April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
Dean Neikirk, professor, electrical and computer engineering, chair:
Good afternoon. If everybody could settle in please. We have a fairly full agenda today.
[pause]
Good afternoon. I’d like to go ahead and call today’s meeting to order please. And,
welcome to the April 11, 2011, the 11-11 Faculty Council meeting. We do have a fairly full
agenda today, and we have actually shifted one fairly important item to the May agenda. We were
gonna have a presentation on the course transformation program that Gretchen Ritter was, is
gonna do. And we are going to move that to May, so that it can get the attention that we think it
really needs. It was ending up at the end of a fairly long meeting, and we were afraid that people
would not have the attention span to get all the way to the end.
So we will be moving that. There are handouts. I don’t know whether anybody picked
any of them up, but they are available. They are the slides that Gretchen will be using. And they
are worth looking at ahead of time. It’s a program that we probably should be talking about. So
we really want to give that some time in the May meeting.
Okay, so the first item on today’s agenda is: report of the secretary, Sue Greninger.
Sue Alexander Greninger, associate professor, human development and family sciences,
secretary:
Welcome everyone. The secretary’s report is on 8633-8637. And the main thing that was
new was that we had approved the slate for the co-op board for the president’s consideration last
meeting. And he has already, very promptly, chosen Diana DiNitto for consideration. Actually,
the approval rests with the Board of the Co-op, but I don’t think anybody has ever been denied
after they have been recommended by President Powers. That was really the only main new thing.
Were there any corrections or additions to the secretary’s report, anybody wants to raise? Okay
we don’t vote on that.
Now the minutes, I am going to ask what you want to do about those. I have to apologize.
My quality control was not up to par, and I did notice a couple of typos that I will make
corrections. They are not anything that I think causes trouble with understanding the minutes, but
when they got posted and the window of time between last meeting and then this meeting was
pretty short. So we didn’t get them posted til Friday. And over the weekend I notices that the, I
guess it’s the link, there had been a misconnection on the new business item, which had to do
with our approval of the resolution for Chancellor Cigarroa’s letter. When you clicked on that,
you pulled up President Powers’ comments a second time, which… I apologize for that having
happened. The .pdf version of the minutes, which is posted, was correct. And I don’t know if
people tend to use the one where you click or what. But that was the only thing that I think would
have been, that could have been confusing to people, if they didn’t go to the .pdf and wondered
why they were getting to see the comments of President Powers for a second time. So, it’s your
pleasure whether or not you are willing to go ahead and approve the minutes as they are posted or
should we hold them off for you to take a look at that. Does anyone have an opinion?
Alan Friedman, professor, English, chair elect:
I move we accept.
Martha Hilley, professor, music:
Second.
Greninger:
Alright. Thank you. Thank you. That was Alan, and who second it? Oh, Martha. Thank
you, Martha. Alright, well. All those that would vote in favor of approving the minutes as posted,
particularly the .pdf version, please say aye. (Audience answers, “aye.”) Anyone opposed. (No
one answers.) Anyone want to abstain? (No one answers.) Alright. Thank you very much.
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
Neikirk:
Thank you, Sue. The next item on the agenda is: communication with the president. The
president is out of town today, and Provost Leslie is here to make a few comments in his place.
Steve… If you want to start, you can, or you can address the comments… you want to let me go
on?
Steven Leslie, executive vice president and provost:
Steve Leslie, provost. Dean, I know you’re going to do some summary discussion of
where we are with initiatives with the board of regents. Is that right? So, why don’t you go ahead
and do that. And then, as you go through that, if there is need for me to comment or react or add
to what you say, then I’d be happy to do that. Is that alright?
Neikirk:
That's fine… Thank you, Steve. So what we want to do is just allow for a little discussion,
so please feel free to interrupt for questions about what I’m presenting, and you can address the
questions to, perhaps to Provost Leslie, because he might know much better than I.
But first, in report of chair. So I’ll just go to the next item on the agenda. Just quickly…
what little a civilian can puzzle out of the state budget: HB1 in amended form passed a week ago
Sunday night, I think, it was. The original HB1, back in January, was, in general revenue, 79.3
billion. There was 4.6 billion added in committee for a grand total of 83.9 billion. That’s what
passed the House for… a week ago Sunday. Reading the political commentary, I don’t know
whether these numbers are really right or not, but the word was that the Senate intends to add
about 10.5 billion to it’s original budget, which was already a little bit bigger than the House
budget. The net affect is that, the guess it, the Senate’s budget will come out about 6.3 billion
higher than the HB1 that passed a week ago Sunday. For our purposes, I showed a table like this
back in January, I think it was, with what I could tease out for UT Austin’s allocation. The
expendit for this year, the estimated budgeted 2011, the legislative request in 2012, the original
HB, if I read it right, the one back in January came in at 342 million in general revenue and if I
read the committee report right – and I wasn’t exactly sure whether that was the number that
passed or not. But what came out of the committee was 340.3 million. So, if those numbers are
right, even though the House added some money, we went down a little bit. Again, remember the
Senate numbers were originally higher and may well go higher. So, all these numbers could well
be fairly meaningless. Just to let you know what was there.
There were some amendments offered during the debate on the floor, and I tried to look
for all those ones that had relevance to higher ed. And I may have missed some, but this one
clearly had higher education in the amendment. I tried to search for others that had higher
education, and I don’t think I found any. This was an amendment… It was number 143 out of 317
amendments that were debated by the House. This is offered by Representative Wayne Christian
at about 14 hours into a 16-hour debate, and the title of the amendment was funding of student
centers for family and traditional values. And, I don’t know if you can really read it there or not,
but it basically says that if an institution of higher education shall have some amount of
appropriated funds that are used to support a gender and sexuality center or other center for
students focused on gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, transsexual, transgender,
gender questioning, or other gender identity issues, an equal amount of money must be spent to
support a family and traditional value center. So I inverted the order of the language there. This
amendment passed after five minutes of debate, 110 yeas to 24 nays. There was no one speaking
against this amendment. So, just, I’m not commenting, I’m just reporting what was reported in
the press. Representative Christian offered either amendment 142 or 144, I don’t remember the
order, on western civilization. That generated apparently a long line of people who wished to
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
speak on the bill in the back of the chamber. And that one did not pass. It makes interesting
reading, if you haven’t looked at the amendments. So that was the HB1, the budget bill.
Other things that are perhaps worth noting: HB2720, which is still pending in committee.
It hasn’t been acted on, I don’t think, beyond making them into committee, is the required
approval to allow authority to place people in furloughs. So this hasn’t passed yet. It’s not legal, I
guess, right now, to force furloughs, but there is legislation on the floor to allow it. There is no
suggestion that this would happen, but it would allow it. And I have a track on this bill and on the
7th of April, it was pending in committee. I think no further action has happened so far.
Another thing that struck me as of worthy of notice: the Senate Committee on Finance
has created a subcommittee. It’s C546, it’s the Subcommittee on Higher Education Funding. And
I don’t know whether this is a regular occurrence. I don’t know whether this has been done in
past legislative sessions, but it has been done this time. Royce West is the chair, and you can see
the members, Duncan, Hinojosa, Patrick, Seliger, Shapiro, and Zaffirini. So far as I know, they
have had one meeting so far on April 5th, which was an organizational meeting. This is a
subcommittee of finance, as opposed to higher education, so that’s one of the reasons why it
caught my eye. Presumably, the two will be linked. Zaffirini is chair of education, so she is on
both of these. And has, generally speaking, been a friend to higher education, I think, in this state.
Okay, so now to the quick summary of some of the issues that Steve mentioned. If you’ve
been following the press for about the last month, I’m sure you’ve seen that there’ve been quite a
few things going on, related to, generally speaking, the board of regents. And so I thought I
would try to, if you haven’t followed it, give you kind of a chronology of it. And this is all from
published material, so this is all what’s in the press. I think it’s reasonably accurate, because
wherever possible, they cite documents, and I went and looked up the documents. So just for
reference, if you don’t know, we have a ten-member University of Texas system board or regents.
Six-year terms. They are appointed by the governor, but approved by the Senate, if I remember
correctly. Their terms are staggered, so three members usually expire in February of oddnumbered years. Our current… [murmurs in the audience…] What is it? Where is it? Their terms
expire, they do not expire. Thank you. It does say the right words there, I think. Terms will
usually expire. The current officers, Gene Powell is chairman, Foster, Hicks, and Dannenbaum
are vice chairs, and then you can run down the list. I am not going to read off all the names, but
just to let you have a look at the board or regents. And there is one student member whose term
expires each year, I believe. So the student regent serves a one-year term.
I sent this out to everybody. I am sure that you had better things to do than to read these
things, but just in case you wanted to see some of the source documents, I pulled a few of them
and sent them out to you, so you should have got these if you wanted to look at them you can. But
just to give you the chronology. And this is pretty new. This first bullet, I read this morning for
the first time, and I think it was a result of open records request, and I think this just came out in
the last couple of days. So, back in January 13, Jeff Sandefer and Rick O’Donnell, Rick
O’Donnell apparently worked with Sandefer at that time, they are both with the Texas Public
Policy Foundation, had a, and this is the report, so they put the quotation marks around this, a
private lunch for A&M regents and UT regents, or soon to be regents. And again, this is a direct
quotation from the article that I cited. So, whether they got this exactly right, I don’t have the
source documents in this case. Apparently, in early January, there was a meeting by a couple
people with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a collection of regents, both Texas A&M and
UT. In late January or early February, and this one, I’ve had difficulty running down an actual
date for, the board or regents appointed Rick O’Donnell as a special advisor. Looking at various
articles I found, one date that stated his appointment was March 1st. I saw others that suggested,
you know, the article was in early February, and it said, several weeks ago this appointment was
made. So, I can’t vouch for the precise appointment date, but somewhere in the early February,
very early March timeframe, Rick O’Donnell was appointed, and I believe he was appointed by
chairman, by Gene Powell, I think that’s right. But in any case, if you want to know a little bit
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
more about him, I sent you a little information along with a letter that I’ll mention later that he
wrote back to explain his own opinions. But he is listed on the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s
website as one of their policy experts, and in that little mini-bio on the Texas Public Policy
Foundation it quotes some of his credentials. And one of the first things it states is that he’s
president of the Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence. So this is from the Texas
Public Policy’s website. On February 25th, Chair Powell announced the formation of two new
advisory task forces. One on university excellence and productivity and one on blended learning
programs. I’ll show you what the charges are on the board of regents’ website on the next couple
pages. One thing worth noting is that both of these new task forces were supposed to report to the
full board by no later than May 15. I don’t know whether that’s changed, but is still what the
board of regents’ website says. It says these report are due to the regents no later than May 15. So
again, to run through these task forces, if you haven’t looked at them… the first is a task force on
university excellence and productivity, which, according to the BoR website, it’s objective is to
study how the campuses strengthen, may strengthen, quality of student learning and research
excellence, expand access to serve more students, and reduce cost to be more affordable to
students and tax payers. So that is the short charge that is stated on the BoR website. There’s a
longer description of the task force on the website, and I think I sent this document to you, but if
you want to look at it, I recommend you go there to read the whole thing. I would also highly
recommend you look at the reading list that is listed on the BoR website. It’s an interesting
collection of material. As to whether it gives you insight into what the objective of the task force
is supposed to be or not, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. The members include our
provost, Provost Leslie, is a member, and perhaps he can give us a little insight, but given the task
force is still working, I’m assuming that their discussions are not exactly for public consumption
at this point. But that’s one of the two committees… let me go ahead and mention the other,
which is the task force on blended and online learning whose objective is to review current online
course instruction at UT system and academic institutions, identify successful approaches and
best practices in online instruction and make recommendations about online course offerings.
You can see the list there, of members. There are several of the regents are on in, UT Arlington’s
president is on it, UT El Paso president is on it. UT San Antonio president is on it, and our Vice
Provost Harrison Keller is on this one. So we do have representation on both committees. The
task force description again, the full task force description is there on the website, as is the
reading list. This is another interesting set of suggested readings that may or may not give you
some insight into whether there was some thought about what this committee was going to do. So
that happened, again, February 25. By late March, there was quite a bit of activity and press
coverage at this point, and I selected just one, and this is one of the earliest ones that I saw in the
press, from March 21st, and I think it’s worth noting, because this was a response from Senator
Zaffirini and Representative Dan Branch, who are chairs of the respective legislative committees
on education, higher education. They also were very active in the last legislative session on an
effort to create the tier-one initiative, which I would assume most of you have at least run across.
But it was an effort to try and bring several of the other UT component institutions to tier-one
research status. So they have a history and a clear vested interest in seeing research flourish at the
UT system and apparently, they were both disturbed by the appointment of Rick O’Donnell and
some previous statements he had made about the value of research. From this particular article
from the Houston Chronicle, there were two quotations that I pulled out. One from Representative
Branch… It’s gonna be impossible to read, so I’ll read it: it you have policy and fact finding
layers between the chancellor and the regents, it creates a perception of going around someone,
Branch said. Apparently, he was concerned about how this BoR advisor would interfere with our
chancellor’s duties. And the statement from Senator Zaffirini was a little bit stronger. She said,
the hiring process was completely flawed. There was no vote of the board, no approval by the
chancellor, with a 200,000 salary at a time when there is a hiring freeze at UT. How in the world
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
can you justify this. And those were her words, apparently, quoted in this article. So that was
March 21st.
March 24th, so this is three days later, there was a letter from the president of the Texas
Exes, Richard Leshin, and it was entitled, call to action, we need your help to protect the mission
and core values of the University of Texas. And I won’t try to read these segments, but it was a
fairly forceful letter from the Texas Exes president, stating that it was his believe that our core
values, UT Austin, were under assault, and asking the other Texas Exes to get involved. There
was a letter two or three days prior to this from… Apple, I’m gonna forget, Gordon? Apple,
which had similar sentiments that he also sent out. You can find that letter online, too. All these
documents, all these letters, you can find them yourself, you can read them yourself. They’re all
available. So that was March 24.
Apparently, also on March 24th, so far as I can tell, this is the date in which Mr.
O’Donnell was reclassified from serving as an advisor to the BoR to someone who… his title was
now special assistant for research. He is now reporting to Scott Kelley who is an executive vice
chancellor for business affairs at system. And it was also stated that the funding for this position
will expire on August 31st. So that happened the same day the Texas Exes letter apparently hit the
street. Within a day, the chairman of the BoR, Powell, and the three vice chairs wrote a letter
back to the Texas Exes, stating their full commitment to ensuring that UT Austin advances as a
university of the first class. There is, in this letter, a clear statement that research is valued, and
their statement that there is no desire on the part of the board to diminish research. This is in their
letter to the Texas Exes. And, I think, one thing of interest to us is, there was a flat-out statement
there has not been nor will there be an attempt to exclude research and how we value faculty. We
will not attempt to develop a report that indicates which individual professors are or are not
generating revenue. And this was most certainly to address concerns that the UT system might try
to follow Texas A&M in a spreadsheet sort of style of evaluation. So, we have been assured by
our regents that that will not happen. This again is a public document. You can get it and save it
for future reference if you think you need it.
On March 25th, in interest of full disclosure, Mr. O’Donnell wrote about a three-page
letter to one of the regents to, I’ve forgotten who he wrote it to, that more fully explained his
position. So, in fairness, I would recommend you read his letter as well.
March 31st, just to give you, I think this actually helps set some of the context… so this
came after all this happened, but honestly, I think it does kind of give us some context. There was
a piece that actually, I believe, appeared as a press release from the Texas Policy Institute, I
believe, that’s where it first appeared. Although, the first place I saw it in print, was in a Houston
article, Houston Chronicle op-ed piece on March 30th. And it was written by Ronald Trowbridge
who is listed on the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s website as being a senior fellow of their
Center for Education Policy. And I lifted a few quotations, so these are my selections from his
op-ed piece. He stated, research often takes good professors out of the classroom. He stated, it is a
documented fact that at research universities most introductory courses at freshmen and
sophomore levels are taught by young inexperienced teaching assistants, many if not most
professors are given a release time from classrooms to pursue research. He stated it was a
documented fact, he did not state where this fact was documented, nor did he say what
universities this applied to. He followed that with a statement that much research has little if any
societal value or is so esoteric that it appeals only to a very few. And then the last part, that I
excerpted from his op-ed piece, was an attribution to a poet John Ciardi, I am not gonna get the…
Friedman:
Ciardi.
Neikirk:
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
Ciardi? And this is his words, a quip, that a university is what a college becomes, when
it’s lost interest in students. And then, his conclusion, external matters thereby come first,
students last. By the way, I tried to find out whether this quip was traceable, because there was a
really funny article in the, I think it was in the Chronicle of Higher Education, I’ve forgotten, last
week on comments that get attributed that you can never track the attribution back to. I have no
idea whether he really said this or not. I did find it on a lot of websites that do attribute this
quotation to him, along with a lot of others, and I picked that one. He also said a good question is
never answered; it is not a bolt to be tightened into place, but a seed to be planted and to bear
more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of the idea. So, lest one think that this
particular poet was, hated higher education, I think that if you read some of his other quotations,
you’d probably come to some other conclusion. But this was the one that Trowbridge liked. In
reply to that, our president submitted an op-ed piece to the Houston Chronicle on April 6th. Where,
I think, he clearly tried to rebut or refute these statements, at least as they apply to UT Austin.
Obviously, I think we are all committed to teaching both undergraduates and graduate students.
President Powers mentioned the signature courses. The fact that many of our freshmen and
sophomore courses are not taught by young, inexperienced TAs, but by senior faculty. And that
research has value. I’ll just summarize it that way. So that kind of gives you the whole sort of
history. At least as it played out in public. If there are any questions or if Provost Leslie would
like to make any other comments, we will just sort of open the floor at this point.
Philip Barrish, associate professor, English:
Philip Barrish, English. I just have one comment on this and then a question comment on
something you addressed earlier. My understanding is that TAs are not allowed to teach courses.
They are not allowed to be teacher of record, until they have taken 398T and become AIs. So I
don’t think they is a single TA here who is an instructor of record. And I want to go back to that
amendment 143 to the House budget bill, the family values amendment. It seems to me that it’s
probably no coincidence that this amendment came up with no opp… didn’t come up in a
committee, there was no opportunity to, for anybody else to give a response outside the House.
And I assume there, it will at least be addressed in the reconciliation committee or, I don’t know,
if it will ever be addressed, but if we were in a position, where there was a moment to make our
views known… you know, another thing we could do is, ask chairs in relevant departments, and I
think there are several of them, how many of their courses, in fact, deal with primarily traditional
family structures. I’d say, in the English department, Liz can correct me or give her view,
probably 80% at least, that’s a conservative estimate of the books we assign deal with
conventional courtships, with marriages, with traditional families, even if maybe there’s also
some other stuff in the book. So, my suggestion would be, if we have a chance, to, if there’s any
place for us to make our views known, that would be a place to start.
Neikirk:
I would assume that, well, everything has to be reconciled, so whether this will survive, is
anybody’s guess. And I would agree, when I read it, one of my reactions was, it looks like an
unfunded mandate, but if it stayed the way it was, as long as we have flexibility in trying to figure
out how we responded, then it’s not clearly really an issue. But again, there were 317
amendments. I think well over half of them passed. And there clearly wasn’t much light of day
seen as they came up. Whether they’ll survive reconciliation with the Senate, which is a more
deliberative body… I have no idea.
Hilley:
Martha Hilley, Butler School of Music. I wonder if the provost has anything that he can
share with us about the task force on excellence and productivity.
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
Leslie:
Thank you, Martha. Steve Leslie, provost. Let me just first say to Dean, thanks for the
summary. I think that was a really good and thorough summary. You do such a nice job of getting
into details on so many ways as a leader of the Faculty Council, and this is yet again another
example of how hard you work to make sure that the faculty are very informed about important
matters for the university, so thank you on… I know, Bill Powers feels exactly the same way. We
all do in the administration. Let me also say thanks to the faculty, because I think that this campus
has been strongly unified in terms of taking a strong stance on what The University of Texas at
Austin stands for. It is important that we all convey a message to the public that The University of
Texas at Austin works exceedingly hard to operate at the highest levels, that we understand the
value of a great university like this, and we also strongly believe that the reason that this
university is excellent… there are many, many reasons, but high on that list, and I have said this
over and over, in this body, that… is because of the excellence of the faculty. And we always
need to remember that what starts with excellence in the classroom, really has everything to do
with the instructional quality, and that is the faculty. The faculty is the reason why we have such a
strong student body, and when Bill Powers and I, and everyone, the deans have been fantastic, I
know there are many deans in the room today. And I think that we are all solidly together and
behind the kind of public image and representation of what we stand for. But as we all go forward,
I think, that we need to continue to work hard, to convey a positive message, to be very
responsive to the requests of the task forces, as Dean mentioned, I am on the excellence and
efficiency task force, and Harrison Keller is on the blended and online learning task force, and so,
let me just say to you, that in the context of the excellence and efficiency task force, we have
been meeting a lot, we’ve been working very, very hard. We have provided a great deal of data
from the campus to the task force. The same is the case for the blended and online learning task
force. The committees, the task forces are working hard. The deadline is, as you described, as far
as I know, the deadline remains the same, Dean. And we are working to address, as an example to
Martha’s question, a great deal of focus on the Texas Higher Education Board efficiency report.
And I think that is a central issue of the work of both of our task forces. And addressing the
recommendations from that task force. A lot of what we are doing is still gathering data and, in
terms of data that has come back to the task force, I can’t really comment on that, because we
really haven’t had a lot of that yet, it’s mostly been discussions. I just came back from Arizona
State University. We had a trip… Regent Cranberg flew down with his plane and flew the task
force members, the excellence and efficiency task force members, to Phoenix, and we spent a day
visiting Arizona State University, and the focus of that really had to do with what they are doing
at Arizona State University in terms of their online learning, and the models that Arizona State,
and the pluses and minuses, and we had not had a debriefing on that meeting at this point. We’ll
have another meeting of the task force on Thursday, and that will be a primary topic of discussion,
to debrief on that trip. Other than that, I don’t really have a lot to say in terms of the outcome and
what we anticipate to be the outcome of the task force. We don’t really know that. We’re just all
working away and trying to be as responsive and positive and supportive and cooperative with the
recomm… with the requests from the task force to the campus. And I’d be happy to answer any
questions that you might have.
Greninger:
Dean Leslie, did both task forces go to Arizona State, because you said the topic was
online and so that would also apply to the other group as well.
Leslie:
Well, this, well, actually, yes, both task forces did go. Harrison Keller went and Ricardo
Romo was there as well. So it wasn’t just… you’re right. Thank you.
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
Greninger:
Thank you. I just was curious…
Leslie:
Yeah, both task forces were represented there.
Greninger:
Okay. Thank you.
Edmund T. Gordon, associate professor, African and African Diaspora studies:
Ted Gordon, Department of African and African Diaspora Studies. Why’d you go to
Arizona State? What’s at Arizona State?
Leslie:
Why did we go? Because they, the chair of the task force assembled the group and said
that we would go to Arizona State to take a look at what…
[laughter in the audience]
Neikirk:
So… There are some documents in the reading list, and I don’t recall whether it’s in the
excellence and productivity task force or whether it’s in the online… which one it is. But Arizona
has been in the press, I won’t comment, good, bad, but they’d been in the press over online
learning expansion. And there are some links in the task force reading list to, at least one article, I
think, I know it’s generically about Arizona, another one, I believe specifically about Arizona
State. So you can read a little bit about what they’ve been doing. I don’t recall the details, but I
assume that’s why…
Leslie:
I think in terms of… it’s pretty obvious. I think that the reality is, Arizona State has been
building aggressively in their online, both their online courses and focusing on online degree
offerings. And they’ve had a very significant ramp-up in their on-campus student body, and so I
think from what you, from what we’ve all seen, and what we know in the press and what the
regents are looking for, in terms of ways to address opening access and enhancing affordability
and doing online degrees. I think that’s a big part of why we went. You know, what we heard was
that, and this came from Michael Crow himself, at a debriefing we had, a meeting at the end of
the day with the president… that their goal is to increase their on-campus size to around 90,000…
Niekirk:
Excuse me, Steve. On campus or off campus?
Leslie:
90,000, then go to 100,000. For their online degree programs. And that was in a statement
from him, and that’s a published goal that they have and so, you know, alright, that’s a goal for
Arizona State University, but it’s not anything that I think we would want to pursue at a flagship
university. And I think that’s pretty clear from the trip going. I would say this, and then I will turn
it over to you Ted for another question, that going and coming, with Regent Cranberg, was a
really good opportunity to have an extensive conversation. We talked for two hours going and
two hours coming back, and I thought that that was a really productive conversation about issues
and substance of what we have here at a great university, and why it’s important that we follow
through on the things that we’re doing. We discussed a great deal about the, our DPAC planning
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
process, about the course transformation program. When Gretchen and Harrison come in and talk
about that, pay real close attention to that. I think that’s really good stuff that they are working on.
And hugely important for us to get behind as a campus. In ways that we can really demonstrate
and build out what could be a fabulous national model as a next step for what we’ve already done
in the context of all the signature courses and transforming the undergraduate core curriculum.
The next step, if we can really build out in an efficient way, the course transformation program, I
think, it can really become a model for the 21st century of what a big university like this can do to
set excellence in gateway courses to both strengthen and make more positive the environment for
faculty as well as for students. We talked about all of that going and coming, and so I felt pretty
positive about the trip itself. In my opinion, I think that the airplane ride going over and coming
back was the best part of the trip.
[laughter in the audience]
Gordon:
Was it the most efficient part of the trip?
Leslie:
Yeah, it was a nice airplane.
Gordon:
I just had a point of clarification. If they’re planning on, they have these goals for
increasing student enrollment, are there also goals for increasing faculty and what kind of
proportion are they looking for in terms of faculty…
Leslie:
Well, you know… Good question, Ted. I think that we don’t know the answers to what
the goals are. I think the task forces are gathering data right now. And then I guess we’ll work on
that and find out more later, in terms of what the outcome of all that will be.
Gordon:
I was talking about Arizona State.
Leslie:
Oh, I’m sorry. Arizona State… What’d you ask again?
Gordon:
With their plans of increasing student enrollment…
Leslie:
Oh, yeah. The faculty are not increasing. That… Sorry, I forgot about that part. They are
gonna do all this, according to the president, without increasing the size of the faculty.
Hilley:
Martha Hilley, Butler School of Music. Does ASU have a $10,000 degree?
Leslie:
They… what I heard from that… and I’m just reporting back. This is not confidential
information. I don’t view it as anything that is sensitive in terms of the task force work, but their
charges are in the range of a thousand dollar, I think 1,200 dollars per 3-hour course was what
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
they defined as the charges that they’re having for their online courses. So, the answer is no. They
are not going to do it for $10,000.
Greninger:
Sue Greninger, human development and family sciences, and also secretary, and also a
proud graduate of the University of Arizona in Tucson… [laughter in the audience]. I wanted to
ask a question about, did you perceive that there was maybe any influence from the University of
Phoenix or the Western Governors College in terms of influencing ASU in their goals.
Leslie:
Well, that would be total speculation on my part. But I would have to say, no. That the
University of Phoenix is right there in the same town, and from what I heard, this is a goal of the
Arizona State University to use its brand to increase access and availability for students in
Arizona to get degrees from Arizona State University and in many ways, I applaud them. I think
that there could be room for a university or two to pursue that, but I will, I’ve said… on the trip,
to both regents who were there with us, that more power to Arizona State. I think it’s a worthy
thing for them to try to do to enhance workforce. But that’s not something that I view as an
approach for a tier-one university, and certainly not The University of Texas at Austin.
Greninger:
I was just curious, because I know the budget there is in dire straits.
Leslie:
Very bad, yeah. They defined that they were having a 63% cut in their budget.
Neikirk:
Janet.
Janet Staiger, professor, radio-television-film:
Janet Staiger, radio-tv-film. I know, I believe University of Arizona is tier one. I don’t
know…
Leslie:
Member of the AAU.
Staiger:
Yeah. AAU. Is Arizona State?
Leslie:
No.
Mary Rose, associate professor, sociology:
Mary Rose, sociology. I just had an anecdote from a business trip this past week, where I
was talking to a chair of a department who lost a candidate to ASU. And the reason they lost ‘em
is because ASU could pay substantially more to this assistant professor with promises of lots of
support for summer, if they hit certain articles… so, it struck me in just the little bit I knew about
Arizona, this doesn’t seem like the, a sustainable model, if we're, if they are having higher than
average faculty salaries and expansion. Did they talk about the resources that they are devoting to
faculty, to research, to anything like that?
Leslie:
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
The president discussed that a bit. And I think there is no question that the revenue
generation from what is happening and what’s planned to happen with the increase in
undergraduate size on campus and the revenues that would be generated from the online courses
and online degrees, would generate money to do that. And President Crow discussed the fact that
he has had, in targeted areas, very aggressive faculty recruitment efforts, including, I think, he’s,
he hired a couple of Nobel Laureates in economics in the past several years. But it’s very focused.
In selective areas. So I think, that’s their plan.
Rose:
With promises for supporting research?
Leslie:
Uh-ha. Yeah. Yeah.
Neikirk:
Thank you, Steve.
Leslie:
Yes sir.
Neikirk:
Okay. The next item on the agenda is: report of the chair elect, Alan Friedman.
Friedman:
Alan Friedman, English. First of all, I hope that you’ve all noticed that there is coffee, tea,
cookies here. And that you’ll come and help yourselves. I’d like to thank Bill and Steve for
arranging that. And it would help a lot if you would let me know what you think of that. If you
think it’s a good idea and whether we should continue it.
Leslie:
Let me say that… Alan… It’s Steve Leslie, provost. Alan and Dean came up with this
idea, and I just think it’s a terrific idea and you know, I… back years ago, we talked about the
fact that back years ago, I was the first director of the Institute for Neuroscience and had trouble
assembling groups, but as soon as I started bringing coffee and cookies, everybody started
showing up. So, yes, thank you much and… wonderful idea and thanks for thinking of it, Alan.
[clapping in the audience]
Friedman:
Thank you. I was told, however, you have to bus yourselves. So please take away any
trash when you leave. Second, I’d like to thank the deans for attending today. You’ll notice there
are more deans here than you have ever seen in one place before if you’re a faculty member. And
I’m thrilled that they’re here. I think it’s really important, given all that we’ve heard and what
we’re going through, that the administration from the president through the deans and the chairs,
as well as the faculty, the staff, the students, be all on the same page, be working together to
address the concerns that we all share. And I think their attendance here today is an
extraordinarily positive sign that they share that concern with us and they want to work with the
faculty going forward. So I thank you very much!
I want to say just a couple of other things. One is a further follow-ups on the joint
meeting with A&M. We’ve already, as you know, passed the resolution in support of the
chancellor’s letter on the gun carry bill, which was a follow-up from the meeting with A&M that
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
was also passed at A&M, at their senate, so we’re coordinating on issues of mutual interest. The
joint statement on research and teaching that Dean and I signed was also signed by their chair and
chair-elect. And that’s been published so far in the Texan and in the Statesman. And the
resolution that’s coming up later in the meeting today, that Alba will be speaking about, will be
presenting, grew out of the, one of the sessions at the joint meeting with A&M and is being
introduced at A&M as well. So I think that meeting was fruitful and I think we will continue
coordinating our efforts whenever it’s appropriate.
There’s also been follow-up with the system faculty advisory committee. The two regents
we met with at that time who were on the two task forces, Hall and Pejovich, asked to be
inundated with data from the different campuses about policies and procedures. What works.
What’s already going on. What do we not need to invent, as we go forward in the task forces.
What’s been successful. So, Debbie and Anita have coordinated the efforts on this campus. They
produced, what I think, is an extraordinary document, an electronic binder, carefully listed,
organized. And that’s already gone forward as our contribution to this effort that’s happening on
every campus in the UT system and that will be dumped on the task forces to read, to assimilate,
to understand. To learn from, we hope. And that may help to guide their ?? as well. We are
already doing any (or many?) of the things they’re concerned about and doing it very well.
[sound changed and these last two sentences are very hard to understand]
The election for next year’s Faculty Council and committees are still underway. They end
on April 15. I hope you all voted. If you haven’t, I encourage you as colleagues [??]. As soon as
that election is over, you will be asked to submit, those of you who are continuing on the council,
will be asked to submit committee preferences for next year. Please indicate at least four or five,
so there are lots of good choices for you. And before the May 9th meeting, there will be a special
meeting of next year’s Faculty Council to elect the chair elect and next year’s FCEC.
Neikirk:
Thank you, Alan. And I would like to thank Anita and Debbie and numerous staff, in
both the president’s office and the provost’s office for doing this electronic binder. It would be a
really good source book for all of us. Because it’s got all the electronic links to everything you
ever wanted to know and more. Actually, at some point, we probably ought to try to publish that
someplace. It’s just a great place, a great way to organize what you can find about UT.
We have one item of unfinished business that I would like to move to now. This is a
proposal to revise UT Austin’s Handbook of Operating Procedures with respect to faculty
retrenchment, and Janet Staiger will handle this.
Staiger:
Last year, May, we had, did a financial exigency policy as a consequence of the revision
by the Regents Rules of the overall regents policy about what would happen if we had to declare
financial exigency. And it was a response to the situation at UTMB in Galveston. We put that
forward, this summer, there were objections by probably both, well, definitely by Steve Leslie,
our provost, and I think Bill certainly agreed with those objections. Steve’s is in writing, Bill just
– no thank you. So… it wasn’t that… I don’t mean to make it sound like that at all. Anyway, so
we needed to go back and rework the legislation. It is major legislation. It will have to be passed
by the General Faculty as well. Which is the reason why we are trying to do it now. Also that,
assuming it passes, today, can go out for the General Faculty’s vote. In order to try to make sure it
is passed this time, and approved by the provost and the president, Dean Neikirk and I have
worked many meetings with Steve Leslie and with Bill Powers. We’ve also had David Rabban
come in and talk about views from the AAUPs guidelines about these matters. We think the
policy is in place… there are two, at this point, two very, very, very minor issues, where we are at
odds and we’re hoping, and I’ll point them out to you as I go through it, we’re hoping that we can
get it approved even though there are two very minor issues at stake. So, this is the policy, the
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
current policy. I’m not gonna go through the whole thing. It was posted online. It’s too long to
read. This is the prior one, and you will see that it’s brief. And that’s it. Faculty, president
consulting with faculty groups, if we were to terminate programs and/or go into financial
exigency. The new one really tries to follow what the Regents Rules are. The Regents Rules are
in 31103 [is that correct?] and to specify it in the particularities of our university. So we are
primarily stating that we are going to try to involve the faculty in any of these decisions. There
are two parts to the document. One is, were a program or a tenured or tenure-track position to be
eliminated for academic or budget reasons, what would happen? This one was ones we were
particular concerned about. The way we finally negotiated it. I really felt for the Democrats and
the Republicans over the weekend. It was those kind of negotiations. How can we have win/win
for both sides. Or not so bad a loss for both sides. At any rate, what we will do is, we agreed to a
process… the Regents Rules did not require the faculty governance body to nominate individuals
to a committee to make these evaluations. What we were able to negotiate is, the president will
consult with the Faculty Council and the budgetary units to determine the most appropriate of the
possible courses of action to be taken and the means of safe-guarding faculty rights and interests,
including tenure rights. In a case of a need to reduce academic programs or faculty positions, the
president in consultation with the Faculty Council Executive Committee, will appoint a review
committee, composed of faculty and administrative personnel to make recommendations to the
presidents about this. The committee will be composed of at least half faculty members. And,
unless otherwise agreed to, also include the chair of the Faculty Council, which is how we get the
faculty contribution into that committee. Or at least one that seems to come the faculty, as
opposed to the presidential appointees. So that was the negotiation on program elimination or a
tenured, tenure-track line elimination. The review… a person who might be terminated as a
consequence can appeal, turn to the appeal process, which I’ll come to in a moment. The other
one, which nobody things would happen, it would be the instance of absolute financial exigency.
A major financial problem. We really follow line by line the Regents Rules there. The Regents
Rules allows an appointment of a committee composed of faculty administrative personnel. At
least half the total committee membership will be faculty members and at least half of the faculty
members on the committee shall be appointed from recommendations submitted to the president
from the Faculty Council, which is our body that would do that. We tried to get that sort of a
situation for program elimination, but the Regents Rules were not as clear about it, and so what
we are doing in this case, is following the Regents Rules, which do give us essentially one fourth
of the appointments on such a committee. We’re also recommending that a majority be faculty
appointed. That a faculty appointed be tenured. That they’ve had experience in the institution, and
so forth. That they try to get the work done in 60 days, if possible. Unless it’s extended. I’m
following, we’re following the Regents Rules. This is how the committee would assess academic
programs that might be eliminated, and we’re following the Regents Rules, it’s in quotes. For
Regents Rules 3.3, review consideration and tenure preference. We are asking for the information
to be in a written report. Underlined is the one of the two sticking points. Underlined states, if
other officers of the university, such as deans or program chairs are involved in identifying
individuals whose appointments are to be terminated, the process for obtaining those
recommendations should be described in the report. What happened at UTMB was, it seems that
a lot of chairs were making the recommendations, rather than faculty review committees, which
was problematic. We don’t expect that particularly to happen here. The provost’s office was
arguing for not including that sentence in the final policy. We’ve put it in the contingent form.
They should be described in a report. Obviously we could get ahold of that information through
open records. We’d prefer to have it transparent, but it’s not required. So, we’ve left it in there,
and I really want to underline to the provost, it’s a should, not a necessary one. And it’s simply
for purposes of transparency, that we would hope that that would be not a sticking point for the
entire policy. The committee will have personnel records, and so forth, available to them. Again,
following the Regents Rules. Following the review, the information will be given. And there is a
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
procedure for appeal if one were to be terminated. Obviously, the underlying is the other point of
disagreement. The Regents Rules states that, basically, you use, you can use your, there are rules
regarding grieving your termination in the Regents Rules 31003, 3.7 and 3.8. It was interpreted
by the systems attorneys that using your local governance procedures is appropriate as long as we
follow the big guidelines in the Regents Rules. We wanted the statement that it’s clear that we’re
following the local faculty governance procedures, subject to the requirements of the Regents
Rules up at the top. The provost’s office, looking at this one, it’s the third paragraph, and again,
we’re hoping that placing it first, so it’s clear what we’re talking about, will be okay, rather than
placing it as a third paragraph. There wasn’t disagreement with the inclusion of the paragraph,
just where it went. But the next paragraph is the appeal for reconsideration will be in writing and
addressed to the president who will send a copy of the appeal to the chairs of Grievance
Committee and the Committee of Council on Academic Freedom and Responsibility. HOP 3.18
being the grievance process, and this being the normal kind issue of what would happen if a
faculty member who is tenured or tenure-track being terminated before the end of a period of
appointment would happen. The burden is on the appellant to show that financial exigency wasn’t
the reason or there was some other reason why they should not have been terminated. We added,
and it was agreed to, that anyone terminated should be given a reasonable amount of time to close
down his or her research and related facilities in a non-destructive way. Not at UTMB, but at
other places where there had been terminations in the last few years, research programs have been
basically… people have been terminated and asked to leave within 24 hours their facilities. We
wanted to put some kind of qualification in there. And then write a first consideration [??], no
concurrent replacements. So, we are very hopeful that this one, since we’ve worked really hard to
negotiate it, will be approved, subject, of course, to the Faculty Council’s approval and then to the
General Faculty’s approval. Any questions? Of me? Before we debate.
Neikirk:
This is a proposal. Now I’m trying to remember, Janet, is this coming from rules or from?
Staiger:
I think it comes from Faculty Council Executive Committee.
Neikirk:
Faculty Council Executive Committee. We are both on rules, so there’s some confusion
here, in terms of… So this is on the floor for debate. It comes from the FCEC, so it doesn’t need a
second. So, it’s open for discussion at this point. [pause] Seeing no questions, I’ll go ahead and
call for a vote then. All those in favor of these policies, please indicate by saying aye. (Audience
answers, “aye.”) All those opposed, same sign. (No one answers.) Abstentions? (No one
answers.) None. Thank you, and that passes. Thank you very much.
Okay, there are no reports of the General Faculty, college, schools, and committees today.
We have three items of new business. And I’ve kind of shuffled these a little bit. I’m gonna go
ahead and Tom… Tom is still here, right? Ah, there he is. Tom is actually in the middle of a
seminar, so he snuck out, and we’re gonna try to get his COIA report in, so he can get back to his
seminar. Tom, go ahead.
Thomas Palaima, professor, classics:
Some of you may know, I’ve been, for the last three years, UT’s representative on the
Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics. It’s a very, very serious national organization. The only one
that has an independent faculty voice on matters of the relationship between NCAA programs and
institutions of higher education. This is my final year. I think three years is enough. Michael
Granof preceded me, and I think was actually a representative for a longer time. It’s a very
serious organization. It meets once a year. We’ve met in San Diego, Tucson, and Chicago. The
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
last meeting in Chicago was in January. We were addressed by the president of Penn State
University, by the head of the NCAA, by the commissioner of the Big Ten, by a committee of
athletics directors from the Big Ten, by the head of the Knight Commission, and so forth. So, this
is a very, very serious organization. It’s not just a faculty organization. As you can see, it draws
upon and interacts with the major players in NCAA’s force. And what I’m going to report on now,
is, first off, front-loading my own views of what I think are serious concerns for The University
of Texas at Austin campus, are drawn from the opinions of these other people. For example, at
the Chicago meetings, the head of the NCAA, the athletics directors panel from the Big Ten, the
commissioner of the Big Ten, and the president of Penn State University all said, academic,
athletic spending is out of control, it seriously harms the academic missions of the universities,
that coaches salaries are too high, that the academic progress rate of the NCAA is not
accomplishing what it should accomplish, as far as guarantying that student athletes really have a
chance to be students, and so forth. Really, do not think that this is some kind of radical agenda
devised by my own brain or even is a radical agenda of the COIA membership, which have a [??]
broad spectrum. People who one could consider radicals, to people who were former faculty
athletic representatives, or really very, very committed pro-sports boosters on their campus.
How do I move this forward?
Okay. This one? Good. So you can go back and take a look at the 2009 and 2010 reports.
I do want to stress that, again, COIA is the only independent faculty voice, chiming in on athletics.
Why do I say independent? Well, at every institution of higher education, there is a faculty
athletic representative, but that person is appointed by the president and responds to the president.
So, it’s not an independent faculty voice. The same can be said for the men’s and women’s
athletics councils at every institution, or their equivalent. At our institution, as you know, they’re
regental appointees, and the Faculty Council puts up a slate of five names, and the president
chooses one. So again, it’s not an independent faculty voice. The Faculty Advisory Committee on
Budgets could also give advice on the sports, on sports financing, but in my various stints on that
committee, we never looked at the sports budget, and, in fact, I’m rather concerned that in the last
two years of serious budgetary crisis at the University, the FACB was not even convened until
February in both years. This does not bode well for the degree of seriousness with which the
committee is viewed. My concerns for UT Austin, then, is that there is no independent faculty
oversight of financing and operation of our NCAA program. And this is called for by the
president of Penn State University, by the head of the NCAA, even by the athletics directors in
the Big Ten. They all stressed the need for an independent faculty voice, and we have no
independent faculty voice. In my, to my knowledge, there was no serious consultation with the
Faculty Council over issues, major issues, like: How should the returns to the academic mission
from athletics, for example, from trademarks and royalties, be spent? The million dollars, some of
which came from that source for this room, for example, at a time, for renovating this room, at a
time, when there were cutbacks to the academic mission. There wasn’t any consultation ahead of
time on Mack Brown’s raise, and the appointment of now a departed Will Muschamp, as an error
apparent. 2.5 million dollars, I don’t care what the source, given over to these people without
prior consultation of any kind of independent faculty voice. What it brought us was our first
loosing season in 15 years. Nonetheless, we embarked on a policy of hiring yet more expensive
coaches, as if that’s going to solve the problem. The Big Ten athletics directors themselves, in
Chicago, said that players should worry about winning, there institutions shouldn’t. That is,
institution should not be in the racket of buying the best coaches, producing the best facilities,
rigging schedules so that they play farther [??] schools and guarantee themselves eight, nine, ten
wins a year and call that good sportsmanship, or even any kind of process, by which athletes can
have a true athletic experience. And again, I say, this is the Big Ten athletics directors themselves,
in Chicago, telling us this.
The payment to athletics director DeLoss Dodds of one million dollar post-tax annuity.
Again, I don’t care what the source. It’s coming within the orbit of the University, and the Faculty
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
Council or some kind of independent faculty organization should be consulted on the matter such
as this. The Cleve Bryant case, rumors of recruiting scandals, this is what I get all the time as
COIA rep. What’s going on at your campus? I’m contacted by press, wanting to know what about
the recruiting scandal. What’s going on with the Cleve Bryant case? I say, well there’s a big
clamp on it. A secret report has gone up to the president’s desk, and we don’t know anything
more about it. This is not how it should work at a university.
There’s been no serious discussion in the Faculty Council that I know of about how the
Longhorns Network. And its revenues will affect our institution. We’re now experiencing
cutbacks of area centers, major requirements, staff have been laid off, graduate assistants have
been reduced, and yet, so it should be of a concern… I went to a meeting in January of the new
Center for the Study of Sports and Media. The director envisions that this Longhorns Network
will produce hundreds of internships, and assistantships, and attached academic lines on this
campus. That’s going to alter the whole shape of what we’re doing on this campus. We shouldn’t
allow our philosophy of education to be dictated by where the dollars are coming from, especially
from ESPN. There should be some united vision, and the faculty should have been in on the
ground floor, or should be in on the ground floor, of what’s going on with this money. Otherwise,
it’s going to tie us to win, win, win in sports, bring in the dollars, and don’t care about how it’s
done. There are low graduation rates in certain sports. One year, the basketball team had a 0%
graduation rate. And so on.
There’s no annual review of student athlete courses, majors, and instructors taken. This is
done at Penn State University. The president there says, every year a faculty-appointed committee
and the president’s office himself analyzes where the athletes are being placed in courses. That’s
not done here in any kind of systematic way with an independent faculty group being part of the
process. There’s a grave disparity between the normal student admissions profile and student
athlete admissions profile. It’s particularly problematical here at the University of Texas because
of our high academic standing to get athletes who are capable of competing in the classroom here
with their true peers. It’s a very, very difficult position that the athletics department is in. I’m not
discounting that. Nonetheless, it is still a problem to bring to campus student athletes who have,
do not have the qualifications, do not have the preparation to help them compete in the classroom.
And this is also a problem at other campuses. So far as I know, when I’ve asked for clarification
about how these people get admitted, I’ve really been told, it’s a separate pool. And again, at
Penn State University, and by recommendation of the NCAA director, this should not be
happening. That is, there should be an organized faculty committee that sits in on the admissions
requirements and examines the admissions process for athletes, as well as regular students. That’s
not the case here. And I also think a major concern is the time that high-ranking administrators
devote to athletics concerns and events and could partly be devoted at least to other, more serious,
and as Steve Weinberg would say, adult concerns. I have many other concerns, but they’re not
worth airing again. From my point of view, and from the point of view of even the director,
commissioner of the Big Ten, something like this should occur, intercollegiate athletics should be
a true extracurricular. Oh well, I don’t know how possible that is. But it should require no more
than 20 hours per week of student, of the students who do perform in a particular sport. The
NCAA mandates that 20 hours should be the cap. They did a survey two years ago, and found out
that in the big-time sports, like football, basketball, and baseball, the athletes were putting in 45
hours a week. So they found out that their own regulation is being violated universally. And, what
do they do about it? Absolutely nothing. They should be admitted according to admissions
standards that apply to all the students. And that’s not done at any institution in this country, and
it’s not done here. And on the basis of undoctored and uncompromised assessments of their K-12
educational achievements. Students then should not be given special tutors, study facilities, or
instructors that are not available to other students on campus.
And there’s been a call, there was a call certainly by the, believe it or not, by the
commissioner of the Big Ten said that antitrust measures should be brought to bear against the
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
NCAA monopoly. This absolutely flabbergasted me to hear that. So, the sum total is that there are
no independent watchdogs overseeing athletic spending on our campus. And what is done with
academically oriented funds to support athletics. There were major exposés, some of you may
remember the front pages of the Austin American Statesman in 2007 of the rather obscene
spending on athletics--sybaritic is a good word. I use it myself. And, there are articles in the
Texas Observer that raised strong concern. You may remember Peggy Pickle, the daughter of
Jake Pickle, saying that her father never intended, when he added the Pickle amendment as a rider
to a congressional bill, to produce this monstrous system that we now have. Nonetheless, that’s
just blown by and nothing has happened. I want to reemphasize, none of what I just said is Tom
Palaima’s unilateral point of view. It’s shared by the Knight Commission, it’s shared by the
president of Penn State University, it’s shared by commissioners of Big Ten, I mean, they all say
that we have to reform the academic side, we have to reform the budget.
That coaches salaries are out of control. And that the faculty should have a greater voice.
And then, they, I don’t know, nothing seems to happen. The major concerns at COIA meeting in
Chicago, sports funding and spending, reform of bad practices, and the general control of
athletics. Some of you may have read that the president of Ohio State University, when there was
a recent scandal with the football coach Jim Tressel, said, I hope Jim Tressel won’t fire me. And
unfortunately, that more or less reflects some of the power structure. Here were the talks that
were given at the most recent COIA meeting, as I said, the president of Penn State, the
commissioner of the Big Ten, the Big Ten athletics directors, the president of the NCAA, and the
executive director of the Knight Commission. Notice the topics. How do presidents control
athletics?
There was a survey of the BCS champion series presidents. About 70% of them
responded and all of them said, they could, the great majority said, they could do nothing about
all of these problems. Could do nothing. Well, they’re the only people on campus who have the
power to do something. And yet, that was their opinion. I would revise that to say, they can do
nothing that won’t affect their own career interests.
The… notice: Fiscal Reform, Fiscal Reform, Fiscal Reform. So, everyone agrees that the
financing of big-time sports is out of control. Why do they say that? Out of the 124 BCS
institutions, only nine are in the black this last year. Only nine have not taken money from the
academic mission. That is what is published at the COIA meetings in Chicago, the head of the
NCAA and the commissioner of the Big Ten said, they’d be surprised if you did legitimate
bookkeeping if nine remained the number. Probably be more like two, three, or four. University
of Texas at Austin would probably fall into the category of one that’s a moneymaker, as opposed
to a money-looser. But even then, there is stuff with, as you may well know, talk to Michael
Granof, and you might get a different picture. I will go very quickly through the rest of these.
I’m not gonna… you can read these later, but I’ll just highlight a few points. Presidents
Spanier of Penn State University says, around the country, institutional control is lacking. NCAA
programs constantly push the windows on regulations. And then faculty senates and councils
need to be a major part of the oversight process, but they’re not. They’re not here at The
University of Texas at Austin campus. Not when we just, we have one person a year added to the
men’s and women’s athletics council after, at the control of the president. That’s not in any way
shape or form faculty senate or council being a major part of the oversight process. At Penn State
University, there’s a, as I said, automatic yearly review, under the control of the vice president for
education and the faculty panel, as to how, where the athletes are taking courses, in what majors,
with which professors, and so forth. At Penn State University, he says, the president meets every
year with all the members of the athletics department, tells them what their responsibilities are,
we’re talking, staff people, too, and says, whistle-blowing will be , will be encouraged. He meets
with athletes and so forth. One of the things that surprised me, he shamed, without any shame,
admitted that he sees high school sophomores who are unofficially attending, coming to campus,
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
to recruit them for volleyball. He openly said, I’m violating NCAA rules. Unbelievable, but this
is how things go.
The Big Ten commissioner Delaney gave a history of what’s created the current
problems. There was a time, when freshmen athletes were not eligible to participate in varsity
sports. And Delaney thinks that that was something that should be reconsidered. Of course, it will
never happen with the amount of money that’s being generated and the special interests involved,
television networks, and so forth. But, in fact, what that allowed students with less than sound
academic preparation, to do, was to get one year as real students, and get a foot in, before they put
in all of the time on big-time sports. One of the things that was depressing, is that the
commissioner of the Big Ten said, he served on three committees for fiscal reform, two of which
were abysmal failures.
Just to show that the problems that COIA is addressing are of a national interest, the
ecretary of education himself has said, talked about the dismal academic performances of a large
number of teams in the March Madness basketball competition. And he says, colleges and
universities need to stop trotting out tired excuses for basketball teams with poor academic
records. Part of the problem is that this academic progress rate, that the NCAA has concocted,
just doesn't work. It’s a smoke screen, and they don’t impose any penalties. A team has to have a
lower than, an institution has to have a lower than 40% graduation rate three years running, even
to, for the NCAA, to entertain the prospect of imposing some kind of penalty. And the APR, at
the same time, is set up so that if you fulfill the APR at the end of four years, you’ll have 80% of
your degree finished. That’s almost a recipe for having student athletes not finish their degrees.
The panel on fiscal reforms, as I’ve said, I won’t go over this. You can read it if you’re
interested, but there were two interesting quotes. Student athletes are amateurs, but intercollegiate
athletics is not. That is, it’s a professional sport, and it’s making money for people who are
essentially professionals. This is the athletics director panel. Second best quote was, as I said,
NCAA programs in higher educational institutions to be comm… for them to be committed to
winning is wrong, is a perversion of the whole basic principle of sport, which is to try hard, try
your best, and if you loose, you loose. So you shouldn’t put all your, put money into the way it’s
been viewed now. And it’s the players themselves that should be committed to winning.
Now, NCAA President Emmert, I’m getting close to my end here, really brought up some
of the serious problems. There are 400,000 student athletes nationwide. 99.5% of them will not
go pro. So, when we have 50% and less graduation rates, what’s happening to those people who
don’t go pro? He stressed right in the middle there the importance of shared faculty governance
and that faculty need to assert their views and values and be part of the process. As I’ve already
pointed out, faculty really are not a significant part of the process here, and certainly have no
independent voice. He said, the, well, you can, you can take a look at this. And this, as well, as I
said, over 110 big-time sports schools use academic funds to support sports. The average is about
9 million a year that they syphon off from the academic side of the mission. The APR really is a
smoke screen. It mandates that the, at the beginning of the fourth year, student athletes have to
have a 2.0 grade point average. The average grade point at UT Austin is 3.09, 3.1. So, there’s a
really terrible disparity there, when that kind of low threshold is the, and again, as I said, only
80% of degree after four years.
The, what can be said, big-time sports is a narcotic. I’ve interviewed athletes. All of them
here at UT, I would guess, with a few exceptions, think they will be among that .5% that’s gonna
go pro. These are wonderfully skilled athletes that we bring to campus, and all of them think that
they… Brian Davis said to me that he tries to tell them, NFL means Not For Long, but they don’t
get the message. An example, I interviewed at length, Shon Mitchel last year, when I presenting
the pro side of big-time sports in my debate, great debate with Liam Ogralia [??], Shon talked to
me at great length. He is in his late 30s, and he is now coming back to finish his BA degree. He’s
been held up as a great example of somebody with determination. He should be viewed as a very
sad case of the sports addiction. That I can get to be pro if I just keep at it and keep at it and… he
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
showed me the process by which he just ratcheted down to lower and lower levels of sports, but
always with the confidence that he could just turn it around and pretty soon, he’d be on a
professional sports team. And many don’t have the determination that he did, which is, in his
thirties to come back and pursue a degree. Who knows what happens to the rest. There are no
studies done of what happens to the rest. And always the shiny examples of the few who go on to
Harvard law or something like this or medical school are trotted out, but nobody has done a
systematic study of what happens to these athletes, at least that I know of. Maybe other people in
the room would know. As I said, the NCAA’s own survey shows that there is a violation of the
20-hour per week cap, and so forth. One of the strangest things is that Mark Emmert, who seems
to be a well-meaning individual, as head of the NCAA, trotted out the argument, as some of you
may know, there is an argument that professional, that the athletes at big-time sports institutions
were generating all this money, should get some financial compensation. Emmert said, he’s
strictly opposed to that because they perform in no way differently than the people, than the
students who are in arts schools, theater schools, and music schools, who also do performances as
part of their education. When I pointed out to them that the artists and the musicians and the
theater people do not generate the money to pay extravagant salaries for their professors, do not
generate the money to build the buildings they study in, or the facilities that they need to practice,
he had no answer for that. But I will guarantee you that he didn’t eliminate the argument from his
stump speech that he gave us. So, my opinion of the head of the NCAA is that he is a very
intelligent and sincere person, but I doubt whether he will be able to impose any kind of positive
changes.
The final, I’m wrapping up now, the final bit is a report of the Knight Commission.
Pointing out some of the trends as you can see here, between 1986 and 2007, this is even before
the 2 million dollar raise we gave Mack Brown, which boosted football coaches salaries even
more astronomically. The faculty salaries have increased in constant dollars, 30%, university
presidents salaries have increased 100%. Showing you what’s going on at the administrative side.
Basketball head coaches salaries 400%. And football coaches salaries 500%. According to the
Knight Commission, NCAA athletics is a monopoly, but it manages to be immune from antitrust
measures, partly because, I guess, of association with universities and so on. And the claiming of
being amateurs. As I said, 124 BCS presidents were contacted by the Knight Commission for
responses, 95 replied. And almost unanimously, they said they could do nothing to contain costs
or reign in salaries. And therefore, most saw increasing revenues as the solution. In order not to
jepar… so, let the good times… do anything to increase revenues. Sell images of players, bring
that in. Or, as the Big Ten has done, and now the Big Twel… the University of Texas within the
Big 12, start a television network. Only nine of 124 schools were in the black. And here is what
the Knight Commission has proposed as lobbying points. Greater Transparency, that’s good.
Make academics a priority, that’s good. Train college athletes as students first and foremost,
that’s good. Make athletics financial reports public, that would really be good. And especially
long-term and facilities debt burden. And include bottom line information on percentage of
change yearly in academic and athletic spending. And also pay real attention to the APR. It’s a
terrible mechanism, it’s a smoke screen, but at least it establishes one thing. If a school gets a 925,
which is what all school are striving for, that’s a 50% graduation rate. Doctored graduation rate. I
won’t go into explaining how it’s doctored. But nonetheless, it’s a 50% graduation rate. So, the
Knight Commission said, why not devote 20% of basketball TV revenue and BCS footfall TV
revenues to a fund that would reward the schools that get 925 and above? That would be a good
thing. There’s some horrendous statistics. University of Kentucky graduating 44%, having a
100% graduation of white players, 31% graduation rate of black players. We could go on and on
on that score, but that’s one example. There was a strong… the athletics directors of the Big Ten
were even arguing for reducing coaching staffs. These are the athletics directors of the institutions
saying, why do we need 11 football coaches? Why do we need five basketball coaches? Why do
we need audio-visual directors? Press handlers? They themselves… these are, of course, the
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
institutions that can’t generate the amounts of money we generate here on the Forty Acres, and
therefore, they really have to try to balance budgets, and so they’re looking seriously at this kind
of swollen sports budget. One of the most depressing things, but I don’t think it’s any kind of
great surprise, is that a 2007 survey found out that one of three faculty knew nothing about
athletic spending on their campus, and 11 out of 12 thought, and they overall ranked it as 11th out
of 12 concerns with regard to the institutional budget.
I’ll just close with one other point that shows you what we’re up against here at UT.
What I saw that the APR was 50%, I say, I wonder what the graduation rate is at UT Austin. Does
anyone know what the general student graduation rate is? Six-year graduation rate? Student, so a
cohort group comes to campus in 2004… how many are graduated by 2010? Does anybody
know?
Staiger:
80%
Palaima:
80%. Right. 80.1% this year. 80.6% last year. Yet, one considers this 50% graduation rate,
and this is even doctored, because they don't include in this, if you get a student to transfer to
another institution. I will close, I generally can get all worked up into being a moral, oldtestament prophet. I’ve tried to put that aside. This is the new, bearded, relaxed Tom Palaima.
Partly because I am not on the Faculty Council any more. But this is the one thing that still stays
with me. And for my whole time, not just the three years in COIA, but 11 years writing about
sports as a, you know, in the Austin American Statesman, and the Texas Observer, the Chronicle
of Higher Education, even the Times Higher Education, over in London, that magazine that we
don’t want to belong to their survey. There was a… does anybody remember the name Buck
Burnette? Anybody remember Buck Burnette? Of course you know him. Don’t. He was
disappeared. Buck Burnette, in the period immediately after the election of Barack Obama, he
was a football lineman, a friend of the quarterback, and a good enough football lineman to be
jocking in his sophomore year, to be either first or second string. He put up on his Facebook a
racist joke about Obama’s election. Calling him by an epithet that I can’t even utter and saying:
Hunters bring your rifles to the White House. We have a blank in it. Now, why did Buck Burnette
do this? He is a Texan. He grew up in rural Texas somewhere. Because racism--surprise, surprise-still exists in our culture, doesn’t it? Who's surprised at that? So he grew up in an environment
where you could use a racist word about a person of color. And, he’d heard this joke, he probably
heard this joke from his father, and his father’s friends, his buddies from high school. And he
thought: Haha. I’ll put it up on my Facebook. It was up there for about 15 minutes. A girlfriend of
his, a friend who was a girl, sent him a note, saying: Jesus! Buck, what are you thinking? Well, of
course, it was captured, it made press stories for a day or two. What did we do to Buck Burnette
at The University of Texas at Austin NCAA sports program? Did we say, we have a student here,
a student athlete who’s come to our University, who made a mistake? And that student athlete
should be counseled, and we have here then a perfect moment to discuss race and racial issues.
And how easy it is to let racist comments, that we may have grown up with, racist attitudes, slip
off our tongue. Did we do that? You know what they did? Within about three days, Buck
Burnette, under the radar screen, had been transferred to another college. I have never felt, well,
yes, you should never say never… that still sickens me. And it still represents to me what is
wrong with big-time money sports. The concern there was to protect the reputation of University
of Texas at Austin sports programs, so you won’t have your ability to sell advertising tarnished
by the fact that you had one player on the team who grew up somewhere in Texas where--surprise,
surprise--they still tell jokes about black people. That is a shameful embarrassment. And that I
hope this will be my last thing to put on the public record about how wrong the big-money sports
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
mentality without serious faculty control at this University is. Thank you. I am going back to my
seminary, but I’ll take five minutes of questions.
Neikirk:
Are there any questions for Tom?
Gordon:
[???] what do you suggest?
Palaima:
Well, for the starters, for starters, I suggest that the president and provost immediately
appoint a Faculty Council committee to discuss what’s going… and to interface with what’s
going on with the Longhorn Network. Secondly, I believe that no longer should the appointment
to the men’s athletics council be at the president’s behest. I don’t think you get any independent
witness that way. May I say something? About last year? Last year, in the… Can I do that? Well,
I’ll do it. Last year, in the executive committee of the Faculty Council, we had a private
discussion and said, we would like Tom Palaima to be on this committee. We were even thinking
of nominating five names, Tom Palaima, Tom Palaima, Tom Palaima, Tom Palaima, Tom
Palaima. That was the recommendation. I’m glad it didn’t happen, in retrospect. But the whole
point is that even with strong, strong backing by the Faculty Council leadership, one can’t get on
the men’s athletics council, somebody with my kind of profile. And again, it’s insane, because
what could I possibly do? As one representative on an athletics council that has regental
appointees and so forth. Nonetheless, what is called for, what is called for, by the head of the
NCAA, not by Tom Palaima, by the commissioner of the Big Ten, not by Tom Palaima, but by…
and so forth… by the Knight Commission, a national committee, not a faculty, but of general
profile, is independent faculty voice. So there needs to be somehow worked into the system here,
an independent faculty voice. And, as the president of Penn State University says, that
independent faculty voice needs to be brought in with regard to recruit… the admissions policies,
and needs to be brought in with regard to monitoring of academic matters every year. I don’t
know how it can happen, it will take an interesting collaboration between the president and the
provost and the Faculty Council leadership, but I really, and again, if what we do here, changes
the world, changes the world, if what we do here, changes the world, and we are the Jones’s, we
are the acknowledged Jones’s of big-time sports, we should, Steve Leslie and Bill Powers and
Dean Neikirk, should be leading the way in what all the leaders of, who know about NCAA
sports, are recommending. Appoint committees that have independent faculty voice. And the
other thing is that it would get away with the passivity, with which the Faculty Council listens to
this stuff. One of the reasons I no longer feel any strong compulsion to speak up on matters,
except for this last report, is, I’m a tired voice. You all know that. I’m a tired voice. I get up here,
you can predict pretty much, what I’m going to say. You know, what my opinions are, and I try to
emphasize that these are not just my opinions. These are the opinions of people who have been
involved… Jim Delaney played basketball on the NCAA Final Four with Dean Smith. This guy
has sports in his blood, and even he sees this whole thing as really out of whack, and corrupt is
not too strong a word, corrupt is not too strong a word, when you have 50, 40, 30% graduation
rates among minority athletes. And when you have the secretary of education, who himself was a
former athlete, Arne Duncan speaking up about this, too. Everybody speaks up, people in
positions of power don’t do anything. What can be done right now, is to do something. Do
appoint independent faculty committees. Get them involved. It’s not going to harm what’s going
on here. You know, and again, I say all of this with one or two exceptions, there are one or two
exceptions, I think, there are a couple evil people in the athletics, but I would say the same
thing… there’s an evil person in my department, as faculty member. So I recognize evil
everywhere, but by and large, these are people of good faith, good faith, they’re trying to do their
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
best. When I [??] the 50% graduation rate, and said, well, at UT it’s 80%... You know what the
response I got was? Oh, but this was a compromise because at Boise State, you know what the 6year graduation rate is at Boise State? 28%. 28%! And so, when DeLoss Dodds came here a few
years ago, and said, this is what we’re up against, that is what we’re up against! We’re up against,
being an elite academic institution and trying to compete with the Boise States of this world. And
we do a pretty good job of it, but I don’t think as good a job as we could do. And part of it is the
obsession with win, win, win.
Staiger:
Janet Staiger, radio-tv-film. I wanna thank you, Tom Palaima, for your dedication to
making us very conscious about what’s going on, calling this to our attention, year after year,
working really, really hard on this matter. I want to thank the members of the athletic councils
who, when we do nominate them, we try to nominate people, that we think will be critical, and I
think the people who go on the athletics council are critical. The situation is, they’re responsible
to the president, and it’s also a complex board. I just want to remind you that try to take a step to
have a faculty group that’s an independent faculty group, when we reconstituted the Student Life
and Activities Committee, 3-B, one of the charges was, to do the athletics report for the Faculty
Council, and this year, while we’re in a transition state, we actually have several people from
athletics council. David Fowler is here, Alba Ortiz, Ted Gordon, who are on that, but also
members of the Faculty Council right now, and the members of the Student Life Committee who
will do a independent, hopefully, a report at May, which will, I think, try to get to some of the
problems we’ve had with the sense that it’s not an independent analysis. One that is, in fact, one
that faculty has tried to do. We’ve gone to several meetings, we’ve met with athletics, we’re
meeting with the president about the budget. It is not the solution, but I did want to reassure you
that many of the things you’ve raised with us, we are trying to look at this year on that committee,
we’re trying to make steps. And I’m not apologizing [??]…
Palaima:
No, no. I understand. And that’s very, very good.
Staiger:
The Faculty Council has been listening to what you and other critics have been saying,
and we’re trying to work, to make an independent judgment about how things are.
Palaima:
Well, that’s very good. And the other thing I should say again, is, I’m not in despair or
anything. I think in all major… I was just thinking the other day, of how long it took for gays in
the military to finally be able to be gays in the military openly. And remember, Bill Clinton ran in
92 under a platform that he was gonna change that. Well, he backed down right away. But that
got it on the radar screen and 20 years later, it finally happened. Some things take a long, long
time to reverse the trends. So, I’m also because I’m stepping down, I don’t know if you’ve
designated a replacement yet, but did wanna say, being a COIA rep is really… I had fun doing it.
And I also felt that I was doing something good. You meet, as I said, you meet with the top
people in sports nationwide. And on top of that, you meet with usually about 40-50 very bright
faculty from other institutions. I even discovered what a faculty athletic rep was, because the
[???] come and meet with us, too. So at the annual meetings, you’re going to be meeting 70-80
people from other institutions who are all there trying to do with I just reported. You know, trying
to point out what the issues are and trying to, maybe, devise some kind of schemes for solutions.
It’s very, very good that this student life committee has this charge. But again, I would highly
recommend that some statement by the president or the provost that would say: you know, we
really take what the president of Penn State, what COIA, what the Knight Commission, what the
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
NCAA head are recommending, namely, independent faculty voice really be made a reality here
because we are the people who set the trend. We’re the envy of the athletics department. Because
when I’m there, at COIA, everybody says, well, this applies to everybody but Texas, you know.
Texas is in its own separate area, and that really is the case. Texas, Stanford, a few others, are put
up in this Olympus of athletics programs, and they, therefore, have serious responsibility to do
things the right way, to do things the right way.
Neikirk:
Thank you, Tom.
Palaima:
Thank you so much. I’m sorry I have to run off to my… actually, I’m not… Take care.
Neikirk:
Okay, we have two other items of business this afternoon. The first is: four nominations
for the faculty members of the Intercollegiate Athletics Councils for Men and Women. The
nominating committees, committee has met and proposes the following two slates of candidates.
And what I, so for the intercollegiate council for men, we have the following five nominations:
Michael Adams, Benjamin Carrington, Mia Carter, David Hillis, and Janice Todd. And I would
like to open the floor to any other nominations, if there are any.
Staiger:
Dean, this is not… Janet Staiger. This isn’t a nomination, but Ben Carrington is an
associate professor.
Neikirk:
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yes, excuse us. That’s a typo. And seeing no other nominations for the
floor, we would… we submit this to Council for their approval. All those in favor, please say aye.
(Audience answers, “aye.”) All those opposed, same sign. (No one answers.) Any abstentions?
(No one answers.) No. Thank you. That was the intercoll… so these nominees will go to the
president who will select one for service on the Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Men.
For the Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Women, we have the following four
nominations: James Deitrick, Tiffany Gill, Hunter March, and Martha Ovando. And again, I
would open the floor to nominations for this slate of candidates. Seeing none, I would ask the
Council to approve the slate of candidates. All those in favor, say aye. (Audience answers, “aye.”)
All those opposed, same sign. (No one answers.) Any abstentions? (No one answers.) Thank you.
Okay, so those, again, these nominations will go to the president who will make the selection for
service on the Intercollegiate Athletics Council.
We have one final item of business. And this is resolution on the faculty role in the UT
Austin budget process, and Alan Friedman will present the resolution.
Friedman:
Dean, I think there is a consensus among the few who are left that this should probably be
postponed to the next meeting. If that’s alright with you.
Neikirk:
And if that is… this is a resolution from the Faculty Council Executive Committee and
representing the committee, I would certainly accept that at this point. Our May agenda is also
going to get full. We’re gonna have to try and organize it properly. We will cover this, we need to
do our ad hoc committee on athletics report, we really want to get Gretchen’s report on the… why
is it… course transformation, thank you. For some reason that acronym just keeps vanishing from
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April 11, 2011 Faculty Council Meeting
my mind. So I know those are three really important issues that we want to cover in May. We’ll
also have elections in May. So, we’ll have a busy May meeting. So, let me just go to the end,
which I think… let’s see if I’ve forgotten anything. I think Alan mentioned, final voting
concludes this Friday for online elections.
Standing committees, if you happen to be a chair of a standing committee, I need your
report soon.
And then the next Faculty Council meeting will be May 9. I just sort of gave you a
preview of the agenda. It will be busy and important. So, please come. And, questions to the
chair?
Hilley:
2:30?
Neikirk:
Oh, this is because we do the Special Meeting first, where we do the elections. Right? So
I think this is actually right. We’ll meet at 2:15 is the Special Meeting, do elections. And then the
regular meeting will convene at 2:30 or whenever we finish elections. If there are no other
questions, I would be ready for a motion to adjourn.
Hilley:
You got it!
Neikirk:
And a second. We stand adjourned.
Meeting adjourned at 4:11 p.m.
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