Final Approved
Meet and Confer
April 30, 2009
Administration: Steven Ludwig, Dennis Nunes, Kristi Tornquist, Diana Lawson, Wanda Overland, Larry Chambers, President Potter, Provost Spitzer, Judith Siminoe, Mike Gilbert
Faculty: John Palmer, JoAnn Gasparino, Bill Hudson, David Warne, Debra Leigh, Frances Kayona, Robert Johnson, Mark Jaede, Balsy Kasi, Mike Tripp
Approval of Minutes
1. April 9th , 2009
FA: I have reviewed them and you have reviewed them and we have had them and they look good although we did have some challenges where administrators become faculty voices but I think we’ve figured out when it was an administrator and when it was a faculty member. That’s the reason I brought my name, it’s two fold, because after a year of being president you need a name tag that goes both ways so you can remember who you are.
ADM: And I also want to take a moment to introduce Greta Abel who is replacing Patty in my office for a period of time and she will be doing the minutes for the administration.
FA: Welcome Greta.
ADM: Maybe we should go around the room so Greta can know who’s here. I’m Steve. JoAnn, Dennis, Judy Kilborn, Bill Hudson, Dave Warne, Debra Leigh, Francis Kayona, Robert Johnson, Kristi Tornquist, Diana Lawson, Wanda Overland, I hired her so she knows me, Mark Jaede, Balsi Kasi.
Unfinished Business
1. Email as a Means of Disseminating Information to Employees (ADM) (03/13/08) Senate Sent to TPR
FA: Our TPR committee informed the President and myself that they have reviewed the document in 2006 and have provided the input they were going to provide.
ADM: So we’re going to adopt the policy and move forward with that.
FA: That is your right.
2. Opening and Securing Classrooms (FA) (04/09/09)
ADM: As we discussed last time I’m going talk about that this summer and I am going to fold in to that security of buildings in general along with the specific use and access to classrooms.
FA: So we can expect that with the opening of the next school year we might have improved process. Thank you.
3. Academic Calendar 2010-11 (Admin) (04/09/09)
ADM: Our last meet and confer there were some questions raised about which days were duty days. Here is a copy of the academic calendar. The duty days are shaded in gray shaded and instruction days and exam days are underlined as well as shaded.
FA: We also asked for an opportunity to take this back to senate and have senate have an opportunity to provide feedback to us. Our primary concern is that with the common starting dates and with the nature of the calendar what happens perhaps as unintended consequence. As an example in the 2010 and 2011 proposal, the last duty day is the 18th of December and the first duty day for faculty ends up being the fourth of January, mixing the holiday calendar with the calendar of finishing up of the semester we’re concerned about the time period involved. We did mention last time that there are issues that appear to be associated with travel by international students, of their ability to travel overseas and return to the states in time to start attending class on the 10th. We recognize that the decision of when the semester classes begin is not made locally but we do express a desire to work with you to convince those who make the decisions, to take into consideration the variability of the calendar that is unintended, but just happens because of the combination of weekday, and leap year and those kinds of things and the other concerns that we have associated with that. And I invite any of my members who have other matters that they would like to bring to attention to do so.
FA: I’d like to note that there are no grading days.
ADM: That’s correct.
FA: I think that’s inappropriate. I think that our actual work continues beyond finals week. And I think that in fact of recognizing that with the closing date for grades being several days later. I am not suggesting that we move the closing date for grades up, I think we all need to acknowledge the reality is the faculty’s actual work responsibilities in practice exceed the days that we’re being paid for.
FA: That compensates the size of the break in between because it really then becomes less than two weeks because for us who have multiple preps, which includes most faculty, we’re closing down one semester while prepping for the next and trying to wedge a little bit of right handed swing. I heard a lot of faculty this semester who started exhausted and are ending even more exhausted. What we’re trying to say is that it would make sense to me to work towards a later opening this really needs to be more like a high school break.
ADM: Two things in response to that, one is that the opening dates are not dates that we can determine on campus.
FA: That’s what I am acknowledging is to convince, you know to work on changing that perspective at the state level with the second semester start date.
ADM: And I suggest you assist us in that process.
FA: We would be willing to do that
FA: This was brought up at state wide Meet and Confer earlier this month. I have not gone to the calendar to determine exactly what the impact is in successive years but in theory if you start the second Monday of January for classes, the second Monday of January could be as early as the eighth of January. I don’t think that was the intended outcome of having a common start date and it seems just as the legislature has debated with some regularity the mandatory start date having to be after a holiday, that moves around because of the calendar, so too we may secure some flexibility related to the calendar.
ADM: It would be good to have that happen. I know when this was first proposed at the systems academic and student affairs committee, of which I was a member, I argued against these dates to no avail.
FA: But you did get windows on the Centennial Hall 4th floor.
(laughter)
ADM: Yeah, well that was an argument with MnSCU.
ADM: Any other… Thank you
FA: Thank you for getting us the duty days.
4. Online Council (FA) (04/09/09)
ADM: With regard to the online council which we talked about establishing, John and I have had a conversation about this, I assume you have spoken to your folks?
FA: Yes
ADM: There is perhaps one change I would like to suggest, that each of the colleges have a representative, UCC have a representative, graduate committee have a representative, John Burgeson and Patty Aceves from CIS should be involved, graduate dean, one other dean or associate dean and a technical person-is the one that I think we suggested be added to that group.
FA: It sounds like a good composition. We do believe it is important to have co-chair leadership and you are agreeing to that.
ADM: That’s fine.
FA: We do feel there is sufficient work for that co chair, that recognition of that work would be handled with some reassigned time.
ADM: Let’s take that under advisement.
FA: Mark
FA: I would love to point to the enrollment management committee as an example of a successful case of that kind of collaboration and one where the reassign time, well since I got there of course I think it is warranted
ADM: You don’t have a personal interest in this.
FA: I have no personal interest in this. I don’t have any personal interest in this going ahead I don’t plan on applying for that job but it has been a very substantial amount of work on enrollment management and I think that online education is something that is equally significant and something that also equally needs a substantial amount of attention from the faculty member and also the credibility of having an active leadership role by the faculty member. One of the persistent anxieties about online education is that it could be used as a way to do things on the cheap, it isn’t really, and it shouldn’t be and I don’t think it is the intention of the administration on this campus at least, I don’t know about our governor, but I don’t think it is the intention of the administration on this campus, to make it a way of doing things on the cheap. But I think that active faculty leadership in this is something that will add to not only the work of the committee but also to the credibility of the committee.
ADM: Well I think it is a positive suggestion and I want to go back and talk to my senator about it.
(laughter)
ADM: Anything else on that topic?
FA: I just ask that consultation happen before our executive committee has its last meeting of the year, which is next week. It might help us then in terms of being ready to populate the council.
ADM: We will do our best to accomplish that.
5. Parking Rates (Admin.) (04/09/09)
FA: We have a number of people who have comments, I’ll start with a concern that our fellow union president expressed and that is with the escalating cost of parking associated with working in an era of little or no increase and possibly reduced compensation for lower paid employees it is meaningful that they have to spend money to make money.
FA: I think that we would like to see some explanation of what increases in parking costs makes these very substantial increases in parking charges necessary. If this is an attempt to simply recapture revenue from employees in order to help balance the budget that’s something that we are not very comfortable about. We entered into a contract with no raises in an effort to make a contribution towards balancing the budget, and I am going to lay off my rant of confiscatory taxation and things like that because, well, then I would sound like a republican.
ADM: None of the money that comes from the parking fee would be used for any purposes but parking. I will let Steve respond to that.
ADM: Fifteen thousand dollars is being identified to pay a portion of the cost of the additional public safety officers we have added the last few years. Typically a portion of their work is enforcement of parking and we only added those from M & E sources we didn’t use the typical proportion of their salary and so fifteen thousand dollars is an offset to what this last year would have been M& E cost but recognize their contribution in working in the parking system. The balance of the increase represents the fairly dramatic increase we’ve seen in the cost of development and redevelopment of parking areas on campus and due to regulations around paving and storm water run-off and management of that run-off that’s become more difficult and more complicated as we begin to look at that and parking lots around campus and we still have parking lots, parking areas that are not paved and we need in order to work at that we need to have sufficient funds to do that. The unpaved areas have also in recent years become an issue of particular pollution because you have gravel and cars can kick up some dust so there will increasing pressure to pursue pavement of those in addition to the convenience and greater cleanliness on campus and so those are the primary reasons.
ADM: You can provide actual numbers so that we can show some numbers
ADM: There were some numbers on the improvement costs and how they were allocated within some of the numbers and the fifteen thousand dollars may not have been clear for the salaries but that was there.
ADM: Other comments?
FA: There was a great deal of grumbling about parking lot H issues but this was really not directly related to the rate.
ADM: Balsy?
FA: Not because the faculty problem, talking to some hall directors I just passed by talked to them, I have been a hall director myself and I am not sure where parking spots are for them. My experience is always it is a fringe benefit, they have to live there 24 hours a day, it’s a nice perk, I was wondering whether you are planning to charge?
ADM: Yes. The contract provides for housing and there is a stipulated value for that housing and there is a rate that they pay if they are in that housing in the summer when they are not on duty if their hall is closed or whatever. They are among the very, very few that have a designated parking stall for them and it is indifferent to their residence on campus, that is a different condition. No, they have not paid in the past for their parking and this budget is suggest if they all bring two cars it comes out to be about $6,000 a year in total revenue for the hall directors. That’s been paid for by the parking system in the past, I mean we’ve forgone the revenue and there’s some expense attributable to those parking stalls and their compensation comes through the revenue fund but their contract does not provide for parking per se.
FA: I was wondering for one parking spot? I am just curious…
ADM: We give them up to two because many of them are couples.
ADM: Judy?
FA: Yes, following up on John’s opening about H lot, I would simply request that we get notifications about changes like a parking lot being closed during the summer that we get more of an advance notice so that instead of being asked to hurry over and get our parking spot when we are in the midst of the last week of classes and finals, we get a little bit of advance warning so it comes at a time that is a little bit simpler to deal with.
ADM: I agree with you and I’ll tell the boss so that it not be necessary that people rush over and get it that if they return after break or something they sure can pick it up at that time. We’ve delayed any changes to that lot. It has had a lot of patching and some issues until we could complete the Riverview project so that we don’t have to improve the lot and then do construction and then have to tear it up again with the heavy traffic. So at the same to do a single change this summer, they’re installing the new water utility to Riverview that will also serve as I recall the B-51 building and then rebuild the parking lot and also bring it into compliance. It was one that raised particular issues because of its direct proximity to the Mississippi relative to runoff so we are also dealing with the run off issues from that parking lot.
FA: Is that what the green space has to do with or does the green space have to do with more aesthetic?
ADM: The green space has to do with aesthetic and also there was some kind of odd areas that had a substantially more paving per parking stall to squeeze the last few parking stalls out of there. But it’s primarily for aesthetic but we only took those that we could gain the greatest amount of green space relative to the parking stalls. One area that we just… driveway before the fire department access we’re going to have that be green space but have a base that a truck could traverse it if they needed to but that had a green space but did not change parking.
FA: Are we going to have any additional signage along there it’s getting pretty dangerous with that drive next to Brown with that additional work? Are we going to have any more signage to help people walk and say there is or not, I don’t know if you’ve walked over there between classes but it’s getting pretty dicey.
ADM: Is this 8th street between Brown and Wick you’re talking about?
FA: Mhm, I’ve had two students step right in front of my car when fortunately I was going about two miles an hour but it’s really difficult to walk over there and I think it’s difficult to drive over there and I am nervous about that.
ADM: We’ve talked to the city and we’ve had some agreement on putting the pedestrian crossing notices, the little piylons in the middle of the street, during the weather when we can. They will be repainting the crosswalks and we have added some signs along there and we can take another look and discuss with the city to be sure that we take care. Particularly at the intercession of 8th and 1st avenue are you talking about?
FA: It’s dicey all the way down from the Education building all the way down the street. It is. Depending on when you drive through there or walk through there but between classes it’s really dangerous.
ADM: We went to the legislature several years ago and got legislative permission that was required to lower the speed limit to 15 mph on campus. We could also seek enforcement on the speed limit, that could be a contributing factor, although that’s kind of a “careful what you wish for”.
FA: Could it also be helpful if there were some that wouldn’t text while they were walking?
FA: At certain times of the day motorized traffic cannot make progress, probably shouldn’t be there. It’s complicated by the fact that the north side of the street is not useable because of the construction. I don’t know to what degree the pedestrian traffic spills onto the street. I do know when I did a study a few years ago that when classes passed between Wick and Brown the street became the sidewalk. I assume still is?
ADM: We also have some hope that the skyway will connect, when this project is finished, Centennial to Brown and may encourage a little more of the pedestrian traffic to stay on the second floor and perhaps decrease the pedestrian/vehicle conflicts.
FA: I am more concerned about getting through the construction.
ADM: Yes, I understand that in particular and that’s an important consideration.
6. Article 22 & 25 Calendar for Academic Year 2009-10
ADM: We’re up to item six and I have copies
of the promotion/tenure calendars for 2009-2010. There are two different versions.
When the committee originally developed the schedule we did it in such a way
that, without too much difficulty, we could modify the dates given the changes
that occur on the calendar from a year to year basis. One of the changes that occurs
with the calendar this year is that a couple of the dates fall on a Saturday
and therefore we have to move that event to the following Monday. Then several
of the events that come after that, a week later or two weeks later, since we
already moved the one we have to move them successively through that process.
I would have liked to have been able to have spent more time proof reading this
but I think it‘s accurate. If someone can find an error in it we will make
some final changes and put it up on the web.
FA: There is an agreement-driven requirement that this be brought to meet and confer and we agreed, the Provost and I exchanged the information on this calendar over the last couple of weeks, and we discovered that some people didn’t pay much attention to the fact that we had done such creative work. They wanted to correct the dates when in fact we had consciously chosen that if those dates fell on a Saturday or a Sunday that it would fall on the following Monday so I would suggest we approve this or accept this under the condition just as we did last year that there be an exchange in a final acknowledgement between the association and your office.
ADM: Any questions or comments on this?
FA: Is this online yet?
ADM: It’s not on line yet, no.
FA: I have a question, some faculty are still confused. They got a note from the deans’ office saying that they had to submit on August whether or not… what stages they were in or tenure/promotion. It’s not clear.
ADM: In regard to their PDP?
FA: PDP’s, yes.
ADM: Right, yes, you have that calendar here as well. That’s the vertical one.
FA: You said this wasn’t updated on the web, obviously we had not agreed to it yet, so I wouldn’t expect it to be yet, but when will this be available because obviously the work starts first thing in August.
ADM: As soon as we agree that this is to be approved then it will go up.
FA: And will it go out to the deans and others as well.
ADM: Yes.
FA: Thank you.
New Business
1. Request for services from Academic Affairs (FA) (04/30/09)
The following motion was passed by the FA: Senate on Tuesday April 14th, 2009:
Faculty advisors need the following services from the Provost/Academic Affairs Office
1. Notification when an academic advisee is placed on probation or suspension.
2. Training sessions for academic advisors on the following issues:
a. Use and application of FN, FW grades
b. Transfer of D grades within the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum
c. Changes in academic probation and suspension policies
d. Qualification for financial aid
e. Other changes of academic policy ( such as the “bridge” General Education program)
ADM: We have an FA motion
FA: This comes from our academic affairs committee and comes about as a result of some of the work they have done through the year. They believe that there are some benefits that can come to our students through some training opportunities and information; one being notification at the time that an advisee of theirs has been placed on probation or suspension, and that then there be training that would deal with the appropriate use of the FN and FW grade, how will the D grades transfer within the MN transfer curriculum, the changes that are underway in academic probation and suspension. I know that there is a link between financial aid and suspension and specifically information about the bridge that has been constructed to allows us to move to a new gen ed program in 2010.
ADM: Right, and my office has been waiting because this information was submitted to the academic affairs committee which has been waiting to hear back from the faculty that senate has approved these proposed changes or at least has considered these proposed changes and come back with whatever recommendations they might propose. Immediately up on receiving that we can send out this information. We’ve been waiting to hear from you in other words.
FA: Right, the senate did take action on all the matters which were related to undergraduate instruction and you and I had visited with Mitch that there was a need to also move forward on graduate scholarship standards in a timely way because there was a retirement party, I don’t know why we did that. We lost 40 minutes of our senate time on Tuesday…
ADM: It’s all my fault.
FA: It’s all your fault, it always is, it goes with the office
(laughter)
FA: We will take up the matter of the graduate scholarship standards at our executive committee and follow some wise advice about conditionally approving it allowing through the committee to have its input in the fall. So I expect we are going to get the work that needed to be done, done and since it was the committee that did the work that proposed these things I think they expected communication to be faster than it was.
ADM: We would have liked to have done it more quickly too. I would have liked to have gotten this information out to folks prior to the advising for students currently enrolled fall semester. Just as a quick summary, to indicate the linkage between financial aid and probation/suspension and those matters have to do with two areas, one area has to do with the student’s grade point average which is often described as a quantitative element and the other is the degree of completion of credits attempted. So a student has to make both satisfactory academic progress in terms of completing 67.67 percent of credits taken and maintain a certain grade point average, if not, for either of those reasons, the student may not qualify for financial aid. People need to be aware of both of those components of satisfactory academic progress and grade point average requirements. But we’ll get that information out.
FA: Thank you.
ADM: Thank you.
2. Compensation for faculty participating in FYE (FA) (04/30/09)
ADM: In the past we’ve provided compensation to cohort leaders of paired courses and learning communities in the form of reassigned time and three extra duty days to other faculty who are involved in the learning community as well. Because of budgetary constraints it seemed to make some sense that except for new cohort leaders, people who are developing a learning community for the first time, what we would do is compensate faculty participating with three extra duty days whether they are the cohort leader or not and provide the reassign time to those faculty who are developing a new learning community for the first time.
FA: It’s our understanding that the model under which the first year experience has gone forward was a model based on a proposal that came to meet and confer that included all faculty would be involved and compensated in the program. With that understanding we would expect that before a decision to modify the delivery is made in its final form, that there would be an opportunity to meet and confer with regard to that.
ADM: That was an oversight.
FA: We have people who may or may not know what you just said, who are planning to be involved in the first year experience who up on learning what you just said if that was a final decision have a difficult choice to make.
ADM: I thought they all received notification. That was my understanding.
FA: My colleagues can attest to the fact that at a senate meeting where this was raised there was great surprise and disappointment. Mark, you were involved with the first year?
FA: Yes, and I am not going to be next year of course but I was this year and the year before and the year before that. I think that the decision to give the course release for new cohort coordinators only, does not really realistically reflect the way that the work pattern is. It is true that there may be some additional work that goes into designing the cohort the first time but I don’t know of any learning community that’s been operating the same way identically two years in a row. There is a substantially additional work the coordinator does offering the extra hour of class each week which is not just running the extra class but arranging programming of various sorts all from various kinds of field trips or other kinds of special activities, so I would respectfully disagree with the logic of distinguishing between people offering one for the first time as opposed to offering it a second time.
ADM: Balsy
FA: I think if I remember me and Dr. Franky Condon, who is not here any more and Dr. Tracy Ore and we did all sit together and come up with a proposal originally and our original intention was to create a type of augmented type of program and I remember Tracy Ore took students to Indianapolis, so each year it’s a little different but it’s the same cohort but I remember Tracy Ore and Dr. Katherine Fox working really hard to make sure that it’s a different experience for our students every year.
ADM: I do know that this past year for sure, I am not certain about prior years, not all maybe only about half, of the cohort leaders took reassigned time period. A fair number of them chose not to take reassigned time, whether they were eligible for it or not.
FA: How extraordinarily generous of them.
FA: The truth is not to take that reassigned time, do they also chose not to do the duties that they would have done during that reassigned time.
ADM: They did work for the learning communities the same as if they had taken it.
FA: It’s good to hear this information now but I think what we’re asking for is to have that conversation before things happen so that communication is really open and nobody feels a if there is a surprise.
FA: Notices did go out but I am not sure of the nature of those notices if they were, I read them but can’t remember what they said, that these are things that are under consideration or these are decisions that have been made and so at some point there is a distinction between the two and I can’t recall the nature of the notices, they were regarding the first year experience.
ADM: I can’t remember exactly what the language was that’s why I am not responding.
FA: My point is these come to the table here that was the point of the faculty senate discussion. I think you know it’s one thing for people make a choice between accepting or not excepting the terms of that appointment of the first year cohort it’s another thing when its unilaterally proposed without consultation.
FA: And also if it was agreed to.
FA: Proposed and accepted for the coming year.
ADM: I did hear you. O.K. Anything further on that?
3. Six Year Program Review Cycle (FA)(04/30/09)
FA: We’ve heard various things from different colleges with regard to the program review cycle. I did learn that the statewide meet and confer that there still is board policy that requires a five year review of programs that are not on an accreditation review schedule. The practices on the campus seem to vary considerably by college. Some people seem to know in advance when they are going to be up for review, some people get notice at the last minute. We wonder about how this process is being managed and whether or not we should do some things. And I think Robert you were going to
FA: Two basic questions, one is, is there a proposal for a six year program review cycle given the boards requirement for a five year program review, that’s up in the air with you to have that settled. And secondly given the current situation of program reviews, John described some variation across colleges, in some cases maybe a function of change of administration within the college. Departments may be behind because they have not been informed or someone hasn’t kept up with the schedule or whatever the case may be but given those situations are we in need of a review of the policy, the process and scheduling of the process of program reviews could be put on the web. Let me give you an example of just reviewing some current policies that we have in place to see if there are any division or college or department changes what if we had scheduled on the web or educated at which point a program is due for review, either the last one, type of reviews that are available etc. so that people can be informed in a timely manner.
ADM: I do think what you propose is a very sound suggestion and we do need to look at that policy. We have had a practice of a six year review cycle, there has been a master schedule, it’s maintained by Mitch, I don’t think it’s on the web and putting it on the web would be a good idea, switching it to a five year cycle sounds like something that needs to be a part of that process. I know that Mitch has been in contact with various departments well in advance, usually a year before the program review is supposed to be conducted, and often various departments have appealed to him to postpone that review process so they are informed of the process but I think you made a good suggestion about putting it on the web and MnSCU’s policy is five years and we need to modify that and publish that cyclical calendar
FA: I have been here long enough to have gone through more than two, three or four of these program reviews, I’m dating myself, I started when I was 18 years old,
(laughter)
FA: They have been five year reviews, then because someone didn’t inform us in a timely fashion it turned into a six year review. So there’s no consistency in having, in terms of confusion, whether the reviews are every five years or every six years but I know we had been on a five year review cycle and if it’s now become six years that’s big news to me.
ADM: Based on what you’re saying you should be reviewed every five years.
FA: I don’t have a preference either way…
(laughter)
FA: all I’m saying is that my preferred point is that they are useful and second they are mandated and third we need to be consistent in terms of whether or not they are five years or six years, as well as, we need to make full policies available, maybe on the web, I’ve seen hard copies of these documents some years ago. For people who are just coming to the University be that administrators, faculty or otherwise they need to have access to those policies and procedures and they can answer many of these questions.
ADM: Well we’ll review that and make sure that’s available and on the web.
ADM: There’s another element to add to that, the budget targets that have been set are achievable in this next biennium without major changes to our program portfolio or organizational structure. We will have to make additional cuts for the biennium following the next biennium. It cannot be achieved if we continue doing business as we are doing business now. We have begun a conversation with the strategic planning committee and with the leadership team level about the framework for reviewing programs whose enrollments have fallen below certain thresholds and who aren’t meeting a set of criteria. There’s general agreement that we can’t do everything that we are doing now with just adding without stopping some things. That is obviously a potentially portentous issue and we are going to take the next two years to, in the first year get comfortable with a process that is fair and transparent and then the third year put that in place. So we need to create a review process that does three things, one, that meets the standards that the system sets, the five year review, two align program review with accreditation reviews so that we meet the system requirements without adding repetitive work, three, allows us to intervene or go off schedule when there are changes in programs that result in the program falling below some threshold of effectiveness and performance. Conversations that have begun in strategic planning, I recognize the situation as you describe it you are correct all of these things need to be considered and put in order. It is an echo of what Michael has said that it asks the dimension of programmatic review, we can’t afford for budget purposes, we can’t afford going forward to simply allow our five year review cycle to deal with that. We are going to have to put into place a broad based one time screening review that allows us to make some budget determinations. So those have to be married in our approach.
FA: First off I wanted to simply say that all we are requesting really is being proactive. We are not in any way objecting to doing the process. I do want to say that a part of this has come up because departments have not always been given that lead time. Our department is requested this spring for next year and we usually take a full year of self study when we do that and your consideration of dictation of accreditation. I personally would really appreciate that we have two accreditation visits for individual programs within our department. It would be nice if they were times with department reviews for non accredited programs. My concern is that we are in a position to be reactive when we could have planned ahead and that’s why that time table would be so useful even for people like incoming chairs who need to look at what the work of the department needs to do for that year and so on.
ADM: Good point.
FA: I am so glad that President Potter made the observation of the review for budgetary purposes and planning purposes because that will put on the record that the process that is under consideration and discussion of how we go about that process, once in place, as opposed to the notion that some people may be have been given through reports to departments that the process will start next year for that purpose.
ADM: You are correct.
FA: Robert asked that similar question at our pre meet and confer and the answer I provided is consistent with your answer.
ADM: It’s good to have it on the record.
FA: No, I am not disputing that.
ADM: Can’t beat that.
FA: Can’t beat that.
ADM: Can’t beat that.
4. Performance Appraisals for Deans (FA)(04/30/09)
FA: Senate had passed a resolution that asks that on a regular basis there be processes in place to have deans,that includes associate deans, reviewed. I do have the actual language of the motion that I will provide to you, we think it’s important that we have regular cycles of review. The faculty have that in their collective bargaining agreement, PDP’s and PDR’s, and we think it would help all if we had a similar opportunity afforded the deans and associate deans that would involve the faculty.
ADM: I think that’s an idea that we will take under advisement for discussion in the fall because processes would have to be developed in order to move in that direction.
5. Center Proposal Immigrant Workers in Minnesota (ADM)(04/30/09)
ADM: We ‘re waiting a response.
FA: Great, you had provided me a document that I did review and I did share with the executive committee. So don’t we have a process by which we establish centers and I believe we do have a process that is followed that creates a center and we’re asking that this concept follow that process.
ADM: I think it did follow that process and the next step was to bring it to this group which is why we brought it here.
FA: Then we must be talking about different processes because my folks seem to believe it would go through the curriculum process. Centers in the past that were established in the past, most recently the center for global studies, followed a pathway through the curriculum process.
ADM: That’s because there was curriculum proposed as part of the proposal, where as in this case there hasn’t been any. Any curriculum would move though through the curriculum process.
FA: Then we need together then to make sure we’re talking apples and apples, just make sure the document gets modified to reflect the death of one of our faculty members.
ADM: Yes. We didn’t want to change the document and that’s why I didn’t take Steve’s name out.
FA: There’s a lot of confusion, I believe, about the process of moving forward with the senate proposal. I think this is complicated by the process that we just established for new initiatives. Starting with the academic planning process last year, a lot of questions came forward to the FA office about what is a center, and there are a bunch of different definitions; how do you get one and it looks like there are a couple different processes that aren’t always clear to the people who need to be informed about how to get one. I am wondering if we can somehow communicate what these various definitions are and what the various processes are especially for those people who are working on proposing new centers.
ADM: We can certainly get this information out. We do have a process that was last modified or adopted, I think it was 1998 and I know it was the same process that was used for the more recent approval processes for one or two other centers in the last couple of years. One was the Center for Global Studies and the other was for the Center of Bio Science that oversaw the Regulatory Affairs and Services Masters Program.
FA: And how does that process interface or not interface with the new initiatives proposal?
ADM: If you think of the new initiatives process as the appropriations bill and separation between the program legislation and appropriations, the center can be approved in concept but the funding not approved and that’s sort of the split here. The addition of curriculum adds another stream so approval of the center does not address the issues of curriculum and the approval of the center does not address the issue of funding. The initiatives process is the funding and you’re right, it is confusing because we run into sort of the chicken and egg problem with these proposals and we try to create a structural vision for a program and its elements and it first needs to be strategically appropriate. It isn’t going to happen unless it is appropriately funded so that the initiative of funding process is separate. In my own mind if you separate those two judgments you do better than trying to think about it at the same time.
FA: I think it would be helpful for us to know which processes in which this proposal has been embedded. Has money been allocated for this as in the past yet? I just don’t know, I don’t recall reading in the old one anything about the process about which is in force or the processes that were used and what were transpired or the reactions. I don’t’ know if there were other departments, if they got merit input into it, if departments names and that, if those departments were signed off in some fashion, what happened? I remember that logistics of the project in terms of this contract and then I saw the document. What happened in the beginning? I may have missed something.
FA: Let us caucus on this if you would please.
ADM: There seems to be some confusion about the process that’s been followed. There’s some uncertainty about the way things have been handled with regard to the initiative and the center proposals. We’ll bring that back in the fall and talk about it then and make sure that consultation and the process appear to be regarded.
FA: Thank you.
FA: President Potter is there a flow chart that gives the direction of this and the direction of that and you need to be very open on that.
ADM: I think there is a flow chart on the web but we will make sure people get a chance to see it and discuss it.
FA: That’s what I am talking about.
ADM: That’s the part that’s missing.
ADM: What you need in the process is an additional idea of presentation that gets them channeled and then have a set of prescribed questions, ie. “Do you need additional funding”, Will new curriculum be developed”, or no, “Is new curriculum being presented as part of this proposal”, and that quick screening can have answers to those questions and then channel you into a clear path. We just need to do that.
6. Swine Flu Update
FA: I wanted to let my side know that the Provost and I agreed to add a sixth new business item which is contemporary to the hottest issue being reported in the news media, “Swine Flu”
ADM: H1N1
FA: H1N1
ADM: H1N1 Novel Flu
ADM: This is a different strain of that so some people are calling it swine flu because people might be confused.
FA: Well we agreed to put whatever it is on this agenda.
ADM: But the Governor has declined to use the term swine.
ADM: Or as the pork industry wants us to call it, the bird flu.
(laughter)
ADM: We’ve been monitoring the situation around the flu in general and specifically the report in Cold Spring which was confirmed today that it was indeed this particular strain of flu. So the Governor was there today and announced that and so we took out our plan that we had around the Avian flu and had been kind of following that although some of the scenarios are specific to a bird-borne disease. We’ve sent some information out to all faculty and staff via the internet that came from the Office of Management Budget and links to the Department of Health and frequently asked questions and those sites are updated as we’ve gone along. The president has directed and we have suspended a program that was going to Mexico beginning next week. We’ve been in contact and trying to contact students that may be in Mexico as a result of internships or other reasons already. There’s a student with Augsburg that they have in Mexico that will be back in a week or so and we’ve also confirmed that we do have two student teachers at the schools in question in Cold Spring so we’ve worked through that with those also. Generally there’s not a lot of information about this particular flu. It seems to take about a seven day incubation period and that’s why there are staying closed through next Monday out at Cold Spring where there was an event. Preliminarily they also feel the human to human transfer is not very aggressive, there have been no cases in the United States of care givers being infected with the flu who’ve been, four people who have been confirmed to have this particular flu. So we have some Camaflu available which is a treatment for the symptoms and also preventative while you are taking it, for use by health services, and perhaps some others on campus that could have consistent exposure. We have a lot of people on campus in maintenance and such fit tested for respirators, we have a stockpile of respirators that are theoretically impervious to this virus but it’s size and everything has not exactly been confirmed, but we have that available. We are doing some additional fit testing for staff that serve residence halls, that includes residence hall staff, general maintenance workers and some other maintenance people and public safety, and because if this becomes a significantly larger issue we would probably be involved with canceling or closing but we would still have people in the residence halls or people that were ill and that would be their home and so we need to make accommodations for them. We’re also working with the food service provider, Sodexo, that has a separate corporate-wide plan about accommodating such events. So we will be continuing to provide information on campus as best we can via email. There is information being published in the popular press and also by the Department of Health being different news releases and so we’re following that. So far it’s been a good test of some of our processes and how they work and what we do in order to be prepared in the event of something like this… and I think that’s most of the news at this point. The best recommendations still confirmed is cover your cough and wash your hands with soap and water, frequently.
ADM: Cough in your sleeve not your hand because that will make it worse.
ADM: So we are also putting those posters back up that we had a year or so ago in the restrooms regarding hand washing and covering your cough just to kind of remind people that those are the primary safety things. There has been some discussion around hand sanitizers. There is some evidence that the typical hand sanitizer does not kill the flu virus, it kills the rhino virus for colds and it’s good for that but it really is not necessarily, though there are some that have different chemicals in them but the popular hand sanitizers may not be effective so hand washing with soap is what the President recommended and I think that is some of the best advice.
FA: Just do the dishes regularly.
FA: Under a scenario we are all affected by this, what would be the plans for finals and graduation?
ADM: A couple of things there I would say, our plan says that after the 12th week we declare victory and end the semester and I believe that is what MnSCU’s policy says.
FA: Robert’s talking about next week.
ADM: The first issue if we come to closing, then we will say there will not be finals if we close in the next day or two for some reason and we declare the semester complete. With respect to graduation there may be a possibility that we might, with those present, go through next week and if there is a recommendation against bringing people from disparate locations to large gatherings, they said that you shouldn’t do that and you should close theaters or something like that, I suppose as we speculate there is a chance we could cancel the graduation ceremony.
FA: For those classes or courses that have a final exam they get a different part of the grade, maybe like George Bush being on that air craft carrier making a premature announcement when he said that we can get control, we can declare victory, there is still a significant part of the grade that could still be out there that would have to be satisfied by exams or papers or presentations or some other matter. That’s something you need to look for. The grade for closing the building down is one thing but completing the semester before the academic closing is another.
ADM: My choice of declare victory was facetious and probably an inappropriate one, but what our plan suggests is that we end the semester at that point and grades are offered with the best information that the faculty member has. We have not come to that and we will seek guidance also of what MnSCU says that we shall do.
FA: One suggestion in 1997 when North Dakota flooded out, what they did is offered students one of two choices, the semester is over and you can take the grade you currently have or you can get an incomplete.
FA: The other piece that I would hope you take into consideration is thinking about what would happen with online courses through which that sort of virus wasn’t communicated.
FA: I don’t have it committed to memory but Moorhead faced this issue because of the flooding and there were fairly clear MnSCU policies that could be put in place and I would guess that we would be bound by whatever they might be. I don’t recall them in great detail but I know that there was a conversation about here would be the MnSCU policy and in fact they were hoping to make five more days so they too could factually declare victory but then there was concern because they were ahead of that date at the time but it appeared that the choices were very clear on what MnSCU directed them and that may be the place we would go for additional information.
ADM: Let me be clear. We would not get to that point unless the CDC or the Minnesota State Health Department directed that those actions be taken across the state. This institution would not take that action.
FA: I am a little bit confused. So if the local schools close down because of the possibility of infecting or contamination why would we have to have a statewide declaration before this particular institution closed down because of the danger of wide spread contact.
ADM: We would not cancel graduation if next week we discovered a case.
FA: I’m not talking about a case, I’m just saying that if there happened to be an epidemic on campus.
ADM: I think that’s a good thing to think about the bird flu but in the probability, I don’t want to spend a lot of time imagining scenarios when the probability is less than one percent. Should that happen, that’s what we’re talking about, but frankly it’s not worth talking about. We are not going to suddenly next week have to call an emergency situation.
Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns
1. Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07)
ADM: Steve you want to give an update on the budget.
ADM: Sure. We published last week the listing that represented the go around by the vice presidents and the president’s office at approximately a 7.5 % reduction in our budget that we agreed to in November, as a prudent target given what we knew about the budget at that time and what uncertainty we recognized on the horizon. We have moved forward now and it is also published in the website, the projection, the house bill, the senate bill and the Governors recommendation. Based on our best guess and their machinations in St. Paul we’ve identified that we would look towards about a 3.5% reduction that would be sufficient to that task and so the vice presidents and the president went back to work with their units, not across the board, to in our best judgment to work to that kind of level. We got together Wednesday and we visited and we believe we have that target in hand. We’re making final reviews of each of our areas in coordinating among our different activities because we’re not independent and so things influence each other, as you know. And then we’re planning town hall meetings, I believe they are set for Wednesday, I am not certain of that, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. There’s a potential that one might be on Thursday next week, about what our plan is at the time. It remains with the contingency that the legislative session is not complete, the house and senate haven’t even come to their conference committee terms and there are material differences between their proposals, let alone that they propose taxes and the Governor has a different view. So there is substantial potential, most of us can speculate, for a special session. At this point we have been requested to provide information of generally what we’ve been doing to MnSCU by May 29th, I think, in order to include for the board to consider in June. Hopefully by then if the legislature acts that the board will act to actually give us an allocation. We do not have an allocation estimate from MnSCU. I never recall a year when they didn’t give us an estimated allocation on which to plan. But they have not done that this year. The board tentatively plans in July to set tuition and so that will close that loop at that point. In any case we will move forward with some budgets so that we are able to operate on July 1st. The only caveat to the operation on July 1st is if you recall a few years ago, when the legislature did not pass a budget and there was a state shutdown. That has the potential again. An additional nuance to that is the state, the Department of Finance informed Laura King, Vice Chancellor of Finance, that there is some cash on hand in reserves and in tuition and at the various schools within MnSCU and due to cash flow issues they may chose to tap some of that cash in order to operate the state during the current fiscal year and they would replace it next year. But the problem would be, that was the cash that we relied on when they shut down the last time to stay open, we projected we could stay open about eight weeks and we could finish the summer session and they’d have that much time to decide. Well this may influence our ability to do that. So there is a lot of uncertainty out there. We’re planning as best we can and sharing information and will continue to share information electronically and otherwise as we go through the summer and certainly when we come to convocation in the fall we’ll have a session or two available for people to see where in the dickens did we finally land on all this. We’re also taking a look at the tuition out for two years and our budget planning is based on a two year projection. The state has also published some projections that the President alluded to that go out into the following biennium, which unless we can make some adjustments, either in retention or recruitment or in programs or in efficiencies, the preliminary numbers suggest there will be additional cuts to be made in the following biennium. But if we follow the current projections, whatever cuts we make for this fall will be sufficient to get us through this biennium, we won’t have another round of this kind of discussion next year and as we go into the summer. So I think that’s most of the update. John you may have other comments?
FA: I’m not going to talk about the politics because no one knows what the outcome of those political discussions will be. I am going to choose to take the view that the Wisconsin DNR has taken with regard to the opening fishing weekend. The fish are there, will you be there. We did have a healthy discussion at the budget advisory committee and it could capture one thing that we all need to remember and that is when we look at our budget we are looking at the net impact on the bottom line. I am glad we didn’t have to cut 7.5 percent because the documents I saw would not have had 7.5 percent impact on the bottom line. Yes they were 7.5 percent but they didn’t take into account reduced revenue. Some of the revenue I saw, I had serious questions about if it was reasonable to predict that the revenue was real. So that advisory committee will offer those voices to be heard and precautions to be offered. I am a little concerned about having the forum before the strategic planning committee has had a chance to provide comment. The meeting was canceled today of the strategic planning committee. There was going to be a review with feedback and it may be simply a matter of timing. It seems to me that group ought to have a whack at whatever is going to end up being shared. Maybe it’s just a trial run. The third and probably the most important item is related to our ability to generate revenue. There were a number of colleges that were cutting a large number of faculty lines, that it appeared that those faculty lines were directly related to high demand, freshmen classes. That’s what it looked like because we had no other detail. Fall semester is fast approaching. When will the third round of faculty position releases happen and when will the schedules for the fall reflect the impact of those releases of faculty lines?
ADM: It should be next week.
FA: Early next week. Thank you.
ADM: We would have preferred more time to consider things, to follow a slightly different schedule but it’s been a peculiar year and we felt that it was necessary to publish widely on campus available to people next week as we close the semester. I wasn’t aware that the Strategic Planning Committee had canceled the meeting but the intent in our publication has always been to the wider campus than we shall tell you what we are up to except for some grading days the following week…
FA: There aren’t any of those.
ADM: That’s about our last opportunity to engage substantial parts of campus.
FA: I am wondering if we could coordinate that though by the review of Strategic Planning which is currently rescheduled for Thursday morning, isn’t it John?
FA: That’s what I put on my calendar.
FA: I think the President’s email say about the budget because faculty are talking and wondering what’s going on and I talked to Lisa Foss and Gregory when it’s going to be published. It’s a good thing it’s going in the budget planning document. The email was very helpful. Faculty during summer session would probably like to know what’s going on.
FA: I think it’s safe to say that the faculty who are interested in where proposed budget reductions were going to occur went and looked at what their deans had proposed as budget reductions and I would expect the actual reductions will come from the source of ideas that have been publically announced.
ADM: That’s a fair assumption.
FA: And thank you for getting that information out and the detail that we received.
2. Status of Administrative Searches: Provost, AVP (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, Affirmative Action Director
FA: The question is timelines for announcement. Each of the positions is on their own calendar. The Provost search committee finished the fourth of visits last week and I believe had a meeting at 5:30 on Tuesday night. We have been told that the VP for University Advancement is slightly behind but on a parallel set of responsibilities. A number of the associate dean searches have completed their interviews and I believe this week the search for the dean of the College of Fine Arts and Humanities will be finishing up their interviews. We fully expect that since we just got the affirmative action director search organized, that that one’s going to take a little longer. I’ve already been asked, when can we expect to start hearing some announcements about these searches.
ADM: Well in most cases those committees have to write up strengths and weaknesses on candidates and submit those to the appointing authority. They want to do some additional checking and other things like checking references beyond those that were submitted. So it might take a little bit of time but I am assuming that those will be announced as the decisions are made and as the appointments are offered to individuals and they accept and we could make some announcements.
ADM: I just want to clarify as to what you said, Michael. Often times they don’t want to make an announcement until the other person signs the contract whether they are doing a verbal thing so sometimes it takes a few extra days in that direction.
ADM: That’s true and the unsuccessful candidates have to be notified.
ADM: As you said, John, the Provost search committee met Tuesday night and worked on our strengths and weaknesses and we’re finalizing a report to the President.
FA: Just as with the budget, the openness of where the statuses are…
ADM: We have a website for the Provost search and so we have been updating that regularly and will update that within the next week jjust to provide where we are at this point.
FA: That is much appreciated that it’s there and I know once people start leaving rumors and what have you go on and the best way to address rumor, as Robert said earlier, is to have it on record. I understand there are uncertainties and there are variables that come in to play. The community simply wants to know as soon as possible, and of course that is not determined until all the processes are followed.
3. Foundations of Excellence (ADM) (04/17/08)
ADM: It’s not the first time I have been here. I will be very brief because everybody’s got multiple meetings and conflicting schedules and everything else. I am pleased to be able to say that as of today the report which is the product of almost a years’ work going back to when we first applied to participate. The report is all but done. We are at the point where we are making final editorial changes and the steering committee of the task force will be meeting again sometime within the next two days to officially approve the report. It will be going to the President’s desk as soon as that happens. I should clarify to everybody that right now it is internal to the task force because it is not complete and I am sure that one or two other people in its current version and Dave and I have talked about this briefly, there will be a full version for all the appendices which will go to a number of people who really need to have that folder. There will be a working version of the report that will be somewhat less hefty which Dave and I have discussed should be bound and distributed to colleges, to units across the University as a reference. In collaboration with University Communications we’re going to produce what I think of as a glossy summary version which will be like two pages, front and back. If it’s bigger than that it’s because of adding some pictures or something to make it more attractive but that would be the means by which we disseminate this information to the wider community. That would be happening once we get past actual completion of the report. From here, once the task force has officially approved it, it will be distributed to all of the people who are in our current system data base including the deans and other people. In the conclusion there is a formally adopted recommendation about the implementation group, the group that would carry the ball forward going into next year. Because of the calendar and also the contract with faculty and everything we’re looking at in a sense it’s a second kick-off during fall convocation this coming August and that would be the implementation phase of the project. That’s really all I want to say, Dave is there something you’d like to add to that at this point?
FA: Not really additionally, except for the issue that Roberta Mathews has suggested to us which is one of momentum. Because of the natural break we have and the moving forward elements of that, there are some recommendations made for how we get geared back up again in the fall and we see that as a formal kind of an acceptance of the report or whatever it is maybe some sessions that we can coordinate with the convocation activities that week and that would be a part of the conversation with the people who are running and looking for some of those things. An event that really reenergizes the continued momentum with those half dozen or dozen to fifteen people that become kind of the implementation advisory group or whatever. The fear from the policy center and I think fear is probably too strong of a word, is that momentum would be lost. So as we move forward it’s just to brainstorm and communicate with each other in a way that makes that event exciting again in the fall. My perception among the faculty I talk to in my department and some other people is that this process was energizing. Some of the curmudgeons are not curmudgeons as far as this goes because of the transparency to date and the processing to date that includes a very wide grouping of people from the campus community. I really think we have established a report from all of those working on it is a logical extension of their work and I think they own it and we need to take care that we don’t lose that somehow over the break.
ADM: To that I would merely add that one of the things that we consciously did was leave all of the specific recommendations from the nine different sub committees in the report. With thinking that we want that report to be as being said, what the task force produced and for everybody to see that before we go ahead then and try prioritize those recommendations, decide what should happen, when, that’s logically the work of the implementation crew. I think the other thing is you can look at summer in a positive way. Yes we can lose momentum but it’s also time for people to digest this piece. It’s a significant document and there needs to be an extended vetting process for this so that people don’t think that somebody is just going to take this thing and run with it or they’re going to make some major change in programs or something going in the next year. So in that sense the summer is a window of opportunity for people to reflect on what the proposal is.
ADM: Thank you Mike. You can run from the jaws.
ADM: Thank you.
ADM: Thank you both for your shared leadership. It was a great gift to the University.
4. Task Force on 9-month Appointments (ADM/FA) (04/17/08)
ADM: Actually the plan was for both and Mike Connaughton and I to respond, on behalf of the faculty, but John indicated to me early that Michael may not be here. The nine-month appointment task force has finished its work. Approximately April 7th, submitted a draft to President Potter and Faculty Association President Palmer and I believe the faculty association has…
FA: Reviewed and accepted the report. This is going to be a very interesting provision of the Master Agreement and to watch it unfold. The report itself identifies the many issues that it raises. It is my understanding that the majority, if not all of the new faculty that are being hired for the next academic year have their first duty day, the same duty day as those of us who are on academic appointments. Is that true?
ADM: I think it’s the 15th.
ADM: Because the nine month period has to be the same for two years in a row, we want to take into account the start for the following year. The nine-month period will begin a day before the first duty for the 168 day people. That’s not to say that 168 days are worked in a nine month period did not align with the 168 days that the people that have not switched over would have. Am I close Dennis?
ADM: I think so, as you can see there are a number of issues here. Almost all are addressed in our collective bargaining agreement as it now stands. But these individuals will be on two-year, nine-month appointments and the calendar of course changes.
FA: It has to be the same.
ADM: It must be the same, you are exactly right.
ADM: The recommendations with the deans is the nine-month period start I believe it is the 17th, although the duty days for the rest of you will be starting on the 18th of August.
FA: So they will have a different duty day calendar then the academic calendar duty days. They will. They have to have 168 days.
ADM: But it doesn’t have to start the first day of the nine-month period.
ADM: Right.
FA: They can only work 168 duty days. There has to be at least one duty day they won’t have that the rest of us will.
ADM: The nine month period is longer than 168 days.
FA: Be assured that the IFO is watching and when I say the IFO I am not talking about…
ADM: The big brother
FA: It’s the big brother…
(laughter)
FA: and just as you have MnSCU we have the IFO. I can assure you that there is great scrutiny being paid to this particular issue and it’s one that, the one nine-month report talks about the highly complex, the day the person begins working is only one of the myriad of issues.
ADM: I believe the task force did as complete a job a possible identifying the issues associated with this and many of these issues are outside of our hands at this point. I’ve seen two other task force reports, as a faculty on the committee has seen, and I believe ours is clearer and most complete at attempting to identify the areas and issues that need to be resolved. That was to work with the task force.
FA: Am I correct in understanding that we’re proposing that the nine-month appointment might begin before the duty days begin. They might be appointed to a day on which he or she has no duties.
ADM: Nine-month appointment may not match duty days. There are more days within a nine-month appointment than 168 duty days.
FA: I am trying to make sense of the statement that they could be working the same duty days but not as the first duty…
ADM: The first duty day is going to stay the same.
FA: So there appointment might begin on a day on which they have no duties.
ADM: Right.
ADM: Correct.
FA: O.K, I’m trying to understand this. It works and I think I’ve got it. Boy am I looking forward to this part of this.
ADM: The task force was to identify the issues. We didn’t solve the problems so this is one of the issues that was identified.
FA: Yes, no, I appreciate that you did not solve it.
(laughter)
FA: And I understand why you didn’t.
ADM: Let’s solve the problems of the University Scholars.
FA: Thank you for the work of that committee. You’ve done a very good job of providing guidance.
5. University Scholars and Endowed Chairs (FA) (05/01/08)
ADM: Diana. You want to talk about University Scholars.
ADM: University Scholars at the last meet and confer when this came up I said I would have a final report to the Provost by the following week, which I did but the faculty didn’t send it to the FA so I can. I have a physical copy that I can leave with you and if you want it electronically tell me to send it to them and I will be happy to do that.
FA: If you send me the electronic copy I will send it to the executive committee.
ADM: Perfect, I will do that.
FA: Do you have a summary of that.
ADM: It’s only a two page report.
FA: Do you have a summary of it.
ADM: It’s only a two page report.
AM: What’s in it?
ADM: Oh, you want to know what’s in it? Sure I can tell you that.
(laughter)
ADM: Sorry
FA: The readers digest version.
ADM: O.K. the task force met a number of times, we looked at other universities that we were familiar with, some people had been at other universities as well as other universities that were more similar to ours. We came up with some questions and some issues that we think should be addressed when the President makes the decision on how to do this. Wording in the contract says it’s at the President’s discretion to award the scholars. Questions were how many scholars are there to be divided by academic college or should there be other standards that are used so that the best candidate, it does not necessarily mean there should be a scholar for each college each year, there needs to be a set of standard guidelines developed for selecting scholars, a template call for proposal that would be used across the board for the years that this is in place and then a screening process including identification of the selection group would need to be developed. The big question is where is the funding coming from and how will it be sustained? We did also come up with some recommendations or developed a model where at any one time once the program is full development that there are nine university scholars and implementation would be three a year for the first three years which would cost approximately 54,000 dollars by the end of the three year that would have to be sustained over time. We also discussed and included in the report
FA: Diana why would it have to be sustained, because University Scholars could not get a permanent increase in their base salary?
ADM: Well because you would always have somebody leaving and somebody else taking.
FA: Ahh.
ADM: So there would always be nine awards not sustained for just one person but sustained amongst some. In the report we also included that we think that there should be strings attached to the awards where the people who receive the awards help the university advance the strategic goal of advancing scholarship on campus by mentoring other scholars, other people working in scholarship, as well as organizing and putting out some colloquiums and seminars of research in their field, bringing other people on campus from other places in the same field to help build a visibility of the research that was going on at St. Cloud State. That’s a nut shell.
FA: This is another area where the IFO will watch very carefully. It is my understanding the Endowed Chairs can only be funded from sources outside the control of the University.
ADM: This is the University Scholars. We did not address Endowed Chairs because we believed that we needed more direction and contract interpretation before we really do anything because of the clauses that are in the contract. It makes it very complicated to address.
FA: And the University Scholars have to be funded from the local allocation. There are no dollars that come to the University by having University Scholars.
ADM: We could fund those from outside sources.
FA: Yes, but we receive a certain amount of dollars.
ADM: Yes.
FA: Faculty need to read the fine print very carefully. Neither the language on Endowed Chairs or University Scholars is language that the faculty association wrote. It is the language that MnSCU wrote and if you read some of the things that are there very carefully as a faculty member you could be, by being honored, hurting yourself in the long term in terms of your financial situation.
ADM: For University Scholars?
FA: Yes.
6. College of Education Climate Task Force
FA: The climate task force received a draft report from the consultant last week. The task force met on Monday and agreed that we wanted to ask for some additional information and some rewriting of portions of it which were provided more or less in outline and we wanted fuller analysis and recommendations provided. We are to receive that from the consultant by tomorrow and we are meeting again on Monday morning to go over that and that’s as much as I have right now.
ADM: Thank you.
7. Star Alert Task Force (FA)
FA: First of all I’d like to thank Steve and the folks that he works with, we’ve gotten data about the various tests that have operated and what we will be doing is making a call for some volunteers to work with your side in examining where we are with the efficacy of the star alert system starting next school year.
8. Summer School Task Force
ADM: The summer session task force completed in essence phase of I of its work April 24th, has made a recommendation to the President, Provost and Faculty Association President indicating the task force is not able to compete it’s long term goal of making recommendations for 2011 and such, there was not sufficient data to do so. In the meantime the task force is recommending for 2010 a modification in our current 3-5-5. We have an intersession, five weeks summer session, five weeks summer session. There is an issue that summer session under this configuration, given our MnSCU dictated start date, runs right against each other, one would finish summer session on one week and literally faculty on board the next week. That’s not ideal, that is not acceptable for faculty as well as students and the recommendation in 2010 as the task force closes to finish its work in fall of 2009, is that we have a 3-5-4. We would have a three week intersession, a five week first session and a four week second session. Classes would be lengthened proportionately to cut from a five to a four as an interim step to deal with the immediate problem of the summer session bumping into our fall session. That is in essence the recommendation of the task force. I don’t know the outcome of any discussion of the faculty association on this issue.
FA: The senate did have an opportunity to examine the task force report and as a result of that I’d received some feedback about the four week proposal, one from someone that teaches Math and consciously chooses to teach the classes during the second summer session as they currently exist because there is one additional instructional day. So they’ve consciously chosen to do that. Under the four week proposal the faculty member does not believe that the curriculum that is being taught could be adapted to fit in four weeks. In the area of Sciences I’ve heard a similar concern, so if that were true we may be limiting our ability to generate service to students in Science and Mathematics in the latter part of the summer. You’re task force worked hard and you’ve produced a preliminary report and it got shared. I suspect there will be some additional review of the recommendation for 2010 very early in the fall because I know what that calendar is to get ready for the summer of 2010. That’s the quick snapshot we got by sharing it with senate.
ADM: I appreciate that, John. Keep in mind the reality of the situation is we have 70 summer sessions given different start dates. We have classes that have to run a good deal longer than five weeks, primarily located in the Math and Sciences. We’ve had classes that are six weeks, seven weeks, we’ve allowed faculty to essentially propose links other than even the 5-5 where the curriculum was better presented in a longer period of time. That will continue to be the case, I don’t see us now constraining the faculty but the points you’ve raised are certainly issues that were raised in the task force. There is some possibility of relief obviously as faculty propose different link session to match curricular demands.
ADM: We have to be upstairs, for student government association. So I need to leave, so I need to say just a couple of things before I leave. First of all John, thank you for your principled and wise leadership this year. Mark, I look forward to working with you next year. Thank you for being willing to take on that responsibility. Thank you all for your work with us this year, it’s been good work, it’s been a good year. I really appreciate the work that you do. I feel good about the spirit of our work together. I think we’ve made great strides thinking and working together from what my first expression was in these meetings in the fall of 2007 and I thank you for your work with me and your willingness to be clear and forceful and thoughtful, it’s just so very, very important, thanks so much. Let me go back to the flu stuff. Who meets and how often are they meeting, are they meeting regularly or adhoc basis?
ADM: Adhoc.
ADM: Adhoc and are there faculty voices at the table there?
ADM: No.
ADM: That’s all I need. You may want to consider sharing in such a way that there are some faculty voices to keep in front of us those questions that Robert raises.
FA: And I just want to say thank you for your work Michael and for supporting us.
(clapping)
9. IRB Response