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Faculty Senate Faces Full Slate of Academic Issues in 2007
Paul K. Mueller | January 29, 2007
Meeting
for the first time in the new year and the new quarter,
the UC San Diego faculty senate on Tuesday heard from
Chair Harry Powell that representatives can expect
to help resolve a number of faculty and system-related
issues – among them the role of faculty in the
“Charting the Course” initiative; links
between faculty members and pharmaceutical companies;
and the future of organized research units (ORUs).
But before
they began considering that slate of upcoming issues,
the assembly heard from Chancellor Fox and presented
an award to John Woods, former vice chancellor for
resource management and planning. Woods, now
retired, accepted a plaque honoring his service to
UC San Diego, and heard Powell praise his “contributions
to shared governance and commitment to helping students,
faculty and staff.”
In
her remarks, Fox noted the appointment of Dr. David
A. Brenner as the new Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences,
and pointed to the success of the Division of Arts
and Humanities and Dean Michael Bernstein in attracting
the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’
Workshop – the nation’s oldest and most
respected of its kind.
She
also congratulated George Feher, professor of physics,
for receiving the 2007 Wolf Prize in chemistry, and
Yuan-Cheng “Bert” Fung, professor emeritus
of bioengineering, for his recent honor of the 2007
Russ Prize in engineering. Last, she thanked Vice
Chancellor for Student Affairs Joe Watson for sharing
Grand Marshal duties with her during the Martin Luther
King, Jr. parade earlier this month.
Turning
to business, Powell listed faculty-related issues
the assembly will be asked to help resolve in coming
quarters. A policy on integrity; the Spellings Report
on higher education in the U.S.; tobacco-research
issues (“Across the UC system,” said Powell,
“faculty are opposed on academic-freedom grounds
to such restrictions on funding”); retirement
system issues; the role of graduate students in instruction;
and inequalities in compensation were among the issues
that the UC San Diego and other UC campus assemblies
will be asked to consider.
The senate
then unanimously approved two amendments – one
by the Graduate Council to revise wording in a graduate-studies
requirements list, one by the Senate Administration
Council to revise wording in a bylaw – the latter
acknowledging the separation of the positions of the
Vice Chancellor for Research and the Dean of Graduate
Studies, and adding that dean to the membership of
the council.
The senate
also postponed a motion that the Representative Assembly
formally schedule regular (but brief) oral reports
from the chairs of all Academic Senate standing committees.
Members of the assembly wanted more time to consider
how adding such reports would affect bylaws, protocols
and schedules.
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