FACULTY ASSOCIATION
No. 2 North Office Center - St. Cloud State
University - (320) 255-3979
MEET
& CONFER NOTES
May 1, 2003
Faculty Association: Theresia Fisher, Judy Foster, Chris Inkster, Robert Johnson,
Judith Kilborn, Bill Langen, Andrew Larkin, Tracy Ore, Terrance Peterson,
Annette Schoenberger, P. N. Subbanarasimha, Sandra Williams, Emily Schultz,
Notetaker
Administration: Roy Saigo, Michael Spitzer,
Diana Burlison, Larry Chambers, Steve Ludwig, Nathan Church, Roland
Specht-Jarvis, John Burgeson, Rex Veeder, Kristi Tornquist
Approval
of previous notes (April 10 and April 17, 2003)
ADM: We approve.
FA: We approve, and will put them on the FA
website.
Seniority
Roster
ADM: We did some review of that particular
topic. Several individuals were
previously assigned to Academic Affairs. Last fall several were rostered in
Academic Affairs. In the spring after announcing this, several faculty went to
Continuing Studies. Since they’re doing different work now, they’re no longer
considered as having seniority in their previous department.
FA: We cannot accept that. We have several faculty who continue to be
rostered in their previous departments.
Those three who were rostered in Academic Affairs are still rostered
there; it’s not until next academic year that they’ll be rostered in another
unit.
ADM: It’s a slightly different view than what HR
is saying. It’s true that people continue their rostering. The department was
dissolved last summer and a new department was created. If you dissolve the
department, it extinguishes the seniority that was there.
FA:
I assume they said that in writing?
ADM: If they sent it in writing, we’ll get you a
copy of that.
FA: If you dissolve an English department and
the next year open an English Lit department, it’s a way to get around the list
of seniority. It seems like it’s not a
reasonable kind of position to take.
We’ve talked about it; it was never really resolved.
ADM: I understand your view. We’ll get the
information from MnSCU.
FA: I think if I recall correctly, in the case
of one faculty member’s grievance, part of the ruling was based on the
administration’s promise that the traffic safety department was not going to be
reconstituted and it was going to be eliminated as it was presented to us last
year in M&C. And it wasn’t eliminated. It was reconstituted. What we have
here is no closure. We aren’t accepting this position from the administration
that those people don’t have seniority. We’ll have to work out how we’re going
to resolve this. This issue has been before us for over a year and all it’s
done is to beleaguer us without a solution.
FA: Do you have the audit?
ADM: We have a memo from Melissa Primus; she’s
almost done with the audit and she’ll send a preliminary version to her
supervisor John Asmussen and will get the final to us on May 16. Based on her
preliminary findings there’s nothing that could be listed as a finding, but
they might list some internal controls. There’s nothing significant, but some
internal control issues.
FA: I think one of the issues we were looking
for with the audit was whether the old traffic safety had a deficit.
ADM: I believe she’ll be forthcoming with that.
Yes, there was a deficit. The state grant fund is a stand-alone fund. It’s kept
in the treasury. Because of the outstanding grants (DOT) and transfer of folks
to different units, it is $180,000 in negative balance. We had to cover that
amount so the other grants could operate. Part of what her response will be is
that there was a negative balance and there is no cash left.
FA: Can you tell us who was interviewed in this
audit?
ADM: That’ll be in her report. I didn’t ask her
those kinds of questions.
FA: Two of the people who negotiated many of
these grants were not interviewed, and it seems like that would be critically
important. They would have information
that should be helpful. There was also money that was supposed to come to the U
and it never arrived.
ADM: There was a contract with the Department of
Transportation. A reimbursement
contract. At the end of that contract,
we requested reimbursement, and they indicated they had no funds to reimburse
us. We talked to the Attorney General to see what we could do. They said they
don’t go from one state agency to another to intervene. So we were out the $180,000. By the time we found this out, there were
contractual requirements regarding how we behaved with them and that meant
another $80,000 in salaries for these faculty.
It’s my expectation that Melissa spells this out, and I’ll convey your
concerns to her that she do this.
FA: I’m speaking for the joint faculty and
administration committee. We’ve been informed that there’s a MnSCU snag with
the approval. We had hoped to be able
to finish this up. We hope to schedule
a special Meet & Confer this summer for that one topic. We’d like in writing the statement from
Chris Dale about problems in the proposal so we can address those problems.
ADM: OK.
FA: We have worked on this for over three years.
Now at the last week of school year we are told that MnSCU is holding this up.
We need to know why this is happening.
Otherwise faculty, especially newer faculty, will have to go through the
old process again.
ADM: The point was raised several weeks ago.
FA: We didn’t find out. It didn’t come to Executive Committee until
yesterday. Do the other state universities have letters saying that the process
they use was approved by MnSCU?
ADM: There was agreement that the FA would bring
it to the IFO, and the administration would bring it to MnSCU for approval. It
was discussed publicly in this room. We submitted it to MnSCU, and they raised
issues, and we are trying to address them.
We are willing to tweak the things MnSCU wants changed. Everybody wants to make this work.
ADM: We want to create a task force that has
eight faculty members on it, representatives from each of other bargaining
units, two students, and two administrators.
We suggest that the faculty consider among its representatives somebody
from the enrollment management and Strategic Planning committees and from each
college and LR&TS, but that is up to you.
I hope that this committee could meet during summer, and come back in
fall with something to recommend to the campus community.
FA: I remember your email about reorganization
mentioning a Task Force. Could you reiterate what it will do?
ADM: It will look at the consultants’
recommendations, consider those and perhaps other options for restructuring,
and what else we might do to provide more efficient services to students and
the university community.
FA: Is this task force going to be coming up
with a proposal or recommendation?
ADM: Yes. It will also schedule open meetings
and focus groups to test the soundness of whatever is being proposed
FA: One of the points that we have is that this
restructuring is mainly in the academic area, on the whole affecting many
faculty and few from other bargaining units. The way you have it set up with
eight faculty, one from each of the other bargaining units [4 total], 2
students, 2 administrators, we feel this is not proportional, since the
restructuring will be affecting so many more faculty. We would ask that a vast
majority be faculty — two-thirds. Would
that be a possibility for discussion?
ADM: We can talk about it. There may well be
significant impact on those other units, the support units. If there are combinations of colleges, there
will be impact on AFSCME. I am not sure
about MAPE or MMA. A number of
technical people are MAPE, in many departments, certainly within LR&TS
technical center, academic computing.
Middle management on the academic side is pretty limited. But a lot of MAPE and AFSCME.
FA:
AFSCME are what — office managers?
ADM: Custodial staff, too… Office managers and
most of clerical staff on academic side.
FA: But wouldn’t these be associated with
departments, and wouldn’t departments stay intact?
ADM: MSUAASF staff in academic support may be
affected, well beyond the department structure, and student support services as
well.
FA: So does that mean you would not consider
changing the numbers.
ADM: One thing we want to do is have a
manageable size, but with as broad representation from the university as
possible. I think this gives faculty fifty percent, if you include the students
as part of overall group. Students are not staff or administration, so they
shouldn’t count for that purpose.
FA: We have 2 problems. We won’t have the regular faculty on the
campus during the summer, so this will seriously impede our participation. We will check with the Senate. The other is the idea of coming back with a
proposal to be considered by the Senate.
We will want regular faculty, who are here year round, on that
committee. If summer people are
gathering information to disseminate in the fall, it almost doesn’t matter who
they are. But if the task force is
putting together a package that will then go to the Senate, then there would be
considerations as far as the number of faculty on the committee.
FA: There is also an issue with pay for faculty
during the summer. Would the faculty on this task force be eligible for some
duty days?
ADM: I would hope not. We are trying to conserve
money for classes. If you think faculty should not participate during summer,
we won’t have meetings until duty days begin in fall. That will address two of
your concerns
Differential Tuition
FA: Differential tuition has been discussed on
the campus listserv. Is there a
proposal for differential tuition? Will
it come before us for our consideration?
ADM: There is one proposal that we may be able
to bring forward from the College of Business. They have proposed a tuition increase
for students in Business; we haven’t made any determination about that
yet. Other proposals have come from
some programs in other colleges. Those however are less advanced in terms of
development, have not been discussed with, e.g., student government. That would have to take place before we
bring them forward, so it would not be considered for this coming academic
year. The COB proposal can move
forward. We need to investigate it, to
see the extent to which it makes sense. Their request has been for a 50-dollar
differential per credit in the COB.
FA: So the university has no proposal yet?
ADM: No.
FA: If you do, we would like it to come to the
Faculty Association for consideration.
ADM: But you won’t be here.
FA: We are distinguishing differential tuition
from across the board increase. One is an external matter; the other is
internal. If different colleges are
making these requests, that impacts the entire university, and must be
considered by the faculty. So any
differential tuition proposals should come before the faculty so we can comment
on it
ADM: We don’t yet have a final proposal that we
feel could stand to be reviewed and evaluated.
We are still not sufficiently firm in terms of some of things we want to
see as well. But we are considering
looking at differential tuition. So if Senate wants to consider it.
FA: We are not asking to engage in a
discussion. But if a proposal is going to be put forward, we should be
officially informed and have a thorough discussion.
ADM: We will give you one when we have one to go
forward, but you won’t be meeting to discuss it to have any bearing on
outcome. At the end of May, tuition
increases have to go to MnSCU.
FA: Are you considering differential tuition
for next year?
ADM: Yes for the COB, and increased tuition for
international students at 10 dollars per credit.
FA: If there is a proposal to be implemented,
that clearly has consequences upon other units outside the COB. Faculty outside the COB and within COB
should have some comment. We have a right to comment on those kinds of
proposals.
ADM: A lot have been commenting for some time.
FA: Individual commentary is not a substitute
for representation by the FA. There is
a clear distinction in law, in contract.
The IFO is the exclusive representative. If faculty input is to exist,
it must come through the Senate.
ADM: We have no proposal.
FA: When you get one, we want to see it to
comment on it.
ADM: And we will provide it to you.
Faculty Positions
FA: At the town hall meeting this morning, you
said that 25 faculty positions will be cut.
The statement was made that these would be permanent cuts.
ADM: The cut to the budget is permanent. When the budget increases, we will be able
to restore positions.
FA: What do you mean by permanent?
ADM: If we get an increase in revenue…. I don’t think in terms of position numbers
as we do when we calculate lines. I think in terms of positions available in
terms of dollars available. More money can fund more positions.
FA: Will those non-funded lines stay on the
books or be removed from the books?
ADM: That is a problem with the books, figuring
out how many lines there are in the books. I have been struggling with this all
year. It has been a major undertaking. Three people have given up in
frustration. I think we have a handle
on that now, but we could identify each by number and list as vacant positions.
We know how many faculty lines there are in every department, so yes, we know
what the numbers were, reductions in prior years, some are listed, some are
not, which is a source of confusion. I would rather look at the number of
filled positions, and if we have additional money, we can determine which other
positions to fill.
FA: What we are interested in is if a
department has [say] four positions vacated. When we do get more money, if
ever, if the department would still have that, or whether there will be a total
reallocation of the new money coming in.
FA: The Math department is an example. There has been a lot of retirements in the
last four or five years, hiring has not kept up, student load has actually gone
up a bit, and the difference made up by hiring fixed term faculty. This is not only in the memory of
department, but also because there are fixed term people in all those
offices. When you say we can’t hire all
those fixed term people anymore, if you get money, what are the people in the
math department going to do? We are learning that almost all the money in that
college for doing extra is gone, and you are going to take more away from
us. What am I supposed to tell those
people?
ADM: Vote for someone else for governor.
FA: They want some indication that you know
what things are like in the Math department.
ADM: It is not just Math; it is every
department. The College of Fine Arts
and Humanities will see ten per cent fewer faculty next year. But that is a moratorium; we would revisit
this, all departments affected. People
firmly believe that discussion will happen. In that context, a larger college
of Arts and Sciences would facilitate that idea. A moratorium is for real, but we need to get discussion among
departments going.
ADM: When money is not available, lines and
positions are withdrawn; when money is available, faculty positions will be
considered, money won’t go somewhere else.
The point is that the budget is preventing us from filling positions.
FA: Is it possible to see where the 25
positions are?
ADM: Yes.
FA: Could we get a list?
ADM: Yes. The problem I have is that I
originally thought we had more positions frozen than we did, some confusion
about numbers, I can try to reconstruct, but not sure how accurate that will
be. I know that sounds odd, but various deans indicated more vacancies than there
turned out to be.
FA: Of the 25 positions not being filled, could
you tell us where those are?
ADM: Yes.
FA: When?
ADM: I will try to get it to you early next
week, by Tuesday afternoon.
New Budget Issues
FA: Was the information presented this morning
at the town hall meeting different from the information in the April 17
spreadsheet [handed out at Meet and Confer]?
ADM: Yes, it was a little different. The vice
presidents have worked on this as issues come up, and proposals change. As a
result, there were a couple of things that did change in the areas of Academic
Affairs and Student Life, and those were reflected this morning.
FA: Can we get a copy?
ADM: I fully plan on posting today’s
presentation on the web. All the information from last time is out there, just
in a different format. It was not
student life; it was the president’s office. And Academic Affairs.
FA: Can you explain what happened to the
president’s office?
ADM: We had further discussion about a position
in the president’s office. We got additional information, and based on that
decided that we will not do that.
FA: And Academic Affairs?
ADM: There is nothing on this spreadsheet that
is different from this morning under Academic Affairs. What is different is
“university wide.” We looked at a
number of accounts with balances left in them for three years and weren’t used,
and went back and saw a couple that should not be taken, so we reduced number
from $50,000 to $20,000. Mediation was
not eliminated. Some of this has been
paid out of college budgets, so thank you.
ADM: I see no change in academic affairs from two
weeks ago. The numbers are the same,
and the budget is closer to balancing.
If all goes exactly as planned for next year, $300,000 will be going
forward to next year, 2005. In ‘05 we
will finish with $20,000 if all goes exactly as planned. Two years ago we spent
$600,000 more on utilities in one year.
It doesn’t mean we are flush.
$300,000 really isn’t much, about a third of one percent. It doesn’t make me comfortable.
Reassigned Time
FA: At the last Meet and Confer, we got an
answer, but we did find that some faculty members had their reassigned time
reduced or eliminated, and you said you were disturbed about that and were
going to look into it.
ADM: Yes. It is not completed. I don’t know what we can do for fall, but
will continue to work with the deans to see what we can do to abide by our
agreements.
FA: Do you have any idea of when the process
will be completed?
ADM: I’m not sure. But will work on that.
FA: One of the problems we discussed was a list
of positions with reassigned time, directors’ positions. There is supposed to
be an official report, but it is virtually useless because there are lots of
inaccuracies in it. A lot of reassigned time is not captured in that
report. What are your plans to improve
the accuracy of the data we have to work with?
ADM: That is why we hired a budget analyst to
work on that issue, a new procedure on faculty workload analysis, regarding
getting information from faculty that is more accurate. We are making progress,
but are not there yet. Pres. Saigo asks
me about this every week, and I say I’m working on it.
FA: Have you given him a date?
ADM: No. I want it to be accurate. We worked on analysis of workload for fall
2002, but it is very inaccurate. We went over it with deans, who went over it
with department chairs, but there are a lot of problems with the data we got. The primary culprits creating problems are
independent study courses that are sometimes listed as workload, stacked
courses that are often listed twice, and reassigned time that is not
identified. This lack of accurate data
has plagued me all year, but we are trying to correct it, with a new format for
getting it. We would like to participate in the Delaware Study on faculty
workload that incorporates things besides teaching load. If we can get into this, and get our data
into it appropriately, then we will have good comparisons with about 325 peer
institutions, and could have some valid comparisons. So we’re struggling.
FA: When you do your report, the ISRS?
ADM: ISRS reports out of the Records Office
showing courses, credits, number of students, by faculty member, by college.
FA: It seems to me that deans know what faculty
assignments are. If you were to ask
deans how much reassigned time there is in the colleges and who has it, that
would be useful. Our concern is that you can’t address the concern without
accurate information. The last time, you
were surprised that some of the reassigments have been cut. If you could send to us a report from the
deans in terms of reassigned time this year in their college, and we could use
that to see what has been eliminated for next year. We don’t know on the
Executive Committee.
FA: Is the reassigned time data as confusing
for all of the colleges, or are particular colleges more confusing than others?
ADM: Probably.
FA: To which question?
ADM: All of the above. It might be a little more
difficult in some cases than others.
FA: Is this consistent with all MnSCU state
universities?
ADM: I don’t know.
FA: This Delaware study. What is keeping us from
participating?
ADM: Rex is in communication with them. We need to collect the data in appropriate
format, that’s all.
FA: Electronically?
ADM: Yes.
FA: Would it be possible in the fall, in
September, to put together a report on what you are doing to improve the data
that we have for decision making so faculty are informed about what is going
on, and if possible, some idea of when we’d be in a better position? It comes up every year. Perhaps a written
report to the Senate.
ADM: Yes.
Faculty Center for Teaching
Excellence
ADM: Karen Thoms will meet with me tomorrow;
nothing is yet decided. Ill let you know the outcome.
FA: When?
ADM: Before the Senate meeting on Tuesday.
Chairs’ Reassigned Time
FA: Do we know anything about chairs’ reassignments?
ADM: There are a few chairs in specific
colleges, and I am awaiting explanation and justification.
FA: You’ve been waiting for at least 12 weeks.
They haven’t been very responsive.
ADM: I know that.
FA: This has been on Meet and Confer for three
months, and still no information.
ADM: I can’t give you a date.
FA: But that’s what you said at previous Meet
and Confers.
ADM: I will get it to you as soon as I can.
Assessment
FA: Where are we with university-wide
assessment? It costs more if there is both centralized assessment and
decentralized at college level?
ADM: Of course.
Assessment has been decentralized, and there is uneven application of
assessment across colleges. We may want
to look at universal assessment to meet accreditation requirements.
FA: We’ve been slapped on the wrist several
times about data collection.
ADM: I want to look at this closely over next
couple of weeks or months.
FA: We have a meeting set up on the larger
grievance.
ADM:
And we have a May 7 date for the
English department grievance. We are prepared to meet and work on those issues.
FA: The last time we were looking at getting an
MOA, but we don’t need one. We need
some kind of understanding about how they are going to be setting budgets,
secretary help, hiring and evaluations.
ADM: Under the current structure, evaluations
would come directly to Church.
Secretarial help and budgets came to him anyway. Nothing has been done
to change secretarial support for the department.
FA: Are they receiving secretarial help from
Counseling?
ADM: Yes. That has remained unchanged. The
second point is that this is an area that will be evaluated by the task
force. The Academic Learning Center in
the context of academic structure, support services, how those might be managed
differently to provide better services to students. An MOA might have meant
extra work. We can kill two birds with one stone, as we move into fall, have
some ideas from faculty, staff, students.
We can leave them as they are or find better ways to manage them.
FA: Task force?
ADM: Yes, the restructuring task force.
FA: What about ALC budgets?
ADM: Student Life manages part of their budget;
instruction is managed through Academic Affairs. That is no different than in the past. It is a division of labor that has been that way as long as I
have known about it, with the caveat that there will be one less stop on my
side of the budget.
FA: Most units have an account.
ADM: There is an account for ALC in the Academic
Affairs office.
FA: And when they spend it, who signs off?
ADM: Lin Holder.
FA: The same as in the past?
ADM: As far as we know.
FA: When reorganization is looked at, could the
ALC be looked at in terms of a chair model, integrating with other academic
programs?
ADM: I couldn’t guarantee a chair model. I have
an incumbent in that role. But linkage to academic programs could be tighter
without putting that position at risk.
It may not be appropriate to put it into the reorganization discussion,
but could be dealt with separately.
FA: We see reorganization as a possibility.
ADM: It could be, but I don’t want to overload
the emphasis of that. We can discuss it and come up with an appropriate
mechanism for better department connections.
Drops and Adds
FA: We have several categories of curriculum
policies. I’ll start with the Senate motions with regard to drops and adds,
which is an attempt to do two things:
to use seats and classes more efficiently and to shift the student
culture around drops and adds.
First,
we want to change the last add day to one day after the last drop day, the
no-penalty day. Now the days are the
same, and there is no advantage to dropping earlier, and that takes up seats.
So a 24-hour turnaround would allow students to get into those seats.
ADM: We’ll take it under consideration. The
business office and financial aid binds us in some ways. We can’t distribute
financial aid until drop-add is complete.
We are already having difficulty getting financial aid run and
distributed and meeting federal requirements. Some classes don’t meet until the
fifth day, night classes, for example, and students must be allowed to attend
the class before they drop it without penalty.
FA: Can you make it noon the next day? All we want is that the amount of time to
allow students to add without penalty would increase with the hope that there
will be more students in classes.
ADM: A couple of things. We will look at it.
There are some MnSCU requirements and federal requirements about financial aid.
All have a part in this process.
FA: But you understand what we want?
ADM: Yes.
FA: There may be a better way, but we want a
way.
ADM: If there are seats unoccupied, tell us,
because there are students that register that don’t show up.
FA: Part of the issue is that students often
delay making decisions that would be useful for other people. If you over-enroll, you take the chance that
you will have too many students – in a lab, for example.
ADM: That particular one was of interest to
financial aid; we’ll look at that. The goal is admirable.
FA: We also want to discontinue waiving tuition
for students who don’t show up and don’t drop until after the drop-add date. If
the student never attended, you give their tuition back. That wastes space in class, especially
high-demand classes. Students should be able to know if they are going to
attend a course or not. It is their obligation to drop, and should pay if they
do not.
ADM: Federal financial aid requirements may
mitigate against this.
ADM: If you read the regulations about federal
financial aid, including federal loan programs, they recommend attendance be
taken by faculty in first week of semester. Why not make faculty take
attendance? That would solve a lot of
problems. We have resisted this, because it is not our role to mandate taking
attendance. But in essence that is why if a student comes back later and says
they never attended and the request goes out to faculty, and you can’t clarify,
we have to adjust their financial aid.
FA: I take attendance, so I can say. That’s not
the point. There are also instances where students press a faculty member to
lie so they can get their money back, My concern is that people are waiting to
get in class, is there some other way around this to get more seat space?
ADM: Historically, we used to request a deposit.
FA: But that was awful, too.
ADM: If the student intended to show up, they paid
100 dollars. They had to see the
cashiers twice, which was a nightmare.
The question is how do you balance the mandated deposit and the leniency
of letting them sit in classes and not taking roll and hoping they drop? I’ve asked what we can do to get the
financial aid out sooner. Also we used to be able to charge a drop-add
fee. MnSCU won’t allow us to do that.
They can add classes with no fee, and no penalty for dropping them, so it goes
on and on. All of these issues, if I
could get a copy of the resolutions that were passed, I will take them, verify
the MnSCU policy, and work with appropriate service units to see if we can’t
come to some kind of resolution on these issues. [FA provided Senate
resolutions.]
FA: Our third item is to automatically drop
students who miss the first class unless excused by the faculty member teaching
the class. That would get faculty
members to take roll. The Senate would like to do this.
ADM: How about the first two classes?
FA: Except for night classes.
FA:
The problems are that we want to get
students into classes as soon as possible, and also the attitude that nothing
happens that first day that we have to get over.
ADM: But a problem is a student who is
legitimately ill is automatically dropped, or a car could break down and the
student not have the opportunity to call in. I support the idea of a second
class, but one is too quick.
ADM: Also what about faculty members not
interested in taking attendance in 400-member auditorium classes? The student assumes that if I don’t show up,
it will be noticed and I will be dropped, but is not noticed and students who
rely on automatic drop discover we are still trying to dun them for tuition.
ADM: I am not sure what MnSCU board policy says,
because I think there are some anomalies.
FA: One issue that didn’t come up, but that I
remember from before, is the issue that has to do with faculty members with
labs who discuss safety procedure on first day. Students who miss that miss
something serious.
FA: You get the point of what we want to do.
Let’s stop trying to think of why this won’t work and find something that will.
Faculty are tired of the way students don’t show up, come in a week late,
expect us to take care of everything, being pressured to lie about students not
coming to class.
FA: We have to make the point that this applies
to a small number of students; we are trying to get students into classes in
this time of budget crunch.
ADM: These are very positive recommendations,
pleased to see them. We need to make
sure we don’t run afoul of federal or other regulations. To the extent we can,
we will adopt these changes.
Majors and Minors
FA: The second curriculum issue has to do with
minors and majors. The UCC and the
Senate adopted a resolution that
“Minors at SCSU are not to be degree specific – the degree designation
is a function of a student’s primary major.
Instead, a student may use minors that are presently designated as B.A.,
B.S., or not designated, with either a B.A. or a B.S. major.”
ADM: My concern is that there are some
departments that very specifically distinguish between BA and BS minors. We need to consult with those departments. It may have to do with specific sets of
courses for one minor or the other.
FA: When a student is admitted to a major or
minor, they need the signature of someone in the department that offers that
major or minor. If they have a major or minor that they don’t want to be used,
they should not sign that form. That
should not be a problem. We can tell students they can’t take inappropriate
minors. If a department signs these
when they should not, that is their problem.
ADM: If a department publishes in the catalog
that courses for one minor are not the same as the other one, shouldn’t that be
what students do?
FA: There is a disconnect between department
conversation and the catalog. We need to figure out a process for exemptions.
FA: The UCC usually works closely with
departments in gathering information on department needs and wants. Do you have information on particular
departments that are not happy with this?
ADM: No, but I have a catalog that says that
different minors go with different majors, but this is saying the catalog
doesn’t matter.
FA: Most of those distinctions were forced upon
departments. They may be rooted in the teaching college.
ADM: But wouldn’t the appropriate thing be for
departments to submit changes to the UCC?
FA: This did go through the Faculty Senate. No
department came forward to say they wanted to keep these specific majors and
minors. But we are trying to get away from this imposition that has carried
over from the past. We are eliminating that extra work on departments.
ADM: A lot of the departments that have minors
simply list them as minors.
FA: That was part of the problem we were being
forced into, either labeling the minors BA, BS or BES.
ADM: Some departments list in the catalog
specific minors for BA and BS. I don’t know why, but the catalog states this. There must have been a reason. But not today. So why not have departments just change them?
FA: In the past our department submitted a
minor, and I did not put on BS or BA; I wanted it for both. I got it back
telling me I had to put something on this. Choose one. Academic Affairs told us to do this. What
you are telling us is opposite to what we have been told for years and
years. There was no discussion of this
in the Senate.
ADM: I’m just puzzled. If a student opens the catalog and it tells me the BA minor and
the BS minor are different, I see distinctions. Why are they listed that way?
FA: How about this? That Larkin put a message out to departments, since the UCC
recommended and the Senate approved
that departments can change the catalog to reflect this, is that ok?
ADM: That is fine.
FA: This is problematic for faculty that it was
imposed upon; we are trying to clean up the mess.
ADM: This is the way it is in the catalog now.
FA: No, we are forced through academic affairs
whenever we ask to make those designations. We are asking them to be removed. A
minor is a minor, unless the catalogue states specifically that it is for a BA
or BS.
FA: Part of the difficulty involves coming up
with a program for students. A BS major
with BA minor makes a lot of sense in many fields. This would give flexibility for advisors to do what they are
supposed to do. That is the bottom line, combinations that make career sense
for students. Now we don’t have that option because of the restrictions without
our choosing them.
ADM: I assume that they are there because people
put them there.
FA: No.
ADM: I assumed that we had a normal curriculum
process. [Laughter]
ADM: So let’s go ahead and do it.
FA: Can I state what we are agreeing to? The senate has removed these designations.
We are recommending that they be removed. If, as result of this discussion,
some department wants them, they are free to do so, but otherwise, we want them
removed from the bulletin to remove confusion.
FA: As soon as the administration accepts this
after this Meet and Confer, it goes into effect.
ADM: And you will send an email to departments?
FA: Yes. We know some departments have two
minors, one BS and one BA. What do they
do?
ADM: They decide what they want to do. Through the curriculum process.
FA: I
will draft a memorandum, give it to the Executive Committee and to Michael
Spitzer to make sure that it is accurate.
And then I would like it back. In a short time.
FA: We had a meeting of the Schedule 25 Task
Force. Three things came out that are important. One is that we are going to
write a letter to the campus telling them what we’ve been up to. Second, we will try to get time at beginning
of next year before classes start to talk to faculty about what we are
doing. Third, we decided departments
will continue to schedule those rooms they have traditionally been responsible
for scheduling. Then if they have a
class that doesn’t fit into one of those rooms, they will use Schedule 25 to
find a room that fits. It will look the
same as now, except administrative assistants will not have to spend all that
time on the phone. They find this to be
very good. We are planning a trial run against the fall schedule, and another
on the spring, and for fall 2004 we hope to be able to use the system alone if
all goes the way we hope.
ADM: How do you get distribution of courses if
everyone is teaching on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and we need combinations
of certain courses?
FA: Schedule 25 wouldn’t help on that. It only finds rooms for classes; it does not
schedule classes.
FA: What about class scheduling? Anything you
do is always kind of guessing. Room scheduling is actually easier. Very few
departments have a room they are historically responsible for that holds more
than 100. Schedule 25 will do that. If
there are conflicts, it creates a “losers list” for times when no rooms are
available, and that has to go back to the departments. You ask: Can we get a list
of when rooms are available so we can reschedule a class? But it can’t actually schedule courses. And
that is the remaining problem. No program can do that. People have to do that.
ADM: In the past, the requirement of
distributing classes over the day was a surrogate for reducing conflict.
FA: Has that been enforced?
ADM: It used to be. Recently, room availability
enforces it.
FA: And will still enforce it.
FA: The increase in adjuncts will cause a
problem, since many adjuncts are only available to teach in the evenings. A lack of a permanent faculty will
exacerbate that problem of sequencing classes and availability.
FA: Checking for prerequisites is another
problem and is complex.
FA: I looked at the fall schedule, and a course
was being offered by Continuing Education as an online course by someone not in
our department, so we called and they took it out. How does this happen?
It should not be happening. We
consciously decided not to offer that as continuing ed because we wanted to
ensure enrollment on this campus.
ADM: We made a mistake.
FA: But this is the second time it has
happened. Others have told me that it
has happened to them.
ADM: That’s not true. I have a signed request for
every course offered every semester. I apologize. I took one course out of the
schedule, CSI 261, so it won’t be in the schedule, but I closed it.
FA: But others have had this problem.
ADM: They are wrong.
FA: I will ask them to prove it to me
ADM: Have them call me and I will pull out the
request and show them.
FA: So, to confirm. It originates from
department, and has gone through those steps and the dean.
ADM: Yes.
FA: But doesn’t it depend on how the course
gets started?
FA: Thank you very much.