FACULTY ASSOCIATION
No. 2 North Office Center - St. Cloud State
University - (320) 255-3979
MEET & CONFER NOTES
October 10, 2002
Faculty
Association: Andrew Larkin, Theresia Fisher, Robert
Johnson, Chris Inkster, Judith Kilborn, Annette Schoenberger, Sandra Williams,
Bill Langen Sunshine Shaney, Notetaker
Administration:
Roy Saigo, Michael Spitzer, Rex Veeder, Anne
Zemek de Dominguez, John Burgeson, Diana Burlison, Larry Chambers, Nathan
Church, Lin Holder, Steve Ludwig
FA: This is a plan that has been referred to by the dean of the College of Education. We would like to receive a copy of this plan.
Adm: To the best of my knowledge there is no
actual written document containing a long term staffing plan.
FA: This particular dean seems to be citing a
specific document. The department makes
a staffing request and the dean says it doesn’t fit into their long-term plan.
Adm: All of the requests
are put together by collaborative discussion.
I think that all of the deans have conceptually created long-term plans
and that they were all created collaboratively. I will double check but I can’t think of any document that
exists.
FA: Can we have these conceptual
plans written down?
FA: One other issue we
have is that last year when we got a document on the allocation of positions it
seemed to be overwhelmingly more than 50 percent of the staffing needs went to
one college. We asked for
clarification, but we weren’t given it.
The concern is that we find out too late to do anything about it.
ADM: We can provide a list of the positions at
the next Meet and Confer
FA: We would like to receive a copy of the
college budgets.
Adm: We brought copies of the budgets for you and
in addition we thought you might be interested in next year’s projected
budget. The format hasn’t changed. I have recalculated our enrollments
according to what they will look like for 2004. We have some commitments for our balance, legal settlements,
nursing, MHSC, work-study, and CORE.
But because the legal settlements are still undetermined I think we will
be okay at the end of the year.
FA: What will we have to do?
Adm: I would like to call the budget committee
together and get this information fully presented to them and start having some
discussions.
FA: Did they tell you that the legislature might
not ratify our contract?
Adm: That’s true. If they weren’t ratified they would go back to the 2001 base
salary levels. I have heard that but I
have not calculated it into any of my budgets.
They also said if it did happen they would immediately correct it.
FA: If it did happen, would faculty have been
overpaid?
Adm: No -- money would not be taken back from the
faculty. They would roll them back, fix
the contract, and then roll them forward.
FA: What about MnSCU’s reserve? What is that targeted for and how doest that
reflect these hard economic times?
Adm: Last year they took about 10 million dollars
out of the reserve and allocated it out.
FA: Could we get a dollar figure of what MnSCU’s
reserve consists of?
Adm: Sure, I will send it to the Faculty
Association.
Hiring
manual
FA: About 5 years ago I was given a copy because
I had volunteered to look at it because I was involved in so many search
committees. I read it, found some
problems and went to the Special Assistant to the President and pointed out
some confusion, inconsistencies and spelling errors. I suggested that they get someone who knew something about
editing to look at it. One year later I
was told some things were changed and I looked at it again. Nothing was changed except a few of the
spelling errors. I went to the
affirmative action committee and to Human Resources. At HR I spent the whole morning going through the problems and
again suggested an editor. I got it
back one to two years later with very few changes made again. Some things were added, though, that were
very demeaning to faculty. I got a call
from the former Affirmative Action Officer asking if I was going to
respond. The
Human Resources and the Affirmative Action Officer said they couldn’t find the
notes, so I did it again. I got it back
and hardly any changes were made again.
So are we really serious about having a new hiring manual? I am very embarrassed about this.
Adm: Do we have a committee that was working on
it?
FA: I don’t know if the administration had a
committee or not.
Adm: Do you have copies?
FA: I will give you copies.
FA: One of the concerns is that if we are tied
to this legally, the inconsistencies can get us into trouble. With no Affirmative Action office, who is in
charge? Do we want to get this done
before we hire someone?
Adm:
Ideally, yes, we would like to have it finished before we hire an Affirmative
Action officer.
Adm: I am not fully informed on all of the
details, but there were ongoing settlement negotiations in trying to close of
the class action case. The settlement
involves the expectation that a consultant will investigate the Affirmative
Action Office. The attorney said that
consultants couldn’t come in until it is settled. We asked the EEOC and MnSCU to do what we would have expected the
consultant to do. We had that done and
there were some recommendations made. We have to incorporate those things and
in the interim we still did not have permission to seek an Affirmative Action
Officer. We received tentative approval
to start the process but in the meantime we have some reports due, so rather
than appointing an interim officer we are going to look for an affirmative
action and compliance support officer who will do our filing requirements and
take care of the upcoming hiring paper flow and then we will do a full blown
search for an Affirmative Action Officer.
This interim position has been sent to MnSCU for their approval. We are anticipating a long-term search.
FA: Is the interim position a paraprofessional
level position?
Adm: We will probably have to have it
classified. I don’t really know the answer
to that question right now. There are
four levels of classification, 1 being the hardest and 4 being the
easiest. This interim position would
probably fall in the 2-3 level.
FA: For the interim position, your goal is to
have someone as soon as possible to do the technical work?
Adm: There is a temp staffing the office right
now. We want to have someone who is
helping with the flow of paperwork and work with the lead investigator in
searches and the reports that are coming up that will need to be filed.
FA: Will the permanent position be a designated
officer?
Adm: We think it may change between now and when
the officer is hired. The job
description may change also. The
interim position is geared more toward technical work and paper pushing and the
actual position will be an officer.
FA: If this is not approved at MnSCU, what will
we do?
Adm: If it were not acceptable they would have to
help us come up with something that is acceptable.
Adm: As you know the president has tried to
expand the ability of the president’s council. What we are trying to do is have an expanded group that would
meet once a month for two hours to discuss university wide issues. We don’t have a forum but it would include
president’s council, Faculty Association, MSUAAF, MAPE, AFSCME MMA, deans
council, and student government. We
wanted the group large enough to represent the majority of campus. That is the plan. We have extended the invitation to the four bargaining units and
the student government. The first
meeting will be October 28. We don’t
have a set agenda for the meeting but we think it is a good opportunity for
discussion.
FA: We will take this to the Senate and get you
a name by the 28th of October.
FA: The IRC on campus Culture draft was
presented to the Senate. The first
concern we had was that it spelled out who the faculty representation would be
and the student representation just says “students”. Some would like to request the same composition for students as
is used for faculty. The other concern
is the deadline. We would like to
change it to two months subsequent to the dates that the reports are received. So the motion made in Senate was to return
this to the drafters for correction to include this language.
Adm: We can accomplish that.
FA: the problem here is that there is a
confusing history in that the dean has offered a number of explanations over a
period of time as to why no overloads would be allowed. These explanations have arisen and then
become inoperative to be replaced by others.
In particular, in the dean’s advisory council a decision was made, and
that raises a red flag. The other
concern is that the reasons for appointing adjuncts rather than overload are
set out in the contract. It is very
clear in there that the reasons offered do not rise to the description as to
why adjuncts should be appointed. For
these reasons we thought it would be useful for us to discuss this matter.
Adm: I think it is probably worth expanding the
discussion of overload as to how it is handled university-wide. My understanding is that the deans
discourage faculty overload whenever possible.
Having to do with other demands on faculty, faculty complaints of being over worked. The contract doesn’t say that faculty is entitled to
overload. It says they may be assigned
overload but that adjuncts may be hired for a number of reasons.
FA: Last spring the dean announced there would
be no overloads because Academic Affairs announced this decision had been
made. But later she asked the DAC to
discuss the overloads. In the summer
the dean announced that the DAC had decided there would be no overloads due to
budget constraints.
Adm:
Yes, it is true that it was based on the budget.
FA: A faculty member that gets paid overload
gets half of their normal pay for that many credits. An adjunct gets about $1100 per credit, so it is actually cheaper
to pay for the overload in the case of junior faculty.
Adm: No, the overload is something like $1800 per
credit. The adjunct is minimum
pay. A faculty member gets paid a
formula of .025 of base salary per credit.
Adjunct gets $1,075 per credit.
That is not a huge difference but it is different. I had a young faculty member come to me
about doing an online course. His
department had advised him that this was not a good idea because of his getting
ready for tenure.
FA: This is something that can come from
Academic Affairs but when a dean says to the department “you can’t do this
because the DAC decided not to,” that is problematic. Every individual has a plan, and it should be looked at by his or
her department and if the dean approves it, then the dean should somehow be
making it possible. I think we run into
other problems when we look at a blanket approach. We can look at the NCHEMS report and that our salaries our not
great at this campus and then faculty will work part-time at the tech school
and we end up competing with ourselves.
I am sure you can share our deep concerns. The centerpiece of our last effort was to get workload reduction
and it was this campus that was the most influential in taking that issue off
the table. Workload reduction being
removed from the bargaining table during the last round of negotiations makes
it hard for your side. According to our
calculations there was a real chance to do something about it last time.
Adm: Any faculty who wants to earn additional
income can do a course in Continuing Studies.
When I first got here the AVP said absolutely no overload. Now it is inconsistent.
FA: I think we are having some good discussion
and can continue to work on this together.
Perhaps you can have a discussion with the dean.
Adm: Yes, I can do that.
FA: I think we need to be clear on the role of
adjuncts and that if no overload is to be implemented it should come to this
body first.
FA: Last spring we were in an unusual situation
where we got into negotiations to deal with problems that occurred on
campus. One that was negotiated was the
MHSC. The agreement that occurred was
to base the assignment of positions on a seniority system. One of the concerns is that we do not have
that at this point with three faculty members from the MHSC. Another issue is that the MHSC has not been
holding department meetings, have not elected EPT committee, and are not
conducting EPT process.
The other issue involves a particular faculty
member. Part of the agreement was that
positions in the COE could occur in areas other than the driving range, but in
this instance the assignment is based on coaching and some noninstructional
activities. A contract was signed
between he faculty member and administration.
Then he received a second appointment letter that assigned some items
that we find questionable including web page development, work in science
curriculum lab. He has been assigned a
faculty member as a supervisor and another dean as another supervisor. We don’t think this is consistent with past
assignments. This doesn’t seem to be an
assignment that was made in good faith.
I would like to start discussion with the work assignments.
Adm: I spoke about this and we discussed
that. I have since spoken to the dean
and they agreed that this would be changed.
FA: There is a meeting tomorrow between the
deans and the faculty member. Can we
tell them that meeting would not occur?
Adm: I don’t know the nature of the meeting so I
can’t say that. I think he will get an
assignment from the Dean. I am not sure
that the assignment would be different but that he would have supervision from
the appropriate person in his department.
FA: Can we wait until this is resolved to send
the faculty member to a meeting?
Adm: I don’t think this situation is typical but
the appointment letter will be changed.
I understand the concern is having to report to multiple supervisors and
they will have to change it to just one.
FA: Why was the position changed so drastically?
Adm: I believe it was based on an old position and
it wasn’t caught that the faculty held another position.
FA: Will this person report to a departmental
unit?
Adm: I think the units were officially disbanded.
Its something we need to address to find a unit home for all of them.
FA: According to U-News the new unit is getting
recognized where is that coming from?
Adm: If I remember correctly we did check
carefully that we weren’t violating anything and I don’t believe it should have
been classified that way as a separate unit, I don’t know how it was
generated. I think they just put down a
name for recognition purposes.
FA: How could they be recognized if it didn’t
exist?
FA: We have a very serious situation and we have
never gotten around to dealing with it in a reasonable human way.
Adm: I think that when the Provost entered he had
to make those decisions and part of this process is his evaluation of
information that is coming from various sources. It has become difficult for me to even filter the information to
him in a way that even begins to make sense.
Part of the delay is trying to piece the information together in order
for him to make a final analysis. I
think the fruitful part of what we’ve been talking about is that we won’t let a
situation digress to this point again.
We don’t have a finalized set of agreements. I looked at three different drafts of agreements and it became
clear to me that agreements changed as different pieces of information were
received. Right now I think we agreed
to try to place as many people as we could.
Originally we talked about three people and we were able to place six
people. I think we were supposed to
place people based on their seniority and I think we did a good job of that and
we actually came up with more employment positions.
FA: From our perspective we never knew how many
positions were available. We said
whatever positions there are we would like them filled by seniority. We trusted that the three positions in the
driving range were it.
Adm: What transpired that led to the loss of
funding is that two camps were fighting about how the MHSC and in that battle
$600,000 were lost. Now we are trying
to put it back together and get it back on track to where were would be able to
provide positions to all constituencies.
There are some activities that are ongoing, and that employed three
people. We looked at people not on the
top of the list and tried to place them in similar positions according to
length of service. Obviously we are
facing it from different positions. I think it was not as easy to accomplish as
we originally thought. I think we put
forward a good faith effort
FA: In regards to the appointment letter you
were referring to the people that the faculty would be reporting to.
Adm:
I would suggest that the dean, I, faculty, and Andy sit down and do his
appointment letter together
FA: Does he have to go to the meeting tomorrow?
FA: Would it be feasible to put together a group
to talk about planning beyond this year for this center?
Adm: One of the things is that there have been a
lot of charges and counter charges.
What I have done is ask Diane to arrange an audit of the finances and I
would like to wait for that until we go on.
Once we get to that point then we can look forward.
FA: At some point we need to look at the future
of what will happen to this center when these assignments run out.
Adm: I think that we were making good progress
but the Provost finally reached the point where we said this was not a
comfortable budget and we have to make some kind of budgetary footing.
FA: Another issue is lack of EPT committee
Adm: We need to find a home for this entity and
find a way to make room for the EPT process.
Adm:
We have a timeline that started a year ago but I didn’t get the names until
late march from the FA. The First
Amendment Committee met and we agreed to meet again based on that discussion
there was a revision of the policy that was discussed and my hope is that in
two more meetings we will have a policy to circulate.
Adm: There were rules that were changed without
agreement at Meet and Confer. What the
Assistant Vice President for Sponsored Programs has tried to do is regulate the
process and involve more people. The
new procedure as of last year asks the committee to make recommendations on the
proposals (Research directors). They
refused but did make comments. What
used to happen is people would submit requests to IR and the people who came
first got the money. So the interim vice
president established a deadline so all proposals would be considered for the
same monies. This is the same pattern
for awarding these monies as last year.
FA: I think there are indeed some differences
and one of the things that weren’t clear was how id this relates to their
funding opportunities. There were
questions about some of the guidelines for the URF and the use of those that
people didn’t get a chance to ask. I
think that we would like to request another approach of making the funds available
Adm: We have discussed making the funds available
to other entities. We are working to distribute the indirect support money to
where it should go.