SENATE From the Senate Office	Print Issue
March 27, 2012, Volume 58, No. 27

The following is published in accordance with the Faculty Senate Rules. Among other purposes, the publication of SEC actions is intended to stimulate discussion among the constituencies and their representatives. Please communicate your comments to Sue White, executive assistant to the Senate Office, either by telephone at (215) 898-6943, or by email at senate@pobox.upenn.edu

Chair’s Report. Faculty Senate Chair Camille Charles reported that every SEC member needs to nominate a non-SEC faculty member from their constituency for the 2012-2013 Nominating Committee. She urged SEC members to send the name of their nominee to Sue White. The ballots for Senate Committee vacancies to be filled in the spring of 2012 were then distributed and Tobias Wolff reviewed the process taken by the Committee on Committees to create the ballot. President Amy Gutmann will be in attendance at the next SEC monthly meeting and Dr. Charles asked that SEC members write questions for President Gutmann on the back of SEC membership attendance cards or forward them to Sue White.

Global Initiatives: Inventory Results and Strategic Framework. Ezekiel Emanuel, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, gave a 2-part discussion on Penn’s global initiatives. He first discussed Inventory and that past data had not been sufficiently comprehensive. 13% of Penn undergraduate students and 25% of graduate students are international students. The Vice Provost showed a map of global alumni and then discussed student participation in studying abroad from 2005-2011. The one rising component was the number of summer courses taken abroad by undergraduate students. There are low numbers of students going abroad after graduation and the number of students taking language courses is also declining. He then discussed many aspects of Penn faculty global activity. Faculty were recently surveyed and one third of Penn faculty were engaged in global activity this past year. Next steps for the global initiative program will be to ask schools to host meetings on the projects in Africa, Brazil, China, and India.  Faculty who report research activities in specific regions will be invited to attend. The Vice Provost remarked that the challenge for his department would be to keep the faculty survey “up to date” without boring the faculty with yearly surveys. SEC members then discussed problems they encountered with survey questions, particularly the six-month time allotment for faculty to qualify as having spent time away on global initiatives.  Dr. Emanuel suggested that he may change the filter for faculty global activity and encouraged the group to contact his office with additional comments. He then discussed the three pillars of their Strategic Plan:

• Prepare Penn students for an increasingly globalized society
• Strengthen Penn as a global forum and agenda setter
• Promote healthy, productive lives.

Discussion and Vote on the Graduate School of Education Proposal to Increase the Allotment of Senior Lecturers. Stanton E.F. Wortham, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, representing his Dean gave a brief review of the issue. GSE currently has permission to have 10% of their faculty be Senior Lecturers. Because this has been so successful, they would like to increase this to 20%. He explained that the school does not have the expertise right now to meet the needs of their students. The school uses adjunct part-time faculty to meet their additional needs but full-time faculty would be much better for students due to the availability of full-time faculty. Several questions from SEC members were answered by the Associate Dean particularly questions about the three dissenting GSE faculty when GSE faculty were asked to vote on the issue. Faculty Senate Chair-Elect Susan Margulies asked if senior lecturers would teach not only masters but doctoral students as well and the Associate Dean said that Senior Lecturers cannot chair doctoral students without the Dean’s approval. The Associate Dean then left and Faculty Senate Chair Camille Charles led the vote:  one opposed, none abstained, and the remainder voted in favor.

Discussion of the 2010-2011 Economic Status of the Faculty Report. Sarah Kagan, Senate Economic Status of the Faculty Chair, started by saying she preferred a discussion rather than reviewing the entire document. She noted there were persistent themes namely loss of competiveness and a drop in standing for many schools.  There is much work to be done but she believes it needs to be achieved via faculty and administration discussions. She then reviewed several aspects of the executive report including the fact that standing faculty cannot withstand the lack of growth apparent from the report. SEC members then asked a variety of questions concerning comparison with peer institutions, the lack of data on staff and administrator salaries, gender equity and diversity, availability of salaries for “new hires,” health care benefit changes and the fact that long standing trends while improving are not yet reversed.  Dr. Kagan ended by urging the SEC members to query the administration about external competiveness, gender equity issues, and benefits.