Final Approved February 11, 2010

Faculty Association

Meet and Confer Notes

January 14, 2010

 

Administration: Devinder Malhotra, Wanda Overland, David DeGroote, Judith Siminoe, Mitchell Rubinstein,  John Palmer, Dan Gregory, Kristi Tornquist, Steve Ludwig, Lisa Foss, Greta Abel-note taker

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

 

Approval of Minutes

1.   December 17, 2009

FA: I have been told that I should note that President Potter is not with us today.  He is out of town but we will be proceeding with Meet & Confer with Provost Malhotra at the helm of the administrative side.  The first item is approval of our minutes for the last meeting which both Devinder and I have now reviewed and have approved with few corrections from Devinder and none were needed from me and so we will consider those approved and will be posting them.

 

Unfinished Business

1.   Define Committees per Article 6 Proposal (FA)

FA: This is an ongoing conversation that FA has been pursuing with President Potter and we’re not at a concluding point or expecting any definitive statement today.  There are a couple of points we wanted to mention here because we wish to ask for some specific information in regard to the bodies that are governing the Bush grant.  We I believe we already asked for this informally but I’d like to ask for it in a formal sense.  We’d like to know who are the members of both the leadership team and we understand there’s an advisory board or advisory group for the Bush grant and we’d like to know who serves on those and how they were selected, who they are representing if they are representing someone?

 

ADM: O.k.

 

FA: I think the further comments that we have about that, Judy did you have something that you wanted to add on that in regard to allocation of resources?

 

FA: No my question was it seems as if there’s quite a bit of executive committee interest in talking more specifically about that entity and Article 6 and we’re wondering if we could break that out for our next Meet & Confer agenda to have a further discussion on that.

 

ADM: O.k.

 

FA: Other people had questions about the allocation part, I don’t.

 

FA: There was some concern raised as I recall in regard the fact that there has been money spent on the Bush grant already that there has been some money spent in the form of extra duty days for some of the people who are working on the leadership team by reassigned time and one of the concerns that we have about that is just generally in terms of the budget climate and cost but also an underlying concern has to do with the history in the College of Education and concern that when people are appointed to bodies such as this without going through the Article 6 procedure it raises concerns on the faculty side that there may be some form of preference or reward for favorites occurring and that the benefit of the reassign time or extra duty days or other kinds of benefits that may come along with such service when distributed in a manner that doesn’t appear transparent to us is a matter of concern.  That is not an accusation of fraud that is just a statement of concern at this point just about the transparency of understanding how people are chosen and on what basis. 

 

ADM: The Bush grant is being expended not dissimilar to any other grant that it’s being expended for activities for which the grant was originally awarded.  What I would appreciate very much is since there are a lot of different questions that have come up, if I could get at least a summary of questions you have so that we can be a little more focused in providing that response to you.

 

FA: O.k. I’d be happy to do that.

 

2.   Use of Adjuncts (FA)

FA: This was a question we raised in Meet & Confer which has again been an ongoing conversation.  Lisa just recently provided me and I presume others with a draft spreadsheet laying out statistics on adjunct and fixed term use by department expressed in full time equivalent units.  I haven’t had a chance to review it closely yet but thank you it’s certainly a step in the direction of getting us some numbers we can look and then decide whether they are in a format that we can work with and what conclusions we may draw from them.  So that’s an ongoing conversation which we should have, I would think within two weeks  we would have a good deal more clearer picture  not necessarily on what we’re going to do but at least on what the current numbers indicate and what the status is.

 

3.   Program Review (ADM)

FA: We promised that we would give you an answer early in the term.  We don’t have a response yet but we are promising to get one to you in two weeks.  We’ve got another Meet & Confer in two weeks.

 

ADM: O.k. Thank you.

 

FA: Thank you for your patience.

 

4.   Pictures on Class List (FA)

FA: This is something that we discussed previously that the idea of wanting to have student pictures available to faculty members with some provisions that students could opt out and there should be restrictions on how they may be used and we are thinking that it’s kind of in the administrations court now as to telling us whether you think we could do that or whether we need to set up some board in order to examine doing it.

 

ADM: From what I recollect what we talked about last time there were three issues; whether it was possible technologically and logistically, whether there was any privacy confidentiality implications, and whether students would agree and on the third I know you’re having some conversations with the student government association and that needs to be clarified with them.

 

FA: Well they gave us a statement indicating they wish to continue conversation.

 

ADM: O.k. so that is an ongoing conversation between you and the student government association and Steve on the first one on the logistical possibility of providing this?

 

ADM: We have a photo of almost every student we figured a way we could attach to the class list a postage stamp picture and so technically it’s possible and we also talked with Office of the Chancellor AG on privacy issues.  Since that time, we could ask again but if it’s for an educational purpose they thought that we could do it. They thought to engage faculty and students better in the classroom they thought they were amiable to it that we could do it if we didn’t share it with outsides groups.  As I recall they thought it was good to provide a provision and then also there would need to be some descriptions where faculty could not post grades next to pictures.  The faculty could otherwise publish them.

 

FA: One of the things that the president of the student association mentioned to me specifically was they would not want even a faculty member posting them on a D2L site. And that of course we consider entirely reasonable when we don’t want to infringe on the privacy of the students.  We just want to get to know them. So what are the next steps that we need to undertake in order to…?

 

ADM: You want to know something about the privacy implications?

 

FA: Sure.

 

ADM: There are two different exceptions that would make it possible to do this and one is if it’s directory information, it’s not directory information so it is private information about a student but can be released in a way that Steve suggested from the last time you asked because faculty members are entitled to share information that is private about students or have information that’s private about students so as long as they understand the restrictions on it. 

 

FA: O.k.

 

ADM: So I just want to say conclude your conversations with the student body president.

 

FA: So if we get a resolution saying yes from the student body we make it happen?

 

ADM: Well no, everything will be in place.

 

ADM: First we would have to write the procedure and policy and that shouldn’t be terribly difficult and then we’d have to go back and resurrect the software or whatever we did so that it was possible.  We made examples of it, those screens or systems, that was all done so pulling that back shouldn’t be very hard.

 

FA: Is cost a consideration?

 

ADM: It would take staff time to set the thing up and a little bit of computer space as people use it.

 

ADM: I think what makes sense as we are pointing out is that once you complete your conversations with the students than we can start with devoting some time and effort on our end to actually putting together the policy and procedures, how we’re going to actually accomplish this task and then run it by you and we can have a conversation.

 

FA: O.k. It strikes me as possible that the students are going to want to have some of the same technical questions that we were just asking answered by representatives of the administration so I’m hoping that if that is required that administrators could be available to meet with them.

 

ADM: We’re always glad to meet with the students.

 

FA: As are we.

 

ADM: If when you talk to Mike just say to him if you have some questions, I will make sure they all know where I’m at.

 

ADM: Actually Wanda can be the point person.

 

FA: O.k. great. Thank you.  And Michael and I have communicated well together.

 

5.   Climate Task Force in COE (FA)

FA: I had thought that I knew of some new developments on this because just during convocation week Manijeh Daneshpour who’s the facilitator for the group said that they intend to be making a presentation to the College of Education during the convocation week College of Education college meeting but I am told by reliable sources that it didn’t happen so I am not sure exactly whether that means they did not complete enough to be able to present it or whether there wasn’t time on the agenda.  I intend to get back in touch with Manijeh but in any case that task force was commissioned out of Meet & Confer and certainly my understanding and my last conversation with President Potter about this, our expectation was that report would be coming back here consistent with the instructions that we’ve given that the last report would not be released in its entirety but rather be perhaps sited as a source among sources in the findings that the task force would be issuing.  So I will be following up with Manijeh Daneshpour and we may know something substantially more in our next Meet & Confer.

 

ADM: O.k.

 

New Business

1.     New Researchers Award Application (ADM)

FA: We have received a copy of the New Researchers Award Application.  We have some questions but Dan why don’t we give you a chance to say whatever you have to say first.

 

ADM: The award is new in principle but not in name. It started last year but we did change some fundamental things.  It was really an attempt to be part of a larger support structure to focus support on faculty and staff early in their career with the idea that we give them the tools necessary for them to be successful early and then we continue that support as they go through.  We patterned it on last year’s award.  One of the main changes we did was to have applicants go through a peer review process by going through the long term faculty research group.  I’ve talked with Debra Japp the chair; she said that’s very reasonable and so when I put it together we intentionally patterned the review form and the process after that because we’re asking them to do yet another review.  The committee was comfortable with the form and the expectations.  That’s pretty much what our intention was.

 

FA: You mentioned that this was a re-envisioning of something from last year and that the name perhaps had changed. Did I hear you say that?

 

ADM: The name New Researchers Award, some folks may be familiar with that last year was an award for first year faculty, the names were submitted by the deans from each college and then those individuals were dropped in.  We also increased the level of funding, last year was $2,000 this year it’s $4,000.

 

FA: But the award is called the same thing it was before?

 

ADM: Correct.

 

FA: O.k.

 

FA: I’m on that committee and did you get it to Debra Japp right before the end of the semester?

 

ADM: She got it in the middle of December and she said that if not, I don’t want to put words in her mouth...

 

FA: We are meeting next week I’m thinking maybe it’s going to be on the agenda for next week.

 

ADM: It is.

 

FA: Because this is the first I’ve seen it.  If there was the New Researchers Award from last year it did not come through our committee.

 

ADM:  It did not. That’s a change.

 

FA:  Where’s the money coming from, is it contractual?

 

ADM:  This is Sponsored Programs money.  I think that’s an important…

 

FA:  How much?

 

ADM:  I would like to fund one per college, but it may be two so it’s between twenty five and fifty thousand dollars.  It depends on the size of the application.

 

FA:  Not per college?

 

ADM:  No, that’s total.

 

FA:  So twenty five or fifty thousand not per college but it’s not contractual?

 

ADM:  That’s absolutely right this is all Sponsored Program money.

 

FA:  Now I will bring it up in our committee but one of the questions that I would like to put on the table now is our faculty research grant committee is all faculty.  Now that we’re going to have staff, and there are questions about the definitions of staff, who are we talking about, that may have implications for the committee structure because now it’s all faculty judging non faculty and that might, because we can be very picky about research language and methodology and statistics, that kind of expectation put on someone who does not come from that world it may be shocking so that may be something to consider as you will.  And one more question, there’s a report due June 30, 2010 and of course those funds will probably be awarded somewhere in March or April, what kind of report is due… is that a mistake?

 

ADM:  No it’s not.  Let me answer a few things; the whole idea of including faculty and staff eventually with the support structure that’s developed we’re going to have to make a distinction between faculty and staff for exactly the reasons that you’re talking about.  Right now as far I can see that structure’s not there and I didn’t feel comfortable saying o.k. this is just faculty support.  If there’s a problem in terms of the final grading, the final funding decision is made by me and essentially I am going to take the rankings but I wanted to have that piece in there for that reason; this was rated this way but it’s a staffing area that we’re not comfortable with.  I’m hoping there’s dialogue between the committee and I because really what we want to do is help folks be successful. That’s what our goal is.  As far as the deadline, it is a very short deadline.  Let me back up one step and then I will answer that question.  Another fundamental difference is this is Sponsored Programs money but we have opened it up to for faculty and staff time which is different than anything that Sponsored Programs has done before.  I think that that conversation is an important one and so I wanted this proposal to move through this fiscal year on this fiscal year’s budget not just to give folks support but also as an opportunity to have that conversation and so it is a short turn around.  Our intention is we get it through this year and makes sense to everyone, we put out the call for proposals in the first part of the year and then they have the whole year to get it in. Does that make sense?  And part of it was also with last year’s New Researchers Award it was in the spring and fall and there were some reasons for that.  Does that answer your question?

 

FA:  Thank you.

 

FA:  I just had a question about faculty being able to apply together to do interdisciplinary research if that might happen with this grant?

 

ADM:  Yes and I thought that language was in there but I will have to look.  We also did the same thing for the University Researchers fund that a group of faculty working on a similar budget is encouraged to apply as a group so yes I think that’s an important piece for this.

 

FA:  Would it be possible for a junior faculty member who is doing work on a collaborative project with a tenured faculty member, I am not asking for the tenured faculty to be funded under this grant but is there a mechanism that would permit that kind of collaborative venture to be funded for at least the portion that applied to that?

 

ADM:  Certainly, again the whole purpose of this support is to give the folks the tools they need and so I couldn’t imagine saying no to a faculty member because they are working with a tenured faculty.  I would expect in fact that those rankings would be fairly high through the committee and so I don’t see a reason why that would be a problem.

 

FA:  I actually had two things; one following up with what Francis is saying it is funded in March and start the work and your asking somebody to turn over the work by the end of the fiscal year, is it possible to encumber and hold away the money to make it some other more reasonable time frame for the report to give some time to do the work?

 

ADM:  Right and how it’s written right now is if a faculty or staff builds in an honorarium the honorarium is held until the report is filed. And if a faculty is having problems meeting that 30th deadline I don’t know why it would be a problem to extend it.

 

FA:  It’s not clear in the way it is written.  It sounds like until the final report is done and if you don’t get it by the 30th then the honorarium would be gone is the way I read it and the way I hear it when you say deadline.

 

ADM:  I am certainly open to adding “extensions will be granted upon request”.  This year especially because we’re on such a short timeline.

 

ADM: I think it’s important to realize that the report is not a report in completion of the project.  It says on the bottom of the report on page two the report should clearly demonstrate the work has moved the applicant to near the dissemination of work or the submission of the proposal.  That’s a much lower standard than final completion.

 

ADM:  I am actually glad you brought that up because that’s intentional our thinking behind this was we’re giving tools to folks to be successful but we’re also trying to encourage engagement in this kind of activity and if we required to have to submit a publication or have to submit an external proposal there would be a large number of folks that we want to encourage to self select out.  So the requirement for this is not that those projects are completed it’s that it’s clearly demonstrated that your moving towards some sort of peer review dissemination or some sort of external funding.

 

FA:  My guess is if they had it in writing, I don’t think it’s clear.  My second issue is totally different and that is a current MnSCU definition of faculty and staff is faculty are IFO members and MSUAASF members are not considered members by definition regarding that.  By including staff in here, non faculty, you are encouraging people do things for which there system says that can’t earn their intellectual copy rights.  That’s problematic not for us but for MnSCU.  The University is well served by taking a stance against MnSCU and saying we believe it is a bad idea to say that staff can’t be scholarly because that is the definition that they are trying to put on us.

 

FA:  While you are tweaking there are two references to Article 22 which they don’t have.  I am still not totally clear by what you mean by staff, clerical staff, MSUAASF?

 

ADM:  Most of the folks that use our office now are MSUAASF.

 

ADM:  We do have administrators.

 

ADM:  From an HR stand point the short term for MSUAAFS is Administrative Service Faculty, ASF.

 

ADM:  I will say the Article 22 reference really came from us copying the language from the long term so that’s a good point though I will let them know.

 

FA:  That’s kind of relating to what you were just saying, don’t other bargaining units have professional review cycles that could be mentioned.  I guess one of my concerns has to do with that staff definition, I certainly would encourage faculty, we do have an unusual tool in place in that we do have professional development funds, we do have these grants that are set up for this and I think that other bargaining units don’t have the same sorts of incentives so I personally would welcome something that would encourage staff in appropriate ways to do research related to their positions but I worry about this document not thinking about other bargaining units response to it and other maybe Meet & Confers with those or other language that pulls into their contract and might encourage  or define what they would do in relation to this.  That’s a concern I have.  The other thing is that I wonder if there’s a multiplier effect for collaboration, so let’s say there are five new faculty who all want to apply for this and if they applied together on a project would they be limited to $4,000 or could they have $16,000.

 

ADM:  If you had an offer of a long term research grant they would be capped, they would be capped at $4,000.

 

FA:  For the group?

 

ADM:  For the group, yes. That’s the way it stands right now.

 

FA:  Do we need to follow that model or could we encourage collaboration by not penalizing people.

 

ADM:  I think one of the things I want people to remember is that this is one of the support structures and that this conversation is going to become more sophisticated in terms of how do we define staff, what do they need, what pieces need to be in place for them to be successful as well.  The conversation I think isn’t that sophisticated at this point and my goal here was let’s start getting the support out in conjunction with that have the conversations as well.

 

ADM:  This again, going back to your question about a multiplier effect I really think here what we’re trying to do is fund project and that’s why it would be $4,000 by project to do the work that needs to be done on the project. Obviously there are limitations in which we can go because otherwise they would get differential application of fund available for different projects.

 

FA: I guess one thing that I’m concerned about with the staff and the bargaining unit and the language that has to do with professional development I really don’t see anything in that as an incentive for staff member who’s not in the IFO bargaining unit to go ahead and do this, they’ve got a lot of disincentives it seems to me for doing research.  If there are things that can help be incentives I’d like to personally see them in here so that we could even make a collaboration among faculty and staff to work on projects that would work with staffs time, I know time is something they don’t usually have but I do think they are obligated to do certain things and they have goals and stuff that they have to do, don’t they?  I mean I’m just making this up but is there something in their contact that could pair up with Article 22 for faculty?

 

ADM:  There is an expectation for professional development and certainly even in their profession publishing and attending conferences and so those are an important part of performance reviews.

 

FA: Performance reviews, that’s not in here.

 

ADM:  So honestly it’s not as probable but there are some examples of faculty and staff doing research together which is really interesting.  We’ve gotten some grant monies because of that.

 

ADM:  Another thing we’re doing outside of this award is we’re really starting to talk with those folks and find out what they need so we had a training session this morning with Student Life and Development again talking about being successful.  We had a large turnout and so there’s interest there and there’s folks that want and need that support.

 

FA:  As I am sitting here I’m thinking about projects that are already going on between faculty and staff so I think that’s important to envision as you’re thinking about these but yet clearly I hear a lot of people “do they have requirements” yes they do have requirements there worded differently and I just think that language needs to be here otherwise it’s just going to be seen as another example of you tried to do it for all the right reasons but you did it all the wrong way and you want to fix that before it gets all the way.

 

ADM: I was trying to reiterate what Dan was saying that the way we are trying to approaching this work under Dan’s leadership is that we are thinking through in terms of what is the support infrastructure needed for scholarship, research and creative activity to occur whether funded or unfunded and so we are approaching from that and so this is one piece of a very large project.

 

ADM:  I just wanted to make sure what Dan said, last year deans decided, this year what you propose is that the recommendation and ranking come from IFO Faculty Committee?

 

ADM:  That’s right.

 

ADM:  Last year there was not money available to pay for honoraria for recognition of work that goes along with doing this above and beyond basic compensation.  The third element is that you’re trying to broaden it to now include not just IFO faculty because last year it was IFO and you put the word staff here and it seems to me the commentary that has been made has been heard by a member of that committee on the IFO FA signed that I heard is meeting, right?  The Faculty Research Grants committee going to meet pretty quick?

 

FA:  Next week, yes.

 

ADM:  I think that it’s in everybody’s interest to let those folks tweak this and get the announcement out so the money gets spent because I know that’s a concern that you have.  That the money gets out there to be spent before the end of the fiscal year.

 

ADM:  In a useful, wise way.

 

ADM:  Oh well of course.  (laughter)

 

FA:  I want to respectfully disagree as Francis already said if this is going to involve staff then we need to have staff’s input in it from the beginning so if this comes out from the IFO FA committee next who may or may not be aware of the contract’s of staff, I don’t think they’re adequately prepared to put out this announcement so I would say no.

 

FA:  Perhaps John, John is sitting on the other side so he can clarify something but I think John mentioned before that about the no later than the June 30th, I still think that’s a deadline unless I am reading it differently than John.

 

FA:  That’s been clarified.

 

ADM: Well the deadline is June 30th because Dan wants to be sure the funds get spent but the standard of what the final report is-is not the kind of standard that Tom was referencing, it’s a standard that’s quite low and they just simply have to clearly demonstrate that the work has made progress.

 

FA:  But is says project is completed.

 

ADM:  My concern is and I will be straight forward here, my concern is this could get loved to death.  I very much agree with what my colleague Tracy said about the staff involvement.  I trust Francis and that committee be equally sensitive.   You’re being very magnanimous here, I mean you are not a union when you’re talking this way.  You’re talking on a very high level because this is IFO Meet & Confer and you’re protecting the interest of non IFO members and that’s noble and it’s appropriate.  But the project, let’s not love this thing to death.

 

FA:  The other one is the money the allocation, did you find some money or..?

 

ADM:  No, this is Sponsored Programs.  This is return on in directs money.

 

ADM:  See what happens is that Dan and I made a conscious decision that whatever money Academic Affairs gets from returns of in directs we will channel it back to formative purposes to support research.

 

ADM: With respect to staff, it’s much different they don’t have anything really akin to do research or research assignments that’s faculty, the IFO faculty.  MSUAASF has more things about it; the contracts also don’t have provisions for reassign or buy your time or things like that or concepts.  There’s all kinds of technicalities that would be difficult and time consuming to work out.   I think I’m in agreement with John on the “love it to death” part.  We just finished a cycle of Meet & Confer with the other units, I vote we put it out there the best we can with such laws and issues that it may have, it’s not a huge amount of money, if somebody comes forward then let’s figure it out, well no we can’t buy your time as a clerical person or we have to compensate you, we can’t just give you money outside your contract we can only give you money within your contract and so with MSUAASF there’s a provision for honorarium or something that’s how the money will have to transferred to MSUAASF if it is for your time or your effort.  But let’s solve those when the problems present themselves rather than delaying this for another year and trying to solve all the nuances of the nine, eight, seven different bargaining agreements. I think it’s something we should talk about administratively but that’s what I say.

 

FA:  I have no idea what you mean by “loving it to death” so I am just going to ignore that but I’m just trying to be conscious of what Dan is trying to accomplish so one, in terms of just if you really mean that the project has moved along then strike the word “project schedule completion date”, strike completion, “projects processed or progressed” is more appropriate.  Second I’m not asking to sit down with all the contracts and have all of these different meetings come together and have a love-in if that’s what you’re referring to about this document but rather that Dan look at, I’m thinking most likely if any staff applies for this it’s most likely going to be MSUAASF.  If I’m director of whatever student services office and I hope to move as a professional I want to keep myself invigorated just like a faculty does and do research so take the language in there or strike Article 22 out of there, either way, that’s all I’m saying so that when faculty and staff who are able and eligible to apply for this they see that it actually reflects their experience.  That’s all.

 

ADM:  That makes sense.

 

FA: I think it is important that other bargaining units see themselves in this document.  I think we are acting very much as a bargaining unit in solidarity with our colleagues.  I want to make sure that they get the same respectful request about this for input and however fast that might be and I’m glad you’re taking this to Meet & Confer and I just really want some language to be added that says that this really isn’t just a faculty thing that we are serious about funding staff, whatever that language might be. 

 

ADM:  I didn’t say I was taking this to Meet & Confer, I said the cycle had just finished.  I had MUSAAF today and AFSME yesterday, MAPE last week. 

 

FA: Didn’t you say you were going to see what they thought about this?

 

ADM:  I think I was misunderstood.  My intent was- I didn’t know about this so it hasn’t been shared with the other units, we just finished.

 

ADM: We just had MUSAAF Meet & Confer today and we weren’t aware of this so...

 

ADM:  I think the point is a very good one and it certainly wasn’t our intention and so definitely we have two MSUAASF staff in our office who are very committed to this so I will sit with them for sure.  We know who the active folks are now, we’ll talk with them and we’ll make sure that, I think I hear what you’re saying and it makes sense.  So we’ll make those changes.

 

FA:  I just want the record to show that yes we have a Faculty Research Grants next week but we have nearly forty research grants we have to sit and evaluate in a four hour time block, I’m not sure how much progress we’re going to make on this document so I don’t want to make any promises that next week we would address it, I want the record to show that.  I’m not sure when we’ll get together as a group to discuss this.

 

FA:  I would say give it to Adam Klepetar he is the MSSUAASF president and you could have a conversation with him.

 

ADM:  Very early in the game Adam and I had a good talk about this so he’s aware of it.

 

ADM:  So there is some conversation?

 

ADM: They have an ASF council meeting coming up so they could even talk about it then that would speed up this whole piece.  I think that council meeting is probably next week so they could even bring it up at that.

 

FA:  And when you talk about him please be sure to tell him what wonderful folks we are. (laughter)

 

ADM:  I will do that.

 

FA:  I think we have aired the concerns that we had; I do want to research an opportunity for us to take the next couple of weeks to just look at the text more closely so if there are details about the application form itself that we might have additional feedback for you.  We have obviously explored pretty thoroughly the conceptual things. 

 

2.     Strategic Program Appraisal (FA)

FA:  I have a specific and focused request from the faculty but Devinder do you have anything more broadly that you’d like to say about the status of SPA?

 

ADM:  Where we are in the process, yes.

 

ADM: The Phase II program reports were due last Friday.  They are in the process of being reviewed.  A week ago Monday a sub group of the Strategic Planning Committee, seven faculty and seven administrators met in a day long retreat to develop criteria and rubric for how to develop some consistency on how those reports would be evaluated.  They’re in the process of being evaluated. The deans should be submitting some reports on the categorization of those programs on the 25th of January.

 

FA:  One specific concern that we wanted to raise, I don’t think that we are in disagreement about this, we’ve spoken about that, we just wanted to get it into the record at Meet & Confer and that is especially because the rubric was not available to the departments at the time that they wrote the reports, it is possible that there may be some additional information they possess that they didn’t include in the reports and for that and other reasons we hope that departments will have the opportunity to respond to the deans before the final reports from the deans go to you Devinder.

 

ADM:  Here is my response; I understand what you’re saying.  I view this rubric more as a guidance to the deans and to me as to how to interpret what was there in the original document. We had not originally researched how to go through this process.  It is when as the process unfolded Lisa and I talked about it and I felt perhaps that it was a good idea to engage the Strategic Planning Committee, whom I would be sending information for input down the road, to ask them ahead of time as to what they think I should be looking at and how I should be looking at as I review these proposals within the context of that.  So it is in that spirit I’m asking the deans to take that also in precisely in that spirit.  Now as deans evaluate this and as I evaluate this and if particularly where it has strong implications for the program and we come and we see in the report a question mark or perhaps some missing information I hope both the deans and I we don’t say “Oops, too bad” at that stage if any additional clarification or some conversation is needed we will engage the appropriate units and individuals.  But I don’t feel very comfortable that we start this process all over again where we redo the reports.

 

FA:  I don’t think that’s what we’re asking.

 

ADM: O.k.

 

FA:  We are aware that there are time pressures and that our members would be very happy with us if we did create circumstances where they had to redo the reports.  But it’s simply a matter of giving a chance for there to be faculty responses between the level of the dean’s review and it finally being passed on.  We were told early on in this conversation that there would be some kind of interaction, some kind of consultation between the deans and the faculty in the colleges in the process of doing this evaluation.

 

ADM: Yes, that’s in the document before the final document is printed the categorization is distributed on the 25th there would be discussion within the college.  We weren’t explicit in what that conversation looked like, whether it needed to be an open meeting or review with the programs but that would be an opportunity for response before the final document is distributed on the 25th. 

 

FA:  I was simply just going to ask more directly that this direction has been given to the deans, correct?  The deans know this?

 

ADM: Oh yes.

 

FA:  O.k. so that’s what we needed to have on the record.

 

FA:  I think they did in the beginning in the process Lisa put rankings right for all the programs?

 

ADM:  That was for Phase I.  We categorized the programs between top and bottom fifty percent, Lisa correct me if I’m wrong, but we did not rank the programs within the categories.

 

FA:  O.K. then now this next step is deans, will chairs also find out where the programs come in this fifty percent?

 

ADM:  There are conversations going on within the college and in fact they should be going on right now so I am sure the DAC’s within the colleges would be involved so the chairs should be aware of this.

 

3.     Sabbatical Schedule (FA)

FA:  John is distributed something so I think I will simply state our question was when will we know who gets a sabbatical?  And maybe we’re about to find out.

 

ADM:  Yes the summary of actions document is coming around.  There were sixty five requests for sabbatical, eight of the fifty which would fall into the category of “shall be granted” came from departments where if all eight would have been granted more than twenty five percent of the department or program would be missing.  We applied the contractual language to determine which of the people who were in that would receive the sabbatical and which would have their sabbatical postponed.  There are forty eight sabbaticals which were requested which will be granted, there are two faculty members who will have their sabbatical postponed as a result of the twenty five percent rule and there were fifteen faculty who had their request for sabbatical denied. The primary reason for the denial is budgetary in nature, in the Article 19, Sec C, Subd 2 it does state getting a sabbatical leave shall be contingent upon the President’s determination that funds are available and the funds which are available are support the “shall be granted” sabbaticals.  We expect then that the letters will be going out by the end of this week, we’ll share with you Mark early next week the summary list, but what we want to have happen first is that the faculty member, their department chair and their dean get the information from the letter not from hear-say or someone having looked at a list.  By the end of this week I would expect everyone that really wants to know will know what happened on a specific basis concerning sabbaticals.

 

FA:  The only concern that I would have is two faculty were postponed fall in the year after tenure already granted may fall into a MnSCU road block.

 

ADM:  Only one of the two fall into that category, I used the word that comes directly from the collective bargaining agreement that says “postponed”.  That is different than being denied, it is postponed under the provisions of the Agreement even if the person applies next year, and they would have to apply to fulfill the contractual obligation.  They will be in the “shall be” category, they will be given priority over faculty that might have had more years of service than they have as spelled out in the agreement.

 

FA:  My comfort level am I’m more concerned and relatively certain the person who would be higher with that very communication they get.

 

ADM:  I’m a little uncomfortable discussing specific instances.  I would be more than glad to see, let the letters go out and then at that point if there is any issue than we can directly talk to any faculty in any of those categories.

 

FA:  I just know this process has been problematic in the past.  I’m going from past experience.

 

ADM:  We can talk about the general fact as to what happens if a person who’s applied for it a year after they’ve got tenure and I think that’s what John was explaining.

 

FA:  And all I’m saying is the communication with that person, whoever it is should be explicit in saying and cleared at the MnSCU level that this postponement means they are in the “shall be granted” next year.

 

FA:  I’m not so sure that we would want it cleared prospectively at the MnSCU level.

 

FA:  I think we’ll have trouble if we don’t.

 

ADM:  I think we should just wait for the letters to come out.

 

FA:  I’m inclined to agree with you.

 

ADM:  And then go from there.

 

4.     Status of General Education and Approval by MnSCU (FA)

FA: Basically we wanted to check with you and Mitch.  Obviously we wish for MnSCU to bless what we are not calling the liberal education program.  I wanted to ask have you spoken with the Chancellor’s staff, is there anything else you need from us before you can go?  We have approved a chart that lays their requirements out next to ours.

 

ADM:  Yes. Yes. And no.  (laughter)

 

FA:  The order is important here.

 

ADM:  Yes to the fact that when we received the information and the resolutions and the final document which was passed by the Faculty Senate.  We worked with the general education committee and developed a document which correlated the MnSCU transfer curriculum to what we are doing and try to establish that what we are doing is indeed an amplification of what the MnSCU was asking for.  In many instances the language is the same so in late December, Mitch and I we met with Linda Baer, Senior Vice Chancellor at MnSCU she gave us a very patient hearing and obviously we were just presenting her with the documents so we didn’t expect a summary approval from her but she did say she will get back with us and the other thing I remember from that conversation is that we talked about our traditional role of Information Literacy, is that correct?

 

ADM:  Yes.

 

ADM:  Linda was very supportive of Information Literacy should be part and parcel of the general education. So anyway that’s where the conversation is currently. 

 

ADM:  We are still waiting to hear from Linda Baer’s office and their response.

 

ADM: What happened is we met with Linda, 22nd or 23rd of December and in between there were ten days when nothing would happen and maybe she needs to talk to her staff and think through.  I still don’t think that an unreasonable amount of time has passed by to get a response from her.  That’s where the conversation is and if we don’t hear after some time we will then send her something formally or contact her and see if they have anything.

 

FA:  We thank you for making the pilgrimage to St. Paul and obviously this is something that we are continuing to work through assigning courses to the categories, the goal areas and this is a substantial project that many people have worked hard on and we are eager to hear that the rug will not be pulled out from under us.  When you have news we are eager to hear it and if there’s anything we can do at this point to be helpful in getting a good answer please let us know.

 

ADM:  I think the main thing is to keep the process for proposals for general education moving.

 

ADM: And the general education committee is well aware of that.

 

ADM:  And UCC is working on that.  We’re trying to coordinate a reference to move as expeditiously as possible on this.

 

FA:  I think we, as progressive as we are, and we get positive response, that’s well and good.  I am wondering though if we are assured of getting a positive response or some sort of response in time to know before we do things like advising for next year.  And so the other piece of it is of course if we get the rug pulled out from under us that doesn’t leave us much leeway to do anything else.  I guess I’m nervous about not hearing and encouraging administration to keep asking or keep following up.

 

ADM:  Definitely but in terms of, I think the other concern, we do have the provisional Minnesota Transfer Curriculum, as we officially called it last year, we have that in place.  It has the ten goal areas in number and more or less in type. That’s in place. We can continue the process of assigning courses to those goal areas, we will at least have that and we will go from there if we need to.

 

FA:  Worse case scenario if we needed to go back to that in the environment of needing to watch to make sure all of our classes are intelligently scheduled given the budget crisis and all can you see any negative impacts to moving back to that?  That’s maybe not a fair question but it’s one rumbling around in my head.

 

ADM:  Remember what we did last year was we assigned courses to the transfer curriculum.  We did so arbitrarily but we agreed upon how we would do that and the other provision was we assigned a course to one and only one goal area.  What we’re doing now is we are taking a more a deliberate approach we are going to assign some courses to where the faculty think they appropriately go and we’re also allowing for courses to in two goal areas in rather just one.  So what that has done we’ll have, don’t quote me on this one, but a large percentage of a general education curriculum in place.  There may be some aspects of it that the Office of the Chancellor does not like and if that’s the case we will work on those and that might be things like the criteria for the appropriateness of the course for a goal area, there might be some other attributes of the goal areas that they might not like.  But I think we will we have enough in place to have a general education curriculum available for fall.

 

ADM:  Your point is well taken Judy and I am going to wait for a week and then have another contact with them and send it to them formally so then they will have to respond.  This way what we were thinking was if we could get some idea of their thinking ahead of time.  So then we can come back and tweak and short change the timeframe and expedite the process. That’s why we’re going through this process. And so in a week or so we’ll check again, otherwise we always have the option of here is what we think we need the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum for liberal education and send it to them formally and then they can either say yes or yes but and then we’ll deal with it.

 

FA:  So what I’m hearing you say is there has been informal consultation about it but it hasn’t actually formally been submitted.

 

ADM:  Precisely because we met with Linda Baer on December 22nd and we met with her for almost an hour and most of that hour we talked about general education, we explained to her what we did, why we think that what we have done is consistent with what the MnSCU system is asking for and with the help of the general education committee we prepared a document which showed what we did and side by side and where the language was the same and how what we are calling SLOs or Student Learning Outcomes how they are related to the competencies they are talking about and what is just an operational piece of their conceptual frame so we made that bid she was very receptive, she asked, we had a good conversation but she also said let me take a look at it, I see what you’re saying and I will get back to you.  Since it was on December 22nd, 23rd the next two weeks are shot, a week, ten days, I don’t think enough time has elapsed that I would go back quickly but a reasonable time frame if we don’t hear, we ask her or we send it to them formally.

 

 

 

5.     Office of Clinical Experience Policy Manual (FA)

FA:  I expect this is one where we’re going to need to follow up with a memo as well but the Office of clinical experience for those who are familiar with it, there’s an office in the College of Education that coordinates student placements in field experiences and student teaching and is not staffed by IFO faculty, it is staffed by MUSAAF staff but it has a tremendous influence on the working lives of not just the faculty of the College of Education but also other people who are involved in the training of teachers and disciplines certainly included in my department where social study students make up a large number of the people in our classes.  There was a proposal brought to Meet & Confer in the past asking that there be a policy manual created for the Office of Clinical Experience and that IFO faculty play a role in drafting that so that we can have some kind of input into the rules that will govern the operation of that office which governs so much of the working lives of those of us who are involved in training educators.  It seems there are policies but they were never passed through the Meet & Confer process or were never evaluated or drafted by a group that included FA representatives and we are asking that this be revisited and there be some process created by which FA representative will be present in designing guidelines for the operation of that office.

 

ADM: There are two issues.  One is whether it came to Meet & Confer and the other is whether faculty had an input in its preparation.  In my mind they are fundamentally very different issues, however as said at the very outset that you are going to prepare a memoranda on this issue which would lay out all your concerns.  I think it’s best for me to wait until you do that and give it to me and then I will definitely take a look at it and provide you with the appropriate response at one of our future Meet & Confer.

 

FA:  O.k.

 

FA:  You might want to check back in your office to see where things were left there, it seems that this policy manual in part a response to a grievance and that a member of the office who had that role was working with the College in trying to get that moving and it somehow just got stalled at someplace.

 

ADM:  O.k.

 

FA:  So, it might be helpful for you to start back then for a perspective.

 

ADM:  That’s good advice and we will get that.

 

FA:  It might have even been mentioned and talked about at Meet & Confer then.  So old Meet & Confer minutes might discuss that and what was the proposal then and how did it go forward.

 

FA:  Now I’ve given to understand that this conversation took place originally during the period that Kate Steffens was dean or was it earlier?

 

FA:  It was Joanne.

 

ADM: I think it’s had a cycle of interest that has gone on over both Kate Steffens and Joanne.

 

FA:  I think you’re right. It’s a long standing issue and it would be helpful if it got resolved.  It would make a great deal of difference I think to the faculty in that College and also to people who work with teacher training.

 

ADM:  Sure.

 

FA:  I may be violating our rules of engagement for the faculty in terms of the communication between the dean and with the faculty of the College of Ed and the plan was being initiated about not only being present but it wasn’t that they were engaged in regards to beyond just consultation.  But I don’t think even the faculty was consulted or that it was involved in the development in the initiative of it.  So there should be some documentation through the deans’ council or in the general college meetings that that was discussed and presented and that we were involved as faculty is how that was perceived.

 

ADM:  Thank you.

 

FA: From my pre Meet & Confer notes it says the department was put on it and was it an open process were some of the questions they had.

 

ADM:  Again as I said earlier since you are preparing a memoranda I’m sure all of these issues will be incorporated there and then I would much rather take a look at it and do my due diligence to provide with you the appropriate response.

 

FA:  We placed on today’s agenda pursuing on a motion passed in executive committee on Tuesday and as we have asked you to provide us with documentation it is appropriate of us also to provide you with a clear statement of questions so we can do that.

 

ADM:  Thank you very much.

 

Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns

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

FA:  Steve we’ve heard from you only a couple of days ago is it all better now? (laughter)

 

ADM:  No, not yet.  Just to summarize the material that I presented is on the budget website with some adjustments. We are in balance without efforts during the current year.  As the governor has lawsuits and he can still do things the legislature comes into session, who knows a good scheme can decide to write us a letter about something which is what happened about the 20th of December.  It’s about three hundred and fifty thousand negative swing.  So where we are at now I think we’re in good shape for this year. The range of the problem for next year is the five to fourteen million range.  They lost ARA funds which are stimulus finds which could increase the disparity by another four million; we don’t expect that at all likely so we listed it separately. So it will be interesting to hear from Office of the Chancellor and the legislature what they expect us to use to manage for next year.  So given that the following year in 12 and 13 the 5.4 billion dollar deficit that is projected in November and for the biennium and an expectation of very, very moderate assumptions around bargaining unit settlements in the coming biennium and the knowledge we have of health care cost increases that are given pretty much now for the next year or two we expect about, if we solve the problem for this year, whatever it is we will have another ten million dollar problem.  First year in the next biennium and at this point the problem this year are a few hundred thousand dollars the second year.  That’s what we’re looking at and the President’s budget message has gone out and indirectly does have long condensed information from two years ago so information should be coming out with the right link to the budget website.  We’re planning to use as a planning number ten percent which in our budget is in the fourteen million dollar range as we go forward right now to try to decide how something of that dimension will impact the campus.  There also was a, I’m not sure if it was a double counting or a wrong calculation overstating the problem by about a million dollars in those two scenarios so it did improve by that point but still at five to fourteen million dollar range which is not attractive.  I guess that would be the summary.  We are anxiously awaiting some guidance from MnSCU and the budget forecast will be a major event which will come out in February and that would be the last one until the end of the session and there is some required report to the House Higher Education Committee on the 15th of March it’s exact shape of what that report from the Office of the Chancellor will be or what they will request of us has not been made clear yet.

 

FA:  Thank you.

 

2.   Status of Administrative Searches (ADM)

ADM:  I think the current as far as I can think there’s just one search which is going on and that is the Dean for the College of Education.  The search committee has been formulated, thank you for giving us the representatives, I meet with the search committee tomorrow and so it’s still in the very early stages of the process.  As it gets further we will keep you updated.

 

FA:  Thank you.

 

3.   Students First Initiatives (FA)

FA:  We have a couple of bits of news to share and would be interested in any news that you may have.  One is as I had discussed the last time we met I will be drafting for the IFO board’s next meeting and our next meeting is Thursday and Friday of next week, a series of positive statements about what we hope that if implemented a student’s first package would deliver not that we are necessarily confident that it will deliver those things but as a way of getting MnSCU to commit itself to certain standards that then perhaps one hopes they could be held accountable to subsequently in considering whether or not these proposals are really worth implementing or implementing at the pace currently contemplated.  Also for your information that the executive committee has instructed our IFO board representatives to introduce a motion to the effect that we believe that spending money on students first including even the planning money on students first in the current catastrophic budget environment is inappropriate and that we want this to be reconsidered in light of the gravity of the economic situation that we find ourselves in. I don’t think we have any additional news although I know that IFO members are being selected, I guess will be finalized at our next board meeting to be participants in several of the working groups so there will be faculty representatives finally in the working groups where we will continue to voice our concerns. If you have any news, I have received from several administrators including Kristi some suggestions and input of various sorts as I have requested because we are certainly interested in our colleague and administration, MUSAAF and elsewhere.  My note seems that everyone on this campus has a very substantial agreement about the kinds of concerns that people have.

 

ADM:  We all agree that students should be first.

 

FA:  Students should be first, yes we believe that firmly.  So that’s what’s up with us, is there anything new on your end in terms of developments on Students First?

 

ADM:  We had our first Student’s First management team meeting of this year last Wednesday and it was the first one since John O’Brien came to our campus and I was pleased to hear him several times reference things that he had learned or heard on our campus, I thought that was good that he had at least processed that and brought it back to that larger committee to think about.  I take real copious notes during those meetings and so I’m sharing then with members of the campus and I’ve added Mark to that list.  It’s not the official minutes they go up on the web but at least it comes out the same day so you can see what the conversation was.  I’m pleased to hear that there are going to be some faculty appointments if there are faculty members from St. Cloud State, if you could let me know if there are St. Cloud State reps on those groups I can copy them as well on those notes as well and we’re kind of keeping in touch with each other so that would be great if there’s faculty members too that we can share that.

 

FA:  I have volunteered to serve and Tom have you been directed yet?

 

FA: But I don’t know to what yet.  I volunteered for them to put me where ever it is needed.

 

FA: So, I don’t know for sure that I will be chosen but I am pretty sure Tom will be chosen because he is much smarter than I am.  In any case there will be I think at least one person from our campus that will be on at least one of the teams.

ADM:  So at this point it’s primarily, at least my focus is that I’m communicating, making sure that we’re all sort of informed about what’s going on.

 

Adjourned 4:31