Meet and Confer Notes October 15, 2009

Final Approved 11/12/09

Meet and Confer

October 15, 2009

Administration: Devinder Malhotra, Earl Potter, David DeGroote, Judith Siminoe, Steve Ludwig, Mitchell Rubinstein, Lisa Foss, Larry Chambers

Faculty: Mark Jaede, JoAnn Gasparino, Judy Kilborn, David Warne, Frances Kayona, Balsy Kasi, Tracy Ore, Michael Connaughton, Michael Tripp, Tom Hergert, Debra Leigh, Susan Motin, Greta Abel—note taker

Approval of Minutes

1. September 17 , 2009

FA: Welcome everyone. Well the first thing on the agenda is the approval of minutes. The Provost and I approved the minutes when we met last.

Unfinished Business

1. College of Education Climate Task Force (FA)

FA: President Potter, you and I agreed that we needed to have a conversation about that but that conversation hasn’t yet happened so we should probably do that sooner rather than later.

ADM: I think we should begin the conversation here. I think it is complicated enough that I would like collective wisdom.

FA: That’s fine with me.

ADM: Let me take a shot at describing the situation and have you share your thoughts. My understanding, because I wasn’t here when it began, was there was discussion about the climate in the College of Education. It was agreed at Meet & Confer that a study would be conducted. The impetus agreement to do a study came out of that meeting. It took a long time to process.

FA: It took a year to choose a consultant and a year for the consultant to do the study but there were meetings of at least a year previous to that before they got to the point of having written the request for proposals for the consultant so at least three, longer than I was involved in it.

ADM: So three years and much has changed in three years and it included the departure of the dean who was in place at the time of the agreement. One of the agenda items today is a request for faculty appointments to the search committee for the dean but now Palm is the interim. Personally social scientists in the other roles that I’ve played when you decide that you need information you don’t get it until three years later in very different circumstances you wonder how valuable it will be. You wonder if the purpose that was present in the outset is still alive, if that is still the same purpose. Just on those grounds I would have questions. But the study was finally completed and the committee responsible for managing the study came to me with their concerns about the report they received from the consultant. The consultant finished the report and said she was done and the report which has been shared to a limited degree is problematic in that it has a lot of raw data in the report including lots of individual statements. That’s all presented there so that a sentiment echoed by thirty people looks the same as a sentiment expressed by one person. It is not sanitized for personal information so it’s possible the broad connections inferences in both directions. So the assertions are allegations against persons that could have legal implications which might in fact draw a legal response. There’s no evaluation, no summary meaning given to the report itself. The committee asked me “what should we do with this”, “we’re frightened by what we see as possible consequences of simply putting this report out there, it could do damage to the college, it could increase conflict”, etc. Then I have had private communications with some members in the college who were not on the committee speaking from a perspective of the color caucus in particular, saying they felt the report would damage their interests because, and I have not drawn this conclusion I am just paraphrasing, a couple comments. The report appears to minimize the significance of issues that concern them. There are a lot of assertions in the report where members of the color caucus would say there’s a problem. There are a lot of voices in the data concluded in the report that say there is no problem. It’s a difficult document. But it was commissioned by remit here and what I told the committee is I can’t tell you what I am going to do with this report because it is not mine. I didn’t commission it. It wasn’t done under my authority it was done per agreement at Meet & Confer. I really believe that what we do with this information should be decided here. I can see pro’s and con’s to both sides. To put people through the exercise of gathering information and just have it disappear is problematic. To put this raw data out is problematic. One possibility is that we could accept the report; we could think about it, talk about it and produce a document which is our processing of the information that’s been given to us as requested, that’s possible. I really do think this is a very important matter. It’s problematic in a number respects and our collective wisdom should drive the steps we take. People are waiting and wondering now and we need to act in the next few weeks.

FA: I agree with your characterization of the report and I agree with your description of the process. Just so everyone is clear on my connection with this, I was for a year and a half an outside co facilitator of the climate task force so I was not a voting member but I was an advisor to and servant of the task force. I have read the report and I also have read some of the preliminary documents that were produced before the report was finalized and some of the rawer data that went into the report. I agree with the characterization that there is quite limited context or qualification provided, specifically on the responses to open ended questions. There is quantification on responses to closed ended questions that were done in an online survey but that’s not where the most serious problems seem to be. The most serious problems seem to be in responses to open ended questions where people said quite a variety of things. Some of which were targeted at an individual and others were targeted at a small group of individuals where you might not be able to name one individual but you could name two or three and that’s how many there are in the college and so that’s getting pretty darn close. Without a context that says that this was something that was said by a lot of people or a few people, where this is credible or it’s not credible, those things are problematic. We talked about the possibility of the task force writing some kind of framing document and releasing perhaps some portion of the report as another possible option. I would agree with President Potter that this is the place to make a decision about it because it was something jointly agreed not just by the College of Education and not just by the administration but it did come out of Meet & Confer and a University level conversation between faculty and administration

FA: Does the quantitative data tell us anything useful?

FA: I think that it does. I think that the quantitative closed answer questions give us measures of we can’t read them as reliable representative samples since it’s self selecting, people chose to participate or didn’t. At least it gives us a quantity of numbers of people who identified certain things as being problems and also quantities of people who said the same thing wasn’t a problem. I think there is useful information there.

ADM: If I remember correctly there are two sets of surveys which were done by that report. One was the people who had left and were not there and then one who were currently there. If I remember correctly one of the surveys had only 26 people respond and then you are building percentages on those and that seemed to me a little bit problematic.

FA: I believe that one was people who had left the college. There were some technical problems with the way that the list that was mailed. There were two separate mailings of a survey to former employees, the first one included a mailing of people who were not former employees but were current employees who were being asked their opinion as former employees so obviously that’s problematic. I don’t think the former employee responses are terribly useful because of that. There was also feedback collected in open ended questions in on campus interviews and I do think there is useful information there. It’s in a form that is so deeply problematic because I think it is relevant that someone perceived an individual to be doing something wrong but it’s problematic to have a report that doesn’t provide anything that allows you to place that in a context of this was one person’s opinion or it was a bunch of peoples opinion and how many people said something different. There really are quite a number of answers to open ended questions which I think are quite informative and it might be possible to excise the most problematic portions and allow the other portions to go forward, that’s a possible scenario.

FA: Would one option be to identify someone, an editor, someone who has the skill and talent to create a two to three page executive summary for release or is the information so problematic that even that is not feasible or plausible?

FA: In my opinion an executive summary could be written that would eliminate the most problematic portions of the report and it could still be of some value but that would mean not releasing a substantial amount of the information gathered and keep the reader an additional step removed from what is already problematic in terms of the relationship between the raw data and the report. So that’s not for free, it comes with a cost of a perception of the truth being hidden behind an executive summary.

FA: Were you the only outside person on the task force?

FA: Yes.

FA: I was one of two co coordinators but the other one was from inside the college.

FA: But weren’t there two outside people at different points?

FA: There was a time early on in the task force process when there were two outside co-facilitators but it was changed to one outside and one inside co-facilitator and that happened before the contract was led. So throughout the whole process of the study being done and the report being written I was the only person from outside the college who was working with the taskforce.

FA: It seems to me that being a university we might have somebody who had skills in analyzing emergent qualitative data that could be engaged in helping. I am concerned with having the taskforce doing it because so many people from the college and because they already are tainted by the choice of the things that happened along the way. If we had somebody from elsewhere in the university who could work with a select group from there perhaps we could get something out that’s not fixed length but deals with these issues in some research legitimate way.

FA: I can’t speak for the task force. I believe that at least some members of the task force would be dissatisfied if such an editing process were done by someone other than the task force. That doesn’t mean we can’t do it, I am just sharing with you that I think there would be some differences of opinion about whether that was appropriate.

FA: I am just suggesting that may not be the only and final way, I mean somebody’s whose background and skills are in the field.

ADM: Obviously Mark and I are going to continue to talk about this; it would be helpful to have your input before we talk.

FA: If the document created is truthful, of course truth doesn’t depend on if you have a stomach to digest it, I know it’s risky business of making it public but is it possible at all to create a summary document that’s acceptable.

FA: Yes it’s possible to create a summary document. Raising the question of truthfulness here is extremely complex. It is true; I have no reason to doubt that someone said something that the consultant recorded, not word for word but in a reasonably faithful paraphrase. So, yes someone said something about their opinion about the college and some other person said something about their opinion about particular individuals, in that sense I think the report is true. But whether those statements are accurate portrayals of what was going on in the college at the time the statements were made is something that’s far beyond my ability to answer and since they contradict each other they can’t all be right.

FA: How about using just good old blank ink?

FA: I have the feeling that that might produce the most extreme responses. (Laughter) But in a sense that’s what we’re talking about here, whether to literally take the form of black ink or take some other form. I think that it is going to be necessary for there be some form of forward action. Unless we are prepared to accept among other things the risk of legal action.

FA: On a more serious note it sounds to me like we can’t release the document for all these reasons and we can’t bury it for all the reasons, we can’t release it, we can’t bury it. It has to be changed.

FA: It’s like Thomas Jefferson talking about slavery we have the wolf by the ears.

FA: What do we do? We have to release it, we can’t bury it, we have to change it. It has to be changed.

FA: If there were a quote for an outcome or result in the task forces work and it appears that somehow creating the executive summary is at least acceptable if not optimum to the people involved that helps further us along the path to that result but my inclination would be to say that is what we need to do. I can’t speak to all those things because I didn’t sit on the task force but if the goal or the result that we were hoping for can still be achieved I don’t think we can subvert the process. We may have to accept the transparency; it won’t be what we’ve been trying to achieve together the last couple of years. That’s my initial gut reaction in the twenty minutes we’ve been talking about it.

FA: I guess I didn’t quite understand, I think Tom was suggesting by the way sociologists do that work but doing some kind of qualitative analysis or summary of it to get the data out there without the names and without the identifiers. I understand there’s a lot of lack of trust in having an outsider do that and if the people involved in the process could identify a team of people who were so qualified to do that so that there could be checks and balances, I think that is a possibility. There are a lot of us, myself included, who have done a lot of qualitative analysis. Something to get us to an accepting because it does feel like, from the chatter, someone’s trying to bury this because they don’t want to do anything about it. Because we have a history, long before a lot of folks who are at this table, of having reports

that they go nowhere.

FA: I like the idea of expertise from outside the college, people trained in looking at this sort of information perspectives, look at it and take a shot at it. I am not sure that it would be a bad thing to represent that there is truths and the various perspectives that come out of that conversation because I’m sure that people are living different realities and are having different perspectives. Maybe what we need to do is acknowledge the difference in those perspectives or the difference in those truths somehow and look at trends. I don’t know how you would do it, people in sociology, anthropology, might be able to sort that out.

FA: I think a historian is what you’d need (laughter), it’s been long enough now. Yes there are such skills on the campus. Up until I heard the rumors of possible legal action, because I was involved in the discussion about what shall we do about this from the moment the report arrived. My personal recommendation at that point was that we should release the entire report but with a covering document providing some kind of commentary about what we saw as the reliable portions and the portions that, in the opinion of the task force, were less liable or questionable so that it was clear that it wasn’t the task force or the university making a statement, specifically those things of being allegations about individuals, making clear that this is merely an opinion expressed by a limited subset of the people that were involved in that. I get a little less comfortable with that position the more that I hear people talking about lawsuits and I understand that we don’t need any more of those around here if we can avoid them. I think that the general thrust of the view among the task force was getting to be something in the direction of releasing that which can be released. To provide some kind of framing document that will provide a context and make it both meaningful and clear where opinions were just opinions and where nobody was representing them as being this is the position of the college or the university or of the task force or of the faculty. Rather in some way this was merely a private opinion expressed by some limited number of people.

FA: If there are not other fatal flaws aside from the past employee part of the data gathering does it appear that the information was gathered in a way that we can trust.

ADM: There have been challenges to the process.

FA: If we could get some trust on how the information came to be, how we may have to interpret it later might also have a different kind of reception.

FA: The document does not contain a description of its own methodology. That is a deployent. The document was prepared by someone with a legal and personal background not by someone with a social science background. The document looks a lot less like the kind of academic document that we would most, as academics, be most comfortable with and be looking for. No offense to the lawyers, lawyers do a good job at being lawyers. But this is not a job of social scientists. There are a bunch of things that a social scientist would be looking for that aren’t there. That doesn’t mean in my opinion that it’s of no value. I think that we can, out of the records of the committee and the task force and from the document that we have, describe the methodology that was used. We could do that retrospectively.

ADM: Are there any other comments that reflect opinions that haven’t been voiced among us?

FA: I want to risk a metaphor that is probably stupid but if you hired an electrician to build a house because they have worked on lots of houses being built, and the house was done, they didn’t know what the plan was and the drywall was up and you couldn’t see the framing would you let somebody move in? That’s sort of where we are. This person apparently by your description didn’t do the task that was necessary. We have a result that doesn’t answer the questions, and now we’re trying to figure out what to do with the thing. It’s messy but I think if we can get in and get the drywall off and tear some things up we might have something left.

ADM: I found the metaphor thing intriguing. I came in the middle of this conversation so I hadn’t formed a perception. I read the report and had a conversation or two with the President. So with a fresh set of eyes it seemed to me what the report did was restate the problems which led to the charge. I am hearing about the summary and I am saying what you are going to summarize. There is not enough meat there which explains either why the problems arose other than the fact that one person thinks this and the other person thinks this. It seemed to me the problems which led to the charge were restated and that is why it

didn’t move the conversation forward.

FA: I want to respond to one thing about that because one of the things that many people hoped would happen in this study would be that there would be an answer to the question is there really a problem here at all and do we have evidence of a pattern of inappropriate behavior or of systemic discrimination or racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc. Actually while you’re right to say that its restating problems that many people knew to exist and in that sense it doesn’t move it forward but part of the dynamic, and this is also part of the dynamic about the problems of the report, is that the college is not unified about its understanding of its own status and there is a substantial population within the college who thinks that life is great and within those a subset who think anybody who says that life isn’t great is a trouble making, wining complainer who is creating the problem and that’s part of the problem. Part of the purpose of the study was to bring to the surface the experience of people who were being injured. The study does that to some extent and that is a piece of the story that in some way needs to be told.

FA: A couple things come to mind first of all when these issues of sexism or racism or whatever the isms are that come up. The people who bring them up are actually discredited, discounted and disrespected in the process all along the way. It’s like they have to prove that there’s a problem. We all know there’s a problem, we can all see the problem, we can all name the problem, and even if they say it’s them that’s the problem we know that there’s a problem there. First of all that’s problematic. Their counter parts on the other side can say I have a problem and the problem can be solved without having to hire a consultant to come in and solve the problem and it’s because we are more interested in this way at this point in actually resolving the problem rather than denying that there’s a problem that exists. So that’s one concern that I have. I don’t think this is the right way to solve the problem. I don’t think that the college has really engaged in other ways to solve the problem and I would like to see that happen at some point, I really would.

FA: As a member of that college we have never been brought together as a college in a big group to have this conversation, any opportunity where we all get together, all of us in a room. We don’t even mention the word climate, we don’t want to mention this thing, we don’t want to mention this task force and if we do it’s ten seconds and it’s on. We do have a fear in the college of even discussing this topic. Talk about relationships, talk about the culture and the climate, we never, ever, ever, ever have a conversation as a group of faculty. Not at the department level and not at the college level. We just ignore it, we deny it. We just pretend it isn’t there and we go right on. That’s problematic.

FA: The fact that we don’t talk about it is again, a way of saying and discrediting the people who are involved in the problem. Until there is some way that we can finally talk about it and it’s done internally rather than externally, it’s not going to come to any resolve. I really think that trying to have someone else from the outside come in and solve our problems for us is not the answer. We have to be able to deal with them internally.

FA: Are there other things to share? I don’t think we’re trying to reach a final resolution at

this point. I certainly appreciate the input from various people. I don’t want to shut down anymore but we do have other work to get on to.

ADM: The benefit of this conversation is now you and I can fashion a proposal for the group.

FA: That sounds appropriate to me.

ADM: I recognize from several of the comments that how the proposal needs to address how the information that’s been given to us is used and shared but also needs to include a “what now” kind of reflection of what we are going to do with this which addresses action and responsibility.

Report on Budget was moved from # 1. Under Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns

2. Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07)

ADM: Just a couple of things that have come up just recently that are of prime interest, one is the first quarter revenue report came out from the state indicating that they were short of revenue. This was the level and the amount was a little unexpected given we thought the sales tax revenue from the cash from clunkers might have given them a little bump to the sales tax revenue. In any case it was overwhelmed by the lack of employment and the income tax revenue. That’s unfortunate to miss what was supposed to be a fairly conservative forecast and gives us some concern. Behind that report there are discussions of cash flow issues with the state, borrowing cash from agencies like colleges and universities that have cash from other sources and I would put borrowing in quotes, the state taking reserves away that might exist at colleges and universities and other agencies within the state. In the face of those two actions which are increasingly unfortunate, borrowing maybe they’ll pay you back, taking our reserves you don’t get those back. The next level would be our allotment and an additional on our allotment would be very unfortunate as the President described this afternoon there isn’t a lot left to wring out of the sponge. Those would be difficult issues. The one certainly that we will look forward to in the future is there will be a November budget preventative forecast that will go for the end of the year. That will be interesting to us, that if you remember last year was the report that triggered the unallotment when they said, based on our best expectation the governor said I will now unallot and that’s when we took the 1.9 million out of our budget. The legislature session doesn’t start until February so unallotment remains on the table at least until the legislator is in session. Good news is compared to what we based our budget on the projection we have now made to the end of this year for enrollment is up about 150 full time equivalent students and if we don’t have some unusual increase in accounts receivable because students don’t pay or can’t or something which we haven’t seen too much yet, that should be helpful to us in that content. We’re still facing some difficult times and they seem to be persisting into the future. We’re still working through the carry forward. We’re looking at it more seriously than we’ve looked at it in the past because of our financial situation and Provost Malhotra has spoken about the fire hose of information that’s been trained on him since he got here and the attempt to understand that. The carry forward buries him right in that analysis of making decision prepares him to jump into the puddle that’s left and still they’re turning the hose on him. He’s working through some of those issues so we’re still observing that but we are forced to take a very careful look at that and try to manage our resources as best we can for this year and as we look towards next year and the following years. It’s not all bad news but it’s some difficult times that we’re facing.

FA: I received an email from a colleague who looked at the reported four plus percent increase in enrollment and said “wow, that should solve our budget problems” and I want to make sure that my understanding is correct that is an elusory number if we try to carry it towards a four percent increase in revenue. That was a headcount increase because some people registered earlier than they did last year for the senior to sophomore program so that the real increase is much more modest at least in terms of budgetary factors.

ADM: The real increase is on the scale a little more than one percent. That is in enrollment. Tuition is a little over half of our revenue so a two percent increase in enrollment would be a one percent increase in total revenue roughly. The other thing is yes they were saying there was increase in the PSEO and the senior to sophomore but there is also a decrease in the credit taking behavior. That might be students working a little more or trying to save a little money by taking one less course so that’s why the increase in headcount is greater than the increase in full year equivalency.

ADM: Also in terms of the budget implant, correct me if I am wrong, these percentage increases, the one percent which Steve talked about four and a half in headcount is from where we were last year. What is relevant for the budget is where we are in relation to what the budget assumption was. So when the budget projections were adjusted in February than they reflect more appropriately and in that sense the impact on revenue is maybe not as substantial as proceeds.

ADM: We projected an increase [in enrollment] we projected an increase over last year this year, the increase is greater than we projected but the number that was reported from MnSCU is year to year so it’s the total increase and we assumed we’d get something. It’s greater than we assumed so there’s lots of numbers out there. If things hold, retention in the spring and registration in the spring and such, since last summer is part of this fiscal year we’re at about 150 more than we projected. Which is on the order of a little over one percent but it’s closer to two percent compared to the enrollment last year.

ADM: Are there dollars…

ADM: About a million.

FA: If I recall correctly at our last meeting, I believe it was President Potter who said that your expectations was that our budgetary situation for this year is well set and that we do not foresee any crisis or major reductions taking place in this year but that in subsequent years that there could be for further cuts. First am I accurately restating that and second has anything changed on the information that we have?

ADM: Only a shade difference. I said the budget for this is set at that time I didn’t see any threats. Next year’s budget has a whole, the following year has a whole and past that is too far away to see. My judgment at the moment is still pretty much the same. If we maintain the spending patterns and the tension patterns that we had last year should there be an unallotment of the size we had last year we probably have the resources available because of some of the things Steve has said to deal with that. If it were worse than that and based on the projections for the economy it shouldn’t be. The uncertainties remain and the revenue projections are one of those uncertainties which we know a little bit more about now. I am still not greatly worried. The fact is we are walking on a knife edge. We get a little ahead with a good enrollment picture and it gets taken away by the threat of unallottment.

FA: Will future things on the budget be based on the strategic program appraisal?

ADM: That’s on the agenda.

ADM: Let me just point out that Steve is leaving early to get down early to the grand opening of the Graduate Center in Maple Grove this evening.

3. Follow up on Strategic Program Appraisal Process (ADM)

ADM: Just as a lead in to this subject the Strategic Program Appraisal is one approach to addressing our financial needs. We are not doing it just for financial reasons. It’s unlikely for savings for even next year. Initiatives like working hard to grow graduate programs in the twin cities is another way to address our revenue picture. There’s a whole fist full of strategies that we’re working side-by-side.

ADM: At this stage we just wanted to sort of give you an update of where we were in the process of Phase I. Lisa and I have many such conversations on it so I will let Lisa go through it.

ADM: I have prepared a very draft set of numbers that I’ve shared with the Provost that we’re still reviewing. We’re looking at five different items. The first is for programs, the degrees over the last five years and we’re actually taking an average over the last five years of degrees completed by program. Then also the trend for those five years, what’s the average but also what direction are the numbers moving. We’re doing the same look at students enrolled in that major or minor or graduate program. Same analysis, average over the last five years and trend direction. Next we’re looking at student FYE to instructional FTE ratio and we used student FYE because that has built in a look at the difference between graduate and undergraduate credits because FYE is calculated so that is more accurate than taking pure student credit hours when you do the conversion to FYE. We’re looking at that at the department level because of the granularity of the data. That’s where it’s the most accurate across the departments. In some instances if there are unique programs within a department you can break it down to a finer detail but that’s not consistent across the campus. The forth unit we’re looking at is revenue to expense. That’s all revenue, not grants and contracts, but revenue to expense for the department. The fifth element we’re looking at is location on the MnSCU allocation band. So in the cost study the system prepares a band by CIP code that tells whether our average cost per FYE for that CIP area is within the band, within the average for the system, below the band or above the band, so that’s another piece we’re looking at again by department. What we’re getting out of that is a picture of the department and the programs within it. It’s telling us different things, sometimes different things about the department, some about size of programs, some of course activity, also about relative expense of the program. One of the things I want to say is how good the departments have been to work with. I have spent a lot of time with the different academic departments looking at data and having conversations about adversity of the data. That’s been very helpful; we’ve been able to correct information within the data. It’s also pointed out consistent errors in it. Processes for different activities like names of programs. I’ve been surprised that we have different names for the same program in different areas of the campus. So there’s been some work to actually make sure we’re talking about these same programs because it’s labeled something different. In Mitch’s office vs. ISRS vs. what the department has in what they’re telling their students. We discovered we have two counseling psychology programs, three in two different departments, in two different colleges and so that’s been interesting to weed out. But we’re working through that and I think we’re pretty comfortable that the data is in a better state than it was when we started this process. There are still going to be errors in it but we can continue to work that out but the departments have actually been really good to work with and open about providing that feedback. So that’s where we are and we’re looking at providing the data out to the departments next week.

ADM: I asked the Provost to give me a rating of what he sees when he looks at the data overall with one being YAY, ten being oh my gawd and the middle point, five being, hmm and he said hmm (laughter).

ADM: I think it complicated but it is also important because what we were concerned about in Phase I was that whatever comes out of Phase I there is an approach and a “story” which would lead into an effective Phase II. That’s really what we’ve been focused on and at that point it became less important to just bring in an array to you and say “here’s an array and let’s get started on Phase II” we said “Let’s look at it carefully” because part of the complication arises that the scale of the activity is at the programmatic level but the budgets to sustain it is at the departmental level. So meshing the two ultimately we came up with this, we realized before Lisa was working on the numbers that if you go that approach we will find that there will be departments which come out very well both on the revenue to expense ratios as well as scale of the activities, in the department who won’t come out very well on revenue to expense ratio but come out well on the scale of the activity in terms of number of majors and student graduation. Some will be the better and that’s what we’re finding and so it takes a little bit more time to sustain it. What is important is that it will help us craft information in a manner which is college and department specific and in that sense it will have much more effective conversation in Phase II.

FA: Now does this mean that next week we are going to see the separation of those that go to Phase II and those that don’t?

ADM: That’s the intent.

FA: Is that distinction going to be made at the program level or the department level?

ADM: What we’re looking at providing right now is a portrait of the department and the programs within it. So by department you’ll get the information on things like revenue and credit hour generation but within the department there will be a graphical display of the program and activity within the program, the trend information of the department. So each department will get information about their programs.

FA: But I am asking about that sheep vs. goats distinction, is that going to be made? You go to Phase II as an entire department or individual programs go to Phase II?

ADM: Essentially what happens is we looked at the whole college programmatically and we got an array. Then we fitted that into the departments and then we arrayed the departments. So it is a multidimensional process, you’re absolutely right but what happens we will ask you to appraise the programs which fall in your department. However you cannot separate that conversation from where you fit in the array in terms of where the revenue to expense ratios are. So in that discussion you will occur to some extent at the department level because even if we had information on revenue to expense at the program level, when you are talking about one particular activity which we are appraising that obviously that whatever conversation you have about that activity is likely to have an impact on the other activities within the department too.

FA: I understand that and those are among the kinds of arguments we’ve been making for some time. I want to be respectful here but I am trying to ask what I think is a simple question but I am not hearing the answer. When it comes down to it, we need to know are we going to Phase II analysis for an entire department or are we going to Phase II analysis only for certain programs within a department?

ADM: As we said we will appraise the programs. So we will go to the programs but as you appraise the programs which have been identified within the department which fall below fifty percent that process itself will have an implication. For example let’s say you want to strengthen and grow the program, and then you have to try to figure out as to how you are going to do that and that may or may not have implications on some of the other programs. But the appraisal is of the programs which fall below fifty percent.

ADM: The answer is program.

FA: I understand that responding to and doing the Phase II analysis will require looking at department level information and actually this relates to a second question that I have raised in the past and I think that maybe an answer to that one is emerging. A number of our faculty members have noted that it’s pretty much impossible to do a work plan for part of a department. So as part of the Phase II process had been described to us is if your program goes into Phase II analysis you can Phase II analysis, if your program does not go to Phase II analysis you write a new work plan but you can’t write the work plan for half the department.

ADM: Yes, there’s going to be a middle group.

FA: So unless there is a department which has no programs that go into Phase II, then the writing of work plans is going to be a comprehensive thing for the department although the specific Phase II analysis will be permitted to the program.

ADM: That’s correct.

FA: If the departments came up with the qualitative analysis and submitted this program for Phase I, although they’re not required to do that but if the department has given the qualitative data to support their position…

ADM: Departments gave Lisa a lot of information.

ADM: The only thing I talked to departments about was the actual data that was provided in those initial sets that were put out in September that were then used for this report that will come out so we haven’t been using any qualitative data in Phase I.

FA: The second question I had is if decisions are being made at the institutional level are your deans getting involved in these decisions?

ADM: Once we have the information, once I’ve made that decision and I’m comfortable with what is there, then we will share with the management team and then share it with everybody else.

FA: Share it with everybody else. At some point in the next week or two will there be published a list of top fifty percent, bottom fifty percent that’s published across the board.

ADM: That is what will happen but what exactly the format will be in when we provide the information, I want to make sure we provide information which is a lot more useful at the departmental level. But you should be able to elicit information we can provide it separately too.

FA: I learned this week at our sister institution, Mankato, the administration placed on their Meet & Confer agenda the R word, retrenchment and in the context of the budget information that we have and the status of the Strategic Program Appraisal process at this point is there any contemplation of retrenchment.

ADM: No.

4. COMBINED #3 & #4: Center for Information Assurance Studies Proposal (ADM)/ Center for Bioscience Research and Education Proposal (ADM)

FA: We have received from you this week some rather lengthy documentation about the consultative process that went into the creation of these two centers. We have begun to review it but we have not been able to review it in detail so we don’t have any detailed response. I am going to suggest that this is something that we need some more time to look at before we have anything further to say on it.

ADM: Let me share how I see the process, remembering that we’re working with an old process that we’re in the process of revising, in number four in Process for Establishing Academic Centers it says “the President following appropriate consultations will forward the proposal to the faculty association for a recommendation” and it specifies how faculty association will work to come back to Meet & Confer with a recommendation. It’s my judgment that based on conversation basically in a document that you have in front of you that appropriate consultation has taken place and so I am asking for your recommendation. If you follow that path you’ve got to assign it to a committee and the committee comes to senate then it comes back here for a direct recommendation.

FA: And I think we’re prepared to do that. So we have received your request for a recommendation and we will proceed to produce one.

New Business

1. General Education (FA)

FA: This is a subject which we have been talking about at some length and a good deal of this conversation is taking place privately or semi privately between me and the general education committee and Devinder and Mitch. I just want in this forum to ask for your best assessment of where MnSCU is in terms of their expectations of us and their intentions about potential responses to our actions.

ADM: This is based on a conversation that I had with staff in the Office of the Chancellor and previous directives in which we have been operating for the last year that is the expectation that as of fall term 2010 we will have one general education curriculum. That general education curriculum will follow the transfer curriculum. We will be in compliance certainly to the extent that we will no longer have available the old general education curriculum. This is the last year we have made it available to a limited extent to in coming students. In fall of 2010 it will not be available to incoming student. Students who have started will be allowed to finish, which is customary in these matters. The question then has arisen what does the MN Transfer Curriculum mean and based on the conversation that I had with staff in the Office of the Chancellor, MN Transfer Curriculum means that we adopt a minimum of the ten goal areas. We could have more but we have to have the ten goal areas of the MN Transfer Curriculum as adopted in 1994 by an intersystem task force. We have to use the same numbers that the curriculum has the same titles of the goal areas, and the same descriptions of those goal areas. They have to be identical. We cannot change that. This is according to the Office of the Chancellor. They’ve also said that we must adopt the competencies associated with the goal areas in means for evaluating the appropriateness of courses in those goal areas. They have also indicated that we may not change those, we may not delete any but they indicated that we can add to those competencies. As of fall 2010 we must have a general education curriculum with the ten goal areas, names and descriptions that were adopted in 1994.

FA: And the interim transfer curriculum that we are operating under, this year in your opinion and their judgment, based on whatever best information you could give us would or would not satisfy those criteria.

ADM: I call it the provisional MN Transfer Curriculum other folks have called it Bridge Curriculum. In my estimation we need to explore this further with the staff with the Office of the Chancellor. What we have in place for this year probably would meet minimum qualifications for the MN Transfer Curriculum in that all the conditions, numbers, names, evaluation methods and so forth, follow the MN Transfer Curriculum adopted in 1994. The courses that we had originally in MN Transfer Curriculum have recently undergone review using the criteria that they have established so that gives it legitimacy. The other thing that I would point out is they directed us to force all of our general education courses into the ten goal areas of the MN Transfer Curriculum. So operating under that directive we assigned all of our general education courses into one or another of the ten goal areas so that in my mind gives what we have in place some legitimacy. Whether it gives legitimacy in their minds I don’t know, it’s a subject of further discussion. So what we have in place under the title of provisional MN Transfer Curriculum it seems to me meets their minimum qualifications. What we have now if it were to continue might meet their expectations but I use the term might.

ADM: When I had asked the Provost to put together a document which describes timeline and steps that we need to take by the end of this year with the responsibility for taking those steps assigned to committee, Provost’s office, etc. that I would like the parties on this campus to agree to work plans. Then present that work plan to the system, say this is what we intend to do with these outcomes, does this meet the expectations and to do that within the next few weeks so we are working to a plan not with the open ended question always in front of us.

FA: The General Education committee has produced a document that is similar to that in laying out what actions need to be taken in terms approving a curriculum, approving a process by which courses will be assigned to the curriculum and that actually conducting the reviews necessary in order to assign courses to a curriculum. I am sure we can make that available to you and we can consult together about that. We both hold responsibilities in that regard. This item is on the agenda for our next senate meeting on Tuesday. I cannot tell you at this time what action the senate is going to take. Senate will take whatever action it will take on Tuesday.

FA: When you talk about numbers you are saying that would be the goal numbers and titles in the transfer goal one can’t be goal six on our campus?

ADM: Correct. Having said that looking around at other campuses there are some deviations from this and that’s something else we need to explore but in dealing, you have to understand that we are under the gun in the sights of the Office of the Chancellor for our transfer curriculum so I don’t know that they would cut us any same slack that they would other institutions.

ADM: Actually I think privy to the format in number and title to the goals in my mind if we want to add additional goals it doesn’t have to be number three it can be number eleven. I think the critical element here, and that what we need to work into this, is to understand completely that in terms to the additional stuff which you can add and in what form which would not compromise the intent of what we are being asked to conform to.

FA: I do want to say that there is some division of opinion among the faculty as to whether it is wisest to complete all of this within this year that is to completely reconstruct and complete the process of reassigning all courses to the goal areas in all of the goal areas. We recognize that there must be a curriculum and it must conform with the transfer curriculum and there must be one curriculum by next year. There’s not dispute about that but I’m simply saying there are some elements here that are undecided among faculty as to whether this can be completely done in this year.

ADM: I think we also have to keep in mind not only complying with the OOC but also serving our students and we serve our students.

FA: I think we absolutely recognize that and of course one of the tensions here is there are a number of points at which, for many of us, are sense of what would serve our students best is not identical with what the Office of the Chancellor is demanding us to do and we have to reconcile living within the constraints that are before us with our ideals about what good education is.

FA: There’s not written communication from the MnSCU office that we have to do this, exact title and description there is not written documentation?

ADM: There is not a simple direct order to this campus to do that. There is a body of documentation in terms of board policies, system procedures, meeting notes that point in that direction so that if we ever were to challenge them on that they could say this, this, this and this and pull all these things together, it’s sort of like a net –your caught in that net.

ADM: To put it very simply if we don’t do this we are out of compliance with the board policy. So to me I don’t need a written directive. Board policy is very clear of what I ought to do.

ADM: We can get a verbal directive over the telephone from an associate vice chancellor…

FA: Second question I had is in transfer curriculum the goal area up to ten, it is wiser for students to take classes in those ten areas. We can have more goal areas if we like but the problem is we are struggling with a simple question of what is technology and in our College, College of Science and Engineering, faculty are dealing with it this is a question that will be coming up more.

ADM: Another observation in this conversation is that we have a directive to have at least forty credits in general education, all students must take forty credits and the problem is if we go beyond forty credits then we’re bumping up against the 120 credit limit for bachelor’s degrees. Some of our programs are finely tuned to just make the 120 credit limit. So adding additional goal areas would have to be done in a way that doesn’t affect those programs.

ADM: To answer your questions about technology, having gone through three general education reforms in the last several years one thing which came to me is that in any general education curriculum you start with guiding principles of some core values. To me that is what the MN Transfer Curriculum is saying. It establishes some goal areas and then it describes what those goal areas are and what those competencies are. What campuses are going to do is populate those goal areas which meet those competencies. Over time we should be looking at that, what courses are still relevant, what new areas have emerged, which meet the same goal areas and competencies which are unchanging. In any curriculum there is always room for review for as to how we populate the basic goal areas and competencies. That conversation will continue because the notion of technology what it is today itself will alter a year and a half from now.

FA: I think however that the concerns are deeper than that in that the goal areas and competencies, what not to be eternal, are not currently written in a manner that is optimal in- depending on which goal area we are talking about we wouldn’t all agree on which one it was but I think we would generally agree that we do not think that taken together that those ten goal areas are optimally written and in some cases seriously problematic.

ADM: I agree. If your suggesting that if we did a general education curriculum right from scratch would we end up with the MN Transfer Curriculum? Perhaps not but what I am saying is that is not where we are starting. The point of departure is the MN Transfer Curriculum.

FA: We understand that and we are trying to figure out how to wring out the best results for our students from that situation.

FA: What about University requirements like the PESS?

ADM: The MN Transfer Curriculum and the General Education requirement are silent on University requirements so that’s up to the University. The key point is that physical education cannot be part of MN Transfer Curriculum. Any decisions along those lines are independent.

ADM: If I could stress an opinion I think that’s a problem which we have to deal with

because students expect that they are completing, they can come here complete their major, graduate and you’ve got something that looks awfully like a general education requirement that we have buried under different language. I think it’s dishonest and I think we have to deal with it.

2. FYE Policies (FA)

FA: I have to offer at least a partial apology here because I have not got all of the information or all of the concerns that have been raised in connection with this but there are a couple of concerns. There have been a couple of changes that have occurred that have just recently been announced about changes in timing for submitting applications for FYE cohorts. There has been a new form that has been generated for applications for the creation of FYE cohorts and I am given to understand that it has added an approval signature. Some of these are rather substantial changes with substantial implications. Also matters concerning the reassigned time that is given for people who are coordinators of first year experience programs. We are concerned that some of these should have come to Meet & Confer rather than simply be decided by the associate dean.

ADM: My understanding is that these changes occurred last year and that we were operating in that new regime this semester. I will take your information under advisement and check on it as to what is happening.

FA: Whether the change is happening last semester or this semester, last year or this year the whole FYE program was established prior to both you and President Potter being here. That was something that was part of a very long process of creating and it was agreed to here at Meet & Confer. The need for reassigned time is a very important part of the pedagogy of doing this program efficiently and doing it well. I would hope that any changes that are made, especially because I think it affects curriculum, would be something that we would all discuss even if they have happened prematurely last year. Whenever they do take place I think that should come here if it involves faculty.

FA: A faculty member brought it to my attention about the signature in his judgment constituted an administrator making a curricular decision which he did not feel was appropriate as to whether a cohort was legitimate or not.

ADM: As I said I thought these were all established, all the issues were clear. They request a proposal which went down for fall and we use the same system with the old process. I understand you raising some concerns. I will go back, I will take a look at it and then I can get back to you.

ADM: Let me just point out one of the things we are going to have to think about. The judgment to whether a cohort is legitimate or not is a resource issue and not a curriculum issue. If the process is clear there should be a couple steps which the curriculum is approved and another which the cohort is authorized.

FA: Would it not be fair to say it is both a resource decision and curricular decision.

ADM: I would assume you would make the curricular decision first saying I think this is legitimate and the authorization would be second.

FA: I would agree that the understanding about resources allocation being distinct from a pedagogical decision and there being different ways in which resource allocation additions as opposed to create the way decisions are made.

FA: I do think that even if they’re process issues that have to do with resources, when those changes occur if faculty in the cohorts don’t understand what’ s happening, it’s hard to plan.

FA: There seems to be a communication issue between what’s happening in the office of first year experience and what’s happening with faculty on the ground because this is not the first story I have heard of changes being made to people’s own programs that they’ve had approved that are suddenly just changed. Students added that shouldn’t be added, classes opened up that shouldn’t have been opened up and that issue I think needs to be visited.

FA: The proposals come into the advisory board; the faculty committee looks through all the things, deciding if the program should go then the resources should come into play also. The sign off is issued by somebody else, that’s the issue.

ADM: As I said let me take a look at it.

FA: I hope that as we would through the Foundations of Excellence project that we will work together on ways that we can achieve both the best pedagogy and responsible resource management in terms of getting the resources where they need to be and getting the students into the classes so that we can have a win-win situation rather than see ourselves pitting limited resources against pedagogical quality.

ADM: I agree. I think ultimately a program like first year experience, is part and partial of the foundation of excellence conversation and that’s precisely why when I came on board I said until those conversations are completed let’s just continue what we have been doing with this program in the past. So it is in that sense that we said ok we will continue in spring and hopefully by then we will have a little better handle on where we’re going with foundations of excellence and where we are going to place and in what form and shape. At that point we will have to take a close look at the whole structure of the program, both programmatic and what kind of a resource base we can provide to support it.

3. Information Surrounding Change of Major Form (ADM)

FA: You’ve provided us with the document about change of major form and we intend to refer that to committee and take that through our consultative process. We’ve discussed our concerns about how this is going to affect the advising process and wanted to think through how it’s going to affect our students.

4. Request for committee member(s)/representative(s) (ADM)

· Dean, College of Education Search (5 representatives)

FA: We will provide representatives for the search committee for the Dean, College of Education search. We noted you provided us with a draft of a Notice of Vacancy. A number of us noted a number of concerns in connection with. It isn’t necessary for there to be a final NOV for there to be committee members named but we look forward to the opportunity to consult with you about a final version of the NOV

ADM: That’s fine. You and I can talk about it next week.

FA: We encourage the administration to consider the use of faculty co-chairs on search committees and on other committees. We think that the co-chair arrangement has a good track record and has been good for committee process and for generality between the faculty and the administration.

FA: The request is for five representatives; normally we represent all of the college level units. Which unit is going to go out?

FA: This is a search within the college. This isn’t a university wide position. Typically we would have four from the College of Ed and one at large from outside the College of Education. This would be on a nine member committee so is consistent with our usual request that there be a majority of faculty on the search committee.

· SCSU’s Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable

FA: My understanding is that what you are asking for is a faculty co-chair for the round table, is that correct?

ADM: And if you want to appoint members that’s fine too. I know it varies. This would be similar to the budget committee and the strategic planning committee so however you want to handle this.

FA: My understanding is been that the TLTR has been a sort of whoever shows up that day kind of a body and that membership has not been defined in the same way and that this is a more informal body so if I understand that correctly it wouldn’t be very meaningful to name members if all are welcome to come to any given meeting but it would be meaningful to name a faculty co-chair.

ADM: And that would be similar to the budget advisory group.

FA: I don’t see any reason why we can’t proceed with that.

ADM: Vice President Overland was not able to be here this afternoon she tells me that you have given her one name for the Veterans Task Force and three were asked for. If it’s o.k. we’ll beat the bushes a little bit and ask people to apply and see if we can get the other two.

FA: We certainly do not object to anyone encourages anyone to apply through the FA process to be chosen through the FA process to be chosen to serve on group and I will also take it under advisement that we need to renew the call ourselves as well to seek additional members on that.

Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns

1. Status of Administrative Searches: Affirmative Action Director, Academic Affairs vacant positions. (ADM)

ADM: On the Academic Affairs side as you know I am looking at filling two interim positions. I filled one, the Assistant Vice President for Faculty Relations. I have asked John Palmer and he has agreed to serve in that capacity. I am glad that he has accepted it but since we are in the middle of the semester the position officially will start the end of the semester however in the mean time I have worked with the dean and the department chair and are going to give John some reassigned time so he can work in the Provost’s office on issues relating to faculty relations. With regard to the directorship of Center for Excellence for Teaching and Learning there were six candidates, I finished my last interview a couple of days ago. I am in the process of making that decision. I had good conversations with these candidates and I hope to make this decision very soon, maybe next week.

FA: And the Affirmative Action Director?

ADM: We’re in closure. It should be completed next week.

2. Report on Late Withdrawals (ADM)

FA: We were hoping last time to get to this and some additional information from you especially about withdrawals that occur after the end of the term which I recall are numbers that have not been reported, also some information about the nature and process by which such decisions are made and consultation with faculty about whether or not to grant such withdrawals after the fact.

ADM: First of all when I distributed an addition to the report we agreed upon methodology for preparing the report. That methodology was agreed upon December of this year and cleared though Meet & Confer and so the reports didn’t have that. So there are questions about the report that you wish to raise and explore further in term of direction of future reports.

FA: I am afraid I don’t have your report in front of me right now. My recollection is that it included numbers of late withdrawals that were processed within each given term. In a subsequent conversation we had asked for information about withdrawals granted after the term had ended. Let me make the request now. A concern that we have is that in some cases people who have received grades which faculty understood to be earned grades, usually those are “F” grades, have had those grades cancelled and replaced with “W” up to a year or multiple years after the close of the term. Faculty members have not been consulted in any way about making the determination about whether a “W” should be granted after the term closed. We wish to know how often does this happen, what’s the frequency, we wish to know what is the procedure by which you make a decision whether to grant or not grant a withdrawal after the term is ended. We want to know how you make the decision whether you would consult a faculty member or not consult a faculty member. In the typical late withdrawal application during the term there’s a form and the form allows the faculty member to identify what’s the last day of attendance and comment on if the “W” should be granted or not be granted. But that can’t happen if we’re not asked for withdrawals that occur after the term.

ADM: I think it is a good suggestion. We probably have to go back and we can check for

the last couple of years what the frequency of such requests were and we will come back and provide you with that information.

FA: I would appreciate also in connection with these there seems to be some confusion about exactly what is the procedure that is followed especially for graduate students, some of whom make these applications through the graduate student office and some of them make these applications through the deans. We would like to regularize all of this and have this be a well understood process. We understand that there may be cases in which it is not appropriate to provide all information to a faculty member about the personal circumstances of a student who may be seeking a “W” grade. There are reasons why that may not be appropriate and we are not trying to invade the privacy of students where that’s not appropriate but we are asking to understand how these decisions are made and to be consulted where consulting of the faculty is appropriate. There is a related thing that has just only come to my attention that I also want to ask you about and that is apparently it is possible sometimes for students after the first week of class to drop a class without getting a “W” and to be removed from the grade roles as though they had never registered but I am not aware of any documentation of how a student may apply for such a thing or on what grounds it would be granted and I have had a faculty member ask me “Well shouldn’t all students know if there is a procedure that they can waive the deadline for a drop without a “W”? So we are interested in knowing how one does that and again on what basis is the decision made and when are faculty consulted or when are they not consulted.

ADM: The answer is with most policies and procedures on this campus, students may petition for anything and students have petitioned for late drops and based on their extenuating circumstances we have on occasion granted that. Those extenuating circumstances should be documented, sometimes they are medical, sometimes there are administrative. For example a student might have tried to drop a course during the free drop/add period and for some reason the computer system was down. We look at that and based on the circumstances on occasion we will grant that.

FA: Even under those circumstances though wouldn’t there be a “W” next to it. I guess I am concerned on the level of students having disappeared from your class without a trace. We are getting into a time period obviously where we want our classes to be full and there’s no documentation if we are looking at programs that there was a person in there that would have prevented someone else from registering. You see where I’m going with that. There’s no way of historically knowing that, well we did have a full class but this person got a late withdrawal and a “W” showed up because a person is just gone from the list.

FA: I might be wrong but I have had this happen in my classes and usually though I am consulted on it. Usually a student has a medical illness, usually that student or an administrator or somebody will contact me and say this student has petitioned for a late withdrawal and I will sign a form. I am not familiar with them just going “poof” but usually I am involved in it at some point.

ADM: Occasionally it happens for highly unusual circumstances.

ADM: Do you have any way of identifying some examples? It would help us understand frequency.

ADM: We keep records. Students have to petition and usually we have records saying what we are doing.

ADM: We will check on this and see what the frequency is and if need be we can revisit the process itself.

FA: Can you capture though if they disappear from a record?

ADM: There’s usually a written record. If I deal with these I demand some written record and we keep it on file. Because that’s the question of institutional integrity.

FA: I think one of the questions that we continue to ask is when are faculty involved and when not and how often. I know I have been consulted about very, very late drops but I knew about it before the registrar did. At least if you could sort out how many had a faculty meeting to paint us a broader picture.

ADM: Just a very tangential comment, and I don’t know exactly what to do with this yet but faculty noticing who’s in their classes is really important. We lost a student to suicide last week. As we have in every such case we have to say what do we know, did we see anything, was that student involved with any services. The student hadn’t attended classes for two weeks and one of the things that happens, because some of our practices and policies, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the faculty hadn’t sort of let go in some cases of paying attention to absences like that. I think we are going to want to, as a community, have a conversation about how we do that because the early warning signals that are out there can save lives. It’s not a question of fault, it’s a way in which we track and attend to students presences and at some point I want to talk about that.

FA: I will make a personal response. I lost an eighteen year old nephew to suicide a few years ago so this is something on which I share your concern in a very deep way. This is something that I think we all need to be attentive to. No one can completely prevent all bad outcomes but there are things that we can do for people who are in trouble.

ADM: Vice President Overland and I we’ve been talking about it and the Behavior Intervention Team. We both were struck by the peripheral involvement of the academic side and that’s precisely why we recently talked to the deans. Each of the associate deans of the colleges would be a central part of these teams so whatever you notice in the classroom, that information flows through and gets to the right person in the system very quickly. That way whatever intervention that is needed and is appropriate can be taken in a timely fashion.

FA: I think that students’ close friend is in my class now and she had talked to me a lot about it. We need to have a personal connection with our students. Perhaps I can suggest- I keep an excel spreadsheet, if you do assignments, for smaller classes are easier than bigger classes, but if you see a pattern you could maybe even send an email asking what’s going on. As faculty we have to pay attention to what’s going on in our classes.

ADM: On the other side it appears that we saved one student this week precisely because of attention and response. I’m just trying to make sure we are taking care of everybody.

Meeting Adjourned at 4:51 p.m.

Submitted by Greta Abel, Administrative Assistant to Provost (10/27/09)