University of Pittsburgh
Senate Council Meeting
Minutes of May 12, 2003

1. President Cassing called the meeting to order at 3:03 PM.
2. The minutes of the Senate Council meeting on April 7 were approved as written.
3. President Cassing asked for new items of business. There were none.
4. Report of the Chancellor, Mark A. Nordenberg:
·Congratulations to the recently elected and re-elected Senate officers and members of Faculty Assembly and Standing Committees. Thanks to those holding Senate positions during this current year who work hard to make this a better place.
·This year’s Commencement was the first to be held on campus in decades. The Petersen Center was a spectacular venue and all went smoothly, thanks to those involved.
·Receptions were held to honor faculty selected to receive the Chancellor’s Distinguished Awards for Teaching, Research and Public Service and for staff members selected to receive the Chancellor’s Award for Staff Excellence.
·Livingston Alexander was named President of the U of P Bradford campus. He is the first African-American to serve in that position.
·The Chancellor recently spoke at the inauguration ceremony of the new members of the Student Government Board. Liz Culliton was elected President.
·Met at West Chester State University along with the Presidents of Temple, Penn State and Lincoln Universities to testify at hearings before the State House Appropriations Committee. The session went well but our appropriations bills still have not passed.
·The AAUP released its annual salary survey and showed that Pitt professors ranked at or above the median in terms of the AAU Public Universities in every professorial rank. The gap between the private and the publics still exists and continues to be a concern.
·Our capital campaign is moving ahead on schedule. The School of Engineering recently received a $10.5 million bequest from the estate of George Bevier.
·Fourteen teaching proposals have been selected for funding under the Innovation in Education Awards Program of the Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence. $200,000 in funding is involved.
·Pitt has joined Penn, Penn State and CMU to form the Keystone Homeland Security University Research Alliance.
·“Science 2003” has been scheduled for September 24-26 with the theme Improving the Human Condition.

5. Report of the President of the Senate, James H. Cassing:
·The Senate Elections results for 2003-04 have been announced. Congratulations to the newly-elected officers: Nick Bircher, President; Irene Frieze, Vice President; and Josephine Olson, re-elected as Secretary.
·The Benefits and Welfare Committee is moving forward, with the endorsement of Faculty Assembly, to have the administration establish an advisory committee that includes faculty and staff representatives from the Benefits and Welfare Committee to promote recreational service and personal fitness on the Pitt campus for faculty and staff. The administration has been alerted of the resolution passed at the May 6 Faculty Assembly Meeting.
·At last month’s Faculty Assembly meeting, a resolution was passed asking for the Plant Utilization and Planning Committee to report on existing problems with research buildings to “ensure that each building that contains research and/or instructional laboratories has assigned to it a uniquely dedicated Building Engineer to protect the safety and health of faculty, staff and students and the integrity of the research enterprise”. Prof. Favorini, Chair of PUP, convened a meeting on May 5 to discuss the resolution. Ana Guzman, Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management, made an extensive presentation on the rationale for the current policy. Based on Guzman’s explanations, the PUP committee did not recommend returning to the system of building-specific engineers.
·Vice Provost Andrew Blair recently reported the Review of Departmental Chairpersons is moving along. With the exception of Titusville, the Regional Chairpersons have been reviewed. The Schools of Education, Engineering, and Information Science are complete. FAS Chairs will probably be reviewed this September. These are all of the Provost-area Schools within the departments.
·The recipient of the Chancellor’s Affirmative Action Award will be announced at the June 9 Senate Council Meeting. Professors Richard Tobias and Barbara McCloskey are representing the Senate on the Selections Committee.
·Mayor Tom Murphy will be a special guest speaker at the June 3 Faculty Assembly Meeting. He wants to address faculty about his proposed budget plan. All members of the Senate are invited to attend that meeting.
Discussion:
Bircher asked about Sr. Vice Chancellor Levine’s plan for Review of Departmental Chairs of the Health Sciences areas. The Provost responded that after the evaluation of the results of those in the Provost area, he would be talking with Levine about the inclusion of the Health Sciences. This is a “test” year.

6. Report of Student Members of Senate Council:
Student Government Board
Liz Culliton reported they are in transition working to get the Board and Committees together. They have a shortened term; Liz and her Board will be out of office as of January 1, when new elections take place.
College of General Studies
Todd Ridley reported they also are in transition and are filling division director positions. Over the summer they hope to establish a good relationship with members of the administration and other student organizations.
Graduate and Professional Student Association
Paul Danczyk reported that graduate students did have concerns about the GSPIA Library and the Mathematics Library. There was a meeting with Mr. Rush Miller, Director, University Library System, who will work with the students to help alleviate their concerns.
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Jamie Tarpley reported that there is a new administrative assistant, Kathy Serventi who assists in the office. May 16 is the deadline for travel grants.

7. Report of the President of the Staff Association Council, Ms. Barbara J. Mowery:
Ms. Mowery thanked the Chancellor for the Reception he held for the recipients of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award for Staff.
Last week, SAC held its Annual Council of Campuses. Staff representatives from all Regionals except Titusville met at the Greensburg campus. Topics discussed included staff classifications, health benefits, staff recognition programs, development opportunities, and supervisory issues. Many of the issues will be discussed with Ron Frisch from Human Resources.
Officers’ elections will take place this month. The Safety and Security Committee is active and still working on a web site. Kennywood Day is August 3; tickets are $20.

8. Reports by and Announcements of Standing and Special Committees of the Senate:
Budget Polices Committee, Philip K. Wion, Chair
Last Friday, the Committee met to consider faculty salary recommendations for FY 2004. The recommendations will be sent to the Chancellor within a few days. Several weeks ago, the Committee made Recommendations Concerning Salary Maximums for Staff, which were brought before Faculty Assembly at the May 6 meeting. The document was slightly modified and unanimously endorsed by that body. (Copies of the Recommendations were e-mailed to members of Senate Council prior to today’s meeting and are available from the Senate Office.)
The Recommendations read:
Because the capping of salaries at maximums not adjusted by the amount allocated
for maintenance of real salary is inconsistent with the salary policy, we strongly
recommend that
1. Any staff member who performed satisfactorily (or better) bud did not receive an increase of at least 1.5% this year should receive an increase of at least 1.5%, retroactive to July 1, 2002; and
2. In subsequent years staff salary maximums should be adjusted upwards annually by at least the amount allocated under the salary policy for maintenance of real salary for that year.

Part of the rationale for the above includes the concept of fairness and equity among employees. A small group of employees have been treated differently from all other faculty and staff and there needs to be a very good reason to justify such differential treatment. The bottom line is whether the value of maintaining the real value of a job which would require some cost of living adjustment is sufficient to override or outweigh the other factors which go into setting maximums simply in relation to other institutions that we’ve chosen to benchmark this institution against.
This is an important issue because it goes to the heart of what kind of an institution this is. We need to be fiscally responsible in order to fulfill our mission, but equity has value in creating positive incentives. People who do their work well and make positive contributions to the University should get recognition – beyond ceremonies recognizing long-term employees. We should be encouraging people, not discouraging them by not maintaining their real salaries.
Discussion:
Executive Vice Chancellor Cochran pointed out that this issue has been discussed on multiple occasions by members of the staff and Staff Association Council and at UPBC meetings. Any well-run organization needs to have a meaningful job classification and salary administration program and it has to be run pursuant to its original intent. Mr. Cochran gave a brief history of Pitt’s classification and salary range programs. He discussed implementation of the programs over the last two years and the grandfathering plan. The salary ranges are set based upon what the job brings to the table. The real disincentive would be if newer staff saw co-workers in the same job classification getting paid more, even though they might not be working as hard, but because they stayed in the same job for a long time. An advantage of the system is to provide a mechanism to encourage employees to take advantage of opportunities to enhance and improve their skill sets so they can move up. The only necessity for grandfathering was the potential that in any given year the maximum would not be raised.
Mr. Cowell said SAC did support the new classification plan three years ago, but did not support the maximums on the salary ranges at that time. We need to look at the value of the employee not just the value of the job.
Provost Maher added that a lot of progress has been made in the direction of having everyone appropriately compensated. There is a great respect for the role that staff play. Implementation of a new job classification system three years ago was part of an effort to raise all of the employee compensation levels to appropriate market levels. When a person reaches the max they are one of the very highest paid people in Western Pennsylvania in their group of skills.
Chancellor Nordenberg underscored that there is great admiration for staff at the University. Achieving equity is not an easy matter. Does not want to underscore the significance of the cost of living adjustments in the overall decisions, but there are other factors as well that should be taken into consideration.
Wion called for a motion to have members of Senate Council endorse the resolution.
After much additional discussion the motion came to a vote.
The resolution passed by a vote of 10-7 with 9 abstentions.

Bylaws and Procedures Committee, Frank Beatrous, Chair
There are two proposals for changes in the Senate Bylaws.
In Article III. Senate Council, Section 2. Composition: item (d) currently reads “three staff members”. The recommendation is to make “(d)” consistent with other areas of the Bylaws and have it read: (d) three staff members selected by the Staff Association Council.
The motion passed unanimously.
The second recommended change has to do with the mechanism for electing
members of Standing Committees of the Senate (Article V. Committee for Elections
and Method of Elections, Section 7. (c) Standing Committees – Faculty Members).
The current procedure is a bit complicated. Members of Faculty Assembly select
any number of candidates they wish and assign them a weight of 2, 1 or 0. A
simplified procedure is proposed which would give each member of Faculty
Assembly a slate of candidates; they would be asked to vote for candidates on the
list not to exceed the number of vacancies on the committee. The new wording
would read:
Each Faculty Assembly Member may vote for a number of candidates not exceeding the number of vacancies. The candidates with the most votes shall be declared elected. If necessary, ties will be resolved by lot.
The motivation of the change is that we get a lot of incorrectly marked ballots.
The motion passed unanimously.

Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee, Michael Pinsky, Chair
Professor Richard Tobias reported on behalf of Dr. Pinsky. One function of TAFC is to aid those faculty with grievances through the University process. A problem is that TAFC cannot make sure the process goes along successfully. The Committee and the Provost have been discussing ways in which the process can move along more quickly. Some people don’t realize they have the right to see information in their files; and some people deny others the right to see things in their files. TAFC needs some power to make sure the procedure is working. Following are TAFC’s recommendations to make the procedure move equitably and quickly.
It is a report to the Provost and needs no action from this body. The Recommendations read:
To insure a timely review of the facts and appropriate due process for faculty-initiated grievance processes three specific items need to be present and these represent the TAFC proposed solution to the perceived problems with the existing process that has been at times prolonged and therefore inefficient. These items are:
1. The Provost Office is to notify all School Deans and appropriate Department Chairmen of the need to provide the TAFC-mandated fact-finding committee with ready access to all relevant documents in the case of a faculty grievance action, as mandated by the University. The TAFC is aware of the sensitive nature of some of these documents and all inquiries will be performed on a confidential basis.
2. The chairman of the three-member fact-finding committee charged with the investigation for the grievant will be instructed as to the time-dependent nature of this investigation, and the need to complete the fact-finding in a timely fashion within three months of organizing the committee. The chairman and other committee members are to receive a reminder notices via e-mail or campus mail from the Provost’s Office two months after starting their activity and again at the end of the three-month interval. The Provost’s Office will be notified at three months if the process is not complete. If a report is not finalized by this time then the chairman of the TAFC or his representative is to contact the chairman of the fact-finding committee to ascertain the reasons for the delay, relay these issues to the grievant and attempt to expedite the process.
3. The TAFC will monitor in real time the actions of the fact-finding committee, but not the content of their study, to identify problems or potential problems that may delay the completion of the final report. The TAFC will report on an annual basis to the Faculty Assembly about any grievance processes that were associated with delays, their root causes and proposed means to prevent them in the future.

Discussion:
Provost Maher provided some background information going back to when Nathan Hershey was Senate President and asked for an extra option for faculty members who wanted a quicker answer out of the process. The Provost was reluctant because he feels that the current process is a good, careful one. The Senate leadership promised at that time that the current process would be left alone, but there could be an alternative. TAFC doesn’t normally include the administrative liaison and as a result there are some pretty serious misunderstandings about facts that underlie these recommendations. There are two different policies, not one. The Grievance Policy (does not include promotions and tenure) and the Faculty Review and Appeals Process (includes renewal of contracts, promotion or tenure issues). In each case TAFC plays a role in working as a mediator between the faculty member and the relevant administrators. The Provost has always encouraged the Department Chairs and Deans to share with TAFC what they can. Employee law says there is information in employee files that cannot be released if the faculty person hasn’t authorized it. The Provost went on to describe why the recommendations would be intrusive on the functioning of the panels which are made up of faculty members. The faculty panels feel they should take their time to get things right. There are very few grievance cases. The problem is more complex in the Medical School where time is a factor because many contracts are only for one year.
The Provost suggested 1) This should not be regarded as something the Senate has acted on. The original deal was that there be no action other than on an expedited tract. 2) The Provost is very willing to work with TAFC but suggests they engage themselves with the academic liaison to their Committee. 3) TAFC plays a role in the initial mediation but once the process is well defined, TAFC should rely on the faculty panels chosen for the role to carry it out.

9. Announcements:
Faculty Assembly meets June 3; Senate Council on June 9.

10. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM.

Respectfully submitted by Fran Czak
Director, Office of the University Senate
For Josephine E. Olson, Secretary