Emory President James Wagner addressed the Faculty Council in September with the observation that higher education is very much a part of the public discourse of the nation currently. While the great interest is good, he said, the challenge is the narrow conversation: “We have an additional calling, and it’s actually our older calling, which is the calling around preparing folks to be not just job-ready, but citizenship-ready. We do so much around what it means to be a human being. A lot of the great questions that are confounding Congress right now aren’t going to work out on the spreadsheets. They are going to require judgment, values, and character. We need to be asking the bigger questions.” He encouraged the Council to help “expand the conversation” both on campus and beyond.
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Resolution Accepts President’s Apology
At its final meeting of the year, on April 16, the Faculty Council voted to pass a resolution acknowledging the hurt caused by President James Wagner’s use of the three-fifths compromise clause in his column in the Winter 2013 Emory Magazine, yet also accepting his apology. “While his words were insensitive, they were not malicious in intent, and discussion of them has revealed failures throughout our community to live up to the diverse and inclusive ideal to which we aspire,” the resolution reads. “President Wagner’s reference to the three-fifths compromise was particularly unfortunate because it detracts from many endeavors Emory University has initiated under his leadership. . . . Furthermore, James Wagner has shown dedicated leadership in setting forth a vision for the future and heading a successful campaign to raise much needed resources to fund Emory’s mission of creating, preserving, teaching, and applying knowledge in the service of humanity. President Wagner has indicated his intentions to continue such efforts with renewed emphasis. . . . We state our firm support for his continued leadership in the years ahead to continue the work yet to be done.” To read the full text of the resolution, click here.
Emory Policy on Email Searches Explained
In light of recent news reports of secret email account searches at Harvard, in April the Council heard a report about Emory’s policies on responding to requests for access to monitor email accounts or other network communications of students or employees. Emory’s Chief Information Security Officer Brad Sanford explained that the IT Conditions of Use Policy states, “Authorized Emory staff may without notice monitor, inspect, or copy network communications, IT resources, and the data they contain. Use of the Emory network and/or IT resources constitutes consent to such monitoring.” He added, however, that “this is not a routine or continuous process.” Rather, it is an uncommon practice that is “only done in certain special circumstances where we feel that either the law or Emory policies are being violated, or Emory business processes are being threatened.” Written requests for searching email must detail specifics, including purpose, and are only approved by consensus among general counsel and several enterprise-wide senior officers of the university.
Connecting Faculty and Campus Life
Senior Vice President and Dean of Campus Life Ajay Nair spoke to the Council in April on his division’s increasing efforts to strengthen the connections between academic and campus life. “How do we create a seamless, interdisciplinary learning community?” he began. Nair described a range of new initiatives in Campus Life that aim to bring in-class and out-of-class experiences closer together. Those initiatives include a stronger programmatic vision for the DUC, improved support for international students, a developing “intervention services team” for students with complex psychosocial needs, the drafting of a protest and dissent policy for Emory, efforts to build a “living laboratory” in residential life by “connecting the classroom to the community,” addressing critical issues of diversity on campus, and growth opportunities for sorority and fraternity life around intellectual pursuits, service, character development, and social responsibility
Resolution of Emory University Faculty Council, April 16, 2013
We acknowledge the hurt to our community caused by President James Wagner’s use of the three-fifths compromise clause in his column in the Winter, 2013, issue of the Emory Magazine. He has sincerely apologized for this mistake in multiple venues, and he has held many listening sessions to hear concerns from the community. We as the University Faculty Council accept his apology. While his words were insensitive, they were not malicious in intent, and discussion of them has revealed failures throughout our community to live up to the diverse and inclusive ideal to which we aspire.
President Wagner’s reference to the three-fifths compromise was particularly unfortunate because it detracts from many endeavors Emory University has initiated under his leadership. Emory has apologized for the role of slavery in building the institution, hosted the “Slavery and the University” conference which drew attendees from across the U.S., and created the Transforming Community Project in which people from across the University engaged with our history and current experiences of race, gender, sexuality, and other forms of human difference. Furthermore, James Wagner has shown dedicated leadership in setting forth a vision for the future and heading a successful campaign to raise much needed resources to fund Emory’s mission of creating, preserving, teaching, and applying knowledge in the service of humanity.
President Wagner has indicated his intentions to continue such efforts with renewed emphasis. His April 15, 2013 open letter to the Emory Community especially outlined his intentions to emphasize Emory’s commitment to social justice, shared governance and accountability, and academic excellence in the liberal arts, and it reaffirmed Emory’s values of diversity, inclusivity, justice, and respect. We state our firm support for his continued leadership in the years ahead to continue the work yet to be done.
Research Administration Transforming
Associate Vice President for Administration and Chief Business Practice Improvement (BPI) Officer Bill Dracos reported to the council at its March 19 meeting on BPI’s project to transform research administration at Emory, an effort ongoing since Fall 2011. In April, two pilot “Research Administration Shared Service Centers” will launch in public health and several departments in the medical school. The goals of this effort include simplifying and streamlining the process of administering research grants, from pre-award to post award. Located near the departments they serve, the shared service centers are designed to move many key activities of research administration closer to faculty, to better provide assistance from professionals with detailed knowledge about the individual awards. Following the roughly six-month pilot period, additional centers will phase in in other schools. Eventually, ten to twelve centers will open across campus. “Many of the pre-award functions you experience now won’t change,” Dracos said. “But on the post-award side, you should see improvement.” For more information about the Transform Research Administration Project, visit tra.emory.edu (requires Emory ID and password for login).
Class and Labor Committee Phase II Begins
In the March meeting, Provost Claire Sterk spoke to the Faculty Council about Phase II of the work of the Committee on Class and Labor. Last month the council heard a report on the concluded first phase of the committee’s work, which focused on staff. Phase II will focus on the ways in which class and its related distinctions of power and status affect the life and work of faculty members. The charge for Phase II includes an examination of the role of class in faculty work relationships; Emory’s role as an employer in the academic labor market; recruitment, promotion, advancement, and professional development for faculty; and the role of non-tenure-track faculty.
“The focus will be on faculty and their working relationships,” Sterk said, “in other words, the complexities related to distinctions of power and status.”
Committee on Online Education Forming
Senior Vice Provost for Undergraduate and Continuing Education Lynn Zimmerman spoke to the council about the creation of a new Faculty Advisory Committee on Online Education. Two weeks after the call went out in early March, seventy-six faculty had been nominated (both self-nominations and nominations by others) to serve on the committee. This body will advise the provost on shaping Emory’s goals and vision for online education, establishing standards and proposal guidelines for university-wide online course offerings (such as Coursera courses), reviewing and selecting proposals for university-wide online courses, and considering policy issues such as licensing, intellectual property, faculty workload, and compensation issues. “Our goal at this point is to create a balanced group that is very representative,” Zimmerman said, “We are thrilled to have such a deep pool to draw from.”
President addresses 3/5ths controversy
At the February 19 Council meeting, Emory President James Wagner read aloud the letter he had received from faculty in history and African American studies, as well as his own written response to it, concerning questions and criticisms about his column in the Winter 2013 issue of Emory Magazine, in which he offered the U.S. Constitutional “3/5ths Compromise” as a model for seeking common ground during politically polarized times. Reading from his response, he said, “I, too, regret my reference to the 3/5ths Compromise and am sorry for the injury and insult that has resulted from my use of it. As you and your colleagues have generously allowed, it was not my intent to offend or insult. Doing so was the result of mistaken judgment and of insensitivity.” Wagner then added, “I do regret the pain caused to those in the community. I can understand people wondering if this is really a safe and inclusive community, when a leader uses an ill-chosen reference such as that.” In response to a council member’s inquiry about the review process leading to publication, he explained that the first reader of his draft is the vice president and deputy to the president, and that several other communications and marketing staff are involved in the review process.
Committee on Class and Labor reports
In the February meeting, psychiatry professor Nadine Kaslow spoke on the report concluding the first phase of work by the Committee on Class and Labor—Staff Focus, formed in spring 2010. Kaslow, who co-chaired the committee with Gary Hauk, vice president and deputy to the president, noted from the findings that “class issues are alive and well at Emory as they are in our community more broadly,” but also that while people are generally satisfied with their work and benefits, there were “mixed feelings about compensation.” She also observed, “there are tremendous opportunites in terms of educational growth,” but that the environment does not consistently support professional development and advancement. Kaslow added that factors related to co-employment law hindered the committee’s efforts to gather data on contract workers on campus.
An advisory committee that will be part of the University Senate will oversee the implementation of recommendations concerning infrastructure, community and culture, communication on campus, profesesional development, and several other areas. To read the full report, click here.