Faculty Council, Brand discuss Knight

IU President Myles Brand made one of his first appearances on the Bloomington campus Tuesday since Sunday's firing of former basketball coach Bob Knight. Brand presided over the University Faculty Council's first meeting of the semester. \nBefore beginning the meeting, Brand told the assembled group he expects the controversy over Knight to die down.\n"We need very strongly to get the Bloomington campus focus back on learning," he said. "Athletics has taken on a bigger life of its own."\nBrand was scheduled to give a State of the University address after the Faculty Council meeting. The speech was canceled and was rescheduled for Oct. 10. Brand is scheduled to discuss the state of arts and humanities at IU and around the nation.\nDuring the comment and question portion of the meeting, James Sherman, co-secretary of the Faculty Council and president of the Bloomington Faculty Council, took a moment to address the Knight situation. Sherman's son is on the faculty at Northwestern University and Sherman said he heard some misconceptions about the situation.\n"Zero tolerance is impossible and I think the name of it was probably unfortunate," Sherman said. "We all live day by day, we teach, we all get into conflicts with our colleagues, but if you look at all of that behavior I really don't think we were asking anything but to be the best person we can be."\nAnother misconception Sherman said he heard was the zero tolerance policy was drafted specifically to cause Knight to be fired.\n"Nothing could be further from the truth," Sherman said. "I believe that the intention and the hope of everyone involved was that the coach would succeed in this."\nFinally, Sherman expressed his support for Brand's actions, which drew applause from most of those gathered for the meeting.\n"The media wisdom is that Coach Knight was put in a very, very difficult situation," he said. "I think the situation that Myles Brand was put in was more difficult. Seventeen weeks ago he was in a no-win situation, and again he was put in an absolute no-win situation. I think Myles deserves our support and our kudos, not necessarily for his decision, with which you may agree or disagree, but for the way in which he did it."\nAlso addressed at the meeting was the unanimous passage of the Policy on Conflicts of Interest. Ann Gellis, a law professor, detailed typographical changes made to the policy since it was introduced in April. The new policy will set up a system for addressing University employee conflicts of interest created by external activities with business, government, academic institutions and other groups. Gellis said the policy leaves it up to each individual campus to decide at what level the system will be carried out.\n"Some campuses prefer to have it carried out on a campus level rather than by each individual school, but that is for each campus to decide," she said. "Here in Bloomington, we have to discuss at what levels the policy should be handled"