Issues in Progress:
University Senate
President Bill Cody opened the April meeting by thanking the Senate for
all its work over the year. After approval of minutes he introduced Provost
Rebecca Chopp, who thanked Cody on behalf of herself and all of the Emory
administration for his efforts as Senate president and Faculty Council chair.
Cody then inducted Virgil Brown, John Boli and David Pacini as the new
president, president-elect and secretary, respectively, of the Senate (Pacini
is serving a second term as secretary). As the new president, Brown conducted
the remainder of the meeting.
In final committee reports, each Senate committee reported briefly on
its activity over the year. Several committees, including traffic and parking,
safety and security, environmental policy, and campus development, spoke
of frequent contact with the campus master planners and their opportunities
for expressing the Senate's concerns with the plan.
After committee reports, Chopp announced that the new advisory committee
on teaching, chaired by Walter Reed, met for the first time April 10. Chopp
also announced the formation of a new Dean's Council, which will meet quarterly.
Brown inducted the new senators for 1998-99 and then adjourned the final
meeting of the academic year.
-Michael Terrazas
President's Commission on Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns
Co-chair Bill Thompson convened the meeting April 20 in room 400 of the
Administration Building. After approval of minutes, he opened the floor
for committee reports.
As part of an ongoing discussion, Anne Rector said Emory does not require
its vendors and contractors follow the University's equal opportunity policy,
so she encouraged commission members to informally urge offices and departments
to seek out vendors who do follow similar policies.
Candice Dias reported that, despite bad weather, the first Queer Family
Picnic on April 4 was a success, with more 60 people in attendance. Thompson
suggested making the picnic an annual event.
In light of some commission members who have missed three or more meetings
this year, Thompson announced that new members would be clearly informed
of the rule requiring them to resign from the commission if they miss three
meetings without explanation or prior notification. The commission then
approved as new members Carolina Landrum and Salvatore Spirito as students;
Luis Cosme and Amy Lang as faculty; Tamara Alexander, Susan Browne and David
McClurkin as staff; William Morse Jr. as an administrator; and Melissa Snarr
as an alumna.
Danielle Doughman reported the commission's treasury has $2,100 remaining
after expenses for the year are paid. The commission discussed another picnic
and publicity for the Safe Space program as outlets for the leftover funds.
Co-chair Yvette Morgan said a draft of the commission's annual report
will be ready to review at the May meeting, which will held May 18 at 4
p.m. in 400 Admin.
-Michael Terrazas
Employee Council
Following the call to order Council President Ron Foust welcomed both
new and returning members to the first meeting of the 1998-99 session. He
told the council there was little he wanted to change about how the group
conducted business, but he hoped the committees could reduce the amount
of time required to complete their objectives. He also said he hoped the
entire council would begin discussing items previously reserved for the
special issues committee.
Foust said he wants to bring a sense of closure to issues by passing
a resolution, rather than entering into extended negotiations with various
University entities. Bob Ethridge, director of Equal Opportunity Programs,
then told members he had received an updated list of present council members
and reminded them they may be called on to serve on discriminatory harassment
panels. He would like to resolve all accusations informally, he said, but
if not, he would contact members as needed.
Jean Porter, director of the Emory Well House, and Blomeyer Fitness Center
staff gave a presentation on the center's amenities and membership information.
Porter also urged council members to contact her if they were interested
in having the Well House staff come and speak at their location. A brief
question-and-answer session followed. The council then broke into committees.
Membership committee
Members discussed placing council brochures in new employees' orientation
packets. They also discussed increasing employee awareness of the council;
setting guidelines for term limits; and dealing with members who fail to
attend council meetings on a regular basis. The committee is working on
assigning alternates for all council members and will start working on a
new brochure.
Communications committee
The committee scheduled a town hall meeting for July 29 at the Carlos Museum.
A follow-up meeting to the Grady open house will discuss the possibility
of:
- Grady employees parking on the Emory campus; and
- Opening a branch of the credit union at Grady.
An open house at Crawford Long and a town hall meeting at The Carter
Center are in the planning stages. The council is also sponsoring two blood
drive during the summer.
Special issues committee
The group began by discussing outstanding issues from the previous year
that included:
- Banking sick leave;
- Council representatives serving on University search committees when
the positions affect their constituencies;
- Problems concerning the "smoke-free zones" throughout the
University.
The committee then discussed the prohibitive costs of day camp for children
of some employees, the inequality of Christmas leave across the University
and the one-year waiting period for employees 26 years old and younger to
join the retirement plan.
Finally, the group discussed denying employees a promotion because of
a lack of a college degree. Foust said this was primarily a departmental
issue. If a department wants to hire someone without a degree but with qualified
experience, he said, they can call Human Resources and waive the BA requirement.
He went on to say that the council's role was to gather information, create
a resolution, pass it and make a recommendation.
-Scott Barker
President's Commission
on the Status of Women
At the April 2 meeting, after members reviewed and approved last month's
minutes, Chair JoAnn McKenzie turned to this year's election. The nominating
committee presented a slate of candidates for chair-elect, secretary and
commission membership for the body to consider. McKenzie asked for floor
nominations for the position of chair-elect and asked nominees Mary DeLong
and Mary Ellen McClellan to leave the room while their bios were read and
commission members discussed their qualifications. Commission members chose
DeLong as chair-elect for the 1998-99 academic year. Allison Adams, the
only nominee, was elected secretary.
Nominating committee chair Joyce Jones said in considering women for
commission membership, the committee stressed diversity in terms of departmental
affiliation, job responsibilities and major. There were 14 nominations for
faculty ("An all-time high," said Jones.), 26 for staff and 25
for students. Traditionally, said Jones, the PCSW names as alternates all
students in the current year who were not elected to membership.
Faculty and staff are elected to three-year terms; students serve one
year. New members and alternates are:
Faculty: Teresa Fry Brown, theology school; alternates: Kay Vydareny,
radiology; Laura Strange, nursing school.
Staff: Allison Adams, Public Affairs; Beth Felkel, Facilities
Management; alternates: Karen Fain, Emory College; Amanda Smith, Community
Services.
Undergraduate students: Dilyn Loveless, Nichole Chip, Leigh Jacobsen
and Mesha McLean; alternates: Julie Bird, Priya Kathpal, Alexa Wilensky,
Pamela Hurwitch, Denise Sauerteig, Fatima Cody, Jamie Hagerbaumer, Deborah
Atlas, Jennifer Lowry.
Graduate students: Leigh Tillman-Partington, Maggie Kulyk; alternates:
Susan Cumings, Amy Zeldin, Angela Hunter, Jennifer Bernhardt, Cassandra
Jackson.
Professional students: Rachel Brod, Alison Nodvin; alternates:
Cameron Welborn, Julie Holter.
DeLong of the faculty concerns subcommittee reported initiating their
search for information regarding maternity leave, beginning with Human Resources
for raw data: the number of women who have taken leave, the amount of time
taken. HR does not keep such records, DeLong reported, and neither do individual
schools. "It is very much at a departmental level how much leave is
taken and how that's paid for," she noted. The committee will now look
at five representative departments out of each school and begin asking for
informal data-much of the data is anecdotal, DeLong said. They still plan
to meet with the president at the end of April to issue their report.
Deb Floyd said the staff concerns committee met April 1 to discuss the
glass ceiling-now called "invisible barriers to advancement"-study.
They changed the terminology because "glass ceiling doesn't cover everyone
we want to look at," Floyd said. "We want to include more representation
of the invisible barriers that hinder upward mobility of people based on
gender, race and physical disability." The committee plans to do its
research from April 1998 to August 1999.
"Prune" Harris applied for a Stipe Award to finish the student
handbook and received $1,000, reported Jones, who handed out a list of gender-specific
topics that will probably appear in the handbook and asked for additional
input from commission members.
The handbook will go to Emory/Oxford freshmen women in September. One
commission member suggested including transfer students. Jones said professional
and graduate schools wanting handbooks for their first-year students might
have to pay for them, but the book will be available at the Women's Center
and in the Women's Studies Department. Harris showed examples of the Cornell
and Duke University handbooks, which varied in quality, and said Emory's
publication would fall "somewhere in between."
The bylaws revision was put to commission members for approval. Some
problems were found in the language regarding quorums and elections. Carol
Burns suggested taking a vote on the newly amended version via electronic
or campus mail before the May meeting. The commission agreed to that course
of action.
Jones also reported that as of April 2, 169 people had registered for
the PCSW's April 9 Spring Event, which featured Johnnetta Cole. Cole, whose
topic was "Dream the Boldest Dream," structured her speech around
aphorisms from her book of the same name. Among her observations, she said
it is the "failure of women to acknowledge critical differences among
us that leads many women to distance themselves from what I would like to
think is the women's movement." The media has effectively disseminated
the one-dimensional, anti-male message about feminists, Cole said, ignoring
the multiplicity of voices and lifestyles in the movement. As her book notes:
"No woman should be against men, but every woman should be for women."
Before Cole's speech, President Bill Chace announced the writing award
winners at the event. The winners, representing the undergraduate, graduate
and professional school (tie) categories, respectively, are: Alex Budnitz,
Emory College; Jennifer Sartori, graduate school; Christine Megliola, law
school; and Melissa Wiginton, theology school.
The PCSW's final meeting of the year will be May 7 in 400 Administration
Building. New members will be invited to attend.
-Stacey Jones
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