The Faculty Senate's last meeting of the year got off to an embattled start Tuesday when discussion of the Grading Committee's proposed Class Absence Policy erupted into verbal fisticuffs over what is considered "reasonable" with regard to student absences, and whether policy should dictate procedure or leave judgment open to faculty.

The reprisal of contentious debate surrounding the proposed policy, amended since the April 10 senate meeting, broke along the lines of those in support, and those who found it "rigid"-many of whom chose to align themselves with a policy introduced as an amendment by total substitution by Erwin M. Segal, associate professor of psychology.

Segal, who referred to the Grading Committee's policy as "incredibly anti-academic," explained that explicit rules in that policy are "condescending" to faculty, and not all-encompassing. Faculty should be able to "apply reason and consideration to students who ask for permission to miss a class due to conflict with a valuable alternative activity," his policy states, rather than try to render a decision based on set criteria.

Furthermore, he said, academics should not play "second-fiddle to other kinds of activities." The Grading Committee policy outlines "justified absences" to include participation in university-sponsored or endorsed activities, illness or family emergency, religious observances and transportation failure.

Judith Adams Volpe, director of Lockwood Memorial Library, said Segal's policy circumvents addressing "the issues that necessitated the original resolution," namely the protocol for dealing with conflicting requirements between two classes-for example, a mandated field trip and an exam-and professors giving exams during the last week of classes.

"The interpretation of what is reasonable is an interpretation that is wide open" in the proposed substitute policy, said William H. Baumer, chair of the Grading Committee and professor of philosophy. That interpretation "includes faculty saying, 'I don't give alternates, I don't give make-ups.'"

President William R. Greiner weighed in with the last word before the senate voted to postpone the issue until fall, explaining the buck effectively stops with his office on class-absence controversies. Though infrequent, he said, problems do arise. "And when they do, I can tell you this-they are extremely costly to the university," he said. "I see enough of them to say we have a problem that we need to deal with. And the problem is, frankly, how occasionally some of us can be very, very unreasonable.

"There needs to be some kind of discipline directed by the faculty to the faculty," he said.

In other business, Joseph C. Mollendorf, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and chair of the Research and Creative Activities Committee, presented the results of the panel's email survey to determine "what is on the minds of the faculty at UB concerning research and creative activity."

The committee's recommendation based on faculty responses-provided predominantly by researchers who have been investigators at UB-is that "the administration.carefully review the results of this survey and then engage in dialogue to squarely address the issues revealed by this study."