Final Approved March 7, 2007
Meet and Confer
February 15, 2007
Admin: Roy Saigo, Michael Spitzer, Kristi Tornquist, Larry Chambers, Steve Ludwig, Mark Nook, Wanda Overland, Rex Veeder, Sharon Cogdill, Nancy Jessee
Faculty: Annette Schoenberger, JoAnn Gasparino, Fred Hill, Andrew Larkin, Bob Inkster, Jayantha Herath, John Palmer, Jason Lindsey, Judy Kilborn, Polly Chappell – Note taker
Approval of Minutes
Minutes from February 1, 2007—approved.
Unfinished Business
1. Board of Trustee’s Award for Teaching Excellence (Admin) (12/7/06)
FA: Senate declined to act on the appointments to the review committee, mainly because so few volunteered.
Admin: Any comments? Thank you.
2. Request for report on Initiative Budget Spending (FA) (12/7/06)
Admin: I have a copy of most of that information you requested from most of the constituencies. There are one or two that I still need to provide. I do want to say, that while I think that some of you may have had the perception that this would be a very easy task to accumulate this information, that in fact is not the case. Once these funds were allocated out, they were allocated to departments and those funds get commingled with departmental funds. So nobody in Administrative Affairs would have had the capacity to go through that and pull out just those items that were attributable to the one-time funds. What I’ve given to you, if you look at LR&TS as a college so there are six colleges, one didn’t have any specific one-time funds; so of the other five, I think there are two I haven’t given you yet. The others are there. The Undergraduate Studies material is there. The Administrative Affairs material is there. ______ material is there. I think the Student Life and Development is there, but I’m not sure about that. If it’s not, I’ll get it to you. So, pretty much almost all of the items are addressed in the materials I gave you. When I get the other materials from the two colleges that I don’t have it from quite yet, I will provide that to you.
FA: I’m not sure we ever thought this would be an easy process.
Admin: Well, some people said so in conversation with me.
FA: Well, okay. I don’t know if that was said in front of this body, but I do think it’s important to figure out a process for getting that information to float back up so that we can track expenses.
Admin: We can track expenses. These were specific one-time expenses for the specific initiatives.
Admin: I think you can do that in the case of one-time funds that are significant. There might be some form that we can attach with those as a little report to follow up at the end with what you do with it and what it is going to cost to do that. This went back over three fiscal years and we didn’t start out that way. And had we said that upfront I think we could have asked the people that distributed the funds to keep track. It was harder to go back after the fact. Although we didn’t find… people do what they say they are going to do with the funds. Anyway, I think that’s something we can consider in the future when we distribute the funds for an initiative or one-time basis, much like the capital budget we do the same thing. I think that would be in the future. But it was difficult after the fact.
Admin: And if you have any questions about what I’ve given to you, I will be glad to respond to those questions.
FA: If I can follow up, I think that part of this process that we are just nearing completing is helpful as the Budget Advisory Group goes forward. The ability to report to the campus community in a timely way how resources were or were not expended is part of those underlying principals. You are absolutely right; it’s harder to do forensic accounting than it is to do prospective accounting that says we need to do this before this.
FA: But it seems like all we ever do is forensic accounting. And we ought to be doing something a little more proactive than that. That’s one of the issues that we’ve always had. We never know until it’s all done. And so, we’re doing this forensic stuff.
Admin: I think there are kind of three thoughts. One is that accounting is after the fact. That’s what accounting does is look at what was done. Budgeting is ahead of the fact; it’s a plan of what you’re going to do. The issues we have occasionally with MnSCU I think we can agree that oftentimes we get requests or requirements of MnSCU that don’t fit with our preference of discussion. Who knows when we’ll get tuition set or whatever it is and it won’t be conveniently in the middle of the term so we can come back and talk about it. So I think we can agree on that.
FA: No, we can’t. We don’t. That’s our whole point. We’re always doing forensic accounting. We’re never involved in the budget. And we don’t think it’s just MnSCU’s fault.
FA: I think we get a better handle on where we are if we have this is what we are planning to do, this is where we are now, this is what we did; not just this is what we did. So we can project that this is going to cost us $50,000 but in fact it may be over that or may be under that. What we’re asking for is that we have a regular cycle of saying okay we allocated this; this is what it came out to be actually, this is where we’re going now. So this is in the spirit of trying to move forward into a budget where we can always see where we are.
Admin: Sorry to be late. I had an emergency call from the Chair of Search Committee for the President of St. Cloud State.
FA: You still are retiring?
Admin: I am. They wanted a list of community leaders. Sorry.
3. Continuation of the Zmora agreement (FA) (1/18/07)
FA: At the February 6th Senate meeting a motion was passed to require that members of the committee be tenured, full professors. But we didn’t get any agreement on a task force.
Admin: We’ll have something to present to you at the next Meet and Confer.
4. Article 22 and Professional Development Document from IFO (FA) (2/1/07)
FA: We simply wanted to know if the information that we had provided you has been shared with the deans and other supervisors of faculty?
Admin: We haven’t fully discussed that yet.
FA: Any plans to?
Admin: We’ll look it over together. We had a very busy agenda at our last meeting.
FA: When do we do Article 25?
Admin: Article 25 is now. But basically in the fall and spring.
New Business
1. Search Committees for Positions in Student Life and Development (Admin) (2/1/07). This turned into Director of GLBT and Director of Counseling Center.
Admin: We had asked for representation for a Search Committee for the Director of GLBT.
FA: Right.
Admin: Annette said it would be good to go forward at this time with the Director of Counseling.
FA: No, I didn’t say that, actually.
Admin: Okay. You said it would be a long time, it takes a while.
FA: You had said to me in conversation that that was probably going to happen but you weren’t sure.
Admin: I wasn’t sure at the time to bring that request forward.
FA: Right.
Admin: But because it seemed like it was going to be… since I was sending you an email of two or three sentences about GLBT, it would be good then to also include the Director of Counseling.
FA: So, we are going to do the Director of Counseling?
Admin: Oh, absolutely.
FA: Because the other thing was that I thought I had some communication from somebody that you were going to wait a year to do that.
Admin: No. No, there has never been a plan to do that.
FA: Okay. So it’s okay that I sent that out?
Admin: Absolutely. Thank you very much. I’m very pleased. That’s super.
2. Honors Program Director Position (FA) (2/15/07)
FA: We are waiting for some recommendations from the Honors Advisory Committee, but we have seen concerns in the minutes of both the Honors Advisory Committee and the DGS Advisory Committee. Concerns about space issues in Centennial Hall. Concerns that we possibly won’t be able to fulfill the promise of that building to provide student services because things are just too tight. And so we just wanted to at least mention that at this point. We’re assuming that the recommendations will have something to do with space issues.
Admin: I’ve had a discussion with David about those space issues and it would be really helpful to have those clarified. We’re looking at about a threefold or fourfold increase in space of what Honors has had in the new building. And they are going from a year ago of having 70 square feet of space to having two offices. One is 130 square feet and the other 140 square feet and two cubicles and a dedicated secretary that’s located just outside his door. Half time his and half time secretary for the Director of the FYE program. We have committed a great deal of resources to that program just this year with the understanding that there would be an increase in the size of that program before additional resources were committed. He has come back to us again and asked for more resources knowing that we have given the Honors program a huge increase in floor space in what will be the most visible office on the second floor of Centennial. It’s on the main path from Atwood to what would be the Brown Hall connection. There isn’t a better space on campus and there isn’t an office with more square feet per person than Honors has.
FA: The information, and it’s not just from Honors, it’s a concern that the original vision for that building was that it would be a service center for students. That a student could go to that building and essentially have all of their student services needs met. In addition to Honors, people have expressed concern that the spaces that were originally planned are shrinking.
Admin: I don’t think it’s quite accurate to say all of the student services because there are student services that are located in several locations. But it was our intent to try to keep all academic support services in that facility, which is a little bit different focus. One of the things that happens is that as we plan spaces and then you increase the staff of certain units the space that you originally thought would be more than adequate shrinks.
Admin: In the beginning for all the units that were in there, on the second floor in particular, provided all substantial more space as in the example of Honors. We had the anticipation of two additional staff positions associated with the department. And so, that’s what we anticipated. The Associate Dean of the Academic Learning Center, Advising Center, the Career Services, they are provided space according to their requests at that time. It certainly didn’t shrink.
FA: The impression that I have in talking to people is that the original plan does not exclude Administrative personnel. I could be wrong.
Admin: Over the course of the planning we created the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. So early on in the planning the Dean of Undergraduate Studies did not exist. And so we did consider that in the planning and added something to the building. At one time, we had talked about the possibility of having English in that building and we took them out. During the process there’s been a lot of massaging and changes to meet our needs the best we can. At some point we build a building, and then you have to work with the building; this is what we did. We looked at the plans and proposals in the various units and accommodated them.
FA: Our obligation is to pass information that we hear that is of concern to those who are delivering service at the grassroots.
FA: We’re expecting recommendations to come forward that are more specific and provide more information. So, maybe next time.
FA: I think the concern is that you have FYE, DGS, and Honors Program, and faculty and staff have direct contact with students. And to shrink their space to provide for a dean we think it doesn’t make any sense to us even though they are getting more than they have. If you’re doubling the number of Honors and DGS students, are you doubling the amount of space? We’re not sure we understand the logic behind this. My dean isn’t in the building I’m in. The Dean doesn’t need to be in the building I’m in because I’m dealing with students in that building. The dean is not teaching classes or advising students. How do we justify taking away space that would be used by students and faculty while we’re increasing the size of the programs in order to put someone else in there? I think that really is the crux of the issue. DGS reports to me that the DGS Advisory Committee has had no contact on what’s going on in the DGS program this year. They had a few meetings early in the year. But the person who apparently was in charge of DGS decided they didn’t have to come and talk to them. So they have no information. The students aren’t getting anything more than an ordinary student would get. This is what they tell me. These kids have access to nothing more than what the ordinary student would get. So what is the DGS program? We used to have a half-time director who was a faculty member who made sure that there were other faculty who counseled those students. And now we’re going back to hiring a faculty member to be the DGS Director, but in the mean time those students really aren’t getting anything extra, and it’s been a year now. What’s going on?
Admin: Not all of that is true. These students do have access to services beyond what the average student does---
FA: The DGS Advisory Committee should know what those are.
Admin: Excuse me.
Admin: Let him respond.
Admin: Let’s talk about the director first. DGS Director was a MSUAASF position. And we wanted to make a change and referred that to a faculty member. It’s not an easy proposition. We have gotten it done. We had to wait for that person to retire before we could even submit the position description. We are in progress for the director of DGS position. I expect to have that search completed by the end of the semester. I have met a couple times with the DGS Advisory Committee letting them know what our plans are and how things are developing. The committee has not asked me for specific information. That’s fine. If they need something I have told them I am the person to ask. They know my door is open. I haven’t been asked for any of that. We currently don’t have a director. Technically we had a director through the 4th of January. Functionally we had a director through the end of last spring. We are making some changes. It will take a little while to get that accomplished. We’ve made a couple of changes that have improved the experience for DGS students. In the past, meaning in the last 10 years, students in the DGS program were simply asked to take one class, College 150. That class is all about the resources that are available on campus. This year at the recommendation of the DGS Advisory Committee, those students were asked to take not only that class but also Reading 110. And every one of those students had to take Reading 110, which is a basic study strategies and skills course. It’s a course these students really need. Most of them do have inefficiencies in how they approach their classes. We have also worked a little bit more closely with College 150 and had them working more closely with the students than they have in the past. We have, for the first time in over six years, more than one faculty member teaching College 150. Five of the fifteen instructors are IFO members, not MSUAASF members. So there are some real significant, functional changes that are occurring. Are we where I’d like to be? Where the Advisory Committee would like to be? No. Will we be in a year or two? We’re on the path to get there. We got the search going. It’s going to be a faculty position. It comes as a half-time position with 30 extra duty days in the summer, which I’m hoping will be able to start this summer. The search committee met for the first time today, so the announcement hasn’t gone out. I could have posted the announcement before the committee met, but I wanted the committee to help write that position. So, until that’s done, we can’t make an announcement about the search. So things are moving.
FA: I appreciate this update. But I am very concerned that DGS Advisory Committee members report that they don’t know these things. I think it particularly troubling when the size of the program is going up. So maybe this is something we should come back to and we should put on a later agenda.
FA: No one was meeting with them this fall. You might have met twice, but they meet more than that.
Admin: And I’m troubled none of them have contacted me about the issues.
FA: They report that they did.
Admin: That’s not true. They haven’t come to me and said I need this information.
FA: They invited you to come to their meetings and you refused to do that.
Admin: I’ve been to all the meetings that they told me they were having. Every meeting they have scheduled, that I knew about, I was there. The ones I didn’t know about I can’t comment on. But anything I had an invite to and knew of the meeting date I went.
Admin: We can come back to this.
FA: Yes.
Admin: For some clarification and some better communication between Mark and the committee. Is there a chair of that committee?
FA: Adam Klepetar is the chair of that committee.
Admin: Dan Macari was serving as kind of an assistant or co-chair, but then with his extended illness there were some changes.
Admin: We’ll come back to this.
3. Center for Global Studies (Admin) (2/15/17)
Admin: We’re proposing a Center for Global Studies. This is an initiative that comes from faculty. Linda Butenhoff has proposed it. She’s been working with the International Relations Advisory Committee. There are four area studies committees: Latin American Studies, Soviet Studies, African Studies, and East Asian Studies. The advisory committees for those groups have been part of this process. Part of the complexity is that there has been so much turn over in the dean’s office. I made Linda Butenhoff the commitment that we would get this thing at least in place this year. So, it’s here.
FA: In this document it says see attached budget. It also refers to things like the catalog descriptions. It seems that there are a bunch of things that are missing.
Admin: The committee was working with Andy. What did we decide? Did we decide to do the curriculum proposals after the Center came to Meet and Confer?
FA: The curriculum proposals are in the process.
Admin: At the college level now, isn’t that right? Because I’ve got copies of them.
FA: I think there is a bulletin description, there’s a budget. I think there are letters and things from departments that talk about whether or not they support this. When this goes to Senate, they’re going to want a budget. I’m going to take it to Senate on Tuesday. They are going to want to look at a budget. They’re going to want to look at the documents that are referred to in here.
Admin: Okay. Honestly, I was focused on the Center Proposal. Linda was thinking of it as kind of a unit. But, and she didn’t’ see that language anymore and neither did I as we went through the iterations so we all conspired to get here without that.
FA: We can have that before Tuesday.
FA: If I don’t have all the documents to send that delays it.
Admin: So the budget is essential.
FA: Anybody who was here when we discussed Higher Ed or the Center for Regulatory Affairs…
Admin: The committee has been working on the whole thing kind of all at once.
FA: I think there is a budget that Linda has. I actually have a copy.
Admin: Yes. And there are all the curricular materials and proposals. I wonder how much I need to get to you.
FA: There’s a budget. She gave me a copy of some documents and I think this is different. But in that there was budget and there was a bulletin description and some letters from different departments.
Admin: I think the four area studies.
FA: This has changed some.
Admin: This has.
FA: But I have those other ones. So if you can find out if there’s been a change I need copies of the new documents. Otherwise I can use the ones I already have.
FA: The new program is in the bulletin as IR. So we can reproduce that and add it on. The only differences are those two courses that are going through the curriculum process.
FA: I think you should ask Linda. She had sent me some things earlier. And so if those things stay the same I can reproduce those.
Admin: You’ll hear from me by tomorrow.
FA: One concern that’s been expressed is have all the departments that are involved in this been consulted? I know those area studies have because I saw those emails.
Admin: They’re not actually departments.
FA: Right.
Admin: So, we discussed it in Dean’s Council in COSS for three weeks.
FA: Okay.
Admin: Yesterday we achieved what I believe to be consensus. Honestly, Linda didn’t experience it as consensus. She felt there still were people not in complete support. But my perspective was the chairs were all like, “Sure, let’s go.”
FA: You may never get complete consensus.
Admin: That’s as good as it gets. There were questions about this ECON 195 course, really specific discussions. But all of it presupposing this is a reasonable thing to do and let’s go ahead and it’s a natural evolution and it’s time. And Foreign Languages is the other department that I see kind of majorly affected by this. And they are aware of this, too.
FA: So, do you have any documentation? That’s useful. If I can get that all together I’ll send it off. We’ll try to get some responses. It’ll probably be about a month.
Admin: As I see it the COSS chairs wouldn’t vote or something. I see that as an advisory group.
FA: Right.
Admin: Okay and I’ll attest to what I thought was consensus. There was really an intelligent discussion about how we’re going to manage this. It was very thoughtful, informed discussion.
FA: Okay. This is on the Senate agenda for Tuesday.
4. Lighting on Campus (FA) (2/15/07)
FA: We have a motion from Senate. I do want to emphasize a few elements of this. What this is recommending is that all outdoor campus path lighting fixtures be replaced with energy efficient downward reflecting lamps as campus renovations continue. And this might not seem to be an academic proposal, but actually it is. The globes around Wick for example really interfere with Astronomy nights. And in fact the lighting on campus interferes with Astronomy nights. So, anything we can do to help with that makes a contribution to academic programs. The other thing is that if we can save money, and there’s evidence that we could save up to 50% of each lamp’s energy use, it would soon pay for the cost of renovation.
FA: There are also lights that angle down. Many of them do a better job of lighting sidewalks than those globe lamps do. I think all those globe lamps do is interfere with the telescopes.
FA: They are pretty.
FA: I don’t even think they are pretty. We could actually get better safety on campus, maybe.
FA: St. Cloud in general has a severe problem with waste of light. And we could contribute to changing that around.
Admin: I appreciated getting this last week. I got an email so I could look it over. I agree the globe lamps by Wick are particularly egregious. They aren’t all being replaced as part of the project. Some of them are being removed. I spoke to Jim Williams today. He’s going to look at options of replacing those and look at the light characteristics. There is a lamp that we use out here on the path, on the west side of Atwood that is one we tried. We do use energy efficient fixtures now. I also asked Jim to get an engineer to look at the lighting level. Because the lighting that falls on the surface, that illuminates the surface, when the down lights are effective they illuminate the surface. When we’ve gone on our night walks every two years or so in the spring we’re continually reminded that the other thing people are looking for is to see visually beyond the path to see what’s going on in the adjacent areas. So I’ve asked Jim to get an engineer to do a review so that we can look at what to do to reduce up-lighting. But also look that we don’t compromise our safety on campus. One of the safety issues is lighting the path. But the other safety issue is on the vertical surfaces that you illuminate those, which you can see off the path. I also asked him to take a look at something, this may be a really bad idea, but the possibility of an interim solution perhaps of less costly shades on the lamps that would be horizontal on the top to cut down on, at a lower cost than replacement, but decrease the up-lighting pretty much immediately. Considering that we’re pretty energy efficient now with the type of lighting we use in terms of energy source, I’m not as optimistic that the change would pay for itself as quickly. I think that might get us there sooner. I’ve also asked to review the lighting that is included in the Wick addition, which I think is okay. I appreciate getting this so I could review it. It raises good points. I’ve put some things in motion.
Admin: When we take that walk every two years, usually by this time of year it’s dark and snowy and windy, and it seems we get more recommendations from five different groups that walk around different sectors of the campus of more light. And especially on those trails on the south side of campus, they concern me greatly.
Admin: We’ve never done a walk in the fall. We’ve always done it in winter when there is snow on the ground because it’s convenient because it’s darker. We talked about doing one in the fall when the ground is brown so you don’t get all the reflections, but also it’s a different perspective. We’d like to do it when there are leaves in trees. So we plan to do one next fall. It will be announced on campus. I know Judy is interested. In any case we’re moving forward.
Admin: It’s pretty thorough in Iowa, good news—bad news, we pulled out all the shrubs along the sidewalks.
FA: I think you ought to do that here.
Admin: Then they planted them again which is expensive. We are always looking at this because of the safety factor.
FA: I don’t think anyone is saying to do less lighting. I think the issue is one of light pollution. If we’re going to be spending money we should be doing it to reduce light pollution. I teach night classes, I have to walk around in the dark and it’s hard to see. I don’t want there to not be any light. But when I look up and it’s this huge bare light bulb and it’s lighting me and the sky, then I think why are we doing that? What kind of bulbs are you using that are so energy efficient? How does that work?
Admin: We mostly, if I’m recalling right, use high pressure sodium lamps. They have good color, too. The spectrum of the lamp is supposed to be a little better than some of the former lamps that are sort of bluish.
FA: There are issues too about wild life.
Admin: That was in the paper.
FA: Thank you for considering that. We appreciate it.
Admin: Thank you. I’ll talk to Judy myself.
5. New Department of Academic Support (FA) (2/15/17)
Admin: We’re going to create a department of Academic Support within Undergraduate Studies. The department will consist of those faculty members who are currently part of the Academic Learning Center. Their names aren’t here. But it would include Gretchen Starks-Martins, Victoria Williams, Kari Kenner, Geoffrey Tabakin, and a fifth person who would be a member of the Academic Support Department. The department will function completely as a department as defined in Article 20 of the Master Agreement. There will be a department chair elected. They’ll have the full duties of a department chair, including a reassigned teaching load so that they won’t exceed nine credits in semester or 16 for the year. The chair will also be offered 196-day duty day contract like other chairs. The summer contract will also include four credits during one of the summer sessions.
FA: Do these people know?
Admin: Yes.
FA: Any other questions?
FA: Is there an anticipation of additional new hires?
Admin: Not at the moment. This fixed term position we believe will be probationary in a year. We’re going to see how it works out. It depends on the level of need this year, that’s why it is fixed term. There isn’t any new hires in the pipeline at the moment.
FA: Be aware of the prior consideration. It’s in the contract. For fixed term people, there’s an LOU on that. You can get it either on our website or the IFO website. So if you’re hiring a person in a fixed term position then you’re planning on converting that position to a permanent position. You need to be aware of what that says and what it means. So your thinking this is going to be a five person department?
Admin: At the moment.
FA: You’re not planning on making it any bigger?
Admin: There haven’t been plans to make it any bigger at the moment. On campus there’s been discussions about the Math skills center. That is on the table at the moment. There’s lots of issues there that have to be worked out, and that’s not something that is going to happen this year. Discussions are still happening within that department about that. Not the time to do it. Another is increasing: Reading 191. It will be a developmental course. So it’s not a Gen Ed course. They came to me and asked me to do that.
FA: What’s the course and rubric that’s associated with this department?
Admin: Reading 110 and Reading 120. RDNG.
FA: Those are current, existing. One of the concerns we have is creating another English department or another Math department with people who now aren’t satisfied with teaching these classes. So now they start proposing classes that are already being taught elsewhere. So the university is supporting two Math departments.
Admin: I have a huge concern about that myself. A case in point, there’s a department that has approached me about potential for hiring a person within Undergraduate Studies with having a course that is occasionally taught, hasn’t been taught for a long time until this past year, they would like to have it taught by Undergraduate Studies because it is primarily a developmental course. It could fit rather well that way. It’s one of the things being kicked around.
FA: You had mentioned earlier in the context of DGS the hope to have someone on in the summer. You identified that there will be a department chair election and you expect that the person elected would have a 196-day contract. When do you hope to have the election for chair for the newly created department?
Admin: It will happen this spring.
Admin: The newly created department takes effect as of March 1. So elections could occur at any point thereafter.
Admin: We have a person now who is the director of the center who has a light teaching load and who always has a summer contract. The department elected this person to be director, but we will have a chair as well.
FA: That would be at the beginning of a three-year term?
Admin: Yes.
FA: Thank you.
FA: One of the reasons that was stated publicly by the U for getting rid of the General College was that the students felt stigmatized that the faculty who were in there felt that they were second class. That’s the other concern we have. This institution has always said all the students get the same. We don’t have special places for students. We try to make the skills centers part of the Math department, the Write Place as part English department. As a faculty we’ve kind of resisted doing this ghetto-izing of places. We think that the Math skills center is bad enough. We wish that they could actually be in ECC with us. So, that’s one of the issues that comes out of this, is creating a college and pushing all those things into one spot and then having them stigmatized in that way. One of the arguments of this not happening was having the Honors program in there.
Admin: Let’s be very clear this isn’t about developing a program in which we will place faculty who are hired to teach General Education classes, which is what the General College was set up to do. This will have one focus. That’s the Reading and Studies Strategies course to be moved in under Undergraduate Studies. They need a department in order to do that. So that’s kind of cleaning that up with this formation.
6. Recommendations from FA Academic Affairs Committee (FA) (2/15/07)
FA: Back in the fall we set up a task force that would work on policies and things. This is the next batch. It also contains, from the Academic Affairs Committee, a response and some concerns that have to do with the Pandemic Plan that they asked us to pass on. Most of this is cleaning up language. Mitch is on that committee, but he’s not here today.
Admin: I’ve seen this. I want to go over it pretty carefully because I remember, for example… What is our current policy?
FA: There are current policy statements, and then there are proposed policy statements. I think some of these they completely reworded to clean up the language. Since Mitch was on the committee, take your questions to Mitch.
Admin: I will.
FA: He worked with people from Academic Affairs and some place else.
Admin: I’m on that committee as well. Academic Affairs Committee of Senate has some members on it too. Steve Klepetar is on it. There’s also Records and Registration people, Business, and Financial Aid.
FA: So that group worked on these. Senate has approved these.
Admin: Thank you.
Admin: This is perhaps free advice. I know that they’re talking about Pandemic Planning. This is where some of this sprung from. I encourage you, particularly that part on what week to do what with, take that forward at the state level. We were peculiar in our plan in having something roughly like this when we presented it. They thought the concept has some merit, I guess. So, I think you should bring this to the level of the Office of the Chancellor for consideration.
FA: I just got something today from the Office of the Chancellor. They stopped calling it Pandemic Planning. They’re now calling it Emergency. They’re actually going to make a policy and a procedure which they want to have consultation on in their usual manner.
Admin: I don’t think it will be quite this specific. Perhaps it will. They’re talking about long-term closures or interruptions. I will plan to forward this to Laura King because it relates to what our Pandemic Plan was. I’m just suggesting that you take it to them as your language.
Progress Reports
1. Taskforces on Diversity (a.k.a. Motion from Teacher Development) (FA) (9/22/05)
Admin: Last time you asked that I find out if all the departments in the COE are participating in the COE task force. I’ve heard back that all the departments except Counselor Education and Educational Psychology (CEEP) are participating at this time. They just haven’t submitted anything.
FA: But the others are?
Admin: The others are.
FA: You also report about the university-wide task force?
Admin: There is nothing new to report until all the focus groups have met. That’s in progress.
2. Upper Division Writing Requirement Status Report (FA) (03/02/06)
Admin: Mitch is at MnSCU representing me so that I could come back here.
FA: I saw in the minutes that they are going through the catalog trying to figure out where things need to be stated and how they would be stated. They keep telling me that when we figure it all out we’ll send you a huge document.
3. Budget Advisory Group (Admin) (09/07/06)
Admin: I have three documents to take to Senate to consider and to offer your comments. The first one is the Budget Planning Principles. This was developed over a period of time by the Budget Advisory Group. The second document was reported out by the Budget Assumptions Work Group, through the Budget Advisory Group. The first page is a Word document with kinds of points of reference and their recommendations. And the second document that is stapled is a spreadsheet that shows their representations in numerical format across the university’s budget. I’d like to take this back to Senate. It’s available online on the Budget website. If we can, we’d like to hear from you next time or the following time that would be fine. John can facilitate the discussion at Faculty Senate or others that were present at some of the meetings. Personally, I think this is a good product of this entity. The Budget Advisory Group could be an ongoing group into the future. The other groups…
FA: We blended two groups into one.
Admin: We blended model and base into a single group now.
FA: And they’re still battling it out?
Admin: That’s the biggest issue to discuss. There’s a lot of work to be done there. It will still be a trial even after it comes out.
FA: I volunteered to come up with a draft that uses the strategic map as a guide relative to budget models that I’ll be bringing forward to the Budget Model Working Group. There is one frustration that has been expressed as we move forward. Greater transparency seems to result in demands for even greater transparency.
Admin: Either you’re transparent or you’re not.
FA: Well, people then have other questions that are raised. To put it in simple terms it certainly would be to know what our financial status is today.
Admin: The biggest variance that we should be able to resolve right now is staffing because that’s pretty well set for this semester now. I know that Michael is working on putting together a report on that so we can bring it back. That’s where there might be some significant, and of course other parts of the expenditures are moving at pace: peoples supplies and equipment. But I agree, and we still intend… the 30th class day is the official day to start looking at enrollment to say what you arrived at in enrollment. So after that time I still expect we will report out in March where we stand kind of in the third quarter of this year.
FA: So we’re going to get quarterly reports and now we’re going to get one in March, which is the third quarter? Where are the ones from the first two quarters?
Admin: We had one at the beginning of the year that we started the year with. We had another in the mid-point of the term after we had the enrollment fixed for the year. There was a town hall meeting for that. And now we’re having a third town meeting.
FA: The Budget Advisory Group should have those documents.
FA: See what I mean, you give information, they want more information.
Admin: The town hall PowerPoint presentations are on the Budget website.
FA: You like advance warning. So, I’ll give you some advance warning: I can’t predict what Senate does.
Admin: I believe that.
FA: But I can tell you what the Faculty Association Budget Committee did. A resolution was passed to go to Senate to request that we have a balance sheet that actual for the third quarter and projected to the end of the year of the budget. We reiterate our desire to have quarterly reports of similar nature.
FA: Not the glossy that you give us when you do those things.
FA: I’m confident that we’re going to get that done.
Admin: Yes the university-wide is substantially like this document that you have in front of you that we talked about across the system. And also another group is looking at the presentation of the information that came down to the department level. You’d have to be so inclined to go down to that level. But I know that’s moving forward. It’s a variation on what we already have so it shouldn’t be too difficult. I think that’s not an unreasonable request.
Admin: I congratulate the two of you and your committees because we have come to a place that I didn’t think we could get to at this time.
FA: Gee, you had every confidence in us?
Admin: No, I didn’t. I had my fingers behind my back. But you guys came forward with that. Also, the next thing is to tie this to some of the trends that Lisa is putting together. Change comes hard and it’s continuous. So, I’m optimistic that we will get where we need to be. I believe the committees, the transparency, and add to that the strategic plan and trends is going to be where we need to be. The chair of the trustees has had a short presentation; he wants to come back again. He wants to use us as a model. And change comes hard. And data doesn’t come that easily. And sometimes it’s so complicated that it becomes opaque, but it’s not. I think that the group here plus the Senate should continue to ask the questions, and ask for more transparency to get to where we need to be. But we will get there. But this is a huge step in the right direction. I thank you two and the committees.
Admin: Anything else on this topic?
FA: Not now.
Admin: Well, I noticed it’s not coming off the agenda.
4. Announce, Discuss, and Bulletin Boards (FA) (09/07/06)
Admin: I gave Michael some revisions I think I reported at our last meeting.
FA: Yes.
Admin: He looked at those. We took them to Academic Affairs on Tuesday. There were some more suggestions. I made those revisions. The Provost wants those to go to President’s Council.
FA: You were going to give it to me to give to TPR, but I haven’t gotten it.
Admin: No. I think Michael needs to review it first.
FA: The problem is that if you guys think it’s perfect and we don’t… you need to let us look at it before you…
Admin: That’s never happened before has it?
Admin: No. (Laughing)
Admin: You guys sent us your recommended changes, which is what I’ve been making. They want to see them and to respond to them. So to give them to you when it is only my changes doesn’t seem fair to the rest.
Admin: We’ll get that back to you shortly.
FA: Okay.
5. Doctoral Programs (FA) (10/19/06)
FA: Anything new to report?
Admin: There’s nothing new to report. Although it seems as if what might be the case, and I need to verify this, that the Office of the Chancellor is now willing to accept another round of proposals, for doctoral programs that might begin in fall of ‘08. I need to verify that that is the case. I believe it is. So we will request the folks who have been working on the process to finish them up so that they can be submitted.
FA: We have one that we already sent to you.
Admin: It has to be put into the format of the request to MnSCU.
FA: Okay. It has to be rewritten entirely, right?
Admin: No. It has to conform to the specifics of the format that they want.
FA: Okay.
Admin: It doesn’t have to be rewritten entirely, but there’s some other information that they need to provide.
FA: Okay. Well, that’s good news.
Admin: With regard to the program proposal that they have now, the MnSCU external reviewer, who is an anonymous individual, had some comments and questions. We sent off the responses to those comments and questions today. So those should be in the hands of the Office of the Chancellor and we should hear back on that proposal very shortly. There is a chapter in our self study, which is a request through the Higher Learning Commission, for a change in affiliation status authorizing us from the HLC to offer applied doctorates.
FA: So, are we ever going to see this self study?
Admin: I think it is either on the web now or about to go up on the web. There were a limited number of copies printed. I don’t have one of those yet.
FA: I think you should send the FA one.
Admin: Well, we will send the FA one. We will be very happy to do that. I might even send you two.
Admin: We put in a small number initially to get them out quickly because they need to get to the people who are coming to visit. And there’s a second run, a much larger run, for broader distribution on campus.
FA: I’m on the steering committee and I find it really disturbing that I haven’t seen a copy of it yet.
Admin: You saw one the other day.
FA: I saw it in passing. You can look at this during the meeting but we have to take it away from you.
Admin: It was the only copy that existed at that point.
FA: I still don’t have a copy of it. I’m on the steering committee. I think the people on the steering committee should have a copy.
Admin: I don’t have a copy yet either. It’s going to the printer. When it’s back from the printer, you’ll get a copy. I can’t do anything better than give it to you as soon as I can.
FA: But it’s like why didn’t they see it before it went to the printer? What happens if there is stuff in there that the steering committee thinks shouldn’t be in there? I just think it’s not a good idea to not involve your steering committee.
Admin: I agree.
FA: I think you ought to be prepared for… people may be wondering what’s going on because we just sort of kept it secret. Kind of like the enrollment management plan.
Admin: I don’t think there’s an attempt to keep it secret. There has been an effort to get it finished so that we can get you a copy.
Admin: It was published on the web.
Admin: The draft of all the criteria was published on the web. There is probably some material in it that was not on the web.
FA: So, were the drafts changed?
Admin: They were corrected in some cases. There were some additional information required in some instances. After the drafts were completed they were sent to an external reviewer, an experienced HLC consultant evaluator, who had some questions that needed to be answered and responded to and asked for some additional information in some places. So that was provided. But there has been kind of tension trying to get the thing finished as fast as we can so that people get copies of it and then also making changes that were required at the last minute. I don’t think there was any attempt to hide anything from anybody.
6. General Education Assessment Recommendations (FA) (11/2/06)
FA: Has anyone applied for this job?
Admin: As a matter of fact, yes.
Admin: There is one.
FA: There is a search committee, right?
Admin: Yes.
Admin: There is an applicant that wants it.
Admin: And is qualified.
FA: At half time?
Admin: Well, I think we considered revising the amount time to be provided. It’s interesting that you brought that up because when we didn’t have any applicants I had thought that we would change the conditions and provide a little more time to a person, but now we have an applicant so if we change that publicly we may get more applicants.
FA: Yes.
Admin: So, that’s a bit of a dilemma. If we change it we need to re-advertise and re-post it. Right now it’s more important for us to get somebody in the position because we have a visit coming up shortly. So I’d rather have somebody in the position than still having it out there posted.
FA: Okay.
Admin: It is a pretty daunting load.
FA: There was a document that came from the General Ed Committee. There was some discussion here about what actually needs to be done. I think that person needs to look at that document and figure out what actually can be done so we can talk about the college.
Admin: I think that person is familiar with those issues.
7. University Wide On-Line Committee for Policies and Procedures (Admin) (12/7/06)
FA: We have one more name that will probably be approved at Senate next week: Zoa Rockenstein. I think I did sent that to Patty.
FA: The group is meeting next Friday at 11:05.
FA: Zoa is from UCC and Bob is from Academic Affairs. This committee, what the Senate had agreed, these people would meet this spring and make a plan that would then come back about whether or not other people needed to be added and how that would work. That’s what I’m hoping will get done.
8. New Bylaws for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education (FA) (12/7/06)
FA: We gave you those.
Admin: Right. We had an election of new representatives to the advisory board.
FA: Did I give you those names?
Admin: Yes you did.
FA: They were going to do something.
Admin: They were going to look at the draft of those bylaws and see if they wanted those to be changed or continued as is.
FA: There were also people on there that would be from other areas. If you look at our website, that committee also has people from different places as well. Do we have any of those? Like a Jewish faculty group? Somebody from Jewish Studies? They are supposed to name somebody to be on that committee as well. The membership list of what the positions are and where they come from are on the Faculty Association website. If you don’t find it, we’ll have Monica look it up.
9. Searches in Academic Affairs (Admin) and elsewhere (FA) (09/07/06)
Admin: Those searches are under way. There are some for the Associate Dean position that you identified.
FA: I think I have everybody. There were two in the COB and Financial Aid where I didn’t get any.
Admin: Thanks for the attempt in Financial Aid. We will proceed with the Search without faculty representation then?
FA: Yes. I’m not sure what to do with the COB. The COE I had one volunteer and I just got two more for that. So we’ll have three faculty.
Admin: We probably should have talked about it earlier, the Honors Search.
FA: Those are due on the 28th so you’ll get them after that. There was some confusion there. The current person will be in that position until August, right?
Admin: Yes. He has 30 duty days for this summer.
FA: Right. Okay.
Admin: I think the bigger issue since it is a current faculty member and we’re starting to assign classes for next year I’d like to make sure that we don’t drag this into the summer and have to do an emergency hire.
FA: But that’s an internal search, right?
Admin: Yes.
FA: Does it have a job description that exists already?
Admin: We haven’t been able to find one. So David is crafting one. I’ve asked David.
FA: We sent him documents that we found.
FA: I think that’s one of the issues going to the Honors Advisory Committee.
FA: We also met, in passing, the Lead Investigator Designated Officer. Do you want to say that name?
Admin: His name is Stewart Wirth. He’s in the Lead Investigator’s office with the same phone number now.
10. Orientation Task Force (Admin) (09/28/06)
FA: I just sent out requests for participation. The plan is to appoint them as they come in. I should have some on Tuesday. I got a lot of people interested in the Academic Engagement group, but not a lot in any of the other ones. I’ll try again next week.
Admin: Thank you. We had a real productive meeting with Mark Jaede. I think it’s going to help us a lot in various working groups.
FA: If no one is interested, I’m not sure what to do.
11. Center for International Studies: What are the fees used for $100 administrative fee, $22 student ID, $125 Emergency Fund, $75 application fee? (FA) (1/18/07) /Center for International Studies: Request for External Review and Audit of the Center (FA) (1/18/07). Response should come on March 15, 2007.
Admin: We should have this, as indicated on the agenda, next time.
12. Tenure Calendar (FA) (2/1/07)
Admin: You had asked a number of questions and raised some concerns about the calendar for the tenure and promotion. And I think there was some misunderstanding because there are several different versions of calendars on the website. One of them is the one you were referring to, which is a consolidation of all the different actions and all of the different steps in each one of them that we indicated was primarily for deans and office managers. But there is a separate calendar on the website for each of the specific areas of promotion and tenure. So, here’s a copy of that from the website that lists a calendar of events for promotion; a calendar of events for tenure; a calendar of events for reappointment for first, second, and third year probationary faculty.
FA: The Master Calendar is the first one on the list?
Admin: The Master Calendar is the first one on the list.
FA: I think you need to move it.
Admin: It does refer specifically to… we can move it.
FA: Talk to the STAMATS guys, they’ll tell you that presentation is everything.
Admin: Gee, I hadn’t thought of that.
FA: Sorry.
FA: I think it’s hard to find. I’ve had people ask me where to find it. So I would recommend that at the top level of the web with stuff for faculty that there’s a link that says: Calendars for Promotion.
Admin: Well, it’s on the Academic Affairs website.
FA: Okay. So, if we’re talking about user friendly stuff I want to be able to go to the faculty link on St. Cloud State’s website and see something that says: Calendars for Article 22, Article 25. Something like that. Or Calendars for Promotion, Tenure, whatever. Because I’ve had a couple people say they can’t find it. So, they’re not familiar with the Provost’s page, yet.
Admin: It is relatively new.
FA: But even so, you should have a direct link to it.
Admin: There is a link there to faculty resources that lists a whole bunch of items.
FA: The problem is that faculty, when they go to the first web page; it doesn’t occur to them that they have to go to Academic Affairs in order to find their promotion calendar. What they do is they go to faculty stuff, because that’s where they think they should go to find their promotion calendar.
Admin: I’ll look at the way that’s structured and see what we can do.
FA: And then when they get to it, they click on the first one which says Master Calendar and they go, “Oh, my God, I’ll never be able to get through that.” And they don’t even go to the other ones that have the other stuff on them. So, maybe the master calendar shouldn’t be the first thing. It should be later on. It might have a different title indicating it’s for office staff use. Something that indicates you don’t even want to look at this.
Admin: You want one labeled “Faculty Go Here”?
FA: Yeah.
Admin: I will check and see what we can do.
FA: It would be nice to have on the Provost’s page separate links for each of those pieces we talked about. I think, Bob, you’re probably familiar with which one I’m talking about. So if you’re in this certain classification, you’d look at this calendar. You could speak more articulately about it than I could.
Admin: It does list Tenure and it lists Promotion separately. And you can click on those and go directly to pages.
FA: Okay. I’m just looking at it from here.
FA: What I did was I Googled it from our search site and I didn’t find the other ones, I found the Master Calendar.
Admin: How long ago did you do that?
FA: That would have been back in November.
Admin: I don’t think this site was up yet.
FA: Oh, okay. The good news is we have the information in a presentable form. The bad news is we’re not sure how we can guide people to get there.
FA: Right. I think that’s the issue: figuring out how to make it in a place so that somebody not as sophisticated as me can find that.
Admin: We’ll check the links and we’ll get a focus group together to see, who with a PhD can find this page? (Laughter) Leave that on the agenda and I’ll come back to it.
13. Resolving Grievances and the designee (FA) (1/18/07)
FA: There was supposed to be a meeting for Rex, the Provost, and John Palmer to talk about this? Did that happen? Is it scheduled?
Admin: We have a meeting early next week. It is scheduled.
FA: Did you know that John?
FA: Do you know the date? We’ll check after the meeting. I talked to Rex on Monday. And I reminded him. I said, “You know, Rex, we really ought to schedule that meeting.”
Admin: So that meeting will take place.
14. 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: I provided a copy to Annette. So far as I know it is accurate to the best of our knowledge and recollection. There were over the three-year period to-date, there were eight peer reviews that took place and we have a listing of the cases and disposition of each.
FA: We were a bit surprised at the small number. We have faculty that come to us that have these concerns. They’re informed about the Peer Review process. And our sense was that there was much more interest in going through the Peer Review process than the final tally of these.
Admin: If you want to tell me afterwards the names of the people who might have done this and we could jog our memories to whether or not there were Peer Reviews for those individuals. We had no single set of records that we kept for this in Academic Affairs nor by any of the members of the Peer Review Committees.
Admin: Many times the situation is that faculty may have shown interest, but didn’t follow up with a request.
FA: We can visit that.
15. 1B.1 complaints and disability services and pedagogy (FA) (1/18/07)
FA: A group was supposed to meet.
Admin: We met. We had a good meeting. We talked a little bit about Professional Development opportunities. We talked a little bit about putting some things on the web to access information. We had discussion to clarify what some of the concerns and issues are. I don’t know if Andy, Bob, John, or Nancy want to add anything to that?
FA: We have a new Lead Investigator. So perhaps we should discuss things with him. I imagine Nancy has probably filled him in.
Admin: I have, but I think it would be a good chance for you all to get to know him anyway.
FA: Where did he come from? It was so fast. I’m not saying he isn’t really well qualified for the job, I’m just saying, wow, how did we do that so fast?
Admin: He’s been an investigator for about 20 years, I believe.
FA: What kind of an investigator?
Admin: A sheriff’s deputy. He’s done mostly internal affairs investigations.
FA: What’s that?
FA: Cops investigating cops.
FA: Okay. So he’s familiar with this?
Admin: He’s familiar with the sensitivity required. He certainly is experienced in investigations. When you get to talk to him, I know you’ll be impressed.
FA: So we are very fortunate?
Admin: I think we are very fortunate.
Admin: Anything else on that item?
FA: Who should set up a meeting with him?
Admin: Wanda.
FA: Okay.
Admin: Who would like to be there?
FA: The same people who came to the last one.
Meeting adjourned 4:46 p.m.
Submitted by Polly Chappell, Faculty Association Administrative Assistant