IFO/MnSCU Statewide Meet and Confer

UNOFFICIAL NOTES

May 6, 2006

IFO Present:  Nancy Black, Steve Bohnenblust, Richard Gendreau, Becky Omdahl, Dave Larkin, George Seldat, Annette Schoenberger, Debra Japp, Russ Stanton, Cindy Christians, Cindy Phillips

MnSCU Present:  Chancellor James McCormick, Richard Davenport (MSU, Mankato President), Lynda Milne, Deena Allen, Bill Tschida, John Shabatura, Barb Miller, John O’Brien, Leslie Mercer, Renee Hogoboom, John Ostrem

Sick Leave Policy:

IFO:  We have deleted the sick leave policy from the agenda.  The issue has been resolved at the local campus level.

Graduate Survey – New Agenda Item:

IFO:  We want to add the graduate survey that the IFO/MnSCU Graduate Taskforce has prepared together to the agenda.

Joint IFO/MnSCU Workload and Salary Competitiveness Taskforce Final Reports:

MnSCU:  Chris Dale and Jim Lee are working on creating a PowerPoint presentation for use before the Board of Trustees.  Russ Stanton and Rod Henry will join the presentation.

Chancellor:  We may not all agree but can we say we have come to agreement on these joint reports?

IFO:  First we need to look at the report.  Russ needs to be present at the Board of Trustees meeting.  We came to agreement on the salary competitiveness report.

MnSCU:  The joint salary competitiveness taskforce made progress.

IFO:  The workload costing taskforce report is more problematic.  We spoke in two voices.  We want to be present when this report goes before the Board of Trustees to give them the full picture.  IFO co-chairs of the taskforce, Rod Henry and Ruth Zietlow, will join the presentation.

MnSCU:  We anticipate having 45 minutes with the Board to present these two reports.

Recruitment, Retention & Failed Searches:

IFO:  We found 49 failed searched from information and data received from the MnSCU office.  We also found some incomplete data as to why faculty left their positions (i.e. death, retirement, other).

MnSCU:  As these numbers become more refined, we need a better way to collect the data.  Right now we are at 52 failed searches.  We get our information directly from the campuses and to date have only heard from four (4).  The 05 data will probably have some problems.  There is no place in the database to keep track of failed searches but we do keep track of faculty leaving their positions.

IFO:  We are interested in exit interviews.  This could tell us what is going on.  Can we help you develop exit interview questions?

MnSCU:  We have never insisted on conducting systemwide exit interviews.  It would be helpful to put out guidelines.  I don’t know what is happening with any exit interviews.  We just started doing Office of the Chancellor exit interviews.

IFO:  Corporations always conduct exit interviews.  We could learn a lot from this.

MnSCU:  Finding an appropriate person to conduct the exit interviews is important so the person feels comfortable.

HRA Update:

MnSCU:  The plan is up and running and claims are being paid.  Chris Dale has developed a draft informational piece based on Q&A format.  We will share this with you.

IFO:  E. Bailly sent information to faculty that is no longer correct.  We want the correct information sent to our faculty.  Faculty are unhappy about the fees.  We understood there would be no fee for filing claims.

Chancellor:  Why are we surprised about these fees?  I don’t want something like this to happen again.

MnSCU:  There was a belief early on that interest would cover any fees.  I don’t know if having no fees is realistic.  Originally at the bargaining table, we believed this program would be administered by MSRS and they don’t normally charge a fee.  Unfortunately, when we and DOER went to MSRS, they decided they didn’t want to administer the HRA accounts.  During bargaining we contacted DOER and they said MSRS would be prepared.  But when it came time to sign, they declined.  In the labor agreement it states the money would go into flexible spending account and HRA would be an addition.  In January we discussed with IFO representatives the choices FSA vs. HRA.  With the FSA no fee would be incurred but this disadvantaged some faculty.  With the HRA you incur a fee. 

IFO:  The IFO felt it had no choice at the inception of the implementation but to accept the fees.  When is a deal a deal?  The contract says $600 now it is $568.

MnSCU:  If we wanted to stick to literal contract language, we’d be stuck with the FSA – where there are no fees.

IFO:  Faculty feels this is unfair.  We need an e-copy of the HRA plan document.  Please forward that to Nancy Black.  Can you do that?

MnSCU:  I don’t know.

IFO:  We don’t have the final plan document; has it been finalized?

MnSCU:  Even with the fee the HRA is still better than the FSA.  If anyone really needed the full $600 per year at this point they would benefit more by using the FSA rather than sacrificing $32 on fees with the HRA.

IFO:  This epitomizes the problem we have with MnSCU HR.  The one good thing that came out of that last round of contract negotiations was the HRA and we’ve managed to turn this into a bitter topic.  The reason interest isn’t able to cover interest is because of MnSCU’s COBRA problem.  You make us feel like you are holding a gun to our head with either accepting the HRA fees or sticking with FSA.  That isn’t good faith bargaining nor productive.

MnSCU:  I’d agree with 90% of what you’ve said except I disagree that we didn’t bargain in good faith.  The “threat” of going back to the FSA was only to say that if the HRA fee is unacceptable to you then we’ll follow the contract.

IFO:  It is a default to the contract.  There are two groups of faculty who use the reimbursement account – those who use it quickly and those who are saving it for retirement.

People want to know where the $1.4 million in HRA money is, and we were told $80,000 of interest would be generated.  Where is that money and where is it going?

MnSCU:  MnSCU has the $1.4 million now.  The money has been transferred to use for EB to generate claims.  To cover fees we’d need to generate at least 6% interest.  We may be able to drop the fee by 1/3 with the amount of interest that we anticipate generating and I don’t see why we can’t use the interest towards lowering fees.  We haven’t agreed yet on how to handle the interest, we need to talk to Chris Dale.  It is in an interest bearing account but I don’t know how much.

IFO:  A lot of damage has been done and this is of serious concern.  We want the plan document with the specific terms and conditions – when we signed the LOU we didn’t have that document.

Chancellor:  Should we prepare a joint informational piece for faculty?

MnSCU:  The issue of fees is on the bargaining table by the IFO.

IFO:  So we are asking for three pieces of information from your office:  1. a copy of the plan document; 2. accounting of the $1.4 million + the $80,000 interest; and, 3. a statement explaining contract implementation and intention.  You can email this information to our office.  When can I expect to have this information?

Chancellor:  I’m trying to facilitate.  It was our intent to cover fees with interest but found we couldn’t.  If there’s any interest shouldn’t fees be reduced?  Didn’t we agree the fees would be reduced by interest?

MnSCU:  We didn’t have an explicit agreement but that is reasonable and if so could probably cut the fee by 1/3.

Chancellor:  We never intended to make money on this.

IFO:  Can you give us an estimated date on when you can have these three pieces of information available to us?

MnSCU:  We’ll have to ask Gary Janikowski.  Who from your office should we send this to?

IFO:  Nancy Black.

Teaching Award Taskforce:

(A handout was given.)

MnSCU:  Last year we had two ideas surface about the Teaching Award Taskforce.  The CTL Steering Committee suggested we consider forming this taskforce to recognize exceptional teaching in the system.  Linda Bear wanted to get on this right away.  Last year we gave you the charge document and you appointed a faculty member to serve on this taskforce.  Between now and the fall we’ll be gathering more information for you in hopes of moving forward.

IFO:  Keep in mind faculty are out over the summer.  We support Teaching Awards but you are asking for feedback when some universities are already off duty.

MnSCU:  We knew this timeline would be tight.  The dates come from the taskforce.  We want you to give us feedback.

Chancellor:  How about we draw in the Board on this and call it the Board of Trustees award?

MnSCU:  We intend to have a reception and banquet.  We’ll work our way through this and push you in the fall for feedback and ideas.

IFO:  We assume we’ll receive this information electronically?  When would be the last day we’d need to have this information to you so it all works out?

MnSCU:  We’ll show you a timeline.

IFO:  What are the two-year colleges doing?

MnSCU:  Our meet and confer is next week.  The taskforce didn’t want awards based on institution type.  We’re still indecisive about the award structure on whether to have 8 or 3 awards.  This is a tough issue.  We want your suggestions.  The committee will look at this in the fall.  Next time we bring this to you we’ll attach the roster.

IFO:  Besides having either 8 or 3 awards, is there any other area you want us to pay attention to?

MnSCU:  The budget.  We assume we’ll have 64 nominees.  Should we have 8 final awards or 8 finalists and 3 awards?  64 = 1% of our faculty.

Chancellor:  Can we do more with less?  We need to contact the media.  We could give out 8 awards at $20,000 for a total expenditure of $160,000.  The faculty could receive an individual award of $10,000, and another $10,000 to the institution to be spent under the direction of the faculty.

MnSCU:  The taskforce is excited about the banquet generating attention.

Faculty Development Survey:

(A handout was given.)

MnSCU:  We wanted to send out this survey last fall.  Mankato wants to administer the survey.  Faculty on the CTL have reviewed the survey.  This is almost a final draft that we are presenting you.  We wanted to send this out along with an ITS survey.  We were thinking sometime between August 15 and September 11.  We need to get data back to CTL leaders in time for planning.  The 2003 survey didn’t go well because the IFO put out a statement to faculty discouraging them to participate.  We had 11% participation – of those participants 80% said they liked the survey and said one should be conducted annually.  This survey is similar to the last survey you reviewed.

IFO:  Faculty serving on the CTL Steering Committee on the Southwest campus have not been consulted.

MnSCU:  We not only want your support to move forward with this survey but we want your endorsement.

Davenport:  The cover sheet of the survey says it will take 10-15 minutes to complete – this is over and above the time most people have to complete surveys.

MnSCU:  Last time the data showed faculty felt strongly that their idea of faculty development wasn’t reflected in the survey – only faculty teaching.  Of the two-year faculty surveyed, we got 40% participation.  I think we worded the survey to apply to both the four-year and two-year faculty.  The ITS survey is a little behind.  John O’Brien is still revising the ITS survey and it has not yet been given to the IFO to date.  We gave a rough draft to the CTL.

Course Redesign:

(A handout was given.)

MnSCU:  Our biggest obstacle is funding externally.  We want to start slow and build on what we’ve done before.  We want to get a project going next year.  We’ve got over 100 courses with more than 10 sections at both 2 and 4 year institutions.  Reassigned time is the cost – how would I restructure these courses? – taking time to think is expensive.

Chancellor:  What about Carol Twigg?

MnSCU:  She wants $100k per year for 3 years.  It is not a done deal that we’ll use her.

IFO:  In classes with multiple sections, there are usually multiple instructors – how do we incorporate this course redesign?

MnSCU:  All sections of the course would undergo the redesign – after the pilot.  We need to do a lot of research on this during the summer.  We heard already that some faculty who attended the Phoenix workshop endorsing the Twigg model are already pulling out.

IFO:  What is the next step?

MnSCU:  We still have to determine that or if we have the money.

IFO:  Thank you for moving slowly on this – that helps to be thoughtful and effective.  I don’t think we need Carol Twigg.  We are enthusiastic to improve student learning.

Academic and Student Affairs Policy Council Work Plan:

(A handout was given.)

MnSCU:  Seven items are shaded and approved.  Hopefully we’ll have nine by July.  If you have things for us to consider, please let Deena Allen know.

Chancellor:  Are other policies coming to you from other Vice Chancellors?

Tschida:  The IFO wouldn’t receive policies from us because we only interact based on the contract.

Chancellor:  Just wondering about consultation on policies on a regular schedule.

Proposed Policy 3.30 College Program Advisory Committees and Repeal of Carry Forward Technical College Policy 2.2.2.0 Major Program of Study Advisory Committees & Proposed Policy 3.31 Graduate Follow-Up System and Repeal of Carry Forward Technical College Policy 4.2.1.5 Employment Follow-Up Consumer Information:

(Handouts were given.)

MnSCU:  These policies are moving forward and will be heard by the full Leadership Council.

Proposed Amendment to Policy 3.25 Degree Granting Authority and Repeal of Policy 3.17 Degrees, Diplomas and Certificates; and Proposed New System Procedure 3.25.1 Requirement for Academic Programs and Awards and Repeal of System Procedure 3.17.1 Degrees, Diplomas and Certificates:

(Handouts were given.)

MnSCU:  This policy is not moving forward.  The Academic and Student Affairs Policy Council has asked us to hold off.  Some issues have surfaced (see the background paragraph on the first page).  We want to bring this to the Leadership Council in December.  We’ll need two taskforces to deal with this (AA Degree granting, generic AS and articulations).  You’ll probably see a taskforce request from us in the fall and we’ll be pressed to complete this by December.  We want your participation.  Is there any way we can appoint faculty now?

Davenport:  A major concern is the phasing out of the technical college focus.  We need to protect the mission of the technical college – I hear it is being overlooked because of decreased enrollment.  Technical college students are unable to retain financial aid. 

MnSCU:  The value of the AA degree has changed.  This is not a national or state trend.

Chancellor:  We just don’t have students for these programs.

Davenport:  We need to get more information out to the high school students.

IFO:  Our first Board meeting of the academic year is September 15, 2005.  If you give us information by then, we’ll give it to our Board.  When faculty return in the fall, we don’t want them to feel things changed over the summer without their consultation.

1.B.1:

MnSCU:  Three meetings have been scheduled over the summer to review the policy 1.B.1

IFO:  Thank you, we consider this a serious issue.

Office of the Chancellor Executive Director of Diversity and Multiculturalism:

MnSCU:  We are pleased to announce that Whitney Harris has been appointed to this position.  He is passionate and soft spoken.   He comes to us from Michigan University.  Thank you for serving on the search committee.  He’ll start on July 1 and we’ll introduce him to the Board of Trustees in May.

Chancellor:  Don’t forget to invite the search committee.

Centers of Excellence:

(A handout was given.)

MnSCU:  In the House proposal, Centers of Excellence legislation has been presented but there is nothing in the Senate proposal.  We don’t know how it will all turn out.  The Board is interested in this topic and has made it one of four areas of study.  I’ve given you a timeline.  In mid-April a letter went out to all Presidents with an RFI (Request for Interest).  The RFI is not a precursor to a RFP (Request for Proposal), it’s just a request for interest so we know the campus’ level of interest and for legislation many of the RFI questions are to help us understand the issues.  By September-October we’ll consult everyone about the RFP.

Let me tell you about the complications.  We’re not getting the money we needed.  How can you even afford basic costs?  I’m disappointed the legislature would cap tuition without knowing the facts.  The Board of Trustees needs to figure this out.  Students said 0% after the Board gets what it needs.  We’ve been under minded by the legislature and the governor.

IFO:  Yes, this is ambitious.  A template and funding needs to be in place before we support it.

Chancellor:  The Board wants these centers but doesn’t know how they will with caps.

Davenport:  Capping tuition takes away from the autonomy of the Board.

Teaching Center Update:

MnSCU:  This is similar to the Centers of Excellence.  We have no expectation for funding at this point.  But we are making progress.

Chancellor:  Roland Barden tells me to look at the Detroit model.

MnSCU:  We are close to having a website not just on teaching centers but a way to show what is happening on each campus.  I’ll send Nancy Black a more formal written report.

Chancellor:  I try to be fair and the legislature should not meddle.  They’ve been outstanding on the capital budget.

IFO:  When you do your report can you add in a roster of teaching center personnel?

MnSCU:  Sure.  If you have specific concerns about this please contact Leslie Mercer.

IFO:  What will we be doing about re-assigned time for next year?  Do you project any system money going towards support?

MnSCU:  Some campuses indicated they will move forward with or without resources. 

IFO:  Alternative licensure has been an important topic to us over the past year.  We were proactive on this.  We got to them before they came to us.

Board of Trustees Orientation Session with Unions:

IFO:  We’d like to see that this is being addressed and for you to give us a date that will work.  The more communication we have with the Board the better off we’ll be.  This will be informative.

Chancellor:  Can this be part of a retreat or workshop?  We would want this to be relaxed.

MnSCU:  I don’t schedule their orientations.

OOC Work Plan:

IFO:  Our Academic Affairs Committee will be sending you a response on the Board of Trustees work plan.  We will give to Manuel Lopez next week.

Joint IFO/MnSCU Taskforce on Graduate Education:

IFO:  The taskforce had a survey to go out this fall.  This can go out right away at the beginning of fall 05.

Legislative Update:

(A handout was given.)

MnSCU’s lobbyist, John Ostrem, gave an update on the House and Senate budget proposals, HESO, Financial Aid, Centers of Excellence, Doctoral Degrees and the Rochester University.

Russ Stanton brought up language changes in the House and Senate proposals in which the “competitive salaries” had been altered to “performance”.

Adjourned 11:40 a.m.