Minutes of 12 February 2007

Circulated: 13 February 2007

Approved: 5 March 2007

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs

6048 Fleming Administration Building

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1340

Phone: (734) 764-0303

Fax: (734) 764-6564

Internet Address:  http://www.umich.edu/~sacua/

Approved minutes:  http://www.umich.edu/~sacua/sacmin/sacuaminutes.html

MINUTES OF THE SACUA MEETING OF 12 FEBRUARY 2007

Present: Combi, Frier, Giordani, MacAdam, Meerkov, Potter, Riles, Seabury, Smith (chair); Lehman; Carr, Schneider

Absent:  none

Guests: K. Brown, J. Lee

MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED:

 1.      Draft agenda

 2.      Draft Minutes of the SACUA meeting of 29 January 2007

 3.      Draft Minutes of the SACUA meeting of 29 January 2007 with annotations from the provost

 4.      Draft Minutes of the SACUA meeting of 7 February 2007

 5.      Draft resolution regarding University of Michigan Senate Assembly Undergraduate Fellowships

 6.      Senate Assembly Planning Schedule, updated 6 February 2007

 7.      Draft Agenda for the Senate Assembly meeting of 19 February 2007

 8.      "Shared Governance Can Work," AAUP Footnotes

 9.      "Understanding Faculty Senates: Moving from Mystery to Models," by James T. Minor. The Review of Higher Education 27: 343-363 (2004).

10.      University of Michigan's Privacy Committee's Guiding Principles about Privacy, Disclosure, and Information Flow.

11.      "Principles of Faculty Involvement in Institutional and Academic Unit Governance at the University of Michigan", Report to the Senate Assembly from the Members of the Academic Affairs Advisory Committee, endorsed 21 April 1997.

Chair Smith convened the meeting at 2:30 P.M.  The proposed agenda was approved with two additions.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

The meeting entered executive session to discuss personnel issues in the Faculty Senate Office.  The meeting returned to open session at 2:50 P.M.

CONSIDERATION OF MINUTES

The minutes of 29 January 2007 were approved with amendments by the provost to the account of her visit with SACUA.  Consideration of the minutes of 5 February 2007 was postponed. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS/UPDATES

            The chair announced that a ten-year index of SACUA minutes has been prepared with hyperlinks to past minutes according to subject issues.

LIAISON REPORTS

Multicultural-

Professor Seabury said that a report from the Multicultural Committee should be completed in March, potentially in time for the Senate Assembly meeting.

Diversity Blueprints-

Chair Smith noted that the Diversity Blueprints Task Force held its third public meeting last week on the North Campus.  It will now assemble a draft report and present it to the president by 15 March.  The president will review it and respond.  Then the Task Force will have one additional month to revise the report.  The draft report could possibly be presented to Senate Assembly. 

Privacy-

Professor MacAdam distributed item 9 about Guiding Principles about Privacy, Disclosure, and Information Flow.  She added that the committee had a discussion about outsourcing student e-mail.

Civil Liberties Board-

Professor MacAdam said that the committee reviewed revisions of the draft statement on Student Rights and Responsibilities, and that the committee chair will be contacting the SACUA chair to encourage information flow.

University of Michigan Pre-College Academy-

Professors Meerkov and Kabamba met with principals from Ann Arbor middle schools and high schools.  The principals gave the faculty an enthusiastic response, and expressed great interest.  Next, faculty will meet with the dean of the College of Engineering.  The current plan calls for 4 meetings per week, and the principals suggest 1 to 3 P.M. as the time slot.  They said that the courses may be considered for high school credit.

REGENTS FACULTY GOVERNANCE UPDATE

Professor MacAdam offered to draft the next Faculty Governance Update.

PREPARATION FOR SENATE ASSEMBLY MEETING

SACUA members reviewed the draft agenda and preparations for the 19 March 2007 meeting of Senate Assembly.

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ACTION OF SACUA 021207-1

The Chair invited endorsement of a proposed resolution for the Senate Assembly regarding Undergraduate Fellowships (Distributed Item 5). 

The Action was approved by unanimous vote.

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SHARED UNIT GOVERNANCE

Professor Meerkov urged continued effort to overcome obstacles to elimination of the Rule of Two.  He reminded SACUA that the General Counsel offered on 5 February to work with faculty governance and the provost's office to develop appropriate language.  He suggested that SACUA designate a delegate to work with OGC to develop such language.  He also reported that interested faculty wish to proceed with a vote in the College of Engineering.  He also suggested that SACUA could pursue the desired level of transparency by seeking election results through FOIA.  Professor MacAdam echoed his call for transparency about elections at the unit level.  She reminded the group that the provost had also called for transparency and that she had recommended the Ford School as a model owing to its practice of releasing vote tallies.

SACUA members discussed a variety of other potential actions as Committee of the Whole, but no Action Items were proposed.  Chair Smith suggested that the matter could be offered to the Senate Assembly as a discussion item.  He noted that the U-M provost will be addressing the State Conference of AAUP in April on the topic of Shared Governance.

OLD/NEW BUSINESS

There was no other business.

The meeting adjourned at 4:00 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

John Lehman

Senate Secretary

University of Michigan Bylaws of the Board of Regents, Sec. 5.02: 

Governing Bodies in Schools and Colleges