"I don't know anyone who knows their contingent workforce as well as we do now," Zeckhauser says.

Members express pride and satisfaction in recalling their duties on the committee.

"The process was good and the report was good," Sander says. "I really thought it was one of the best experiences of the kind that I went through...and I hope the results will prove it."

The committee process itself was not a new one. Like many University initiatives, the included both administrators and faculty members, with each group bringing different sets of skills to the policy debates.

Faculty members on the committee worked primarily to develop ideas and probe existing policy, while administrators provided empirical data and tested the feasibility of proposals.

"The administrators see the University differently from the faculty," Mills says. "Administrators see the University more as a whole, faculty members more in terms of their individual faculties."

But committee members say the division of work between faculty and administrators did not extend into policy debates.

"There were ideological divides between individual members, not on an administrator/faculty basis," Mills says.