Faculty Senate minutes - October 12, 2006 meeting
1. By unanimous voice vote, the Senate conferred baccalaureate degrees on the Summer Quarter candidates listed in SenD#5878, as recommended by the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies. 2. By unanimous voice vote, the Senate also conferred the various advanced degrees on the Summer Quarter candidates listed in SenD#5879, as recommended by the Committee on Graduate Studies.
3. By unanimous voice vote, the Thirty-ninth Senate authorized degree-nominating authority for the Master of Arts to the Executive Committee of the Interdisciplinary Program in African Studies, for an initial period of five years beginning September 1, 2007 through August 31, 2012..
EDWARD D. HARRIS, Academic Secretary to the University Minutes, OCT. 12 I. Call to OrderSheri Sheppard, the first woman to chair the Faculty Senate since Dr. Frances Conley, gaveled the first meeting of Senate 39 to order in Room 190 of the Law School, an unfamiliar venue. She explained that Larry Kramer, dean of the Law School, wished to explain the reasons that necessitated the move from room 180. He was unable to be present, but he had sent along a message that Professor Sheppard read to the Senate.
"As many of you know," Dean Kramer wrote, "the Law School is working hard to improve and increase the extent to which our program is integrated with that of the larger University. Hence, we have modified our calendar and made a variety of other changes so that law students and students from other schools and disciplines can share resources.
"Among the key changes have been altering the days of the week on which we offer courses. Formerly, most of our courses were taught on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, leaving our classrooms relatively unoccupied on Thursdays and Fridays. But this schedule created conflicts with classes outside the Law School, which tend to be Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Tuesday/Thursday. Hence, beginning this year, we have changed the days we offer many classes to match the University schedule, with the result that we now have more classes on Thursdays. Because the Law School has a limited number of classrooms, we ended up needing room 180 during the time the Senate meets.
"To some extent, the outcome was a product of our own inexperience with the new schedule, and we should be able to avoid similar problems in the future if the general sense of the Senate remains that room 180 is preferable. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope you find room 190 equally amenable."
II. Approval of Minutes - (SenD#5869)Although fewer than half of Senate 39 was in Senate 38, the minutes of the last meeting of Professor Robert's senate on June 15, 2006, were approved as submitted.
III. Action CalendarA. Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies: List of Candidates for Baccalaureate Degrees (SenD#5878)
The list of candidates for Baccalaureate degrees from the summer quarter, moved and seconded by the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy, was approved unanimously.
B. Committee on Graduate Studies: List of Candidates for Advanced Degrees (SenD#5879)
The list of candidates for Advanced degrees from the summer quarter, moved and seconded by the Committee on Graduate Studies, was approved unanimously.
C. Degrees Conferred Summary 7/1/05-6/30/06 (SenD#5881)
Professor Sheppard was pleased to call attention to "… a report that was compiled for us by Registrar Printup. It is a compilation of the data on bachelors, masters, and other advanced degrees over the last year. It is SenD#5881. No action is needed by us; it's really for our information. It was interesting to me that at the bachelor level, 37% of our degrees are interdisciplinary degrees. We have a large number of students who are tackling degrees that don't fall into our conventional bins. I want to thank Roger and his staff for compiling a lot of really interesting numbers and data."
D. Recommended Media Policy for Senate 39 (SenD#5880)
"This," the Chair pointed out, "is the same policy that's been adopted by the last 21 senates. It allows five guests to be reserved for members of the outside press. No cameras are allowed. Only Senate members and special guests identified by the chair may remain if the Senate goes into executive session. I should note that the Stanford Report, the Stanford Daily, and KZSU have regularly seated spots in the Senate chambers. This media policy comes to us recommended by the Senate Steering Committee. Is there any discussion on this item?"
Professor Rehm wondered about the rationale for requiring a two-day notice that outside media have to give the Senate before they are allowed to come. The Academic Secretary had not the foggiest notion of how that came to be, and Rehm continued. "I just was thinking…what should happen if something really of interest was to happen in the Senate that the media wanted to cover, but then we realized we couldn't get in because they hadn't given the two-day notice?" Exceptions to the rule could easily be granted, the Academic Secretary pointed out, and the Media Policy was approved unanimously.
Vice Provost Bravman chimed in at this point with a related comment. "Has the News Service hired or announced the name of the new university governance reporter to replace Ray Delgado?" Professor Sheppard knew the answer. "Michael Peña will be our Senate reporter. Ray Delgado, who has been the Senate reporter for the Stanford Report for several years, has taken a position with the Irvine Foundation in San Francisco."
IV. Standing ReportsA. Steering Committee
Professor Sheppard began by assuring all present that this would be a longer report than she would generally present. "In your packet, you'll find several documents that are informational and reference that you'll want to keep close for the year to reference things. There is a Web site for you that contains all of the minutes for this coming year as well as previous years' minutes for the Faculty Senate, a list of all the senators elected and the ex officio members, the agendae for our meetings, and a seating chart. There is a section on parliamentary procedure and I also reference my colleague, Ted Harris, who's the Academic Secretary, and will keep us honest in this regard."
Then, in consistent professorial form, Chair Sheppard showed some slides on the organization of the Senate. "I would, again, like to welcome you to the Senate. And, really, this welcome comes from me, as chair of the Senate, as well as my wonderful colleagues on the steering committee, who you elected last spring: Russell Berman, the vice chair, from German Studies; Tim Bresnahan, from Economics; Karen Cook, from sociology; Luis Fraga, from Political Science; Stephen Hinton, from Music; and David Stevenson, from Pediatrics. Also serving on the steering committee are Provost John Etchemendy and our Academic Secretary, Ted Harris. I must also point to the wonderful support that the Senate and the Steering Committee receive from Trish del Pozzo and Priscilla Johnson. They keep us ordered, and Laura Brewer, our transcript producer, keeps us recorded. And I've just found out that Laura has been doing this for the Senate for 12 years! She's probably sat in more Senate meetings than anybody else in this room."
After describing the election process of the Senate, Professor Sheppard pointed out that "…of the 55 elected senators, 27 of us have zero to one year of experience. We're a very young or 'new-blooded' Faculty Senate, if you will, probably among the newest blood since the Senate started in the late 1960s as the organization of faculty governance at Stanford. I will also note nine senators that I'll call the 'senior statesperson senators', each of whom have been around here six or more years. We'll definitely tap into their wisdom! They are John Bender, John Brauman, John Eaton, Marcus Feldman, Luis Fraga, Jeff Koseff, Gail Mahood, Eric Roberts, and James Van Horne. We expect to hear many cogent comments from each of you this year.
"A couple of other facts about Senate 39. Sixteen of the elected senators are women. That's 29% of us, larger than the percentage of women in the Academic Council, which is 22%. The full Academic Council is made up of roughly of 1400 eligible faculty for election to the Senate. The 55 of us represent 36 of the 60 distinct departments or units in the University.
"There are seven reserved seats in the Senate for standing guests. This year these are Professor Nancy Parker, who is serving as emerita representative. Her alternate is Professor emeritus Anthony Seigman. These emeriti have the privilege of the floor and will participate in discussions and debate, but they have no voting privileges. Among our other guests is a particularly outstanding one, Registrar Roger Printup, who has the privilege of the floor, and we have four seats for ASSU student government representatives the ASSU president, Elizabeth Heng, the student Senate chair, Hershey Avula, the ASSU representative at large, Theo Milonopoulos, and the Graduate Student Council representative, Adam Beberg.
"I've been having lunches with Ted and a number of the newer faculty members over the last couple of weeks. And one of the questions that came up from one of those members was 'What does the Senate do?' That prompted me to go back to the Articles of Organization of the Academic Council, a document last updated in 1977. It is written that '…the Senate is vested with all the powers and duties usually vested in the faculties of similar institutions to discuss and decide upon materials of internal policy, except as herein otherwise provided.' That really didn't tell me a whole lot!
"Instead, I thought that it might be more useful to illustrate just a little bit of what the Senate does by talking about the organization of the group and some of the responsibilities of the components. In the late '60s it was decided that having the whole Academic Council meeting together periodically to look at policy issues just wasn't working. The faculty was getting too large. As a result, the Faculty Senate was formed.
"There are two principal committees within the Senate. The Steering Committee has the responsibility of formulating the agenda for various Senate meetings. The other is the Committee on Committees that has responsibility for populating the seven committees that report to the Senate, whose charges are to determine policies for all of the academic programs in the University. They are:
Committee on Review of Undergraduate Majors (C-RUM), Howard Zebker, chair
Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid (C-UAFA), Ross Shachter, chair
Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies (C-USP), Eric Roberts, chair
Committee on Graduate Studies (C-GS), Philip Lavori, chair
Committee on Research (C-Res), Bernd Girod, chair
Committee on Libraries (C-Lib), Doug Brutlag, chair
Committee on Academic Computing and Information Systems (C-ACIS), Alex Aiken, chair"
It was pointed out that the charges to each of the Committees of the Academic Council can be found at the www.FacultySenate.stanford.edu web site.
Professor Sheppard then proceeded to recount some of the important issues and actions as well as reports received and discussed during Senate 38. These included presentation for senate approval of Interdisciplinary Programs (IDPs), reports from several of the seven Academic Council committees, information on multiple topics from both the President and Provost, and the executive sessions that are limited in attendance only to senators and specially invited guest. She emphasized the reports last year from the Commission on Graduate Education, and she stressed the importance of participation of the senators in forming the agendae. The Steering Committee will, she noted, "…listen to ideas that percolate up from your interests. That goes for executive sessions as well.
"Last year there was one on student health and the high levels of stress that they are bearing with expert presentations by Vaden Health Center physicians and faculty whose research interests were linked to this problem. There was a very lively… I wouldn't say heated… and earnest discussion about what our students are experiencing. Executive sessions happen after a Senate session that's ended a bit early. We retire to the Law School faculty lounge, have some refreshments and food, and talk and listen.
"The Steering Committee has three main topics that we'd like to build upon this year.
One is interdisciplinary research programs, a very timely and current topic on many fronts within the University. We will continue to ask questions about their intellectual fit for the university, where intellectual research endeavors in IDPs fit structurally, how they reward faculty and students, and how are they managed.
A second is graduate education, building on the Commission's work that was presented last year in the context of work that's already started. We want to carry forward on the Commission's plan, review of graduate student numbers and demographics, and explore possible changes in how graduate students are funded in the various schools.
The third theme is undergraduate education, previewing, if you will, the Area I review that's coming up in a year, and having some reports and descriptions of our students. What are they doing intellectually? For example, Andrea Lunsford has completed a longitudinal study that looks at undergraduate writing, and we will hear from her about this project. We want to examine undergraduate research, and freshman and sophomore seminars.
"Your Steering Committee and I want to make the Senate meetings informative, relevant, and as enjoyable as possible. And I want to remind you that this is your Senate, and the Steering Committee encourages each of you to be active participants in the debates, the discussions, the questioning. Now is the time that we want you go back to your departments to talk with your colleagues about what's important to them that we should consider in the Senate. And, I'm sure that all of you will give the Senate the time that it really deserves to be an active, vibrant part of the Stanford community.
"Now, I'd like to point out a few things that are on upcoming Senate agendas that start to build on those three themes. On October 28th, we'll be having a report by Bob Bowlsby, our newly appointed Director of Athletics who replaces Ted Leland. Also at that meeting we'll hear the Committee on Research's annual report.
"November 9th, a new senator, Mark Horowitz, will be report on graduate student leadership opportunities. We'll also hear a report on environmental and sustainability building issues around campus. I have to say the 'building and space issue' did come up in some of the lunches with the new senators.
"And on November 30th, Gail Mahood, another current senator, will report on graduate student diversity. We'll adjourn early that day to have an executive session."
C. Committee on Committees"Charles Prober," announced the Chair, "has agreed to chair CoC this year, and he will be joined by John Bender, Larry Bobo, Margaret Brandeau, Gordon Chang, Susanna Loeb, and Maureen McNichols. The CoC, I believe, has no report today.
"Before turning to the Provost for his remarks, I'd like to say how proud we are that one of our newly elected senators, Andrew Fire, was just awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine." This announcement precipitated prolonged and enthusiastic applause, and numerous flashes of cameras. Professor Fire was enticed to stand and recognize the homage of his colleagues.
D. Provost's Report"On that very upbeat note," said a smiling Professor Sheppard, "I will turn first to Provost John Etchemendy. There's a very important Senate tradition of the president and the provost taking time to make announcements or give reports to the Senate during Senate meetings. An equally important part of this tradition is that senators ask them questions after they make their comments and reports. And I should say… that senators' questions don't have to be related to what the president or provost talk about!
"Although they could be," she added after the laughter had died down. "And something else. In bygone years there was an unwritten law that questions from senators to the president and provost should be sent to them before the meeting. I'm pleased to say that this law has been stricken from the books. Your questions can be spontaneous ones. Sorry,… John and John!"
Provost Etchemendy began by formally noting Andrew Fire's accomplishment, and added his excitement that Roger Kornberg had received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry two days later in that previous week. Then, looking in the direction of senator Tim Bresnahan, chair of Economics, he said, "The Nobel prize for Economics…what happened to that?" Professor Bresnahan confided, "I'm working on it."
"Well," mused the Provost, "we didn't want to seem greedy…. I do want to tell you about a few appointments that were made over the summer. First of all, Ann Arvin has agreed to become the next Vice Provost and Dean of Research. And she'll take over for Artie Bienenstock on November 1st. Second, Patty Gumport of the School of Education will become the first Vice Provost for Graduate Education, effective January 1st. And until Patty is back from her sabbatical, Artie Bienenstock will serve as the acting VPGE.
And finally, after some arm-twisting, our fellow senator Mark Horowitz has agreed to be the Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Education in charge of new programs. That will allow Mark to help us bring to fruition some of the suggestions from the Commission on Graduate Education. I want to thank all three of them for agreeing to this important service.
"I have two departmental name changes that I want to announce. First of all, in the School of Earth Sciences, the Department of Petroleum Engineering has changed its name to Energy Resources Engineering, a very appropriate change that reflects the broader focus that that department is adopting. Second, in the School of Medicine, the Department of Molecular Pharmacology has changed its name to the Department of Chemical and Systems Biology, a change I've been awaiting for many years!
"And finally," said the Provost as the senators leaned forward on the edge of their seats, "I have to tell you that the Department of Orthopedic Surgery has changed the spelling of its name!" He refused to go into the details, but the suspicion spread throughout the Senate that, like the British societies and departments, the new spelling would be "Orthopaedics."
Despite the earlier exhortations, there were no questions for the Provost, and Professor Sheppard turned to John Hennessy for the President's report.
President's Report
President Hennessy began. "Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think everyone knows that on Tuesday of this week, we announced the new University campaign, "The Stanford Challenge."There has been a wonderful reception and enthusiastic endorsement of it by the Board of Trustees. We will attempt through this to raise $4.3 billion, a staggering number, but we believe that there is a compelling cause backing it.
"The focus of the fund-raising effort is in three main areas, the first being our research programs and improving our ability to engage in multidisciplinary research endeavors, not only through the three institutes which we've established, but as well the activities which we've established under the new Woods Institute for the Environment, and through a variety of efforts associated with human health, including initiatives in cancer, stem cell biology, Bio-X activity, the Bioengineering Department, and an activity in neurosciences, but also through a broad-based program that will seek to raise money for a variety of initiatives across the entire University.
"The second major focus of the campaign will be on education, continuing both our investment and enhancement of undergraduate education, particularly by trying to address those issues that often focus outside of the dorm, advising, and residential life that we have continuing needs for. We will also focus on the graduate level, with new programs that Mark Horowitz will be piloting. There will be a loan forgiveness program for students in the teacher training program in the School of Education that will permit us to remove the barrier of graduate school loans from our students who want to go into public school teaching. This is something that I think we should be incredibly proud of being able to do and we are the first university-funded large-scale program to do this in the country.
"The largest piece of the campaign will be reinforcing the foundations of our institution through an effort to raise additional financial aid at both the graduate level and the undergraduate level. We also will strengthen the core of the University, replacing facilities that are outmoded in many cases and need replacement, building up additional endowment for faculty so that we can continue to have strength across the University, and, of course, sustaining a growing amount of discretionary annual giving that primarily goes to support the activities of faculty and the students.
"Parenthetically, I must add that we tried to schedule our capital campaign announcements with other important news. Happily, Andy and Roger arranged their Nobel prise announcements on the days that we had not scheduled any campaign announcements. It was a marvelous week starting off with Andy's prize, followed by the loan forgiveness program, followed the next day with the announcement of Roger's prize, followed the next day with announcement of a $30 million gift from an alumnus, Jay Precourt for a program focusing on energy efficiency, the quickest way impact global warming, while we work longer-term on research and sustainable technologies.
"Finally an announcement, which, as I told our good friends, was a dream much deferred, the Bings have given us a gift for a new performing arts center, a concert hall. This will give us for the first time a venue where, when we bring in great artists, I won't have to apologize for the quality of the acoustics! Dinklespeil and Memorial Auditorium get a failing grade in acoustics.
"We have already raised $2.2 billion towards the $4.3 billion goal of this campaign. I think it is a wonderful sign of the tremendous affection that our alumni have for this institution. But I also say it is a tremendous sign of confidence in all of these activities that we're engaged in, and most of all, they believe that an investment in the faculty and students of this University is an investment that will reap dividends in the years ahead.
"Speaking of 'dividends in the years ahead' it's an interesting time to be doing this. We have been talking a lot about Roger Kornberg's Nobel prize, which, of course, came following his father's Nobel prize in 1959. That coincided roughly 50 years ago with the dates that brought the medical school back to the main campus, and at the same time, a decision to begin building SLAC. It is a remarkable convergence of fates that Roger's work has depended on the synchrotron radiation lab at SLAC. I predict that 50 years from now we will have a similar kind of payoff for our younger colleagues who will still be around, and, very indirectly, for those of us who will be looking down, smiling."
There was a pause as Professor Sheppard asked the senators if there were questions for the President. Professor Garcia-Molina then said, "Nothing on football or parking?"
Professor Wooley chimed in. "I was resisting asking the provost what he's going to do about the football team…" Provost Etchemendy had no problem answering. "We're going to win on Saturday, Homecoming weekend!" After another silence, President Hennessy said, "We're looking for faculty willing to suit up." And although Wooley claimed that the senators were too old to play, the President said, "I think you still have eligibility, Bruce."
V. Other ReportsA. Committee on Academic Computing and Information Systems (SenD#5873)
Professor Sheppard invited "…our fellow senator, Abbas El Gamal, last year's chair of C-ACIS, to come forward to highlight some of the items from the annual report.
Professor El Gamal was pleased to come down and talk. "Good afternoon. Before I begin, I'd like first to acknowledge the contributions of last year's committee members and also acknowledge the incredible amount of work that Phil Reese did to keep the committee from falling apart. Nothing I'm going to say here is not in the report. I'm only going to focus on two items that may be of interest to you to hear and discuss.
I'm going to focus on the last two topics, major campus-wide information technology system acquisition, and research computing. Recent problems with deploying the new student and human resource system and new financial systems is a good reason to discuss this topic.
"How do we determine the need for a new system or how do we go about determining a need? How do we decide the priorities for implementing such a system? How do we go about selecting the right system? And how do we monitor the implementation of the chosen system? We had two and a half meetings dedicated to this subject. These are all contained in Appendix 3 in the report.
"One thing that was interesting is that we discovered that there was no official history of the process that led to the Oracle decision. It was also not clear how decisions about large I.T. acquisitions are actually made in the University. Dr. Henry Lowe, who is the Senior Associate Dean for Information Resources and CIO of the School of Medicine added much to our discussion. He described the approach to employing an electronic patient record system for the School of Medicine. This is a humongous system, hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Here is some of what he said. He said the I.T. strategic plan, related to the strategic plan of the School of Medicine, was the driver and the key to the process of making the decisions. He said that we should not rely on I.T. people to make long range decisions, but only to be part of the vetting process. He said that it's not about the software, but a process to educate the community about the value and what features will be available. We should focus on surrounding issues and cultures within the organization. And finally, he said that an institution absolutely needs the blessing at the highest level to develop I.T. strategic plan.
"We have concluded that Stanford should not really be in the cutting edge of applications, but rather go in the middle of the road. We should gather collective community wisdom on the suggested software before we do anything. We should then collaborate with other universities that are installing the same software. We should have 'check points and off ramps' as part of the deployment process, and should have an officially documented history of each deployment.
"Now, the good news is that we came up with some recommendations, many of which are being implemented now. A major recommendation that I emphasize to you is that Stanford should have a strategic plan for information technology that is in line with the overall mission and goals of the University. This recommendation was vetted last spring with the Provost, and the V.P. of business affairs, Senate chair Eric Roberts, among other guests, in the last meeting of the C-ACIS also contributed.
"Who should develop the I.T. plan? We said that a high-level committee reporting to the Provost should do it. Or perhaps there should be a new Vice Provost for Information Technology. This is not a position that we are inventing, and there are several at other universities, including MIT, Duke, and USC. However, we made the mistake of inviting the Provost to the meeting! He said, 'No…no… not another Vice Provost! And, no, no, I don't want any more committees!' And very cleverly, he said, "Lets have C-ACIS do it."
"The problem here is that C-ACIS is not, in its present form, suited at all for this."
It was clear to all that there would be considerable discussion of this topic, and after a few more comments, the report from C-ACIS was opened for discussion.
Questions and Discussion
Professor Cork was given the floor. "I do hope that in the future there will be some involvement in I.T. decision making, those people who actually have to use the systems. When Oracle came online, there were six months that went by that we could not get any accurate reports. Then, the reports we did get were wrong. My staff were in meetings constantly. I attended more of those meetings that I ever wanted to, even in an earthquake, where I got under the table. Since I have been at Stanford, we have developed three different sets of software related just to our one operation. And each of those then has to interdigitate with the others. And I have to tell you…no one has ever come to us and asked us what needed to fit with our system.
"In talking with other major institutions we need to talk to institutions that are of similar complexity. There are many institutions that are wonderful academic institutions, but the complexity of their operations in no way matches the kinds of complexity that we have at Stanford and SLAC, with all these different interdigitating entities…. Most major institutions that I'm aware of have come to the conclusion that there is no one size that fits all." Professor El Gamal agreed.
Dean Pizzo said, "Assuming that the committee believes that there should be some strategic plan effort, I'm unclear at this juncture about how that's going to be done."
Professor El Gamal was nodding, yes. "Well, I think the first step is to formulate who does it." This was a logical time to turn to Professor Alex Aiken, the chair this year of C-ACIS for his comments. "I'll only say two things. We just had our first meeting yesterday and discussed the recommendations on the presentation today. The question for the committee is, what does this really mean for C-ACIS to try to take this on? The other comment is that the kind of strategic plan that you would get from any kind of revised C-ACIS group might be called a strategic plan, but it would look very different from what you might get if you had a full-time operational person like a Vice Provost whose every waking hour was spent thinking about this. With a slightly different definition of what a strategic plan is, I think we could probably arrange for C-ACIS to do that. But I think at this point, I wouldn't want to speak for the committee, because we really haven't taken it up and are waiting for feedback from the meeting."
Professor Fernald said, "It strikes me, having gone through the Oracle difficulty and the problems it created, that you want to have a real person who is a Vice Provost… with all due respect to John Etchemendy… because it would be a mistake to get faculty members to commit to something when they don't have the expertise to do it. There must be people in the world who do. We should find them and make them do it. This group should not just involve faculty and administrators, but people who use the systems as well."
President Hennessy raised his hand. "There are, in fact, I think, some complicated issues involved here. At one level, we want a strategic plan that is visionary, that talks about the way we should be thinking about important information technology to support the core of research and teaching efforts. A completely separate issue is that we want people who implement the administrative computing systems that work. We don't need to be highly experimental. We need to be budget-focused, efficient, and functional. I believe it is very difficult to find one person that can do those two tasks, because they are really two very different people. One is a group of people that thinks about the vision and how to evolve the vision, what do we do about the next generation network, what do we do about wireless around campus. A very different issue is the guy who does administrative computing, I don't want him spending one day thinking about the vision. Part of the reason we got in trouble in Oracle was that some of the people became too focused on the big vision and not enough on delivering the administrative system that will really work. We need to think about how to keep those separate while, of course, we approve the general support for I.T. infrastructure."
Chair Sheppard said "Also, in the room are Randy Livingston, who's the vice president of business affairs, and Bill Clebsch, who might have also some comments."
Randy Livingston noted, "I'm accountable in the University for our administrative systems as well as for some of the infrastructure. And we have agreed to take up this year projects to develop long-term plans associated with each of those areas and those respective disciplines. But I also want to point out that I.T. at Stanford is an extraordinarily diffuse enterprise. So, for example, some of the responsibility for what we'll call academic computing resides under Mike Keller. But the core computing that supports our mission, which I would describe as 'research computing', really is an area that's completely diffuse and decentralized, and one that is most in need of a cohesive strategy.
"This leads to a discussion of what to do with next-generation data center. A big piece of that is to replace Forsythe. But one of the questions that we might try to answer is what role does this play with respect to the research needs of the enterprise."
Professor Koseff yielded his time to the Provost who defended his position. "The reasons that I suggested that C-ACIS be charged with this are several. One is that most of the computing at Stanford does report to Randy Livingston and does not report to me. I'm happy with that. That's just fine. But more important, I think that you want a high-level committee that is populated by faculty who know something about research computing from a broad range of disciplines. Research computing is not homogeneous. It's extremely diverse across the disciplines. You want a faculty committee that is both sophisticated in its own knowledge of computing but also is sophisticated in knowing something about how the University works. And, ideally, that characterization of faculty is very much which faculty we should be seeing on C-ACIS.
"My recommendation? Give this responsibility to C-ACIS! Randy can provide staff support, and Mike can provide staff support to whatever committee we choose to help with the kind of information. Remember, it is not going to be a better committee. If I charge a committee I'll be asking probably the same people that are on C-ACIS, right, or, worse, I'll be asking another set of people and we'll just double the number of meetings that the faculty end up having to attend." He went on to note that C-ACIS has always been a committee with a rather vague mission, and that "…it would be good to capture the talent that is sitting there and give them a mission, maybe for just a year or two years to develop the kind of expertise and knowledge to come up with a reasonable strategic plan." After a pause, he reiterated his conviction NOT to appoint a Vice Provost for Information Technology.
Professor Aiken came back into the discussion. "Of course, I didn't mean to imply in my discussion that I wasn't willing for C-ACIS to take it on. I think the committee could do something with this. I think people mean very different things by strategic plan when they use those words. John made the distinction quite well between the high-level vision versus how operational and detailed that these plans are going to be. The kind of plan that you would get from a committee like this would be fairly high level. One thing you could hope for is at least it would be able to enumerate all probabilities. Right now C-ACIS considers one issue at a time as they come up and makes recommendations. There's never a time when we have complete vision of a list of everything at the University that might be coming down the road."
It finally was Professor Koseff's turn. "I have a comment and a bit of encourage-ment for Randy Livingston. First, let me say that the President reminded us of the announcement last Thursday around establishing an Institute for Energy Efficiency. I think when we think about the strategic plan going forward and establishment of this data center, I think there's a big challenge here and an incredible opportunity. As part of a team that's been looking at the development of the new buildings in the science, engineering, and medical quad there is an enormous challenge for energy efficiency. It doesn't take more than a few faculty with great vision and plans to put forward computing systems that require the kinds of heating, ventilation, and cooling and energy resources that could take all our best-laid plans for energy efficiency and sustainability and grind them into the dust.
"This is not going to be solved building-by-building, and it's not going to be solved, you know, just by taking sort of a 'one-off' approach to each challenge. So when you're thinking about your data center, Randy, I think you should be thinking about how are we going to take all these computing clusters that faculty want to establish, and how are we going to house them in a way that we can leverage some kind of central facility and reduce energy consumption and reduce resource consumption. The task is really enormous. It's frightening in many ways.
"The other issue in planning these buildings that became really amazing was something called 'plug loads.' A 'plug load' is unpredictable, and it arises from something we plug into the wall. And when you're designing the building, you cannot predict it. The energy drain comes principally from computers.
"I would like to encourage us as we go forward and think about the strategic plan and that we don't think about it just in terms of computing, but we think about how we acquire computing and how we purchase hardware. I'd like the Provost to consider some kind of incentive schemes for purchasing so that when we do buy computers, that there is some kind of incentive scheme in place that encourages faculty to think about energy, such as using a laptop rather than a desktop. These are the kinds of things we should definitely be thinking about in the future. And I really encourage your committee to be taking a hard look at that."
Professor Bender had a "technical suggestion." He urged the CoC to work hard to provide committee membership that has three-year terms. Continuity is needed.
Professor Wooley: "Yeah, I guess I'm a little concerned. I hear two major issues being mixed up here in the strategic vision. One is the research computing. I think as John pointed out, that's very diverse, and I think it makes no sense at all to try and homogenize that. It's not going to happen. But the pain I've heard over the last five years is the administrative computing. And that's what the focus needs to be on to minimize that problem. And I think that's what you originally started addressing. I think that C-ACIS shouldn't try and deal with both of those. And I'm not sure you need a university committee for the research." Wooley's remarks were followed by comments on the need for substantial cooling technology for large computing facilities, in contrast to the increasing use of handheld computers. At this point, Sheri Sheppard had to cut off the discussion and move to the next report. She thanked El-Gamal and each of the discussants.
B. Recommendation from the Committee on Graduate Studies (C-GS) for degree-nominating authority for a new Masters of Arts for an IDP in African Studies (SenD#5882)
The Chair welcomed Professor Lavori, who gave his presentation from his seat. "African Studies started in the '60s and over the years has become a major resource for the University. Over the period from 2001 to 2004, it has added seven faculty members, increasing 79% in enrollment and increasing the number of African studies majors two-fold. Last year there were approximately 60 undergraduates with experience working, studying, or doing research in Africa. And I understand that number is even larger now. Up to now, African studies has not been a degree-granting program.
"With this background, the IDP in African studies brings a proposal for a Masters of Arts in African studies. It would be housed in the Division of International Comparative and Area Studies, and it's proposed to be a three quarter program, at least 45 credits, about half in core courses and in languages. There's a requirement for a prior field experience in Africa. The plan is to start with about five to six students, about half each undergraduate/coterms, and half external applicants. This proposal was approved unanimously in May of '06 by C-GS. If you have any questions on any detail, Professor Roberts is here."
With that, Professor Sheppard said, "Yes, I'd like to also introduce our other two guests, the Senior Associate Dean in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Susan Stephens, and also the director of the program in African studies, Professor Richard Roberts, who are with us. Do you have some other comments that you'd like to share about the report?"
Susan Stephens deferred to Professor Roberts, adding that "…we strongly endorse this!" Roberts said, "Let me just say that over the past five years we've seen an extraordinary blossoming of interest in undergraduates and faculty in this field. This past summer we've had over 100 undergraduates go to Africa. It's from that pool that we hope to encourage this program. Our newest member of the faculty is right here, Rush Rehm. He's indicative of this growing interest that we have among faculty who are not trained as Africanists, but have become interested in Africa through various exposures to Africa or through the drama or through doing civil engineers projects in Africa."
Professor Sheppard opened the floor for questions or comments. There were none, and the motion from C-GS to authorize degree-nominating authority for the Masters of Arts in African Studies for an initial period of five years (September 1, 2007 through August 31, 2012) was approved unanimously.
C. Senate Forum
This exercise was Professor Sheppard's idea. The senators were asked to break out into nine groups, including students and ex officio members, to take ten minutes to generate potential agenda items for future senate meetings. One person in each group was identified as the one to record the items and one to report to the full senate on the small group's deliberations. The groups were formed, and amidst the buzz of many conversations, the interchange began. After eleven minutes, all were called to their seats and the following potential topics for discussion or presentation in the Senate were read out by the reporters. These are listed in the sequence that they were delivered, and not organized by general topic.
The cost of graduate tuition
The twenty-year plan for growth of the University.
Review of Stanford's tenure system
Exact plans for deployment of the Stanford Challenge monies
Endowment payout…present needs vs. future commitments
Infrastructure tax and 'space charge'
Undergraduate admissions policy
Research computing - need for future flexibility and present needs
'Nuts and bolts' of interdisciplinary research and appointments
Diversity - both among students and faculty
The challenge of making Senate meetings both informative and interesting
University consumption of energy, and ways to reduce it
How external forces control the University's agenda
The challenge of discussing action-oriented topics demanding decisions in Senate meetings
Intellectual challenges and standards for IDPs.
Bringing resources and faculty together to generate superb interdisciplinarity
The pipeline issue…how to bring women and minorities into science and engineering
Reports from various schools about their attempts to address the needs for diversity among faculty and students.
Economic diversity among students…is it increasing? How do we compare with peer institutions? How do they cope with the debt burden?
Is their added value for the "technological educational aids" that we make available for students? Do they lead to fewer students attending classes?
Effectiveness and evaluation of GER and distribution requirements
What type of science education do we owe our non-science students?
"Requirement and 'over structure' creep" into undergraduate education
Do students have the opportunity and encouragement to stray intellectually from the conservative straight and narrow?
Possibilities for a 'single payor system' for the entire University health care (including spouse and family)
The General Use Plan (GUP) … and what will the campus look like in ten years?
A progress report on child care.
Faculty input and participation in The Stanford Challenge
What happened to the Innovation Fund section of the consolidated budget?
Reorganization plans for residential education
Resolution of C-ACIS issues and progress for administrative and research computing
The Stanford Band….!
Professor Sheppard assured the senate that the Steering Committee would be analyzing and evaluating these, and asked Senators to submit additional ones to her by e-mail should they come to mind.
VI. and VII. Unfinished and New Business. None.
VIII. Adjournment
Conjoined unanimously at 5:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted Edward D. Harris, Jr. M.D. Academic Secretary to the University