President Sorensen will recommend the merger of the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science and Mathematics at the Dec. 15 meeting of the University’s Board of Trustees.

“I’m excited about the projects that might materialize,” the president said at the Dec. 3 meeting of the Faculty Senate for the Columbia and regional campuses.

Sorensen appointed a 10-person committee to consider the merger last summer. A majority of the committee, which presented its findings in September, favored the merger.

The president said he also would present to the board a resolution, proposed by the Faculty Welfare Committee, that would recommend for all full-time faculty and staff members on all USC campuses a combination of pay raises and/or one-time bonuses.

The senate approved the resolution unanimously. James Augustine, medicine, chair of the Faculty Senate, said the proposed salary increases and bonuses would cost the University $12.3 million for one year.

The prohibition of discrimination in hiring and promotion on the basis of sexual orientation has been made a part of University policy, Sorensen said. The Administrative Council approved the policy.

The Faculty Senate approved a resolution urging the University to amend its equal employment and equal opportunity policy to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation at its Dec. 5, 2001, meeting.

Sorensen said the search for a new dean of the Arnold School of Public Health will begin soon.

The next Faculty Senate meeting will be at 3 p.m. Feb. 11 in the School of Law Auditorium.

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