office-holding privileges by fixed-term faculty on standing committees: James L. Peacock, Chair, Committee on University Government.
Professor Brown: This is the second reading. Unfortunately what we circulated to you didn't include amendments that had occurred at the first reading, so there is a new version of it, and that's the one we're voting on. It's on blue paper. Jim Peacock is the new Chair of the Committee on University Government.
Professor Peacock: Yes. This has been thoroughly discussed, and therefore, I move approval.
Professor Brown: Is there a second? [seconded] Any discussion?
Professor Paul Farel (Physiology): One of the reasons that we started, I think, talking much more about this is that in Health Affairs there're lots and lots of faculty in fixed-term appointments. And if you looked at an individual and what that individual does, it would be very hard to distinguish him or her from an individual who has a tenure-track appointment. One of these, under Section I, a) - b). It says "The duties of the position are primarily teaching, research, or both." And in Health Affairs I'm under the impression thatóDr. Golden [Chair, Depít of Psychiatry] can probably speak to this better than I canóthat there're lots of people who have external appointments, whose primary duty is service. That is, they work in clinics, and that they do teaching, but it might be ancillary. They participate in clinical studies and trials, but that's really not mostly what they do. Mostly what they do is service, and usually delivery of health care. I'm a little concerned that these people would be excluded from participation in faculty governance with the Code written as it states here. I'd like a clarification.
Professor Brown: Which section, Paul?
Professor Farel: This is Section I.D. And you go under that, and then there's a b with a little half bracket. And it says, "The duties of the position are primarily teaching, research, or both." One way around that, is to say instead "include teaching, research, or both," so that it doesn't exclude people whose job description is primarily service.
Professor Brown: So would you want to move an amendment?
Professor Farel: Well, I would just like to know whether I'm correct in the way I'm stating the problem, and whether there really is a concern. I would be more comfortable with a language that, instead of "primarily" said "includes."
Professor Brown: So you're asking would it be more appropriate to say "The duties of the position include teaching, research, or both." Anyone want to speak to that?
Professor Sue Estroff (Social Medicine): On behalf of Carl Bose who had the same concern as Paul, but Carl had to leave. [Professor Bose, who attended the earlier part of the meeting but was called away,] is suggesting an amendment to the same item so that it would say, "The duties of the position include significant contribution in the areas of teaching or research." So, it speaks to Paul's issue of "include."
Professor Farel: It's a question of inclusion.
Professor Brown: So, it's basically the same suggestion. And it would be your suggestion as saying, "The duties of the position include significant contributions in teaching, research, or both"?
Professor Estroff: No. In the areas of teaching or research.
Professor Brown: In the areas of teaching or research.
Professor Estroff: That way, as I read it, "include" doesn't limit it to teaching or research, and it doesn't require both. Therefore, a person who did clinical work predominantly, and/or some of either of the other, could be included.
Professor Brown: So it takes out the "primarily," so that it doesn't have to be research or teaching primarily, but they have to do at least some of that.
Professor Estroff: I'm interpreting Carl's amendment, which I didn't understand when we started, but now I'm afraid I do, [laughter] but I think that's what he meant.
Professor Brown: Okay. Would anybody else like to speak to that?
Professor Peacock: Somebody needs to move an amendment.
Professor Brown: Okay.
Professor Ferrell: There is, at the present time, a motion on the floor to approve the proposal the way it's presented.
Professor Brown: Good. And if someone wants to propose that as an amendment, then we should be talking about the amendment.
Professor Farel: I'd like to propose an amendment that would substitute the word "include" for "are", so that the sentence would read: "The duties of the position include teaching, research, or both." [seconded]
Professor Brown: So now we're discussing that amendment. It has been seconded. [The second criterion would be revised to read] "The duties of the position include teaching or research or both."
Professor Brown: Any further discussion on this amendment?
Professor Ferrell: I'd like to make an observation since I was the Chair of the Committee at the time this was put forward. With the amendment there is no point to paragraph (b) at all, because I don't believe we have any fixed- term faculty positions that do not include at least some teaching or some research. So, therefore, the effect of the change would be to qualify as a voting member of the faculty anyone with a fixed-term faculty position, and we would not look into, as a practical matter, the nature of the duties of that position.
Professor Brown: Does anyone want to question that assumption?
Professor Farel: I know there are instances where, for administrative reasons, people have been offered positions, EPA positions, with a fixed-term appointment, where the duties don't include either teaching or research.
Professor Rich Beckman (Journalism & Mass Communication): Joe, could you tell us if that was the reasoning behind this point originally to exclude people?
Professor Ferrell: The reason for the paragraph as originally written, was to include among the voting members of the General Faculty only those persons who are primarily engaged in teaching and research.
Professor Beckman: So can you explain to us why others are being excluded?
[Professor Ferrell did not respond]
Professor Brown: I think the question is, are we excluding people, do we want to exclude people who have only, who are fixed term, who work only in a service capacity? And Joe suggested that there are none of those. Is that correct?
Professor Ferrell: No, I did not suggest there are none.
Professor Stuart Bentley (Pathology & Laboratory Medicine): There is a substantial proportion of faculty in the Medical School and Dental School, in particular, whose primary responsibilities are clinical service. That's clinical work and teaching. These people, I think should have an equivalent status on the faculty to the research faculty.
Professor Brown: And would they be included if we adopted this amendment?
Professor Bentley: From the way I understood the amendment, everybody who was a non tenure-track faculty would be included in if the amendment went through as was.
Professor Brown: If they do any teaching or research.
Professor Bentley: I didn't know of any faculty who don't do any teaching or research.
Professor Philip Bromberg (Medicine): If I understand Paul correctly, he thinks that there are worthy individuals who don't do teaching or research.
Professor Farel: No, whose position is primarily service.
Professor Bromberg: Whose position is primarily service?
Professor Farel: Yes, but [whose duties also include teaching or research].
Professor Bromberg: But the only three categories I hear so far are teaching, research, and service. And no one is standing up to say, for administration. So suppose that we left (b) not as is, but are referred to all three legs of the three-legged stool, teaching, research, or service. Will that satisfy your concern?
Professor Farel: I'm sorry, would you say that again?
Professor Bromberg: Instead of specifying primarily teaching, research, or both, and then to construct the phrase so that you have three categories: teaching, research, or service. And any mixture of the three.
Professor Farel: I had wanted to restrict membership as a voting member of the faculty to people who are involved in teaching or research, at least to some extent. I think I would be a little bit uncomfortable if somebody were a voting member of the faculty who didn't participate in any of those activities, at least to some extent.
Professor Brown: So, and that's what is reflected in your amendment that says the duties of the position include teaching, research, or both.
Professor Bob Golden (Psychiatry): There are some faculty members in Health Affairs who do not contribute to our teaching or research missions. As part of our alliance with, for example, Kaiser HMO, we are required to give faculty positions to Kaiser physicians, some of whom in some situations do not participate in teaching or research.
Professor Bromberg: [The first criterion requires] full-time service, so we don't have to worry about Kaiser.
Professor Golden: But they enjoy faculty status.
Professor Bromberg: But they're not full-time University employees. They don't get a check from the University.
Professor Judy White (Medical Allied Health Professions): My concern has to with using the words "primarily" or "significantly", in that I'm not quite sure who is going to make that decision. For you to take my particular position and clock hours, whether you did it by the usual percentage of 40 hours. Of course, it's not 40 hours. But if you did it that way, I might fall into that category. Although I do teaching, who decides what is primarily teaching? Even though I am, on the percentage scale, only 30 or 40% clinical administration and 20% clinical service, I may be teaching in the clinic environment, but not in a didactic classroom as well. So my concern had to do with the comment earlier about "significant." And if you used the description "primarily," I just would like to know who is going to define what "primarily" is. And I do not want to discuss percentage of whatever that is. That's just a concern.
Professor Estroff: Well, I was going to say I thought that the phrase ìsignificant contributionî sort of took care of one of these problems if we added service. And I know that Carl's original intent was to add service. And, in this earlier skirmish I don't know what happened to it. But I would be happy to have all three of them there. That's how we do everything around here. And we'll figure it out -- I mean I think that we can argue ad infinitum about "significant" or "primarily" or this or that. I prefer to use Paul's language. Just so that it includes, let's have all three. So I'm wondering if you would accept adding "service"?
Professor Farel: I have a strong feeling that members of the voting faculty should participate in teaching or research to some extent. Their job might be primarily service, but as Bob Golden was saying, we have people who, and I think this is going to be harder to define than it is as to where they get their checks, but we have people who do totally service and don't really participate in the primary mission of the University that distinguishes us from other institutions, which is participation in teaching and research. So, again, I prefer to leave it as it is.
Professor Estroff: Can I just say, I think every person that I know who you say does that also teaches. Everybody teaches at some point, even if inadvertently. [laughter] I sometimes do myself. Those people are connected with us for a reason. So, I don't think we can say it's just "service" only, purely, because a student just might happen to walk by and hear them say something and learn something. They're teaching.
Professor David Hattem (Psychiatry): I'm one of the new Faculty Council members who's a fixed-term person, so we're discussing stuff that's relevant to me in particular. And the point I wanted to make was that there are a lot of fixed-term people in the Medical School and the Dental School who do primarily service, many of whom also do teaching, some of whom also do research, but some of whom do only clinical work. And the point that I want to emphasize, or I want to add, is that when you do clinical work on behalf of the University, what you're doing is serving the community. And when you serve the community, you serve the University. And this is one of the University's primary goals, is to serve the community. So, I think that my, you know, I would speak in favor of it, excuse me, including, of being inclusive in all respects in terms of faculty appointments, as long as they are full-time service.
Professor Brown: So you are speaking to include service.
Professor Hattem: Yes. In effect, I guess, the, I guess the way that that would be done is leaving out line (b) entirely, basically.
Professor Peacock: That's Joe's point. Omit b.
Professor Brown: Okay, well we need to vote on the amendment on the floor. Are we ready to do that? The amendment on the floor is to change (b) to read, "The duties of the position include teaching, research, or both."
Professor Beckman: Question: Could you define teaching? Are we talking about being assigned to a class or a laboratory? Is that what we're talking about?
Professor Brown: Or maybe Sue's talking about "inadvertent" teaching? [laughter]
Professor Ron Strauss (Dentistry): I think that when we're talking of teaching in the clinical setting, it may not be in the traditional classroom setting. It may be a mentorship teaching, it may be preceptorship. The Dental School has very, very few for whom this would not be the case. Almost all of our service people, have as their mission both service and teaching.
Professor Brown: So these are the clinicians?
Professor Strauss: These are the clinician-preceptors. That's one of the guidelines, actually. There are a couple of people who provide only emergency servicesóit's a very limited number. And I'm not sure, I might agree with Paul, I'm not sure that they share the same commitment to the goals of the University. But they are really providing a specific, discrete service.
Professor Bromberg: Are they full time?
Professor Strauss: Yes.
Professor Ferrell: I think I can answer the question about clinical teaching. It was the understanding of the Committee on University Government that to the extent that clinical work in the University involves the training of students, it involves teaching. As a practical matter, the ruling as to who qualifies under this language, is done at the departmental level. What happens is, we [the Office of Faculty Governance] send the faculty lists that are generated by administrative data processing to deans and department chairs with the request that they check off who goes on the list of voting faculty. So to the extent that the department views the individual as a part of the teaching and research faculty, they're on the voting faculty list. If the department does not view them as such, they are not on the list. That's the way it works.
Professor Brown: Are we ready to vote on this? Is everybody clear about what the amendment is? Okay. All those in favor of the amendment, say, aye. All those opposed, say, no. [a few no's] I think it passes. Okay, very good.
Now we return to the original motion, as amended. Any further discussion on that?
Professor Farel: I'm sorry to keep doing this, but Joe's comment about what full-time service means, whether that means getting a check from the University, and if that's what full-time service means, I think it should be explicit, because that's not what it meant to me when I read it.
Professor Ferrell: The phrase ìfull-time serviceî means 75% effort It means eligibility for membership in the State Retirement System or TIAA.
Professor Farel: Well, then, full-time employment I think would be clearer.
[Unidentified Member]: If the position is full-time employment, instead of full-time service, is that the suggested change?
Professor Brown: Yes. Would you consider that a friendly amendment?
Professor Peacock: Since I made the motion, yes.
Professor Brown: Good. Does that second it? [seconded] Any further discussion? We're changing, or rather, there's a friendly amendment to change the wording in criterion (a) to "the position is for full-time employment," rather than "service." Any discussion about that? All those in favor of that friendly amendment to change it to "employment" rather than "service," say, aye. All opposed. That carries.
Professor Brown: Now, back to the original motion. Any further discussion?
Professor Debra Shapiro (Kenan-Flagler Business School): I have a question. How does (b) read now?
Professor Brown: It now reads, "The duties of the position include teaching, research, or both." Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor of the motion as amended, please say, aye. Any opposed, say, no. Very great. We just accomplished some business here. [laughter] Our first of the day.
Professor Brown: Now in The Faculty Code it actually says that we are allowed to go on until 5:45. My preference is to quit as close to 5:00 as possible, since I have child care responsibilities at 5:30. I would request that we could proceed for ten more minutes if you could do that. Thank you.
To UNC-CH Home
Page