Senate: From the Senate Office
Under the Faculty Senate Rules, formal notification to members may be accomplished by publication in Almanac. The following is published under that rule.
To: Members of the Faculty Senate
From: Harvey Rubin, Chair, Nominating Committee
Subject: Senate Nominations 2016-2017
1. In accordance with the Faculty Senate Rules, official notice is given of the Senate Nominating Committee’s slate of nominees for the incoming Senate Officers. The nominees, all of whom have indicated their willingness to serve, are:
Chair-elect:
Santosh Venkatesh (SEAS/Electrical & Systems Engineering)
Secretary-elect:
Paul Goldin (SAS/East Asian Languages & Civilizations)
At-large Members of the Senate Executive Committee to serve a 3-year term beginning upon election:
C. Neill Epperson (PSOM/Psychiatry)
Barbara Medoff-Cooper (Nursing)
Anil Rustgi (PSOM/Gastroenterology)
Petra Todd (SAS/Economics)
Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility to serve a 3-year term beginning upon election:
Cynthia Connolly (Nursing)
Holly Pittman (SAS/History of Art)
Senate Committee on Economic Status of the Faculty to serve a 3-year term beginning upon election:
Kenneth Burdett (SAS/Economics)
Robert Ghrist (SAS/Mathematics)
Iourii Manovskii (SAS/Economics)
2. In further accordance with the Rules, you are invited to submit additional nominations, which shall be accomplished via petitions containing at least 25 valid names and the signed approval of the candidate. All such petitions must be received no later than 14 days subsequent to the circulation of the nominees of the Nominating Committee. Petitions must be received by intramural mail at the Faculty Senate, Box 9 College Hall/6303, or by hand at the Faculty Senate Office, 109 Duhring Wing by 5 p.m., Tuesday, May 24, 2016.
3. Under the same provision of the Senate Rules, if no additional nominations are received, the slate nominated by the Nominating Committee will be declared elected.
University Council Committee on Committees Report on the Functioning of Council Committees during Academic Year 2015-2016
Executive Summary
This report summarizes the general functioning and procedures of University Council (UC) Committees during the 2015-2016 academic year. These committees are: Committee on Academic and Related Affairs (CARA), Committee on Campus and Community Life (CCL), Committee on Diversity and Equity (CDE), Committee on Facilities and Committee on Personnel Benefits (CPB).
Suggestions for enhancing the functioning of these committees include: (1) designating a representative from the Faculty Senate, preferably a Senate Tri-Chair or Senate Committee chair, to participate when possible in each Council committee meeting in order to provide continuity between the ongoing work of the Faculty Senate and University Council; (2) Council committee members should commit to serve for at least two consecutive years, and committee members’ terms should be staggered in order to provide continuity and institutional memory; and (3) new student and other committee representatives should be identified by the end of each spring semester so that committees may engage in optional preliminary work over the summer period.
Mechanism of Evaluation
Members of the Committee on Committees (UCCoC) collected information for this report. Information was collected via in-person, phone and/or email interviews, using the list of questions below as a guide. UCCoC members interviewed committee members from their own constituencies. For example, faculty members interviewed committee chairs, as well as faculty representatives, as available. Although the undergraduate students on the UCCoC were asked to complete interviews with the student representatives on the UC committees, they declined to do so, and graduate student feedback was provided only in limited fashion. This report provides an overview of the general findings from the data collected and comments on the functioning and procedures of each committee. The UC Steering Committee is encouraged to refer to the individual committee reports for more information on the functioning of each committee.
Questions Posed to Each Committee Chair
1. Was the committee’s specific charge for this year clear and appropriate?
2. What changes, if any, do you think need to be made in the committee’s general charge? Do you feel the scope of the committee is appropriate?
3. What issues did the committee address this year? Were these issues resolved or will they likely be resolved by the end of the academic year?
4. Were there any issues in the committee’s charge that are unlikely to be addressed or resolved by the end of the academic year? What do you see as issues emerging for consideration next year?
5. How many times did the full committee meet? Were any subcommittees created? If so, how many were created, how often did they meet, what were their purposes and did they achieve their goals?
6. Which members would you recommend to serve on the committee next year? Is anyone on the current committee a logical successor as chairperson, either now or in the future?
7. Is the membership of the committee well suited to the committee’s charge in terms of relevant expertise, representation of interests, etc.? Does the chair demonstrate sufficient leadership?
8. What was the role of the administration’s liaison in your committee? (The liaison is an administrative person who can provide relevant information for a committee charge or connect the committee with others on campus with relevant information.)
9. Did someone from the administration provide explicit feedback on last year’s recommendations? Was the feedback satisfactory? Were there any aspects that have not been resolved or for which a path to resolving them has not been developed?
10. What problems did the committee encounter (e.g., limitations on access to necessary resources or information)?
11. Was the committee effectively structured to accomplish its charges? Were there appropriate opportunities for the committee to provide advice, to work with its administrative liaison to resolve specific issues and/or to generate grander recommendations?
Each committee has been charged to operate with three approaches: 1) To perform general advisory review of their area of concern—which may not reveal any specific problems to deal with; 2) Where there are specific issues that the committee wants to address (or has been charged to address), to try and resolve them working through the administrative liaison; 3) Where the intra-committee level effort is not able to resolve issues, to generate recommendations to be addressed outside of the committee as formal proposals to be forwarded to the administration or for the University Council to consider.
12. What recommendations about the committee’s process and organization do you have?
13. Is there any question that should have been asked about process that was not included?
14. For staff and students only: Do you feel that your voice was heard as part of the committee?
15. For students only: Was there a primary and an alternate student representative on each committee?
General Comments
Each University Council committee has two major roles:
1. Performing a broad review in its area(s) of interest, as well as monitoring to determine whether there are any issues requiring deeper exploration. Sometimes no recommendations emerge from this process, but the University is well served by having a representative body tracking important institutional and community matters on a consistent basis.
2. Additionally, performing a more in-depth consideration of a small number (typically three to five) issues that arise from last year’s agenda and its recommendations, or new information relating to the work of the previous year’s committee. These issues, which are developed in consultation with previous committee members, Faculty Senate leadership and University leadership, might be examined by the committee as a whole, or by subcommittees, and will likely involve multiple meetings and conversations with people around the University engaged with the issue. Most can be resolved by working directly with the administrators responsible in the focus area to clarify issues and consider policy modifications. In the absence of a resolution of a given matter, the relevant committee may request that Council Steering re-examine the issue. Committees and Council Steering should nevertheless bear in mind the importance of closure on matters addressed by the various committees.
In order to be effective in fulfilling the above two roles, the most important factors are: the clarity of the chairs in explaining the purpose of the committee; delineation of the roles of the various members of the committee; scheduling meetings so that as many as possible of the members can attend; and beginning to meet as soon as feasible in the fall semester. In the review by the University Council Committee on Committees, many University Council committee members again this year asked for more orientation and a better explanation of their role in the committee, and the committee’s role in the University as a whole. Some committees felt they were underprepared to participate fully in substantive discussions on the issues their committees deliberated.
In light of the foregoing, and other feedback UCCoC received, specific recommendations for next year include the following:
1. Enhance orientation and explanation of duties to new members, especially for students. Provide the prior year’s committee reports to committee members and encourage them to review the charges and outcomes. This recommendation continues from the 2014-2015 report.
2. Invite and encourage representatives from the Faculty Senate, especially those serving as Tri-Chairs and Senate Committee chairs, to participate in each Council committee meeting when possible to share relevant information and ensure that committees’ specific charges are clear.
3. Ask Council committee members to commit to a minimum of two years of service with terms that are staggered so that committee turnover occurs in a segmented fashion and the committee benefits from continuity and institutional memory.
4. Identify student representatives no later than the end of the spring semester during the year prior to allow for committees to engage in optional preliminary work over the summer period, should it choose to do so. This modification would alleviate beginning-of-year scheduling delays that many committee members experienced in recent years.
5. Ask each committee to formally re-consider its general committee charges and report annually to the Committee on Committees.
Committee on Academic and Related Affairs (CARA)
General Comments:
The Committee met four times in person and twice online and considered the Penn Libraries system (including off-site storage, study spaces and electronic browsing), the performing and visual arts at Penn and the culture of respect and safety within Penn Athletics. CARA is positioned to resolve all three of these issues in the upcoming year. There was a suggestion that the Athletics Department did not maintain suitable data for proper comparative analysis across peer institutions; this data limitation may have inhibited some of CARA’s work on that issue. Suggestions were made to clarify future specific charges so that the Committee can spend its time solving problems rather than determining how to frame them. The Committee also noted the need to devote more attention to the University’s research policies.
The University Council Committee on Committees recommends that CARA extend its standard meeting length from 60 to 90 minutes in order to allow more time for discussion during committee sessions and follow-up on content-related action items. CARA is poised to submit recommendations on three major issues from 2015-2016 charges in the upcoming year. As such, membership continuity on the Committee should be maintained through 2016-2017 whenever possible.
Committee on Campus and Community Life (CCL)
General Comments:
CCL met six times over the year and received specific charges that were only loosely related to the previous year’s final report. Issues of focus this year included inclusion of international students and student mental health concerns. It was noted that the role of CAPS was a matter too complex for CCL to appropriately handle, and it was suggested that the Committee on Personnel Benefits should undertake a comprehensive review of student benefits. Some continuity was lost due to the turnover of the administrative staffer to the Committee, and students were not as involved in discussions as they had been in years past, perhaps due to the complexity of the issues. CCL wishes to continue its study of student employment arrangements into the upcoming year.
The University Council Committee on Committees recommends that CCL continue its work on these issues in 2016-2017 with an aim toward providing a set of recommendations that University leadership can use to achieve positive outcomes for the Penn community. Given the need to continue discussing this year’s charges, membership continuity on the Committee should be maintained for 2016-2017 whenever possible.
Committee on Diversity and Equity (CDE)
General Comments:
The Committee charges were large and complex; the Committee focused on two: the experiences of first-generation and low-income students and the diversity of graduate students. For the latter, CDE examined the experiences of current graduate students before considering prospective students. CDE will generate recommendations on both of these issues, which will require follow-up in the upcoming year. The Committee had trouble scheduling its meetings (six this year). It would be helpful to identify student and other Committee members for 2016-2017 at the end of the current academic year. Linking this Committee with the Senate Committee on Faculty Development, Diversity and Equity (SCFDDE) is important. Some members wished to further define Penn’s vision for diversity as it continues its work. Some noted the dominance of faculty members during conversations and the need for greater efforts to solicit voices of students and staff members. Some also called for greater information about work accomplished during the prior year.
The University Council Committee on Committees recommends CDE schedule 90-minute meetings during 2016-2017 and continue its work on the issues it began working on this year. It further recommends that Committee members be named no later than June 2016 so that the Committee may work electronically over the summer and begin work on Committee charges at its first meeting early in the academic year.
Committee on Facilities
General Comments:
The Committee met eight times. The charge about reducing barriers to interdisciplinary teaching was unclear. The Committee resolved most of its specific charges, but believes these charges should be revisited in the future at regular intervals. It held a joint meeting with CARA to discuss the future role of the Penn Libraries and this joint work should continue. The Committee wishes to undertake further discussion of distribution and availability of classroom and group collaboration spaces on campus. Members asked that relevant background information on issues be shared so that members could be prepared. Some members of the Committee expressed an interest in establishing a mechanism to solicit University-wide questions and comments for the Committee. They also wished to identify ways to make the Penn community more aware of the Committee’s purpose and work.
The University Council Committee on Committees recommends that any questions about specific charges be directed to the UC Steering Committee for further clarification. Committee members should be fully briefed at the beginning of their terms of service and provided with relevant background information. The Committee’s staff member should work with the Chair to ensure that such information is provided.
Committee on Personnel Benefits (CPB)
General Comments:
The Committee on Personnel Benefits met eight times and addressed most of the charges. Because the number of charges was large, the Committee did not reach topics toward the end of the list. Attendance was poor among some members. Some members requested to be consulted in the development of benefits, such as revisions to healthcare plans, instead of being consulted at the end of the process. Faculty members on the Committee noted that attention to benefits focused on staff, not faculty, and suggested that the Faculty Senate Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty (SCESF) is a more appropriate Committee for examining faculty benefits. The Committee worked to clarify language around the retirement “Rule of 75” and wishes to continue this discussion in 2016-2017. The Committee also wishes to continue attention to same-sex partner benefits and undertake a review of maternity and paternity benefits for Penn staff. Some also noted the need for greater communication to employees about existing benefits.
The University Council Committee on Committees appreciates the Committee’s steadfast work on a lengthy list of charges and its success in developing a strong working relationship with the staff liaison. It notes that SCESF’s role is to gather and organize data on salaries and benefits and to represent the faculty in the determination of University policy on salary issues, which is accomplished by identifying a SCESF member to serve on the Committee on Personnel Benefits. It further notes that SCESF by design is not positioned to negotiate on matters of University policy issues, but rather serves as a resource for this information. It recommends continued attention to unresolved charges and coordination with SCESF about issues pertaining to faculty benefits.
Committee on Committees 2015-2016
Chair: Laura Perna; Staff: Patrick Walsh and Joseph Gasiewski; Faculty: Claire Finkelstein, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Karen Glanz, Reed Pyeritz, Florian Schwarz, Christophe Van den Bulte; PPSA: Kuan Evans; WPPSA: Loretta Hauber; Graduate Student: Sangya Agarwal; Undergraduate Student: Michael Roberts