Chair, Task Force on Governance, Letter to the Faculty, April 22, 1998

April 22, 1998

Faculty
School of Medicine

Dear Colleagues:

A revised final draft of the School's Governance Document is enclosed. At the open faculty meeting sponsored by the Medical Faculty Assembly (MFA) on April 14, four issues were raised on behalf of the MFA Executive Board including:

1. All faculty appointments and promotions going through the appointments, promotions, and tenure committee process;
2. Review and retention of Department Chairs;
3. The process by which MFA recommendations to the Dean and the Faculty Executive Council (FEC)are handled; and
4. The role and authority of the USC Board of Trustees related to School governance.

1. On page 18 [section IV.C.], under duties of the Faculty Appointments, Promotions and Tenure Committee, it now states that the committee “… will advise the Dean on all faculty personnel actions involving rank and duration of initial appointment, number of years credited toward the tenure decision year, re-appointments, promotions and tenure.”
2. On pages 4 and 5 [section III.], sections C.1. a, b and c, issues regarding the appointment and review of Department Chairs have been clarified. As noted, Department Chairs are appointed by the President. Language at the end of section 1.a. now states, “After consultation with the Executive Council and with the faculty of the department, the Dean shall recommend the appointment to the President in a timely fashion. The recommendation will normally be in conformity with department members’ judgments.” Section 1.b. now states, “Appointment as department chair will be for an indefinite period but subject to the process for periodic review (see section c below).” With regard to retention of chairs, the language was altered to reflect the role of the President described in the Faculty Handbook: “Department chairs serve at the pleasure of the President as they are appointed by the President and the President determines the terms of office and the duties of chairs.” Section 1.c. notes that the Guidelines are being developed “during 1998” and “will be appended to the Governance Document once approved (Appendix 3) as the policy for review of chairs.”
3. On page 6 [section IV.A.1], under duties of the Executive Council, statements about how recommendations of either the Executive Council or the Medical Faculty Assembly will be addressed has been clarified in a separate paragraph which states, “The Dean shall acknowledge receipt of the recommendations in a timely manner (this refers to recommendations of the Executive Council). If the Dean decides not to act upon the recommendations of the Council, he/she shall provide a written explanation citing the reasons for this decision to the Executive Council. If he/she decides not to act upon the recommendations of the Medical Faculty Assembly or if the Executive Council has revised the recommendations of the Medical Faculty Assembly and the Dean decides to act upon the revised Executive Council recommendations, the Dean shall provide a written explanation to the Medical Faculty Assembly citing the reasons for this decision.”
4. Item number 4, the review of the authority of the USC Board of Trustees has been previously determined by the Trustees. Their authority was directly expressed by the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees to the President and the Provost and reflects the bylaws of the University that outline the Trustees role as the ultimate fiduciaries for the University. The California Code of Corporations, under which USC must comply, requires that the Trustees of this private institution must be the final and responsible authority. Thus, the proposal of the MFA for shared governance with the Trustees cannot be accommodated. However, some compromise language has been achieved with input from the MFA Executive Board. On page 3, under Executive Authority, the first sentence of third paragraph was deleted and replaced with a statement from the Faculty Handbook. In addition, the first sentence of Section V: Ratification and Amendment has been deleted. In this section words have been added that were inadvertently omitted on prior revision that complete an incomplete sentence and clarify the final sentence.
5. On page 11 [section IV.C.I.], where standing committee function is described (section C.1.), the statement has been added that, “Since standing committees are advisory to the Dean, the Dean shall provide a written explanation in the event that he/she does not implement the recommendation of a standing committee.”

The Task Force has worked on the document weekly since mid-December and presented the first draft to the Faculty Executive Council (FEC) and the faculty on February 25. Since that time, the Task Force has expended an intense effort responding to and incorporating the extensive faculty input they received. The FEC reviewed the document in detail at a special meeting on March 11 and at its regularly scheduled meeting on March 25. Independently, the Clinical Department Chairs had a meeting focused on governance issues as did the Basic Science Chairs at a separate meeting. Over the five months that the Task Force worked on the document, it received detailed input from the MFA Executive Board. These MFA suggestions were presented and advocated by Kathryn Challoner, MFA President and Task Force member, and were the major focus of Task Force meetings. A majority of the issues raised by the MFA Executive Board were incorporated into the document.

The FEC will vote on the revised document on April 29. The MFA representatives will review this revised document with their constituencies and vote on it at their May 5 meeting.

I strongly encourage you to contact your MFA representative, Department Chair, or members of the Task Force if you have questions. I can be reached at (213) 764-0421 or lbern@hsc.usc.edu.

I would like to express my personal thanks to all the faculty for the feedback and input and particularly to the Task Force which included Kathryn Challoner (MFA President), Robbin Cohen, Mike Diamond, Peter Laird, Bob Lane, Laura LaCorte, Alexandra Levine, Andrew Kassinove, Pradip Roy Burman, and Martin Weiss.

Sincerely,

Leslie Bernstein
Chair, Task Force on Governance

Please note: Since the original letter referred to page numbers that are not included on the Web-version of the governance document, section numbers have been added in brackets for use with that version.

Dean's Page • USC School of Medicine