Minutes of the Meeting of the Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee
November 5, 2004, CA 233

The meeting of the FRRC was called to order at 9:05 A.M. by Greg Mayer, Chair. Also attending were members L. Allen, L. Gellott, J. Longeway, S. Norton, D. Walter, and E. Zepp. Member D. Holmes was present but was called away to pick up a sick child and arrived back too late to vote. J. Shailor was excused. Guests were T. Fossum, S. Hansen, and S. Haller.

1) The minutes of the meeting of October 22, 2004 were approved unanimously.

2) The first order of business was the grievance against W. Feldt, G. Mayer, and G. Wood from the Computer Science Executive Committee. Since he is named in the grievance, G. Mayer recused himself and, as had been agreed upon at the last meeting, L. Gellott assumed the Chair for the rest of the meeting. During the discussion, members of the CS Exec Comm were given ample opportunity to make statements and respond to questions from committee members.

a) The first question place on the floor was the question of whether the document submitted by the CS Exec Comm constituted a legitimate grievance.E. Zepp read into the record the definition of a grievance according to UWPF 7.17: "A grievance is defined as a personnel problem, experienced by a faculty member, that adversely affects him/her, arises from circumstances that he/she does not fully control, and is not covered by other personnel rules."

--The members of the committee discussed whether the grievance submitted was a "personnel problem" and whether the EC, as a body, not a person, could be considered within the perspective of a personnel problem.

b) Second was the consideration of the grievance document submitted by the CS Exec Comm--in particular, the statement of "Harm":
"The actions engaged in by Profs. Feldt, Wood, and Mayer have been harmful to the EC by

1. portraying the EC as irresponsible, both internal to UW-Parkside and to external constituencies; and

2. improperly influencing the ad-hoc committee by giving false information that could result in a long-term adverse effect on the intellectual and collegial climate of the CS Department."

--The committee members reaffirmed the statement made in the June 8th minutes of the FRRC, that "a recommendation to utilize UWPF 6.08 (4) did not impugn the expertise or good faith of the Computer Science Executive Committee."

--Members noted that it is impossible for the committee to determine whether the information given to the Notestein Committee influenced the committee in its decision. All the committee has is the Notestein Committee's report, which (Attachment M of the grievance) does not attach blame to the CS Exec Comm, but states only that "The communication (based on the information given to the committee) to Prof. McCann about how important scholarship would be in the tenure decision seems to be limited and unclear and may have led Prof. McCann to put less effort into this area than was expected by the CSCI executive committee."

--Members noted that the Notestein Committee process had not been invoked before. They also noted that the process was not done as well as it could have been.

John Longeway then moved that the FRRC accept for consideration the grievance of the Executive Committee of the Computer Science department as presented in the document of October 21, 2004. The motion was seconded by Lori Allen. The motion failed on a vote of 1 for, 4 against, and no abstentions (Greg Mayer was recused and Don Walter had to leave for class at 9:50, before the vote).

The meeting was adjourned at 9:55 A.M.

Submitted by Evelyn Zepp