Consensual relations statement sent to senate

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

Nearly two years after the issue first was brought before the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, the body has forwarded to the full Faculty Senate a statement governing consensual relations between faculty and students.

Although the FSEC recommended at its March 17 meeting that the full senate adopt the statement, the vote to do so came after lengthy-and sometimes contentious-debate and after the group defeated three amendments to the statement that their author said would strengthen the statement and provide more protection for the university.

The statement as forwarded to the senate-and titled "Alert for Instructional Staff"-states that "Members of the teaching staff should be aware that any romantic involvement with their students may lead to formal action against them if a complaint is registered by a student.

"Even when both parties have consented to the development of such a relationship, it is the instructor who, by virtue of power differential and special professional responsibility, may be held accountable for unprofessional behavior.

"Those who are directly or indirectly affected by such a relationship are invited to discuss their concerns with the Office of Equity, Diversity and Affirmative Action for professionally competent and confidential discussion of their complaint."

In material distributed to FSEC members with the proposed statement, John Boot, chair of the senate's Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee, noted that the "primary hope" of the alert is that it "may help prevent unprofessional and unacceptable behavior," as well as to have something in writing that can be shared with instructors who are the subjects of complaints.

Boot pointed out that it is not envisioned that a violation of the alert alone will be grounds for punitive actions. "Yet, if the complainant lodges a formal grievance and effectively accuses an instructor of sexual harassment, the existence of the written alert may strengthen the case for the complainant," he said. "It may also help limit the liability of the university, should a complaint be registered with a federal regulatory agency."

Judith Adams-Volpe, head of Lockwood Library, agreed that UB needs such a statement because there are "moral and ethical reasons for us to care about our students."

The statement also is needed, she said, to protect the university's liability. Court cases such as Korf v Ball State University, which established liability despite the consensual nature of relationships, and Naragon v Wharton, which established liability even when there was no direct teaching relationship, have established that universities that do not make "obvious attempts to create an atmosphere where this kind of activity is not approved of can be held liable for that kind of atmosphere."

In addition, the consensual-relations policies of such universities as Yale, Minnesota and Penn "all discuss the liability to the university," she said.

Louis Swartz, associate professor of law who was added to the Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee at the request of some members of the FSEC after Swartz expressed dissatisfaction with the committee's work on earlier versions of the statement, questioned whether such a statement is needed to protect the university from liability.

If that's the case, the committee should seek the opinion of a legal expert in the field, said Swartz, who admitted he was not that expert. But, he noted, members of the committee are "vigorously opposed" to seeking such an opinion.

Further, the committee has proposed no "protective procedures" that would apply to possible violations of the statement, and "obviously has no intention" of doing the enormous amount of work that would be required to draft such procedures, he said.

Swartz acknowledged that "things are not perfect at the present time at this university in this matterŠbut that on balance, we would do better to leave things as they are."

Loyce Stewart, director of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Affirmative Action, told committee members that Title VII and Title IX of the federal Civil Rights Act provide legal justification for UB pursuing such a statement.

Moreover, she said, "this is not a procedure issue; this is just a statementŠthis is a statement to advise faculty of what could be the consequences of consensual relationships."

William Baumer, professor of philosophy, noted that the point of the motion was not to set a regulation; the motion is merely an alert for faculty. He added that there is another committee on campus that is drafting a sexual-harassment policy for the university that would include enforcement and disciplinary procedures. "As we discuss this, we ought to keep that in mind," he advised.

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, told his colleagues, "I'm more convinced now than I initially was that such a statement is desirable." The statement could be summed up with the first paragraph of the proposed alert, with the additional line "and therefore you're a damned fool if you let it happen. I don't know what more you need," he said.

Adams-Volpe proposed three amendments to the alert designed, she said, to give the statement "the power that it needs to protect the university, as well as the students."

After lengthy discussion, FSEC members defeated the amendments, which proposed to:

- Change the title of the statement to "advisory" from "alert;"

- Add the sentence "The University at Buffalo considers relationships of a sexual nature between instructional or administrative staff and their students to be unacceptable professional conduct," and

- Add the sentence "Concerns may also be brought by students not involved in a relationship on the grounds of diminished opportunity resulting from actual or perceived favoritism to other students."

The full senate will receive the proposed statement for a first reading at its April meeting.

In other business, the FSEC:

- Forwarded to the full senate a resolution to limit the number of credits students pursuing bachelor's degrees can earn through tutorial coursework, or independent study, to 18, with no more than 12 letter-graded (A, B, C, D) credits of tutorial coursework counting towards the 120 credits required for graduation. The restriction, which would be effective for students graduating in May 2001, was proposed by the Educational Programs and Policies Committee.

Committee Chair Jack Meacham, professor of psychology, said the aim of the proposal is to prevent abuse by students who may attempt to earn numerous credits through independent study, noting that there have been cases of students earning UB degrees with as many as 30-50 independent study and tutorial credits. In most of these cases, almost all of these credits were earned with grades of "A," he said.

- Forwarded to the senate a resolution proposed by Samuel Schack, professor of mathematics, that asks that President William R. Greiner and Provost David Triggle provide to SUNY central administration "direct responses" to the 37 questions on mission review it had posed to the campuses, and "suspend work" on revisions to Triggle's mission-review document "until they establish, and receive reports from, appropriate committees of faculty and librarians charged to study the issues raised in the present and recent drafts."

Schack asserted that it was "urgent" for the UB administration to submit responses to the 37 mission-review questions to central administration since they were due last September, and "less urgent" to tackle the complex issues that Triggle raises in the document. As the next step in the academic-planning process initiated by former Provost Thomas Headrick, Triggle's mission-review document requires "considerable faculty discussion," he said, adding that "the two tasks should not be confounded."