ARTICLE 11

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ARTICLE 11
ACADEMIC RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

11.1 Both parties endorse the AAUP 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. However, when there is a conflict between the contract and the AAUP 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the contract language shall prevail.

11.2 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. Membership in the academic community imposes on faculty, administrators, trustees and students an obligation to respect the dignity of others, to acknowledge their right to express differing opinions, and to foster and defend intellectual honesty, freedom of inquiry and instruction, and free expression on and off the campus.

A. The primary responsibility of the faculty is to their subject and to seeking and stating the truth. To this end, faculty shall devote their energies to developing and improving their scholarly competence. They shall accept the obligations to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending and transmitting knowledge. They shall practice intellectual honesty and never allow subsidiary interests they may follow to hamper or compromise their freedom of inquiry.

B. As teachers, faculty shall encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students. They hold before them the best scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline. Faculty shall demonstrate respect for students as individuals and adhere to their proper roles as intellectual guides and counselors. Faculty shall make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to ensure that their evaluations of students reflect each student's true merit. They shall respect the confidential nature of the relationship between teacher and student. They shall avoid any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students. They shall acknowledge significant academic or scholarly assistance from them and protect their academic freedom. They shall endeavor to protect the student's freedom to learn, especially when that freedom is threatened by repressive or disruptive action.

C. Sexual and/or romantic relations between students and faculty members with whom they also have an academic or evaluative relationship are fraught with the potential for exploitation and are strongly discouraged. The respect and trust accorded a professor by the student, as well as the power exercised by the professor in an academic and/or evaluative role, make voluntary consent by the student suspect. In their relationships with students, members of the faculty are expected to be aware of their professional responsibilities and to avoid apparent or actual conflict of interest, favoritism, or bias. If a romantic and/or sexual relationship exists or develops between faculty and student where an academic and/or evaluative relationship also exists or develops, the faculty member shall, as soon as possible, report it to the department chair or director. For the protection of individual and university interests, this supervisor shall take effective steps to ensure unbiased evaluation and/or supervision of the student.

D. As colleagues, faculty have obligations that derive from common membership in the community of scholars. Faculty shall not discriminate against nor harass colleagues. They shall respect and defend the free inquiry of associates and show respect for their opinions. Faculty shall accept their share of responsibility for governance of their institution and service to the community.

E. As members of an academic institution, faculty shall seek above all to be effective teachers, scholars or creative or performing artists, and perform their responsibilities according to established procedures and regulations of the institution.

11.3 CLASSROOM AND RELATED RESPONSIBILITIES. A full-time faculty member is expected to perform teaching and appropriate academic programmatic advising duties in accord with established requirements of the University and of the particular college to which the faculty member is assigned, including, if applicable, supervision of thesis and/or dissertation students; pursue professional development through research, scholarly publications, interest in professional groups and societies; counsel students; assist at registration and commencement exercises; maintain regular office hours; serve on University, college and department committees; and perform other institutional tasks characteristic of the academic profession.

A. Examination and Grades

(1) Dates for final examinations are posted on the University Registrar's web site. All final examinations must be administered during the period assigned by the University Registrar and must follow the approved time schedule as designated by the Administration. In the event of a class without a final exam, a class session will be held during the scheduled final exam period. Laboratory, thesis, internship, field work and independent study courses are excluded from this requirement. In classes where take home finals are assigned, the take home examination is due on the day and time of the regularly scheduled final.

(2) Faculty shall be required to submit grades at the end of a term. Faculty teaching 100- and 200-level courses shall also make every reasonable effort to submit mid-term grades for freshmen enrolled in such courses. Final grades should be submitted within forty-eight (48) hours of the end of the examination, but not later than the deadline established by the Registrar's Office.

(3) One copy of each syllabus shall be filed with the Chair and supplied to the students at the start of classes. The syllabus shall contain grading and pedagogical guidelines as well as course content and assignments. A copy of the final exam should be given to the Chair after the end of the term upon request. A faculty member shall preserve students' answers to final examinations for one (1) semester unless returned to the student, except that examinations from the spring semester should be retained until the end of the fourth week of the ensuing fall semester.

B. Class Schedules and Rooms

(1) If a faculty member finds it necessary to change a scheduled time or classroom assignment, written approval of the chair or dean's designee is necessary before any change is announced to students in the class.

(2) Faculty have an obligation to meet their scheduled classes, throughout the scheduled time, unless an approved alternative learning experience has been assigned in the syllabus as part of the course requirement. On those occasions when faculty know ahead of time that it may be necessary for them to be absent from class because of attendance at a professional meeting or because of religious observance, faculty shall request written permission from the chair or dean's designee and work with the latter to make appropriate arrangements for covering missed classes.

(3) When a faculty member is forced by illness to cancel class, the faculty member shall, if possible, inform the students and the department chair of such cancellation a reasonable period of time before the class is scheduled to meet.

C. Student Evaluation of Instruction . The Faculty Senate shall have oversight for assessing the instruments used in each college for the student evaluation of instruction. The college evaluation form(s) may include additional questions addressing the normative attributes of particular courses, such as class size and method and level of instruction. Faculty members may add their own questions to the college form(s). Deans or their designees, in cooperation with departmental or college faculty, shall establish procedures for the distribution, collection, and tabulation of the instrument(s). The appropriate college evaluation form(s) shall be distributed and tabulated in each course for each faculty member. Evaluation results shall be returned to the faculty member and kept on file in the departmental and Dean's offices.

D. Office Hours: Each faculty member shall maintain regular office hours, on a schedule approved by the chair or dean's designee, when they are available to students in their classes and their academic advisees without previous appointment. These office hours shall occur at optimum times for students and advisees; they shall be posted and listed on the syllabus. Faculty shall also make themselves available by appointment to accommodate students who cannot see them during regularly scheduled office hours.

E. Faculty Availability: All full-time members shall be available for service at the University throughout the academic year. Faculty shall be available for advising as needed on a rotating basis, coordinated by the department chairperson, during the week of the registration period before each semester. Faculty shall be charged sick time if they are unavailable for assigned service because of illness during that week.

F. Commencement Exercises: The Administration and the CSU-AAUP recognize University Commencement exercises as an important hallmark in students' lives. Whereas both the Administration and CSU-AAUP encourage all faculty to attend commencement exercises, at least one-quarter (1/4) of the faculty shall attend the December and May Commencement exercises in full academic regalia.

• CREDIT BANKING PROGRAM. The University will continue to maintain a Credit Banking Program to allow release time in exchange for the supervision of thesis/dissertation students. Set forth below are the credits to be banked for supervising thesis/dissertation students, subject to the following conditions. After the accumulation of at least twelve (12) points, faculty shall receive a course release. Four (4) points shall be equivalent to one (1) credit. A release course must be at least three (3) credits. The points can be accumulated in any combination of roles for either theses or dissertations. The accumulated release time must be used within a two (2) year period from the time a total of sixteen (16) points are banked. The release time earned pursuant to the banking system shall be taken upon the mutual agreement of the faculty member and the faculty member's home department chairperson. Release time shall be granted only during the academic year, and shall be limited to one (1) course per term.

Department Chairs, in consultation with the individual faculty members, will be responsible for keeping accurate records of the number of credits accumulated by their faculty and reporting the number of banking points to each faculty member on an annual basis. Faculty members who wish to apply banked points to reduce their instructional workload for the following year shall notify their department chairperson by December 1. The application of such banked points shall be considered compensatory time and shall have no bearing on the voluntary acceptance of other duties such as overload course assignments.

Thesis Supervision : A maximum total of six (6) credit banking points shall be available to Master's Thesis Committee members to be distributed among not more than five (5) faculty members under the following distribution rules: Each member of the Thesis Committee shall receive one (1) point, except the Chairperson of the Committee, who shall receive two points. In the semester following the written approval of a thesis topic by the Thesis Committee, the supervisor of the master's thesis student shall receive one (1) point. In the semester in which the master's thesis is successfully completed, all members of the Master's Thesis Committee shall receive one (1) credit banking point. At the Committee Chairperson's discretion, and so long as the total of six credit banking points is not exceeded, one (1) additional member of the Committee (excluding the Chairperson) may receive one (1) additional point for serving as a Methodologist. The Chairperson of the Committee shall be responsible for identifying the Methodologist.

Dissertation Supervision: A maximum total of nine (9) credit banking points shall be available to Doctoral Dissertation Committee members to be distributed among not more than five (5) faculty members under the following distribution rules: Each member of the Committee shall receive one (1) credit banking point except the Chairperson, who shall receive a total of four (4) points. In the semester following the written approval of a Candidacy Examination (or equivalent approval) and each subsequent semester, including summer, the supervisor of the doctoral dissertation student shall receive one (1) point, up to a maximum of three (3) points. In the semester in which the doctoral dissertation is successfully completed, every member of the Dissertation Committee shall receive one (1) point except the Chairperson, who shall receive the appropriate number of points to bring his or her total to four (4) points. At the Committee Chairperson's discretion, one (1) additional member of the Committee (excluding the Chairperson) may receive one (1) additional point for serving as a Methodologist.

In order to accumulate credit, faculty who do not teach for pay in a summer term or who are on Professional or other leave shall continue to advise thesis/dissertation students or fulfill their responsibilities to the Committee/student(s).

11.5 COMPUTER PRIVACY The University and the CSU- AAUP recognize the University's right and obligation to provide the CSU community with high quality computer and network resources, to protect the security and integrity of the computer facilities owned and operated by the University, and at the same time to treat faculty electronic mail (“email”) and faculty computer files as private to the fullest extent permitted by law. The University and the CSU- AAUP agree that the rights of academic freedom and freedom of expression apply to the use of the University's computer and network resources, as do the responsibilities associated with those rights.

A. Achieving security and privacy means that it is University policy that, except under extraordinary circumstances described below, access by University personnel to faculty email requires the permission of either the sender or the recipient of the message. Similarly, access by University personnel to the content of a computer file in a faculty computer account or otherwise located on University computer hardware assigned to a faculty member ordinarily requires the permission of the faculty member to whom the account or hardware has been assigned. Except in cases of emergency as noted in part (6) below, university access to faculty email, computer files or electronically stored information without the permission of the individual faculty member requires the approval of University Legal Counsel and notice to the Provost and pertinent Dean in addition to the extraordinary circumstances as set forth in items (1) through (8) below.

A faculty member whose email or computer file is accessed without his or her permission will be notified unless notification is prohibited by law or by the express terms of the order requiring access or if such notice may compromise or make ineffective an investigation initiated pursuant to part (8) below as determined by University Legal Counsel. Information discovered accidentally under part (5) below will not be disclosed unless it indicates that criminal or other improper conduct is occurring.

The University, through the relevant system administrators, will log all instances of entry into faculty files without the consent of the individual faculty member. System administrators will also log any emergency entry within their control for subsequent review by the Provost, Dean, or other university authority.

The only extraordinary circumstances in which University personnel may read or otherwise access faculty email or faculty computer files without the permission of an individual faculty member are as follows:

• when ordered to do so by a court;
• when ordered to do so pursuant to a subpoena or other legally enforceable order;
• when the email or computer file is a "public record" as defined in ORC 149.43 and a proper request is made;
• when required to comply with the law;
• when in the normal operation and maintenance of the University's computer facilities, staff of the Information Services and Technology department (or their staff analogues in other units of the University) inadvertently or inevitably open or otherwise briefly access an electronic mail message or computer file;
• when emergency entry is necessary to preserve the integrity of the University's computer and network facilities or to preserve public health and safety;
• when the University has reasonable cause to believe that a “litigation hold” is necessary based upon knowledge by University Legal Counsel of the presentment of a claim or of a potential cause of action impacting the University. In such an instance, University Legal Counsel will so advise the affected faculty member. Following receipt of such notice, it is the faculty member's legal responsibility to maintain copies of all email, computer files and other relevant electronically stored information until such time as the litigation hold is released, the litigation is completed or the retention time requirements under the university's records retention policy are met, whichever comes last ; or
• when the University has reasonable cause to believe that a faculty member may be violating the law.

B. A faculty member shall comply with a request from University Legal Counsel to preserve and, when necessary, produce e-mails, computer files and other electronically stored information pursuant to a litigation hold. When University Legal Counsel has reasonable cause to believe that there has been an incomplete preservation or production by the faculty member of the requested material, the following procedure will be followed:

• The contents of the faculty member's office computer will be copied onto a new hard drive in the presence of the faculty member or Dean's designee thereby creating an image of the original hard drive. Password protection shall be placed on the original hard drive, with the password known only to the designated password trustee, who shall be present at that time. The original hard drive then will be removed from the office computer and replaced with the image copy hard drive.
• The original hard drive will be placed in the custody of and securely stored by University Legal Counsel.
• The University and CSU-AAUP shall mutually agree to the designation of a neutral third party who shall serve as the password trustee. The password trustee shall release the password to University Legal Counsel upon receipt of a written request specifying the extraordinary circumstance, described above, upon which the request is based and the provision of advance written notice to the Union as described in part 6 below.
• The University and the CSU-AAUP agree that the contents of the original hard drive will be accessed only in the event of the issuance of a subpoena or other legally enforceable order (including an appropriate discovery request) or as may be required by University Legal Counsel in the evaluation of a claim or potential cause of action impacting the University.
• The original hard drive will be reformatted in the presence of the faculty member or Dean's designee following the release of the litigation hold, completion of the litigation, or satisfaction of the retention time requirements under the university's records retention policy, whichever comes last.
• Advance written notice shall be sent to the AAUP President, AAUP Grievance Officer and AAUP Office of a request by University Legal Counsel to access the hard drive, said request to be received at least two working days prior to the proposed access.

Agreement for Designation of Password Trustee The parties agree to the designation of Arbitrator Rob Stein as password trustee and hereby authorize him to execute the duties regarding release of the hard drive password described in Article 11.5 of the CSU-AAUP collective bargaining agreement.

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