Approved 9/21/10
Faculty Association
Meet and Confer Agenda
August 5, 2010
Administration: John Palmer, Mary Bongers, Kristi Tornquist, Judith Siminoe, Frank Harrold, Earl Potter, Devinder Malhotra, Wanda Overland, Steve Ludwig
Faculty: Bill Hudson, Michael Connaughton, Frances Kayona, Debra Leigh (Guest) Donald Larsen, Tom Hergert, Judy Kilborn, David Switzer, Balsy Kasi
Approval of Minutes
1. July 8 and July 22, 2010
Admin: Good afternoon everybody. It’s indeed my pleasure to welcome Don for joining us today. Don is a faculty colleague from Mankato and also president of state IFO. I don’t know whether you know everybody so what I am going to do is ask everybody to quickly introduce themselves. I am Greta, the assistant to the Provost; Judy Kilborn, we know each other; David Switzer; Michael Connaughton; Francis Kayona, Educational Administration; I’m John; Mary Bongers, Human Resources; Steve Ludwig, Vice President for Administrative Affairs; Kristi Tornquist, I’m Dean of Learning Resources and Technology Services; Debra Leigh; Judith Siminoe, Special Advisor to the President.
Admin: Welcome.
Guest: Glad to be here and thank you for having me.
Admin: There will be two other folks who will be joining us; Wanda Overland, she is Vice President for Student Life and Development and Frank Harrold who is the Dean of the College of Social Sciences. I know they are in the hallway trying to resolve a crisis so they should be here soon. Let’s start with the minutes.
FA: I think we’re fine.
Admin: I believe you got the changes for the 8th and the 22nd to Polly and that we do have agreement on the minutes of those two meetings.
Admin: So the minutes are in order and they will posted on the website. Okay, great.
Unfinished Business
1. FY12 Budget and Retrenchment Process(FA)
Admin: Right now at least from our side we have no additional information on that. We were working on the next item on new business.
FA: We have some questions that we’d like you to consider; one I’ve asked you before if we could sometime fairly soon get the numbers, the actual numbers you are guessing for attrition and at least colleges, preferably departments where you think those are. That’s part of the communication we feel we need to get to departments who have probationary faculty who have been given notice. We’d like to let them know which other departments will be losing positions.
Admin: As we talked about it last time, attrition is also a moving target but I think we can give you a snap shot as to at a given time how many vacant lines there are and we can provide you information at least by college.
Admin: Why not just list them all by detail.
Admin: Okay.
Admin: I believe the document that’s going to be shared under the early separation would be helpful there because it does reiterate our thinking about numbers in each of the three categories.
Admin: Sure, but what he wants is where we listed an aggregate number of how many vacant lines we would utilize during the budget adjustment process. I guess what Tom is asking is how many total vacant lines are there.
Admin: Where are they?
FA: And where are they?
Admin: So they can see that other departments are losing resources, to get some sense of the spread.
FA: Precisely and then the follow up is what you were just saying is any new
estimates by category in terms of number of people and the estimates of budget
gained or budget adjustments by category for example as we’ve seen before of
more than a quarter of a million from reorganization if that has changed any
numbers from BESI, those things change.
Admin: Sure.
FA: When are we going to make public at least to the University community, how those savings are divided. We have in it here but I don’t know that we’ve made it clear a dollar statement that we can share widely.
Admin: Why don’t we look at the BESI plan because, we’re going to share the document and that’s got a lot of information in it and you can look at the information that’s there and then see what more you might want us to share.
FA: Okay. That’s all we had on the unfinished business.
Admin: Okay, great.
Admin: I just want to say we’ve engaged answering the pre-audit questions we’ve gotten from particular departments, thank you for your partnership of explaining. The questions that I have seen have revolved around an incomplete understanding of the requirements of the contract and how that constrains our action and sort of the implications of noticing more people than we expect to eventually shed because we have to keep the conversation open. I think their probably right to do this because we don’t know so they are right to start developing a case against the action they see and there’s nothing wrong with that except if they expect action right now or expect to meet with me to get me to reverse my decision, that’s been the thing that’s inappropriate because we actually noticed that for our group so that we could have a campus wide conversation that will lead to eventual decisions. I appreciate you’ve stayed our message and really helped. Thank you.
New Business
1. Information and decision pertaining to BESI (FA)
Admin: We have a couple of handouts.
Admin: It may be helpful to start with the cover memo and the two lists followed by the August 5th memo that talks about the plan. One of the examples of the kind of employee offering form that we’re looking at using.
Admin: That would be the order of discussion so what I’ll do is pass out both of these and we will discuss first the overall approach as we’ve laid it out here. Essentially as we mentioned on July 8th Meet & Confer that we were targeting approximately an underscore of approximately thirty BESIs. Then as we developed our thinking as to how is the best way to quickly get to that number we worked with the deans and we will share with you the criteria we used and developed a list of departments and then each department how many BESIs will be targeted, and that again is an approximation for each department that is why the term “up to” comes in. You will find two lists here; the first list will give you an estimate of where we will go to get our thirty and then the possibility exists that if we don’t get thirty then we created another list which targets up to forty as to where we will go next. So essentially there are twenty three academic departments listed in the first list which identifies up to thirty BESIs and twenty-eight so five additional departments in the second list which identifies up to forty. The letters will go out hopefully tomorrow to all the eligible faculty in those departments. In defining eligibility we will not extend the invitation to faculty who are on sabbatical for the fall semester and are on leave of absence.
Admin: The reason we restrict the sabbatical and the leave of absence is in order to be eligible for BESI they’d have to be here working and since we’re looking at two weeks or less than two weeks to report for duty on the 17th from a scheduling standpoint to try to figure out what to do with the sabbatical that was planned to begin and not occur would cause undue hardship on departments and on students. In the case of leave of absence, by the time we were to contact people with that it’s very unlikely that they could leave what they are doing and come and work here. BESI is for people that are working here. There is the possibility of the faculty that are on sabbatical starting in the spring that they could decline their sabbatical and move to offer to participate in an early separation program. What we’ve tried to do is maintain flexibility and give information that says what our first priority would be; I want to emphasis that if we in fact attain the highest number of BESI, up to thirty out of the twenty-three departments we would not be looking at the five additional departments.
Admin: This is again to build some flexibility into the system and to increase the likelihood of getting to our targeted number of approximately thirty as soon as we quickly can in order to clarify, then we can look at some of the other decisions/ choices we need to make.
Admin: Let me just comment the reason it’s approximately thirty is there is no magic in the number of BESIs. We are after a dollar target and hitting the dollar target depends on the salary value of the folks who accepted BESI.
Admin: Next we want to deal with questions about the memo attached with the memo and then go to the plan.
FA: I’d like to ask a question about the sabbatical one. I understand why leave of absences might be excluded, but from my perspective and I don’t have a contract sitting in front of me, the sabbatical- your job that year, that semester is to be doing preparation and do what you normally do and so can you speak more about how that’s excluded.
Admin: I note that this thought was raised in Don’s memo with some questions about this as well; the repayment of the sabbatical is non-negotiable. We’ve looked at that before, in state regulations, legislative expectations, I tried to deal with that in a situation where it would be to the Universities advantage, the faculty members advantage to waive the expectation for repayment and there’s just not any room there.
FA: So it’s the inability to come back because you’re taking a BESI?
Admin: Right.
FA: That’s in the contract that prevents that.
Admin: Yes.
FA: O.K.
Admin: So a person who has been awarded a sabbatical for spring who hasn’t gone yet can still take advantage but somebody who’s on a sabbatical has a payback requirement that it just doesn’t hold a lot of water.
Admin: If you take BESI your employment ends at the end of the year and so that put’s and end to it. It’s also a part of the board policy in the frequently asked questions.
Admin: There’s also a logistical issue in that if someone were to say I’m supposed to start my sabbatical this August but now I know about this and I’m interested then the department would have to figure out what that person would do that they did not expect to have that person, it seems like a logistical problem.
Admin: This issue was addressed I think in the frequently asked questions in the board policy also and they were very clear that people on sabbatical should not be eligible.
FA: My guess would be the same would hold for somebody who has agreed to go on phased but hasn’t started yet, if they wanted to pull back.
Admin: We’re looking at that question.
FA: O.K.
Admin: I am really not sure what the answer is.
Admin: If their consistent with past answers that’s a contract and if they would be consistent with past responses to questions around that they would not be eligible.
Admin: Even if they haven’t started just because they did sign in.
Admin: Correct.
Admin: That’s our final answer but that’s a prediction that we have to bring to closure.
Admin: The product that you’re looking at is a collaborative piece of work, Judith has been involved, Mary and several people in HR have been involved and I have been involved and so to have the Vice Presidents. So sometimes the best answers to a question would come from Judith who took care of putting the plan in form that it currently is available. Mary’s shop has produced the background work getting ready to calculate what the separation incentive would be and Devinder and I have worked together with the deans in creating the department lists and the number within the department that would be offered so if you get different answers from different places, quite literally this all came together at 2 o’clock today. That was when the newspaper was published. We did do a few second additions but that’s how fresh this is. That’s not to say we haven’t been working on it but we have been trying to get it in the best form it could be to share with you today with the intention that tomorrow letters will be dropped in the mail to the eligible faculty members so that they can then start to consider what their choice will be.
FA: That ties to the layoff notices also in some ways, let’s hypothetically say this is part of the budget adjustment because now some of the layoff notices will be withdrawn or depending on how many people pick this one so it’s kind of tied into now they have Fine Arts they have three to six I was wondering…?
Admin: I think what happens is as I’ve said in the last two Meet & Confers that these are different pieces of the same puzzle but they are coming out at different times so as the background information changes, as the budgetary environment in which we will operate will change, that obviously has an impact on our decisions and we will go back then and review those decisions and make the appropriate adjustments.
Admin: The handout that is dated August 5th, Board Early Separation Plan, if you go down to the table that does communicate what the Provost’s thinking is at the present time with regard to reduction of faculty lines and you will note that faculty lines for retrenchment notice is a different number than the notices that have been sent out. That’s a hope, that is a hope that is not a certainty but it does give you some idea. Tom you asked about the attrition number that thirty is a very conservative number that is there are more than thirty. When I looked last it’s a number that’s close to forty we have to be sure there are at least thirty and we will respond to your inquiry to try to identify where those are. We do know where some of them are because some of them are in units where we’ve notified probationary faculty. You can’t notify probationary faculty if you have not swept out all of the temporary faculty appointments so there is some of that-that would occur.
Admin: I just wanted to make sure that you were thinking that if someone accepts the BESI and the financial condition improves that we would then undo those, no we would not be able to do that.
FA: That’s the reason I’m asking is this number twenty is different from twenty six we gave.
Admin: I think where we started earlier and even last time we said since a lot of the conversations are still going on surrounding reorganization we haven’t finished our conversation around Strategic Program Appraisal so we wanted to build into that number some flexibility which is embedded in it and as those conversations occur, as that information becomes more clear and as the budget environment becomes a little more precise then we will come back and revisit. So that is why there is that leeway there.
Admin: We started talking about that in the spring. According to the new verb “over-notice”. (laughter)
FA: In terms of the BESI is the ceiling of savings from BESI fixed or are you considering going higher for savings.
Admin: The target that’s in here and it’s approximate because it’s not a dollar figure, it a surrogate for a dollar figure of savings. The easiest to get is the attrition obviously no body leaves, attrition is painless because it’s a loss of resources. The next is painful, is the BESI and the most difficult is retrenchment. The limit on BESI, and I don’t mind saying this, I’ve said it before but I think it’s important for the whole picture that we have a million dollars in an off-budget account, when I say off-budget it’s revenues from vending machines, interest etc., it’s not in the M&E budget but it’s off the M&E budget but the rest of the money the four or five million so if we are going to spend four to five the rest of the three to four million is coming out of carryover.
Admin: We would expect if we had thirty the BESI itself would be on a scale of about three million, give or take; the additional incentives that are available in the contract can vary from almost nothing to three million depending on who the individual is. Some of that amount is a payable in the next fiscal year so there’s also that component. So we had a number of people that we’ve estimated, we had a number of savings we have estimated, and we have a number of expense we have estimated and we need to balance all three of those. So none of them are precise.
Admin: We handed out the example because that would illustrate…
Admin: Thank you that’s important to add in there. So the availability to fund BESI is limited and the desirability of offering people the option of early retirement when you need them to teach is also an issue. If one hundred and forty three people said we want BESI, even if we had the money there’s no way that we would do that because we are eliminating resources that we need and we’re eliminating programs and things that are going to be painful to eliminate. We’ve already gone through the marginal programs, we’ve already eliminated the inefficiencies these are not reductions in force that I make happily.
FA: By way of example there are situations if you have two people take the BESI, the annual savings could be enough to save three probationary people who have already received notice. So if you mean just the dollars there’s an argument for going over your BESI target and not losing teaching capacity.
Admin: There’s an important nuance that is being missed that Steve mentioned. There are two simultaneous early separation incentives. There’s the one that we never budget for that happens as people take advantage of the master agreement. BESI does not replace that, it’s on top of that and those dollar amounts vary widely. So when we start looking at cost, intuitively you might think that a more senior faculty member we save a lot of money on but they also are going to get a severance package that we have not budgeted for which means it is not a savings immediately it’s a savings come later and I think I said it at previously meetings the positions are surrogate for dollars saved. We have not yet calculated the savings because we don’t know who the thirty people will end up being. Once we know the thirty people then we’ll be able to come back in and know precisely how much we saved for FY12. So there are these steps that occur that if we don’t keep the logic in line we lose things. We lose track of what the real savings would be.
Admin: There is a finite limit in terms of how much we can afford and one could argue perhaps a naive person, because I don’t think the IFO is arguing this, but a naive person might say the IFO would like to see us accomplish all the reduction through BESI. It’s unlikely that we could target, even if we could it’s unlikely that we could place, align the retirements, the eligible retirements with the changes we need to make in programs, teaching load, capacity, etc. So while it sounds an appealing idea for purposes of running the University that doesn’t work. So the savings are going to be a mix of these three things. Everyone currently is of a range and the savings and numbers achieved in one column effect the others so is it possible that retrenchment could be reduced by the mix of the picture of the outline, yes it’s possible. I don’t agree to the assertion that some time you guys know more than we do I think most of us in this world have been faculty members but it would be really dumb not to lay the argument on the table and think that we can work together so if we’ve got anything on the table and what will go on in a compressed timeframe is you lay out the plan and somebody will look at it and say couldn’t you do this, wouldn’t that achieve the same objective and we will consider those things together as we finalize.
Admin: I think I want to emphasis what the President is saying that this is really work in progress because we had to give notices because contractual deadline, there’s another contractual deadline looming so in between we want to get as much information about BESI as possible so we have a little better idea as to how, to what the magnitude needed there is initially. And so as all this unfolds then the picture will become clearer and at that point as we said we will revisit these ranges and we will see what makes sense.
Admin: Let me just ask the question of the faculty around the table; if somebody asks you, looks at this and says they only need twenty why did they notice twenty six? Is everybody comfortable that you can answer that question? (silence)
Admin: Maybe we should point out; distribute the last information on BESI. This is more of an example.
Admin: What we’re giving you are three pages that are the employee acceptance form that individual faculty who have been determined to be eligible will be getting in the mail. It’s not an individual person but we have a blank one and two examples and I think what John was trying to talk about is that understanding that the severance is also available as well as the BESI and how those things would interact. We tried to set this up so that it would be clear while that there’s a total amount set aside for the BESI payment, it will include funds that will go into the health savings account, it will also include withholdings if that is relevant and it will include a reduction for the employer portion of the FICA. That’s the way the BESI policy is written so we don’t have a choice on that but we wanted that to be here so that people would know what they’re dealing with when they consider this and when they talk to their financial advisors.
Admin: If you’re looking at the document that is the first example with numbers it tells the person how much cash they receive. That is they will get a payment. It will all come in one tax year as a payment to them and that’s that bottom line. The second set are all tax sheltered and that happened with the health savings arrangements and that’s dictated by federal law how our program in this regard happens and that’s when faculty, the severance now automatically goes into the health, we don’t have a choice on that anymore. So this particular case this person would get 84,000 in cash and would have the benefit of 6420 in the tax sheltered health savings account plus the total of 119,000 in a tax sheltered health care savings plan. So you add those together. The idea is they can make a financial decision, they know what their cash flow would be as they leave the University.
FA: Can you give us details on the side of this person, in terms of age and salary and that sort of thing.
Admin: It obviously makes a difference and so…
Admin: About eight years less than 65.
Admin: The BESI separation can never be more than your base salary, that’s your final base salary when you’re eligible for the early separation incentive. That’s the amount used there.
Admin: This would anticipate the two steps.
FA: This is a nine month base or 168 day base?
Admin: Correct. They got the two steps, the two step base is then used to calculate the severance, the early separation incentive and the one year of insurance is independent of salary it’s simply a dollar amount. The second one that you have you will see is obviously someone that does not qualify for the early separation incentive, which means they’re 65 or older because the early separation incentive in the Master Agreement is such that it drives people to retire…
Admin: Or they were hired after 1996.
Admin: Or they were hired after 1996.
Admin: There’s a sunset on that.
FA: So people over 65, hired after 1996…
Admin: People over 65 in any case don’t quality for this incentive and people hired after June something 1996, no matter their age do not qualify.
FA: O.K.
FA: Department list based on the type of people who qualify for the BESI or is based on restructuring also?
Admin: They are the people who meet the eligibility requirements.
FA: It’s not based on where they fall in the college.
Admin: Just the number of people who are eligible.
Admin: According the existing rosters.
Admin: So what is going to be sent tomorrow?
Admin: Tomorrow what will be sent is a cover letter which we haven’t shared with you, it will have sections of this document that we’re calling the plan, it will have the timeline and it will have the financial justification that’s been put into the letter that a faculty member will get. So they will get a cover letter and then they will get this acceptance form with their information on it, their specific information that’s been calculated. We also plan to put these in the mail tomorrow but we also plan to email the person as an additional way to try to get the information out.
Admin: Would you review their response, review the timeline out loud to be sure we all understand that. The letters go out tomorrow and the time clock starts on Monday? Because…
Admin: A couple days for mail to move and the timeline is on the second page of what we are calling the plan that’s dated August 5th. August 2nd the determination, obviously we’ve passed that. The determination of the departments, the number of offers, August 5th, the letters of invitation, well they’re really going out tomorrow morning because we thought we should talk to you about this process first. And then one thing I should point out is if there are, as we’ve described it here, if there are more people in a department who are interested in participating in BESI then we will have a method of “chance” which we will consult with you about how exactly how that’s done so that it’s fair in order to determine who would be the participant.
Admin: Are they being instructed that A. all of the BESI eligible faculty in their department are getting this or B. how many people we are hoping will accept it. Are they getting any kind of that information?
Admin: Yes.
Admin: They’re getting this information.
Admin: I don’t think we were going to send them a list.
Admin: The letter will refer to the 30 because that is the target. The letter will talk about, I believe of departments. And if you do the number of departments and you look at 30 you realize there aren’t many in one department.
FA: In some departments where you get three people and you only want one…
Admin: From recollection I don’t know if that letter does that. If it says that kind of detail.
Admin: Is there any reason why we should not do that?
Admin: Actually I think it’s one of those things that we were thinking we wouldn’t but I don’t think there’s a reason not to.
FA: I think would help to convey the fairness of the fact that we’re not selecting some people in your department, anyone who is BESI eligible is getting the option.
Admin: I think your right; I think it does do that.
Admin: It tells them that approximately 145 eligible faculty from the members selected will get the letter and then it says there are approximately 30 BESI’s to be distributed in those identified departments.
Admin: We need to change that because I think you’re exactly right. Some people think we’re picking names and targeting them and that’s absolutely not the case and doing that, showing that every BESI eligible person is being offered and we’ll grant up to one or two and I think that’s by lottery.
FA: I think it also helps when you have a department like in econ five people are going to get them and they’re not sure if this information’s going to be public or private but knowing that all five of you are getting this they’ll feel uncomfortable.
Admin: There is a concern with regard to data privacy. What occurs is that if the number of eligible is small it becomes more likely that we’ve identified the individual. The seniority roster is available to the public and what we’re trying to do is to be sensitive to the fact that this is an individual’s decision. We’re sensitive to that but what I’m hearing you say is a variable to take into consideration there is at least one department on this list that is identified where there is only one eligible faculty member and only one.
Admin: I don’t see that, there’s two.
Admin: Don’t pull that this is perfectly accurate because we have not removed leave of absence and sabbatical from the list, that’s not yet done so it’s going to be a smaller number than you see here. But I understand what you’re suggesting but I do have to report there are already faculty members receiving pressure that because they’re old they should retire and they are targeted for BESI. That has already occurred, Tom is aware of it and this is an individual choice to accept or not.
FA: I think on the one end it’s really important to know that it’s an individual choice but on the other hand there are going to be a lot of people in the department who decide to do it and if I’m going to make that decision to go ahead and say yes, I’m interested and I’ve got one out of five shot, I think it’s important not to mislead people into thinking it’s a done deal if you sign on the bottom line and I think it’s important for them to know what their chances might be if you will. Just in terms of being up front.
FA: I’d like to give another spin on that and I think that there will be situations where you’ll have more people who agree to BESI than actually letting to because they’re trying to be good citizens and if we don’t give them enough information to start out with and they are tossed into a lottery we could have three people vying for one spot, one of them really isn’t that interested but is trying to be a good Joe or Jane and steps into it. So at some point if they know the numbers they have a better way to determine and they can talk about it themselves, they will.
Admin: I understand that just saying there’s a 145 of these letters out there and there’s 30 expectations doesn’t give you the fine point on a particular department. There was some resistance if I recall by the board office about being able to identify people being selected or the people that are greater than 55 which is a characteristic and shouldn’t be published and such, I was thinking that maybe we should have a caucus but what I was wondering is should we publish after the time period what they are in turn how many we got in each department.
FA: The reason I asked this question before is the same thing David is saying, hypothetically in our department for example College of Business only two departments.
Admin: Sure we listed that in the criteria.
FA: People may speculate on things.
Admin: Good point.
FA: I don’t know if we want to move it in a little bit different direction on the same item or if you folks wanted to talk about your response and have us leave so I guess I’m going to move in a different direction and wanted to know if I should yet.
Admin: Let me just comment on the notion. Caucus is good for some stuff but I also think it is good just to think and have you hear our thinking about this is more valuable to me than caucusing. Let me ask you a question. It seems to me that if we sent a list, not reduced by sabbaticals and leaves and say that this is the maximum number of people that are eligible in a department and note in the letter that people on sabbatical and leave are not eligible then we’re not sharing any personal information. It allows somebody to say well who in this department is on sabbatical, well that’s not something we’re going to talk about. And there’s not department with just one so that might be a way to get people the most information that we can without writing any personal identification.
Admin: I’d say the number at the bottom is 123 because it say’s BESI eligible those on sabbatical and leaves will be excluded. It doesn’t give you the precision but it gives you a pretty good idea.
Admin: I think that’s a reasonable thing to do but I do think we need to begin a process of modeling behavior, for example this form the 123 and 145 people are going to get is private information. We’re not going to give a blow by blow, inning by inning summary of what’s been happening. No one has any obligation to share this private information with their colleagues. When people run into people at events in town and are told quote “I understand you’re retiring next year, oh and you’re retiring under this Board Early Separation Incentive” and this is four or five days ago that it is happening when we hadn’t even brought this to your attention. It tells you how destructive that can be. This is short of dealing with a death in the family. The choice to leave employment is right up there on the top and it is a private matter it is not a public matter, I’m not saying not to create the incentive by saying there is going to be one and if everybody in a department in four and one applies you got a 25% chance of being selected that’s okay but if it’s going to be who’s the one we want to get rid of because faculty also have a list of people they want to get rid of in departments it’s not just an administration faculty issue there’s the internal politics of each department. That’s what would concern me about the next step, how are we as a community going to deal with having 30 who didn’t plan to leave the institution yesterday, leave the institution in a month because once they commit they’re gone.
FA: I guess I have two different directions I want to go, I first wanted to respond to what you just said and then I wanted to go in the direction that I was going a few minutes ago. Don’t you think that if we had numbers out here that things become more arbitrary and that it helps with that gossip mongering? I don’t mean for you to answer the question but.
Admin: That’s the reason why we brought this information here.
FA: But the other thing is that it seems to me if I know a number in the department and I know how many people are eligible and I look at these criterion they begin to make sense. So I can ask myself, okay so do we have current or future instructional capacity, most people in their department might be able to see that. Is there duplication of coverage with other, either on campus or across the state and we go down the list so it seems to me that begins to give people what the rationale is and why the numbers are shaking out the way they are. At least within turf, it seems to me to be less kind of hit or miss. I do have a question about current or future excess instructional capacity and am wondering how you’re measuring that, what that data’s coming from?
Admin: There are a couple of things, A. we’ve starting looking last fall under enrolled classes and other things so we have some of that information, then we also have an external consultant where we developed some information against national benchmarks but that is still in a very aggregate shape, we need to refine that information further but it gives us some sense of rankings among departments, if not the precise number of the extent of excess capacity. Then conversations with the deans and so when we go to future the part of the future also is that we have some information emerging as to where the reorganization conversations will go and so again just as in any other situation we were trying to build in some flexibility here too and that is why we’re giving you a range of 30 to 40 rather than just specific definitive answers.
FA: As far as I am concerned I don’t even know if the econ faculty need this list, I just think it’s appropriate to put something in here that says where we’ve identified department where we’d like to have faculty participate in BESI all BESI eligible faculty are being invited.
Admin: Just the list of departments?
FA: Just that statement that states we’re not picking and choosing the three people in econ that we don’t like, we’re inviting all five of them.
Admin: Actually I think that statement we were working into the letter at least in one of the earlier drafts we were working that into the letter. In other words that letter would give a complete picture to the individual of what the process is and what the eligibility criterion was as to why they are getting the letter and then what are the next steps. That information is a must so we’re already working that into thee.
Admin: If you think a statement to that effect would meet the need that’s a lot simpler than putting in any numbers.
Admin: It just means that whatever work has been done this afternoon to produce the letters is destroyed and we start over because we’re going to have a new letter.
Admin: There is a sentence in the letter that says letters will go to all eligible faculty.
FA: That’s what I wanted to know.
FA: Clearly that piece needs to be there but I think we’re still missing that kind of statement of what the options might be. I mean I still wouldn’t know if I got one of these letters what my chances were.
Admin: One in two or one in thirty-two.
FA: Right. So I’m not sure how to address that.
Admin: One thing which I toyed with is, and that’s why I was giving saying to a lot of people because I kept changing a lot of things that we could in the letter along with the sentence that is already there about the eligibility we could indicate the range in a typical department because that range is really from zero to three.
FA: That would help.
Admin: So we can say the range of people eligible in a single department ranges from zero to three.
Admin: When you go from forty to thirty there are departments that end of being zero. But on the list the 23 departments the range is from one to three and I’m not quiveling about it but if we’re only going to issue thirty of these and they are coming from twenty three departments and there are 123 all eligible it’s not hard to deduce that the probability that you’re going to be selected is not very hard.
FA: Some of us are more math challenged than others though.
Admin: The question here that I’m trying to get is more of a process question, in the letter itself if we state, as we already have it, who are eligible, namely everybody who meets the BESI criteria as eligible to the department will be contacted and we can say that there are 23 departments and in each department the number which would actually be awarded BESI would range from one to three and then that would be sufficient information I would think for the individual to at least some idea and yet we can meet some of the concerns with data privacy.
FA: I have three conflicting things and I don’t know how they fit into all of this but one of the points being made about the privacy of the decision has already been raised to me by a faculty member who is eligible for BESI who said if I don’t take it I walk down the hall past people whose jobs I have cost. That’s an equation that people are going to make. You’re old enough to retire; you’re eligible for BESI why don’t you get out and save these jobs. Whether it’s true or not, whether it actually fits in here it depends on the level of transparency of information that gets out to people and one of the issues that I am dealing with virtually daily is the accusation that this process has not been as transparent as it was advertised to be in the beginning. I understand that everyone in the room doesn’t believe that’s the case, that’s what I am accosted with.
Admin: With what evidence?
FA: The evidence that the targeted departments for notices do not correlate very well to the SPA process and in many instances the people in those programs feel like they’re supervisors and other administration has said your program is doing well, you have a great chance to do better and now we’re going to notice all the probationary people in your department. They find that to be un-transparent. I understand that the belief is you guys have done the best you can on transparency; I’m not arguing about that, I’m telling the perception that exists. Any time we say well that should be enough information and it’s less than absolutely transparent that same issue rises. And the other side of it is in most departments, in most situations most people will be able to look around their department and guess who is BESI eligible, it’s not like you can’t figure out who’s 55 with five years here, you certainly can find the five years here, that’s public information and age you can guess within a year or two or three. So I’m concerned about minimizing the information for non useful goals when it costs things in terms of community perception.
Admin: So translate that into a specific position on what we can look at.
FA: Here’s what I think would be interesting adds a lot of work is that you don’t tell everybody this big list you just tell them just their department. You say here’s the big number and your department is this and you don’t break it down for everybody but each individual says if you look at English, English says there are sixteen people eligible for BESI we’re going to give up to three for an English professor but somebody in another department doesn’t get that same information. They have the information for themselves, they can talk among themselves and figure these things out but if you know your own particular situation it’s apparent to be more transparent.
Admin: There are two things I’d like to respond to. Go back to the minutes to the previous Meet & Confer, a member of your team was very aggressive in questioning why it was 26 probationary faculty and if you looked at that list you will see that a conscience choice was made to not discriminate where there were multiple probationary faculty so in the case I think you’re talking about, every probationary faculty member in that department was notified. Why? Because we in fact told you that what’s what we did. I don’t know how much more transparent we could be in saying that’s what we did. Devinder brings you a document today where it says twenty and how many meetings you could go back, how many times has the word over notice been used over the past few meetings. But what’s happened is the theoretical has become the real and when it becomes the real people start reacting differently and it’s like alright well what information do they need and the information that they need depends on their situation and it is possible for the truths that appear to be counter-dictory to make perfect sense when the whole story emerges and we’ve not yet had the opportunity for the whole story to merge. The last point is you also had a member who was very aggressive on your team in talking about don’t do anything until SPA is done. You understand we’ve backed off and gone through a process that isn’t SPA so how can we tell you it is SPA on one hand when you tell us don’t do that and we don’t do it and then we get told it’s not related to SPA, well that’s what you asked us to do.
FA: I’d like to go to hard numbers here what’s hypothetical if there are sixteen eligible and up to three, that’s a hard number I think when we can get hard numbers it’s to our advantage to do that. That means it could be three, two, it could be one. And I personally don’t feel comfortable going back to last Meet & Confer, we’re talking about something different now, we’re talking about dealing with perceptions of people in general and in a very difficult situation so I think as much as we can stay focused on what we’re doing now…
Admin: Let me go back to where we were at a few minutes ago. That is that if in the letter we are absolutely clear about the criterion for eligibility, who will get the letter itself and the invitation and then we give them a range that for each department the number ultimately available of BESI would range from one to three. Would that be sufficient information because what happens is that provides information but yet keeps us also in line with the data privacy act and gives better understanding then short of the list.
FA: I like that idea because the problem I had with your suggestion is if you tell English it’s sixteen and three at the end of the day only two people end up going it’s going to get around the department that they wanted three people to take it and only two people did. That’s when you’re going to get the inner faculty doing that. So if nobody knows how many people were actually wanting to go from English then it’s hard to pin blame on the other faculty who didn’t take it.
Admin: And they still have an idea as to what the range is.
FA: Yes.
Admin: So the letter will say every eligible person in the department is being offered a BESI. The range of BESI’s that will be accepted and committed to a range of one and three for twenty three departments.
FA: I want to verify how the colleges, keep telling…
FA: There’s something from each college, the letter will include that there are...
Admin: I hesitate to do that because of the simple reason we really looked at departments and weren’t focused on that there has to be X number from a particular college, for example there are units which are not represented here which have IFO members.
Admin: I think that’s not the point, I think the point is and if this is the point I understand the issue, individuals are going to get these letters, people who are not eligible are not going to get the letters. What are we doing to tell the rest of the faculty body how we are approaching this? Is that the issue?
FA: Yes.
Admin: Have we planned any communication as a whole?
Admin: Yes. Whatever day it was we had the meeting with Loren Boone, I thought the intention was it was going to be a campus wide news release with a broad brush stroke which talked about the number of BESIs.
Admin: So Monday there will be a campus release to explain to everybody what this is about.
Admin: And we were planning to give them these ranges anyway.
FA: I wanted to make sure the perception is, we want to minimize as much as we can so people, so the faculty who got the letters, the 26 or whatever it is, there’s a perception in a particular college there’s a perception there they give the letters to all the probationary faculty, the perception is there that individual departments…
Admin: The irony is I always hear people say that people who are not favored by the dean which opens up to the logical possibility that they are from departments which are favored by the dean.
FA: Yes. (laughter)
FA: I just had a pretty simple question about that release will that focus only on BESI or will it focus on other elements of the reduction?
Admin: I think it will be similar to the financial justification and...
Admin: I think that would be a BESI communication but we will provide the context in which BESI is operated.
FA: You mentioned there were faculty that were pressure from younger…
FA: I didn’t say that, I said that there are faculty who internally feel pressure. We’ve heard faculty who have been told they’re retiring which is one thing and faculty members say to me because this exists I feel pressure to do it, not that anybody is pressuring me but that it feels that way.
FA: Is it our understanding just because a person takes BESI in the department doesn’t necessarily say if there’s a drop in that department.
FA: I don’t think that’s ever been stated allowed, has it?
Admin: No.
Admin: There’s no direct linkage.
FA: But that’s a very easily imaginable thing but the folks who are imaging it.
FA: So maybe that message needs to get out.
Admin: Yes, because in this context in which we are unfolding the BESI we’re trying to make some budget adjustments. So essentially in an indirect fashion where BESI is one component of the overall portfolio of strategies to deal with fiscal year 12 there maybe some review and adjustments but there is no one-to-one correspondence. At least not at the departmental level.
FA: So perhaps if that information got out that would relieve some of that perceived pressure.
Admin: Can you address that issue in the letter and the release on Monday?
Admin: Sure.
FA: Were we going to talk at all about the lottery element of this?
Admin: We know that the lottery seems to be the best way to approach this.
FA: Why do we know that?
Admin: For the management side. In conversation with General Council, etc. the lottery seems to be fair, acceptable; we’re not ready to talk with you about how we do that. I think Devinder went through the stuff earlier, he said at a next Meet & Confer we will talk about that because we’re not prepared to talk about that yet.
Admin: Actually we haven’t conducted such a large scale lottery so it’s not very clear to us to where and what and so what we want to do is we want to work with you and develop a process because it’s very important that, that process particularly, has integrity, is open and transparent so we want to work with you on that and develop an appropriate process.
Admin: Maybe a note on that, it is obvious that if we have more than 30 and they’re only offering 30 that there would need to be a lottery, even if you only had 20 that there was an over subscription within a department there’s still a lottery.
Admin: I’ve been the one that’s not used the word lottery and purposely used luck. Lottery applies a level of sophistication I hope we do not have to go to because when you start to talk about a real, true random selection process you don’t want to be in the room with the statisticians talking about what random really means. I think what we’re talking about is what ordinary people would think as a means of determining such as drawing a straw or putting names in a hat and having names pulled out. I think that’s what we will probably end up doing but that’s the reason I use the term lot.
Admin: So we will work with you to develop a process that is open and transparent an yet simple enough to answer a very simple question.
Admin: I would just say before we move on, thank you for your conversation.
2. Information pertaining to the date of Retrenchment notices to the tenured faculty (ADM)
Admin: Again, here I don’t think there is a disagreement but we want to make sure in a formal setting, correct me if I am wrong, by our calculations the date by which we have to notice tenured faculty is September 20th. Is that your understanding too?
FA: The 20th day of classes.
Admin: And that date turns out to be September 20th.
FA: Yes.
Admin: We just want to make sure everyone was on the same page.
FA: The date for probationary was August 1st but things happened ahead of that do you have any clear image of your timeline for this, say in relation to the BESI timeline or anything else.
Admin: Are you talking about four days ahead of August 1st, three days...
FA: I am just curious about the timeline.
Admin: I am sure we won’t wait til the 19th and then start thinking we will work through this.
Admin: There is a calendar date. A number of us were at the Strategic Planning Committee meeting yesterday, the reorganization timeframe was discussed and there was an effort to have the reorganization for SPA timeframe and one of the two occur finishes before that 20th day of class. Thank you very much you gave the Provost a weekend to work on it. That’s to remind him of, that’s good but the reality is that he’s got a weekend between the end of that one and the upcoming deadline. Please read what’s in his document on the last line where it says 20 retrenched lines, it should tell you something. We’ve already noticed 26.
FA: This is kind of referring to the previous items kind of as a package, I’m hoping that the administration will make some sort of public notification to the community as a whole about the percentages of breakdown and the division of savings among the various units on campus because I think there’s a lot of mythology out there, a lot of speculation about how much is coming out of what and you’ve given us very concrete information about where savings are projected to come from and what percentage is coming out of for example, Academic Affairs but I think there are a lot of questions out there from other folks about that. So I’m requesting early on in the term we get that notification produced broadly across various bargaining units on campus so that we’re all on the same page with that.
Admin: Our budget targets by division and stuff should be...
Admin: They won’t be by bargaining unit.
FA: Well it doesn’t need to be bargaining units but for example you’ve given us really specific information about what percentages are going to come out of what and the number of lines and so on, I think that should be public across our unions.
Admin: Yours has been specific about the faculty that’s true and we can look at the number and talk about a range across the vice presidential units and president’s office and we can do that. Given just the work on reorganization and all we don’t have the information within these other numbers with respect to other bargaining units and numbers of positions.
FA: Can’t we look at general targets. I guess what I’m concerned about is I think there’s a perception that not everyone is sharing the pain to the same degree in the interest of that it. We’re getting push-back for example on Strategic Planning about that still and we have the advantage of meeting with you often and having lots of conversation.
Admin: Just the divisional breakdown.
Admin: Yes.
Admin: Which is what I have asking him to complete that so that we have better information and we have had very rough figures but to get figures that would make me happy we have to close the year and do some other things that then sharpen those numbers sufficiently to have some confidence and that is occurring. The other thing is the timeline for reorganization outside of the academic enterprise is longer so at this point which we will have divisional targets but it will be another three to six months before we start getting down to details about a number of positions and changes in units.
FA: But even having those divisional targets and saying it will be another three to six months before we have that information will be useful.
Admin: I will have divisional targets at least in mine is their scale which we have in the convocation presentations in two weeks. But it’s not going to be as detailed as this as around your particular bargaining unit because the variables are much different and it’s planning is ongoing.
Admin: So the pattern has been you do a presentation and then you share the presentation with the whole campus.
Admin: Yes.
Admin: And that will have divisional breakdowns and also the timeline for getting to more detail.
Admin: Yes.
Admin: And then some comment on the process, open discussion that will result in that, etc, etc.
Admin: And the year doesn’t close yet for about ten days. And then we take a little while to get it closed.
FA: I hesitate to speak for other folks of other bargaining units but I believe we’ve had in strategic planning and other places conversations where folks that have less notice required for loss as position etc are in fear of ambush and I think the more information they get in terms of targets, in terms of realistic dollar figures that come from more specific places the easier it is for those to get a hold of what might happen. You say reorganize in departments and everyone in AFSCME goes you’re going to start tossing out all the administrative assistants which nobody believes but more information makes more conjection.
Admin: Do you have a final draft of the process we’re using for reorganization?
Admin: On the administrative and academic support side?
Admin: Yes.
Admin: No, Strategic Planning set up the work group and the work group is now being set to meet and their first task is to, we do have the general but the content of the work of each unit is what they defer to.
Admin: And following Strategic Planning review and adjustments I would image we would bring that document here for discussion because it does affect them.
Admin: Yes, widely.
FA: One of the recommendations Strategic Planning made is that the steering group work on refining the questions, grouping them and admitting them to make them more focused.
Admin: We expect that to be the first task and the last major edit of that document is what I would expect.
Admin: I want to refer back to a document that we gave you today and that we’ve given you different versions of over time that does give you a gross answer to where we are looking for reduction because the bottom line on that is the faculty reduction is 6.5 million of the 14 million.
Admin: It’s the four and a half million distribution among everyone else.
Admin: It’s not just the four and a half it’s also the one million within the academic units.
Admin: Within Academic Affairs but those are also estimates at this point.
Admin: So what I’m saying is it’s there if you look at it, you set what the target is for faculty line reductions, that means everything else is not faculty line reductions and since we are a people organization the majority of our budget is spent on people. There are going to be I would venture to say disproportionate percentages of reduction in non IFO faculty and non IFO employee bargaining units. In fact we did that for eleven. We did that for eleven, remember, eleven was disproportionate.
Admin: Within Academic Affairs our four million, a little over a million came from outside the academic colleges or mainly instructional units. Your point is well taken. This is much more information about academic affairs but you are looking for information about other units.
FA: It was mentioned at the last meeting about a sustainable budget is a fictitious to call “God we trust everybody who has cash” the more information we get about money, I know it’s a moving target but the more information you give people will feel more comfortable to talk about, people will be willing to sacrifice more.
Admin: I think your point is well taken, as this information becomes good enough to share, we share it even if it is not very precise or accurate. I think sometimes what happens is there is information we don’t have at the present time.
Admin: Going back to the comment about transparency in general I think that some of what we’ve done before will be evident after the faculty came back, what we did before is we put a proposal on the table at public meetings and people got to say “why that?” and we give answers. People have not yet had the opportunity to say “why three faculty in Geography?” so and I think that hasn’t taken place yet and I don’t think it can take place until people are here. I think it will take place as soon as people are here.
Progress Reports on Long-term Concerns
1. Strategic Planning Committee Report (FA)
FA: I wanted to talk briefly about three things. First of all we have in fact at yesterdays planning we did approve a timeline for SPA and we back dated it from the date that notices need to go to tenured faculty of the retrenchment and pull back to the beginning of the semester and we have recommended dates that we’ve shared with the Provost. We’re planning to use the exact same process that we used last fall, it’s more compressed but we’ve included a week at the beginning of the semester, starting with the first duty day where departments can consult with deans because that piece was given the end of the semester craziness last spring that were missed in some cases. So we’re hopeful those deadlines although tight will work for you. We’ve given you in terms of this timeline strategic planning after holding open forums would give recommendations to the Provost at the end of the day Thursday, September 16th, which is pretty tight, it gives you a long weekend to filter that into consideration of the retrenchment notices but we wanted to make sure that we had as much time for consultation and for faculty to present at open forums and for strategic planning to deliberate as possible within the compressed timeline. The second thing is that we are requesting that at convocation that if the President and the Provost could make a commentary about the importance of the whole community being involved in this conversation and if the administration could as much as possible enable staff to participate in these conversations about restructuring. It is more complicated for them but in terms of having a full and thorough ongoing conversation, obviously there jobs are going to be effected by this also and it’s important for Strategic Planning to get their input on the plans as well. And finally we were wondering about, this is both the faculty and strategic planning piece under, the other steering committee... I don’t know how to say it but I’ve got to say it we’ve been calling the other committee LOSO OPSO because it’s about as close as we can get to being able speak it but, from faculty we’re asking that the technology plan and the online working group be folded in under that reorganization conversation somehow. We’re also wondering what, you’ve mostly answered the question, that we’re going to be starting that steering group soon, is there anything else?
Admin: I talked to Lisa, David in her office this week is supposed to be working on scheduling people to get a time for the initial meeting.
FA: So Institutional Effectiveness is going to set up the first date?
Admin: Yes. Get the people together and I plan to attend that meeting and so that’s the plan that I’m aware of now about that.
FA: I guess the last announcement and I am putting back on my Strategic Planning hat, yesterday Strategic Planning did talk briefly with Devinder at the end of our meeting and we’re forwarding six kind of draft plans and I guess both at Strategic Planning co-chair and as faculty person, we’re hoping that people will be continuously saying these are drafts, everything’s on the table, nothing’s fixed because we’re getting reports of people saying I’ve heard there are going to be so many colleges, so many schools, so many departments, we know that’s not true so I’m just hoping we can make a consistent message that these are places for conversations, there’s not a fixed model yet. We’ve talked about that at Strategic Planning but I think as many ways as possible we need to be saying that because…
Admin: That’s true. I couldn’t agree with you more because yesterday when I met with you there were three scenarios with about six variants, two in about each scenario and just the richness of that information I was very, very pleased with and because there are a lot of possibilities and there are a lot of additional discussions which need to, as we talked about yesterday in the planning committee that as we go through programmatic consolidation discussions and related to that organizational restructuring discussions then we also have to now roll into that discussions related to governance structures, very broadly speaking because when we come up with new programmatic structures and a new organizational structure then that raises the question we have to go back and review existing policies, practices and whether they fit into the new structures, where do they fit in, do we need additional ones so those conversations will have to be rolled in.
FA: I guess I would make two additional comments that the recommendations we made are about organizational structure but we will be sending you, there’s also another stage that we need to start thinking about at some point and I suppose part of it could fold into the organizational structure, there’s a lot of interest in thinking about how we might use institutes and centers, there are a lot of specific ideas that came out of the summer forums and we will send you a list of those ideas but at some point, and sometimes those have costs, sometimes they have minimal costs or no costs we at some point need to work in that part of the discussion. The other thing is that, and this is now I’m switching over to my faculty hat, the other piece we need to be really clear about communicating is, and faculty association is going to be looking at consistently, is how does Article 22, 25 fit into this. What are the supervisory relationships? What we’re providing doesn’t have anything about that in terms of what Strategic Planning is providing and those conversations are really important to us for obvious reasons.
Admin: And that’s precisely why I use the term governance structure in its broadest context because that would have reporting structures, that would have evaluative processes, both personnel as well unit level evaluative processes and that would have other relevant institutional wide policies and they relate to faculty development, staff development and other modes of supporting our activities. So we will have to look at all of that structure.
FA: The one thing you said earlier on and I would like to really stress in this venue and that is in terms of information flows, it is really critical that staff from other bargaining units, assorted excluded managers participate as much as possible and one of the things we said in Strategic Planning is for those who supervise-supervisors to encourage them to have people come to convocation sessions where these files are being presented. It’s difficult for people to abandon offices and leave them totally empty but we would like to see as much broad participation as we possibly can and one of the ways we know we can do that is for it to happen hierarchically because we haven’t had any other good ideas.
Admin: I’d like to thank the Strategic Planning committee to make sure I have plenty of work. These are the pieces of paper to pay the faculty that participated in the three retreats. It’s nice that we had a very strong response.
FA: That paper shows that.
Admin: And the paper shows that.
Admin: I would like to also take this opportunity to thank Strategic Planning Committee and particularly the steering committee. The summer is a time which as faculty members we always set aside to do things where we set up for next year and also finish our own scholarly projects and I very much appreciate your involvement and I think this has indeed moved this process forward and not only that I can see in the process itself a pathway to come to some decision nodes and be able to get to that point, over the last two months was a lot of hard work on the part of faculty involved in this process even beyond the Strategic Planning Committee and the steering group, faculty who participated in all the focus groups, faculty who participated in all the planning retreats so I want to publicly acknowledge my own appreciation and the institutional appreciation for their work.
FA: I just wanted to acknowledge that faculty were involved, in some idea sharing starting in spring forms, it sprung out and people spent a lot of their own time coming up with ideas and models to share and I wanted to acknowledge that also.
Admin: Thank you.
2. Strategic Program Appraisal (FA)
Admin: Judy has really covered that in the context of the timeline because that is the only new thing there and so unless there are other questions we can go on to the last item.
FA: I think the only thing we would like to continue to say is the integration of Strategic Program Appraisal activity and the non-instructional appraisal and the tech plan and the online working group. The integration of that is going to be really critical. What I have to keep telling faculty is it’s a really complicated equation with all these things in play and if that’s the message the campus hears all the time it’s going to be easier for people to dig in and do the hard work. But that integration is critical, if they’re seen as separate or if things are fenced and protected it’s going to be problematic.
Admin: That’s good advice.
3. Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07)
Admin: There aren’t dramatic changes for fiscal year 12 or 13. The state budget deficit is still settled in at something over five billion dollars which is what we predicated on. MnSCU’s share and in turn our share of MnSCU and I was asked for the first time this week by the vice chancellor of finance what the assumptions were that we based our budget plan on, I provided her a copy of our documents from last spring which we presented and she said “that was a good presentation” but didn’t give me additional guidance as to how to plan. So I think offered to the President that the schools are intended to plan in their best interest with their knowledge of what they have on their hands. So that’s what we’re about. Although we will plan for what to do this will change with the election, with the legislature and with the economy so it’s going to be something that we’ll do a lot of planning and we won’t be able to finally decide or finally know till the end. So, let’s all hope for an improved economy and that will help us out and for a successful election that leads to a political congrate that can work together and the best interest of the state.
Admin: I would like to acknowledge that Steve did not exhibit his political bias in that statement.
Admin: This year is off and running to a good start we’re rolling over the commitments made last year to this year, the encumbrances. We’ve substantially resolved in discussions with the Office of the Chancellor issues that were raised in the legislative audit and we don’t have refunds that are due or other things that were implied in that audit finding that in some cases represented a lack of understanding by the auditors of the processes of approvals within the system and the university. So there were some numbers there that were troubling to the casual reader so we’ve resolved those things and so we don’t have that facing us as an additional claim on our cash.
Admin: And your expectations for the timeline for carryover process.
Admin: The carry forward requests are due the 15th according to our policy, August 15 and we should have our final number for what the carry over is by the end of August, the thing that drives it is the faculty payroll goes on into August and that has to be ended and the other expenses like John’s duty days and such and that will come and we will know what the carry forward is and then move through that process with some hast I would hope with my vice presidential colleagues and with a referral to you for a final.
Admin: We essentially have to know what the final answer is by the time we accept BESI and know we’ve got the money for that.
Admin: We’re going to have to be lead; yes we’re going to have to be assured that we’re going to have enough money for BESI.
Admin: Just to remind everybody that treatment of carry forward funds is going to be truly draconian, unlike anything you’ve seen before.
FA: You mentioned one time, BESI is?
Admin: Yes.
FA: I’ve got a request. Periodically we are given reports on some of these programs that are self sustaining and we had a new program, Applied Clinical Research, I believe down in the cities in addition to Regulatory Affairs and the two applied doctorate programs and I believe late in the spring we made a request for information regarding the Regulatory Affairs and the two applied doctorate programs and if we may add the Applied Clinical Research, that’s a new program this year, of spring, so budget information on four programs, the Applied Clinical Research, Regulatory Affairs and the two applied doctorate programs.
Admin: I believe Dan’s working on, I’m not sure about the Applied Research but the others, Dan is putting those together.
Admin: I think all of the Maple Grove there are two questions there what we are looking at next year and then what we are looking at long term, what budgetary structures there are but we’ll know for the next year, we should know pretty soon what those budgets look like and we’ll share that information with you.
FA: O.K.
FA: I remember seeing the Applied Clinical in my college website, I don’t remember going through faculty, do you remember?
Admin: Your memory is correct and your memory is correct also and that you did request that. I don’t believe that if you study Meet & Confer that there was an item brought forward with a business plan as there was for Regulatory Affairs and for the applied doctorates. That was the pattern that was occurring for some reason it did not occur for the Applied Clinical.
FA: We were trying to figure out what exactly it was, is it a spinoff of nursing, do we know?
Admin: I think it is a spinoff of Regulatory Affairs because what it is- is it’s serving a community in the industry that’s producing medical devices.
FA: That kind of information would be really helpful to come here. I learned of it from a news announcement some place. We have one other item under budget, which is kind of an odd item but it came up in budget before and I was wondering if we could have an update about the closing of Eastman. I had thought that was off the table and now I hear that it’s closing again and we’re trying to move some programs out of that including some in my department and I was wondering if we could have an update about that. I can say what I’ve heard, I’ve heard that all our GA’s are being moved across campus, farther away from us and I’ve also heard that you’re trying to reschedule the classes that are in there in other places. Can we have more information about that?
Admin: We do intend to close Eastman.
FA: When?
Admin: We do intend to close Eastman.
FA: But when?
Admin: We had some discussion about it last spring we intended to close it this fall, the issue around the graduate students that were in there and specifically the class that communication studies offers. I know that within academic affairs there’s been some consideration of where are our alternatives for those specifically those two to be and advised recreation of its unavailability. So, yes we’re looking for elsewhere to put that instruction and the graduate assistants.
FA: On what kind of schedule, for this fall?
Admin: No. Not for this fall, not for those two things the graduate students...
FA: I thought our assistants were being moved over right now, over to the College of Education.
Admin: I can help you with that. I think what happens is that last spring what we said was that we will find appropriate spaces and make adjustments and then see what is the best time to make that transition. So right now there are conversations in which Todd DeVriese, Dean of College of Fine Arts and Humanities is involved with the facilities folks to at least identify the spaces where they would be and then work through the transition as to what is the best time or appropriate time to move that. I think we thought we had identified the spaces but then something fell through, that’s the kind of conversation I had with the dean this morning. So I think it is something which we said that we will do and we are in the processes of identifying appropriate spaces and then moving in that direction.
FA: Obviously with classroom space which I believe needs to be fairly large is a primary concern. I also want to keep in my mind determining of spaces on campus is really difficult but I want to keep in mind the effect of separating out graduate students from the classes they teach and more importantly from the mentors that they have.
Admin: I think that’s an important point. In fact part of it is in the context of reorganization and restructuring and consolidation there would have to be a facilities plan too if indeed we get to a point where we move around a lot of the units so some kind of a geographic continuity. In this case we’re cognizant of it and we’re trying to identify some spaces.
FA: So is your hope to find spaces for fall still or are we looking longer term?
Admin: As I said up to this point we haven’t nailed down everything and until we do that then we will work out a transition plan and we will do whatever makes best sense from the stand point of student experience, even for the graduate students and the curricular delivery.
FA: So you’re working on it but you’re not sure of the timeline?
Admin: I don’t expect the classroom to move for fall, which was one of the things we couldn’t find.
Admin: The classroom is definitely not moving.
Admin: Right.
FA: That’s helpful information, thank you.
FA: What would help us is something like a reasonably firm, no sooner than date so that people who are worried have less to worry about.
Admin: In my new job description this is clearly a matter I should be involved with. It deals with both faculty and the organization and this is the first I am hearing about it.
Admin: Because those conversations started last spring, but you’re right.
FA: Out of a budget item. That we were trying to save money by shutting it down.
Admin: I knew there was an issue, I knew that. What I’m saying is that any of the conversation since then. It seems to me that I should be as the Organizational and
Faculty Development, this is an organizational question, it does have a facility dimension to it but the kinds of issues you raise are the very kinds of issues that the position that I currently occupy has interest in which is how do we organize both physically people organization to best do the delivery of our instruction.
Admin: I think since last spring we are in conversation but we have not nailed down all the possibilities. Possibilities emerge everywhere, move them here, and then it’s not necessarily that decision has been made and so once we identify the possibilities, once we look at all the implications then we’ll work through our transition plans.
FA: I’m concerned as we move forward to a final resolution that we keep our eyes pretty closely on the target of clogging streams for graduate students in good training as well as space for teaching which is more obvious I suppose.
Admin: I know that Todd has been keeping all the chairs of the departments involved in the conversation so there is an ongoing flow of information which is going on.
Admin: Well, if there is nothing else we can end the meeting five minutes early.
Adjourned: 4:55