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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE
UNIVERSITY
T H E S E N A T E R E C O R D
Volume 34-----FEBRUARY 27,
2001-----Number 5
The
Senate Record
is the official publication of the University Faculty Senate of The
Pennsylvania State University, as provided for in Article I, Section 9 of the Standing
Rules of the Senate and contained in the Constitution, Bylaws, and Standing Rules of the University Faculty
Senate, The Pennsylvania State University 2000-01.
The
publication is issued by the Senate Office, 101 Kern Graduate Building,
University Park, PA 16802 (Telephone
814-863-0221). The Record is
distributed to all Libraries across the Penn State system, and is posted on the
Web at http://www.psu.edu/ufs under publications. Copies are made available to faculty and
other University personnel on request.
Except
for items specified in the applicable Standing Rules, decisions on the
responsibility for inclusion of matters in the publication are those of the
Chair of the University Faculty Senate.
When
existing communication channels seem inappropriate, Senators are encouraged to
submit brief letters relevant to the Senate's function as a legislative,
advisory and forensic body to the Chair for possible inclusion in The Senate
Record.
Reports
which have appeared in the Agenda of the meeting are not included in The
Record unless they have been changed substantially during the meeting or
are considered to be of major importance.
Remarks and discussion are abbreviated in most instances. A complete transcript and tape of the
meeting is on file.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Final Agenda for
February 27, 2001
A. Summary of Agenda
Actions
B. Minutes and
Summaries of Remarks
II. Enumeration of Documents
A.
Documents
Distributed Prior to February 27, 2001
B.
Attached
Corrected Copy – Curricular Affairs Committee –
A Clarification of “Active Learning”
as it Applies
To General Education
Attendance
III. Tentative Agenda for March
27, 2001
FINAL AGENDA FOR FEBRUARY 27, 2001
A. MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING -
Minutes of the January 30, 2001, Meeting in The Senate Record 34:4
B. COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE - Senate Curriculum Report
(Blue Sheets) of February 13, 2001
C. REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL - Meeting of February 13, 2001
D. ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR -
E. COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY -
F. FORENSIC BUSINESS -
Research
Courseware Policy
G. UNFINISHED BUSINESS -
Committees and Rules
Revision of Bylaws, Article III, Section 4
H. LEGISLATIVE REPORTS -
Curricular Affairs
A Clarification of “Active Learning” as it Applies to General Education
I. ADVISORY/CONSULTATIVE REPORTS –
Outreach Activities
Recommendation to Refine and Expand the Models for Recognition
of Outreach Activities
J. INFORMATIONAL REPORTS –
Computing and Information Systems
Student Computing Initiative
Information Technology Fee Overview for FY 2000/2001
Faculty Rights and Responsibilities
Annual Report for 1999-2000
Outreach Activities
Penn State Alumni Association
Undergraduate Education
Grade Distribution Report
K. NEW LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS -
L. COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE
UNIVERSITY -
M. ADJOURNMENT -
SUMMARY OF AGENDA ACTIONS
The Senate passed
two Legislative Reports:
Committees and Rules - "Revision of Bylaws, Article III, Section (4).” This report requires that the results of Voting Unit elections be reported to the Senate Office by the first Friday in February. (See Record, page(s) 21-22 and Agenda Appendix "C.")
Curricular Affairs – “A Clarification of “Active Learning” as it Applies to General Education.” This report increases the active learning elements from the original 5 to 7 in number. (See Record, page(s) 22-27, Agenda Appendix "D," and Corrected Copy Record Appendix II.)
The Senate passed one Advisory/Consultative Report:
Outreach Activities – “Recommendation to Refine and Expand the Models for Recognition of Outreach Activities.” This report recommends that Penn State strengthen and expand assessment models of scholarship to recognize better the value of outreach activities. (See Record, page(s) 27-29 and Agenda Appendix "E.")
The Senate heard five Informational Reports:
Computing and Information Systems – “Student Computing Initiative.” This document reports that the initiated communication, both print and electronic, effectively achieved the goals of the student computing initiative to students and parents. (See Record, page(s) 30 and Agenda Appendix "F.")
Computing and Information Systems – “Information Technology Fee Overview for FY 2000/2001.” The report describes the status of the use of the Information Technology Fee and the areas where these monies are being used. (See Record, page(s) 30-31 and Agenda Appendix "G.")
Faculty Rights and Responsibilities – “Annual Report for 1999-2000.” This is the report by the Chair of FR&R describing the caseload (numbers and types of cases) of the committee addressed last academic year. (See Record, page(s) 31-32 and Agenda Appendix "H.")
Outreach Activities – “Penn State Alumni Association.” This report describes the history, missions, organizational structure, programs and services of the PSAA. (See Record, page(s) 32-34 and Agenda Appendix "I.")
Undergraduate Education – “Grade Distribution Report.” This report describes the comparison of the distribution of grade at the institution for the spring term of 1975 to spring semester of 2000. (See Record, page(s) 34-35 and Agenda Appendix "J.")
The Senate participated in one Forensic Session:
Research – “Courseware Policy.” This session was held to survey the sense of the Senate on issues surrounding a newly proposed courseware policy. (See Record, page(s) 3-21 and Agenda Appendix "B.")
The University Faculty Senate met on Tuesday, February 27, 2001, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 112 Kern Graduate Building with Cara-Lynne Schengrund, Chair, presiding. One hundred and fifty-five Senators signed the roster.
Chair Schengrund: It is time to begin.
MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING
Moving to the minutes of the preceding meeting, The Senate Record, providing a full transcription of the proceedings of the January 30, 2001 meeting, was sent to all University Libraries, and posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page. Are there any corrections or additions to this document? All those in favor of accepting the minutes, please signify by saying, "aye."
Senators: Aye.
Chair Schengrund: Opposed? The minutes are accepted. Thank you.
COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE
You have received the Senate Curriculum Report for February 13, 2001. This document is posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page.
REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL
Also, you should have received the Report of Senate Council for the meeting of
February 13, 2001. This is an attachment in The Senate Agenda for today's meeting.
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR
Chair Schengrund: The Faculty Advisory Committee met on
Tuesday, February 13, 2001, and we discussed the following topics: Governor’s proposed budget; we went over a
review of legislative and free speech implications of the Sex Faire; we
discussed student matters; we had an update on the meetings held by the
committee that was formed by the Black student coalition; we went over Justin
Leto’s comments to the Senate; we went over the printing of the Blue Book, (and
I might add that in regards to the Blue Book it will be printed once
again. How many more times after this I
can’t guarantee, but it will be printed again); we went over the
administration’s position on UniSCOPE; and implications of the Pope/ARL case on
safety of Penn State researchers abroad.
The next meeting of FAC is
scheduled for Tuesday, March 13, 2001.
If anyone wishes to place an item on the FAC agenda please contact one
of the Senate Officers, or one of the three elected FAC members; Peter Deines,
Peter Rebane or Gordon De Jong.
The Senate Officers visited the College of Arts and Architecture on February 12, 2001 and the Division of Undergraduate Studies on February 26, 2001. Tomorrow (February 28, 2001) we will visit the College of Agricultural Sciences, and with that visit we will conclude our visits to units at University Park for the spring semester.
The Senate Office has received a memo from President Spanier, and that dealt with implementing the report that we passed at our December 5, 2000 meeting. This report was from the Undergraduate Education Committee titled “Revision of Senate Policy 42-27: Class Attendance”. President Spanier approved this legislation to be effective spring 2001, and referred the report to the Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education, for implementation. Please refer to the Senate Council minutes of February 13, 2001, attached to your Agenda, for additional announcements made.
Provost Erickson and I have met, and we’ve appointed a Joint Committee to Review the University Calendar in its entirety, and this arose from a number of comments that were made when we visited the various campuses in the spring, and by various faculty at University Park--dealing with the numbers of breaks in the fall semester; the lack of a final exam period in the summer, etc. James Smith has agreed to chair this committee. Other members of the calendar committee include: Anthony Baratta; George Bugyi; John Cahir; a student that is to be appointed; Donald Leslie; Jane Sutton; and James Wager. If you have any specific comments regarding the calendar that you would like them to consider, please feel free to contact any one of the members of that committee. The Senate and the provost will look forward to receiving a report from this committee early in the fall 2001.
Finally, the Senate Officers have been meeting with the coalition of students and discussing their demands with them. At this point their demands are for the following: The first of which is that there be a diversity component included during orientation, this might be done as a reading, followed by perhaps discussion, followed by perhaps a workshop in the residences that would be organized and run by the residence hall advisors; they have dropped their demand for the mandated three-credit course on racism, but they are asking the African, African-American Studies Department to develop a three-credit course on racism that would be offered as a general education course, that would meet international/intercultural components and could be taken by students; the development of a research institute (which is something that Dean Welch and the Department of African, African-American Studies are looking into). That concludes my comments.
COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
Chair
Schengrund: Most of you are aware that President Spanier is in Harrisburg
today. He is representing Penn State at
the congressional hearings on our budget, and probably answering a number of
questions about the Sex Faire for Representative Lawless. However, he has indicated that if he gets
back prior to the end of this meeting, he will be happy to make his comments at
that time.
I also feel I should
before I continue, respond to the handout that was given outside the door,
since it indicates that the Senate turned down the request of the graduate
students to talk to the Senate. I
received an email from one graduate student requesting the privilege of the
floor under “Comments and Recommendations For The Good Of The University” to
discuss graduate student unionization.
I denied that request because actually the voting on whether or not to
unionize is something that the graduate students do. We do not have any say in what happens with regards to their
desire to unionize.
Moving on, as we
begin our discussion of reports, I will remind you to please stand and identify
yourself, and the unit you represent before addressing the Senate. Our first item of business today is
forensic. It deals with the Courseware
Policy which is in Appendix “B” and is being brought forth by the Senate Committee
on Research. Thomas Jackson and Guy
Barbato will lead the discussion, and before we actually start I would like to
set the sort of ground rules for the discussion. And that is that we are going to start with an allocation of 30
minutes. If there are still substantive
and new issues being raised at the end of 30 minutes, we’ll continue the
forensic discussion. If you have run
out of new substantive comments to make at the end of 30 minutes, we will stop
the forensic discussion. If you have
specific changes that you would like to see, I will ask you to give them to
either Guy or Tom prior to leaving the Senate meeting. This is an issue that was under study in a
way for two years by the Intellectual Property Committee. The courseware policy portion of it was then
given to the Joint Subcommittee. They
worked on it in the summer and early fall.
It came to the Senate for review in December. The committee has been asked to take all of the comments made
that are new and substantive during the discussion, review them, work together
to try to come with a consensus and re-write the document so that it will
hopefully come back to you as an advisory/consultative report in March. If we do not work on this, this year, it
will die over the summer I’m sure, and come back in the fall, and it may well
be another year before this would come forth to the Senate for a vote. I would like to see what kind of a consensus
we can reach and then it will come forth again, and it will either be voted in
or out at that time. If it doesn’t make
it for March, hopefully it will make it for April. So, Guy I will turn this over to you and Tom, and we do have some
individuals who have requested the privilege of the floor during this
discussion who are not members of the Senate, but are members of the
university.
FORENSIC BUSINESS
SENATE COMMITTEE
ON RESEARCH
Courseware Policy
Guy F. Barbato, Chair Senate Committee on Research
Guy F. Barbato, College of Agricultural Sciences: Thank you very much to the chair and to the officers and to the rest of the Faculty Senate. Just to give you a little bit of history, just to back up how long this has been on the table. There was a note from the April 2000 meeting last year of the Faculty Senate that the purpose of the discussion was to update copyright policy at the university that dates from 1982, and I suspect we don’t want to make this a 20-year annual report. However, I do want to point out that the final report of the blue ribbon panel charged to study computer aided instruction and learning, known as the Dutton Report, occurred in 1996. Thereafter, the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs and the Senate Committee on Research were charged to comment on the Dutton Report. The Joint Committee of Faculty Affairs and Research produced an advisory/consultative report which was passed in the Senate in February of 1998. As part of that there was also the report on Intellectual Property brought back to the Senate again, this seems to be a two year cycle, on April 25, 2000 (so this is last spring). I think that the big concerns that were raised really, and I’ll quote a few faculty who spoke at the meeting from the Senate Record, one was Alison Carr-Chellman who pointed out that, “we need to cautiously consider any polices which bring us closer in alignment with corporate mentalities and profit driven numbers. Including giving the university broad powers to control faculty members pursuits of the open exchange of ideas”. I have to point out that these issues are incredibly complex, and part of the committee’s charge dating back to that April 2000 meeting was to come up with some meeting of the minds, and to reconcile two very different views on intellectual property, and specifically as it relates to courseware at Penn State. I think that Ronald Bettig from the College of Communications probably said it best and more cleverly than I could ever possibly which is in reflecting on the report, “I have to point out personally as well as a committee of one, I do not always find myself in agreement. This is because as the report will demonstrate, there are several contradictions between the mission of the university, and private ownership of intellectual property”. Be that as it may, we do have a mission for the university, and we do have ownership of intellectual property, and so we need to reconcile those views. This report is an attempt to provide a broad structure, rather than tackle every individual instance that may occur. It will, much like my tomato garden in the backyard, require regular tending, review and possibly even modification. And the mechanism for this will be an advisory committee which would be appointed jointly by the Vice President of Research in consultation with the Chair of the Senate. With that as a bit of a preface, let me turn it over to Tom who chaired the subcommittee which came up with the policy draft.
Thomas N. Jackson, College of Engineering: I’ll take just a moment to try to set the stage for the discussion. We claim in the report, and I think there is more than a small amount of truth there, that the purpose of the report, the purpose of the policy, is to provide strong incentives for Penn State personnel--a number of faculty have gotten back to me saying they don’t see that. Because you have to consider the second half of the statement as well, while also protecting ‘Penn State the institution interest,’ and also controlling costs to students. The approach to doing that has been to try to clearly define what do we mean by courseware, and how do we use it. We broke it into two main categories that you see--complete courseware by which we mean computer based products that replace courses and everything else. The everything else we called courseware modules and they include things like electronic textbooks, web pages that support a course, those things, when clearly we’d like to have a solid demarcation between those. You have a little flow chart that shows how the policy is intended to be used, and you may want to refer to that as we discuss how this all is intended to work. Let me just go through the philosophy behind that very quickly. The philosophy was that the courseware and courseware modular development need to be consistent with the primary obligations that Penn State faculty have to teaching, research and service. And that because courseware more than most other activities that faculty have brings with it the potential for conflict of interest and conflict of commitment we have to look carefully at how courseware will be done and how it will be used. And in particular and probably the largest stumbling block that most faculty see is that Penn State needs to have a role in regulating, or approving, or overseeing, or however we want to call it looking at courseware that substantially competes with Penn State educational programs. We don’t say that about much else that faculty do, because there isn’t a lot else where faculty can directly compete with the institution. Going through those categories very quickly then, commissioned courseware has a written agreement. Penn State owns the copyright, it’s simple. If it gets used outside Penn State, authors should share in the benefits and the breakdown there is what’s currently used by the World Campus--50 percent goes to the author. For noncommissioned courseware, what we’re looking for is disclosure so that the institution knows that it’s happening. The author owns the copyright. If it’s used at Penn State, it’s used royalty free and Penn State has a legal responsibility for internal use, the author has responsibility for any other use, subject to that substantial competition. Commissioned courseware modules are similar to commissioned courseware written agreement--Penn State owns the copyright--again it’s simple. If it’s used externally the author should benefit with again 50 percent of the royalties. Noncommissioned courseware modules again require disclosure--author owns the copyright, Penn State internal use royalty free, and Penn State bears the legal responsibility for its use and the author for all other uses again subject to the competition. Then the other area that we looked at besides who owned what and who gets what, is under what circumstances should it be used, and the policy that’s before you says that if it’s courseware that’s something that replaces a complete course certainly we want to have Penn State’s supervision for that. If it’s minimal cost courseware, that should be done at the department level. In other words, keep the administrative procedures as far away from it as we can. On the other hand, if it’s something where there’s significant revenue streams attached to it, then that needs to be a published work--either by Penn State or by somebody else. The idea is somebody has to own responsibility for it. Courseware modules are where more of us are going to live our lives. Not very many of us are going to do complete course replacements and so we’d like to make sure that we protect faculty freedoms to use courseware modules, where they are appropriate to enhance teaching--those are offered at no cost. Then we have put in the policy what would be supervised and owned and cared for by the author themselves. If there are things that need to have some cost associated with it but that cost is minimal, the supervision would be provided at the departmental level. And finally for things where again there’s a significant revenue stream, we would only allow published works. Finally, how is all this going to work and I think it’s important to note as Guy did, that this needs to be an evolving process. Had we generated a courseware policy three years ago or so when this all began, it would not be recognizably connected to what we have today. Things are changing very rapidly and they’ll continue to, and the mode to try to adapt to that change is to have the courseware advisory committee that would be appointed by the Vice President for Research in consultation with the Faculty Senate Chair. Their first step will be to develop implementation guidelines and I want to stress that. That you don’t have guidelines before you for implementation. We can easily any of us, think of arcane or low probability scenarios for this or for that. I’d like to try if we can to avoid discussing some of those low probability particulars. I don’t think they are going to help us very much to understand what the broad outlines of the policy should be, that’s really something we’ve left to the implementation task. Finally, that committee would have responsibility to review and modify the policy, so that it can evolve to suit the needs of both the institution and the faculty. And with that, I welcome comments and complaints and whatnot.
Howard G. Sachs, Penn State Harrisburg: This pertains to recommendation one and recommendation three. This is the matter of sabbatical leaves. Where in the application for sabbatical leave does it appear that a professor is going to develop either software modules or a software course? I think this has to be explicitly dealt with early on in the process because this is real use of university resource, and it’s also a real commitment on the part of the faculty. One could right a treatise on both sides of this issue, but I would simply implore that the committee take a serious look at this.
Tramble T. Turner, Penn State Abington: How might your committee’s report be revised to include an option that would allow faculty members to designate courseware or commissioned courseware modules as shareware? You emphasize streams of revenue but what if someone wants to ensure then what they develop that…
Thomas N. Jackson: An important part of what the committee was trying to do and certainly from my perspective was to protect areas of faculty rights. And so we made a fairly careful demarcation there that courseware or courseware modules are provided at low cost or no cost, particularly in the case of courseware modules, where it might be electronic textbook or essentially a lab pack or course pack notes or something like that. If those are provided at no cost then the Penn State author should provide all of the necessary supervision. So you would own it, you do what you need with it, you maintain it, you keep it going. Now there are some risks to the institution there…when we began this it was not trivial to carve that out, because the university of course, is concerned about what liability they might have from those actions. And so the same sort of care with copyright that is encouraged for course packs would also need to be done even for these courseware modules that would be at no cost. But the intent of the policy was that things that were offered at no cost, particularly courseware modules, would be owned and maintained by faculty.
Stephen M. Smith, College of Agricultural Sciences: In general I think this is okay, it’s improved, but if you haven’t read it I would urge you to do it carefully and have your colleagues do so if you’re thinking about getting involved in this type of work. Several faculty in my department have been quite involved in the past year, we had a lot of concerns at the beginning, several of them have been resolved but they still have considerable concerns, and I’d just like to summarize some of their comments to me after their having read this. One faculty member said, “it really seems to change the role of faculty from what we thought we were, to more contract employees,” if we read through some of those issues. Another one specifically said he really thinks it does not provide incentive, quite the opposite. That it seems to be designed to discourage us to get into this, and another commented that it really seems to help go a long way towards limiting our academic and intellectual freedom. I’d just like to point out one example on page seven, recommendation 5a, and maybe I’m confused and not reading it well either but it looks to me on that one…I don’t see why this is any different than any course I may develop, and why it requires so much supervision, or if you look at point two under “a,” why is that any different than if I use a textbook in a class or if I write a textbook and use it, but I don’t understand…maybe I’ve missed it. Doesn’t seem to require the amount of supervision that is indicated in this. Thank you.
Thomas N. Jackson: Let me respond to the third one first. The intent is that it actually be quite similar to how a course is. A faculty member cannot run courses on their own authority. The university runs courses. We very often attach courses to a faculty name and to their personality in some cases but nonetheless it’s a Penn State course and the same thing is true here. And so if you’re going to use courseware to run a course the university is who actually does that and so you go to your department and say I want to run this course and we’re going to use courseware to do it and here’s how it’s going to be and it gets listed like anything else. The point is that it’s not happening somehow off at the side. We don’t want to put faculty in the position of providing credit in degrees and programs themselves, and so it’s intended to be similar there. Some of the elaborations of that however, why should this have to be published for example, and the idea there is that these are very substantive works, these are not a small addition or enhancement to a course, these are course replacements. So who takes the responsibility to say that this is being done in a way which dot’s the “i’s”, and crosses the “t’s” of things like required copyright, etc. And so the idea is that just as we normally turn to published works for textbooks even more so you would do that for courseware, which is replacing a course not simply supplementing it. So the intent is that it actually follow similar to the earlier model. The other ones I’ll speak to very briefly. I think the comments are very valuable. Does this discourage or not? I think the model where it doesn’t discourage is where Penn State becomes the publisher of choice and the faculty would want to turn to that publisher. But the reality is that because faculty are able to be in a competitive position that’s not always going to work and it is going to step on faculty toes in some cases and this is something the committee struggled a very great deal with and ended up with a divided opinion and a consensus that the policy that we put before you was about the best that we could sort out. It doesn’t do everything that we can do to encourage courseware development. It does go farther than the initial cuts, in that it did, and it does a better job of protecting faculty rights. The idea that there’s nothing else at Penn State that has that kind of contract…if you look at for example the language in HR-80 the private consulting practice, it has a statement that says a faculty member is expected to perform his or her university duties in the most effective manner which he or she is capable. The faculty member’s first duty and first responsibility is to the university. I suspect you can put family, country and God ahead of that, but maybe not. Outside service should not be undertaken whether with or without pay that might interfere with the discharge of this paramount obligation. I guess what I’m trying to convince you is, this isn’t really different in kind, the difference is that it’s in an area where faculty are more acutely aware that this is a place they may have their toes stepped on and it’s quite correct that it does.
Alison Carr-Chellman, College of Education: I have a prepared statement if I may and I’ll try to make it brief. I represent a couple of different groups here today the Department of Adult Education/Instructional Systems/Workforce Education & Development which believe it or not is a department. After a lengthy discussion at our departmental faculty meeting, our faculty does not support this current policy and voted unanimously that the following three points be addressed in any revision of this policy:
1. Removal of the conflict of commitment clause
2. Clarification of who has access to courses and course modules, who owns them in certain circumstances, how they can be used, where does (and will in the future) the academic home/control over these courses reside and
3. Reconciliation of this policy with the policies and contracts of World Campus and Intellectual Property.
This department has been very involved with World Campus. Adult Education has an entire master’s degree online, Instructional Systems has a number of courses. So we’re very interested in this policy, and I think we’re fairly well informed about what some of these things may mean, so that’s the department. The College of Education Caucus--I’m the Senate counselor for the Education Caucus--the Education Caucus met yesterday, and reviewed our views of the courseware policy, and the caucus is uncomfortable with certain issues. We have alternative policy statements which the caucus is happy to make available to the authors, to the extent that would be helpful. We respect and appreciate the work the authors have done, but the following concerns emerged. The policy does not encourage entrepreneurial activity on the part of faculty in the view of the caucus. There is a difficulty in really nailing down exactly what is digital and what is not, and therefore it is difficult to know precisely what is covered by this policy. We are concerned that courseware may be a term which will extend to include digital texts and certain types of textbooks. We are concerned finally, that the university may lose good faculty because of this policy. And now I have a statement for myself. I believe that the following is a non-compete clause taken directly from the proposed policy, “The sale or use of courseware or courseware modules in areas that substantially compete with Penn State educational programs is not allowed without prior university approval”. Although the authors term it a "conflict of commitment," they come to the same thing in my view. Daily I choose to stay at Penn State, daily we all choose to be academics, we choose to be teachers, researchers, and offer service to the commonwealth. We choose this noble occupation because we believe in what we do, and we fundamentally believe in Penn State. Despite compressed salaries, competitive offers, and industry wages that far outpace those of the academy, we are indeed devoted. If anyone is Penn State, we are. There are reasons why a non-compete clause dampens my otherwise rah rah spirit toward my job and my institution. First, a non-compete clause is appropriate for corporations, but not for institutions of higher learning. I joined the university because I care about knowledge, I care about the open and free access of learners to that knowledge and I do not care to work for a corporation with corporate goals. We had a very eloquent presentation by a young man, Justin Leto, last month warning us not to allow a public vestige of higher learning to become a corporation referring to students as customers, and faculty as employees. Institutions of higher learning are perhaps the last respected bastion of insulation from market forces and this policy brings us a little closer, I believe to being a corporation. Second, a non-compete clause is typically coupled with significantly higher salaries than market forces for which the employee is willing to agree to the non-compete condition. If the university chooses to pursue an entrepreneurial agenda, and if they encourage faculty to behave in entrepreneurial ways, why are they surprised when faculty seek to operate in broader markets? The university wants to operate in terms of free market forces, no matter how disappointed I may be about this decision, I can't prevent them from moving in that direction, but if indeed they will move to take advantage of the free market, they cannot avoid the disadvantages of that same market on the backs of the faculty. I am sympathetic to the problem of faculty salaries and legislative allocations for Penn State's budget, particularly today. And I am sympathetic to the fact that Penn State does not want to pay for something twice. This is legitimate, however, when a faculty member creates a course on their own for a company or another university, a course that they have never taught here, and will never teach here, this is their own work, they should be allowed to pursue this work to their own benefit. The digital distinction between courseware and textbooks is, in my opinion, a temporary and arbitrary demarcation. There are gray areas, for instance, we know how textbooks are handled, but what of a textbook with a CD ROM? What of a textbook with web support? In order to clarify these gray areas, the university will necessarily have to expand this policy beyond merely electronic delivery systems. I fear this policy may cause faculty to leave for other institutions where they are freer to supplement their incomes with online consulting opportunities. At the very least, I believe this policy will serve as a strong disincentive for faculty who wish to work with the university on
e-learning projects like those faculty in my department. Ultimately, I want to see a policy that encourages faculty participation without monopolizing faculty participation. If the university has no competition because we are not allowed to work with other online institutions, then I fear the university has no reason to offer fair market compensation. This, I fear, will cause faculty to simply work on something else which is more likely to augment their incomes such as textbooks, or worse, to leave the institution for a place with more favorable policies. This non-compete clause is the most disturbing part of the proposed policy, but it is particularly upsetting when it is coupled with the terms and conditions of the policy. If you build it totally on your own, and you own it, that’s that lower left-hand corner item there, then why is the university reserving unrestricted, royalty free distribution rights and telling you that you cannot sell it to an outside vendor. If that's the case, then I wonder what the benefit of actually owning the work is? And if there's no benefit, then I'm sorry to say that faculty will not engage in this activity and thus, the policy hurts Penn State far more than it protects it. According to this policy, the Vice President for Research will approve or deny all such requests; under what guidelines will those decisions be made? These should be clearly spelled out. Before I vote for this policy I want to see the specifics, because the specifics will allow me to evaluate whether or not this policy is good for Penn State and good for faculty. This is an extremely comprehensive university, and since the university will define what competition is, this leaves the faculty in a vulnerable position. I am not interested in merely tearing down the policy. I have some ideas for how to improve it. For instance, we could offer small bits of courseware free to everyone in the commonwealth. Increase our public support by offering a public good to everyone, and offer it to the legislature as a line item as service to the commonwealth. Use that money to directly pay faculty to develop these modules, and allow Penn State to use them in their courses free, with appropriate faculty oversight. This would surely encourage me to become involved, because it's part of my daily choice to public service. Another, perhaps less idealistic option, would be to offer Penn State the right of first refusal--if faculty develop courseware, they offer it first to Penn State, but if they can arrange a better deal elsewhere, they're welcome to take it. I can live with either option, as long as we all play by the same rules…either we're all entrepreneurial, or we're all public servants. Please stand up and make your voice known whatever your opinion is. Read the policy carefully, ask your fellow faculty members what they think of it, discuss it at department meetings, make certain that you are happy with this policy, that you do not feel that it will in any way limit your abilities to pursue your work in an open non-corporate environment. If you say, this policy has been in development for more than two years--let's get it over with, it's good enough. I would respond that it is simply not good enough. If you feel that this policy doesn't affect you, it may affect you in the future so take the time to be certain that you can live with it, and finally if you are certain that the policy won't affect you, please listen to the voices of your faculty colleagues, who are affected by this policy and trust them. Personally, I'll choose the public good anytime over corporate goals, and so when Penn State stops being a public institution, when it stops focusing on the public good, it's awfully tough for me to continue to choose, daily, to devote myself to my work.
Senators: Applause.
Thomas N. Jackson: There’s no simple response I can give. I’ll make a couple of comments. We term this a conflict of commitment, not a non-compete. We have lawyer-types here so we could ask them but non-competes typically deal with after severance from an organization. Conflict of commitment is what you do while you are involved with the company or institution. So I think it properly is a conflict of commitment but the issue is really the same. If the test is going to be a policy that does not step on faculty toes at all, forget it, it’s not going to happen--in my judgment. And the reason for that is simply that this is an area where Penn State faculty needs and desires and interests conflict in a fundamental way--not true for most of what we do--with the perceived needs and interest of the institution. A couple of quick comments on that, why should…there are a number of why should’s and I’ll just give you a couple of the why should’s from the other side, not necessarily supporting them, I actually haven’t revealed my individual opinion I can perhaps do that later. The president would ask why should a faculty member be able to put themselves in a position of directly competing with the institution. Would we allow, for example a faculty member who represents themselves as Penn State faculty to teach a course at Penn State and someplace else as well? And the answer is no. And so why would we allow that to happen in a courseware fashion. That’s really the net of the issue, and the argument is do we believe that that will do more to protect the institution or harm the institution. And I agree with your question that that really is the heart of it. It’s a negotiating stance and so we need to somehow balance the interests of faculty with the interest of the institution. This is an attempt to do this, and we welcome your input and any other input, so make sure we do get a copy of that.
John W. Bagby, Smeal College of Business Administration: Tom, I welcome this debate, and I’m very pleased to see that people are starting to do their homework, I understand how important the balance of these issues is. Actually, the Dutton Report started long ago, back I believe in 1995, and as was recounted here early on by Guy. The Dutton Report itself, a joint conference committee of the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs and the Senate Committee on Research, and some floor debate are all available documents which I urge everyone to use as background, and set up against this new report. I’ve been told by the Senate Office that we hope to have those documents posted to the Senate web site, so that’s http://www.psu.edu/ufs, and then find your way to committees and the Senate Committee on Research, and hopefully in a week these documents will be available for you. In perusing them I think you’ll find the Dutton Report had three major points, and the first one was and apparently the most important was one of incentives, the second point was one about ownership and control, and the third point was about the financial split and about ad-hoc review process. The advisory/consultative report that was passed three years ago this month by this Senate and sent to the president is not all that different a report than the report that Tom and Guy have presented to us today. But I ask you to take a look at it, and make a comparison, because many issues stated in that advisory/consultative report are precisely these balancing problems that we’re facing right now. And not to take too much of your time, but I will give you quick laundry list--ownership and control clearly on the top, but attribution of authorship was there, the rights to do revisions, some aspects of non-competes of which there are many. There was a prediction about technological changes, and how rights might have to be conformed to those technological changes. There was this question of absorbing our expression into an invention mode, which it clearly seems to be coming to bear, and again, optimizing incentives. What I think I see in this document are a few new issues, and so I again ask you to go back to the old ones, and compare this new one, and let this start a debate. This new document I believe, has more sharply refined discussion of a couple of these issues. For example, questions of potential competition, and how we define markets, and particularly with respect to Penn State’s own resident and distance instruction. There is a clarification I found, that is an interesting commitment which we already had a number of sources for those obligations on us as faculty. There’s a mystery clearance process here, and really no mention of its accountability, but that seems like another important issue, and there is of course this form of a shopwrite, the free user at Penn State. There’s some question about local at the unit or central administration of this process, and we keep hearing about an implementation process of this as a general framework and guidelines to follow. I can tell you I’ve been part of an implementation process here, and I can assure you that sometimes those processes need some substantial work and review. And so, in sum, this has been around for a while, and it’s good that we’re all starting to worry about it, and there are documents out there that it would be helpful to review as we move forward. Thank you.
J. Christopher Carey, College of Medicine: I’m an employee of the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Incorporated. Does this policy apply to me? If it does apply to me, and is implemented such that 50 percent of the copyright belongs to someone else, does it belong to Penn State University or the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center? If the courseware is used outside of my course, does that limit it to the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center or at any of the campuses?
Thomas N. Jackson: When you teach that course, are you teaching it as a Penn State faculty member?
J. Christopher Carey: As far as I know I’m an employee of the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
Thomas N. Jackson: Dr. Pell?
Eva J. Pell, Vice-President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School: You’re an employee of Penn State University.
Chair Schengrund: But his salary comes 100 percent from the corporation.
Thomas N. Jackson: There may be a detail or two that needs to be…
Senators: Laughter.
J. Christopher Carey: There’s a firewall. Income is not shared between Penn State University and the corporation.
Thomas N. Jackson: John, is of course right about the implementation being a critical part of this. We know the Devil lives in the details and you don’t have the details in many cases. We can think of many questions like this. How do we handle joint projects between different institutions? How do we handle projects that are begun by a Penn State faculty member someplace else and brought back to Penn State? So I think these are the sorts of questions that really do need to be addressed, certainly as part of implementation, possibly as part of the guidelines themselves. Thank you.
Eva J. Pell: First of all, I want to thank all of you for your candor. For me this conversation is very interesting, and I have to say you know what they say about problems you walk around and everywhere you look you see it from a different perspective. This is a very big sphere, because I don’t feel like I’ve gotten around it yet, so this conversation is yet another very important part of the point for me. I also want to thank the committee who have really struggled with this, and we’ve had so many conversations and I think have tried very hard to come up with some balance. The one comment I want to make is there are a number of you that asked questions about the role of the administrative oversight committee. While I can’t tell you exactly how it will all come out, the longer you’ve gone with this, the more important I think that committee is going to be. Simply because we don’t have all the answers, and we could debate this forever and never come up with policy. I think this committee is going to help this policy to remain fluid and flexible, and I hope we can do that too, on a regular basis and to really live with the real examples. Mr. Myers asked the question, have there been examples and issues. There will be. I see this as a very active committee, a committee that I will probably participate in personally either as a member or to visit with regularly. I see a committee that will meet every month that will look at all the cases that come before us because this is the ultimate education that will help us to resolve all the kinds of issues that you are discussing. Thank you.
Chair Schengrund: Any other substantive and not previously discussed comments?
Tramble T. Turner: Tom, you indicated here concern with faculty rights and the continuing interest. A very general question, given what’s in the report how would you say your committee’s report articulates differences between the university as an institution and private corporations?
Thomas N. Jackson: I think the most important articulation is that we have tried to carve out a substantial area where the faculty is the boss. They own the material and they do with it as they see fit. And so, courseware modules, particularly those provided at no cost the faculty does what they want. If they develop a textbook they do what they want. Even those that need to be provided at minimal cost, you go to your department head and you say I have this, you know now you’re aware of it, we’re going to sell it for this amount, here’s why and it’s done. And that was something which at least at the beginning was not a forgone conclusion. My own view is that for most of us in the immediate future that’s where we will be living our lives. Now there certainly are important exceptions, and I don’t mean to be dismissive of those, but for the average faculty can we do the web pages that we need to do, can we do the course enhancements, can we do the electronic textbook things that make sense, can we do the electronic labs that make sense, and it was critically important for the committee that we provide freedom of action, and freedom of supervision, and freedom from unnecessary outside supervision for those activities.
Fred Schied, Adult Education: I’m the professor in charge of the Adult Education Program and we’re the ones that have a master’s degree online, this is our first year and the program has been extremely successful, we’re way ahead of World Campus projections, lots of students and so on. When we got involved with this I was naďve in the applied technological neophyte, and I thought it was a good idea, and I still think it’s a good idea in terms of providing access to quality education. But as with a lot of things you know, once you get into the actual development of it you start to realize the kinds of real issues that are at stake. I’d like to just say that in fact I think what we’re dealing with is an issue that will fundamentally change the relationship between professor and the university, and it’s not just me that I think, thinks that. In fact, the Center for Academic Transformation that did a major report on copyright issues says, “many institutions appear to have taken this approach so colleges and universities can quickly develop online courses since the school has the source of course content at hand, the individual faculty member. The sudden recognition of the faculty as resource to create tangible product is new”. Now this is the important quote and certainly something that I feel, “this new dynamic has broken the well established passive approval given to the faculty to sell original work as long as such selling does not interfere with fulfillment of the faculty’s teaching, research and service responsibilities”. So I think what we’re dealing with here is a potentially fundamentally different way of relating to the university. How does that work out in practice? Well I’ll give you two really kind of very minor examples to start thinking about, when you’re actually developing these courses. I figure part of our job is to get paid to teach, it’s one-third of our responsibility, so that every time I go into a face-to-face classroom, any kind of classroom I’m paid to do that. How does that work with World Campus and who owns that? Well, as long as I teach the class that I’ve developed then I get paid to teach it. What happens four or five years down the line if this course still gets taught by somebody else? So in effect then my expertise and my pedagogical approach is now being used by somebody else without any kind of enumeration to me. Plus, as Eva has pointed out the other issue because that courseware now belongs to the university and I’m talking about commissioned courseware, it seems to me in the document there is nothing that says who can make changes to that course. That you’ll be teaching this course and where the possibility exists that you’re going to be teaching this course five years from now, six years from now when it’s out of date. I have no control over that and the question is who has control? There’s another kind of little issue that I ran into and you don’t think about these things unless you get into it. In my field we have discussions that are professional meetings on teaching and what we do is we exchange technique strategies, exercises, cases, etc. I do several cases and exercises in my face-to-face class that I’m going to adapt for this online course. So the question I raise is well, now can I now share this when I go to these conferences? Can I say hey, here take a look at this to a professor from another university--from Rutgers or Columbia--can I share it? They are in competition with us. Or can I share only the face-to-face part but not the courseware part even though it’s built up one another or neither? So, even in terms of simple things like exchanging this, there’s problems. Do I have to ask for a university waiver to do that? I mean, those are substantial, substantial issues but I think there’s a bigger issue. And I think maybe some of you will think I may be overstating it but after experiencing it I don’t think so, and this is a quote from David Noble and this is where I think we really got problems Noble says, “Once faculty put their course material online the knowledge and course designs skill embedded in that material is taken out of their possession, transferred to the machinery and placed in the hands of the administration. The administration is now in a position to hire less skilled, and hence cheaper workers to deliver the technological pre-packaged course. It also allows the administration which claims ownership of this commodity to cover the course elsewhere without the original designers involvement or even knowledge much less financial interest. The buyers of this pre-packaged commodity meanwhile, are able to contract out and hence outsource the work of their own employees and thus reduce their reliance upon their in house teaching staff”. Now I really think that’s a worse case scenario however, it’s something we have to be aware of. What we’re dealing with here is a possibility for a fundamental change in the relationship of faculty at university. I strongly urge the Senate to consider Dr. Alison Carr-Chellman’s proposals to modify it and if it takes another year to do that, to really think this through, let’s take another year because this is serious business, and we’re looking at a different university and we’re looking at a fundamentally different relationship between faculty and administration. Thank you.
Thomas N. Jackson: Thanks for the comments. Certainly that’s something that the committee did think about and to put more succinctly maybe we have the university saying we’re going to re-use this without royalty, therefore, in the extreme view these courseware items are developed and the faculty go away and the courseware continues to run on its own. We rejected that because we put strong value on residential education, and we think that’s fundamentally without minimizing the value of online education that residential education will continue to be able to survive and continue to grow in the marketplace and we’ll do that by best implementing and using computer-based instruction with that residential instruction. So while we considered that concern, we left it at that point. Frankly, no policy will protect us from that if universities 50 years from now are all using machines; it didn’t matter what this policy said.
Brian B. Tormey, Penn State Altoona: I’d like to approach this from a slightly different perspective. In your proposal you indicated that the committee that will be appointed by the Vice President for Research and the Senate Chair would review the implementation phase. Is that review going to be subject to at least a review by the committee…their report going to be recommendations be made back to the full Senate for the Senate to view?
Thomas N. Jackson: The policy as it’s written puts the decision making in the hands of the Vice President for Research guided by this advisory committee, so the policy as written would not have each case go back through the Senate. Frankly, I think something like that would be unworkably time consuming to have to go through all those steps. It does mean that we’re investing a degree of trust in that administrator to act in the best interest of both the faculty and the institution guided by that committee.
Brian B. Tormey: Thank you for the clarification.
Chair Schengrund: Are there any other comments that are new and substantive? Would those of you who had written comments remember to give them to Tom before the end of the Senate meeting? You can either pass them in or however you’d like to do it, but make sure Tom gets them so that he can have them to look at and give them to the committee regardless of what the timetable is.
Thomas N. Jackson: If you have any trouble it’s tnj1@psu.edu and I welcome input.
Chair
Schengrund: Lou, you’ll be the final comment.
Louis Milakofsky, Berks-Lehigh Valley College: I know this is a policy statement, and therefore it minimizes examples. But just on the basis of how this special committee worked, how many examples did you look at in terms of what presently in the operating view of the university dealing with course modules and courseware, presently without