Thursday's Academic Council meeting was not marked by debate but featured several important announcements.
President Nan Keohane said the administration has begun forming a committee to search for a successor to Myrna Adams, vice president for institutional equity.
Keohane also announced that a review committee, chaired by Len Spicer, University distinguished service professor of radiology, would begin examining the performance of John Burness. Burness, the senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, is in the fourth year of his second five-year term.
Cathy Davidson, vice provost for interdisciplinary studies, announced that the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies has finally found a space of its own. A floor of the previously condemned Hanes Annex will be renovated to fit the center, she said. The center allows faculty to be exempt from teaching in exchange for their participation in a year-long seminar.
The council also heard two proposals that it will vote on at its December meeting.
The graduate program in ecology presented a proposal to gain the ability to grant a Ph.D. degree.
Lewis Siegel, dean of the Graduate School, and William Schlesinger, James B. Duke professor of botany, submitted the proposal. Ecology is currently a graduate-level program but cannot administer a Ph.D. degree of its own-only a certificate.
If the proposal is passed at December's meeting of the council, ecology will become only the third program to grant Ph.D. degrees at the graduate level. Currently, only genetics and developmental cell molecular biology can do so. All other graduate programs administer certificates, whereas departments issue degrees.
The council also began examination of a revised version of Appendix C. The appendix is an agreement between the president and the Academic Council that explains what role the council will have in searches for and reviews of senior University officers.
Major revisions, including changes to the timing of the review of the council, were completed by the council in May.
Since then, other revisions have been made to the document, which will be formally voted on next month.
Professor of Law Robert Mosteller, also reported that the search for his successor as council chair would begin with the creation of a committee chaired by Emily Klein, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences.
The end of the council meeting was held in executive session as Provost Peter Lange reported on the appointment, promotion, and tenure process for faculty.
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