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Academic Senate
Meeting of May 13, 2009
MINUTES
PRESENT: M. Apostolos, J. Breacher, B. Brown, A. Capron, L. Carver, S. Chandor,
P. Conti, A. Crigler, D. Endres, S. Gupta, N. Hanel, N. Haghparast, M. Hayes, K. Howell,
E. Johnson, A. Kezar, B. Kosko, R. Labaree, G. Margolin, J. McCombs, R. Miller, S.
Montgomery, A. Neville-Jan, M. Nichol, D. O’Leary, L. Pryor, K. Sullivan (alternate for
A. Neville-Jan), J. Swerling, W. Thalmann, R. Walker, A. Weiss, W. Wolf, G. Wood.
ABSENT: J. Farver, H. Greenwald, J. Hagen, M. Kennedy, J. Landolph, D. Larsen,
V. Longo, S. Lund, S. McCabe, J. Paull, G. Ragusa, R. Sarma, J. Steele, D. Stram,
C. Winstein
GUESTS: S. Golomb, H. Gillman, M. Levine, M. Matarić, J. Moore, C.L. Nikias,
M. Safonov, S. Sample, Y. Yortsos, C. Zachary
The meeting was called to order at 1:04 p.m by President Nichol.
1. Dialogue with USC President Steven Sample and Provost Max Nikias
President Sample opened with brief remarks on three areas: the budget, the university’s
purchase of two hospitals from Tenet Healthcare Corporation, and news stories that
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institution of Religion has raised the possibility of closing
two of its three U.S. campuses.
a. USC is tuition-dependent and not as negatively affected as other research universities
by drops in endowment income. USC is in relatively good shape financially
compared to peer institutions.
b. USC purchased USC University Hospital and Norris Cancer Center from Tenet.
Tenet’s values did not coincide with the university’s values regarding research and
patient care. The Board of Trustees provided active leaderships in negotiating the
purchase. The hospitals will carry their own debt; they should eventually generate
support for research and other activities in the Medical School.
c. Hebrew Union College-Institute of Jewish Religion (HUC) was founded in Cincinnati
in the late nineteenth century, and has grown into a system with campuses in
Cincinnati, Jerusalem, New York, and Los Angeles. USC and HUC-Los Angeles
have a very good relationship, with USC students taking classes at HUC-Los Angeles
and HUC-Los Angeles students taking classes at USC. HUC may have to close a
campus, and USC wants to help the HUC Los Angeles stay open, perhaps by
purchasing its campus and then leasing it back to HUC for a period of years.
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Q – What are your thoughts on how USC might handle an outbreak of swine flu among
students?
A – We would want to get very good advice before making a decision about whether it
was advisable to close the campus.
Q – Are there any plans to help the university community understand the culture of health
care providers, where time pressures are ever more prevalent?
A – The university has a good deal of experience with physicians and others who provide
health care through our long association with LACounty+USC Medical Center. The
university is optimistic that about 90% of the doctors will sign contracts to come into the
USC system. There is a paradigm shift, where the hospital is under a CEO and part of
USC, and department-based faculty practice plans are being integrated into one USC
Care rather than multiple practices. There will be full transparency, which will be for the
benefit of everyone.
Q – What about schools outside of the Keck School of Medicine, such as pharmacy,
occupational therapy, and other health-related disciplines?
A – They will be brought in also.
Q – What is the outlook on a broad basis of the evolution of public and private
universities as states provide less funding for public universities? Are the public
universities becoming similar to the private universities? How will we maintain our
advantage as a private university in light of the changing funding for the public
universities?
A – Public universities are owned by their states, no matter how much/little funding a
state gives its state university system. Consequently states will impose certain
imperatives on the public universities. I don’t think a lack of state funding would lead to
an emancipation of the state university system.
Q – What can we as a private university think about in order to build up the leverage we
have?
A – The leverage we have is that we are not dependent on state funding or on endowment
funding. This university has been much more focused on the undergraduate curriculum,
to be able to offer things to students that other universities are not willing to offer. Some
examples are our B.A./M.D. program and the Renaissance Scholars Program (depth with
breadth). Initiatives like this give us the ability to go head to head in student recruitment.
We want to continue recruiting more and better students and faculty.
Q – What do you think is the role of non-tenure-track faculty, in light of the large number
of non-tenure-track faculty coming into the academic medical center?
A – Some schools like the Keck School of Medicine have large numbers of non-tenuretrack faculty. In some professional schools like Cinematic Arts and Music, non-tenuretrack faculty will bring in experience and talents that you cannot get otherwise. But I
don’t like situations where non-tenure-track faculty have to teach part-time for several
institutions.
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Q – In the School of Dentistry, tenure-track faculty have been dwindling and a large
number of non-tenure-track faculty have been hired, some of them long-term.
A – The newly appointed Dean of Dentistry will be looking into this issue.
Q – Some of the clinical faculty are very interested in doing research. What then
becomes the difference between the tenured and non-tenure-track faculty?
A – A large number of members in the Academic Senate have discouraged the idea of
non-tenure-track faculty doing research if they were hired to teach. The profile of a
tenure-track faculty member is different from that of a non-tenure-track faculty member.
The non-tenure-track faculty are not held to the same “up-or-out standards” of the tenuretrack faculty members.
Q – Over the years the College has hired a higher proportion of non-tenure-track faculty.
Are there ways we can be certain that non-tenure-track faculty are not being hired to fill
the roles of tenure-track faculty?
A – We need to set clear expectations and rules.
Q – There is a lot of variability among schools. What are the principles and methods
underlying how we might set rules?
A – Do well by our students (almost half of our students are graduate and professional
students). Quality research is of the highest importance.
Q – There seems to be a trend of hiring more non-tenure-track faculty across schools at
USC and nationally. Some non-tenure-track faculty have been at the university for a very
long time and seem to be meeting the expectations of a tenured faculty member. This is
an important issue to look at.
A – This is something that would be useful for the Academic Senate to examine. It
would be interesting to learn what is going on at other AAU private universities. There
may be differences among disciplines. Just because an individual has been here for a
long time, that does not mean he/she is qualified for a tenured position. A national search
must be conducted to be certain the person hired is the very best qualified for the
position.
Q – There is a desire to have some clarity, rather than the sense that a school has moved
to an increasingly large number of non-tenure-track faculty. Wouldn’t it be better to see
this as a fulfillment of a plan, with a transparent process, rather than a matter of
accretion?
A –I agree this is an important issue and we should definitely include a look at what the
AAU private universities do.
C – It would be a good idea to include a gender analysis, to see if non-tenure-track
faculty tend to be women.
Some updates from the Provost:
Provost Nikias reported that there are 2,900 freshman class deposits and 400 students
admitted for Spring 2010, so that 50-100 can be moved from the Spring to the Fall term if
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needed if the “melt rate” is higher than usual, so we will still have 2,800-2,900 students.
Graduate student applications are up significantly. He is very optimistic that we will
meet (and exceed) all our enrollment targets for next year.
We are starting to get announcements for the federal grant awards. So far we have $40
million dollars awarded. USC submitted more than 400 applications so we may continue
to hear about more awards.
2. Approval of March Senate meeting minutes. Yes=22 No=0 Abstain= 1
3. Presentation of the Distinguished Faculty Service Awards
Bruce Brown, chair of the Distinguished Faculty Service Awards task force, thanked task
force members Najwa Hanel (USC Libraries), Adrianna Kezar (Rossier School of
Education), Robyn Walker (Keck School of Business), and Walter Wolf (School of
Pharmacy). The Committee selected three winners whose deans were invited to present
the awards at today’s Academic Senate meeting.
Dean Yortsos of the Viterbi School of Engineering and Dean Gilman of the College of
Letters, Arts and Sciences jointly presented the first award to University Professor
Solomon Golomb: “for your mentoring work in the departments of Electrical
Engineering and Mathematics, your service on a wide array of School of Engineering and
University committees, and for your past service as President of the Faculty Senate of the
University of Southern California.”
Dean Yortsos of the Viterbi School of Engineering presented the second award to Prof.
Sandeep Gupta: “…for your exceptional contributions as chair of (respectively) the
Engineering Faculty Council, the Viterbi Information Technology Advisory Committee
(VITAC), and the Faculty Handbook Committee.”
Dean Yortsos presented the third award to Prof. Maja Mataric: “…for your pioneering
work in robotics in support of special-needs patients, for your furtherance of research in
the Viterbi School of Engineering, and for your service as founding chair of the Women
in Science and Engineering (WISE) Committee and as President of the Academic Senate
of the University of Southern California”
Alex Capron, Academic Senate Academic Vice-President, presented Mike Nichol with a
plaque recognizing his leadership this year as Academic Senate President.
4. Results – Introduction of Officers and 2009-2010 Executive Board Members
Alex Capron announced the results of the recent Academic Senate election:
Academic Vice President - Peter Conti, Radiology Department, Keck School of Medicine
(service as Vice President during 2009-10, as President during 2010-2011, and as
Immediate Past President during 2011-12)
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Administrative Vice President – Sandeep Gupta, Electrical Engineering Systems, Viterbi
School of Engineering
(two-year term; service 2009-11)
Four Members-at-Large (one-year term; service during 2009-10)
– James Brecher, The Writing Program, College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
- David Endres, Pathology, Keck School of Medicine
- Maryalice Jordan-Marsh, School of Social Work
- Nandini Rajagopalan, Department of Management & Organization, Marshall School of
Business
They will serve on the Academic Senate Executive Board 2009-2010 with Alex Capron,
President of the Faculty; Mike Nichol, Immediate Past President; and Karen Howell,
Secretary-General.
5. Proposed Resolution 08/09-05(2nd reading) re: the “Faculty Titles” Section of the
Faculty Handbook
The Faculty Handbook Committee received input from various committees and
individuals. The most substantial comments were about multiple in-depth reviews of
non-tenure-track faculty dossiers prescribed by the last draft, so the language in section 4B was deleted to give further time to consider how to incorporate the feedback.
There was significant feedback about the Provost delegating the review process to deans,
and that section was deleted from section 4-B(4).
Page 8, line 256 – Non-tenure-track faculty in schools may have higher or lower
University service expectations than tenured faculty, so the sentence was amended to say
such “faculty may have lower University service expectations” rather than “would
normally have lower University service expectations.”
Page 6, line 184 onwards – about Mathematics – no substantive changes, other than
minor wording changes. This is an unusual situation in which a title usually associated
with the tenure-track is given to some not on the tenure track; the justification is that
“Assistant Professor of Mathematics” appears to be the practice at mathematics
departments at other universities.
Q – Trying to understand the language re: multiple reviews.
A – The review is to look at the profile of a non-tenure-track faculty position to be sure it
is not the profile of a tenure-track faculty position. The review will happen at the end of
the initial three-year appointment.
C - J. Swerling commented that review at any level should not be seen in isolation, but in
the context of various things including the work profile, previous annual reviews, and so
forth.
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There was discussion about section 4-B(4), last paragraph.
A motion was made and seconded to delete the italicized phrase in line 304 (“and to show
whether the individual merits reappointment”), to revert the text to the original Faculty
Handbook language. Item number 4 would be stricken from the resolution.
The motion to amend was approved: Yes=22 No=1 Abstain=0
The a motion to call the question was approved: Yes=23 No=1 Abstain=0
The motion to approve the resolution, as amended, which strikes item number 4 from the
resolution, was approved: Yes=23 No=0 Abstain=0
6. Non-tenure track Faculty Committee Report
J. Swerling, chair of the Non-tenure-track Faculty Committee, described the committee’s
initiative to broaden the committee so that more academic units would be represented on
the committee.
The second initiative was to collect an inventory of the non-tenure-track faculty-related
policies of all USC academic units. This is about 95% complete.
The third initiative, the white paper, is based in part on information from the inventory of
policies and feedback from Vice-Provost for Faculty Affairs Marty Levine. The intent of
the white paper is to get discussions going at the academic-unit level.
The committee identified two exemplary practices: (see top of page 4)
“1. Recognition of the administrative flexibility required by the varying needs of the
many schools and departments in the University”
“2. Recognition of the interconnected and interdependent nature of the five Core Issues
listed above [on page 3 of white paper], so that they are seen collectively as an
interdependent whole (or system) that, in its entirety, governs the relationship between
the NTT faculty, the academic units, and the University.”
C - As you look through the inventory, you see tremendous variations in procedures
across the schools.
Q - Thank you for putting the document together. Did you uncover any issues about
students being confused by the proliferation of faculty titles?
A – When the committee looked through the titles in the inventory, there were so many
variations that the committee decided to defer the issue until the inventory and the white
paper were complete.
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C – From the student point of view, a non-tenure-track faculty member probably does
seem more accessible and spends more time with students because there are fewer
conflicts with research and lab demands.
7. Update on the Policy re: Relationships with Pharmaceutical Suppliers, Biotech
and Device/Medical Equipment Manufacturers and Other Healthcare Suppliers
Walter Wolf, chair of the Task Force on the review of policies for the relation of USC
Healthcare Providers with Industry, updated the Academic Senate on the status of the
draft policy. The intent of the task force is to maintain all the safeguards of academic
freedom and the ability of faculty to perform and provide scientific information while
separating what is allowed and what is not allowed. The draft policy has gone through
extensive review by the task force and the Academic Senate Executive Board.
Q – What are the changes to this draft?
A – Section A.3.2 on page 6 – does not specifically prohibit all contact with health care
industries and device and medical equipment manufacturers, but does tightly control the
types of relationships and disclosures.
C – page 6 – A.3.2 first sentence – insert “or other activity” after “promotional in nature”
and before “such as contracting with industry.”
C – page 6 – A.3.2 second sentence - replace “However, should a USC Healthcare
Provider” with “If a USC Healthcare Provider.”
C – We want an easy, quick process to get approval of grey areas.
8. Announcements/Reminders
President Nichol announced that:
a. Committee Preliminary/Final Reports are in the agenda packet.
b. Redesigned Academic Senate website – www.usc.edu/acsen - Prof. Nichol thanked L.
Pryor for his work on this new website, which makes it easier to find Senate information.
c) The Senate Annual Planning Retreat will be held on August 18, 2009
from 9:00am to 4:00pm
Venue: Grace E. Simons Lodge, Department of Recreation and Parks.
Los Angeles, California (near Griffith Park)
9. New Business
No new items were discussed.
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The meeting adjourned at 3:40 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Howell, M.L.S.
Secretary General of the Academic Senate