October 5, 2020

Attendees: Jerry Lin, Chunda Chen, Scott Crawford, Ana Christensen, Amy Smith, Xianchang Li, Ken Young

Not in attendance: Richard Gachot 

Meeting called to order by Jerry Lin at 1:01pm.

I. Review/Approval of September 14, 2020 Council meeting minutes

Motion to approve September meeting minutes Ana Christensen

Motion seconded Chunda Chen

Approved

II. Procedures for paying for external parties on grants – use Cardinal Purch

Jerry Lin: Paying external parties and student stipends on the grants was not standardized in the past. We had a discussion with finance and the post award department. We concluded that it is most efficient to utilize Cardinal Purch to pay participants on grants. The first step is setting up the external parties as vendors in the Banner system so that payments can be made directly through the process in Cardinal Purch. Second step is PI process the request to pay in Cardinal Purch.

Before our next meeting I will come up with a direct policy so we can review and vote during the next meeting.

III. Discussion on faculty workload on research

Jerry Lin: Currently the methods of counting academic workload (teaching, research and service, etc.) have variation among different department and colleges. Recently I was contacted by a faculty senate sub-committee to evaluate the accounting methods to define faculty academic workload and to provide a clear guideline. Once established, the Provost’s office will communicate with the academic college on the implementation. The Research Council represent the collective thinking of research operation. I would like to know your input on the reasonable workloads on research and your recommendation in the coming months while we engage discussion with faculty senate.

Ana Christensen: So is this to standardize this across the campus and across disciplines. I’m not sure how this will work as it varies from semester to semester. I think this may be a bit on the difficult side.

Jerry Lin: Yes, we are working toward a consistent and agreeable guideline.

Amy Smith: I am glad we are talking about working toward this. My experience is trying to teach courses and grading and then add research on top of your course load. It is labor intensive for all of us in different ways. I feel there is resentment regarding the inconsistency across the campus that the university is cutting course loads to enable research. 

Ken Young: One of my questions is does this fit within the prevue of this committee as this seems to fit in to Faculty Senate. Although I do appreciate feed back from this committee. It feels more like we have been used to fill gaps because we have been unable to fulfill on campus enrollment. There is an issue and I hope this is not a way to placate the faculty and appease us but as a way to clear up the situation.

Jerry Lin: Let me try to answer some of these questions. Ana, this is an ongoing effort to define faculty workload to appropriately address the teaching and research mission of the University. Ken, the Research Council should have a voice in the discussion, and it is best for us to  provide the input as a group. Faculty Senate is serving as negations point between ORSPA and the Provost office. The workload estimate is not straight forward but we need guidelines to designate workload with a certain level of accountability.

IV. Role and responsibility of Sponsored Programs Administration

Jerry Lin: we want to provide PIs and administrators a set of guidelines on the roles and responsibilities for managing sponsored projects. The circulated draft is an initial effort for your review and comments for further discussion in November 2020 meeting. The policy allow PIs and administrators to understand the areas they are responsible for in sponsored project management.

V. Roundtable

Jerry Lin: Are there any other items?

None.

Motion to adjourn the meeting at 1:34pm

Amy Smith made a motion to adjourn the meeting

Ana Christensen seconded.

Motion passed.