- Introductory Remarks (Doug Birdwell, Chair, and Billie Collier, Interim Associate Vice President for Research):
- Doug Birdwell welcomed Marcel Grubert, GSA representative to Research Council. The minutes were approved as submitted. The chair is creating distribution lists for Research Council and its committees on his server. He will e-mail the list names to Council members.
- Billie Collier updated the Council on planning for the UT Research Foundation. The committees are developing documents to present to the Board of Trustees at their October meeting: business plan, charter/bylaws, resolution to change the UT Research Corporation to the UT Research Foundation.
- Information Item:
- UT Information Technology Policy: Birdwell stated that the UT Information Policy was presented to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. The document was created with little input from the faculty. The Executive Committee voted to recommend that the Faculty Senate reject the new policy and request a reinstatement of the previous “best practices” document. Faye Muly asked for input on the document and stated that it was changed from “best practices” to a “policy” by the IT Executive Committee. Birdwell expressed concern that the new document did not address the integrity of the network and the security of IT systems.
- Discussion Item:
- Articulation of the importance of research for the Education Marketing Group (Bill Blass, Co-Vice Chair): Blass led the discussion on a proposal for the Research Council to present the Educational Marketing Group (EMG) with a document about the importance of research at the University of Tennessee. Several suggestions were discussed and the Research Education and Promotion Committee, chaired by Jon Levin, was charged with drafting the document, to be presented to Council at the November meeting.
- Updates:
- Federal Relations (Lillian Mashburn, Executive Director for Federal Relations): With no progress on passing the federal budget and appropriation bills, Mashburn reported that some research projects may have to be halted in January until funding is made available.
- ORNL: (Lee Magid, ORNL/SNS Liaison for Science & Technology): Magid provided an overview of activities at ORNL. She stated that among the DOE labs, ORNL is known for its large user facilities and described activities at several Joint Institutes (JICST, JINS, etc.) which provide opportunities for large-scale collaboration.
Meeting adjourned at 5:10 p.m.