GEORGIA
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
THE EXECUTIVE BOARD
MINUTES
Meeting of
Held in the Poole Board Room of the
Members Present:
Agrawal (ChE); Allen (Arch); Boyd (Stu. Servcs); Chameau (Provost); Clough
(President); Evans (GTRI); Henry (OSP); Horton (GTRI); Jayaraman (Mgt); Kahn
(CEE); Marr (Psy); Peterson (ECE); Swank (GTRI); Telotte (LCC); Uzer (Phys.);
Warren (EDI); Alexander (Staff Rep); Michaels (G. Stu); Riddle (for Massey, U. Stu); Abdel-Khalik (SoF).
Members Absent: Mark
(CoC)
Visitors: Green (Math); May (Pres. Office); McDowell
(ME); McMath (Provost Office); Meyer (Library)
1.
Larry Kahn (Chair) opened the meeting at
a.
Rich DeMillo has accepted the position of Dean of
the
b.
Search process for a Director (“Chief”) of Campus
security is progressing; have met all four candidates; pleased with credentials
of candidate pool; as soon as the new Chief is in place, we will search for a
person to concentrate on emergency preparedness issues.
c.
Homecoming this week end; with input from the faculty
and the Deans, the Alumni Association (Joe Erwin) has decided to increase
emphasis on “academics” -- agenda will include a significant number of lectures
by faculty, all of which are oversubscribed; will present the State of the
Institute Address to the alumni.
d.
Last week a meeting was held at GT which included
White House staffers, Tom Bevan’s group, and top security officials from around
the State, to develop plans for information sharing between the local and
Federal levels; meeting attended by head of office of Information Technology
for the Office of Homeland Security -- provided a number of ideas for Georgia
Tech to work on; GTRI is to be complimented on organizing this event.
e.
Monday night we will have the first Institute Poetry
reading under the guidance of Tom Lux (Chaired Professor in poetry); Billy
Collins (former US Poet Laureate) will be one of the lead poets; event is
sold-out -- 1100+ expected to attend; great opportunity for the Georgia Tech
community to participate in such activities.
f.
Have just completed assignment dealing with Atlanta
Sewer system; rewarding to work with Mayor Franklin who brings the enthusiasm,
honesty, integrity, and vision needed by Atlanta; she announced the “Clean
Water Atlanta” program -- bold plan to clean the city waste and drinking water;
GT faculty have been closely involved; established an avenue for significant
future involvement by GT faculty with the city.
The President was asked to comment on the nature of the shuttle service
to be used to/from
2.
The Chair called for approval of the minutes of the
3.
The Chair called on Professor David McDowell (ME) to
present a status report on the activities of the Promotion and Tenure ADVANCE
Committee. (Copies
of the slides used in the presentation can be found at the web address
referenced below -- Attachment #2). McDowell
began by outlining the committee’s goals, namely: (a) identifying measures to
improve the Institute’s promotion and tenure processes, and (b) providing the
foundations for uniform administration of the process to guard against various
forms of bias. He described the expected
deliverables -- a report, a document of “best practices,” and a set of interactive
instructional materials for faculty involved in the RPT review processes. He provided a timetable for the committee’s
activities; the committee was appointed by the Provost last August (2002) and
is expected to complete its work in the spring (2003). The committee includes faculty members from
each of the six colleges, along with liaison members from the Provost’s office;
financial support is being provided by NSF.
McDowell indicated that the committee is approaching its assignment in a
“scholarly” fashion by examining the literature, conducting surveys, and
collecting data on various forms of bias. He discussed the different
forms/aspects of bias being explored by the committee -- both obvious (gender,
race, and ethnicity) and otherwise, including biases related to (a) the nature
of the faculty member’s contributions (engagement in interdisciplinary or
multidisciplinary research; teaming versus independent work; publishing venues;
balance of funding and intellectual products), (b) how the reviews are
conducted (selection/composition of review committees, use of citation index to
compare faculty in different disciplines), and (c) types of biased actions
encountered (e.g. assignment of resources and graduate students, service
activities, and mentoring/career advisement opportunities). He pointed to earlier publications from the
ADVANCE program, as well as other publications, including the report issued by
the Executive Board’s Ad Hoc Committee on RPT “best practices” (co-chaired by Leon McGinnis and Richard LeBlanc; see http://www.facultysenate.gatech.edu/zrtppractices.html).
He discussed three conditions to enhance equity: (a) providing more information
on the candidates, (b) clarification of criteria/standards, and (c)
openness/transparency of the evaluation process. He indicated that early observations of the
GT process point to significant differences at the unit level in the RPT
practices, the degree of “openness,” and completeness of written
guidelines. He also indicated that
existing documents do not address possible forms of bias. McDowell concluded his presentation by
commenting on the potential value of the interactive (CD-ROM based) educational
materials to be developed by his committee for faculty participants in the RPT
review process in various units to enhance their awareness of bias-related
issues.
A question was asked as to the cause of the large differences currently
present at the unit level and whether such differences mean that the Statutes
may not be followed. McDowell indicated
that the Statutes provide a great deal of leeway which results in different
approaches, which is not necessarily detrimental to the process. A question was asked as to other possible outcomes
from the committee’s work should there be a finding of bias in the current
process. McDowell indicated that the
committee findings will be documented in a report; it may be too early to say
whether this will result in a new set of guidelines/Statutes to be submitted
for faculty approval, however, development and dissemination of the
educational/training “awareness” materials should help in raising the standards
of fairness and equity. Horton commented that GTRI does not deal with tenure
issues, however, they are interested in the promotion process; he asked if the
committee would be interested in including a GTRI member in an ex-officio
capacity; McDowell responded positively; Horton indicated that he will
follow-up with GTRI management.
A question was asked as to how one would measure bias, other than from an
“operational” standpoint, versus “functional” bias where the system does not
work effectively from one year to another.
McDowell indicated that such information is very difficult to get at; however,
studies in the literature clearly show that individual bias exists in peer
evaluations, and that non-uniformity of procedures, committee selections, and
information sharing contribute to that bias.
It was pointed out that these are all “operational” factors; the
question is whether data from the previous decade or so show that there has
been preferential selection based upon non-academic factors. McDowell indicated that based on the work of
the ADVANCE program, it appears that systematic issues may indeed exist. A question was raised regarding the issue of
standards -- Since different disciplines/units may have different views as to
the relative importance of different scholarly activities (e.g. conference presentations
versus journal articles, or individual versus team efforts), does the committee
intend to ask the units to re-consider their assessment “standards”? McDowell indicated that the committee
recognizes that the assessment standards are highly discipline-dependent and
that it would not be wise/desirable to impose such uniformity; however, one
should be aware that, within a given set of standards, there may be bias in how
the faculty member’s contributions are assessed -- for example, studies show
that women contributing to group efforts do not get as much credit for such
activities as their male counterparts.
The President commented that this study can be very helpful to the
Institute in many ways; while there are differences among the disciplines in
how to evaluate scholarship, it would be helpful to have more uniformity in how
the candidates’ contributions are presented -- for example, some units
emphasize involvement in undergraduate research (an important Institute goal),
while others do not; some of the issues identified by this study will be common
to all faculty regardless of gender, ethnicity, etc.; the “nuances” may be very
important in identifying what needs to be fixed, e.g. a GT study was recently
conducted to compare the promotion rates for different groups (male, female, minority,
etc.); the results showed that there were no differences in the outcomes, which
may suggest that there was no bias; however, the process may have been much
harder on women. The Provost commented
that we should view the effort of the committee very positively; while the
overall data may indicate that the outcomes are similar, we want to improve the
process and eliminate systematic bias that people may not be aware of (e.g. how
group and/or international activities of female faculty are evaluated vis-à-vis
similar activities by male faculty). A question was asked regarding the
openness of the process and the impact of whether committees are appointed by
unit chairs or elected by faculty. McDowell indicated that there is a great
deal of variability on this issue and that we should attempt to become more
uniform. The Chair thanked Dr.
McDowell and the entire committee for their hard work and contributions to
improving an important process for the Institute.
4.
The Chair called on Dr. Richard Meyer (Library) to
present an overview of electronic publication and archiving of research
reports. Dr. Meyer indicated that his
presentation will be broadened to deal with the general issue of Institutional
Repositories. (Copies
of the slides used in the presentation can be found at the web address
referenced below -- Attachment #3).
Dr. Meyer provided background information on why scholars publish their
work, and why scholarly publications were established. He enumerated the values provided by the
print publishing process (establishing ownership of intellectual property,
certifying quality, dissemination, and archiving), and its weaknesses
(diffusion of IP through many journals, holding institutions hostage to
publisher monopolies, and inability to augment scholarly output with other
media). He noted that since 1986 the
average cost of serials has increased by nearly 250%, while monographs have
increased slightly more than the CPI (68%). As a result, GT may not be able to
keep all the journals we currently subscribe to; also funding available to
purchase monographs has diminished (nearly eliminated). Dr. Meyer distributed the results of a
statistical price analysis of nearly 3,300 Titles at GT, which lists
significantly-overpriced titles; if we were to cancel these titles (do not
believe we will do that), we could re-allocate 25% of acquisitions budget -- (See preliminary report cited below -- Attachment #4).
This phenomenon is one of the major forces which is helping to shift the
scholarly communications process to the electronic realm; opportunities exist
in the digital environment for faster communications among scholars, lowering
the costs, providing alternative peer-review processes, and multi-media
augmentation. Current national trends
include: (a) Networked digital library of theses and dissertations (established
at Virginia Tech, now 25-30 institutions participating), (b) The Open Archives
Initiative (establishes standards for applying metadata to resources stored in
a repository so that they can be efficiently harvested by search engines), (c)
collective establishment of digital repositories by ARL libraries, and (d)
consortia (e.g. SMETE -- part of Univ. Cal. system -- is a repository for
engineering learning objects).
Libraries have significant experience in metadata standards, database
maintenance and migration, and multi-media technology. While digital repositories can potentially
replace scholarly publications, they are meant to augment and expand access to information
-- complement the process of acquiring published literature. Dr. Meyer ended his presentation by outlining
current activities at Georgia Tech: (a) creating a platform for long-term
archiving of digital theses and dissertations synchronized with the national
effort (ETD’s task force), (b) electronic publication/archiving of Sponsored
research task force; library is the official archive for sponsored research
reports; cumbersome process to transmit printed reports; have started to
digitize about 2500 such reports; task force to create necessary mechanisms to
retain sponsored research reports in their initial digital form; create
platforms to allow easier access to the reports by the GT community, while
preventing un-authorized access to intellectual property. The library has also been asked to create a
digital repository for learning objects (Tom Barnwell -- longer term
project). Library has been extensively
re-organized to help implement these initiatives; created a new position of
Associate Director responsible for the technical services (interviewing; soon
to be appointed); support team to include a Digital Initiatives Manager.
A comment was made that the list of significantly-overpriced titles
appears to be dominated by Elsevier.
Meyers indicated that they are a tenacious protagonist; GT, UGA, Emory
and GSU have a joint agreement with Elsevier to limit costs; Elsevier is not
the only one on the list; some Professional Societies (e.g. ACS and APS) are
also on the list; they attempt to limit membership dues by raising revenues
from other sources, including publications.
A question was asked as to how this trend will impact academic and
research faculty; Meyer indicated that use/access data for dissertations
indicate that on-line availability increases access by two orders of magnitude;
GT’s own data on utilization of items placed on-reserve confirms such increase.
A question was asked about the cost data presented and whether the figures
refer only to the print version or the electronic version; Meyers indicated
that the data varies by publisher; they typically represent the cost for the
print version; beginning next year, we will get only the electronic
version. A question was raised about
security concerns; while it is understood that sponsored research reports
deposited with the library should not contain proprietary information, it may
be possible for someone to glean enough information to identify the type of
classified research going on at GT. Meyers recalled his experience in industry
and how they maintain their proprietary research, in order to allow them to
compete more effectively. He indicated
that the GT community needs to decide on the balance between maintaining
information isolated within the campus, and elevating the GT brand name; the
library will respond to the wishes of the campus community. The chair thanked Dr. Meyer for his
presentation.
5.
The Chair presented the proposed agenda for the Fall
meeting of the Academic Senate to be held on
6.
The Chair called on Abdel-Khalik, who reported on
the need to appoint the Nominations Committee for the Spring 2003
elections. Two EB members will co-chair
the committee; they, in turn, will recruit four other faculty members to serve
on the Committee -- the names are to be presented to the Board for approval at
the November 19 meeting. Traditionally,
the EB is represented by the Vice-Chair and another member from last year’s
committee; Jack Marr (EB Vice Chair) and Doug Allen (last year’s Committee
chair) have agreed to serve.
7.
The Chair called on Professor William Green, Chair
of the Institute Graduate Curriculum Committee, who requested that the Board
act on behalf of the Academic Senate to approve a change in the designator of
graduate courses offered by the
8.
The Chair called for any other business; hearing
none, he closed the meeting at
Respectfully
submitted,
Said
Abdel-Khalik
Secretary
of the Faculty
Attachments
(to be included with the archival copy of the minutes)