Final Approved 11-15-07

Meet and Confer

November 1, 2007

Admin:  Michael Spitzer, Earl Potter, Nancy Jessee, Larry Chambers, Mitch Rubinstein, Kate Steffens, Rex Veeder, Steve Ludwig, Kristi Tornquist

Faculty:  Judy Kilborn, Annette Schoenberger, Michael Connaughton, Michael Tripp, Robert Johnson, JoAnn Gasparino, Fred Hill, John Palmer, Frances Kayona, Balsy Kasi, Bill Hudson, Polly Chappell – Note taker

Guests: Jan Hallar, Margaret Vos, Sue Bayerl

Approval of Minutes

 

1.    October 18, 2007

FA: We’re ready to approve these minutes.

 

Admin: We’ll regard these minutes as approved.

 

Unfinished Business

 

1.    Announce, Discuss, and Bulletin Boards (FA) (09/07/06)

a.    Policy for E-mail as a Means of Communication for Employees, St. Cloud State University

FA: We did get a copy of that the other day, so Executive Committee has had a chance to review it.

 

Admin: Do you want to respond to it?

 

FA: Well, you explained to me individually that you had in mind particular kinds of communications that would come out via this means. I thought it would be useful for you to explain that.

 

Admin: Primarily the attempt for this is to make certain that there are types of information that everybody on campus needs to receive and be aware of, like if there is some kind of alert or some kind of emergency situation. We want to make sure that everybody has their email account, has access to it, and will be able to see those announcements. Occasionally there are some items from Public Safety, weather emergencies, and other kinds of things that everyone on campus needs to know. Certain offices would have the ability to send out email that would go to every email account, to every person on campus, so that that information would be shared expeditiously. That’s one of the main reasons for this process and this document.

 

FA:  You had mentioned other elements that would be related to faculty.

 

Admin: There are some things that would go to all faculty. So, if there is something from the Registrar that needs to be made available as information to all faculty. There are some items from the HR office that need to get distributed to all faculty. Currently as it is, each of the colleges has its own list. And I’m assuming that every faculty member in the colleges is on those email lists. This is just for sending email to faculty and staff of all colleges.

 

FA: So would this be a distribution list or a listserv or what would it be?

 

Admin: I would call it a distribution list. It could be a listserv, but it’s not one where people can send messages back.

 

FA: Who would have the authority to send messages?

 

Admin: If you look on the sheet in Appendix B, it talks about the types of announcements. The offices would be: Academic Affairs, Administrative Affairs, the President’s Office, Student Life and Development, University Communications, and Public Safety. It’s the last item on the bottom of the page for Appendix B.

 

FA: So those would be the only units that would have the ability to do this?

 

Admin: To send to all. Yes.

 

FA: And the examples of appropriate uses are included in that list there?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: I’m wondering, do people have questions or responses?

 

FA: Do you have a sense of how many of these might come out? I’ve been urged by my colleagues and the conversations that we’ve had, and I’ve discontinued subscription to Announce, and it’s a joy. It means I’m not deleting all these messages that I didn’t care to receive in the first place. As I look at this, if it is handled in a very conservative manner, that volume that currently exists, that has been coming, wouldn’t reoccur. Because as I understand this, I couldn’t opt out of it, is that correct?

 

Admin: No. You couldn’t opt out of it. Yes. The assumption is that this would be a much more conservative process, that these announcements would be official and necessary information, not optional. This is not going to include: On Tuesday night there’s a concert, and things like that. Those would not be included in these kinds of messages.

 

FA: What sorts of messages would come out of Student Life and Development and University Communications? I have more trouble imagining that than other areas.

 

Admin: There might be something with regard to a health crisis or something relating to some incident that took place.

 

Admin: Weather information typically comes out of University Communications.

 

FA: So, we wouldn’t have direct postings from Bob? Bob would go through somebody? (Laughter) I’m sorry. What about University Communications?

 

Admin: The same thing. A lot of the important messages get funneled through University Communications.

 

Admin: We also talked about more than one, so that in the absence of the person with authority we could find somebody to get the message out in another unit. So, since we work together, if the President was at a distance or something, we could work with University Communications to send some message.

 

FA: What do you mean by “read and act expeditiously”?

 

Admin: Where are you getting that?

 

FA: It’s in the middle of the first paragraph. The reason I’m asking that is there are days that I’m in class for six hours. I don’t have access to my email. Friday I’m going to be in an all-day meeting. There has to be some sort of recognition that when you’re standing in the classroom, you have to shut your phone and email off. If you’re in lab all day, between the lab sessions you have to go to the bathroom. You can’t go back to your office and look at your email. Somehow this doesn’t seem to address this. This seems to be written by somebody who doesn’t have those kinds of pressures and issues.

 

Admin: Of course there are times when people don’t have access. That could be true of anybody in this room. But the idea is when you have an opportunity, you will take advantage of it. Once you have a chance to read this, to act on it if it’s something that requires action. Are there any other comments or questions?

 

FA: I have a question about something later on in the paragraph: “Email shall not be used as the only means of communication when an employee is not scheduled for work assignments.” I’m not sure what that means. I don’t know if you’re talking about formal communications that come through the summer, like when we get our contracts or something like that. And that, of course, would be paper. But I’m trying to imagine…

 

Admin: Weather alerts, for example, over the local radio.

 

FA: That makes sense.

 

Admin: And for other kinds of private communications. If there is something confidential, or related to employment, this would not be the way to communicate that information.

 

FA: We can take it back to Senate.

 

FA: Yes. That’s what we need to do. An initial reaction is that I think that important information that we’ve talked about early on in our discussion here about who would be the designator or distributors of this stuff, and what kind of information would come across. I think this would be useful, up front, instead of on the back, because that provides context for why we would even do this. That’s my individual response. We’ll take this back to Senate for an official response. 

 

Admin: Can we move to item 3.a so that we can have some guests here respond to prior requests for information, which is about funding and budgets in the Center for International Studies? So Margaret and Jan are here to talk about that.

 

3.   Follow ups

a.    Center for International Studies (FA) (01/18/07)

Guest: First, I’ll preface with saying that we were here last spring presenting information regarding the Center for International Studies’ budget. We understand you requested more information, specifically looking at tuition and how tuition is captured and sent out. This is Jan Hallan, an accountant from CIS, and what we’ve done is put together a summary sheet that looks at last year’s summer programs, which we captured budget on. It’s the same information. What we did is collapse it so it is easier for you to read because it all comes out onto one sheet.

 

FA: So, this is last summer?

 

Guest: This is from last summer. Our tuition dollars that are paid by students for semester-long programs during the academic year are not captured for CIS to expend payments on, but our short-term summer programs are. And those tuition dollars are put into that account number 211002. So, this shows the number of students in the various programs that we had go over the last summer. We did cancel the Croatia trip due to lack of students wanting to participate. It shows the total estimated tuition dollars, because we’re not able, at this time, to totally reconcile that account. We’re still looking at the numbers that show up on our print out and the numbers that we show in our office. This is what we show under our numbers. We paid out faculty salaries out of that account, and then airfare for some of the trips. So, estimated revenue that we collected, estimated payments out, and money left-over by the end of the summer was $129. What we do is that we operated it as a wash. It was money that comes in, and goes out on those programs to pay for those programs.

 

Admin: Any questions?

 

FA: I get designated as the number interpreter. We have a document, and I’m not sure why. It seems to be related to the document you handed out today. Are you familiar with this one?

 

Guest: We sent that to the Provost earlier.

 

FA: Let me just see if I understand this correctly. The relationship of the new document we’re seeing shows the best estimate of the actual tuition dollars collected. The other document had a column called total student charge. That would mean to me that that’s in addition to tuition. Is that right?

 

Guest: This first document that came from the Provost, this is the program cost per student. For example, when a short-term program is going to go, I’m going to use France, I told the students that we could send them for $3,185. When we collected the money, if you go through it, we ended up spending $2,000 more than we collected from the student. But I kept the program costs less because I had projected that I could spend $10,000 off this tuition side for the short-term programs. So, the short-term programs that have four to six students going that are just starting out, they’re actually being compensated by the programs that send 40 students.

 

FA: Since you mentioned France, in addition to the $3,185 that was collected, there was $2,018 in tuition. And that would seem to me to offset the over-budget that in fact counting tuition and fees versus expenditures, that program broke even.

 

Guest: No. Because I collected $2,018, but we paid out a salary of $4,290. So, on the tuition side I was short $2,000. And on the program side I was short $2,000. But if you look at the whole, if you add all my programs together, I can still do it, because my China program is bringing in money because 40 students went. And we collected $3,500 tuition dollars and paid $2,700. So I have extra tuition money that I can then use for the salary for the faculty who is going with four students.

 

FA: I appreciate the explanation. It seems to me that we have two different sets of accounting for the same event.

 

Guest: You do.

 

Admin: One describes just the tuition. And the other describes the tuition and the program fees and the revenue generated.

 

Guest: The two pots of money are separate. The program fees are kept in an agency account. The tuition fees are kept in the St. Cloud State’s big tuition pot. I never actually see the money, but I have permission to use the money, to expend it to help send these small programs and to help them develop.

 

Admin: Help me understand why we’re talking about this. What are the underlying questions that we’re exploring?

 

FA: The faculty who participate in these programs brought to us concern for the charges that students were incurring and the economics of conducting programming. And to understand why some programs went forward and some programs were cancelled. Last spring we got an excellent report that explained everything except the role of tuition. What I heard today is that from an accounting standpoint, we don’t individually track tuition. The idea is to be able to say to our colleagues that nobody is getting rich here. There isn’t a cash cow that somehow has been generated. So, that we can explain that these are reasonable things that are going on in the program.

 

Admin: I understand. Thank you.

 

FA: I think we can safely say, we asked for the information provided. But, that doesn’t mean to say that they may not be satisfied. Just for the record, I think we should be clear that we’re not indicating that the faculty who received the information and generated the questions are happy with the answers.

 

FA: You’re correct. It is a bit unusual to have two different sets of accounting to try to then communicate the same message.

 

FA: I agree. I think it would be helpful. I understand from the accounting perspective that they are different accounts, I think for the reporting purposes, especially for faculty, maybe a few more columns on this spreadsheet…

 

Guest: That’s no problem. What we were trying to do is separate out that tuition piece, but if what you would like is for us to pull it together, so that what you see is one piece that shows it all the way across, we can certainly do it.

 

FA: Why just the summer program?

 

Admin: That’s what you asked for.

 

FA: That’s what we asked for.

 

Guest: You should know, too, when I started I was asked to research this account, and I found a memo saying in 2003 we should establish the account. And the account was established. The tuition dollars for short-term never arrived there, and the salaries were never paid out of it. I sat with Diane Burlison and Glen Carlson in May, right before we came to the meeting, and I stated that, that this is the hope; we had hoped that this system would be set up and implemented. The tuition account was set up, but it was never implemented. So, this is the first attempt to implement it. It still did not work. The tuition dollars arrived. The salaries were paid out of an account that is very, very similar to this, so I have them, but all the dollars are still in the checking account. So there’s not a separate checking account set up. So it’s going to show up in St. Cloud State’s report, so it’s correct. It’s just under a different CIS number than the 21101, but, hopefully, now I worked with Annette Day, and this next time that we do it, it should work well.

 

FA: I don’t think we just asked for summer programs. The summer ones were a particular problem, but I think there were questions also about the extra fees students are charged.  

 

Guest: We answered those questions in April.

 

FA: It’s still not clear and easy to see how this fits in with the information we got in April.

 

FA: It sounds to me that that will be put into that whole package.

 

Guest: We will eventually put it all together.

 

FA: Part of the issue was that CIS was… I had gotten a request from the former director of CIS to increase CIS’s cut. And I said, how much money do you think you’ll make? How many students will you get? How do you think you’ll use this money? Because if I’m going to take this to Senate and get a recommendation, I’m going to ask these questions. That’s the question we’re trying to get answered. They said they didn’t have any idea how the money gets spent. It was like a big explosion of questions about it.

 

FA: I understand you’re building an accounting system, and I really appreciate that because as you understand, probably much better than I do, this is complicated. I think it is difficult to understand if you’re a faculty whose involved with this overseas traveling, and I think that this breakdown will really help clarify what are complicated issues for people. So I appreciate this, and I hope we get this on a regular basis. I’m assuming we will.

 

Guest: No problem.

 

FA: Thank you.

 

Guest: Would you like us to add a few columns to this sheet here for you to have so that you can see the overall cost so it shows the programmatic and the overall cost of the program and then the plus or minus, for over or under budget?

 

FA: That would be good.

 

FA: That would be helpful, but I think the other thing is there seems to be a discrepancy: 129 students in one and 97 on the other, and 32 somewhere?

 

Guest: The 32 are the ones that went to England, which is not a short-term program. But England will show up on the program costs because it’s part of my spreadsheet to track it, but when it comes to collecting the tuition, I won’t collect tuition dollars from England.

 

FA: It still seems different.

 

Guest: Okay. I’ll look at that.

 

FA: What does “not collected” here mean?

 

Guest: That means that the tuition dollars for those accounts are not collected. In New Zealand, the director did not go with the core students to save money. And on the Canadian Social Work program, they were paid out of their own pool of money. Since the salaries were paid under the tuition account, we did not collect the money. That happens apparently at the discretion of the faculty member. Like Thailand/Laos is going now, and I won’t be collecting those tuition dollars either.

 

FA: Why is that?

 

Admin: I think because those are regular semester courses.

 

FA: But there wasn’t the money in airfare…

 

Guest: Well, there again, I paid the Canadian airfares because I knew I had about $10,000 to pay, and I had all these different invoices, and I just picked one that would be similar to my $10,000. So I took the one from Canada, and I took the one from Russia, and I paid those two from the account instead of having like ten checks go out for two people. I need a $10,000 bill to pay, so I picked the two that were close.

 

FA: So the other ones had airfare but they came out of a different account?

 

Guest: It came out of the agency account, the program account.

 

FA: Which is on this?

 

Guest: Right.

 

FA: And I heard Margaret say a consolidated statement…

 

Guest: It’s going to be helpful.

 

FA: Thank you very much.

 

Admin: Thank you. We have another guest today, and we are asking to move to that particular topic. So, to item number one on New Business: DARS.

 

New Business

1.    DARS

Admin: Not the Daughters of the American Revolution and their Sisters, but the Degree Audit Report System. (Laughter) We are one of a very small number of campuses that has not implemented DARS, and we’re getting serious pressure from the Office of the Chancellor to get our system in place so that we can begin using it for the benefit of our students, and then to assist them in their registration, in their degree completion and in their advising processes. So, one of the things that we’re doing is working very hard this year, going from one college’s programs to the next college’s programs, to get all of our degree programs in place and put into the DARS system so that can be used appropriately. One of the things that we need in order for that to happen is for faculty to cooperate in the process. From everything that Sue Bayerl has told me, the faculty have been very cooperative, but there are certain things that we’re going to need to have to do and we’re going to have to continue to do it on a continuing basis in order to maintain DARS and keep it up-to-date and current. So every time, for example, that we change a curriculum program, we’re going to have to update DARS to reflect that. And we need to develop a mechanism to do that. Sue, do you want to talk about some of the things that you might need from faculty?

 

Guest: Basically, Michael and I talked this morning about the faculty involvement. One piece of it is going to be that Rita Moore, an assistant registrar in my office, will be meeting with all the department chairs in all the colleges just to make sure that the curriculum is correct in DARS. So, that will be one thing. And, also, she’ll be talking with the faculty about training opportunities, learning how to read those audits and what’s on there. Do you want small groups? The whole college? Individual? And how that will happen. Also, to talk about how to access those audits. Right now, how it’s set up, related to the MnSCU system, if you’re an advisor you can use your advisee audits online. I know some departments don’t advise that way. They might want to have the chair be able to access all the majors in the department. That’s the restraint of the MnSCU system. Things like that. Also, she is available as a resource to ask questions and provide answers.

 

FA: You use the term “audit.” What do you mean by “audit”?

 

Guest: That’s what it’s called. DARS stands for Degree Audit Report System. And the audit is the listing of all the requirements that it takes to get a degree in an area of study.

 

Admin: So, what the degree audit does is it tells the student and the advisor the requirements.

 

FA: Does the student have access?

 

Guest: We’re trying to work on a process to notify Administration of all those curriculum changes so that we know who’s affected by the changes.

 

Admin: We’ll come back to Meet and Confer with a written procedure that we’d like to follow. We’re developing that now. When it is completed, we’ll bring it in to review with you.

 

FA: I’m confused. The curriculum goes to the Academic Affairs office. They have all that information.

 

Admin: True.

 

FA: Are you going to ask us to do it three or four times?

 

Admin: There are a couple things involved there. One is that some department websites list their degree maps. The Academic Affairs website lists the degree maps. Sometimes a department will change the degree map at the department level, but not change it on the Academic Affairs page, and we’ve have two different degree maps then floating around. So we want make sure when we change them, that we’re consistent. We want to make sure that when curriculum change for a program occurs, sometimes there are issues, and it would be useful to talk with Records and Registration before the changes.

 

FA: Degree maps aren’t part of the curriculum. The curriculum proposals just list the…

 

Admin: Right, but it all depends on the impact on the degree map requirements that can change. And if we don’t change the degree maps, students can get misinformed.

 

FA: What does that have to do with DARS?

 

Admin: DARS uses the same information that…

 

FA: The information off the curriculum proposal and the course requirements.

 

Admin: Right.

 

FA: The degree map is just a suggestion of how you might work your way through the program.

 

Admin: Sometimes it’s more than a suggestion.

 

Admin: And sometimes a degree map is useful when you’re visualizing what the requirements are and you could indicate where a change might affect a degree map.

 

FA: Yes. But it’s not official. In fact if you advise transfer students at all, you’ll realize that those degree maps are… they may be the best thing… they may be a good place to start… But they really… The students are not able to follow those. I don’t know if you guys are aware of how many transfer students we have at this institution. The degree maps really don’t have anything to do with DARS.  

 

Guest: They will. And that’s probably going to come more at the statewide Meet and Confer, eventually, for faculty. Because MnSCU has different projects that they’re funding. One of them is called the Graduation Planner…

 

FA: Which they probably haven’t even talked to the faculty about.

 

FA: We don’t need to go there, Annette.

 

Guest: That process is going to use the degree maps, and also pull from both DARS and degree map information. Just so you know.

 

FA: I am old fashioned. I remember when we fought over what could go into the printed document, which is the Undergraduate Bulletin. There was a point in time that departments had gone far a field in what they wanted published in the Undergraduate Bulletin, which had not gone through the curriculum process. Now, I thought that we’d squared that away; that the only things that appear in the Undergraduate Bulletin are the things that had gone through the curriculum process. That being the case, that should be the Bible as it were for what DARS would have in it; then, in hearing that, we have a new issue. That is there’s a new way to get around going through the curriculum process, which is for a department to put something on the web page that wouldn’t have been submitted, gone through, and put into the bulletin. Am I hearing that wrong?

 

Admin: I don’t think that’s what anybody was saying. But let me respond a little bit to your point, which is that the catalog gets published every second year. There are changes that occur between publications. We have a system in place where when a curriculum change is approved, it becomes effective immediately. Now, at some institutions curriculum changes don’t get put into place immediately upon approval. They wait until a specific time. That’s not the case in the way our system is used and developed. So, changes can occur next week, and that will revise what’s in the catalog printed months ago and won’t come out again for another six months.

 

FA: That may be true, but there’s a web version, which gets updated. That doesn’t respond to John’s point that in lieu of the curriculum process, something else would be official. So, it seems like DARS should be drawing upon what has been through the curriculum process and not through any other source or channel whether it be via the department web page or whatever.

 

Guest: It will. There may be a need for clarification about an approval that is done because of the constraints of what the computer can and cannot do. That’s not to say we’re changing curriculum because the computer can’t do something. Not at all. It’s just to have some kind of method of communication with the department so that the faculty of that department know that, yep, this was the specific approval, but just note that the computer probably can’t do it the way you want or maybe the way that you think it may happen with students.

 

Admin: Can you give them an example?

 

Guest:  Well…

 

FA: While you’re thinking, it seems to me that we have requirements for a degree of programs. So, there’s required courses, suggested courses, elective courses, and so forth. Then we may have a degree map, which might suggest a sequence in which one takes classes. If we rearrange the sequences, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that you’re adding or changing requirements. It’s just simply saying that we might suggest you take this before you take that. It’s kind of hard to see the connection between the curriculum process and the DARS system. That’s where our confusion is.

 

FA: I’m wondering if part of what we’re talking about is really a means of communicating to make sure that things that wouldn’t be automatically updated that people have the correct version of. So, if the department does something to help its students, that we’re sure we have the same information on the website as the department. I am hearing what we’re doing is coordinating to make sure that we have the information that the department wants put out.

 

Admin: That’s absolutely correct.

 

FA: Okay.

 

FA: I can think of one example that has to do with co-requisites. So, Calculus based Physics has a co-requisite of Calculus I. But, you don’t have to take those two courses at the same time. You can take Calculus I or you can take Calculus based Physics. And this is true quite often in the sciences where the co-requisite relationship isn’t that they have to be taken at the same time; it’s that one of them has to be taken before or at the same time.

 

Admin: Pre- or co-.

 

FA: Right. We don’t actually care when you take that first semester of Calculus. All we care about is that you’ve taken it either before or the same time as opposed to these two courses are intrinsically related to each other and they must be taken at the same time. The DARS system doesn’t have a way of allowing us to do that as far as I can tell. We understand that. The people in Records understand. The faculty understand. But the guys down there doing the programming don’t seem to be able to do it. I don’t know how we’re going to deal with that.

 

Guest: That is a good point, though. Because I want the department to understand. The computer can’t do both. It’s got to be one or the other the way it’s built right now. I wanted to make sure the department knew that. The need for communication, once curriculum change came through. I would see that and I’d say, who do I talk to about this? We’re talking about getting communication lines so that the faculty would know the computer can only do this. Which one do you want?

 

FA: How do we get the computer to change? That’s the major thing.

 

Admin: That’s a problem with the system: to drive curriculum practice, because the computer’s capacity is wrong.

 

FA: I teach this stuff. I use our system as an example. (Laughter)

 

Admin: We should be pushing back on that. Here’s another communication thing that you bump into at the working level, something that staff won’t be able to yield, and Michael can’t deal with it with Linda, it needs to come to my level as an issue with the Chancellor’s Office. Because these kinds of systems driving curriculum practice… what you do to the degree that you have this co- pre-confusion, you create a system with all these manual overrides. It’s very labor intensive. It’s confusing to students. It will not serve our students well. The system alleges a commitment to students. This is not student-centered, this is system-centered. That’s the kind of thing that we should raise up. A common interest between the faculty and Administration of saying hell no, this is wrong. We just happen to be the largest university in the system. Every single other university in the system has the same problem that we do. What could happen is that their staff can bully and refuse to move because it is not convenient for them. I don’t want us to be in that position.

 

FA: I heard you say that one of the ways faculty help this out is when chairs have been contacted. Are there other things that you want us to be willing to help with, and is there a timeline we need to be aware of?

 

Guest: June 30th is the timeline. And just try it and use it. Go out and try it. Use it. Work with the students. Once in a while we’ll get, oh, I don’t really know what this document is. Go to Records and Registration and take a look at the system. Take a couple a minutes to look at it and see. Maybe it is something that can be determined just by reviewing. There are words on it. The words are meant to help the students know what their requirements are in order to get a degree.

 

Admin: How dependent is our completing this work and the work that is going on in General Education curriculum and transfer?

 

Guest: Basically, in a nutshell, that’s the two constraints that we’ve had and we’re working on; we don’t have it up and running right. One is lack of staff in our office, and the second is the general education. We bypassed that somewhat, and it’s related to the distribution areas because right now no one really can figure out how to do the left/right columns and have the students have the correct information. Is this the area you’re going to take nine credits or six credits? And to have the computer know that ahead of time. What we’ve done, is not have that as a requirement. All we have those areas doing is filling in the courses as students take them. We rely on the advisor to help the student determine.

 

Admin: So, we have a work-around that does not require that we complete this bit before we complete our commitment to DARS?

 

Guest: Right.

 

Admin: Does that work-around create confusion for faculty and students, or are they going to understand this?

 

Guest: Well, we talk about it when we visit the departments for training purposes. Whether there is still confusion, I don’t know.

 

FA: If you do a lot of advising, it doesn’t. If you’re new to advising, it actually will make it easier because before DARS, what you had to do is put your finger on the transcript, then you had another document here that had all the courses on it, and you’d go down and write them in the spots. And now, what DARS does is that writing in the spots. It’s very nice that way. We’re in much better shape now, because before there was even confusion about which spot to write it in. I think if DARS just says this is a left- or right-hand course, you ought to be able to do that, then that’s very useful too, because you’re looking at it, and you are looking at three documents, and now you have one document. I’ve spent some time doing that, and it’s not too bad.

 

FA: So, that shouldn’t slow us down—the DARS?

 

FA: Right. What’s really nice is that it has the transfer information.

 

FA: Amongst all the MnSCU schools, would you generalize our General Education program as overly complicated?

 

Admin: Absolutely.

 

FA: But, that is a different topic.

 

FA: I just wondered if that is related to the problem.

 

FA: No.

 

FA: Yesterday, assistant registrar Rita came and they brought some templates to the department and they talked about they want to work with the department. We had the same issues with the general education courses, but I know that’s what they are working on right now. They worked on it a long time. That’s something they mentioned will create more problems than DARS. It’s a work in progress.

 

Admin: You mentioned you are working in the colleges?

 

Guest: We have the COB up and running. They are using the audits. We are also using the audits in our office to determine graduation status right now at the end of the term when the grades are in. The COSE, we’re about 2/3 done with the majors and minors. And the plan is to go next to the COE. Hopefully that will be at the end of November or December. So, we’re a little bit ahead of what we originally planned.

 

Admin: That’s good.

 

Guest: The next college will be COSS followed by COFAH. We’re finding as we get more into this that we may pull certain majors out of the other colleges, and not follow such a rigid rule because some students are double-majors that seem to fit together. Like business; a lot of them work with Econ. So, maybe we need to pull that Econ major out and work with that so that the students have more complete information. That’s the plan for the moment. It’s up for suggestions if you find it seems to be working a little bit differently. If you hear things, let me know.

 

Admin: Any other questions or comments? We’re very appreciative of the assistance that faculty have provided in the process. Thanks.

 

FA: Will we be bringing this back again, later?

 

Admin: Well, I think we’ll have some reports that come through from Sue about the progress toward DARS, and if there is an issue, we’ll bring it back. Otherwise it doesn’t need to be kept on the agenda. Thanks, Sue.

 

FA: Sue, before you leave… just for clarification, the comment about updating the curriculum and maintaining DARS and about the websites and departmental degree mapping… I’m not quite clear. I have to explain that full conversation to colleagues, I’m not sure what I would say. What’s the bottom line? What’s the key points we were supposed to be getting out of this?

 

Admin: I think the bottom line is we are going to have to update DARS when we change requirements in various programs.

 

FA: What do you mean updating DARS? If we’re adding new courses?

 

Admin: It depends on what the change is and the curriculum.

 

Admin: I was just going to add that the curriculum process controls everything here. Whatever appears on DARS, whatever appears in a degree map, ought to reflect what has been approved through the curriculum process. It is our goal not to change anything. If there is a discrepancy, we need to know about it and make sure it’s addressed.

 

FA: Do we need to have a means by which that can be provided to whatever is happening in DARS?

 

Admin: Correct. Right. That’s the process that we need to create.

 

FA: But I don’t think we really resolved that.

 

Admin: We’ll come back with a draft proposal to do that.

 

Guest: One more thing, on the website for Academic Affairs, they have copies of the degree maps. But also departments have copies of the degree maps. The concern is let’s make the information all the same.  

 

FA: I think any discrepancies should be approved by the curriculum process.

 

Guest: Yes.

 

Unfinished Business

2.    Article 22 Task Force (was Tenure Calendar, now combined with FA/Administration Work-plan 2007-2008 item on More effective use of PDP’s/PDR’s to support faculty development) (FA) (02/01/07)

Admin: Do you want to talk about that?

 

FA: Where we were last time was that we had given you a charge and asked for your response to the charge and for population of taskforce.

 

Admin: Right. The last time we agreed to the charge. And if we didn’t last time, we’ll do it this time.

 

FA: Thank you.

 

Admin: The representation on the taskforce will be Dean Lawson, Dean DeGroote, and me.

 

FA: The representation that we appointed at Senate for that taskforce is Annette Schoenberger, John Palmer, and Tamrat Tademe. I’m assuming we can convene that taskforce.

 

Admin: I can do that.

 

FA: So, you’ll just arrange to get people’s schedules and stuff, then?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: So, I’m assuming that we can take this off until they are ready to report something?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

3.   Follow ups

b.    Return to Title Four (ADM) (08/30/07)

FA: We’re waiting for Academic Affairs Committee to bring something to Senate. I’ll check to find out where we are on that. We actually could, if you wanted to, group a few items under follow ups and I could just give a general response. If that’s okay?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

c.     Campus Parking and Transportation Task Force (ADM) (10/04/07)

FA: We have a Campus Parking and Transportation Task Force, to which Senate has appointed members. I sent Steve Ludwig an email with those names.

 

Admin: Thank you for the names. It’s a few more than I expected. I’m still waiting for some students, but we’re going to proceed. I also appreciate the caveat that it may be difficult to schedule all those folks together, but I’ll put Miles on the case, and we’ll work something out.

 

f.    Membership on the Orientation Task Force (ADM) (10/18/07)

FA:  We also populated the membership on the Orientation Task Force. We were asked for two additional members. The member names have been sent to Avelino. He will have that taskforce convened. We’re also waiting for the report, which we don’t expect today, from last year’s work. We can come back to that when that’s ready.

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: You want to do another quick one?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

g.   Task Force on Diversity (a.k.a. Motion from Teacher Development) (FA) (9/22/05)

FA: We have a very simple motion regarding that. We essentially said, thank you very much for your work, and we accept your recommendation that that taskforce be disbanded. So, we’re putting that on the record. I think one thing that we need to be really clear about is when we disband taskforces, so that those get taken off the list and we don’t have these taskforces.

 

Admin: Right. Thank you.

 

Admin: I’m not sure what steps we take next to commission a group to do Diversity. We had a meeting with the cultural diversity committee and agreed in conversation with the committee that that’s not the right place to do that. Yes or no?

 

FA: Yes. But I’m not representing that committee though.

 

FA: Senate did talk about the fact that there was that part of the recommendation that indicated interest by people on that taskforce in participating in the Diversity Plan formation. There was simply discussion about it. People weren’t really clear about what that would turn into. Obviously, you have the same question.

 

Admin: Would it be a friendly thing now to come forward with the Diversity planning team and charge?

 

FA: Absolutely. We’ll look forward to seeing that.

 

Admin: Okay.

 

d.    Report on Budget (ADM) (10/18/07)

Admin: I believe there were some additional requests for information, and I have some of that now. This first document is the  carry forward amounts and brief explanation of each of those. The second document, the legal-sized sheet, is a spreadsheet and graph that follows the classroom technology, which is one particular part of that that has an ongoing process. So I wanted to provide that. The first quarterly financial report went out the 22nd to John and Judy. In any case, it’s on our website now, also. That’s available. We’ll await authorization of publication and copies of our audited financial statement for fiscal year 2007, which is in the hands of the Board, contingent upon their meeting and their agreement to publication. We don’t control that. But as soon as we have it, we will publish that.

 

Admin: Questions? Comments?

 

FA: I did forward to Steve some Senate motions that approved the minutes of our Budget Advisory group that asks some questions about the two initiatives that were brought to Meet and Confer last year, both at the graduate level. We’d like to get a report on how we’re progressing with the EDD. We had an investment in that. We also were given information about the Masters of Regulatory Affairs and Services. Both of those were the first steps of rolling out new programs where we talked about the budgets. We think it’s time to simply take a look at them.

 

Admin: I appreciated the forwarding of the email. It gave me a heads up. I’ve spoken to Michael about those two. We had already been in discussion about how those might be able to be reported back. Another item I recall on there was a look at accounts receivable. That is also in our audited financial statement. It shows the changes in accounts receivable. I think that will be helpful to you, too, when you receive that. I have to go back and look at your email again, but I think we’ll be pretty well up-to-date on getting the information.

 

FA: The other piece is reporting of the financials in a format like we used at the end of last year as we went through that process of examining projections of where we would be. There remains a technical problem that exists, because not everyone has the same access to the same software. So, two of the files I got I can’t open.

 

Admin: Which ones?

 

FA: The ones with the X on them.

 

FA: Do you have a vague notion of how much was left over that wasn’t unencumbered?

 

Admin: That’s in the year-end statement that we have up on the web. I don’t have the precise number in front of me. There are some claims, if you will, against carry forward like faculty travel and some things that are significant numbers that aren’t included here because they are not optional, they are required. As I recall, in the million dollar range.

 

FA: For clarification, it says Business Dean and Education Dean $148,000 for technology enhancements. Is that separate?

 

Admin: These were applications of technology that were, for example, in Centennial Hall that weren’t originally planned in the facility. In Education, these are additional equipment in places where there isn’t any.

 

FA: Is that room 345 in Hallenbeck Hall?

 

Admin: There’s one classroom in Hallenbeck, but I’m not sure of the class number.

 

FA: It’s 345.

 

Admin: Any other questions on this? Okay on this topic?

 

FA: Yes.

 

e.    Joint letter (March 30, 2006) from bargaining units and presidential response (May 8, 2006) concerning Recommendations for Search Committee Procedures (FA) (10/18/07)

Admin: There was a subsequent response to the bargaining units, and here’s a memo sent in January ’07 in regard to that recommendation, which changes the search committee procedures. If you like, we can discuss this now. Or perhaps we can talk about it later on, after you’ve had a chance to study this. You did receive this in January.

 

FA: I think we should take this back and leave it on the agenda for later, because we just got this.

 

Admin: That’s fine.

 

4.   Administrative Searches (ADM) (10/04/07 and 10/18/07)

Admin: There were committee representation requests that were made for the positions listed under A, B, C, D, E.

 

FA: If you don’t mind my narrating where we are?

 

Admin: Sure.

 

a.    COSS Dean Search

FA: I have asked all the members who were FA-appointed whether they wish to serve again, and we will need to replace two of those people. The request has gone out, and the ballots will be counted next Thursday.

 

c.   Associate Vice President for International Studies
d.   Associate Dean for COB (current position)

FA: The same is true for Associate Vice President for International Studies and Associate Dean for COB. Those ballots went out today, and will be counted next Thursday. I will be able to give you names at that point.

 

b.    Search Committee for Special Advisor to the President

FA: You already have the names for Search Committee for the Special Advisor to the President, and those were appointed Tuesday in Senate.

 

e.   Associate Dean for COE (current position)

FA: There was some confusion over the status of that search when we asked for a different committee last time. We didn’t realize which position exactly you were looking at, and what the status of the current search was. It was my understanding that they were actually rank-ordering the candidate at the point when we were requested to have a committee. When we discovered that confusion, we agreed to continue with the current committee with a few provisos. One of them was that this was the exact position description for the position that John Hoover currently is in.

 

Admin: Correct.

 

FA: And that during the search that there would be no mention to candidates of a potential second Associate Dean position because the consultation on that is now going forward.

 

Admin: That was agreed to earlier and those are the instructions given to the members of the committee.

 

FA: So, we’re fine with that, and we appreciate the discussion.

 

Admin: Okay. Thank you.

 

5.    Academic Plan (ADM) (10/18/07) — Charge to Task Force on International Studies (FA) (08/30/07) and Charge for Online Policy and Procedure committee (FA) (08/30/07) are now subsumed under Academic Plan

Admin: There are a couple things involved that have to do with the Taskforce on International Studies because the charge on the Online Policy and Procedures Committee, and to a degree at least those are subsumed under the request for membership for work groups on the Academic Plan, though I do think there are some things that the Online Policy Committee will have to address that are not going to be part of that. There are some policies and procedures that need to be looked at separately. For the most part, I think, a lot of that will overlap. We’ve asked for faculty co-chairs for each of those work groups. I’m hoping that you’ll have some names for us on that.

 

FA: If we could take this up in two parts. First, obviously, you’ve given us a charge for the Online Policy and Procedures Committee.

 

Admin: Right.

 

FA: Which has gone forward to that committee so that they could proceed with their work, and we have an acknowledgment here that these two things are related to the Academic Plan. But, we’re pulling them off the agenda then at this point. The second piece is your request for some names. I’m going to have John respond to the Senate motions regarding that.

 

FA: The Senate did pass two motions dealing with the Academic Plan. We believe that we’re ready to go to work with you in completing this task in the timeframe that is outlined in the plan. The first motion passed is that the Faculty co-chair of Strategic Planning Committee, the FA President, and the Provost serve as a steering committee tasked with populating the working groups and overseeing the process of the Academic Plan. The second motion is that the FA members who serve as working group co-chairs receive compensation for three additional duty days, and FA members who serve on working groups receive compensation in the form of one additional duty day.

 

FA: Essentially what that first motion does is that it provides a way of streamlining a discussion, and we can sit down and look at the groups together, groups with co-chairs and members of the working group, as an efficient way of getting that process started. It is also an indication that the faculty would like to be involved in the process long term. We would like to have input long-term on that process.

 

Admin: I think the steering committee idea is a very good one. I’m certainly willing to support that request. The other request with regard to compensation, I think that we’d like to know that the amount of work involved would exceed the normal service expectations required of faculty to serve, that are not duty days, in which case there would be compensation. But I’d like to see exactly what kind of work is required of folks before agreeing to that request.

 

FA: We’ve already talked in that plan about having some sort of retreat for the work groups, and the duty day would be for that.

 

Admin: To the extent that that happens, that would be fine.

 

FA: Are you suggesting that there is a possibility that the work would be of such magnitude that they may be entitled to more than one day compensation?

 

Admin: It depends on what we end up doing, but that might be possible, or it might be less than that.

 

FA: Our purpose in passing this motion is to communicate that we do believe that there is going to be additional work. I would be less than frank with you if I said this was universally supported. There was an alternative that had a higher number of duty days. This is an estimate. It is the best estimate of what we thought the level of work would be. We recognize that we’re operating under some very tight time constraints. But I certainly can be sympathetic and say that you want to see what that work would be and when it would be occurring. I do have to advise you that we do not believe there is anything such as a fraction of a duty day. A duty day is a duty day, and at the bargaining table the other side talks about fractions.

 

Admin: I don’t want to be at the bargaining table. (Laughter)

 

FA: We did indicate in our discussion that a lot of that work is likely to happen at the end of the semester, before the beginning of next semester. And it certainly would provide us concentrated time to do the work necessary to get this done. We look forward to your response to that.

 

FA: Are you going to convene the steering committee?

 

Admin: Yes, but I’ll need a list because I didn’t write down the names.

 

FA: It’s pretty simple. It’s actually me, and I want to go on record that Senate did not recommend additional compensation for me. (Laughter)

 

Admin: With good reason.

 

FA: Also, the faculty co-chair of Strategic Planning, because we’re seeing that as part of their duties related to strategic planning, so we’re giving you a special deal on this. And then you. Just three people.

 

Admin: Who is the third?

 

FA: You.

 

Admin: Do I get extra compensation for this? (Laughter)

 

FA: I’m wondering also if there’s something else regarding the Academic Plan that we need to know going into this beginning of rolling it out—the academic planning process?

 

Admin: Is that a question?

 

FA: Well, I heard something today, and I’m just going to be really direct, that was upsetting to me. I went into my department meeting at noon and discovered that an appointment had been made that I knew nothing about, and that was the appointment of Suellen Rundquist to be a project manager on this Academic Plan, and then it would roll down into my department.

 

Admin: I had originally asked her, this was earlier on, to be of assistance in helping coordinate some of the work from the work groups to ensure that things are moving forward. That’s all that was.

 

FA: It’s my understanding that it’s a full-time move for her next semester.

 

Admin: I’ll check that. I think it’s half time. I’ll check it.

 

FA: So, she would be moved over half time to your office…

 

Admin: To work on the Academic Plan…

 

FA: And I want to be real clear here. I don’t object to you having help on this, but what I object is moving into a huge project and presenting at Senate some sort of process and then having a huge piece of the project announced to me in my department meeting.

 

Admin: I guess you’re right about that. But it was to coordinate some of the activities, not to direct.

 

FA: So it’s half time?

 

Admin: Let me check that.

 

FA: Can we get clarification of that?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

FA: Because it also includes…

 

FA: Tell us exactly what you heard in the meeting.

 

FA: I was told that Suellen Rundquist was moving out of that Associate Dean’s position in our college into the Provost’s office—and, Michael Connaughton, if you would help if I get anything wrong, because you were there, too—that my chair is moving into the Dean’s office, not as an Interim Associate Dean, but as a Interim Faculty Assistant to the Dean. The person elected as chair person next fall is moving into the chair’s position, and then the Director of Comp who was elected to start next fall is moving into the Director of Comp’s position. So it sounds to me like it’s pretty full-time work for Suellen. And, I’m not making any comment on the selection of her. What I’m commenting on is the transparency of this process when Senate has just made a recommendation based on information that I thought was current.

 

Admin: Let me get back to you on that.

 

FA: Michael, do you need to clarify anything that I said? Did I get it right?

 

FA: No.

 

FA: Especially FA concerns with Associate Dean’s position. I realize that Bob Inkster isn’t supposed to be an Associate Dean, but it seems to me that the communication about the staffing change in the Dean’s office would be important.

 

Admin: Sure. Yes.

 

FA: Thank you.

 

6.    The Processes for Appointing FA Representation to College and University-level Committees under the IFO/MnSCU Master Agreement (FA) (10/18/07)

FA: We would like delay on this item simply because we need time to talk about the flow chart we’ve developed. We’ve had two Senates in a row and no Executive Committee, so we’re hoping to bring that back next time, and I will let you know ahead of time whether or not we’ll be ready to talk about it. Thank you.

 

7.    Early Notification System (FA) (10/18/07)

FA: Senate did discuss this matter and postponed action until the Senate meeting on the 13th of November.

 

FA: We had another motion.

 

FA: Yes we did. After the last Meet and Confer, we received a report about the pilot study that is pretty big. We need time to think about it and talk about it. That’s why we decided to postpone until the next Senate meeting discussion about that so people could process that information. The second motion was that we asked that action around the matter of Early Notification System essentially stop until we have a chance to evaluate the information we’ve gotten in line with our initial request. I did talk with Avelino Mills-Novoa about that today. He doesn’t have any problem with waiting. We know that there is a window in which the system was open until the 26th or the 27th of October, and that window is closed, so we have a little bit of a breather before next semester to start up again. So, we’re assuming we’ll bring back some sort of response to the information he provided.

 

NEW BUSINESS

2.    Administrative Searches (ADM) (10/18/07)

Admin: There are two searches that we needed representation on.

a.    Student Services Coordinator Search Committee for the American Indian Center

FA: You’re requesting one person for the Coordinator Search Committee—that’s a MSUAASF position also?

 

Admin: Yes.

 

b.    MSUAASF FTNP to assist the COB Dean

Admin: It says FTNP on the agenda, but that is incorrect. This is a MSUAASF temporary position, and there are no FTNPs in MSUAASF, to assist the COB Dean in accreditation and other projects while there is no Associate Dean in the college.

 

FA: So, it is my understanding we don’t have an Associate Dean. You’re requesting one.

 

Admin: We don’t have one, but we have work that has to be done. So, this is to assist the Dean in getting that work done while we are engaged in the search for Associate Dean.

 

FA: So, this is a MSUAASF position, so you would be requesting one person?

 

Admin: Correct.

 

FA: Can you repeat what you said?

 

Admin: Okay. This is a temporary MSUAASF position to assist the COB Dean with accreditation and other matters because currently there is no Associate Dean in the college. This is to help get the work in those projects done.

 

FA: So, we’ll put out a request and come back with a name for you.

 

Admin: Thank you.

 

3.  Service-Learning Faculty Reassignment: Call for Applicants

Admin: There’s available one-course reassignment for someone to work with the faculty to coordinate between the Service-Learning office and the faculty. This is a request to call for applicants for that one, which might be extended.

 

FA: So, it’s for next semester?

 

Admin: It’s for next semester.

 

FA: And we have a deadline here that’s pretty tight?

 

Admin: We’ll have to modify that. We’ll have to change the deadline because it took a little longer to get here than expected. We’ll extend that deadline a bit.

 

FA: There’s a possibility of extending this reassigned time if funding is available?