By SHANNON O. WELLS

Pitt’s research community has well-established policies applying to visiting scholars. It’s just that they’re not necessarily widely known or commonly understood.

A new draft Academic Visitor Policy discussed during the March 20 Senate Research Committee meeting aims to bring clarity and transparency to this dynamic.  

“The policy is a way of promoting our existing practices,” said Bill Yates, vice chancellor for research protections, noting that his office and the Office of Research Security and Trade Compliance, get frequent inquires such as, “‘What do I need to do?’ and ‘Where do I need to go for information?’

“This policy will centralize all that information (and provide) centralized guidance to our hosts and our visitors about their rights and responsibilities,” he said.

The draft policy also seeks to empower Pitt to implement practices needed for regulatory compliance while protecting “both the University and the visitor,” along with current processes reiterated last summer in a memo signed by the University’s senior vice chancellors concerning “the importance of following our visitor processes, particularly since we’re under a huge amount of federal scrutiny about this matter right now.”

Yates chairs the Academic Visitor Policy committee, which formed about a year and a half ago, and includes Melanie Scott, associate professor in the Department of Surgery, as vice chair and Research committee representative.

Despite doing “a lot of homework,” in general the policy “doesn’t do anything new, because we have existing practices for visitors,” Yates said, noting that the policy essentially codifies that Pitt has practices that visitors need to follow.

Most visitors are covered by the offices of Research Protections and Security and Trade Compliance, but the provost’s office deals with undergraduate and high school visitors, “and we have procedures in place to make sure that visits comply with laws and regulations which are evolving,” and which have increased scrutiny on Pitt and other schools.

“We need to define the rights and responsibilities of both the visitors and the University, and we need to protect visitors, making sure that they know their rights and responsibilities, and that hosts are aware of their responsibilities as well,” Yates explained.

The draft policy includes clearly defining who is a “visitor” at Pitt.

“A visitor is an individual who is not employed, enrolled or appointed at the University, but is on campus for academic purposes,” Yates explained, adding that the policy excludes “casual visitors” — those on campus for non-academic purposes such as touring a nationality room, attending a seminar, or attending a departmental celebration. “They’re casual visitors (who are) here for a specific purpose.”

It also doesn’t cover Pitt employees. “Unfortunately, despite the term ‘visitor’ being stuck on to a lot of job titles at the University, even though they’re not visitors,” he said, citing visiting scholars who are on Pitt’s payroll. “If we’re paying them, they’re an employee of the University.”

In other cases, if paperwork is not complete for a new hire, particularly in the tenure stream, the provost’s office will make them a visiting assistant professor “or something like that. … Their paperwork just isn’t done. This doesn’t apply to them.

“It doesn’t apply to any enrolled students, even if they’re just taking a single course,” he said, as well as students visiting the School of Medicine, who Yates said are considered enrollees. The policy also doesn’t cover appointed individuals, like emeritus faculty members who are no longer technically employed by Pitt.

Secure and legal

The policy, which applies to any Pitt campus or managed location, covers educational, scholarly or research visits, and “indicates that the visit duration should be limited to the stated objectives.”

Based on established Academic Visitors procedures criteria, most people who visit campus are Type I visitors “who are here to give a seminar. Basically, they don’t need to do anything,” Yates explained. “It’s only a Type II or Type III visitor, either somebody that’s here for … over two weeks, or who’s going to be working in a lab, that we have more detailed procedures for, for good reason.”

Pitt needs assurance, for example, that those working in labs have health insurance. “We have to make sure that you understand about IP (Intellectual Property) protection,” he said. “Things like that.”

Most campus visitors are covered by Pitt’s two research and security-based offices, with others, including high school and undergraduate students, by the provost’s undergraduate studies office. UPMC, which has frequent visitors involved in clinical shadowing, is in a different realm.

“People come to us all the time because they want to do clinical shadowing,” Yates noted, adding that Pitt can’t give visitors access to UPMC clinical space. “That’s UPMC’s business. … We’ve encouraged them to develop more for people that are going into their space to shadow, to participate in clinical activities.”

Rather than salaries, short-term campus visitors for seminars or speaking engagements are typically given an honorarium.

“That’s a gesture of appreciation, and it’s not a payment for their seminar. It’s basically a ‘Thank you,’” he said, noting that plane fares and meal expenses are covered for some short-term visits. “What we don’t allow is a living allowance to go on for perpetuity, because it then starts looking like salary. … Anyone from the outside is saying we’re employing this person.”

To compensate longer-term visitors, they must become officially employed, which entails obligations like training and health insurance.

“If you’re in a lab situation as a visitor, you’re not an employee, you’re not covered by workers’ compensation,” Yates noted. “Labs can be dangerous, and that visitor needs to have health insurance to protect themselves in case they’re injured. And, of course, they have to follow all the rules.

“The host and the host units have to justify the visit, outline the academic objectives and ensure the agreements are executed before somebody comes.”

For most visits, the Office of Research, Security and Trade Compliance manages the process, reviews and approves invitation letters and visitor agreements, “and basically provides advice.”

To maintain a consistent process so visitors are properly vetted and can legally be on campus, Yates said individual schools cannot manage their own visitors.

“We need to first screen them to make sure they should be here. Second is to make sure that all those agreements that go out meet all of our regulatory requirements,” he said, along with having ability to adapt to guidance and requirements to comply with evolving regulations.

“If we have central management, we can have resources and advice for both hosts and visitors,” he added. “So that’s why we have a visitor policy.”

Following standards

Before opening the floor to questions from committee members, Yates clarified that the procedures are not changing, even though the policy they’re contained in is new.

“Nothing has changed in our processes at all,” he noted “… I think we all see what’s happening with federal scrutiny of people coming in and visiting, so it’s very important that we make sure that everybody’s following the rules exactly.”

The policy also clarifies that Intellectual Property (IP) is owned by Pitt, “which can be a very dicey communication later, if somebody comes here on a sabbatical for a year to work (then) who owns the IP at the end of that?” Yates asked. “You better work that out in advance.”

Melanie Scott noted that students in the summer undergraduate research program her department runs are paid stipends through the Concur Travel & Expense system, but seem to have unclear or fluctuating statuses.

“They’re not employees, so they have to get paid that way,” Yates explained, noting that Concur facilitates reimbursing for a living allowance as a process through the business office. “It’s just a legal thing on how we have to compensate them. … They’re being given a living allowance to allow them to participate in the program.”

Scott also expressed concern about visiting students’ health insurance coverage.

“Undergraduates are under the provost’s area, and I’ve re-emphasized to them that that needs to be part of what they do,” Yates said. “Again, we need to make sure that nobody’s in a lab situation unless they’re adequately insured, so their procedures are going to evolve.”

Tony Graham, senior policy specialist in the Office of Policy Development and Management, said the draft policy’s goal is “not to tell you what to do, like, ‘Go to this and do this step and the other step,’” but rather more of a governance document clarifying questions like, “Who’s really in charge of visitors?” and “Who’s going to set up the processes that people need to follow?”

Because “things can evolve,” Yates said some things aren’t in the policy itself, “because the government may put on new restrictions that we would have to address. So, we want to be flexible.”

The committee approved the draft Academic Visitor Policy. It will be considered at an upcoming Faculty Assembly meeting.

Shannon Wells is a University Times reporter. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

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