January 29th, 2007

Present: Simon Brassell, Sandra Dolby, Hal Evans, Roger Levesque (Recorder), Rosemary Lloyd (Acting Chair), and Patrick McNaughton

The meeting was convened at 3:57 pm.

We read and approved the minutes of our Jan. 22nd meeting.

We discussed the upcoming talks by Dr. Virginia Valian, one of the nation's foremost scholars of gender equity. Members expect to attend some of her presentations and report to us. It was noted that the focus on equity comes at an important time. As far as we know, the College has not reviewed, in a systematic fashion, issues of gender inequity in faculty salaries for a number of years. It was recalled that the last review identified a considerable number of faculty for adjustments in pay, but no one could point to policies or procedures that had been instituted to address the factors that had created the gender gap in pay in the first instance. We again urge faculty to consult our gender equity report, Gender Bias and the Faculty Gender Gap, at http://www.indiana.edu/~college/faculty/policy/collegepolicies/gender2005.shtml.

Our discussion of events aimed to raise gender equity awareness led to our discussion of the University’s Family Leave Policy. We have received correspondence identifying what we view as an unjust and unfair gap in the University’s treatment of parents who adopt children. The University has different ways of supporting parents who request maternity leave. We recognize that we are dealing with a very thorny issue but we were struck by a policy that supports leaves by essentially classifying it as a "medical disability" and, thus, awarding it as sick leave, available to a woman who gives birth. This becomes problematic when parents use up their other partially paid leaves and, for example, adopt a child. Also particularly problematic, for example, is the requirement that academic appointees may take family leave up to twice every five years. This limitation seems quite unfair for faculty who have children more frequently (either through birth or adoption), something not unlikely to happen given that faculty may postpone having children because of their needed academic training and tenure clock. It is our understanding that the Fringe Benefits Committee of the BFC will be working on this issue which ultimately will need to be supported and approved by the Board of Trustees. We were troubled by these issues but recognize that the current way for individuals to address them is to appeal to their department chairs and our own dean as well as the Dean of the Faculties. We also recognize that this ad hoc approach has important limitations. We expect to discuss this further to determine what, if anything, we can do to assist individuals and their families who fall within a gap in protection.

We proceeded to discuss yet another difficult issue: the tensions that arise between disciplinary hiring, on the one hand, and those of interdisciplinary, and otherwise targeted hiring (partners, minorities, senior women, and CTE and life sciences initiatives, etc.), on the other. We recognized that these issues deal with matters of equity and support interdisciplinary efforts, both of which we are committed to fostering. On the other hand, we learned that several departments have found themselves quite limited in their opportunities to hire in areas that the departments themselves view as essential to fill. It was noted that the lack of new lines to address some departments’ needs creates problems not just for departments that are unable to obtain lines but also for faculty morale (chairs get harshly criticized for failing to obtain direct lines and some departments get envious of others when they fail to realize that the lines were not new/direct/open). As we discussed, it became obvious that we were dealing with a matter that will require more input and discussion from the College and campus community.



We discussed e-mail correspondence regarding our proposed policy dealing with non-tenure-track appointments (NTTs). It was noted that the BFC may be taking action on issues regarding NTTs. We will await their actions before considering whether we need to revise our policies.

We examined our constitution. We came to the conclusion that, like the policies we examined and revised, it too requires updating. We spent considerable time discussing revisions that would make the constitution accord with better practices. As with the changes we have made to our policies, we will seek comments from the Dean and, eventually, College faculty before we decide to adopt amendments.

We returned to discuss progress in receiving nominees for next year's CPC election. Special thanks again go to Rosemary Lloyd.

Please do note that correspondence for this meeting should be sent to Rosemary Lloyd, at rolloyd@indiana.edu.

Roger Levesque, Recorder

Questions or comments regarding the minutes and actions of the College Policy Committee may be addressed to its Chair, Judith Anderson (anders@indiana.edu – 855-3845). Past minutes and College Policy Statements can be found at the CPC web page: www.indiana.edu/~college/faculty/policy/policies.shtml .