Month: March 2011

Council Supports Open Access

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At its March 15 meeting, the Faculty Council unanimously voted to adopt a statement in support of a Universitywide open access policy to enable immediate, unfettered access to Emory faculty authored scholarly articles. This vote expresses the Council’s support for the principle of open access as official University policy. It calls for the creation of a digital repository for Emory scholarship, including an “opt-in” approach to faculty participation and a commit- ment to minimizing administrative burden by “harvesting” Emory faculty work already available in existing repositories. Pending administrative approval of the principle expressed in

the statement, according to Rick Luce, director of the university libraries, library staff would require some four months to review Emory’s existing Electronic Theses and Dissertations system and assess how it might be adapted for the new repository, as well as evaluate other open-source products that might also be used. A prototype for the project would then be developed for testing.

This vote represents almost two years of Universitywide conversation requested by the Library Policy Committee and facilitated by the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence in collaboration with the Office of Intellectual Property Rights

Click here to read all Council Concerns reports on Open Access Scholarship.

President Leads Discussion on “Distinctiveness”

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At the March meeting, President James Wagner continued a discussion he had begun in January on Emory’s particular distinctions. He explained why it is important to be able to articulate Emory’s uniqueness among its institutional peers. “We can do a better job in student recruiting and retention,” he said, “and in making our case to faculty and helping our alumni understand what we are becoming.”

Following discussions with other governance groups, deans, the President’s Cabinet, the alumni, trustees, and students, Wagner noted, “it was something about the character, the nature of being in the commmunity,” that repeatedly emerged as a quality that makes Emory special. He identified courage, collaboration, ethical engagement, generosity, and hospitality toward spiritual belief and practice, among others, as expressions of that quality. “This report will be advising how we talk about ourselves and how we brand ourselves,” he said. “I think it will find its way into some of our fundraising and recruiting literature for students.”

Click here to read all Council Concerns reports on “Identifying Emory’s Distinctiveness.”

Ad Hoc Committee on Grievance Policies Begins Work

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Professor of Law William Buzbee spoke during the March meeting about the preliminary work of an ad hoc committee of the Faculty Council to examine the various faculty grievance policies and procedures in place in the various schools within the university. Buzbee, who is chairing the committee, suggested that tentative tasks for the committee included identifying the current policies and procedures at Emory; considering the possible need for a changed conflict or grievance process or an ombudsperson role on campus; gathering information on other universities’ analogous structures or procedures; and identifying best practices and structures for possible use at Emory. The committee members are Cheryl Crowley (Russian and East Asian Languages and Culture), Steve Everett (Music), Sharon Lewis (Psychology, Oxford), and Randy Strahan (Political Science). The committee, Buzbee said, aims to report to the Council in mid-fall about research results and recommendations.

Click here to read all Council Concerns reports on Faculty Grievance Policies.