Faculty Senate briefed on AAP, CIS and online publications grant

By Jacquie Powers

Cornell's Faculty Senate was briefed last week on issues relating to the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, the Department of Computer Science and a new grant for online archiving and publication of scholarly research.

On the latter subject, J. Robert Cooke, dean of the faculty, told members of the Faculty Senate at its regular meeting Oct. 9 that there is a "crisis in scientific publication" and that Cornell and other research universities have for years been on a "serious collision course" with the publishers of increasingly costly academic journals.

The new $620,000 grant from Atlantic Philanthropies will allow Cornell to warehouse its own intellectual property online and eventually begin its own online publication of faculty research. This will not only mean substantial savings to Cornell's libraries in subscriptions to scientific publications, but will provide open access to research, Cooke said.

He noted that the increasingly exorbitant cost of academic subscriptions for U.S. research institutions is more than $2 billion a year for research. As a result, Cornell and other universities have had to cancel subscriptions because of budgetary constraints, thus jeopardizing faculty success in teaching and research.

Cooke also reported that he and Provost Biddy Martin have appointed a committee on Intellectual Property Policy.

Martin reported to the senate on the recent reorganization of the structure of computing and information science, as called for by a senate resolution last April. She said the new, innovative structure will permit the cross-disciplinary collaborations in computing and information sciences under way at Cornell to flourish.

She explained that the College of Engineering will provide the administrative umbrella for the Faculty of Computing and Information Science (FCIS) and the tenure home for the Department of Computer Science. However, the dean for Computing and Information Science (CIS), Robert Constable, will control that department's budget, with some advice and consultation from the dean of the engineering college, Kent Fuchs.

Members of the FCIS will continue to have their academic tenure in the various colleges and departments, reporting both to Constable and the deans of those colleges. Members of CIS also will be jointly appointed in both engineering and the FCIS.

Martin assured faculty members that the reorganization was taken for intellectual and educational reasons, that it showed "enormous promise" and that it was not preliminary to turning CIS into a college.

Jennifer Gerner, professor of policy analysis and management and chair of the senate's Committee on Academic Programs and Policies (CAPP), reported on the committee's discussions with the dean, chairs and faculty in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP), regarding the future administrative structure of the college.

Gerner summarized seven points from those discussions, including:

• "Faculty in all three departments, as well as the chairs and dean agree that the three departments do not collaborate or communicate as much as might be possible and desirable."

• Each of the departments sees itself as substantially engaging in professional education. "... this means that each department needs control over its curriculum, and a 'core' curriculum, such as is found in the College of Arts and Sciences, would not serve them well. Thus it is not surprising that there is little student crossover among departments within the college."

• "None of the three departments see an easy or comfortable fit within any other college at Cornell."

• The departments of Art and of Architecture "teach much of their curriculum in studio classes of limited size. In addition, the professional focus within these departments means that the character of the studio is an important part of the education, leading these departments to want to control who is in particular studios as well. Although both of these departments could offer more studios to serve out-of-major students if resources were available, when resources are tight, these are the very courses most likely to be cut."

• The departments of Art and of City and Regional Planning believe that the first and second points notwithstanding, "there might be ways in which the education of undergraduates within each department could benefit from more interaction across departments."

• "The Department of Architecture would, as a first option, prefer an autonomous school. This department is not interested in exploring other options until this autonomous school option has been removed from the table."

  An architecture faculty member later disagreed with the CAPP characterization and said the faculty is still interested in exploring various options.

• Because of the previous point, CAPP has written to the provost "to request clarification about the conditions under which an autonomous school might be considered. In addition, we have asked for some clarification about the objectives the provost and president would like to achieve in the final disposition of AAP."

One senator asked what role the Faculty Senate as a body could expect to play in the AAP discussions, pointing out that faculty in the college could best help in those decisions. Martin said that was difficult to answer and agreed that college faculty could provide the most informed recommendations.

Martin reported that she is "pleased by the abundant evidence of the serious thought and effort" that faculty members in AAP are putting into the project. She noted that a collegewide committee has been formed, with representation from each department and from the staff, to consider options, and she stressed that the primary reason for considering alternative structures was academic, not financial.

"I want the intellectual and educational rationale to drive the process," Martin said.