VOL. 23, NO. 23	MAY 20, 1998

fter prolonged and strenuous debate, the Senate narrowly voted at its final meeting of the year on Apr. 24 to amend Chapter 7 of the University Statutes, the Code of Academic Freedom and Tenure, by adding a formal definition of the Tenure Review Advisory Committee (TRAC), the faculty group that advises the Provost on the composition of the ad hoc committees that conduct tenure reviews.

  The resolution, like all statutory amendments, requires the approval of the University Trustees.

  Also adopted, without controversy, were measures to develop guidelines for transactions with foreign governments and to extend and review the University’s policy on student sexual misconduct.

  The statutory amendment, a compromise expressing the consensus of a joint meeting of the Senate faculty caucuses a week before, replaced an earlier resolution, calling for significant changes in TRAC procedures, with a description of something close to the status quo, including amendments added on the floor to provide for public disclosure of TRAC membership and public annual reports with aggregate statistical data on the ad hoc process.

  The substitute nevertheless encountered opposition, particularly from Provost Jonathan R. Cole, who argued that a part of the tenure process that is universally perceived to be working well does not need to be codified in the Statutes; that the present legislation could lead to more sweeping changes in tenure processes, and that the Senate, with student and other non-faculty members, should not be setting tenure policy.

  Proponents responded that successful procedures should be codified, lest some later administrator decide to undo them; that the Senate, including students and other groups, had created the entire Code of Academic Freedom in the Statutes in the 1970s and amended it numerous times since, and that the measure affirmed a degree of faculty responsibility for setting tenure policy.

  The vote, after an hour of debate marked by an unusual number of parliamentary queries and challenges, was 22–17, with three abstentions.

  The resolution on sexual misconduct extended the University’s current policy for two more years, while it is reviewed by a task force of five students, three faculty, two administrators and a non-voting representative of the General Counsel’s office. An accompanying report listed possible problems with the current policy’s provisions for publicity, the selection of hearing panelists, mediation and the role of advisors (both for complainants and the accused) in hearings.

  The External Relations Committee resolution on guidelines for future financial relations between the University and foreign governments was a simpler version of a measure that had provoked extensive debate in March over the sale of the Casa Italiana to the Italian government and the establishment of the Italian Academy, as well as the role in the academy of trustees appointed by the Italian government. Sen. Letty Moss-Salentijn announced that the Education Committee, which she chairs, had added a day to the reading period next fall in response to a request from student senators. The addition will require extending the final exam period till Dec. 24, but the committee was assured that no exams will be scheduled on that day.

  Sen. Paula Loscocco (Barnard, Fac.) spoke briefly for the Libraries Committee, which had called for major increases in funding for the Libraries in a resolution unanimously adopted by the Senate in March. One of the resolution’s provisions, a report from the Provost on appropriations for the Libraries in next year’s budget, was deferred until the fall because of the lateness of the hour.

  President George Rupp said that in response to another request in the resolution, he was arranging a meeting between members of the Senate Libraries Committee and the Trustees’ Committee on Educational Policy and the State of the University.