To: Members of the University Senate
From: Donald D. O'Dowd, for the Steering Committee
Re: Agenda for the Meeting of April 3, 1969
The next meeting of the University Senate will be held on Thursday, April 3, at 3:30 p.m., in Rooms 128-30 of the Oakland Center.
A. Old Business
1. Recommendations of the Graduate Study Committee. (Mr. Tomboulian)
The President and the Board of Trustees should be requested to approve the offering of the new degree programs described in the following four motions:
a. THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION IS AUTHORIZED TO OFFER A PROGRAM LEADING TO THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN TEACHING IN SPECIAL EDUCATION (CONCENTRATION: EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED CHILDREN). THE PROGRAM LEADING TO THIS DEGREE MAY BE IMPLEMENTED AS SOON AS FEASIBLE.
The prospectus for this program was attached to the Senate agenda of March 6, 1969.
b. THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY IS AUTHORIZED TO OFFER A PROGRAM LEADING TO THE DEGREES OF MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY AND MASTER OF ARTS IN THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. THE PROGRESS LEADING TO THESE DEGREES MAY BE IMPLEMENTED AS SOON AS FEASIBLE.
The prospectus for these programs was attached to the Senate agenda of the meeting of March 6, 1969.
c. THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IS AUTHORIZED TO OFFER A PROGRAM LEADING TO THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PH.D.) IN SCIENCE UNDER THE SPONSORSHIP OF AN INTERDEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE CONSISTING OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE DEPARTMENTS OF BIOLOGY, CHEMISTRY, MATHEMATICS, AND PHYSICS. THE PROGRAM LEADING TO THIS DEGREE MAY BE IMPLEMENTED AS SOON AS FEASIBLE.
The prospectus for the program was attached to the Senate agenda of the meeting of March 6, 1969.
d. THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING IS AUTHORIZED TO OFFER A PROGRAM LEADING TO THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PH. D.) IN ENGINEERING (CONCENTRATION: SYSTEMS ENGINEERING). THE PROGRAM LEADING TO THIS DEGREE MAY BE IMPLEMENTED AS SOON AS FEASIBLE.
The prospectus for the program was attached to the Senate agenda for the meeting of March 6, 1969.
2. Recommendation from the Academic Policy Committee. (Mr. Lowy)
a. The Academic Policy Committee recommends that the criteria for admission of a student to the Honors List in the category of Student of Distinction, be amended to read as follows:
GRADE POINT AVERAGE OF 3.0 OR HIGHER, AND NOT A UNIVERSITY SCHOLAR OR STUDENT OF GREAT DISTINCTION. A STUDENT MUST HAVE TAKEN AND COMPLETED TWELVE OR MORE CREDITS, WITH A GRADE POINT AVERAGE OF 3.0 OR HIGHER AND WITH NO GRADE BELOW 2.0.
b. The Academic Policy Committee recommends that the general qualifications applicable to all categories on the Honors List be amended to read, as follows:
IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR THE HONORS LIST, A STUDENT MUST HAVE RECEIVED NUMERICAL GRADES IN TWELVE OR MORE CREDITS OF ACADEMIC WORK. ANY STUDENT WHO HAS RECEIVED A GRADE OF U OR I IN ANY CLASS IS NOT CONSIDERED FOR THE HONORS LIST.
An amendment was moved at the last meeting changing the last sentence of the preceding motion to read:
ANY STUDENT WHO HAS RECEIVED A GRADE OF U OR I IN ANY COURSE IS .NOT CONSIDERED FOR THE HONORS LIST.
The present set of criteria for the Honors List is presented here for the information of the Senate:
UNIVERSITY SCHOLAR -- Grade point average of 3.9 or higher, with no grade below 3.0. (Note: Not changed by the above proposed amendments. )
STUDENT OF GREAT DISTINCTION -- Grade point average of 3.50 to 3.89 with no grade below 3.0. (Note: Not changed by the above proposed amendments.) .
STUDENT OF DISTINCTION -- Grade point average of 3.0 or higher, and not a University Scholar or Student of Great Distinction.
A student must have taken and completed three or more courses with a grade point average of 3.0 or higher, and passed every course. (Note: These standards would be modified by the above proposed amendments.)
In order to qualify for the Honors List, a student must have received numerica1 grades in twelve or more credits of academic work. Any student who has received a grade of 0.0 or U in any course is not considered for the Honors List. (Note: These standards would be modified by the above proposed amendments.)
Comment
These changes are recommended in the interest of improving the criteria for membership in the Honors List. At this time it is possible for a student to receive a grade as low as 0.5 and still qualify for honors. As the criteria are currently written this policy has the awkward connotation of equating a U grade with a grade as low as 0.5. It has been the intention of the Senate to define a U grade as equivalent to any grade below 2.0. This change will bring the Honors List criteria in line with the published interpretation of grades and will provide some minor tightening of criteria for being placed on the Honors List.
3. Recommendation from the Tenure and Appointment Policy Committee. (Mr. O'Dowd)
The Tenure and Appointment Policy Committee wishes to recommend several changes in the appointment policies of the university for action by the Senate and final approval by the Board of Trustees.
a. First, the committee wishes to recommend for the approval of the University Senate three motions which bear upon a change in the range of personnel covered by the appointment and tenure policy of the university. It is the position of this committee that members of the professional library staff should be included in the faculty appointment system and the following motions would permit this to occur. The committee recommends that:
1. PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY STAFF MEMBERS BE AWARDED FACULTY APPOINTMENTS AT THE STANDARD ACADEMIC RANKS AND THEY BE INCLUDED IN THE TENURE SYSTEM.
2. THE LIBRARY SHALL BE CONSTITUTED AS AN ORGANIZED FACULTY WITHIN ONE YEAR OF THE APPROVAL BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE EXTENSION OF FACULTY STATUS TO PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY STAFF MEMBERS.
In connection with the two motions above the committee recommends further that the Rules of Tenure be changed by adding the following section:
B) ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
ADDITIONAL ITEM:
6) A MEMBER OF THE PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY STAFF WHO HAS COMPLETED A STANDARD SERIES OF NON-TENURED APPOINTMENTS AS DESCRIBED IN PARAGRAPH A AND SECTIONS 1) THROUGH 5) OF PARAGRAPH B ABOVE, MAY BE GRANTED TENURE AS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AND NEED NOT BE PROMOTED TO ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR.
Comment
The Committee on Tenure and Appointment Policy believes that the library and the university will be greatly advantaged by including professional library staff members in the faculty appointment and. tenure system. There is a growing trend in this direction among colleges and universities throughout the United States and it seems appropriate that Oakland be in the vanguard of this development. The university librarian assures us that the quality of our library staff can be continuously strengthened by according academic rank and associated perquisites to the professional library staff.
The nature of our particular Rules of Tenure with its "up or out" feature would work an unusual hardship on professional library staff members; therefore, an amendment is recommended which will permit library staff members only to attain tenure at the assistant professor rank. The information that we have gathered indicates that where professional library staff hold academic rank the tenured assistant professorship is universally in effect. By the terms of this legislation staff members will not be faced automatically with an up-or-out judgment at the end of a six-year period.
The committee believes that the professional library staff should constitute itself as an organized faculty and submit a constitution to the University Senate after a reasonable period of time. The library staff would then have an opportunity to consider carefully the practices and procedures to be followed by the library in arriving at policies to govern its functioning as a faculty organization rather than a primarily administrative entity.
The committee recommends that the three motions presented above should be treated as a package since they describe a means whereby the library can be changed in its orientation into an academic organization that is entirely consistent with the role it plays in the university as a teaching and academic agency.
b. The Tenure and Appointment Policy Committee recommends that an additional item be added to the Assistant Professor section of the Rules of Tenure to safeguard the interests of faculty members. The new section is as follows:
B) ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
ADDITIONAL ITEM:
7) WHEN THERE IS A TIME GAP BETWEEN THE DATE OF TENURE DECISION AND THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF PROMOTION OF A FACULTY MEMBER WHO HAS COMPLETED A STANDARD SERIES OF NON-TENURED APPOINTMENTS AS DESCRIBED IN PARAGRAPH A AND SECTIONS 1) THROUGH 5) OF PARAGRAPH B ABOVE, HE MAY BE GRANTED TENURE AS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR.
Comment
This addition to the Rules of Tenure is designed to deal with one specific situation which results from the way in which appointment and promotion recommendations are accepted by the Board of Trustees. At the present time a faculty member may be granted a reappointment at a non-tenured rank in November of the last academic year of a full sequence of non-tenured appointments with the understanding that he will be promoted to associate professor in the spring of the following year. Under the Oakland University tenure rules a faculty member who is appointed as an assistant professor does not have tenure until his promotion to associate professor takes effect July 1 following action by the Board of Trustees. By the addition of section 7) to the Rules of Tenure a faculty member will be formally and legally granted tenure at the time the Board acts in November. Should the Board of Trustees choose not to accept the promotion recommendation which had been promised to the faculty member the preceding fall, he would continue to have tenure although in this extraordinary case at the assistant professor rank rather than at the intended rank of associate professor. In practice it is extremely unlikely that any such difficulty will arise, but the addition of this rule will provide a further guarantee of the security of the faculty member under the current Rules of Tenure. The Tenure and Appointment Policy Committee intends to recommend some changes in the sequence of appointment and promotion actions of the Board of Trustees during the coming year which could alleviate the kind of difficulty described in this section and make much more rational the procedures for appointment, tenure, and promotion actions.
c. The Tenure and Appointment Policy Committee recommends that the Senate also take action on a third item. This particular amendment to the Rules of Tenure is designed to authorize officially the use of visiting appointments. We recommend that the following section be approved:
E) VISITING APPOINTMENTS
A PERSON MAY BE APPOINTED THROUGH NORMAL CHANNELS AT THE RANK OF INSTRUCTOR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, OR PROFESSOR AS A VISITING FACULTY MEMBER FOR A MUTUALLY AGREEABLE TERM OF APPOINTMENT. VISITING APPOINTMENTS ARE NOT SUBJECT TO THE TENURE RULES AND ORDINARILY SHOULD BE OFFERED ONLY FOR PERIODS OF ONE YEAR OR LESS.
Comment
The section currently numbered E) entitled "For purposes of application of these tenure rules:" should now be renumbered F) to make room for the section on visiting appointments.
The Tenure and Appointment Policy Committee has noted that there is no official category available for making visiting appointments at the standard academic ranks. Several such appointments have been made in the last two years but their legal status is somewhat tenuous. It would be possible with this amendment to appoint people at any regular tenure rank on a visiting basis for a one-year term. As the rules currently stand instructors and assistant professors should be appointed for two years and an associate professor should be appointed for three years. There is no provision to appoint people in these ranks for a shorter period of time although there has frequently been good cause for making such short-term appointments. In some cases these brief appointments are designed to fill vacancies created by leaves of absence and sabbatical leaves. In other cases desirable candidates indicate that they are available for one year and are only willing to accept a short-term appointment. In a number of such cases the people who have been approached do not wish to accept the rank of lecturer which to them may have connotations that are confusing when it appears in their curriculum vitae. It is in the light of these considerations that the committee recommends an extension of the Rules of Tenure to include visiting appointments.
4. Recommendation of the Academic Standing and Honors Committee. (Mr. McKay)
The Academic Standing and Honors Committee moves the adoption of the report entitled, "Procedures in Cases of Student Academic Violations." The formal motion reads as follows:
THE STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES PRESENTED IN THE DOCUMENT ENTITLED "PROCEDURES IN CASES OF STUDENT ACADEMIC VIOLATIONS," SUBMITTED BY THE ACADEMIC STANDING AND HONORS COMMITTEE IN MARCH, 1969, IS ACCEPTED AND WILL HENCEFORTH SERVE AS OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY POLICY.
An amendment to the main motion was offered to delete the period and add the phrase at the end of the previous motion: FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS.
The report from the Academic Standing and Honors Committee was attached to the Senate agenda for the meeting of March 27, 1969.
Comment
The original report of the Academic Standing and Honors Committee was reviewed by the Senate in April, 1968, and was then accepted as university policy pending an open hearing by the committee. That hearing, designed to ascertain student and faculty reactions to the standards and procedures noted in the report, was recently completed by the committee. The attached final report is basically the same as, the original document although some modifications have been introduced since last April.
B. New Business
1. Recommendations of the Academic Policy Committee. (Mr. Lowy)
a. The Academic Policy Committee recommends Senate approval of the establishment of the following new University Course that has been sent forward by the Committee on Instruction of the College of Arts and Sciences. This course is designed to be added to the current option (UC 062 and UC 066) available to students for meeting the university distribution requirement in non-western civilizations:
UC 064: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICA
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, ECOLOGY, AND CULTURES OF AFRICAN PEOPLE. ATTENTION MUST BE DIRECTED ALSO TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS; ECONOMICS, POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS; AND PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL CHANGE.
Comment
It is the intention of the College of Arts and Sciences, with this course on Africa as a base, to work toward the development of a concentration in African studies along the lines of the present area studies concentrations.
b. The Senate is requested to approve the following motion that will authorize the establishment of a third "inner college:"
ALLPORT COLLEGE, AN "INNER COLLEGE" WITHIN OAKLAND UNIVERSITY SHOULD BE ACTIVATED ON JULY 1, 1969 SUBJECT TO THE SAME GENERAL POLICIES AND PRINCIPLES THAT HAVE GUIDED THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHARTER COLLEGE AND NEW COLLEGE.
Comment
The attached report presents a detailed outline of the curriculum that will constitute the program of Allport College at its beginning. The following courses will be the initial set of offerings in the college:
AC 101-102 Introduction to Behavioral Sciences
An introduction to the methods, data and insights of the behavioral sciences with emphasis on anthropological, sociological, psychological, ethological and political research. The implications and relevance of these basic and applied studies for the behavior of individuals, groups and nations are examined.
Comment: This is a two-semester course. It is required of all students in Allport College and meets the Social Science distribution requirement. AC 101-102 is also open to any student at Oakland University on an elective basis.
AC 103-104 Freshman Explorations
Comment: Students in Allport College will take Freshman Explorations in the same format as students in the University at-large. Exploration sections are to be taught by Allport College faculty and students are required to choose exploratories taught by persons representing two different disciplines.
AC 499 Senior Colloquium
Comment: In the senior year students in Allport College will be. required to enroll in a senior colloquium designed as am integrative experience. It is the intention of the College that this course be taught by an instructor other than the person with whom a Freshman Exploration was taken.
2. Report of Steering Committee Activities. (Mr.O'Dowd)
a. A first ballot to elect a faculty member to the Search and Selection Committee to identify a successor to President Hannah did not produce a majority of the votes cast for any of the three nominees. Therefore a second run-off ballot is being circulated offering a choice for the electors of of two nominees Mr. G. Philip Johnson and Mr. James McKay. Please cast a ballot.
b. The Steering Committee has agreed to request the out-going Elections Committee to prepare a report on the recent Senate election in the light of concerns expressed by many faculty members and offer any recommendations it deems appropriate for the guidance of future Elections Committees.
DDO'D:ljm 4/3/69
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