IFO/MnSCU Statewide Meet and Confer

Unofficial Meeting Notes

November 12, 2004

MnSCU Present:  John Shabatura, Chancellor McCormick, Jim Jorstad, John Quistgaard (Bemidji SU President), Linda Baer, Chris Dale, Gary Janikowski, Mike Lopez, Leslie Mercer, Joann Chabot, Jerry Johnson, Deena Allen, John O’Brien, Becky Soboweski

IFO Present:  Nancy Black, George Seldat, Dave Larkin, Steve Bohnenblust, Cindy Phillips, Becky Omdahl, Mary Kesler, Richard Gendreau, Annette Schoenberger, Cindy Webber, Patrice Arseneault, Russ Stanton

Called to order at 8:40 a.m.

Inventory of Committees:

IFO:  We requested a master list of all the committees from you.  This year we’ve had difficulty in getting dates set.  We have also noticed that some of your committees have duplicate charges.  Are all of these committees necessary?

MnSCU:  We are working on that master list.

IFO:  What process do you use to change meeting dates?

MnSCU:  There is no science to it - whatever works for the majority.  We try to give options.

Chancellor:  Every operation has this issue.  We need to have a process to eliminate some of these committees.  Do I hear you saying you want a committee point person?

IFO:  We need a roster with all the committees.  We are concerned with the two joint taskforces.  At our last meet and confer we offered the first Friday of each month – that didn’t work out.  Then we offered alternative dates and you declined with no offer of dates that would work for you.

MnSCU:  We’ll take your last offer.  The more we can handle these meetings on-line the better and we’ll save the face-to-face for the important meetings.

IFO:  Can you clarify the charge of the new Assessment for College Readiness committee?  Do we really need a committee for this?  We’d like to know how all of these committees fit in together.

MnSCU:  [Charge clarification was given.]  We value your input and will work on this.  We will have that master list for you by the next meet and confer.

Duty Days:

MnSCU:  We are talking about mechanisms to increase faculty pay.  We talked about coming up with an agreement with each university.  We’d do this just about any way the IFO wants.  We’d prefer a broad agreement with all of the state universities. 

IFO:  Did you talk to the state university presidents about this yet?

MnSCU:  Not as a group; I think they’d handle this either way.

IFO:  It seems your trying to fix a non-existent problem.  Why do we need to bother with a Memorandum of Agreement if the money is there and the university approves the extended duty days?  We need to let the state university presidents handle this within their own budget.  Can you give us a specific example of why this is a problem?

MnSCU:  At SCSU, a faculty member entered into an agreement with an outside source – it wasn’t that he worked over 224 duty days it is that his pay didn’t reflect his step according to the contract.

IFO:  We’ll grant you that but that is irrelevant to the 224 duty day limitation.

MnSCU:  224 is a full year of work.  John Shabatura is proposing a MOA permitting the state university presidents flexibility.

IFO:  How often is this an issue for you?

MnSCU:  It is not constant, but persistent - a couple of dozen.

IFO:  We disagree that 224 days represents a full year of work.  There are situations when someone is doing experiments and conducting research that requires them to work 7 days a week.  We feel they need to be compensated for what they’re doing.

MnSCU:  I think the MOA we are referring to will address this situation – but not as entirely as you see it.  It will provide a higher rate where it is justified.

IFO:  224 is not in the contract, it was made up.

MnSCU:  We’ve never said faculty can only work for 224 duty days, but if they choose to we don’t think we need to pay for it.  Faculty aren’t paid by the day.

Chancellor:  Where I come from a faculty member worked a 9 month schedule then overload for the summer.

MnSCU:  It might be helpful to realize we aren’t going to agree.

IFO:  I’d like to suggest that the state university presidents address this and come up with a recommendation.  Would this move us forward?

MnSCU:  We’re dealing more with the issue of dollars not days.

Quistgaard:  So the state university presidents will be asked about the 224 duty days?  Do we have an agreement?

IFO:  That’s our understanding.

Health Reimbursement Arrangement Accounts (HRA):

MnSCU:  It does not appear that there will be any problems with this account.  We are considering providing you with a debit card rather than having to submit paperwork.  We don’t know what this will cost to administer.  We need to figure out a few things within the next couple of weeks.  We are meeting soon to devise a plan document.  Only 25% of faculty typically sign up for the Flexible Spending Account (FSA) – that’s true for other employee groups as well.  FSA will affect your Social Security which will affect your retirement.  You can sign a waiver in your HR office to have your Social Security withheld. 

IFO:  Can you notify our HR offices about that?

MnSCU:  Sure.

IFO:  Has MnSCU ever calculated how much money we are saving by using the FSA?

MnSCU:  It does save us money but I don’t have the figure.  This question came up at a DOER meeting as well as the issue of the tax-break that faculty are getting for using these accounts but the state is then not receiving the taxes.

IFO:  Who keeps the interest accumulated by these FSAs?

MnSCU:  Technically the employer, but we’ve talked about rewarding faculty for letting their accounts accumulate.  We don’t intend to keep the interest.

IFO:  This is a good example of us working together.

Governor’s Teaching Commission:

IFO:  How can we ensure that the deans and faculty have their voices heard by this commission?  Maybe we need COPE to be a think-tank on improving teacher education?

Chancellor:  The report generated by the commission is much more than preparing teachers.  It is also about paying teachers more.  The people on this committee are very bi-partisan.

MnSCU:  We featured the commission’s report in our P-16 meeting last week.  This group did the research for the report.

IFO:  Who is in this P-16 group?

MnSCU:  Parents, teachers, principals…this is not a MnSCU group.  They do not have any authority they just provide a forum to discuss P-16 issues.  We don’t know what comes next.  We intend to put this topic in a newsletter along with the subject of the new teaching center.  This is on the COPE agenda.  We know there are mixed feelings.  We have not said that we support or do not support this report.

Teaching Center:

IFO:  Is there money to hire a Teaching Center Director?

MnSCU:  The Teaching Center came out of the state universities’ interest.  We’ve been talking to COPE about this.

Quistgard:  When the state university presidents met last week we were in total agreement for the center.  The center will expand beyond the metro area.

Chancellor:  MnSCU is second to none in terms of what we do.  We need to be more competitive.

IFO:  Some campuses have liaisons for the Teaching Center.  Where does the money come from to pay for their salaries?

MnSCU:  They are 50% time – 25% is funded by the university and 25% is funded by MnSCU.

IFO:  Is the Teaching Center a physical place?  I heard you say it’s more of a concept.

MnSCU:  No, it is not a physical place.  Right now campuses are coordinating with each other in the same areas.  We’d like to maximize our own space or that of the community (i.e. high schools have offered use of their facilities after their 3 p.m. dismissal).  The thought now is a Teaching Center from which other graduate programs may be developed.

Desire2Learn:

MnSCU:  We have had no unstable incidents within the last month and a half – we are slightly relieved.  D2L has made some small changes – we feel confident and so does the vendor.  Right now we do not have any serious concerns.

Chancellor:  John O’Brien has done a good job.

MnSCU:  The D2L Advisory Committee is looking at two issues.  One issue is an upgrade to version 7.4.  When we upgraded to version 7.3 the general opinion was that we downgraded.  We are skeptical and aren’t going to 7.4 until we’ve been assured by the campuses.  Another upgrade to 8.0 is due this spring.  We’ve asked the vendor to upgrade based on the academic calendar.  We’ve told D2L that we expect usage to double and they have not indicated any difficulty in handling that.  We don’t want to add to faculty frustration.

IFO:  What will 7.4 offer faculty?

MnSCU:  We’ve been asking for that information and when we get it our advisory groups will handle that.

IFO:  Was internal email used in the pilot?

MnSCU:  D2L misunderstood our use of the word “internal”.  We’ll get back to you on that.

IFO:  What about faculty who offer on-line courses that are not used through D2L?  Is that a problem?

MnSCU:  The IMS of the Future Task Force said that the Office of the Chancellor should support one platform.  But what you decide as a campus….   We intend to survey users.  At our November 15 meeting we will talk about this survey.

Marketing and Communications Plan:

MnSCU:  I understand your concern is the absence of specific state university references in the plan.  Your concerns have been heard and we will get back to you.

IFO:  We are asked for input but then we do not see our input incorporated.  The same was true with the Citizen’s League Report – the state universities were completely ignored.  There seems to be a connection.  If we don’t recognize the state universities’ importance, how can we expect others? 

MnSCU:  The Citizen’s League Report does talk about post graduate degrees – we tried to get applied doctorates and our research efforts incorporated.

IFO:  I did see Trustee Chair Hoffman’s article in the Star Tribune this week.  I assume that is part of your efforts.  I’ve encouraged supporting these Trustees.

Chancellor:  I hope you’ve seen a difference since May.

Pension Commission Legislation:

IFO:  I want to ask about a request for information on the pension commission legislation.

MnSCU:  I just gave the document to Russ Stanton (IFO Director of Government Relations). 

MnSCU’s Budget Request:

Chancellor:  We presented the legislature with a $130 million request for enrollment growth and support for passing the capital budget request.  $130 million is essential.  We asked for $66 million and a 4% tuition increase.  The Board of Trustees was all together on that, and then the students tried to pressure the Board to go 0%.  In my heart I would like 0% but we cannot get adequate funding from the state and the last thing we want to do is sacrifice teacher quality.  The governor said he would NOT increase taxes.  I don’t know if this election will change their view or not.

IFO:  Faculty in the Minneapolis TRA are getting far more benefits.  I checked with the Pension Commission earlier this fall and was told the Mpls TRA fund will be broke in 5-7 years.  It is going to have to be dealt with.

Meet and Confer Forms:

IFO:  The IFO reviewed the forms you proposed and felt they looked like an internal form.  We felt a more generic form was all that was necessary and we created an example.  The purpose of using this form is to ensure follow-up.  How can I get your meet and confer notes from Becky?

MnSCU:  Becky will email those to you.

Sick Leave Proposal:

MnSCU:  We did a little research into this topic.  We didn’t realize what an issue this would be but saw it as a minor procedural improvement.  With our proposal we felt faculty did not need to claim time off that was under a half day.  But if a half day was used (4 hours) or a full day, then it would be reported as sick leave.  We still think this is a good idea and want to discuss this further.  This isn’t an issue we have a philosophical position with like we do with the 224 duty days.  If it turns out that the universities and faculty don’t want us to mess with this then we won’t.  We don’t think professional faculty need to record an hour of leave and they don’t have to.

IFO:  If it’s not broken don’t fix it.

MnSCU:  We’d like to hear from you why you don’t want to change.

IFO:  The current procedure accurately reflects what faculty are doing.  I think the burden shifts to your office to articulate the reason for the change.

Chancellor:  What really happened here is that it wasn’t brought to a meet and confer – maybe we need to throw in the towel and bring it back later.  It wasn’t handled the right way and won’t be fixed now.  The idea was maybe a good one but it isn’t going to happen now.

MOA Release Paragraph:

IFO:  We’ve been seeing this paragraph in Memorandum of Agreement documents.  The paragraph seems directed at individuals rather than the union.  Where is this coming from and what is behind it?

MnSCU:  It is coming from Labor Relations.  We try to exercise judgment in what kind of release we expect to get once we resolve a dispute.  It isn’t standard for each grievance but there are a lot of them that we want to fully resolve.  To decide if that paragraph is necessary hinges on the possibility that we may create the same dispute in a different forum that goes beyond a contract violation.  With a big issue we want to see a full resolution because of the nature of the issues we have with the IFO.  We’ve been using this paragraph for 6-7 years.

IFO:  We’re seeing this language pop-up on routine grievances, faculty want to know what this means.

MnSCU:  You have to be fair to the employer; if it’s settled, it’s settled.  If a situation deals with substantial issues, we want to know it’s done.  If you non-renew a faculty member it could go public and we’ve had situations where people claim it’s defamation. 

IFO:  We’re not alleging that – only a violation of the contract but asking us to waive the individual faculty member’s right to not have any more issue, but if there are specific concerns they should be included in the agreement.  A blanket agreement is putting us in an impossible situation.

MnSCU:  It is hard to imagine all the claims but people are creative.  I don’t think listing the claims in the agreement is a good idea.

IFO:  Including this language makes us resistant.

MnSCU:  We have a more elaborate release document.  When we settle a claim we don’t want to have other issues.  I don’t think we’re using this language any more often that we have before.  We respect this contract and want you to as well.

IFO:  You left us with the impression that this will be included in all of the MOAs going forward.

MnSCU:  No, only when it is necessary.  I anticipate that when we settle issues we will have closure.

Adjourned 11:30 a.m.