Final approved 2-2-06
Meet and Confer
January 19, 2006
Admin: Roy Saigo, Michael Spitzer, John C. Burgeson, Larry Chambers, Kristi Tornquist, Margaret Vos, Mitch Rubinstein, Rex Veeder
Faculty: Judy Kilborn, Annette Schoenberger, JoAnn Gasparino, Andrew Larkin, Robert Johnson, Jayantha Herath, Susan Motin, Bill Langen, Steve Hornstein, Balsy Kasi, Polly Chappell – Note taker
Admin: I’d like to begin by introducing Mitch Rubenstein. Mitch, just wave. Mitch is the new Interim Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs in my office. And he’ll be working on a lot of the things that involve you and helping with NCA accreditations.
Admin: And he’s been here?
Admin: A whole week, I think.
Admin: And you’re still coming? (Laughter)
FA: We haven’t had a cold snap yet.
Admin: He’s from St. Paul. For the record, Judy reminds me, the President is expected, but he’s had a busy schedule today. He’s leaving tomorrow for an overseas trip, so there might have been an emergency.
FA: We’re assuming he’ll be here soon.
Admin: Yes.
FA: But we want to start moving since it’s getting so late.
Approval of Minutes
Meet and Confer Notes of December 15, 2005—Notes not ready.
Admin: With regard to the Meet and Confer notes of December 15th, they are not ready yet, so we’re not ready to approve those. We have a number of unfinished business items, but many of these will go very quickly because they are quick reports.
Unfinished Business
1. Attendance Policy (Admin) (9/08/05)
Admin: We established, with the first item, a draft Attendance Policy. We established a group to work on developing that. I don’t know if they’ve met yet, but I know it’s been scheduled. So we should hear back from those folks shortly. Any comments on that?
2. Task forces on Diversity (a.k.a. Motion from Teacher Development) (FA) (9/22/05)
Admin: Task force on Diversity. The COE group -- I think there were a number of folks that got together and were meeting, and there were a number of things scheduled. So that’s begun.
FA: So the COE Task force?
Admin: Right.
FA: The one that was recommended by EEOC….
Admin: You’re referring to two things.
FA: Right.
Admin: This one refers to the motion from Teacher Development. So that’s the COE one.
FA: Okay.
Admin: The other one is the Task force on Diversity. Rex, you want to comment on that?
Admin: It’s meeting tomorrow morning to finish up the proposal.
FA: Are they continuing to talk about resources and plans?
Admin: Yeah, the two things that we will be proposing are the make up of the group and the resources… discussion of resources.
Admin: Okay?
FA: Um hum.
3. Grade Appeal Policy Guidelines (FA) (10/06/05)
Admin: Grade Appeal Policy Guidelines. We are waiting for a response from faculty on that one.
FA: And Academic Affairs Committee is who worked on the initial document that we brought to Meet and Confer, we’ve referred that to them, and they are supposed to bring back their recommendations to Senate in February.
4. Template on Teaching Schedule/Office Hours (FA) (10/20/05)
Admin: Template on Teaching Schedule, and that should say student contact hours on the agenda. Again, we have a small task force convening on that one. Two deans and two faculty members are involved. I don’t know if the meeting has been scheduled yet.
Admin: Not yet.
Admin: It should be very soon.
FA: I talked to Dean Specht-Jarvis today. He said that he was going to be contacting people tomorrow. He wanted our information on what had been discussed. So we’ll be forwarding him the Meet and Confer minutes so we have something for that group to start with.
Admin: Could it get sent to all four committee members?
FA: Pardon?
Admin: Could you send it to all four committee members, maybe?
Admin: Kristi is in that group as well.
FA: I’ll do that tomorrow.
[President Saigo Arrived]
Admin: We started without you.
Admin: I’m glad you did. (Laughter) It’s like waiting for a professor to show up to class.
FA: You would have had just a couple more minutes. (Laughter)
5. DGS and University College (FA) (10/20/05) and (Admin) (11/17/05)
Admin: DGS and University College Task Force.
FA: We have put out a request for people to serve on that committee, and I’m assuming we’ll take names forward to Senate next Tuesday. I’m waiting for committees to get their names in. Primarily those were committees or units with the University.
Admin: Right.
FA: I’m assuming we’ll appoint them next Tuesday.
Admin: Okay.
6. Applied Doctorate (Admin) (11/17/05)
Admin: Under the Applied Doctorate, we had asked if the faculty would consider some of the potential ramifications to the University when we have applied doctorates in place. And I don’t know if you’ve had an opportunity to . . .?
FA: That’s on the agenda for next Tuesday’s meeting.
Admin: Well, that takes care of all the old business. Most of it remains to be followed up.
FA: Oh, this shouldn’t be under New Business. We should move some of this up.
Admin: Yeah, that’s true. Some of the stuff that is under New Business is old business. (Laughter)
FA: In fact all the way through item three.
Admin: Right.
FA: It’s really old, unfinished business.
Admin: Take the term New Business and move it down three spots.
FA: And I’ll beat up the editor of this document.
New Business
1. Request for Hire Form (Admin) (11/17/05)
Admin: The Request for Hire Form, we had asked for some comments and feedback from the faculty on that.
FA: And, I’ve asked Robert to speak to that.
FA: We have comments involving two, three categories. One is we appreciate the opportunity to comment on the transparency of the process. And we understand that you will be using the form in the short term without input. What we’d like to do is use this opportunity to have a conversation about the nature of the criteria that were used for making decisions of position allocations. So we’d like to have that on the agenda for this spring for Meet and Confer. The nature of the criteria used. We do have some recommendations for moving the boxes on the current form, and Susan has those. We feel that the rationale for the position should be provided for contents there early on. We have a couple other things.
FA: The number and the narrative and the justification are together on the top. And the other thing is, that we’re suggesting that—
Admin: Say that again.
FA: The form, it has the narrative and the justification on the bottom. We’re saying move that to the top. And the other thing that we were asking, that somewhere there be a department sign-off, you know, with the department signature?
Admin: Isn’t it on there?
FA: Um, um. There is nothing on there.
FA: And somewhere, as we have the discussion about what criteria should be used, we should probably get a report on how those criteria have been applied down the road.
Admin: Okay, anything else?
FA: Well, we need to have the discussions on it.
Admin: No, I mean are there any other points that people want to raise about that? And we’ll take that under advisement.
2. Counseling Center (FA) (12/15/05)
Admin: Counseling Center.
FA: Well, we thought you would bring a response to our proposal?
Admin: I think what we would like to do is establish a little sub-group to come together. And for the report the sub-group would be comprised of two faculty members, two MSUAASF members, and two Administrators. MSUAASF has a stake in this as well as the IFO.
FA: I’m not sure if I understand what the purpose of this group would be?
Admin: To consider the obligations and nature of the position.
FA: We need to talk. Excuse us, we’re going to Caucus.
CAUCUS
FA: I think we’re all back. We believe that our request has a contractual, legal basis. And this is really a unit dispute that’s governed by Article III, Section C, with unit disputes. So, for that reason this has already been reported. It’s already at the IFO level, and we will ask them to discuss with MnSCU what the appropriate resolution of this is.
Admin: Okay. One of the reasons I want the three groups to get together in that way is to decide on how, whatever arrangement we come up with, we want to make sure we meet student needs; that we are providing the appropriate coverage throughout the year for our students; where that unit will report. Those are things that have yet to be determined as far as I am concerned. And we need to look at those. If you don’t want to have this group meet, that’s okay, we’ll just go talk with MSUAASF, and see what they have to say.
FA: We need to caucus.
CAUCUS
FA: We really need clarification of what it is you’re saying. We’re not sure if you’re agreeing to the proposal, and that the discussion that you want to have with MSUAASF and IFO is kind of a transition plan, or if you are saying something else. So if you could clarify…
Admin: Well, Larry would you like to talk about MSUAASF?
Admin: I go to the MSUAASF Meet and Confers. And there has been a concern in the MSUAASF union that they have discussed on several occasions, and one of the things that they suggested was to have an independent, outside consultant come in to take a look at the situation and make a recommendation to Administration.
FA: We’ve heard that they made that proposal. I believe at the last Meet and Confer we asked for a copy of it. And the Counseling Center, in their proposal, was addressing issues of coverage and quality. But it seems to me that if you’re not agreeing to this, it’s really inappropriate for us to be discussing with MSUAASF IFO issues. It really is a unit dispute; it’s inappropriate for us to be having a conversation about it. It really needs to be a conversation between IFO and MnSCU, according to Article III, Section C.
Admin: The parties will attempt to resolve disputes over bargaining unit inclusion or exclusion of new positions. So that seems to me to suggest that we do discuss those things.
FA: Upon advice of Pat Arsenault, she said that that would take place at the IFO/MnSCU level. We’ve already had conversations with her about it. And it’s really a negotiation, among bargaining units at the state-wide level really, not a local issue anymore.
Admin: Well, I think the issue really has to do with the particular position of the director. The issue has to do with what percentage of time that individual spends doing supervision and what percentage is spent doing counseling.
FA: And the unit clarification order is based on those percentages, I understand. Part of that conversation, at the IFO/MnSCU level, could be on investigation on percentages.
Admin: Well, but we haven’t . . . Well, I think what we ought to be talking about in this group is how that person’s time will be spent, and whether or not that position gets redefined in some way or another. I don’t see that getting, at this point, yet, to be an IFO/MnSCU . . . I mean, it’s a campus-based position. We need to define the duties of that individual in that position. And once we do that, then if there’s a dispute, it would go to where you’re saying.
FA: Isn’t there currently a job description?
Admin: Well, we’ve waited for several months to get this proposal from the Counseling Center.
FA: Right.
Admin: And now we want to be able to look at the position, now that we have that, and come up with some definition of how we’d like that position to function.
FA: I think we need to go back and ask if it’s appropriate.
FA: To have this discussion?
FA: Yes.
FA: We certainly can ask that from the IFO and get back to you on that.
Admin: Okay, and we’ll start looking at it from our perspective, in terms of how we think it should be, some more.
FA: Thank you.
Admin: Okay, next item.
3. Additional Duty Day (Admin) (12/15/05)
Admin: Additional Duty Day. We had discovered that we were missing one duty day for 2006-07 in the academic year. We talked about this last time, and made a suggestion of how to handle that. You want to provide some feedback on that? I believe that you had suggested that we try to find a way of making that a classroom day rather than just another duty day to make sure that we have comparable days. We’ve looked into that. Mitch, do you want to talk about which days that we found were available and what that would mean?
Admin: The two days that were available were the 2nd of September and the 13th of December. . . . Tuesday the 5th of September or Wednesday the 13th of December. And the question was, what would be the effect on the Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes versus Tuesday-Thursday classes. And right now they are very close. There seems to be a slight edge in terms of Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes. So if this could become a decision point, it might be a little better to go with a Tuesday class instead of a Wednesday class. The difference is marginal.
FA: Excuse me. I need to ask a question. The 5th is already a duty day.
Admin: They’re both already duty days. So the point is that we can add another class day by changing a duty day to a class day. But it won’t address the issue of needing another duty day.
FA: But that day in December is important because it’s a study day for the students.
Admin: That’s correct.
FA: It’s something we asked for.
Admin: We know that. You asked that we find a way of adding another classroom day. These are the only two classroom days that we can figure out that we could add. One would be at the beginning of the semester, and one would be on the study day. Even if we did either of those two things, which we’re not saying we should do, but even if we did either of those two things, it wouldn’t solve the problem.
FA: Okay. So one question is, what is the difference between instructional days the following spring?
Admin: On the Monday-Wednesday-Friday, Tuesday-Thursday thing?
FA: The total number.
Admin: There are more in the spring than in the fall. I think we did count them up at some point.
FA: So you need to add extra duty days for the entire year or just for fall?
Admin: For the entire year. And we had proposed doing what we did this year, where the same issue had come up, adding the Friday the week before classes begin.
Admin: I think for fall, counting final days is 73, not counting that study day. Subtract five if you don’t want to count finals week. I think 77 in the spring, that’s a fast count.
Admin: It’s probably helpful to count instructional days, but it’s also important to know how many Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays--
FA: Yeah.
Admin: --Thursdays, and Fridays there are.
Admin: And in the spring, you should subtract one for that faculty, you know that one day. . .
FA: Faculty Forum Day?
Admin: Yeah, that day.
FA: Do you have proposals for when to add the duty day?
Admin: That Friday, yes. That’s what we proposed last time.
FA: Let me see. Actually there are two separate problems. It might be desirable to have an additional instructional day, but there’s room already in the existing array of duty days to put in another instructional day. So that’s the lesser of the two problems.
Admin: Yes.
FA: Problem number two, is we’re not in conformity with the total number of duty days.
Admin: That’s the primary problem.
FA: By what? And so, formally that’s the more important question. But in terms of the difficulty of the problem, it’s the lesser one. We could go for the last day to turn in grades solution at the end of the first semester, which is the Soviet answer: we pretend to work and you pretend to pay us. (Laughter) I mean that figuratively in this case. We add a duty day—
Admin: Well, that would solve our tuition problem. We could pretend to pay you. (Laughter)
FA: Yeah, right. No, I mean that very figuratively, where we don’t really have a real problem, and we solve it with a couple of scratches on a piece of paper.
FA: I know that one issue that the faculty have talked about is that there are less instruction days in fall. For some people that’s been a problem. And the second thing, also, now this is my recollection, wasn’t that the last time North-Central came through, we were very, very tight on our instruction days, our contact time with our students? Is that something we need to be thinking about this go-around as well?
Admin: I don’t know what happened the last time that North-Central was here.
FA: It’s been an issue in the past, the number of teaching days.
FA: Teaching days, yes. It was mentioned in a North-Central report.
Admin: We calculated for the full semester, and we calculated the number of weekly units, or three-hour segments, in each week, and it came out to something like 14—
Admin: For Tuesday-Thursdays it’s a 13-week equivalent, plus one session. For Monday-Wednesday-Friday sessions, it’s a 13-week equivalent. A week being three sessions, plus two extra sessions.
Admin: And that didn’t count exams?
Admin: That’s not counting exams.
FA: I think that’s the issue. We had a recommendation to you a couple years ago for a kind of model for the academic year, which called for 15 weeks of instructional time. I’m not sure if that included exams or not. And this 13 is falling very short of that, and it really affects all of us in the classroom, especially students. Last semester was a prime example. It was a hurdle to get in the material in a short instruction period. So I think we have 116 duty days.
Admin: Now the final exams are two hours, are they not?
FA: They go from 7:30 to 9:45 . . .
Admin: So that’s two hours and 15 minutes. How many 50 minute hours are those?
FA: (Calculating out loud)
Admin: Three 50 minute blocks adds another week to the 13, that’s 14 and 2/3.
FA: I think when I did this at another school I was at, what the minimum requirement was that a course had to be fourteen weeks meeting, and then you add the finals onto that. So I don’t think we’re at that. I think we’re at 13 and a little more. And the recommendation from the Senate was to have both semesters be 14 plus finals, at least.
Admin: This is a good discussion for us to have. It’s very valuable, but that calendar has already been published.
FA: We know that.
Admin: So we really can’t do anything to change the dates for that calendar, other than to change the number of duty days, which we need to do. We could change some of the class days, as we said, if we wanted to do that, but we need to pay attention, very carefully, to the recommendation from the faculty, in developing the next set of calendars. And one of the things that I just mentioned to Judy was that we need to set up a calendar committee to develop the next calendar and take these factors into consideration. But we’re faced with, what do we do right now for next year?
FA: It looks to me, and I don’t know how much you want to monkey with this, if you add a Tuesday and the Tuesdays-Thursdays are at 14, that they’re not operating in thirds, they’re operating in halves. One is at 14, and the other is 13-2/3. Why not add the Wednesday, and they are both at 14? I don’t know.
FA: But we can’t do that because the physics students will have their final day . . .
Admin: The one thing I know that was an issue when we did have class on that Tuesday and Wednesday, was it two years ago, is that a lot of orientations that go on for students within halls, within work areas, and work spaces, Respect and Responsibility. All of those classes, that’s a great day to do it, because you’re not going against any class time. So, I know that from a Student Life perspective, the recommendation was to have that Tuesday be a day to kind of get the training part done.
FA: So our options now are to add an instructional day, say December 13?
Admin: Let me suggest . . . We’re talking about two different things, and we’re conflating them.
FA: Let’s follow the Soviet model. You know that’s to add another to grading theory, or whatever.
FA: We’ll have that Friday to work. There’s not going to be meetings.
Admin: That’s what we did this year.
FA: That’s an option.
Admin: And that’s the day that we suggested last time that we add, and you came back with, can we do it in such a way that would add a classroom day? No, we can’t do that in such a way that would add a classroom day. So that’s our response to that particular question. Now if we want to add another classroom day, after we resolve the number of duty days, we can discuss that.
FA: Okay, so we’ve had really two options. One is that Friday . . .
FA: The Committee on the Institution, as Robert mentioned, had a really good layout for a calendar that addressed this very issue. And so it would be nice if we could . . .
FA: I’m sure, as Michael said, he’s asked to have a committee, a calendar committee, which would be the Committee on the Institution, convene and meet with Mitch, and they could bring that proposal forward as a starting point.
FA: Yeah.
FA: Did anyone look at the year after next? Are we going to be in this same situation where we have to add an instructional day to fall?
Admin: We always find this, you know, because we look in about November, December, to find out where we are at. That’s where we find it out.
FA: So we don’t have a calendar for---
Admin: 07-08? Is it 07-08?
Admin: We should get going on it, 07-08.
FA: We need to then add the Committee on the Institution . . .
FA: Right, and I’m going to do that. That will be on my agenda for tomorrow. So back to the question, which was, do we want to at this point add an instructional day to fall either on that Tuesday, which would be the day after Labor Day, or on that December 13, which we are strongly against as faculty?
FA: How soon do we have to make a decision?
Admin: February, I think
FA: Can I ask Margaret to explain why the Student Life would like that Tuesday open?
Admin: The halls do a three-day move in. So people could move in starting on Saturday, Sunday, but then Monday is also still a move-in day. So you do have about 3,100 students that are moving in. If they have that Tuesday as an open day, that’s when Respect and Responsibility, which is a required class for about 2,400 freshmen and probably close to 2,000 transfer students -- I think they run about eight sessions that day. It’s a heavy day. But they can literally get through almost 90 percent, so then those students don’t have to work around their class schedule to get that requirement done. Anyone who employs large groups of students, Rec Life, Rec Sports, Atwood, they employ 100 to 300 students. Well, it’s hard to do a training for all students. I bet library, Learning Resources, runs into the same thing. It’s a great training day to bring folks on board because once again, you don’t have to work around that class schedule. So, I know when it happened, there were questions, at least from the Student Life side saying, boy it was really hard this year when classes started like that. The other thing is we don’t have a . . . we always have an orientation day that happens for late folks who register, and those students wouldn’t have it. And that year that we had classes that Tuesday, we were running orientation for students, and they were supposed to be in classes, so it gives a little bit of breathing room.
FA: What is the orientation?
Admin: The orientation is about a four-hour program that runs through for students who either registered late, or transfer students, and you would think that no one should be walking in the door that late. But I bet they run maybe sixty to _____—it’s a full house that day. Doesn’t make any sense, but they’ve done it that day. So I just know it was their concern when it did happen. And I’m sure it was because we were trying to figure out the calendar, our duty days.
FA: So what I’m hearing is that there are serious reservations from Student Life about that Tuesday. And there are serious reservations from faculty, who have argued for that study day, and I’m wondering if we should just put this off until. . . have this be a goal for the next calendar, to make sure that we even out the instructional days. What do you think?
FA: Yes.
FA: Good solution.
Admin: We have to figure out to what extent Uniform Start Date is going to influence this . . . (Laughter)
FA: We're assuming that we’re going to be successful in that endeavor, but I suppose. . .
Admin: Well, we can try.
FA: That’s a stupid hope.
Admin: So are we in agreement on this then? Okay.
4. Upper Division Writing Requirement (Admin) (01/19/06)
Admin: Upper Division Writing Requirement. This is on the agenda, just at this point, as an informational thing, unless you have some stuff you want to deal with on that, Judy?
FA: I think we could hear your information and see if it covers the things that we have.
Admin: Well, we have a policy that was supposed to have Upper Division Writing Requirement in place, and it should be publicized to students in each of the programs, and I’m not sure that that in fact is true, and exists across the campus in all of our departments at this point. We’re supposed be able to identify which courses meet the Upper Division Writing Requirement, program by program. And I don’t think we’re quite there yet. But I think, primarily, this is an issue that I need to bring to the deans in the departments to let that get worked out that way. There’s a statement in that report about when this is supposed to take affect, and we’re behind.
FA: Well, one reason I asked for this to be kept on the agenda is there’s a lot of confusion about this. And many of the questions involve, you know, really who’s responsible for overseeing this? How does this tie in with the way we check for other university requirements? How does it align with that? It seems to me that there’s been some confusion because at semester conversion, many departments responded to the same set of questions that came out here, and the information actually isn’t consistent between what they submitted there and what’s here. There seems to be some inaccurate information in here. I know that the committee was--
Admin: Can I have a copy of that?
FA: --yeah. Actually, I brought enough so that people could take them if they’d like. Even just talking in pre-Meet and Confer, some members of the Executive Committee were saying that the information isn’t really accurate. There’s also some concern about this at the departmental level. A lot of departments have multiple majors, and they may have different requirements, Upper Division Writing Requirements, for those.
Admin: This was done by a faculty committee.
FA: Right.
Admin: So if it’s got inaccurate data in it, we’ll go back to the faculty committee and say, you’ve got inaccurate data—
FA: Our point is the lack of coordination, who is responsible?
Admin: If I remember correctly, it was the Curriculum Committee. And there were some issues that came up with regard to what requirements would be from the Curriculum Committee, and there was some discussion about having each department indicate what the goals were for the Upper Division Writing Requirement in that program, and then an indication on how that was going to be measured by the department.
FA: Isn’t that really assessment? I think it might be governed by the Assessment Committee.
Admin: The Assessment Committee would be looking at the way in which this is assessed, but if you have an Upper Division Writing Requirement, then what does that mean? You can’t just say well our students are going to write something in the upper division. If there’s a requirement, it’s a requirement because there is a certain level of achievement that is expected of students in this program. And so the expectation is the department would specify what that level of achievement needs to be because if someone else specifies it, it might not be appropriate. So therefore, the department is expected to say these are the requirements. This is what we expect students to be able to do. The assessment comes in, in measuring the extent to which they’ve succeeded in meeting that requirement.
FA: I think that’s actually, the question is, to whom, which body is responsible, and that’s the issue.
Admin: As I understand it, the Curriculum Committee is supposed to approve this for each department. And then each department is responsible for implementing it by itself.
FA: In other words, how do we in turn . . . I mean this was an ad hoc committee, the Upper Division Writing Requirement Committee. It gathered some information, the information may not be complete, it may have come in from various sources, what have you. And so where do we go from here? Is this committee still functioning?
Admin: I don’t think so.
FA: Who takes on the responsibilities—
Admin: I think that has to occur within each College and that the Deans need to see to it that each department is meeting this responsibility, and then forward that information.
FA: To?
Admin: To Academic Affairs, probably Mitch.
FA: Well, see that’s the point. We’re not clear on this.
Admin: Well, the process, until last year, was that this went to Lin Holder, so now it goes to Mitch.
FA: It seems to me that we have the “too many cooks” problem. There’s a curriculum issue. We haven’t gone back. We kind of asked them to tell us what it is. But we haven’t really gone back and asked for the program change to make sure that each program really has a writing requirement in the program. Nor have we worked with UCC to get the Upper Division Writing Requirement stuck onto the program proposal so that when new programs or a revised program comes through, it comes through with this Upper Division Writing Requirement. And finally, once that is all done, that comes through its normal channels, as all of the curriculum stuff does, and the flip side of that is, like any other program, part of the program goes here and the other half sits in Assessment. I don’t see any clear lines in that, and that’s the problem. My suggestion, personally, is that we need to go back to Senate and talk about it with them, figure out how to get all this stuff straightened out, and go from there.
FA: There is no diagram that says you’ve done this, but that’s fine for that, but it’s not satisfying this. And it may very well be that, or may not be, what we submitted may not have gotten to where it had to go.
Admin: I think that was in fact addressed. And I think the way this works, and the way it has been working, the way it’s supposed to work, is that the department submits a proposal to the Curriculum Committee. It says this is the Upper Division Writing Requirement for this program. The committee recommends that that be adopted. It goes to Academic Affairs. It’s certified as meeting the criteria, and then it gets identified as such, and gets back to the department.
FA: Well it says that this form goes to assessment.
Admin: This goes where?
FA: It goes to assessment.
Admin: Well, this is what this committee came up with last year. I don’t even know where this committee came from. (Laughter) But, see the point of this, we haven’t resolved the issue of what to do. And my understanding was that we had a process because I know we had discussions with the Curriculum Committee about certifying certain courses as meeting those requirements. And I know that I met with the Curriculum Committee—what do you call that when you have to get invited?
FA: Sanctioned.
Admin: A sanctioned meeting with the Curriculum Committee to say that these learning outcomes have to be specified in order for the writing requirement to be met.
FA: And they follow that?
Admin: And they follow that.
FA: What they tell you, what they told us, is that it’s there, but then the rest of that is assessment. They make a clear distinction between what’s their responsibility, and what they feel is the responsibility--
Admin: What who feels--?
FA: UCC feels . . . They will say that’s assessment.
Admin: To identify the learning outcomes?
FA: Yes.
FA: I believe that when semester conversion happened, and we agreed to this, we began the process, and it seemed to be not working. General Education was saying this isn’t a general education course; it’s a university requirement, and there were other issues. And in February 2005 this committee was convened to deal with some of the issues that were being kind of dropped, it seems to me. And it was an agreement, I think at Meet and Confer, that we convened this committee. And it was to take on the role of assessment, you know, get assessment going for the Upper Division Writing Requirement. That would be separate from Gen Ed, because Gen Ed didn’t want to do it. But now we have separately an Assessment Committee. And I guess to me this seems to be an overly burdensome kind of structure. The Upper Division Writing Requirement, we have the progress report, but they were really only appointed ad hoc for a year. Okay, they’re not functioning anymore. And so it’s kind of like who’s in charge? Okay, is it Gen Ed? Gen Ed would say no because this isn’t a Gen Ed course; it’s a university requirement. I get the sense that Assessment sees this as kind of a subdivision of their work. They’re focusing on the Upper Division Writing Requirement, and this is filtered into Assessment. But I guess I’m wondering if there’s a more streamlined fashion that we can use for this. It seems to me UCC has one role in it. Gen Ed probably doesn’t have a role in it.
Admin: I don’t think the Gen Ed Committee has a role in this. I think that UCC has a role in it. Academic Affairs has a role in it. And then Assessment has a role in assessing the extent to which this is satisfying the requirement. But I think the requirement has to be submitted through the Curriculum Committee and approved as a requirement for that program so that we can then identify that requirement for students, because right now we’re not doing that. We’re not telling them. We’re supposed to be able to state in the bulletin or in the schedule of classes, I don’t remember which, those courses in a program that satisfy the Upper Division Writing Requirement. And we’re not doing that.
FA: Okay. So we have here an--
Admin: We still have a little time because the regulations are supposed to apply to students who began this past fall.
FA: We have a document that they quote from April 9, 2003, that gives essentially minimal qualifications for that Upper Division Writing Requirement. Is that all the UCC would need? Are we talking about program forms? Are we talking about separate forms? And in what kind of timeline do these need to be approved? I’m seeing this now as several layers, and maybe we just ought to look at it--
Admin: I need to look at that again. I think, I’m not sure if the paragraph you cite is the one that we ended up changing or not. I would want to go back and check.
FA: Okay.
FA: Who ended up changing it?
Admin: Academic Affairs in conjunction with the Curriculum Committee.
FA: When?
Admin: I’m not sure. But I will gladly check that.
FA: So when has Academic Affairs most recently talked with UCC about this issue?
Admin: It must have been at least a year and a half or two years ago.
FA: That was what got this committee started.
Admin: This looks like the one we agreed to.
FA: So the question is what are we going to do?
FA: What we could do, is approach this in several steps. I mean we could maybe ask UCC to meet with Mitch to figure this out, this process out, or the approving of the actual requirements, departmental requirements, or program requirements. And that could be one step. And then the assessment piece could be a separate thing.
Admin: I don’t think what we say in here, necessarily is, you know, the assessment of this is different than the definition of it. What we’re talking about is defining and describing the requirements. The assessment is a measure that comes later to determine if the requirement has been met. So they’re two separate things.
FA: So would it be useful to have UCC and Mitch meet, and work on this program approval, or this requirement approval?
Admin: As you said earlier, there are two phases. We need to check that any new program coming through has the requirement in it, but also to review all the existing programs to see if there’s a required course in the program that meets the Upper Division Writing Requirement.
FA: We’re supposed to publicize this. And as we go through each department, they need to go through the curriculum process to get their curriculum changed.
Admin: Once you determine whether or not each program has an appropriate course, then the department or program has to be looked at since there may be several different programs in a department, or interdepartmental programs. It has to be figured out.
Admin: And once the approval occurs, the extent to which it carries over into either bulletin or the schedule of courses becomes the responsibility of the Academic Affairs office.
FA: There is going to have to be some discussion about this process of approval because how many programs are we talking about that need this? If the program proposals go to UCC, swamping those folks who are already swamped, with a whole lot proposals. So, something needs to be done.
Admin: Well, they’d have to look at probably, somewhere in the order of 100 course descriptions.
FA: We have 180 programs.
Admin: Well, the minors don’t need them. These are for majors, as far as I know.
FA: I got a call, I mean, I got a message that I don’t have one in our area for minors.
Admin: I don’t think it applies to minors.
FA: I didn’t think so either, but somebody is lying to minors. (Laughter)
FA: The other thing you’re going to have to deal with, and I think you need to think about very carefully, it goes with the streamlining, I think my department thinks we’ve done this three times already. And we keep getting asked to do it again. And so we’re starting to get really annoyed.
Admin: Well, I don’t think—
FA: Because it involves work.
Admin: If you’ve already done it, all you need to do is submit a copy of what you’ve done for somebody to review.
FA: But then it never gets—
Admin: To make sure—
FA: I mean that the annoyance is that we think we’ve done it. Why are you asking us for it again? You’re saying all you have to do is send in a copy of what you’ve done before. Well, you know, it’s pretty annoying to think that there’s somebody there that doesn’t seem to be able to keep track of what we’ve done. Why can’t you find a copy that we’ve already submitted to you? That’s what our response is.
Admin: Well, how do I know you did? Who did you submit it to?
FA: I don’t know.
Admin: Well, therefore, how do I know that I have it?
FA: You’re missing the point. The point is you’re going to have to figure out a way to do this in a manner that doesn’t cause even more work for people who are trying to teach their classes.
Admin: Well, we’re trying to do that.
FA: It’s even more than that because I was chair and coordinator for that program, and I sent those things over a couple times. And I’ve also been on UCC, and I have to tell you, what I sent over is not the kind of stuff UCC is going to look at and say, yeah, this meets our criteria. It wasn’t set up that way. It was very narrative and informal. There wasn’t very much to do with it, and I was told that was okay. I think it’s fine if UCC gets that. Maybe there’s an interim that people can file those documents, as we work through them. And all the programs as they come through have to have them, and certainly we have to get catalog copy.
Admin: Here’s a question I guess I’m entitled to ask since I’m new. Who approves courses to be on the list of approved courses in the Upper Division Writing Requirement? Is that something done in the Dean’s office?
FA: No. UCC.
Admin: No, it’s Mitch. (Laughter) Mitch, it’s you.
Admin: So someone in the office of Academic Affairs gives a blessing to a course that meets the Upper Division Writing Requirement. Then it’s a matter of determining which programs require at least one of those courses on the approved list.
FA: No, the program will say this is a course we want to use, and then you would say okay, it satisfies it. So you don’t go out and decide which courses satisfy until the program says this is the one I want to use.
Admin: It comes across my desk ,and I say, this course—
Admin: It comes to your desk from the Curriculum Committee.
Admin: --let’s say the course may fulfill several different programs?
FA: Yes.
FA: But the programs get to decide that; you don’t get to decide that much. You only get to decide whether it actually fulfills any requirement. Does that make sense?
Admin: Right, but my point is you could have the same course appear in two different programs?
FA: Yes.
FA: Okay so that’s one piece. But the other piece is--
Admin: So one of the things we do in my office is look to see which of these courses have so far been approved. We should have a record of that. And if they haven’t been approved in our office, then they haven’t been approved.
FA: And there is a process in your office for approval for proposals that come through UCC?
Admin: Right. There is a document that we get periodically that lists what, you know, all of these curriculum proposals, what their status is, where they are, whether they’re--
FA: My point is, I think we should be clear about this because a proposal will go from the department to the College Curriculum Committee to UCC, and that is what has happened to these--
FA: UCC to Senate.
FA: --to Senate. But, so that is what has happened to these . . . So all of these departments here--
Admin: We don’t know that.
FA: That’s why I’m asking. I was afraid of that.
FA: Having been on UCC for many years, I have to say, we never approved any Upper Division Writing Requirement things at all. I’ve never seen them in the minutes. I’ve never seen them on the agenda. You take a look at that thing that comes out every time. It doesn’t say Upper Division Writing Requirement. The only ones that its there for might be new programs—
FA: I suspect these proposals that have an “X” beside them are in Assessment.
FA: And that’s actually information that comes from departments.
FA: That’s where the problem’s at. That’s where we’re asked to send them. That’s where we’re asked to follow up.
Admin: This request here says to send information to Neil. That has to do with Assessment of the Upper Division Writing Requirement copy, the identification of the assessment. So we’ll have to do some work on this.
FA: How would you like that to proceed? I mean, I did ask the committee if they were meeting, and they weren’t, although most indicated they would be willing to continue. I guess I should tell them at this point, hold off on it. We’re working on this.
Admin: Right. What we really need to work on is the curriculum process to get the approval of these courses.
FA: First, and then we’ll look at the assessment later?
Admin: Right.
FA: Okay. We need to identify these courses and find out what condition they are in and what process they are being approved by. My personal position is the point I was making there needs to be some way of facilitating this whole process because you’re not going to get it through that committee in a timely fashion.
Admin: I think there is an assumption that many of these courses are already courses that have been approved—
FA: They are. Courses are approved through the curriculum process. The question is: were they approved in the question of satisfying the Upper Division Writing Requirement?
Admin: So the issue is, though, Robert, do they need to go through the Curriculum Committee for that, or do they need to be reviewed in Academic Affairs to see if they meet the criteria? In other words, if they’ve been approved as a university course, see what I’m saying?
FA: That’s why Michael gave me a scenario that says it goes through the curriculum process.
Admin: Right.
FA: If that’s the case, we need to make some decisions on how are we going to approve these courses as Upper Division Writing classes.
FA: My understanding is that this conversation is going to continue between UCC and Mitch, right? And I’ll facilitate that meeting being set up.
FA: I have a suspicion it’s--
FA: We’ll give it a try
FA: So we’ll keep this on the agenda?
FA: Yeah.
5. Status of Hiring of DGS Director and FYE Positions (FA) (01/19/06)
Admin: The next item is the Status of Hiring a DGS Director and FYE Positions.
FA: Yeah, that’s our agenda item. And, I’m looking at a new academic program initiatives document that was distributed in October. And we essentially wanted to find out the status of some of the positions and expenses listed on here?
Admin: Um hum.
FA: Particularly on the front page, the DGS Director, Associate Dean/FYE Director, FYE Expansion and Clerical position?
Admin: Well the FYE Expansion is not a position.
FA: Right.
Admin: It’s for course work basically.
FA: For next year?
Admin: Maybe, yeah. The DGS Director and Associate Dean, those are positions that have got to be benchmarked by MnSCU, and then we wait for those to come back from MnSCU. Then they should be able to start a search to fill those positions. And that stuff has been sent in, as far as I know.
FA: When are you hoping to be able to fill those positions? What’s the goal?
Admin: The DGS Director, certainly by the end of this semester at the latest.
FA: And do you know about the First Year Experience Associate Dean position?
Admin: Yeah, whether it’s an Associate Dean or a FYE position, it’s a little bit unclear depending on where we are going with the University College. We want to be able to settle that first. Rather than hire the person and then say we’re not going to do it. So, I don’t want that to happen. So, that’s where we are right now on that. But we’re in the process of getting the position description benchmarked so that we’ll be able to go forward with it when and if we decide that’s the direction we’re going in.
FA: When did those positions go to get benchmarked? What’s the usual time it takes?
Admin: I’m not sure when they were sent. Larry, would you know?
Admin: No, some of these, it’s the first time I’ve seen them listed.
FA: They’re on this budget sheet, which was distributed November 10th as a revision from a document that was distributed on campus on October 23rd.
FA: So would that benchmarking come out of your office or somebody else’s office?
Admin: Well, in order to get benchmarked, somebody has to write up a position description, and then get it to HR. And HR sends it to MnSCU.
FA: So we don’t really know if those have been sent to MnSCU?
Admin: I’m not . . . I can’t swear on it right now.
FA: Okay.
Admin: But, I’ll check.
FA: Okay. I appreciate that. And the clerical position is for what?
Admin: To support those activities.
FA: Okay. Okay. Thank you. That’s what we wanted to know.
Admin: Okay, next item.
6. Tenure for Deans (Admin) (01/19/06)
Admin: Tenure for Deans. This is I guess, a topic that’s come up before on several occasions. And when we’ve done searches for dean positions, we’ve often been unsuccessful in attracting candidates because we can’t provide tenure to those individuals. And they’re coming often with, you know, they’re coming from positions where they are tenured, and they don’t want to give that up. One of the things that I was thinking of to do this was to have the department in which the dean candidate had a tenured position, the discipline in which that person has been trained, that department could interview as part of the process. And if the department is agreeable and recommends that if the person gets selected, that that person be tenured, then at the end of that year, we could tenure that individual. And we would be in a lot stronger position when it comes to recruiting the right person.
FA: Our position is that this is an issue for collective bargaining in the contract. And, so, we don’t think it’s appropriate to take it up here. But, so as not to be abrupt about this, there are a couple things that need to be mentioned. Number one was I personally was very interested in this issue. So I tracked it through the process. Principally I was responding to conversations I’ve had on this. So I was tracking. And as negotiations heated up, we got through the rubber hits the road phase, and both sides listed their top priorities, and I remember that, as sure as I can be anymore in my recollection of things, to my surprise, this was not listed. And as I recall the moment your head negotiator, for once as an exception, looked all around the room at the academic people and said, well, do any of you, I don’t remember, academic people have anything else you’d like to add after he had listed his priorities. Chris Dale I’m talking about. And I kept thinking, okay, I’m going to hear tenure for deans. A couple other issues were mentioned by your academic folks. It was not as if it was a dead silence. Then there was another pause. I guess that’s it. And we took back the list and continued negotiations on that basis. So the point of this anecdote is that if it appeared to be priority, you’d have your academic folks bring it up at negotiations. So, and this was a surprise to me, of course. And my conclusion was, although I’d be happy to be corrected, that you weren’t prepared to give anything up for it at the table. So, maybe I might be wrong. I don’t know. For whatever reason, it was not listed in your priorities in the later stages of negotiating. For the bargaining team it’s a major concern, which we could go into if you care, but . . .
Admin: I’d be interested in hearing why it’s a concern.
FA: Okay, in the first place you have relief available by just giving MnSCU Tenure.
Admin: What is MnSCU Tenure?
FA: MnSCU can grant tenure, System Tenure. And their reluctance to do that is based on, and this is part of St. Cloud State lore, actually, we had a President, unnamed but still fresh in many people’s recollections, who left us and had system tenure. And the MnSCU folks are very frank in talking about this. They don’t ever want to make that mistake again. So, that was just no secret at all. Been there, done that, no thank you. And you can inquire with them—
Admin: I am puzzled by this term MnSCU or System Tenure because people have tenure as faculty members in a department, not in the system. In my mind, that’s always the way tenure works.
FA: Well check it out.
Admin: However, it’s been ___ rewarded. Tenure would be in a department as faculty.
FA: Some of the reasons we consider it a major issue from our, from the faculty side, from the IFO side, are the following: in the first place, to be blunt, there’s kind of a reflexive resistance to it, but that’s, lets put that aside. That said, if an Administrator . . . if a faculty member decides to go into the Administrative mind, it is sometimes the case because teaching has lost its charm. And that’s a problem. I don’t have to go any further. Number two--
Admin: And what if teaching has lost its charm for a faculty member who doesn’t go into an Administrative position?
FA: You still don’t have a problem. The person is tenured and they’re in grace, and the chairperson probably has a problem. (Laughter) And the dean, when the dean looks at the student evaluations, has some options. Second point a department needs a new faculty member with a certain profile of qualifications, however, by coincidence somebody in Administration has not worked out for you and needs to resort to teaching again, but doesn’t have the qualifications that the department needs. So this person goes back. We still have the charm problem. But now in addition to that, the department had probably also lost its shot at getting the person they really need. And, so on, and on.
Admin: Yeah, I think with regard to the particular issue, we could say that the department would not lose the position . . . that would not be considered a position to the department in the same way.
FA: Which is why this needs to be done at contract negotiations.
FA: Exactly, this would be a very powerful addendum to your position at the bargaining table next time around. No, seriously. I was stunned that your side didn’t bring this up.
Admin: Well, I’m stunned that you find this a difficult thing because it would seem to me that it’s in the faculty interest to recruit and keep the best possible persons as deans. And to the extent that we don’t do that, it’s harmful to the faculty, as well as to the Administration.
Admin: Also we traditionally have deans who have evolved through the ranks to become dean, and then if they want to retreat back, they still have opportunity. So why should certain departments have that and other departments not. And if you are dean of the college that I’m in, and you don’t have tenure, you’re going to have a tough time making a difficult decision against the departments in your college. And I’d want the strongest dean, with the most security, to be my leader.
FA: I understand the notion of having the best and strongest people. But I think many of us will tell you that our history with deans in the last five or eight years or so, a number of years, has not been particularly happy. And given that, you know, given that experience, why would the people then want those deans back in their departments? So, I understand the notion of attracting and getting the best people, but at the same time that reflexive resistance that Bill was talking about, stems from some of the experiences that some of us have here.
Admin: And I think it’s a huge assumption to say that once you leave, you’re not faculty. I still think of myself as a faculty member. And I did the research. I did the publishing. And I think it would be fun to go back and teach introductory biology. I think it’s a huge assumption to say that we have all gone sour on teaching. And I think that these are times that people change, people go back, people continue to grow. So those are issues that . . . but, again, as a university, what is in the best interest of the institution? And we’re trying to attract deans, and we’ve have numerous failures. And we can’t come up with the salary. We can’t come up with the security. If a young person would come in there with two, three kids . . . and I was called by Andy Lo-- . . . Mike Lopez when I was a dean, two, three times, and I would not come to the Minnesota system because of this problem. Who would want to come in and have to make tough decisions six years ago on these issues of race, of religion, on faculty grievances, to make a tough choice . . . a situation where people might come against you? And you have tenure otherwise? I had tenure at every place, Bill, except here. And those are the issues that we’re dealing with. So, I just . . . we’re not going to solve this today, and I understand that. But I want you guys to think about how we as an institution would want to be twenty years from today. How do you want to survive in this very competitive world? And don’t you want the most secure, idealistic, thoughtful, wise people here to support to make the best decisions for this institution? That’s what we’re talking about.
FA: Well, we, of course, want that too. But this desire is alongside of a bunch of other desires as well. I mean it’s the same old St. Cloud State problem: we’ve got 35 priorities, and they’re all number one. So this is a concern for you. I have to say that a certain fraction of the university shares it with you. It is, however, formally a bargaining issue. And if your side could keep it on the table and make a viable proposal, I mean, I’m sure that our side would look at it seriously. But we’re bound . . . we have certain procedures that we have to respect.
Admin: What makes it a bargaining issue?
FA: What makes it a bargaining issue?
Admin: Yeah.
FA: Well for one—
Admin: You said it’s a bargaining issue, and I’m just curious as to what makes it that. Because any faculty member, or anybody hired who is given an appointment as a faculty member, can be tenured.
FA: Yeah, but the recommendation comes from our side.
Admin: Well, I’m saying, as well, that the recommendation . . . what I proposed was that the recommendation comes from the department. I didn’t say that the university would tenure the person. I said the department would recommend that individual for tenure.
Admin: And we wouldn’t bring anyone in for a candidacy of a dean if, let’s say in Foreign Languages, if you don’t approve of this person who’s a Foreign Language person. We wouldn’t even consider the person for a dean of Fine Arts. You’d approve it first, so we’d have five people, and different people from . . . different individuals would be approved by the home department. They’d be approved before we’d bring this person in to be considered for dean. And if the Foreign Languages person got the deanship, he or she would have tenure. And we wouldn’t count that against your position. Anyway, we’re not going to solve this today.
Admin: Right.
Admin: I just . . . and I need to run because I need to sign some papers before I go. I just got back . . . Can I just jump in?
Admin: You most certainly can.
Admin: Thank you. (Laughter)
Admin: I’m not tenured. (Laughter)
Admin: But you do