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Inside Iowa State
November 17, 2000

Faculty conduct policy to go another round

by Debra Gibson
A proposed conduct policy governing ISU faculty continues to elicit suggestions for revision, more than three years after the original draft was written.

So heightened is interest in the proposed policy that the Faculty Senate has scheduled a special meeting Nov. 28 to address questions on all aspects of this topic.

"We know there is the potential for more discussion than would fit into a regular [meeting] agenda," said David Hopper, Faculty Senate president.

The policy originally was drafted to meet National Institute of Health (NIH) guidelines, which require such policies before NIH research grants are awarded. Following a lengthy NIH review process, the policy was submitted to the American Association of University Professors for analysis. After that, the document was studied by a group of ISU administrators and faculty led by Richard Seagrave, chemical engineering. His appointment as interim president put a temporary halt to those meetings, which have yet to reconvene.

"Rather than wait for those sessions to begin again, we decided to resume discussions with the Faculty Senate," said Jack Girton, zoology/genetics, and chairperson of the committee that drafted the proposed policy.

According to Girton, the senate received a draft of the proposed policy nearly two years ago. Following two open forums and numerous focus groups, a series of revisions was incorporated into the existing draft.

In essence, the policy addresses three types of faculty misconduct:

• Personal misconduct, which might include abuse of power, sexual harassment, consenting relationships (where there is a reporting or evaluative relationship between the individuals), nepotism, criminal acts or acts of violence.
• Academic misconduct, which might include falsification of data, plagiarism, misappropriation of others' ideas, falsification of credentials or intentional misrepresentations of truth in teaching.
• Professional misconduct, which might include mismanagement of funds, misappropriation of equipment or university facilities, intentional deception or failure to report conflict of interest.

According to the draft, the specific goals of the policy are to protect academic freedom, provide due process, introduce peer review, provide consistent and uniform procedures, produce a reasonable scale of sanctions, increase efforts at informal resolution and provide benefits for both faculty and administration.

While few faculty quibble with the need for a conduct policy, there are those who find fault in particular with the complaint, investigation and sanctioning sections of the draft.

"Faculty want a bill of rights," said Chris Schilling, materials science and engineering, and Faculty Senate secretary. Schilling also participates frequently, with other conduct policy critics, in the campus "faculty values" listserv. "But when we [Schilling and other interested faculty] look at the draft, we have a number of concerns."

He mentioned these segments of the policy:

• Quality control of the investigation. "It's not clearly stated who pays for it, who conducts it, and what exactly the investigator does," Schilling said. "We want a qualified investigator who simply collects and verifies evidence."
• Better control of the public record. This refers to all investigation documentation, Schilling said, "and we want to know that if the record needs to be corrected, that effort will not be blocked."
• More clearly defined sanction processes. According to Schilling, the current policy draft does not include a provision requiring "a clear reason for the decision, a clear summary of the evidence considered, and a statement that no evidence was excluded."
• Role of the provost. The proposed policy assigns the provost office the task of administering all hearing and sanction activities in cases of alleged misconduct. "We have to ask how much power the provost has in this," Schilling said, "and we want any person in that position to be accountable." Schilling recommends creating an omsbuds position that would "separate the judge from the jury."

Girton responds, though, that centralizing those responsibilities within one office better ensures equity for faculty members.

"Right now, we have these types of decisions coming out of the provost office, the president's office and the office of the vice provost for research and graduate studies," he said. "In this situation, you could feasibly end up with several different sets of rules and significant differences in how people are treated. That's why it's so attractive to have all administrative action centralized in one office. And, quite frankly, it's the provost's job to run the academic aspects of this institution."

Though the policy most likely will undergo more revisions following the Nov. 28 meeting, Girton remains optimistic for the future of the plan.

"Overall, I think this has been a very good and very useful exercise," he said. "Faculty and the administration must share the responsibility for governing this institution.

"Hopefully, the majority will agree that what we end up with will help the university," Girton said.

The Nov. 28 meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in 2226 Veterinary Medicine.

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Revi sed 11/16/00