Inter Faculty Organization
Board of Directors Report
January 27-28, 2005
Present: Wayne Alexander, Nancy Black, Annette Schoenberger, Theresia Fisher, Judy Kilborn, Mary Kesler (Thursday only), Bruce Svingen (Friday only), Cathy Summa, David Bratt, Dave Larkin, Carol Milowski, Rose Weaver, Steve Bohnenblust, Gwen Griffin, Barbara Keating, Sonja Meiers, Becky Omdahl, Ruth Zietlow, Cindy Phillips, Wade Swenson, Fred Hill, George Seldat
Not Present: Gerald Toland
Also Present: Cindy Webber, Russ Stanton, Patrice Arseneault (Friday only), Wil Harri (Thursday only), Frank Conroy (Thursday only), Debra Japp (Thursday only)
Guest: Pat Rogers, Bemidji State University, Friday morning Re: MN Online
Called to order 6:35 p.m.
Additional Agenda Items:
MnSCU System Library Director Position was added to the agenda under New Business. This is a newly created position within MnSCU.
Approval of December 2-3, 2004 Minutes:
The minutes from December 2-3 were approved. Carried
New Hire: Tiffany Nelson:
The Board approved hiring Tiffany Nelson as the IFO Paralegal. Carried
MnSCU Board of Trustees Update:
A new trustee, who holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from MSU, Mankato has been appointed – Ruth Grendahl. At the recent Board of Trustees orientation, Nancy took the opportunity to briefly inform them about the IFO and requested a separate orientation session by unions. All of MnSCU’s staff at the ETC Building at Energy Park will be relocated to the Wells Fargo Place by August 1, 2005.
MnSCU Foundation:
MnSCU has been asking current state university benefactors for funding. This is adding concern to state universities’ current funding sources.
MnSCU Communications/Marketing Action Plan:
Chris Roberts is hired to work as MnSCU’s consultant through June 30, 2005. Chris Roberts indicated she would be forwarding us the marketing piece she is developing regarding Liberal Arts. Nancy Black, Becky Omdahl and Russ Stanton are scheduled to meet with Chris Roberts next week.
Ruth Zietlow presented information on the Baldridge Award to the Board. Why can’t our system have Centers of Excellence? Ruth suggested that down the road this might be a good idea for MnSCU.
March 31 Nellie Stone Johnson Scholarship Dinner:
At the March 31 NSJ event, there will be a silent auction to raise fund for the scholarship fund. Currently Dave Larkin and Nancy Black have donated items for the auction. If you have anything to donate for the auction, please let Cindy Webber know. The IFO is sponsoring two tables with eight seats each. Please let Cindy Webber know before the next board meeting on March 24-25 if you’d like to attend; if we don’t fill up our tables, we will be donating seats to students.
IRS Update:
Nancy Black announced that there is no update at this time. The IRS decisions were appealed in December 2004, and we haven’t heard back.
President-to-President February 28:
On Monday, February 28 at 3:30 the FA Presidents are meeting with the State University Presidents.
Treasurer’s Report
Richard Gendreau presented the end of the month December financial report.
IFO Investment Policy:
The IFO Investment Policy was last approved on March 25, 2004. According to our Operating Procedures, we need to approve the policy at the beginning of each calendar year. A motion was made to approve the policy as presented. Carried
Membership Report:
Wil Harri gave a membership report. We are within 1% from where we were this time last year. The St. Cloud and Mankato campuses were encouraged to find ways to increase their membership (i.e. membership drive, new faculty orientation). There are 35 retirees this spring.
Article 22:
Frank Conroy distributed a memorandum to the Board of Directors on Article 22 as requested. Frank asked the Board to please call him directly if they have questions.
Frank addressed the issue of voting rights and travel funds. Voting rights are based on the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) number calculated at the state level. There is no uniform policy on travel funds. Let’s say you have 50/50 in two departments. The administration can decide to go 50/50 or even 100 to the department(s). PELRA says you can make a recommendation as to where you prefer your travel funds go if you have a dual appointment so long as it pertains to your assignment.
Grievance Report:
Frank Conroy gave a grievance report. Currently at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College we have one faculty member who is a full IFO member. There is an ongoing issue with that faculty member as she is the sole IFO member at Fond du Lac. The arbitration award from the Geidosh arbitration was distributed. Board members were asked to keep the document confidential although all revealing information was blacked out.
It was noted that all campuses need to be aware of FERPA regulations concerning student grades.
PDP/PDR:
The faculty member has the choice on whether or not to include comments. A handout with a more detailed explanation was given.
Grievance Communications:
What is the process used to communicate with the faculty association presidents regarding grievances and campus visits? At the last Board meeting: “A motion was made to direct Frank Conroy to bring a written suggestion on how to handle this issue of communication to the next Board meeting in January. Bratt/Toland Carried 12/6/04” Operating Procedures Chapter V. D.6. states that a staff member must notify the faculty association president prior to the visit. This provision was referenced in the discussion. A written suggestion was not distributed, and there was not a conclusive remedy to this issue.
Academic Affairs Report:
Debra Japp gave an Academic Affairs Report. The Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) met on December 2-3. The next meeting will coincide with the March Board meeting.
The Task Force on Graduate Education will meet on January 28th in St. Cloud (in conjunction with the MnSCU Graduate Council). Sub-committees have submitted preliminary reports. The proposed survey and its implementation will be discussed.
The Steering Committee of the Transfer Oversight Committee met on January 14th. The full committee met on January 21st. Discussion included a draft of the description and charge of the committee. Differences continue to exist around how much of an oversight role the committee wants to play. Members of MSCF seem comfortable with a more top-down approach in that this committee would play a role in determining if certain courses fit the parameters of the MnTC, and if so, where they would be placed. IFO is not comfortable with this process. MSCF continues to push for a “sieve” approach. That is courses would first have to fit an agreed upon definition of general/liberal education. Next the course would have to fit an area of MnTC. The claim is that currently a number of courses included on the MnTC “fit” a particular category of the MnTC but do not fit the spirit of general education. Or, that while a particular course might meet 51% of a category’s objectives, the majority of the course is not devoted to these objectives. MSCF would like the IFO to participate in a process that develops a joint definition of general/liberal education. Agreement was reached on the inclusion of upper-division courses (3xx/4xx) in the MnTC. Currently the UMn allows such courses in their version of the MnTC arguing that certain upper-division courses can fulfill the spirit of MnTC. This information will be communicated formally from VC Baer to CAOs and through the Meet and Confer process. As per MnSCU Board directive, representatives of the state university accounting faculty met on December 7, 2004 to “develop guidelines for colleges wishing to transfer first-year courses into baccalaureate programs in accounting and other business programs.” Recommendations were taken back to SUs Accounting Departments for discussion.
MnSCU Academic Affairs and Student Policy Council met on January 13th. Debra was not able to attend due to the weather, but Nancy Black attended. A decision was made concerning Policy 3.29, regarding the notation of academic suspensions on the student’s official transcript. The notation will appear on the student’s official transcript until the student graduates. After graduation, all notations of academic suspensions will be excised and will not be a part of the student’s official academic transcript.
A motion was made that the IFO members of the Transfer Oversight Committee work with the two-year college representatives to develop definitions of general education courses for use with the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum. Motion carried without opposition.
There is a concern about the organization of the Council on Professional Education (COPE) meetings. There are no agendas, no minutes, and nothing is being sent out in advance. Decisions are being made at these COPE meetings without records. We will request this information at our next statewide meet and confer.
Anti-Racism Training:
On behalf of the Multicultural Issues Committee, Gwen Griffin thanked the Board for attending the anti-racism training on January 26, 2005.
Faculty Update Newsletter:
The Faculty Update Newsletter will now be sent out on the 15th of each month. If you have any issues that you think are important, please let us know. We want to communicate with faculty! Articles should be submitted to Russ Stanton with a copy to Cindy Webber by the 10th of each month.
MN Online Committee:
Pat Rogers, chair of MnSCU’s MN Online Committee and faculty member at Bemidji State University, was invited by the Board to attend the Board meeting to inform them of this Committee’s work. Nancy started by informing the Board members that $8.1 million is budgeted for MN Online this year at MnSCU.
Pat has participated in the MN Online Committee since 2000. MN Online is not a program, it’s a portal or an agent. This is the first system of its kind (MN Online).
The curriculum process is handled the same way for online courses as it is with classroom. When the campus registrar codes curriculum delivered by the faculty, curriculum coded with media code 03 are online courses. All of our courses need Higher Learning Commission accreditation to be offered as online programs. We, the state universities, now have licensed accreditation agents for the Higher Learning Commission within our institutions for internal peer reviews.
Pat highly recommended that a Board member be part of the MN Online Committee. Pat does not receive any release time to attend these meeting but it is handled just like any other committee.
The Board was very concerned with the charge of this committee citing such concerns as curriculum development, duplicate or overlapping online courses, classroom time, how courses are offered, student retention, etc. Pat was able to answer most of the Board questions. For the other questions she was unable to answer, we compiled the following list that will be brought to our next statewide meet and confer on February 18 (this list will be sent to the Board members prior to the meet and confer for additional input and clarification):
Questions for meet and confer:
ü What are the definitions of the media codes used by registrars (i.e. 03 = online courses only). Also, we’d like to see the forms being used in this process.
ü How does one become a peer reviewer for MN Online?
ü In our system, how many of the students who register through MN Online complete their programs? What is the online completion rate vs. the on campus completion rate?
ü What is the MN Online Council?
ü Explain the $5.00 per credit fee.
ü (Reminder: We need to invite Gary Langer to attend the February 18 M&C.)
We will be inviting Linda Baer to attend our next Board meeting in March to speak to the issue of MN Online.
Negotiations Chair:
According to the Operating Procedures, if the Negotiating Team is in agreement then the President is allowed to appoint a negotiations chair who is not on the team. Nancy Black recommended to the team that Rod Henry be appointed to serve. Rod agreed and so did the negotiating team. A motion was made by the IFO Board of Directors to appoint Rod Henry as the chair of the negotiating team. Carried
Action Plan Developed by Henry and Kilborn:
Rod Henry, Negotiations Chair, and Judy Kilborn, Action Chair, drafted a letter addressed to all faculty in an attempt to gear up for early, widespread and coordinated action. Universal action is a must! The letter will be sent out in February with the intention of taking some form of action in April before faculty leave campus. The mailing will be sent to their home address.
A motion was made that the IFO Board endorse the action plan idea for the 2005 negotiations. Carried unanimously
Judy is looking for ideas for early action this semester. Input from the Board was requested on the written communication distributed at the Board meeting. Your input is needed by Friday, February 4.
Legislative Report:
Russ Stanton gave a legislative report. The report had been emailed to the Board previously for their review. IFO Lobby Days are scheduled for February 15-16. The Government Relations Committee spent its budget, and many Executive Committee members are unable to attend (there is an Executive Committee/Statewide Meet and Confer on February 17-18). Russ requested the Board approve using the funds from the Local Activity Funds to cover the expenses related to Lobby Days so that more faculty could attend. Lobby Day participants were strongly encouraged to attend the pre-meeting on February 15 to learn more about communicating with legislators. This meeting will be held at the Kelly Inn in St. Paul across the street from the State Capitol at 4 p.m. - the GRC will begin meeting at 3 p.m.
A motion was made to allow the GRC to use the Local Activity Funds. Carried
Russ’ report covered an update on the bonding bill, the governor’s budget recommendations, Rochester’s university proposal, alternative funding models, and applied doctorate degrees.
MnSCU put together a wheel guide PR piece illustrating how an increase in tuition and funding would look. Right now the students are organized and active; MnSCU is pitting them against faculty by using the issue of tuition vs. faculty increases. Russ suggested to the Board that the IFO Budget Committee be charge with looking at the issue of alternative funding models and then they will bring back alternatives and recommendations to the IFO Board for consideration later this semester. Carried
Budget Committee Report:
The IFO Budget Committee held its first meeting of the year on December 21, 2004. The Committee made the following recommendation to the Board: that the IFO support a legislative appropriation to cover inflation based on the Higher Education Price Index, instead of funding inflation through tuition. Carried
The Budget Committee made the following additional recommendation to the Board: that the Board take the position that there is no direct relationship between compensation increases for faculty and tuition adjustments. The IFO board recognizes that maintaining a quality faculty is important to being able to maintain quality academic programs for our students. Maintaining a quality faculty is dependent upon competitive salaries and workload. Carried
The reasoning behind this above motion is that the two should not be linked – the PR wheel guide is deceptive and misleading and there should not be a direct relationship. There are other ways to get faculty compensation increases. We need to be able to respond to the Michael Vekich letter addressed to students regarding faculty salary increases correlating to tuition.
Grievance Report:
Pat Arseneault gave a grievance report.
Salary Equity:
Pat Arseneault gave a report on the status of the salary review process. A comprehensive list of the faculty reviewed in the FY03 study was mailed to each of the faculty association presidents.
The prior creditable experience worksheet and guidelines are now posted on the IFO website. The SRC uses these guideline in making determination regarding a faculty member’s prior creditable experience, for purposes of the salary review process. Campuses should also be using the worksheet and guidelines for crediting prior work experience when determining appropriate salary for newly hired faculty members.
GLBTA Issues Committee/MIC Committee/FIC Committee:
The GLBTA Committee will hold its next meeting on Friday, February 18 at the St. Cloud campus in conjunction with the MN GLBTA Conference on February 18. The committee representative from Bemidji has resigned, and a replacement is being sought.
The MIC held their winter meeting on Thursday, January 27 following the anti-racism training.
The Associate Vice Chancellor position for the Equal Opportunity and Diversity position at MnSCU is being renamed to Executive Director. The job description is posted on MnSCU’s website. It seems like there isn’t going to be a EOD office within MnSCU. Cindy Phillips is on the search committee to fill this position. This is also a statewide meet and confer agenda item. The MIC will be addressing this issue in a letter that Nancy will bring to our February 18, 2005 statewide meet and confer.
IFO Ethics Ad Hoc Committee:
The work of the IFO Ethics Ad Hoc Committee will be delayed until the fall.
Joint IFO/MnSCU Salary Competitiveness Task Force:
Russ Stanton asked the Board what their position is on the issue of market based salaries by discipline. There is no directive given in the Delegate Assembly resolutions (except for the fact that the IFO is against merit-pay) and the IFO’s position needs to be made known to our task force members. Currently under our contract new faculty can be hired any where between steps 15 and 40.
Some committee members (faculty and administrators) suggested that a survey be conducted. The IFO needs to approve any survey before it is sent out. A survey circumvents the IFO governance structure as the voice of the faculty to some extent.
As per the stated position of Chancellor McCormick on March 26, 2004, a motion was made to move the system wide average university faculty compensation to the 80th percentile of national comparable universities.
To maintain the ability of the state universities to address market conditions:
i. Career Steps: eliminate sunset clause on career steps and shorten the number of years necessary to earn the career steps.
ii. Salary Equity: timely and improved implementation of these discipline based reviews that increase faculty salaries to compensate for higher pay to new hires in that discipline.
The above position was approved by the IFO Board of Directors. Carried
MnSCU is pushing for merit-based pay. We already have an evaluation process in place, and we believe there is adequate assessment and flexibility under the current process.
A motion was made that consistent with past practice, no survey is moved forward without the approval of the IFO Board. Carried
Joint IFO/MnSCU Workload Costing Task Force:
Ruth Zietlow asked the Board for direction on this task force. It seems that this would be best addressed by the negotiating team. Rod Henry, negotiations chair, will be invited to attend the meeting on February 4. The IFO members have noted that it has been difficult working on this task force.
Nancy will write a letter or make a phone call to the Chancellor before the February 18 meet and confer. If the February 4 workload meeting produces results, then we will determine if this needs to be added to the statewide meet and confer agenda on February 18.
What kind of data do we need to agree on? What do faculty value when it comes to this task force? There was discussion on the data that are being used at the meeting. Ruth will summarize the issues for Nancy, and suggested that the IFO members meet one hour before the February 4th meeting or that the faculty association presidents caucus with their own members.
Report Cards/Prospectus:
The Citizen’s League report addressed the issue of each institution having a report card. Outcome based measurements favored more selective institutions – where the value added approach favored public institutions. There is more concern over PSEO (noting that the criteria have been changed 14 times since it was originally instituted). We need to be careful that we (or high school teachers) aren’t teaching high school courses. A motion from December 2-3, 2004 had been tabled. The motion was a GRC goal:
Goal #5 was separated from the group and has been tabled until the next Board Meeting. Carried on 12/2-3/04
There was a discussion on the relevance of the IFO addressing this issue. The Board believed this issue should not be addressed by the IFO, but rather by the administration. The Board felt it better to make a statement: A motion was made that if a report card or prospectus is required, we want it to be value added. Carried
MnSCU Student Conduct Policies Task Force:
Please send names of interested faculty to Cindy, and the Board will take an electronic vote.
List of Committees:
MnSCU provided us with a list of MnSCU committees with IFO reps. Cindy Webber will be adding a column to this chart to include the names of the IFO faculty appointed to these committees. A motion was made to establish specific terms of service for all faculty on these MnSCU committees. Carried
Survey Expert:
MnSCU has asked us for a faculty survey expert. Please contact John O’Brien or Lynda Milne if you are interested. The rate of compensation has not yet been determined. Cindy Webber will email the presidents with the charge.
Proposed 05-06 Board Dates:
The dates proposed for the 05-06 Board meetings were approved. Carried
Executive Committee Update:
Thank you to Steve Bohnenblust and Annette Schoenberger for reorganizing a draft of the Delegate Assembly Resolutions. These will be used by the Negotiating Team.
Statewide Meet and Confer Agenda:
The agenda in the packets was reordered by the Executive Committee on Wednesday, January 26 at their meeting as follows:
Audio Needs at Board Meetings:
We received frequent complaints at Board meetings about people not being able to hear. It will cost us $350 each meeting to rent the equipment we need to amplify the sound.
A motion was made to authorize staff to investigate audio systems for purchase and if it’s not available by March 24, we will rent the equipment for the next Board meeting. Carried
Executive Session:
The IFO received an IFOSA grievance that they are processing and trying to work out before it is brought to the March meeting. There is also another grievance but no details were given.
MnSCU Library Director Position:
Nancy Black wrote Bill Tschida a letter requesting a list of all the staff and their salaries in the system. The newly-created MnSCU Library Director position will be brought to the next statewide meet and confer on February 18.
Carol Twigg – Course Redesign:
Lou Moran, a MnSCU Trustee, asked Carol Twigg to make a presentation to the Board of Trustees at their December meeting. The topic was redesigning large lecture classes. The Board was very impressed and began salary negotiations with her on the spot. There was also discussion of computer-graded courses. This has many contractual implications. Carol Twigg is coming back in March.
The model Twigg presented is being used by large research institutions. It would behoove us to get our own ad hoc committee on this. We are not graduate institutions; we are a teaching system. Campus CTL representatives are working on this. Some of the ideas are not all bad but it is not cost saving to do this. Some of what Carol presented is already happening on our campuses and the state university presidents are not aware. People at the CTL do not seem to be aware of the political activities happening within the Board of Trustees. Nancy will talk to Linda Baer about the Twigg initiative.
Maybe MN Online needs to look at this? Nancy will contact Pat Rogers to see what she knows. Can we have the Executive Committee spearhead this issue? Let’s first bring the issue to our next statewide meet and confer.
A motion was made to adjourn. Carried
3:00 p.m. Adjourned