Month: October 2012

Calls to Strengthen Faculty Governance

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A recurring theme resounded at the October Faculty Council from five representatives from Emory College and the Laney Graduate School who, in keeping with the practice of Council members reporting regularly on key issues from individual schools, summarized colleagues’ various responses to the restructuring recently announced in the two schools. “Many faculty understand that [Dean Robin Forman] was working within existing structures, and they want faculty governance strengthened, so that they have more input about decisions,” said Pamela Scully, representing Emory College colleagues. “It’s galvanized us,” added Kristin Wendland, representing lecture-track faculty. “I see of wave of energy for all the college faculty to be more active in governance.” Speaking as a member of the Executive Council of the Graduate School, Associate Professor of Political Science Jeff Staton raised a question about the lack of consultation with the Executive Council on decisions to suspend graduate programs in economics and Spanish. “The question for a number of members of the Council is, were we anything other than a curriculum committee?” he said. “Really, what were we doing there if we weren’t part of that process?”

 

Faculty Participation in Research Administration

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David Wynes, vice president for research administration, presented to the Council in October about encouraging more faculty to participate in research administration. Research committees include Confict of Interest Review, Institutional Animal Care and Use (IACUC), the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and a number of health and safety committees. “We believe strongly that these committees should comprise members of the faculty peer groups,” Wynes said. “For example, animal care committees should be composed of people who use animals in research, and the IRB should be composed of people who use human subjects in research.” Wynes also noted that IACUC has some 760 active protocols at any time, and the IRB has some 3,000.

Council members offered two general recommendations: that the Office of Research Administration work through existing faculty governance bodies around campus to recruit new members to these committees, and that the office draft a core set of principles delin- eating how each of the committees should be composed, according to research activity.

 

A Provost’s Parting Thoughts

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Earl Lewis addressed the Faculty Council for the final time as Emory provost, before his departure to become president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Lewis identified several “macro-trends” he thinks will rise in significance in higher education in the next ten to thirty years—the durability of tenure and a shift in the profile of types of faculty appointments, the development of diverse leadership, dependence on philanthropy, and the articulation of the university’s value proposition to the broader community. “The overall ways we do business have been called into question,” he said. “I predict that the most selective, elite institutions in the United States may be changed in some fundamental way, but they will survive. What’s going to happen, however, is a whole tier of liberal arts colleges will disappear, and we probably will see mergers of some state institutions as a result of trying to find new ways of delivering education that is ‘affordable.’”

 

Welcome from the Chair

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Welcome to the 2012–13 academic year. This year’s Faculty Council will focus on three themes. The first is a look at Emory as a private research university, and the Council is sponsoring a series of guest speakers who will help us explore this topic. The first speaker is Ron Ehrenberg of Cornell on October 23, and the second, on December 4, is Robert Zemsky from Penn. Look for more details about this series to be announced soon. The second focus is strengthening faculty governance, and to that end the Council has filled its appointed seats with faculty who are governance leaders or respected faculty leaders in their schools. Additionally, the Council has instituted a Policy Committee that will convene for in-depth discussions on issues of particular complexity and importance to the faculty. The first meeting of this committee is scheduled for early October to deliberate the proposed revisions to the Gray Book. Our third focus is on scholarly integrity. As a faculty, we need to explore ways of helping maintain the integrity of this institution. I welcome your ideas on these matters. Please contact me with your thoughts at gcrouse [at] emory [dot] edu.

OpenEmory seeking “early adopters”

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Created after last year’s vote of support from the Faculty Council, OpenEmory is an open access repository of faculty articles. It enables Emory faculty members to showcase their work by making articles freely available to the world. At the September 2012 Faculty Council meeting, Lisa Macklin, director of the scholarly communications office of the Uni- versity Libraries, announced the Open Access Publishing Fund, created to make it easier for Emory authors to publish in eligible open access journals and books when no alternative funding is available. Macklin also encouraged faculty to become “early adopters” of OpenEmory by submitting articles and spreading the word to other faculty members. Noting that OpenEmory is already harvesting records from PubMed Central, she said faculty may have their CVs reviewed for articles that may be included in the repository. The benefits of early adop- tion include article availability anywhere in the world, including Google Scholar search results; email statistics on hits and downloads of articles; a permanent URL for sharing; and more. For details, visit open.library.emory.edu.

 

Faculty Council committees in 2012–13

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At its September meeting, the Faculty Council heard news from each of the standing committees, including the Budget Committee, currently vacant; the Distinguished Fac- ulty Lecture committee, chaired by Debra Houry; the Faculty Counselors Committee, chaired by Erica Brownfield and consisting of faculty who sit on committees of the Board of Trustees; the Faculty Hearing Committee, chaired by James Hughes; the Faculty Life Course Committee, chaired by Michael Kutner; the Learning Outcomes Committee, chaired by Hiram Maxim; and the University Research Committee, chaired by Doug Bowman. Bowman also mentioned that the URC is now administratively housed in the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence and will be exploring avenues for poten- tial collaboration with the CFDE. The Council also voted to eliminate the Carter Center Liaison Committee, which had been inactive for many years.