During its first meeting of the year, the Arts and Sciences Council discussed the tasks that may make this semester one of the busiest in recent years. For instance, by Dec. 20, the legislative body will vote on Curriculum 2000-the final proposal of the curriculum review committee-as well as address the upcoming residential life proposal.
"This will be an exciting and challenging year for the Arts and Sciences Council," said Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William Chafe. "It will be a period during which [it] will be called upon to focus [its] efforts to determine what kind of University ours will be and to define the exact nature of what Duke is all about."
Chafe, the meeting's keynote speaker, also alerted the body to its role in the soon-to-become-public $1.5-billion Capital Campaign, which earmarks $325 million for Arts and Sciences.
The ultimate distribution of these funds, he said, will include $75 million for newly endowed chairs and graduate student stipends in Arts and Sciences. Chafe, who is also dean of Trinity College, plans to establish a new deans' leaves program which will award 10-15 extended sabbaticals to faculty deemed "most effective in their research or contributions in teaching and service." The program will also set aside a new faculty salary fund for monetary merit awards.
These measures, designed to combat last year's 400-percent increase in competing universities' attempts to recruit Duke faculty members, are only a part of changes expected in faculty policy during the next year, Chafe said. He emphasized, however, that he plans to stand firm in maintaining consistent teaching loads across the board-even for faculty pursued by other institutions. To ensure that each faculty member is undertaking an appropriate and equitable teaching burden, Chafe announced plans to formalize this requirement with institutional criteria.
This policy elicited some concern from faculty representatives Fred Nijhout, professor of zoology, Peter Feaver, associate professor of political science, and particularly Theresa Pope, assistant professor of biological anthropology and anatomy, who asked whether current contractual agreements would be compromised by these new guidelines.
"We would like to work within contracts to serve the undergraduate population," Chafe explained. "We want to establish a norm of expectation to effectively meet student demand and the principle of everyone pulling their own weight."
The History department, Chafe continued, provides an example of such a teaching load, where professors must teach a 100-level class, an undergraduate seminar and another elective course in addition to instructing graduate students.
The question and answer session that followed Chafe's address was shaped by concerns raised by Professor of Chemistry Richard Palmer and Professor of Political Science Peter Fish about the new Undergraduate Policy Committee. Palmer asked if student input would play as important a role in the UPC as administrative communication.
"The UPC will have systematic, relevant communication with all relevant student constituencies," Chafe responded, alluding to the regular breakfast meetings between student leaders and upper administrators. "This kind of consultation and commitment will be a constant part of the UPC's interaction with the student body."
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