IFO Board of Directors

Enclosed in the FA President’s packets are additional materials: Minnesota Minority Education Partnership – 2004 State of Students of Color directory; MnSCU System Level Accountability Measures PowerPoint presentation; MnSCU Image Assessment Study PowerPoint presentation; and, MnSCU’s Business Public Relations Campaign.

A chart of faculty salary comparisons was reviewed from the March/April 2004 issue of Academe. An article on Minnesota’s lack of investment into education was reviewed from the Star Tribune newspaper on Wednesday, April 21, 2004.

A campus tour is underway by the IFO President, Jim Pehler. Jim will be visiting each campus over the next week or two.

The Office of the Chancellor has responded to our list of possible dates in the month of June for our next P2P meeting. The only date that worked for the Chancellor was June 23. We are waiting to hear the turn out for the state university presidents. The Executive Committee will meet at the same time for staff reviews.

We are putting together the next issue of the IFO Update expected to go out in the next week or two.

	Chris Brown	Nancy Black	Georgia Holmes	George Seldat	Total
Bemidji	74	25	6	2	107
Mankato	49	55	40	7	151
Metropolitan	4	101	5	6	116
Moorhead	101	35	0	16	157
St. Cloud	52	145	16	11	227
Southwest	4	33	0	45	82
Winona	54	51	2	15	126
TOTAL	338	445	69	102	966

The first Board meeting scheduled for the next Academic Year is on September 16.

The orientation will begin at 1:00pm current and new members are asked to attend.

At the 4/15-16/04 Executive Committee meeting, the committee made the following recommendation to the Board for approval:

“The IFO Board refers the discussion of confidence in the Chancellor back to the Executive Committee to develop a list of concerns with evidence for the Chancellor and a list of concerns with evidence for MnSCU. The Executive Committee will present this list to the Chancellor. The Chancellor will be encouraged to respond. This response will be brought to the Board meeting following the Chancellor’s response.”

The reasoning behind this original motion is that it wasn’t clear on our campuses what the exact MnSCU/Chancellor issues are and campuses wanted rationale.

At the 4/15-16/04 Executive Committee meeting, the committee made the following recommendation to the Board for approval based on the Delegate Assembly resolution #443:

DA #443: Direct the IFO Board to create a taskforce to develop a plan for the equitable distribution of benefits to all faculty. Membership will include representatives from the FIC, MIC and newly established GLBTA Issues Committee, and IFO Board.

“There was discussion on the Domestic Partners Taskforce and if membership should be combined. The Executive Committee will report at the next week’s Board meeting that they are discussing the formation of this taskforce over the summer.”

The IRS will be auditing the IFO’s federal 990 return for FY02 beginning May 10th.

Debra Japp gave a report. The AAC met on March 26 and on April 15 to discuss nursing education, PSEO, teacher education, graduate education and transfer.

Information Management Technology Council (MnSCU Committee):
MnSCU has requested one (1) rep from the Inter Faculty Organization. Three candidates were presented: Jigang Liu (Metropolitan State University); Judy Euller (Winona State University); and, Ron Oldham (Bemidji State University). A ballot vote was taken: Liu 6; Euller 5 and Oldham 4. Professor Liu has been selected with the majority vote.

Four reps were requested by MnSCU for appointment to this committee. The Board felt there was reason to be concerned with this and that it should be added to the meet and confer agenda on May 14, 2004.

It seems a lot of MnSCU committees are meeting during the non-duty days of faculty (i.e. summer). It also seems that MnSCU isn’t readily providing reimbursement forms.

Tom Fauchald was present to give a Budget Committee Report. A handout was given. There was a discussion on the “Perkins” money. This should be discussed at the next budget meeting as well as the IPEDs report.

Russ Stanton gave a legislative update. The Citizen’s League is meeting for the first time April 30. Where is the funding for this study coming from?

At our last statewide meet and confer on April 16 this matter was discussed. According to Laura King, only 20 of the 107 recommendations pertain to faculty and the rest are “invisible”. We would like to know how those 87 recommendations do NOT affect faculty then – without students faculty do not exist. Bring this to your campus and discuss it with your officials. We will be posting this information on our website.

The term for our current AAC ends June 30, 2004. Nominations for the next two year position came forward from Monte Bute (Metropolitan State University) and Debra Japp (St. Cloud State University). Monte had to withdraw his application as Nancy Black is in his same department and it would cause too much strain on their department to have two people out. No other nominations came forward. A motion was made to close nominations. A motion was made to accept Debra Japp as Academic Affairs Coordinator for a two year term beginning July 1, 2004.

Two letters came into our office yesterday from Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships and Workforce Development, Michael Murphy. Both letters pertained to nursing. MnSCU is creating a Nursing Online Task Force and are asking for one IFO member to serve. MnSCU is also creating (or already created??) a Nursing Education Council and are asking for one IFO member to serve. Will these meetings be taking place over the summer?? If they do, we are going to request that they give the representatives the duty day rate and reimbursement for travel. Administrators are getting paid time for attending these meetings over the summer.

It is an urgent priority to discuss the chaotic state of planning nursing education and the lack of faculty participation. This isn’t just happening with nursing but other clinical areas as well. This will be added to the statewide meet and confer agenda.

Will the online nursing programs affect accreditation? This is critical to four year institutions. Send Cindy Webber (webber@ifo.org) your concerns regarding the nursing program. This is another thing we can add to our list of “Chancellor Concerns”. Every institution with a nursing program should be represented.

Patrice Arseneault gave an equity report. The FY03 annual salary reviews of new hires and persons who received terminal degrees are in progress. It will likely take several months to complete the reviews of previous employment experience, and to verify the rest of the database.

The Board members were recognized by the President. An award was given to the President by the Vice President Cindy Phillips on behalf of the Board.

Proposed procedures were presented by the EC for Board approval. The Board did not take up this item and it was asked that Board members take it back to their campuses and review.

The Executive Committee proposed new language for Board approval to add to the Operating Procedures.

The Executive Committee recommends that the IFO Board allow local campuses to pay for additional IFOSA staff hours in temporary work situations in which additional hours are needed.

A motion was made that this would be handled through a Memorandum of Agreement with the IFO and the IFOSA. Fisher/Hill Carried

A draft document was given to the Board members. They were asked to send comments to Cindy Webber (webber@ifo.org) by May 31.

The St. Cloud State University faculty association president asked that the Board affirm the EC’s April 16, 2004 motion regarding the issue of PDPs.

A motion was made that the Board reaffirms Executive Committee and the contract language Art. 22, Section D, Subd. 1 second paragraph that departmental comments go to the faculty member only. The faculty member may elect to forward those comments. The dean’s consultation with the department chair and other department members is limited to how the faculty members plan relates to departmental goals and objectives.

The issue of PDP and PDR will be referred to the Executive Committee to address.