4/18/2013: Thanks very much to an anonymous correspondent for extensive notes, which I have lightly edited. Usual disclaimer applies – these are opinions about what was said or should have been said, nothing a quote unless in quotes.
Synopsis: (FWIW – I wasn’t there.)
Hard time getting a quorum of Senators. On the other hand it sounds like *none* of the responsible administrators showed. No Gottfredson, no Holmes, no Geller, no Bean. Too bad. The Senate is doing a lot of good work. Presumably that’s the reason Johnson Hall is in hiding. But of course they want us to show up at Matt Court for President Gottfredson’s “Investiture”:
Professors and other faculty members will be participating, giving them a chance to wear full academic regalia.
Well isn’t that special.
The Senate trashed Randy Geller’s Stalinist revisions to the Free Speech policy, and is sending back one more in tune with the ideals of the university where Wayne Morse once taught. Geller and Gottfredson will have to accept it or explain why not. I’m guessing they will try some passive-aggressive thing.
No solid answer from Hubin on where the administration gets the input from the faculty on budget priorities that he claimed was happening in our recent accreditation report – a report the Senate also was not consulted about.
The only time I can recall being asked about budget priorities was when Sharon Rudnick asked the union bargaining team where they wanted to cut spending. So I guess that’s the answer – Bean’s Academic Plan died in draft in 2009, Brad Shelton’s RCM model has collapsed, the administration has bailed on its responsibility to consult the faculty on priorities, the Senate has done nothing about it, and now the faculty union is going to take control.
Agenda:
Knight Library Room 101, 3:00‐5:00 pm
3:00 pm 1. Call to Order
3:12: meeting not yet convened for lack of a quorum;
3:13: meeting convened. Kyr calls for applause, of all things.
Minutes not yet available from 10 April.
3:02 pm 2. State of the University
2.1 Remarks by President Michael Gottfredson
Gottfredson not available, busy with legislature and institutional boards, “which we completely understand,” so Kyr will read aloud the two announcements he sent out this morning:
first regarding Gottfredson’s opinion about faculty representation / membership on the institutional board;
next regarding “what Bill Harbaugh called a secret budget committee, which might be doing things that might run contrary to the SBC” or be “somehow in conflict with the charge of the SBC”
per Dave Hubin’s message: the Budget Advisory Group in its second year, 4 of 6 members on the SBC, “there is no secret Budget Advisory Board, it is very much above board and very much in line with the Senate Budget Committee.”
Is this supposed to be reassuring? Who is on it, what do they do? Where does the administration get input from the faculty on budget priorities? The only time I can recall being asked about this was when Sharon Rudnick asked the union bargainers where they wanted to cut spending. I guess that’s the answer – the administration has bailed on its responsibility to consult the faculty on priorities, the Senate has done nothing about it, so now the faculty union is going to take control.
3:20 pm 3. New Business
3.1 Motion (Policy Adoption): Conferral of Posthumous Degrees;
Robert Kyr, Senate President on behalf of Robin Holmes, Vice President
for Student Affairs
Kyr presents for Robin Holmes who can’t be here today (no doubt busy writing to faculty to ask them to move new students into dorms)
Would the Blogger write snoozer here?
Jim Boren, emeritus English professor, used to say: “If a corpse was wheeled up in front of Oregon Hall with a check pinned to its lapel, it would be granted a posthumous degree by a unanimous vote of the faculty.” I used to think it was a jibe about our chronic underfunding. Little did I know it was a matter of equal moment with our policy on academic freedom.
Psaki: what problem is this policy trying to solve? Dave Hubin tells a sad story about a student in 1994 who didn’t meet the criteria for getting a posthumous degree because he wasn’t enrolled at the time of death. They were able to work around it, but it’s been bothering them for 19 years and now they’ve fixed their policy to avoid the complicated work-around they had to implement in 1994. Whew.
Senator asks how many courses a student can be short and still qualify. Doxsee answers that the term “reasonably” defines this: 1-3 courses. More than that would be dicy.
Vote in favor: unanimous. Jim Boren would chortle.
3.2 Motion (Policy Adoption): Academic Freedom & Freedom of Speech;
Margie Paris (Law), Senate President-Elect & Chair, Academic Freedom
Review Committee
Presumably Mr. Geller will be there to defend his work, which should be interesting. It looks to me like the Senate committee handling this did a bang-up job editing the proposal from our administrative overlords:
Geller had removed “they are entitled to comment on our criticize University policies or decisions” from the original draft, and added a lot of other restrictive language. Because this free speech stuff is dangerous, and we don’t want our students getting any ideas from the faculty.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: this blog has never criticized University policies or decisions. Just administrative ones. Which makes me a little worried about this job ad:
Plumber
Campus Operations
http://jobs.uoregon.edu/classified.php?id=4575
That’s right, the president’s counsel is hiring “plumbers” to conduct “campus operations”. We know where that leads.
Notes: Seems like Geller chickened out.
Kyr reads the motion.
3:34: Margie Paris gives history of this motion: a committee in 2010 made a “very able and well-written draft” passed by the Senate and submitted to Administration. “A lot happened and it was not approved.” The GC office had “suggestions and changes” it wanted to see in the policy. When Gottfredson arrived, Kyr asked him for permission to take up the three policies—facilities, academic freedom, I forget the 3rd—
The new committee started with the language that the UO Senate had approved. “This version is very close to the original language the Senate had approved.” Small committee of Paris and 3 others accepted some of the GC office’s suggestions, and discarded others. Tightened up the preamble, mentioned the mission statement of the UO.
Margie: “I didn’t realize how impt these statements are, not only in their own right but because accrediting bodies ask to see these statements.”
Adkins: asks to amend the policy to include officers of administration, who are not included in this policy but deserve this freedom as well.
“The University protects academic freedom, and Officers of Instruction, Research, and Administration [“faculty members”] shall enjoy…”
Passes unanimously.
Psaki: again, simple and uncontroversial.
Sinclair: “the freedom to teach”: does this mean anyone can walk into a classroom and teach?
Paris: No. Read the context.
Foster: Curious about the interpretation of “so long as it is clear that they are not acting or speaking on behalf of the university.” The interpretation of that can be quite wide. Nationally people have been identified as a professor, and were penalized for that. How far do you have to go to establish that you are not speaking on behalf of the university, and what does that mean anyway?
Paris: I’ve thought long and hard about this. This is a change suggested by GC. If I write an editorial, I should specify in it that I’m not speaking on behalf of the U. We have certain freedoms due to our role, and we have the responsibility to clarify when we are not speaking for the institution.
Foster: It’s actually very unusual for professors to state this. It’s usually taken for granted. Does this then apply to academic articles? TV appearances? Radio interviews? It’s actually a new requirement, and awkward. I don’t want to be seen as supporting Ward Churchill, but there have been cases where people have been disciplined for speaking their minds and identified as professors—how far does this go?
Merskin: In wrtg we often say “in my 20 years of teaching” etc. we refer to our prof. exper. to back up our point of view.
We weren’t asking for a statement everyone should make, which would restrict freedom of speech.
Kyr: a statement of intent.
Paris: there are many situations and contexts where it is quite clear that one is not speaking for the university. Where there might be ambiguity or confusion, it’s appropriate to add a statement. This would clearly not apply to research publications.
Jin: what does “to fulfill the demands of the scholarly enterprise” mean?
Paris: this is from the original draft; it’s a way of articulating both the freedom and the responsibility it entails.
Jin: What kind of scholarly enterprise? Am I free to deny requests for my syllabus from people who aren’t enrolled?
Paris: the ‘demands’ in question aren’t any demands anyone might make of you; they are the demands that are part of your job.
Motion passes unanimously. Yippee!
3.3 Motion (Legislation): Name Change from Foreign Study Programs Committee
to Study Abroad Programs Committee; Margie Paris (Law), Senate President-Elect
Passes unanimously
3.4 Motion (Legislation): Name Change from Summer Research Awards Committee to
Faculty Research Awards Committee; Margie Paris (Law), Senate President-Elect
Psaki: this was announced to me as a done deal in an e-mail dated 16 Nov. 2012, and no one ever asked me to approve this, contrary to the phrasing of the motion;
Kyr: I was told there was a committee vote, that it was done properly.
Passes
3.5 Motion (Legislation): Term Limits for Senate Committees; Robert Kyr, Senate President
& Chair, Tenth-Year Review (Committee on Committees)
Sinclair: WHY?
Kyr: to try to increase greater participation and service across the campus; in some cases a very few were serving for a very long time. Greater service and interaction, and a more diverse body, are the goal.
Sinclair: WHY?
Sullivan: (to Sinclair) We’re thinking along the same lines. Does anyone want to do Paul Engelking’s job on the CoC? There are committees that require a long historical memory, and highly technical knowledge to run them. This may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater: people have accumulated a very arcane body of knowledge needed for the functioning of the committee, and we’re tossing that out. I’d sooner see this done by leadership—encouraging new participation and gently encouraging people to rotate off.
Kyr: that’s why there is a failsafe in 2.3, to protect against that risk. Many committees already have term limits.
Sullivan: OK.
Harinder: clarification on 2.3: who would report that exception to the Committee on Committee?
Kyr: the committees themselves. We need to get better connection bw “the committee and the Committee on Committees.”
Vote: carried; one nay.
3.6 Motion (Legislation): Committee Requirements with Minor Revisions (Tenth-Year
Review 2013); Robert Kyr, Senate President & Chair, Tenth Year Review (Committee
on Committees)
4:09: 10 UO standing committees and their proposed “minor revisions” (the more extensive revisions will be presented May 8th);
Committee on Committees did the 10-yr review; Lisa Wolverton volunteered to read all the revisions;
Kyr reads through them one by one.
FPC: Quorum specified; increase from 10 to 12 members for FPC (Gordon Sayre endorses);
[Odd to see these revisions to 10 committees being reviewed in a single motion; apparently it will get worse in the May meeting, when the bigger changes will be voted on]
Psaki gets confused, Kyr reminds her patiently how the Committee on Committees assigns faculty to committees;
4:43 motion approved unanimously. We’re stunned with details.
3.7 Working Group Survey; Robert Kyr, Senate President
Kyr and Paris distribute a Survey of Membership Interest for the following committees or proposed working groups.
The following committee is being considered for elimination or reformation in membership or charge:
Academic Council;
these two committees were on the sheet for suggestions for names:
IAC; Senate Transparency Committee
and the following committees and boards are being proposed, also with requests for suggestions:
Senate Committees relating to Diversity and Campus Climate;
Creation of an Academic Excellence Committee; (AGAIN? Didn’t we have two of them simultaneously under Linda Brady?); I’m thinking Doug Blandy is a natural for this one:
Creation of an Instructional Technology Committee;
Creation of a Policing Advisory Board;
Creation of a Research Council;
Grievance and Appeals Committees in Post-CBA era.
Margerum: where do we (or people we recommend) find descriptions of these committees?
Kyr: they don’t exist; they will be new, and members will help to define their charge.
4:55 pm 5. Reports
4:57 pm 6. Announcements and Communications from the Floor
“We are still breathing—there is still a pulse. Let’s give ourselves a round of applause!”
Adjourned before 5 p.m.
4:55 pm 4. Open Discussion
5:00 pm 7. Adjournment
The Senate dealt efficiently with matters of substance and importance. The UO appears to have a framework that can revitalize shared governance, in large part due to the efforts of the Senate President and Vice President and the numerous Committee Members who brought well reasoned and well scripted Motions to the floor. But for Chrissakes (my one cuss word), the whole enterprise is at risk if the meetings are not better attended! C’mon Senators, don’t fumble when you are so close to the goal line (my one sports metaphor).
I agree with the bottom line. Show up.
More fundamentally,, though, I’m with those who didn’t bother showing. What’s done is done, this place is falling apart, and I’m tempted to move on.
This Young Man writes to emphasize Old Man’s point. Invest in faculty governance because it’s the legal basis for the protection of the faculty’s free speech and expression. A quick primer for those who don’t keep on such things. The Constitution contains no right to free expression; it limits government’s ability to regulate speech. For example, if you teach in a private college, you have no Constitutionally-derived protection for speech as an employee.
Even in a public university, however, the Constitutional protection for your speech is circumscribed. Your university employer cannot sanction your speech made as a private citizen. The demarcation between your community service speech as a faculty member and private speech as a citizen is no bright line. This blog exemplifies that ambiguity.
The Supreme Court has made clear that a public employee’s on-the-job speech is subject to her employer’s regulation, including termination for out-of-bounds speech. There simply is no individualized protection from government regulation of your on-the-job speech.
However, there is recognized by the Supreme Court a form of speech protection unique to public University faculty. Justice Frankfurter was the first to articulate speech protection for University faculty as a collective group. In a case addressing whether government could require loyalty oaths from University faculty as a condition of employment, he wrote:
It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation. It is an atmosphere in which there prevail “the four essential freedoms” of a university–to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.
This “academic freedom,” i.e., the privilege of a public University’s faculty to enjoy protection from other governmental censors is not one easily invoked by an individual faculty member. Rather, it is a collective protection that, if not exercised by vigorous faculty governance becomes diffuse and, ultimately, lost. The duty of faculty governance is fundamental to the social contract by which the rest of government gives license to its public academies to say the things that may be inconvenient or difficult to hear. Use that privilege wisely or you will lose it.
True, but the freedom to speak matters not if nobody is listening. It feels good, I suppose, but has no import.
Anonymous,
It is the teacher’s job to speak with sufficient eloquence and erudition that it cannot be ignored. That’s why society grants to public university faculty a license to speak on-the-job that is more free of government censor than that enjoyed by any other government employee.
If you believe your speech is without import, perhaps it’s not the listener’s short-coming.
Best,
Andy
UOM’s speech has come with results, I agree. “Faculty” speech, on average? Not so much.
Yea. Students always respond well to bookish types, Andy.
No faculty contract by 5/30, no faculty at investiture
hell, I’d be happy just to find out for sure if I am in or out of the union by then!
Brilliant! Members of the bargaining can’t strike without harming the students, but we can skip this–until there’s some sign that Gottfredson is listening. He seems to spend more time in Salem chatting with legislators than talking to faculty. Let those who get the raises show up in garb.
Alas, in 2006, the Supreme Court, in Garcetti v. Ceballos, extended restrictions on free speech to employees of public institutions, rejecting “the notion that the First Amendment shields from discipline the expressions [public] employees make pursuant to their professional duties.” The decision did, however, note an objection from Justice Souter that this would compromise academic freedom. In response, Justice Kennedy wrote:
“There is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court’s customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same manner to a case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching.”
Courts have been trying to parse these sentences ever since, usually on the side of restricting academic freedom, not strengthening it. Geller’s edits to the original Academic Freedom policy seemed calculated to facilitate a restrictive reading of Garcetti.
3-Toed Sloth is quite right. Garcetti’s savings clause continues the thesis that “academic freedom” inheres in the First Amendment and offers more protection for faculty speech from government restriction than enjoyed by other public employees.
My point, which I will reiterate, is that this notion of “academic freedom” depends upon a self-governing Academy. It is a not speech privilege enjoyed by the individual faculty member apart from her membership in that Academy.
Which begs the question . . . if the self-governing Academy withers, what happens to the speech protections the Academy enjoys under the First Amendment? I suggest the answer is found in looking at K-12 speech jurisprudence. In K-12 settings, there is no tradition of self-governance. Teachers work for the school, teach what they are told to teach, with no research or service-to-society expectation. And, tellingly, public school teachers enjoy zero protection from regulation for their on-the-job speech, just as Garcetti teaches.
Lose your self-governance, lose your speech protection. That’s exactly what the currently pending “independent governing board” legislation threatens. And that’s the agenda for the deep pockets underwriting this bill.