PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 21, No. 9, Nov. 1, 2001

U-C Senate approves resolution to amend disciplinary statutes

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
(217) 244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

At its Oct. 29 meeting, the Urbana-Champaign Senate passed a resolution amending the disciplinary statutes for academic and administrative staff, an item that had been lingering before the Senate since 1990, according to remarks made by Robert Fossum, Senate Council chair.

The amendment, titled "Severe Sanctions Other than Dismissal for Cause," sets forth minimum guidelines for administrative action against faculty or staff members found to have engaged in serious misconduct. According to the amendment, circumstances necessitating disciplinary procedures would include professional misconduct, violation of campus or university regulations or policies and commission of willful physical harm to others or harassment or intimidation of others.

Faculty or staff members found to have engaged in serious misconduct would be subject to suspension with or without full or partial salary for up to one-half of their appointment periods. Health and retirement benefits would remain in place during the suspension period.

The amendment, which had been approved by the University Senate Conference on June 28, had already been approved by the Chicago and Springfield senates.

Urbana-Champaign senate member Peter Loeb, professor of mathematics, proposed amending the resolution in accordance with a provision passed by the Chicago senate to require campus administration to attempt settlement of such disciplinary matters through mutually agreeable mediation. After discussion, Loeb’s proposed amendment was defeated in a 46-55 hand vote.

The resolutions passed by the three campuses will now go to the Senate Conference, which will forward them to UI President James J. Stukel for consideration.

Some senate members expressed disapproval of time limitations imposed by Senate leadership that constrained debate to a maximum of 30 minutes and that prevented individual senators from speaking more than once.

In other action, the Senate passed a proposal sponsored by the UI-Integrate Faculty Advisory Committee expanding the course-numbering system from four levels to six levels. The change is intended to align the UI course-numbering system with that of peer institutions and overcome constraints imposed by the four-level system.

Colleges and departments will have the option of choosing a default renumbering of courses assigned by the Office of the Provost or of overhauling their course numbers themselves. In its proposal, the UI-Integrate Faculty Advisory Committee said that curriculum data such as course numbering had to be in place before March 2002 so that the UI-Integrate project could proceed through its design and implementation phases and be in use by the May 2004 deadline.

Under the new six-level system, upper division undergraduate courses will carry 300- and 400-level designations, with 400-level courses also available for graduate-school credit. Courses with 500-level designations will be accessible only to graduate and professional school students, and 600-level designations will represent professional school courses with restricted enrollments.