During a lengthy debate, executive committee members haggled over language in the proposed code, questioned the lack of a committee report accompanying the code and revisited the issue of social relations between faculty members and students.

John Boot, professor and chair of the Department of Management Science and Systems and chair of the senate's Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee, presented to FSEC members a revised version of a code that his committee had drawn up that incorporated comments from an Oct. 28 FSEC discussion of two previous versions of the code. During that discussion, several senators had noted that those versions would prohibit social relations between students and faculty, and specifically asked the committee to rework the language to allow such relations.

The version presented to the FSEC on Nov. 4 states that "relations with students in one's class or under one's supervision are primarily teaching or mentoring relations. Social interactions which preserve symmetry among students or serve a clear educational purpose are also encouraged. However, social activities which treat students differently and serve no clear educational objectives are unprofessional and unacceptable. This includes entering into sexual relations with a student in one's class or under one's supervision."

Noting that the revised code had been presented to the FSEC without an accompanying committee report, Lou Swartz, associate professor of law, questioned whether the Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee had actually met and endorsed the document.

"I'm concerned that an effort to have something for the Senate to talk about in a few days (Nov. 10) is driving a very important process forward."

President William R. Greiner also lamented the absence of a committee report.

"You need a clear report that sets a record as to how the committee came to this result," he said.

Greiner also wondered how the FSEC's work has evolved from "the difficult, but very important, task of trying to review the issue of sexual relations between faculty and studentsŠto this much broader attempt at somehow regulating social interactions."

He asked senators to consider how their colleagues would receive the proposal.

"It seems to be an awful big leap from nothing on point to this broad, general statement that is going to tell me how to conduct my relations with my studentsŠThis is a problem, this a major problem for you as faculty," he said, suggesting the senate needs a more "exacting" report before acting on the issue.

Noting that his committee had, in fact, met, Boot said it envisions an environment at UB "where students feel welcome and professors are intellectual and social animals. The fact that you see only the output of the committee (the proposed code) doesn't mean there wasn't substantial discussion" on the issue, he said.

Powhatan Wooldridge, associate professor of nursing, noted that of the two versions that had been presented to the FSEC the previous week, senators seemed to be unanimous in preferring the version that included the wording "sexual relations," as opposed to the version that was less specific.

Boot replied that his committee had included social interactions in the code "because that's what the committee felt was appropriate."

But, Wooldridge insisted, the new version of the code can be interpreted as preventing faculty members from accepting social invitations, such as attending a graduation party at a student's house or joining a student for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, because those activities would constitute "asymmetrical" relationships, favoring one student over another.

Don Schack, professor of mathematics, told senators that over the years, most of the complaints he has fielded from students are of the sort, "'So and so's kid is in his class; how am I going to get an even break'?

"It may well be that Šthe issue of sexual relations with someone in your class is a much more serious issue. However, the other type (of relationship) is a much more frequent issue," said Schack, adding that he once received a complaint from a student that a class member played tennis regularly with the instructor and that relationship affected his access to the teacher and the fairness of the grading.

"There are a lot of things which worry the students; there are a lot of social activities which are, quite obviously, to be misperceived by one's classmates. I don't think that, in fact, if you're really going to deal with the issue of how our interactions with our students affect the entire class's perception of their access to the professor, I don't think we should be ignoring those issues, either."

Swartz questioned how putting out "a kind of benign, general statement of principle" actually would affect faculty behavior, and wondered how diverse interpretations of a code would be handled and how the policy would be enforced.

Boot told senators his committee was proposing "a code of conduct; it is not a penal code," and that UB is "behind the times" because it does not have such a statement.

"I don't see this enforced in any legal sense at all."

The code is a document that can be used by chairs to point out to faculty members what the acceptable standard of conduct is, Boot added.

"This isn't a kind of situation where we have the sexual campus police pursuing (faculty members). It's a code of conduct."

William Baumer, professor of philosophy, pointed out that the FSEC the previous week had rejected a suggestion to combine the issue of consensual relations with the sexual harassment code that's being drafted.

Instead, senators decided to present to the full senate a general principle governing consensual relations that, upon presumed adoption by the senate, then would be covered by the enforcement procedures of the sexual harassment policy, Baumer recalled.

"I suggest that, having committed ourselves to that course and having, in effect, invited John and the committee to proceed along that line, we ought not, at this point, to turn the canoe around and dump us all in the water," he said.

Baumer's motion to present the proposed code to the full senate was defeated. He then made a motion to return the code to the Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee with two instructions: That supporting comments explaining the principles outlined in the document be appended to the code, and that the committee reconsider some of the phrasing used in the code, in light of the FSEC discussion.

That motion was approved by the FSEC, which then voted to cancel the Faculty Senate meeting on Nov. 10 because of a light agenda.