Budget Report for 2012-13

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Governance structures vary around campus

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During the February meeting, Council chair Erica Brownfield presented an overview of the workings and structures of faculty governance by school across the Emory campus, based on her review of each school’s documentation. Brownfield focused on the relationship between faculty governance in the individual schools and the central structures such as the Faculty Council and University Senate.

Overall, she concluded, Emory faculty play a signficant role in governance throughout the university. The specific roles of these gov- ernance bodies, however, vary widely and are at times unclear—for example, whether the structures are authoritative or advisory, and whether their members are appointed or elected. Brownfield also noted that with the exception of Emory College, which has cross-representation between its governance committee and the Faculty Council, individu- al schools do not have a defined relationship to the university-level governance bodies.

 

Around Campus: College and Graduate School

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The challenges of securing space for academic programs around the university, the need for sabbaticals for non-tenure-track faculty, and increases in class enrollments were dis- cussed during the February meeting, as part of the practice of asking two council members to report on discussion topics from their schools. Emory College professor Holly York spoke about those issues, prompting Provost Earl Lewis to note that an effort is underway to clarify the use and associated costs of campus spaces. York and Cheryl Crowley also noted a recent rise in the number of students in classes for whom English is not their first language. The ESL program staff will present to the Council in September 2012. Laney Graduate School dean Lisa Tedesco also reported, noting that funding remains a priority action area, and that Emory must sustain competitive financial packages for graduate students and help students become more competitive for tightening job markets.

 

Changes coming to COI rules

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At its January 17 meeting, the Faculty Council heard a report from David Wynes, Vice President for Research Administration, on major changes forthcoming from the government to conflict of interest rules governing individual faculty receiving federal research funding. The new regulations will take effect with grants awarded in August 2012. Among the changes:

  • The threshold for review of interest in outside activity is now $5,000 in combined income and equity;
  • All outside activities related to professional appointment (not just research) must be reported;
  • All travel directly reimbursed to an individual and not funded by an institution of higher education or the government must be reported within 30 days to the institution;
  • The institution is required to either post on a website the names of all individual faculty with a financial conflict of interest or alternatively to provide the information to anyone who requests it within five days;
  • Every faculty member who receives external support must undergo an initial and ongo- ing training every four years in conflict of interest policies.