Stanford Report, April 22, 2009

Faculty Senate minutes - April 16, 2009 meeting

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL

FORTY-FIRST SENATE

Summary of Actions Taken in Administrative Session of the Steering Committee on behalf of the Senate

April 16, 2009

A. Committee on Review of Undergraduate Majors: Recommendation for renewal of degree nominating authority for the Interdisciplinary Program in Public Policy for the Bachelor of Arts degree, honors and minor (SenD#6187)

The StC on behalf of the Senate approves the recommendation from the Committee on Review of Undergraduate Majors to renew the degree-nominating authority for the Bachelor of Arts, the Minor and Honors Program for the Interdisciplinary Program in Public Policy for a five-year period from September 1, 2010 - August 31, 2015.

B. Committee on Graduate Studies approval of degree nominating authority for the Interdisciplinary Program in Public Policy for the new co-terminal Master of Arts degree, effective September 1, 2009 through August 31, 2015 (SenD#6188)

The StC on behalf of the Senate approves the recommendation from the Committee on Graduate Studies for degree-nominating authority for the new Co-terminal Master of Arts degree in the Interdisciplinary Program in Public Policy for a six-year period from September 1, 2009 - August 31, 2015.

C. Committee on Review of Undergraduate Majors: Recommendation for an undergraduate Minor in the School of Education, with authority to nominate candidates for the Education Minor, effective September 1, 2009, without limit of time (SenD#6179)

The StC on behalf of the Senate authorizes the School of Education to nominate candidates for the Undergraduate Minor in Education, effective September 1, 2009, without limit of time.

D. Committee on Graduate Studies and Committee on Undergraduate Standard and Policies: Recommendation for institution of the No Grade Reported (NGR) as an administrative notation to eliminate the "blank" when instructors do not enter a grade by the grading deadline (SenD#6190)

The StC on behalf of the Senate, upon recommendation of the Committee on Graduate Studies and the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy, approves the proposal described in Senate Document #6190, to become effective at the grading deadline of Spring Quarter 2008/09 (June 16, 2009), for a two year period, through the end of the Academic Year 2010-2011 (August 31, 2011), at which time it will be brought back to the Senate if C-GS and C-USP agree that this policy should be made permanent.

The recommendation was approved by unanimous voice vote.

E. Committees on Graduate Studies: Recommendation for approval for change in the Law School's grading system, effective September 1, 2008, without limit of time (SenD#6189)

The StC on behalf of the Senate, upon recommendation of the Committee on Graduate Studies, approves implementation of the new grading system for the School of Law effective September 1, 2008, without limit of time.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL FORTY-FIRST SENATE Report No. 7 SUMMARY OF ACTIONS, APRIL 16

At its meeting on Thursday, April 16, 2009, the Forty-First Senate of the Academic Council heard reports.

REX L. JAMISON, M.D. Academic Secretary to the University Minutes, APRIL 16 I. Call to Order

Vice Chair Harvey Cohen called the Senate to order at 3:17 PM. Chair Karen Cook was away from campus.

II. Approval of Minutes - (SenD#6186)

The Minutes of the Senate Meeting, March 5, 2009, were approved.

III. Action Calendar

There were no items on the Action Calendar.

IV. Report on Degree Conferral for Winter Quarter 2009

A. List of Candidates for Advanced and Baccalaureate Degrees conferred on April 2, 2009

The list of Winter Quarter 2008-09 Advanced and Baccalaureate degree candidates was approved for conferral on April 2nd by the Steering Committee, on behalf of the Senate, in an electronic vote. The full list of candidates was sent to all senators as an email attachment last week. This StC action on behalf of the Senate will be recorded in the Minutes and will appear in next week's Stanford Report.

There were no questions or comments.

V. Standing Reports

A. Steering Committee

1. Before the Senate convened, the Steering Committee (StC) met in an Administrative Session, acting on the Senate's behalf, to hear five items from three committees that did not require the attention of the full Senate. All senators received the agenda for that Session and were welcome to attend the meeting. The reports are available on the Faculty Senate website or from the Academic Secretary's office. A report of the StC Actions taken in that Session will be included with the Minutes and will appear in the April 22nd Stanford Report.

2. The StC completed the Senate agenda for spring quarter.

April 30. The Senate meeting has been cancelled to allow the annual Academic Council Meeting to begin an hour earlier at 3:30 pm. A special program is planned by the President that will include a panel addressing the economy and budget-cutting issues facing the University. The meeting has been moved to Kresge Auditorium.

May 14. The Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, John Bravman, will present a report on undergraduate issues. Martin Shell, Vice President for Development, will report on the effects of the economy on development efforts.

May 28. The Provost will present his annual report on the Budget, and the Chair of the Senate ad hoc Committee to Examine Non-academic Council Appointments and Procedures, Gordon Brown, will present to the Senate the committee's findings. Formation of this committee resulted from Senate discussions and a petition requesting information about non-academic council appointment titles and procedures.

June 11. At the final meeting of the 41st Senate we will hear a preview of the findings of the Survey on Faculty Quality of Life; a full report of the findings will be presented in the fall quarter. David Abernethy, Professor emeritus of Political Science, will present the annual report from the Emeriti Council.

Following adjournment of the meeting, at 4:30 p.m., President Hennessy will host the annual reception at the Faculty Club for the members of the incoming and outgoing Senates, Chairs of the Committees of the Academic Council and members of the Board of Trustees.

3. The Academic Secretary reported that the election for the Senate Chair and the Steering Committee of the newly elected 42nd Senate should be under way within the next week. Only the 55 voting members of the 42nd Senate vote in this election. The roster of the newly elected 42nd Senate was distributed.

4. The second-stage of the Advisory Board election is well underway. Voting ends on Monday.

B. Committee on Committees (CoC)

Professor Gil Chu is the newly appointed chair of the committee, taking over for Penny Eckert. Professors Eamonn Callan and Jennifer Summit have joined the committee.

Professor Chu reported that the Committee on Committees met last week to nominate candidates for the Chair and Steering Committee from the newly elected 42nd Senate. Candidates for membership in some Academic Council Standing Committees were also listed.

C. President's Report

The Chair invited the President Hennessy to give us his report.

The President said he had no report but he introduced Deborah Golder as the new Assistant Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Director of Residential Education. He noted that she has had 17 years of experience, with a primary focus in the area of residential education, most recently, as Associate Dean of Students at Drexel and prior to that, Director of Residential Education at Dartmouth College.

[Applause]

Ms. Golder acknowledged the applause.

Chair Cohen asked if there were any questions of the President.

Professor Hank Greely raised his hand.

"John, we know that, under FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] the University has to protect the confidentiality of student information. I have two questions about the confidentiality of faculty information.

"First, after hearing a complaint from a colleague, I became concerned about the University's protection of the confidentiality of faculty and staff information, particularly information collected for the last several years as part of our conflict of interest disclosures. The Faculty Policy on Conflict of Commitment and Interest states of those disclosures that,

'Faculty members supply this information for confidential review by the University and for such other purposes as are required by law, contract or regulation.'

"The forms themselves say, 'these reports are considered to be confidential.'

"I have been given reason to believe that the University thinks it has the discretion to disclose this information without the faculty member's consent or even over his objection, even when disclosure is not required by law, contract, or regulation, if the University thinks it would be useful. Is that correct?"

The President responded, "It is categorically incorrect to say that we volunteered any information without a faculty member's permission. That is just not true. It may be the case that the faculty member involved believes that the University should have protected him, including possibly protecting him as an individual, had he received an individual subpoena, which we, by the way, would not have done. We would not protect an individual in [his or her] outside role in consulting that is not part of his or her faculty [responsibilities]. So the information was disclosed. In fact, the faculty member provided some of the information that was disclosed in this particular case.

"That faculty member could have had the option to resist that, had he wanted to. [Note] that an NIH contract was involved, and the NIH can ask for information [about an individual] under the University's contract with NIH."

Professor Greely replied, "I understand that…the University or individuals can be forced [to provide information]. I just think that when the University says it's collecting something that will be used for confidential review and provided [only] when required by law, regulation, or contract, that's a commitment the University has made to us. A breach of that commitment, should the University in the future ever do that…claiming that it has the discretion to do that…is, I think, a breach of the University's faith with us. I hope you will never do it."

President Hennessy replied, "I hope never to be put in a position where we will have to."

Professor Greely had a second question: "It's a related question, but a different one. And this one you may well want to refer to Dean Pizzo.

"I recently read that the Medical School intends to put on its websites for faculty members large portions of the information from the next generation of these reports (which, presumably, will not use the term 'confidential'). As a substantive matter, I have some sympathy for the Medical School's position, although I think this particular form of broad disclosure is both unhelpful and unwise. But, as a procedural matter, I am concerned about the faculty's privacy being waived without faculty involvement. So I wonder--was there, before this policy was announced, any process of consultation with the 1400 faculty and physicians whose personal financial information may be made public?"

President Hennessy responded, "I will turn the question over to Dean Pizzo to talk about process, but let me say that I think the mechanism and the requirement for conflict disclosure requested from [the medical] faculty and [the intent] to make [it] public is healthy and necessary, given the aspersions that have been cast on the academic medical community, particularly recently. I think they are legitimate questions of information. I think there has been an attempt to narrow the disclosure to areas where there is at least an appearance of conflict that people should be aware of."

Dean Pizzo commented, "…By way of general context, because not everyone will appreciate the overall nuances to the question that Professor Greely is asking, conflict of interest is not a new issue within the University or in the School of Medicine. It has a unique aspect in the School of Medicine because we're involved in human subjects research, and therefore it has much more of a public profile, particularly with regard to what I would call broadly engaging the public trust.

"Our approach to industry-conflict relationships begins with the premise that we want to, if anything, enhance and sustain our involvement with industry in a positive way, but we want to separate what has become all too frequently and significantly an intertwined marketing effort on the part of faculty and physicians across the country. This is a big topic, and it would require a long discussion. And I'd be happy to have that at some time…But let me just cut to the chase and say that we have been engaged with these issues for several years. There have been a series of policies that have unfolded since 2006, the last of which is the one referenced by Professor Greely, that was announced in the last couple of weeks that speak to [this issue]. We will link disclosure information prospectively of faculty who have their information already on our Web site with the faculty person's profile. [The faculty]…have been told in advance that this is going to be a case…the elements that will be released.

"The process leading to that [decision] certainly did not include an individual discussion with all of the faculty in the School of Medicine…there have been, however, lots of communications around many of these topics. Since Professor Greely is a regular reader of my biweekly newsletter [by email to all medical school faculty], I think he's aware of the many articles that I have written about this issue over the years.

"I would further say that this particular issue was presented and discussed at our Executive Committee that includes all of our basic and clinical science department faculty chairs…there was quite a degree of enthusiasm for…this policy…that's very much in the spirit of the recognition that one of the elements that has been lost in recent years--and President Hennessy alluded to--the public image of medicine as a profession.

"…the fact that our leaders in the school, representing their faculty in individual departments and divisions, spoke on behalf of this [proposed policy], coupled with the fact that over the last years…a number of faculty have asked us to do this, we proceeded with this current iteration.

"I would add, [this policy] applies only to the School of Medicine, not to other schools of the University, and only to our faculty…Since we've announced this policy broadly and everyone has received the information about the upcoming disclosure, we've heard concerns expressed only by five people. So I don't think this represents a major concern.

"There is no policy that I'm aware of that will achieve uniform support. And I would further add that policy, whether it's about conflict of interest or whether you should wear a seat belt, is rarely made by consensus. At the end of the day, you gather the data, formulate the opinion, and make the best decision you can [with regard to] the community that you're serving."

Professor Greely replied, "Ultimately, I don't disagree with that, although I would think one relevant part of the data would be the opinions of the 900 people who were covered, as opposed to the 20 to 30 members of your executive cabinet, all of whom, of course, owe their position in the cabinet to you.

Dean Pizzo replied, "As you know, I always put in articles [in my newsletter] that I'm always interested in hearing from people. So there's always an avenue for members of our community to comment upon these issues."

Professor Greely finished by saying, "I raise this both because I think it's an important issue in and of itself, but also because I am concerned that the administration may not take sufficiently seriously faculty interests, rights, and concerns. To the extent that faculty never speak up when those interests and concerns and rights are limited, I don't blame the administration. If we never speak up, why should they take this into account?

"So I would urge us all to be to respond to [requests] for input when faculty interests are significantly affected, as I think they have been in this case."

Dean Pizzo nodded and said, "I would add two things. One, I think it's presumptuous to say that we don't solicit faculty input, because we do. Second, I don't think anyone would credibly argue that faculty in the School of Medicine are reluctant to offer opinions."

[Laughter]

The Chair recognized Professor Robert Simoni, who said to the President, "John, I had a question about the recently announced student health fee. [Note: The fee is $167 per quarter. Students required to pay the fee are enrolled undergraduates, enrolled graduates (including Terminal Graduate Registration except SCPD Honors Cooperative), enrolled professionals, summer session students, high school students at Stanford, graduate non-matriculated study students.] I have had a flurry of letters. I've seen a subset of them, those that I think mostly originated in my department. The provost has responded to some. I suspect I've seen a subset of the responses as well. He's done his usual thorough and thoughtful job. But I have some comments.

"First of all, I find it puzzling that, [in the context of] all of the efforts by you, John Etchemendy, and the trustees to hold down tuition, room and board…to then find that a fee has been announced that is a tuition increase by simply another name. Costs are transferred to students and their families…and I fail to see anything about the claims that there is such a distinction [between a 'fee' and an increase in tuition].

"I think the plan as it's been presented fails to recognize very substantial differences between undergraduates and graduate students. They finance their education, their fees completely differently. For graduate students -- and I can speak only for the students in my department where I have the data -- virtually all of them are required to take Cardinal Care [a form of student health insurance]. By count, 137 of the 140 students in our department pay for Cardinal Care because they have no other health insurance. I don't know what the fraction of undergraduates is who have Cardinal Care…but I'm sure it's substantially less than that.

"Next year, the cost of Cardinal Care will go up $100, roughly. And this new student health fee for graduate students will be $668 for the year. So we're approaching an $800 increase in health care cost to graduate students who, for the most part, have to pay for it themselves, or find some other mechanism for doing it. It's a very big percentage increase in their stipend.

"[Vice Provost for Graduate Education] Patti Gumport argued earlier this year very effectively for a modest increase in the university graduate student stipend. This [new] health fee obliterates that stipend increase. So graduate students, like everyone else, will now get no effective increase [in their stipends].

"I think Patti's argument…for the increase for graduate students, [was] the fact…they are at the bottom of our compensation scale; they are people who are at some risk; and we should take great care to protect them.

"One of the justifications for the fee is that other universities charge a fee. That's true. But I must say that information is not very meaningful. I have tried to find out from some of the other places what the fee is for. Every place is different. Some charge separately for insurance. Some fees cover a subset of things and insurance another subset…So [the fact] that other schools do it I think is poor justification.

"Lastly, no one is unaware of our financial problems…None of us envies you and John and all the others that have to keep us whole and functioning. But I think there are other tradeoffs that do not so affect our core mission as much as something like this does…We're all pledged to preserve…the health and well-being of our students...Clearly, there are other things that could have been done, I think, though I'm not a budget expert.

"Now, if you failed to detect a question, I have one: 'What were you thinking?'"

[Laughter]

President Hennessy replied, "I think you've touched on most of the issues…We felt we couldn't cut the budget of Vaden Health Center, particularly given the report last year on psychological counseling services, which has led to a million dollar increase in the CAPS [Counseling and Psychological Services] budget, which is part of that…So we found ourselves under a difficult situation there.

"I agree that the new health fund partially negates some of the attempts to hold down tuition. However, there's another key issue here, namely--tuition is charged broadly to everybody, whether or not they're on campus. [In contrast the student health fee is charged only to those on campus.] We were trying to move to a system that was more equitable with respect to charging the individuals who actually can and are able to use Vaden, so that students who are overseas also no longer pay the health care fee while they're overseas. And students who are here, for example, for the summer session program, such as high school students and other college students, will pay the fee.

"As you pointed out, this does effectively increase the total cost of attendance. I will point out, as you mentioned, that graduate students are the only individuals in the university who received any kind of compensation increase. And we did not terminate any university fellowships in the process of making the budget cuts, although we will terminate or cut back the hours of about 500 university employees. (And, by the way, there are university employees whose salary scale matches that of graduate students. So people will feel the impact of that.)

"We are aware that [the new fee] will have some particularly difficult impact on graduate students with families. We are constructing an emergency fund particularly to deal with those individuals."

The President invited Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs Greg Boardman and Ira Friedman, Director, Vaden Student Health Service, to comment. Vice Provost Boardman responded, "Ira and I met with the Graduate Student Council last night. One of the positive things that came out of that [meeting] was to begin discussion of creating a Vaden student advisory group. There is [a student advisory group] on dependent health care and one on the Cardinal Care insurance program, but there is not a student advisory board focused solely on Vaden and its services and access and quality issues that some students have brought up."

Professor Ira Friedman asked, "Do you have the question about enrollment?"

Professor Simoni nodded, "I was wondering what percentage of undergraduates subscribe to Cardinal Care."

Ira Friedman answered, "About 30%."

Professor Simoni observed, "That's a very big difference, [from graduate students]. Graduate students, at least my subset…[will soon] have to pay $1600 a year for Cardinal Care, plus the fee. So we're at $2400 a year for [the cost of] health care for graduate students. For some, it will be out of pocket. For others, there may be other mechanisms to pay it. I can tell you that it's not an allowable charge on NIH graduates, so it won't be paid in that way…it's going to be really difficult."

President Hennessy replied, "I think we all agree with that, Bob. I think the scale of the number is sufficient that if we translate this into, for example—why don't we do additional layoffs across the university? That certainly would have been an alternative we could have considered. And then we would have [had to lay off another] hundred people across the university."

Professor Simoni rejoined, "Trading off layoffs for this is a false choice; right? There are other things…An hour before coming here, I got an e-mail from John Etchemendy on Wellness Day. Right?"

President Hennessy corrected Professor Simoni, "[It's called] 'BeWell'. It's a command."

[Laughter]

Professor Simoni, "…In any case, that's a really good program. [But] no one could argue that it is at the core of our mission in the short term…The question is how many people will be laid off to sustain BeWell?"

President Hennessy responded, "That's a question I'll have to defer to the provost."

Professor Simoni responded, "I suggest if you want wellness for the graduate students, waiving this fee would really go a hell of a lot further than having them show up for a day and have their blood pressure checked—which will be sky high, I have no doubt."

[Laughter]

Chair Cohen concluded the session, "Okay. Thank you, Doctor."

There were no other questions for the President.

Provost's Report

The Provost was away from campus. Chair Cohen, " I just want to make one announcement, that Greg Boardman let me know that David Gobaud is the newly elected president of the ASSU and is here today David, welcome. This is his first Faculty Senate meeting.

[Applause]

VI. Other Reports

A. Vice Provost for Graduate Education (SenD#6203)

Chair Cohen invited Patti Gumport, Vice Provost for Graduate Education (VPGE), to present her report. Also in attendance were three Associate Vice Provosts--Sheri Sheppard, John Boothroyd and Chris Golde—and Pat Cook, Director of Fellowships and Programs.

Vice Provost Gumport distributed a handout, "Graduate Education at Stanford: Selected Resources and Data Tables." With the aid of slides, she began her presentation, stating that she was happy to have the opportunity to talk about graduate education with colleagues who are senators. The systemic challenges to graduate education were:

1) Diversity

2) Interdisciplinary

3) Leadership and professional development

4) Support for academic programs

5) Graduate student funding

She was going to focus specifically on diversifying graduate student enrollment, and graduate student funding.

Vice Provost Gumport acknowledged that this was a difficult time because of the economy. "At times like this, I remind myself of the ideals that fuel my own commitments, and the many good things that are happening on campus. We have amazingly talented graduate students…They're really excited to attend our classes; they're very curious when they get into our labs and the library; and they're eager to understand the passion that fuels you in your pursuit of your field of study.

"I've been serving as Vice Provost for just over two years…It was the Commission on Graduate Education in 2005 that recommended the creation of the VPGE. It [reminded] us that in order to stay at the forefront of graduate education, we need to build on our strengths and imagine new practices …so we make sure students [get] the best possible education and training to prepare them for the future.

"The Commission also noted that we have a number of challenges that are not easily resolved in our decentralized structure--in fact, they're exacerbated by it. By creating a Vice Provost for Graduate Education and an office to take the University-wide perspective on these challenges, the idea was that we could make some headway working across schools.

"I've listed five systemic challenges [see above] that we've been working on the past two years. The first three were noted by the Commission in its report. The last two I identified as important, one being support for academic programs. Because there was so much discussion about facilitating cross-disciplinary dialogue and networks for students, I felt that the programs themselves needed innovation funds to be able to adapt to changes in their fields…One role that my staff and I play is that we [obtain] data to inform our discussions about the challenges that we face and we convene groups for problem solving. And we have small pots of discretionary funds.

"The other challenge is graduate student funding, for obvious reasons.

TABLE GOES HERE

"[I want first to] set the context and …remind you of the growth of the graduate enrollment since 1985. We now have over 8300 graduate students, that includes master's, doctoral, and professional students. Graduate enrollment grew 25%. During the same period of time, the undergraduate enrollment grew 3%."

She showed a slide of the distribution of graduate students among the schools with the most graduate students being in the School of Engineering (close to 40%) and the Humanities and Sciences (H&S) at 25%.

"[This slide does not show]... the tremendous complexity our graduate programs. We have 65 graduate degree programs.

"Turning now to diversity, as you know, Stanford is committed to [achieving] diversity, broadly defined. We encourage [variety among] race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, varying abilities and disabilities, nationality, and so forth…It is in the context of specific academic fields that certain dimensions of diversity are meaningful. For example, in education, we have 70% women, so we're not concerned about gender parity. But we are worried about achieving a critical mass by gender in many of the science and engineering fields…we think that more diversity is a part of our educational mission. More diversity will create better learning environments, and better prepare our students for their future roles in society.

"I'm going to focus on three trends: citizenship, women in science and engineering, and race and ethnicity. I'm going to talk some about underrepresented minorities, which are the domestic population of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans."

But first Vice Provost Gumport commented on Stanford's international graduate students, which comprise 33% of the graduate school enrollment, an increase from 22% in 1985. They come from 100 countries. The top five countries that account for 55% of the international graduate enrollment are China, India, Canada, Korea and Taiwan. International graduate enrollment increased in every school except Education, where there's been a decline from 22% to 10% over this period. A high proportion in the Schools of Earth Sciences and Engineering are international graduate students, around 45% each, while in Education and Law are about 10%.

"International graduate students face a number of challenges. They face the complexities of navigating the visa process. They have financial challenges, including the fact that they need to demonstrate they have the resources to cover their expenses. They are not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week. Their spouses cannot work for pay. Many of them are concerned about the finances of their families back home."

Vice Provost Gumport turned to female graduate enrollment which is now 36% of the total. Since 1985, the percentage of graduate students that are women has increased from 29%. Both the Schools of Earth Sciences and Engineering have nearly doubled their proportion of women.

But the broad categories obscure differences across fields. A table showed considerable variation of percentage of graduate students who are women among departments in two schools and divisions:

Engineering 757 23%

Civil & Environ 138 42%

Chemical Engrg 40 35%

Mgmt Sci & Engrg 103 29%

Materials Science 35 20%

Electrical Engrg 179 19%

Aero & Astro 28 15%

Computer Science 50 12%

H & S—Natural Sci 279 30%

Biology 87 50%

Chemistry 68 34%

Statistics 20 24%

Applied Physics 36 24%

Math 14 19%

Physics 32 18%

"At the national level, we talk a lot about women in science and engineering. What this table tells me, though, is that we need to be much more field-specific in our discussions about critical mass and the importance of role models and mentoring in these places.

"With ethnicity, it's a much more sobering picture." A graph was shown depicting graduate student enrollment by ethnicity. International student and Asian American student enrollment had increased, while the under represented minorities (URMs) - Hispanic, African American, and Native American had remained low. Vice Provost Gumport then showed a slide that focused on the URMs in more detail. From Autumn 2007 to Autumn 2008, there has been a net rise in total URMs of 39 students (a 6% increase).

"…Just in this last year, from '07 to '08, [there have been] increases in every one of the three groups. I think this is an encouraging sign…What we know is happening in your departments and in your schools is much more aggressive efforts recruiting."

Vice Provost Gumport noted that in Humanities (one year net increase in URMs, 20) and Engineering (net increase, 18), in particular, these efforts have paid off.

Vice Provost Gumport turned to the time it takes for Stanford graduates students to complete their work for a Ph.D.

TABLE GOES HERE

"We analyzed ten years of time to degree data for Ph.D.s from the time [graduate students] started the program until they completed it. This includes leaves of absences. During this period of time, we had about 6,000 Ph.D.s. [The median] time to degree was 5.75 years. Seven percent of those Ph.D.s went to URMs." The median time to degree for URM students was 6.5 years."

Professor Andrea Goldsmith asked, "Is this from the master's to the Ph.D., when you say the beginning of the program?"

Vice Provost Gumport: "You're from engineering?"

Professor Goldsmith: "One of the women."

[Laughter]

The answer was that for most of the students, counting begins with start of the Ph.D. program, but for the 4 School of Engineering programs that only admit to the M.S., counting begins with admission to the M.S. if it occurs no more than a year prior to the start of the Ph.D. program.

Vice Provost Gumport, commented, "I think [this finding] raises more questions than it answers, [including] the issue of funding. In the places where there's a longer time to degree, we may have insufficient funding."

Vice Provost Gumport next presented findings from Stanford and national research to answer the question—What leads to success? She referred Senators to the bibliography in the handout. Factors were grouped into three categories: campus climate, mentoring and funding. She talked about some of the items listed under mentoring.

"One thing we know from our graduates is that [mentoring—exemplary role models and inspiring faculty] is crucial. Your very being makes a difference. They are inspired by you. They watch you do your academic jobs and that informs their decisions about whether they want to have academic careers. We see this time and again, especially with women in science in engineering and underrepresented minorities.

"The second thing is that clear and frequent communication matters a great deal…There are two things that are worth noting here. One is that benign neglect [has been shown] to be detrimental. The issue is that in the absence of information, people make up stuff, and sometimes negative stuff. Frequent communication is a good thing.

"We also know that feedback that comes in the form of binary assessments [pass-fail] is not so helpful…What that does is raise anxiety about failure, especially for those suffering from the "impostor syndrome."

"[Other] mentoring factors that lead to success [include] guidance on how to use resources. In many of their minds the traditional mentoring teacher-student dyad seems to have lost its hold. [Students are] inundated with information. They're seeking advice from many individuals and groups…In this amazing amount of information, they need your guidance on what to do with [the resources available], what to pay attention to, how to discern which is good information and which isn't, and what is in their best interest.

"These findings about what leads to success were used to design the DARE [Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence] doctoral fellowship program…The purpose of this program is to diversify the professoriate. We welcomed the first group [of DARE Fellows] in the fall of 2008 and we're working closely with them. We are helping connect them to additional mentors and we are providing a variety of educational resources designed to help them thrive in faculty careers. It seems to be working. We're building knowledge, skills, confidence and mentoring networks. I'm very excited about it. We're just selecting our second cohort right now."

Vice Provost Gumport showed a graph depicting the proportion of U.S. students first getting a bachelor's degree, then a Ph.D. and ending up faculty members in the top 50 research university departments in 15 science and engineering fields. The proportion of white men rises, while those of women and URMs declines to about 18% and 5%, respectively.

"We have pipeline challenges at the national level, and there are declines for women and URMs at every stage: from bachelor's degree to Ph.D. to faculty. I wanted to leave you with this visual impression, because I think it's a good reminder about these points where we seem to be losing women and underrepresented minorities, at least in these fields." [The handout shows the set of diversity initiatives going on in our office that focuses on recruitment, retention, and diversifying the professoriate.]

Vice Provost Gumport then turned to the challenges in graduate student funding. The next slide showed that over the decade from 1997 - 2007, Stanford's graduate student financial support rose 66% from $143 to $238 million; doctoral enrollment grew 15% from 3,633 to 4,194; tuition rose 54% from $7,126 to $ 10,998 per quarter; and the minimum RA/TA salary level rose 70% from $3,172 to $6,300 per quarter.

Where does the graduate student financial support come from?

Comparing FY98 to FY07, in millions of dollars,

Grants and Contracts provided $56 (40%) and $79 (30%).

Designated and Restricted Funds provided $33.2 (23%) and $91.1 (38%).

General and School Funds provided $53.6 (37%) and $68.2 (29%).

She commented that one role for the VPGE office is data analysis. Last summer, she explained, the president asked her to determine Stanford's vulnerability to projected declines in federal funding. Vice Provost Gumport noted, "The percentage reliance overall on grants and contracts went from 40% down to 33%. We were surprised the number was so low…The designated and restricted funds--these are funds like the SGF [Stanford Graduate Fellowships in Science and Engineering]--increased [as a source] from 23% to 38%…And this was last summer, so we thought, 'This is great news. We've got a buffer.' Right, John?" [looking at the President].

[Laughter]

Vice Provost Gumport continued, "And then you know what happened next.

"In the last decade, we decreased our reliance on general and school funds. But given the new budget realities here, the fact that general funds are now reduced, and that schools were using up their reserves, sustaining graduate student funding levels is becoming very difficult."

Vice Provost Gumport pointed out that of the grants and contracts it's the NIH and NSF that are the largest sources of funds, university-wide. "So there is some good news. The announcement of stimulus funding of $10 million to the NIH and $3 billion to NSF is helping us in the short run.

"The lesson we took away from this analysis was that these sources are unpredictable. It puts us, especially departments, in a difficult position if we're making multiyear commitments to our graduate students."

"So pressures converge within schools, especially for faculty making difficult decisions. We are hearing from you and what we thought you might want to discuss is that there are real funding challenges:

— what size of incoming Ph.D. cohorts should be admitted

— size and duration of funding packages

— how can we continue to support the students who are in the final stages, but may not be finding jobs."

Vice Provost Gumport reminded the Senate what is being done centrally to help graduate students financially. TGR [Terminal Graduate Registration--allows students to register at a reduced tuition rate while work on a dissertation thesis or department project] is being held constant for the third year in a row. A slide showed that the Provost's General Funds contribute a portion of TA salary and tuition, a portion of RA tuition, up to 35% of tuition for selected national fellowships, and a portion of Cardinal Care subsidy.

She then summarized some VPGE efforts to alleviate pressures in the short run. Three university-wide fellowship programs administered by the VPGE office have expanded: SGF, ARCS [Achievement Rewards for College Students] and Lieberman Fellowships grew from supporting 421 students in FY07 to 513 in FY09. In addition, several new programs have been added (SIGF [Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowships] and DARE), and some discretionary funds have supplemented tuition shortfalls for some NSF and NIH programs. In all, VPGE now contributes to funding for 931 students in FY09. The total amount of support has increased from $14 million to $29 million.

She cautioned, "But our reserves are being tapped out. As with every other funding pot in the university, we need to take a very careful look at these models and see what we can sustain. Basically, my message here is that we're trying to help as best we can."

The last slide focused on looking ahead at the challenges facing graduate education, noting that the presentation had focused on diversity, and funding. "I also wanted to leave you with some questions in the educational realm.

Who is Stanford attracting? What messages do we give to whom?

"I recently saw some data on Ph.D.'s granted nationally that showed that 21% had some community college. This reminded me that we need to look carefully at our applicants to acknowledge the potential of those with nontraditional routes.

"I wonder what messages we're giving to our undergraduates. Sometimes I think they don't quite listen when we say, "We think graduate school would be good, not here, but maybe somewhere else," because we think it's not in their best interest to have all [their] degrees at the same institution, especially through the Ph.D. And I know that there are some different opinions about this. We've had some conversations in smaller groups about it. I thought you might want to think in a more purposeful way about what messages we do give our undergraduates. Our undergraduate student body is 29% underrepresented minorities and 18% first generation college-attenders. These are amazing students. And I would really like it if we could talk more with them to encourage them to consider graduate school.

How are we preparing students for careers, given labor market changes?

"We've heard recently about concern for and by students looking for academic careers with the frozen academic labor market in many fields. We need to be asking ourselves, 'How are we preparing them?' Many of them are considering other career options. We need to help them with this."

How are we responding to students' learning styles, communication norms, and networking expectations?

"Finally, I keep thinking about the incoming graduate students and the different learning styles that they bring, different communication norms, and all the different sorts of networking that they do…this should make us think more about how we teach and how we mentor them."

That ended Vice Provost Gumport's presentation. Chair Cohen opened the floor for comments and questions.

Adam Beberg, Graduate Student Council Representative commented, "I have a couple of comments from the graduate students about what's going on in our community right now. We understand there's a recession happening…We're working very closely with VPGE about financial aid matters. The financial aid [office] sets a budget for what it costs to be a grad student. It is a survival-level budget. It doesn't take into account taxes. But …it's enough to come to Stanford and do what we do and do our research.

"In February, we got a 3.2% increase in the minimum university salary for RAs and TAs…it's not exorbitant pay. If you look at the budget, it now includes medical care, as well as food, a roof over your head, and some minimal expenses.

"The announcement of [the Vaden Health Services] fee was handled pretty badly. I'm not blaming anyone in particular--things like this happen. But it's led to a very high level of anger in the community among students, because they're not quite sure what's going on. Students do not understand things like restricted funds. They do not understand how the endowment actually works or that the provost actually has a tiny budget where he can control anything…Things are endowed for rooms and benches and other things like that. So there is a high level of anger right now…we need to really work to defuse that."

Addressing the Senators, he continued: "I'd like to ask you…when your departments are talking about whatever the department is doing for salary or stipend levels to be honest with students. They know that the 3.2% happened. If you tell them, 'We're giving you a raise to cover the fee', they know that is not correct. So be blunt; if necessary. Just say, 'We know the cost of living went up. There's a recession. We're doing the best we can.'

"Also keep in mind that other things that grad students use as sources of funding for their activities, like the Graduate Student Programming Board, which provides services to grad students, is being cut from the general budget. Other things are being cut. Our stress level is going up, which results in [anxiety], which is why we need [to pay the Vaden health] fee.

"So…it would really help to just be as forthcoming with students as you can, explaining the entire situation. If it takes a couple of paragraphs, that's great, do that. They don't understand how the budgeting process works. It's very complicated. I've been here five years. I pretty much understand [the budget]. But it took a lot of work over five years to understand just how it works."

Comments and questions for Vice Provost Gumport followed.

Professor Goldsmith began by commending Vice Provost Gumport and her office for their accomplishments and for the breadth and depth of the issues that she addressed in her presentation. "In light of the budget issues and the economy in general, what do you see as the biggest challenges in maintaining these programs? Are you going to prioritize some to maintain them and maybe sacrifice others?"

She continued, "And in terms of preparation for the job market…how will you help our graduate students navigate that minefield in terms of the decisions they make early on and later on in their graduate education?"

Vice Provost Gumport responded by noting first that her office took a 15% budget cut, like the other units. "I did the best I could to protect the major priorities that I listed for you today. All of our programs are experimental, so we are evaluating them to see what works. For example, [many of the] the diversity initiatives I listed there are in their first or second year. We're looking for data to see if each program represents a good use of funds. We're slowing down the rollout of new programs. I put many of our new ideas on hold.

"I've also cut some things we were planning to do like the Distinguished Alumni Scholar's event. We reduced the expenses on all of the SGSI [Stanford Graduate Summer Institute] courses this summer. [These are] one-week courses that are still offered for free."

With regard to programs that retain high priority, Vice Provost Gumport noted a new set of initiatives under the banner of leadership and professional development. "This quarter we launched a series of lectures from people working in different sectors to give our graduate students exposure to leaders who pursued careers in business, government, nonprofits, as well as academia. We are sponsoring workshops on communication, management, and things that are skill-based. Students are really excited to be thinking about skills that they'll be able to use when they leave and they can actually use now…" Gumport added that job market conditions vary by field, and that faculty are best positioned to advise their students.

Professor Michele Elam thanked the Vice Provost for her presentation and the work she was doing, in particular the DARE Fellowships. "I was counting mentally the diversity committees that I've been on in my career, and [the number is] 20…I appreciate a couple of things in particular about this program. One is the idea of diversity as enhancement versus a disability--these programs are capitalizing on student brilliance, they're not just uplift programs. They're aimed at helping [graduate students] in terms of professional development. They're very focused, they're highly articulated. And [I also applaud] the investment for the DARE's in networking. I know from the students that I am mentoring [that networking] is extremely helpful and practical. It's just a wonderful program. I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work."

Professor Debra Satz complimented Vice Provost Gumport, and then asked, "There's the output side, and there is what we do when we have students here, but there's [also] the input side. I'm worried about the students I never see…when I look at the applicant pool …it tends to have a particular cast. I don't know how to find the students who are dropping off the radar screen and what at Stanford we can do [about them]. In the 20 years I've been here, I think the philosophy department is very good with the files it gets. But there are all the files we never see. So what are your thoughts about that?"

Vice Provost Gumport, rephrasing Professor Satz's question, "What else can we do? The deans are very supportive of the work of the diversity officers in their schools. They go out recruiting. We have programs supplementing school efforts that bring in prospective students and we turn to the diversity officers to give us names. They go to the databases and search for promising undergraduates. I encourage you to talk to them directly and ask them for help. [But] there's tremendous room for improvement. We are members of several consortia with peer institutions that help us try to unearth undergraduates who would be suitable for graduate study. But we need your help in these fields to think this through."

Chair Cohen, glancing at his watch, smiled and said, "Can we have shorter questions and shorter answers?"

Professor Anat Admati commented, "…Coming from the business school, especially, there's a huge difference between master's students and Ph.D. students. In our school all statistics would be overwhelmed by the master's program; the Ph.D. program is tiny. The needs [of the students in these two programs] seem to be so different. So where do you see the efforts [of your office] as more significant if you had to choose? Where is the pipeline in other words, how do you make a distinction between professional programs, master programs, and Ph.D. programs?"

Vice Provost Gumport replied, "For underrepresented minorities and women, at every level, as we go up to more advanced degrees, we lose them. I think it's worth noting that, at Stanford, our three professional schools do their own admissions. Every where else admissions is very much decentralized within the school. As a result we have different dynamics in terms of diversifying graduate enrollment.

"My office is committed to helping master's, professional, and doctoral programs, but I think it's probably fair to say that I focus most of my attention on the doctoral programs. This is because of the issues that surfaced with the commission report and a lot of the conversations I've had with many of you that encouraged us to focus our initial efforts on the doctoral programs and the needs of those students. But as the years go on, I see us doing more things for a broader range of students. That said, nearly all our programs are open to all grad students and post docs as well--the workshops and lectures and SGSI Summer courses."

Professor Boxer raised another issue: "I have a very specific and narrowly focused question about the comments raised [by] Bob Simoni's question. A fair fraction of the increased cost to graduate students is in the form of increases in housing costs on campus for students who live on campus. We've done a pretty careful examination of this. It's as if we're reprocessing the money we give to the students back into the university. Who decides those increases? Who is deciding those housing cost increases and why can't they just be frozen?"

President Hennessy replied, "Residential dining and housing is run as an auxiliary project. It's not intended to be subsidized from general funds. Now, that doesn't say it doesn't get a subsidy. But the intention is that that subsidy not grow over time. …Alternatively, we could increase the size of the subsidy and just take it out of general funds, giving the schools and departments less money."

Professor Boxer asked, "But are the actual expenses increasing?"

President Hennessy acknowledged, "Yes. It's salaries."

Professor Boxer countered, "But salaries are frozen. So I'm trying to understand exactly why this would increase, this year."

President Hennessy responded, "Salaries have frozen. We actually decreased the amount of increase, which will lead to layoffs in Housing and Dining in order to meet its budget. There is also general inflation, for example, food costs obviously go up independently of the university's control."

Professor Boxer concluded, "…I think this is a really important question for those of us who are paying graduate students out of grants. As far as I'm concerned, it's basically an additional indirect cost…just recirculating through the university. And I'd like to know why. I think it would be a good question to get quantitative information about."

Professor Malcolm Beasley asked, "…Can you parse out mentoring, for example, from the graduate students in department A, school A, B, whatever, are you getting some idea of where there's relative happiness and relative unhappiness? Can you break that down and look for cross correlation? Is that on your [list of things to do]?"

Vice Provost Gumport responded, "I increasingly spend time with faculty to learn more about what happens in the programs; there are 65 graduate degree programs."

Professor Beasley said, "But I mean the students."

Vice Provost Gumport, "Yes, we've had good communication with students… [and] we have doctoral exit surveys. There are also the focus groups that we've been working with, including an alumni group."

Professor Gilbert Chu asked the last question, "When times are tough, trends become really noteworthy. The one trend at the very beginning of your talk that was really striking was the increased enrollment in graduate education…Can…you tell us where those additional students are going. Are they going to master's programs or Ph.D. programs? Are they going into some schools but not others? In my own graduate Ph.D. program, we just had a marathon meeting where we were arguing about whether to offer admission to one more student. So these [increases in graduate students] are big numbers and they have major impacts on graduate education."

Vice Provost Gumport replied, "In broad brushstrokes, this growth, by schools was 66% in the School of Medicine… and 32% in Engineering…By degree, the increase was 30% in master's and doctoral degrees and only 4% in professional degree programs."

Chair Cohen thanked Vice Provost Gumport: "Look forward to more reports in the future, Patti. Great job!"

[Applause]

B. Professorial Gains, Losses and Composition; Recruitment and Retention Survey; Status of Women Faculty (SenD#6181, SenD#6182, SenD#6206)

Chair Cohen introduced the next presentation by saying, "We now have three interrelated reports to be presented by our colleague and fellow senator, Pat Jones, Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity, to report on faculty gains, losses, and composition, the status of women faculty, and factors affecting faculty recruitment and retention. The three reports were included in your Senate packets."

Vice Provost Jones thanked Chair Cohen and, with the aid of slides, began her presentation with a brief history of the reports. Gains and losses in faculty have been presented by the provost or his or her designate since at least 1987; the status of women faculty report was mandated as an annual provostial report in 1997 following the Strober Committee's work on the recruitment and retention of women faculty, and, in 2002, Vice Provost Jones initiated the study of factors that adversely affect faculty recruitment and retention at Stanford.

Professorial Gains, Losses and Composition

Vice Provost Jones reported that, "In the last year the number of faculty increased by 45, or two and a half percent, the highest rate of growth since the late 1990s. This resulted from 120 new faculty hires across the university and only 75 departures. Over the previous five years, the growth was about 24 per year, on average.

"Over the past ten years, the faculty has grown by 287 (18%). The vast majority of that University-wide growth has been in the Medical Center Line [MCL], a new line of faculty doing clinical care, research, and teaching in the Medical School that was initiated in 1990. [The MCL] grew by 69%, whereas the Academic Council has only grown by 117 (9%) to 1457. [Note: the MCL faculty are not members of the Academic Council] …The Academic Council consists of about 90% tenure line and 10% non-tenure line faculty.

"In terms of growth by school…over the last ten years, there has been little growth in faculty in most schools, though the faculty of some of the small schools have grown by 10 to 20 members. But faculty of the clinical departments in the Medical School have grown a great deal, virtually all in the MCL.

"One of the biggest challenges we face is increasing the representation of individuals who bring diversity to the faculty, [particularly] faculty of color. As Patti [Vice Provost Gumport] said, a diverse community [brings] breadth, perspectives, interest and backgrounds that contribute to the richness of the educational environment. While the number of Asian faculty has grown significantly over the last ten years…numbers of underrepresented groups--black faculty, Native American, Hispanic--have shown little or no growth. While the number of black faculty is up by one over the last ten years, the percent is down, since the total number of faculty has increased.

"Hispanic faculty have grown by 14 over those ten years, but that's not much of a percentage increase.

"For the Asian faculty, the significant increase is distributed over all of our schools. However, since the major growth of the faculty has been in the MCL, that's where a lot of the increase in actual numbers [of Asian faculty has occurred].

"…It's not that we have not been working hard at identifying and recruiting faculty of color...It's just that we recruit hard, but then there are also departures — some retire, some are deceased, and some depart for other reasons, including better opportunities at other institutions.

"Over the last four years, we have hired 14 black faculty and lost 13. We haven't hired or lost any Native American faculty. We've hired 16 Hispanic faculty and lost 15, for a net gain of one. This shows what has been termed by the Irvine Foundation (which has supported campus diversity initiatives at universities, including Stanford)…the 'revolving door'".

Status of Women Faculty

Vice Provost Jones observed, "For women faculty…progress has been better…all faculty ranks combined were up [from 19%] to 25% women. Women [comprise] just over 35% of assistant professors, 30% of associate professors and just under 19% full professors. The growth of women associate professors has plateaued and is on the decline, [but] I'm not sure we should worry too much about that as it's a transient population.

"In terms of percentage of faculty who are women [there has been] steady growth in most [schools] over the last five and ten years, with the largest increases being in science and engineering, in part because they started out at lower levels. Earth Sciences, Engineering, Natural Sciences in the School of Humanities & Sciences, and SLAC, independent labs and policy institutes, all have shown significant growth…[The percentage of women faculty] in the Law School slowed a little bit and in the clinical sciences have slowed in the last five years.

"[There have been] steady increases among women in the tenured faculty.

"For the tenure-line faculty who are not tenured, the [percentage of women faculty has varied] up and down, but it is a small group and a transient group. There are a lot of folks moving in and out of this population. But overall we see in most parts of the institution growth in the numbers of untenured, tenured-line faculty who are women. Somewhat of a concern are the Clinical Sciences [which has shown a steady decrease]."

Vice Provost Jones showed a slide of a table of tenure line hires by school divided into junior (untenured) faculty hires and senior (tenured) faculty hires for the last year and the last five years.

"We can see in many schools and divisions healthy proportions of junior faculty hires who were women. Overall for the university, it was 31%; for the most recent year, 36%, which is I think a healthy number, given where we are. For senior hires--people hired as tenured associate or full professor--the numbers are very small. Many schools and divisions don't do a lot of hiring at the senior level. Overall for the past year and the past five-year period, 24% of the senior faculty hires were women. That compares to 19% for current tenured faculty that are women, so we hired at a slightly higher rate than our current composition, which, hopefully, will lead to more progress."

The next slide summarized tenure decisions and outcomes. The tenure rates for female and male faculty were essentially the same in terms of both tenure decisions and tenure outcomes ("outcomes" takes into account all people who come as untenured faculty—that is, the proportion of men and women who stay for tenure decision and end up getting tenure in the end. Some people leave before they have a tenure decision).

Vice Provost Jones showed a slide of a table of faculty positions of institutional leadership at Stanford held by men and women during the years 1996-7, 2003-4 and 2008-9. "Overall, faculty and our university leaders are doing a good job of having women appointed to positions of leadership, or elected, in the case of the Faculty Senate. Certainly the Senate has had very strong representation of women faculty in recent years. And the Senate--you and your predecessors--has been doing a good job in electing women to positions of leadership. Since 1980, when Nan Keohane was the first woman Chair of the Faculty Senate, there have been seven female chairs of the Senate. And since 1993, over 30% of the Senate chairs have been women, including our current chair, who, unfortunately, couldn't be with us today".

Factors Affecting Faculty Recruitment and Retention

Vice Provost Jones commented, "The final report is on factors that adversely affect our efforts to recruit and retain the faculty. We get information from departments and schools about who turned us down and we contact those individuals to find out why [they turned us down or why they decided not to stay]. We hear from about two-thirds of [them]. For those [who don't respond], we contact their department chairs or deans [and ask for] their best understanding as to the reasons.

"Last year was a very good recruitment year…The ratio of successful recruitments to unsuccessful recruitments was 2.7, which is the highest ratio [recorded] since we've been doing this survey going back to 2002. The ratio of successful to unsuccessful recruitments was about 2.2 for men and about 4.6 for women. This is true for most of the schools that are listed. So we've been doing a particularly effective job at recruiting our female recruits.

"This year for the first time, we tried to get information from our departments and schools as to how many retention efforts [were successful], defined by situations where there was an active retention negotiation [and] the individual chose to stay." [The ratio of successful retentions to unsuccessful retentions overall was 17 to 13, or 1.3; for men, 12 to 11 or 1.1; and for women, 5 to 2 or 2.5].

Vice Provost Jones presented a slide summarizing factors adversely affecting faculty recruitment and retention for 2007 - 2008.

For unsuccessful faculty recruitments For whom this was the 1st or

2nd most important factor

1. Housing costs and/or availability 33%

2. Spouse/partner career issues 24%

3. Academic environment 22%

For unsuccessful faculty retentions

1. Spouse/partner career issues 36%

2. Housing, faculty position, better opportunities elsewhere 27% each

"We have a number of challenges to recruiting and retaining excellent and diverse faculty. Some of them we have no control over. We can't change our location. Some we do have some control over…Our faculty and our academic leaders are working hard to recruit outstanding faculty [including] faculty who contribute to faculty diversity. But those efforts vary from one part of the university to [another]. This is something [in which] we can intervene or make better efforts in some cases. Other factors, like the attractiveness of the department, school, and university, including critical mass and climate issues, also affect the perceptions of our recruits and those considering positions elsewhere.

"We know that faculty searches are carried out at a local level. This is not something that the university administration is involved in, in a detailed way. But there are ways in which we can try to facilitate the processes going on across the institution and try to provide information and resources that will assist you and your colleagues in the recruitment.

"I wanted to mention the CCSRE [Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity] Faculty Development Initiative [FDI] led by Al Camarillo, Special Assistant to the Provost for Faculty Diversity, for which the provost provided ten incremental faculty billets to recruit scholars studying issues related to race and ethnicity, [including] colleagues who will add to the diversity of our faculty. A summary of the CCSRE FDI, prepared by Al was provided to senators at their places. Two new recruits are Tomas Jimenez in Sociology and Gary Segura in Political Science, who came in through FDI searches last year. Three searches are continuing from last year where recruitments are under way. Three new searches were initiated this year, collaborations between the FDI and departments in Humanities & Sciences. They were then put on hold because of the freeze on searches. One of them has now been allowed to resume."

Vice Provost Jones reminded the Senate of two brochures published this past year by her office and distributed to the faculty which summarize institutional priorities, policies, programs, and resources related to recruiting and retaining an excellent and diverse faculty, and resources and programs to support faculty with family issues. The brochures are available on the Faculty Development and Diversity web site (http://facultydevelopment.stanford.edu/reports) under Publications.

"Among the [activities] in our office, led by Jacyn Lewis, Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity, are workshops on diversity aspects of faculty searches. They stimulate discussion among the faculty and search committee chairs on the best practices for carrying out searches that will yield diverse applicant pools and faculty recruits. Jacyn has also developed a tool kit of resources that are tailored to the individual searches and provide information on applicant pools, potential sources of women and minority candidates that might be appropriate for faculty searches, and best practices. The tool kit is available to search committees for all parts of the university except the School of Medicine, where Professor Hannah Valantine, Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Leadership, plays that role."

Summing up, Vice Provost said, "We're in a particularly challenging time. Progress in continuing to build an excellent faculty…with the diversity that contributes to its excellence, faces challenges from current budgetary constraints, which, in particular, have reduced the number of searches. Again, we're in this unfortunate revolving door situation in [our efforts] at increasing members of underrepresented groups on our faculty. To the extent that we're going to have fewer searches, [there will be] fewer opportunities to add diversity to our faculty.

"Searches and targeted recruitments that will be pursued during the next couple of years will be precious opportunities…Given the small number of such opportunities that we're going to have, they become even more precious. Special efforts should be made to identify the absolute best candidates, whom we hope will include candidates who, as part of the excellence they will bring, will be contributing to the diversity of the faculty.

"In addition…we need to focus particularly on faculty retentions. [This] doesn't simply mean that when somebody gets an outside offer, we marshal our resources to try to keep them. It means doing all the things that will [make] people want to stay and not be interested in those outside offers. [Also] the university should continue efforts similar to those that Patti Gumport described to expand the pipeline of women and students of color. Hopefully, our sister institutions are doing the same thing, so that when we resume our searches, we will have an expanded pool of wonderful candidates.

"Sustaining and enhancing these efforts requires diligence [and] vigilance on our part as faculty and on our academic leaders, and accountability that we're all doing the right thing to promote an excellent and diverse faculty."

The Vice Provost concluded her remarks by thanking the Senate.

Chair Cohen thanked Vice Provost Jones.

[Applause]

Chair Cohen opened the floor for a brief discussion.

Professor Michele Elam commented, "I wanted to thank Jacyn for her hard work. I think that handbook you created for the searches is amazing and wonderful. And Al Camarillo's Faculty Diversity Initiatives are so helpful because they're collaborations between different departments, so it gets at the structural problems."

Then Professor Elam asked, "Do you have breakouts on women of color?"

Vice Provost Jones replied, "Yes. In the gains and losses report, there is information on the breakdown by gender in different populations of faculty."

Professor Elam followed up: "The [percentage of women of color] look like they're kind of going up a little. [Is that the case?]"

Vice Provost Jones replied she could not remember offhand but the numbers are small.

Professor Cecilia Ridgeway asked, "What happens when the people who came in the '70s and '80s go out the other door and retire?"

Vice Provost Jones replied, "It's become apparent…over the years that one of the reasons we have been able to make so much progress in the percent of women is that most of the people who retire are men. In fact, we didn't have more than one or two women retiring each year until just a few years ago, when we had four. I think this past year, it was eight. So, yes, we will be losing more women, too, as some of us near that age."

Professor Chu asked, "Does your data include clinical educators [at the medical school]? And do you have any information on the number of faculty in that clinical educator line and what the trends are?"

Vice Provost Jones replied, "Clinical educators are not part of the university professoriate. Hannah [Valantine] or [Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs] David Stevenson's office can provide that information for you."

Professor Goldsmith asked about the pipeline issue [trying to increase the number of women and URMs interested in academic careers]. "It seems to me this is such a big challenge it requires the universities to get together with the government."

Vice Provost Jones responded, "[The VPGE office] is working hard to encourage more of our students to pursue academic careers. We did the pipeline study with the Irvine Foundation to consider what the factors are that influence students' decision whether to think about academic careers. We also did a retrospective asking our own faculty--what were the reasons why you decided to go into academia? I think some of that has been helpful to Patti's office, as she's developed programs.

"I should also say that we belong to two multi-university consortia that are addressing these issues. One is the 'MIT9 university group'. We're hosting its yearly meeting in June, and we will talk about how we are doing in terms of graduate student--postdoc faculty diversity. We were one of the founding members with UCLA of the second group, the California University Consortium, which consists of all of the research universities in California. One of the things [we want to establish] is a database of graduate students and postdocs that we can share with each other so that we can try to recruit the outstanding students being trained at our sister institutions in California.

"The University of California system, for all of its challenges with Proposition 209, is really doing some wonderful things in terms of the U.C. president's postdoctoral fellowship program for diversity of postdocs, number of programs that support graduate student diversity, and academic career development."

Chair Cohen thanked Vice Provost Jones.

[Applause]

VII. Unfinished Business

There was no unfinished business.

VIII. New Business

There was no new business.

IX. Adjournment

Vice Chair Cohen declared this informative meeting of the 41st Senate adjourned at 5:04 PM.

Respectfully submitted, Rex L. Jamison, MD Academic Secretary to the University