Minutes of Faculty Council Meeting

Minutes of Faculty Council Meeting

RICE NEWS
Dec. 3, 1998

Faculty Club, Oct. 22, 1998 – noon

Present: Wilson (speaker), Akin, Aranda, Bayazitoglu, Caldwell, Cox, Driskill, Ghorbel, Gibson, Yunis. Guest: Helena Michie. Absent: Dharan, Meade, Patten, Rea and Wittenberg.

The agenda consisted of: (1) Speaker’s Announcements, (2) Spousal Hiring Policy, (3) Guidelines for Faculty Appointments, Promotion, Tenure and Renewal of Contracts.

(1) Speaker’s Announcements: The minutes of the previous meeting had been previously approved by electronic mail. Wilson informed council of the following:

(A) The matter of awarding degrees in December as well as May will be brought before the faculty at a future faculty meeting. It is likely that honors would still be given in May, but it is helpful to students in their job search to have their degrees awarded in December.

(B) Tony Gorry has reported to the administration that the Year 2000 program is well under way and seems to be in order.

(C) The next Faculty Council meeting will be held at noon on Nov. 10, place to be determined.

Wilson asked for a volunteer to serve on the University Committee on Faculty and Staff Benefits. Ed Cox will serve during the fall semester and Carl Caldwell during the spring semester.

(2) Spousal Hiring Policy: Helena Michie, the University Committee on Affirmative Action co-chair, accepted council’s invitation to participate in the discussion of this subject. Although affirmative action is only one issue considered in making recommendations concerning spousal hiring policy, it is an important one, and council wants input from this committee. During the discussion, it was decided that more research is needed regarding the effects of spousal hiring on diversity at Rice. It was thought that this information might be available statistically. At the next Affirmative Action Committee meeting, Michie will present various points as they relate to affirmative action to determine the committee’s opinions on both procedural guidelines and a policy document. After their meeting, council’s subcommittee on policy will meet with the University Committee on Affirmative Action to get feedback.

(3) Guidelines for Faculty Appointments, Promotion, Tenure and Renewal of Contracts: Council reviewed the Oct. 19, 1998, revised draft of “Guidelines for Faculty Appointments, Promotion, Tenure and Renewal of Contracts” being developed by the P&T Committee. Two specific issues were discussed. These two issues dealt with the dean’s authority to prevent a department’s recommendation from going forward to P&T and the solicitation of opinions other than those gathered by the department. After a discussion of these two points, Wilson asked for a straw vote on how many council members thought the deans should be required to advance the dossiers of all candidates recommended by their department for promotion. All eight members still in attendance agreed that this should be the policy. They also agreed that all supplementary opinions should be seen by the candidate’s departmental colleagues, who would be invited to write responses that would accompany the supplementary letters to P&T.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:15 p.m.

Joan Reid, Secretary