Final Approved
Notes — Meet and Confer
August 27, 2009
Administration: Lisa Foss, Judith Siminoe, Steve Ludwig, Kristi Tornquist, Mitchell Rubinstein, Larry Chambers, Wanda Overland, John Burgeson, Provost Malhotra, President Potter
Faculty: Mark Jaede, JoAnn Gasparino, Judy Kilborn, David Warne, Frances Kayona, Balsy Kasi, Tracy Ore, Michael Connaughton, Debra Leigh, John Palmer
Opening Remarks
FA: I am going to call our meeting to order we are just a hair behind schedule so we should get started. Before we get started I have been asked to first request to everyone that when you are speaking to be sure to speak up so that Greta can hear you well and our record can be as accurate and faithful as possible. I am also going to ask since some of us are new that we go around the table introducing ourselves so that everyone gets a chance to know names. I of course am Mark Jaede, I am from the History department and I am President of the Faculty Association.
ADM: I am Lisa Foss, I am with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness.
ADM: I am Greta Abel, the Assistant to the Provost.
ADM: Judith Siminoe, Special Advisor to the President.
ADM: I’m Steve Ludwig, I know everybody.
FA: JoAnn Gasparino, Counseling and Psychological Services.
FA: Judy Kilborn, English department-College of Fine Arts and Humanities rep.
ADM: Kristi Tornquist, Learning Resources and Technology Resources.
ADM: Brent Steele, Educational Leadership and Community Psychology.
FA: Tracy Ore, Sociology and College of Social Science rep.
FA: Michael Connoughton, English Department and I think I am here because I am negotiator is that right Mark?
FA: Yes, yes.
FA: Debra Leigh, Antiracism Education Initiative and faculty-Theatre, Film Studies and Dance.
ADM: Mitch Rubinstein, Academic Affairs
FA: John Palmer, Health PE, Sports Recreation, Sports Science-immediate past president.
ADM: Larry Chambers, HR.
ADM: Wanda Overland, Student Life and Development.
ADM: John Burgeson, Center for Continuing Studies.
ADM: Devinder Malhotra, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
ADM: Earl Potter, President.
FA: Dave Warne, Communications Studies perennial late, I apologize.
FA: Balsy Kasi, ETS.
FA: He’s [Warne] treasurer.
ADM: We moved your office further away.
FA: Thank you. President Potter asked to make an opening statement and I have decided to let him get away with that this time.
ADM: Thank you, a very short one. Welcome back. I look forward to a productive year together. We obviously have a new Provost, new at the table. He has been in conversation with Mark learning agenda management and the way we have these conversations. He won’t ask, so I beg your indulgence on his position on a learning curve. He sort of keeps track of how steep the curve is and every time I see him, he says the curve seems to be steeper. We have a lot of complicated issues and so as we talk together we might be sharing a little more history and a little more perspective than we might had everyone been at the table for conversations over time. Thank you very much.
Approval of Minutes
1. April 30, 2009
FA: The first item listed is approval of minutes. We don’t actually have the need to do that because the practice has been that the Provost and the President of the FA jointly approve notes on these meetings and that was done for the last meeting, fiscal 2009 in the spring. So the notes that have been published and that are on our website, I am not sure whether you folks have them posted, those are the official notes of our last meeting. So we don’t need to do an actual approval here.
Unfinished Business
1. Online Council (FA) (04/09/09)
FA: Online Council is a matter that has been on the agenda, I’ve asked Judy Kilborn to speak to that.
FA: The online council was a recommendation that came out of the online taskforce that was bought from the document to strategic planning. The faculty are very interested in having that online council go forward and last spring we requested that we have a faculty co-chair on that council to help ensure that the faculty perspective is well represented. I believe we also asked for reassigned time. We also had brought forward at the end of last September or early October a document that had gone to senate that incorporated a perspective towards online at this University and included some concerns that we had that we hoped that the council would address at that point with the task force. I have agreed to make sure that Devinder gets a copy of that document and we would like the council to include in its work some of the issues that are included in that document. I guess we’re asking where we are with this.
ADM: As you point out we agreed to formalize the online task force and we will be very soon asking the faculty association to provide us representation from each of the colleges as agreed upon. We are in the process of fine tuning the membership itself which was agreed upon and also fine tuning the charges and responsibilities of the online council. So my hope is that within a week or so we will provide you with a written constitution of the committee of the online council, as well as, a written proposed charge and responsibility of the council. I will then forward it to the president of the faculty association and hopefully we will discuss that at the next meeting.
FA: Have you come to any decision about whether or not that would be a co-chair entity or is that still in the discussion phase?
ADM: Since we will be bringing the whole package to you in the next Meet & Confer we can discuss that at that time.
FA: That would be fine.
ADM: Because we want to be consistent with what has been done with similar task forces, currently.
FA: O.K.
FA: We look forward to seeing that document.
FA: Right.
2. Article 22 & 25 (FA)
FA: The next item has to do with Article 22 & 25 calendar and procedures. This is something that Devinder and I have been talking about at some length. I want to layout here formally and clearly the concern the faculty association has in regard to this. First off we have the contract. The IFO MnSCU Agreement lays out the procedures for Article 22 & Article 25 procedures and the process by which comments on plans and reports, specifically in Article 22 can be solicited, delivered to whom they are delivered and so on. We believe the contract is clear on that and we believe that last year we completed the creation of a calendar and a set of implementation procedures for this campus that were consistent with the contract. As of the beginning of this term at least some deans are asking departments to comment on professional development reports and/or are asking for individual comments by faculty members to be shared with the dean. We regard both of these, first as absolutely contrary to the contract, and second as settled business that we had agreed upon last year. Therefore we are bringing this up, not because we wish to enter into a discussion about what should be the procedure in Article 22 & 25, we believe that is settled business and that is clear under the contract. But because we are concerned that those agreements, that we reached last year, are not in fact being followed perhaps because of miscommunication or some other reason-but we wish to see a clear resolution in favor of the contract and the points we agreed upon last year.
ADM: Let me broadly try to layout what you have brought in as a concern. Your concern has zeroed down on really two things. One is whether deans require departments, either the committees provide them with comments or whether the individual faculty member comments ought to be forwarded to the dean, and the second is whether that was agreed upon or not. As you point out it seems to me that there is a variability of practice here. So it’s not very clear to me that if any violation occurred by a dean requesting that if they so choose. Some committees provide it in some colleges, some committees do not provide it. Am I wrong with that perception?
FA: Well you are wrong on a couple of counts. First committees do not do anything except recommend to departments. The contract provides that departments make recommendations on specific things. In Article 25 departments make recommendations as to promotion and tenure and so do chairs. In Article 22 the dean may ask departments to comment on whether or not a professional development plan complies with the goals and objectives of the department. The dean does not have to ask that and the dean is limited in what the dean asks to that question and the answer provided by that department should be limited to that question.
ADM: I thought Mark your objection was to PDR’s not to PDP’s.
FA: Yes and so I am clarifying that there is a limited comment function in PDP’s and in PDR’s there is no departmental comment. In PDRs individual faculty are encouraged to write comments to the faculty member not to the dean. Those documents are not to be shared with the dean except at the discretion of the individual being reviewed who of course is free to ask whatever that person wants to be included their personnel file.
ADM: Yes but the same document also says that this faculty member who writes this comment on the person who has provided the report can down the road be utilized in the case of tenure and promotion decisions.
FA: John do you have something to add?
FA: Yes in response to the President’s request that we provide some historic context. I believe when we first met with President Potter as a faculty association, one of the outcomes of those conversations was the creation of a work plan of the FA and the administration would identify certain tasks that we wanted to get accomplished. We had agreed that one of the tasks that we very much wanted to complete was coming to agreement, coming to setting norms and standards as a group for dealing both with Article 22 and 25.
ADM: Stop there. And that’s a true reflection as I remember it, we agreed we wanted to work on that.
FA: Right. So we did have a task force, the task force consisted of three administrators including the Provost, two deans and three faculty members. Of which I was one. Over the two year period of time we produced documents that came back to Meet & Confer that we had agreed to as a working group. We had discussion of meaning of language and I can only speak for myself when I left in May, the last visit I had with the previous provost, I as Mark had said believe had finished our business and had set a calendar and a process that we were going forward for this year. And that process as Mark has stated was consistent with the bargaining agreement and started us on a path that was fundamentally different than the practices which existed on this campus for a long time that many parties believed were non contractual. They were divisive, they created issues of morale and at least one member of the task force, I thought what we put together was an excellent start to turning Article 22 into professional development as intended to be and in forming Article 25 in such a way wise decisions would be made.
ADM: So if I understand you correctly there was an agreement around that report… did it come through Meet & Confer, I am again trying to understand the historical context.
FA: The pattern that the previous provost had was one in which we would meet and review materials that had occurred when we were at Meet & Confer, we would give a status report. The last document I saw that dealt with this I believe the provost and I agreed was in fact the final report that had been brought forward to Meet and Confer. My impression was that it would simply just be carried out for the start of the school year. That was my impression.
ADM: Let Judy, then I have a question for you.
FA: I think that you were correct about one thing you have wildly diversion practices on this and that’s part of the issue. We wanted to then unfold this fall, unions and faculty understand what these processes were that we agreed to and one of our major tests besides following the contract was selfishly an important thing was also to focus Article 22 more on professional development so that we could actually be mentoring faculty. Of course now we are beginning the cycle and people are very confused so I am hoping that we can clarify.
ADM: Sure, yes.
ADM: I remember the progress reports and I was not ever in a meeting of task forces having those conversations. I don’t remember that we actually brought a final report to Meet & Confer for discussion and affirmation.
FA: I think in terms of the report that the fact even with the calendar we were up against the end of the academic year, the Master Agreement stipulates that you are to provide us an opportunity to Meet & Confer on the calendar for both Article 22 & 25 and that what we did was say that the provost and I would work that out after the last meeting. I did meet with the provost and my impression was that written material hadn’t changed much over a period of time and we were doing editorial work on the document that would end of being posted.
ADM: John actually that’s helpful. That’s very helpful to me because see when Mark and I we talked about it and Mark kept saying what we had agreed upon so I started looking through the minutes of Meet and Confer but I couldn’t find it. So subsequently that Mark and I had a conversation and I consulted with Judith, I and Mark talked about it at one point, I had to leave, Judith and Mark talked about it and so what we did was subsequently that we put together a document that we shared with Mark in writing to which sort of laid out as to what our understanding of the position of FA was and what our interpretation of what we thought the current practices are on there and so that’s where we are and so that’s the point of this conversation.
FA: I have shared that document from Judith with the executive committee, with two corrections as to our position which I have shared in writing with Judith which include that the summary document did not include our objection to the department comments on PDRs and it said an individual faculty member would use those individual comments in a personnel matter and I said they could use it but not necessarily. But aside from those two clarifications I believe Judith has accurately summarized the position of the faculty association. I also asked whether the position of the administration as summarized there was in fact a settled manner. I asked you that in a following email and you responded that you were still looking into what had been agreed upon in the past and there were still conversations going on.
ADM: And that’s precisely where I was looking for what we agreed upon in Meet & Confer and because that was the only frame of reference I had to go by. I think in the document itself we present at least a general thrust, it’s not an agreement, that’s why we are coming here. The general thrust as to what our interpretation is. Judith, you want to add something to this?
FA: This is a part of a learning curve and it’s easy to confuse Meet & Negotiation and Meet & Confer. We don’t need to agree to anything here. There is no obligation, as much as we would like to have that power when matters come up that get meet & conferred on so that we have an opportunity to provide comment because you have the right to move forward by PELRA to act as you see appropriate. It’s true that what we have tried to do over the last several years is when we come to Meet & Confer we have a general understanding of what we agreed to. But we really in doing that it is not a formal agreement, it’s just a process by which we find things that we can work together on positively. This is Meet & Confer, we talk about it, we forum, we go back to our group, you have the right then after ten days of an item being in front to proceed to implement what you brought to Meet & Confer.
ADM: The only reason I mention it here, I absolutely agree with your interpretation of Meet & Confer, the only reason I mention that was I was trying to get hands around the fact that if agreement occurred, where it occurred and one of the places that it could have occurred would be here so that’s why I started looking at minutes.
FA: Judith and then David
ADM: I guess the other thing that would be helpful to me is to clarify this is the calendar that was agreed upon. It has a little notation on the bottom 5/15/08 last revision 10/14, is there something more.
FA: There’s another version.
ADM: There’s another version than that.
FA: April 2009.
ADM: It looks like this.
FA: There is a minor secondary issue about what has been posted on the web and where but we need not struggle with that at the moment. David?
FA: An observation just in the conversation to this point is that we have several times talked here about trying to establishing a formal looking process that deals with changing, or determining some changes in what had been the current practice because we were wildly out of compliance. According to a variety of conversations now there may be some debate about that and so as we move forward those procedures and processes that don’t appear to be any different don’t seem to me to be changing or looking at a forward moving kind of system or process so if current practice is to be changed because the only current practice we have is in the past, then it would seem that some of the conversation around how comments are sought and where they go and to whom is in by a part of that because if we end up in the same place we were before all of the task force work and the kinds of good progress we seemed to have made are backsliding. So I need some clarity I guess on how those processes will in fact look and how they will look different than they did before because that was part of where our issue was, at least as I see it so that is kind of a frame from my perspective on where we’re going. It can’t look the same as it did because that is not what the contract called for. I am not sure I understand at this point what it will look like in the next year because of some of the difference in controversy.
FA: It’s not surprising that you might not understand given the irregularities of actual practice and we all agree that there has been inconsistency of practice at the beginning of this term and certainly in the past. However it is the position of the FA that we do have clarity about what are the basic rules of who makes comments, who they give them to, we believe that’s consistent with, it is in fact inconsistent with what was developed by the task force that worked last year and there may not have been a formal moment at which the Meet & Confer, I mean we never take votes here anyway. I mean there was no moment at which we officially blessed a specific document but the documents were being posted to the website during the spring term and were ultimately posted in what was represented as a final form. Even if that were not the case, that because, this is as John properly says, this is Meet & Confer, this is not negotiation. It is our position that the language in the contract is clear about what happens with which paper, who it is written by and who it goes to. We just don’t want to enter into a negotiation here about whether or not we’re going to follow those rules that are laid out in the contract and it is a matter of grave concern to us that what in our opinion would be un-contractual procedures would be reproduced this fall and it’s also, I think, problematic, potentially harmful to our working relationship about the very important other business that we have to attend to, to be entered into yet another ground up discussion about what Article 22 means.
ADM: Mark, that’s precisely why we’ve provided you with this document. Judith sent you this document, that’s precisely why because we wanted to make it very clear in writing what our interpretation was. You are right, there have been inconsistency of practice. Some of it has occurred because perhaps how the departments and committees have functioned. Some of it may have occurred because there was not enough coordination among the various colleges in terms of the consistency of that. But to say there is clarity, I think is a little bit, if indeed there was a clarity we wouldn’t be having this discussion so that’s precisely, in order to impart some clarity we laid out these interpretations.
ADM: Let me ask some questions. Is the schedule, the April 9 schedule, is that the sum total of the task forces work and does it embody what you understand to be the agreements?
FA: Yes
ADM: I have never seen that. To some degree, and I understand..
FA: If you look on the right hand column under PDRs that’s where the most critical point of immediate concerns.
ADM: And if you look at this schedule where does our current disagreement, the apparent disagreement that we seem to have now, where does that reside?
FA: It resides here in the second cell where what is written there says that comments are encouraged from individual faculty members and given to the individual being reviewed.
ADM: And, John do you feel this was thoroughly discussed with the Provost and the Provost committed to this position.
FA: Yes. We repeatedly discussed the matter over the course of a year as we tried to figure out how to get this information into a format that wasn’t overly long. We decided to do was go as much as possible with exactly the language that is in the Master Agreement.
ADM: And this is work that was, this has April 9th, yes this says 4/30 so April 30th 2009 the work it out with the Provost conversations happened after the last Meet & Confer.
FA: That’s correct.
ADM: O.K. And as I noted I have never seen the document before and I don’t think the University can be judged to have agreed to this without my approval. Balsy you had something?
FA: Yes I think the problems, two things; one been tacking to the other one, this one probably some other places.
FA: No, this document is not on the web.
FA: If you go to..
FA: It’s not
FA: I’ve seen it, if I can trust my eyes…
ADM: Alright guys, we independently confirm whether it’s there, alright.
FA: President Potter, I believe you correctly stated where we are in the Meet & Confer process. The faculty association through the last, the final Meet & Confer empowered me to meet with the Provost to handle editorial matters on the calendar. Those matters were completed and it appears that the administration then did not make a final determination with regard to the obligation to post and inform the faculty of the calendar.
ADM: So I would put an immediate closure to this conversation so that we can do our proper homework. As I have not seen that and was not aware of that commitment. Let us go back, focus on this, your feedback to the document that was shared with you, share our understanding, and come back before the next Meet & Confer, have a conversation to explore together and then come back to the next week for mutual sharing of where we are.
FA: And what instructions will be given to deans and to departments about what is going on right now because right now there are instructions that are out there that are inconsistent in different Colleges and faculty members are confused about what they should do and I will say that we will absolutely not encourage faculty, we will discourage faculty from following what we regard as an unconstitutional, un-contractual method of evaluating.
ADM: Yes, there are a whole lot of ways to say this Mark and one might frame it in a collegial fashion but I think the only matter in dispute is whether the comments are shared with the dean or not. That’s the only issue?
FA: It isn’t.
ADM: Then what else is there?
FA: Whether departments issue a comment on the PDR.
ADM: So those are the two?
FA: Yes, those are the two immediate issues.
ADM: If those are the only two things at issue, then the rest of the procedures can be, people can work on preparing their documents.
FA: I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be turning in their PDRs because there is no dispute about the existence of them or who they give them to.
ADM: Right
FA: And there is no dispute about, to my knowledge, about the PDPs or who they are to be turned in to. I’m not sure that there’s any dispute about comments on the PDP either, I have not heard anything that suggests to me that there’s a dispute about that.
ADM: Then the Provost can communicate to the deans and you can talk about that, how it’s shared that we have two matters to resolve before we can clearly provide direction and that we will do that work in the next two weeks. I have not, having seen this before, it does not have presidential approval, I can’t tell you my answer today.
FA: O.K.
ADM: And as I think has been shared with you, we share perspective, a dialogue is ongoing, I appreciate the fact that that dialogue has been ongoing, it’s going to help me do my thinking and so I think we can allow people to move forward with just precautionary note on those two actions. That at this point, departments should not submit comments on the PDR and the deans will not request that comments be shared, individual comments be shared with them pending a thorough review by the President of the proposal made by the task force. Does that sound..
FA: Thank you. That is absolutely an appropriate and acceptable temporary resolution as we continue our conversation.
ADM: That sounds good.
FA: Balsy. Judith.
FA: I am not sure if this absolute concern of my college what we had some questions about it being a top priority..
FA: Unless it relates specifically to the matter we are discussing right now it would be something that should initially on an individual basis or of course if you want
FA: Mark, I think it does.
FA: O.K.
FA: I think it does relate to the calendar because it creates a standard that is not expressed, the dean has asked, in the past the dean has said that the materials are to be submitted electronically.
ADM: I thought that had been resolved. This is Tony’s concern?
FA: Not just Tony’s.
ADM: Tony articulated the concern.
FA: New faculty..
ADM: I know, I got it but I thought that had been…
ADM: There is no requirement for any faculty…
FA: The dean has says this often, newer faculty or somebody new coming in they say, they encourage to have this form, a lot of time the faculty maybe marked.
ADM: No, actually I think that’s too big of a job. When it was brought to my attention I had a conversation with the deans and essentially what the intent is that with today’s electronic world if you get an electronic copy it is a lot more convenient. So that is, the intent is not to suggest that it’s a requirement, if a faculty member finds it inconvenient then just submit some hard copy, that is just fine. I don’t think there is any log being kept of who submitted a hard copy or of who submitted some form via the computer.
FA: So we are in agreement that hard copy is an acceptable form to turn in reports
ADM: Yes.
FA: And that there will be no negative consequences to any faculty member who turns in a hard copy.
ADM: That’s true. It was never the case so I am affirming what already was that intent.
FA: Judy
FA: Did you communicate about that same issue with College of Fine Arts and Humanities?
ADM: Since it arose in one case I again this goes to the diversion practices. The impression I got was that was the only College which was doing it and other Colleges are not doing it and why is this College requiring it when other colleges don’t require it.
FA: He’s asked but he has also said that you can print so I just wanted to make sure..
ADM: Again it’s more of a convenience, if you are already doing it on this, it’s more of a courtesy request than anything else.
FA: I think that we have an understanding about that and I think we can move on.
ADM: O.K.
New Business
FA: The Strategic Program Appraisal Process & Timeline is an administrative item so I will defer to you to present it.
1. Strategic Program Appraisal Process & Timeline (ADM)
ADM: O.k. Thank you, thank you Mark. The Strategic Program Appraisal Process & Timeline, essentially this is a part and parcel of again developing processes and structures of which inform our work in terms of determining the relevance and rigor of our programs and also are making sure we are good stewards of the resources and entrusted to us. And that we are using those resources effectively. So in that context our program appraisal is different from program review in the sense that it is primarily a prioritization exercise. That we look at the current inventory of programs we have at the college level and when we prioritize them on the basis of program relevance and other criteria which is mentioned in the document which was shared with you on the essential overall criteria. There is some immediacy and urgency to this work and that emanates from the fact that there are some programmatic and fiscal sustainability implications of this work and that has implications for our budget formulation beyond fiscal year 10 and 11,12,13 and so that’s why we would like to finish this work. I also want to underscore that this is really a structure which we provided an ongoing process where we on a regular basis look at our programs and then try to determine because essentially there are three possible sort of objectives which bring us to this point. One I have already mentioned the long term programmatic and fiscal sustainability, the other one is that we want to make sure that our activities which we undertake in our academic enterprise are well in line to our shared strategic vision and goals and objectives of the strategic plan, and third is that as over time there are new opportunities that arise it makes sense to undertake new programs and new initiatives and the resource base is not offering much than that can be accomplished only through a reallocation exercise so there also raises a question as if we are going to do a lot of things which we don’t currently do then what is it currently which is on a lower priority scale which we can either stop doing or restructure or reconsolidate in a manner that it becomes most cost effective. So those are basically the objects and it is against that back drop that we presented this proposal and this timeline for the upcoming year.
FA: First I want to thank you Devinder and I am sure that many other people’s work went into producing this but I wanted to thank you for having provided this to us in writing with a date, with a signature, in a timely manner so that we have a chance to get started at looking at this together. I appreciate the fact that we are moving a positive direction in terms of enabling ourselves to have better quality of discourse about these things. I also appreciate your willingness to, you’ve expressed to participate in a forum of some kind where we would make, have availability to faculty members at large who may have questions and input to offer. I look forward to working with you towards keeping this an open process, a good faith process, a transparent process. We have a series of, we’ve had a chance now, a few days now to look at this. I have distributed it via email also to all of the faculty and I have invited input and we have a number of things that we have some questions and we have some suggestions at this point. Then probably there are going to be some more that are going to evolve in the coming days and weeks. We certainly intend to bring it to the faculty senate at our next senate meeting. But I’d like to share with you the questions I have now, some of them and my colleagues will help me out if I miss some things or they have additional things to bring forth. Some of them may be things you can clarify here and now, some of them may be things we may just need to make a note of and address subsequently. So I am going to start at the bottom of page 1, the first sentence of the last paragraph “programs not asked to complete Phase II review will update their department plan, etc”. Programs and departments are not the same, some programs are in multiple departments and some departments have multiple programs and actually throughout this entire procedure I think we need some more clarity in the document in when is a program being reviewed, when is a department being reviewed, this also relates to some of the statistical issues, the quantitative measures in Phase I because some of those exist readily at the department level but they don’t exist at the program level. There are going to be some challenges about sorting that out so I think we need some very clear definitions in regard to that.
ADM: All very valid points. You are right that is why we struggled a little bit with the definition aspects and that is why we said the definition of the program that a complete list of programs is in Appendix A, we provided you with the document.
FA: No, I haven’t received Appendix A.
FA: We don’t have it.
FA: No, you gave me the document but you didn’t give me..
ADM: Mitch has, Mitch do you have a copy of the program document that you shared at Academic Affairs, that’s the
ADM: Oh, sure.
FA: That was going to be another one of our questions of course. I presumed that it had not yet been created.
ADM: Yes, I can get that.
FA: Well, that of course would be very helpful to us.
ADM: Yes, I will make sure that you get it right away.
FA: O.K. A related definitional questions here is that for the purposes of strategic program appraisal, right under the definition of program, “the definition of a program is an academic major, minor or graduate program”. This raises some questions about some academic things that are not any of those things. For example, First Year Experience, the Racial Issues courses, DGS, there are a variety of different entities that is not a complete list, that’s a very partial list of things that are clearly academic, or at least substantially academic, but do not have majors or minors. So the question is does that mean that they are not part of this appraisal. If they are not part of this appraisal will they be a part of some other appraisal and of course we are concerned that there will be consultation and faculty involvement in those academic things that appear not to be listed here.
ADM: Yes. The answer to both those questions, yes. Both be appraised and worth concern.
FA: But they are not being appraised in this process? Is that correct?
ADM: Let me comment. We have the Foundations of Excellence report to process and consider for interpretation. We are creating an implementation group which will be formed through consultation to do that work. DGS and all, its part of that full picture. That report and the inputs there drive that conversation so that’s a separate conversation. Then there’s the General Education committee that’s working on General Education, various comments of General Education are regularly under review there and you had the intent to continue that work and take a very close look at General Education so… yes, those other academic matters are under discussion. Changes might be possible but they are part of established task forces and committees for specific purpose and I think we’ve got the appropriate mechanism for discussion for the rest.
FA: O.k.
ADM: Also if I may add the prioritization for academic programs, once this process is completed that itself might also define some of the academic support services and how they need to be changed. So some of this work would be concurrent and as President pointed out when we are looking at the Foundations of Excellence report and that implementation structure so that work would start in a concurrent fashion. Some of it would be informed by this work itself.
FA: O.k. Would entities like LRTS and Counseling Center, those again are things that have academic elements to them and which are not generators of majors and minors. There will be some form of review, I am not sure whether we’ve got a body that…
ADM: We had talked earlier about the need this year to look at our structure and there are several of those elements that get talked about in the way we’re organized and that’s another consultation process that we have to create as we better understand the shape of that work.
FA: Judy
FA: So other entities that are not strictly academic as defined in this report will have a similar review? Many people asked if the focus is going to be on academic programs.
ADM: The simple answer is we have to look at every element of our operations. This is the approach to academic program appraisal. There is work that’s going on to change business practices in practicing units the structural work. We have to say then, Steve will say more about this, we have to pull 3.8 million dollars out of the 2011 budget. We have to look comprehensively at the whole operation.
FA: John
FA: I am looking at the top of the second page under Phase I and there have been some concerns expressed with regard to the accuracy and assurance of accuracy of the data. There is reference to be used in the Phase I. Related to that then there is an expectation placed upon the deans that they will publish their initial categories and the rationale. Do you have any idea when that deadline would be for the deans.
ADM: Let me comment. We expect to be in consultation with the bargaining units, most particularly the IFO, through mid October to get agreement of the process
ADM: October 15th is the deadline that we talked about for that very initial list to be created. So it would be more in September and then..
ADM: So we want to have the conversation of the quality of the data and the criteria through September and then use that to generate a list which will then be shared in October. Is that a fair summary?
FA: We have faculty that were concerned that,…that’s very helpful because it gives a sense of timeliness so that if any errors could occur... The other perception, in fact one of the faculty that corresponded said “cuts”. That this is the cut list. That there is an arbitrary number at one third. We’re starting to get rumors about what this is about. I just heard 3 and a half million dollars so…there is going to be a budgetary impact and so we are a human enterprise that’s going to have an impact on human beings if we cut three and a half million dollars.
ADM: Let me, and I am leaping ahead, let me share what I have been sharing and Steve make sure that I am right here because I don’t want to miss it. I have asked Steve and Diana to present a list to put estimated savings and revenue gains from a set of approaches to reaching that target. That list is going to be shared in the budget advisory committee as we develop that approach and some of them are in fact are reductions and some of them are changes in revenue allocation centers so I know that John has heard me say that we set up the revenue distribution approach to online education when it was a small operation and we have not changed it since. We are going to be looking at that for modifications to shift some of the revenue allocation and mainstream some of that operation. There are a whole lot of complicated issues that we are going to have to work through but I expect that that online council that we are going to shape to have a major part in thinking through but we can’t think of online education as a sun porch anymore it is part of the main enterprise. It is not something that has been tacked on to the enterprise, we need to think about that. Same thing is true of market rate programs as revenues grow and distribution there has to go to that, the restricting will save some money. Process improvement will save some. We will decide to stop doing some things as a consequence there is no arbitrary figure of what, there are no thresholds established and that’s the reason set apart at two phases. One is the numbers and the second you will notice a lot more qualitative information in the approach which allows us to make strategic decisions. As the Provost noted our resources are not going to increase substantially and if there are opportunities to do new things that address the needs of Minnesota the only way that we can get there is the reallocation so we have to stop doing the things that aren’t working and so that we can do things that we must do and so yes there are going to be some things that we stop doing. But it’s not arbitrary, there are not thresholds, there are no quotas in this work at this point and God willing, and the creek don’t rise, it is going to be transparent and we will lay the data on the table, as a community we will look at the data.
FA: I have to do a quick follow up to that. We get questions about the ESI.
ADM: ESI?
FA: Early Retirement Incentive.
FA: The stimulus money that gives the President the power to determine what positions in programs that might be eligible for ESI
ADM: Ask the question.
FA: I just simply want to know have you begun a process of…
ADM: No. In my judgment that tool is not terribly useful. Where it is most useful, let’s say we discovered after thorough study that we have many more History professors that we need (Laughter) that tool is particularly useful to offer the History department an opportunity by choice to bring down the total number of History professors. It works best for that kind of, everybody is in the same class you don’t say “you’re old would you like this?”, you don’t say “you have been a real pain in the tail, would you like to go?”. What you do is identify a class that is folks that serve a programmatic interest where you’ve got more capacity than you have the need and you offer to the eligible folks the opportunity to make their choices. That doesn’t save you any money frankly in the first year, you’re going to spend money because we do not have a separate pool to do that, it saves you money in the out years. So my judgment is it might be useful but we won’t know that until we take a look at the demand and the resource together and the program appraisal may suggest that there are some areas where that would be a helpful tool. And I again expect that to be open and I don’t expect that’s a backroom thing, the data should be there saying, “Yes we are way below workloads across the campus in this area because demand will not sustain the resources that we’ve got there”.
FA: Thank you for the answer.
FA: Yes, that’s very helpful. I wanted to follow up in connection with you, you said there is no threshold, I think that some people have read this document, they have looked at the fact that 33 percent of the half of the programs, so that adds up to being one sixth of all programs would be assigned for consideration for possible phase out, consolidation. I think I hear you saying that being in the category of being assigned to 33 percent of fifty percent of the one sixth does not necessarily mean that a program would be eliminated outright, and it does not necessarily mean that any job would be eliminated… Is that an accurate statement?
ADM: Yes, I mean if you were to, at MIT, to look and notice that we’re only six Ph.D. graduates in Theoretical Physics you wouldn’t get rid of it at MIT so there are programs that we judge to be strategically significant that we continue knowing that they don’t generate revenues to the same that other programs do.
FA: So to be absolutely clear, we are not talking about a one sixth reduction in the academic programming here.
ADM: I have not given direction to cut one sixth of the academic programs.
FA: And I am not prejudging… we are beginning a process and we have not reached the end of which we would make such decisions.
ADM: That’s correct. So I have not given that direction and I have noted that we have a number of different strategies that we can employ to hit that 3.8 million target. Our enrollments continue to grow, they are growing this year currently it looks to be above our budget projections so we will generate additional revenues and we will recalibrate our enrollment projections for the following year and so that 3.8 figure could come down a bit as a consequence of our enrollment. Again these are, one of the troubles of sharing information early is the farther out you get in sharing information, the less accurate it is and people need to be able to understand the uncertainty. So 3.8 is our best current figure with some new information we just got a couple of weeks ago we expect it to be lower than that but it’s higher than what we expected. That figure will move and we have a number of different strategies. Program reduction is one of a set of strategies.
FA: I want to clarify another related point because this is a concern that has come forward quickly and that is some people have referred to this as the retrenchment document. My understanding is that is not an accurate characterization and I have asked you recently and you have said to me we are not currently contemplating retrenchment.
ADM: Retrenchment is a legal word embodied in the agreements and no we are not considering retrenchment.
FA: O.K. That is helpful to be able to get that clarified.
ADM: 3.8 is for us feels like a big nut but it is 3.8 of 145, 2% - it is 2%. You don’t go into retrenchment and draconian measures when you have to make a 2% reduction in your budget.
FA: That perspective is helpful. Yes, Tracy
FA: And I appreciate your efforts and desire to be transparent and I think you’re right and in doing that sometimes the rumor mills get a little out of control. So yesterday I ran into two colleagues about five minutes after College of Social Science Dean Council, one said “We’re screwed” (Laughter) The other one said “I’m already looking for a job” and this is a tenured full professor so if there is some way that more information can get out in terms of what you just said a few minutes ago, right now it’s 3.8, it might be lower, there’s other things we’re looking at… the only thing I heard faculty thinking about is 33 % of 50% means I’m out. I don’t think that’s true but that’s what…
ADM: That’s precisely why I was quick to jump to the offer which Mark offered to me that when he’s talking to faculty at large that I would be there to answer questions and again the whole purpose of putting those numbers, because I think the focus has somehow stuck on 33% put the whole purpose is not to meet some target for either elimination of programs or retrenchment, the whole purpose was if you’re going to do a serious program appraisal where we want to restructure and where we want to establish as to where we should first look for some efficiencies then as an institution the appraisal process itself is not a cost less proposition so we didn’t want to start it for 100% of the programs with the same detailed appraisal so we said is there some way in which we can whittle down as to what areas and programs we should look in more detail so that is the intent at this point. Those which are clearly there we will do it in any way, we will address efficiencies there too but we can address it in the context of a program review. But this is more in the context of more focused appraisal which will provide us with some immediate adjustments which otherwise may or may not be possible. So that is why there is a shorter dimension to it and then there in a longer dimension to it.
ADM: If I could just share the substance of our conversation on Monday about offering a graduate program as a way to recruit faculty and acknowledging that the graduate program is going to be small and to compensate for that these faculty are going to teach undergraduate sections. There are some things we will have to talk about that if we change will make a difference in the lives of faculty members and those are the things we should be talking about. If you did that, if you said well these graduate programs are not financially sustainable and you said you’re not going to do them anymore that doesn’t take away the job of the faculty member but it does mean that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to teach those courses at the graduate level. I consider that just as serious a choice as the other ones that we’ve talked about and so I want forward discussion about the kinds of decisions we are going to be making.
FA: I want to say thank you about that because while we doubtless will find that we disagree on some of the decisions down the road I think that we very much agree on the importance of following this kind of procedure of openness and conversation. Starting with the difficult decisions about when do you start with how much information we are forging ahead here as best we can and I think with a high degree of cooperation in terms of making so, so I appreciate that.
ADM: I really appreciate that, thank you.
FA: We have a Strategic Action in process, I was wondering whether the deans can give a reason for what they say the College will be doing. The reason I ask is to know if the program needs to realign, we need to change ourselves so they can do that. Getting all this data for Phase I and then realize we are going to need inspiration. So it is easier to ask the departments what it is you want to do but I want to know what the deans have that they strategically, and structure realign, be much easier.
ADM: I think again there is room in there where that conversation will occur. If you look at the timeline you’re only talking in terms of the Phase I. We’re talking just a couple of months and I think at this stage what we basically want to do is take an overarching data information, come up with the kind of, for want of better terms and I won’t use the term “cut” because that term is loaded, first Phase I categorization and at that stage the kind of conversation that we are talking about between the dean and he department is perfectly valid.
ADM: Let me add in my judgment and this is just truly a subjective judgment, the visions of the Colleges, a comprehensive vision for the College, the strength of the vision varies across the Colleges. I think the strongest is the College of Business where they have engaged and shaped a plan, you can take issue with the plan but there is a plan. Education is pretty clear, Engineering to my mind is more clear although there are departmental discrepancies in that, not every department has done the thinking they need to do. The least developed is Fine Arts and Humanities and I have told the dean there he is coming into a process. I would hope that the college can engage in conversation and come to some sense of its identity and direction over the course of the coming year. Social Science is somewhere in the middle, they still have yet to develop the comprehensive vision. So I recognize in the course of answering the question of alignment and strategic appropriateness that some departments are going to have a better context in which to do that thinking. And we’re going to have to be flexible and accommodate the situations the departments find themselves in.
FA: Tracy.
FA: And as we are doing gathering I think to have a little more faith and trust on the faculty side in this process as a carry on how this data is being gathered or how it be used for example, what do we do with faculty or departments that are reassigned to do University work? How are they counted in their department? How are we calculating FTE? What about faculty, we have faculty on administrative leave that are still rostered in our department, how do they get counted? So just clarify these things so that we can actually trust the data that is being used.
ADM: Definitely. I think as we provide data we will provide also with that data what is included, what is not and that is important in our work.
FA: Somewhat related issue is availability of data to the faculty who are charged with doing them. A message I had from one colleague referred to some enrollment data I believe had previously been available online but is no longer available online and needs to be asked for on an individual basis. I need to follow up on the details of that but my point is that we are going to need help getting the data we need in order to do that Phase I counting report.
ADM: One of the things that happened here as a consequence of moving toward better budget data sharing is that you had access to that data, did a lot of your own table building with data, I think some of the same strategies is not simply going through reports but making sure faculty has access to the data themselves.
ADM: The Institutional Effectiveness office will generate the initial set of data for all those criteria to be reviewed with those definitions. I think it was John or Mark, I am not sure which one, but raised the issue around department versus program, there are certain sets of data that we can get information down to the program level, there are some sets that we can only get at the department level because of the way information is tracked and the way the data is categorized so we will provide it at the lowest level of granularity that we can get our hands on. Some of it is, like the budget information is going to be basically at the department level but student credit hour generation, majors and minors, numbers of graduates will be at the major level.
FA: And related to that again is being able to have faith in this data that is being used is number majors for example, we historically don’t have accurate information on majors in departments when they are double majoring because sometimes that certain major does not get clearly counted.
ADM: I think in terms of the exercise, in just identification exercise, this again is sort of a first categorization and then when you look at it and when there is a point where there is a conversation between the dean and the effected departments and so at that stage some of this auxiliary information can be going on in a chat because as a fraction of overall majors, the double majors it’s just very time consuming to do it for everything but where it is available then we bring in this auxiliary information.
ADM: I want to add that part of what we are going to want to work with the departments and programs on is on the common understanding around definitions because in putting out data from our office that’s been an ongoing process and an ongoing challenge to get the definitions accurate and agreed upon. One of the issues we have around majors is that when departments keep track of majors internally and what we can pull out of the ISRS system are sometimes different and we realize when working with a number of departments that what happens is when a student applies for a major and is accepted they’re counted but when they switch majors. The original department in which they were majored doesn’t get notified so the department still thinks they are a major but in fact the student has switched majors and now when we look from a purely ISRS standpoint they’re actually in a different department. So we are going to have to work through some of those issues.
FA: I hope this has occurred to somebody other than myself, you realize you are giving a dean essentially seven and a half weeks to make a decision based on data. You are giving a department four and a half weeks to development an extraordinary detailed report because there are two half weeks between the 15th of October and the 1st of December. In fact the 15th of October is a Friday, is it not? We have a short week following that, we have three full weeks, another short week and then we are basically done. So I would encourage you to, if it’s possible, to push that October 15th deadline back a bit. I think you would be, the quality of the Phase II report, would be greatly enhanced. I don’t quite see, having been a dean once, assuming much of that data available, I don’t see it taking me weeks and weeks and weeks to divide programs in the college even one that hasn’t thought through its strategies very well like FAH. I don’t see it taking me weeks and weeks to do that, I see that as fairly quick.
ADM: So you’re saying…
FA: October 15 is way too late for a department to actually having any hope at all doing a Phase II report that is any good.
ADM: I would be happy to do that, there are a couple of critical path issues. One, the first thing is the consultation. Coming to agreement with IFO primarily that we’ve got to approach this is legitimate. And the second is comfort with the data that will be used to make that Phase I, Phase II decision. I’m comfortable beginning the Phase II process as soon as we can get that other work done. So if we could work with some alacrity on agreement to the process and then attack the data issue and some comfort with the data then yes, I put it there with the assumption that it would take us awhile to have these conversations. If we can have them faster we’d be delighted to do that.
FA: I have to say that I recognize the value of getting that agreement sooner and I am trying to expedite the process of drawing the faculty into the conversation. Our first Senate meeting is September 8 and that’s the soonest that the faculty association can make a broad statement about a position on the process. So I’m hoping we can get ourselves to the point where at that meeting we are ready, that the senators understand the process well enough and have asked the questions they need to ask, we’re going to work to make this happen as expeditiously as we can and I also have to say we have a democratic process that has all the virtues and all of the challenges that democratic processes have. Kristi?
ADM: Lisa?
ADM: I was just going offer in parallel to that we have all of the rough data generated on these criteria at this point, the initial look at this data so we could be doing data discussions in parallel to finalizing the process.
ADM: We can share the data before October 15th.
FA: Great.
ADM: Kristi
ADM: I just wanted to put in my comment from the dean side that this might have changed since you were a dean. Your departments know that all the PDP and PDR meetings with the deans and comments have to be done by October 1st. Given that there are two brand new deans there were some concerns that the deans were trying to do the PDP and PDR assignments as well as do a reasonable job of looking at this data and making their recommendations. So that was, I think, part of the reason the October 15 date was set as well because they wanted to be..
ADM: If my memory serves me correctly, initially we started off October 1.
ADM: Yes.
ADM: And then we discussed it in the Academic Affairs Council and we come up with the other aspects of their work and that’s where it shifted to October 15, but I think Lisa makes a good point. We can share the data initially, right now and that might help us accelerate.
FA: I think that that would be quite helpful and that would also allow faculty to take a look at it. If they’ve got concerns about this, we don’t feel that this is accurately reflecting the situation, whether it’s because a simple numerical error or whether it’s because one of these situations where we know about the context where these numbers might be deceptive about how they characterize something that would be very helpful. John?
FA: It seems to be, for my sake, the questions that we brought today without exception have been answered in a very reassuring way. The nature of getting these minutes approved and available for the campus community is as such by the time they are approved and available there useless for this topic. I would encourage the Provost and you, President Mark to work with Lisa to give us an updated version of this that we could take to the senate on the 8th. That reflects the assurances and the information that we’ve heard here today.
FA: In fact if it’s practical, one thing we can do is to work to expedite our review and approval of the notes of this meeting itself. Another thing we can do is, if it’s practical, have some either revisions or supplemental documents that clarifies things by next week- date to be determined- but the moment we are having an open forum that would be very, very helpful too and see this as a top priority for us to work together on making sure the evolving proposal is continuously being shared.
FA: One piece that I haven’t seen is under Phase II “quality of program evidence, program assessment and evaluation”. I read that as being done but I think some people, well some people have already raised the question what assessment data are we talking about? Our concern that the assessment data has been gathered for very different purposes and that we were assured that that would not come into evaluation of this sort. I don’t know if I am accurate or not.
FA: The descriptions of assessment have frequently included a statement that the purpose of assessment is not to make personnel decisions, the purpose of assessment is not to, it shouldn’t be viewed as something that needs to be designed defensively in order to make oneself look as good as possible so as to not lose ones job. However..
ADM: Here we are talking about program assessment not..
FA: Right. If you’re doing program assessment and let’s say worst case scenario shows that you are not doing a very good job, could this be used to ax you from your position? In other words what assessment data is going to be used and how is it going to be used? I read this to say it is just going to be used to looked at if assessment of programs is happening, not that the actual data is going to be used for a very different purpose for which it was gathered. Does that make sense?
ADM: That was the intent of that statement. That there is evidence that assessment is occurring not necessarily the outcomes of that assessment.
FA: I appreciate hearing that but I am not sure that the, it seems to me there was a point at which it was implying… “Quality of program outcomes”, second page. So when we are talking about quality of program outcomes and then the subset “evidence of program assessment/evaluation” that there we are talking about quality of assessment not assessment as a measure of the quality of program outcomes. Am I being too convoluted here because I think this is important.
ADM: At the risk of offending my good friend, yes.
(Laughter)
ADM: No, actually no, it’s a valid question. Here is what our intent is and then we can worry about how to sort of get to that intent. Here is what our intent was Mark, the intent is at programmatic level and so the question arose how do we build a quality profile of a program. It has nothing to do with individual faculty members. We are not linking that information to individual faculty members.
FA: Well but of course individual faculty members do work in programs.
ADM: True, but I think at the end of the day it is a fair question if I look at just the first bullet. We can talk about how to build that profile. If we are going to do a program appraisal we have to ask ourselves what does the quality profile look like?
FA: I understand that and I want you to consider first what was said to people in producing and also the future of what assessment is supposed to be. Because if the purpose of assessment is to have a frank appraisal and we would be able to say “we’re really not doing well at this, we should work on making this better”, with the goal that you will make it better. If you know whether or not your program continues to exist may hinge on what’s in that assessment report, no rational person would ever put that statement in their report lest it gets prejudiced towards destruction.
ADM: I will talk but I will let Lisa provide the clarification, she’s trying to get in.
ADM: No and I, the intent with this bullet when it was first put together was that it is that evidence, it’s what happens with the assessment report at the University level that says “here’s where on the continuum the program is in the assessment cycle. It’s not what was the actual data, how’s the program doing, is the program engaged in assessment and is it doing meaningful assessment?
FA: That speaks to my question, we talked about the results of assessment which may or may not be happening. So you have sort of multiple levels of how people fit into there. If they’re doing assessment, good thing where they are insightful to useful information probably. The results of assessment and then do now if it was previously done at all becomes very problematic that’s what Mark is saying. I think as you work on this rewriting or rethinking of this, I think you’re much more precise in what you’re saying Lisa about we’re looking at where they are in the assessment process and that they are doing assessment and that you’re not doing assessment is a bad thing.
FA: I think it needs to be clarified that I also understood that bullet to say just evidence that you’re doing assessment but on the first page, fifth bullet it says; overall criteria evidence of outcomes achievement through assessment and evaluation so it looks like you’re not just looking that we’re doing assessment but that there’s evidence of outcomes achievement. So which one is it?
ADM: That is true. If there is also a question which I think we need to bring into the conversation is that if we’re doing assessment at a programmatic level, because this data is going back to the college and going back to the department. So the question arises do we share because that feedback loop for the formative aspects of this. This also provides a strategy because it will provide a strategy to the department then to build a case as to where the department could be infuses as a result of this. I think there are two aspects to it.
FA: How this reads is that we’re doing assessment and we see that your assessment shows that you’re not achieving your outcomes and that, as Mark has said, that is not how we entered into doing assessment.
FA: It would be better not doing assessment if doing assessment puts you at risk.
ADM: No, I see exactly, no so we will provide that strategy.
FA: The language kind of came through that the program and or slash department engaged in the process of assessment to the end of improvement. If that’s what you mean, say it; “engaged in the process” because that to me is very clear and those of us, that view of assessment, understand the distinction between that and looking at the data that says if there’s a continuum of quality, here’s where we think we are. That’s an entirely different thing in terms of decision making. We began the assessment process and part of our higher learning commission process on the former, engaged in the process to improve programs. Not to be used as a major of something else at that time. So I like that idea of engaged in the process, engaged means active suggestion that that made sense for me.
ADM: To be blunt, the programs that we are likely to consider for discontinuation are likely to
be, and I don’t even know if there are any programs out there, over the last five years enrollments have been declining, in some years they don’t graduate any majors, numbers are always small, we can’t document that there is a growing need for the graduates of this program and we think we have done everything we can to make it successful. As a consequence in the last five years the resources we’ve devoted to this program have always exceeded the revenues from operating this program. Those are the kinds of things we are likely to look closely at for discontinuation.
FA: If there’s a way to bring that, I don’t want to drive you into too much of a corner on this, but that kind of statement would be very reassuring I think for many people to hear to get a sense of, there’s a danger of panic of course of people thinking any program might be, just because our numbers looked funny or I don’t know, whatever might be on the block in 20 seconds.
ADM: We’re looking at trends, looking at patterns, looking at evidence that there is market demand. We’re looking at our assessment and marketing strategies, have we done the best we can to make this successful. If you have a brand new program that’s on a growth curve up and hasn’t yet recovered it’s costs but we believe the need is there, I look at the Regulatory Affairs masters as a good example; 12 in the first year, 19 in the second, 24 in the third- with no marketing. That clearly is addressing a market need and is on a trajectory that is solid. And that was a concern of the IFO was our investment in this program legitimate. If you look at the first year all the bells go off, this is never going to make it, if you look at the trends over three years they obviously are on the right track. I am happy to talk about that, I think I will just get myself into a deeper hole if I put what I just said in writing.
(Laughter)
FA: That’s why I said I don’t want to drive you into too much of a corner I don’t..
FA: Make sure that says administrator.
(Laughter)
ADM: I don’t mind it in the minutes actually.
FA: O.K. I think that we’ve aired the important concerns that we’ve identified so far. I have little doubt that more are going to occur, either to the people in this room or we’re going to hear them from our colleagues and that’s part of this process as we move forward. My understanding is that we are going to be working to get these notes approved and available as soon as possible, that we will be taking about any revisions that may need to be made in the draft document that will be an ongoing thing that we’re going to continue to work together on.
ADM: And the running of the data up and available to everybody as quickly as we can, get some substance in the conversation about its accuracy and utility.
FA: I would like to, we’ve got some other business to do and I would like to move on, I think that we’ve spent a lot of time on this because it’s a very important issue but if no one else has any burning contributions on this I’d like to move on.
2. Sabbatical Application Form (FA)
FA: I have copies for everyone, I am not sure if we truly needs these all or not but, while I am fumbling with paper, John do you…
FA: Yes, Mark I did catch something that is missing in the document, I believe our desire it to get this document in faculty hands so they can consider applying for sabbatical and keep the time lines occurring as early as possible and it appears that what’s happened is the draft document does not reflect the new language with regard to the granting of the sabbatical in the year immediately following the awarding of tenure.
FA: I believe it..
FA: There is a box to be checked but if you go down on the bottom under guidelines sabbatical leave applications, the eligibility is restricted to at least seven years of service and some faculty’s initial date of employment or at least six years of service, that is accurate except what is missing from that is the language in the agreement that precedes that except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, is the business of the, if the faculty member requests after either a year of service following an initial award of tenure or completion of ten years of service. It’s catching up the language to the new agreement.
FA: O.K. So that would be an addition that would need to be made in the guidelines section?
FA: Correct.
FA: To make that… The change that had actually been made, and I should take a step back, last spring the professional development committee of the faculty association communicated directly with the Provost Office about some suggestions for changes in the form for application for sabbatical. The form is actually an administrative form it is not a form that belongs to the FA, that direct communication was a procedure misstep in the sense that this is obviously something that sabbaticals are very important to us and we want to go through the appropriate Meet & Confer process and the fact that there was that communication but that it never went through Meet & Confer is problematic from our perspective and I wanted to make sure that we actually did take this form through Meet & Confer so that we could get on with getting the application out. I have already asked that it be delayed in being sent out until we could get that clarification. The changes that were made were in that section “this application is filed under one of the following categories” on the first page, with the addition of more categories which the committee had requested in order to make their job easier so they knew what they were looking at with different applications. What John is suggesting might be a valuable additional change, it certainly sounds like that to me.
FA: It needs to appear in two places, eligibility statement at the end of the page as well as it would be one of the items under “this application is filed under one of the following categories” because in fact if you are applying and you are asking..
FA: Right, option A…
FA: I think all that happened is that the box was added and the language wasn’t modified under the guidelines.
FA: Also you will notice the date is wrong it says 2008 so I think there’s those editorial things that need to be corrected and I would certainly agree that it’s appropriate to be sure that the guidelines reflect that additional category from the new language in the contract. However, I don’t want to delay having this available any further so if there’s no objections from my colleagues I am going to say we regard this as having properly gone through Meet & Confer that you folks
ADM: You and I can chat and make the appropriate changes and finalize it.
FA: I don’t think we have any disagreement about anything we just want to make sure we followed the forms..
ADM: So we can work in it.
FA: Yes.
ADM: That’s fine.
Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns
1. Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07)
ADM: I would first like to since we’ve compromised our previous co-chair of the budget advisory group, I was wondering if there is another appointment?
FA: Not yet.
ADM: I’d be anxious to hear that as soon as I can.
FA: Noted.
ADM: Does everybody understand what he’s talking about?
FA: Actually there hasn’t been an official announcement.
ADM: No there hasn’t because the paperwork is still going through so I did not want to get to much ahead of myself. It will be going out in a day or two and that will be explained in more detail in number two. I can either explain it now or I can wait until number two comes up.
FA: Well since it’s out of the bag why don’t we.
ADM: So then we can take care of number two right now and then we can go with the reports
FA: Sure
2. Status of Administrative Searches: Affirmative Action Director, Academic Affairs vacant positions. (ADM)
ADM: When I came in there were a lot of positions that were vacant in Academic Affairs so my first reaction was that there was a strategic plan on one side and conversations going on so I wanted to see how I could restructure the work itself which is better aligned with the emerging vision. I still want to do that but I think in four to six weeks it is very clear to me that there is, very frankly I need help in that office so Mark and I we had a conversation about it and I informed him that I planned to have interim appointments in three areas. One is assistant vice president for research and sponsored programs, the other is assistant vice president for faculty relations and third is director for center for excellence of teaching and learning. The idea for the interim appointment is that this will only be for one year, I have every intention of starting searches in all three areas in early spring but what I will do is the interim person partly help continue some of the work of these positions forward but more importantly also as a group they will help me conceptualize as to what kind of restructuring in terms of job responsibilities and job approaches I could better align the work of the office with the rest of the institution. So for both of those reasons I think getting interims right off the bat, in that context asked Dan Gregory to be Assistant Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs. He has agreed and I expect the paper work will be completed in the next day or so and then as soon as that is done I will make an announcement. He will be starting effective September 1 and his appointment would be until June 30 but in early spring we will start a search for a permanent replacement.
FA: Tracy
FA: I think it is very important in terms of having an interim and I understand, like you said, you need help. My question is and I think it’s more perception than reality, how do you make these interim appointments in a way that doesn’t feed a perception that’s existed on this campus of less than a little while, and seems to be back, that if you’re friends with administrators you can get these kinds of nice appointments rather than that everyone is having an opportunity for an interim appointment. Because there are many faculty who might be interested in any of these three positions that you just listed and if interim appointments are just made without at least an opening, even if it is a brief opening for people to express an interest. How do we keep people from thinking there’s an “in group” and an “out group”?
ADM: Sure. Tracy your points are well taken but what I did was, given the fact that I, these were short term interim appointments, I just went to the interim appointment process. That’s where I consulted with Mark. My intention is to have a full fledge search and be very open and public about it and that is why, in some ways, that is why I want to underscore again I am trying to buy some time to develop the conceptual frame. To your first point I just got onto this campus I have no friends. (Laughter)
FA: And next year you will have less. (Laughter)
ADM: So I am going from zero to negative.(Laughter)
FA: I understand but, we have interim appointments that have been interim for a while, Dean of Undergraduate studies, and so we knew last year we would need to do a search but nothing happened with that. So that…
ADM: Let me stop that, that’s not accurate
FA: O.K. then I..
ADM: We extended that in a fully open process as a consequence to a commitment to use the Foundations of Excellence study as the basis for rethinking structure and continuing that search. That was very open and transparent process.
FA: I stand corrected then. What’s been conveyed to me is that people thought it was just a year and they were wondering so I stand corrected. The other is I understand you need to fill these positions right away. I guess what I am hearing from colleagues in my college how come there couldn’t at least have been a week where you said that there was an opening for this position. A short period, I understand you need to move quickly, even a day where you say there’s an opportunity for this position because what is getting perpetuated, at least by the comments that I am hearing, is that certain people are getting favored treatment.
ADM: Let me put it this way, my first reaction was what is the process of appointing an interim and I just followed that process. If I’d gone by instinct, you know and I had some time, my instinct is to open up the process and have that. But even in Dan’s appointment, in defense of Dan, I did have conversations within the Academic Affairs, I had conversations with Mark, not about names in fact while I was having that conversation I did say I have some names but I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to share it with Mark because Mark didn’t feel comfortable about it and so I’m basically following a well established practice. But I can see where your concerns are and I assure you the positions I am talking about are only for this year. The process will start well before the term ends, it will start in early spring and it will be an open process with the appropriate representation from this and I will pay close attention to whatever recommendations I get.
FA: And if I may clarify these aren’t my concerns, I am representing…
ADM: I am glad to hear it.
ADM: Just a comment so he doesn’t get into trouble, it was our intent to fill the position Dan has accepted for an interim position, through a search. I failed the search. We did not find the right person in the search. Dennis Nunes had been interim in that role. He determined that situation was not in the University’s best interest. I failed the search because I didn’t think there was an appropriate candidate in the search.
FA: There are differing opinions with regard to what best practice is under the circumstances and I made a comment in our exec committee that I was concerned about a slippery slope of having decisions made private. Tracy has expressed that concern. But I do recognize the process by which excluded managers are appointed we certainly can express our opinion. The process that you followed is one that the state university board approves as a means by which vacant positions are filled on an interim basis. I think what Tracy was saying is history on this campus has been an interim becomes permanent. Sometimes the interim serves two or three years and then they become a permanent and there never seems to be an open process by which someone could become appointed. I don’t think any of that was going on here and I wanted to be sure it was on the record that what you did was what board policy allows you to do and Tracy has done what we need to do which is to know some degree of openness and solicitation of interest helps us.
ADM: By way of assurance with regard to the interim director for Center for Teaching and Learning, today I was meeting with the advising committee for the Center for Teaching and Learning and
FA: Tracy and I are both on that committee
ADM: Neither one of you were there, it was very good salad, but I think there again I was in the mode of input gathering and I asked Dan Wildeson to collect information from the committee members for the Director for the Center of Excellence in Teaching and Learning with regard to what characteristics are they looking for an interim person. So that when I start thinking about names I can evaluate those names against those characteristics. That seemed to me a valid place where I could seek input quickly so my instinct was to get that.
FA: I remembered that committee and had I not been teaching I would have been there.
FA: I think we need to move on, I think the important points have been shared
FA: I have one more question.
FA: Actually I’m not sure we’ve got time for that given that it’s almost five o’clock.
FA: I have one very brief comment it would be very helpful I’m assuming if you’re talking about starting the searches for the hires in spring, part of what would lead up to that is our discussion about reconceptualization of what those roles might look like.
ADM: Sure and I will be glad to share with you that, I think that’s important.
FA: Devinder can you tell us about the status of the Affirmative Action Director?
ADM: Judith?
ADM: We’re in the process of scheduling candidates sometime in the next two weeks we hope. We originally were going to bring two, we’re now going to bring four I believe.
FA: O.K. And that will be in the next two weeks or so?
ADM: That’s right.
3. Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07)
FA: Steve if we could return to quick budget report.
ADM: We’re landing in 09, at the end of 09 about where we expect. The last payroll was entered this Tuesday so now we will actually have numbers for what the year cost us because the faculty pay get extended to the last pay period so we will be closing that. We started the carry forward process. Our preliminary look is that there is about 16 million dollars in total carry forward. That’s all the components we carry forward, there are claims against most of that. Last year was about 18, a reduction of about two million is not surprising given we did non allotment of a million nine in the middle of the year. And so that’s not a surprise and also in difficult times people tend to take, tend to spend their money as you press them further on supplies and equipment. So that’s moving forward. We did a presentation at convocation, that presentation is available online as all of our budget documents are, the power point of that. There’s some additional detail behind that going to look at a lot of numbers there also available in greater detail. The net of this year is we’ve landed in the worse case pretty much that we described and we had to take the additional million dollars of, that we would use for initiatives and use it to balance the budget which when we presented May 6th following the close of this session. The allocation we got from MnSCU for fiscal year 10 with the un-allotment the information we have on the biggest things that changed were the un-allotment, the manipulation of the stimulus funds, the knowledge of substantial increases in the near future in health insurance expense to us and how the un-allotment was distributed among the schools and the Office of the Chancellor resulted in that we expect about a 3.8 million deficit if we make more adjustment, no changes for the coming year based on our enrollment projections. The look which is more difficult as we project out to fiscal year 12 is a greater deficit if we take no action this year and that begins to be predicated on a reduction to a previous base that is not assisted by stimulus funds and moderate increases in settlements as initial openers for what we think about that year. In any case it looks like a difficult couple of years but I think we can manage it. All that the President said was certainly accurate, I’m sometimes the more pessimistic person about ways enrollment will actually, and then there Diana, about where enrollment may actually land but it looks like we will be a little above our target which is really our goal. We want to grow a little bit each year and above that projection would be just a shade under what actually happened because trying to manage to a decline is extremely difficult. Only one last statement about B.E.S.I., as I refer to by the ESI board, is that it’s clear that there needs to be a business plan as the President describes. There needs to be a plan about how it would be done and then that business plan then would direct you to an area or department or class of employee or something that is how that may be applied. I certainly agree that it’s a tool that’s available. We want to take no tools off the table as we move forward but it’s not one that immediately leaps to mind as necessarily very handy to us as we go forward but it’s available and we will have it. It’s just five, I went over by nine seconds.
FA: Are there any questions about the budget? I do encourage us all to visit the website.
4. College of Education Climate Task Force (FA)
FA: There is no further report from the College of Education Climate Task Force at this point but I think we will leave that on the agenda because I expect that there will be something coming up.
5. Star Alert Task Force (FA)
FA: We had talked about forming a task force to examine this. You provided us some data at the end of the academic year that we looked at and those who have signed up beyond the system, it’s very effective.
ADM: Yes, it is.
FA: In other words it works for those who sign up, it appears it is working at a very high level. The question becomes what about all those that are not signed up?
ADM: Two things, we’re still publishing it and the students we think will increase in particular. It’s one method of many methods to communicate via on the website, via broadcast email, via voicemail on regular lines on campus or this or notification of the media. So it’s one of many methods that we have to notify and they all have possibilities of failure. So that’s why we’ve tried to develop as many methods as we can. So it’s one, we’d like more people to sign up but and we’re working that way with students right now we think.
FA: I will follow up with you a little bit more on this to whether or not this needs to stay on the agenda.
ADM: Sure.
FA: Well that concludes our business for today, thank you all and see you soon.