MINUTES OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FACULTY SENATE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2006

MASON HALL, room D5; 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

Present: Phil Buchanan, Rick Coffinberger, Jim Sanford, Suzanne Slayden, Peter Stearns, Cliff Sutton.

Absent: Jim Bennett, Susan Trencher.

The draft minutes of our meeting October 2, 2006 will be redistributed with corrections suggested.

Policy on Scholarship and Research Misconduct

• Reaction very noisy at recent deans and directors meeting; legalese off-putting.
• Received cc of letter from SPP Faculty to the Provost noting grave concerns; did not define specific objections.
• Genesis of policy: must conform to federal regulations for research funding.
• “Big Three” areas: fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.
• Do not want to have a two-tier system of federal and non-federal guidelines.
• Deans may be reluctant to handle cases with prominent faculty.
• Faculty Handbook contains appendix from AAUP addressing plagiarism.
• Recent example of historian Ward Churchill whose scholarship on 9/11 contained examples of plagiarism, fabrication, and falsified data.
• Should a University Standing Committee on Ethics be established? To join with Research Committee? The Provost would appoint some deans/directors to committee. To have a faculty ethics committee as a venue? Not to incorporate into grievance committee. Proposed committee must have some members in the hard sciences.
• OSP Policy differs from Faculty Handbook, which differs from administration.
• Objections from Deans/Directors at meeting included:
• Frequency of involvement of Vice President for Research in process; not enough stages in inquiry.
• Some provisions argue for culpable responsibility of faculty to report misdeeds by others, described as “McCarthyism,” etc.
• Unnecessary fudging between scientific/scholarly misconduct vs. other research regulations such as abuse of animals; different levels of magnitude.
• Current Process: Provost Stearns: We have established a mechanism to deal with research misconduct but not yet in compliance with all federal regulations. Complaint (?) first to relevant dean; if charges found valid, then referred to Provost who establishes a committee to hear it; then Provost makes a decision. In some cases decisions have been made and carried out; in no cases has federal funding been involved. In cases thus far, has worked pretty well re punishment and protection of individual rights.

Policy on Use of Public Space

• Concerns expressed about abridgement of ability to demonstrate; anti-free speech.
• Absence of policy last year during Johnson Center incident.
• Unknown whether policy will be sent to BOV.

Draft Motion of Ad Hoc Task Force on Salary Issues distributed for inclusion in the agenda; several changes and suggestions made. Some segments to be included in the preamble; others to be presented at a later Faculty Senate meeting. Also noted that SCHEV peers have not changed in twenty years; do not reflect university where it is today as comprehensive public urban/suburban campus.

Respectfully submitted,

Meg Caniano

Clerk, Faculty Senate