have to go to the

Board of Regents, the Committee decided the issue was larger than what a 5-minute discussion would permit, and decided not to pursue it until next year.

10. Appointments Without Searches

Professor Bland said she was not happy with the fact that President-elect Yudof has proposed filling two very important positions in his administration without searches, and that (according to news accounts) he would be announcing additional appointments in the future. This is unacceptable, she said.

Professor Gray said she had spoken with Dr. Yudof about the interest of the Committee in seeing that the search process is used; Dr. Yudof told her he only intended to use make appointments without searches for two appointments. The problem, said Professor Collins, is that names of people believed to be the preferred candidates are being bandied about for other positions, so that a fair search becomes

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12 impossible. Professor Hamilton said that the search for the Vice President for Research was reviewed with the Senate Research Committee; there will a full, national search ending in August.

One does not want to cause trouble for a new president, Professor Bland observed, but violating the search process was unwise. The Committee should go on record about this point. Committee members discussed the need for searches for people who serve in the positions closest to the President, the intimacy of working relationships that are needed, and alternative methods of filling such positions.

The question of how or when an objection should have been raised was discussed, as was whether or not a true search is possible for any position for which individuals have already been identified (at least by rumor).

One point to be made is about the culture of the University, Professor Evans said. It is on this that

FCC should communicate with Dr. Yudof; it may be that the culture of Texas is different, and Dr. Yudof could encounter trouble if he does not understand the differences. He needs to be alerted to the issues of culture at Minnesota.

Professor Gray then adjourned the meeting at 4:30.

ADDENDA

1. The Committee recognizes that there is an effective and functioning faculty governance system on the Duluth campus, with broad participation in the Campus Assembly.

2. Members of the Committee met, on April 23, 1997, with President-designate Mark Yudof, at his request, to review the proposed reorganization of central administration. Dr. Yudof outlined his rationale for changing the structure and passed out a tentative organization chart. Discussion ensued, centering around to protect the Arts and Sciences, whether a vice president for agriculture is necessary, whether a vice president for health sciences is necessary, whether the job of provost is "doable," whether the title "senior vice president" is necessary, how undergraduate education will be protected, etc. Then discussion shifted to the possibility of an exceptional hire and the protocol to be followed in that case. If that route is pursued, the FCC will interview the candidate.

University of Minnesota

-- Gary Engstrand

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