Nine-month Task Force Draft Report

 

Introduction

The current IFO/MnSCU Master Agreement makes it so that all new IFO faculty are hired on nine-month appointments, with the possibility of a contract starting on almost any day of the year. Pursuant to ART 10, Sec. D, Subd. 1.3 in the IFO/MnSCU Master Agreement, in Fall 2008, President Potter convened “a task force to review and consider the impact of nine-month appointments on faculty participation in the life of the university.” Consistent with the language in this section of the agreement, an equal number of faculty members and administrators were appointed to the task force.  The members of the task force appointed by the Faculty Association were Michael Connaughton, Tom Hergert and Fred Hill. Those appointed by the administration were Dennis Nunes, Wanda Overland and Kristi Tornquist.  The task force was charged with providing a recommendation to the President by May 15, 2009.

The IFO/MnSCU Master Agreement (ART 10, Sec D, Subd 1.1) indicates:

Beginning July 1, 2009, the duty year for all new probationary, athletic and fixed-term appointees shall be nine continuous calendar months in duration.  Faculty members who are given nine-month appointments shall be available for scheduled assignments on five days of each week, except as otherwise provided herein.  Except as provided in Subdivision 2.1 of the Section, the total number of assigned days in a nine-month period shall not exceed 168 duty days.  Nine-month appointments need not correspond to the academic year or to any other nine-month appointment.  Except as expressly provided herein the employment status and work schedule of faculty members who are initially appointed to a nine-month appointment shall not be governed by Subd. 1 of this section.  Faculty members hired pursuant to this subdivision shall be referred to as nine-month faculty.

Nine-month faculty shall receive the same work schedule (start and end dates) for not less than two successive nine-month appointments and shall receive not less than six months notice of change in the work schedule of any ensuing two year period.  The scheduling of nine-month appointments shall be per Article 20 Section A, Subd 3.

Nine-month faculty members shall not be scheduled for work on holidays as described in Subdivision 1 of this Section or on Independence Day (July 4th).

A faculty member who chooses to renegotiate his/her salary for an athletic appointment that commences on or after July 1, 2009 shall become a nine-month faculty member.

The task force met regularly fall semester 2008 and spring semester 2009.  The focus of the task force was on identifying issues related to the implementation of these nine-month appointments.  The task force acknowledged three broad areas of faculty life potentially affected by nine-month appointments:  governance issues, workload and scheduling issues and benefit issues.  Within each of these categories, the task force identified a number of specific issues that must be addressed.  In addition, the task force identified several guiding principles to be considered in making policy related to these appointments.

Some Guiding Principles

No faculty member, department, or college will be contractually disadvantaged by this new class of appointment. Specific areas of concern are:

·         Benefits

·         Governance

·         Workload and Scheduling

·         Tenure, Promotion, and Sabbaticals

·         Campus, College, or Department communications and consultation

 

Work toward addressing the issues and concerns raised herein should strive for the following:

·         Conflicting contract language should be dealt with campus by campus as much as possible and needs to be addressed in next negotiations

·         Negotiators must focus on the issues raised herein to eliminate issues in the next agreement.

·         Programmatic and student learning environment will be considered when making decisions.

·         Add value

 

More Guiding Principles may continue to be identified through an appropriate on-going assessment process.

 

Workload and Scheduling issues

General items

·         The language regarding nine-month appointments in the IFO/MnSCU Master Agreement has resulted in some inconsistencies in contractual language.  As a campus, we need to be aware of these inconsistencies and decide how to deal with them. We expect the contractual issues to be addressed in subsequent negotiations.

·         We expect that the vast majority of faculty will be on a “normal” academic year schedule very similar to the current 168 duty day appointments.   It would be useful to provide guidance to supervisors and departments as to dates that should be used for a standard appointment of this type, particularly because it is a two-year commitment.   Should we establish a default duty day schedule or a default general calendar, or will each faculty member have an individual calendar?

·         Traditional 168-day appointments lie within a single fiscal year. Proposed nine-month appointments could bridge across fiscal years, complicating scheduling, budgeting and record keeping.

·         We will need to review the implementation after the first year and make adjustments based on what we learn.  We should build in an evaluation process of nine-month contract activity. Reconvene a task force in Fall 2010.

 

 

Summer

·         If a faculty member has an appointment that covers the “normal” summer months and includes what the contract terms as “summer school” what would be their teaching load (in credits) during that period?

·         The relationship between the summer appointments and fiscal years is fuzzy already and may be even less clear for faculty on non-traditional appointments.

·         How do we deal with the time period outside of the nine-month period for someone on a non-standard appointment?  Is it treated as summer for that person, especially in regard to workload and compensation?

 

Appointment and evaluation issues

·         There may be a need to request additional time for some faculty members. We need to ascertain when it is appropriate to use extra duty days and when we should use ½-month appointments. (Discrepancies between Article 10, Sect. D, Subd. 2 and Subd. 2.1 must be addressed.)

·         Non-traditional appointment calendars may complicate how we handle leaves of absence. (Fiscal year vs. academic year)

·         Serving on EPT committees may be difficult for people who are not on a traditional academic year schedule. How will Article 22 and 25 be handled for people on various appointments?

·         Evaluation deadlines and processes may be affected by varying appointment timelines.

·         Non-traditional appointments will create complexities for Human Resources. In particular, are the payroll, insurance and leave systems set up to provide the necessary flexibility?

·         Will some people have appointments that will cross fiscal years? How will we track expenditures, income, credit generation, etc?

·         Will the timeline and processes on grievances need to be adjusted for faculty on non-standard appointments?

 

Professional development

·         How will long-term and short-term professional improvement funds (with specific calendar date deadlines) be handled for people on non-standard appointments? What about professional development opportunities offered on campus (e.g., through CETL) during the “normal” academic year?

·         How will sabbaticals be handled? Of real concern is the possible difference between 84 days (one-half year) and “one semester”, especially if summer is involved.

·         Are there implications for grant applications and completions?

·         How will research grant applications and timelines need to be adjusted?

 

 

Students

·         How will advising be handled if the faculty member is here when students aren’t or vice versa?

·         Graduate assistantships currently are awarded based on academic terms. This may create difficulties for faculty on non-standard appointments who need graduate assistance. Faculty partnerships with students on research need to be considered as well.

 

Benefits issues

Basics

Any benefit-related elements of the contract or of practice that are tied to particular calendar dates could create challenges for the employee, for Human Resources, and for the Administration. Some examples of those challenges follow.

Insurance Benefits

Open Enrollment

·         What happens to employees who are not actively working during designated Open Enrollment period?

o   How will they be able to make changes (on-line or paper)?

o   There have already been instances of faculty having difficulty accessing Open Enrollment options because of employment status.

Summer Balloon—Faculty who elect a nine-month pay schedule now have insurance premiums deducted from their last two months’ or so pay periods. With faculty on more random nine-month appointments, questions arise.

·         How will faculty be billed?

·         Will the premiums be spread out or will they have to make a lump sum payment?

·         Will faculty on a flexible schedule have only the 12-month option or can they pick a nine-month? If they choose a nine-month option, this creates extra work and extra cost for Human Resources.

 

HRA/HCSP

·         If the faculty members are not actively employed on 1/1/2xxx, they do not get the contribution for that year. At this point we only see this as a problem for a new hire, perhaps complicated by long periods between work calendars.

 

Notification Deadline Dates are specified in the Master Agreement. They would have to be addressed in a way that would not disadvantage individuals and to permit appropriate coverage of necessary activities.

·         Phased Retirement

·         Retirement to collect ESI incentives

·         Tenure, Promotion, Non-Renewal

Leave Days

In order to make sure the correct number of days are deducted, HR would have to have a precise work schedule and calendar for every faculty member to verify leave taken. Over 200 calendars could result.

·         Sick Leave

·         Personal Days—fiscal vs. academic year

·         Extra Duty Days

As an example, if a faculty member is appointed to work from 11/1/09 – 7/31/10 and 11/1/10 – 7/31/10 (FY10 8 months and FY11 10 months). The following could be issues.

·         Budget impact since pay crosses two fiscal years

·         Supplemental Retirement

·         Number of personal days given each fiscal year

·         Professional Development Funds—when allocated, how distributed, and effects of “non-standard” work calendars

 

Governance issues

 

Faculty Association and University issues:

Full representation by and of faculty whose contract did not include both regular semesters in:

·         Faculty Senate

·         Faculty Association committees

·         Meet and Confer

·         Ad-hoc committees, such as for searches

·         University committees and task forces

·         State-level IFO and MnSCU committees and task forces

 

Departmental issues

·         All faculty members, whatever the terms of their appointment, have a stake in, and a right to participate in setting departmental policy and making recommendations on departmental matters, such as personnel actions, budgetary matters, departmental curriculum, classroom and equivalent duty schedules, all covered under Art. 20.

o   Alternate means of participating in department meetings and /or deliberations may need to be devised; electronic voting is an easy, though imperfect solution, since it has a different character than face-to-face deliberation.

Setting of teaching schedules, likewise governed by Art. 20, poses a special problem, especially in those instances when the faculty member’s period of assignment changes.  Meeting student and departmental needs must be the guiding principle, but the timing of making such assignments democratically may be difficult if the faculty member is not on duty at the beginning of the academic year.

Conclusion

As one can see from the issues the task force has identified, the change to nine-month appointments provides the university and its faculty with numerous unanswered questions, and in some cases, conflicting information.  We recommend the university begin developing responses immediately to the issues raised by this task force.  Although we anticipate the vast majority of the faculty appointments will be very similar to the 168-duty day academic year appointments that faculty have currently, beginning July 1, 2009 some faculty may have nine-month appointments that do not mirror the academic year.  It is for such faculty that the questions and issues raised by this task force are most critical.  The university should seek to find means for these faculty to receive full benefits, have workload and scheduling comparable to those faculty on academic year appointments and be able to participate as fully as possible in governance at all levels of the department, college and university.

We recommend that the president convene a nine-month faculty task force in Fall 2010 to assess progress and to determine possible approaches to the concerns listed herein and any other issues that will arise. Until there is a new Master Agreement many of the issues raised will continue to be unresolved. Ad hoc solutions will be required at the campus level.