The Faculty Executive Committee deliberated the gender diversity bill for ombudspersons and consulted Michael Webb, Associated Student Government president and senior business administration major, about the consenting relationship policy on Sept. 27.

Sheryl Lidzy, Faculty Affairs Committee chair and associate professor of communication and theater, brought the gender diversity bill for ombudspersons up for review in the last FAC meeting. Lidzy said this bill was important to her, despite disagreement from other FAC members.

“I brought it before the committee and they said ‘we don’t want you to bring it forth,’” Lidzy said. “I brought it forth because I think it’s important.”

Among discussion, Brenda Koerner, academic affairs committee chair and associate professor of biological sciences, said part of the problem with this is that gender is only one aspect of inclusivity and diversity.

“There’s lots of other avenues of inclusivity that really could or should be addressed if you’re going to move in that direction,” Koerner said.

According to Greg Schneider, chair of faculty affairs committee and professor of social sciences, the board should focus on the qualifications instead of the gender issue, because it allows room for more diversity issues that might take away from the quality of current ombudspersons.

“We’re supposed to be professionals and do the job as an ombudsperson by looking at the issues without recourse to any kind of person who’s of different race, gender or anything else,” Schneider said. “I have a problem with putting that in, because of the fact that it raises other issues of inclusivity. How are you going to find, you know, three African Americans to be on the panel, three Hispanics to be on the panel. I mean, this is a problem. I would recommend not putting anything in about gender balance because it does raise these other expectations that other groups have, to be met. It raises this whole idea that it’s about identity and politics and not about the professionalism of the people who serve as ombudspersons.”

Later in the meeting, Webb spoke on ASG leadership’s opinion of the consenting relationship policy.

ASG’s first concern is with grading bias when it comes to student-professor relationships, according to Webb.

“There was concern at how much that outside faculty member would really be able to fairly grade whatever assignment might be presented to them because they’re not the one actually teaching the course,” Webb said. “While they may have knowledge in the curriculum, the curriculum is taught differently depending on the faculty member.”

Webb also addressed concern about the section of the policy that states that relationships “should be disclosed.” ASG wants the policy to require relationships to be disclosed, according to Webb.

“Overall, we’re not in favor of the zero tolerance policy,” Webb said.

Lovett said that they are working on completing the policy and it will most likely fall in line with the other regent schools.

It’s likely that the policy will be condensed into just a few paragraphs, Lovett said. The first paragraph will state that the policy is zero tolerance and the subsequent paragraphs will outline any potential exceptions, according to Lovett.

“(The first paragraph) will be these relationships are prohibited…(then the) second paragraph (will be) ‘however, if persons within our campus community are already married or they’re already in that relationship prior to a situation arising where some kind of professional or educational power differential, then they are required (and) must report that to their supervisor within that department or unit and then that supervisor has to report that to the vice president that’s in charge or that particular unit or department and then they will come up with an appropriate protocol for management,’” Lovett said.

The next Faculty Executive Committee meeting will be at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Roe R. Cross room.