After almost a year of deliberations on University hiring and admissions practices, the Faculty Senate is still in discussions about requiring prospective professors to self-disclose criminal backgrounds.
Three Faculty Senate committees and the Senate tri-chairs are currently drafting proposals on self-disclosure for prospective faculty and considering the implications of such a policy.
The hiring-practices review was slated to be completed last fall but was delayed due to deliberations over self-disclosure issues.
If a self-disclosure question is enacted, Penn would be the first Ivy League school to do so.
Provost Ron Daniels said there has been "quite animated debate over this issue over the past several months" in the Faculty Senate.
Central in that debate has been discussing how to reach a balance between improving campus safety while protecting the privacy and rights of prospective faculty, Faculty Senate chairman Larry Gladney said.
Questions that have been raised, he said, include how to protect a person's privacy even if there is no chance they will ever be hired, and at what point in the application process disclosure should be requested.
Other issues discussed involve defining which offenses disqualify an applicant from employment and assigning the responsibility to make that judgement.
Another aspect being considered is whether it would be appropriate to place restraints on the terms of employment if a candidate is offered a position in spite of past legal infractions.
"Certain roles are OK for a particular offense while others aren't," Gladney said.
The question of self-disclosure has been a "challenging issue" for the Faculty Senate, said Daniels, who is now waiting for an update from the tri-chairs.
But for now, any recommendations made by the Faculty Senate will likely have to wait.
"March is probably the first chance we'll have to give this matter proper consideration," Gladney said.
The review was spurred by the revelation last January that Economics graduate student and convicted sex offender Kurt Mitman was commuting to Penn from a Bucks County prison, and at least two other convicted sex felons were employed as University staff members.
A judge revoked Mitman's academic release last February, but Mitman has since been paroled and has been reinstated in his Ph.D. program.
