Faculty discuss Brooker bill and campus safety

By Juana Summers

Published April 20, 2007

As Chancellor Brady Deaton opened the General Faculty Council meeting on Tuesday, it was clear the meeting was different than originally planned due to the events at Virginia Tech the day before.

Deaton began the meeting by recognizing the victims of the mass-shooting with a moment of silence and then addressed campus-wide concerns.

"I spent 11 years of my life in Blacksburg, Va., and I am very well acquainted with members of that community," Deaton said. "It is a trying time to reflect on those issues."

Deaton also addressed the question by members of the faculty as to whether students could be notified by cell phone if events similar to those in Blacksburg occurred in Columbia. He said the university is in the final stages of a request for technology that could make that mode of notification a possibility for the future.

In his introduction to the meeting, Faculty Council Chairman Rex Campbell said positive points of the university are the open-minded nature of most students and the improvement in the gender balance between faculty members and students.

But he contrasted these with several comments on MU's political stature.

"Boone County is now a small blue island in a sea of red," Campbell said. "We have lost our close connections to the people in the state. This makes it much harder to get a group of like people working together."

Campbell will retire this year after 50 years of employment at the university, but he plans to teach and be involved in faculty events as requested by Deaton.

Deaton also addressed fiscal concerns for the university — specifically highlighting a 3.8 percent tuition increase — and plans to increase faculty salaries to become competitive with other large, research-based public institutions.

"We approved the 3.8 percent tuition increase for the campus after much debate," Deaton said. "I believe that was a 5-4 vote with a 3.2 percent tuition increase as the alternative."

Deaton said an additional fee of $36 per credit hour was approved for human and environmental science courses, and an increase of $30 per credit hour for students in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Additionally, the board approved a faculty guideline that would raise salaries by 3 percent.

"The ability to make adjustments will help with competitiveness issues where we've had a great problem," Deaton said.

Deaton said a 1 percent efficiency fund would be created in order to raise faculty salaries, as well as a five-year framework to specifically address competitiveness with similar universities.

Following scheduled items at the meeting, professor Michael Ugarte broached the topic of the Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act, a controversial bill sponsored by Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield. The bill would require universities to set policies to ensure that students and faculty are not unfairly treated due to diverse opinions.

"I am offended by the implication that I, or any one of my colleagues, is grading by political ideologies," Ugarte said.

Ugarte said the source of the bill was from "right-wing idealogues" who do not like the type of ideas generated in universities such as MU.

Ugarte said he planned to travel to Jefferson City with students and members of the Missouri National Education Association to voice his opinion about these issues.

Deaton characterized the necessary reaction to the bill as "eternal vigilance," and said the bill's title of intellectual diversity is something MU wants.

"We must, as a faculty, continue to develop our ability to handle diverse topics," he said. "I do believe there is pretty good understanding of that."

Other faculty members present were also skeptical of the bill, specifically its origin and methodology.

"There is a great danger in thinking that this bill was made with noble intent," professor Frank Schmidt said.

Schmidt testified against the bill in the House Higher Education Committee and said the bill's author and sponsor made libelous statements about him.

"The place to solve this problem is within the academy," Schmidt said. "And the best way to confront it is head on."