Present: S. Lyon, C. Trovato, T. Silvestre, A. Blair, R. Pack, T. Boone, I. Nikolova, D. Crossman, N. Majumdar, O. Beeson, I. Frieze, J. McKinney, P. Hart (University Times), and J. Erlen (chair)

Topic Discussion/Action

Call to order The meeting was called to order at 12:05 pm by J. Erlen.

Welcome and introductions Those present introduced themselves.

Minutes of September 25, 2007 Minutes were approved.

Policy/procedure regarding financial benefit when faculty assign their books for use in their courses

J. Erlen introduced the main item for the agenda which was a continuation of the discussion begun at the September 2007 meeting. At that time, the committee decided to invite Dr. R. Pack to discuss the planned procedure with the Committee. Dr. Pack stated that the current practice is that faculty should not benefit from sales to students.

When a faculty assigns their own work, the practice has been to have faculty give a donation to the department that would be the amount of the royalties. The issues with this practice were identified as: the faculty was taxed on the royalties received and students benefit only indirectly. The student benefit is too remote.

The Provost decided to revisit this practice to make this a direct benefit to students. R. Pack explained that the policy was not changing, only its implementation to more directly benefit the students. In this way it becomes obvious to others that there is no faculty conflict of interest. The idea is that faculty will not receive the royalties on their own books when assigned to their own students or when another faculty member at Pitt assigns that book for student purchase whether the work is self-published or published through a company.

The University recognizes that this is not enforceable everywhere such as online book purchases or bookstores external to the University. The faculty will need to note on their book order to the Pitt bookstore that this is a Pitt faculty authored book. The responsibility for addressing this issue with the publisher resides with the faculty, not the bookstore.

The faculty will need to discuss not charging royalties with the publisher when the book is sold through Pitt's bookstore. The bookstore will monitor the price to assure that the royalty has been taken out of the price of the book.

When another Pitt faculty assigns a text written by a Pitt colleague, the same process occurs with the added step of the former faculty contacting the latter faculty who wrote the book so that the above process can be implemented. R. Pack explained that the University is looking for "good faith efforts" on the part of the faculty.

There is no assurance that all publishers will comply with this procedure. In the ensuing discussion, the question was raised as to whether a faculty actually makes money when writing a book because of the outlay at the start of the project.

Another question was what if the faculty suggests that students purchase the book online. The current practice of the faculty donation to the department would be the operative practice. The Committee agreed to revisit this issue in the Spring 2008 term to gain insight as to how the new procedure is working. At that time having a representative from the bookstore would be an appropriate resource for information.

Another idea that was mentioned was whether there should be suggested guidelines for departments in regard to their own practice. Please note: An article covering this meeting was written by Peter Hart and was published in the November 8, 2007 University Times (pages 1 and 8).

Presentation by Dr. P. Beeson regarding the current freshman class followed. Dr. Beeson began her presentation by saying that this was Betsy Porter's presentation on the freshman class. Some of the highlights of this presentation were:

--the number of applications has more than doubled since 1995 with an acceptance rate of 56% and a yield of 32%

--48% were in the top 10% of their high school class. It was noted that high schools are moving away from ranking of students.

--while the GPA is not a consistent measure of performance, the SAT seems to be a more consistent measure of performance; the mid 50% range of scores of admitted students was 1170-1330.

--6161 students visited the campus.

--applications are currently about 12% ahead of last year at this time.

Next meeting The next meeting is to be held Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 12 noon in 826 Cathedral of Learning.

Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 1:05 PM.

Submitted by,

Judith A. Erlen, Chair and Recorder