Final approved 3-2-06

Meet and Confer

February 16, 2006

Admin:  Roy Saigo, Michael Spitzer, John C. Burgeson, Larry Chambers, Kristi Tornquist, Margaret Vos, Mitchell Rubinstein, Rex Veeder, Steve Ludwig, Anne Zemek de Dominguez, Lisa Foss for item 9 only

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

 

 

Approval of Minutes

 

Meet and Confer Notes of February 2, 2006

Admin: the first item on our agenda is the approval of minutes from the February 2nd meeting, which are not available yet, so those cannot be approved. So, we can begin with Unfinished Business, and with the time constraints, with item 9 on the agenda: President Saigo’s Student Feedback System.

 

Unfinished Business

 

9.   President Saigo’s Student Feedback System (FA) (02/02/06) – 3 p.m. time definite: Lisa Foss

 

FA: Well, I think Lisa wanted to give us some information about that, didn’t you?

 

Admin: No.

 

FA: No. Okay. We didn’t know. We thought you were going to talk a little bit about it. So, Lisa needs to leave early. So, we need to be pretty efficient here, and I guess I can ask a general question. We were discussing the material that you gave us. We were wondering if, really, what is more appropriate, what you really were trying to do was provide like a help site for students?

 

Admin: Maybe, if I can just back up and explain where this idea came from, periodically the President has been sending out announcements to students, messages to the student distribution list at various points in the semester, beginning of the semester, before finals. Each one of those emails generates a series of responses from students. And we were looking at a way to capture that information from the students in a more regular way. And, so, what we designed was basically a portal system through which students could send emails to the President. They already have the opportunity to do that. There’s a president@stcloudstate.edu site.  Periodically emails come in, and Sue Prout, in the President’s office, directs them to the appropriate places. And, so, we were looking at a way to capture that feedback from students in one location. So, that was the intent of the design of this feedback system. And what it’s really being used for, I shared some of the emails with Judy, the vast majority are commentary, primarily about parking and food service and some other things that students aren’t satisfied with. A number of emails are asking for help. And, so, I’m serving now as a way to direct students to get their resources on campus. Some students have questions on advising, some have questions on all sorts of things, so I’m referring them to the different, various offices on campus. 

 

FA: I guess I come back to my question then. And I guess there had been a committee that met a while ago, was it IRC, that had recommended an ombudsperson?

 

FA: Rex and I were on that, and we talked about it a lot.

 

FA: To serve as kind of a one-stop-shopping for students who had questions and concerns, and would be able to provide a real face, or a voice. I guess part of the concern is that there’s an official site here. You and I talked about the official-ness of this. There’s something official coming from that, maybe a personal note from President Saigo. And we’re wondering if the interfaces may be too distanced. It might actually be more appropriate to have a person who students are able to contact as a one-stop-shopping kind of help desk thing.

 

FA: I guess that… let’s say students have some sort of a problem with parking.

 

Admin: Um hum.

 

FA: You know, and this comes to you about that because they haven’t been able to get it resolved. You can direct them back to the parking, but that might not be where the problem is. And actually having a University ombudsperson would be somebody that students could come and see. And that person could properly say, no, I’m sorry, you know, I don’t really think you have a case here, or I can tell you’re not communicating very well. My job is to help you get this taken care of. And, so, those kinds of things, be they parking or be they whatever, get taken care of by somebody. Certainly I don’t think that’s in your job description.

 

Admin: No. no.

 

FA: Same with if there was a complaint. You know that person would say here’s the complaint policy. Here’s the department chair. Here’s what has to happen. So there’s kind of a personal face to solve that.

 

Admin: We asked the question: do you communicate with Administration? And that was low, and so as the holidays came, I would send an email saying be careful, enjoy yourselves, relax. I do this for faculty too. But this then became a little more important because people want to talk to me, and we found that this is a nice way of communicating with students. I don’t think you’re meaning that we should take that away from the students. 

 

FA: I guess we’re meaning… I guess we are going in two places. Obviously they need to get a hold of you. And there are procedures, but sometimes they need help getting into those, so perhaps more than just an email, we’re saying when they communicate with the President’s office, we’re actually extending that. More than getting email to help you, we’re saying here’s a person to help you get that job done. So that’s where we’re coming from.

 

FA: There’s really sort of two things here. The first one is very obvious, because Lisa’s here, is that they’re not communicating with the President. They are communicating with somebody else. So the implication, when you look at this, is that this is going to go to the President, and you’re going to get a response from the President, but you aren’t. Maybe it’s going to you…

 

Admin: I read every one.

 

FA: …but the response isn’t from you. The other thing is I’ve had reports from departments. In one instance the department got an email from the complaint of a single student. They were being asked to completely review their curriculum. Now they have a curriculum that’s based on the national standard, which is based on state requirements. And now because of a single student, it’s inconvenient for them to take the courses in the order that they’re offered and required by this national body, they are being asked to review their curriculum. Of all the things we have to do, if we have to do that for every individual student in our program who wants to know why they have… who has a complaint. Another student, their faculty member had already spent about four hours with this student, explaining to them why it was that they couldn’t do what the student wanted them to do for them. Now the student is getting another thing saying… the faculty member is saying, write this all down so I can send this back to the student. The student already got it firsthand. I think that asking faculty to do this kind of thing is just a waste of their time. There doesn’t seem to be any recognition in this, that it was an individual student who complained, that there is a process for doing it. 

 

Admin: There are lots of students that will send emails or hardcopy letters to the President, sometimes to my office, with complaints of various kinds, and we have to look into them. This is just another way of doing that same thing. Now, it’s easier for the students to do it, I suppose. But students do send stuff in.

 

Admin: I was going to say that some of the focus of the discussion is complaints. How we can respond to complaints. Complaints that come from individuals are individual; they’re not from the group. But sometimes they do represent the person that is willing to speak. A bunch of people will just go on and not complain. The ones that I’ve seen, in particular with respect to parking, aren’t complaints that need to go through a complaint process or they didn’t know about the appeal process for a ticket. But there are suggestions or discussions or things like that. One of them said build a parking ramp; they think that’s a good idea, this individual. So we could respond with the information for them. And I do know that they do go to the President. They are certainly referred to people that are responsible for the area. But I tend to see the ones when they get forwarded to Miles or someone for comment. I get a copy too, so I know what’s going on and what’s happening. Especially the faculty who are engaged with students more frequently than the Administration, that can have a way for the faculty to approach a lot of these issues like this is more helpful than it is an inconvenience.

 

FA: After the last Meet and Confer, Lisa and I sat down and talked about this. And I think some of our concerns are pretty clear. We don’t want to circumvent the processes that we already have. And I really appreciated Lisa’s willingness to point to the student complaint process. And she did agree also to get things as specifically as she could to the right people. I do want to say on the record, that part of what we’re concerned about is that these processes be circumvented, or that things start too high in the process so that people aren’t given an opportunity to resolve them or react to them on a lower level. So, Lisa has said that she will refer people to, for example, specific departments, and that will help. I still don’t think this answers the concern though about a general help desk. There’s also a concern that because Lisa’s doing it, it’s an advantage because people know her, and there’s a certain amount of trust. I guess we’d like to know if Lisa doesn’t do it anymore, how we know who’s doing it so things are more transparent.

 

Admin: And maybe what you’re talking about is the next step. I think this was the first step toward reaching out to the students and giving them a place to go to. What I’m getting from the emails is that this is really a complex organization and there’s lots of students who just don’t know where to go.

 

FA: And can’t find things on the web.

 

Admin: And can’t find things on the web, and they just see this as an opportunity to ask somebody. And when I respond, I respond with my name. I acknowledge that I’m responding on behalf of the President. And I provide them the information, or if I’ve referred it to someone, I say I’m forwarding your email to the Dean of Undergraduate Studies or to the Vice President of Administrative Affairs. So it’s clear that what is happening. If there is any kind of policy implication, I clearly say here is that process, here’s a link to that process. So many of them are just, for lack of a better term, lost students. I had a student who emailed the President because he was a junior and doesn’t have a major, and could the President suggest a major to him. (Laughter) 

 

Admin: He asked could you make some suggestions.

 

FA: Did you say Biology?

 

Admin: Library Science. (Laughter)

 

Admin: And so I sent that to Steve Klepetar in the Advising Center, and Steve emailed me back and said, you know, thank you Lisa, this is a student I can help. And he responded to that student directly and was able to help that student. So many of them are just that. And I get lots of responses back from the students saying thank you. Thank you for responding to my email. Thank you for reading it. Thank you for sending me this information.

 

Admin: I may have reason to use this system.

 

Admin: I’ve sent notes back to students who say, can I come into your hockey box. And I say we have advancement guests and things, but come by for a Pepsi or something. So that’s the issue. Out of the hundred, you figure what, three complaints about faculty? I will guarantee you that she will put down that, Lisa will, there are official ways to complain about this and that. And Administration will follow that. But I get letters demanding this and demanding that in hard copy, so it’s not any different. And so we do want to continue with this. So out of a hundred, there were three. So it’s not like fifty that are demanding everything. We’re just trying to communicate more closely with students. We want to make sure that they are heard. One was asking for help, psychologically, and it was so frustrating. And those are things that we do need to react to. I read these when I get a moment; then I also send another note to them if necessary. So let me assure you that it’s not to undermine, it’s not to get you, it’s not any of those kinds of issues. It’s to communicate more closely with students and follow procedure if necessary.

 

FA: I think I like the idea having a super one-stop help center for everyone. But I just like to know, for both faculty and students, if students are complaining about one particular faculty for whatever reason, there’s a danger of forming subconscious perceptions about the person. Maybe the student is already a problem for this faculty. Maybe he had heard he’s not a great teacher, he’s not a good teacher. So there’s a danger subconscious perceptions might be possible. How do you assure that that won’t happen?

 

Admin: Well, there are lots of ways that students may express their dissatisfaction with faculty. You can go to rateyourprof.com and that sort of stuff. We’re not talking about those kinds of messages. I don’t think Lisa keeps records of complaints against faculty that may have been identified. And if you’re talking about how long…?

 

Admin: This one came in at the beginning of semester…

 

Admin: …it’s about six weeks…

 

Admin:  Six weeks…

 

Admin: …three complaints about faculty.  And grades haven’t come in yet, so… (Laughter)

 

Admin: And it’s really trailed off. We had a big burst right at the beginning of the semester. And there hasn’t been a single comment since Monday, you know, so the last couple weeks there have been a couple. One interesting example is, and I forwarded it to Kristi, it gives a snapshot of things that are frustrating students that we might not otherwise know about. I received a few emails about the student book exchange and the decision to not to send out an email through the official form of communication about the student book exchange. And so maybe we need to look at that. It frustrated students; they were dissatisfied with that. They were relying on that information. So maybe we need to go back and revisit that. So it’s really about looking at big trends like that to see how we’re doing things to better serve students.

 

Admin: Last fall we also had open office hours once a week. And that was busy for anybody for maybe three days, and after that we had to cancel because no one showed up. And so again it’s just another way, because I know everybody says, where is he, we don’t see him anymore, you know, what is he doing? So I send these messages, and right after the holiday one student wrote back: I appreciate your message, but why don’t you send your own message? Well we had to send it through the student email.  I can’t send it directly, we have to send it to the students to send it to the other students. And so we had to explain that. And he said, oh, okay. But again communication is very difficult. We’re just trying different ways to try to communicate with the students.

 

Admin: Anything further on this topic?

 

FA: I still would like for us to tweak this a little bit to make sure that we have an agreement about policies. For example, I think it’s right on the money for a student having a complaint about a faculty, or about a grade, whatever, to be referred from your office to the appropriate place. By the same token, I’m not sure I want that student’s email to you to go back to the chair. Because the chair does have to write recommendations, and these things may be unfounded. Before they get there, we want them to move through the process. The other thing that happens with that is the official complaint process requires that the student put the complaint in writing. Students could perceive because they’ve written to you, you send it on to the faculty, that that part is done. So I’m hoping some way we can just tweak that and make sure that the processes really do proceed and you can send them to the right place.

 

FA: And actually I think that’s really important in terms of mentoring students or encouraging students to learn how to use the system. And I think that’s a really useful service we can offer them without actually sending to the chair this complaint about so and so. Just mentor them through the system.

 

FA: I think the other issue of complaint is that there’s a process, and if the complaint gets resolved at the department level, the complaint just disappears and nothing is kept on it, but now we’ve got this thing which is a complaint which you have, which is very possible that the faculty member has never seen, where the official process says that information doesn’t go out of the department unless there’s a resolution that’s written and everybody agrees to it. There’s a real circumvention there of what we agreed to do. What are you doing with those emails? If they’re getting to the President, then that means they’re going around the official process.

 

Admin: Those emails came in already. Periodically, in setting this up, I discussed this with Sue Prout because she is the one who get the president@stcloudstate.edu emails and those types of emails were coming. So what she would do is similar language to say here’s the process you need to follow.

 

Admin: I was going to say in a lot of these cases, too, there are appeals. For example, if they come to the Academic Affairs office, we have to see the full line of paperwork in order to follow up with that appeal. So if a student’s gone through those processes all frustrated, they do have recourse through an appeal, but it has to include all the material from the department.

 

FA: Right.

 

Admin: And that’s why we wanted to include the disclaimer on the website so that students know going in, the intent is saying this is not the formal complaint process. If you’re making a complaint, this is not where you go to do that. You need to follow this.

 

FA: I’m wondering if it would be possible in those situations that you refer back to the process, to redact those names when you share them, so President Saigo would know there was a complaint but not know what the name was so that the faculty member…

 

Admin: But when they send me a personal letter, they don’t do that, so why should we start censoring communication? All we’re interested in is helping the relationship improve.

 

FA: You’ll remind yourself of that then?

 

Admin: Just like this poor student, I wish he or she would have put the name because they were really anxious and needed help, but it was anonymous. Are many anonymous?

 

Admin: Actually, no, very few, I would say 10%. That’s a rough estimate. Almost all of them have included their names, and that’s optional. If they want a response back, they have to give their name and email address, and most of them do.

 

Admin: I’ll be darned.

 

FA: I lost my train of thought.

 

FA: You did that the other day, too.

 

FA: Yeah, I know.

 

Admin: Well, if you will permit us, let’s try this another semester, and if there are more than three complaints then we’ll come back and perfect this. The one that was most meaningful to me was this person who was really stressed. It was anonymous. I brought it to Margaret’s attention. But, again, three out of 100. I would love to share them with you. Some of them are so cute. I mean they’ll just talk to me like I’m an old friend. Hey, Roy, how you doing? You know?

 

FA: Could we revisit this maybe next fall and get a report of what you find?

 

Admin: That would be fine.

 

FA: That would be helpful. Thank you.  

 

Admin: Judy had asked to put another item on the agenda and wanted to cover it first. And in our generosity, of course, we said yes.

 

New Business

 

6.     COSS Dean Search Committee (FA) (02/16/06)

 

FA: So we asked to add COSS Dean Search Committee, and I’ll just kind of go through a statement. The Administration’s appointed a faculty member to the COSS Dean Search Committee, and the FA sees this as a breach of the contract. And I’m going to specifically read Article 6, Section B, Subd. 2: “…the agreement between the Association and the President, an agreed-upon number of additional faculty members may be appointed by the President to serve ex officio as resource persons based on professional expertise. Faculty members appointed to committees in ex officio capacity will not serve as representatives of other faculty.” So we’re viewing this as a violation of the contract. We also view this appointment as a violation of our Meet and Confer agreement about Search Committee composition. We had agreed that we would do our normal five faculty from within the departments, one at-large. We do intend to file a step three grievance. We also find this action to be a breach of trust between Administration and Faculty. If you revoke the decision now, we will not file the grievance. It’s page 18 if you’re looking for it, near the bottom, second to last paragraph. It’s the last two sentences, actually, it does start even farther up from there. It starts midway with “the Association and President shall confer on the need for faculty to serve in University level committees after which the Association shall appoint the faculty.” And we didn’t appoint this faculty member.

 

Admin: This faculty member is appointed as an Administrative appointee.

 

FA: So you’re replacing one of your Administrative appointees with this person?

 

Admin: I guess we are adding an Administrative appointee.

 

FA: Is this person ex officio?

 

Admin: I would think not.

 

FA: Okay, so if this person is ex officio and you’re appointing her as an Administrative appointee, and if we understand what the professional expertise is, and if you meet and confer with us about this, that’s a different story. But none of these things have happened.

 

FA: They haven’t reduced the number of Administrators either.

 

Admin: Maybe we should caucus for a bit.

 

            CAUCUS

         

          [Anne Zemek de Dominguez joined the meeting]

 

Admin: The agreement to this individual being on that search committee was made in settlement of a grievance that was brought by the Faculty Association. And what I would like to ask of you, at this point, is to wait a day or two so we can check on one or two things, and to see whether we want to maintain this or not. And, if not, we’ll contact you.

 

FA: Okay. So when we did get the resolution of that grievance, and I want to point out that we have the exclusive right for representation in grievances, the FA did not accept that resolution. And since the FA is a party to that grievance, all parties have to agree to a resolution. We did not agree to that resolution.

 

Admin: The FA brought the grievance.

 

FA: The individual brought the grievance by herself, without FA representation, that we know of?

 

FA: No. No. That’s incorrect. .

 

FA: John Palmer…

 

FA: Let me explain, please. We went through this last summer when this occurred. Anyone can bring forward a grievance at step one. We believed it was more appropriate for her to bring a grievance forward with the Faculty Association representative there. We made it really clear that we wouldn’t bring it further then the local level. And we were maintaining our interests in being present in that. There was no step two grievance meeting even though we requested it. So there were some concerns with that.

 

FA: Just because you offered a settlement, doesn’t mean that that settlement is accepted. There’s the union, because we have exclusive rights to representation, and then there’s you. If we tell you what we want to be resolved, the resolution of the grievance to be, and you don’t accept it, that can’t be the resolution of the grievance.

 

Admin: Now hold on a second…

 

FA: If you tell us what you want the resolution of the grievance to be, and we don’t accept it, that can’t be the resolution of the grievance. We did not accept the resolution that you offered from that grievance.

 

Admin: Now you presented the grievance to the Administration?

 

FA: Right.

 

Admin: On behalf of this individual?

 

FA: Right.

 

Admin: That grievant requested a certain remedy, we granted it. I think this is resolved.

 

FA: We did not accept that resolution.

 

Admin: We granted the grievance that you brought at step one.

 

FA: We didn’t accept that resolution.

 

Admin: Well, you brought the grievance.

 

FA: We did not accept it. We did not accept it. And both parties have to accept it.

 

Admin: The resolution that was provided was the one that you requested.

 

FA: We didn’t accept it.

 

Admin: Well, how could you not accept what you asked for?

 

FA: Sometimes that happens.

 

FA: The grievant requested that. The Faculty Association did not request that.

 

Admin: It was the grievance officer of the Faculty Association.

 

FA: Acceptance of that resolution would be non-contractual.

 

FA: We would never have accepted that. We didn’t accept it.

 

FA: And I want to point out one more thing, if I can. That really has nothing to do with the grievance or anything like that. Since the committee has found out about this, I’ve had several calls, and I think that making this appointment could risk that search. And I’m not sure if that’s something that you’re prepared to do. We would like the search to go forward. We would like it to go forward with the representation that we elected. And without representation beyond that, unless it’s under the criteria that I mentioned, Subdivision two, which is ex officio based on professional expertise. Those are the criteria.

 

Admin: Well, what I suggested before is what I would state. And I would like to leave this as is for now while we check on a few things, and then respond to you then.

 

Admin: The committee does not meet again until next Thursday.

 

FA: They met today.

 

Admin: I know. I’m on the committee.

 

Admin: And I’ll let you know if they are willing to accept what you’re saying about filing a grievance.

 

FA: Okay.

 

FA: I would like to remind you of the seriousness of this. I don’t know if Judy said, but we take this as a serious breach of trust between Administration and Faculty, and we worked for years, particularly this group of Faculty, recovering relationships with the Administration. And to have it just broken open, like this, is a severe problem for us. And it’s not going to help the relationships between Faculty and Administration on campus to have these sorts of decisions being made.

 

Admin: So noted. Next item: Attendance Policy.

 

1.     Attendance Policy  (Admin) (9/08/05)

FA: The taskforce on Attendance Policy brought forward to us a recommendation for a statement for the catalog that we brought to Senate. And we passed that with changes, minor ones. We were hoping that that taskforce would have the second piece of their work done, which is the statement for faculty, but Mark Nook told me the other day that he wouldn’t have that ready in time for us to take to Senate for next time. So we’ll aim for the time after that. But, that’s the first piece of it.

 

Admin: We’ll review this. Thanks. Taskforce on Diversity.

 

2.     Taskforces on Diversity (a.k.a. Motion from Teacher Development) (FA) (9/22/05)

 

Admin: I can report that the taskforce from COE has met. The second meeting is being arranged. There are a number of people, of course, so it’s the constant juggling of schedules. The other taskforce has not met yet, but we are trying to arrange it.

 

Admin: Which other one has not met yet?

 

Admin: The university-wide taskforce that includes Women’s Center, and…

 

Admin: A lot of these are just reports. There’s the Grade Appeal Policy Guidelines.

 

FA: Can I ask a question?

 

Admin: Sure.

 

FA: One of the things about the Diversity Taskforce was that it was sort of too big and unwieldy, and there was going be some sort of a plan on how they were going to organize themselves. Could we see that plan?

 

Admin: Well, we’ll get that plan to you, yes. We made recommendations to the Provost, and I’ll forward them.

 

FA: Could we see what they are?

 

Admin: Sure. Sure.

 

FA: Thank you.

 

3.     Grade Appeal Policy Guidelines (FA) (10/06/05)

 

Admin: Grade Appeal Policy Guidelines, there was something we were waiting for.

 

FA: Right, the Academic Affairs Committee did review the policy, and they brought it back to Senate last time, and it was passed with a few minor changes here. Although, I don’t know, did I give this to you already?

 

Admin: Yeah, I have this, but I couldn’t tell what was changed.

 

FA: Okay, so under item five, the language was “the instructor has a right to improve the student’s grade” at one point in this process.

 

Admin: Right.

 

FA: The Committee, that’s the most substantial change, they changed it back to “the instructor has a right to change the student’s grade at any point in the process” because they said, one of the things that could happen is that it could be changed to a W, which is actually not an improvement, and so they felt “change” would be more adequate and more accurate. And the other one is just cleaning up the language.

 

Admin: The one thing that I’m a little concerned about is that we don’t, unless there were some really egregious circumstances, such as the faculty in reviewing this decides that or discovers the entire paper has been plagiarized, that a student then appeals a grade shouldn’t have that grade and lowered as a consequence of that appeal.

 

FA: Actually the committee talked about that, and they discussed the fact that really the only time a faculty member would lower a grade would be in such an egregious situation. They came up with the same exact example.

 

FA: But this doesn’t allow that. The way you gave it to us would not allow the changing of the grade to an F if someone were found plagiarizing.

 

Admin: I agree, but now it allows the reduction of the grade if a faculty member decides, well I didn’t like the fact that this student came in and complained.

 

FA: They could do a grade appeal.

 

Admin: This is the grade appeal.

 

FA: It would be a case of retribution, so there would be grounds for complaining against the faculty action, and that’s an illegal action. So there are grounds addressing that matter.

 

Admin: Can we add some sort of statement to this that says something along the lines, as we just indicated, that a grade would be reduced only through egregious circumstances, such as plagiarism?

 

FA: I’m distressed with the attitude that this shows toward faculty. The assumption that if a student complains about a grade, the faculty would just change the grade to a lower grade in retribution. I am extremely distressed at that attitude. I find it appalling.

 

Admin: That’s not my attitude. I think you’re misrepresenting, badly, what I was trying to get at, which is that the student seeing this might feel that, not that I think that faculty would do that. But if a student sees this policy that says if I appeal my grade, the faculty member can change it, and changing it means it could be reduced as well as it could be raised. And that might discourage students from appealing, which is not what we want to do.

 

FA: So, you’re essentially saying something like you’d like to add a statement that says grades could be lowered if an egregious…

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I understood.

 

FA: What if we added it in a different way: “the instructor has the right to change the student’s grade at any point in the process based only on information about the student’s performance in the class”? Don’t say anything that it has to be egregious. Don’t say anything about it being retribution or anything. 

 

FA: Yeah, and that’s what they wanted to preserve, too. But it still wouldn’t deal with the problem. What if you decide a W is more appropriate?

 

FA: I’m saying change based on…

 

FA: Okay, so it would be “change” and it would not be “improve”?

 

FA: Right it would be changed, but it would be based on student’s performance, information based on the student’s performance in the class. That kind of wipes out any of that assumption of retribution.

 

FA: Some of that language would be problematic in terms of some of our course syllabus, in which it states that I reserve the right to make corrections in the grades in cases of clerical errors and what have you. If you have a student worker or a graduate student who uses the wrong formula, and in the process of reviewing the grades you discover that the grades are in error, and that the A is really a D, what are we to do?  This policy says that the statement in the syllabus is no longer valid because of clerical situations; error was found, and the grade that was perhaps recorded was inflated, and there’s corrections on it.

 

Admin: The faculty member could change the student’s grade at any time. This policy pertains to a student that comes in and appeals the grade for change. So if there were a clerical error in computing a student’s grade by a graduate assistant and you discovered it, you could change the student’s grade. And this policy would have no effect on that whatsoever.

 

FA: What I’m saying is that, on appeal of the grade…

 

Admin: You discover a clerical error?

 

FA: And you’re looking at calculations of the grade, you discover that there’s a mistake in the calculation of the grade, and the syllabus says that we reserve the right to make these corrections; then this policy voids and invalidates that statement.

 

Admin: So if I’m a student, and I receive a C, and I appeal that grade because I think I deserve a B, and you recalculate and say, no, I really deserve a D, you want to change that grade to a D?

 

FA: Well, I mean if the student has identified the problem, we’ve investigated it, and based on the data that’s at hand, and when you show that here are all of your assignments, here is the basis for each grade, the final calculation comes out to a 65 average, what do you deserve in the class?

 

Admin: If we go back to what Steve says, I think that would address that situation. It says based on performance in the course, is that the language you used?

 

FA: Yeah, I just wrote this, and I think this would have to go back to Senate again anyway. But what I wrote was, the whole thing would read: “the instructor has the right to change the student’s grade at any point in this process based on a review of the student’s performance or as a way to correct clerical errors.” I think that will probably have to go back to Senate.

 

Admin: That will work for me.

 

FA: Would you like us to take that as an amendment to Senate Tuesday?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: I could just let you know then what Senate says about that. You got that language down, right Polly?

 

Polly: On the machine.

 

FA: Okay. So, otherwise are we okay on that one?

 

Admin: I want to read through the rest of it.

 

FA: There’s just this line right here.

 

Admin: Are there any other changes other than this?

 

FA: No. So, really it looks like the only change that we have to check on is the one that we just read as an amendment. And we’ll bring that back to Senate and find out what Senate says about that.

 

Admin: Okay. We’re down to the Template on Teaching Schedule/Contact Hours.

 

4.     Template on Teaching Schedule/Office Hours (FA) (10/20/05)

 

FA: That’s a committee that’s supposed to be doing it.

 

Admin: Three of the four members met on Friday, and John Palmer was going to draft something for committee members, and he’s sending an email.

 

Admin: Counseling Center.

 

5.     Counseling Center  (FA) (12/15/05)

 

Admin: We have a document, Margaret will speak to this.

 

Admin: What you have in front of you is a post-op description for the position of the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services, as well as a flow chart on the next page. There are three additions that we’d like to see added to the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services, since we have a brand new position. There’s a group called the Psychological Issues Group, acronym is PIG, who put together already a year ago a job request for a position called a Case Manager or a Case Worker. The money was allocated as of July 1, and I actually just received the job description about a week ago for Case Manager. In that conversation is where is that position housed. The position would serve as a manager, in a way, of various students who are at risk. It might be for a wide variety of reasons that those students are at risk, but they would manage that caseload. So, if a student is supposed to have an appointment over at the Counseling Center to meet with the ADC Coordinator, there’s some follow up on that student. It seemed appropriate with the background required of the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services, which is a PhD, that would be a good fit that you have clinical knowledge and background that would be able to work with that Case Manager. Alcohol, I’m sure you’re all aware, is just a major issue, not only on this campus but nationally, and it is a mystery on how we can put our arms around it. There’s just no book on the shelf or easy answer of how to deal with alcohol issues nationally, and certainly on this campus, so I’m proposing the ADC Coordinator. ADC is an acronym that stands for Alcohol Drug Counselor, and this person also does assessment. They also move over to the Counseling Center. It seems as if many of the problems when it comes to alcohol are intertwined with many other issues; it isn’t just alcohol. It’s dealing with depression, it’s dealing with decision making, it’s dealing with inappropriate behavior, it seems like there’s many layers to that issue.  And, then, finally Disability Services is a position that was a part-time position, then became a full-time, then was cut back to a half-time position. It’s now a full-time position, presently reports directly to the Vice President. What they’re finding is that the needs of our students that go to Disability Services is not so much physical disabilities, wheelchairs, desks, but rather the numbers have increased with brain trauma, and also bipolar, psychological issues, and that they fall under those guidelines to assist with special tutorials and help. So it seems by adding those three areas to the job description of Director of Counseling, we have a coordinated effort to meet the needs of students on this campus.

 

Admin: Questions or comments?

 

FA: Quite a few, actually. I’m wondering how you got this 60% when all the data that we’ve gotten from the Counseling Center, in their investigation, indicates that the administrative part is much less than that?

 

Admin: The number is 40% that they’re saying? Or 30%? 25%? Do you know what that percent is?

 

FA: Well if I look at the report, approximately 33% is counseling administration and management and 66% personal counseling. This is the estimate of Jan Gembol. A slightly different estimate was provided by Chuck Smith who indicated that 60% was personal counseling and 40% center management. At other MnSCU institutions we get percentages such as, and I’m talking about administrative duties, 20% Bemidji, 45% Morehead, 25% Southwest, 15-20% in Winona, Mankato 33%. The average is approximately 28% for administrative duties.

 

FA: I just wanted to add that we found a memo that Bob Bayne, the previous director, wrote. I think it was early to mid-90s, and for some reason he was asked to put in percentages how much time he spent on everything. And with him the percentage of counseling came out 70%.

 

FA: The other question I have was under the first segment, it says provides supervision and evaluation of seven PhD Counselors, graduate assistants, and interns, we need to know what bargaining unit this person would fall into before we could say that was appropriate. And actually that’s a specific question that we’ve had that I haven’t had an answer to at this point.

 

Admin: This description would have the position fall under MSUAASF.

 

FA: And it’s the IFO’s perspective that MSUAASF cannot supervise faculty.

 

Admin: I’m not sure we accept that.

 

FA: Another question is… one of the things you’ve said over and over is that you want more coverage. So now you’ve taken a position that was 70%, 60%, 66% counseling, and you’ve made it only 30%, 40% counseling. How is that going… I find that amazing.

 

Admin: We’ve also added another full-time counseling position.

 

FA: Even after this fall, you’ve added that other person, you still said you wanted more coverage.

 

Admin: And there’s a Case Manager to follow up and work with those and the ADC Coordinator working with the Counselors.

 

FA: Okay, so you’re seeing some of these counseling functions as falling into one new faculty member, that’s an additional faculty? Is that correct?

 

Admin: I believe, yes.

 

FA: The ADC Coordinator, what bargaining unit is that person?

 

Admin: MSUAASF, and they’re presently doing alcohol counseling right now. But it’s not, and I’d have to pull up that job description to see what percent of their job is counseling, but it’s a certified alcohol counselor.

 

FA: Who is in the PIG committee that you mentioned?

 

Admin: They have to find a new name for that. It is members of the Health Services, members of the Counseling Services, I also believe members of Residential Life sit on that.

 

FA: Yeah.

 

Admin: And I don’t know if Public Safety is also involved in that? It seems that it’s people who are interested in case management, welfare of students on this campus.

 

FA: We have this Alcohol Drug Counselor on campus now even though they’re in another spot. We can’t legitimately claim that by moving this person into the Counseling Center, we’ve now added a counselor. We already had it.

 

Admin: We didn’t say that.

 

Admin: We’re in the process right now of pulling together a search committee. Paperwork has just been signed to start the process to hire a brand new position. And that position will be effective next fall.

 

FA: Oh, I thought that I heard you say that you added this position, and you added the Case Manager and you’ve added the ADC, and I was saying you can’t put the ADC in that pile.

 

FA: Are the responsibilities of this proposed directorship in any delineation of the responsibilities of the proposed directorship and the proposed chair?

 

Admin: The department chair would do what department chairs do in other departments with regard to making recommendations on personnel, promotion, and tenure.

 

FA: There’s some overlaps between those duties. What I’m suggesting is that you look at the duties of departmental chairs. There are some overlaps between those duties.

 

Admin: Can you specify what you’re referring to?

 

FA: Supervision of office managers, supervision of students, student workers…

 

Admin: This would all be done by the Director in this instance.

 

FA: I may be mistaken, but the department gets input in the things like hiring processes and those kinds of things. And so we can’t simply see that stuff in the Director, so we have another duplication.

 

Admin: Sure, and I think the terminology there is participating in the planning process. Knowing that it is not the end all, that it is a process.

 

FA:  Within the kind IFO positions, you would have a MSUAASF participating in faculty hiring conditions?

 

Admin: The faculty make the recommendation, and the recommendation is made to the supervisor who makes the determination.

 

Admin: Actually Roy makes the final determination.

 

Admin: Well, yes, and recommends to Roy. Sorry.

 

Admin: They say I’m invincible. (Laughter)

 

FA: You say recommends to the supervisor. Who are you seeing as the supervisor?

 

FA: I can read it: “The chair forwards recommendations of the department to the appropriate administrative personnel.”

 

FA: I still would like to ask one question. In this construction, who are you seeing as a supervisor?

 

Admin: The Director.

 

FA: You’re seeing as the supervisor?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: Okay.

 

FA: They’re not appropriate.

 

FA: Yeah, we need to caucus.

 

            CAUCUS

 

FA: So thank you for your proposal. We are going to refer this to Pat Arsenault at the IFO for inspection at that level, and our side will be contacting your side.

 

Admin: Okay.

 

FA: This starts the 30-day clock, also.  I want to put that on the record.

 

Admin: Status of Senate Recommendations regarding Strategic Planning.

 

6.     Status of Senate Recommendations regarding Strategic Planning (FA) (02/02/06)

 

Admin: Those were received.

 

FA: For both the academic distinction, indicators, and also the committee recommendations?

 

Admin: Correct.

 

FA: Then we can put forward a call.

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: For our members and you can put forward for your members. Thank you very much. We appreciate this. We see this as a very important way, especially the new committee configuration, for moving strategic planning forward.

 

Admin: Any other comments on that? Academic Freedom Committee Report Recommendations.

 

7.     Academic Freedom Committee Report Recommendations (FA) (02/02/06)

 

FA: We discussed these in Senate last time, and they wanted an opportunity to go back to the departments, and bring in motions considering the make up of that committee. And so I’m assuming we’ll make some sort of determination next week at Senate.

 

Admin: Okay. Priority Registration.

 

8.     Priority Registration (FA) (02/16/06)

 

FA: Okay, it’s our understanding that you took that forward to students, and students said no?

 

Admin: No, it’s not quite true.

 

FA: Okay.

 

Admin: Margaret, I think you can probably comment best on this.

 

Admin: It’s almost as if the impossible happened. That the FA worked through the proposal, and at the same time, students also worked through a proposal. They did not take the FA proposal. They created their own.

 

FA: Okay.

 

Admin: The one that they created was voted down. Okay, and so the language isn’t quite the same. And I spoke to Bill Hudson yesterday, and what he had suggested is that they’ll look at what was voted down by Student Government. They’ll look at the FA proposal, and probably next Thursday they will come to Student Government to speak to that. And we think there were members of Student Government who would have loved to have heard from someone before they had their own discussion.

 

Admin: I don’t think there was anybody there.

 

Admin: No one was there…

 

Admin: To speak on behalf of any recommendation.

 

FA: Who are they? You said they will look at...

 

Admin: The students.

 

Admin: It sounded like the group that he was working with.

 

FA: There were a group of faculty who proposed that policy initially. They brought it to Senate, and representing really Music, Forensics, Players, student athletes.

 

Admin: From the perspective of Student Government, they asked people to be there at the meeting that this policy…

 

Admin: And the timing I think… because no was there. They kind of did it almost on their own.

 

Admin: Well, no one from the faculty or the administration was aware that this was on the agenda of the Student Government when they voted on it.

 

FA: Well, we did approve another piece to it. Let me just describe that and see if there is some way we should filter it through to the students. The question came up, what if other groups wanted to be added? What if groups need to be taken off? How do you get on or off this list? And so, we referred this to Academic Affairs, this question. And, so in the second part of that document I sent to you, Academic Affairs Committee recommended some principles and procedures for getting on or off the list that they’re going to provide as a supplement, and Senate did approve it. So, I don’t know if there is some way that… I don’t know if we should just maybe contact Bill and make sure he takes this forward? That might be the simplest way to do it. And it does articulate the principles that would be under the priority registration, and that’s what we’re calling it now instead conflict avoidance schedule, we’re calling it priority registration.

 

Admin: I think they had blocks of time that were in conflict, so that’s why…

 

FA: So we do have a copy of our priority registration principles and procedures and I will contact Bill Hudson and ask him to transmit that to the students when he goes in to converse with them.

 

Admin: Anything else on that item?

 

9.     President Saigo’s Student Feedback System (FA) (02/02/06) – 3 p.m. time definite: Lisa Foss—discussed above.

 

10. Request for Enrollment, Retention, Recruitment, and Sabbatical Data  (FA) (02/02/06)

 

Admin: Judy had asked that I provide you with information regarding the number of sabbaticals. So here’s a document that identifies the number of sabbaticals that were approved for the last five years. And among those, which were ten-year sabbaticals and which were seven-year sabbaticals. And I can try to answer any questions if you have any.

 

FA: It’s nice to see the number seven-year sabbaticals, on which the word sabbatical is based.

 

FA: It’s nice to know you’re one of them. (Laughter)

 

          [The Provost left the room to take a cell phone call]

 

FA: Annette has just asked a question of whether or not people had been informed about sabbaticals, and those notifications did come out the other day.

 

FA: Somebody was asking me on Friday.

 

FA: I’m not sure when other people got theirs. I got my notification on Tuesday. 

 

FA: What about these others?

 

FA: We did receive enrollment, we did receive that information before, last time we were here.

 

FA: Okay.

 

FA: So that provides the rest of the information we were looking for. Thank you very much. I’ll share this with Senate.

 

Admin: The next three items that are on here were items that Steve Ludwig was going to speak to. So, I’ll try to talk about some of them.

 

New Business

 

1.     Last Date of Attendance (Admin) (02/16/06)

 

Admin: The first one, Last Date of Attendance, is an issue that’s come up a little bit in terms of being able to record when the last day of attendance was in order not to have to return money to the federal government for financial aid. I think there were about 50 students for whom we didn’t have adequate information, and we sent out requests. Coming forward in the last couple of weeks, faculty tried to identify the last day of attendance for those students. I’m not sure how much in the way of financial aid any one of those students might have received in the course of a semester. Let’s say it might have been about $2,000 a student, and there are 50 students. Then that would mean we’d have to return $100,000 to the federal government. So we’re trying not to do that so that we can use that money on campus for things we need. So that’s one of the primary reasons we want to improve our ratios. Steve had more precise information, but he had to leave for another meeting.

 

FA: So you sent letters to the faculty members asking for this information?

 

Admin: Yes. I don’t remember who sent the letter, but somebody sent letters, emails to the faculty.

 

FA: As of this week’s emails, they were down to 25 students. I got a request for two of those so they’ll be down to 24 in a matter of hours.

 

Admin: That’s great.

 

FA: So, I would think it is decreasing.

 

Admin: That’s good.

 

FA: So are the 24 students, students for whom we don’t have information from faculty?

 

Admin: I believe that’s correct.

 

FA: The first time I got the request, I think I got it as department chair or as faculty member, I’m not sure. One of the students I had in my class in the fall, I believe. The other one was in a section in our department, so I think that the first time the students came to my attention.

 

Admin: Last year we used a grade of FN for failed, never attended. So that gave us a lot of information about students. Students we’re concerned with, especially, are students that receive all Fs or Is, or a combination of Fs and Is for all of their grades. And so that’s where that comes from, and I think there was some thought that we wouldn’t need to go as deep into the problem as we had to, but apparently we were told that we would. We’re talking about students that were enrolled last spring. Those are the ones we’re following up on.

 

FA: I think the point I’m trying to make is that the magnitude of this issue, because of procedures implemented, may be not as great as they were initially when they first came up.

 

Admin: That’s because we’ve been pursuing the issue pretty aggressively with faculty and whatever channels necessary. But I think you’re right. We’re conquering the problem, and we are grateful to the faculty for cooperating and assisting in solving the problem.

 

FA: And I’ll add that some these numbers are being reduced without any adaptation of the new attendance policy.

 

Admin: That’s true.

 

2.     Report on Capital Budget Requests (Admin) (02/16/06)

 

Admin: Let’s leave number two on here for next time because I don’t have the information on the Capital Budget Requests. We’ll get that at our next meeting.

 

3.     Drop for Non-Payment (Admin) (02/16/06)

 

Admin: Drop for Non-Payment is a… I don’t know to what extent you’ve heard about this one. It’s a reporting tool. It’s a new policy that MnSCU is considering or adopting under the guise of Business Practice Alignment, and what it entails is that 10 days before the semester begins, students who have not paid their tuition or made arrangements to pay their tuition would have their registration dropped.

 

FA: We had this once before.

 

Admin: Lots of schools have had it. We had it once before. It looks like it’s coming back. I don’t know if this has come up at statewide IFO Meet and Confer. It’s not a practice that we, in the administration here, think is a good idea. We’re estimating that we might lose between 8-10 percent of our enrollment.

 

FA: We’ve been there before, and we had huge problems with grad classes, but also with all kinds of other classes. The numbers in our sections get full, and we don’t know what’s happening. And particularly in my unit student teachers, this is going to be a disaster. We won’t know if we have the proper number of student teachers, and notifying the schools 10 days before school starts that their student teachers aren’t coming does not sound great.

 

Admin: I think if you could provide some of the specific points that you just mentioned to me in writing, and the more of those the merrier, we’ll try to oppose this policy.

 

FA: I just checked with Annette, and it didn’t come up to Meet and Confer last year. It has not come up at statewide Meet and Confer this year. And so maybe we can pull this information and present it from both sides. I’m just thinking about the logistics. You have a high enrollment course, people get dropped the week before for non-enrollment, then other students fill into those courses, then students come groveling in lines. I mean I’ve got one course where I would have been actually able to teach three courses with the waiting lines for this, and I’m just imagining that course, all those students trying to reenroll after paying their tuition. It’s just mind boggling to me.

 

Admin: I’ve been at a campus for a time where that was the policy, and it creates exactly the kind of problems you describe.

 

FA: What kind of other problems did you encounter?

 

Admin: Mostly they have to do with students trying to get back into classes that they were originally in, but I wasn’t aware of some of the student teaching issues. That’s a problem.

 

Admin: Also in our experience it puts those students who are dependent upon financial aid in severe distress. Very often they can’t get their money in time to pay for their classes. These very often are students of color at risk; very often they’re more at risk.

 

Admin: I think that Rex just mentioned the same thing, but I think of International students and even students that don’t have the financial background. Their parents are not rich, to pay for all of this quickly. It’s expensive. And also I can see some students might forget to pay right away. There are a lot of issues with that. And there are options of making payments or installments with interest.

 

Admin: I think students who make arrangements are okay. I think students who don’t make any arrangement and don’t indicate that they’re receiving financial aid—those are impacted by this.

 

FA: One question that we might want to ask, I always want to ask this about recommendations from the Business Practices Alignment, what are the advantages of doing this? I mean what are the reasons for doing this besides the fact that they like everything lined up in neat little lines, and everybody doing things exactly the same way? But I don’t understand what might be the advantages of doing this. I’m not asking you to answer that question.

 

Admin: I can’t. (Laughter)

 

FA: You have not seen a copy of this proposed policy?

 

Admin: I’ve seen something. I just wanted to mention that to you for your information, and there are two items that we need to get to today on this agenda.

 

4.     Rostering Change (Admin) (02/16/06)

 

Admin: There’s a faculty member in one of the departments in the COE, Teacher Development, who wishes to re-roster into Undergraduate Studies. That needs to be communicated before March 1st.

 

FA: I think you have to tell us who it is.

 

Admin: I have to tell you who it is?

 

FA: Yeah.

 

Admin: It’s Geoffrey Tabakin.

 

FA: We heard something about this at the department level today. What I heard was not that. Let me see if I can clarify that. Is this permanent?

 

Admin: As far as I know.

 

FA: Okay. And does that mean he’ll no longer be teaching classes in our department?

 

Admin: He may, in consultation with the department, teach a course in that department, but he will not be rostered there.

 

FA: He’s not rostered there? Isn’t that up to the department if he teaches a course, or does he have some call time?

 

Admin: I would think he doesn’t have call.

 

FA: Thank you.

 

FA: Thank you for the information.

 

7. Request to Hire form (Admin) (02/16/06)         

 

Admin: I’m going to pass this around. You had made some suggestions at a prior Meet and Confer about some additions and changes to that Request to Hire form. So I’ve incorporated those changes, and here’s a copy of that.

 

FA: So you’re sneaking in an agenda item? (Laughter)

 

FA: Okay, so this is for our information, and this is for our reaction? Okay. Thank you.

 

Admin: This is in response to your reaction.

 

FA: Okay. Thank you.

 

5.     Academic Calendar (Admin) (02/16/06)

 

Admin: We need to talk about the Academic Calendar, so I’m going to ask Mitch to distribute some information, and we’ll look at that. I think everybody has one.

 

Admin: What you have in front of you is a draft of the calendar for the academic year 2007-2008. Attached to it is an actual calendar, or calendars, for those two years. The format is one that has appeared in other publications with the addition of some information at the end of each semester—the number of actual instructional days, exam days, non-instructional days, and total duty days for each semester. These dates reflect recent calendars so that the fall semester duty days start before Labor Day with classes beginning Wednesday after Labor Day and ending before Christmas. And then spring semester beginning in January and ending in the middle of May.

 

FA: Mitch, have you met with the Committee on the Institution about this yet?  

 

Admin: No, we’ve been in communication. You had mentioned to take this to Meet and Confer.

 

FA: I don’t think I must have been very clear there. You had suggested, I think, in that communication that we look at a means of getting a larger group of people together from different bargaining units to look at the calendar together, and I thought that’s what you meant coming to Meet and Confer. I can certainly bring this to the Committee on the Institution, if that’s what you’d like me to do, for their feedback?

 

Admin: Sure.  What I was thinking of was getting feedback from other offices and individuals on campus who have an interest in the calendar. In a sense, this calendar is pretty straightforward and I think it would be useful to consult with them before we send it out. The deadline… We’d like to have this ready by March 15 to get it published in next year’s bulletin.

 

FA: Are you counting finals as nine instructional?

 

Admin: I’ve seen it listed that way, and I’ve seen it listed at different colleges as instructional days and it’s broken up. I chose to break them out so if you, for anybody who wants the numbers, I’ll break them out. It’s there for anybody who wants the two numbers. 

 

FA: Okay. 

 

Admin: There were questions, and when we looked at calendars in the past, about how many days, I mean how many Mondays, how many Tuesdays, etc., so Mitch combined them—the Monday-Wednesday-Fridays and the Tuesday-Thursdays—and counted up the total number of minutes so you could see what the difference would be in each of those. And trying to balance as best as we can, you’ll notice that we’re not quite in balance. If you compare the lowest number in fall to the highest number in the spring, there’s a bit of a difference. But other than that, we tried to get them as close together as possible.

 

FA: Where are the nine non-instructional duty days?

 

Admin: The 27th through the 31st, there’s five.

 

FA: Okay.

 

Admin: September 4th and 6th. December 11th, I’m sorry December 12th is a study day, which is six. Then five days of final exams. I’m sorry December 16th, commencement, and then…

 

FA: Okay. I got them.

 

Admin: Four grading days.

 

FA: Thank you.

 

FA: What about August 31st?

 

Admin: No, it’s not, because there’s no events scheduled that day.

 

Admin: There haven’t been, but we may choose to do that if we get enough in advance.

 

FA: I’m wondering if there are any other questions about this? So, we’ll refer this to the Committee on the Institution then, and you need it back mid March, right? No later than mid March?

 

Admin: Right.

 

FA: Okay.

 

Admin: There is no other business, so we may adjourn.

 

FA: Thank you.