Recent Events                          

On October 29^th, SACUA hosted a presidential search forum at Senate Assembly's second meeting of the year.  Regents Deitch, Horning, Maynard and McGowan attended to hear faculty comment on the search process as well as on the desirable attributes of the next president.  SACUA was very encouraged by the Regents' responsiveness to faculty input and is confident that other cooperative efforts will occur between faculty and the Regents during the search.

On November 2^nd and 3^rd, SACUA Chair Navvab attended a Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) conference at Northwestern University with other faculty leaders from the Big-10.  The two major items of interest were intercollegiate athletics and intellectual property rights.  The CIC faculty leaders endorsed a resolution (previously endorsed by Pac-10 faculty) that sets forth "sunshine" principles to guide institutional control of intercollegiate athletic programs.  Chair Navvab was particularly pleased to report to the other members that, unlike their schools, all of the principles and "best practices" endorsed were already in place at the University of Michigan.

Upcoming Events                       

On November 5^th, SACUA will discuss the copyright policy proposal that resulted from the work group on intellectual property commissioned by the President.  On November 7^th, Chair Navvab will meet with designated Interim President White to discuss issues  that will continue during the transition period.  On November 21^st, Interim Provost  Tedesco will meet with Senate Assembly's Academic Affairs Advisory Committee  (AAAC) to discuss possible adoption of AAAC's teaching principles document and  Senate Assembly's Tenure Committee tenure guidelines report.

Finally, SACUA remains of the belief that the following issues are matters of critical importance to faculty for this year:

1. The possibility of changes to faculty control of intercollegiate athletics.
2. Proposed prescription drug benefit changes.
3. Possible changes to the intellectual property/conflict of commitment policy.