Statewide Meet and Confer UNOFFICIAL Notes

December 12, 2003

 

IFO Present:  Mary Kesler, Becky Omdahl, Debra Japp, Richard Gendreau, Jim Pehler, Cindy Phillips, Patrice Arseneault, Russ Stanton, Chris Brown, Cindy Webber, Steve Bohnenblust

 

MnSCU Present:  Chancellor James McCormick, Barb Miller, Gary Janikowski, Jim Jorstad, John O’Brien, Chris Dale, Roland Barden, Linda Baer, Deena Allen, Janice Fitzgerald, Ken Neimi, John Shabatura, Jerry Johnson, Leslie Mercer

 

224 Duty Days:

 

IFO:  The recent imposition of 224 max duty days from this office on the campuses is a matter of serious concern to us for many reasons.  According to a July 22, 2003 memo from Bill Tschida, the 224 day cap is a measure of the appropriate rate of pay – it is not about what faculty work it is about what they are paid.  Some faculty want and need to work more than the 224 max.  We’re encouraging faculty to engage in more research – but the 224 days limits faculty.  Faculty are going outside of the university to accomplish their goals.  We cannot identify any positive purpose for this policy.  We’re concerned that this policy creates harm and we encourage you to revise it.

 

A second issue with duty days, when a faculty member retires on the 15th of a month or earlier, they receive an extra $2,000 from TRA, but if they retire on the 16th or later they do not.  We are requesting a Memorandum of Agreement to state what the last duty day for retirees should be.  We have been told that we cannot enter into this kind of agreement.  MnSCU is limiting us from doing what makes sense.  This is a destructive policy and we ask that you reconsider and give campuses the ability to set their own duty days.

 

MnSCU:  The 224 max is intended to be a reflection of the number of days a faculty member would work if they had a full 12 month year.  There is no intention to restrict faculty income (or grants).  Part of the motivation is to try to avoid some of the problems you refer to.  The number of duty days is a proxy – if we had to work this out, we’d rather give them extra compensation or adjust the daily rate.  This would avoid the problems you just described.

 

IFO:  Can you send out a memo to faculty explaining that?  This has been misinterpreted.

 

MnSCU:  Maybe we should have said base pay instead of pay.

 

IFO:  I know three people who have had to walk away from their grant or had to start their own company to take a grant. 

 

MnSCU:  The existing contract doesn’t always accomplish that.

 

IFO:  We have a problem from a state budgetary crisis standpoint.  This doesn’t offer an incentive to bringing in more money to the campuses.  Many faculty members work more than 224 days.  We’re not just talking about compensation but the resources that come to our campuses from these grants.  We welcome a constructive approach.  This policy has been announced and applied by faculty and administration and is a major disincentive.

 

MnSCU:  Maybe we should have brought this to meet and confer before.

 

MnSCU:  Under TRA law you need a minimum of 170 days when you get service credit from TRA.

 

IFO:  If you get your notice in before the 15th of that month you get an extra month of TRA benefits (approximately $2,000).

 

MnSCU:  Can this be solved?  It depends on what the campuses want to do, but yes, it can be solved.

 

IFO:  The campuses get to choose their calendars.

 

MnSCU:  All campuses get to choose their calendar and they can have it end before the 15th.

 

Ideas for Strategic Profile Presentations to the Board (MnSCU Agenda Item):

 

MnSCU:  The Board has decided to change the facility planning – they want to see more of an overview and what will be presented to the Board – driven by academic and student needs.  (Handout was given.)

 

IFO:  When do you plan to present this to the board?

 

MnSCU:  We’ll be implementing this at the first part of the year.  This is not a policy.  It appears formally but it is not formal.  We still want a sense of where campuses are heading in the future.  We want to know if we are on track here.  I think the Board is on the right track.  We want your feedback.

 

IFO:  Our concern is that the statement that this information is available at the Office of the Chancellor and I want to see this come from the institution – the local university should present the profile.  We have no time to review this procedure – we’re on break now and under the gun.

 

MnSCU:  These are aligned with the state university president evaluations from this summer.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise – there should be no deep concerns with this.

 

IFO:  There are other things that have happened this month that cause us to be concerned as well.

 

Acceptable Use 5.22:

 

IFO:  We saw this policy circulating one year ago.  This one-size-fits-all policy has problems.  I found many items in this that will have problems. 

 

MnSCU:  Because this is a procedure and not a policy, it is not going to the Board.

 

IFO:  So procedures are NOT going to the Board for review?  If so, we withdraw our support and we’ll object to all procedures.  There needs to be input.  Whatever happened to the IT Roundtable?  Understand why campuses get upset with the Office of the Chancellor – you’ve trumped all the local policies and procedures on the campuses.  According to Gail Olsen this 5.22 procedure has been dragging on for seven years.

 

MnSCU:  Procedures do not need Board approval but we send it out to all the same individuals who receive notification of changes to policies.

 

Proposed Amendments to Policies (MnSCU item):

 

MnSCU:  These three policies are going before the Board in January (3.17, 3.21, 3.25).  These policies are coming to you after extensive faculty input.  There will always be differences of opinion.

 

IFO:  We are dealing with nationally accredited programs.  December is a bad time to get response back from faculty.  I think transfer is where we are making good progress.

 

MnSCU:  Maybe we should eliminate January Board of Trustee meetings instead of February.

 

IFO:  That’s a great idea.  Keep in mind that July – August is also bad.  When the Board does their first reading it gets locked in their minds.  Our structure with the Board is not conducive to debate.  (Specific feedback was given on each policy.)

 

MnSCU:  Articulation between two institutions is not binding on the whole system.

 

IFO:  We can all be the same family (CC/TCs and SUs) but don’t need to be siamese twins.  I think the issue with the AFA degree art in particular, is that this is putting pressure on their accreditation issues.

 

MnSCU: This doesn’t force agreement, it just gives the option.

 

IFO:  Do we want to maintain accreditation or enrollment?

 

MnSCU:  We don’t want to eliminate transfer with articulation agreements.  This is scheduled for the second reading in the third week of March.

 

IFO:  I do not like policy and procedure being developed together.

 

MnSCU:  It is easier to change procedure and to implement it quickly without Board approval.

 

IFO:  Portfolio review is another issue for us.  This is in addition to workload.  Who pays for that compensation?  There are some real fundamental differences in art.

 

MnSCU Budget Allocation Model:

IFO:  In the past universities have been held harmless.  State universities offer a different level of education.  We see the state universities are disadvantaged with your formula.  Our Board really has a problem with this disadvantage.  There is an inequity here.

 

MnSCU:  Are you saying you don’t like the formula or the recognition of the state universities and the cc/tcs?  You are unique.

 

IFO:  Overall state universities are losing and the cc/tcs are gaining.

 

MnSCU:  We’ll be meeting again in January at our allocation framework meeting.

 

IFO:  I don’t see that union meetings have been scheduled.  How do you put in quality measures or a mission into this formula?  It appears to be all enrollment driven.  We don’t fit in your one-size-fits-all model.  Maybe a healthy way to approach this is to create distinctions between the institutions.

 

MnSCU:  We are under funded – that’s the problem.  I don’t think there are more than 2 or 3 people who understand this allocation model and I don’t think it’s a one-size-fits-all.  The technical colleges are much more expensive than the community colleges because of the equipment.  Mankato invited us to meet on their campus to discuss this.  We’re happy to go to other campuses.

 

Anti-Semitism Settlement at SCSU:

 

IFO:  We are requesting an update.

 

MnSCU:  We didn’t get notice of this agenda item in enough time to get this information to you.  We need to go to SCSU.

 

IFO:  There are things that have to be done to satisfy the court order.

 

MnSCU:  We agreed to do a newsletter and I haven’t seen that yet.  We need to contact SCSU.

 

Desire2Learn:

 

IFO:  The project implementation efforts are appreciated.  We are supposed to be supporting diversity and research.  One size does not fit all.  Do our faculty have the resources to make this transition?  From a computer science standpoint I can understand the need – it’s a company approach.

 

MnSCU:  We currently use WebCT.  We have unanimous agreement on our committee for D2L; it offers standards plus flexibility.  Normandale community college is moving aggressively.

 

IFO:  Is your office offering training to those who have later expiration dates?

 

MnSCU:  We have trained reps from every campus.  We’re ahead of where we thought we’d be.

 

Baer’s Four Bold Ideas:

 

MnSCU:  I met with the governor a week ago.  We might just get lucky.  There might be an opportunity for us.  I plan to meet with the governor in the middle of January.  If he’s doing this with the Mayo Clinic, we want to take our chance as well.  I talked to Jim Pehler about these ideas.  Item four benefits all campuses – to serve more students in nursing.  Many of our universities have programs in the technical colleges.  This will help us further coordinate that.  Rollout ideas are still being discussed.  We want to offer more coordinated teacher opportunities in the technical colleges.  We had input from the presidents and are taking this to COPE.

 

IFO on Teacher Center:  I know COPE is discussing this.  Many students of color attend two year institutions.  We have a good process with your transfer people and they’ve earned the trust of the state universities.  I would like to suggest that they be pulled into the process – front and center.

 

MnSCU:  This was presented to Susan Heegard, not the governor.

 

Meet and Confer Timeframe:

 

Chancellor:  I’d like to suggest we have a three hour meet and confer instead of two hours.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 11:33 after the Chancellor and Linda Baer left.  The remaining agenda items will be carried over to the next meet and confer.