FSEC discusses proposed policy to help faculty, staff avoid conflicts of interest

Philip Yeagle, professor of biochemistry and chair of the Faculty Senate Committee on Research and Creative Activity, which drafted the policy, said its purpose is to guide and help all members of the community, including faculty, staff and administrators.

He said one reason a policy is needed is because faculty members are being encouraged by the institution to become entrepreneurs, while at the same time the university "expects, demands a certain level of responsibility from its members.

"So there is a conflict there, which can put faculty in some cases, in some schools, in positions in which they feel uncomfortable," Yeagle said.

The goal of the committee in drafting the policy, he said, was to create guidelines to help faculty "deal with that stress and let faculty know when they are on grounds that are more solid or less solid with respect to these potential conflicts, and thereby give them some guidance on how to proceed."

The policy addresses such topics as identification and disclosure of conflicts, conflicts between personal and university responsibilities, conflicts between secondary employment and university responsibilities, and faculty consulting and business interests.

It also proposes the creation of an advisory committee to resolve any substantive conflicts that cannot be resolved between the employee and his or her "unit head," or supervisor.

The emphasis, Yeagle said, is on disclosure.

The policy does not imply that some activities can't continue, only that they must be disclosed, he said. The proposed policy includes what he called "red flags" that indicate to faculty the types of activities that should be disclosed.

"It doesn't mean it's bad, it doesn't mean it's contrary to your interests or the institution's interests; it's a guide to the faculty that says, 'look, you'd better get it out there.' And then if it's fine, it'll be sanctioned andŠyou can go forward comfortably," he said.

Several FSEC members objected to language in the proposed policy referring to activity "that harms the university's reputation."

Faculty Senate Chair Claude Welch, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science, wondered if a supervisor would be the one to ultimately decide "what is good or what is not good, in this case, for the university's reputation."

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, concurred. "In whose opinion does this harm the university's reputation?" he asked.

Powhatan Wooldridge, associate professor of nursing, said the idea of harming the university's reputation "is a very slippery slope. In one sense, you could dispute such a thing, but yet, in another sense, there are all sorts of activities which someone might deem to harm the university's reputation, but are protected under the principles of academic freedom," he said.

Bernice Noble, professor of microbiology, said she was particularly concerned about what she called special cases, such as union membership and activism. "There has been a real conflict between the faculty and management in the last few years and I just don't want to leave a wedge where people can be attacked and be vulnerable," she said.

Yeagle said the committee would reconsider the language concerning the reputation of the university.

Noble also said she was uncomfortable with a policy that "vests the oversight in the hands of unit heads because those are often the people who are in some sort of collusion about the kind of arrangements the document seeks to preclude."

She wondered about the recourse for "whistleblowers" in situations in which a person with a conflict has "made some deal" with his or her chair that adversely affects other members of the unit. "Where can they go and what can they do about" these situations, which, she says, are "very common" at UB and create much bitterness and "poison the collegial environment. There really has to be some mechanism for equity," she said.

Maureen Jameson, associate professor of modern languages and literatures, pointed out what she called "inconsistencies in the document."

A footnote in the section discussing conflicts involving personal responsibilities states that an employee may request that classes be limited to the middle three days of the week to permit the employee to be home with a young child, she said. Yet, in the section on secondary employment, "the language is very different," she said, noting that a faculty member who arranges to teach all of his classes on one day and comes to office hours and meetings only on that one day "may be guilty of frequent and excessive absences.

"Would it not be allowable to have similar language for the two situations?" she asked. "I'm not sure I understand who is worse off; I have a hunch it's the mother."

Richard Hull, professor of philosophy and a member of the Committee on Research and Creative Activity, said that language recognizes "that the primacy of commitment to the institution may not be the highest commitment one has in one's life," but that in terms of financial arrangements, "commitment to this institution is primary with respect to other income-generating commitments."

Hull addressed Noble's concerns by noting that there is nothing in the document that prevents an employee who witnesses an apparent conflict of interest from raising the issue, and if he or she does not receive a satisfactory response, taking it to "a higher level.

"I gather your sense is that a more explicit mechanism needs to be identified so that someone who has a sense that something is fishy in the state of Denmark, or Baldy Hall, or whatever, can look at this document and find some guidance on how to proceed with it effectively," he said.

Hull noted that all members of the university community, not just unit heads, have the ultimate responsibility for the reputation of the institution. In preparing the policy, committee members felt that, apart from the individual employee in question, the first level of the "exercise of that responsibility" has to be prior disclosure with the unit head or supervisor, he said.

"The problem with entrepreneurial spirit is that one goes out and makes all sorts of commitments and then lets the cards fall and often they fall on other people's doorsteps and other people find themselves picking up," he said. At least, there should be prior disclosure and approval by the unit head of activities that will shift responsibilities to others or constrain an employee's accessibility to students, he added.

The FSEC voted to send the proposal, with revisions, to the full Senate for discussion at its meeting on April 29.