University Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
4:30 — 6:00 p.m.
701 Clark Hall
DRAFT MINUTES

I. Call To Order
J. Glenn called the meeting to order. Roll call was recorded through attendance sheet. The minutes from last meeting are not available for review as yet. First thing we want to go over is Committee Reports�the CJC.

M. Hatch said we had a meeting on Tuesday�the chairs of the CJC meeting with the principal members of the working group that President Skorton had constituted. And the memorandum of understanding was accepted by all. The memorandum is a necessary preliminary for us engaging in any work that we were charged to do by the assembly, that anything we did would have a legislative stand here and it wouldn’t be just advisory. It can be part of a legislative process that took place with in University Assembly. We would be doing our job as a committee for the University Assembly to provide advice about possible revision, which the University Assembly would act upon, as opposed to just gathering community input that could then go to the administration for its decision through its working group. So, the memorandum then states as it reads. He paused to answer questions.

A male representative asked if the president delegated to the UA.

M. Hatch responded that the point was debated and it was established and that it’s in the charter and it’s a case that President can unilaterally act with the Board of Trustees to recind any aspect of legislation for the University Assembly, but that would take a movement on the part of the President to do so. The President could abolish the University Assembly by going to the Trustees. By the way, the role of the CJC is defined in the first item under the first article of the charter. So, there was a point of debate in the University Assembly charter that says that the University Assembly by delegation from the President will have a legislative authority. In the course of the discussion with the working group, the question was raised whether the Krause Report could be considered a delegation by the President and therefore what comes out of it supercede the delegation of the authority to the UA. And we raised the point in rebuttal of that observation. In fact, we weren’t there to argue legal points about what constitutes delegation but just to get a simple agreement with the working group, that in fact current practice does operate in this area; the Krause Report constitutes a superceding of the UA legislative authority in the area. So, the next step then, having gotten this agreement, was to have a meeting with the CJC, and we did today from 1 until 3pm. And the committee now is evaluating, in the light of the Krause Report, the code and the judicial system, and it will be gathering opinion through blogs, that will be set up through the generous assistance of the Office of Assembly, and those blogs will be focused on the crucial areas in the code. And those were: the independence of the judicial system and the independence of the process of amending the code, which right now rests with the UA. And then the third is the coverage of the code, both in terms of people — who in the community are covered — and in terms of place; that is where the code operates. We’ll be gathering opinion on all of issues that were brought up in the Krause Report, according to the 12 points that Barbara Krause nicely summarized in her letter of delivery of the revised code. We established that we could not deal with all of the 12 points before March 7th and we felt only the fundamental points would be the prime ones to be discussed because they lay the groundwork for a more prudent and timely working through of all the other more nitty-gritty code-related and judicial system-related issues that are raised in the other 12 points. He asked if there were any questions about what he said.

H. Granison said you mentioned earlier the use of blogs. How are you going to solicit input to the blogs?

M. Hatch responded that it was so near the end of the semester to circulate by email to the campus community a request for comment on these issues via blog, would be counter productive because it would get lost. So, we are setting a target of mid-January to circulate possibly through a general announcement to the whole community via the email system to consider these three prime issues comment upon them before the middle of February, and then we will be sifting through those with the assistance once again of the Office of Assembly and compiling and discussing the responses in committee between then and the target date of March 7th for us to render an opinion to you folks about those three principle areas that I identified.

H. Granison asked how members would fill slots.

M. Hatch said there was a new charge that was recommended, or at least inferred. We invited all the heads of assemblies to our meeting today and nobody came from the heads of the assemblies, but everybody is very busy. We were also asked to add members, ad hoc members�non-voting�of the working group, and we spoke with members of the working group at the meeting the day before, and they said that they didn’t care to be ad hoc members, that they would proceed in whatever way was appropriate to us to fulfill our role as we had defined in the memorandum of understanding. They would help in facilitating at our behest any of our efforts in accomplishing what we had set up as our task. I have a group of people who are interested in becoming ad hoc voting member from faculty. One of the things we want to discuss in the committee is how much having actual ad hoc participation, that is not just community members coming in and talking with us during public times, would add to our ability to deliberate as voting members, and how much adhoc members would impede us in making concrete decisions to accomplish in a short period of time that we need to accomplish. So, I think that is what we tried to develop in this blogging system and in a second and much larger forum - much larger in the sense of publicity perhaps in WSH Memorial Room in the first week of February for everybody to come and talk through from all sectors of community, at a time when employees would be able to come without affecting their jobs. I know that this issue is going to be brought up with the faculty senate next Wednesday, and there will be some faculty discussion about what role they want to play, and I would hope that assembly members would feel free to be points of contact for opinions from their respective sections of the campus community.

H. Granison asked about whether we wanted Barbara Krause to come back.

M. Hatch said that we talked about that in the CJC and folks were saying that Barbara Krause had a lot to say. We really feel under pressure to do something significant that takes community input, and we don’t want to get sidetracked by having debates about issues of process of how a report was put together or who information was gathered from and things of that sort.

H. Granison said not to talk about process, but about issues.

M. Hatch said the point was raised that in fact if nothing comes of all of this then why wouldn’t the President very well say “we have to do something; I’ll take it to the Trustees.” The CJC has been discussing issues for all of the 10 years I have been on it, we will have no situation in which no recommendations are made. What we won’t have is a complete vetting of all the issues raised in the Krause Report, because it’s not prudent for us between now and April 7th�for us March 7th and you April 7th to vet all 12 of those issues raised in Krause Report. We expect to be able to have significant campus sentiment gathered to bring to you folks to act upon these three issues that I brought up: the first is the independence of the judicial administrator and jurisdiction. The second issue is who controls the system�the UA does currently. These issues are related, but they are very different, because the system is presently in the hands of UA and Barbara Krause’s Report says, “Take it out of the hands and put it in the Dean of Students office.” The judicial administrator could be a separate office. The third issue is who and where. He asked if there were more questions.

D. Rosen asked if the authority comes from the Trustees, can we send an alternative to them?

M. Hatch said as far as I read the legislation, the Board of Trustees voted to give the UA the power to do this. And the UA by delegation from the President has the authority over those aspects of conduct of members of Cornell University now covered by the campus code. The UA is the sole body that’s empowered to initiate revisions to the code and judicial system, but the Trustees also can initiate revisions to the code and judicial system. But, that would take an act of the President literally going to the Trustees and saying “This can’t be any longer.” In order to do that with the code or any documents you want to accept, it would make it necessary to actually take action that the Trustees would have to ratify.

H. Granison said 1.1 and 1.3 should be discussed by the UA and academic integrity also be added to agenda.

J. Glenn said those issues will be pushed back to our January meeting because we missed them on our agenda.

L. Lawrence said since the CJC will look into the three items because of time constraints, will the CJC ever look at the other nine items in the future or not?

M. Hatch said that’s our job, but it’s not our job under a gun because a report has been delivered. It’s our job because that’s what we’re empowered to do.

L. Lawrence asked just in terms of the time right now, just roughly, would that be in the Fall 2007 semester?

M. Hatch said there are 12 items and it depends what emerges in terms of suggestions and revisions for the current code. This is a tough thing. For example, deciding on what constitutes harassment was part of the agenda for four of our meeting for four months in a row. I’m saying that not because we weren’t doing anything. I’m saying that because those are complicated issues and we have to gather opinions from different places, we have to gather legal opinions, and we want to make sure we do the right thing for the rights and responsibilities of members of the community. If we were do all 12 points now, I think we wouldn’t be discharging that responsibility properly. Does that answer your question?

L. Lawrence clarified that wasn’t necessarily the gist of his question. He just wanted to know when the discussion would start.

M. Hatch said we will certainly start in the fall semester, certainly with things like the right to remain silent and other hot button issues.

L. Lawrence thanked him.

E. Loew said however, that would only occur if the President did not accept to be part of the Krause Report that removes the code from the UA. It may turn out that there’s no more CJC. But was it your feeling — in talking to the working group — that anybody was in favor? I know there are some people associated with the working group who feel this way, but I haven’t met a single person or got a single letter where someone says “Oh yeah, let’s remove the independence of the JA and stick them in the dean of student’s office.” I have this general impression that we’re all here in the UA because we like representative government. I can’t imagine that we would write a report in April saying “Oh, yeah, let’s throw away representative government.” We could write the report right now, because I have a feeling I know what it’s going to say. Okay, fine, but the talking members of the working group�

M. Hatch responded that you charged us to gather community input.

E. Loew said I understand that.

M. Hatch said I’m not trying to be argumentative here, I’m just saying that I felt like we weren’t in position to poll people in the working group to see what they felt about the Krause Report.

E. Loew said I just felt they might have mentioned it, that’s all.

M. Hatch said no, we didn’t get into that. What I see is a trajectory of leadership and administrative versus democracy processes, and the UA should be vigilant, not because they are nefarious people or forces at work, but because as you outlined in your original report, things have been eroded, and they are not necessarily eroded because of venality. They are eroded because people don’t keep abreast with democratic processes and exercise their rights. All I’m interested in doing on the CJC is making sure that things get done while also taking into account peoples’ different opinions.

R. Wayne said sometimes things may get eroded because people are such good administrators, like Frank Rhodes might have been such a nice benevolent dictator that really thought of so many peoples’ views that there was no need to be vigilant. But then presidents turnover. When Hunter Rawlings came in and he was a complete autocrat. And then we had Jeff Lehman come and we saw then how the Board of Trustees can have Presidents come and go. So, I think if we aren’t vigilant we will erode.

J. Glenn asked if there were any more questions or statements on what the CJC did today.

M. Hatch said I would really like to be somewhere with the CJC, or be in the loop as far as what the UA is doing in these areas of the code and what opinions are being formed. I don’t want to be a part of every communication that comes from the UA in your listserv, but if there are any things that the UA is working on, either privately between members or that had to do with their perspectives on what we are doing and what is being evaded in the campus coded dialogue, I think we should be aware of them. We don’t want to be blindsided or give you a report by which then through various negotiations amongst yourselves, you’ve decided that it’s something you don’t want.

J. Glenn said that makes sense and he thanked M. Hatch. Moving on to old business�a recap of the forum, he said J. Marwell did a wonderful job chairing that meeting because they can easily get out of hand very, very quickly. He thought it was really nice to have so many people come out and talk about their feelings about the Krause Report with that much input, energy, and interest in the campus code of conduct, and he thought it was wonderful that President Skorton took the time out of his schedule to come out and listen to the comments first-hand as opposed to seeing a transcript or hearing what someone else said. Does anyone else have any comments?

L. Lawrence said we need to invite President Skorton to come to one of our meetings so we can ask him directly and find out exactly where he stands instead of second guessing what he may or might not do or interpret what he says or doesn’t say. I think we need to talk to him directly and ask him some tough questions.

J. Glenn asked if anyone else had any comments. Moving along, the discussion of the timeline for the Krause Report�M. Hatch went over some of that as far as putting up a blog, working with the CJC�if you’re part of constituency, to get your information from the constituency to the CJC, so they can turnaround a report by March 7th. It will give them time to write it and get it back to us so we can approve it, and send it through the appropriate channels.

A male representative said how about in that timeline we invite President Skorton for the next meeting.

J. Glenn said okay.

J. Purcell said I just joined the CJC. How long will it take the UA to review what we produce on March 7th? Right now you have a month, and some people in the CJC feel that of the twelve points in the Krause Report, some are more contentious than others. We’re trying to bite off the big three today, but many people are out of town. Is there any way that March 7th could be moved up?

J. Glenn asked moved up so that you want the report due earlier like sometime in February?

The male representative responded no, later.

J. Glenn understood that he was asking for later.

The male representative said since the UA needs to turn in the report to President Skorton by April 7th and the CJC needs to give our report to the UA by March 7th, that’s a month. Is it too long or too little?

J. Glenn responded I believe part of that timeline was�right now there is only one scheduled UA meeting, March 28th. So, I think they want a lot of time to digest the spring break being in there, and we thought that it was better to have the report in our hands earlier as opposed to later. As we continue down this process, if something comes up that we really need to switch it, I think we can but right now I’d rather keep it earlier to give us more time as far as the viewing, rewriting, asking questions, as opposed to pushing it back later.

L. Lawrence said perhaps that report could be preliminary in nature considering our final report could not get enough time, why rush something. I mean, like you said, it’s been through May that the President’s office had it and we’re just getting it. So, we’ve got to balance all this out. So, perhaps the preliminary report from us would be more appropriate than a final report.

J. Glenn said that could be possible, once you see the amount of information you’re getting once you get into the work a little bit more and see how long it’s taking to condense all this stuff.

M. Hatch said it’s a point of information since the minutes aren’t here from last meeting, but I listened to the recording of them and someone at some point inserts the word, I think it’s chair interim into the report before that, and I didn’t know whether that made it into the minutes or not. What you were submitting on April 7th is the interim report. If it made it into the minutes, and what we’re doing is submitting an interim report to your interim report.

E. Loew said he thinks the wording was that if it’s the final report, in my mind it has to address all of the issues raised by the Krause Report. It’s not going to, there’s no way it could. Because of that, and it’s only going to address certain parts of the Krause Report, then it really isn’t a final report�a whatever report.

M. Hatch said in your resolution, it would be good that it said interim as opposed to a report.

E. Loew clarified that was the reason ‘interim’ was put in.

D. Perlstein said alternatively, the UA could issue a whole series of reports if that’s needed. If it’s true as you say, then the UA will decide on keeping its own authority over the codes, there could be a report issued today that the UA knows now it wants to keep authority over the code, and it’s still not sure about the 11 other things, it’s going to disappear if it’s included with the other reports too.

J. Glenn said he thinks right now, it’s better to keep just one report, to keep the timeline we’re currently on, and if there are any changes in that timeline, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. That’s my gut feeling.

E. Loew said he thinks what you want is the representatives of the UA to be able to report the feelings of their constituencies to the UA, and then have the UA act basically on behalf of all four or five of the constituencies as opposed to just the individual. For example, I think the GPSA is going to do this, so let’s start ahead with it. We could either act as an independent body, the UA is just the UA, or as a group of representatives of our individual constituencies, and I think it might be better to be the latter in this case. But, hopefully, we can get the other assemblies to act fairly quickly so that our representatives from those assemblies can report back to us so that we can use that information and also give it to the CJC or they’ll have their own ways to get it.

J. Glenn said moving on to new business, the first thing we have is civility of the statement that came out of just couple of questions people are having. Some people thought that some of the things that were said in the forum meeting last week and on email might have been a little bit unfair and a little bit on the personal side, so the executive committee talked about putting out something saying “While we’re having these discussions, while we’re doing things along email, however we’re doing it, whatever discussions you’re having, primarily take the time to respect each other, respect each others opinion, especially at an institution of higher learning. That’s why we’re here to have different discussions, have different opinions, and to keep all conversations respectful.” On another side note, there are a lot of things sent out via email — while email is a great way to communicate and talk to people and process different ideas, also keep in mind that all of our constituencies are not able to see those emails that the conversations are taking place between two or three people and not among the entire community. So, just keep that in mind whenever you see emails going out and things being circulated through the email.

M. Hatch asked for clarification. We’re gathering community input and your statement just now makes me wonder how we can know we have community input if we’re just taking the word of what people say on email about community input. Framing it another way, are you asking for referenda?

J. Glenn responded no, just be cognizant of it. Sometimes you can email electronically and just predict that other people are out there.

M. Hatch responded what you are advising is that what we are getting is community input sufficient to your request.

J. Glenn agreed that we should use every means available to gather input, but to keep that in the back of your mind�using email. There are other means out there if need to talk to other people. Not everyone is on the same list, so you’ll not be getting the full response. For example, a forum, everyone is invited to, but with email, everyone is not invited. Next, the resolution by R. Wayne�resolution #4. He asked R. Wayne to explain his resolution.

R. Wayne said my thought process is that the UA has legislative authority, and I think at this time it’s actually good to bring up H. Granison’s idea of what is exclusive legislative authority. The Krause Report speaks of the UA as having legislative authority. It doesn’t say it has legislative authority unless somebody else wants to bypass it and do something. So, the working group seems to have no legislative authority, it’s not representative of the University community, and it goes towards the centralization of power at Day Hall. I frankly don’t think the centralization of power in Day Hall, and has done anything to serve the University well. It’s only done things to not service the University so well. I ask that we be allowed to do our job, that we state ourselves that we know that this is our job, that it is our legislative authority, to look at that campus code of conduct, and also I ask that we support the memorandum of understanding that the CJC agreed with the working group. This isn’t meant to be confrontational to President Skorton. I’ve said a number of times, I’m very hopeful of President Skorton, but I’m disappointed that we’ve had a trend toward centralization at Day Hall instead of a trend towards representational government. And I want to be vigilant in saying, at least I believe that that trend isn’t good and I want to be vigilant to say that this representative body knows that’s our job and we want to do it.

J. Glenn thanked R. Wayne and asked if there were any questions. There were no questions. He asked if there was any point of debate on the resolution.

E. Loew asked how does Randy view the working group. I view it somewhat differently, but that’s just my opinion. If I was president, particularly a new president, I’d want the working group to advise me. I saw nothing here that indicated that the working group was making decisions, and my impression is that you feel that the working group is going to make decisions, and I didn’t think that was it, but maybe I’m wrong. Do you have something?

M. Hatch clarified something that came out of minutes that we had with the working group, which is after all the only contact, albeit second hand that the UA has had with the working group. In each instance, there were several instances where principle members of the working groups said things that led you to believe that they were prior to the response of the UA, ready to make the decision about this and felt it was in their portfolio to do so.

A female representative asked for clarification.

M. Hatch said for example, when I was told that the President’s charge to Barbara Krause could constitute delegation of authority over the code, as opposed to UA’s delegation, so that it was a taking out of the hands the right that was delegated to the UA. And then we argued against that and the working group agreed that that’s fine. My point is not to impugn the future motives of the working group. I’m just saying that as it was constituted, my impression was that it was fully prepared to take on the task of doing this and wanted only the inputs as opposed to concrete actions.

L. Lawrence said I think in addition to inviting the President, we also need to invite the working group as well as the legal counsel to help us understand exactly what roles and to very clearly define what everybody’s role is in it, because to me it’s a little bit confusing.

M. Hatch said we’ve gotten over that bump and now what we have is a group which is prepared to accept reasonable responses.

L. Lawrence said in spite of getting over this bump, I do think that we need to talk with the working group regardless; even if this hadn’t come up, I do think we need to talk with them and legal counsel.

R. Kay said it’s my impression following this just by reading the Daily Sun that you would have a distinctive impression that we were the ones who are collecting the information through the CJC and they were the ones who would really sit through and make the final determination. That’s the way I learned about the working group. I think we should probably call the Sun reporter and start getting his response, because they seem to always go to the administration. That’s the way it looks. And if that’s what you just say is true, then that’s an incorrect impression to the Sun readers.

M. Hatch responded that he’s been buffalloed before, and I don’t mean by the Sun. Other members laughingly agreed with his response.

D. Rosen responded that R. Wayne’s resolution includes that the President Skorton is free to consult with anybody or any group, which would include the working group. And I’m wondering why, since the resolution points out that we do have this responsibility, why the working group needs to be mentioned at all, and I’m wondering whether you would regard it as a friendly amendment to simply go drop the listing and by that action show that we’ve regarded it as irrelevant�the working group is irrelevant. Since it’s simply going to be something that can advise President Skorton as he has to be, but it has nothing to do with us, which is different from the review.

J. Glenn clarified that D. Rosen was asking for a friendly amendment on dropping the “whereas” part.

D. Rosen responded that he didn’t think that R. Wayne would regard it as a friendly amendment. Other members laughed.

J. Glenn said but you asked him to cut the part about all the names and then the part that says whereas President Skorton is free to consult that part as well?

D. Rosen clarified that he would keep that. It is simply the “whereas” with the list of names. That certainly is true, this is not representative. It could be fair to say “I want my own people to give me some advice on something,” which he can do.

J. Glenn responded okay.

R. Wayne said he guesses the issue is up for discussion.

J. Glenn said no, it is certainly an amendment, and then if you want to admit it that way, then it’s not. If you accept it, then it’s that way. If you don’t want to accept it, then he can submit it as an amendment. We’ll go through questions and debate on the amendment.

R. Kay said that it’s quite a substantial change.

J. Glenn said unfortunately, as the author it’s you’re decision. So, if you want to accept it you can. If no�

R. Wayne joked can I get advice from my working group? Others laughed. He continued that he would be happy to do that.

J. Glenn said okay. So, the part “whereas the working group consisting of Susan Murphy�” is stricken from the document.

H. Granison had a couple of things to say. One about the Sun report, in the initial President’s press release about the forming of the working group, asking for community input, and the timeline. After our meeting here today and last week, it was the President commenting on the working group saying it was not intended to be a group of community members, it was intended to be only by administration to look at the report. But ultimately, it is the President making the decision and not the working group. Again leading back to this again, I want to talk to the people who actually are making decisions, to the executive committee, to the UA meeting or whatever, to have a discussion, and not just with the current campus code issue. With my recollection, the discussion of the transportation policy with the graduate students earlier this year, how was that policy done? How are decisions made? We should approve decisions before they are made. Maybe people don’t want that approach because they don’t like what the answer is, but to me really there’s a better way of doing things than having this sort of uncomfortable back and forth not knowing where we stand. I’d rather know where we stood. If someone disagrees with a group of people because that’s the way legal counsel and the president sees it, then we can know about it. If we don’t like it, we can go to the Trustees meeting in the public forum and discuss it, instead of going a roundabout to get this. So, that’s sort of my issue, and this has been an issue since I joined the assembly years ago. When I first started, there was an issue about how the interaction between the UA and administration and how we always were reacting to policy changes. The error is never being consulted upfront. And so I see this as a perfect opportunity to following most of the important issues to sort of establish ourselves and say “Look, this is what we are and this is our authority.”

J. Glenn asked if there were any statements or questions.

R. Kay said just reflecting on that, we always were accepting responsibilities relative to CJC and changes to the code and we continue to do that. No one tells the Campus Store how to do its marketing. So we relinquished that, in a sense.

H. Granison said we relinquished that in a sense with the report, but I’m not sure we relinquished policy changes. That’s what we have authority over�the policy.

R. Kay responded we still have pervue here. I know that there’s nothing we’re doing, but that doesn’t mean we still don’t have the authority.

A male representative said right, like with the change in the parking issues and everything else in the semester. Another thing is we only hear about things after the fact. It may be linear like we’re not going to initiate legislative change, but again, I thought some of things that we would use in the conversation was if the university is going to change the parking, we could say, “Wait a minute, have you thought about these issues?”

R. Kay said we never relinquished the Code of conduct.

H. Granison replied right, but I think until the Krause Report came out into this debate, everyone thought that we had legislative authority in the area of transportation as well, even though the language was the same in 1.1 and 1.3. So even though the language is the same, and we didn’t take any official point of this like in the transportation problem. We maybe don’t require reports, so I don’t think we’ve changed the charter. We want to know exactly where we stand, and maybe it’s this understanding that we don’t have. The President maybe can again and again just go to the Board of Trustees every single time he thinks it’s important enough to change the Campus Code without our knowledge. If legal counsel and the president clearly had that opinion, it would be nice to know. We can sort of respond how we wish after knowing where we stand.

M. Hatch said with the President focusing on this issue alone, that is the campus code issue, just speak with him about that rather than other problems. If you bring the counsel in to ask whether you had sole legislative authority or whether you have any legislative authority, and you would kind of have to ask of specific instances, and he’s going to say of course you don’t and the Board of Trustees controls, but if you speak specifically with the President about this, you’ll get a sense of being a significant part of the community.

O. Hammer agreed with the part where it would beneficial to bring in President Skorton, and it’s not fairly necessary to bring in the working group. I agree that we need to be vigilant about taking ownership and making sure that it’s very clear that we’re going to be dealing with this, but I also strongly encourage that if the working group is going to be a group that is advising President Skorton on recommendations that we’re making, I think that it would be beneficial to us working and not including them in the decision making as far as what we’re going to recommend but have them working in the face that they are very well aware of any decisions that we make and we’re going to recommend that they understand why, but they now understand where we’re coming from rather, kind of like the Krause Report where it all appears in April and then they’re going to get their opinions exactly just from reading it. I think that there needs to be a discussion with them, either the CJC discussing with them, just make sure they’re along with us throughout the process of understanding exactly where we’re coming from, but they’re are not blind to we making recommendations so President Skorton can just reject our recommendation.

R. Kay said they can always come to our meeting, and it was part of that. I think there’s no one here, but they have the trustees meeting now. I think they’ll speak very loudly if they show up to our meetings, anyone of them. And some of them kind have already and some of them haven’t. I really feel that’s probably if they want to get an idea of what’s happening in the most efficient way for them to get it.

R. Wayne said many on the working committee are not voting members of the UA, so we have to make sure they’re in the loop.

A female representative clarified that some of them are non-voting members of the University Assembly, some of them have come, but I don’t want to say it’s all in their hands to come to us and make sure know where we’re at. We’re also active in keeping them in the loop and making sure that they’re fully aware of what we’ve done on anything that we decide to recommend.

A male representative said members of the administration that are non-voting members of the UA, are they on our listserv? And did they get all the emails about when there is a meeting or about the agenda?

J. Glenn said if not, we’ll make sure they are. They are on there and they will be informed of the meeting. That’s a good question.

A female representative said there’s a good chance that they’re not and there is a possibility of some of them that may be making very strong recommendations to President Skorton, they are not going to be very proactive about getting in touch with us. If they were on the listserv and saw some of the discussion, I feel like we would have heard more of a response from these people on the working group.

M. Hatch said they will be made aware of everything that goes on, and their participation. They’ve already said that they will venture opinions as they see fit.

The female representative said I know the more that we work with them, than more likely they will be on board with us on the recommendation that we’re going to make.

J. Purcell of the CJC talked about the possibility of meeting together, which might not be very long and might not be engaging. I feel like a month ago a lot of people got used to the fact that there was the working group who appeared in a press release that working group will advise and UA will collect feedback. And I feel like a month later there is still a lot of ambivalence about whether or not Skorton can go over to the Trustees and say, “I want to do that, take it away from UA,” and if he can do it.

A male representative asked if the UA is literally going to collect comments. Can the Trustees, can the administration just totally bypass the UA? And there’s still no clarity on that.

A male representative said to get the answers, it is absolutely possible with the campus code of conduct that it’s true for the President to make changes, and the UA to tell him things that he does that the community does or does not agree with. So that being the case, the UA needed to not just collect feedback from these constituencies but organize their constituencies. You know, if the President isn’t just going to deal with ten or twenty UA members who have a problem with it but also all the community members, and god forbid the constituent-elected Trustees side with the constituents, not the Trustees, there can be a coalition of people who are supposed to be influential in this University to counsel the people who make the decisions.

J. Glenn asked if there were any more points to debate.

A male representative said that is the most important point I think, which is that, really if this is going to work, you all have to represent the constituencies. You don’t have to talk with the working group, because the working group knows it’s waiting for us to get feedback.

L. Lawrence disagreed with that. I think we need to talk with everybody and get everybody on the same page, and hopefully they’ll be on the page that we are. So I think in terms of communication, I think you need to communicate with everybody and don’t leave the chance with anybody.

J. Glenn said let’s just focus on this resolution. I do have one quick point, since there are Graduate students here. I am somewhat concerned, and I believe that we should be working with the working group, because when there is a working group in title or where there’s not a working group, President Skorton is going to ask somebody else, and those would be the people who we ask, the people who have more institutional history here at Cornell. For the UA to be relevant, I think we have to work with the administration on this issue. That’s just my view point.

K. Whalen said President Skorton’s move to establish a Working Group, I think that proves that he is willing to kind of work with UA and he is in charge of them working with us as well. And I think that in doing so he recognizes that it’s important for us to be working with the administration and he’s not just going to get our report and then just give it to them and then get recommendations from them. It’s actually a cooperative effort throughout the whole process, and I think that by creating a working group, he is making that point. It’s not just saying we should do our work separately because he probably will go to them regardless.

M. Hatch said this is very helpful, the question is raised to me and I’ll bring it to the CJC. What are we doing? I mean the fact is that this job is given to us to gather opinion and do it in relation to the working group. If you want to set up a separate kind of committee of evaluation, a committee as a whole to evaluate the relationship between the UA and the working group considering the code, then it doesn’t seem necessary. This is your point, and what I think initially is why doesn’t the UA do it itself? It sets up a separate channel of debate and information. The clarity is that you set up something to gather opinion in conjunction with the working group, we worked out an arrangement with the working group, let us work with the working group and without the working group as they present something to you. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to talk with President Skorton about this. It’s reasonable to talk with him about the general issue of what we’re doing here in relation to the campus governing system in general. But, as far as the code’s committee, you already have something. Don’t compromise it by trying to do it yourselves. And if you just want to do it yourselves and if you decide to do it yourselves, then we better quickly tell the CJC, because I for one don’t want to be in that situation.

H. Granison said at the last meeting, I was talking about the history of how we got to this point and came to a potential code. I actually went back through some old dusty things and found a letter from Richard, who was the chair of the CJC. I didn’t make enough copies but I like to get into the record, and this is suitable for everyone to look at, because Richard at that point, in September 28, 2004, talked about basically the history of potential rewriting of the entire campus code, in fact stating that the CJC can’t handle this. Some of the reasons why we can look at doing it because there were certain reviews of the campus code saying there was a strong recommendation and we looked at it how to rewrite it. In his last paragraph he says “such a major project is beyond the traditional scope of our committee, we would like the UA to charge the CJC with delivering recommendations for an improved Code of Conduct by the end of the 2004–2005 academic year. This work would require significant inputs from the University administration and therefore we would also ask the UA to request President Lehman to present and to appoint other appropriate members of the Cornell community to work with us.” And this is the sort of thing I think we are sort of talking about, like this is beyond the scope of the CJC, and if needed it basically viewed the impact and the Krause Report all came to pass.

M. Hatch said if you look at that last paragraph you see that it’s not beyond the CJC to be able to do it, but the CJC is asking for assistance, and that’s what we got.

H. Granison agreed that is what we got from the Krause Report.

M. Hatch said from the Krause Report and from this situation.

H. Granison said now there’s a complete rewrite of the code, and at this point, we trying to rewrite the code with a timeframe without being able to look at everything. We do have the University input and everything else, but if we recognize that we all have to work together in time to make these changes and that we need administration to sort of help us with this project and everything else. So, I think that we have to look at everything within this kind of context that isn’t just sort of getting Krause Reports dropped from the sky, but that we need to use it when needed as a resource and find out where we stand and what’s going to be the process.

E. Loew said I think it’s important to remember in these discussions that there is a tendency to think the CJC is separate from us. We delegated the CJC to operate for us. This resolution is moot. The CJC has already made an accommodation with the working group. The CJC is doing our work for us. We have nothing to do now but sit and wait for the CJC to report back to us. They are our committee, they are us. We’re talking like they are separate from us. We should be doing something while they are doing something. That’s not the point of having a standing committee. We have the standing committee as they do it for us. We can get inputs, we get reports back from them, but I have seen a reason where we need to have some separate channel. I think UA is somehow separate from the CJC — they’re not. The only reason there is a CJC is because we empower the CJC. If we weren’t here, there would be no CJC. So, I’m not sure I understand the point. M. Hatch has already reported how the CJC, which we gave the responsibility to last meeting to operate on our behalf as regards to looking at the Krause Report, has already determined how they’re going to interact with the working group. So, I’m sure that we need to do anything else; it’s already been done. I mean all of this discussion about, is there going to be input, what should we be doing? We should be going back to our constituency, but we shouldn’t be doing the work of the CJC that we already delegated the CJC to do. I don’t see the point of this.

A male representative said I think that’s exactly right. I think that the CJC is analogous to the working group. CJC advises the UA about what to do and the working group advises the President about what to do, and political entities — UA and then the President — have a relationship that goes beyond this instance and beyond these issues, and that maybe opened up surrounding the particular incident

R. Wayne said I’ve seen for the resolution about giving authority to CJC. I think that CJC should have the power. I just wanted more conversations and more discussions on it than which times allows. And that discussion was to say that CJC should be coming to our meetings so we can discuss what’s going on, and actively say, “What can we do or give our feelings about what they are doing so we can all touch bases?” I think it’s a very active input that we have to do between now and March or April.

M. Hatch said this is about the resolution. I think it would be great if we resolved #2, which is UA wholeheartedly supports the memorandum of understanding, not submitting to President Skorton just what we worked out with President Skorton’s working group. I think it’s important to do that with this resolution. I don’t think the whole resolution should be scrapped, but that particularly thing I would advocate. There’s a misstatement there. We didn’t submit it literally to President Skorton, we worked it out with President Skorton’s working group.

E. Loew said I think that’s important because it also points out the fact that the CJC cannot act independently to make deals with anybody unless the UA approves. You’re not independent like us. So, asking us to endorse what you have done in terms of interactions with the working group is certainly appropriate, and I think it’s something that we should do — I think you’re absolutely right.

A male representative said the first resolve is the UA continues to carry out its legislative responsibilities — I mean I think you could affirm that in a resolution if you wanted to, but as far as speaking from the CJC, I would appreciate it if we did pass the second one. The first one caused debate for you guys.

J. Glenn said would you suggest a friendly amendment to cut the “submitted by President Skorton” part?

The male representative said the memorandum of understanding is submitted�no excuse me�worked out by the CJC and President Skorton’s working group.

A male representative asked if we need to mention the working group? Could we not simply say the memorandum of understanding and debate, identify that? You see a strategic point in recognizing in our language the existence of the working group as an official entity rather than something that’s�

J. Glenn asked how about, “Therefore, be it further resolved that the UA wholeheartedly supports the memorandum of understanding written on December 5, 2006” ?

A male representative said it was approved on the 6th of December if we worked it out on the 5th with the working group.

J. Glenn said it now reads “Therefore be it further resolved that the UA wholeheartedly supports the memorandum of understanding approved by the CJC on December 6, 2006.”

A male representative said I think the main point of the previous, “therefore be it resolved,” is the point about the independence.

M. Hatch said it’s your opinion. I think it’s reasonable to affirm your independence.

J. Glenn asked if there were more points to debate. Does everyone have the changes, the two friendly amendments that were accepted by R. Wayne? The assembly voted on resolution #4 concerning the Krause Report Working Group, 6 for, 4 against, no extensions. He realized he had not counted all members so a revote was called for.

A. Epstein clarified that the chair only votes if there’s a tie to be broken.

Final vote was 8–3−0. Resolution passed.

J. Glenn asked for any more orders of new business this evening.

O. Hammer said that you have been talking about gathering information from the different constituencies, and I would like them to actually ask, since the University Assembly is the umbrella assembly over the others, the other assemblies to submit a report as far as feedback on their constituencies under the Krause Report. At the forum last week there were definitely members from different constituencies who had very strong feelings and that they simply had seen from some sort of feeling as far as the Krause Report by mid-February for constituencies to work with.

J. Glenn asked for questions.

A. Epstein said I believe a recommendation that was floated at the CJC meeting was also that people go back to their respective assemblies or committees and direct them to submit their comments to the blogs online, be part of that dialogue.

R. Wayne said I’m not going to anybody and everybody, I’m not going to stay with my constituency.

L. Lawrences said blogs are great for those of us who have Cornell email addresses but everyone does not know. There are other methods. I’m guessing we all have emails, but there are a lot of employees on the campus that do not have email addresses. So, I don’t want those folks to be left out.

A female representative had two questions of application — do you want us to go back and ask our constituencies for their recommendations?

O. Hammer said not a full review of the Krause Report, but the opinions of the constituencies on the Krause Report, because some of them, like the Student Assembly definitely had a lot of opinions on specific parts. I don’t want to ask them to go back and review the entire Krause Report, but what are the specific parts of the Krause Report that they feel are important that we get into our recommendations.

J. Glenn asked if she would like to make it in the form of a motion or are you just asking that they do it because it’s nice.

A male representative said how you do like to informally write it up in emails and then as Bob says, we can email it to everybody.

J. Glenn said I don’t think that’s too much to ask, it’s probably a really good idea. He asked for any more points of business.

A. Epstein had another suggestion. I know that there has been a lot of feedback in other assemblies about transportation issues, and working off of M. Hatch’s point and E. Loew’s point about delegating this process to the CJC, I do think that would do a great deal to address some of the other issues that might be doing up on the agenda, particularly transportation, also in the beginning of the semester there was some talk about restructuring leadership, what the responsibilities are. Maybe between now and March when CJC reports in full, this could be a good opportunity to address some of those issues, and there’s nothing preventing you from coming to the CJC meeting or checking the website to find out what’s going on in those meetings and giving your input to the community outside of this meeting — working with them and making sure the process is running as you think it should.

D. Rosen said a couple of them don’t have email addresses, what about a mailing to everybody to the entire community from the President’s office. Distribute it to mailboxes as a one-time thing.

J. Glenn said they could bring that up, but wasn’t sure about the feasibility.

E. Loew said relative to something that H. Granison said and is also based on what A. Epstein raised, and that is that right now we’re staking a claim to the code and basically are our core legislative authority. We asked the President and the entire Cornell community what our power is. I think that what we should strive for at sometime in a very near future, since we sort of have this tone already established, is a reaffirmation from the President and the Trustees as to exactly what our powers are. Do those parts of the charter that empower us, do they still consider those valid. We’re saying that we’ve made a statement, that we don’t care what you think, we feel that the code is ours. And in fact at this instance in time, the reading that I get is that the President is willing to accept that, at least the first part of it, and I think that we should go further while we have his ear and say, “Well, you know, there are these other areas that we’re supposed to have charge of as well, and we are basically being worked around.” We either like that or we don’t like that, but where does he stand right now on these issues? I think we need to get it out in the open; we need to stop pussyfooting around and either make a statement or just do away with those parts of the charter. But I think now might be the time to do it because we’re already being assertive, and I think relative to what you’re talking about transportation and the like, my feeling is that a lot of these things the President may not even be aware of in terms of how we feel about these issues. He certainly knows how we feel about the code, but he might not even be aware of this whole issue with Gannett; I mean maybe he is in the broader sense but not in the specifics.

H. Granison said two things, one about academic integrity that came up when President Lehman was here, that’s not even an area we had jurisdiction over, but we have the constituent-base that a lot of things can go into play. Also, with all this energy about the Krause Report, we should take another opportunity to expand in areas that we don’t have legislative authority over and certainly have a significant impact. I think it’s a great opportunity for us. I know that also early on, President Skorton was asked, “How do you want to work with us?” And the legal response was, “I don’t know how to do their job.” So, we can’t ask President Skorton something vague like that, because we already know what he told us in December. But, we have to sort of say more assertively this is what we see our authority as. That way, we’ll be much more respectful and he’ll be much more willing to work with us.

E. Loew said I should tell you I’m buoyed with the fact that I actually have people wanting from the faculty to be on the University Assembly. They are anxious to be on the University Assembly, and the faculty is very up in arms in many ways. Certainly the Committee of the University Faculty is well aware of the University Assembly and a lot of the members weren’t aware of what the University Assembly was really there for. So, I think it’s a really good time to say, “Hey, we want our power back,” if in fact we ever have the power to being with, or at least really delineate our role in these things and make sure that the administration is willing to allow us to do what we’re supposed to do, instead of working around us.

J. Glenn reminded the assembly that it was 6 o’clock.

A female representative just wanted to clarify the question earlier that was asked of President Skorton. When students go to the administration and need a change or resolution, the administration doesn’t listen very well or at all, and it’s very difficult to get anything done. Asking that question is for President Skorton to see how willing he is to work with us. We wanted to get a better sense of what he’s willing to do, and ask him what should we really have power over in our charter. We should decide ahead of time what we really want power over, and then ask him how he feels about that. That way, we will be in agreement.

J. Glenn asked if there were more questions.

A male representative said when you call for agenda items, we can look through the things that we do have legislative authority on or don’t, like academic integrity but would like to, and by the people that are at least submitting agenda items, we could say these are things we want to make a point of. The things that go by the Boards, we could let them go by the Boards or say “Let’s not let them go by the Board, let’s hold on in some way,” but let’s all present the agenda items that we would like to see for the January meeting so we could talk about this, especially if President Skorton comes to that meeting it would be a wonderful agenda to mix around with.

A female representative said she agreed that we should set out where we feel our legislative power lies such as when it comes to issues in the Campus Code of Conduct. As for transportation issues, we will never have complete jurisdiction of transportation. Even though we would like to, for the benefit of our constituencies, we’re not going to because it’s the second largest generator of revenue for the University. Transportation writes about 50,000 tickets every day. We just need to outline how we stand before we actually go into it, and we just need to work ahead of time about issues such as transportation issues.

Another female representative brought up the issue that R. Wayne brought up last year about campus safety that we might want to add to the things we could possibly have jurisdiction over. The things that J. Glenn and R. Wayne were working on last semester.

A male representative said the reason I’m so passionate about some of these issues is when it comes directly to campus safety, and on the record I don’t feel that the past administration has put either the rights of the victims or the rights of the perpetrators above keeping things hush. And that’s actually right from the inside of me, the passion that a lot of this comes from. So, I think campus safety is absolutely tied up with the Krause Report, and for that reason I really want to make sure that the UA has this on its agenda.

The female representative just wanted to make sure we don’t just drop what R. Wayne and J. Glenn have been working on. There were no more comments.

IV. Adjournment
J. Glenn thanked everyone and adjourned the meeting at 6:05.

Respectfully submitted,

Natalie Chou Ku
Clerk, Office of Assemblies