Final Approved 8/5/10
Faculty Association
Meet and Confer
July 8, 2010
Administration: John Palmer, David DeGroote, Frank Harrold, Larry Chambers, Judith Siminoe, Earl Potter, Devinder Malhotra, Steve Ludwig, Lisa Foss
Faculty: Tom Hergert, Mark Jaede, Balsy Kasi, Judy Kilborn, Frances Kayona, Michael Connaughton, Bill Hudson, David Switzer, Debra Leigh, Polly Chappell (note-taker)
Approval of Minutes
1. June 20, 2010
Admin: Mark, did you get a chance to send something back to Greta?
FA: No, I don’t think I did.
Admin: So, we can work that out and then I think the group told us if we were okay with them, the minutes are approved, and they can be posted on the website.
The only other thing is before we start, there is a minor change in the agenda. In Item 1, please strike out “membership request” and Steve will explain why. With that we can start.
Unfinished Business
1. Reorganization Progress/Prospects (ADM): Academic Support, Administrative and Operating Program and Service Appraisal and Organization
Admin: Thanks. I’m sending around a copy of the latest draft of this document. This represents the work done within the various units to develop a list, which is appendix A of all the areas that will do appraisals and assessment as part of this process. That was completed last week. I assimilated all that. There were a lot of small changes in the other document, not substantive, some grammatical and some for clarity. It will remain a draft until the steering committee completes its first task. The steering committee is being formed using the process by the Strategic Planning Committee and that’s why there’s a change in the request, because Strategic Planning has a process to populate the committees. We will be talking once more at PC, after today there was one suggestion by MSUAASF about being certain that there’s a distribution of the people among various Vice Presidential units within the committee. We will ask after that. I would suggest we’ll seek help from the SPC to make that happen. So, we expect to go forward with that. The first task of the steering committee begins on page 2 and extends to the top of page 3, and there’s a series of questions. There’s a little note in italics above that that we’d like the steering group to prioritize and identify the required and optional questions, and it has also been added that we may consider limiting the length or describing the character of the report so those might not provide thousands of pages. So, that’s the plan. When they finish that report about how the documents will be shaped, I think that’s the point we would take “draft” off. The document could be used by all these various service and program areas to develop their reports. With that, are there any questions?
Admin: Hearing none; we can go to New Business.
New Business
1. FY12 Budget and Retrenchment Process(FA)
Admin: This handout will give you a sense of where we are and this document relates to the approach of identifying the scale at which we need to notice probationary faculty by August 1. And we’ll have more detailed information as to who will be notified at our next meeting on July 22. Essentially in this document it lays out, with all the information which is available today, that we think in FY12 we will have to eliminate close to approximately 80 faculty lines. We intend to send a notice to 20 probationary faculty on August 1.
Admin: By August 1.
Admin: By August 1. Thank you. Steve you want to add anything to that?
Admin: I want to provide the context. We haven’t had any change in our projection for FY12 and ‘13. This was the document that we used at the end of April in our town hall meeting. There won’t be much movement on this until I would at least suspect following the election in November. So, there won’t be much guidance on settlements and management budgets and what others are thinking about that. MnSCU will not be making projections on their budget and what they might do until after that date. So, this was based on the information we had; it is assumptive on our FY11 balanced budget, which we have entered and started the year now, and then changes from that FY11 base. When now, as the dust settles on all the changes we made, we just completed today a little projection based on what we’ve actually entered on the budget. That is not going to be substantially different as we go forward. So, the 13.6 million was our preliminary estimate at the time. We split it among the two years. In the second year that split may shift, some numbers may shift a little bit but this is our best estimate. In the document for Academic Affairs you’ll notice they rounded it to 14. They looked at general areas where they can make reductions in that area and attributed some cuts to the university. As we get more information we’ll shape that precisely. In the end, we’ll be doing, as it is our habit, we will be making assumptions about our budget for FY12 prior to legislative sessions including prior to tuition being finally set. Also, prior to settlements are completed unless they happen very rapidly, which I personally don’t expect, but perhaps. These are unusual times.
FA: On this approach for noticing probationary faculty, in the last bulleted item it says that we can estimate that the FY12 will require a reduction of approximately 92 faculty lines. Can you help me understand how that gap is between 92 and 80?
Admin: If you read through all of what I was trying to do is develop some upper bounds because these are really estimates with information we have since we don’t have very precise information right now. So if you start with last year, Academic Affairs’ share of the budget cuts for FY11 was four million, and we ended up eliminating 39 faculty lines.
FA: Okay.
Admin: So, I said if it was four million we need to eliminate 39 faculty, if it was 9.5 million what would be the proportionate number, that’s what gave me 92. So, that gave me the upper bound. But that didn’t take into consideration the fact that we will go through some academic reorganization and program consolidation. That will bring some savings. We will also ask the non-instructional areas within Academic Affairs to come up with some efficiencies, and then we will also look at some opportunities for net additional revenues. On that basis our best estimate is six-and-a-half and approximately around that area that would come from elimination of faculty lines under this scenario, and that would then lead to estimate of a lower bound of about 65. So, then basically once I establish these bounds I’m in the middle with 80.
Admin: Your question responds to an important understanding to have. The first is that we have to reduce expenditures so that’s why the Provost presents it the way he does. Since we’re a people-driven entity, that is most of our expenditures are for people, the most direct way we have to reduce expenditures is tied to people. So, that’s why he described that. If we had to make the entire reduction in people that number is going to be the upper bound. The Provost has identified estimates of ways to reduce that impact on people with the cost savings that are highlighted here. None of these are realized and they are all estimates. The bottom line is that when all this is done, we would need to reduce expenditures by 14 million at the institution with the rounding factor that Steve mentioned for 9.5 million or there about in the Academic Affairs. So, there isn’t a one-to-one relationship between number of lines and the dollars saved. It’s a simple tool to get to a point that the dollars are saved. Now, the advantage of the approach that the Provost brings is that we preserve instructional capacity by not eliminating faculty lines. The President and the Provost are committed to preserving instructional capacity. I’ve been quoted saying to people who don’t teach classes, if you don’t teach a class you’re at a greater risk than if you do teach a class for budget reductions unless you’re producing revenue. The reality is we’re in the education business and we need to teach classes. Now, mitigating against that is this is based on assumption upon assumption upon assumption and then it’s eye-balled to say that we have to notify probationary faculty almost 10 months before we’ll really ever know the status of our budget. We have to do that.
FA: I have a couple of questions. First, in regard to the number of notices that you foresee giving, you’re giving us an estimate of 20 faculty lines through retrenchment, and that’s consistent with the rough estimates we’ve heard in the past. How will you be going about translating that into numbers of notices given on August 1st? What is the relationship between the number of notices given… I understand this is an estimate, not a precise number, so, what do you foresee… ?
Admin: Actually at the present time we intent to notice 20 probationary faculty.
FA: Okay. My next question is in regard to the process by which you will be indentifying specific faculty lines where notices will be given. The criteria that you identify at the bottom.
Admin: Yes.
FA: I believe I understand them. They appear to be decisions for locating departments or I guess the most precise contractual term is to use rosters within which eliminations of faculty might be necessary or if not appropriate the least objectionable. How will you be going about making the decision as among probationary faculty to be noticed as of August 1st within a roster?
Admin: We will follow the agreement. Probationary faculty don’t have seniority. There may be some misunderstanding on it but if you read the bargaining agreement carefully, probationary faculty don’t get seniority until they are granted tenure; so they are equal. They may have been hired at different points and different times. The Deans have been advising Devinder with information that’s tied to program; because quite clearly there are differences often in program enrollments in departments. It is possible, I’m not saying probable, but it is possible that someone who has been here five years would be notified and someone in that department who’s only been here two years would not, because of the unique nature of what they bring as a teaching expertise to the department. I don’t have any knowledge of whether or not any of the recommendations the Dean make or have made fit that description, but the bargaining agreement gives that latitude. So, it is not last in, last out for probationary. Now, beyond that it seems to me the recommendation would be tied to programmatic need. That’s where the Deans and various processes we’ve gone through that look at capacity of programs happen. I can’t speak for Devinder but I would guess…
Admin: No. But that’s actually a fair assessment. Because what happens is very often a same department may have more than one program and depending on which program seems viable and which program we may eliminate depending on that and in terms of student demands according to this criteria there may be some variability.
FA: I should share with you that the position of the IFO has been and remains that while we recognize that the wording with regards to probationary and tenured faculty is not identical in the contract that we think it is within the spirit of the contract that probationary faculty ought to be treated in reverse order of seniority for retention as within a given roster.
Admin: Thank you.
FA: There’s another kind of decision that’s being made and that is because faculty lines from attrition are not in all cases in units needing reductions, there are vacancies that exist or are coming into existence, and in some cases there are decisions being made authorize searches and there are decisions being made not to authorize searches. Could you explain the process by which you made that determination?
Admin: Yes. Again, that criteria is not any different than this, but also in some cases by in large unless there are some overwhelming considerations to which require hiring right away, I’m at this point not recommending of filling vacant lines with probationary hires until the dust settles as we move forward into the budget. But the actual criteria which will be used to prioritize such hiring is not any different than what is stated here.
FA: Is there any budgetary news that we’ve received… these are April figures… I understand that politically there have not been changes and that the lot remains uncertain because of the fact that it is an election year an whoever is going to be holding various offices is going to have a lot to do with what decisions are made about taxation and funding and so on, but is there any economic news that leads to any changed projection of the severity of the state deficit?
Admin: I’ll defer to Steve on that.
Admin: One aside the legislative did end with the compromise as a result of the supreme court decision that came out consistent with this.
FA: Yes.
Admin: That was some action that was taken.
FA: Sure.
Admin: In terms of the economic news, I look for good new all the time. Yesterday the market was up. Never mind that I got my TIAA-CREF statement a couple days before (laughter).
Admin: Don’t look at it.
Admin: In any case, I happened to be in Iowa this past weekend and they had some budget information that they were expecting it must have been about $900,000,000 deficit and they had a $400,000,000 improvement as they got to the end of the year. The article didn’t say what happened if people sold corn or what it was. But it’s the first time I’ve seen a state bump up. So, that’s the only thing I’ve seen that’s economic news. I’ve watched unemployment and other state budget forecasts for awhile. The November forecast will be the one the legislature will be most interested in.
FA: So, is your official advise go long on corn? (Laughter)
Admin: Only if you have storage that’s cheap.
Admin: The corn looked great in Iowa. They’ve been getting rain. I think corn is going to decline.
FA: Okay. We probably won’t solve our budget crisis through current speculations.
Admin: No.
FA: Those are all the questions I’ve got.
Admin: Thank you.
FA: So, is the faculty lines for attrition retirements primarily?
Admin: Actually those are currently vacant lines.
FA: Okay.
Admin: Currently vacant lines except for one caveat and that is where a faculty may be on phased retirement and the current year is the last year of retirement. These are faculty lines that are vacant at the present time.
FA: Okay.
Admin: They may have, in some cases, fixed working on them but it’s a vacant faculty line.
FA: Okay, and in terms of a faculty line from BESI, can you talk a little bit about how you’re going to approach that?
Admin: Yes.
FA: You know, timelines, the kind of process; and how you might get to that number?
Admin: Yes. Essentially I’ve been having conversations with both HR and with the Deans and getting a sense of where faculty are in terms of eligibility for BESI because it has an eligibility of age 55 and five years at least of service. And, so, once we have that we will use that criteria on it as to what departments and programs we want to go to. Perhaps we want to pare down faculty lines and then once we identify those departments then we will offer BESI in those areas. In terms of what the actual process, we are still working through this. At the present time our best guess is that some time in August we will work through the BESI policy and identify the departments or programs which will be eligible for BESI Steve, do you want to add something?
Admin: No, I think that’s accurate. We’ll look at it and try to target it the best we can.
FA: Actually I do have one more question. Do you foresee that the 20 faculty to whom you’re going to be giving notice are going to be all probationary or do you have a sense yet whether you’re going to the tenured faculty in some rosters?
Admin: Yes. We will. But right now we’re focused on August 1 and probationary faculty. As this conversation goes further and some these numbers firm up, we will develop a process for that too and share it within Meet and Confer much before we get to the 20th day of the fall when we have to notice the tenured faculty.
FA: So, what you’re saying is that you foresee giving notice to 20 probationary faculty and there might be additional tenured faculty who might be noticed by the contractual deadline for tenured faculty?
Admin: That’s right. Part of the reason is if you look at 30 of the BESI, that’s a very soft number because we don’t know how many people and also some of these other estimates they will become more clear in the next month or so. So, we’ll be in a better position to give you a little more accurate information on that score.
FA: Thank you.
Admin: If there are no other questions we’ll move onto the next item. I’ll let John talk about this.
2. Information regarding rollover of FTNPs (ADM)
Admin: We come today with the item which is required by the bargaining agreement of notification of our intent to hire some fixed term beyond their fourth year. The document that you are getting indentifies those. It is a summary of all those faculty as of the end of last fiscal year or last school year, had worked four or more consecutive years of fixed term employment at St. Cloud State University. The number that appears at the right under years, are the total number of years of fixed term employment. This summarizes data from 1996 to 2010. There is a reference to a position number that is when a fixed term is hired they are hired into an existing number. Often it’s a number of someone that has resigned or retired and in some cases someone who died. They take the place and they serve under that position number. So, you’ll see those who have been here more than four years often will have multiple position numbers identifying them. The President has determined that the names that appear in are the fixed terms that we intend to offer employment for one more year next year because we believe it would be in the best interest of the university to have these people back doing the work that they’ve done. It’s my understanding from talking to the Deans and compiling the list of the bold that in each case the departments that were involved were consulted, and the departments said yes, we’d like to have this person back. So, what you have is a summary. There will be changes in practices relative to how fixed terms are searched and when they are searched. That’s a matter for future Meet and Confer, but I do know that the Equity and Affirmative Action Officer has concerns with what our past practices had been and the intention is to be very careful in how we allow people to continue to serve who did not get a new search when a new position came open or the fixed term did not get searched when the four years ended. But we may not be hiring fixed terms in 2012 because once we identify a department for retrenchment those departments have to not use fixed term or adjunct, and the 30 positions that are identified under attrition include many of these fixed term lines that we bring to you today. I’d be happy to respond to questions.
FA: The bold ones are the ones the President approves?
Admin: That’s correct. The names that appear in bold.
FA: Based on the discretion of the Dean?
Admin: In consultation with the Deans and the Provost.
Admin: Yes. I consulted with the deans and made a recommendation.
FA: Okay.
Admin: My understanding is that the Deans consulted with the department.
Admin: Yes.
FA: The handout that I received shows that it is supposed to be six pages, but there is only three.
Admin: That’s because the column that had nothing in it that I didn’t delete would have been blank pages.
Admin: I’ll send you an electronic copy.
FA: My quick count is 13 positions?
Admin: I believe you’re correct.
Admin: I think there are 20 overall which are listed. The bold are the 13.
Admin: I think there is one in italics that should have been bold.
Admin: Boy, what an eye.
FA: I think the heart of the concern for our side about long-term fixed term appointments is not just about the same person serving for a long period of time but a position which meets a long-term need being filled on a year-by-year basis. Some of these we’re just talking about four years going to five. Those are perhaps undesirable and not especially egregious but there are some here where the numbers are 12 and other large numbers. The question I have is how did you determine that this was in fact a temporary position when at something that has been filled on a temporary basis for 12 years as opposed to being a permanent position?
Admin: I think we need to look at our overall structure as to how we staff our activities. I think in this case what happens is that very often the attrition rate varies across departments so it’s not as if the same person is filling. If it’s in a big department it is going to be different. So, it’s very hard to parse that out. But it is something which we need to take a hard look at and do an analysis and figure out what exactly were the back fill needs in every case. Your point is well taken.
FA: There are cases where the same person might genuinely performing different duties and teaching a different set of classes and not in fact doing the same job.
Admin: Yes.
FA: For so many years… it is also possible that sometimes such things might be more apparent than actual; and that sometimes it may happen that there’s a little jiggling of this and jiggling of that but the majority of the work is the same. This is part of the larger conversation that we have been engaged in.
Admin: Exactly.
FA: And I just want to state the concern that it is critically important that permanent needs be met by permanent faculty with the appropriate commitments to faculty that the contract provides.
Admin: Sure.
Admin: If we were interested in hiding something we would have not given you the position number. But the position number is very interesting to examine because it does tell you the degree to which the longer term fixed terms were filling different slots and the normative behavior at least as I looked at the list is that these people would work three years in a number and then they’d go to a different position number and then they’d go to another number, and that there was that kind of churning. I’m not suggesting to you that what you had to say was inappropriate. I would want you to remember that we did bring this list to you and shared it with you in a way that you get a sense of what the past practices have been since 1996. Now, I was not on the FA Executive Committee in 1996 but I doubt very much if any of you have ever seen this data before.
FA: I do not recall seeing it previously. I have not been in this capacity since 1996. I certainly… that’s appreciated. The concerns remain. But I’m certainly aware that many people at this table were not the people making any of these decisions in 2001 and 2002.
Admin: As you pointed out we are in conversation with you in developing a better understanding and hopefully then developing a better approach to deal with the concerns that you have.
FA: Can I just get a clarification on the numbers? Are the 14 people you expect to rehire here, are those included in those that are currently…?
Admin: I don’t think it is… I know John said that. I don’t think we did an analysis on how many of the 30 vacant lines we expected were fixed lines over four years. Some may be. But there were some vacant lines which are currently filled by a fixed term position.
FA: But after this year it wouldn’t be?
Admin: Yes.
FA: I got it.
Admin: Yes.
Admin: In order for the person’s name to appear on this list, they would have had to be employed last school year. And when we went through the reductions for 2011 we did share the elimination a number of fixed term lines. It’s my understanding that one of the items that the Deans shared with the Provost was in fact these vacant positions and fixed terms that were filling those positions on a temporary basis. The number is larger than 30 because the number of fixed employees is larger than 30.
FA: The positions, are they year to year, or four-year fixed-term?
Admin: These are year to year. Is that correct John? They are all one year?
Admin: I was asked at the Administrative meeting what the “1” in front of the larger number is.
FA: Yes.
Admin: That represents the percent of full-time in a given year. That means they were appointed to a one-year position because fixed terms the minute they agree to their appointment have agreed to the time certain that they no longer work for the university.
FA: I think there is just a little error. There should be a line for 2009.
Admin: We’ll check on that. This is sensitive information that is shared because as the exclusive representative you need this information to do your job.
FA: Is it year-to-year that the maximum of four years?
Admin: No, I think that’s from the contract.
Admin: When someone signs and accepts an appointment of fixed term they have signed and acknowledged the date that their employment at St. Cloud State ends. Those dates that they end are by the contract language to be one year. There are exceptions that can be granted.
Admin: I believe that the point is they can serve four years.
Admin: No.
Admin: One at a time.
Admin: No, no, no, no, no Steve.
Admin: I think he’s asking about the overall length of time.
Admin: For those who are fixed term that are supported by maintenance and expense budget, that is the university budget as opposed to the grant and contract work, there is absolute no expectation of continued employment. And when they sign that appoint they know we do not have to notify them that they’re not coming back. Now, President Potter, because he thought it was the right thing to do made sure that those fixed term that wanted to come back that we weren’t going to have come back were told they weren’t coming back.
Admin: Yes.
Admin: That was not an obligation that is contractual. It was an obligation of how people should be treated.
Admin: I think to answer your question what John is saying is correct that each appointment is for a year, but they can be renewed up to four years. Each renewal will occur every year.
Admin: I think it got answered.
Admin: Not hearing any other questions we can go to the next.
3. Article 20: Department Policy, Practice and Deans Responsibility (FA)
FA: This has come in several conversations that faculty members who are often notified after the fact that something is happening in their departments. When they ask questions about it they are told it’s just done now. For example some faculty members got a notice that their schedules set and the department hadn’t acted on those. They were told how many fixed terms would be hired in their department and were told how many adjuncts would be hired in their department with no discussion and no information as to what courses those would be covering. This sort of relates in some way to the fixed term information we just had. When fixed terms are continued without departmental action occasionally it seems awkward. What we’re asking is that we come up with some sort of rubric or set of guidelines that faculty can look to and chairs and deans can look to to understand how policies and practices are followed within the department. We understand that when faculty have trouble with each other the contract doesn’t help up but we’re trying to find a way to get more involved with Administration in ensuring that policies and practices exist.
Admin: Tom and I had this conversation when we met last time. John was also part of that conversation. And thought that the best way was to look at some of the provisions in Article 20, there Article 20 requires departments or units to develop operating procedures. What is happening is that that is not a uniform practice. Some departments have it some don’t. Nor is there some commonality as to what should go into those operating procedures; what areas need to be addressed. What we said and agreed was we will continue this conversation and develop some institutional level guidelines, which can then be provided so that in consistent with Article 20 departments can develop operating procedures and have a conversation with the Deans at that point so that they have a shared understanding of how the departments ought to function in each of the areas for example hiring practices, workload determinations, scheduling, and some other areas. Then when conflicts arise, which are intradepartmental between faculty then the supervisor or Dean in this case has the ability to arbitrate those conflicts in accordance with the agreed upon practices and procedures.
Admin: That was a long way of saying that the Administration is going to exercise its option because in Article 20 on the top of page eight, the sentence reads: “The Administration may develop guidelines to aid in this effort. And the effort is the expectation that the department faculty shall establish annually or more frequently as appropriate through a democratic process and in a manner consistent with university procedures and provisions of this agreement. Departmental policies, procedures, and teaching and/or other work schedules that we intend to move in that arena. I do think that all of us need to be reminded of the fact that in subd. VI of this article: “Department actions may not add to, subtract from, or modify in any way the terms of the agreement, and are not effective until filed with the immediate supervisor.” Sometimes departments act precipitously in implementing something that needed to be examined and filed with a supervisor, and then what happens is the supervisor only finds out about it when the grievance is filed. President Potter at Pre Meet and Confer said that his experience was problems associated with this Article were probably the majority of the kinds of grievances that we’ve had to deal with since he arrived.
Admin: For the last couple years that’s been true.
FA: Historically, that’s been true also.
FA: Yes, I think you’ll get all former FA Presidents concur. (Laughter)
Admin: In some ways we sort of agree that we need to have some clarity of roles and expectations as defined in the operating procedures of the department and shared with the Dean that there is an understanding as to what is acceptable and how to proceed.
FA: I think one thing we want to be alert to as we craft this collaboratively I hope, is the tension between stability and flexibility. I don’t think we want to try and lock anyone into some place they can’t get out of. We want to have enough stability so there’s some place to look to try and understand.
Admin: Sure.
FA: I concur with the spirit of this and I think that both sides have a very real interest in making this work better. It has to do with the wellbeing of faculty and the functioning of the university. In many ways we share a common goal here. I do encourage the Administration to be mindful of the word “guidelines” which doesn’t mean nothing; it doesn’t mean don’t say anything. You know, it is a legitimate and I think valuable thing that can be part of the process. The guidelines should not be excessively specific and restrictive where they pass from the realm of being guidelines to dictums. I think that there’s a productive path to be tread here in conversation with one another where there can be guidelines that will genuinely be used and be something that we refer back to in cases where doubts or disputes will help in resolving such differences.
Admin: Point well taken. Hearing no other questions on this, we can on.
Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns
1. Strategic Program Appraisal (FA)
Admin: I have two pieces. One the Deans report has been completed and they are available on the program appraisal share-point site for public consumption and review. The next deadline is the Provost’s set of recommendations which occur during Convocation week, August 17. So that’s where we are in the program appraisal process after which the Strategic Planning Committee will be scheduling open forums related to Provost’s recommendation consistent with the process we used around the first set. The second piece is around the reorganization activity. We had one planning retreat on the 30th of June. It was 75 faculty participants. And the second retreat is tomorrow. The third will be next Friday. The steering group will meet the following week to look at the feedback that we got through those retreats to start to develop a set of responses to the Provost around the structure.
FA: An interesting side note. We had 140 faculty duty days budgeted for that. And we’re at about 134 volunteers with more that just came in today. We’ll be pushing right against the 140 budget but we haven’t had to turn anyone away.
Admin: May I ask for an unofficial read from the faculty’s perspective on the process this far. Are we honoring the agreement to open this, working together, time consultation, etc., as we move forward this far?
FA: It seems to me that given the timeframe we’re doing as well as we can. I think there are still several faculty who are very concerned that there is some decisions already made that they haven’t agreed to and we’re going through motions. But I don’t think that’s the majority. The folks I’ve had feedback from about the existence of the retreats was very positive and they were very glad to be involved. Sometimes occasionally with a bit of “I’m going to make sure my group is heard from!” and more often “let’s see what we can do to be creative.” I don’t know. I wasn’t at the first retreat. I was out of town. My understanding was that the conversations went fairly well there.
FA: Well, I was, and Judy was. I think that responding to your question is a little bit difficult because you’re asking for an informal sort of general response and I think it’s fair to ask that but at the same time impossible for us to give an official statement as representing the view of the faculty as a whole at this point. I will give my individual sense. I think that the day in June was very productive. I think the groups that worked together made some real progress toward imagining what different kinds of collaborative structures might look like. I think that different viewpoints were aired including viewpoints that were critical of the process itself and they were presented openly and frankly, and I didn’t see any retribution against anybody for raising criticisms of that sort. And in that sense I think that it was a healthy process. I think there remain a significant number of faculty who retain a significant degree of concern. That we still have a lot of work a head of us in terms of maintaining the transparency of the process and also in terms of being clear that official faculty positions emerge, policy statements and so on emerge out of the Senate and when we get to making a formal faculty recommendation that we think that this is or is not a good approach to restructuring the voice of the faculty must come through the Faculty Association processes. But I don’t see that as being fundamentally incompatible with having conversations in the way that we’ve been having conversations.
FA: If I could speak for my college. I don’t work in the summer but I do keep in touch with what is going on. My college for example had retreat and they were supposed to give a report but chairs are supposed to give feedback to the Dean, and we haven’t heard what’s the feedback and what’s the final report. Perhaps they are waiting.
FA: Are you talking about the chairs retreat? No the reorganization?
FA: No. But it’s part of the reorganization.
FA: Right, but it’s different than the reorganization retreats we’ve been talking about.
FA: Isn’t it all part of the overall? So, the more transparent you make it, people might not like it, but people like to know what’s going on. Regarding the retreat we had last time. I talked to some faculty. One concern they had not necessarily everyone was involved. They weren’t sure if they really belonged in that group they signed up for. They didn’t talk about what they were planning to talk about. This is from faculty that I’ve talked to. I’m asking for more transparency even if people don’t like it. Still it’s better.
Admin: I want to slip in an item here which could fit in a number of different places. But it goes well between Strategic Program Appraisal and Reporting the Budget. At the state-wide Meet and Confer, the office of the Chancellor was asked about approaches to athletic budgets and programming across the universities with the same kind of scrutiny given. So, I want to give you a snapshot of that and it will go well here. There is a $500,000 a year structural hole in the Athletic budget. That hole is being filled by burning through reserves that are held by the foundation. My direction to the Athletic Director is to give me a plan which balances the budget for fiscal year 12 and brings us up to squeaky clean on Title 9 issues. Such a plan will require the elimination of sports. And it’s not just the $500,000 hole that has to be filled. We have to go beyond that in achieving savings in order to make we are whole and in line on issues. My direction is also there’s an award called the Director’s Cup in Division II and it reflects the performance of all your sports in all seasons. This year we finished fifth nationally in the Director’s Cup. It’s the first time we ever finished in the top 10. My direction to the Athletic Director is I want the solution that we eventually choose to result in a portfolio of sports that we can support in a level that will allow them to be competitive. What that direction does is forestall a budget cutting approach which pulls funding from every sport decreasing the competitiveness and safety of sports across the board. So that we maintain a sizeable portfolio and we’re always at the bottom of every sport. My direction is that our strategy should focus, narrow, and support sports so that they get the competitiveness and success for a whole bunch of reasons. If you have a chance, look at the NCAA website at Division II standards and the balance of the supporting role of student athletes. The Division II values and commitments are appropriate for a university like ours. And our one Division I sport is consistent with those values, for example we have the largest number of hockey players who are recognized as students athletes last year, it’s higher than any other: North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, we are at the top in student academics. So it’s my judgment that our Division I Hockey embodies the same values of our Division II commitments. We will stay in Division II with the exception of hockey. We will make a commitment to Division II values in a way that we manage our academic programs. We will be eliminating some sports to balance the budge. The coaches are IFO, and we will do the same thing. We will put a proposal on the table. The community will discuss it for a period of time and then they will decide, and that will take place in the fall. I can’t put a proposal on the table until after September 20 because of some of the things we’re thinking require that the Northern Sun, our collegiate conference, waive some of their current requirements and shape the portfolio. I had an initial conversation with my peers who are members of the Board of Directors, all Presidents in the Northern Sun conference, they are supportive of the changes we need to make and September 20th we meet again where I expect them to decide the waiver structure change to allow us to consider all the options that we need to face. There is an NCAA set of requirements which we can’t play with. It has to do with the number of sports that you have to offer to be an NCAA recognized institution. There are also Title 9 requirements which we can’t play with which has to do with balance. So NCAA guidelines, compliance with the law, with the support Northern Sun conference, after September 20, I’ll put a proposal on the table. It will at least result in savings of $500,000 in the Athletic budget. I believe it will have to go considerably beyond that.
FA: Are we going to stay in this conference?
Admin: There are no other choices for us in Division II at this point. The conference is changing. The Presidents voted to add two teams and we’re doing site visits in the fall. That will allow the Northern Sun to go to 16 teams and create two divisions. The structure will save us travel money. And so there’ll be some savings as a consequence of that vote. But short of becoming independent, which is very costly and difficult and decreases opportunities for our students, the Northern Sun conference is really our only choice. Since the question was asked at state-wide I wanted to discuss and my answer there was appropriately broad and not specific. I wanted to be as specific as I can for our campus community so that you can see that we’re approaching this in the same way. Lisa is going to put the process we discussed this morning into writing and it will be shared as the process and it broadly covers the same kind of design as the others: data trimming to a specific kind of objectives on a timeline everyone knows that offers the opportunity for the whole community to respond to a proposal, and the proposal will be a preferred option with the other options that were considered, available for comparison.
FA: I imagine that this is something that has already occurred to you but I didn’t want to let the opportunity go by that in the process of considering which sports to retain and which sports to eliminate in restructuring, I would encourage you to be mindful also of the extent to which particular sports have been more or less successful in providing academic success opportunities for students especially including students of color and other students who may have other barriers to success or access to college, and who’s access to college is enhanced through the ability to be scholar athletes.
Admin: That’s a very important part of the conversation. And we’re looking at racial, ethnic, gender, distribution across sports. We’re looking at the number of students in a sport who are likely to leave us if we don’t offer that sport, we’re looking at the overall success and culture of sports, not just their win/loss record.
FA: Another thing, I have this only in a half-formed kind of way in my mind, but I think we could be doing a better job in terms of relationship between the faculty and our athletic programs in terms of understanding the degree of academic support athletes get, the ways in which faculty can contribute to the success of athletes; how to avoid cases where the sports are becoming the primary activity and the academics are… where someone is being an athlete and pretending to be a student. I would say I don’t see much of that going on at this campus but I think it’s something faculty often fear that that’s something that’s going on. I think a greater deal of communication and information across that line would be good for our athletes and student, which of course for faculty is the top concern.
Admin: Even to say that we’re going to eliminate some sports is to say we are removing opportunities for some students. It is minimizing the damage. And unfortunately we will do damage. We have to work to minimize it. Bill is the faculty Athletic Rep, and he’s the one who will be in direct contact with all this. All right? Anything else? Thank you for the opportunity to share that.
Admin: Lisa, do you want to add anything else?
2. Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07)
Admin: We’ve sort of gone through this.
Admin: I don’t have additional information.
Admin: Let me just comment. This year we’re pretty comfortable. We finished in the black.
Admin: Yes. We finished 2010 in the black and maintained our reserve. So, we will be going through the carry forward process. We were more stringent last year to balance the budget. This year we estimate there might be about a million dollars less in carry forward as we tightened things across campus. We’ll be looking for additional funds, one-time funds to support our initiatives around BESI. So, it will be a difficult year.
Admin: Let me say that the approach to carry forward will be severely austere. It will be unlike anything you’ve seen before.
FA: We had an earlier conversation about carry forward based on the freeze that happened and all of the planned spending that was unable to be done. Is that conversation still alive?
Admin: Well, we did that freeze except for what were essential purchases. That contributed but there’s no way to identify well how much of this balance was left and how much would have been left had you been freer to spend. There’s no way to indentify the difference between those two.
Admin: The austerity move is not being lifted. If anything it’s going to get much, much, much worse. We’re going to be scooping monies that have been saved for a good purpose. That’s the only way we can get through this. We have a million dollars in our reserve savings account that’s not been in the every day budget. It comes from vending machine revenue, etc. There’s a million dollars there that could be spent. When you spend that down to zero that fund of a million dollars that’s accrued since 1992—the interest has—small purchases have been made. So, you can understand how long it has taken to build that pool. And there is only a million dollars there. We estimate we’ll need about three to four million dollars conceivably more to fund the BESI strategy and there’s probably about six million or 6.4 million in the carry forward account.
Admin: That’s what we would expect after we met the obligations of Professional Development and some other…
Admin: The reserve obviously has to be there. Professional Development is of the table. After you pull out contractually and by Board policy the restrictive pieces, it’s about 6.4. That’s the only place to go to get more money to spend on the BESI. The degree that we don’t want to… we’re trying to avoid terminating people who are tenured who don’t want to leave the university. BESI is a way to give people the opportunity to choose to leave with a significant benefit. If the BESI number were zero instead of that 20 at the bottom... The austere treatment of the carry forward is currently the only place we have to go to get that money. We are engaged in longer term strategies to increase revenues but those don’t deal with the one-time resources in FY11 that we’re going to need.
FA: The state auditor’s report came. I didn’t have time to look at the file, but I was wondering about it.
Admin: Simple answer, no. There are things that they identified that we recognize that we need to change. Steve’s team is working on that. There are things between conversations in the system, us, and the administrative auditor it was recognized that the Board had significant policy decisions to make and the Board is not in agreement with the legislative auditor and a couple important items. So that set of items has to be discussed at length with the Board, by the Board, over the coming year. And then there’s some stuff that is just wrong. And that’s not much. There were 17 findings. The stuff that was just wrong was three or four?
Admin: Three or four.
Admin: So, the majority are in those other two categories. We agree with them. We’re going to fix it. The thing about the audit, is that the first statement is that the university is well managed. And then it says, but there are some areas where controls aren’t what we think they should be; here are 17 findings. If you look at the 17 findings, the scale and materiality of the findings is minimal.
Admin: The biggest issue that we have financially is that over the three-and-a-half-year period there’s about a $250,000 tuition issue. That’s the largest scale. It’s around approvals of the Board over tuition that’s been charged.
Admin: For an example, the finding is that we didn’t appropriately manage risk in the computer store inventory risk. It is two-and-a-half-million inventory?
Admin: The volume is two-and-a-half. It’s more like two-and-three-quarters.
Admin: The size of the discrepancy they noted was $16,000. And that discrepancy was caused by the fact that two computers were present that were recorded as absent and two computers were absent that were recorded as present.
Admin: They were the same kind of computers. When they were sold they took the wrong ones.
Admin: That was the evidence presented for the finding. The Board looked at that and said, you know…
Admin: That was… we were $2,000 over our budget inventories as the result of two computers. We were $4,000 under as a result of the two computers that were there.
Admin: Yes.
Admin: And the net was recorded as $8,000 in error.
Admin: They obviously went to Mankato. (Laughter)
Admin: It’s important that we respect legitimate function of the legislative auditor, and we got some values. The fact is they had six auditors on campus for five months and that’s what they came up with. The institution is well run, we manage risk well; and I’m very, very proud of the people who do that work for the university. The Chancellor agrees with me. We have some minor issues we’re going to fix. No material consequences for our budget.
FA: Thank you.
FA: We’re there any June surprises from the central office as regards to charge backs or other sorts of accounting developments that changed the bottom line?
Admin: Yes and no. There are changes in policy that reflect 12 not 11 that they’re recently working through. Doing away with the green sheet as a way of providing protected funds to the universities they’re putting a lot of that money into our base budget and we’ll have the authority to manage it. That’s 12. When you look at the page in front of you now, you’ll note that there are some funds associated with the Coborn Plaza, which are confusing. I expected, I think we did, three-year rent up period. It’s going slower than we would like for a bunch of reasons I can explain. But we expected that we would have the reserves, the revenue counts, the resident hall revenues to support a gap in income during the rent-up period. We expected that we would be able to use those monies from where they sat. It ended up that the Attorney General told the Office of the Chancellor that we had to loan ourselves that money and pay interest on the loan.
Admin: To the Chancellor?
Admin: It was suggested. (Laughter) I think our Chief Financial Warrior—not the Chief Financial Officer—he’s the Chief Financial Warrior protected from that outcome. But you’ll see a little confusion in the numbers around the accounting for that. There are some charges to FY10 associated with that financial arrangement.
Admin: They’ve never done it before. The amount is three million dollars. It changes our financial statement by three million, and then the payment is due next April 15 is just over $600,000. We think that should be reflected… that’s a current expense we will have to pay. We don’t have to reflect the entire balance of the loan. They’re still trying to figure it out.
Admin: So, it’s essentially we took money out of our right pocket and put it in our left but getting all the legal requirements. That’s really the only end-of-the-year confusion. There was change that affected some folks in the IT organization. They had been on our payroll and the Chancellor was paying us for services, and the Chancellor decided to pull those folks into the Chancellor’s organization and we got some of their costs. So, that was an end-of-the-year thing that we should have gotten notice of six months ago. What they did was perfectly appropriate, but it was a bit of a surprise. There are no big charge backs that made a difference in fiscal year ’10. In fiscal year ’11 the Chancellor is reiterating to his planners that the legislature has said you must not lay this cost on the universities, and that’s the direction he’s given. How that plays out we’ll have to watch. We’re keeping our eyes on that.
FA: It is certainly something that the IFO will be watching across the state-wide Meet and Confer perspective, and it is something that we should stay in touch about.
Admin: That’s perfectly appropriate. There is nothing that they have done yet that gives me heartburn. It’s the legal stuff, and it’s very complicated, but there’s nothing wrong. And the direction is appropriate. The other thing on the budget, I commented on FY11 budget, it’s out and scheduled.
Admin: Yes. All FY11 budgets are in and ready to go. The only exceptions are a couple areas where the revenue budgets we provided them… in a couple areas on campus. All the others are out there.
Admin: The budgets are balanced and reflect the hard work that everybody accomplished in fiscal ’10 and the plan for ’11.
Admin: Yes. And enrollment, just as we’re an operation of people providing service, the service we provide or sell is education. The numbers that Devinder has presented to us in terms of indicators of fall, appointments for advising and registration days have been good, applications have been good. Another indicator is resident halls occupancy at this point is comparable to last year… the capacity is 10, almost 15% in terms of the Coborn Plaza. So in addition to that, the occupancy is holding on campus. Collectively that should indicate, there are some new people staying in Coborn Plaza who would have stayed otherwise, but resident hall occupancy is another indicator of strength in new freshmen.
Admin: So, that’s a review of the condition.
FA: I was wondering since we’re on the Office of the Chancellor, do you see any likely affects for us from the changes of Vice Chancellor and below?
Admin: (Shaking head yes). Scott Olson who is the interim Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs is an excellent choice. There are frequent complaints that the Office of the Chancellor sees the system through a two-year lens. Scott brings a four-year university, rich campus experience to the position. He’s a good planner, and he’s a thoughtful, collaborative person so the university presidents are just excited he is there. Lori Lamb is in the first year of her tenure as Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, I think she does an outstanding job. There’ve been a number of important personnel changes and there will likely be more. The leadership there is good. Daryl Huish in IT is a world apart from the previous leadership, he’s thoughtful and open as well. So, the changes of those levels are good.
FA: I have a clarification and question also. Just wanted to touch back to what you said about Men’s and Women’s Hockey. The award I think you alluded to is the Scholar Athlete Award. And that is available only to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and you need a 3.5 GPA to qualify for that. We had nine of the women’s side and six on the men’s. On the women’s side Caitlin Hogan won the Student Athlete of the Year award and received a $10,000 post graduate scholarship. My question is that it’s fairly common knowledge that higher education is a concept, and given that our budgets are being cut, are we going to reach a point where we’re going to have to cap enrollment?
Admin: That’s a long conversation. By program, perhaps. Broadly at the university, no. But the strategic work that we’re doing, we’re asking departments to think about the right size to their program. Accounting, for example, they could be a lot bigger. They decided not to get bigger so they decided to raise the bar as a result. We’re graduating really strong students that will only enhance the reputation and strength of our program. I think that kind thing is going to happen. We are going to be growing enrollment, I think, in the next five years we will see capacity built and that will give the capacity grow. We are seeking to grow graduate enrollments. That’s a whole new market and strategy. There are going to be forces that pull some areas flat and there are going to be some forces that push us up. I think the projections we’ve gotten at least for the next two years are the right place to be. Passed that, we really need to work on articulation to strengthen the transfer pipeline because I think we’ll continue to see the two-year schools really growing. We’ll see a shift in the balance of our demographic mix to more transfer students. So, there are enrollment management challenges ahead. Because our growth has been very modest and steady, I don’t see a very strong upside potential or a strong downside to this. It’s in the hands of the programs to determine what is their optimal size. Having said that, the work that the Provost is doing right now is assess to capacity and to cut faculty lines in excess capacity. So, there’s an interaction between all this. The decisions that are going to be made are going to be right for now, but what does that mean for future growth.
So, as we’re going through these decisions, some have come to believe that we’re going to have a hard year planning for ’12, but, when that’s over, we can sort of go back to business as usual. I don’t think that is true. I think we’re going to continue to change and make choices and continue to get better. There’s a lot of tough thinking that’s going to have to be done throughout this decade. That’s more than you asked, but I think the context is important.
3. Status of Administrative Searches (ADM)
Admin: This is a short item. The searches going on were in my office. I’ve made those announcements. There are four interim appointments: three at the Associate Provost level and one at the Assistant Provost level. They are all interim for the current time being but in the upcoming year I intend to search them with a full-fledge search to replace them with permanent positions. We talked about that in a previous Meet and Confer. And then another interim appointment that I made recently was Director of Honors Program. I made the announcement it would be Geoffrey Tabakin. Sometime in the middle of fall we’ll conduct that search also for a permanent position. The permanent position will become effective next July 1.
FA: Will be searching for a Director of DGS then?
Admin: Actually, what has happened since this was an interim position, we’re doing a lot of transition work and John’s involved in that. So, essentially we looked at it and it didn’t make sense to replace somebody for one year. Whereas the interim Honors Director position was a ¾ position. So what we did was we created a fulltime interim position for Geoffrey Tabakin, which is ¾ as interim Honors Director and ¼ as DSG Director, and then we looked at the Administrative Director’s position, Adam Klepetar’s position, and there were some functions which we will reorganize so that he’s freed up to do most some of the other work also.
FA: So, there’s a reduction of what Geoffrey will be doing in DGS and it will be shifting over to the MSUAASF position?
Admin: Yes, and essentially what will happen is that once we hire a permanent director for Honors then we’ll take a hard look at whole DGS Director structure.
FA: Did I miss the announcement for the Assistant Provost position?
Admin: Yes, yes, it was part of the announcements with the other three Associate Provosts.
FA: Oh, yes, now I do remember. Yes, it was. I apologize.
FA: Coming back or…?
Admin: Yes.
FA: Okay.
Admin: Also, there is one other position and that is a position in my office to help me with the transitioning work, and that is Dennis Nunes. He will be fulltime in my office he will help not only in the transition on the graduate education side but also help me accelerate the process of some of the other strategic initiatives.
Admin: And he retires at the end of the year.
Admin: Yes. He retires at the end of the year. So, that is just a one year position.
Admin: While you’re at it, you might as well say about Mitch…
Admin: Actually, so we eliminated six positions: Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Graduate Studies, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Assistant Vice President for Faculty Relations, and Assistant Vice President of Sponsored Programs. So, of that, some folks went back to faculty like Amos; he went back to faculty; Dennis was reassigned to my office; and there were two individuals who didn’t have faculty status and that is Mitch Rubinstein and Mike Gilbert, and they were given 90 day notices. So their tenure with the university will end one September 14 and the other one the 28th of September. So, that is it. If there are no questions or anything for the good of the order we finished the meeting 20 minutes ahead of time. Thank you.
FA: Thank you.
Adjourned at 4:40 p.m.