Senator raises concerns over minority faculty rates

Voicing his concern about the under-representation of minorities among UA faculty, Sen. Andrew Silverman, a clinical law professor, presented data showing that minorities comprised only 5.9 percent of the UA’s tenured faculty in fall 2006, up from 4.8 percent in 1996.

In addition, women made up only 11.4 percent of tenured faculty in fall 2006, up from 10.4 percent in 1996.

“”This is what really surprised me. These are pretty regrettable statistics regarding minorities and women,”” Silverman said.

The percentage of tenure-eligible minority faculty slipped over the last decade to 2.6 percent in 2006 from 7.7 percent in 1996.

The number of tenure-eligible female faculty grew only slightly, climbing 0.3 percent in 10 years to 6.3 percent in 2006.

“”Maybe it’s something that the Faculty Senate should at least take a position about,”” Silverman said. “”I don’t think these numbers bode well for the University of Arizona.””

Personal conflict-of-interest policy passed

Senators passed a motion to adopt policies regarding intimate relationships between university employees. After three years of committee wrangling on the issue, members of the Senate leadership presented the measure as an improvement on an imperfect document.

“”Our choice is to hold out for what some folks think would be perfect, or do we decide on an improvement?”” said presiding officer Robert Mitchell, vice chair of the faculty and interim associate dean of the university library department.

A palpable sense of relief swept the room when, after a round of discussion and clarification of the language contained in the document, the motion to adopt the policy passed.

“”Awesome,”” said Sen. Wanda Howell, Faculty Senate chair and a nutritional sciences professor. “”It only took us five years to do this. This is so cool.””

Financial conflict-of-interest policy adopted

The Senate heard a proposal to update the “”Conflict of Interest/Conflict of Commitment Policy”” and modify an older version of

regulations placing restrictions on financial transactions involving university personnel and the UA.

“”It basically describes the conflict-of-interest rules and procedures and policies relative to research transactions and business transactions, which are really a very different thing,”” said Sen. Michael Cusanovich, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, who presented the document. “”This was rewritten to be consistent with federal and state law. This document brings us up to date and (into) compliance.””

The policy is simply an update to an existing one that had been enforced previously.

A motion to accept the policy passed.