Meet and Confer Notes
Final Approved December 7, 2006
October 19, 2006
Administration: President Saigo, Provost Spitzer, Anne Zemek de Dominguez, Rex Veeder, Mitchell Rubinstein, Kristi Tornquist, Steve Ludwig, Dennis Nunes, Larry Chambers, Patty Dyslin – note taker
Faculty: Annette Schoenberger, John W. Palmer, Fred E. Hill, Bob Inkster, Jason Lindsay, Terri Sheehan, Jayantha Herath, Andrew Larkin, Steve Hornstein, JoAnn Gasparino, Balsy Kasi
Minutes:
September 28, 2006 – approved
October 5, 2006 – under review
Unfinished Business
1. Reassigned Time (FA – 05/04/2006)
FA: What is the status of this item?
AD: We have gathered the information and the report is being put together. We will forward this to you as soon as it is completed.
FA: Okay. Should I move this to progress reports?
AD: probably not
2. Searches in Academic Affairs (Admin) and Elsewhere (FA – 09/07/2006)
AD: We had requested, and you say you have a call out for search committee members for the Associate and Assistant Vice President searches for Academic Affairs. We also asked that you appoint two members to serve on the search for the General Education Assessment Director. I need to send out a call requesting nominations for that search. Finalists for the position of Associate Vice President for International Studies are visiting campus this week and the following two weeks. I will be meeting one of the candidates this afternoon at 5:15 p.m. and need to leave promptly at 5:00 p.m.
FA: The Senate has not had the opportunity to appoint faculty for the two Vice President positions and have appointed John Palmer and Annette Schoenberger to serve on the search committee for the General Education Assessment Director. We have not seen the call for nominations for that position.
AD: It has been written and needs to be edited. It will be sent out next week.
3. Announce, Discuss and Bulletin Boards (FA – 09/07/2006)
FA: At the last Meet and Confer we said this item was with the TPR Committee. Senate has not had an opportunity to look at it yet.
AD: Were there some questions you had about the policy?
FA: There is some concern that, and we’re not trying to imply intention, if you read the language about Faculty having to read and be knowledgeable of what is sent out electronically, the language in there, without precision added to it, might imply that a faculty member could be held responsible for e-mail sent, for example, during the summer or while they are out of the country.
AD: So you will be recommending alternative language?
FA: Yes. That will probably occur.
AD: That’s okay. We don’t expect that Faculty would be reading their e-mail on a regular basis if they are not on campus during the summer or if they are traveling abroad.
4. Task Force for International Programs (Admin – 09/07/2006)
FA: At the September 28, 2006, Meet and Confer, we said that we were going to ask our International Studies Committee to meet with Margaret Vos to talk about some of these issues. They attempted to meet with Margaret and then discovered that she was out of the country so they’re going to try to do that now. They’re still working on trying to meet with her.
AD: I think that’s not a bad idea. I also think we talked about establishing a task force to address some kind of procedural issues and questions and that maybe a subset of the committee and a couple of administrators, Margaret and maybe one other, could get together to talk about some of the issues that need to get reviewed and then come back with some proposal. There are questions about what the role is of the committee: what the role is of CIS in relation to various short-term and even semester-long and exchange programs; what the process needs to be for there to be approval of those programs; who’s responsible for what; what is the role of CIS; what is the role of the Faculty; who promotes the program; what is the responsibility of CIS in that capacity and what is the responsibility of the faculty who are leading the program. So that’s what I thought the purpose of the task force would be – to address some of those questions and come up with a proposal for some procedures that could be in writing, that are clear, and that will help eliminate confusion and controversy about who is supposed to be doing what with regard to these programs.
FA: So the duties of the International Studies Committee, the Faculty Association International Studies Committee, are to study policies and programs developed for the university’s international studies opportunities for both students and faculty, and make recommendations through the University Senate to the University President regarding their development and implementation. So this is the group of Faculty that it’s appropriate to work with.
AD: Yes, but that group doesn’t meet with anybody from the administration.
FA: We have asked that group to meet with Margaret to talk about these issues. At that point, she can talk to them about how to go about taking care of these issues, but…
AD: Do you think a committee of that size will be able to address all of these issues?
FA: How big is Strategic Planning?
AD: I’m not sure, I haven’t been there in a while. Twenty?
FA: Bigger than that. I think it’s not for us – let that committee and people try to work it out.
AD: Are you open to having that committee meet with more that just Margaret?
FA: Yes.
AD: Particularly since she’s an interim person in that capacity?
FA: Sure.
AD: Maybe one of the deans and one of the staff members from CIS besides Margaret.
FA: If you e-mail me the names, I will send the committee that letter. You said you had a letter or something for them – I could send them that – that is more specific about what you want to address. Do you have another copy?
AD: I do.
FA: Can you send this to me electronically?
AD: I can.
FA: Okay. Does anyone have any other questions they’d like to ask about this?
AD: Maybe we can cover number four under Progress Reports at this time.
FA: What is number four?
AD: Global Initiatives.
FA: Okay.
AD: I’m happy to report that we had a wonderful visit from Madame Lui. She is chairman of the board of Beijing University. We had visited with her and her staff when we were in Beijing. She came here about a week ago and we can truly build some strong academic systemic relations. She encouraged us to invite the ambassador from China to be keynoter in March of 2007, when we are having the China Symposium. I have just sent a letter to the ambassador to invite him as our guest during that time. So, this is starting to evolve and expand and we are really proud to see the many Chinese professors who are here and she was especially pleased that two of our faculty are alumni of Beijing Normal University. It was a very warm and family event. Thank you.
FA: Thank you.
5. Orientation Task Force (Administration – 09/28/2006)
AD: You said we would work on this next time.
FA: I’m going to send out a request for volunteers and then sometime after that we will agree or not agree or ask for more volunteers. We’re not real sure what we’re going to do.
AD: Is that a time sensitive issue?
FA: Yes.
AD: Yes.
FA: That’s one of those things where – I’m always warning you – you need to do those and get back to us really early in September – maybe the first Meet and Confer – because once things heat up, it’s really difficulty for us to get those things through.
AD: It was in September.
FA: Yes. It’s hard sometimes for us to get to things once….
FA: We’ve only had one Senate meeting since September 28th.
FA: Right.
FA: So we don’t get through the entire Senate agenda.
FA: In November, we’re going to have three Senate meetings in a row so we should be able to get through a lot of stuff.
New Business:
1. Doctoral Programs (FA – 10/19/2006)
FA: Who was going to start there with that?
AD: Well, you sent me a document expressing some concerns and the Faculty Senate asks that these be addressed at Meet and Confer so I think that the appropriate way to handle this is for us to address those concerns and do it in that way.
FA: Okay.
AD: The first question you asked is: what happens to the doctoral programs if a program does not meet expectations of student enrollment. Let me say first, before I even respond to the question that we’ve addressed some of the issues relating to applied doctorates on a couple of previous occasions. We talked about the applied doctorate at the December, 2005, Meet and Confer. We talked about applied doctorates at the February 6, 2006, Meet and Confer. We had a town hall open meeting about applied doctorates last spring. A lot of these questions came up. We will try to answer them in a way today, so that maybe they won’t have to come up again. So going back to the first question of what happens if a program doesn’t meet expectations of student enrollment. Either we will not start it or we will discontinue it in the same way that, for example, we had a Masters of Science in Accountancy and that program didn’t achieve the requisite enrollment so we suspended the program and will probably then close it permanently. So that’s the way we will deal with a program that doesn’t meet expectations for enrollment.
The second question has to do with summer teaching responsibilities – where will the funds for summer session come from?
AD: I will speak to that one since I work a great deal with summer. The statement here that you provided us with is that the program seems to imply that those who teach in the program are guaranteed summer teaching. In any program, applied doctorate, master’s program, other graduate programs, we may or may not have summer teaching depending upon the needs of the clientele, how the program is structured. Programs that focus on education will probably have a summer component to them because that’s when the individuals are available. If it’s an applied doctorate in another area, it may or may not have summer instruction. I think the real issue is: where will the funds come from? Keep in mind that the programs that we are proposing, because we are very concerned about budget, are going to be cohort programs. With cohort programs, we will know how many students will be taking the course. We will not start a cohort until we have approximately 20 students. Now we know who will be there in the summer. In fact, when a student signs up for a cohort, they make a commitment to complete it in the fashion that has been designed by the faculty. So in essence, the funds for any summer courses will come from the participant’s tuition. These are new dollars. They will not come out of the regular summer session budget and will not diminish the amount of summer session money available currently to any of the colleges. These are new dollars and thus will fund instructional costs.
The next issue, dissertation, I will address that one briefly also. I would expect, as we would have with Master’s advising, that faculty teaching in this program will engage in dissertation advising. The standard, and there are some variability certainly with this, but it’s standard, somewhat, for these sorts of programs, is a 2 and 2 rather than a 3 and 3. Two courses if a person were full-time in the program, which I don’t anticipate many of our faculty would be. Our faculty teach at the graduate level; teach upper-division undergraduate; lower-division undergraduate. I anticipate that faculty will continue to teach across the spectrum. But, if a person were exclusively in a program, it would be a 2 and 2. Now that workload – decrease in instructional workload – would then be applied, in essence, to doing such things as doctoral advising because there would be less instructional workload for faculty engaged in instruction in doctoral programs. This is typical of most institutions.
FA: With the 600 level courses, a 3-credit course counts as the equivalent of a 4-credit course on load. Do you have in mind a similar formula for applied doctorates?
AD: Right now, we’re discussing here, 3 would be worth 6. But keep in mind this whole issue of workload is probably going to be collectively bargained and to some extent, superimposed on us. I would be surprised if a number of issues regarding such things as workload, were not raised in what will be a new collective bargaining agreement. Keep in mind, our current agreement ends June 30th of this year. There is no agreement in place yet for the point in time when an applied doctoral program may begin. There are a number of unanswered questions and I presume that those will be addressed in collective bargaining. I’m speculating here, but I’d be surprised if workload wasn’t an issue that would be addressed in that forum.
AD: I would add to that, absent any provision that would specify how we would approach things, what Dennis indicated is what we would do if there were no other instruction or no other policy that were implemented as a result of the collective bargaining process.
FA: Readers. Readers often are not engaged in teaching on a regular basis in the graduate program. Under this model, if a reader had not been assigned to a 700 level class, there is no method of compensation.
AD: John, the model is very similar and I understand some of the concerns being voiced about our current Master’s program. If a person isn’t teaching 600 level courses, the person does not benefit from the 4/3. Yet, individuals who…. That whole issue of independent study, thesis advising, education advising, I believe those issues are going to be addressed in collective bargaining. We have a practice where faculty members who serve as readers, or anyone who serves who may not teach 600 level classes, does not receive a reduction in workload for participating with Master’s students, or doctoral students in this case.
FA: We have some experience with an applied doctorate for the two cohorts that we did in partnership with the University of Minnesota.
AD: Yes we do.
FA: And there were agreements about how faculty who served on the committees, co-chaired committees, were to be handled.
AD: Right.
FA: We had those. Have you looked at those models as possible ways to…
AD: Yes. At this point, with the issues of collective bargaining looming over this entire process, I’ve been hesitant to recommend to the Provost that we go too far in developing a systematic model here that may well bump into something that will, in a sense, be superimposed over us. But yes, John, as you know, I worked with you and a variety of other folks developing those so the faculty were provided with….
FA: They were never…
AD: Weren’t they?
FA: I have never received compensation.
AD: I can’t address that.
FA: I suspect that there are other that never received compensation. That’s another issue.
AD: Okay.
FA: We’re going to start these programs next fall and we don’t have any notion of how… you just said that the bargaining agreements ends June 30th so. The contract has in it what happens for graduate classes.
AD: It addresses graduate classes. It does not specifically address doctoral level education. It does address graduate education.
FA: And doctoral education is not graduate education?
AD: Of course not… Of course it is. But keep in mind that the demands of doctoral education may be different from that of master’s education. That was not considered in the last collective bargaining.
AD: Let me comment on part of what you said. If our program proposals are approved, and if MnSCU approves the program proposal, and if the HLC approves the program proposal, we might, depending on the timing, be able to start in Fall 2007. But that’s increasingly more distant an option, I think, and we may well say we don’t have enough time to get this off the ground, we’ll start it in the spring. By the time we get to issues having to do with dissertations, we have more than a year to wait before we can have anybody working on a dissertation. So we will have time to iron-out, and come to some agreements, on how those matters will be handled. Those are not make or break issues so far as offering the degree program.
FA: I’d like to point out that Terri Sheehan is here. She’s the chair of the UCC and many of these questions came to us through UCC so she may, if she wants to, want to ask some clarifying questions as well.
AD: Sure.
FA: I think the notion that we can get started without having these things put together is extremely problematic. We have a history of doing that on this campus. We start up cohorts, we start up programs, THEN bring them back for approval through regular channels, and then are told “The students are already here so we have to keep doing it.”
AD: We’re not starting…
FA: The notion that we would have students on campus without knowing what we’re going to do with their dissertations, to me, is problematic because, if we don’t reach an agreement, or if the contract doesn’t address it in the next round, here we have the students here moving toward their dissertations. They’re here and we still have to serve them. My personal opinion, and I don’t speak for the organization, is that I think it’s very dangerous. I think we need to get these items organized, put together so we all agree on them before we move forward with the program. We have that history in my college and it’s always been a problem.
AD: I think that we will certainly try to get these things resolved beforehand. I don’t think we’re dealing with a situation of the type that you’re describing. We’re not moving forward without approvals.
FA: I understand. If we don’t have agreement on what it takes…
AD: We have a sense of how we want to proceed with the instruction unless there is some other change. I think we can come up with an agreement on how to deal with dissertations unless there is some change that will come about through negotiations.
AD: Also, we are putting in our request for these proposals because the other MnSCU institutions are also putting in proposals. I think there is a sense of urgency. The others are all banding together to provide a cooperative nursing doctorate and we’re not a part of that. So that’s an issue. You also have had experience in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, so there is a model there. Then you have a master’s model. I think, like Michael is saying, we need to do our best to move on to this new territory and we hope that through Dennis and his staff, and the Faculty leadership, we’ll come to some agreement as we move along. I think that it’s of the essence that we have the North Central Accreditation look at this. We also have to work with Manny Lopez, who is coordinating this for MnSCU. Initially they had said: “Why not two? Why not 3?” Now we’ve been scaled back to one. The North Central Accreditation is involved with that and then the work with the bargaining. So, I think Steve, if we can kind of move together that would be most helpful.
AD: And I think we can come to a kind of campus agreement about how we would handle this absent a collective bargaining agreement and that we could do it before the program would begin.
AD: I’m speaking way beyond, so I can just speculate on anything, right Steve? (laughter) But, I would think in a decade, this institution will be a much more doctorate-oriented institution than we are today. We’re just starting and I think it’s one of those times when we need to work together to get us to where we need to be.
AD: Next question?
AD: The classification of doctoral faculty. As I understand, the Faculty Association Graduate Committee has spent much of this last academic year producing a series of policies regarding doctoral education. These are required by MnSCU and also expected by our accrediting body. To the best of my knowledge, those proposals are coming to you from the Faculty Association committee. It defines doctoral graduate faculty in one of the proposals, as I understand it.
AD: The second part of the question is: if faculty are hired and the program doesn’t meet enrollment expectations... is that the next part?
FA: I want to ask about classification of doctoral faculty. Certainly the Graduate Committee has begun to work on these kinds of things, but the question keeps coming back to us: what does it mean to be a doctoral faculty. What are the expectations in terms of research? What are the expectations in terms of tenure and promotion decision? Are we actually creating a separate classification of faculty on this campus? If you are looking at the Higher Education Administration model, there is a master’s program, then the applied doctorate. There is not an undergraduate program in that area. So therefore, is there really a separation in terms of faculty based on the applied doctorate?
AD: We currently have graduate faculty and some of our faculty at the university are not graduate faculty. I see the same with doctoral graduate faculty. I cannot speak for the Faculty Association Graduate Committee, but I believe that the proposal added the expectations involved with graduate education for these individuals. That means serving on committees or teaching courses not currently required of the graduate faculty, and the other, to have an active program of scholarship. I believe that will be addressed discipline by discipline assuming what that means as appropriate for that discipline because it may not be the same in each discipline. Again, I ask you to address your graduate committee.
FA: The reason I bring it up is again, if we’re talking about the contract and negotiations are going to have to occur. If we’re talking about retention, promotion, and tenure, are there going to be different criteria for doctoral faculty as opposed to non-doctoral faculty?
AD: I don’t believe any different than between our graduate faculty now and those who do not serve as graduate faculty. We have five criteria and unless those are changed in the contract, I do not see any change.
AD: I don’t think we tenure faculty as graduate faculty, we tenure them as faculty. I don’t necessarily see a doctoral faculty status as a permanent thing in that a person gets tenured as a doctoral faculty member, the person gets tenured as a faculty member. If for some reason that faculty would cease to be interested in, or be involved in activities that would maintain qualifications in that status, the person would teach other courses. That’s the same kind of response to the next question under number 4. If the person doesn’t meet and if the program doesn’t meet enrollment expectations, what happens? The faculty member would teach within the same department but a different level of courses – either at the master’s level or undergraduate level.
FA: But you added faculty. There may not be students for them to teach at a different level.
AD: In most cases that hasn’t proven to be so at the undergraduate level. We’re adding faculty to the program in the context of having that additional demand. Now in the case of the two programs that have been reviewed so far, both of them have substantial enrollments at lower levels than the doctorate.
FA: Are you saying you’re not going to hire more faculty for the doctorate program unless and until the enrollment increases?
AD: No. I think we know that the program is going to have a certain enrollment and we start with that and then we don’t add additional faculty until we have a sense, for example, that another cohort would begin or something along those lines.
FA: I did hear Dennis say that the cohort would not begin until a number was reached. Wouldn’t it be problematic then to have faculty hired waiting to start the cohort? It would seem to me that it takes time to hire a faculty member, make the commitment that they’re going to have work to do. From a marketing standpoint, it would seem that the students would have to commit to being enrolled six months before a start date.
AD: The earliest we could hire a faculty member would be for next year – at this point.
FA: If I heard you correctly, at the point of decision to launch a search, you’d want a number. When you get to a point when you’re going to fill the position, what I heard said was, that the cohort had to be filled. In this case, it was 20.
AD: In fact, we’re not going to initiate programs without strong-level assuredness that there is student demand for such a program. We’re not considering programs that we do not believe strongly in the high probability that the students will be there. In fact, a substantial pool of students that we’ll be able to select students appropriate for doctoral programs.
AD: We also have information from state demographers identifying the number of superintendents and principals that are retiring.
FA: But the higher ed program that we’re talking about isn’t going to be for those people. The Ed Ad program would be for them.
AD: We have numbers for that as well.
AD: The labor market analyst for the Office of the Chancellor was one of the sources of information and they’re projecting 133 post-secondary administrators state-wide needed each year for the decade, plus in the adjacent states, the Dakotas and Wisconsin, at least another 50. With the University of Minnesota no longer providing this opportunity, we would be the single-source provider for this number of individuals in this state and region.
FA: What are these people going to do? What jobs would they have at this institution?
AD: I presume now, that they would work in either Academic or Student Affairs. In terms of directors…
AD: You’d look at the two-year institutions, private colleges.
FA: Like what?
AD: Any number of positions.
AD: As administrators.
FA: What would they be administering?
AD: All of us baby-boomers are going to retire over the next 10 years so I think that’s a big part of it. There’s a lot of people doing those jobs.
FA: Give me an example of a job on this campus that one of these people could do.
AD: Financial aid, enrollment management, the support areas…
FA: Do those people currently have doctorate degrees?
AD: Yes, in many cases they do.
AD: In some cases they do and now, more often then not, these positions are demanding doctoral level competencies – at least the institutions want individuals with doctoral competencies to take these positions.
AD: I believe both the Vice President for Student Life and Development and the Interim Associate Vice President for Student Life and Development both have doctorates in higher education. So those are two people hired this year at this university.
FA: Do we have any data on the percentage of folks who occupy those positions who actually have higher ed degrees versus other kinds of degrees?
AD: In the positions I just mentioned?
FA: I mean, not just at our institution. We’re talking about all over the state. Are we hearing that a higher ed degree is a requirement for these kinds of positions or are people in those positions now coming from a variety of sources.
AD: I think that the primary market for that degree would be at two-year institutions, for administrators. Many of whom may or may not have doctoral degrees at this point.
AD: What I see is that they have a variety of degrees – not just higher education and administration. They’re all over the map.
FA: Okay. The reason I was asking that questions is because, if they’re all over the map, then the number we hear about how many administrators we need begs the question of how many of them need a doctoral degree in higher ed?
AD: My understanding of your questions are that they pertain to all doctorates.
FA: What we heard was a statistic that said that we need x number of administrators. I was trying to get a picture of how many of those administrators are required who have higher ed degrees versus other kinds of doctoral degrees. The only information is from Larry who says it’s all over the map.
AD: I think for those who have doctorates, it is all over the map. There are a number of those folks who do not have doctorates who would like to have a doctorate, and this would be an attractive alternative. They perhaps want to advance in their careers and can’t without the doctorate.
AD: The majority of these folks from two-year schools don’t have doctorates.
AD: I think it’s also safe to say, when an institution’s hiring, they look at the pool of applicants. The pool of applicants might have doctorates in a variety of fields, but it also might be the case that those who have a doctorate in higher education would stand out and be more competitive.
FA: Can we make a clarification please? One, that it’s my understanding that the applied doctorate in Higher Education Leadership is not going to be submitted at this time, and that the one that we are talking about, even though the questions are about all doctorates, they are specific to this program and this is a Higher Education Administration Applied Doctorate which is different than a Higher Education Teaching Doctorate. So please understand that we are talking about preparing administrators in higher education settings and situations.
AD: Michael, the question about the budget reflecting realistic…
AD: We skipped one…
AD: The faculty to student ratio, excuse me.
FA: That question came up at UCC because of the number of faculty that were being requested in terms of the program. We were concerned in terms of one faculty member who is going to be advising twenty students. It seemed to be a very large load for a faculty member and so therefore, we wanted to know; what is the expectation in terms of faculty to student ratio?
AD: Well, I think with regard to that particular program, there were two faculty, even though one, at least, is currently on staff. Another would be hired. I think the proposal as it went forward, based on recommendations from UCC was for two faculty.
FA: That was a change after this orientation. But now you’re saying that we have one faculty on campus that would be involved in this program that is not included in the proposal.
AD: I think that’s correct if we’re talking about hiring two new people.
AD: I believe the numbers, if I’m not mistaken, show four faculty, at full capacity, with sixty students admitted. There will be some attrition, although about 80 percent of the people seem to be able to complete cohort programs such as this. So we’re looking at four faculty and fifty-some students. It works out to be closer to thirteen per faculty member – twelve or thirteen. I believe that’s within what we consider norms for these type of programs nationally.
FA: I would like a clarification because Michael just made mention that there is a faculty member on campus.
AD: Correct.
FA: Presently on campus who would be involved in this program.
AD: Yes.
FA: That is not included in the proposal. So are we saying now that we’re going to have two new faculty plus the faculty that is presently on campus?
AD: I believe that’s what the budget you saw…
FA: That is not reflected in the budget.
AD: I believe it is.
FA: At this point, I’m confused. I believe we have two programs and I’m going to ask you to these two out. One is a Educational Administration K-12 and the other is a higher and I believe that’s what we’re talking about right now. What are we talking about? Actually, the questions came in there rather generic, but they got focused on these two items.
AD: With respect to the faculty members currently on campus, we’ve reallocated internally our faculty resources as any other resources…
FA: So what they’re doing now is not going to be done
AD: It may mean a decrease in some level of activity in which they’re currently engaged.
FA: So no other faculty member will be asked to do what that person’s doing now? There’s some duty taken away from that person.
AD: As we reallocate faculty resources as well as others, I do not know where we’ll be two or three years down the road in terms of demand. I presume that individually, at least initially, will reduce current levels of activity in the current assignment. What faculty may pick that up with demand further down will need to be determined. Just as we don’t know in any program what student demand may be several years from now.
FA: I think the issue is, there’s a faculty member currently on campus who will no longer, if they are full-time in this program, be doing what they are currently doing.
AD: They may not be doing as much as what they are currently doing.
FA: If they’re full-time, we’re back to 365/24/7. There’s only 100% of full-time.
AD: If in fact, what we have initially projected for course offerings are two courses per semester, and divide it among three faculty, that wouldn’t be considered full-time for those three faculty members. Two courses, each semester.
FA: Now, would you clarify that. We’ve got a cohort of twenty people/twenty students. They would only be taking two courses?
AD: Fall semester. Spring semester.
FA: Two courses per semester?
AD: Right.
FA: This says twenty students, twenty-one credits each.
AD: That includes Summer.
FA: So how many credits are two courses.
AD: Three-credit courses.
FA: So that’s six, twelve, eighteen?
FA: No. In the Summer more.
AD: Nine in the Summer.
FA: So they’d be doing nine in the Summer?
AD: Yes.
FA: And there’ll be parallel cohorts, right? So we’re not talking about just….
AD: It would be parallel cohorts after we started another cohort.
FA: Right.
AD: Year two or year three.
AD: Right.
AD: I’d like to make a suggestion that we refer this to Dennis. Dennis, could you collaborate with the appropriate faculty, come back with an example of these cohorts and how it will look. I sense that we have two definitions of different degree programs and we’re thinking through different positions and we’re talking past each other. I think we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about the units. If you would come back next time and lets have this so we can share it – okay?
FA: Roy, you might have gotten my question there because I’ve been hearing two different programs; the K-12 and the Higher Ed. Is that the same confusion?
AD: Yes. And then there’s a proposal and that’s not in my head at all. Then talking about one faculty will be on campus and which ones will be on the proposal, I can’t get my arms around that. We’re talking about too many different things at the same time.
FA: My concern is that there’s a lot of unanswered questions. The proposal, specifically at this time says two new hires for the beginning of the program. And yet now, I’m hearing that we have a faculty member on campus that is not factored into how this program will be administered and how much this program will cost. So therefore, if you’re saying that we have a faculty member on campus…
AD: Who could teach in that program…
FA: Who could possibly be taken out of the circle of their present responsibilities, then that is adding to the cost of the program which is not reflected in the budget.
AD: I don’t see that given the kind of workload that we’re talking about, having to do that with two new people. So I don’t see that in the same way.
FA: So you’re saying one new person?
AD: If the program proposal calls for two new people to work in the program, that’s what we would do, but if we have a person on campus who could do that, then that one person could count as one of the two.
FA: I think Roy’s suggestion is a good one. We have multiple discussions happening at multiple levels. We’ve had a number of questions answered which gave us information that we didn’t have. I would hope that we could collaborate with Dennis as this refining process occurs. I’m not sure how we decide to move from this item to another item, but I think your perception is accurate. If you ask ten people here what we’re talking about, I’m guessing we’d get seven different answers.
FA: We have an additional question though before moving on. We would like to know the percentage of students that will be covered under tuition waivers. How much you expect that to be. That’s an issue at the State level because of how the tuition waivers are handled.
AD: One of the things we looked at in looking at some of the budget information with regard to these proposals having to do with tuition waivers; we did one budget in which we calculated that all students would pay the standard tuition and we did another budget in which we estimated that half the students would have a tuition waiver. We also talked about a structure for the tuition that would be a combination of tuition and fees so that even those who had tuition waivers would pay the fees that would cover the costs to run the program.
FA: Could we see that?
AD: Sure.
FA: Okay. Is there anything else we wanted to talk about? Any other questions?
2. Assessment Steering Committee (FA - 10/19/2006)
FA: The assessment steering committee sent the Faculty Association a request for change.
AD: I’ve got it.
FA: Anyway, for a change in the charge, membership and length of term of the committee. What they’ve done is they’ve added members from places other than the academic units on campus.
AD: Right.
FA: The understanding seems to be that North Central is looking for university-wide assessment and it seemed appropriate that these other non-academic units be involved in the assessment.
AD: We think that’s wonderful and we are appreciative of this change.
FA: So are you going to tell the university assessment director about this change?
AD: Yes.
3. One-Time Professional Development Funds (FA – 10/19/2006)
FA: There’s a letter that came from…
AD: I have it.
FA: The recommendation on how to spend the additional funds that went into the one-time professional development.
AD: I have some concerns about the recommendation from the Research Grants Committee and the Professional Improvement Committee, as forwarded by the Senate, about this for a couple of reasons. One of which is that the recommendation is that we spend this money on speakers – on a high profile speaker or a series of speakers to support strategic themes and goals in the strategic plan. One of the concerns has to do with the fact that high profile speakers are booked well in advance of the time when they make appearances. In many cases, two years in advance. We only have six months, or approximately six months, to organize this. The money has to be spent by the end of this fiscal year. So I think that while it might make some sense, and it might be useful and helpful to the faculty to have some professional development activity bringing in some speakers or having some workshops on campus, I don’t see how we’re going to spend $140,000 to do that between now and the end of the Spring semester. It would be unfortunate if we were to leave some of that money on the table and not use it to promote the professional development of our faculty. What I would like to suggest is that we use some of the money for that purpose, but that there are two other things, and one of the things on the agenda later on is the IPESL Funds. I have glanced at all of the proposals that have come in under that program. Some of them I think are wonderful proposals but they don’t address the criteria that need to be addressed in order for them to get funded. They do have professional development components to them so that maybe either some of those programs, or if we open up the campus for a period of time, open a window to give others an opportunity to apply for specific proposals that would deal with faculty development, we could still have enough time to approve those and get them funded in addition to having some speakers on campus. I know that some of the IPESL ones would meet these criteria, but in talking about it, there is some concern that we need to give other faculty an opportunity to apply for some of those same funds. Any feedback on that?
FA: How would a decision get made?
AD On…
FA: Under the hypothetical that you just offered.
AD: The original conversation that I had with the chairs of those two committees was that they would broaden the scope of what they looked at for the research grants and the professional improvement and accept additional proposals.
FA: That’s what you asked them to do?
AD: That’s what I asked them to do. That’s what we sort of agreed that they would do, but then they had to meet with their committees.
FA: I think we need to caucus on this. Do you guys mind leaving while we do that?
AD: No.
FA: Thank you.
(Administration left the room so the Faculty could caucus.)
FA: Your alternative suggestion catches us at a distinct disadvantage because Senate took very clear action in regards to the report coming from the committee. We’re not sure how to respond so the best way to respond is to say we are surprised and we’re going to have to go back to Senate and the committees.
AD: Okay.
AD: When will they meet?
FA: Senate’s Tuesday. We have already more things on the agenda then we can possibly get to. I don’t know when those committees meet. They’re now working busily on the Summer research grants or the Summer term proposals. Then they’ll have the regular research grants coming up after that. One of the difficulties has to do with this had to be done so fast.
AD: Doesn’t have to be spent by the end of this academic year?
FA: That’s MnSCU’s problem. They’re the ones who had this money for a year-and-a-half before they even got to the campuses about it.
AD: That’s going to go over real big…
FA: Well, I’m sorry…
FA: My colleagues followed my advice. My advice was, when we have, as you know, we were out for quite some time. We had a free-ranging discussion. We honestly don’t know how best to respond to the piece of information that was shared. We need time to respond. I hear you. We have an interest in having this money spent to benefit this institution.
AD: The other could be, I’ve been places where we’ve had a couple of major speakers come in and help faculty for several days in areas like: how to write proposals. This is a board priority and in the future, we are going to be judged on how much outside money we bring in. We could bring in perhaps, two or three speakers that would help faculty do these kinds of things – how do you go for certain kinds of grant?
FA: The committee did do research and they are confident that this can be done. They did not propose this without research to determine whether or not they could find good people with the money that they have. It was not done frivolously. They spent time on it.
4. Late Add Policy; After the term ends (FA/Admin – 10/19/2006)
FA: The Academic Affairs Committee sent the Late Add Policy that came from the Academic Policy Workgroup to the Faculty Senate. The Academic Affairs Committee made no changes and Senate made no changes so we’re to you saying: Yes, please do this. At Senate, one of the questions that I was asked to ask was: can you give us two or three examples of when this occurs?
AD: There have been, from what I understand, instances in which a student has indicated that she or he has been in attendance all semester in a course but hasn’t registered for the class and now wants to register for the course and receive a grade.
FA: We’re trying to figure out how that can happen. Under what circumstances can a student be attending a class and not be registered. When does this occur?
AD: I came in on the tail-end of this discussion in that working group. I think people were straining to come up with some hypothetical situations, but enough of them seem convinced that it could happen so they wanted to leave this open as a possibility. My impression is that they don’t see this as a common request. Quite the opposite, it would be an uncommon request. But since there is a possibility of this happening, they wanted to have a policy and procedure in place to accommodate this presumably rare occurrence.
FA: So you’ve never seen this happen?
AD: No.
FA: Okay.
AD: I have heard tell of it happening. (laughter) Whether or not it has happened or not I can’t vouch. One of the explanations that I’ve been given is that sometimes a student either doesn’t have the money or isn’t ready to pay for a course, sits through the course all semester and finally comes up with the money and registers.
Off the record discussion
AD: Students are required to provide extenuating circumstances. It’s up to the instructor and academic affairs to approve it. If the evidence isn’t compelling, then it will not receive approval.
FA: So what happens if a faculty member does not agree that there are extenuating circumstances and academic affairs does? How does a grade get assigned? Is this signature by a faculty member a yes/no signature?
AD: It says that the signature of the faculty member is confirming that the student was in the course.
FA: If the faculty member does not confirm that the student was in course, that’s the end of it.
AD: Yes.
FA: Okay.
AD: The only thing I want to say is that this can’t be a matter of “Gee, I didn’t have the money to register and now I do.” The only circumstances I’ve heard of that could be seen an extenuating circumstance is: a couple years ago, we had glitch in the registration system where you went to the screen and registered and it told you that you’d registered and gave you your schedule but it didn’t register you. There was a glitch in the MnSCU system. The student in good faith had registered and had some representation that they had registered, but in fact, they were not. I can see that that’s something beyond the students’ control preventing them from registering. Frankly, I think it’s pretty rare, it seems very odd that the faculty would like to have a mechanism to encourage that behavior. I think it’s an event that should be extremely rare.
FA: The other question has to do with the student who – the military student or the student due to some particular illness – does it a number of years later. It was our understanding that there would still be exceptions made for those students.
AD: To add a class?
FA: Yes. We know that for dropping classes, when students are sick or called to military duty, that there are federal laws that require us to take certain actions. We’re wondering how that’s going to play out with this. People like the fact that they have a semester to do it but then they think, are there outside rules that say we have to do more than a semester.
AD: I don’t know.
FA: We’ll find out when the time comes?
AD: This presumes that a student has attended the class all semester and that the faculty has the wherewithal to grade/evaluate the student’s performance so that there has been this effort going on throughout the semester.
FA: It seems to me the military might be a moot point. They’re more likely to be pulled out then to sit here for a whole semester and never register. Are we going to see more of these with MnSCU booting people for non-payment?
AD: I think the drop for non-payment occurs prior to the semester so the student wouldn’t appear on your roster. If the student’s in your class and not on your roster, you should be able to address that point with the student. You can get a roster at any point during the semester which wasn’t possible several years ago.
FA: If I have someone sitting in my class who is not on my roster, I’m not obligated to deal with their work, right?
AD: If you have someone in your class who is not registered, you should probably ask that person to leave.
FA: So the message to faculty is: if a student is not on your class list, they shouldn’t be in the classroom.
AD: Yes.
Progress Reports.
1. Taskforce on Diversity (a.k.a. Motion from Teacher Development) (FA – 9/22/2005)
AD: I don’t think there’s been much activity to report since the last Meet and Confer.
2. Upper Division Writing Requirement Status Report (FA – 03/02/2006)
AD: The committee is still meeting. I’ve been working with the committee to identify all the Bachelors Degree programs for which we need an upper-division writing requirement. Now that we’ve identified all the programs, we’re in the process of getting the upper-division writing requirement identified. The next step will be to review the assessment plans for the requirement that each program/department will have to develop. Our target for completing all of this is Spring of 2007 so that we can begin accommodating the upper-division students who entered as first-year students in Fall of 2005.
FA: Okay.
3. Academic Calendar (Admin – 09/07/2006)
AD: The Academic Calendar Taskforce had its first meeting on October 4th. We discussed general issues and planning parameters. The next meeting is scheduled for October 31st. At that time I hope to begin substantive discussions about alternatives for the calendar starting in 2008-2009.
FA: Are you keeping notes for those meetings so that we can share them the Senate.
AD: Yes. I think I have draft notes that I sent to the committee members hoping for feedback. I hope to turn those into final notes and then share them with the Faculty Association if that is your wish.
FA: Yes. If the committee is going in a direction that’s going to run into a wall, if we have those notes, sometimes we can keep that from occurring. Did you get a chance to talk to Frankie about…
AD: Yes I did. We had an extensive discussion and she had some ideas that I will bring to the taskforce.
FA: Okay.
4. Global Initiative (Admin – 05/04/2006)
This item was covered under Item 4 of Unfinished Business
8. Budget Advisory Group (Admin – 09/07/2006)
AD: The first meeting will be October 24th in Voyageur North from 2:00-3:00 p.m. It is an open meeting. We have published the agenda. John and I will be there to co-chair. I’ve got a contact for MSUUASF, but I haven’t heard from the other bargaining units or the students.
FA: That’s not a particularly good time, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to find a better time for that.
AD: We put the calendar together looking at when Meet and Confers occur across campus, President’s Council, Faculty Senate. We looked for some times that would work. Tuesday afternoons from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. was one.
FA: One o’clock would be better than two o’clock.
AD: That’s also one of the things that we want to talk about on the 24th.
FA: Yes. But when you do that at a time when the people who can’t come at that time can’t be there, then you end up not having them being able to say that they can’t be there.
AD: I had Lucy look at the calendar at standing meetings and Tuesday afternoons was one of the better ones..
FA: It’s just that the 1:00 p.m. is better than the 2:00 p.m. I’m just hoping that you will be open to some flexibility of the time.
AD: Okay.
5. IPESL Funds (Admin – 09/07/2006)
FA: Do you have any idea where we are on that?
AD: I just wanted to comment on that. Those proposals have all been received, they’ve gone to the committee, the committee is, I believe, due to have recommendations by the end of the day Friday or Monday.
FA: I think they said they’re planning on doing it by 4:00 p.m. Friday afternoon. That’s their hope.
AD: Right.
FA: It may end up being Monday morning. I think they’re driven to get done by 4:00 p.m. on Friday.
AD: That would be fine. That would give us enough time to pull together the ones we want to submit. The President has to organize them and submit a cover letter with them as we send them into MnSCU.
FA: We’ll be able to take it to Senate so they’ll be able to make some kind of recommendation as well.
6. Pandemic Planning ( Admin – 09/07/2006)
AD: Laura presented to a board body yesterday and basically they’ve assembled all the plans from the various institutions and they’re reviewing them. They’re submitting their collective plan to the State and hope to hear something back in late November in response to this. The State has begun to publish some guidelines, or maybe it was nationally, about prioritization for flu shots for the bird flu should it become present and need to be concerned. Few of us present would qualify. People younger than 40 would be in the first wave of individuals to receive the vaccination. We’ll hear back later from them if they have concerns.
FA: I thought we weren’t done with ours yet.
AD: We sent a draft to them.
FA: But they sent it off to….
AD: At the end of September, they looked at all of the drafts and from that are constructing some kind of report to give to the State so that the State can merge all the plans and make recommendations. Some of the plans had questions in the back about things people were wondering about. Our question was: how can we be presumed to stay open in these scenarios when the network won’t work - which is what we predicated staying open on. We’ll hear back.
FA: I thought I heard Laura say two interesting things. One of them is that the internet will be available, and the other one was, it’s really not that big of a deal because it’s not in the news anymore. (laughter)
7. Presidents Search (FA – 09/28/2006)
FA: Is there anything that needs to be said about the Presidents Search? I got a call from one of our reps who said they had a very nice meeting Monday morning. I think they’ve gone into the secret mode.
AD: We had to watch a movie on confidentiality.
FA: We’ll probably take that one off.
Meeting adjourned 4:42 p.m.