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.
Author: aadam02
OpenEmory seeking “early adopters”
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
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.
Budget Report for 2012-13
Provost Earl Lewis and Charlotte Johnson, Senior Vice Provost for Administration, presented a review of the budget process in preparation for fiscal year 2012-13 at the April 17 Faculty Council meeting. “Over the last few years, the academy has witnessed a major structural realignment, both at the macroeconomic level worldwide but also what that means for higher education,” Lewis said, noting the steady decline of net recovery income from tuition as well as the decline of indirect cost recovery from external grants, especially in the health sciences. As a result, the first budget model reviewed showed a $17.1 million operating deficit in all school activities. After working with deans on cost-saving measures, however, that projected deficit was reduced to $3.2 million (on a $741 million revenue budget). “Seven of our schools are now balanced in the model or will be contributing to their operating reserves,” Johnson said. While public health and nursing will be contributing to reserves, the two largest academic units, the college and the medical school, will have operating deficits. The budget will be presented to the Board of Trustees for approval on June 8.
Gray Book Feedback, Ombuds Office Endorsed
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Claire Sterk offered an update and clarification on the proposed revisions to the “Gray Book,” the statement of principles governing faculty relationships with the university, a document “owned by the Board of Trustees,” as she explained. Council members shared feedback gathered from their respective constituen- cies, which will be shared with the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees. Provost Lewis promised to return to the Council to “offer an accounting” of the Board of Trustees’ further deliberations.
The Council also voted unanimously to endorse the recommendations of the ad hoc committee on faculty grievance policies and procedures. The committee recommended an ombuds office to help resolve conflicts that do not involve illegality. It would “provide a listening ear for faculty . . . and also serve as a resource to train university personnel in conflict resolution and about university venues for resolution of various sorts of faculty workplace problems.” The endorsement has been presented to the president and provost for further consideration.
New Conflict of Interest in Research Policy
Assistant Vice President for Research Administration Brenda Seiton spoke to the Council on new federal regulations that will directly affect Emory faculty members receiving Public Health Service research dollars. The newly revised conflict of interest regulations go into effect in 2012 and affect awards issued after August 24, 2012. In essence, investigators must now report significant financial interests related to their institutional responsibilities. “Before, it was left to the investigators to determine whether a financial interest was related to their research project,” Seiton explained. “So what they have done is said, let’s take that out of the investigator’s hands and put it into the hands of the institution.” The new regulations lower the threshold of review to a total of $5,000 in income and equity, require the reporting of travel directly reimbursed to an individual and not funded by a US academic institution or the government, require the public disclosure of all conflicts of interest, and mandate training in conflict of interest policies for all faculty receiving external support. For details, visit coi.emory.edu.
Employee Benefits Examined
Following an inquiry last fall about policies governing early withdrawal of funds from a retirement account, the Faculty Council heard a report from Vice President for Human Re- sources Peter Barnes at its March 20 meeting. Barnes said that Emory’s policy, which allows pre-retirement cash withdrawal only from employee contributions for employees who have reached 59 1⁄2 years of age, is consistent with “the purpose of the retirement plan,” which “isn’t intended as a future cash supplement” for current employees. Barnes also discussed a change to the medical benefits policy for dependents of employees who die while employed at Emory. Currently, if an employee who dies has at least 10 years of service and is at least 55 years old, the spouse, partner, or dependents may continue to participate in the medical plan at the active employee rate. For all others, spouses, partners, and dependents may con- tinue under COBRA. “The change we recommended to the cabinet, which was approved, was for Emory to subsidize the COBRA benefit for a surviving spouse, partner, or any dependent children for six months for all regular employees,” Barnes said.
Gray Book Undergoing Updates
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Claire Sterk spoke with the Council about the process of updating the “Gray Book,” the statement of principles governing faculty relationships with the university. “Except for some minor revisions, we have not substantially revised our Gray Book since 1998,” Sterk said, noting that most of the proposed changes would bring the book into alignment with current practice. “Moving forward the Gray Book will also become a ‘living’ or virtual document,” she added. Aside from minor editorial updates, the proposed changes aim to
- clarify questions of how limited faculty appointments are made,
- simplify the plethora of titles currently used around the university for non-ten- ure track faculty, and
- clarify the meanings of “retirement” and the “emeritus” title.
Sterk requested a Council endorsement of the proposed changes, after which they would be reviewed by the Council of Deans, President’s Cabinet, and Board of Trustees. The Council will consider an endorsement in April.
Grievance Policy Committee: Ombuds Office
An ad hoc committee formed in 2010 to examine faculty grievance policies and procedures around the university recommended that Emory create an Ombuds Office to “provide a listening ear for faculty, provide a venue for effots to resolve . . . workplace conflicts, and also serve as a resource to train university personnel in conflict resolution and about university venues for resolution of various sorts of faculty workplace problems,” according to the committee’s report. Emory currently has structures to address serious problems around promotion and tenure, claims of illegal discrimination and other illegality, and research misconduct. But committee chair Bill Buzbee called Emory “completely an outlier” among peer institutions for the absence of a structure to address other conflicts, most of which arise in hierarchical relationships, so that they might be prevented or alleviated before they escalate. President Wagner asked that he and Provost Lewis be permitted to return to the Council to respond to the recommendations at a subsequent meeting.
Open Access Demo in Spring
At its February 21 meeting, the Faculty Council heard a report on progress toward creat- ing an open access repository that would enable immediate, unfettered access to Emory faculty authored scholarly articles. In 2011, the Council voted to support an open access policy for Emory. Leah Weinryb Grohsgal has been hired as the digital repository coor- dinator for the project, which is called OpenEmory, and a demo site will go online for testing in March. “We invite faculty to meet with us so that they will actually be able to test OpenEmory and give us feedback for future development,” Grohsgal said. In addi- tion to allowing faculty to submit articles for inclusion, OpenEmory will also “harvest” articles by Emory faculty already available via other open access repositories, the first of which is PubMed. Additionally, OpenEmory will provide download and view statistics for individual articles, and content will appear in Google search results. Following the testing period, the site is scheduled for a launch in fall 2012.