Senate adopts consensual-relations 'alert'

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

The Faculty Senate Tuesday adopted an "alert" warning faculty members of the possible consequences of becoming romantically involved with their students.

The action was taken after somewhat contentious debate about the meaning of the proposal and its relationship to sexual harassment, and after the defeat of a motion to postpone a vote on the statement until the fall. It came more than two years after the issue first was brought to the senate's Executive Committee.

The statement, titled "Alert for Instructional Staff," was drafted by the senate's Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee. It 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."

Discussion of the issue, as it has at past meetings of both the senate and the FSEC, again focused on the alert's purpose.

John Boot, professor and chair of the Department of Management Science and Systems and chair of the Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee, told his colleagues that relationships between faculty members and their students that start out as consensual often result in recriminations, including complaints of sexual harassment. The alert was designed to serve as a "warning" for instructional staff that they are "playing with fire" if they engage in such relationships, Boot said.

Loyce Stewart, director of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Affirmative Action, called the alert a "statement informing faculty that certain behavior may have an adverse effect." Stewart added that sexual harassment, including third-party harassment, is one type of complaint that may arise from relationships between students and faculty.

William Baumer, professor of philosophy, noted that the statement was not adopted as a harassment code. "It's a warning; that's all it is intended to be," Baumer said, adding that "it's badly needed."

But Samuel Schack, professor of mathematics, insisted the statement is about sexual harassment. He pointed to what he called the implied "subtext" underlying the discussion: "a kind of moral valuation of such relationships, a notion that somehow these relationships are ipso facto wrong."

Noting that "many" of his UB colleagues met their spouses in classes they taught, Schack said: "I find it a little bit difficult for us to stand and piously claim that such relationships are ipso facto wrong."

He added that the senate has not considered the collateral effects of adopting such an alert. The statement is based on the belief that faculty and students will misbehave, he said, noting that it will influence whether faculty members will meet with their students in private.

"I think we should consider Šwhether we really want to set up that kind of mentality within the institution."

Lilliam Malavé, associate professor of learning and instruction, who told her colleagues that she was speaking from the point of view of a faculty member and a former female student, disagreed that such an alert would discourage her from meeting with male students or with a male professor.

She complained that the FSEC, of which she is a member, spent much time over the past two years "massaging" an issue that resulted in "a very simple statement for a very serious issue.

"It's just not a piece of law; it's just a simple alert."

Malave said some of her colleagues are "naive" to assume that the issue of consensual relationships and sexual harassment is not a problem at UB. It was a problem when she was a student at UB 20 years ago, she said, and it remains a problem for her students today.

William George, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, suggested that the senate postpone action on the alert to the senate's first meeting of the fall semester. The senate is "not converging" on the issue, he said, noting that he also was not comfortable with the legal issues involved and would like to see the sexual-harassment policy that is being drafted by a subcommittee of the President's Task Force on Women.

Stewart noted earlier that UB does have a sexual-harassment policy; the subcommittee is drafting formal "procedures" to implement the policy.

George added that it makes little sense to adopt such an alert in mid-May when many faculty members will be leaving campus for the summer months. "My sense is that it will be quickly buried and forgotten. We want this to have some effect in the fall."

However, several senators stressed that the issue has been discussed at length in the senate and it was now time to make a decision.

"This is not rocket science. It's not nuclear physics. It's not brain surgery. What it is is a statement that many find difficult to grasp," said Boot. "I think it would be unwise to postpone itŠI see essentially obstructionism and I see only male obstruction and I resent it."

The motion to postpone a vote on the alert was defeated by a vote of 34-15.

In other business, the senate approved a resolution asking that the chair of the senate be informed as early as possible whenever any kind of reorganization of an academic unit is under consideration by the administration.

It also approved a statement supporting Irwin Guttman, former chair of the Department of Statistics. Guttman, who senate Chair Peter Nickerson said was on sabbatical leave in Scotland, is now a member of the faculty of the Department of Mathematics.

The measure to inform the senate chair is a toned-down version of a proposal asking that the administration be censured for its actions last fall in folding the Department of Statistics into the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine. The version approved by the senate Tuesday specifically asks that "whenever initiation, termination, amalgamation, division or major reorganization of an academic unit is under consideration, that shall be reported promptly by the cognizant dean, vice president or the provost, to the chair of the Faculty Senate, who shall report it to the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee shall determine the actions to be taken by the Senate."

Baumer, a member of the ad hoc committee of former chairs of the senate that drafted the proposal, told senators that the measure was "intended to clarify and put on the record for all to see" the actions that are expected whenever any type of reorganization is proposed and to make clear the responsibilities of the administration and the chair of the senate. "It is an attempt to prevent recurrence ofŠthe kind of nonsense we got with regard to the Department of Statistics," he said.

The censure motion had accused the administration of not following UB and SUNY procedures regarding the abolition of degree-granting programs and for failing to consult with faculty on the issue.

James Holstun, associate professor of English, asked why "any notion of censure of the administration seems to have disappeared" from the revised resolution. "What could an administration do that would be worthy of censure if not dismantling, as per procedural fashion, a university department?" he wondered.

Baumer said the word "censure" was not included in the measure because "the committee didn't think we needed to take that action. The president already had apologized profusely, explicitly and repeatedly for the failures to deal properly with procedural issues with regard to the Department of Statistics."