The publication is issued by the Senate Office, Birch Cottage, 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.

FINAL AGENDA FOR APRIL 25, 2000

A. MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING -

Minutes of the March 27, 2000, Meeting in The Senate Record 33:5

B. COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE - Senate Curriculum Report
(Blue Sheets) of April 11, 2000

C. REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL - Meeting of April 11, 2000

D. ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR -

E. COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY -

F. FORENSIC BUSINESS -

Faculty Affairs, Libraries and Research

Intellectual Property

(I). ADVISORY/CONSULTATIVE REPORTS -

Research

Intellectual Property

G. UNFINISHED BUSINESS -

Committees and Rules

Revision of Constitution, Article I, Section 1

H. LEGISLATIVE REPORTS -Page 29

I. ADVISORY/CONSULTATIVE REPORTS -

Undergraduate Education

Toward a More Vibrant Learning Culture at Penn State

J. INFORMATIONAL REPORTS -

Undergraduate Education

Teaching and Learning Culture Consortium, John A. Brighton

Intercollegiate Athletics

Annual Report of Academic Eligibility and Athletic Scholarships
for 1998-99

Resolution for John J. Coyle, NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative

Senate Council

Student Computing Initiative

Admissions, Records, Scheduling and Student Aid

Report of High School Nondegree Students Enrolled in Credit Courses

Computing and Information Systems

Virtual Reality

Faculty Benefits

Faculty Salaries Report, External Comparison

Student Life

Incivility in the Classroom

University Planning

Construction Programs Status Report

Report of Senate Elections for 2000-2001

Senate Council
Senate Committee on Committees and Rules
University Promotion and Tenure Review Committee
Standing Joint Committee on Tenure
Faculty Rights and Responsibilities
Faculty Advisory Committee to the President
Senate Secretary for 2000-2001
Senate Chair-Elect for 2000-2001
Comments by Outgoing Chair Nelson
Installation of Officers
Comments by Incoming Chair Schengrund

K. NEW LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS -

L. COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE
UNIVERSITY -

M. ADJOURNMENT -

SUMMARY OF AGENDA ACTIONS

The Senate passed one Legislative Report:

Committees and Rules - "Revision of Constitution, Article I, Section 1." This report adds to the Constitution the subtitles of Informational and Recognition reports. (See Record, page(s) 28 and Agenda Appendix "D.")

The Senate passed two Advisory/Consultative Reports:

Research - "Intellectual Property." This report advises that the Vice President for Research receive the Report of the Task Force on Intellectual Property Policies and Procedures for information only, and that the report not be used to define or implement intellectual property policy. (See Record, page(s) 25-28, Corrected Copy Record Appendix II, and Agenda Appendix "C.")

Undergraduate Education - "Toward a More Vibrant Learning Culture at Penn State." This report establishes five recommendations to help embrace expectations for a vibrant learning environment at the institution. (See Record, page(s) 29-36 and Agenda Appendix "E.")

The Senate heard one Forensic Session:

Faculty Affairs, Libraries and Research - "Intellectual Property." Six recommendations are made in this report. They range from advice to invest more in intellectual property personnel, to ownership of copyrighted materials, to the selling of courseware to an educational competitor, to a request to transform the recommendations into specific policies. (See Record, page(s) 10-25 and Agenda Appendix "B.")

The Senate received eight Informational Reports:

Undergraduate Education - "Teaching and Learning Consortium, John A. Brighton." This was a report to update the Senate on the status of the Teaching and Learning Consortium. (See Record, page(s) 36-39 and Agenda Appendix "F.")

Senate Council - "Student Computing Initiative." This is a report to establish the position of the recommendation that all first-year students either own or have access to a personal computer. (See Record, page(s) 43 and Agenda Appendix "G.")

Admissions, Records, Scheduling and Student Aid - "Report of High School Nondegree Students Enrolled in Credit Courses." This is the periodic report informing the Senate of the data concerning the non-degree enrollment of high school students at the University. (See Record, page(s) 43-44 and Agenda Appendix "H.")

Computing and Information Systems - "Virtual Reality." This is a report to emphasize the increasingly relevant techniques of virtual reality within research, instruction and communication. (See Record, page(s) 44 and Agenda Appendix "I.")

Faculty Benefits - "Faculty Salaries Report, External Comparison." This is a biennial report on faculty salaries as compared to the Association of American Universities Data Exchange. (See Record, page(s) 44-49 and Agenda Appendix "J.")

Intercollegiate Athletics - "Annual Report of Academic Eligibility and Athletic Scholarships for 1998-99." Each year, the Senate receives a mandated report of the NCAA activities of the institution in the areas of eligibility and number of scholarships of student athletes. (See Record, page(s) 39-43 and Agenda Appendix "K.")

Student Life - "Incivility in the Classroom." This report is to make the University aware of what is being perceived as an increase of incivility within higher education. (See Record, page(s) 49-50 and Agenda Appendix "L.")

University Planning - "Construction Programs Status Report." This report summarizes the status of the Department of General Services and Penn State University’s major construction programs. (See Record, page(s) 50 and Agenda Appendix "M.")

Reports of Senate election results were announced, Senate Officers for 2000-2001 were installed, and comments by the outgoing and incoming chairs were given.

The University Faculty Senate met on Tuesday, April 25, 2000, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 112 Kern Building with Murry R. Nelson, Chair, presiding. One hundred and sixty-one Senators signed the roster.

Chair Nelson: It is time to begin.

Moving to the minutes of the preceding meeting, The Senate Record, providing a full transcription of the proceedings of the March 28, 2000 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 Nelson: Opposed? The minutes are accepted. Thank you.

You have received the Senate Curriculum Report for April 11, 2000. This document is posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page.

Also, you should have received the Report of Senate Council for the meeting of April 11, 2000. This is an attachment in The Senate Agenda for today's meeting.

Chair Nelson: I would like to read to you the names of the Senators who will not be returning to the Senate next year. The Senate thanks these Senators for their dedication and hard work in the Senate, their voting unit and the university. If you'll indulge me please.

Chair Nelson: I want to thank you all. I want to recognize those particular Senators.

Senators: Applause.

Chair Nelson: There is one more Senator whom I have left out of that list and wanted to take a moment to recognize individually. He was first elected to the Senate in 1968, and is retiring from the university after this year. We have had some very long standing Senators, but probably none can be seen as more senior than Phil Klein. I'd like all of us to express our appreciation of 32 years of service for Phil.

Senators: Applause and standing ovation.

Chair Nelson: Thank you, Phil and I hope it was worth it. I refer you to my remarks to Senate Council contained in the minutes attached to today's Agenda.

The Faculty Advisory Committee to the President met on Thursday, April 6, 2000 and discussed the following agenda items: Hershey Search Update; The Summer Calendar; Krebbs Commission; Intellectual Property; SCCCTS (South Central Centre County Transportation Study) - the University's Position; President's Input in Senate Council; Academic Eligibility at Behrend; Indirect Cost Recovery and Research Infrastructure Report; South Carolina Confederate Battle Flag Issue; and Sweatshops. An additional FAC meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 6, 2000. By this time, the new members of FAC will be in office. Please contact any member of FAC if you have an item you wish addressed.

The Senate has received several memos from President Spanier accepting reports passed by the Senate. First, from our February 1, 2000 meeting: From the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs, "Proposal to Change the Language in HR-23 Concerning the Relation of Tenure and Promotion in Tenuring Documents." Dr. Spanier has approved this report for implementation and has asked the Assistant Vice President for Human Resources to implement the new language in the policy as proposed, and has asked the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs to revise the Administrative Guidelines for HR-23. Also from the February 1, 2000 Senate meeting, from the Joint Committee on Academic Integrity, "Report on Improving the Academic Integrity Climate." Dr. Spanier has asked the Executive Vice President and Provost to oversee the implementation of the recommendations that emerged in this report. From the February 29, 2000 meeting, Dr. Spanier approved five reports for implementation. They are: from Committees and Rules, "Revision of Standing Rules, Article III, Section 7(d)." He has asked the Executive Secretary to amend the Bylaws and Standing Rules accordingly. From the Joint Committee on Academic Integrity, "Academic Integrity Report." Dr. Spanier is asking the Executive Vice President and Provost to oversee the implementation of the recommendations that emerged from this report. Two reports from Admissions, Records, Scheduling and Student Aid; "Proposed Change to Policy 14-00, Nondegree Students" and "Revision of Policy 51-50: Cumulative Grade Point Average." Dr. Spanier is asking that both these reports be implemented effective Fall 2000. From the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education, "Revision of Senate Policy 42-50: Credit by Examination/Proficiency Examination" has been referred to the Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education for implementation to be effective Fall 2000.

Chair Nelson: We move next to comments by the president of the university. President Spanier is here today, and does have comments. Let me just remind you to please stand and identify yourself and the unit you represent before addressing the Senate. Thank you.

Graham B. Spanier, President: Thank you, Murry. Congratulations, Professor Klein for your 32 years of service. Take a few days off. If you get lonely come back and visit the Senate any time. I want to thank all of you whose names Murry read for your service to the Senate over the years. I know there are many faculty in the university who hope that they don't get elected to these positions. Some of you like to be elected, and others have had your arms twisted to be here, but whichever category you fall in, it's a very valuable service you provide to the university. I appreciate it very much as I know the Senate leadership does. I have a guest with me today, who I would like to introduce. He is Robert Unger, and he is the new Executive Editor of the Centre Daily Times. Would you stand up so we can give you a warm Centre County welcome.

Senators: Applause.

President Spanier: Bob is brand new to his job. He'll be living in Bellefonte; just bought a house today, and he's celebrating by coming to a Senate meeting. Actually, we just had lunch together and we exchanged promises. He's promised never to say anything bad about the university in the newspaper...somehow you don't believe that. We're very pleased to have him at the Centre Daily Times. He has a distinguished record in journalism in locations throughout the country, and we're very fortunate to have someone of his caliber who is going to be joining the community, and leading a very fine newspaper, which does have a close relationship with the university. So again, welcome, we're delighted to have you here. He's also going to be teaching a class this afternoon, guest lecturing in a class and we're very pleased to have him do that so soon after he has come to town.

Just to give you an update on a few things happening around the university. I think all of you have been reading in the newspapers, whether it's national coverage or local coverage about students throughout the country, who are concerned about sweatshop conditions. And you've seen perhaps op ed pieces and statements that I have on our web site and that have been reprinted in the Intercom about Penn State's concern in this area as well. I think I reported to you a year or two ago back when we joined the national effort that Penn State was among the universities who worked with labor unions, industry and the U.S. government in forming the then new Fair Labor Association. We were in on the planning of that from the beginning, and continue to be very active in ensuring that Penn State's merchandise--apparel and other kinds of merchandise--are manufactured in the kinds of conditions that we would want to be associated with. We do have a student group who's been camped out on the Old Main lawn for some days because they would like us to join a particular monitoring organization in addition to the two organizations that we're currently associated with. I appointed a committee which will have its first meeting this afternoon, which will look into the long term issues of Penn State's various affiliations and dues, and our objectives and I think it will be an excellent committee, and I look forward to their recommendations. I anticipate that the students will be leaving today, and the lawn will be restored to its normal purposes rather quickly. So we'll continue to keep you updated on that. We do have information on the web site about Penn State's efforts with the Alliance for Workers and Families and some of you in here I think are involved in that effort in your research and scholarly roles and in our work with the Fair Labor Association and our continuing concerns at the national level.

I have no news to give you on Penn State's budget. We anticipate that the legislature will take up action on our budget in mid to late May sometime during the latter half of May perhaps. I can tell you that as we put together the budget scenario for Penn State for this coming year, we do anticipate our tightest budget in my time as President of Penn State. We do hope to continue to give a modest salary increase, and to keep up with costs of employee benefits, the costs of fuel and utilities, opening up new buildings and honoring all existing commitments. But it is also the case that it will be our tightest budget year, yet almost no matter what the scenario will be in Harrisburg, because none of the numbers that are on the table right now would provide us the kind of flexibility we had hoped for to do some new things and to move ahead further. So just to kind of warn you that things will be a little tighter than usual, but I don't want to sound alarmist about it at all. It will be fine and we hope you won't notice the change. It's our job in the administration to kind of make everything work on all cylinders, and not have you worry about that, but there will not be any loose change to be talking about this year.

Later this week, the NCAA Board of Directors will take action on a major reform package for intercollegiate basketball. I think you know that I'm chairman of the board of the NCAA, so I expect that you will see all of that in the news. It's not anything that affects Penn State any more directly than any other institution except that it's something that I'm very involved in at the moment. So you'll see that brewing, and I think the changes that will emerge from the board at our meeting in Indianapolis on Thursday will be very positive, and will help reinforce some of the values that I think this Faculty Senate would stand for with regard to basketball.

We have had really a wonderful year in the recruitment of senior academic leaders at the university. Our new Dean of Arts and Architecture will be here in July to take up that new post. He's been back in town and bought a house, and talking to people and ready to go so we will welcome Richard Durst. I think most of you have seen the announcement that we have concluded the search for, and indeed hired a new Dean of the Smeal College of Business Administration. Judy Olian comes to us from the University of Maryland, and we're very excited about that hire as well. She is already hard at work on our behalf, even while she is still on Maryland's payroll. I think she is spending a lot of time thinking about Penn State, and helping already to position us for the future. I am hopeful that by the time our May Board of Trustees meeting, which is coming up in a couple of weeks, that we will have identified a new Chief Executive Officer for the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, who also has the position of Senior Vice President for Health Affairs at Penn State, and Dean of the College of Medicine. We are in the final stages of that search right now, and hope to bring that to conclusion very quickly. We also have new deans coming in at Penn State Capital College, and Penn State Altoona and we're very much looking forward to their joining us. Overall we have a truly outstanding group of people coming in.

Actually, I don't suspect we have anybody who is brand new, but I want to mention the Penn State Road Scholars Tour, which is coming up. Raise your hand if you have been on that tour along the way? A few of you in here. I suspect the folks who raise their hand would recommend it, and consider it something that's valuable. I don't know if we have any spaces left, but one thing we did this year is to the extent that spaces were left, we would be pleased to welcome older faculty members--those who have been around a while. It's intended primarily for new faculty, but we found that a lot of people who have been around a while haven't really seen much of Pennsylvania, and don't really fully appreciate Penn State and the community. And if that is something you would be interested in, then send me an email and I will forward it to the person who is handling it, and we'll let you know if there might be a few extra spaces for you to come along on that. Each year we go to a different part of the state, and this year we'll be going to the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, the Dickinson School of Law, Penn State Mont Alto. We'll sort of be going by Penn State York kind of quickly, but we'll be touring the Harley Davidson facilities there, where by the way, Penn State offers educational programs. We'll be touring the Gettysburg Battle fields, visiting Lancaster County and the Amish country, visiting the capitol and be meeting with some of our elected officials from the region there, and probably a few other things I've left out. And it's all in a three-day tour, no cost, it's a great thing to come along on if you would like.

I want to make my annual pitch for all of you to attend your commencements. Now I know there are people in here who always attend and would never think about not attending. But I also spot some folks I haven't noticed at commencement in a long time, and I really would encourage you to come. To me it's the best time of the year because really with all the grief we get during the year, it is the one moment I think it was all worth it. Whatever happened this year, forget it because this is what it's all about. And it is a real joy to be there, and to see the students getting their degrees, to see how happy they are, to see how happy their parents and families are, particularly at the spring commencement where it's done college by college. It's nice to be around a lot of students who you know, and can remember from class, so do come if you can.

Finally, for those of you who are interested in learning what leisure is all about, (I know hardly anybody in here has any), but that is the subject of my radio show tonight on WPSU 91.5 at 7:00 p.m. A couple of your colleagues will be guests on the show to talk about their research in this area of how Americans use their leisure time. So if you want to know what you're missing, tune in, and even call in with your questions or comments, we'd be delighted to have your involvement that way. Okay, now we'll open it up for questions.

Jacob De Rooy, Penn State Harrisburg - The Capital College: President Spanier, this is a follow up to your comments regarding the budget. We have data that we got today that's part of this meeting's report on salary increments within the last year. About 15 years ago, maybe a little less than that, we had a major initiative coming from the Senate to reduce the gap in pay inequities between faculty members serving at University Park and those in colleges outside of University Park. We notice in this report that for every rank, for all four ranks, the pay increases for University Park faculty exceeded those for Type IIA institutions, outside of University Park, which would be the closest to University Park missions, and exceed the pay increases for some of the other categories at colleges outside of University Park. Are we experiencing a return to the gap that we had corrected? Or tried to correct? Are we showing a shift in valuation of university resources? Or are we trying to send a signal that perhaps urge more value for our University Park resources and attract more faculty here than non-University Park? What message do we get from this?

President Spanier: Well the answer to all seven of those questions is no. It is a good question. Let me say a couple of things about different angles of that question. First of all, despite the challenges facing Penn State's budget, we have actually every year in the five years I've been president, been able to give salary increases that on the average were at the level of inflation or above. The problem with our overall salary scenario is that these are good economic times in this country. States are enjoying significant budget surpluses, and many of our peer institutions happen to be in states where they are substantially pumping new money into higher education well above and beyond inflationary increases, major new initiatives and trying to remedy historical deficits in salary increases. That has not been the case for us, and so consequently, even though our pay increases overall have been decent, we have actually slipped in national standings, in AAU standings, in Big Ten standings, and in our peer group standings. We are struggling very hard to try to keep up on the salary side because we're in a competitive environment just like any other employer. Now I can also tell you that in the last five years, the period I can speak about, we have handed out to every college and every campus precisely the same percentage of the salary pool for increases in pay. There has been absolutely no discrimination or shuffling around of salaries in that way. So that if any divergence has occurred, or if any apparent inequities have popped up (and we try to guard against these things), it is not due to money that has been handed out for salary increases centrally. There are other reasons I could surmise why you might find that happening. For example, in one unit or at one campus, a retiring full professor might be replaced by an assistant professor, or someone that is leaving at the upper end of an assistant professor rank, might be hired in at the lower end of an assistant professor rank. It could perhaps skew the averages, particularly when numbers are small in a particular cell. I don't know if that is the answer or not, that's just one speculation. There could be other reasons to explain why some changes like that might be the case. We work very hard out of the Provost's Office to make sure campus executive officers and deans look at these kinds of things each and every year to avoid problems of that sort. We're very sensitive to issues of equity as well as salary compression and general overall increases.

Tamble T. Turner, Penn State Abington: President Spanier, a little follow up on that. Is there a coordinated lobbying effort at Penn State with other state related universities to focus public attention on the low ranking in Pennsylvania, in terms of funding for higher education?

President Spanier: Well, yes. It's a delicate issue because I spend a lot of my time presenting these data, appearing in Harrisburg, going into different offices and making the case. There is nobody in Harrisburg who doesn't know what the data show. We have to gauge at what point they start hiding when we come and visit them because they don't want to hear it any more. Some of you listen to my appropriation hearings when they are rebroadcast, so you know we try to deal with these issues as they come up in the hearings. But what a lot of people in the legislature have said to me is, that's all, we understand that, that's history. But from our perspective we're giving $1.6 billion a year to support higher education in Pennsylvania and it's a big chunk of the state budget and we feel we are supporting you. And we're sorry if you think that 2.5 percent is not enough. That's 2.5 percent more than they gave us the year before so they feel they are giving us something. But we thought it should be 4 percent, let's say, or if you include all of our special initiatives another 4 percent above and beyond that. So for us we're measuring it against what we need and what we didn't get, and I understand both perspectives. I know exactly where they're coming from, and they know that my job is to make the best case I can. And I know that their job is to weigh this in relation to the overall state priorities. But I've said this in here before, the one thing this is a multi-varied equation, but the one thing I insist on holding constant is the quality of our educational enterprise. If the two principle sources of support are legislative appropriation and tuition, and the appropriation is falling short of what we need and quality is going to be held constant in that formula, that is why we're always forced up against this issue of tuition increases that are higher than inflation and we will have another one this year. We just don't know how much higher yet until the other data come in. That has been the case for years and years. Certainly it preceded me. It's not any one governor, it's not any one legislature it's just always the way it's been in Pennsylvania and so, yes, we are a high tuition, a high aid state as it's described in higher education terminology. Our tuition is on the high end, and we provide a lot of financial aid to help students deal with that, and so we make the case as best we can without trying to overdue it and make a nuisance of ourselves.

Paul F. Clark, College of the Liberal Arts: At our February meeting you were asked about the unionization effort of the graduate students here at Penn State. You replied that while you're generally a supporter of unions, you didn't support that effort because you saw graduate students primarily were first and foremost as students. As I understand it, that effort also includes Fixed-Term Instructors and I was wondering what your position is on unionization of Fixed-Term Instructors here at Penn State?

President Spanier: Well, I'm not sure I'm prepared to comment on that nuance because I don't really see how those two are directly connected. They are on entirely different kinds of appointments. I haven't really thought through what that's all about, and I have actually never been approached by any fixed-term employees to even talk about that question. So I don't know what they're thinking about, what their expectations are, or what about the system now might not be working for them. With graduate students, it's a matter I have thought about a lot. It's an entirely different matter and I certainly reiterate what I said in February my thoughts have not changed about that. Yes, I do see graduate students first and foremost as students. They have come to Penn State principally to obtain a degree. We want to facilitate their obtaining that degree. We want to provide the best possible circumstances while they are here. And that means in a typical case providing the full cost of tuition, in a typical case a stipend, excellent mentoring from faculty members, in many cases other kinds of departmental support. And then to move them through the system with their degree so that they can take a full time job somewhere after they finish. I would hope from discussions I have had with many of you in here and many faculty in the university that this is the prevailing view among our faculty that that is what they consider to be the nature of their relationship with their graduate students. So that would be the university position for me on that and I'll have to give some more thought to the other part of that.

Arthur E. Goldschmidt, College of the Liberal Arts: Dr. Spanier, we were given this very fine pamphlet when we came in today on teaching and learning. We're going to receive a report on Toward a More Vibrant Leaning Culture at Penn State, Teaching and Learning Consortium, Incivility in the Classroom. Do you have any comments you would like to offer us as to your expectations of improving the learning atmosphere at Penn State?

President Spanier: Well I support the Art Goldschmidt approach to these things. I've visited his freshmen seminar, I have seen how you relate to students, and that's a lot of what we're looking for. Now I don't know which particular brochure you have there, I failed to pick one up, I'll take a look at it. This is an extremely important part of what we're trying to emphasize at the university right now. We have a lot of initiatives underway around this theme and I think it's playing out well in relation to the new general education curriculum in some of the ways we have deployed university resources and the new freshmen seminar program, the themes that underlie the Schreyer Honors College, the Schreyer Institute for Innovation and Learning, the Leonhard Center and some of these other activities. The brochure I'm sure is part of our continuing effort to provide visibility for this, and to get more faculty engaged with that agenda.

Chair Nelson: Other questions? We thank you President Spanier very much for all of your comments during this year.

President Spanier: Thank you.

Chair Nelson: We now turn to forensic business and we do have some today and it will be lengthy. I do want to explain the rules for our forensic. John Leathers, Chair of the Intellectual Property Task Force, will open the forensic session with a few words of introduction and then I'd like to turn the podium over to Nancy Eaton for some remarks. After Dean Eaton speaks, I'll open the floor for a discussion of recommendations three and four. These are the recommendations that have the most impact on faculty. After I have determined that we are not progressing any farther on those two items and that may not happen, I'll ask Dr. Leathers to come back to the podium and we can address recommendations one, two, five and six. And that is if we have time we will try and allot at least five minutes for those. The total amount of the time that we will spend on the forensic following both John and Nancy's introduction will be 45 minutes. John Moore, chair of the Libraries Committee; John Nichols, chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee, and Thomas Jackson, chair of the Research Committee, are also prepared to take part in the discussion along with the members of the task force. If you'll look at pages 43 and 44 of the task force report you will see those members identified both in the steering committee and in the various committees of the task force. I hope you will notice the number of faculty and specifically the number of Senators that are represented throughout these particular committees. As I said we will have 45 minutes and in order to keep a semblance of order; I will recognize those of you with your hands raised. The task force members, many of them are here for resource commentary if Nancy wants to turn to them. They will not be engaging in the discussion that will be limited to the Senators so Dr. Leathers, the podium in yours.

SENATE COMMITTEES ON FACULTY AFFAIRS, LIBRARIES AND RESEARCH

John S. Nichols, Chair, Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs

John W. Moore, Chair, Senate Committee on Libraries

Thomas N. Jackson, Chair, Senate Committee on Research

John Leathers, Chair, Intellectual Property Task Force: Good afternoon and thank you, Murry. On behalf of the Task Force on Intellectual Property Policies and Procedures I thank the University Faculty Senate for its very long standing and continuing support in providing this opportunity for discussion of our interim report. Murry has already commented on the close working relationship that we have established over this period of time, which of course has been the membership of two different continuing Senate groups. That's not to infer that in any way this comes to the Senate with any prior agreement, as a matter of fact there's not unanimity on the discussion of many of the items, and we hope to benefit from the discussion today. The essence of the interim report is to work toward establishing and sustaining a balance between the rights and responsibilities of the university, and those of the faculty, staff and students. And in doing so, reduce the potential for conflict of interest and conflict of commitment. After we all have had this discussion today at the next meeting of our task force, we will have taken this review as far as we believe to be reasonable and prudent given the scope, magnitude, complexities, time restraints and the constantly changing nature of intellectual property related issues and opportunities. We have not attempted to develop the detailed policies, procedures and programs needed to address all of the critical issues identified in our interim report. Rather, we recommend a flexible organizational framework for the management of intellectual property, as well as the principles on which future detailed policies and procedures can be established by subsequent committees and constantly updated to reflect the current environment. Because rapid change is almost certain to continue, intellectual property policies, procedures and available services must be adaptive and kept current, and must include effective processes for keeping faculty, staff and students fully informed on a timely basis. The spirit of the interim report can be illustrated by two recommendations to form key committees. The interim report recommends the formation of two committees. The Vice President for Research should appoint an Intellectual Property, Policies and Procedures Advisory Committee to provide ongoing review and advice regarding the universities intellectual property technology transfer policies and procedures. The other key committee would be at the direction of the University Faculty Senate on however you would choose to proceed. But generally, it calls to establish a standing subcommittee, perhaps of the Committee on Research to bring increased emphasis and focus on intellectual property matters, to enable the Senate to play even a more active role as liaison between the faculty and the administration on all aspects of intellectual property, policies and procedures. Ideally, the Senate subcommittee will have representation on the Vice President for Research's advisory committee. Murry has already described the format for today's discussion. The interim report does deal with a very broad array of intellectual property related opportunities, but at the recommendation of Senate Council we will limit our discussion today on copyright and licensing, courseware, conflict of interest and conflict of commitment. Dean Nancy Eaton who is the chair of the task force committee on copyright and licensing of software and databases will lead the initial discussion. Time permitting, we will invite John Moore, who is the task force coordinator of the writing team and also the current chair of the Senate Committee on Libraries to lead discussion on other aspects of the interim report. The next steps are that a meeting of the task force will be held as soon as possible to consider input received from various sources since our last meeting, including the results of today's discussion. The task force will then submit its final report to Dr. Pell, Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School by the end of May. We'll now proceed with today's presentation and discussion, Dean Eaton.

Nancy Eaton, Dean, University Libraries: Good afternoon. Let me make a few very brief comments about the sections of the report on copyright and licensing and courseware to refresh your memories and perhaps frame the discussion slightly. In these two chapters which are Chapters IV and V as in the introduction Chapter I, we try to lay out how the environment is undergoing dramatic change, and the logic for needing to revise our approach to intellectual property and to revisit many of the policies. The old policies that we have are very dated, and simply don't reflect the current environment. The task force in general has tried throughout the report, and particularly in these two chapters, to find the middle ground that protects both the faculty and the university in this environment. Turning specifically to those two chapters, copyright and licensing is discussed in the summary on pages 6 and 7, and the full chapter on pages 22 through 27. Let me make a couple of comments about that chapter. First it indicates that the university must respond to the legal changes dictated by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That act is focused primarily on the changing electronic environment in which information moves about, and there are some things that the university absolutely must respond to. In general, it talks about the need to respond to electronic information and the transmission of electronic information over networks as it effects the university in general. And then it mentions that there are three areas still in play that we believe that the future committees that we recommended will need to deal with. The first is treaty legislation, the World Intellectual Property Organization will continue to look at copyright from an international point of view and those activities will take place this year. USIDA which is contract law. That legislation has been referred to all 50 states, and even though some 15 Attorney's General have come out very strongly opposed to that legislation as not being in the public interest. Two states have already passed the legislation. We expect it to come before the Pennsylvania legislature probably in the early part of this next year and so we need to be paying attention to that. Finally, database legislation, which is before Congress, and which is very adversarial in terms of its implications for higher education. It's very, very slanted toward the private sector and has some dramatic things in there that would change the way we do business. So those are the three areas that we believe we must continue to track actively and then adapt our policies as soon as we know what that legislation is. Turning to courseware. The executive summary comments are on page 7 and Chapter V is pages 28 through 36. Again it stresses the new competition in the online learning and distance education environment and the implications of that for the university in terms of a new kind of competition. Again it looks for the balance to try to protect both the faculty and the university and let me highlight the key issues in that chapter. Understanding that courseware is really a subset of the discussion in Chapter IV, on copyright and licensing that this is a subset where we have no university policy and therefore it came in for special attention. Overriding issues as we work through this have to do with conflict of interest and conflict of commitment in delivering courseware, in trying to provide incentives for faculty to use new technologies, but we don't want to discourage that activity in the policies we set. We want to encourage it. Finally, focusing on the three definitions that need to be worked on. That of faculty-owned courseware, where it's very clearly in the province of the faculty; collaborative courseware where there are mutual interests between the university and the faculty; and commissioned works which clearly are owned by the university. So with those comments to frame the discussion I give it back to Murry.

Chair Nelson: Thank you, Nancy. Let me say again that as soon as I've finished we will begin and end in 45 minutes. Nancy will respond if you wish her to respond. She may appeal to some of the members of the task force for clarity if that's necessary. It may be that the comments you make aren't addressed to Nancy at all. They may be addressed openly and somebody may respond to that, but that being the case I will open the floor beginning now.

Wayne R. Curtis, College of Engineering: In reading this and reflecting on essentially the transition that has happened in education over the last 20 years... I started here as an undergraduate approximately 20 years ago and I remember packing up my TRS80 and being challenged by my parents, "Why are you taking that? It doesn't have any software. All you can do is write a 2 line basic program." And then writing my undergraduate thesis on punch cards and stating to somebody, in the future no one is going to use a typewriter any more and people were saying no. Punch cards is not a great way to do word processing. One of the first faculty meetings, there was a discussion where we were asked a question and at the conclusion of that faculty meeting there would not be any use for PCs. They didn't see much use for PCs affecting our curriculum. Now looking at this document today, I read it and it was a very good characterization of these areas, i.e., courseware, textbooks and so forth, reflecting what is today. The question is going to be what is it going to be essentially ten years from now? I take a look at this and I'm generally discussing with the faculty at other universities the idea of a virtual textbook, which incorporates software where you can create a syllabus plus have instructional aides for the students to cross reference. And so the textbook will no longer be a textbook, okay. So this idea of differentiating a textbook and that it's owned by the faculty, you can give it to somebody to copyright versus courseware which is all these other complicated things that the university owns it and so forth. I think that is going to blur very quickly and looking at this document I think we have to be very careful in saying yes, while this might make sense in terms of who owns what as this snapshot today. I would say that after ten years from now, it may make very little sense if in fact the next generation of textbooks are CD-ROM based and you can retain the copyright's, print it for $2 and hand it out to your students. So you start to see a different educational framework. We need to be very careful about the drafting of it now and how that's going to be reflected five or ten years from now in the educational environment.

Tamble T. Turner: This might be related to what Wayne was talking about. A number of our colleagues, especially in the language area that have been writing software for language applications, because of that past work, I'm curious about this distinction between courseware and copyright. It would seem to me that there indeed are some de facto policies, so has someone on the task force spoke to faculty who have done that kind of development to see what kind of guidelines can be identified--de facto guidelines?

Nancy Eaton: We did do a fair amount of research not only within this university, but with other comparable universities and the conclusion is that all of us are revisiting these issues simultaneously. The environment is really in such flux, that we have to deal with the current environment and update our policies to deal with what is now. I mean right now you need at least some guidance. We know it's a moving target, and that's the reason for the recommendation of the other committees, to continue to track this and continue to be sure that our policies stay in conformity with both our needs and with law.

Tamble T. Turner: Is there indeed no policy when it comes to courseware or just not written?

Nancy Eaton: There is no courseware policy. The last thing we have is a copyright policy that dates from 1982.

John W. Bagby, Smeal College of Business Administration: I have a concern and an admonition. I hope many Senators will recall in 1996, the publication of the Final Report of a blue-ribbon panel charged to study Computer Aided Instruction and Learning, also known as the Dutton Report. Thereafter, the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs and the Senate Committee on Research were charged to comment on the Dutton Report. A joint conference committee of Faculty Affairs and Research produced an Advisory and Consultative Report which passed the Senate in February of 1998. The Dutton Report, the Senate Advisory and Consultative Report and the floor debate are available on-line, and you're urged to look at it to further deliberate today's task force report. The Senate had considerable time to carefully review and deliberate before the floor debate, and before forwarding the Dutton Report to the president. Today I am concerned that most Senators have just received this rather voluminous, year-end task force report. You got it last Wednesday, it was interrupted by a holiday weekend, and I'm not sure there has been sufficient time for careful review. The Interim Task Force Report is long and complex and should receive considerable time for ventilation and broad consultation before its implementation. I have an admonition. During the development of the task force's interim report many controversial issues surfaced. Some are just beginning now to understand the complexity of intellectual property strategies may frame the policy issues here as adversarial. For some I hear they fret that this is an abrupt realignment of intellectual property ownership and control, potentially violating academic freedom. By contrast, others may feel compelled by their duty of care to exert clearer stewardship over institutional assets. However, I worry that both these positions might miss the most fundamental underlying purpose for academic freedom. It is not just scholarly self-actualization. Instead, academic freedom is best justified as an incentive to creativity, to individually inspired experimentation, to exploration and to effective communication, including innovations in instructional methods and content. I believe the most fundamental policy question we face today, and over this summer as this new courseware policy may be implemented boils down to a choice among processes that will optimize the production and diversity of instructional resources. What system design will maximize scholarly activity and output? One option is a largely autonomous, entrepreneurial climate with proven incentives. Such a climate seems most consistent with the policy goals articulated in recent curricular reforms that this Senate has passed in recent years. Another option could conceivably evolve into a highly mediated, perhaps awkward system that must necessarily impede at least some projects. Of course, such a process should be carefully monitored to minimize arbitrary or unreasonable vetoes. However, such a process would predictably deter the development of many proposals, ultimately limiting new project development. It is my sincere hope an optimal middle ground might emerge in the implementation of the task force report, particularly in the courseware area. Large scale courseware projects consume considerable and varied resources. But that type of enterprise should not so overshadow individual entrepreneurship that we stifle one of the traditional sources of instructional innovation. I prepared this statement.

Chair Nelson: We wouldn't have known that.

Alison A. Carr-Chellman, College of Education: I chose to be an academic because I fundamentally believe in a highly educational and research mission. That is the open exchange of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge. In my view, non-compete clauses which is essentially what the language of conflict of commitment creates, is a manifestation of an increasing corporatization of the university, which is in direct conflict in my view with the fundamental goals of higher education. It is therefore that I personally oppose, and I call upon my faculty colleagues to cautiously consider any policies which bring us in to closer alignment with corporate mentalities and profit driven numbers, including giving the university broad powers to control faculty member's pursuits of the open exchange of ideas.

Ronald V. Bettig, College of Communications: I have been studying intellectual property issues for many years and have recently published a book entitled, Copyrighting Culture--on the political economy of intellectual property. First, I'd like to commend the committee, especially given the complex nature of these issues and given the ways in which committees tend to work. Even in my own research as a committee of one, I do not always find myself in agreement. This is because as the report demonstrates, there are several contradictions between the mission of the university and the private ownership of intellectual property. Let me offer a few general and a few specific observations on this report. First off, it's not clear at all what value-added means, and how you're going to define it. Is it my secretary typing my manuscript as we used to in the old days? Or is it someone who is helping me design a web site? We'll probably all be doing our own web sites, as the software gets easier to use. An additional oversight by the report is the necessity of protecting the authors moral rights and the integrity of a faculty member's work, not just their pecuniary rights. I for one, don't want banner ads for Nike or Pepsi running across on my coursework or on-line course because I have relinquished these rights "in perpetuity" to the university. My moral rights are as important as my economic rights. We must be careful in any dealings with the commercial sector. There are the usual threats to intellectual freedom due to conflicts of interests between private and public. Additionally, our bargaining power of the academic and library communities tends to be very weak against the increasingly concentrated information and communications industries. We must defend fair use and we must be more active and proactive rather than reactive. The case of course packs is exemplary. Because universities failed to challenge the fair-use of non-profit course packs, publishers have levied heavy royalty fees on course pack materials (even though the Supreme Court never ruled on non-profit course pack production). The result in my case, was that the 600-page course pack I used in the early 1990s costing my students around $25, shot up to $75 even though I cut 200 pages to keep the price reasonable. We cannot and should not be reactive as in this case, but proactive, and work much harder to defend the intellectual commons and the free distribution of knowledge. This will require greater efforts on the part of the university and library communities in the legislative and judicial arenas. Finally, in reference to a more general claim by the report that faculty are mistaken when they think that, "intellectual property management conflicts with the free dissemination of information". History shows otherwise. Five hundred years ago, European aristocracies granted publishers copyrights on the condition that they suppress the publication of seditious and heretical works. In the modern era, AT&T used patents to stifle the development of radio. Then there's the case of Microsoft, with which we are all familiar. The Walt Disney company also files copyright and trademark infringement suits which result in the stifling of creativity, even in cases of parody. Most artists and authors acquiesce to cease and desist orders because they cannot afford the legal fees to fight back. Thomas Jefferson recognized early the difference between the nature of ideas and information and that of material goods. He said of an idea, "its peculiar character is that no one possesses the less because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me receives instruction himself without lessening mine. As he who lights a taper at mine receives light without it darkening me." I would like to conclude by saying that while this report emphasizes the opportunities for addressing intellectual property issues and revising policies, its overall tone is actually one of threats. This is not the basis upon which to make policy. Again, it is reactive rather than proactive. If we allow external forces to shape our intellectual property policies, the mission of the university to share knowledge ultimately will be compromised. Thank you.

Todd D. Ellis, Student Senator, Eberly College of Science: When I got this packet I have to admit that I was kind of looking forward to an entire hour where it was something I couldn't comment on, but I have something. I just wanted to mention as a representative to the students it's important to make sure that we make our case among certain things. In view of the class notes, I totally understand why we need to be very concerned about who controls them and where the ownership lies because potentially, I hope someday to aspire to be a professor. I don't know if that's going to happen any time over the next 20 years, but it may eventually get there and I will be concerned someday with who owns the notes that I provide to my students. But at the same time, I know a lot of students who want to maintain their focus on academics and use course notes as a way to both maintain their focus on academics, and provide themselves with some sort of an income that helps them offset at least pocket cash that they don't have to rely on taking an additional loan for. The argument that's made here is that the university should set up some in-house course note-taking service. It's potentially a good idea, but I really worry about implications, and I think it's incredibly important that we get people who are students that currently do this sort of thing already. To weigh in on exactly how something like that would work so we don't potentially alienate a whole lot of people who rely on course note taking as a potentially easy source of income that doesn't take away from their academic performance.

Carly M. Lipsitz, Student Senator, College of the Liberal Arts: What I want to say on the issue of note taking and establishments like Nittany Notes is, every time I've ever gone to Nittany Notes to buy anything, it was such a waste of money. It's my obligation, and I feel it's my duty to express student concerns. If there's a student concerned that they be able to have an environment where they can go and get notes, if they miss a class, if they just skip that class, whatever the case may be even if their notes weren't good that day. At the same time those notes to me didn't provide any more benefit than if I would have just gone to the professors office hours and said, "hey, I missed your class would you mind filling me in". Or even the next class walking up to someone in the first row and said, "I missed class would you mind?" As a student talking to a professor I would say, "I don't really see Nittany Notes as a threat to any of you". You may be angry that they're making money off of potentially what you feel is your own copyright that you should possibly make the money off of, but it's completely worthless...

Senators: Laughter.

Carly M. Lipsitz: ...but it should be the student's right to choose how they spend their money. As far as an issue of whether it should be an on campus service? I don't know how the faculty feels about that. Anyway, I don't see the note taking service to be beneficial or a threat to that. And I think that the faculty would do very well to encourage students to, instead of spending $20 at Nittany Notes "pass by my office hours," they're free.

Victor C. Romero, The Dickinson School of Law: I just wanted to focus a little on the recommendations on page one of Appendix "B". Specifically, the recommendations three and four which you would like feedback on. I agree with Tram and Wayne with respect to that but I think there are two problems. The first problem is the one that they identified, and that is if I can figure out what the difference between copyright materials and courseware is. The process really has to be here. The second I think is a more fundamental issue. If you look at recommendation three, recommendation three reaffirms the historical understanding of copyright and that is that copyright ownership rests with the faculty member. That's in here and non-controversial. Recommendation four however, represents a change. It says that the faculty member must first secure approval from the Vice President for Research. So all of a sudden the decision as to ownership goes to the administration as opposed to the faculty member. Now I understand that this is an exceptional case, but I just wanted to point that out. I mean exceptional to the extent that it says that it represents the selling of courseware with respect to an educational competitor of the university. But there is a difference in who gets to determine who has ownership, it moves from the faculty to the administration. I just wanted to share that with you.

Jamie M. Myers, College of Education: I also don't have any prepared remarks. At the bottom of page 29, the last paragraph states that the university support Penn State faculty members to produce scholarly and creative works. I think I gather from what people have been saying is that it's my sense that it is a mistake to distinguish material produced in an electronic format from these other types of works. I would argue that these electronic materials are textbooks, or very similar to textbooks. I would point out that many traditional companies that publish textbooks in particular for the public basic education sector, now publish multi-media content. And they even publish sign-up for our interactive multi-media experience between the dates of 11/1 and 2/1, so they sell these interactive components. I think that selling to a publisher your work in a form of a textbook or a novel or a CD-ROM or a piece of software, all falls under the same category. I think that the issue that you are dealing with is the ease of the medium to be used by corporate, entrepreneurial interest. And those are what you refer to as potential competitors of Penn State on the page before that, page 28. I think it's too vague in here, what you mean by potential competitors of Penn State.

Nancy Eaton: Let me respond.

Jamie M. Myers: Okay, I'm going to sit down before you respond. Then I don't have to stand here the whole time. Also I would say that these two points are ones that need a lot more thought and more clarification.

Nancy Eaton: If you would look on page 29 in the middle. The sentence that says, "The intent of this policy is to protect courses approved by the Faculty Senate that are thereby under the supervision and control of the university." That is the key sentence in this entire document for courseware. We are talking about the materials that have to do with the actual teaching of courses that are under the purview of the university and the materials that support those courses. That is specifically what this is about. Not about your more broadly based intellectual faculty efforts. Even under current policy, the university has that responsibility for courses, so the challenge I think for us is how to recast that in the electronic environment and that's what this is about.

Louis F. Geschwindner, College of Engineering: I think it's important to point out that when the Senate delegates responsibility for approval of a course through the Senate Committee on Curricular Affairs, and Curricular Affairs approves those courses we do not look at courseware. We do not look at textbooks other than as a suggestion for what might be listed in the course. So don't think we can rely on the ownership of the course to say that the university owns anything that is prepared to offer that course. That would have to come from something other than the Curricular Affairs Committee.

Tamble T. Turner: Dean Eaton, looking at the days of perhaps using a virtual textbook. Material like that in the language acquisition are available. What I'm asking about is perhaps whether Jamie's comment doesn't service perhaps another, let's say perspective, underlying this voluminous report. Several of my colleagues in different disciplines have said quite clearly that they perceive their promotion and tenure cases not being advanced because they made the decision to focus on developing textbooks or to develop on-line language acquisition material. Now I realize that sounds like a very different issue. My suggestion is that the distinction that the report continually tries to make as in that paragraph that Jamie pointed out at the bottom of page 29. It kind of says to me these things that are listed in this bottom paragraph on 29 are highly valued by the university because they want you to copyright it. Textbooks on-line language acquisition material are not valued. To put perspective on that which is actually my perspective is that those materials that are not valued perhaps in promotion and tenure are in fact potential money makers.

Nancy Eaton: Let me try to frame what I believe the task force intent was. Clearly there are very gray areas in terms of how you use technology. One of the reasons that the report recommends a process that starts with your department chair within your college is the fact that many of these have to be looked at as individual cases to make those distinctions, that a general policy is going to be very difficult. That was purposely the reason for trying to start that discussion within your own unit. I would agree with the assessment that these materials can serve many purposes and again that's why we're saying that this needs to be an ongoing area of oversight by the university because you know from year to year what we can do with technology changes dramatically. A third point I would make having to do with being proactive. I think the comment that was made earlier up here is that this report really is intended to focus on policy and procedures. It doesn't comment at all on other things that the university is doing. Although it's outside this report, let me just mention this too very quickly. You yourselves passed a policy last year that indicates that the format should not be the issue in promotion and tenure; that electronic materials should be given the same weight as any other materials so long as there is a jurying and an archiving process. So you yourselves have already started to address that issue. In terms of political and legal activism by the university, the president and the provost are involved in an AAU commission which is looking at giving new opportunities for publishing to faculty that are also alternatives to some of the commercial publishers that are providing some of the conflict here, and likewise my own profession is doing the same thing. Higher education has a joint legal fund where we go before Congress to try to comment on these, and I will tell you that in many cases it has stopped some truly atrocious legislation. But if you were to attend one of those, you would see two lawyers for us and a room full for the private sector, so I think we also need to understand that there are very deep pockets involved in this that we're playing with.

Wayne R. Curtis: Just to go to a very specific line that ties some of these together, and that was on page 33. That says, "Faculty-owned courseware". There's a sentence there, "The university will claim the right to a non-exclusive, royalty-free license in perpetuity, to use the resulting courseware in education programs under the university's supervision and control". Now I look at this in the context that if you develop a virtual text in a sense I would never leave Penn State, but if I would, Penn State essentially retains the right to use everything I've created because I didn't make it and print it as a textbook. So if I retain the copyright so to speak, and don't sell it to a third party now, the university retains the right to in perpetuity use that information because it's "courseware".

Nancy Eaton: Gary would you like to comment on the use of courseware and those rights. Gary Miller is Vice President for Distance Education, and he probably deals with this more than anybody else.

Gary Miller, Outreach and Cooperative Extension: The point you're making between what is a real blurring of distinctions between textbooks as we currently understand them, and courses as we currently teach them, is really the critical issue that we're all trying to deal with when we create these policies and try to deal with the subtext around these policies. I think the way we perceive courseware is not just the content that you put on a file, or that you put on a web site, or that you put on a video tape that contains the content that was normally found in a textbook, or the content that you normally say was said in class as a lecture. The concept of courseware is that you're creating a complete learning environment, and that learning environment includes content, but it also includes mechanisms for interaction, and it also includes projects that students do together, self-assessment. All sorts of activities that constitute the whole learning process. And I understand when you're saying that someday that will all be publishable, but right now we're saying that constitutes what Penn State offers to students to credential them as having achieved three credits of "X" or some educational experience. What we're struggling with in the committee is that when we create that, and you create the entire course in an environment where the student does not have to be physically present in the classroom in order to have that experience, that is the total courseware. And trying to figure out then what rights the university should have to be able to use that environment, and bring students through that environment and what rights the faculty member should have to take that environment and make it portable and take it with him or her when they move to different jobs or whatever it might be. That's the crux of the issue as far as I can tell and it is blurring. I think probably ten years from now we'll need to revisit it again if not sooner, but right now that's the issue we're trying to deal with. That's a very difficult distinction to make.

Philip A. Klein, College of the Liberal Arts: It seems to me that one of the problems is that a textbook is copyrightable, and you can take that with you wherever you go. But this classroom environment you can't exactly lay claim to that, can you?

Nancy Eaton: Clearly as of today, the major focus of this is self-contained on-line courses that can be played over, that can be pirated, that can be used by our competitors to take the students that we would ourselves be recruiting. What it's going to look like five years from now is probably going to be more like the example you heard. Where it's very interactive, where it's much more of a portal than it is a self-defined thing. That moves us in to a whole different set of problems and we need to continue to track that so it's not one thing that we're talking about. But the language in here is really focused primarily on self-contained courses for the most part.

Nancy Wyatt, Delaware County Campus: This entire experience on line, I can't imagine it being usable five years out. I can't imagine programs that wouldn't become obsolete. With technology becoming obsolete, with course content becoming obsolete I don't understand why we should try to own it over 40 or 50 years. It just strikes me as odd.

Joan S. Thomson, College of Agricultural Sciences: In your opening comments you referenced a legislation at the federal level that it could be very damaging toward higher education. And if I understood you correctly, you indicated that you're monitoring and following that so that you can respond to the policies that are approaching. But is the university not trying to influence and shape the resulting legislation?

Nancy Eaton: We are...

Joan S. Thomson: Can you talk about that because you don't get any of that feeling--I didn't in this report--we're victims of our environment as the report suggests.

Nancy Eaton: Sure, and again as I mentioned earlier there are a lot of things going on in parallel that are beyond the focus of this report. For instance, in the World Intellectual Property Organization which are the international treaty discussions, we have representation from both higher education and the library community that we've been able to get named as representatives to that. And last year they were able to stop some really devastating database legislation, which is still before Congress here in another version. We have the legislative fund where higher education responds to everything that comes before Congress, and comments on it and we have our own representatives that work with those offices. In terms of Pennsylvania and USIDA, which is commercial law, the Pennsylvania Library Association working with the American Library Association is monitoring every single state at every stage of that legislation to be able to provide comment before the legislatures, etc. So we are involved in the political process that goes far beyond this report.

Alan W. Scaroni, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences: This whole virtual learning environment involves students and to the extent that they participate in the creation of the intellectual property around it. It's not clear to me how either the university or the faculty can lay claim?

Nancy Eaton: Somewhere in here, and I'm not sure I can find it at this moment, there is language that says that student participation in these things must be recognized. Now again, if the material falls in the category that it's clearly faculty owned, it's not an issue. If it's clearly university produced it's not an issue. That middle category where it's collaborative is very much an area where students can be involved and where as you negotiate who has what rights, there should be negotiation in there.

Jamie M. Myers: I just want to rise one more time to say you cannot copyright human activity. You can't copyright learning activity and really want to emphasize again that I know people who have written printed textbooks that have tried to do everything you've described in a CD-ROM textbook. They have to do similar things. I really think that the crux of the matter is not the difference in electronic it's the difference in regulation. We understand how to regulate printed materials; it has been around a long time, we don't understand how to regulate this electronic stuff and in my opinion it's not Penn State's role to regulate electronic textbooks. We haven't lost credit hours either have we?

Louis Milakofsky, Penn State Berks-Lehigh Valley: It appears to me that it is a very simple model; I'm not a lawyer but I am a faculty member. But the object of this process is for learning and teaching. Many times I go into class and I teach a fairly difficult undergraduate course, organic chemistry. Many times I'm tested whether this technique or process is due to grab on and work and for this idea here it appears to me that I first have to call and put this on electronic, I have to get the permission of the university first, that takes a while. Then I have to go through the process. Wouldn't it be much more interesting to allow the faculty member to test it, allow the students to see whether it works or not? And they can tell you very quickly in either an examination or a quiz or a student evaluation whether it works or not. And then when you think you have it right then come to the university and decide what the legal ramifications of this are. This is the academic freedom you have in the classroom, ladies and gentlemen, and that's the way I look at it. It's the same thing I do in my research effort. I don't go to a publisher and say, "gee, this is the out result of working at the lab end". And then after it gets approved in some way then they ask me to sign off on the copyright...

Nancy Eaton: I believe that's actually what this says. Only at the point that it becomes a potential product does the permissions part of it come into play.

Louis Milakofsky: Well I'm not sure in the case of courseware when you have to go through your department head and that's my concern...

Nancy Eaton: Again, that is only at the point that it's starting to become a product...

Louis Milakofsky: Well I'm not sure about the timing...

Nancy Eaton: Well we'll take...

Louis Milakofsky: That's my concern...

Nancy Eaton: It's a comment we'll take into account and take a look at the language...

Louis Milakofsky: That's my concern in this particular issue.

Nancy Eaton: Thank you.

P. Peter Rebane, Penn State Abington: I would also like to ask a very simple question. I would like to understand this. Much like an American society, I feel somebody thinks that a law case we really don't want law to speak. But if you look at page 54, it says here Determination of Significant Use of University Facilities Form, "used to determine whether significant use of university facilities has been used by the inventor to warrant Penn State ownership of the invention." I would just like to add a very simple question. If I write a book on dealing with history, I use the university library, I correspond with fellow colleagues using university email. I use university pencils to mark up articles, I use university travel funds to present part of this at a conference. Could you just tell me have I used significant university facilities to warrant Penn State ownership of the book that I publish? And how much of university facility would I have to use for Penn State to have a right to claim ownership of that book that I mention produced? Thank you.

Nancy Eaton: The answer to that is you do not have to request it at all under the definitions in this report, for the item that you described.

William A. Rowe, College of Medicine: I think the problem a lot of us have is distinguishing content versus a total product. I think that's a key difference. Understanding when reading this, there's really no change in the policy in total content. What we write is our work--intellectual property--whether we write an article or we write a textbook or we write it on CD-ROM. The issue is more as a part of a course. If we develop an entire course here at Penn State, at the College of Medicine or wherever, that course is part of the university curriculum. When we go to leave, that course is still there. It might be taught by someone else, modified by someone else, but the course is still there. What I'm getting at with this idea is to protect that course from Joe's University Bar and Grill from taking that course that you developed on-line and putting it on their own web site and saying, "okay, this is the equivalent of what Penn State might offer you".

Nancy Eaton: I think you've captured the intent of the report.

Chair Nelson: We have about three or four minutes, so I'm going to ask John if he'd like to return to the podium and address and have you folks address anything with the other parts of the report because we've been limiting ourselves. I want to thank Nancy for leading this in a very able manner.

John W. Moore, College of the Liberal Arts: If anybody has any questions about patents, start-up companies, Penn State Research Foundation, things like that.

Chair Nelson: This is the chance to make any comments you want. We have three or four minutes and that's what I'm going to limit it to.

Wayne R. Curtis: For the past year and a half, I've filed one patent and two provisionals and in reading this document it tends to talk more about what I would consider protection of intellectual property, as opposed to creation of intellectual property. I think most of why intellectual property that is not created is because we don't properly do the invention disclosure process. And I found the recommending step in this process of doing invention disclosures to be there was virtually no help at that phase. Once you actually disclose the invention, and go to the next stage of doing a provisional patent and a patent the university... I read it more like, let's have more lawyers in this as opposed to let's have more people who are technology competent to help me write the proper invention disclosure as opposed to protect my patent once I get it.

Chair Nelson: This is Harry Allcock, who you may or may not know who was a Professor of Chemistry and has filed a zillion patents and also is a member of the task force. Wasn't it a zillion, Harry?

Harry Allcock, Member, Task Force on Intellectual Property Policies and Procedures: Almost. I agree with your assessment and I think one of the reasons why we suggested very strongly that the university invest far more money in the intellectual property process is that there are too few people helping faculty members to write patents and understand just how the patenting process works. I agree with you there is no need to hire four or five additional lawyers to take care of this. What we need is a system which has been proposed in the report that is user friendly in the sense that any faculty member who believes that he or she has a patentable invention would get a great deal of help from the Intellectual Property Office, which is seriously understaffed at the present time. If you read some of the details you would see that our intellectual property support staff is roughly one-half of that found in comparable research universities. So that is the idea to do precisely what you have described, and to do it as quickly as possible.

Leonard J. Berkowitz, York Campus: I'd like to turn to page 37, Recommendations for Administrative Structure. Just a couple minor comments. First I don't understand the difference between number two and four? Item two talks about aspects of intellectual property management pertaining to instruction and the classroom use, and four is intellectual property issues affecting teaching. I kind of thought they would both overlap. But the second issue is it suggests the vice president for research work with the provost, and the vice president for outreach in one and with the provost in the other but there's no mention of the dean for undergraduate education. I'd assume that's a natural addition to whatever single recommendation without printing this here.

Harry Allcock: I think that's a very good point. We'll make a note of it.

Chair Nelson: Other comments or questions? We can take one more, we don't have to. Okay, seeing none I want to thank Nancy Eaton, John Leathers, John Moore, Harry Allcock, the members of the task force who are here today, Gary Miller to respond. I want to thank you all for participating. We do have a very full Agenda, so we will move ahead. At the Senate Council meeting on April 11, 2000 the council approved the reordering of the Agenda so that the advisory/consultative report from research regarding intellectual property would directly follow the forensic session that you just participated in. Thus our advisory/consultative reports today will start with the Senate Committee on Research and the Intellectual Property is Appendix "C". Thomas Jackson the chair of the committee is here.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH

Thomas N. Jackson, Chair, Senate Committee on Research

Thomas N. Jackson, College of Engineering: In the executive summary, section six under Uses of This Report, under Rationale it reads, "The Task Force has not attempted in this report to develop the detailed policies, procedures, and programs needed to solve the critical problems mentioned above." And in his introduction John Leathers also emphasized that point that the work of the task force represents just a beginning, not a conclusion to the process of developing a new consistent set of intellectual property practices and policies for Penn State. The Senate Committee on Research is concerned because the task force report is prepared in response to a formal charge. The first element of that charge which reads, "establish a consistent set of university policies and procedures for intellectual property," that there's value in emphasizing that that is not what the report has done. This is not meant to reflect negatively in any way on the work of the task force. The scope and the magnitude of the task that the task force grappled with was far larger than was expected when the task force began its work. The task force has done an extremely valuable job in providing an informational foundation. We commend the task force for that work and look for that information as well as the results of this forensic session to be used as a foundation for new bodies who would develop the policy. Our concern is to make it clear that that job has not yet been done and so that is what leads to the recommendations you have before you.

Chair Nelson: Comments and questions for Tom? Jamie, I'm sorry, Tom.

Thomas N. Jackson: I don't want to cut off Jamie but it would make sense if John Nichols could go first because their committee has worked with us.

Chair Nelson: Okay, Jamie I'll get right back to you. John Nichols is chair of the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs and would like to make some comments in regard to their committee's feeling about this. They reviewed and discussed it this morning and John is going to share some of that discussion with us, I'm assuming.

John S. Nichols, College of Communications: The Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs voted this morning to co-sponsor this advisory/consultative report with the following amendment. The second bold faced recommendation on page two of Appendix "C" would read as follows, "The Senate Committees on Research and Faculty Affairs recommend that the Vice President for Research and the Chair of the Senate jointly appoint small bodies to focus on copyright, patent, and courseware policy issues separately. Such bodies would be composed of equal number of faculty representatives and administrative representatives and chaired by a faculty member." The intent and spirit of this amendment are that intellectual property policies at Penn State should be implemented through a collegial partnership between the administration and faculty.

Thomas N. Jackson: I have surveyed a number of members of the Senate Committee on Research. Our preference would have been to leave more flexibility in how those committees should be constituted. But we see great value in having co-sponsorship from the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs and we are willing to accept this as a friendly amendment.

Chair Nelson: So the advisory/consultative report before you has been amended as John had written, so that's what we ultimately will be voting on.

Jamie M. Myers: My question was do we need to add to that amended statement now that policies be brought back to the Senate in the form of advisory/consultative reports through the Senate Committees on Research and Faculty Affairs. Or can the administration implement policies based on these small groups that are being set up?

Thomas N. Jackson: It's a good question. The task force report itself asks that the process of implementation be done in partnership with the Senate. That certainly is the expectation. I think the amendment from the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs strengthens that by asking that the committees or bodies be appointed jointly by the Vice President for Research and the Chair of the Senate. So I have reasonable confidence that will be done in partnership with the Senate.

John W. Moore: A couple of things I wanted to say. My initial reaction to the report as you know, was to feel that until John Nichols made this friendly amendment a moment ago, was that this advisory/consultative report is redundant because everything that it has said appears in the report. And it appears to me that the power and futility of the recommendation is something that underlines the necessity of how this is implemented. I just want to point out that I think that John's report changes my attitude towards this, and it's not now entirely redundant. But what Jamie just said that we do as part of the report that we do recommend that each new policy be brought to the University Faculty Senate as an advisory/consultative report. And we also want to point out that we certainly felt all along that faculty should play a very important role in developing the policies which would result from this report. So I don't see that there's really any great distance at all between the task force, and the document as it exists right now.

Thomas N. Jackson: And I certainly would agree with that. It was intended that the spirit of the advisory/consultative report from the Senate Committee on Research and now the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs be consistent with that of the interim report itself. Our concern was that because the report was prepared in response to a formal charge that it be used in the way that the task force itself has stated that it should be used --and that is as information, and not as a policy setting framework.

Leonard J. Berkowitz: It's still not clear whether we got the concern Jamie talked about settled. It may be best if we're going to provide a formal piece of legislation as advice and consultation, that we might want to add to what we already have, a third piece that states explicitly the reports from these committees shall be brought to the Senate for its advice and consultation. I think we need to be absolutely explicit so that it comes back.

Chair Nelson: Is that a motion?

Leonard J. Berkowitz: I move that the amendment be made.

Senators: Second.

Chair Nelson: Moved and seconded. Discussion on this proposed amendment? Unless you want to just accept it as a friendly amendment, Tom and John?

Thomas N. Jackson: I think we're willing to do that.

Chair Nelson: Okay, then we needn't do so. It is now added. Do you want to repeat it again for the record? Does anyone want to hear it again?

Senators: Yes.

Chair Nelson: Leonard could you just say it one more time?

Leonard J. Berkowitz: The reports from these committees shall be brought to the Senate for its advice and consultation.

Chair Nelson: Thank you. Other comments or questions?

Wayne R. Curtis: In reading this, to me the circumstances we're creating, policy based on definitions which are evolving, and the last thing in the world I wanted to see is administrators given the ability to write polices and make up the definitions. So given those two circumstances, I saw that there's obviously a need for this to be done but was inadequate, meaning we need more. The one stage of more is the Senate involvement and the second that it actually comes back. I would actually say that the majority should be faculty, not equal administrators and faculty. I like that better, and I don't see why we should give up having that.

Thomas N. Jackson: Sounds like a volunteer.

Chair Nelson: Other comments or questions? Okay, seeing none I'll assume we're ready to vote. All those in favor of this advisory/consultative report as amended, please signify by saying, "aye."

Senators: Aye.

Chair Nelson: Any opposed, "nay"? The "ayes" have it. Thank you very much Tom.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMITTEES AND RULES

Nancy J. Wyatt, Chair, Senate Committee on Committees and Rules

Chair Nelson: We now move to unfinished business. From the Senate Committee on Committees and Rules the Revision of Constitution, Article I, Section 1, Appendix "D". This report was discussed at the March 28, 2000 meeting, however, because it is a change to our Constitution, the report had to lay on the table for one month. If there are no questions or discussion we can vote on the report now. Are there questions? Seeing none all those in favor of this report, please signify by saying, "aye."

Senators: Aye.

Chair Nelson: Any opposed, "nay"? The "ayes" have it. Thank you.

None

Chair Nelson: We are now back to advisory/consultative reports. The first is the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education. It is Appendix "E" Toward a More Vibrant Learning Culture at Penn State. Jamie Myers will introduce James Brasseur who will present the report.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION

Jamie M. Myers, Chair, Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education

Jamie M. Myers: Thank you. We often talk about improving the learning at Penn State, and James Brasseur and the subcommittee have worked hard at trying to put some definition to what a better learning environment is for the classroom in terms of the expectations for teachers and students.

James G. Brasseur, College of Engineering: This is a project that began some years ago, in fact we were debating whether it was three or four years ago, when I joined the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education and began making some statements that led to the formation of this committee called the Subcommittee on the Learning Culture at Penn State under the Undergraduate Education Committee of the Faculty Senate. The seven members met for at least three years and what we are presenting to you today is the report that was generated as a result of that. The project is really only begun, and we wanted to acknowledge specially these three students who are on the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education who provided significant input to the report by taking earlier versions of the report back to student bodies, receiving comments and summarizing the comments and feeding it back to us. So their input is definitely represented in the committee report. As we went through our years of discussion we kept coming back to the sort of philosophy of what it is we're trying to do. And we felt very strongly that it was critical to maintain a very clear and a very well presented philosophy for everything that follows. Because the issues that we're discussing are not simple, they're multi-faceted, they involve many different interacting elements both on the student side, on the teaching side and on the administrator side of the university. When we were discussing this more recently we had looked at one of the versions of the report and realized that it sort of had connotations to it that didn't really reflect what we were trying to say. And we realize that we were trying to imagine an environment that I think most of us have experienced at least at some point in our lives, in our history, where you are caught up in a very special energetic atmosphere that it is so energetic that it naturally makes you want to move forward personally in your own learning process. It makes you want to work hard. It makes you want to contribute. It makes you want to go home in the evening and read and study. It makes you want to go to the library and makes you want to meet with other groups who are trying to understand more and pursue more. This is really what we're after at this university and we're looking for different ways of moving in that direction. We decided to call this thing that we're trying to achieve over time a vibrant learning culture. I picked out two statements from the report to bring out this philosophy and one is this notion of an atmosphere that there's just so much going on that you just get caught up in it, and this involves both undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate elements of the university. This involves undergraduate students and graduate students interacting. Graduate students and faculty interacting and it involves visitors, it involves research associates, it involves just the overall intellectual climate at the university. But then more specifically there's the issue of learning. We are a teaching organization and as a teaching organization we want our undergraduate students to get caught up in this atmosphere. So the second half of the statement is where learning is so thick in the air it is palpable. We want our undergraduates to feel it. We want them to be in an environment where at least the majority of them will get caught up in something that they themselves want to pursue and are willing to work hard to pursue it. I'd like to emphasize that this is multi-faceted and it's non-trivial. It has many interacting elements associated with it. What we are proposing in this report is definitely not the end it's only a piece of a very large matrix of interacting elements and we want to make it quite clear that there are many other things that can be done, have been done and should continue to be done at this university. So don't please get the impression that we are proposing something that we think is going to answer this question of how to create a more vibrant learning culture. It's only a piece of the puzzle. That piece of the puzzle that we focus on is at least at the undergraduate level perhaps the most important piece. And that is the process of learning that our students go through. The process that we create as teachers but as importantly the process that the students create for themselves as a result of being at this university and interacting with us. In order to sort of bring out one statistic or one special thing that happened in the past at this university that I think that underlies some of what we're talking about here, I went back to this report that was created in 1987 by Willits, Moore and Enerson and what's wonderful about this document if you haven't seen it I highly recommend you see it and read it. If you've read it in the past it's worth reading again. And what's beautiful about it is two things--one is it's at Penn State, it's not some other university, it's Penn State University. And the second thing it has real statistics in it that are useful. That is to say that there's information, quantitative information, in this report that have some important messages behind them. This report summarized a survey of 1,960 students and 1,840 teachers, 52 percent response rate from students and 53 percent response rate from the teachers, so that's a very good response rate. Much of the report is based on 25 specific questions that were asked that relate to the teaching environment more than the learning environment but obviously they have a lot to do with the learning environment as well. I'm not going to ask you to read these I'm simply outlining these 25 different specific issues. Many things they asked the students and the faculty, but one of the things that they compared was the faculty perception of what's important in learning and teaching and what's important from the student's point of view, and they compared these. The black bars being the students and the light bars being the teachers and most of them were reasonably close. If you took the three that had the largest disparity in them and those are the ones with the red dots. It's interesting to identify what those three were and they were these. They asked the students and the faculty how important it was to stimulate intellectual curiosity in the classroom. There was a 17 percent difference. The students felt it was less important than the faculty. They asked how important it was to stimulate thinking in the classroom. There was a nine percent difference there with the students on the low side. They asked how important is it to maintain structure in the classroom that's conducive to the learning process and again there was a nine percent disparity. The important point here is that there is a difference between what we regard as teachers to be important to learn and what the students regard as what's important to learn. There was a very good piece of news that came out of this report that balances as it were the one that I just gave you. And that is they asked the students when you grade professors in their courses how important do you think it is in terms of the score you give them. How important do you think it is that you've learned, and the answer was very important. And I'll just quote this last statement from the report, "perhaps the most stunning finding is that the most powerful predictor of students overall evaluation in a course was the amount they felt they had learned in the course". So it's interesting that there are these two statistics that seem like they kind of contradict each other, but I think they point very clearly to what we're trying to get out in this report. I'd like to quote from our report, "The recommendations in this proposal address the partnership between the faculty teacher and the student learner in the personal process of learning, with a focus on the maturation of the students in the learning process. Our report addresses the question, what are the more essential elements to learn?" In other words we'd like to focus on the student in the learning process--on the learning process itself, and we'd like to encourage teachers ourselves to focus more in our teaching on what it is that is involved in learning no matter what your subject is. So this report has two primary elements to it. The first is kind of a summary and this is probably what we spent most of our time doing over the last three years after we figured out what it was we were trying to do. To try to summarize the essential elements in the learning process and we distilled these down into what we called expectations. These expectations have both from the student point of view and from the teacher's point of view--they're aimed at the student, that is what's required to learn. So obviously the learner is by definition the student, so they focus on the student in the learning process. But of course in order to provide these elements the teacher has to carry out certain things and there are certain expectations also from the point of view of the teacher. So we did our best to summarize these and I think in a sense this is at the heart of this report, that is, what these expectations are and then communicating them not only verbally, but in the way we teach to our students. The second, and pretty much all the recommendations that you are to vote on today have to do with these expectations and communicating them at different levels in the university and the student's academic career. The second part of the report is the collection of data that will help both the students learn and the faculty teach in an interactive process, in a feedback process. Now we are not suggesting a process, we are suggesting a committee be developed under the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education next year and we propose some ideas that they might use in order to develop a future advisory/consultative report to bring to the Faculty Senate, perhaps next year or the year after that.

Todd D. Ellis: At the moment I'm not sure how many other students are still here. Erika Fullerton will be back, she worked a lot on this process. We met as a caucus of Faculty Senators last night and tried to discuss a lot of the issues that came up. In all the discussions that we had recently that led to the feedback was that we were concerned that this idea of these recommendations toward a more vibrant learning environment not be used as something to hold over a student's head. Which is something that could be very easily construed out of this with the exception of the statement where it says the teacher in the learning process. I think it's important from the student perspective to realize that if this is going to be used as a vehicle to make students accountable to these expectations, it should also be used equally as a vehicle to hold faculty accountable to the recommendations and communicating what they expect. And I think it's important as was said we're trying to get toward a more vibrant learning culture and it's got to be worked out for both ends. Not the students are messing up and let's make sure that they get better at it. I already put myself in the perspective as somebody that didn't already adhere by a lot of these but I think it's important that we make sure that all of us are very well versed in what we're expecting students to know. This is what you're going to have to do to succeed and that every faculty member let the students know in their class this is what I expect of you to succeed. And I think that's really what that whole last part is about, the teacher letting the students know this is what we expect from you to succeed. And not just use that very first part as something that you think that we've already said at the beginning. We'll have to hold you accountable to that. I think it's something we all have to realize that's done kind of on an individual student to a faculty member.

P. Peter Rebane: It's very hard to argue that we all would like to create a better learning environment, and perhaps most of my colleagues who deal mostly with freshmen and sophomores who get brought in rough hewn and who we polish up for our colleagues up here so they can worry about how well they graduate. However, I do have some very practical problems and I try to take a page from Philip Klein's book, but as I look at this, practically one of the things that for instance when you look at the recommendations and may I address my colleagues to that. I'm concerned under recommendation two, our First Year Seminars are moving more and more in the direction of what we voted they shouldn't be, i.e., teaching time management, expectations, civil behavior and so on. I have many units where a freshmen seminar is one credit I find it very difficult as an academician, as well as teaching these practical things. I'm wondering how much we are going to alter the Senate's intent of having First Year Seminars when we make this a vehicle for carrying along these very things like time management and so on. Secondly, it really bothers me when we have language such as, "an appropriate university agency develop things". I'd like to have a little bit more clarification of what this university agency is that's going to develop, catalogue, disseminate, time management and other related tools and we talk about putting them on web based tools and so on. Is this going to be something that is going to be done by a particular college out there? Is there an administrative unit that does this? Will this be equally applicable at all locations around the state? I think that there's costing and time involved with all of that. Finally, under number five, I think at the Senate Council meeting I was at least partially responsible to taking the so called considerations and placing them at the end as an appendix. However, as you made the statement that the new committee should look at all these things and come up with some kind of feedback loops and so on. But if I look at recommendation number 5b, it says that this report be developed with the considerations below. And that seems to me to be a very clear statement, that if a committee appended these considerations in the appendix, these were sort of the guidelines. And then if I look at the last page, I would like to ask how to rule out the argument about faculty evaluations in class which became SRTEs, and we were guaranteed that these would be the instructor's property only for the use of review of the teaching. As you all know, SRTEs are not statistical studies used for personnel decisions, and I would like to know these feedback loops with first and second year surveys and global follow-ups. Who is going to use these results? What guarantee do we have that five or six years from now it would not end up as personnel decisions in the promotion and tenure procedure? And I'm a little bit leery about waiting for the recommendations the way they are currently stated on this. I guess I want a very clear clarification on who develops these assessment tools? Are they locally done? Are they university done? Who administers them, and how they will eventually be used? I certainly have no objections to working harder, and I sure try to get my students to work harder. But I think there are recommendations in this that this Senate would look at very clearly and four or five years from now we will have other problems in our hands that we didn't expect. Thank you.

James G. Brasseur: I'd like to comment back on some of these if I may. You pointed out several things, and I'm not sure I can remember all of them. It probably would have been good if you had done one and then gone on afterwards. Anyway, let me go back to what I think was the beginning comment, and I think it relates also to the gentleman's comment back there. I think it's really important to appreciate that what we're not after here and I don't think the document makes this statement, is creating time management tools. I mean you picked that out from a document that has all sorts of other discussion contained within it. The time management tool was something specific that we did think would be a good idea, but it's not what this document is about. What this document is about is addressing the questions, "what really is necessary to learn?" And this question is extremely important both from the teachers and the learners point of view. The learner has to be clear. They have to understand if I might address you for a second, that I think most of us who teach have gone through the education process long before. And in addition, we have also gone through many years of research, and research in my view is the process of learning. In fact, I would say I learned more about the teaching process from my research than I did from listening to somebody tell me how to teach. And that's because I looked at myself and I said, "how do I learn?" What is the process I go through to learn? And that's really the starting point of this document. Now I know that sounds a little bit touchy feely and so that there's a tendency to want to grab on to the easy hard core stuff like time management tools to pick on. But I think it's important to appreciate that we're trying to develop a structure that sits underneath this philosophy that we have to teach the learning process. Now teaching the learning process, getting to your point about First Year Seminar is not having a class lecture on the learning process, that's ridiculous. That won't get anywhere. The point is that when you have your students carry out whatever work they do in whatever course you happen to be teaching and you're focusing on the process of learning and you're asking yourself, "what can I do for my students that will encourage them to learn better." So that even if they don't necessarily pick up all the details that I want them to pick up they will come out of my course better able to assimilate knowledge than they were when they came in to my course. And similarly when they graduate from our programs. So it's the process we're after, it's not the details and it's up to you as an individual faculty member to decide how that process best works for you in your class. What we're saying, focus on the process, and we're saying that both to the teachers and to the students. Finally, the last part that you brought up specifically having to do with the item five recommendation towards the development of instruments to assess change in student learning and constructive feedback loops. I want to make it absolutely clear that you are not voting on developing an assessment and feedback tool. What you are voting on is the formation of a committee under the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education to work very hard, and for very long on trying to develop ideas that you know, perhaps use the ideas in this report in the appendix as a starting point. But it's up to that committee to decide whether they want to retain or develop new ideas, and eventually come back to the Senate with an advisory/consultative report to be voted on. You are not voting on assessments now, you are voting on the formation of a committee to come back in the future with some specific recommendations. And I just wanted to point out that in our Undergraduate Education Committee we had a big discussion about that this morning and Jamie and various other people on the committee are very enthused, well, let's just say willing to take this task on.

Tamble T. Turner: With the consideration that concerns my colleague. I would like to commend the committee for distributing the report that seems to place the focus on teaching within a university, which we periodically say is about teaching. I'd also suggest that some of the recommendations that have been discussed could be a way of framing on-going discussion about active learning and about teaching portfolios which relate to legislation that have previously been passed by the Senate. Lastly I'd like to note that the best I can recall was three and a half years ago that James Brasseur brought this to the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education, and most particularly I would commend him for endurance in getting this report issued.

James G. Brasseur: Since you pointed that out, I'd like to point out William Lasher, this wouldn't have ended up if it hadn't been for Bill's insistence on this.

Zachary T. Irwin, Penn State Erie-The Behrend College: Just two questions. Was class size at all considered in your deliberations here, and the question of the learning culture? If so, what gets more attention? And second, the question of a student situation, an attitude towards learning being exacerbated by excessive work outside the class. My question is, is there any data about how many hours a week our students work and if so, how can that be engineered towards communicating expectations?

James G. Brasseur: Well the first question had to do with large class sizes, and in the sense that it was continually brought up in the discussions in the committee, yes it was discussed quite a lot. Why it explicitly didn't go in to the report as a statement was because it just didn't fit too explicitly. I guess the closest thing we got to it was saying, "alright, students who come into the university both through the orientation process and through the Fist Year Seminar process should be immediately sort of exposed to the learning". Explicitly say, "okay, what is required to learn?" Let's talk about it, let's find out that you are clear on it and that we're clear on it and there's many nuances. But yes, you're right we did not explicitly put it into the report. We weren't sure, it just didn't evolve that way. The second point, I've forgotten.

Zachary T. Irwin: The second point had to do with students working outside of class. I mean, with tuition going up, with relative wages going down, this is when you said the point was exacerbated, and something I would recommend that you try to study and bring back some data.

James G. Brasseur: The data does exist, I saw you shaking your head yes. Numbers were brought up, I don't have the numbers, but I do know that every time a number was brought up for the average number of hours the student spends outside of the classroom, we were always surprised at how low it was. But if anybody knows...

Zachary T. Irwin: I'm sorry that's not what I mean by hours outside the classroom. I mean jobs.

James G. Brasseur: Oh, I see. Bill do you want to comment on that because you were the one who was really concerned about jobs.

William C. Lasher, Penn State Erie-The Behrend College: I can say the committee did spend quite a bit of time talking about the issue of students working outside of class. It's mentioned in the report. We don't have any data other than you have your own data about it but I think one of the things that we wanted to do for example, was time management. One of the things that we were talking about is, have students put in a schedule and come back and just say okay, you just scheduled 240 hours a week what are you going to do about that. Possibly collecting some data in the future showing students the correlation between how many credits you are taking, how many hours you are working, and specifically what students doing that get hurt in grade point average. Yes, that's a very important part of it.

Chair Nelson: I'm going to take one more comment.

Cheryl L. Achterberg, Schreyer Honors College: I just wanted to try and help and answer this question. We are dredging up years of data here. There have been Pulse Surveys that explicitly collect the data of how many students have jobs, how many hours a week do they work, etc. There's also Pulse Survey data available on how many hours students spend studying. This has been one of the major drivers for the whole committee. One of the major drivers was the suggestion of time management tools being available so that students could actually map out how many hours do I spend doing X, Y, and Z. Maybe it would be part of CAAIS, maybe it would be part of something else. But if they have a part-time job and they're taking 15 hours of courses and we expect at least two hours of study for each hour of class. How many hours a week do they need to spend learning what they need to learn to accomplish the goals for class as well as their job. So when you're trying to push for tools among students and tools among advisers and also tools that help course instructors develop techniques and also devise assignments that are in keeping with the academic and advising that helps reach the end that we all desire for them. That's the main driver. The data from the Pulse Survey are available.

Chair Nelson: I'm going to call for a vote and this will be a vote taking the recommendations as a package. We are only voting on the recommendations and they are listed there. There are five, but we are taking them as a package. All those in favor of this report, please signify by saying, "aye."

Senators: Aye.

Chair Nelson: Any opposed, "nay"?

Senators: Nay.

Chair Nelson: Okay, thank you, the "ayes" have it. Now I'm going to tell you we have a couple of changes, thank you Jim. First because it follows most normally or follows naturally, we're going to have John Brighton present the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education, Update on the Teaching and Learning Consortium report. He'll take about 10 minutes on that then we are going to move to the report from the Senate Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics. Just so you know those things are coming up. I know you're excited, John.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION

Jamie M. Myers, Chair, Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education

John Brighton, University Professor: Thanks Murry. I know this is a long afternoon, and please stick with me because I really want to tell you some things that I think are important. This is a full Agenda and really a lot of important things being covered this afternoon and I do appreciate the opportunity to discuss the Teaching and Learning Consortium activities here today. I don't think there's anything that's more important than teaching and learning, and I'm glad to see that there are so many people still left here this afternoon to hear this and some other reports that will be coming. This discussion does follow the Brasseur and Lasher report, and I would say that I would typically strongly support that report. Because it is imagination, it is a positive way of looking at teaching and learning, which is something that we all do and have a passion for, and it does give guidance, although I think not direction. Let me start by giving some background where the TLC fits within the rest of activities that have come to the university. I think some of you can remember that are here the Scott Kretchmar committee that met for quite some time to deal with undergraduate education. An excellent job was done there and I think a good thing happened. The Pangborn committee on General Education requirements brought some very good activities and direction along the General Education area--active and collaborative learning, freshmen seminars, and several new things that were needed and I think are continuing to evolve through the Senate's implementation and review of courses to have those components to be part of that. The Academic Integrity report which came out of the Senate, was worked on with the deans, as well as the Senate is another piece of work, that I think is extremely important in improving the quality of education and defining things and stating how things should be carried out, so that there weren't very troublesome ambiguities and concerns about what to do and how to do it. And then I would say this last report that we just heard is a very important piece as well. The new IST school I think too comes in the category of work that's done here that's going to make a real difference in all of the university, which is what we're about. There are new learning support units that have emerged in the last few years too, that we don't think about every day, but they're with us and they are important. It was mentioned earlier, the Leonhard Center in the College of Engineering, the Schreyer Institute, the Royer Center servicing the commonwealth campuses, and the Center for Academic Computing Educational Technology Services. A lot has happened around teaching and learning at Penn State. When you look back and look at all of this stuff that is going on and it's very important and it really does make a difference. After eight years as provost I wanted to get back to focusing on efforts on teaching as well and so I asked Graham Spanier if I could move out of the provost position and put together a consortium on teaching and learning, and get back to teaching myself. And Arthur on your question to Graham, "what do you think about teaching and learning?" I think I would have to give him an A+ in terms of--one, approving this for me to have the best job in the university, and secondly for all that he's done as I've watched him work in that position as president. The idea here is to support one of the overarching goals of the university's strategic plan, and that's to improve learning. And so in July 1999 we had the formation of the TLC and I want to talk about the purpose of the TLC. And make it very clear that the purpose is to bring together leaders of key learning support uni