Final Approved
Meet and Confer
January 29th, 2009
Admin: Michael Spitzer, Earl Potter, Diana Lawson, Judith Siminoe, Kristi Tornquist, Larry Chambers, Mitch Rubinstein, and Wanda Overland
Faculty: John Palmer, Judy Kilborn, Michael Tripp, JoAnn Gasparino, Frances Kayona, Bill Hudson, Debra Leigh, Mark Jaede, Balsy Kasi, David Warne, and Polly Chappell – Note taker
Approval of Minutes
1. January 15, 2008
Admin: We’re not ready to approve.
FA: I would like to recommend that you and John approve that set of minutes and also the set of minutes from this meeting because obviously the budget’s on this Meet and Confer agenda and faculty would appreciate getting the minutes earlier than a month from now. So, if you would agree to review those with John and approve those then we could get them posted and out. Would you be agreeable to that?
Admin: Yes. I would like to circulate them to our side before doing that, but, yes.
Unfinished Business
1. Email as a Means of Disseminating Information to Employees (ADM) (03/13/08) Senate Sent to TPR
Admin: We are waiting for a response from faculty.
FA: Senate took the matter up last Tuesday. They passed several motions. Then at the end of the debate they sent it to the TPR Committee for further review.
Admin: That will come back to Senate?
FA: I would expect it would come back to the Senate. TPR I believe is meeting the opposite Friday from TLTR.
Admin: I don’t know when the TPR meetings are scheduled.
FA: Okay.
2. Cell Phone Dead Zones Context of “Star” alert
Admin: I am hoping for a full report. Steve is at a Chief Financial Officers’ meeting and not back yet. I had a conversation with him about this. He indicated to me that there were about 20 different cell phone providers servicing this campus. A test was done and there was about a 4% failure or dead zone area problem. But mostly that was with the smallest of the providers. So, that’s all I can report today and we’ll try and get more information to you at a subsequent meeting.
FA: Thank you.
3. Prerequisite Checking and Grade Change Follow-up
Admin: I gave you some material on the grade change follow-up. Sue was going to be here. You can defer that if you have questions that I can’t answer. In my conversation with her on that, one thing that the system can’t do is check for a combination of prerequisite and co-requisite, but it can do prerequisite checking for students who began the summer of 2006. All of those prerequisite courses would be entered into the system. If a student comes back who was on the quarter system, we would have some problems, perhaps. But, by and large, this will work for the entire student body.
FA: Senate took up the question about the automated confirmation of grade change and they are enthusiastic about having that activated.
Admin: Good. So, we will make sure that happens.
FA: Do you know from that conversation if a class has a sequence like a third in a sequence, will it check both of those prerequisites?
Admin: Well, if it is a third in a sequence and the first two are prerequisites, the first one would be a prerequisite for the second, I assume, and the second would be a prerequisite for the third.
Admin: Correct.
FA: And that appears to be a logical goal. That is one of the cases that my department in the past has run into some trouble. I just wanted to clarify. That makes sense.
Admin: Any other questions or comments on that? Okay.
4. Evening Class Schedule
Admin: We are waiting for a response from you about the schedule.
FA: We’d like you to get the word out that the document exists and we have guidance for next fall and next spring regarding evening classes.
New Business
2. Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education Director Search Committee
FA: We have a couple questions, and we’ve had some reaction to the make up of that committee or how the committee was formed actually, more specifically. I have just a couple of questions for background to see where we are in process. So, the committee has been formed? Is that accurate?
Admin: I thought we were getting members for the committee from faculty at Meet and Confer.
FA: You haven’t asked us for that.
Admin: I asked John.
FA: Departments have selected people to serve on the committee for the departments that were requested. So, there are people who have been selected and the two deans that were involved are aware of who the departments selected.
FA: So, there have been some members named?
Admin: I don’t have a formal list.
FA: Okay. In terms of processes, the committee is still being generated. Then the job description has not been disseminated or it has?
Admin: The only job description that would exist would be the one that existed for the prior search.
FA: For the prior search. And given where we are in the process, there are no candidates that have applied that we are aware of?
Admin: Not that I’m aware of.
FA: So, we have some questions about the make up and the process of the committee. In the past, through the FA, we have done the committees for this kind of university-wide position based on representation by college. That is apparently not where we are in the process right now. It appears that some faculty have been recruited to the committee and some departments have been asked to approve those recommendations or appointments, which is outside of our process. So, what I’m asking is if we know if that is accurate?
Admin: I think there may have been some movement in that direction but I asked that it be stopped.
FA: Okay. So the request here today is for the FA to go forward with our normal processes to populate that committee?
Admin: Yes.
FA: I’m going to admit to being confused. I’m from one of those departments who was asked to respond to a named candidate.
Admin: To a named candidate for the position?
FA: Yes. The last time we did this…
Admin: A candidate for the search committee or for the position?
FA: …for the search committee.
Admin: Oh.
FA: Okay, the last time we searched for this position, which was 2006, we used our normal configuration representation from across colleges, so I’m puzzled why we’re moving in a different direction for this search, and why we haven’t been asked about a different configuration at Meet and Confer.
Admin: I think for a period of time earlier on when there was some thought given to having that committee formed by the departments that would be primarily involved, and then a recognition that that wasn’t the appropriate process. I think there may have been some moving forward in that direction that shouldn’t have taken place. But I did talk to John about creating a search committee through the Faculty Association for that search committee.
FA: So, you’re talking the normal one representative from each college?
Admin: I think that the representatives on that committee are from departments that are likely to be the one in which the individual is housed, but that’s your call.
FA: Can you talk more about that because I don’t remember that kind of process happening before. So, we have a university center… I don’t remember any conversation concerning this committee about housing people who we hire for this position in particular departments. That hasn’t been part of the conversation.
Admin: We did house the person appointed in there in a department. That person was rostered in a department.
FA: I think the point is that there isn’t the consideration for the search committee members.
Admin: What I’m saying is form the committee the way you ordinarily form it.
FA: The confusion came from that it appeared that faculty members from those departments that may have been affected were recruited. By sending out a solicitation or a request for nominations to that committee those persons with an interest can nominate themselves or departments can get involved and nominate the people to represent them and they get involved in the search process by that means.
CAUCUS
Admin: As I said before, I think we should do the normal search. I also think that once we have the candidates identified whatever department that person would likely be rostered in should also meet with that candidate.
FA: Can you speak more about rostering in departments? This is the first time I’ve heard about that.
Admin: The position is generally speaking, the person does some teaching and generally a faculty member is rostered in a department. So what department that person would be rostered in would be dependent upon the person’s background and discipline. So, we want that person to feel comfortable and the department to feel comfortable with that particular person.
FA: If I’m hearing correctly, our customary way to deal with the campus-wide search would be to have a representative, if there’s interest, from each of the five colleges plus Special Services.
Admin: Right.
FA: And then what I’m hearing you suggest is that when the search is under way and candidates have been identified that likely departments of the placement of the candidate for the other part of their assignment would approve.
Admin: Yes.
FA: And the other part of their assignment would be?
Admin: Teaching.
FA: Yes, but how much?
Admin: I have to go back. As far as I remember I think it is half and half, or 75/25. I don’t remember exactly.
FA: Okay.
FA: It appears that somehow through the process there are faculty that may believe at this point they have already been appointed to the committee through the processes. If we’re going to redo the process and come back through the Faculty Association, what, or how will those faculty members be communicated with that the process is going to be done and completed through the FA? See what I’m saying? If we have people with that perception, how are we going to get that information to them?
Admin: If you could inform me of who those people are.
FA: Yes.
FA: Yes. The reason I asked for the clarification it seemed to me that if we select six by college, the names that were developed by this other means come from two colleges. So, I expect that some of those people would still be interested in the larger search.
Admin: Right.
FA: But to ensure that if a placement is going to occur of a faculty member into a particular department there would be care taken to ensure that the department was consulted.
Admin: Yes.
FA: And what we need to do is figure out how to deal with five or six people from five or six departments who I think initially thought they were on a search committee because the dean corresponded with them in such a way that it appeared. And then we took a step backwards and asked the departments…
Admin: I’ll speak to the dean and get the names and follow up on that.
FA: Thank you.
Admin: Can I just summarize because this is such a convoluted conversation (laughter). It is. Apparently the faculty had information that suggests the usual practices are not being followed. The question is asked to the Provost. The Provost’s simple answer is that a dean made a mistake, I told that dean to stop, and now we’re going to do it right. Clear?
FA: Yes.
Admin: Good.
FA: Thank you.
Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns
1. Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07) Deadline for creation of 2009-10 Course Schedules budget reduction actions impact Status of Plans for use of Carry-over from FY08 to FY09 referred to Budget Advisory Committee
FA: Michael, you and I had talked about the deadlines that Records and Registration had established to build the schedule of courses available for student selection for academic year 2010 and the fact that departments were under some pressure to move very quickly, but yet departments didn’t have knowledge about variables affecting them that are budget related.
Admin: Right. There are a couple of things about that that I want to comment on. First of all, I’ve spoken to Records and Registration, and an email went out to office managers today postponing the due date for schedules for next year by a week. So, instead of those being due on February 9th, they are now due on February 17th. And that’s about as late as we can go and still get the materials to the printer in time to have it available for advising and for preregistration. Yes, there is uncertainty about the budget. We have a general sense about what the governor’s proposal was for the size of the reduction that we’re going to have to deal with, and I think as you know there are a number of positions that we have not yet authorized to be filled because we don’t know how many of them we’ll be able to fill. We’re looking at a number of things in order to try to make sure that we will be capable of offering the number of courses that our students will need next semester. And among those we’re looking at reassigned time and making some reductions in reassigned time. By my most recent count, which I assume is accurate or close to accurate, we have the equivalent of 110 full-time equivalent faculty reassigned time on this campus.
FA: And that’s for all categories: contractual and non-contractual?
Admin: Correct. And we just can’t manage to offer the number of courses we’re going to need to offer if we continue with that level of reassigned time. So, we’re looking very closely, in fact we’re looking at using contractual reassignments for department chairs. And I’ll say that my original plan or my original thought was that the departments size would be based on the number full-time faculty assigned to the department and as a result of further consultation we will include adjunct faculty in that calculation. So, I have to go back and recalculate a lot of things to see what kind of difference that it is going to make. So, we’re not ready to talk about those specifics yet, but we’re getting close.
FA: Do you have an idea of the number or percentage of contractual full-time appointments or positions in that 110 to include reassigned time?
Admin: Ask that again.
FA: In other words, what number, if you just looked at the contractual requirements, what number of full-time positions does that equate to?
Admin: I haven’t done that calculation.
FA: I think that would be important to factor in because it may be that there are 40 positions that are not contractually required. There might be 10.
Admin: I will say that it is a lot more than 40.
FA: I understand. It makes a difference. 110 could be misleading given that there are contractual requirements.
FA: You would do the calculation based on full-time and also adjunct, would that included fixed-term also?
Admin: Fixed-term, yes. Tenured, probationary, fixed-term, and adjunct.
FA: Okay.
Admin: On a FTE basis.
FA: Okay.
Admin: So, 24 credits of adjunct would be the equivalent 1 FTE.
FA: No decisions have been made with regard to the action?
Admin: Correct.
FA: What’s interesting is that’s not what my end of the telephone tree tells me. I’m not saying that you’re wrong. But no decisions have been made but when the messages have been conveyed by deans to department chairs, department chairs to faculty members, by the time it gets there and I see the correspondence, it looks like a decision has been made.
Admin: There are two deans here and they can vouch for the fact that I have asked the deans not to communicate specific information about this until we’re further along.
Admin: That’s exactly what you directed us to say.
FA: And if I have correspondence that is otherwise, would you like to have that?
Admin: Sure. But I think that there might be some people who might have said this is the way it looks. And people are saying, based on that, it’s a definite fact. And it’s not correct.
Admin: There are some things that are just facts and evidence. Anyone can count up the FTEs for administrative release time, pretty much and say this many hours of release time for this purpose. It’s not quite accurate to say no decisions have been made. As by saying that we’ll honor all the contractual commitments that the boundary of the decision. There’s no pressure to advocate any for non contractual commitments, of course. The other thing that you discovered in addition to sort of finding the department size was that some people were hired with agreements that there would be a portion of released time. So, they were hired as a commitment to be a director of such and such. It’s a more complicated process than we originally thought to sort this stuff out. I started asking for a tally of released time the first month I got here. The crisis will get us to that calculation. And this not a criticism of the Provost, he didn’t do it precisely because of all these complexities, and where the records are located and how hard it is to get your hands around. It was a sort of slow progress until immediate need pushed us.
Admin: Just to give one example, one of the sources of data that I looked at showed that the faculty in the library had 17 FTE of reassigned time because the library work was counted as reassigned time in that particular document.
FA: Because it was not teaching?
Admin: Because it was not teaching. Right. And so we just have to go through the data and work it, and work it, and work it, and you find what you’re doing as you go along.
FA: The concern that I have as a result of the context that I received from across the campus is that a message was conveyed that is inaccurate. I can speak best to the message I received, which said there would be no reassigned time for graduate coordinators in my college. What I’m hearing is that might be a consideration but it is not finally decided.
Admin: It’s not finally decided. I would say that is something that is under consideration. But not entirely in the way we’ve said it.
FA: I can share the correspondence that ends up creating the buzz. Then people will say: “the President said at the convocation, and how does this align with what the President said.” This is helpful to know and to have the conversations going on. And you said that the deans have been asked to do these conversations in a private way. But keeping secrets is a problem for the most sophisticated organization. Some of this has leaked out into the community and the community is responding. I know Robert has some concerns about something other than deans that you’ve encountered that seems to be tied to this budget business.
FA: There are a host of questions about reassigned time, new hires going forward, is there a freeze on appointments for next year beyond June 30th, in my case grant-funded programs getting appointments beyond June 30th. I’ve been told no. So, if decisions are being made and they haven’t been announced then people are wondering what is happening. You have to understand people are acting as if decisions are being made and doing it on their own without any context. Again, we all heard loud and clear at convocation that the budgeting process would be difficult but it would be done in an open, transparent matter, with consultation. And so we’re waiting for that consultation. We’re waiting for the transparency. Yet it appears that people are given impressions by their actions and by their conduct that some things are frozen or have been decided already.
Admin: Let me respond first by saying that there are searches currently underway. There are 35 faculty searches. I expect that there will be more when we have greater clarity about the budget. I don’t know about non-faculty positions being frozen. I know that we want to keep a period time when a position becomes vacant, and keep it open for a period time before filling it. But there is an expectation it will be filled. Grants, if you have funding, will continue into next year for a grant. There’s no variation from that as far as I know. The information about the reassigned time will be shared and discussed before it becomes final. And other information will be shared as well as we get a clearer picture of what the size of the cut will be to the university and what we have to do to handle it. So, I think we’re trying to be transparent. But I don’t want to give false information and pull it back, because I think that would be wrong as well.
FA: How do we deal with these impressions that people are giving that certain decisions or certain factors are in order?
Admin: Let me say a couple things. John and I talked about this last night. I think we need to agree on this because in some ways it sort of extends the Meet and Confer conversations to a wider venue. Perhaps a weekly question and answer, sort of an open house kind of with the President, the Provost, the VP of Administration, and anyone can come with their questions. As we talk through these issues that clarify a message to the campus. The trouble is that every day there is new information, new questions arise. Our regular practices of periodic meetings and messages through consultation, I don’t think can accommodate that kind of interest or concern people have. One of the things that I’d like to do if we can agree today that it’s a good idea, then we’ll create kind of an open house session maybe once a week, probably on a Wednesday, right smack in the middle of the week. Anybody can come and ask the questions. We’ll answer questions and figure out ways for distribution. That’s one thing. The other thing is to say that no decisions have been made is not correct. I decided that as a defensive move not knowing how difficult the target was going to be for us to be very conservative in authorizing searches for next year. And there was a process among the deans and a prioritization that resulted in authorizing 35 out of 125 requests. And that was a very conservative and defensive position. It is sort of a temporary stay, not a freeze. It’s not a decision that we will not hire and we will not fill those positions. It gives us breathing room as we move ahead. If we fill them, we’re stuck. I take that position as a better alternative than going full steam ahead without change, and discovering that we have a target that would have to drive us to layoffs. So, I’d rather be in a defensive position and have flexibility. That’s a decision of a sort, it’s not a final decision, it’s an interim, it is a process decision. We are communicating and I am now approving every hire. Larry’s office is keeping a record of those decisions. We have said no to some requests and Larry has that. For example, we did budget this year to hire a P16 Coordinator and we decided that we will not fill that. That will result in a base reduction and is part of the 1.6 million that we have to get this year. So, that is a decision not to hire. So some decisions have been made. They’re consistent with what people have asked us to do; don’t just cut the faculty, trim back the Administration. We do have a record of the decisions. Each of those final decisions comes with a consequence. I have not been in the position where I had a record of the yeses and I said no. It’s been the usual process. Other decisions like how much will we cut back on reassigned time, that’s very much up in the air. We got to get the data right first, and share the data, and frame it in such a way people can see the choices we’re making if we eliminate this reassigned time that saves this much money by directing these resources to the classrooms so we don’t have to do this other choice. There will be choices that we have to make. Those major elements like how far up that 125 we’ll go, I don’t know yet. Those decisions of that significance, we need a better picture.
FA: To your first question, the ability to have access to people who have information that is contemporary and accurate, is a good thing. We would encourage that the events would occur. To the point of decision, there are decisions that have been made, are being made, will be revisited inside the departments. We’re appreciative of the fact that departments have been given an additional week in which they can examine those decisions. Has guidance been given as to a general philosophy to be followed just as there was in searching the 35? In other words, if in fact we are going to use as one of our tools some reduction in reassigned time, should departments be scheduling people who had been on reassigned time for classes or maybe should departments have several different versions of their schedule costed out and ready to go in points of time? Because on the 17th of February, a document will be prepared and shortly after that a printer will print it, and we know it changes because it always does. But to prepare departments and to provide advice to deans with regard to options, so that we don’t get to the end of the spring semester or early in the summer and suddenly discover we have to go hire people because we have all this demand and no staff.
Admin: You’re the best ones and the department chairs and the deans are the best ones to tell me what’s possible. If I had my druthers I would choose your later suggestion that departments develop alternatives from resources that with the 35 authorized hires with the resulting resources in that picture, and with additional resources as a result of released time that would go to teaching. That would be the best planning environment to see what the impact of our choices would be. It’s a lot of work. And I don’t know how reasonable it is to ask people to do that.
FA: I have three responses to your comments. The weekly meetings would be fine. On the other hand I think the faculty decisions are being made or at least certain positions are outlined. I think it would be important to communicate those in some broader fashion. For me, some of the announcements you made regarding search authorizations and the like, that’s the first time I heard of those, here, and I think that’s the first public record of those types of decisions. To my knowledge, this is the first recording of that nature. I think it would be helpful in keeping with the spirit of openness and transparency that those types are reported or a statement is issued saying, “given the following circumstance, given the need for care in these matters and I’m making the following determinations until such time we can get more information.” I think that would be helpful for a lot of people because some people assume there are freezes and they might not know why or others hear that there are cuts, so I think it would be helpful. Thirdly, I think it would be useful to have some means, we talked about it at convocation, of engaging people in a process that would be widespread input and a planning process developed.
Admin: I think those meetings will begin happening in February. There has not been further development past what the Budget Committee has seen and the Strategic Planning Committee. They had the budget scenarios.
FA: Both of us who are veterans of this situation know that the governor has to make his move, MnSCU has to make its move. The forecast comes forward again. MnSCU will make its decisions. Then the campus will be in a position to have some flexibility in terms of what it’s going to do. I think it would be helpful to remind people that at the same time we anticipate and consider people are at the table and giving their input. It would be helpful to have these other kinds of determinations announced. Not so much the final decision but things that have to take place at this point in time.
Admin: With limits, I would agree. I’m certainly not going to announce every hiring decision, but the frameworks or a monthly review or something of that sort.
FA: There are things like contractual reassigned time will not be affected.
Admin: Yes.
FA: You know, grant-funded activities that are expected to go forward. Things that will help people move forward. And there are misperceptions or people in certain offices are telling people that you can’t plan beyond a certain date because of budget uncertainties. And if that’s not the case, it will help clear the air of those types of misconceptions. I think we do need to go forward on how we record these types of things. People are reporting these types of things in an authoritative type of fashion and we hear it here that that’s not true.
FA: It’s a two-way street on the transparency. As an example, the IFO has a very talented member up at Bemidji that has set up a spreadsheet mechanism that allows for a rather quick examination of various variables changing. So, when that became available to me, I shared it with key people on the Administrative side and our side. I found this morning that someone from your side had gotten it all the way out to an Associate Dean, who looked at the document. So, Steve reacts to that, because he’s the point person with me, and we have not fundamentally changed our understanding of the magnitude of the problem nor our approach to addressing the problem, which is one of modeling and looking at what those models and assumptions are. In fact the number my colleague at Bemidji created for us, when you factor in some variables he didn’t include, fits with the numbers Diana and Steve generated in their model, which gives us some confidence that we’re at least getting a sense of if the governor’s proposal became law, what would that mean. That helps inform decision. That’s a healthy thing. We do need to affirm that which is working in that regard. The correspondence that went out from the President, which described the $1.65 million in reductions was very clear how that was being developed and I think the campus community responded favorably to that. I hope we’ll continue that similar process. There was only one red flag in that document that some people were surprised about, that I expect we’ll get an answer to. The nearly ¾ of a million dollars or slightly over that was tied to summer school; it’s like we love the manna from heaven, but where did it come from.
Admin: Let me speak to that and I’ll get back to Robert’s suggestion. What I asked Steve to do was not to represent that we could hit the $1.6 million target by scooping up unspent money, but to look at trends for the last five to seven years of how we were spending budgets. In respect to summer session, some years ago, I don’t know exactly what year, that budget was increased in anticipation of growth in summer school and it didn’t happen. Each year for the last five years there has been a surplus in that budget that rolled over. So, by taking that out of base we realigned the budget with actual experience. I recognized that should we experience a happy increase that would remove our flexibility, but since that happy increase would generate revenue, we could go into the reserve for a loan to be replaced by the revenues of increased enrollment. So, I don’t think that’s a risky position to take.
FA: The student question has been the timelines for registration for summer school and the schedule is printed at this point and stands as it is and they can go ahead with the confidence that those classes will be offered. I’ve had a couple students today looking forward to that already, so I appreciate hearing that. Thanks.
Admin: I think, Robert, the level at which you are looking for information, we can do that and should do that. I think that’s a good idea. The level of the message that addresses $1.6 million was pretty detailed, concrete, and we haven’t done that for the cautionary steps we’re taking to try to put us in a position that we have choice for the biennium.
FA: Thank you. The item that deals with the Budget Advisory Committee: there was a couple Meet and Confers ago, the Budget Committee was instructed to take up for consideration and review programmatic spending and carry forward. They have not yet done that. Perhaps, time is always limited and priorities will have to be made. The first priority we have is for the big budget, not that we have to crunch. But that’s a reminder that that should be at least on the radar of that committee.
Admin: Yes. I think that committee has spent the last couple sessions reviewing program based tuition and those pilot programs that we established.
2. Status of Administrative Searches: Provost, AVP for Faculty Relations (FA) (05/15/08), AVP Research & Faculty Development, Dean COFAH, Associate Dean COSE (renewed by FA) (10/2/08) Associate Dean COSS, LR&TS Associate Dean, VP University Advancement, AVP Institutional Effectiveness
Admin: The Administrative searches on this list are all moving forward. The Provost Search Committee has met. The AVP for Faculty Relations Search Committee, I believe, has selected some candidates for final campus visits.
FA: Yes. We do have a concern that those candidates were identified before the end of the semester, last semester, and there was an expectation that the interviewing on campus would get scheduled in early January. The last correspondence I had would indicate to me that it’s possible the candidates haven’t even been contacted.
Admin: I believe at least two of them have been contacted, I’ve been told. One of them had accepted another position and the other I believe will be on campus. I don’t know if the third has been contacted but there are various reasons. That’s the information I have.
FA: Since two of our members are on the search committee, to my knowledge we have not had a scheduled meeting to finish some background work in terms of interview work and we certainly haven’t created a schedule with dates with the on-campus visits. It’s troublesome to hear that we already lost one candidate. I would hope that we could move more quickly than we have moved in the past six weeks.
Admin: I will speak to the chair about that.
FA: Thank you.
Admin: The AVP for Research and Faculty Development and the Dean of COFAH have application closing dates of February 15, and those applications are coming in and the committees, as far as I know, are meeting. The Associate Dean Searches are moving forward as well.
FA: The first one that’s listed, earlier this week the Associate Dean that is convening and chairing that search told me that the authorization to search had not cleared through Affirmative Action.
Admin: Yes. I heard that, and apparently, as far as I can tell, the paperwork got lost or misplaced so we did duplicate paperwork to move it forward.
FA: The good news is that the committee is being organized and setting up for their meetings.
Admin: Yes. Correct.
FA: And the COSS?
Admin: There have been several meetings of the search committee. I think there have been four, and that search is moving forward and doing the notice of vacancy and working to meet Affirmative Action requirements.
FA: Are we close on the interviews for the university advancement VP?
Admin: No. Those interviews will be April-ish. The search firms have been on campus. That and the Provost’s job descriptions will be in late April, for both.
FA: And the last one, there was surprise expressed at Meet and Confer when the director of Human Resources talked about a timeframe. We have that committee completely formed and I believe we’re meeting next week. So it looks like that’s on track. Good.
3. Foundations of Excellence (ADM) (04/17/08)
Admin: There was a webinar that was held on two different days. The dimension subcommittee reports are due in mid-February. And as I understand things, progress is being made and they are moving forward. There should be something coming along soon. Questions on that? David, do you want to add anything?
FA: No. There were several emails in my box today about various committees that are in the process and still are confident that we’re going to be pretty close to being finished by the deadline date. It looks pretty good.
4. Task Force on 9-month Appointments (ADM/FA) (04/17/08)
Admin: We reconvened for the first time this semester on Monday. The group set a goal for itself that we would have a report available, completed for the April 6th meeting. We would like it to come to this group for consideration. The contractual language says that we have to provide input to the President by May 15th. But we thought it might be beneficial to let it go out to the faculty before the final one goes to the President, which I think is April 9th.
FA: I did have a dean today ask about a faculty member who’s hired prior to July 1, 2009, might get onto a 9-month appointment. The language of the agreement describes how that would happen. So there at least is some interest on part of some people to examine that. Then we quickly said that would have to deal with deadlines of PDPs and PDRs.
Admin: That’s come up several times.
5. University Scholars and Endowed Chairs (FA) (05/01/08)
Admin: That committee is meeting next month, in February. I think it’s been scheduled.
6. Policy on Religious Observances (ADM) (04/03/08) Senate postponed indefinitely
Admin: We’re waiting for a response from the faculty on this.
FA: The faculty Senate had a lively and spirited discussion of the document. No pun intended. The final action they took was to postpone indefinitely action on the item. I do have at least one Senator who is interacting with another Senator who is on the committee that did the draft in trying to address it. It appears that the language that created the problem was language that was put in at the very beginning about a requirement that required classes be taught certain days of the week and at certain times of the day. That started the conversation that went where conversations often go, which is the Senators know what is best. The action to postpone indefinitely was one that made sure nothing bad happened. That’s what that motion is often used for, to prevent the body from taking an action it will regret later.
Admin: I promised I wouldn’t do this.
FA: That’s alright.
Admin: Anyway (laughter). Please note that this item proceeds conflict avoidance (laughter).
7. Conflict Avoidance Scheduling (FA) (11/06/08) Waiting for Administration’s response
Admin: A draft for a policy is going to be brought to the student government at its next meeting, a week from today.
FA: Thank you.
8. Number of post deadline use of W each year (FA) (12/04/08) Mitch is working on a summary document
FA: The document you drafted that referred to an approach to be taken on a reccurring basis has been well received. So, we would ask that you pilot the report that you propose and we’ll see where we’re at. It was a good piece of work.
9. Diversity Task Force (ADM) (1/29/09)
Admin: Diversity Task Force has made a budget request. That request is being filled. There’s a request to hire a half-time person to support the task force. That request is being met by a reassignment of Renee Dingmann because of workload availability. So, we don’t have to hire another person. That’s an example of managing the bottom line, but the full request is being met.
Admin: That covers the agenda.
Adjourned at 4:05 p.m.