SENATE From the Senate Office: |
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February 17, 2015, Volume 61, No. 23 |
The following is published in accordance with the Faculty Senate Rules. Among other purposes, the publication of SEC actions is intended to stimulate discussion among the constituencies and their representatives. Please communicate your comments to Vicki Hewitt, executive assistant to the Senate Office, either by telephone at (215) 898-6943 or by email at senate@pobox.upenn.edu
Faculty Senate Executive Committee Actions
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Chair’s Report. Faculty Senate Chair Claire Finkelstein reported that the Faculty Senate Committee on Committees will meet to fill committee vacancies for next year, and she asked SEC members to submit suggestions. She reminded SEC members that the March 18 SEC meeting will be held in Meyerson Conference Room in Van Pelt-Dietrich Library. She noted Vice Provost for Faculty Anita Allen will attend the March SEC meeting, and asked SEC members to submit any items they would like her to address in advance. The Chair gave a brief update on the activities of the Faculty Senate committees.
Past Chair’s Report. Faculty Senate Past Chair Dwight Jaggard reported that the Academic Planning and Budget committee and Capital Council have been meeting.
New Business. Faculty Senate Chair Claire Finkelstein noted that a prior change to the Faculty Handbook section on Senior Lecturers at the Law School did not accurately reflect the vote of the Law School when the faculty voted to amend that provision of the Faculty Handbook. The Law School has asked that the number of Senior Lecturers be changed from “five” to “six” to more accurately reflect the Law Faculty’s original vote. SEC members voted to approve this change.
Update from the President. President Amy Gutmann informed SEC on actions the Administration is taking to build and support the Standing Faculty. She noted that while the number of Standing Faculty in higher education as a whole has declined over the past decade due to the weak economy and the diminution in state and federal funding, Penn has added 100 positions, thus growing the size of the faculty by roughly 4% in that time. In the future, Penn will work to expand the faculty by strengthening opportunities for research and by robust fundraising for new endowed chairs. In the past decade, the number of endowed professorships increased by 40% for a total of 164 new chairs, and the current Presidential Initiative seeks to add another 50 chairs within the next four years. Penn’s faculty is also becoming more diverse, with the percentages of women faculty and underrepresented minority faculty having risen over the last decade. A salary gap still exists between men and women faculty, and the President noted that narrowing the gap was a priority for the University administration. She also gave an update on the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing.
SEC members and the President then discussed: faculty teaching loads; the process by which faculty endowed chairs are chosen; strategies to retain faculty, especially underrepresented minority faculty; the importance of the humanities to University education; faculty research funds; and transportation to and around Penn’s campus.
Update on Information Technology and Information Security at Penn. Tom Murphy, Vice President for Information Technology and University CIO, and Joshua Beeman, University Information Security Officer, updated SEC on the progress of information technology and information security at Penn. Priorities for Information Systems and Computing (ISC) include encouraging a community of IT professions across schools, supporting research and finding common solutions for IT problems. ISC has also been negotiating to bring a common email and calendaring platform to Penn, which should be available to the schools by this summer. Information security was chosen as the top priority by the Institutional Risk Management Committee in 2013. After studying the problem, ISC has made 18 recommendations to increase information security, about half of which are administrative or policy changes and the other half technical.
SEC members and the guests then discussed: the benefits and risks of a common platform for email and calendar functions; how the network of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania differs from Penn’s; how ISC tests information security; and the security benefits of regular password changes. |