SMOKING
A new smoking policy passed last Thursday at the Faculty meeting when quorum was not met, effectively allowing the policy approved by the Community Affairs Committee and Senate to pass. The policy prohibits smoking within 10 feet of all campus buildings, and between the hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. During the meeting, the Faculty expressed concern with the short amount of time between policy implementation, and when a joint committee of faculty, students, and staff will review the policy. Currently, President John Kroger hopes to have the shelters built and the policy enacted by Fall Semester, but the current policy includes a review period to happen next Spring Semester.
The Faculty had four options during the meeting: to approve, to reject, to send back to the CAC, or to do nothing (which, by faculty code, would default to the approval of the policy). Hovda noted that if the Faculty did decide to defer, the policy would have to pass through the Senate again.
Professor Paul Hovda and Professor David Perkinson began the discussion with a history of the CAC’s effort to enact a policy in line with Professor Irena Swanson’s recommendations at December’s Faculty meeting. Hovda recounted that, at the February 25 Senate meeting, Senators voted to disapprove the CAC’s policy and approve their own version. Subsequent to Senate’s vote to disapprove the CAC’s policy, CAC Chair Laura Leibman resigned from the CAC.
When the CAC and the Senate proceeded to meet again, they compromised on which hours to prohibit smoking, and agreed to prohibit smoking on all pathways, between the given hours, but omit the “X amount of feet from pathways” clause.
President John Kroger said that he plans to make sure that shelters are in place before the “rainy season next year,” and is working quickly to make these shelters a reality. Professor Paul Gronke expressed concern about the timeline of the project—namely, that if the shelters were unable to be built for some time, blocking implementation, then the period until review would be too short. Professor Irena Swanson, member of the AOD committee, suggested that portable shelters could be used in the meantime. Swanson expressed appreciation for the work of the CAC.
Professor Benjamin Lazier raised concerns about how much the CAC had considered scientific research in drafting their policy. He noted that, because the Surgeon General’s report—which had been cited by Professor Irena Swanson during her behest to the CAC—was only concerned with indoor smoking, it provides little evidence to substantiate the policy. Hovda responded that the CAC did not research the health effects of secondhand smoke outdoors, but that the CAC takes the right to breathe clean air as a starting point to draft a policy.
DIVERSITY REPORT
Dean of Institutional Diversity Mary James reported on diversity at Reed. Her report dealt mainly with underrepresented minorities (URM), defined as racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented relative to their numbers in the general US domestic population.
The URM population at Reed has grown from six percent to 15.5 percent over the past 10 years. The data presented showed that if Reed were to have the same percentages of URM students as URM populations of the 2010 census, then Reed would have 181 African American students instead of 54; 223 Hispanic students instead of 134; and overall 432 URM students instead of 216. The report notes that non-custodial staff is eight percent URM, while the US census, for comparison, has a URM non-custodial staff population of 31 percent. Currently, there are seven URM tenure-track or tenured faculty, compared with 41 percent if Reed matched the US census for that category. James reiterated the importance of fostering applicant pools for teaching positions to be as diverse, deep, and rich as possible.
James responded to a question about why URM populations were the only minority groups being considered by the report (as opposed to LGBTQPA), by explaining that the office was originally charged to deal with racial and ethnic diversity, but that they are currently and continuously working with other minority populations to thrive here.
COMMITTEE FOR ACADEMIC POLICY AND PLANNING
The Committee for Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) gave a brief update with regards to the new FERPA laws protecting student information, and iterated to the faculty that some things on IRIS are protected by the law, such as gender, name, age, and others. CAPP said that they are working on having a tutorial and quiz for faculty to help better understand the new protocols and their implications.
COMMITTEE FOR ADVANCEMENT AND TENURE
The Committee for Advancement and Tenure expressed their thanks to the faculty for the faculty evaluation letters they received, which are important for the continual evaluation of faculty. CAPP also congratulated the faculty on another highly successful search season for new teaching positions.