Meet and Confer Notes
March 17, 2005
Admin: Michael Spitzer, Lin Holder, Steve Ludwig, Anne Zemek de Dominguez, John Burgeson, Diana Burlison, Larry Chambers, Nathan Church, Roland Specht-Jarvis, Rex Veeder
Faculty: Annette Schoenberger, Judy Kilborn, Theresia Fisher, JoAnn Gasparino, Susan Motin, Steve Hornstein, Donna West - Notetaker
Meet and Confer Notes of February 24, 2005 – These notes are still being reviewed and are not ready to accept.
1. Internal Audit (FA) (4/22/04)
FA: Annette and I have put together a list of concerns and issues, and now Annette wants to take this topic to the Executive Committee, and we will put the final touches on it; and then we’ll get it to you.
Admin: OK.
2. Summer School Low Enrollment Classes (FA) (11/4/04)
FA: Yes -- Dean Nunes, Diana, Mark, and I met to talk about this. There were a couple of issues -- relatively few low enrollment classes were cancelled. Although everyone seems to live in fear of classes being cancelled, there are all kinds of policies when you need another course. We had suggestions about tweaking the current system; but we’re waiting for Diana and Dean Nunes for a run down of the current policies, and we need this to move forward.
Admin: There weren’t that many low enrollment courses – there are a total of three, and there was some information people weren’t aware of regarding requesting funds for additional classes in demand; and Dennis is reviewing the procedures. We talked about a crib sheet so people understand what to do, and there will be another meeting.
FA: So, is that it?
Admin: Yes.
3. Revision of Curriculum Process (Admin) (11/4/04)
FA: At the last meeting, I said I would talk to the UCC Chair, and I did this; and she promised she’d get me something in the next couple of weeks. One thought is it’s time to start seriously discussing the UCC Chair and the General Ed Chair getting some reassigned time for this work since this might have gotten done quicker if we had done this. How do we get started on this conversation?
Admin: I don’t think we want to give those two chairs reassigned time to review the curriculum process, but under reassigned time for these committee chairs.
FA: Part of the reason is they hardly have time to deal with this stuff; and if you think this is important, we should start…
Admin: I know.
Admin: They have invited me to come to their meeting next week.
FA: I said they should do this as long as you understand things have to come from Faculty Senate.
Admin: Since we’re on this subject -- should we have somebody from the Registrars Office as an ex-officio member on these committees? Most institutions have this kind of representation.
FA: We have had problems in the past, and perhaps it wouldn’t be problematic at this point with all of the positive shifts that have happened; but perhaps Annette will want to talk with the committees privately and have a discussion in Faculty Senate.
FA: Committees are always free to invite whomever they’d like.
Admin: Sometimes they don’t know it would be helpful to talk to these folks.
4. Student Program Completion (Admin) (1/20/05)
Admin: We talked about this last time, and I don’t have a problem with it remaining on the agenda since we’re continuing to look for ways to encourage faculty and think about how we can support students in their efforts to complete programs and graduate in a timely way.
FA: We learned the Admissions and Retention Committee is looking at this issue, and it is the purview of the Enrollment Management.
Admin: It is, and they have as their charge to coordinate efforts to promote retention, and it’s very clear faculty play a key role in retention; and consideration should be given to what faculty can do to help improve retention rates and program retention rates.
Admin: I think it’s great we talk about it everywhere – the more we can discuss this subject, the more we can brainstorm.
FA: We had a discussion in Faculty Senate.
Admin: What was the conclusion?
FA: One issue is those activities that have an impact on retention are usually pretty important and time consuming, actually, so we’d want to discuss how we can support those activities as an institution, rather than just want them or expect them to happen.
Admin: I don’t see why that wouldn’t be part of the conversation.
FA: Then, where do you see that conversation happening?
Admin: That’s why I brought it here.
FA: Are you thinking about a task force, a committee, or looking to us?
Admin: All of the above.
FA: Won’t that conversation happen on Faculty Forum Day? We need an impetus for a broad-based conversation. We need to start looking at models.
Admin: That’s right, but the most important piece, from my perspective, is to have faculty cooperation in that enterprise, because faculty have the most contact with our students.
FA: So, then I guess I’m hearing if we have a statement from the Provost indicating the Administration is supportive of faculty activities…..this is in the notes.
FA: I believe faculty do not have any issue with doing this type of work and acknowledge the importance of this work, and they acknowledge it takes resources to support it. So, if you’re looking for faculty cooperation, perhaps you could put out a statement saying you are committed to this activity and you acknowledge resources will be allocated for it.
Admin: I think some things benefit from allocation of resources, and other things faculty can do don’t require resources; for example, how we treat students, how we advise, helping students feel more respected as individuals -- these don’t require resources. I’m not saying faculty are not that way in their interaction -- certainly the majority of them do very good work, but there are some folks who could do better.
FA: I do think it would be helpful to have a conversation surrounding this. Every semester, we get requests of faculty; and I’ve been trying to figure out how to have a conversation to advise transfer students when they come in. We just got a request for people to be assigned for transfer advising days in the summer, and our departments are supposed to have one person there all the time. How does this happen when we don’t have duty days?
Admin: Don’t those people get paid?
FA: No. I’ve been advising for 15 years, and I’ve never been asked (about pay). I’m told “well, then, you just have to find someone else.” No one has ever talked to me to find out if this is convenient.
FA: We had a task force on advising five or six years ago, and what it showed was the workload was highly inequitable with regard to advising -- women and minorities took the lion’s share for advising, and those people who did not want to do it could screw it up, and then they wouldn’t be doing it any longer. We had all of this information, and we haven’t been able to move forward on it. I think we can have those conversations…
Admin: Maybe we can talk about the shrinking demographics and increasing the recruitment of students…it’s important for us to keep students, and this is an important component -- can we get people to contribute, since it’s part of their responsibility.
FA: I don’t disagree – I see faculty, staff, and administration putting forth efforts – for example, Strategic Planning, the Democracy Project, MCARI….I’m not saying there aren’t people who could do more; but from faculty’s perspective, we’re already pushed against the wall with what we’re doing. If the Administration just wants to come up to us and say “it’s important and do a better job,” we’re not going to get by.
FA: An example of the kind of thing that happens is for years they would do International Student registration for three days; and for years, the day they registered was Friday with no faculty on campus until five years ago. Finally, someone called me and said why is it there are no faculty, and I said “well, we don’t work on that Friday, it isn’t in our schedule -- if you want people to come, change the day;” but it was not convenient for the people who manage the computers -- finally, it was changed. If we want to talk about attitudes….
Admin: I want us to do better.
FA: People who are planing these things need to consult with faculty.
Admin: That’s a good idea -- if it has not been happening, it’s good you’re bringing it up.
FA: A lot of barriers are process issues. One example is there is no one for me to contact to get this process changed, and we’ve notified repeatedly the fact we need to talk about times, and we don’t have a say. On the subject of Summer Transfer Orientation (three days), could you pay three days for advising to get this taken care of so that people are getting paid for their work? Some of them have been scheduled when they have been out of the country. There are process issues and barriers to what we might do if we had the option.
Admin: I’m glad we’re talking about this.
FA: There are other kinds of structural things making it hard for students to come in -- two of them I experience all the time are: when students show up and say they have an appointment someone in Admissions made, and nobody knows about it-- we’ve been complaining about this for five years now. How do the student and parent feel when this happens? The transfer issue is another problem -- I see them all summer, and there’s not a course in my program open. So, somebody needs to get this straightened out, too. We need to be clear with transfer students when we admit them, or stop admitting them. These things continue to happen…..
Admin: The class schedule is something we’re working on.
FA: It’s not clear, given what we’re talking about now, where we are. It’s not clear, at least to me, if we’re close enough to a first step to begin something….
Admin: I think Judy has made a good point -- John Gardner will be here; and in the fall, Vince Tinto will be here continuing this discussion, and he’ll participate on campus more than once as a consultant, so we can begin to focus those conversations around some of the themes emerging from the discussions.
FA: I agree with the whole university concern. I hate to say, but I think we need to have a task force on this also -- to get all of the players together; otherwise, you could have people running in all different directions, and some of the people who are on some of these committees need to be a part of this.
FA: Let’s put this on the Executive Committee agenda.
FA: I have to tell you, when we had Enrollment Management and we hired someone to do this, one of the things they were going to do was to coordinate some of these things, such as better communication with faculty, and I’ve been disappointed. I hesitate to create a task force, because I thought the Enrollment Management Committee would do this, and they haven’t; and I’m disappointed.
Admin: We’ve just had a split in those responsibilities again, so they’re not centralized -- one person has responsibility for orientation and advising -- communication needs to happen there too.
FA: Again, we split it, and I expect communication to occur.
Admin: We’ll see what we need to do to make sure this happens.
FA: A retention issue is students have to make a connection to the university, and we’re doing this with the First Year Experience Program; and I think we also need to figure out a way to support activities in departments so when students get here, it is not the case of them getting their Gen Eds done in the first two years so they can transfer – instead, we can connect them to activities. Another thing is just plain service – advising. Are those people responsible for paying attention to those events?
FA: I have a procedural question -- I guess what I’d like to see is that between us at the next Executive Committee, we have a growing list of things to be addressed -- transfers, advising, admissions, etc. -- and keep reporting back here. This issue keeps coming up, and we never seem to grab onto it. Then, we can address “yes, this is done, this one stays, etc.”
5. Weekly Schedule: Two hours free for committee work (FA) (12/16/04)
FA: We took this to Faculty Senate, and maybe I made a mistake – they had some real good reasons for not starting at 7:30 AM, and it looks like it’s “dead in the water.” I also gave this to Hal, the Student Government President, and he said students could also use some time like this. Tom Hergert and I will look at this tomorrow to take Faculty Senate’s comments to see what we can do -- we’re back to “square one.”
Admin: Is shifting it to run 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM or from 8:00 AM to 5:30 or 6:00 PM? I do think the blocks of time are really valuable to have, but we can’t afford to give up the opportunity to schedule classes.
FA: This was one of the issues. Since giving up these two times in a week can be difficult for scheduling classes.
Admin: This gave us the same opportunity for scheduling classes.
FA: Except in some classes for three-hour labs or studios; and so when you do that in the middle of the day, it may not look like you’re removing a three-hour session.
Admin: It did provide an opportunity on Mondays and Wednesdays that didn’t exist previously.
FA: They’re already doing that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and the issue becomes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they’re losing a period. Can we say you can ignore this for labs?
Admin: Suggest if a lab starts before the meeting period.
FA: Can the lab start at the beginning of the meeting period?
Admin: If you can’t fit it in another way.
Admin: The issue with starting this for some of the graduate programs is some want to start classes at 5:00 PM; and for others, wait to 6:00 PM -- depending on your population of graduate students.
Admin: Why would the schedule have an impact on that?
FA: It doesn’t, but it looks like it, and I want to say it doesn’t.
Admin: Like Steve said, there will be friction no matter what. When we had quarters, you couldn’t schedule classes to start when floating a free hour, so there is a give and take here.
FA: There is give and take – and we can make reasonable exceptions.
Admin: Would departments have meetings during these hours?
FA: No, this is for university and college meetings.
Admin: Then, you’ll have a group of faculty who will not be able to attend since they’ve scheduled themselves to teach.
FA: The issue came up not because faculty were inconvenienced – they were thinking of their students and their student’s children. Another thing is we talked about moving Tuesday and Thursday to 8:00 AM, saving $8,000, and going a little longer on the other side of the day.
Admin: In my experience, some programs will be exempted; for example, music needs rehearsal times --it’s a specialized space.
Admin: Doesn’t the 1993 Ritchie Treaty let music in after 9:00 AM? That’s what I recall, anyway -- it cuts out instructional time.
FA: One of the things I heard from a number of people is the time we had allocated on Tuesday and Thursday -- they don’t want to be here at 7:30 AM or until 6:00 PM. Taking the middle of the day out was removing some of the day they wanted to be teaching.
FA: That’s also a time very popular for students for classes.
Admin: If you look at the data, there’s a little drop at noon in faculty sections – the peak is at 11:00 AM.
FA: Can you get that to me? I need it by tomorrow at noon (laughter). Tom Hergert and I will look at this.
Admin: I’ll see if I can find it.
FA: This is the power of data, and if I had that to give to the faculty…..
Admin: I would suggest we hear what you’re saying, and you need to do more work and come back with some more ideas.
6. Status of Affirmative Action Search (FA) (2/3/05)
FA: At the last meeting, you gave us someone….
Admin: No, we asked you to respond to the timeline.
FA: I got the notes only yesterday, so we don’t have a response.
Admin: I’d like to suggest you recommend six names to the President. Unless representation is appropriate, he’d like to reserve the right to make some changes.
The proposed recommendation is six individuals, and the President can review the list; and either accept it or request one or two names be replaced with someone else if that is his conclusion.
FA: We’ve discussed this, and we’re glad to bring six names; and according to the contract (Page 18, Article 6, Subdivision 2), we have a contractual right to appoint six faculty.
Admin: I don’t know if the search committee is the same as university wide.
FA: Only faculty?
Admin: I read this, and a university-wide committee is one that meets on an ongoing basis. It meets until the search is concluded.
FA: I think our history is the faculty have always appointed faculty to university and college-wide committees, whether they be ad hoc or permanent -- I don’t think the contract differentiates.
FA: It just says college and university-wide committees.
Admin: May I see that? (The contract was handed over).
FA: It is on Page 18, Article 6, Subdivision 2.
Admin: The sentence before that reads additional committees that review Meet and Confer issues may be established as mutually agreed to and by the President, and the sentence you read modifies committees. I think that modifies it in every single case….
FA: But it does say we need to agree….
FA: Aren’t we taking this through the Meet and Confer process?
FA: This is Meet and Confer, and this is where the issue came up.
FA: What concerns me is we have never, to my mind, come up with a list of appointed people, and giving the list and having the Administration say these four are OK and these aren’t, I’m not very comfortable with that.
Admin: Are you saying we do not have agreement?
FA: My understanding is as representatives of the faculty, we cannot allow someone else to decide -- the Faculty Association decides, not the President.
Admin: It sounds like we’re in disagreement now.
A 15-minute caucus was held.
Admin: I don’t think we necessarily agree that a search committee is a university-wide committee; but in order to move forward, we would accept the six names you submit without prejudice. We want to address the issue of search committees when we have more time. The issue of not finding committee membership satisfactory is a hypothetical one, and one we’ll address once it becomes an eventuality.
FA: So, you’re saying we should appoint six faculty representatives to the search committee?
Admin: Yes.
Admin: You should put forward six names, but the President will appoint them.
FA: This is clear in the contract we have the right.
FA: The FA appoints faculty. A number of years ago, we had an issue relating to a motion – regarding the rights of the Administration, the faculty, and the FA. We didn’t hear anything from the Attorney General’s office; but the IFO said it would be an Unfair Labor Practice. We could go back to the IFO, and you might want to go back to the Attorney General.
Admin: What was the approximate date?
FA: In 2001 when I was FA President. Annette, you would have the letter from the IFO’s attorney saying the Administration has the right to name their people, and the FA has the right to name their people.
FA: So, we can’t say you give us five names from the Administration, and we’ll pick three.
FA: If you want six faculty on this committee, we’ll give you six; but, we don’t choose which administrators are on that committee – you do that.
Admin: We’ll do that.
FA: We’ll take this to Senate, and we’ll have an election, and it will take about a month.
7. Partnership Agreements: Consultation is a letter from the Department Chair to the Dean indicating that the department has seen the proposed budget and the date of the department meeting where it was discussed.
Admin: I have only one copy of this; but we have what I originally sent you -- a statement saying the department involved must be consulted about offering courses or programs to be offered at a location, and consultations shall consist of written documentation presented to the department, and the department is to comment within 21 days.
FA: Sounds good.
FA: We can take this item off of the agenda.
8. Zmora Agreement and Searches in the COE (FA) (2/3/05 again)
FA: Actually, we’re still waiting to get the information for the Assessment Director search and for those OCE positions. I was told earlier today apparently there is no line for the Assessment Director? Was that an error? What does it mean there couldn’t be a search because there was “no line.”
Admin: No line?
FA: It was announced the line the Assessment Director currently occupies was from ELCP and is currently being searched; and if the search is successful, the line disappears.
Admin: Did all departments elect reps to that search committee?
FA: I heard not everyone had, and then I heard we could not go forward because there was no line – I got multiple stories, and I don’t know.
FA: You don’t know what departments?
FA: Right.
Admin: That’s for the Assessment Director, right? I’ll look into the line issue.
FA: They haven’t announced those OCE searches yet? I get information on searches, but I don’t have that one yet. I’m worried if we don’t get started, we’ll be doing this in August.
FA: There has not been an announcement, and the next DAC meeting is April 21. (Correction: There is a DAC meeting on Thursday, March 31st, followed by a meeting on April 21st.)
9. Grade Changes without Notification of Faculty: Motion from the Senate (FA) (2/24/05)
FA: This was taken to Senate, and they passed a motion that academic integrity requires faculty be notified whenever a grade change is processed (i.e., a grade was changed from “F” to “W”) -- just so faculty is notified.
FA: There was second piece -- what we’re looking for is a simple statement saying the grade was changed to whatever it was and by whom; i.e., changed to “W” by Academic Affairs.
FA: The reason for this is if a grade got changed and I didn’t authorize it and you didn’t authorize it, then there’s a problem. We don’t believe changing a grade to a “W” is protected.
FA: We still have the issue of a grade being changed by Records, and the faculty member didn’t know this.
Admin: In what class?
FA: I sent it to you in an e-mail.
FA: I can tell you again the instructor’s name; and I’m sure if when he inquired how this got to be a “W,” he was told this from Student Life and Development.
Admin: We don’t have the authorization to do that. We’ll get details to find out how this happened.
FA: If he’d been told that this grade was changed, he would have investigated it immediately, and we wouldn’t be here having this discussion if you just tell people the grade was changed and by whom. I’ve known where students authorized their own grade changes (not here!). The grade change forms are not secure; and when faculty ask, they’re put in a secure place -- maybe they are, but maybe they’re not.
Admin: We’ll get back to you.
10. Update of the Affirmative Action Manual (FA) (2/24/05)
FA: Frankie was going to report on this, but she is not here. You have a manual from Moorhead for us and are allowing faculty to have an initial “go through” of it.
Admin: Let’s see if this is something we can work from and maybe we don’t need to do that.
FA: So, you want us to look at the Moorhead manual.
Admin: We might still want to have some revision done this summer rather than fall.
11. College of Education Summer School Non-instructional Allocations (FA) (2/24/05)
FA: We had talked about an Executive Committee motion requesting information about Summer 2005 non-instructional allocations in the College of Ed, and you were going to get data.
Admin: Was this distributed in the College of Ed today?
FA: We got College of Ed 2002, 2003, and 2004, but not 2005.
Admin: It shows all of the Summer School allocation is spent; and if the courses all listed here are offered in the College of Ed, there will be a deficit by $9,800.
FA: So, there is not going to be any non-instructional use for this money?
FA: This is what we were told today, too. The question is do we know how much Summer School allocation for this year was reduced because of overages last year?
FA: I’m confused here -- I can’t read this. The allocations are for the first two numbers (referring to the handout), so how can there be a deficit?
Admin: That is not averages, that’s overages.
FA: There is a difference between the College of Ed and departments to departments – a $40,000 difference.
Admin: That was what was originally allocated, then, in departments – they have overages.
FA: Why is this number smaller than this number (referring to the handout)?
Admin: That was the original allocation departments were asked to work with.
FA: Why in the College of Ed would the $41,000 allocated not be given to departments?
Admin: It is.
They made an initial allocation -- retaining money if there was the need and kept $40,000 back, and those six departments proposed more, and the three at the bottom (referring to the handout) proposed more. If everything is done, it would be $1,400 to the negative; so, if they spend everything, and they usually don’t, they would be about $10,000 to the negative.
FA: It would be helpful to be able to see summer courses associated with these areas.
Admin: They’re in the summer schedule -- they’re listed in the booklet.
FA: Okay -- if we take a look at all of the courses listed for CEEP, for example, that will total $102,000.
Admin: Depending on faculty, yes.
FA: What we have here, we can’t verify.
FA: One concern we have is some or a lot of money is not going to summer courses.
FA: Nothing here allows us to verify that the summer school money is going to instruction.
Admin: I don’t see how to do that at this stage, other than to say this is what they’re doing.
FA: They didn’t last summer.
Admin: They didn’t get allocated.
FA: An additional $2,800 overage and $2,900 overages for Teacher Development are not correct numbers – don’t put us at $26,500 -- I know this. The way to look at summer school is to looks at salaries, and salaries are public information. We could ask for that spreadsheet, and you would see the class and amount of money next to it.
FA: Why wouldn’t it be able to be broken down is unclear to me – wouldn’t you need this information?
Admin: Well, you distrust this is going into courses, and I don’t. Payroll sheets will come through my office, and I will need to sign and keep track of them. I don’t have the reason you do that this is not valid.
FA: I don’t know why the College of Ed needs to pay $8,400 for Science 226 -- Dennis reassured us if we have a high need for these classes and if we go to him, he funds those. Why are those two classes coming out of the College of Ed instead of Dean Nunes (budget)?
Admin: If you have a deficit, isn’t someone providing funding?
Admin: We’re not going to offer courses and not pay faculty to teach.
FA: I hear you don’t share our concern….
Admin: That’s not what I said.
FA: I heard you don’t have some of the concerns we have regarding money.
Admin: I believe the money is going to offer classes.
FA: And our concern is the money is not going there. It seems to me I could ask to be able to see that for accountability.
Admin: You did.
Admin: I think giving you the spread sheet is the way to do it.
FA: So, are you going to get us a spread sheet?
Admin: I will attempt to do that.
Admin: You see if there is a discrepancy, and then we can have further discussion.
FA: The reason for this is when we saw the Summer School allocations last year, we saw lots of non- instructional allocations, and this is where it started. It was too late to put the money into instructional use. Let’s assume, now, that Roland thinks I should do a project and he’ll give me a course worth of reassigned time – would you see that as a class or three credits of pay?
Admin: That wouldn’t show up as a course.
Admin: Last year, that money was indicated going to those particular projects – it wasn’t hidden in the departmental allocation. It was right upfront – the difference was listed as well.
Admin: As I recall, the Dean asserted that every faculty member who wanted a summer contract received one.…
FA: Our issue is if the money isn’t used for that college, then it should be used by another college, since summer school money is to be used for instruction.
FA: I think that description of everyone who wanted a class is somewhat misleading. Money comes to departments, and we have this amount of money so we can offer this amount of classes; i.e., if we have funding for ten classes, then we put forward ten classes; and if we run over, then we ask for more. We assume there is no more money. That begs the question how departments get their money…..
FA: Another question -- is it typical in the plan for summer to have departmental overages as part of the plan. Is this typical in other colleges?
Admin: Yes. I think so. Not all of the money was initially allocated to departments, so departments could come back to say we have a need; and, therefore money is there for that purpose.
FA: When you were given the initial allocation made to the college, you weren’t aware there is $40,000 you could ask for?
FA: Absolutely not.
12. Two Semester Registration (FA) (2/24/05)
Admin: I thought we finished this last time.
FA: Senate isn’t finished with this subject.
FA: We need more conversation, since there is a lot of variance between what departments need and how they process schedules. We need more time for campus conversation. For some departments who do planning ahead of time, this is a “no brainer” -- for some smaller ones who might have grad students in the fall to see what their needs are, they need more information and more time to figure things out. I think that I know from an earlier conversation, grad classes are exempted from this request. In general, Faculty Senate suggested we do this in a gradual way, beginning with General Ed classes, but the idea was to go ahead slowly and to talk about the various needs of the departments.
FA: I think there’s support.
Admin: Let me respond by saying we’re doing this slowly and only for incoming Freshmen and for General Ed classes from those students; and as we learn from those, we’ll make modifications. We’ve tried to be responsive to the concerns -- we talked about this last time. Many of the concerns were not expressed – not until people started dealing with the realities. We’ll continue to make adjustments so it works effectively.
FA: That’s why we say let’s try this.
FA: I think there were a lot of questions about things normal to the way of scheduling (Adjuncts, Fixed- terms) -- the concern regarding this not being flexible enough. We should be able to add when we see the need. Can we build in conversation along the way?
Admin: I think the next thing we’ll do is look and see the students who go through this in the summer to analyze their experience and look at the outcomes.
FA: There was a concern that Freshmen will be registering for a whole year – what about the student who comes back in the spring and needs a course they were not able to take in the fall because it was full? How could we find out ahead of time so we don’t lose students?
Admin: Students register in the summer for two semesters -- we will know by the time they’re done what demand they’ve made for the spring, and we will have the entire fall semester to make arrangements.
Admin: You raised this point at the last Meet and Confer, and we’ll continue to give you the same answer.
FA: One other concern was faculty who are in departments proposing new classes are concerned how will these get in the schedule (printed) -- we need to keep educating everyone on campus that yes, you can add new classes to the schedule.
Admin: On the first page of the schedule, it will say “check the Web.”
FA: Printing Services will still publish a spring schedule since the demand for the schedule hasn’t diminished. They still expect to print the schedule.
FA: They need to make the website bigger.
Admin: That’s at your house (laughter)!
FA: The other thing, as we’re learning how this works, some of the angst from faculty was everyone was asked to turn in their full-year schedule, and that’s when they found out it would be strained. It hasn’t gotten back faculty wide that the only ones who will be affected are freshmen. I don’t sense faculty know.
Admin: That was part of the issue in the first place – people didn’t take seriously the request to do a full- year schedule. We did send out an email, but I don’t know what else to do except to hire a band to play on the roof (laughter)!
Admin: It does come back to communication -- the Deans have worked with the Department Chairs for a year on this issue; and I don’t’ know why some faculty don’t feel they know.
FA: These are Department Chairs.
Admin: They don’t have an excuse.
Admin: We know we’ve talked to the Deans.
FA: Department Chairs are calling me.
Admin: They said Department Chairs know.
Admin: We want you to know we haven’t ignored this.
FA: This topic may come off of the agenda.
13. Short-term Study Abroad Programs (FA) (2/24/05)
FA: We had talked about this at the last Meet and Confer, and we asked if you would reevaluate those programs that got turned down based on a broader definition of financial feasibility, so we’re not being set at 17 students, but the number could be lowered based on various considerations and that model be financially feasible as well. Faculty wanted us to address this at Meet and Confer.
Admin: We’ve done that and modified the approach that you described to accommodate lower enrollments in some of those programs that have been approved. The discussion we had at the last Meet and Confer addressed student fees for those programs. That’s problematic because student fees are not adjusted for compensation to the faculty member – this is from tuition. There is a lot of discussion regarding increasing fees, but we do not use these for salaries. What is, in fact, the case -- and this is odd because different faculty members earn different salaries -- different faculty members needing a program might need to have higher enrollments to cover their salary. We looked at how many students are needed to cover salaries as a minimum, and that’s the approach we took. If there is tuition revenue beyond that amount, some can supplement the course, and anything over can be used for student scholarships or for faculty development.
FA: That will address Senate’s concern. We’ll take this to Senate. Thank you.
Admin: Just to add – International Studies brought a list to the Academic Affairs Council of all programs – we looked at this, and the only ones not viable were really small. The ones not funded were the programs having only 0 to 2 students.
FA: Are these programs run like Summer School or Continuing Studies?
Admin: They are run through CIS.
FA: We heard from a faculty member who is abroad that the Director of the Center for International Studies visited an area, and the faculty member there had no knowledge of it beforehand.
Admin: It was a planned trip since I knew about it. I didn’t know the faculty member hadn’t been informed.
FA: Is this something you would say faculty should be informed of?
Admin: I don’t know that the faculty member wasn’t informed.
FA: We’ve had contact with the faculty member indirectly, and they believe they were not informed.
Admin: I don’t know if it (the trip) was meant to check on the faculty member. It had a lot to do with the castle changes and if it would be a viable use of space. They wanted to occupy a larger portion of the castle and change the lease.
FA: Perhaps we can elaborate more on this later regarding the faculty member’s concern, and you can take a look.
Admin: A few years ago, we made a staff position to manage the castle, so the relationship with faculty has changed over the years. There are people for other reasons who might be there; and they wouldn’t necessarily inform the faculty member.
FA: I think this faculty member felt it was an intrusion.
FA: From my point of view, if a faculty member was not informed, it’s unacceptable.
Admin: Did the person enter the faculty member’s class?
Admin: If he went into someone else’s class, I can see your point.
FA: We’ll get you more specifics.
FA: To show up at the castle and talk to students and they wonder “who is this person” without the faculty member being informed, this is the kind of thing that makes us look stupid – that’s where I’m at.
Admin: I don’t know if it was an oversight.
FA: That’s why I thought if there was a letter sent, maybe the faculty member overlooked it.
Admin: There have been problems with orientation. You need to create an itinerary to open doors. I can see where this would be a challenge.
FA: I know when you go to the castle in Alnwick, you need to give a week’s notice to the director if you wish to stay overnight.
FA: So the staff person has no obligation to communicate to the faculty member?
Admin: We need to get more information.
14. How Do We Deal with Issues Before They Become Issues? (Admin) (2/24/05)
Admin: We need to get more information.
FA: I’m skipping #14
1. Proposed Policy on Naming of Facilities (Admin) (3/17/05)
Admin: You got a copy of that proposal. Do you have any responses?
FA: Not until it goes to Senate.
Admin: Let’s postpone this until we get a response.
2. Fixed Term Contracts for Deans (Admin) (3/17/05)
Admin: The issue is when you seek to appoint someone to Dean or Provost or to any academic administrative position, you’re generally going to be dealing with someone with tenure as a faculty member; and in order to attract better quality candidates, many of the candidates want to know if they’ll receive tenure. We cannot offer tenure to a Dean, and we thought we could put forward an offer should things not work out as Dean, the individual would be offered an alternate contract for a period of time as a fixed-term faculty member with the department’s recommendation before the appointment. That’s what we want to do. Look -- you could have gotten a really good Provost (laughter!)!
Admin: You need to recognize this is not necessarily what most individuals would do -- people coming in generally have either been an Associate or Professor, and this kind of appointment is not what they’re interested in; but it gives them an opportunity to retain employment while looking for another opportunity, and this is a safety net.
FA: So is this kind of like RPT for Deans?
Admin: Yes.
FA: I think the only concern I have is how, on the surface, it’s a violation of the Zmora principles; but I called the IFO office, and it was pointed out that we’d be beyond that when the appointment starts; so technically, we could do this. I think if we had thought about this in the fall and said it clearly, we would not question this because it would be very open. The discussions we’ve had in Executive Committee, at this point, are this is a good idea; and it sounds like a good way to attract a Dean, and if that Dean doesn’t work out, it makes it easier to ease out of the position. I’d say let’s give it a try.
FA: Certainly, it’s important, as you say, to have the department be part of the interviewing process. It just needs to be open and transparent. I think it would be a way to potentially get and keep good Deans like we have here.
Admin: This would be prior to the appointment.
FA: Since it’s Fixed-term, it wouldn’t be a big deal like in tenure…
FA: Is the university then obligated to maintain the Dean’s salary?
Admin: No -- a salary commensurate to the position.
FA: Undoubtedly, they would have a salary decrease.
Admin: Not necessarily a decrease.
Admin: I would like to do this – we have two searches in progress now.
FA: When do you need to make an appointment?
Admin: Yesterday.
Admin: Let’s try to see.
FA: You want to offer a position right now? Have departments been involved?
Admin: Yes. I was told by the Chair of the search committee.
FA: I think we’d like to have something in writing from the department.
Admin: I will have something in writing.
FA: Since this is something new, we should have signatures from everyone in the department as well as the Chair, since this is something new; and we don’t want to have this blow up.
Admin: We wouldn’t want the Dean to know if someone would not sign (laughter!)!
FA: My concern is I don’t want us to be surprising anybody – at least departments know this is going to happen.
Admin: This is a recent opportunity to develop this.
3. DARS (Degree Audit Reporting System)
Admin: One of the things MnSCU has been promoting aggressively is the implementation of DARS. We haven’t talked much with faculty (although the Registrars Office is working diligently), and we’re running into significant difficulty because there are multiple variations of the General Ed Program.
Admin: If you can get it into DARS, I’ll pay you a consulting fee (laughter)!
Admin: I would like at our next Meet and Confer to have folks from the Registrar’s Office to do a presentation on the DARS system so people can see it in operation and talk about the issues we need to address.
FA: How long a presentation?
Admin: 15 to 20 minutes.
Admin: Maybe we’ll invite those people to Senate.
FA: I think people from General Ed should come – maybe Mark Nook.
Admin: We wanted you to see how the system works and how it is a benefit to students and issues regarding degree completion; and student satisfaction regarding advisement could be addressed.
FA: Is it available for students?
Admin: Yes, this is whom it’s for.
FA: Why is it not accurate?
Admin: It can’t handle transfer issues – it is counting incorrectly. That’s a question the folks in the Registrars Office can answer.
FA: A lot of work in the College of Ed is going on – is this a part of it?
Admin: No. What they’re doing is assessments.
FA: Does DARS work at any state university?
FA: It doesn’t’ work yet.
FA: Some technicals and communities are using it.
Admin: DARS interacts with the national system. Students see how they can transfer if they go to different universities.
Admin: I’d like us to spend some time to see how it can be used.
4. Faculty Scholarship
Admin: I’d like to comment that Annette sent a copy of a motion Faculty Senate approved from the Research Grants Committee for suggestions regarding things the university could do to support scholarship. I want to respond, so you are familiar with what we’re doing, that we will fund permanently the Student Research Colloquium (including student stipends)and that we have allocated dollars for the acquisition of equipment faculty might need that would be fairly costly. The committee recommended that we fund seven-year non-mandatory sabbaticals. This year, we approved all 7-year sabbaticals recommended by the committee.
I also wanted to mention two other initiatives just announced: the Miller Scholar’s Award will go to faculty for teaching and service and the Hellervik Prize, a new prize, will be awarded to faculty for scholarship and research.
We’re trying our best to make resources available to faculty in a variety of areas so people can do their jobs more effectively.
FA: Thank you.
5. Master Plan
Admin: The committee reviewed this, and they’ve completed their work – 90 percent of the draft went to the committee yesterday, and we’re going to publish a draft so people can look at it so we can conclude the Master Plan, and we just wanted you to know.
FA: What faculty is on this committee?
Admin: Zoa Rockenstein, and I can’t remember the name of the other faculty member.
6. EPT Calendar
Admin: This is a draft calendar for next year’s EPT process we need to get it out and distributed.
Admin: Please review the calendar for professional development and evaluation procedures and comment on that. If something needs to be changed, let us know.
(Further communication indicated that this was for comment from the FA Executive Committee since the Deans had not yet been consulted.)