USenate revising policy for student, faculty sexual relationships

The University Senate is considering passing a policy that would discourage consensual relationships between students and instructors.

The consensual relationship policy—which was discussed during the USenate’s first meeting of the semester on Friday—is one of several issues the body is likely to tackle in 2012. Senators also discussed public course evaluations and changes to employee retirement benefits on Friday.

A consensual relationship policy resolution will probably be introduced to the senate during the March plenary. The resolution, which is being worked on by Associate Provost for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Susan Rieger and the Commission on the Status of Women, would discourage romantic or sexual relationships between all academic officers and all students. The current policy says that “faculty and staff are cautioned that consensual romantic relationships with student members of the University community, while not expressly prohibited, can prove problematic.”

The new policy would also establish disciplinary measures for faculty members who do not remove themselves from positions of authority over students with whom they have a romantic relationship.
Under the current policy, professors are already expected to remove themselves from “academic or professional decisions” concerning students they have relationships with, but there are no clear consequences for faculty members who fail to do so.

University Senator Ryan Turner, a SEAS graduate student, also updated senators on the Student Affairs Committee’s push to make student course evaluations public.

A major roadblock to making evaluations public has been the question of public evaluations for student instructors, who, some have argued, should not be subjected to public critiques while they are still learning how to teach.

But Turner, a co-chair of SAC’s subcommittee on course evaluations, said SAC is close to solving this problem. He said his subcommittee has been in talks with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences about a system that would allow student instructors to opt out of public evaluations.

“We have come very close to an agreement with GSAS on the student instructor issue, and we will continue to work closely with them on that,” Turner said.

Additionally, Interim Provost John Coatsworth discussed the University’s ongoing attempts to restructure retirement packages for new faculty. Coatsworth said that while consultants hired by Columbia had recommended a new pension system that would have decreased the University’s contributions, the plan was not approved.

But the current retirement plan, he noted, is not adequate either, as the percentage of an employee’s salary that is contributed to retirement benefits increases dramatically the longer the employee remains at Columbia.

This “[creates] the perverse incentive that people, because they receive such a small amount at the beginning … hang on much longer in their positions than they want to, simply because they have not been able to accumulate sufficiently to retire,” Senate Executive Committee Chair Sharyn O’Halloran said.

Coatsworth said that the retirement plan now being developed would be “more rational” than the current one, because it would reverse the incentive not to retire.

In fact, Coatsworth said, the new proposal “is so favorable to younger faculty that I’ve now asked” if current faculty members could opt in to it.

The proposal is currently being reviewed by administrators and, according to Coatsworth, will be presented to the senate during the next few weeks.

Friday’s meeting also included a presentation on open access to research by Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian James Neal, and a presentation by Education Committee co-chair Letty Moss-Salentijn on a new website to manage submissions of proposals for new academic programs.

Additionally, senators approved a new dual master’s program in art history between GSAS and the University of Paris and discussed plans to conduct a review of Columbia’s global centers.

margaret.mattes@columbiaspectator.com