Manoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee Minutes of November 7, 2005

Present: SEC: Chairman Robert Bley-Vroman, Noel Kent, Bill Lampe, Barry Raleigh, Martha Staff, Jim Tiles and Robert Valliant.

Senate Secretary Charlotte Mitsutani was present.

1. The meeting was called to order at 3:00 pm by Chair Robert Bley-Vroman
2. Approval of Oct 31 minutes

   The minutes of Oct 31 were approved with changes.

3. Business of the Day

   The Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR) needs an office. Chair Bley-Vroman suggested that he might use Hawaii Hall 208A.

   Creating a new constituency for the Student Affairs faculty. This new constituency will include Student Affairs, Study Abroad, Center for Academic Excellence and Tom Hilgers. There is normally 1 Faculty Senator for every 30 faculty. The SEC decided to refer the matter to the CFS. CFS will make a recommendation to the SEC who will then take it to the full Senate.

   JABSOM representation in the Faculty Senate. Many of the faculty in JABSOM are clinicians. The SEC questioned the type of their appointments. Only faculty whose appoints are 50% or more may be counted for Senate representation.

   The question of a faculty member for the search committee for the Director of Financial Aid has been referred to CFS.

   The search committee for the VC Student Affairs was set up over the summer. It has been meeting. Soon it will hire a search firm.

   Fred Riggs, head of the Emeriti Association, has asked Chair Bley-Vroman about the possibility of emeriti being appointed to standing committees or being represented in the Senate. The SEC decided to have CAB review the bylaws about Senate representation, but they should be able to serve on standing committees.

4. Committee Reports

   CAB (Raleigh): None

   CFS (Raleigh): None

   CAPP (Lampe): The committee has decided that not only does it not want to give up the review of any certificate, but it also wants to review all of them. The committee is reviewing the Interdisciplinary PhD but is unsatisfied because it is not housed in an academic unit. The committee is working on setting up a subcommittee on admissions, and it will require representatives from CSA and CA.

   CA (Lampe): Has not met recently.

   CSA (Staff): It will meet on Tuesday. It is working on a resolution on alcohol policy and the Year of the Student.

   GenED (Kent): Did not meet.

   COR (Tiles): The committee has been examining several issues:

   Center for Genomics, Proteneomics and Bioinformatics Research. If this center is in order, it will pass a resolution on to the Senate.

   Waimano Biohazard Facility. VCRGE Ostrander is not in a position to pass anything through yet.

   RTRF. Every unit must have a written policy to aid transparency. Tiles suggested that the SEC ask the Interim Chancellor which units have turned in such a policy. Raleigh noted that the policy requiring a written policy is widely ignored. Arts \& Humanities apparently doesn't have a policy. Tiles reported that the committee intends to invite VP Gains to talk about the way that he distributes his money.

   CPM (Tiles): Nothing to do. There will be a proposal on ``all-but-tenure'' for people with no green card.

5. Chair's Report
   1. System---Manoa relations

      Chair Bley-Vroman reported on his meetings with Interim Chancellor Denise Konan. He noted that she is considering her response to Senate actions.

      On the question of Manoa-System relations, she supports the SEC's call for clarification of the relationship. She has her own plans for giving the Chancellor's Office more functionality.

      The Chancellor's Office should manage the dormitories, have independent legal services, advertising, public relations, and legislative relations (coordinated with the System).

      After discussion, the SEC felt it necessary to inform the Board of Regents what it wanted to accomplish. It was noted that if a clarification of roles is done, and the Manoa chancellor becomes a strong chancellor, the question of a presidential search becomes less important for Manoa. Moving more functionality from the President's Office to the Chancellor's Office would also speed up the chancellor search process.

      The general feeling of the committee was ``to get the kind of chancellor we want, we have to get the structure right''.

      Bley-Vroman said that the first priority was to get the structure right. The SEC would have to get permission from the Senate to pursue the relationship between the System and the Chancellor's Office.

      The SEC discussed some of the most important changes that should be made:

      1. OHR: The most urgent item in functionality is to move the Office of Human Resources from System to Manoa. As it stands now, VC Cutshaw cannot make decisions on hiring, pay scales, etc.
      2. Legal Representation: Manoa also needs its own lawyers. It was noted that when the lawyers have been working on Manoa problems, the System has taken them away for its own work.
      3. Facilities: The Facilities Office should also report to the Chancellor. It was noted that VC Cutshaw has been trying to do this but she doesn't have the authority.
      4. ITS: The Committee noted that ITS will probably be a dual reporting unit. Much of what it does is Manoa, but there are also some things that effect the entire system. All felt that the director, David Lassner, could make dual reporting work.
      5. ORS: This office should also move to Manoa. The ideal would be to privatize it, a la RCUH, and make it a 501c3 corporation. There are indications that ORS has not been very responsive.
      6. Budget: Some on the committee felt that the Chancellor's Office should report to the BOR on the Manoa budget. This would strengthen the Chancellor's Office and provide less room for the System to interfere.

      The SEC decided that the Chair would draft a document of things that need to happen. This will require that the BOR make some changes (changing the relationship of the System and Manoa).

      The SEC decided that a brief report on the chancellor search would be made at the November 16 meeting and a fuller report at the December 7 meeting after CAB had been briefed on the SEC's ideas.

   2. Senate Meeting of Nov 16

      The SEC then moved to a discussion of the November 16th meeting. The main points:

      • If both SEC draft resolutions are defeated, the result will be undefined.
      • The Committee on Research wants something on academic freedom included in the resolutions because it fears that anti-military feeling will begin to infringe on academic freedom.
      • Roger Lukas, head of UHARI, wants a resolution on academic freedom whatever the outcome. He sees the anti-UARC mood as anti-academic freedom.

      The SEC decided to ask CoR to being such a resolution to the Senate. It need not be part of the UARC debate.

      The SEC decided to add a clause (No. 6) to the ``not con'' resolution:

      Concerns identified by the SEC outside counsel's report must be satisfactorily addressed, and the administration must report to the Senate how they have been addressed.

      The SEC decided that since the Ad Hoc Committee's final report was on the web, the lawyers' report, appendices, and other documents would be made available in the library for anyone to look at.

      The SEC discussed the conduct of the debate. It decided that members of the Ad Hoc committee would respond to any questions the senators might have about the report. If the Ad Hoc committee could not answer, then any members of the administration who were present would be given the opportunity to answer.

      During the discussion, one member of the SEC commented on the high level of distrust of administration present on the campus.

The meeting adjourned at 5:40pm.

Faithfully submitted
Robert Valliant