President P. Nelson delivered the President's report (See Appendix A - Available by Request from the Senate Office).

At the conclusion of the President's report, there was a discussion centered around item no. 11 of the report. (Several faculty members have reported to the Senate President that Senate Proposal 7-69, Final Examinations, has been violated during the Winter Quarter). One Senator said that he has read Proposal 7-69 and is not sure that he understands exactly what it means. President Nelson asked Senator Baillod to explain the final exam policy.

Baillod agreed that the final exam policy is ambiguous. He said, "Last year when we were considering a new (final) examination policy, we sent letters to each department head asking him for his interpretation of the ambiguities in the policy. Of the replies received there were at least half a dozen different interpretations of what that language meant. I think one of the key words is the use of the word 'should.' The policy says, if an exam is to be given, and there is only one exam to be given during the last week and the final exam period, it should be given in the final examination period. And some people asked what does 'should' mean? Does that mean it will or shall, or is it advisory? Baillod said that there were many different interpretations of final exam policy and that is what prompted Proposal 3-76. (Proposal 3-76 was defeated). He said, "The feeling that I got from the Senate (May 1976) meeting was that we did not want to make hard and fast rules that faculty members would have to follow; this is what the defeated Proposal did. Proposal 3-76 set down some rules very specifically as to when exams had be to given and the feeling was that the Senate did not want to do that."

Meetings of the Academic Council. - Vice President Sachs delivered a report on the meeting of the Academic Council. (See Appendix B - Available by Request from the Senate Office).

Sachs reported these comments after the meeting of interest to the Senate:

Yerg reported that Northern anticipates a drop of 2000 students in the next couple of years and the University of Michigan graduate enrollments are down 25% for next year. Biesiot reported that the 8% increase in his enrollments for next year are to be expected as the national growth in schools of business is 20%.

At the conclusion of the report, there was a comment on item no. 9, that someone at the Academic Council meeting said the work year for faculty begins a week before classes starts. Baillod commented that to his recollection that this is the way it was until about two years ago. There was a year in which pay was spread over 53 weeks and pushed back in time to the starting date of classes, so, in effect, right now, the pay for the week before classes comes of the last academic year's salary. It is this Senator's interpretation that since one is not being paid out of the new year's salary the week before classes, one is not obligated to be there that week.

There was a comment on item 12. (If Michigan Tech becomes a class I institution, it can get a better break in funding. Fifteen Ph.D.'s in three non-related programs, awarded over a three year period is the guide to getting class I status.)

Brown commented that his department has been informed by the Graduate Dean that no more Ph.D. candidates will be accepted into their Ph.D. program. President Nelson said, "It does seem to frustrate the Vice President's attempt to get us to be a class I institution."

Meeting of the Board of Control. - Vice President Sachs delivered a report on the meeting of the Board of Control (See Appendix C - Available by Request from the Senate Office).

Sachs reported these comments outside the meeting of interest to the Senate: "The Senate should not be afraid to discuss matters of substance. The Board of Control is not trying to take away tenure, for instance." No assistant professor should be given tenure. After three years an assistant professor should be promoted and tenured or fired. (Secretary's Note: Sachs' report of comments outside the meeting of interest to the Senate elicited a very lengthy discussion. The desire of the Senate was that such remarks not be included in the report on the meeting of the Board of Control, which is included as an appendix to the minutes. The discussion is included below).

Booy asked what department Dr. Fritz Lenel, the visiting professor mentioned in the Board report, will be in. A Senator said he is in Metallurgy.

One Senator asked about the comment made by a Board of Control member outside the meeting that no assistant professor should be given tenure and that after three years an assistant professor should be promoted and tenured or fired.

Sachs said, "It is not a matter of policy, nor is it proposed, but it is in at least one mind."

Snyder said, "I think comments of that type should not appear in the report, because they were not things that were reported at the Board of Control meeting." Another Senator agreed with that comment.

Sachs said, "They were not part of the meeting. I only present them to you for your information."

Thayer said, "These are editorial comments." Could we hear the other comments, or (do we hear) just the ones that you care to report?"

Sachs responded, "I have attempted to report everything that I feel is of substance and of interest to the Senate, which is the reason why the reports are so long. In the past, reports have been very short and sketchy, and have not told us very much."

Hauge asked Sachs to distribute written copies of his reports to the Senate so that they could be taken to departments and become available sooner to the faculty than they are now.

A Senator asked President Nelson, "How do you rule on Snyder's remark?"

Nelson said that in the past the portion of the Senate meeting that pertains to the Board of Control has been labeled as such in an Appendix to the minutes. Any special discussions or comments that the Senate observer to the Board of Control had were printed in the minutes, so that there was a clear distinction to anyone reading the minutes what exactly was part of a formal Board of Control meeting, and what was simply a comment to the observer. "It is my own opinion that some of the other comments that are made by members of the Board of Control to the Senate Observer, in his capacity as Senate Observer, should be transmitted to the Senate and we should hear about it. However, apparently, there is some feeling against that. Would someone like to entertain a motion to do something in this area, or would you like to have some sort of an informal understanding as to what should be reported on, or not reported on?"

Snyder thought an informal understanding could be made. Only business that is brought before the Board Meeting itself is to be reported in the report on the meeting of the Board of Control.

Nelson said that if other things of interest are observed by the observer, they might be presented to the Senate in some other fashion, such as a comment in the President's Report, or volunteered remarks.

Sachs said that he tried to make it clear when he presented the report which were comments outside the meeting.

Romig responded to Sachs' remark. He said that he thought he knew which member of the Board of Control had said that assistant professors should not be given tenure. "What concerned me . . . I'm not at all sure he would say it in quite the same way in the open Board meeting . . . I don't think it's going to carry, as far as the Board is concerned, and I don't even know whether he's going to push it seriously in the formal Board meeting. You can do certain things administratively with regard to this three year thing, which is not quite the same as actually changing a tenure policy, or anything of that sort. It is frightening, it will disturb people, I am afraid, unduly, to hear this, because they will assume that this is what the Board is going to do. That is what concerns me . . . unless it is made very clear that this is simply one personal attitude of a particular Board member."

Sachs said, "This appears to be in response to certain handling of some cases on campus which went on for years and years and years."

Romig replied, "Yes", and that he had talked with people this past December and January "on this point. In fact, I am afraid I made some department heads and deans pretty unhappy, because I insisted that we had to have consistency in this whole handling of the matter and that it was a little unfair to people suddenly to be confronted at the fifth year with a statement that they were not wanted, unless it had been made clear to them earlier that this was likely to happen. And that kind of problem, I think, is going to be handled very differently in the next two or three years."

B. Instructional Policy

Senator Baillod, chairman, presented the Committee report. (See Appendix D - Available by Request from the Senate Office). At the conclusion of Baillod's report, Haut suggested that Proposal 9-77, Amendment to Mid Term Grade Policy, be put on the agenda for the May 4 meeting.

D. Elections Committee - No Report.

E. Roles of the Senate and Faculty Association - No Report.

Old Business

Proposal 10-77, Constitutional Amendment to Provide Senate Representation to the Graduate Student Council (Amendment VI to the Constitution). It was moved and seconded that Proposal 10-77 be adopted.

President Nelson asked for a vote on Proposal 10-77, and it carried; 22 in favor, none opposed, comprising the required 2/3 needed to pass it. The Proposal must be ratified by the Academic Faculty and approved by the Board of Control before the Constitution can be amended.

 

New Business

1. Proposal 12-77, Amendment to the 1977-78 Academic Calendar .

It was moved and seconded that Proposal 12-77 be adopted. President Nelson asked for discussion.

Most of the discussion centered around the fact that there will be only nine Mondays in the winter 1977-78 term. Thus, there will only be nine weeks of Monday laboratories in those classes with Monday labs.

Under the proposed amendment, there would be 9 Mondays, 10 Tuesdays, 10 Wednesdays, 10 Thursdays, and 10 Fridays in the winter term of the 1977-78 calendar. A Senator asked if there was the possibility of 10 Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays. Baillod responded that it is not possible "unless we get rid of scramble day, the first day of the term, or perhaps, begin Final Examinations on Tuesday and hold classes on the Monday of final exam week."

It was asked whether there are more Monday laboratories than there are Friday laboratories. P. Nelson aid, "Yes". Nelson said that there was a discussion of the distribution of laboratory time at a meeting several months ago (when cancellation of classes January 3, 1977, under Proposal 5-77, was being considered) and at that meeting he believes that Mr. Lucier stated that there were more labs on Monday, during the Winter Quarter (1976-77), than on any other day. But they seem to be concentrated disproportionately in certain departments.

One Senator referred to the change in the Tech calendar, asking, "Where are the equal ten week terms?" Baillod responded that the terms now, and for the next three years show 48 1/2 instructional days in the Fall, 49 in the Winter, 48 1/2 in the Spring, so that the terms are fairly equal.

One Senator commented that normally when a course starts on a Tuesday, usually the students are not adequately prepared from the lectures within the first two days to be able to do a very sophisticated laboratory experiment. So the first week is usually spent either in equipment familiarization, or else with no laboratory scheduled. Thus, there are usually nine laboratory sessions scheduled in a ten-week term.

Booy said that this may partially reflect the degree of preparation required for the classes taught. For those who teach many advanced classes, the students had better be prepared on the first Monday, or they should not be taking the course. She pointed out that the students in most of the advanced engineering courses, and a great many courses that have a 101, 102, 103 or 201, 202, 203 sequence are given exams at the end of a quarter, but when there is a continuum of courses, ten weeks of laboratories could be held in the Winter continuum of a Fall course.

Sloan said that the issue of nine or ten Mondays in a term is not strictly speaking relevant to the Proposal. With or without the passage of the Proposal, there will be nine Mondays next Winter Quarter, just as there have been nine Mondays every quarter this year, nine Mondays every quarter last year, and so forth. Sloan said that after a few years of this, she would assume that most departments have adapted to nine Mondays.

Hauge moved the question. A vote was taken on Proposal 12-77. The Proposal was passed: 20 in favor, 1 opposed.

2. Proposal 13-77, Institutional Evaluation. It was moved and seconded that 13-77 be adopted. President Nelson asked for discussion.

Booy said that she and people with whom she has discussed this Proposal who have not had much formal training in management, would like to find out who academic line personnel are before voting on the Proposal. She said that to many persons, the meaning of academic line personnel is obscure.

President Nelson responded: Department Head, Dean, Academic Vice President, and President.

Booy said, "But academic line personnel was obscure."

Romig said, "The phrase was clear to me. I only have two weeks left to go in this institution. I shouldn't say that because I may make you envious; I don't know whether I will or not but, I'm speaking, therefore I think, in a highly personal manner, and I want to urge upon you either to reject or postpone this Proposal. I have two basic reasons. One is I think you are bringing yourself into an interesting and risky position with regard to certain problems. The laws of libel and slander -- I suspect and I don't want to get too philosophical about this -- but, I think they were created to enable a society to live with each other in some degree of trust and confidence, to protect, to some extent, reputations which have been built up over a fair period of time, and with some effort. And consequently it was regarded as inappropriate to damage these by unwise, injudicious, ill-considered remarks. And though this may or may not be present, I suspect that if what is said in these formal evaluations is published beyond the individual himself, certainly ,it will, and it is almost certain to be an informal conversation, it does constitute probably, in many instances or it could constitute slander."

"I can recall one instance in which I had made some fifteen years ago -- before I thought I would get into administrative work, I was President of the Faculty Association at that time -- I made some rather injudicious remarks about the President of our University. After I got to working with him -- this is not Ray Smith, this was the previous President -- after I got to working with him, I discovered that I was probably wrong. I also recall the time when Ray Smith was being appointed President, and there were some Board members who had asked me if I would be interested in the job, and, of course, I said no because I didn't think I had the qualifications. I had already made up my mind that if I were appointed President, I would have fired five separate administrators, whom I knew pretty well. I discovered that I was wrong in three of the instances, and the faculty, I know, would assure me that I was wrong in the fourth, and I was right in only one of them, and he did eventually leave anyhow of his own motion."

"So there is actually the possibility of a suit under these circumstances would not, I think, be a frivolous suit. I think there is the underlying reason, though, for the action, which lies in law, because the law merely sets minimum standards, in my opinion, for performance. The underlying reason is that we have to operate to some extent in some climate of trust and confidence. Now I admit, the past three or four years, when I used to walk over to the Coffee Shop, and there were remarks made about administrators to me, it has stopped because I finally said this has become a pretty old joke. I don't think it was a joke, but it had become pretty old stuff and downright discourteous, and that is one of the things that troubles me. It troubles me that old-fashioned courtesy has to some extent been lost in the current modern university. And I am going to say that if you get into this kind of situation, you will create a defensiveness."

"I can also recall talking to a college president. I won't mention where he was. He was telling me that he was spending at that point of time, 50-80% of his time in defensive action against his Board. I happened to know the Board, and I happened to think that they were wrong, and I happened to agree with the college president. As I say, I do not choose to identify either the president or the university."

"If you get administrators into a defensive position, you will find, I think, that the problems, rather than being resolved, will snow-ball. So, I think you are faced with two separate problems here. One is that you might be risking yourselves; more slander goes on at a university than I like to see sometimes and you are also risking, I think, the very fundamental feeling that does exist. I say this, in all personal sincerity, on this particular matter. I do not say it because I represent administrative interests. I hope you can believe that, because, as I say, I do not, though I think I owe an obligation of loyalty to many people here. I owe it to the faculty as well as to the administration. I only have two weeks left to go. I regret, somewhat, that I am here in that sense. I would almost sooner be here as a retiree saying the same thing, but I do not know if you would listen to me in the same fashion and, therefore, I urge upon you, that this problem should be approached with great caution and great care, because the disruption it could incur both personally to you and to the Institution as such, I think would be more than you really recognize at the present time. Thank you."

Brown responded to Romig's remarks. "I have worked with Joe Romig a long time. In fact, he and I wrote the Constitution for the American Association for University Professors here. But I would disagree with Joe Romig in some places on this particular thing. We, as faculty members, are evaluated not only by those who set our salaries, but also by the students. We are caught in a cross-fire. It is hardly fair to ask us to be evaluated up and down, and to have the administrators not be subject to any evaluation by anyone.

With regard to 'let us keep peace and love one another' or however you would want to put it, this is a two-way street, too. Many of us have the feeling that somebody is breathing down our necks, waiting for us to make a mistake, so that they can raise hell with us -- rather than looking for someplace to give us a little pat, or something of this kind. I don't like the feeling; it does exist. At the Harrington Seminar last fall, I think, it was brought out by Mr. Harwood; he was amazed that such a feeling of people breathing down the necks of the faculty members did exist. He was in charge of the brainstorming session, in which I participated. There were about twenty of us, including several department heads, and practically the entire session dealt on the seeming lack of appreciation of effort on the part of faculty members by the administration. Some of the administrators simply did not and would not appreciate whatever a faculty member is doing, but rather would look for flaws, to beat down on him or her for some reason or another."

Thayer said, "Joe Romig has been a friend of mine for many years, and we have had many arguments over many things for many years. I felt like standing up and applauding Joe. I can appreciate some of Dr. Brown's comments. First of all, we have faculty members evaluating students, because that is what they are paid to do. Now we have students evaluating faculty. Fair enough. What is an administrator? Most of us are administrators in one sense or another. Now we say, should, in fact, the faculty investigate administrators. Does this say the faculty investigates itself? What does the Proposal mean? It means nothing. We should maybe turn it over to the Student Council, and have the Student Council evaluate administrators. The Proposal says nothing, means nothing."

Hauge said that if an evaluation is made, "this does not necessarily imply that it has be public. It may simply be a formal vehicle for feedback to the administration, to get some kind of information that is not yet available to them, with a hope on the part of some, that it may be educational to those people. In the same respect, many faculty . . . seek this kind of information from their students so that they may improve their teaching. This does not commit the Senate to any particular line of approach. In fact, the Faculty Association has raised the same issue and one would expect that the two bodies, if this is approved, would get together. My assumption is that it would probably involve some vehicle of private communication in the way of feedback, to serve as an educational device, not a punitive device. And as such I would support it. I move the question."

Thayer, "I move to adjourn." Romig seconded.

President Nelson asked for discussion on the motion to adjourn.

Booy said, "I believe we have an item of interest, not only to us, as the Faculty Senate and as individuals, but to the faculty as a whole, and to the students as a whole . . . If this sort of thing is going to be implemented, it seems to have very far ranging implications." Booy said that she was against adjourning in the face of a serious, and obviously controversial topic.

President Nelson asked for a vote on the motion to adjourn. The motion did not carry.

Next, President Nelson asked for a vote on the motion to call. Five were in favor, the motion did not carry. Nelson asked for further discussion.

Sachs said, "I have never seen such specious argument and absurd assumptions made to a motion. First of all, the assumptions that have been made, and these are absolutely incorrect assumptions, are that we are going to commit slander and libel. This is a false assumption. There is another assumption made -- that we are going to investigate. There is no motion here to investigate. The mention has been made that we are going to publish. There is nothing in the Proposal about how this will be conducted. I draw your attention to the report of the meeting of the Board of Control. It was proposed at the Board of Control level that there be an employee evaluation system. The Board of Control employs, besides us, the Vice President and the President, and presumably an employee evaluation would include them. I believe that evaluation of personnel is the feeling, the pulse of the time. We cannot avoid it, or postpone it. It is the issue. This Proposal is very simple; it says that Michigan Technological University Faculty shall conduct annual formal evaluations of academic line personnel for the purpose of improving administrative performance. That does not mean that you assume we are going to be negative. An evaluation can give you positive suggestions on improvements; it does not have to be a character assassination. I think that the assumptions that have been made are really specious."

Booy responded to Sachs' remarks, "I disagree with Senator Sachs that these assumptions are necessarily specious because some of us have been observing for several years the student evaluations which have gone through a variety of forms, many of which the present student body are not familiar with. At times I have heard people threaten students with lawsuits for some of the things that have been published by the Student Council, and APO. I have been burned. Perhaps other people around here have been burned. I think that the basic idea of evaluation is a good one. Perhaps, the fear of the administrators is they have seen what has happened to the faculty -- that anonymous denunciations have been used. Although there is a policy that anonymous denunciations would not be used to hurt faculty for retention, promotion and pay, they have, in fact, been used. Perhaps for very good reason the administrators are afraid that after we have been run over by a small tank, they will be be run over by a smaller or larger tank. I do not think that this particular Proposal really tells us enough about what is being proposed and that it could mean all things to all people, like the final examination policy where we are still arguing years after it was passed as to what it means. I think that the intent is good, but perhaps we should in all honesty ask for a more full statement of what it is that we are planning to do. I, of course, have my little sharp hatchet. I am sure we all do for one individual or another, or perhaps a whole mob of them . . . I am not sure we really know what we are talking about and maybe we ought to ask for a little bit better definition. I hate to say to table a motion on the grounds that that always seems like an attempt to murder it, but maybe we ought to find out a little bit more about what we think we want to do and how we think we want to do it. I do not think this Proposal is really clear enough. My first objection was to academic line personnel. I hear discussion -- I hear suggestions of suits for slander from one side and a statement that there is too much secrecy from another -- I think this is a feeling of a lot of people on campus. There is a lot of discontent on this campus. I am not sure that this is the best way to solve this discontent. Either we should discuss it now or make arrangements to discuss this in a lot better detail before we tell Ray Smith just how we think he could improve our lives."

One Senator moved that Proposal 13-77 be tabled. It was seconded. President Nelson asked for a vote on the motion; eight were in favor, the motion to table failed.

Next, a vote wa taken on Proposal 13-77; nine were in favor. Proposal 13-77 did not carry.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,