Final approved 12-7-2006
Meet and Confer
November 2, 2006
Admin: Roy Saigo, Michael Spitzer, Kristi Tornquist, Mitchell Rubinstein, Rex Veeder, Anne Zemek de Dominguez, Steve Ludwig, Dennis Nunes
Faculty: Annette Schoenberger, JoAnn Gasparino, Andrew Larkin, Bill Langen, Balsy Kasi, Fred Hill, Bob Inkster, Jayantha Herath, Frances, Kayona, John Palmer, Jason Lindsey, Polly Chappell – Note taker
Guests: Debra Japp, Marla Kanengieter-Wildeson
Approval of Minutes
Minutes from October 5, 2006 and October 19, 2006
Admin: Ready to get started, folks? We have minutes from October 5th we can approve. The October 19th minutes aren’t ready yet. Can we approve the October 5th minutes?
FA: Sure.
Admin: The minutes of October 5th are approved. We can go to Unfinished Business and start with number one.
Unfinished Business
1. Reassigned Time (FA) (05/04/06)
Admin: Reassigned Time.
FA: We have some guests here to do number six.
Admin: Okay.
FA: Do you want to go to that right away?
Admin: We could do that if you’d like.
FA: Or do you guys want to… ? Okay. Okay. They can wait. If I have to sit through this you can.
Admin: Alright. That’s fine. Either way.
2. Searches in Academic Affairs (Admin) and elsewhere (FA) (09/07/06)
Admin: We have a final candidate for the Associate VP for International Studies on campus today. We hope some of you got to interact with that person. And I need to still submit a call for applications and nominations for two internal positions that we talked about before. I haven’t gotten to that yet. I hope to do it soon. And that covers where we are in searches.
FA: We’ll have faculty for you by the 7th for those two AVP positions.
Admin: Okay.
FA: We probably won’t have six.
Admin: Okay.
3. Announce, Discuss, and Bulletin Boards (FA) (09/07/06)
Admin: Announce, Discuss, and Bulletin Boards?
FA: Senate sent this back to TPR. There are some questions that came from one of the members. So we sent it back to TPR, which may actually be sending it back to TLTR. So, you may want to take this off for awhile.
Admin: Well, okay. We might want to do that. We’ve had this on the agenda a long time.
FA: I know. But there are some real serious concerns that we have to deal with, terms and conditions of employment that need to be addressed. Maybe they’ll be able to take care of it in TLTR.
Admin: Okay.
Admin: Can I just ask a question?
Admin: Sure.
Admin: It sounds like some of the issues aren’t… TLTR wants some of the technology--?
FA: Right. They may not--
Admin: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering--
FA: So you may have to figure out some place—
Admin: --else to send it?
FA: Yeah.
Admin: Okay.
FA: With those comments. There’s a document, if you don’t get it from TPR ask me for it, I’ll find it.
Admin: Any other comments on that? Moving right along.
4. Orientation Task Force (Admin) (09/28/06)
Admin: We had requested the names of some members for that.
FA: You’ll have them by the 7th. We have to have an election because we have eight volunteers.
Admin: Wonderful.
FA: So, you’ll have them either Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.
Admin: Next item.
5. Doctoral Programs (FA) (10/19/06)
Admin: Doctoral Programs.
FA: There was a meeting with Dean Nunes and a group of faculty from the UCC and Grad Council, myself, and Annette. We were able to review two budget documents. One budget document dealt with projection of revenue from student tuition that did not include any consideration of tuition waivers impact on the revenue. The other took into consideration the possibility of tuition waiver discounting the projected tuition. We agreed that for the first year budget that it should be in balance between revenue and expense. We acknowledged that the state allocation that appears as a number we were given by MnSCU. We also then recognize that the internal reallocation that is referenced comes from the use of funds from last November for programmatic expansion. So, we understood where that reallocation came from. And we’re satisfied with that from a budgetary standpoint. We understand that it is balanced, we understand that there would be two new hires in the first year, one new hire in the second year, one additional new hire in the third, and by the fourth year the program would have four full time equivalent faculty positions, and that the existing faculty staff summer assignments are what is referred to as the use of existing faculty. Remaining unanswered, this is not critical of anyone involved because the answers to these questions may be outside of our control: the question of equity of teaching load across graduate programs. That the proposal treats teaching, advising, work in the EDD that’s substantially different from how we treat that activity within our existing Masters and Specialist programs. Advisement to the grad student is advisement to a grad student. We expressed some concerns regarding that inequity. It would seem that there would be an interest in eliminating that or else what could occur is faculty would flock to being involving with EDD programs at the expense of Masters programs because we acknowledge that there is a heavy commitment of time for advisement and reading of thesis, and what have you. But I felt very comfortable with the outcome of the meeting. To say that we would be ready to move forward with the explanation on the budget.
Admin: I agree with John. It’s a fair statement. We worked through the major considerations, budget issues. And we had a chance to raise a variety of questions about how this program would not produce reductions and resources for other programs on campus. And I think all the issues were resolved satisfactorily. At least the budget issues, the ones that we could.
Admin: Any other comments? Okay. We’ll move onto item six.
6. One-Time Professional Development Funds (FA) (10/19/06)
Admin: That’s the One-Time Professional Development Funds.
FA: I want to pass out this. I didn’t bring one of these for everybody so. But this is the letter that came from Linda Baer about the one-time professional development funds. This came on July 21st.
Guest: Our understanding is that we made a proposal. The subcommittee made a proposal for the use of that one-time money. Our understanding is that you folks had some concerns about that proposal. One of the things that became apparent to us when we were discussing this is that we have some confusion about what the requirements of that are, what the timeline is for it. And that confusion may have contributed to, in fact, what we thought some of the timelines were, certainly were significant in the kind of decision that was made by the subcommittee. I ask for more information in terms of number one, what are some of the concerns you have, and two, if we need to, can we talk about and come to some kind of agreement about what the timelines are and what the restrictions are on that, what those funds are?
Admin: I believe our portion of this allocation is about $140,000. And our understanding was that the committee was recommending that we spend $140,000 during the spring semester on speakers to be brought into campus. First I think that it would be very difficult to bring big name speakers in under that kind of short-term notification because most of those people are booked pretty solid, long in advance. So I said, in response, that I thought it would be a good idea to have, perhaps use, some of this money for some speakers, but to use the remaining funds to fund specific projects that were Professional Development projects for faculty members. That was my understanding of the conversation, and I thought that we had originally talked about it that we would expand, to some degree, the criteria that were being used for those long-term and short-term research projects. To be able to fund a larger number of those with that additional money. And that we could give people some more time to submit those kinds of proposals. I also thought that we might be able, after having seen some of the other proposals, particularly those that were submitted for the IPESL grants, that some of them didn’t meet the criteria, but yet were good proposals. And if we could take those proposals and give other faculty an opportunity to submit proposals as well over a relatively abbreviated period of time, several weeks. That way we could look through both of those sets of proposals and decide which ones to fund out of those, so that we could fund additional Professional Development activities for the faculty. So that’s what we proposed at the last Meet and Confer.
Guest: I can tell you from our conversation in the subcommittee, one of the concerns that came was that we felt there were two problems. One was the idea that we had to spend all existing Article 19 money now this year, and while I indicated that’s not a problem for the research grants committee per se, we have rollover money and I have not been able to get any information out of the Grants office about how much that rollover money is, and when it would have to be spent by. So I sent an email, asking that information, and got an email back saying that they couldn’t—they were trying to get some information from MnSCU and couldn’t get any. So I have, at this point, no idea how much rollover money we would have to spend, if indeed we have to spend it this year, and when it would be have to be promised, spent, or encumbered by. And those are different kinds of things. That created a little bit of an issue for the Grants Committee. One of the things, that seems to me is our responsibility as a committee is… Research Grants promises next year’s money for projects that start primarily July 1st. So, in terms of spending that money for that portion of Article 19 money, in order to get this one-time money, that’s not necessarily a problem, but we have carryover from people that don’t spend the money, turn the money back in, or money that didn’t get awarded. Okay, if that money has to be spent, then I need to tell faculty this year only we would consider funding a certain number of grants for work that’s primarily done this year, say May, which is not what we have traditionally done. Since December 1st is the deadline for that, it seems to me that that committee, we would like to have that information as soon as possible so we can get that out to faculty to let them know that. So that was one concern.
Admin: Can I respond to a piece of that?
Guest: Yeah.
Admin: My understanding was that the money that has to get spent this year is the money that’s allocated for this year.
Guest: Okay.
Admin: I would assume that we could carryover prior carryover money.
Guest: Okay.
Admin: This is an assumption I would make.
Guest: That wasn’t clear.
Admin: I don’t think it says that we have to spend carryover money. We have this year’s allocation first.
Guest: Okay.
Admin: I think we did do some checking and discovered that we needed to commit the money by a specific time, which is a little bit less onerous commitment than encumbering the money.
Guest: Right. Okay. I would still need to know, because… I’m not at all versed in budgeting procedures, I know we’re not marking dollar bills and following them around. And so I can’t tell you whether when promised money last January, that was this year’s money, whether the leftover money was money two years ago that got turned in or whether it was money that wasn’t really spent from this year’s money. So, I can’t answer that question. I don’t know if anybody will get into it that deep.
Admin: I don’t think so.
Guest: Okay. I just worry about those things. So, what deadline… see when we had our talk, the three of us, Marla, Robert, you, we were under the assumption that we headed for a deadline like November 1st or November 15th to get this awarded. And the subcommittee really did not feel that they could put a call out, get things back, and evaluate, and make a recommendation by such a tight time frame. And that did influence our recommendation.
Admin: I wish we would have talked about extending that deadline then. So that we could have at least addressed that issue. Now we’re six weeks down the road from that date.
FA: I’m looking at the July 21st memo from Linda Baer. The very last paragraph, there’s a sentence, it’s the second sentence that says “if the $500,000 is not spent FY07” that’s the way it ends. The $500,000 is the amount above and beyond what was originally listed for Article 19. My question in the context it’s spent is used, could that not mean prepaying a speaker’s expenses, prepaying a faculty member’s registration at a workshop, purchasing of an airline ticket to travel at some future time? The funds actually will have been spent, but the activity may occur at some future date.
FA: Does the state allow us to do that?
Admin: I think that the only one of those that you have trouble with is prepaying the speaker because generally you have to perform the service before you can be paid. Outside of that, within reason, I think you’re right.
Admin: You could prepay a conference fee.
Admin: Correct.
Admin: Or airfare.
Admin: Yeah. Or a ticket. But you couldn’t go out and prepay a speaker.
FA: So we could essentially have around supplemental, short-term faculty improvement grants where the activities would be occurring in late summer and through the fall if what occurred was a purchase conference registration or workshop registration, because we don’t fund for annual conferences, and the travel, because you could do a travel advance.
Admin: Yeah. I’m not sure how far into the future we’d want to push that, but I think we could do some of that.
FA: I ask that as a follow up to what Debra is talking about, to say what kind of time constraints would we have to follow our ordinary practices to give all faculty an opportunity to make application, and then make an award? It sounds like it’s not July 1. That the key would be that the decision to spend, and the actual act of spending, will have occurred before the end of the fiscal year, which buys some time.
Admin: It buys some time. We would have to verify how far we could go with that and still be within the limits. But I think that there is some flexibility there.
Guest: Okay, I have a couple of other kinds of things. One of the things that we thought about… I mean, what you guys’ recommendation was, was kind of a bare bones recommendation. So we haven’t been able to go forward with that. One of the things that was discussed, was some kind of, if we brought someone in, we could have faculty apply to attend some kind of workshop, this person that we brought in. That faculty would be paid a duty day or something like that. That is one way to use that money in a way. So one of the suggestions, as people brainstormed, John came up with a suggestion op dealing with assessment. And so, we could have somebody come in who talked about assessment, worked with faculty on assessment issues, and faculty could be paid to be part of that. I mean that fit in the spirit. Those were the kinds of things we talking about in terms of a speaker series. We didn’t know actually what’s available to us until we have a meeting and until we knew if this was an agreed upon project and carry that forward. I still would need, if we would go back to the committee or if Executive Committee would want us to go back to the subcommittee about this, I would need to know what time constraints we’re talking about here.
FA: Within the context of that suggestion, I had just read the material I think that you, Roy, had sent to Lisa and I, which is a compilation of the Higher Learning Commission various reports. And it was clear to me that we have a need to demonstrate continuing commitment to assessment of student learning. And I thought what better way to make statement to the accrediting teams, to say that we have dedicated ourselves to a specialized workshop where faculty will be compensated for participating to refine and improve upon our assessment plan. We will have committed dollars toward that activity and essentially these are dollars that if we don’t spend, we lose.
FA: We could spend the entire amount on this kind of thing.
Admin: I think having professional work in the context of developing assessment is a fine way to use some of this money. And that would be very appropriate use of it. We are, as you know, I think, committing quite a number of dollars to assessment. In fact we’re admitted into the initial cohort in Higher Learning Commission Assessment Institute. We have a team of folks participating in that. But I think bringing someone to work with faculty on assessment, having those faculty do some assessment work as a part of that process, would be a valuable activity. And it is certainly something that could be funded.
FA: We could spend all of this money on that easily.
Admin: Well, we could.
FA: Easily.
Admin: And I think that would be helpful to the university.
Admin: I would add to that, John, that there’d be kind of a summary or product that comes out of that. How the workshop has assisted the faculty. This is the outcome. We’re going back to, again, accountability to the public.
Admin: No, no. You can’t make Frankie write it (laughter). Faculty who do it, have to write it.
FA: There would be a deliverable that you could look at that says, what was the outcome of the event. I can’t imagine not doing it.
Admin: I would suggest that we do something like that, and take it one step further, which is that you ask faculty to decide at the beginning of the spring semester what they’re going to assess, collect data during that semester, and then evaluate it during that workshop. And come up with some conclusions based on what they have learned as a consequence of the workshop and data they’ve collected. So that they will in fact do assessment as part of the project.
Admin: Another area with the doctorates and masters, and moving up to a level, to bring in, and we’ve done this before at other universities, where you would bring two or three speakers. Pay the faculty to attend about how to write proposals. And then by the end of the project you could have a product that you can expand upon or deliver.
Admin: These ideas are very positive. I think they’re good, solid suggestions. They go quite a bit further than just saying, let’s bring in some speakers.
Guest: And I think that they fit within the spirit of what we meant by that. We weren’t very elaborative because we really hadn’t flushed it out very much. But it certainly fits within the spirit of that. Again, depending on what the Executive Committee and Faculty Senate believe, I don’t know we’re averse to fine tuning how much money would go where. In fact, I know we would do that with some proposals. But we still need a timeline, deadlines to work back from. That would be helpful to me.
Admin: Well, the last time I suggested a timeline it was too brief so I’m not going to do that again (laughter).
Guest: It just can’t be next week.
Admin: I know.
Guest: Or the end of November.
FA: Can I try to capture what I think has happened?
Admin: Sure.
FA: I think what’s happened is we’ve come to some agreement that what we brought, this concept, is having some meat put onto the skeleton, and that there is still some work to be done. And that if we don’t get started on that work, we’re going to have trouble being able to carry it off. What we had talked about in our proposal, was that there was some very specific ways in which this kind of discussion and planning would occur. And I’ve forgotten the detail, but I suspect Debra knows the specific detail. And we could leave here today knowing that we’re moving forward on developing this way to spend this money that has been made available to us.
Admin: Can I make suggestion? What if we have staff put together some of the areas that you look at as workshops and throw it back to you saying, here are some names, here are some dates, would you approve of this? That way, it will take the deadline off your back, you can add to it or whatever, and we come to an agreement, and then we move forward.
FA: Who would do that?
Admin: Suggestion? We could have the University Assessment Committee do this. At least that portion of assessment.
FA: Do we want to caucus?
Admin: I think what we are talking about has to do with setting a deadline when people would have a proposal. And how much time we would need to give them for that. And if we’re at a point where we’re saying we’re focusing for example on assessment, that’s not a very large document that somebody has to write, say either as an individual or as a group faculty from within a department or program or an element of General Education to say we want to assess the following, and this is what we’ll do. We’ll participate in a workshop, we’ll collect some data for that, and assess what we’ve collected. That could be written very quickly.
Guest: I think a couple of things. We could have the subcommittee get back together again and President Saigo volunteered that a list could be developed of possible strategic areas, assessment being one. The subcommittee could get back together with perhaps somebody from Strategic Planning, because we’re dealing with issues related to our strategic plan or areas of excellence. We could come up with a group of possible areas that we could fund in this workshop idea where faculty would attend and do some projects that would have some outcome that would help support the institution’s mission.
Admin: I’d be excited about that. You could bring in Richard Rothaus.
Guest: And we could add to the subcommittee some people that would help with that. I think you had a good idea, something that was related to kind of improving or promoting graduate education would possibly be an area. But we could come up with a list of those areas. Then maybe come to some agreement about which ones we wanted to put a call out for.
Admin: International Education.
Guest: That would be another one, yes.
FA: So do we know what we’re going to do?
FA: I think what we’re saying is that we have this subcommittee identified and the motion that passed Senate that would convene a meeting that would have parties from the administrative side provide support information and ideas.
FA: Okay.
FA: That’s what I think.
Admin: We could do it that way. Sure. When could we have this get together? Because the longer we wait, the less time we have to do things.
FA: So the subcommittee is going to try to get together next week with…?
Guest: I would suggest perhaps John from Strategic Planning, Frankie. Who would be helpful from the administrative side?
Admin: Rothaus or anybody.
Guest: But, I did use the word helpful (laughter). Is there somebody from the International Studies?
Admin: Margaret.
FA: Jim Sherohman.
FA: But the idea is this would essentially, if we have someone who would work with people on specific assessment projects, a speaker would come in, we would be doing something that would be in the spirit of what we approved by Senate. So we wouldn’t necessarily… It would be… Does that…?
FA: This is our proposal.
FA: Right.
FA: That is understood by the administration.
FA: Okay.
FA: And it has flexibility in planning. So Senate has already said what they want to do. And we’re going to do it.
FA: Okay.
Guest: Could somebody that comes to that meeting from the administrative side or before that meeting happens, could I talk with somebody about when some possible deadlines would be that you’d be comfortable with?
Admin: I’ll talk with you about it tomorrow.
FA: Oh, okay.
Admin: I don’t want to go shopping at Costco (laughter).
Guest: That’s where the meeting is going to be though.
Admin: Okay.
Guest: So we’ll probably try to get a meeting together next week.
FA: Okay. Thank you for coming.
Admin: Thank you.
New Business
1. University Wide On-Line Committee for Policies and Procedures (Admin) (11/2/06)
Admin: MnSCU have been given authority by the Higher Learning Commission to approve online programs. And one of the things that has been taking place is that they’re visiting institutions, and approving the institution to offer a series of online programs. Kind of a blanket approval if everything is in order. John Burgeson has requested that we establish a committee to look at online courses, to look at online programs, and to make a series of recommendations regarding policies and procedures that would assure an equitable and honest and open and appropriate process for developing courses and whatever other measures are necessary to ensure that these programs meet quality and accreditation requirements. So we’d like some faculty to help set up some processes, to set up some policies for how we go about establishing and approving online programs. It could be an existing committee to work with some administrators, or some other kind of group at your discretion to accomplish that purpose. And I think that MnSCU is pretty much saying we need to have some such body to do this or else it will be a lot more difficult to get that level of approval. We want more faculty to meet with us.
FA: So we need to go find out what Senate wants to do with this? Yeah. Oh, there’s a letter.
FA: Was there heightened interest on this topic connected in anyway to the auditor’s report on supplementary income?
Admin: No. This is aside from that. The Higher Learning Commission has given MnSCU the authority to recommend approval for online programs. And there are one or two colleges in the system that have gone through a review by MnSCU for that purpose. And have been approved to offer programs as they choose. We’ve been on the list to have that done, but it hasn’t happened yet. And this is one of the things that they have suggested. It doesn’t have anything to do with those compensation reports.
FA: So this would be a committee of faculty that would review… almost like a… in addition to… after the curriculum goes to the UCC, it would go to this committee? Because all curriculum goes to UCC.
Admin: The UCC would approve the curriculum. But we want to make sure that there’s a certain… The UCC doesn’t address necessarily the mode of delivery.
FA: Is that true?
FA: Yes. If I can, I chaired the TPR committee. It had many of these concerns. As we were discussing it, we passed a motion that ended up going to UCC to try to clarify. What was pedagogical? What was curriculum? UCC never got around to doing it. Sent it back to Senate—
FA: Said TPR can answer this.
FA: --Senate—TPR, Technology and Pedagogy—
FA: Yeah.
FA: --had had its swing. UCC had a swing at it. And then I think it went to Academic Affairs.
FA: Right.
FA: I don’t think it’s ever come back. And it would seem to me with that experience that perhaps we need a task force with representation from various interest groups.
FA: We’ll have to take it back.
FA: We’ll have to take it back to Senate.
FA: So it’s basically to try to decide if it’s appropriate to offer the program online or is it to decide if…?
Admin: I think it’s to establish a set of policies and procedures for what has to be done to offer a program online.
FA: Okay.
Admin: So if the department wants to offer a program online, what do they have to do to have that happen?
FA: And the Chancellor’s concern in this matter is that we have a set of policies, locally generated, to define what those benchmarks are?
Admin: And to review what we’re doing.
FA: Okay.
FA: Well, in yesteryear when we started out with the development of the courses for two-way television, there were policies and procedures that were developed and put in place. There was incentive money for faculty members to design and develop these. And then there were monies to be able to teach using that particular format at that time. That might not be an inappropriate model to move into for the world of online.
Admin: Everything is appropriate except for the money part (laughter).
FA: Do you have a copy of that? They were probably typed. Do you have a copy of those policies and procedures?
FA: Oh, that was a real sling (laughter).
FA: Probably on carbon.
FA: Right. That’s what I’m thinking.
FA: I remember some of the figures. That’s a moot point now (laughter).
FA: You said there were some policies and procedures that were set up.
Admin: And those might serve as a model.
FA: You should have them in Academic Affairs. I bet they’re in the library.
FA: I remember there’s a whole bunch of money to do this (laughter). That was the incentive.
Admin: One part of it may be the offering of the course or design of the course. But, if I recall correctly, what the HLC is interested in is the offering of programs.
Admin: Right.
Admin: And so it is degree programs that they’re more concerned about. That the program is complete and they get concerned when it becomes completely online. So they’re not so worried about an online course or something. But the focus is the review of a program that goes online.
Admin: It goes beyond that. Because there are other elements of what kind of student services are being provided.
Admin: Yes.
Admin: And those kinds of issues that come up with advisement. How do you handle that?
Admin: Yep.
Admin: Issues that aren’t, per se, related to course development.
FA: Can you get us this…? Where did you get this from? There must be a document somewhere? Could you get that to us?
FA: I don’t know if it exists anymore. Because it goes back 15 years.
FA: No. What they’re talking about.
Admin: Well, I think those are the issues that they want to have addressed.
FA: Okay. So, how do you know this?
Admin: I heard it at a seminar on online evaluation at the HLC in Chicago.
FA: Were there like some handouts with that?
Admin: Well, they aren’t on carbon paper but--
FA: We’re trying to figure how to formulate this committee—
Admin: --I will see.
FA: We’re trying to figure out what this committee needs to look like. If we know what their major concerns are it will be easier for us to do that.
Admin: Would the Online Council have that?
FA: I have no idea.
Admin: Actually, it’s the Minnesota Online that we need to satisfy at this point. Because they’ve been given the authority to make these recommendations.
FA: Someone from Minnesota Online came to an IFO Board meeting either last year or the year before. And what they said was that all that HLC does is look and see if the equipment is okay. That’s all we do.
Admin: That’s all HLC does?
FA: What?
Admin: That’s all HLC does?
FA: It was either them or Minnesota Online. That all they care about is whether or not you have the equipment capacity to do it.
Admin: I don’t think it’s HLC.
FA: So, that’s why I’m asking. On one hand, what I was told directly was all they care about—the institution is okay to offer online programs, if they have the right equipment. You’re saying something much more than that. So that’s why I want, I need to have more information.
Admin: I don’t think either HLC or Minnesota Online would adopt the position you just mentioned.
FA: I was very much surprised myself.
Admin: I will go back and see if I have anything.
FA: Well, I’ll just do some preliminary work. I know that the state of Utah has given the state university system the rights to reach out throughout the state on an online service coming through Utah State University. So I think I can find some information on that.
FA: Sure. Anything.
Admin: Anything else on that?
FA: So, you’re going to see if you can find some documentation?
Admin: Yes, I’m going to go back to my stuff from Chicago. At least find the woman who presented it.
Admin: We can do some checking on it.
Admin: I believe John Burgeson has some information of the best practices and some information to—
FA: Ask him to send it to us.
Admin: We’ll ask him. Okay.
2. Request Summary data for all peer reviewed faculty: Initial Hire Date, Rank, Date of any prior promotions and/or denials and outcome of peer review (FA) (11/2/06)
Admin: That’s your topic.
FA: I think earlier this year we talked. I know I had a conversation with you about this. About what parts of the Zmora Agreement do we want to continue? And then in our Executive Committee we were talking about Promotions and Tenures, and how people get them. And one of the things that we would like to know is of the people who were peer-reviewed, we want this information: we want to know what their initial hire date was, what rank, were there any prior promotions or denials, and then what the outcome of the peer review was. We’d like that information. We’re not interested in the names of the people. We’re just interested in that information.
Admin: I think that if we can aggregate that information so that the individuals aren’t identifiable, we should be able to do that.
FA: We are, actually as the union, we could ask you for the names, and you could give them to us.
Admin: Well, actually your members were on the committee, so you have them. They would know the names as well.
FA: But we’re not asking for the names. But we can, because we get all the information on promotions and people you turn down. You can give us that. So, we can have that information.
Admin: We’ll have to pull that together. I don’t know if we kept records specifically along those lines, but I think that we can reconstruct it.
3. Office of Clinical Experiences (Admin) (11/2/06)
Admin: I have revised job descriptions. And we’ve had some conversation about reclassifying or changing the classification of the folks working in the Office of Clinical Experiences in the COE, converting those into MSUAASF positions. This item was recommended and supported by the departments that use Office and Clinical Experiences for student teacher placements. There’s a packet of materials here with statements of departments in support of this change.
FA: Two of three departments were in support only if the supervisory language over faculty is removed from those.
Admin: It’s removed.
FA: Okay.
Admin: It does have to go to MSUAASF Meet and Confer.
FA: That’s very possible. I’ve been saying that all summer.
Admin: You’re correct.
Admin: Is that an Iowa accent. I can’t understand you (laughter).
Admin: I didn’t intend to speak.
Admin: And, yes, it is an Iowa accent.
Admin: Any questions or comments on that item?
FA: Provost, could you be sure that my department is aware of the fact that the faculty member who was hired is the director of the Office of Clinical Experiences is now fully rostered and fully assigned to my department and has no other place to be?
Admin: I’m not sure which person you’re referring?
FA: I can—
Admin: Maybe you should talk to me separately.
FA: Okay.
4. General Education Assessment Recommendations (FA) (11/2/06)
Admin: Gen Ed Assessment Recommendations?
FA: I actually have a lot of copies of this. The EC members received this in Senate, you may not want one of your own. This is some documents that were supported by the Senate. I haven’t read this for a long time. It talks about we already have a General Ed Assessment Director. And, so, this talks about the—
Admin: We have a position.
FA: --we have a position. We don’t have anybody in it. But this talks about… it’s a little bit more detail on the creation of that position. And it talks about creating General Ed Assessment Committees for the new General Ed program. And it talks about, a little bit about, how that the assessment… the hope that that assessment move on. There’s some flow charts with nice arrows and things on them.
Admin: Any circles?
FA: No circles. Just arrows and boxes. So, anyway, I’m just passing that along.
Admin: Thank you. We’ll bring it to our Senate (laughter).
5. Request for summer special projects from summer 2006 (FA) (11/2/06)
FA: When the committee that ranks the summer special projects did that, they received a list that had who, of the people who are requesting them again, got summer special projects in the summer of 2006. But they didn’t include all of the summer special projects from 2006. So they want to know who got special project money in the summer of 2006. What were those special projects? And if you can tell them what the amount was, they’d like that.
Admin: Who receives funding for summer session special projects in 2006?
FA: Right.
Admin: And the amounts that were awarded?
FA: And the project name if you can, ‘cause they always want to know that.
Admin: Do you want me to send it to you?
FA: Sure. Send it to me. Remind me what it is when you send it.
Admin: I will put some sort of heading that brings it to your attention.
FA: Yes.
Admin: Okay.
Progress Reports
1. Taskforces on Diversity (a.k.a. Motion from Teacher Development) (FA) (9/22/05)
Admin: Rex, can you report there?
Admin: Two basic reports. The university-wide task force is meeting on Wednesday, this coming Wednesday. And we’re adjusting dates to pick up as many people as possible. It’s kind of a cyclone event of picking up people as we go. There are so many people involved that some are gone, or some have conflicts. So, we’re adjusting the dates, and having meetings as we go. The Education Task Force has not met this semester.
FA: There’s some, at least two issues, in the COE that are about ready to blow.
Admin: Only two?
FA: Yeah. Two only, that I know of. I think it really is… I don’t know who’s in charge of doing that, but I think that we would like to… What would be the consequences of not having the COE task force meet? Who’s in charge of getting that to meet? I think…
Admin: Let’s put it this way, I will re-double my efforts to talk with Dean Steffens and have that organized ASAP.
FA: I think they’re really…
Admin: I understand the importance of timeliness in this matter. If the task force can be helpful in dealing with these issues, that would be wonderful.
Admin: We’re working on those issues.
Admin: Those issues are being worked on.
FA: Do you know of more than two?
Admin: No. Isn’t two enough?
Admin: I think that one of the issues there, and folks from the college can probably confirm or disconfirm this, my--
Admin: Disconfirm?
FA: Disconfirm?
FA: Is that word?
Admin: What? Disconfirm.
FA: That’s a good word.
Admin: Is that a word?
Admin: Has there been a new call for membership on this task force? Is there a problem in the college to participate? I’m asking of your experience.
FA: I have not seen a call for new membership. I have had people talk to me on occasion that are concerned that this has dropped off the radar screen, and say the problem still is present. The need for the work of the task force still exists.
Admin: Well, there is no question of that.
Admin: There’s no question about that.
Admin: I will take care of the organizational issues with the dean, and something will be happening. When’s our next meeting?
FA: Two weeks.
Admin: Two weeks? I’ll have a much more favorable report.
FA: I think the consequences of not getting that going may be worse than the consequences of letting it slide and not facing those issues.
Admin: You might put Bob in front of you.
FA: What?
Admin: I believe we have the facilitators selected for those meetings, and that’s all been settled (laughter).
Admin: You don’t study hard (laughter).
Admin: Dr. Inkster probably is disappointed that he’s not one (laughter).
2. Upper Division Writing Requirement Status Report (FA) (03/02/06)
Admin: Do you want to comment on that? Are the faculty meeting on that?
FA: We have the minutes.
Admin: The last item I received this week was a draft of a set of rubrics for evaluating the writing requirement, the portion of approving them.
Admin: Okay.
FA: One of the things that I noticed in the minutes is that they are developing the rubrics and I would encourage you to share those with the departments in the hope that the departments are doing something… they spend all this time designing courses and then discovering that they’re going to have trouble actually with the rubrics.
Admin: Well, the way the committee is organized we have a representative from each of the colleges. Those college representatives will in turn report to their respective departments.
FA: Okay.
Admin: That’s my understanding.
FA: You might have a report of it done then.
FA: What does the word rubric mean?
Admin: Category.
FA: It’s a cube as a category (laughter).
FA: Yeah, so explain to us what a rubric is. I’ve been using that word but I’m not sure I really know.
FA: It’s not criteria, can I conclude it’s not criteria?
Admin: It’s sort of like a classification or category or label by which we classify what we’re going to evaluate to what kinds of things we’re going to evaluate in this requirement.
FA: The criteria would be under the rubric like an umbrella.
Admin: So, for example, they have what looks like five rubrics. The criterion is clearly identified and addressed completely and thoroughly. That’s a rubric. Another one is criteria are appraised in terms of learning outcomes. There are four more of those. Then they have three evaluative statements. Something about standards are unacceptable, standards need work, standards are met.
FA: So this is a rubric for evaluating the actual course?
Admin: Right. Or the way the Upper Division students will be evaluated.
FA: Right. What they’re evaluating is a meta-evaluation. Because it’s an evaluation of an evaluation.
Admin: That’s an evaluation of student performance in writing and writing courses?
FA: No. No.
Admin: This is of the criteria used to evaluate.
FA: Right. So it’s a meta-evaluation.
Admin: It’s a meta-evaluation.
FA: Okay.
Admin: We’re getting into your field now, Andy (laughter).
Admin: Next item.
3. Academic Calendar (Admin) (09/07/06)
Admin: The second meeting of the Academic Calendar Task Force was Tuesday, October 31st. And we began looking at various options for an academic calendar starting in 2008-2009. The next meeting will be on November 14th, tentatively scheduled for November 14th. And we’ll continue our work.
4. Global Initiative (Admin) (05/04/06) and Task force for International Programs (Admin) (09/07/06)
Admin: I’m not sure how much there is to report on that. I think there is a meeting that will take place early next week with the Committee on International Studies and we can report on the outcome of that afterwards.
FA: There is also an International Student Services Committee. I think the person who chairs that committee asked me to ask the group who’s doing this work that if they came upon any issues that concerned the International students that are actually on campus, that that committee be consulted. So I sent them a copy of the charge that you sent us, you know, your questions? And they said at this point they didn’t see where they would need to have any input.
Admin: What is the status of this committee?
FA: It’s the International Student Services Committee. And it meets with faculty, at least one International student, maybe more that, I think that the director of CIS meets with them, and some of the staff people work with them as well. I think somebody from ESL maybe meets with them. They try to help International students on campus address their concerns. They were formed out of some difficulty we had probably, maybe, ten years ago now where the International students were very dissatisfied with the services they were receiving on this campus. And there was no place that they could go to complain. So this committee was created. They said they wanted to be involved. I sent a copy of the charge and they said they don’t see anything right now.
Admin: Who is the chair of it?
FA: We have some minutes from them.
Admin: Is that an official Senate committee?
FA: No. It’s a Meet and Confer committee.
FA: It’s not an FA standing committee.
FA: It’s not an FA standing committee. It’s a Meet and Confer committee, so it’s a committee that was created at Meet and Confer—
Admin: Ten years ago.
FA: --Yeah. Quite awhile ago. I don’t remember exactly. I remember the events that led up to it.
Admin: It’s good to know.
FA: Margaret goes to it.
Admin: I know there were some meetings last spring where some issues came up with regard to some matters about International students and their culture sharing scholarship. And some students were there and some faculty were there. But I didn’t know it was an official committee, and I didn’t know that there had been an official committee.
FA: This is Jim Robinson, Corie Beckermann, Julie Condon, Melanie Guentzel, Monica Segura—
Admin: Monica’s a student.
FA: --I know. Jennifer “Kate” Peterson, Sue Westmark, Wanjiru Mogo, Jermaine Ogaia, Larry Christenson, Ray Tsai, Mahin Sadrai, Dan Macari, Linda Butenhoff. And then it has as ex officio CIS members Sarah Speir, David DiMaria, and Margaret Vos.
Admin: All from CIS.
FA: And they discuss things that have to do with International students. Make sure that they have what they need.
Admin: Right.
Admin: Thank you.
Admin: That is an issue we need to spend more time on. I think there are some services for those students that we need to improve on.
FA: In my department we have a lot of International students who register for our classes. I, for example, as a French instructor, have a lot of interaction with International students from Africa. And I have proportionately speaking, a pretty good number of them in my French classes. Where, obviously, they’re trying to get an easy grade (laughter). That’s their interest and they’re advised to do that by the Center for International Studies. And I appreciate that, especially those who are on campus for the first year, they need a course where the demands are not so stringent. However, it does pose a very special pedagogical problem. Because, you can well imagine, that the other students in the class who don’t have the advantage of having grown up with the language are put at a certain disadvantage, and could easily become resentful. And what could turn into a win-win situation, could easily turn into a lose-lose situation. It occurred to me recently, that I was putting myself at risk, in terms of 1.B.1, by mentioning in my syllabus how I expected these students to contribute to the class. The special contribution I intended them to make. And so I don’t need to go into the details of that. But there are in select disciplines there are certain and very serious and somewhat complex pedagogical and statutory questions, I guess you could say, that we need to be conscious of and address them so that when those students come in they know this is what will be expected of you, this will not be expected of you. In this case you’re being treated fairly. This other case you need to speak to somebody. And we’re pursuing that in my department. We’re going to have Nancy come in and talk to us a little. And then we’ll talk to her too. Because we don’t care to be exposed.
Admin: Sure.
FA: To have exposure, I mean (laughter).
Admin: Take your pick, Bill (laughter).
FA: Why don’t you try rubric (laughter)?
FA: I deserved it (laughter).
Admin: Okay.
5. IPESL Funds (Admin) (09/07/06)
FA: We’re just wondering what you sent down to MnSCU. Since it was due, what, yesterday?
Admin: It was due Friday.
FA: Friday? Okay.
Admin: We sent something in on Friday. We’re waiting to hear from them. Most of the proposals and most of the recommendations that came from the committee that reviewed them were incorporated into what we sent to MnSCU. There were three variations from that. Two proposals, I think, that were recommended that were not included. And one proposal that was not recommended that was included. And primary reasons for those differences have to do with a determination that some of the proposals didn’t meet the criteria. And wouldn’t have been accepted by MnSCU.
FA: So when is MnSCU going to tell us?
Admin: Well, I got a response that they received things. And I’ll be glad to announce the programs as soon as I hear that they’re approved by MnSCU for funding.
FA: We just got a letter—I don’t know—did you get this? I think I sent it out so you probably did.
Admin: Oh, yes, I got this.
FA: The first report is due on January 15th. So you might point out to them that, you know, it’d be nice if we knew before the end of the semester.
Admin: Right. We should hear pretty soon. I mean, the email that I received today was fairly positive. But it didn’t specify particularly which, you know… If they were accepting all of them, all of the proposals we submitted, some institutions did not submit the same large number of proposals that we did. Some of them may have submitted one or two proposals. We submitted twelve.
Admin: Different approaches.
FA: I have conversations with faculty who are telling me that they are being told indirectly by deans that if their proposals were not approved, they need not be concerned because they can resubmit it to ______--
Admin: Who?
FA: --Son of IPESL —
Admin: Son of IPESL?
FA: --Right. Next year. So, can I take by your expression of puzzlement that you’ve had no communications whatsoever about IPESL?
Admin: Son of IPESL?
FA: Right.
Admin: Not any more than I’ve had any conversations with them about son of Sam.
FA: Let me make our concern really explicit. We have a complete transcript, in compliance with Minnesota’s open meeting law, of the Board of Trustees discussions with MnSCU’s employee relations folks, AKA Chris Dale, about the negotiations the last time we sought approval of the contract. And we have a right to get those, which we did. And IPESL, not under that name, but clearly that program is mentioned as “the camel’s nose under the tent” as part of a long-term program to apportion off the bulk of available funding for salaries away from the salary schedule and towards merit and performance pay increases. I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but we have.
Admin: I appreciate your having sent it out on announce, and I read it there.
FA: Okay. So, you know, this captured our attention right away. And we’re monitoring that.
Admin: Yeah. I can’t respond to that. I know what I was asked to do with regard to this round of funding. And we tried to get it out as quickly as we could and to make it as fair as possible. And to evaluate the proposals to the best of our ability and to submit them. And that’s what we did. I don’t know what will happen with the next round with regard to that or performance pay, if anything.
FA: But they haven’t told you that there’s going to be another round with this kind of funding?
Admin: I have not been told that. There has been a request for some funding at the Office of the Chancellor requesting of the Board for the purpose of increasing recruitment and retention of students of color in colleges throughout the state. We’re working on it. That’s a separate process. We’re working on that separately. And it has to do with the request from the Office of the Chancellor, wanting the trustees to include this in their request to the legislature. I don’t know yet if that will be incorporated into that request or not. That’s the only other thing I know.
FA: Okay. Thank you.
6. Pandemic Planning (Admin) (09/07/06)
Admin: Anything on Pandemic Planning?
FA: Yeah. Sorry, three in a row. In your discussions with the Chancellor’s Office, have you or they raised questions concerning the implementation or the suspension of any aspect of the contract, including the payment of salaries in the event of a pandemic crisis?
Admin: They talked about a couple of things. One, they talked about expecting… it seems to beg the question of continuing pay because it’s about the issue that if you’re not providing the services that you’re appropriated the funds for from the legislature, then you shouldn’t be spending the state’s money, if that’s not what you’re doing. So that was one thing they talked about and suspected that they would need some kind of relief or executive order from the governor, which he seems to have the power to allow ongoing operations or people to be paid when we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do, which is operate a university as a place of learning. So that was one thing that came up with respect to compensation. They’ve also talked about the issues of continuing payroll operations, that those are important things to do even in the face of closure and substantial absence. So they’ve spoken about that. It wasn’t clear if that was regarding any particular group of employees or not, but just in general. And they are giving, it looks like, further consideration to the discussions of suspension of a term and what that would mean. They are talking about suspending, apparently in an emergency, the governor has the right to suspend provisions of collective bargaining agreements in terms of assignment of people to do certain positions absent, bidding, and things like that, that primarily is an issue around classified staff. But those are issues that have come up. And most recently, as you know, and Annette spoke to me about it, that the scenarios were predicated in most cases on continuing instruction, and they also included provision for a level of absence that would make one think that continuing instruction would be very difficult. And then we offered that we would do more instruction online or mitigate that. There was some speculation that that might not work either. I think these are reasonable assumptions. So we were required to fill out a survey as to what were critical operations that we would have to continue, that went through the committee. One of those things we put in since our plan said we were going to try continue instruction in a couple of these cases was instruction. And I got a letter back, or an email back this week from Laura King saying, well, you won’t be able to continue instruction because the people will be gone, and the Internet services we have are not robust enough to expand that far. So you have to take those off the list of things that you’re going to be continuing to operate. So I said, sure. Took them off the list. So, the list is things like having food service for people who would still be in residence, things we have to do.
FA: Those were taken off the list?
Admin: The instruction was taken off. I’m giving examples of other things on the list, critical, that we can’t really suspend. Yeah. But, the instruction was taken off the list.
Admin: At request of—
Admin: At the request of the Office of the Chancellor. So I don’t have a definitive answer on it.
FA: I don’t know if there is a safe haven where people could be secure from catching that. It occurred to me that the concentration of the population is a strategy. But anyway I can see if there was some reason to think that people were safer here than some place else.
Admin: We have agreements for housing, and particularly with International students, the ability in something like this to necessarily send everybody away from campus is perhaps unlikely. So we need to plan that people will continue to live here.
FA: In one of the earlier reports that was put out for pandemic planning, it had different scenarios listed.
Admin: Yes.
FA: Would instruction be taken off in the worst case, is that what you’re saying? Instruction would remain like in scenario one when there’s sort of sickness spreading, but then, are they saying that instruction will be removed there in scenario five, which was like the worst one?
Admin: In scenario five I don’t think there was instruction.
FA: Right.
FA: That said break down of law and order.
Admin: Exactly.
FA: I’m still going to meet my class, I don’t know about you.
FA: Did they sort of specify when instruction would end?
Admin: No. The scenarios were kind of odd, I thought. One was a dead bird on campus. And we speculate that we would continue to be open unless everybody left. And so, I don’t know what people would do.
FA: So they’re saying instruction ends if the university is closed by executive order?
Admin: Well, certainly in that case, I believe so. And there’s also informally I’ve talked about the fact