Minutes of 29 October 2001
Approved 26 November 2001
ATTENDANCE
Present: Akerlof, Andersen, Antonucci, Askari, Boyd, Brown, Combi, Drach, Elenbogen, Erickson, Faerber, Fisher, Frost, Gobetti, Green, Gull, Karnopp, Karr, Keller-Cohen, Ketefian, Koopmann, Korobkin, Lehman, Lindner, Lubeck, Masson, Navvab, Norris, Okada, Pedraza, Powell, Raisler, Remick, Riebesell, Thornton, Ward, Yeo
Alternates: Dan Burns for A. Uribe (LSA-Math) and Travis Jackson for M. Gould (Music)
Absent: Alcock, Andrews, Atreya, Barsky, Bhavnani, Brusati, Burdi, Cho, Clark, Dick, Frier, Guthrie, Hall, Hills, Jacobsen, Juster, Karni, Lithgow-Bertelloni, Marcelo, Mateo, McDonagh, Moseley, Ni, Overmyer, Page, Peterson, Reisch, Rocchini, Savage, Sears, Taghaboni-Dutta, Vicinus, Watkins, Yakel
MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED
1. Senate Assembly agenda
2. Draft minutes of the Senate Assembly meeting of 24 September 2001
3. 2001-02 Senate Assembly Planning Opinion Poll Results
5. Principles for Conduct of Intercollegiate Athletics
6. Format for Town Hall Forum
Chair Navvab convened the meeting at 3:25 P.M. The proposed agenda was adopted.
CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF 24 SEPTEMBER 2001
The minutes of 24 September 2001 were approved as submitted.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. The U-M Chapter of the AAUP will hold a forum about grading policies and practices at its Fall chapter meeting, 13 September 2001 at noon in the Michigan League.
2. Senate Assembly committees have been asked to provide statements about their plans for the year.
3. This meeting of Senate Assembly will be followed by a forum on the presidential search.
UPDATE ON WORK IN PROGRESS
Chair Navvab informed Senate Assembly about the results of the opinion poll conducted at the September meeting (distributed item 3). He reported that there has been some progress on obtaining responses from the president and the interim provost after action taken by the Senate Assembly at its September meeting. Chair Navvab said that the Prescription Drug 2002 workgroup has been reconvened, and Professor Riebesell has written a faculty opinion essay about the benefits issue. He said that reports about teaching principles and tenure guidelines are being discussed with the interim provost through activities of the Academic Affairs Advisory Committee.
He said that the president has responded favorably to the Civil Liberties Board report on electronic privacy. He said that at noon today, J. Hilton had delivered a report on copyrights and intellectual property dated 6 April 2001, but that he had not received a report about conflict of commitment. Navvab said that the president had not provided the report about the Board in Control of Intercollegiate Athletics, but he has promised full faculty engagement in any future steps.
PREPARATION FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH FORUM
Professor Ketefian asked the chair to review past practices during presidential searches, and she asked further if SACUA would be able to conduct discussions about the search process with the Regents after the forum. Chair Navvab replied that the interim provost has informed him that the format for the search has not been established. He asked Professor Lehman to review historical practices for the Assembly. Professor Lehman said that he had reviewed documents about past presidential searches at the Bentley Historical Library on behalf of SACUA. He said that in all searches prior to the most recent, the Regents have appointed a subset of their number to be the presidential selection committee, and they have invited several groups to form representative search advisory committees. In the past, SACUA had been asked to form a representative faculty search advisory committee, the alumni association was invited to form a committee, and MSA was asked to form a student advisory committee. The three committees were asked to write essays or white papers about the needs and challenges facing the university as part of their advice to the Regents. The committees were able to consult and exchange information, and they made recommendations about candidates to the Regents. SACUA has encouraged the Regents to continue this practice, but that may not happen. In the most recent search, the Regents altered previous practive and hired a private consulting firm to identify potential candidates.
OLD BUSINESS
There was no other old business.
NEW BUSINESS
There was no new business.
The meeting adjourned at 3:50 P.M.
Respectfully submitted,
John T. Lehman
Senate Secretary
University of Michigan Bylaws of the Board of Regents, Sec. 5.02:
Governing Bodies in Schools and Colleges In each school, college, or degree granting division of the University, including those at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and at the University of Michigan-Flint, the governing faculty shall be in charge of the affairs of the school, college, or division, except as delegated to the executive committee, if any, and except that in the School of Graduate Studies the governing board shall be the executive board, and in the Medical School shall be the executive faculty.