Statewide Meet and Confer
UNOFFICIAL NOTES
IFO/MnSCU
May 14, 2004
Additional Agenda Items:
Additional items were added to the agenda by the IFO: Taskforce on Workload; Teaching Centers; Itasca Group; Media coverage on Channel 9 on Overload; and, TOCAR – recognition of individual’s time spent.
One Million Dollar Building Project:
IFO: What is the point in recentralizing if it is costing the system so much money? We’re hearing that MnSCU staff and equipment are being relocated from four campuses for a short period of time and then the equipment is being moved again.
MnSCU: There is a cost study. We are unsure of the timeframe. The ETC Building lease is up in two years. Some of this is being prompted by the retirement of some directors. The taskforce will be completing the cost study by early summer. What is your primary issue?
IFO: Six years ago this same process look place; we are concerned about the amount of money that is being spent. We heard that move wasn’t successful. We need to look at the past before we go charging forward. We do respect your expertise, but things are changing rapidly. Faculty can play a role.
Chancellor: We’re getting 1 million new people in the Twin Cities. Let’s think carefully about bringing the greater Minnesota jobs to the Twin Cities. We do not want to make the situation worse for greater Minnesota.
MnSCU: We are talking about a small handful of people.
Chancellor: Maybe we need to take the ETC relocation to Thief River Falls.
MnSCU: We are open to all suggestions. That’s why a third party is conducting the study.
IFO: Can we get a copy of that study? Does this study relate to the Business Practices Alignment Committee?
MnSCU: No, they are not related.
Polytechnic Education:
MnSCU: We’ve asked the IFO for faculty reps. A handout was given. We’re not meeting over the summer. The purpose of this is to evaluate the needs of the state of Minnesota.
IFO: Some of our reps felt like MnSCU was forging ahead regardless.
Chancellor: Maybe we do need to create something new in Minnesota. There’s the feeling that we aren’t where we need to be in the state.
MnSCU: Four or five presidents from the 2-year colleges initiated this. The word polytechnic maybe isn’t correct.
IFO: Where is the money coming from?
MnSCU: It will depend on the outcome of the study.
IFO: We may be confusing our constituents when the word polytechnic is used.
Chancellor: We need to do what Minnesota needs. How can we do that and still respect the integrity and tradition of our universities? I am surprise at how little support we have within the business community. The intent is to see if there is other business out there. We don’t want to loose that.
Davenport: The term “engineering” is straight down the line and maybe this is a better way to communicate this.
MnSCU: People are constantly challenging the name of this committee so we need to change it.
Summer Committee Meetings:
IFO: If MnSCU holds committee meetings over the summer which include IFO faculty reps, will you be paying them at a duty day rate since most faculty are not on duty over the summer?
MnSCU: We haven’t worked that out. We’ll get back to you on that.
A handout was given by MnSCU outlining summer committee meetings.
IFO: Cindy Webber will send you our academic calendars. When summer begins, faculty have completed their duties and are not available. This needs to be recognized as our culture.
Chancellor: What day can we be safe to schedule in the fall?
IFO: After Labor Day.
MnSCU: We’ll continue talking with leadership over the summer. Our calendar doesn’t stop and neither does the work.
IFO: Some of these meetings are coming up soon. What about summer work loads?
MnSCU: We haven’t agreed that we’ll consider this as duty days.
Nursing:
IFO: I can see from your list of summer committee meetings that there will not be a summer meeting for nursing. If we’re going to respond to the nursing crisis, we need to hear from faculty. There isn’t substantial representation for nursing on these committees from the four-year institutions.
Chancellor: Yes, I’ve heard this concern before.
IFO: We got a request for one (1) faculty member on the Nursing Education Council and the Nursing Online taskforce. Percentage-wise the four-year Bachelor’s Degree is a demand. I’m not saying we need seven (7) reps but I’m saying we need reps from each of our state universities with a nursing program.
Chancellor: We can’t solve this now. We obviously have a communication problem. Last year we got an extra six (6) million for nursing from the legislature. It looks like we’ve put a lot of time into nursing and faculty don’t know about it. Now it’s getting worse. We have an enormous retirement group of nurses coming up. How are we failing?
IFO: Faculty need to be at the table.
MnSCU: You have Riki Scheela at the table, but I understand you didn’t appoint her.
IFO: Also, Kristin Juliar is not a faculty member and evidently she is not communicating with faculty at Mankato.
224 Duty Days:
IFO: Do you have any idea why we are spending so much time on this issue?
MnSCU: First of all, the intent from the Office of the Chancellor was not to impose or order some new restriction on the ability of faculty members to earn compensation in excess of their salary for a 9 or 12 month year. This concept of 224 duty days isn’t new at all. The 224 duty day limit, so to speak, goes back to the late 1970s. The IFO President did provide us with some documentation provided by faculty members as to how the 224 limit was affecting them. None of us recollect seeing these documents previously. In every case where faculty have put forth concern it dealt with total compensation because if failed to recognize extra time faculty have put it. There are other ways to do this than increasing the 224. We have found faculty who are making over $140k.
IFO: Is that bad?
MnSCU: There is a rational way to explain the 168 duty days. I’ve been counting duty days for 10+ years. The duty days for a 12 month appointment were designed at 261. Even the 168 was rationally derived. There were no specifications in the contract for a 10 ½ month assignment for a department chair person – now its 196. Now we have the extended contract language – it gave us the flexibility. In support of the 168, 196 were all not issues of how many days they worked but really a cap on the administration assigning. Let me draw your attention to the IFO’s resolution 409 in April of 1978. This resolution is what lead to the IFO’s contract language. This was the year we went to arbitration on the contract. The bargaining history didn’t show any intent to increase duty days. There were no grievances over these things. When this became a problem at SCSU, is when faculty would get outside funding sources. Fictitious duty days were dreamed up and this put pressure on the 224 duty days. We’ve gotten beyond that and have executed MOAs and faculty don’t know we’re solving these problems. We need to communicate better. It exists on campuses with Division 1 hockey coaches.
Chancellor: To me, this is a communication problem. Do we need to talk to our deans or presidents?
IFO: I would still view this differently than a communication problem – there seems to be unwillingness from the Office of the Chancellor to address this.
MnSCU: At SCSU, we see an issue in the Second Language program. There is some conflict of interest.
IFO: Again, that’s your opinion. University presidents should make these decisions. You’re making this decision about the Second Language program.
MnSCU: Right, in consultation with the state university president.
Davenport: Athletic coaches work over 224 duty days and they’re not complaining. They think that’s what they need to do. They think it is tradition.
IFO: I am a tennis coach. There is a mentality that you shut up and do your job. We love what we do and should not be making these sacrifices. There needs to be dialog on the campuses. There is a mathematical way to look at this. A lot of administrators think 168 is religion.
MnSCU: We need accountability.
IFO: I encourage you to try to understand that this is broader – it is a workload issue. It is a major issue and nothing is being done. 224 duty days isn’t in the contract and there are no limitations.
MnSCU: There hasn’t been any plan to increase pay to over a 12 month salary.
IFO: There is nothing in the contract about this. Maybe we can agree on the next step. We have a problem, this is the third time we’ve brought this to meet and confer. This isn’t a board policy. It is a problem and the institutions are suffering. 28% of these faculty grants goes to the university.
MnSCU: We do have to do MOAs. It would be fine to give the state university presidents the authority.
IFO: It’s more red tape.
MnSCU: There isn’t any reason why we can’t go beyond 224. It’s a quality issue. There isn’t a reason why someone should work a seven (7) day work week. There are many things the state university president could do. We want a consistent policy within the system.
Chancellor: Why isn’t this in the contract?
IFO: It’s your office’s interpretation.
MnSCU: This isn’t a policy.
IFO: That’s why we’re spending so much time at meet and confer. It’s not in the contract; it isn’t a policy or procedure. We feel this is something that was put into place without faculty consultation and I’m not sure your HR knows either. It’s your grant office. Let your state university presidents handle it.
Chancellor: So you agree that the state university president can do an MOA?
IFO: Yes, let the president decide.
Davenport: I haven’t seen any abuses and I don’t have a problem making a judgment call.
IFO: Our president is encouraging us to do more with grants, etc. This is going to become more problematic. We need to take a look at a better solution. Your memo was clear – according to the administration 224 is gospel. 50% of faculty funding comes from outside sources not the legislature.
MnSCU: We’ll continue to talk about this with the state university presidents.
AFA Degree:
IFO: Issues here relate to process. There is an academic process we should be applying with the Associates Degree. Why is the U of M in the picture? There is a broad range of issues here.
MnSCU: This is not a blanket opportunity; it requires an articulation agreement with a Minnesota school.
IFO: It seems there is only one articulation agreement being used.
MnSCU: That is not correct. If you are hearing that we want to know your source. This degree was just approved in December and only two (2) institutions are offering it.
IFO: The two year requirements are not stringent enough and people are coming out with an AFA degree this spring. The students are arriving from a third institution.
MnSCU: Give me the facts.
IFO: I’ll give those to you privately.
MnSCU: I’ll write a letter to the CAOs. We have a survey out to the art faculty.
IFO: Transfer is extremely important. The folks in your office are doing a good job. I’d encourage us to continue supporting that effort. At the Transfer Oversight meeting there are still issues. Faculty appreciate the discipline meetings. We support the continued effort to continue the transfer discipline meetings.
MnSCU: The CTL has an extra layer to offer discipline meetings. We bring 16 disciplines together each year.
Davenport: We count on those transfer students. They account for 40% of our students.
IFO: We may need more follow-up on this issue.
Salary Equity:
IFO: We have an MOA regarding annual reviews. Thank you. The IFO Executive Committee has supported and recommends this MOA.
Taskforce on Workload:
IFO: What is happening here?
MnSCU: The taskforce met a couple of times and there was a request for information. We supplied it to the IFO. There’s been no formal decision to have additional meetings.
Teaching Center:
IFO: Are coordinators being hired?
MnSCU: In our Work Plan we committed that the Office of the Chancellor would pay .25% salary for a coordinator on each campus. Each campus has agreed to pay .25% so each campus will hire a .50% position and the campuses will decide.
IFO: When there’s a position like this there should be a campus wide notice. Even though the deans think they understand they aren’t following the contractual process. This needs to be communicated more broadly.
Desire2Learn:
MnSCU: I want to give you an update and have asked that this be a standing agenda item. There are four (4) issues we are dealing with: The out of the box version is currently 7.2 and version 7.3 will be available in mid-summer. Do we need to wait to get the current version?
IFO: Faculty were engaged in a workshop this week.
MnSCU: 7.3 has bug fixes. It’s not a major upgrade.
IFO: What about the annual conference in Madison? Are you bringing faculty?
MnSCU: The cost is $83 per person. Our first priority is the implementation. The second issue we are dealing with is the help desk. We’re looking at how to support students and faculty. We want it provided internally. The third issue is the Respondus software. This will help faculty develop quizzes and tests. This is being discussed in the Academic IT group of which you have seven (7) IFO-appointed faculty. Desire2Learn is interested in providing the equivalent to the Respondus software but there are additional costs involved. The forth issue is the summer institute training for trainers.
Faculty Teaching Awards:
MnSCU: The CTL wants to acknowledge outstanding teachers. A handout was given. The CTL is recommending this. It will begin at the beginning of the academic year. It should have taken off by this time next year. The committee determines the awards and nominees.
Chancellor: We still need to continue working on communication. There seems like there is a feeling from the IFO that this is already a done deal. We should start this off by saying to the IFO at a meet and confer, “Should we create a committee to reward faculty.” Instead of saying we’ve created a committee. Now there’s suspicion that there’s an agenda. We need to get from good to great. The spirit is not right here. How do we get to that point where we aren’t suspicious? This should be discussed further for our next round of meet and confers.
IFO: There needs to be a feeling of exchange. Draft questions before the committee is formed. When items are coming on the agenda, we’d like to know what those issues are a week in advance.
Chancellor: Maybe the question should have been “Let’s talk about some ways we can recognize faculty.”
IFO: That’s the culture of who we are. We want input. When we get together we argue – we’re taught to do that and it’s our nature. Thank you for bringing us the charge document before the committee was formed.
Policy 2.8 Student Life:
IFO: We’ve reviewed the policy and it is acceptable to us.
MN Digital Learning Plan:
MnSCU: A handout was given. This report will go to MN Online. This will be in draft format for a long time.
Assessment for College Readiness:
MnSCU: This committee is reconvening. A handout was given.
IFO: I recommend you increase this to seven (7) faculty.
Itasca:
Chancellor: The McKenzie Company are working as consultants. They’ve identified 6-7 issues. They have fanned out 30 of the city’s businesses and only one business knew who MnSCU was – Vance Opperman’s group. They were only familiar with the U of M. We never hit their radar screen. This is our PR’s problem. We’re finally at the table. This group’s intentions are positive. Bob Brunick is heading the early childhood education study. We’re initiating a new process and procedure. If we roll this out to faculty, we need to make sure the IFO President is aware of it before correspondence goes out to faculty.
Channel 9 – Overtime for Faculty:
Chancellor: We did not see this news story nor did we hear about it.
Davenport: We did get a heads up from your office about this – two (2) of our faculty were targeted.
MnSCU: The media got their information from the payroll system and it isn’t necessarily used in the same way it is given.
IFO: I saw a U of M article showing how their professors are underpaid.
TOCAR:
IFO: An update was given on Articles 22 & 25 – things are going well.
MnSCU: Dolores Fridge is aware of this and I’ve discussed this with Gail.
Thank you:
Pehler: Thank you, this is my last statewide meet and confer. I know we’ve grown from the previous chancellor. Thank you to you and your support staff.
Chancellor: Thank you to all of you. Let’s try to keep our momentum going!
Adjourned 11:35