Faculty Senate minutes - March 6, 2008 meeting
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL FORTIEth SENATE Report No. 8
SUMMARY OF ACTIONS, MAR. 6
At its meeting on Thursday, March 6, 2008, the Fortieth Senate of the Academic Council took the following action:
By unanimous voice vote, the Faculty Senate approved the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degree programs in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science, and the departmental authority to nominate candidates for those degrees, effective September 1, 2008, without limit of time..
REX L. JAMISON Academic Secretary to the University
Minutes, MAR. 6
I. Call to OrderThe Chair, Professor Eamonn Callan, called the Senate to order at 3:15 PM. In attendance were 28 voting members and 11 ex officio members.
II. Approval of Minutes - (SenD#6062)The Academic Secretary received from Vice Provost Gumport data on the Humanities and Sciences diversity questions put to Dean Saller at the February 21 Senate meeting. That information is now an addendum to the February 21, 2008, minutes. The Senate received a copy of these minutes earlier this week. This version will be filed in the historical files.
The minutes of the February 21, 2008 meeting of Senate XL, including the addendum, were approved.
III. Action CalendarThere were no action items.
IV. Standing ReportsA. Steering Committee
Chair Callan presented a preview of upcoming Senate meetings.
Today is the final meeting of the Winter Quarter—the first meeting of Spring Quarter will be on April 17th.
The April 3rd Senate meeting has been cancelled.
April 17th, we will have a brief session to hear a recommendation the Committee on Graduate Studies will present a recommendation on a new policy for approving future joint degree programs. Also, two of our student representatives will present brief reports on undergraduate and graduate issues.
May 1st, the Committee on Research will report on the research project announced last year selecting Stanford University to lead the Army High Performance Computing and Research Center consortium. And Pat Jones, Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity, will present the annual reports on Faculty Gains and Losses, Recruitment and Retention, and an update on the Status of Women Faculty.
May 15th, in a brief Senate meeting prior to the Annual Academic Council meeting, Hester Gelber, Chair of the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies, will present the mandated ten-year review of the Area One General Education Requirements.
The remaining two meetings of the 40th Senate will include the Provost's Budget report and a report from the Dean of Admissions.
Chair Callan conveyed a request from the Academic Secretary to remind everyone that elections for the Senate and the first round of Advisory Board are now open. This phase of the election is for the 41st Senate. In addition faculty in two groups are nominating full professors as candidates for upcoming vacancies on the Advisory Board. First round Advisory Board elections will be followed later by the second round Advisory Board election in which all Academic Council members University-wide may vote. There is a final phase for the election of a Chair and Steering Committee for the 41st Senate that will take office in Fall 2008.
This is the third year of Online Voting. The number of voters participating in the election of the Senate the past two years was very successful, with 50% of the Academic Council members voting each year. Our goal is to surpass that number this year.
Chair Callan concluded by strongly urging all members of the faculty to exercise their right to vote - our participation strengthens Stanford's faculty governance system. Feedback or questions about the new online elections are welcomed by the Academic Secretary or his staff.
There were no questions for the StC.
B. Committee on Committees
Professor Gordon Chang, Chair, reported that the Committee on Committees, along with some members of the Steering Committee of the faculty Senate, met on February 28th to nominate faculty from seven schools to form an ad hoc committee that will examine the process of non Academic Council appointments, "including use of titles as we were asked to do at the Senate some meetings ago."
Professor Chang continued, "We have generated that list and the Academic Secretary is trying to reach members of the faculty to get their agreement to serve on this committee. And we will report to the Senate about the membership of this committee as soon as the committee roster is set. I would also just like to say that…the Academic Secretary has…some difficulty in actually getting the agreement of nominated faculty to serve on committees…[so] we had to generate three times the number of names that we think will wind up on the committee to provide Rex with the number of names he thinks [he will need to constitute] the committee… So if you know of colleagues who have been contacted or you, yourself, have been contacted, please consider agreeing [to serve].
Chair Callan thanked Professor Chang.
C. President's and Provost's Report
President Hennessy had no report and was asked no questions.
Provost Etchemendy had no report. However he commented, "…This past weekend, we had a very successful graduate diversity recruitment event…and I want to thank [Vice Provost for Graduate Education] Patti Gumport and all of the…staff members that were involved in that event and in the planning process. I think it went very well. We will see, of course, whether it was also…effective from a recruiting standpoint.
"I also want to encourage anybody who did not manage to get to the opening of the new Y2E2 [Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy] Building [on March 4] to make sure that you go over there and knock on a colleague's door and make the colleague give you a tour, because it's a wonderful building, both…physically and…from an energy efficiency standpoint. It is the first of four buildings that will form the new science and engineering quad which will be quite stunning."
Chair Callan invited questions for the Provost and recognized Adam Beberg, ASSU Graduate Student Council Representative.
Mr. Beberg began, "I have a question related specifically to open access to the research. 'Open access' is a term used for making all research [publications] available to the public for free in a manner that they can actually get at…Even if you ignore the significant cost of journals that our librarians talked about this year, [the fact] that our research is funded by the taxpayer, and [the fact]that faculty both write papers and review papers for those journals, I consider it…intellectually offensive that research should be locked up…[such that] many articles can never be really gotten by someone, unless [that person] subscribes [to the journal] for a large fee, or pays a large fee for that article.
"…What would you say [about] this type of policy?...Let me first say that I am [going to provide a proposal] based on Harvard's policy. Harvard recently [adopted a policy]…that all faculty will deposit their publications [with] the University. There is a waiver loophole for [those submitting a paper about subjects in fields in which there is] no choice but to publish in a journal that is essentially closed to anyone who is not a subscriber… Those of us who [hold] a pre-tenure position, [will] benefit most from having our publications open and available to everyone."
Provost Etchemendy responded, "That's an interesting question…We noted the Harvard policy, as did everybody. It was widely announced…I may be wrong, but in my…view it addresses a problem that is really a nonproblem. In every field that I know of—or have had close contact with—papers are widely available…often…in advance of publication, in draft form or in working-paper form. Often they continue to be widely available after publication…' The biosciences are by far the largest… in numbers of papers. Most of those papers [report research] funded in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH has a policy that guarantees public accessibility for all papers if they have any funding that comes from NIH…I suspect that's going to…affect close to 100% of papers in [the biosciences], although I may be wrong…
"It's interesting that the Harvard policy…grants an exception if you are publishing in a journal that does not allow open access and [instead] absolutely insists that the paper not be accessible. [That policy]…seems to me exactly the wrong thing to have as an exception. Because if anything, you want to use the clout of the policy to try to affect exactly those publications…
"I may be wrong. There may be disciplines in which significant amounts of publications, journal publications, are not accessible and remain inaccessible…I would be perfectly happy for the Senate to do what the Senate at Harvard did [but] I am not going to impose such a policy. I don't think the President is going to impose such a policy, just because I think it's a non-issue."
Professor Robert Simoni asked—and received—the provost's permission to contribute to the discussion: "I think what Harvard did is, in fact, not very novel…The only novel aspect of it was that they made it an 'opt-out' process. Many universities have institutional repositories and authors in my field, which is bioscience, are generally free to make deposits [in them]. I think you [Mr. Beberg] have drawn the case too sharply. Stanford has been a leader in making research literature available to the broadest possible group of people. HighWire Press has the biggest repository of free journal articles of any place on earth. It was their policy to start with, and I think it's been a model for many others…
"I know many in the life sciences, me included, favor the movement toward open access. It's inexorably moving in that direction, and it will get to the point some day that…everything is free to everybody. Somehow the bills have to be paid for publishing and that's something that many publishers are struggling with. But if anything, Stanford has had the leadership position in this whole effort."
Mr. Beberg agreed, "Yes, Stanford is the leader...There are two open access repositories [and] one is in biosciences at Stanford. And the Harvard policy is not perfect…However, I think it would be a good policy for Stanford to have and it [would] send a powerful statement that we believe research should be open and available to people….Stanford may only have a few faculty in the non-open access realm. However, I think it would be a wonderful policy for Stanford to have."
Provost Etchemendy remarked that he didn't know if Stanford has any faculty that are in the non-open access realm. Mr. Beberg thought there were some people in Humanities who publish in journals that aren't open.
There were no further questions for the Provost.
V. Other ReportsA. NCAA Accreditation report (SenD#6067)
Chair Callan welcomed the honorable LaDoris Cordell, Special Assistant to the President, and Lee Ross, Professor of Psychology, to present the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Accreditation Report
Just as she began speaking, a cell phone rang,
"Good afternoon, everybody…I hold him in contempt of court."
"The NCAA certification program was first implemented in 1994 and started off as a five-year process. It has since transformed into a ten-year cycle. In 1999, at the end of the first cycle—the five-year cycle—Stanford, which is in Division 1, was certified. So we are now in the second half of the second cycle, which will conclude in the spring of 2009, and then the third cycle, a ten-year cycle begins. It's a never-ending process.
"Just what is certification?
"Athletic certification is simply a means devised by the NCAA to preserve integrity in intercollegiate athletics. They have three basic goals…
"One, opening up the affairs of athletics to the entire university community and to the public, in other words, bringing transparency to athletics at universities.
"Two, establishing standards—the NCAA calls them operating principles—there are seven of them for all Division 1 athletic programs.
"Three, putting sanctions in place for those schools that fail to correct problems that surface during the certification process, and…schools that don't properly conduct the certification process.
"The core of all this is a self-study. They [the NCAA] basically say to the schools: 'Examine yourselves and let us know how you are doing in each of four areas.' The four areas are academic integrity, rules compliance and governance, student well-being, and equity in dealing with gender and race and ethnicity.
"Before you is a handout which has the names of all of the participants [at Stanford] in this. There are committees [composed] of the individuals appointed by President Hennessy, to make this certification happen. You will note there are probably in excess of 60 individuals working with me to make this happen. Some of those individuals are here." Judge Cordell asked each [of the guests attending] to introduce themselves and describe their role.
Ellen M. Markman, Professor of Psychology, is the faculty athletic representative, a member of the Steering Committee and a member of the Governance and Commitment to Rules Committee.
Lucius Barker, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, is Chairman of the Academic Integrity Subcommittee.
Lee Ross, Professor of Psychology, is Chair of the Subcommittee on Race and Ethnicity and a member of the Steering Committee.
Beth Goode, Senior Associate Athletic Director, Intercollegiate Services/Senior Woman Administrator, is a member of the Gender Equity Subcommittee and the Steering Committee.
Ann Enthoven is the Recorder and Campus Liaison.
George Springer, Professor of Engineering, is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Rules Compliance.
Alan Acosta, Associate Vice President and Director, University Communications, is Chair of the Subcommittee on Student-Athlete Well-Being.
Hazel Markus, Professor of Behavioral Sciences is a member of the Academic Integrity Sub-committee.
Addressing President Hennessy, Judge Cordell said, "John, I didn't know what my sin was but you appointed me to chair this whole process. And I guess I thank you. We will see at the end of this."
President Hennessy replied, "I thought your judge-like experience would come in handy."
Judge Cordell resumed, "You will note that all of these committees are headed by individuals not affiliated with athletics or DAPER [Department of Physical Education and Recreation] and the same is true for at least half of all the members of these subcommittees.
"The NCAA is quite clear that this self-study cannot be conducted by DAPER. It's got to be led by those outside to ensure that our examination of athletics is an objective one.
"Key to the success of this self-study is our reporter and liaison person, Ann Enthoven. Ann is a Stanford grad, [who] played on the women's basketball team when we won the NCAA; is that true?"
Ann Enthoven confirmed, "Yes, '92."
Judge Cordell continued, "With her help, she will pull this all together and is the one who eventually submits the report off to the NCAA. Ann is perhaps the best hiring decision I ever made.
"Even though there are four self-study areas, I want you to note there are five subcommittees, and that's because I felt it important to have two committees on equity. The NCAA envisioned one committee that looks at gender and looks at race and ethnicity, [but] because I perceive — and I know I am right on this — that there are very different inquiries to the two, I believed it would be better to have two separate committees. This is why we had five.
"We are the only school that is approaching the subject matter in this fashion, which means we are the only one doing it the right way.
[Laughter]
"Since October 2007, these five subcommittees have been meeting on a monthly basis. This is how the process all works: Campus and community participation is absolutely critical to the process. We have gotten input from student athletes, from alumni, from coaches and from the public. We convened a community forum in January in order to generate public input. We sent out 11,000 fliers…to all staff and faculty. We contacted all the local newspapers from Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Redwood City and all the high schools in that area. We contacted community organizations, and with all of that we had six people show up for our public forum.
"[It's a] small number, but when you realize that at the University of Iowa, where [Athletic Director Bowlsby] came from, when they did the same thing and had a community forum, they had one person show up. So we did five times better — six times better.
President Hennessy interrupted, "And there is more going on in Iowa."
[Laughter]
Judge Cordell continued, "In addition, we sent an online survey to all of our coaches and we plan to have a focus group with some of them as well. We also surveyed our student athletes; the results of that survey are going to be presented to you by Lee [Ross].
"Our self-study report…will be submitted May 1st, 2008. The final component of this whole thing is a site visit by athletics personnel and educators from other Division 1 schools. They will come for about a three-day visit—around November 17th—and will talk to whomever they want to, look at whatever they choose, and then will give us recommendations and comments which we can, if we so choose, add to our final report.
"We incorporate all of that, and then wait for a decision from the NCAA in the spring of 2009. There are three possible results: 'Certified,' 'Not certified,' and 'Certified with conditions.'
"I know of no Division 1 school that has ever not been certified by the NCAA. Will Stanford be certified? Absolutely. Will we, from this process, find ways to improve our program for student athletes, or administrators and for coaches? Yes, we will, and, indeed, we already have as a result of this process. So we view the certification as an exciting opportunity to have an open and honest evaluation of athletics at Stanford."
Judge Cordell turned to the student athletes survey. The handout included a summary of the responses to the survey, which contained 22 questions. The answers to each question were numerical, ranging from 1 = "strongly disagree", to 7 = "strongly agree". There was also a series of histogram graphs with 22 bars with the Y axis of the graph rising to a height of 7, representing the mean response to each question for different categories - gender, race, and year in school.
"This was a paper survey which was completed by 606 student athletes out of the total of 750. We have an 81% response rate. How did we get it? Coercion and intimidation.
[Laughter]
"Just joking. But what Ann and I did was hand carry these surveys to each of the 35 varsity teams…either before practice or after…The coaches, and Ann and I would leave the room, and the [athletes completed the survey] in about 15 minutes and handed them in."
Judge Cordell turned the floor over to Professor Ross.
Professor Ross introduced his comment by saying, "…When you are a psychologist and you have this much data in front of you, there is a tendency to think what you ought to do is analyze it and test clever hypotheses. It was all I could do to keep my graduate student working with me to keep from [doing a statistical analysis]. [But] I said, 'this is not a sample. This is virtually everyone. The numbers are what they are.'
"The report is somewhat explanatory. I made an effort to show the actual means on every item. I didn't bother to give you the full variability, except to say although the means are generally very high, all the items are worded in such a way that 'agreement' reflects satisfaction with the program. That would offend…purists who would want to make sure that we are not introducing a positivity bias, but [the design of the survey] makes it a lot easier for student athletes to respond and respond quickly. I thought that if we found any areas where there were not high levels of satisfaction expressed, that would be something we ought to follow up on more seriously than with this kind of 'paper and pencil' questionnaire.
"For the most part, everything that I described in the survey is accurate. I will tell you about the one exception that I came up with this morning.
"The overall story is one of generally very high levels of satisfaction, especially satisfaction about anything that pertains to the athletic program and the opportunities that it affords. The particular focus of our subcommittee was to look at race and at gender and possible interactions between those two variables. I highlighted items on which there is anything notable to be found. But I think it is also worth paying…attention to the absolute levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction that are expressed there.
"The one trend that's mildly disturbing that is not apparent in the means I am presenting, because they are not broken down in this fashion, is the observation that in general, and with respect to some particular items, the level of expressed satisfaction tends to go down over the four years or five years of the student's presence at Stanford—although it actually goes up a little bit if people stay on for a fifth year. That largely reflects the fact that on particular items that pertain to — what you might think of as the costs or forfeited opportunities associated with being an athlete, in addition to the opportunities that are gained. [The athletes]…start to be aware that they are actually not going to have the quarter overseas or that they are not going to double major. They just become…a little more future oriented and become aware—and I think a little bit more realistic—about some of the costs that [are] associated with the benefits of participating [in athletics]. And they are very cognizant of the benefits and very appreciative of them.
"If there are any items in which there is less satisfaction expressed than is generally the case, it does pertain to these foregone opportunities and a little bit about whether coaches serve as ideal advisors about the opportunities available within the university. It is not clear whether it is their coaches who are mainly given that responsibility. Those are the items that dip under five on the relevant seven-point scale.
"With regard to race and gender, there is very little here to cause anyone any particular grief. Certainly nothing that's going to make NCAA folks unhappy. I'll note the items that had something interesting about them.
"One item that was of some interest…just said, 'Do I feel that there is equal treatment by gender for people in exactly the same sport?' [The answer tabulated represents] only a subset of the people responding—that would be people in swimming, volleyball, basketball, track and field and a few other sports….[Although]…the item was a little bit badly written so we can't completely interpret [the answer], we're getting a little bit of dissatisfaction expressed by men. I suspect, although I haven't done the breakdown, it's men …in nonrevenue producing sports feeling that they are getting shafted a little bit in terms of the level of university support. That may or may not be accurate, but I think that's the feeling that's being expressed.
Professor Ross continued, "Other items of interest [are that] in general, we see higher levels of satisfaction expressed by women than by men on most items, with a couple of interesting exceptions.
"We have very, very few items, if any, where minority students are expressing less satisfaction than nonminority students. You will note for most of the items, I give a breakdown by African-American versus white students [because the responses of minorities who are not African Americans are indistinguishable from those of the response of nonminorities], although the samples are small so you can't say anything definitive.
"One item actually expressed wrongly here…is [the question, 'When my athletic career at Stanford is over I plan to stay involved in sports'…] [The numerical summary suggests] there were no differences. There actually were differences. [These are] categorical data so you shouldn't be averaging the means. The result is not terribly surprising that there is a general tendency [that] African-American students, who are in the high visibility, revenue-producing sports, are relatively more likely to think they are going to go on to athletic careers. Although Stanford is famous for de-emphasizing the professional aspects of [athletics], nevertheless, the numbers are a little bit revealing. With regard to whether people think they have the potential [for] or are considering the possibility of a professional career, …among men, 58% of African American compared to 32% of white student athletes are considering this. For women, it's even more marked, 37% [African American] versus 8% [white].
"There's a slight difference in the direction of white students being a little more interested in coaching, but the absolute numbers are pretty small.
"Interest in business careers is relatively high. When I say 'business careers', business careers related to sports are a fairly attractive option for women in particular. And in this case…we see more of professional interest among white [women] than black women.
"[Of] other items that stick out, I guess the most notable was [the response to Question No.] 22, 'I feel my classmates and professors understand the challenges facing student athletes at Stanford.' We see numbers that are a little bit low for the scale as a whole, and a quite marked discrepancy [by gender] in the case of African-American student athletes, whereby females are generally pretty satisfied, [but] males are somewhat less satisfied.
"But as I said…The overall story is one of generally high satisfaction, a relative absence of race differences. Where there are gender or race differences…I suspect it's very hard to disentangle what part of that effect comes from treatment of women or men differently or black or white athletes differently as opposed to simply the reality…that blacks are over represented in some sports [compared to others] and overrepresented [in athletics] relative to the numbers in the university overall. We see some tendency for black athletes to be overrepresented in revenue-producing sports and underrepresented in other sports. So it would be a little bit hard and probably not germane to our purposes to disentangle what is the effect of sport and the status that the sport has with the university and what is differential treatment.
"I saw nothing here to give alarm with the possible exception of Question No. 22, where, as I said, we see black males expressing a lower level of satisfaction than I believe any other question in the survey."
Chair Callan thanked Judge Cordell and Professor Ross and opened the floor for questions.
Professor Robert Dutton asked, "I want to make sure I understand. You are talking about [that with] with year, the trend is down…but it shows a fifth year, and the fifth year looks like it goes way up.
Professor Ross confirmed that that was the case, "If you think about it, the fifth year is typically a year that if someone is doing it, it's because they are satisfied with the opportunities that they are being afforded. That's why they are staying a fifth year."
Professor Andrew Fire wanted to follow up on that answer: "Are we letting down the juniors? Because we have all these special sophomore and freshman [programs], but should we have something to stimulate the junior year a little bit? It does seem from individuals I have known, that's the year things seem to flag a little bit, especially in access to faculty, — there's no longer the sophomore, no longer freshman dialogues."
Professor Ross replied, "I think that's a good topic to follow-up in focus group mode.
"I think what you are seeing is when people first come in they are extremely enthusiastic and extremely optimistic. Over time there is inevitably some modulation of that because not everybody is going to play in the NBA or the NFL. So you have to start thinking about other careers and other opportunities. It's at that point that the tradeoffs that have been involved in being heavily involved in athletics become apparent to you.
"Now, students are well aware that being a student athlete at Stanford has opened up a lot of doors. But they also become aware that it's come at some price…As I said before, they are less likely to have double majored. They are less likely to have been intensively involved in research to the degree that would have allowed them to do independent research and [perhaps] optimize their chance for admission to a Ph.D. program…My hunch is that that's what it's picking up. But it would be useful to hear from the people who do coaching if they have an opinion on that."
Professor Jerry Harris commented, "You commented on Question 22 about the difference between blacks and whites understanding the challenges. There is also a difference between the men and women [responses]. It seems to be that [the response from the] males seems to have…a lower average than [that from] the females. Anything you can attribute to [explain] those differences?"
Professor Ross responded, "Well, again, the question of statistical significance just doesn't apply. The means are what they are, so that gives you…a sufficient statistic. It tells you all you need to know looking at those numbers…we would say there's a strong interaction effect here. Whereas white females are only a little bit more satisfied than white males, black females are much more satisfied than black males. And black males are less satisfied than white males, whereas black females are more satisfied than white females.
Professor Harris noted, "But if you take the color component out, the females are more satisfied than the males. Is there a general conclusion about that?"
Professor Ross replied, "If we did an analysis, we would say there was a main effect of gender, and probably not a main effect of race, but a very strong race-by-gender interaction. And your observation is correct. But I think the dramatic result is the difference between black males and black females. If we were only looking at the white students, that difference would be seen as inconsequential. And I am also concerned about the absolute level. That [score] is just not very good."
Professor Robert Simoni commented, "I think this [survey] is terrific and certainly your conclusion that the scores are generally high is good. In fact, I wish my teaching evaluations were this good. The question I have is—it seems to me that a really pertinent bit of information is not captured here. This is very athletics—specific. The question I have is—how do the student athletes feel about their life at Stanford generally compared to the rest of the student body? It's hard to imagine that the [evaluations by] student body would be, I think, much higher than this. But if there was a big difference, it might be informative."
Professor Ross replied, "Let me say, there are actually a number of items…that are asking about their general sentiments, and those didn't generally produce race or gender differences. For someone concerned about the well-being of student athletes, that's very good news that we don't see differences of function of gender or race on questions that pertain to things like—are you making friends, do you feel you have career opportunities, and things like that.'
Professor Simoni interjected, "It wasn't the race/gender part that I found of interest, though it's interesting. [But] to the general question,—are student athletes as happy about their Stanford experience overall as the rest of the student body? Do they gain the same levels of satisfaction? Are they well served by the institution? That's the question."
Professor Ross responded, "Right. And obviously to answer that question we would have to look at the exit survey for students in general and compare athletes and non-athletes on that item. Obviously we can't get that from this survey."
Professor Simoni noted that those data are available.
Professor Ross said, "One of the things we want to do in our follow-up is to see what are the career trajectories [are] of student athletes, for instance, versus other Stanford students…In terms of overall level of satisfaction at Stanford, it would be interesting to look at, although if we found differences, we would have a cornucopia of possible interpretations for either direction. But that doesn't make it uninteresting."
Provost Etchemendy asked, "Have you looked at whether there are any effects having to do with football? The reason I ask is—when you see a gender difference, given the size of the football program and that it is a one-gender program, you could imagine that a significant difference that had to do with football would show up as a gender difference."
Professor Ross answered, "The analyses I am giving you are exactly one day old, and that is certainly one of the follow-up analyses. I think…to some extent the question is—football versus everything else…It's the revenue-producing sports versus everything else. And [your question] is… worth looking at…but I would be concerned if we saw a particular sport or athletes in a particular sport, with regard to race or gender or just overall, being significantly less positive in their views about Stanford. That would be an issue of concern."
Professor Hank Greely had two questions for Judge Cordell: "Is every university asking these questions or does each make up its own?"
Judge Cordell replied, "Each University makes up its own. These were drafted and put together by members of our subcommittees."
Professor Greely commented, "So we have no ability to compare across universities. The only question that bothers me is [the response to Question] Number 12 ['I feel I have had the opportunity to participate in most of the programs and courses that interest me (e.g. overseas studies)'] [which has to do with] the ability to take advantage of the opportunities Stanford makes available. And I am interested [because] our student athletes have basically a 40 hour a week 'job' [participating in their sport], certainly during the season and often during the off season as well, and that's going to cut into their opportunities. I hope that we will follow-up extensively with the student athletes to figure out which opportunities they are missing, which ones they care about, and whether there's anything we can do to try to make those opportunities more available.
"I know the last couple of years, there has been talk about trying to [schedule] more freshman and sophomore seminars earlier into the day or later into the evening so [they don't conflict with] the classic practice time…[I hope] we can…figure out exactly what opportunities they think they are missing and whether we get some chance to help them."
Professor Ross agreed: "…I think there's no reason why we can't actually follow-up in this cycle on that item. Now, in retrospect, there's something [we psychologist's talk about] called the 'salience bias'. By giving the example of overseas study [as part of the question], we may have disproportionately made that [question] be about overseas study, where there is obviously an issue, because [the response to that question] was the one that showed the strongest effect [decline in score] by year. Obviously a third year athlete becomes aware that that isn't an option available to them.
"But… it's important to know what they felt they gave up. If they felt they gave up the opportunity to go overseas, that's one thing. If they felt they gave up the opportunity to be deeply involved in research or to take small seminars, that would be an entirely different matter in terms of our concern….I agree with you, I think it would be worth following up a little bit and getting clear about that item, because it is the most disconcerting item on the whole survey."
Professor Gilbert Chu commented, "I agree with the idea…of distinguishing the revenue-producing sports from the nonrevenue-producing sports, but I wonder if it might be useful to just look at individual sports, because in a way, it's the equivalent of teaching evaluations. When we get our teaching evaluations, we get them specifically for our own courses so we can make an effort to do better next year. But if [the evaluations of all the teachers in the course] were averaged in, you know, I wouldn't feel any responsibility."
Professor Ross agreed. "…We do have those data."
Professor Chu quickly added, "And I am not asking to see them. I am just asking if the coaches, for example, who have a great deal to do with the athletes' …satisfaction, have an opportunity to share that data with you and to share how their student athletes are doing relative to other student athletes in other sports. I…became acutely aware of this last week. We interviewed prospective graduate students for the biological sciences, and I met one student whose first choice is Stanford. He was a white male in a nonrevenue-producing sport. When he applied here as an undergraduate, he was told he wouldn't be able to major in biological sciences and participate in this nonrevenue-producing sport, which really got me upset. Because he went off to Emory, got a 3.92 average in biology and was an all-American swimmer for four years…. Obviously our nonrevenue producing sport lost an all American. We lost an outstanding student, obviously. And he became a finalist for the Rhodes scholarship.
"I hope that by dividing things up sport by sport, coaches will feel some responsibility individually to try to provide an environment that might be more friendly to the student athlete."
Professor Ross agreed. "I think that's a good observation. One thing we certainly can and will [do is] look to see if we have any outliers when we look sport by sport. Of course you expect some sports to be different in terms of whether [athletes] have a collective team experience or an individual experience, and whether [the sport] involves a lot of travel…So the null hypothesis isn't that 'all sports should be the same'. Nevertheless if you look at the data sport by sport and you [see] what sticks out, it could be interesting for the reason you are describing.
"The question of whether people who came here regretted their decision or were happy about it, and especially people who didn't come here, who we lost out on, that's an important question, but obviously you can't get that from the student survey. But the anecdote you are describing is, I suspect, not uncommon` although I think you would find an awful lot more athletes came here precisely because they thought the opportunity to be involved in academic work was more compatible here…than a lot of other places.
Vice Provost John Bravman commented, "…The participation [by athletes] in freshman and sophomore seminars is…within the bounds of what Hank Greely was saying of what we expect [of the rest of the students], better than I originally guessed. Participation [by athletes] in overseas studies and undergrad research is significantly depressed, although it's not equal by race and ethnicity either. So there are definitely issues to look at."
Professor Simoni note, "The interesting thing is not revenue versus nonrevenue. It's scholarship versus nonscholarship students. Nonscholarship students have a range of options that scholarship students may not have. Since there are probably only two, maybe three revenue sports here, you have eliminated all of the 32 other sports."
Professor Ross assented, "…For the NCAA…that's the breakdown we use—people on scholarship versus people not on a scholarship."
Professor Harry Elam, following up on a question by Professor Chu, "Looking at Number 13 ['My coaches encourage me to take advantage of programs and opportunities at Stanford.']…I think one of the things that's been changing significantly is that relationship. Vice Provost Bravman has a much better sense of connection to the athletic advisors and a better sense of how that [encouragement] is done in connection with athletics as a whole…It may be an interesting question to ask is how they think about advising….We have gotten good feedback…from coaches about what they felt the athletes could and couldn't do."
Professor Ross followed up, "On that item, one would like to know whether they feel they didn't get adequate counseling about the opportunities or whether they are simply saying the counseling they got that was adequate didn't come from coaches."
Professor Mark Applebaum had a question for Judge Cordell. "I look at [the response to Question] Number 22 and I suspect that I myself and some of my colleagues don't fully understand the challenges that Stanford athletes face…And I wonder, did I miss the one-page Web site or pamphlet called, 'Things that classmates and professors might like to know about the challenges that Stanford athletes have?' And if not, is there such a resource that might be appropriate or available?"
Beth Goode, member of the Stanford NCAA Gender Equity Subcommittee and Steering Committee, answered, "There is no current information that would be that specific. We have been working with in particular the UAR (Undergraduate Advising and Research) to help inform the academic advisors. We have not yet reached out to the faculty advisors to provide them with that information…We also encourage the student athletes…to talk with the faculty as early as possible, [about issues that] relate to their schedule, whether it be a practice or competition, and try [to work out] a way that they can pursue whatever classes they need as well as being a contributor to the classroom."
Judge Cordell remarked, "Professor George Springer just brought out that we are having really two discussions here. One is about NCAA and what it requires. The other is about Stanford. And the majority of this discussion has been about Stanford. The NCAA, as far as I am concerned, has [only] some minimal or minimum kinds of things we should be doing. We are well above that. The question is—what are we really doing here as it affects these students—and that to me is the more meaningful conversation....We will get certified [by the NCAA], I am confident of that. But what are we looking to do? How can we improve? We have been told by some student athletes they would like to have smaller groups when they have advising or tutoring. …Can we somehow limit [the number of students in a group] to under 12?
"We realize when we have exit interviews for our senior-athletes, we haven't…formalized that process for exit interviews. We don't have a historical record. So we are moving to do [those things] and to look at what the trends are in exit interviews and to formalize that process."
Professor Anat Admati asked, "Is this the last we will hear about this? For example, academic integrity, et cetera, are we going to hear more about the other pieces of this? Because this [survey] was focused on gender and race as opposed to how the [athletes] are doing and what majors they take."
Chair Callan replied, "It's under way, it's in process. And certainly at a later date, perhaps in the fall, the Steering Committee can certainly take the matter up."
Judge Cordell added, "If I can a make one other comment. I ran it by the athletic directors whether we can do this survey more frequently, because it's a lot of work to do it…It's probably not going to be [done] every year, but somehow [we can] work this into what DAPER does. We are always ready to bring this information back."
Professor Ross had a last comment, "That's one of the reasons we want to do focus groups. We want to see what questions are being raised by coaches and students that aren't here.
"For instance, one coach said he feels that Stanford students in general, student athletes in general, and minority student athletes in particular, often feel inhibited about expressing an interest in a professional career. They often were…standouts in their high school and everyone had the expectation they were going to be a physician or a scientist, or whatever…These students, and particularly…minority students, often feel a responsibility in that regard…and don't feel free to say, 'Well, I might like to spend two years playing basketball in Israel'…Whereas in many schools that would be [considered a] desirable alternative, students may feel a little bit sheepish about expressing that wish [at Stanford]… Coaches tell me they are often the ones who tell students, 'You…have some opportunities that relate to athletics that you are not considering as seriously as you might. You are only young once and you are only going to play your sport for a certain amount of time. Consider [doing] something that would be very satisfying."
Chair Callan thanked Judge Cordell and Professor Ross.
B. Committee on Graduate Studies (C-GS): recommendation to approve MS and PhD degree-nominating authority for the new department of Environmental Earth System Science in the School of Earth Sciences (SenD#6056)
Chair Callan introduced the next topic, "We now come to the recommendation from the Committee on Graduate Studies…Here today is Professor Scott Fendorf, Chair of the Department of Environmental Earth System Science, and Pamela Matson, Dean of the School of Earth Sciences."
The recommendation is as follows:
The Committee on Graduate Studies therefore recommends that the Faculty Senate approve the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degree programs in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science, and the departmental authority to nominate candidates for those degrees, effective September 1, 2008, without limit of time.
Chair Callan introduced Professor Phil Lavori, Chair of the Committee on Graduate Studies, "Phil, please present your committee's recommendation…and I'm sure we are all going to be paragons of succinctness in dealing with this particular item."
Professor Lavori stood and said, "We recommend approval."
[Laughter]
Chair Callan, retreating from his plea for succinctness, "Dean Matson, would you care to be a little more loquacious?"
[Laughter]
Dean Matson complied, "The development of this new graduate program as part of the new Department of Environmental Earth System Science is the product of several years of discussion within the school. It is the response to a group of faculty that have come forward and who are working in areas that are integrated in the earth system area. And it's a response to their request to develop a new department and provide an [intellectual] community for their graduate students that allows them to work together in this new emerging interdisciplinary field."
Chair Callan asked Professor Fendorf to comment.
Professor Fendorf responded, "…When we look at the environmental problems we face, they are not along single disciplines, not in single areas of domains, and we have a number of faculty that have started to embrace these interdisciplinary problems, going from oceans to atmosphere, and cutting across biochemistry and physics. This [recommendation] is basically a product of nucleating around that idea of trying to address an interdisciplinary program and, what we are now proposing—a graduate program that would go along with that department."
Chair Callan opened the floor for discussion. There were no comments.
Any questions for Professor Lavori or for Dean Matson or for Professor Fendorf?
There were none.
Chair Callan then called for a voice vote on the recommendation.
The recommendation passed by unanimous voice vote.
VI. Unfinished BusinessThere was no unfinished business.
VII. New BusinessThere was no new business.
VIII. AdjournmentThe motion to adjourn was moved, seconded and approved. The Senate was adjourned at 4:25 PM to reconvene in Executive Session in the Law School Student Lounge.
Respectfully submitted, Rex L. Jamison, M.D. Academic Secretary to the University
