Faculty addresses non-MSU work code
A revision to a university policy dealing with faculty's work outside MSU sparked lengthy discussion during Tuesday's Faculty Council meeting. Under the changes, faculty members will now be responsible for reporting to their department administrator about any outside work they do for which they receive financial compensation. The University Committee on Faculty Affairs proposed changes to the university's Outside Work for Pay policy, since the policy hasn't been modified in recent years, committee chairperson Ross Emmett said at the meeting. However, no official authorization from the department administrators is needed and the work only needs to be reported if it deals with the faculty member's academic work at MSU, Emmett said. But several Faculty Council members raised concerns about the vagueness of the policy, such as what type of work qualifies as outside work and what situations are exempt from the policy. "We, as a faculty, have not yet revisited the core of this problem," Dr. Jim Potchen, chairperson of the Department of Radiology, said at the meeting.