Email from 
Chris Jones, Director, A&AA Computing Services

> Subject: COI/COC comments
> From: jonesey <jonesey@uoregon.edu>
> To: <gilkey@uoregon.edu>
> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:15:11 -0800
>
> Comments on the COI-C draft policy's applicability to employees other
> than Full-time, Tenure-related Officers of Instruction. Submitted by
> Chris Jones, Officer of Administration, Director of Computing Services
> for the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. jonesey@uoregon.edu .
>
> Many of this university's tenure-related officers of instruction have
> submitted valid criticism of the draft COI-C policy, and I will not
> repeat them here.
>
> I am commenting primarily on the policy's applicability to non-teaching
> faculty, specifically officers of administration and officers of
> research.
>
> The policy is ambiguous as to which parts of it apply only to teaching
> faculty and which parts apply to all employees. Section 3.0 says that
> the whole policy applies to all unclassified employees, but many
> sections refer only to "faculty," clearly referring to teaching
> faculty (see, for example, section 4.1, under "Full-time
> appointments"). Other sections refer to "faculty and other UO
> employees;" it is not clear in these sections what is meant by "other
> UO employees." The language needs to be made clearer or divided into
> separate policies. Perhaps we should have a COI policy that is
> separate from a COC policy, and perhaps we should have a COC policy for
> tenure-related faculty, one for other teaching faculty, and one for
> non-teaching faculty (i.e. OAs).
>
> Most officers of administration and research are, for lack of a better
> word, "workers." "Officers of administration are evaluated on their
> administrative performance, not on the basis of their teaching and
> research contributions" [Faculty Handbook 2007, II.D]. "Officers of
> research are those members of the university staff whose
> responsibilities are wholly focused on research projects funded by
> outside agencies" [ibid]. OAs are treated differently from teaching
> faculty. We are typically on annual contracts. We do not receive
> tenure and are thereby not eligible for tenure reduction or emeritus
> status. We typically do not have access to sabbatical leave. The
> Faculty Handbook's rules on timely notice do not apply to many of us.
> We are limited to a minor role in university governance. As such, the
> conflict of commitment policy should not apply to us in the same way
> as it applies to teaching faculty.
>
> Other comments on the draft COI-C policy:
>
> - The compliance form doesn't match the draft policy. The form talks
> about part-time employees being able to use the remainder of their time
> for their own purposes, but the draft policy does not make that clear.
> Family members are not mentioned in the draft policy, as far as I can
> see, but they are part of required discolsures in the form.
>
> - Part-time teaching faculty (e.g. adjunct faculty) who own a business
> or otherwise maintain employment elsewhere sometimes teach classes at
> the UO. The draft policy says that "whenever a faculty or other UO
> employee's primary professional loyalty is not to the UO or to their UO
> obligations, a conflict of commitment exists" [section 4.0]. This
> statement does not make sense for part-time adjunct faculty. Part-time
> adjunct faculty are performing a public service by essentially
> volunteering their time, at a reasonably high opportunity cost, to the
> UO. We should not further discourage people from performing this
> public service by enforcing this proposed COI-C policy and disclosure
> on them.