Meet and Confer Notes February 11, 2010

Final Approved 3/4/2010

Faculty Association

Meet and Confer Notes

February 11, 2010

Administration: Glen Palm, Mitch Rubinstein, Larry Chambers, President Potter, Provost Malhotra, John Palmer, Kristi Tornquist, David DeGroote, Lisa Foss, Wanda Overland, Greta Abel-note taker

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

Approval of Minutes

1. January 14, 2010

ADM: Good Afternoon. Let’s get started. I have a request. Lisa Foss is not here but will be here shortly but after we go through item two of unfinished business if we could go to strategic program appraisal because she needs to be somewhere else.

Unfinished Business

1. Define Committees per Article 6 Proposal (FA)

FA: This has been an ongoing conversation and in the email that I sent you on Monday there’s an additional aspect to this that was described as being among the entities that we saw as being places where we had different understandings of Article 6 specifically in connection to the Bush Grant. We wanted to inquire as to the exact membership of the leadership team and the advisory council and how they were selected. We especially believe that the advisory council which is a think group, something that involves input on policy or procedure of the grant rather than being people specifically given work assignments to operate the grant, is a place where Article 6 procedures ought to be followed.

ADM: You’re recollection of what the first title is, is correct on the Bush Grant structure with regard to Article 6. Also let me just update you a little bit. We went through Phase I of the Bush Grant and now we are going through more of where the conceptual frame is developed and the detail planning occurs. At this stage the whole conversation for the upcoming planning will be done in a manner which is imbedded in the existing frames both within the College of Education and beyond. In that context we will provide you with the names of the leadership team and the names of the advisory council but as things stand today we no longer need the advisory council. The leadership team also has sort of morphed into a coordinating body. We are currently developing a process by which some planning groups are being formed around the conceptual ideas of the group in recruitment, preparation, support and various other areas. There are four or five such categories of planning groups which will be created from the existing bodies from within the College of Education and within the University. So as that work is completed, hopefully in the next two to three weeks, we can share that information with you. But we will provide you with the membership of the leadership team and the advisory council for Phase I of the Bush grant.

FA: Also related to the topic of Article 6 we had a conversation in regard to the technology vision process and the body that’s currently working on that initially did not have faculty but has one faculty now but as an appointment from administration. We would ask if you would be willing to give us a memo or quick explanation of why you decided not to have faculty appointed under that body.

ADM: I will tell you right now. We had a strategic planning process with the technology task force that was comprised of members appointed by the faculty association that moved work for a year and failed at its task. After that year I looked back as to the reason they failed and concluded we had charged the group inappropriately. We had asked the group to develop a vision for technology which is an administrator responsibility, what the group had tried to do was create an implementation plan but without a vision. So we took back the responsibility for the vision into management and began to draft a framework that would then go out to the community for input and exchange and that’s where it is now. So it’s going out to a faculty constituted planning committee, it’s going out to broad planes across campus so it has been an evolutionary process in which the faculty was consulted and engaged appropriately at the right points. It is the responsibility of management to say strategically where we are going, what’s our objective, etc, etc. We didn’t do our work correctly when the faculty committee was charged and so they were not able to do the job they were asked to do. So over the course of two and a half years we’ve gotten to the point where there’s a draft document which is now being widely shared for input by existing faculty bodies. So I don’t see any lack of conversation or consultation. In fact we started with a faculty body and it was the recognition of the problems by setting it up that way. The final document will not be done until there is appropriate consultation and the final document will be a framework and a plan that requires continued work to develop implementation strategies which will be carried out through the existing governance structure that we have in place for IT. It is as consultative as I think I could possibly be.

FA: Would you make a clarification of the last thing you said, that it will be carried out by an IT structure, which one are you speaking of?

ADM: As we’ve looked at the way we organized IT we have several issues. One is the administrative structure for managing IT; we currently have two separate IT organizations with two managers heading both of those separate organizations. We need to consider whether that’s the right way. We also have committees which are charged at sort of an operating level with input around IT issues but we haven’t had a strategic governance agent to frame our direction in IT and we’re probably going to have to add that body and we haven’t finished thinking about that yet.

FA: So it’s that body that you’re referring to not the current body?

ADM: It’s each of the others also that we haven’t yet thought through a proposal to share and we’re still in the process of what an effective governance structure for IT would look like for the future. I think the problem with the University’s management of IT has been that the manager’s response is over and over and over again asked the President’s Office and Vice President’s for direction and has never gotten it. So there are critical strategic issues that have never been resolved and so what was missing was strategic leadership in the President’s Office on the University’s strategic position for the IT. The structure we will come with maintains the engagement of the operating level but also adds in a renewable strategic thinking capacity which we never had before. So we’ve got to shape that as an opportunity for input and consultation. It’s a chicken and an egg, I’ve tried to sit down with everybody at the table and that doesn’t work so we pulled it back into a small group to create a proposal to share as a starting point for conversation. That’s where that is. Is that a sufficient response?

FA: You have absolutely responded.

ADM: It is my intent that we have full consultation. We hadn’t done our homework yet so we’ve done our homework and now we are ready to talk.

2. Use of Adjuncts (FA)

FA: This is another ongoing conversation, Lisa thank you, has provided us with data broken out by department expressing use of adjuncts and fixed term faculty FTE equivalency and as we suspected there are concentrations in particular departments where there’s relatively high usage of contingent faculty and we would like to take the next step on agreeing on a process by which we will take a look across the board at those departments. Where there are these apparently high concentrations, obviously we want to find out why, we want to find out ways the continued faculty are being utilized and to see if we can draw some conclusions about where it’s appropriate and where it’s not appropriate and what we should do next.

ADM: Let me just say I consider the question a collegial and appropriate question that touches on issues of shared study and so the question is how do we do that work.

ADM: We need to develop a process. When you tell us as to what you have identified first and then we can develop some questions and we can come up with the appropriate information so you and I can talk about it and develop a process and then keep the program working forward.

FA: In terms of identification I offered a standard of what would be departments that would merit a closer look, those where there’s been a pattern of even more than one FTE of adjuncts or a pattern of year after year use of fixed terms over the five year period. I didn’t go from there to produce a list of which departments use them.

ADM: We can follow that up.

ADM: And I ask that you do that.

FA: O.K.

ADM: And then of course the questions we will ask if you allow us to ascertain whether there are certain departments there are the disciplinary exceptions present completed in the contract or whether short cuts have been taken in terms of forced by budget issues or whatever we can align the questions to draw that information.

FA: We agree that it’s not as simple as… the numbers give us an area of focus they do not by themselves identify that it’s appropriate but it’s a way of focusing our work.

ADM: I agree.

FA: One other lens that we’ve kept a little bit is the idea of a four year limit on individual fixed term. That’s one thing that draws our attention as we look at the contract, if someone is extended past four years of fixed term this should go to meet and confer is one of the immediate concern items. We’re aware of several instances where that has not happened historical and that shouldn’t be happening as you study the data.

ADM: We can check on the contractual interpretation and where we’ve been consistent or not consistent within the contract as we delve more into it, I can keep that in mind.

FA: That was one thing because we asked for numbers we did not ask for names and so that would be immediately apparent in the information. We may have to do some additional information gathering of duration of temporary appointments.

ADM: What I was saying is that we could at least check on the process he’s referring to which may not have been followed.

ADM: Tom is correct. The phrase that is used is of normally four years and then there is a description of how the exceptions to that may come forward and there are categories for exceptions and it does indicate that if an exception is going to acted on that the matter would come to meet & confer but the ultimate deciding authority about the needs of the University and the role of the fixed term faculty member at the University is the President. But there is that process, it’s very clearly spelled out in the section of the agreement dealing with fixed term appointments. Tom is correct, there are a number of places where faculty are serving beyond that and we’ve not been able to determine how that came to be.

ADM: O.K. We’ll follow up on that.

Next we’re going to jump to strategic program appraisal because Lisa has to go be somewhere so we can go through that. (see #2, New Business, page 14)

3. Program Review (ADM)

ADM: We are getting some documents and we are just waiting for your response.

FA: We took this to faculty senate last week and there were a number of concerns. One of the concerns had to do with a number of faculty not really understanding why this was necessary or what was the overarching thinking behind it and there were some requests that it might be helpful for you to visit senate to answer some questions and explain your thinking in regard to it. We referred the matter to our academic affairs committee for recommendation and also asked departments, especially those departments that have recently gone through program evaluations to send back feedback to the senate as to their thoughts about how it would affect particular departments. I also have to say that here I’m characterizing a mood rather than any official action but when people are in the midst of working on strategic program appraisal and anything else that sounds remotely like that is perhaps not the most welcomed thing for people to be talking about and the dispositions towards it may not be the most favorable at that moment.

ADM: How nicely said. (laughter)

ADM: Let me be a little more candid that you were (laughter). Essentially all programs are on a cycle and Mitch help me here if I am wrong but I think this is also a requirement from the system that we put all programs on a cycle of a program review. Even though program review has a period which will generate information which would be very useful for program appraisal, they’re not exactly the same thing in terms of their focus. Having said that if faculty senate wants to engage me in a conversation and provide me with input I would be willing to do that.

FA: I would wait to make an official invitation because I wanted to give our internal process a chance to report back but I think that is likely to be a helpful thing. I will be sure to share with the senate that it’s a system requirement and I’m sure that will warm everyone’s heart and make them supportive and enthusiastic.

ADM: Yea, that’s one way to raise the level of enthusiasm of the faculty.(laughter)

FA: I’m wondering if they have requested that everybody be on the same number of year’s cycle, is that how specific the request is or is it a request that everybody be on a cycle of evaluation.

ADM: Board policy or system procedure, and I forget where it is, but it requires that periodic review so it’s up to the institution to determine the life of the cycle. They desire all programs to be receptive to review so in theory all programs would be under the same cycle. What we have done to modify that a bit is to say we recognize that some programs have specialized accreditation which is instead of program review. Instances where programs have accreditation we will use accreditation review in lieu of periodic review. Now each accrediting body has its own length, its own cycle of reaccreditation so it might be longer or shorter than our cycle but we will honor that one and use that in lieu of program review. The other modification that we are making in this proposal is when the presponderance of the programs, at least the most prominent of its programs, are subject to accreditation we will use the accreditation cycle and let program review occur for the non accredited program within the accreditation cycle to reduce the burden on the department.

FA: Does the board policy mandate that the review include external reviewers or does it leave the possibility that that review might be done internally? The reason I ask that is because there was a policy sometime in my living memory that divided programs up by whether it was necessary to do an external review or whether a formal review using local resources was sufficient and I would also add candidly by far the most useful part of that exercise was the self study which was prepared for the external reviewer whom then we spent about two weeks trying to explain how we did it differently than they did and why the way we did it was at least as good as the way they did it. I’ve been skeptical of the process for twenty-five years. I thought that even though every university in the world has an English department we all have adjusted the way we do things to meet local realities and I frankly don’t see that those external reviews are really all that valuable to use except that we discovered that we probably have issues that were quite similar to those that other people had. Is the external part of it mandated?

ADM: System requirements are silent on the need for external review but it is a wide-spread, common expectation that program reviews here and at other institutions will have an external review. Which does add some validity to the program standards.

ADM: Since it’s our own internal policy and as we move through this we can go back and take a look at it and determine its usefulness and effectiveness.

ADM: I’ve been in institutions that do it both ways. Personally I lean in the direction which you have ended up in terms of investment and value. You have to look at the cost of the systems we create against the value and if there’s marginal value of an external review in times when we are looking closely at costs the marginal value might not be worth the expense. That’s the kind of questions we need to ask.

FA: One question that’s repeatedly come up with faculty is now that we’re moving into various degrees in the process cycle of assessment, at what point is a review necessary. I mean if we’re doing assessment on an ongoing basis does every program need to be looked at every five or six years or would a longer time line with the understanding that assessment is ongoing be appropriate. That’s been a question.

ADM: I think you raise an important issue because as frame of accountabilities change and we are putting in a lot of effort; for example program appraisal could be an ongoing process and then the question arises is there some kind of a cycle we can build in where we can combine the two so people don’t have to do two or three different things and that can be revisited too.

FA: I think it’s fair to say that the fatigue level is pretty high and I know that’s not limited to faculty.

ADM: I am glad you said it’s not limited to faculty (laughter) because I was looking at Lisa and she looks very fatigued to me.

ADM: I think we have some of the same concerns and I am sure we can find a way through it because the ongoing program appraisal is all we got unless we say wait a minute we want to change this, it will continue to role as is and that by itself imposes on people who have been through this. This is immediate so thinking about this is something we must do now. Choosing to do a lot of work on this now is a second question but asking ourselves the question has to be ongoing.

ADM: One comment, assessment and program review have two different purposes, are two different things and one of the features of this proposed program review is to make sure that we incorporate in an explicit way the results of assessment, how well we’re doing with student learning outcomes in the program. Program review looks at broader issues regarding resources, nature of curriculum, faculty development, other larger issues. Assessment informs those decisions it does not replace those.

FA: I understand, I’m not saying there’s no truth there I do just want to restate that from a faculty members perspective they have one thing in common, they take us out of the classroom away from our service, away from our scholarship and impose an additional workload on us in a process of self examination and then explication of self to other and when it reaches a level of excess it’s problematic and it actually ends up doing harm even though it’s intention is to do good.

ADM: I think we also agree that we need to take a look at it as these new structures emerge, to look at our whole evaluative processes and in that context we can see if there is a better way of meeting our internal needs of evaluative and feedback loops for improving ourselves as there is meeting our commitments to external constituencies like MnSCU and that we’re meeting their needs too. So I agree with you on the tenor of the conversation that we need to take a fresh look at it.

ADM: There’s another external constituency, the Higher Learning Commission.

ADM: We want to make sure we’re meeting needs of all constituencies.

4. Formation of the Search Committee for CETL (ADM)

ADM: I’ve asked you for the possibility of using the advisory committee as the search committee plus we will add some more folks there for a permanent director of CETL.

FA: When you say “add some more folks” which other folks are we talking about?

ADM: Since I want to create better connections with the academic colleges I was planning to add a dean representative and I would also add a student representative from the student association, as well as some of the academic support services, MUSAAF play an important part.

FA: What I’d like to do with this is take it to senate for approval. My immediate conversation with the executive committee is generally they’ve been favorable to the idea that the CETL advisory board is an appropriate pool to be drawing faculty members from. In order to present it to the senate I’d like to have a writing of a list of who you will seek membership of.

ADM: O.K. Sure.

FA: I would appreciate that and I would be happy to bring that to senate and we should be able to put that on our agenda for Tuesday.

5. Climate Task Force in COE (FA)

FA: I just realized today that I neglected to copy the executive committee and I am not sure how widely the findings document has been circulated, has it been circulated generally in the College?

ADM: No it hasn’t. It’s waiting for you to get back to us.

FA: O.K. I’ll let President Potter express his own views, my reaction to the document was that it was minimal, that I suppose it was inoffensive but it also was lacking in any recommendations for next steps or for positive action which is part of what we had asked from the task force to do. Because it drew only the findings section out of the report it leaves out a substantial amount of information that I think could be culled out and sited without doing any harm. There is valuable information in the report alongside some regrettable statements that are problematic but there is some valuable information in there that I think would be beneficial to report and which would also help to clear the air of mystery around it. The word that we can release things that are not inappropriate the more that people will feel that they have been informed by the process and something of value added. In talking in executive committee today we thought that we should return to the task force asking them to expand on what they’ve presented to include recommendations. One idea that came forth in exec was the suggestion that perhaps it would be helpful for me and a senior representative of the administration to meet with the taskforce to let them know what it is we are asking for, to give them a chance to ask any questions and also to show them that we care about this and we would like to see something resolved out of it but also implicitly to see if they really feel they are capable of doing it or not, willing to go beyond what they have produced. Then we need to take some other steps, we shouldn’t just leave this as it is. We discussed the possibility that if it is necessary for there to be someone else taking a look at this that the faculty association executive committee does have the procedure for reviewing materials in executive session. Under a pledge we don’t report out materials that would be brought forward in executive session in confidence. At this point for most of the members of the executive committee this is a black box because they haven’t seen the report itself. It is difficult for the faculty leadership, I am the only one who has seen the full document and not because of my office but because of my past service as a co-facilitator for the group. So we’re kind of thinking with you about some ways to proceed on this.

ADM: I would favor sharing the whole report with the executive committee. I think the executive committee should see the whole thing. And then I think the offer to meet with the committee to ascertain it they are willing to do this. The catalyst for having the report is long past, the world has changed a great deal and we’ve acknowledged that the quality of the consultant’s work was less than hoped for and does not give us a great base to work from. Personally I feel like I’m pursuing a task that I don’t have much heart for because I don’t think the way this has been set up offers us much hope of improvement. I think we’re trying to make a silk purse frankly and at some point it might be just better to say we tried, let’s think about the future.

ADM: As a side benefit of having done some review of meet and confer minutes since 2001 and that means I’ve had to go through the entire set of minutes…

ADM: He also has insomnia.

ADM: I do, it’s true (laughter) I do have insomnia. One of the items that jumps out at you when you look at topics only, is the recurrence of this topic of climate in the College of Education and we have studied this for nine years and we are at a point of reaching conclusion of saying the last effort didn’t yield much of value. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and again and expecting a different result. I would be inclined with President Potter to say we need a fresh look at how we would address what are the issues. There are issues, I think most people who have been in the college realize there are issues. I would think there are people who can provide some guidance in some effort to change but to form another task force or to give the task force another charge, if I were a betting person I would bet that one would end up where we are today.

ADM: In my earlier life what I did was organizational development for Cornell. If I were to say what would be of most value here, I personally think that putting all energy into a search for a new dean and focus on crafting a process of values and priorities of the College and a rich fully inclusive selection process for the next dean would be a better place to position energy that to go back and sort out what they did four years ago.

ADM: Just a comment having sat on that committee since its inception, it’s fatigued and to send something back to them I don’t think is going to lead to anything very productive. That committee really needs to have some sense of closure and we need to move on and if it gets batted back and forth it will get worse, it will not get better. We’ve already lost people coming to meetings and we’ve lost some of the best members of the committee because they’re done.

ADM: And I think that’s true. We’re trying to be fair and we’re trying to be caring and I think we’re overdoing it.

FA: Well I’m not going to argue. I have not been in touch with the group as recently as you have. The last time I was in touch was the middle of last summer at least in detail and I have had a few conversations and people were pretty darn fatigued then. So what you’re telling me doesn’t surprise me. My immediate reaction is that I don’t insist that the task force be the one to take the next step although I would like to consult more fully with the executive committee. I take it you have no objections to sharing the consultant’s report with executive committee, looking at it may provide some other suggestions to move forward on it. If it’s your best judgment that taking it through the task force another time is not going to be productive…

ADM: I think taking the report and asking them to look at it again and come up with another draft of it, I think the task force needs to bring some closure to what they’re doing and make some recommendations because we need a fresh look at what we’re doing. It’s not going to make any progress.

FA: The recommendations haven’t happened. There weren’t any recommendations in the report that they shared with us. The question is, are they prepared to go that far to write recommendations?

ADM: There’s some energy to do that to be honest.

FA: I am not just thinking about being fair and caring, although I like to think of myself that way but I’m also thinking about the effect on the climate of the College in the immediate short term. If all that comes out is that very brief document which contains no forward looking suggestions at all and clearly does not contain the majority of the information that was in the report, I think that at least a significant number of folks are going to see that as failing to acknowledge the situation or something. I wouldn’t recommend just leaving it without there being some kind of statement of recommendations.

ADM: Right and I think that was the committee’s intention. The committee’s been sitting on it waiting to hear from you for a period of time and as they wait there’s not much to do. I think if you direct the committee to add some recommendations and we struggle with that, do we just take the recommendations that came from the consultant which we thought were so-so or do we try an put them together from the group and add that. I think we were tending towards the latter.

ADM: As I hear and I am a late entrant to this discussion, I think whichever way you want to engage the task force for closure or for getting a direction we should be able to have a purpose for what that is going to be. We ask them for recommendations, what is the purpose of those recommendations. We should be aware of the purpose of that task, what is the purpose of recommendation of the executive committee. As they read through it they should think of the next steps.

FA: I think that makes sense. I thought we already did direct the task force to produce recommendations. It thought that was the communication we sent out and so I don’t know if the fact that it didn’t happen is because we weren’t clear in what we communicated or they didn’t understand or whether it was a decision on the part of the task force that “we don’t want to do that”. It wasn’t the last.

FA: What’s the problem, how do we approach the problem, that’s more important. Herbert Simon talks about how organizational behavior, how much rationality do you want to be, people don’t want to look for some solutions, how do we approach the problem seems like we had trepidation from a faculty association as well as administration. What solution do we need to give. We can be completely rational so you have to set boundaries and decide what to do.

FA: I am wondering if another possibility might be to put two of those ideas together. Maybe ask members of the task force to join executive committee in a meeting that was focused only on this topic that went into an executive session. We could then decide what to report out and brainstorm possibilities and jointly came out with something, some recommendation between the task force and the executive committee that could be reported out then. That conversation might include banding around recommendations that they thought about, additional things for that, strategies for moving forward. The conversation in a different venue might provide a little movement forward or sense of closure. I’m one of the people on the executive committee who has seen none of these documents that we’re talking about.

ADM: I guess that’s really a question for the executive committee to decide.

FA: For this point certainly I will make copies available to the executive committee.

I think basically I would want to know from you President Potter do you think that it’s appropriate for us to have a meeting with the task force at this point or not?

ADM: I recognize the fatigue issue and I think in fairly short order we should declare an undeclared victory but say thank you for the work that has been done. That we are on the verge of selecting a new dean, a new era and the energy focused on doing that well should be where we look to now informed by history. So if you use the report and the work of the task force as a foundation for the groups that are going to work on selecting the next dean that might be where most of the action falls. I think asking the task force for a set of recommendation that pull on their own experience and understanding as informed by the report would be a reasonable thing to do.

FA: That was my understanding of what we were trying to say.

ADM: That’s what I thought. So, if you ask that and then say thank you very much your work is done and then we reframe the work ahead as any organization has to do as it selects a new leader which is understand it’s value, priorities, where it is now looking forward to the future, and then a robust search process it seems to me that’s the most productive course. Could you meet with the committee? Sure. But I do think everyone on the executive committee ought to read the report.

FA: I think that would be healthy.

6. Office of Clinical Experience Policy Manual (FA)

FA: We’ve given you a verbal request and a brief written request via email. I believe that there may be some additional comments to make.

FA: I sent forward to you a document of some of the policies that faculty were looking for with the Office of Clinical Experience, to create this and then there is some history too.

FA: So are you going to review what’s in that list or ?

FA: I don’t know, did you forward that? Did you get that?

FA: I didn’t but it may be more productive in time simply to forward that than to simply read it here.

FA: I agree.

FA: I was thinking that summary might get all of us at the same place. I’m happy to go forward with my comments which really revolve around basically a long history of grievances relating to policies and procedures not being established by democratic departmental process or by faculty involved in the process. There are at least three grievances in recent history revolving around the same thing. If memory serves, the resolution at Step 1 of I think the first of three, was that the Office of Clinical Experience and faculty work together to work through a set of policies and procedures that were agreeable through some democratic process and that never happened so that led to two more grievances I believe. This is long standing, very long standing and I think for processes to work smoothly on a bunch of things that are on the list we really need to have some sort of means of involving faculty in decision making policies and procedures that effect the terms and conditions of their employment and their work with students.

FA: I do have a list and if you want me to read some of them?

FA: I think that would be useful context.

FA: Let’s see, OCE and faculty’s role in the creation and recruitment of students for international and outstate programs, OCE and faculty roles in the recruitment of schools and teachers for student teaching and field experience placements, Resolution and reporting of complaints about SCSU faculty by school personnel, resolving disagreements between OCE and faculty, OCE’s role in facilitating collaboration between public school teachers and faculty, Guidelines for creating policies which impact faculty, procedures and timelines for evaluating the work of OCE including feedback from students, faculty and public school teachers and administration. Those were some.

ADM: Essentially, in last meet and confer you brought this forward and I’d requested you give it to me in writing so I understand better what you’re looking for and you did. I got this a couple of days ago but even prior to the written communication from you I’d asked both John and Glen to help me to at least get some background information so I get my hands on it and that explains the reason John was reading minutes from 2001. I know that Glen is also collecting documents and information. In fact, I will let John describe what he found in the minutes. That is a little more definitive though on the documents. Glen has collected a lot but we need to look through it and get a handle around it and then come back and report to you as to how we will proceed.

ADM: I want to thank the faculty association for posting the meet and confer minutes on their website which makes it easy to do my search. Unfortunately there are no minutes posted at that site prior to 2001 and in the case of OCE this issue became one of concern as early as 1998 and 1999 and Susan’s list that she shared with you could have been the list of similar questions that were raised in the first time I saw it in the minutes April 19, 2001. There was a subsequent grievance that was referenced by Judy that the Step 1 response in fact identified an action if taken may not have resulted in having this item in front of us today. It would seem to me that if the parties that are interested in this can get together and review the record and follow through on the recommendations that were put forward by the grievance finding in Step 1 that we can make progress and not continue to have the item reoccur. It almost has a cycle of two years, a life span of two years it goes away, and it comes back and goes away and comes back and it’s eerie the degree to which the same kinds of things are being said and the posturing, there’s a great deal of posturing that happened on both sides. My sense is we don’t want to deal with posturing we want to find a solution that addresses what the issues were that were agreed upon back in 2005, which is when the grievance finding was issued.

ADM: I suggest that once we have all the information and had a chance to review it and determine how exactly a lot of the policy and procedures that Susan was talking about actually came about to be and then develop a frame as to how we need to address these concerns and then we will inform you according.

FA: Greta do you just want me to forward you that email and do you want that cc’d to you then.

ADM: Sure that would be fine.

FA: Then you don’t have type so fast.

FA: I just have to point out the connection between this item and the previous one. I’m sorry, I can’t leave it unstated.

FA: And that absolutely emerged during my time working with the task force. Those were among the issues.

ADM: I think what I’m hearing is this is a long standing issue which hasn’t been paid much attention both internally and externally within the College and outside and I hear you and I think it’s time to sort of look at it and develop a framework in which some of these questions can be answered.

FA: Thank you.

New Business

1. New Researchers Award Application (ADM)

ADM: I think it was last Monday or at some point, Mark, I and Dan Gregory met and we did address some of the remaining concerns you had brought to us from the committee. At this stage if I understand, it’s a go.

FA: I think it is already gone.

ADM: Because we had addressed those concerns so this is done. This is an easy one.

2. Strategic Program Appraisal (FA)

ADM: Today we made information available to the strategic planning committee with regard to my role and my determination on the three categories on how those programs were coordinated within those three categories along with programs that will be continued at the existing or enhanced level, programs for consolidation/reorganization and then programs that are earmarked for reduction or closure. We also in the cover letter which went out this afternoon to the campus community made it clear that we will spend some time to develop a process by which we have a wide-ranging conversation in with the strategic planning committee as to how we will go about developing a process to think about a plan for consolidation and reorganization. So that’s where the strategic program appraisal currently is. I would be glad to answer any questions or any information while Lisa’s here.

FA: I have one particular question and it relates to gerontology. In gerontology the masters program went through Phase II this year but the minor did not. Both of them are listed with the recommendation and I was just curious if that was the only case where a program that didn’t go through the process had a recommendation.

ADM: That might have been an error in when we grouped them. We can check on that. That was not intentional.

FA: I’m not even sure I am objecting because I can’t imagine how you could restructure the masters without doing something with the minor since the same faculty teach them so I don’t know what the full process was that led to that happening but obviously if it appears to anyone that something is being done with it not having gone through the full process.

ADM: We can go back and check because I don’t have a clear memory of this.

FA: I would just say sooner than later. I agree with Mark but at the same time people have been emailed already, worried that their program which wasn’t under Phase II is now going to be restructured/consolidated.

ADM: We will contact those programs and give them the appropriate information.

FA: So a point of clarification when you say two may have been listed mistakenly?

ADM: Yes.

FA: O.k. and so if we get requests about those two we can say that’s being checked on?

ADM: Yes and we’ll send out an updated document.

FA: O.K.

ADM: The Provost perhaps can... he’s read all the reports. On a number of occasions the reports that I’ve read that have come forward from programs often include information about every program that has any relationship what-so-ever to the one that was identified for appraisal. So it would be easy in the reading process and in the thought process about a particular program to respond to the report not necessarily the chart that caused the production of the report.

ADM: Actually, I think John raises a good point because what is happening is that the other fifty percent of the programs which are not appraised this year will be appraised next year and as we look at consolidation of programs and reorganization then we need to wait for those appraisals because those would play into this too because some of these that we’ve identified here had bearing on what’s coming from there and there may be some complementarities which can be leverage for these programs which are coming from there. But the basic idea of the consolidation/reorganization is as the little blurb on top of this category states is that’s where we identify the programs we thought were necessary in some shape or form to have for our students and therefore we wanted to find out what are the best ways in which we can make them programmatically and fiscally sustainable over the long haul.

FA: One additional item that really isn’t from the faculty perspective, I’m speaking as co-chair of strategic planning that I do want to bring up here, I don’t know if our email has gone out yet because I had sent it to Greta not too long ago but one of the things that came up at strategic planning today that I just wanted to bring up was the concern that students might want an opportunity to speak and so in the email that I forwarded to Greta we have said that we will be contacting student government to set up some sort of opportunity for students to speak to the committee and that we would not find it inappropriate if programs wanted to bring students into their sessions at the open meetings. I just wanted to raise that as an issue because I think that we need to keep in mind that students have strong vested interests and may be very vocal about what’s going on.

ADM: Sure. Actually I have a call out to the president of the student government association also and we are trying to set up a meeting where I want to sit down and I want to explain as to how we will handle the impact on the students also.

FA: On your preamble you talked about creation of schools within colleges so there’s a plan for a creation of schools in colleges?

ADM: What we said is we will create a process to discuss and explore that possibility. So I wouldn’t say there is a plan right now. Right now basically all of the program appraisals have not been completed but we didn’t want to wait until that point we wanted to create a process now and think through it so that the two works can go through simultaneously.

FA: Thank you.

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

ADM: As I pointed out before I did meet, along with Mitch, with Linda Baer, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at MnSCU and we explained to her what we had received from the faculty senate, the document as to how that document and that proposal met both in letter and spirit the MnSCU articulation agreement and she promised she would take a look at it. This was towards the end of December. I haven’t heard anything as of yet but I plan to send her a formal memo to the effect stating again that this is how we are going to be consistent with the MnSCU articulation agreement and I also need to meet with her and follow up on another matter so I will have a face-to-face conversation with her but in the mean while if my understanding is correct current we’re already populating the courses and we are proceeding on the assumption that this indeed is our articulation. This is the general education which meets the needs of the articulation agreement with MnSCU.

FA: You are correct that the faculty are continuing to work on writing the proposals for inclusion in the curriculum and the general education committee, UCC are working at processing those so we are moving ahead on the assumption that we’re heading in a permissible direction.

4. Status of LR&TS Faculty Organized as a Department (FA)

ADM: I think last time we had a conversation here, I know you had given me a list of LRTS recommendations via the faculty senate and at that point I’d asked the dean to take a look at it and have a conversation and give me her perspective. I think she is meeting with them and hopefully this work will be completed soon and then I will make my decision and I will be more than glad to inform you of it.

FA: Could you give us some sense of when you expect the report to be available to you and when you foresee yourself making a decision.

ADM: I don’t see that long of time period but I will let Kristi address as to where the conversations are and what some of the issues around the conversations that are still needed between her and the faculty.

ADM: I think we’ve met four times since the start of the school year.

FA: I think that is correct.

ADM: One time was for twenty minutes and so it’s been short periods of time and then with the question on budget cuts the faculty wanted to discuss that as well so I can’t say that all four of our meetings have been on the topic of departmental status. So the last time we met we went over the concerns, they had gave me a multiple page document with questions that we are reviewing. We got two thirds way, Tom and I met today, we’re scheduled again to meet March 1^st. I think if we can spend a solid period of time together that would be helpful. It’s been kind of hard to do it in little bits and pieces so I think we’re hoping to be able spend at least a whole hour at least.

FA: And we met last spring to.

FA: Assuming that such meetings move forward and continue to happen can you give us any sense of what is a realistic time frame?

FA: I think the big issue is just getting together so for me if we can get through the issues then I don’t think it’s hard just need conversations. If the faculty have a lot more concerns that I am not aware that will take longer. If all the concerns are detailed on what I’d seen we should be able to move forward on it. I would think.

FA: I think the faculty want a little clearer understanding of what your expectations of the form of the report would be.

ADM: It’s hard to give you that until I have all the information.

FA: I guess a definition of all the information is exactly what we’re looking for.

ADM: I’ve already said you had given me just what I got from the faculty senate which is just the motion. There is also an issue where I want the perspective of the dean from the unit level perspective as to what makes sense from level of the unit and so that is what these conversations are about. With regard to this issue when I met, if I remember correctly, when I met with some of the units of the LR&TS faculty that had come up and where I broadly talked about my philosophical underpinnings as to where I see new departments and new initiatives coming in and my reluctance to jump into those areas unless I have looked at it much more carefully as to what the programmatic effectiveness is and what the fiscal sustainability is. So I would like to understand better as to what prompts this kind of organizational restructuring and why this would be more effective than the existing mode of organizational structure. So I have a little home work to do.

FA: Is that a question that you are asking of the faculty that is what are the advantages.

ADM: I am hoping that any materials I get from the unit would be focused on that because otherwise why would you go around restructuring the organizational unit if it doesn’t include the effectiveness of the unit itself.

ADM: That’s certainly part of what we are discussing together.

ADM: I was mainly responding to Tom’s question as to what I would be looking for and this is what I would be looking for.

FA: And my follow up question was trying to aim at how do we go about making this happen so that the dean, you get the information that you need and what can we do to make it happen in an appropriate amount of time. I’m not trying to impose a deadline, I’m just trying to get a sense of whether we have a target.

ADM: I appreciate that. I’m comfortable that once the conversations between the

dean and the faculty are completed in a short period of time that I’ll have the record of that information to make a decision.

FA: I guess it would be helpful to us then as a faculty if we get the questions that the dean is concerned about so that we have an ability to look at those as a faculty and discuss those.

ADM: I think that as Kristi has pointed out that, if I understood our observations correctly that attempts have been made on both sides to have the conversation but for various reasons they have been a little bit fractured right now in terms of the time frame. So if you all have a full complement of time I’m sure you can quickly ask those questions directly and resolve those and answer those.

FA: It would be helpful if we had the questions written down because where you think an hour would be time enough but with other concerns, budget and things we’re being asked for other things too, so and we are on the SPA review too so we’ve had a lot going on. I think it would be useful to allow the conversation to clarify it to get the concerns, about what the dean’s concerned about so that we understand those concerns and we can respond back and forth. Not only face-to-face but through written materials.

ADM: Susan, again the recommendation is coming from the faculty and the faculty has given something in writing to the dean. The dean is trying to respond to that and I think in that context if you require a written response and then want to meet face-to-face then that is a conversation best occurs between the dean and faculty as to what is the best process to exchange that information.

FA: I think that we agree that it is a conversation that best takes place between the dean and faculty and what I have been fishing for here is so what can we mutually do to facilitate that occurring in a positive, collegial and productive way? It’s not clear to me why these meetings are not occurring either with more frequency or more productivity and that’s what I am trying to get a sense of. Is there something that can be done to help this process move forward? Is there something that one side or the other needs in order to ..

ADM: I’m tired of running around this. I’ve talked to both sides. Tom, you and Mark have told me that the reason the meetings aren’t happening is because Kristi talks about other stuff and there’s no time left. You told me that on Monday. I conveyed that to Kristi and Kristi said she comes in the meeting and says what do you want to talk about and as Susan says we have other things to talk about and several times she has arrived at the meeting and the faculty said well we’re not quite done with everything else yet can you wait and come back in a half an hour. I can’t even get to the point where I’ve got a straight story on what’s going on in trying to sit down together to talk. As a decision making here, unless you guys can get together and agree on the simple facts, I’m hearing very different stories that just aren’t right. So get together.

FA: I asked for a copy of, I’d like questions. We’ve been dancing around trying to talk and we’re not. If we had questions that are written down that the dean has for us it would be helpful then we can think, I’ve asked for this and we can think about it and respond to them.

ADM: Let me ask some other questions. Is there a case statement for why you should be a department in writing?

FA: Is there a statement why?

ADM: Why, yes. A valued statement that says this is why we think we should be a department and organized that way.

FA: We have laid out a chart which we shared with the dean of all the things that, concerns and things why we think it would be useful.

ADM: I think the answer was yes.

ADM: I’m taking that as a yes.

FA: Yes.

ADM: Would you agree that there’s a case statement for why it should be a department.

ADM: I don’t think there’s a fully articulated case statement, there is a statement that we have been working off of, of the issues related to it. I don’t think that they have articulated all the reasons why.

ADM: Have you seen that case statement?

ADM: No I haven’t.

ADM: O.K. This is a seriously flawed and broken process like two vultures on a branch patient on how I am going to kill something (laughter). I expect the parties to develop a case statement for why a department should be created, structures. I expect the Provost to see that. I expect the Provost to advise the dean on how to respond in writing to that assessment and I expect thereby to be created pro’s and con’s which you will then sit down together and find time with nothing else on the agenda to talk about that. You’ll keep time and tell the Provost that we kept our promise to talk about this to find time. And then you will give the Provost a complete picture in writing of a recommendation that he will consider to make a decision on. Clear? Thank you. All done.

5. Honors Program (ADM)

ADM: Basically I want to start a search for an interim director for Honors Program, an internal search. I want the Honors Advisory committee to be the FA member on the search committee because this is what the Advisory committee has conveyed to me that they would like the advisory committee to be part of that search committee, all of them and I have no objection to that.

FA: My response to that is similar to the response about forming a search committee for CETL.

ADM: Yes, I can give you the other members.

FA: It makes sense on the surface, we’ve talked some about this.

Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns

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

ADM: Steve is not hear and so I will speak briefly to the project. Since we’ve last met the conversations at the state level continue to develop. Laura King has said to the presidents that the system’s public position, and I’ll explain that in just a second, is that we should expect an unallotment of 60 million dollars for the system in 2011. That would be the 50 million that they had planned on plus an additional ten. That figure ten comes from the systems assessment that between the U’s share and our share’s which was 50 added together there remains a 46 million dollar gap. That amount could be unallotted before triggering the maintenance of effort clause which would cause the stimulus monies to go away. There’s an understanding from the governor’s office that the governor won’t cross that threshold. So that means 46 is the largest. Conversations back and forth with the U validated by Bernie’s assessment of the governor’s office is that our share should be about ten and there’s should be 30ish. Our share of ten is predicated on the fact that, that would take us back to our 2007 funding money. The law does not require maintenance of efforts independently for both entities but it has to be maintained in the total so theoretically it could be portioned differently but there seems to be no push for that so we have said to the campus that bracketing a range of five to fourteen. It appears now based on the systems in place that the actual gap will be closer to six. We’ve asked people to think about broadly speaking, not cuts across the board but broadly speaking a ten percent reduction which will be the fourteen. We still have to have conversations with budget advisory to say at this point we know that ten is too big but saying it’s going to be six is too small. Uncertainty still remains so we’ll probably shave that down a bit but our planning work should go on. Now, that has to be understood in the context of the governor facing a supreme court case in which the supreme court in the governor’s case as to overturn a lower court decision which would invalidate his unallotment practice last year. If that happens all hell breaks loose because the state then has a 2.7 billion dollar hole to fill through legislative action. So on the one hand we’ll have some good news with respect to what we think we’re going to face in 2011. This larger nut in the middle still means we’ve got a month longer at least of great uncertainty about the situation we face. So I think all of the things we’re currently doing to reach out this far to identify strategies to reduce the budget in 2011 are still appropriate so I don’t expect any immediate course corrections in the way we’re planning. On a separate side, in the bonding bill we’re positioned as well as we might be. We’re moving through in house and senate versions. Larry Pogemiller says that privately if the governor and the legislator are not as far apart as they are publicly. Where that brings us is Pogemiller’s figure of seven-eleven in the conversation with the governor is right that puts us right on the edge in there and so advocacy for ISELF continues to be important. I think in the governor’s mind the statewide impact on a project is really important and we have to represent ISELF as having state-wide impact. It’s not a local project it is a program facility that serves the State of Minnesota and compliments the University of Minnesota’s mission. We’re the largest and most important, I’ve been here long enough now to say that (laughter), institution in MnSCU. Our science programs are the strongest in MnSCU. This is a state-wide program that deserves state-wide investment. That’s the message that we need to get through. My own efforts in the governor’s office are going to come late in the process when Bernie tells me now is the time to talk to so-and-so. So we’re watching the process right now. That’s what I can tell you at this point. Anymore words would be speculation.

FA: I’m thinking about when I came in 1990. We were about 19 thousand students in 1990 and then at one point the Chancellor’s Office came down and said we were too big and they forced us to take less students and I noticed today we’ve got 17,700 in the outlook article that you were in and I’m just concerned now that we’re talking about making possibly less ability to have adjuncts and things. I get worried that on the other hand we’re getting more students what about having enough faculty and enough sections for the students if we are going to be increasing numbers that we don’t because that was a huge problem when I came in 91 and 92. We got beat up all over the place because we didn’t have enough seats for the students that we had admitted.

ADM: I recognize that’s a risk. The Provost’s priority is to protect instructional capacity. We recognize that we don’t have information of the quality we need to make some important decisions.

ADM: As the President said as we move forward we want to protect the instructional capacity and also we want to look at our enrollment management in a much more strategic fashion which goes directly to your question. Within that context we are not only going to look at the overall scale of the number of students total but also the composition of the students. We have to do some internal work where we see which programs we have excess capacity and which programs are coming apart at the seams. It is possible that in some programs where we are close to capacity we could be more selective and then market some of the other programs where we have excess capacity much more aggressively. So that has to be part and parcel of that discussion. As the President pointed out we are trying to get that information, we are trying to make that decision because in order to say number x is really the optimal number we can effectively serve at this level. At this point we are not at a point to have that kind of determination and make that kind of a claim. You’re absolutely right, as we move forward particularly as we go through our academic reorganization that will be a fundamental question that will be part and parcel of answering that question.

ADM: Course analysis.

ADM: In order to determine where capacity is and where capacity is not I’ve asked Lisa to talk to a national consultant where we bring in the person and we will do a course analysis. With this person we will just develop an information set for us so that we can identify then from course to the program to the departments and understand where capacities are and where we are at with capacity, where we are in some times above capacity and where we are below capacity and then develop a strategy around that.

ADM: We began the process at the directive of the Provost with regard to overload and adjunct usage in spring semester. One of the tasks he assigned to me was to look very carefully whether or not we would approve additional adjunct hires and overload hires based on capacity. That process initially yielded 128,000 dollars in savings this year without effecting student enrollment in courses that they desired. Now what I’ve begun to do is look at the entire year in capacity as the Provost has matched the ultimate goal is to determine what the cost of instruction is for the number of students we served. This year we’re going to come in very close to 15,000 FYE students, graduate and undergraduates. The enrollment projection based on analysis, Mark participated in that analysis, is that we expect to be slightly smaller next year because of the aberration created by change in practice in financial aid. There was a blip that we think is up that’s artificial that’s going to come back down. To say that we have a sophisticated system to do this as the President has said we don’t but that’s not to say we’re not using available information to maximize the return on instructional investment. That does mean there are going to be changes in practices in the departments. But those changes are going to be driven by the commitment to instruction and equity across the University.

ADM: You correctly named the risk, we see the risk too. As the Provost said you can’t just let things sort of happen they have to be managed. When you’ve got significant excess capacity down here you don’t need to be very careful. We’re now up bumping against the ceiling and much more care and design needs to be implemented. You’re right, we understand that.

ADM: The only thing that I was going to say is that you’re absolutely correct. This has very significant budgetary implications as John has pointed out because most of our resources are tied into the delivery of curriculum and so if we’re going to talk about effective use of resources that immediately translates into effective delivery of curriculum. When I say effective it doesn’t mean necessarily then in some way compromise with the rigor. I think that also is not essential so we are looking at it very carefully from all different perspectives.

FA: I want to note with gratitude one thing that I have not heard proposed and that is some sort of ham-handed across the board increased class sizes directive.

ADM: You forgot to mention that.

(laughter)

FA: As you know I have been happy and I think the faculty association on the whole has been willing to work with this process to look for efficiencies to take seriously the fact that we face a genuine budget crisis and that we have to be part of the solution. I hope that the process will continue to be one in which we are taking the difficult but much wiser path of trying to look at what actually serves students, what’s actually pedagogically best and don’t try any ham-handed solutions. I’m saying that I genuinely acknowledge and appreciate the fact that, that has not been the path that we’ve been following so far.

FA: While we are being happy and appreciative and talking about budget and politics I am going to make an assumption and thank the President for his input to the recent audits that addressed the campuses. I think the fact that it made as much news as it did and that the president’s were quoted in there as saying that the majority of the president’s took a position. I think that’s very powerful what they did. Thank you.

FA: And thank you for the explanation because I just don’t want to work for an institution as when I was first here where everybody said to me, I would go out and introduce myself around that state and they’d say “Oh yea that’s where they admit you but there are no seats for you to sit in the class. I just don’t want to go back to that because it’s no fun.

ADM: I do want to revisit the class sizes issue. Because there is this anxiety and it always comes in the context of the budget. There are areas where class sizes, we are looking at class sizes but it is not across the board. Because in some cases we are looking at class sizes because some large class formulas were set but then the policy was never pursued. And so in some instances the policy is being applied inconsistently across colleges so we are trying to get our hands around that and bring those practices and bring some consistency. In fact I want to at some point, next year or even as part of this conversation as we go, I would like to revisit some of these issues which surround these quote-unquote large class formulas where it makes sense, why it makes sense, what are some of the guidelines where there would be large classes, where are some of the areas where large classes don’t make sense and then ask also a fundamental question, if you going to have a large class formula then should we also have a small class formula. Because I think that goes part and parcel if you are going to look at the effectiveness of the delivery of the curriculum.

FA: This one piece historically about that, I think that when we moved to large classes there’s a genuine symptom on the part of faculty in many departments across the campus to kind of re-envision whether or not it was a sensible thing to have a large class room for certain classes with certain pedagogies and one of the things that people ran into would determine that, in fact there were some classes that would be appropriate for that, was the lack of ability of appropriate spaces. And also scheduling practices on campus that got in the way of using those in efficient ways.

ADM: You’re absolutely right. I think you raise two important issues the class size has pedagogical implications and that obviously it has to be configured spatially and appropriately.

FA: As we have done class sizes in the twelve years I’ve been here teaching a class of 200 I’ve had two assistants to zero assistants so if we’re going to talk about keeping what’s the best place to have a large class also that support fact that we lost.

ADM: You’re right I think that is important we have to make sure that we do not compromise the learning outcomes of the students. Because then we’re really throwing the baby out with the bath water.

FA: I think that as long as that is the nature of the conversation on a case-by-case basis that’s going to be something that the faculty will work responsibly with you on and it’s fair to ask questions about are we really filling a large hall and if not why are we using it. These are all good questions to ask. I hope also though we will ask ourselves about whether we might want to consider ways of teaching that we don’t do very much here, some versions of team teaching or combinations of large lectures, small discussions. We haven’t been very good at constructing either the staffing model or the space model for doing that and that can be something that delivers quality instruction potentially at a lower cost.

ADM: Actually I welcome all those conversations. In fact in terms of team teaching, the College of Education I didn’t realize has a model of team teaching.

FA: Co-teaching.

ADM: Co-teaching. But what I’m saying is that those are important discussions that we need to have.

FA: In other areas those who have been interested in that have found lots of barriers.

ADM: You’re absolutely right, we need to identify those barriers. That is sort of the challenge. The challenge is that we need to move away from the epistemology, the specific disciples to phominlogical approaches. That is sort of the nature of the beast which is emerging we can call it interdisciplinary, we can call it whatever else. So what it means is that ultimately the departmental boundaries have become ports but we haven’t recognized that and we don’t have mechanisms in practice which will allow that kind of leveraging of the complementarities which cut across disciplines and departments.

FA: This may be inappropriate, you can shut me out, and if you talk about disciplinary boundaries from between departments evaporating I hope at some point there might be some discussion about what that would mean contractually.

ADM: In fact that’s precisely it. As we move through our discussions over the next year in terms of program consolidation, in terms of looking at different organizational structures, where we can provide centralized support services from a budgetary standpoint but also at the same time from a pedagogical standpoint have conversations as to what implications it would have ultimately. You’re absolutely right.

FA: But I think we’d also need to have conversations about how do we do this in a way that would protect the rights and responsibilities of the various sides of the bargaining agreement and I don’t think that a lot of the things that we’re doing now are carefully thought up from the system level. We don’t have the kinds of teeth in the contract to actually do some of the things we’d like to do maybe. And that’s just me speaking that’s not an FA perspective.

ADM: You’re right that’s why I think whatever organizational structure we come up with we have to recognize there are certain areas of academic enterprise where inherently we have to have faculty driven processes. For example; curricular design, delivery and monitoring and those have to be kept in mind. There are also issues which are related to peer evaluation where also we need to rethink some of those things as to how we can retain that even though we may get to a better organizational structure. So those are questions we need to ask.

ADM: In December presidents, provosts and HR folks met on this campus to talk with the system office about first of all the shape of higher education in the next two decades. Secondly the character of a workforce necessary for that shape and only then areas of the contact which we would want to talk about as issues related to the workforce of the future. It was an interesting conversation and it was the first one I’d been in that wasn’t carping and wining about particular language or past practices. The first one took a long term look ahead that wasn’t about the next contract but was about where are we going in the next decade. I would expect as the summary of those conversations are shared with the board that within the next month or so the system will begin to share with IFO statewide leadership and invite people to a conversation about big and more future issues which is the only way to get to that stuff and you’ll never get where you need to go with dealing with it by our contact by contract basis, have some vision of where we’re headed. I don’t think you can get there without perspectives of the faculty through the IFO and the system together in on that conversation. It means creating a different kind of conversation. We’re just sort of in the first pages of that book. I’m optimistic but it’s a long road.

2. Status of Administrative Searches (ADM)

ADM: There’s one search going on, College of Education dean search. The committee is in place, it is working. Our new affirmative action officer, Ellyn Bartges, she’s working very closely with the search committee and we’re really trying hard to build a vibrant and diverse pool. We extended the deadline to March 8 and however I just had a conversation with the chair of the search committee, Frank Harrold and he informed me the committee is currently close to finalizing the evaluative criteria for the first cut for the candidates and as soon as they do that, I think next week, they’re meeting again and after that even before March 8 the applications which have come in the search committee members will start looking at those so that we’re ready to move at a well speed as soon as March 8 arrives. That’s the only update I have on the administrative searches.

3. Students First Initiatives (FA)

FA: I have one thing to share and that is that the executive committee of the IFO approved a resolution with a long list of positive goals that we would want Students First to meet. I did the original drafting on it after consultation on this campus and then also other members of the IFO executive team with various other contributions at their work and we presented it to the board at our last Meet & Confer. I will be happy to share a copy of that with anybody who’s interested in it. As of the last I checked the minutes of our meeting have not yet come out with the final text formally in it so I’m waiting for that, it might be a couple of days.

ADM: Thank you.

Adjourned 4:49