By SHANNON O. WELLS
At its first meeting of the 2024 calendar year, Faculty Assembly on Jan. 10 approved two policies, including Access to and Use of University Computing Resources, and Vaccinations and Immunization Requirements.
After tabling a discussion at its Oct. 4 meeting, the Assembly invited Angie Zack and Brian Hart, who served on the computer policy committee, to present a revised policy for consideration. The committee approved a draft policy on Sept. 28 to clarify questions regarding computer access and modify outdated language in the original policy.
Zack, knowledge integration coordinator with the Health Sciences Library System, described the draft as an “update of existing policy and revisions including updates concerning fair and equitable use of resources, privacy language, and the responsibility of users and the University with respect to use of University-owned computers and resources.”
The newest draft includes an addendum that “previously owned resources are not covered by the policy,” she said.
Other additions specify that Pitt computing resources may not be used for:
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Performing an action that is in violation of any University Policy, including the requirements described in R1 01, Conflict of Interest for Research; CS 10, Participation in Political Campaigns and CS 07 Nondiscrimination, Equal Opportunity, and Affirmative Action.
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Performing any activity prohibited by law, including illegal file sharing or theft of intellectual property.
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Abusing or misusing University Computing Resources or PittNet in such a way as to cause damage or system interruptions.
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Borrowing, lending, falsifying or “hacking” into a University Computing Account or allowing or facilitating unauthorized access to University Computing Resources by a third party.
Faculty Assembly approved the revised policy, with 43 members voting yes, zero voting no, and one abstention. The policy will proceed to the Senate Council, and then, if it passes there, on to Chancellor Joan Gabel’s office.
Vaccinations and immunizations
Tom Songer, assistant epidemiology professor in the School of Public Health, said the Vaccination and Immunizations Requirements policy has the “unique circumstance of being in existence during the pandemic, but most of the policy — if not all of the policy — deals with issues related to vaccinations that have been longstanding. And the policy that you see before you represents a consolidation of multiple policies and procedures that existed at the University before the pandemic.”
For instance, most of the current language for student vaccination requirements — that all students prior to enrollment have to demonstrate that they've been vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, and those living in dormitories require a meningitis vaccine — are now brought into this new policy, he said. It also includes requirement for people who work with live viruses.
The new policy represents changes to the exemption process, especially for student-immunization requirements, which Songer explained are now included in more transparent detail.
“When this came to Faculty Affairs, it met (with) broad approval,” he noted. “Most of the questions had to deal with history and how the policy committee dealt with (the pandemic) in a new and unusual circumstance where there was a vaccination policy for COVID-19. That is not a part of this policy.”
The current policy incorporates various post-pandemic changes, including Pitt’s discontinuation of COVID-19 vaccination requirements and the May 2023 end of the public health emergency, along with other issues “addressed by the policy review committee,” Songer said.
Responding to a question about the policy’s inclusion of an emergency/pandemic contingency, Songer said there is language in both the policy’s “student” and “location” sections specifying that the Department of Environmental Health and Safety or other entity charged by the chancellor may impose additional vaccination requirements for students and employees if “it determines that such protection is needed for that population.”
Faculty Assembly approved the Vaccination and Immunizations Requirements Policy with 38 members voting in favor, one voting no and one abstaining.
LGBTQ+ steering committee
Angie Bedford-Jack, interim director of strategic operations for the Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and Todd Reeser, Dietrich School of Arts & Science’s associate dean for faculty affairs, are co-chairs of an LGBTQ+ steering committee that emerged last fall. Convened by Clyde Pickett, vice chancellor of equity, diversity and inclusion, the committee “very much has the seal of approval of the chancellor,” Bedford-Jack said in December.
“We are standing up an LGBTQ steering committee with the goal of just creating a committee to share, report, learn and assess the opportunities to advance enterprise-wide efforts to improve the climate and culture for the University, for the LGBTQ community,” she told Faculty Assembly on Jan. 10.
“Broadly speaking, the initial goals and objectives of the committee are first to undergo a strategic review of the current practices, initiatives and recommendations,” she said. “Some of that is really closely taking a look at what came out of that LGBTQ Task Force as well as other initiatives that we know exist across the University.
“It is also meant to be a central body to facilitate communication and collaboration to advance goals,” she added.
Reeser said they are seeking to assemble “an intersectional group of folks … in the gender-studies sense of the word with respect to race and ethnicity and gender and sexuality and so on, but also intersectional with respect to the role that the folks play in the University. So undergraduates, graduates, faculty, staff, alums,” and various others from the community.
In addition to those committed to the issues that we're dealing with,” Reeser said he and Bedford-Jack would like to see “folks that aren't afraid to do some work between meetings, “as well as those with “complementary skill sets, areas of experience, and so on.”
John Stoner, teaching professor and undergraduate adviser in the Department of History, said he was “delighted” to hear that “ally training … might make a comeback.”
To avoid an awkward mix of people who “had drunk the Kool Aid already who wanted to be the best” with those who “felt a little like someone ordered to do something, perhaps compulsory,” Stoner encouraged the committee to find “low stakes, low pressure ways to gently educate people without making it seem like we're requiring them to learn all the newest lingo kind of thing.”
Linda Tashbook, librarian and adjunct professor in the School of Law, suggested examining Pitt’s benefits package to help attract and retain faculty and staff involved in LGBTQ+ issues.
“You know, we have student employees and postdocs, and full-time employees and a wide variety of people who work here and have access to benefits. … I think that our health insurance would cover a lot of things that might be of interest,” she said. “Maybe there’s a way that the Benefits and Welfare committee could work with you and do that kind of examination.”
She cautioned, however, that “we're very limited in our access to the Benefits Office expertise, because we can't engage them in … mandatory (union) bargaining topics,” she said. “So we have to be careful about those kinds of things, but we'll do what we can.”
Stoner suggested finding a contact person with the Union of Pitt Faculty, so “you’re not shut out of those conversations potentially but have … an ally within the bargaining committee to make sure those issues are part of those conversations,” he said.
Reeser thanked Tashbook for the offer. “We've heard as we've been circulating through groups, benefits comes up — pretty much every group that we talk to,” he said. “Particularly with respect to (transgender) health care, actually, and the lack of kind of cohesive sort of one-stop shopping if you will, one place to go to kind of get everything. A lot of folks have to figure things out on their own though.”
Tashbook suggested bringing in a representative from the Pitt health plan to talk about coverage options and possibly creating a “one-page” document with clear and accessible information, she said.
“That would go over well with a lot of folks,” Reeser said. “I know that for a fact.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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