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Unapproved minutes from Faculty Senate meeting  Following is a summary of the unapproved minutes from the Tuesday, March 6, Faculty Senate meeting. Legal Counsel Anne Spencer, Pharm.D., of the University Affairs Committee, reported on the progress in getting legal counsel to review documents of importance for the senate. Paul Taylor, internal auditor, and Joe Good, university counsel, have worked with the committee to draw up the guidelines which have been reviewed by the Senate and are ready for presentation to the faculty.  The Senate must still vote on the final version of the guidelines. The University Affairs Committee has outlined a system to manage the funds to support this program once they are collected. Two lawyers have expressed interest in the position. The next major step will be soliciting donations from the faculty. Senators will distribute information, answer questions, and solicit donations. The committee will outline a plan for solicitation for discussion at the April Senate meeting. Faculty Senate chairman Adrian Reuben, M.D., stated he would send out a newsletter explaining the legal counsel program. This will also be a major item on the agenda for the general faculty meeting planned for later in March. Post-Tenure Review Philip Privitera, Ph.D., Faculty Affairs, reported that he had received no additional change suggestions for the post-tenure review document. Rebuen will send out the revised post-tenure review document prior to the general faculty meeting, at which it can be debated. Following this discussion, the Senate will vote on the document in April. UMA Finances Marion Woodbury, CEO UMA, gave an overview of the state of University Medical Associates. He began with a brief history of the clinical practice plan at MUSC, which was established in 1965. The organization has moved from a loosely organized, largely departmentally-based structure to central university control. The focus of his presentation was the current financial status of the UMA and how recent problems are being addressed. He outlined the cash flow problems, discussed the expensive strategy of investing in the primary care network, and noted the loss of revenue due to the loss of faculty in certain practice areas. Woodbury distributed two handouts: the mission statement of the UMA and copies of his slides. Senators who missed the meeting may request copies of these informative documents from Melissa Foster (fosterm@musc.edu).  Jordan Medical Bookstore Closure Reuben asked John Sutusky, vice president for finance and administration, if he would comment on the House Ways & Means Committee's budget reduction decision before addressing the bookstore problem. Noting that nothing was yet final, Sutusky explained briefly how budget decisions are made on  state level and noted that the initial news looks good for MUSC. Of all agencies which are targeted for cuts, MUSC will suffer the lowest, a 2 percent reduction. He gave credit to the message MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., carried to the legislature. Sutusky’s main topic was the closure of Jordan Medical Bookstore, which has served as the MUSC bookstore for a number of years. Last fall, the bookstore owners advised the university that they had been suffering serious losses for awhile and unless that could be turned around, they would have to close. Pressures exacerbating the problem include the rise of e-commerce, the consolidation of the book distribution and sales industry, and problems with accuracy in the faculty book orders. The latter resulted in surplus inventory which required returns at a cost of a 25 percent re-stocking fee. MUSC was unable to demand that all faculty and students buy exclusively at Jordan Bookstore, as requested by the owners; nor can the university afford to subsidize the bookstore. In January, the owners announced plans to close the store in March.  Rosalie Crouch, Ph.D., provost and vice president for academic affairs, and Sutusky appointed a university-wide, academically-based committee to look at options and make recommendations for both short-term and long-range solutions.  Runyon discussed the work of the committee and agreed to forward the minutes to the Faculty Senate chairman. Of immediate concern is that there is no obvious supply of books for summer term. Three solutions are being considered: an agreement with another local college bookstore, establishing a virtual bookstore, and having a physical location on campus for a bookstore. Work is also being done on an automated system for the identification and publication of booklists. Runyon is very interested in hearing suggestions from faculty and welcomes their input. His e-mail is runyonj@musc.edu. Handbook Review Francine Margolius, Governance Committee, noted that the committee would be dividing the Faculty Handbook into sections to distribute the work of review. Each person will list issues of concern. Additional help, outside the committee, will be sought for re-writing the sections that need to be addressed. Reuben noted that the most significant sections for review and consideration are those that deal with faculty rights and responsibilities. Senators who know of problems that faculty have experienced because something was not covered in the Faculty Handbook should send a description of the issue to Margolius. Subbi Mathur, Ph.D., noted that there are discrepancies between some of the APT guidelines of individual colleges and the university APT guidelines in the Handbook. General Faculty Meeting On Wednesday, March 21, a general faculty meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Institute of Psychiatry auditorium. Crouch will address the senate in April. She will give an update on the search for a dean for the College of Medicine and discuss how various recent department chair appointments have been made. Senators may contact Reuben (reubena@musc.edu) if they have other issues for Crouch. The next meeting will be held at 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, April 3, in room 107 of the Administration/Library building.  The unapproved minutes for the March 6 meeting of the Faculty Senate appear in their entirety on the Faculty Senate Web page, <http://www.musc.edu/facsen/301minutes.html>.