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February 23, 2010
OFFICERS: Mark Jaede, vacant, David Warne, Michael Tripp
IFO BOARD: Thomas Hergert, Debra Leigh, Susan Motin
NEGOTIATOR: Michael Connaughton
BUSINESS: (Unit Representative) Bill Hudson; (ACCT) vacant; (BCIS) Susantha Herath, vacant; (FIRE) Li Zhang; (MGMT) Larry Roth, Orn Bodvarsson; (MKGB) Jim Johnson, Rajesh Gulati
EDUCATION: (Unit Representative) Frances Kayona; (CFS) Fati Zarghami; (CEHEEP) Trae Downing, Bob Murphy; (HPERSS) Hector Antunez, vacant; (HURL) vacant; (ELCP) Tina Livingston, Chaturi Edrisinha; (IM) Fred Hill; (SPED) Michael Pickle, Janet Salk (TDEV) vacant, Steve Hornstein, vacant
FINE ARTS & HUMANITIES: (Unit Representative) Judy Kilborn; (ART) Julie Baugnet, Kathryn Gainey; (CDSI) Cindy Lofton; (CMST) Matt Vorrell, Eddah Mutuo-Kombo, Marla Kanengieter; (ENGL) Judith Dorn, Jamie Heiman, Jim Robinson, Carol Mohrbacher; (FORL) Shawn Jarvis, Bill Langen; (COMM) vacant, vacant; (MUSIC) Matt Ferrell, vacant; (PHIL) Paul Neiman; (THFD) Jeffrey Bleam
SCIENCE & ENGINEERING: (Unit Representative) Balsy Kasi; (AVIA) Steve Anderson; (BIOL) Kristin Gulrud, Maureen Tubbiola, Matt Julius; (CHEM) Rebecca Krystyniak, Mohammad Mahroof-Tahir; (CSCI) Andrew Anda, vacant; (EAS) Bob Weisman; (EE) vacant, Mahbub Hossain; (ETS) Tony Akubue; (ME) Steve Covey; (MATH) Dale Buske, Janis Cimperman, Stephanie Houdek; (NURS) Darlene Copley, Patricia Bresser; (PHYS) Maria Womack; (STAT) Ezzat Kirmani
SOCIAL SCIENCES: (Unit Representative) Tracy Ore; (CMTY) Rona Karasik; (CJS) Mario Hesse, Mary Clifford; (ECON) Arta Ratha, David Switzer; (ES) Christopher Lehman; (GEOG) Hung Chin Yu; (HIST) Jeff Mullins, Maureen O’Brien; (POL) Morgan Nyendu, Shoua Yang; (PSYC) Chris Jazwinski, Jody Illies; (SW) Sandra Chesborough; Cathy Stilwill; (SAN) Matthew Tornow, Robert Lavenda, Sandrine Zerbib; (WS) Elizabeth Berila
SPECIAL SERVICES: (Unit Representative) JoAnn Gasparino; (Academic Support) Geoffrey Tabakin; (COUN) Steve Jenkins; (LR&TS) Chris Inkster, Sandra Q. Williams, Tom Steman; (MEN’S ATHL) vacant; (WOMEN’S ATHL) vacant
1. Call to order 3:30 p.m.
2. Nomination of candidates
a. IFO Board Representative: Debra Leigh, Jayantha Herath
Motion to approve IFO Board Rep nominations of Debra Leigh and Jayantha Herath—(Karasik/Herath). Passed
b. IFO Negotiator: Michael Connaughton, Jayantha Herath
Motion to approve IFO Negotiator nominations of Michael Connaughton and Jayantha Herath—(Motin/Karasik). Passed
c. President-elect: Mark Jaede, Balsy Kasi, Roland Specht-Jarvis
Motion to approve FA President-elect nominations of Mark Jaede, Balsy Kasi, and Roland Specht-Jarvis—(Hudson/Karasik). Passed
d. Candidate forum(s) – Larry Roth
Motion: To institute FA and IFO candidate forums.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT
The Faculty Senate believes it is the responsibility of the Executive Committee, in consultation with the Nominations and Election Committee, to arrange for fair and formal candidate forums for every election to FA and IFO offices—(Roth/Anda). Passed
Motion to call the question—(Ore/seconded). Passed
Clarification note: This does not affect standing policy of offering every candidate the opportunity to include a one-page statement with the ballots. Should the FA convert to electronic ballots, a program should be developed to replace the current policy.
Reasons:
1. We need a formal campaign process. The one-page statements in the voter enveloped (a reform that I sponsored) are not are not enough.
2. When candidates campaign members get to decide (by means of elections) which policies to support. As a result, elected representatives can get mandates from the membership.
3. Democracy is important. A good union is more than just another administrative bureaucracy. The administration needs to worry that, if it cannot work constructively with current union officials, then the membership will elect leaders who they think can work with administrators. This can motivate administrators and give missions and support to elected officials.
4. We used to have “meet the candidates” and “debate the issues” session during meetings of the FAEC (now the Senate). Members could learn about the people who were running for office, their qualifications and experiences and what they stood for. These forums were lost years ago and we need to bring them back.
5. Faculty cannot be expected to make the rounds of departments. That is not how professional association work. If we don’t create a genuine forum then union offices forever will be the prerogative of insiders. This would weaken the organization when it faces the administration and tries to resolve problems.
3. Consideration of the motion submitted by Bill Langen to the Senate on 2/16/2010 recommending that President Potter suspend all action based on Phase II of the Strategic Program Appraisal:
Motion—(Langen/Karasik): Postponed February 16, 2010; Amended by substitution February 23, 2010—(Langen/Hansen). Passed
The Faculty Senate requests that President Potter suspend all action based on Phase II of the Strategic Program Appraisal until such time as
1. the University devises a plan to absorb SCSU’s share of impending budget cuts
and
2. consistent parameters for all programs, both those reviewed in Phase II 2009/2010 and those for the 2010/2011 round of program appraisal, have been set and the results of that review made known,
and
3. a comprehensive plan for University reorganization has been proposed, reviewed and adopted by the appropriate bodies within the University.
Rationale:
While the Strategic Plan has been repeatedly evoked to justify the appraisal process, the process was neither conceived in its parameters nor mandated last fall by the Strategic Planning Committee. Whatever committee Lisa Foss chaired over last summer, it was not the SPC despite that assertion in the St. Cloud Times.
The original SPA process and parameters were revised a number of times and then cross-bred with rubrics devised by the SPC. As a result program appraisal was contradictory and incoherent. In particular, program scores with rubrics appeared to be skewed to conform with the data and parameters of the earlier SPA.
Next Year SCSU Administration is on record mandating the appraisal of programs in the upper 50% as designated by the 2009/’10 process. The FA as yet does not know if the SPC will have any role in setting the parameters of the appraisal, if they will be simply revealed by Management or indeed if the FA will even insist on a role for itself and the SPC.
Management’s rationale for the parameters, scope, objectives and urgency of SPA have been ill-defined and hardly go beyond stating that the SPA is necessary to eliminate “things that aren’t as important,” “to tune the university’s offerings more carefully” and to remove constraints on “our ability to move quickly and do new things.” Given the dimensions of the cuts already on the table and those which may be mandated next year by that SPA as well as budget cuts, a major university reorganization is under way. Since half the university hasn’t undergone Phase II, the radical cuts and changes to programs have been proposed without a bigger picture of programs seen as wholes. All of this is being done in part to facilitate the creation of as yet unrevealed program initiatives.
Especially incoherent has been the use of the words “interdisciplinary” and “international,” where programs seen by faculty as outstandingly international and interdisciplinary have been disregarded, even though these are considered major current values of SCSU.
SPA process forced assignment of numbers of programs to each of 3 categories—but no rationale is given why it is valuable simply to reduce programs. This makes it look like administration wants to create an appearance of making cuts.
Especially damaging to morale has been the SPA process’s appearance of pitting programs against one another. The unexplained emphasis on making significant cuts to program numbers sends faculty the signal that programs who successfully show their value are forcing other programs lower in the rankings.
Major and minor programs are deeply interconnected with General Education. How have the implications for the university’s broader Liberal Arts education been weighed?
If programs are assessed in terms of resources, quantitatively—FTE costs, expense of program, numbers of majors—then the same quantitative measures need to be applied across the board, in order to put programs into proportional perspective. Not all of the useful cost data have been made available to faculty. What if a program is really cheap? What damage does it do?
If SPA process has revealed programs that faculty agree ought to be cut, these cuts become uncontroversial.
SPA raises the question of who gets to decide what components make up a university. When major hallmarks of a liberal arts education have been listed as slated for elimination during this process, it raises the question of who gets to decide what counts as “central to SCSU’s mission”? Isn’t the better question: since the core university disciplines are obviously important to the long-term wellbeing of the whole community, what could be done to make them more effective and to promote them?
There was a lot of discussion for and against the motion. Ore requested a secret ballot and there was no objection.
Substitute Motion by Amendment—Passed: In favor: 30; Opposed: 18; Abstained: 1
1) The Faculty Senate strongly recommends that President Potter not implement the recommendations of Phase II of the 2009-2010 Strategic Program Appraisal. Specifically the Senate recommends that, except in cases where departments endorse the Provost's Phase II recommendations, no changes in programs be implemented until after the process the Provost describes in his official email of February 11, 2010 is completed.
2) The Faculty Senate recommends that once the conceptual framework is established, programs in the 2009-2010 be reviewed again to determine their alignment with that plan.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Rationale:
The Process has not been followed as described in official university communications and hence has been flawed.
• In an official SCSU e-mail from Provost Malhotra dated Nov. 18, 2009, the Provost states that the outcomes for the SPA this year are:
1. Identification of candidates for programmatic:
° retention or enrichment
° consolidation or restructuring
° reduction or phasing out
2. Modification and alignment of department and college strategic plans.
This statement nowhere mentions suspending enrollment in programs. The e-mail goes on to set dates for the Provost to hold open meetings to discuss the recommendations. The date has passed, the meeting has not occurred, and the Provost has been unavailable for the consultation described in the process. Additionally, at least one college (COFAH) does not have a strategic plan and COFAH programs hence could not be aligned with it.
• In his official email of February 11, 2010 (with recommendations for programs to be eliminated, the Provost states:
Clearly, any academic reorganization will require considerable campus-wide conversations and planning that will involve faculty and staff, deans, and administration. I am proposing that we begin to develop a conceptual framework and process that will guide our thinking around reimagining our University and identifying the best way to accomplish our mission and serve our students. I will be looking to our Strategic Planning Committee to assist me in the development of the process that will include the appraisal of the remaining 50 percent of our programs next fall, with a target of completing the conceptual reorganization by the end of fall 2010 and complete the planning for implementation by June 2011.
Campus-wide conversations and planning did not happen before the Provost issued his list of programs for elimination. He has also stated that applications for majors/minors in the programs would immediately be stopped. This action is not consistent with the timelines laid out in other documents.
No conceptual framework currently exists. Without a clearly articulated and communicated plan for the future profile of SCSU, any changes in SCSU's pallet of programs is premature, ill-conceived and demoralizing.
Management’s rationale for the parameters, scope, objectives and urgency of SPA have been ill-defined and hardly go beyond stating that the SPA is necessary to eliminate “things that aren’t as important,” “to tune the university’s offerings more carefully” and to remove constraints on “our ability to move quickly and do new things.” Given the dimensions of the cuts already on the table and those that may be mandated next year by the SPA as well as budget cuts, major university reorganization is under way. Since half the university hasn’t undergone Phase II, the radical cuts and changes to programs have been proposed without a bigger picture of programs seen as wholes. All of this is being done in part to facilitate the creation of as yet unrevealed program initiatives. It is fundamentally irrational and inconsistent with any definition of strategic planning, or planning tout court, to excise a large number of programs and then see what we can make with what’s left.
No opportunity has been given to programs in the third category to change or
adapt their program in light of a university-wide plan.
•The rubrics were not available before the review documents were completed.
The rubrics the deans used to evaluate
programs were not available by the time the report was due. The minutes of the
Strategic Planning Committee’s meeting of January 14, 2010 contain notes on the
SPA Criteria and Rubrics. Members complain that the instruments “leave a degree
of arbitrariness in the program potential area,” and that “the quality and
interpretation of the data seems subjective and does not ask for the details of
the data by which the information was obtained.” Without the rubric, programs
completed their Phase II review documents without knowing the parameters by
which they would be judged.
The original SPA process and parameters
were revised a number of times and then crossbred with rubrics devised by the
SPC. As a result program appraisal was contradictory and incoherent. In
particular, program scores within rubrics appeared to be skewed to conform to
the data and parameters of the earlier SPA.
• There are potential vagaries in the review process from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011.
Programs in the 2009/2010 cycle were
grouped into three categories based on quantitative measures, yet evaluated
on quantitative and qualitative measures. It is the position of the IFO
that any process and use of data applied to one program or department must be
applied to all others. The Faculty Senate needs to ponder the effect of
dividing the upper 50% of programs into the same thirds, by the same use of
data and for the same purpose (retention, restructuring, elimination) as
Management insisted this year. For the appraisal to have integrity, this is
exactly what must happen.
Conclusion: Cuts without regard to opportunities to build synergies, to make changes in program offerings and configurations, eliminate the bio-diversity of the university. Extinct is extinct; endangered is an opportunity to rebuild and preserve bio-diversity.
4. Adjournment at 4:32 p.m.
Submitted by Polly Chappell, SCSU FA Administrative Assistant