Statewide IFO MnSCU Meet and Confer

UNOFFICIAL NOTES

September 30, 2005

IFO Present:  Dave Larkin, George Seldat, Judy Kilborn, Mary Kesler, Bruce Svingen, Nancy Black, Barbara Keinath, Becky Omdahl, Debra Japp, Cindy Phillips, Steve Bohnenblust, Cindy Finch (taking notes)

MnSCU Present:  Gary Janikowski, Chris Dale, Ken Niemi, Whitney Harris, Linda Baer, Chancellor McCormick, Mike Lopez, Steve Franz, Debra Proctor, Manuel Lopez, Bill Tschida, Barb Miller, Mary Rothchild

Also Present: Wilson Bradshaw (Metropolitan State University President)

Call to order 8:35 a.m.

D2L IT Issues:

IFO:  As a result of so many concerns expressed by students and faculty about performance issues, we thought it would be helpful to invite Barbara Keinath, who is a professor of management and Director of Center for Online Learning at Metropolitan State. 

Chancellor: early in the week I talked with one of the university presidents, I’d like to know the dynamic and heard there was a melt down last week and heard we are doing better this week.

IFO: it might help if I draw a picture (drew a “V” diagram of all the content going into this database).  I was at the MN Online Council yesterday.  In spring of 2004, we just had Normandale Community College and a few pilot projects that had courses in the D2L system.  In the summer of 2004, quite a few others added courses and students.  By the fall of 2004, almost everyone in the system came into the system. This time we started to experience severe load problems.  A couple weeks last fall was awful but then the system stabilized and we made it through spring 2005.  Now we are in fall 05.  What has happened since fall 2004, we had 20,000 enrollments in online courses; in fall of 2005, we had 29,000 in online courses and a total of 50,000 users.  A couple of the institutions who stared early did fine and the others joined in and we started to see a surge in load and CPU utilization pushed up to 95%. 

MnSCU: discussed adding servers, as our db server is as big as it can get. We ran out of room.   

IFO: a week ago D2L determined it was the events widget (calendar) tool that was causing the db to tie up.  I understand that any student who looks for a course schedule, the entire db is searched for all of the semesters even though all of the 2004 courses have concluded. And that makes sense in a seamless environment but we have topped out.  The solution was to remove the events tool.  We have stabilized the db by taking a way a key tool, but have not addressed the overall performance of the system.  We do have a problem.  I am concerned about spring 2006 - load will grow, and because d2l doesn’t have an export tool, we can’t empty out the database.

Chancellor: this is a scale problem, what are they doing to help us?

MnSCU:  There are two things Desire2Learn does when we have performance issues.  Mondays are always our biggest day. It exposes the inefficient software components on those key load times, they go through the stream and find which process is using the bulk of resources and they are rewritten to optimize them.  They are redesigning the events widget.  We haven’t seen the redesign yet and we need to do extensive testing before we reincorporate its use. 

Chancellor: Is the next crisis this spring?

IFO:  It could be finals week.

MnSCU: The load doesn’t go up that much more. The worst part is the start of the semester.

IFO: What if the system goes to a common start date?

MnSCU: You’d have the same problem we have right now.

IFO: worse than now…

MnSCU: There are two components ISRS and D2L.  They are overlapping.  Our analysis is it will add a minimal amount of extra load, but it’s something we need to be sure of.

Chancellor: I told Ken if this is important to us, I’m willing to use some credit to get it done but if we can’t then  I don’t think we go there unless we have a good chance of success.

IFO: Another problem that comes up is that when these problems are happening it sets the tone for how the students see the course and how they see the instructor – in this case it is negative.

IFO: (Read a testimonial of a student who dropped out and how it is affecting faculty’s program delivery and other testimonials from faculty.)  Yesterday at MN Online Council there was a good discussion on our interest in improving the system coincides 100% we all have the integrity of our courses and faculty satisfaction and morale.  As Nancy said, how to do we move forward to recognize the problems?

Chancellor:  This was a big experiment; we took a little company and now they are learning to get big with us.  Can they do it?

MnSCU:  Part of this relates to MN Online’s meeting yesterday, but my internal action plan working with Linda on researching the other vendors out there anecdotally from other users who have the same issues like the University of Minnesota with Web Vista - they had to split their database and had student problems.  This process is not flawless in performance.  It is symptomatic of this whole e-learning environment; we are at the “Model T” stage of this e-learning.  We are in this by one year and a few months.  I’ve had ongoing discussions with general council, it’s a long term commitment and it’s not too easy to “get divorced”.  Basically the MN Online Council suggested that Wilson Bradshaw, myself and Linda Baer charge an emergency ad hoc group to evaluate the current status of our IMS system and our original objectives.  I have just as much pain in all of this as you.

IFO: Students who are trying to do their work and faculty who are trying to teach have more pain than you have!

IFO:  You don’t know what it’s like to get email from 300 students who can’t access their courses on a Sunday night.  Then I have to email them the course in a word doc and then go into class Monday morning and say, “deadlines are off” and push everything back and have your whole credibility in the waste basket.  I don’t know if I’ll recover from that this semester.  If I don’t have a confirmation that this is resolved, I’m reluctant to teach an online class in the future.

MnSCU: I apologize if my words were over-expressed; we have been working around the clock. I do feel it and I get a lot of these emails as well.  I don’t want to be the poster boy for D2L.  We are holding their feet to the fire.

MnSCU:  MN Online made the commitment.

MnSCU: We are going to move quickly.  Linda and I are meeting next week. There were suggestions about the composition of the ad hoc committee.  One suggestion came from me was to go back and revisit the original group and there is a lot of frustration coming from faculty, students and the MN Online Council.  I chair that Council.  I’ve been in very close touch on a day-to-day basis.  The Chancellor and I talked in detail last week.  The Chief Information Officers have some recommendations.  As we talked yesterday, the things that attracted to us to D2L are not available to the faculty.  What are the pros and cons of splitting the db?  I’m very serious about this and so is the MN Online Council.  The solution is really not in our hands; that is frustrating.  It is in the hands of D2L.  When the students can’t get their materials and faculty can’t get the functionality they need.

IFO:  Has there been consideration to go back to individual campus solutions?  We had Blackboard and with that came good support.  I appreciate what you said that there is not a system that will give us what we want.

Chancellor:  We are growing so rapidly; is there any possibility to say we aren’t going to grow it until we get it right? Is that possible?

MnSCU:  There was discussion yesterday at the MN Online Council meeting to that effect.

IFO:  We want assurance that we’re not going to be adding more to the system through different means like “reusable learning objects” stressing out the system even more.  We want a system that will work and we’re on the edge right here and our credibility as a system is really at risk.  If this collapses, I don’t know if we’ll recover in terms of our excellence.  Faculty have expressed some legal issues.  Students’ with special needs often need to have longer times for quizzes or special accommodations.  If we offer these courses with these components can we meet the needs of those students who we are legally obligated to serve?

MnSCU:  We will develop the emergency ad hoc committee.

IFO:  A lot of faculty have contacted me from Computer Science and IMS, saying, “We are a great resource to help solve your problems.”  When was that last time you had to teach 300 students and you work so hard to develop course materials and they blow up in your face? We don’t want the system expanded until we are assured that it is stable and we can meet the students’ needs.

MnSCU:  You have adequately conveyed the severity of the situation.

MnSCU:  (Read a resolution that he made photocopies of and distributed.) For the short term we are holding D2L’s feet to the fire.

IFO:  It is important that we take these next steps.  We need to partner on the academic and IT side.  It is how we deliver instruction; we can’t have technology until we understand the academic ramifications; that has to be a part of it.

Chancellor:  It is important we have an honest discussion of the Board of Trustees at our next meeting.  We are a leader and they need to know the problem. We should talk about the problem and solutions so they don’t think it’s so easy to turn the world upside down.  We need to have an honest discussion. We ought to say that the faculty have been tremendous.  Our problem is we are trying to do things in new ways and the technology can’t keep up with us.  My last concern is Wisconsin; are they having the same problems? 

MnSCU:  We are in contact with Wisconsin and they haven’t had the same amount of growth as us but they still have the same issues and they are much more willing to throttle things down.  We try to stay as open as we can.  They are saying “no” to new features.

IFO:  We can’t move forward until the system is stabilized.  We still have serious issues to address that have legal implications.  We are with you all the way.  Faculty are working too hard. I don’t want to hear about the reusable learning objects right now…all in good time, don’t try to instigate those changes now when we can’t guarantee what we have.  Faculty want to pull the nursing program from MN Online. 

IFO:  I’ve used both Web CT and D2L; D2L is better to use and I understand why you were enticed.   Please consult and listen to faculty.  I spent all summer working on my course with no compensation and about the time you discover a solution it disables me from accessing my course and I have to go back to paper and pencil.  I designed my course with D2L in mind.

IFO:  On the local campuses we are hearing administrators encourage faculty to use this and put more courses on D2L. It is being tied to the professional development plans and this creates more stress.  You need to communicate the urgency of the program to our administrators so they don’t put so much pressure on faculty to produce in this area.

IFO:  I hear you say it might be prudent to restrict spring 2006 D2L course offerings.  If that is an option, you have to tell faculty this week or next week; people are planning their courses for next spring already. 

MnSCU:  I propose that we do a parallel that adds the comp notes of the academic piece. Let’s get the data right.

Chancellor: I’m afraid we’ll loose our energy if people don’t see improvement.

IFO:  At every campus the course schedules for spring 2006 are already together and students have been registering already since this past August. 

IFO:  When you say you want to add the academic piece I want to know specifically what you mean?  I see we have a workgroup; what are you thinking?

MnSCU:  This emergency ad hoc group needs to be informed by you and the students.  We need to commit that this is an IT service for academic delivery issues. 

IFO:  We have a lot of people who are invested in this.  We want it to work.

Chancellor: I want to make sure I heard this, the IT people cannot fix this without the faculty. Faculty need to be inside the solution.

(Time 9:15 a.m.)

MERLOT Peer Information:

IFO:  We were contacted about this new service that MnSCU apparently has contracted with an outside vendor and we were asked to supply faculty for peer reviewers and how the system can assist in learning.  We were surprised about the choice of MERLOT; faculty have said to me there are many different organizations out there, why was this one chosen and what was the basis of the decision. 

MnSCU:  This is a pilot opportunity for us and the reason we chose MERLOT was because of its reputation and high level of faculty/student involvement.  It’s a contract we have for a certain amount of time.  Part of the pilot nature is our faculty are then seeing how people are defining quality.

IFO:  We have real concerns about the expectations about our recruiting faculty to serve as peer reviewers in reading the information sent out to us.  It appears the compensation was not generous and it was another technological add-on that would lead to these reusable learning objects as part of D2L.  Our other concern was the intellectual property issues with the reusable learning objects.  When we met, I thought they wouldn’t move forward until we got that settled.

MnSCU:  That’s right.  All faculty can use this repository that you can bring things out of and put things in to.  We’re piloting reusable learning objects at Rochester and its working.  We don’t want to leap in.  Do you want to participate?

IFO:  When we had this discussion, one of our concerns was in terms of information dissemination it was not clear if there was authenticity or reliability to the materials.  Were faculty aware that they would have to check sources?  Faculty need to know the points of view expressed and where they are coming from.

MnSCU:  That’s a function if you want to participate.

IFO:  Why was MERLOT picked as opposed to the different ones?  I don’t know.

MnSCU:  At the time we reviewed the options, we decided it was the best one.

IFO:  Faculty feel that they don’t have a voice in what is chosen for them to use in their classroom. They don’t want this imposed upon them.  It’s a large system and I want to be fair, but we have real reservations about it prompted by what is happening with D2L. When you talk about reusable learning objects faculty have no idea what you’re talking about.  We need context and to be part of the decision making for the services we provide that serve our students.

Chancellor: I’ve been thinking that I would rather have associates that pull back rather than push forward.

MnSCU: I would point out that MERLOT did go through the MN Online Council, where there are state university faculty representatives.

IFO: You made the point well; it’s not a large voice.  All of us feel change begins in the classroom.

MnSCU:  What Linda was trying to voice is that it is not possible to talk about this to every faculty member. Total democracy won’t work.  Linda said faculty voice was heard.

IFO:  How do these groups (Academic Information Technology Committee, MN Online Council, D2L Advisory Committee, etc.) communicate with each other?

BOT Award for Teaching Excellence:

MnSCU:  Let’s discuss where we are.  First I don’t know if we came to this group we changed it to the BOT award from the Chancellor’s award.  We are seeking funding and working on a MOA to move this forward.

IFO:  Thank you.

Handout was given by MnSCU. 

MnSCU: consultation is requested.

IFO:  There is no urgency on this.  The presidents said this should be implemented next year.

Policy Develop and Approval 05-06

MnSCU:  We will be mailing you our 12 month plan on policy review we have it in place and are implementing it. We are busy and you see when you review our ed policy materials that a good chunk of what happens in those meeting is the review policy.  We are trying to align with the meet and confer schedules as those policies are getting ready for the first meeting.  I will commit to mail it to you so you can see the 12 month plan.

IFO:  Is there discussion on the 5 year review plan being realistic?

MnSCU:  It’s a 3 year plan and I would like it to be discussed as a 5 year plan.

IFO:  There is discussion about meeting the timelines?

MnSCU:  I will take this to the chair of the policy committee and I have communicated that it is demanding timeline.

Chancellor:  I was amazed when I started here; there was no policy on policies.

Proposed Amendment to policy 3.1:

Mike Lopez & Steve Franz  (A handout was given.)

MnSCU:  All three of these are on the agenda on the October Board for the first reading.

MnSCU:  Are there any changes or controversial points we need to review?

MnSCU:  There are changes to the external policy council.  Essentially what we did is clarify some language so some folks would better understand.  One addition is part 6 at bottom of first page (other changes were pointed out that are not specifically included in these minutes).

IFO: I would like Mike to speak to the group on the change of part 2 3.1 student rights freedom of expression.

MnSCU:  This was a concern expressed by students.  If students have a forum that is disruptive, then administration can ask them to stop.  Not if it just can be heard…but if it is substantially disruptive.

IFO:  I appreciate you making the distinction of substantially disruptive…it is the call of the instructor.  In the class room the instructor has the authority to determine if the student is disruptive?

MnSCU:  Yes.  The issue here is with freedom of expression.  The student can disagree with the faculty member but if the student continues and gets disruptive and won’t allow the presentation to take place, at that point, freedom of expression becomes a disruption.  Other issues would fall under the code of conduct.

IFO: I don’t see your interpretation captured in this policy.

MnSCU:  The issues of other disruptions, not dealing with freedom of expression, are in the code of conduct.

IFO:  It’s not so often that the instructor has an issue with a student but student to student is more a concern.

IFO:   You talk about loud…what about persistence?  Is that also considered substantial?

MnSCU:  Yes.

Chancellor:  Do we offer training to deans on authority and relationships?

MnSCU:  This does come up within those trainings.

MnSCU:   Mike does this with student affairs

IFO:  Training is critical to new administrators; they often find themselves at odds.

MnSCU:  That’s what the grievance process is all about.

Policy 3.6:

IFO:  We don’t have any issues with this, we can move on.

POLICY 3.8:

IFO:  Students complaints and grievances, thank you, Steve Frantz, for taking our suggestion into account - “this policy does not apply to grades”.

MnSCU:  This proposed amendment does not apply to grade disputes.  Thank you!

IFO:  If you flunk someone for cheating and we have the option of reporting them for cheating to student conduct…what happens when you report them and they are brought before the board with no reasonable doubt that cheating occurred, and if the student conduct policy reports a different outcome?  Our faculty don’t want to go through student conduct to handle cheating.

MnSCU:  In good practice you have an academic policy and a conduct policy.  You can have a situation where a student commits plagiarism and fails and does the same thing the third time and if they are never reported, then all they get is the individual academic sanctions.  If it is reported on the conduct side, the second time the student will likely be expelled.  There is a situation sometimes you often have a panel comprised of student and administrators.

IFO:  This language is helpful in that it doesn’t impact the grading side.

MnSCU:  You should see that the two policies are related but independent.

Satisfactory Academic Progress and Grading Study Group - Position on Academic FORGIVENESS:

(A handout was given.)

MnSCU:  This statement is a recommendation not a policy statement.  The committee decided the policy does provide a student friendly option.  The statement is being taken to the leadership council.

IFO:  This came to us at the academic and student policy committee.  We had concerns that this emanated from the BPAC and this is an academic issue.

IFO:  It is hard to keep track of all the committees, we understand this came from the Business Practices Alignment noticed variances and they get pulled out and discussed by different groups to recommend changes to policy?

MnSCU: Yes.

IFO:  When you move into academic policies and procedures, we might want more of a voice in the academic ones when it comes to the Academic and Student Affairs Policy Council.

MnSCU: The charge was presented to this body at a past meet and confer.

IFO:  And we have rejected it repeatedly.

IFO:  When we look at this recommendation in this form and then go to the stated goals of the system, entrance assessment for college readiness, we need to be careful on how these policies would affect a student’s records.  We are trying to make this friendly and accessible to students.  We have 21 colleges with an academic forgiveness policy while 18 do not.  Are we talking here about students who are getting close to their academic career who have a substantial number of credits and cannot attain a 2.0 gpa?  This proposed policy here deals with re-entry and financial aid rather than their records.  When you look at an institution, this needs further study; there are different requirements at different institutions for students to succeed.  I ask that you look at this very carefully.

MnSCU:  There is no recommendation for any action at the system level but it is individual to the institution.  This is not system wide.

Chancellor:  When a person repeats a course and flunks English 101 and they take it again and get a b…does the f stay on the record?

MnSCU:  It varies by institution.  At Metro, the last grade received counts and if they repeat the grade again, then they average all 3.  There’s no uniformity.

IFO:  That is not Metro’s policy.  The highest grade stays.

Policy 3.17:

(Manuel Lopez)

MnSCU:  As it was being reviewed Presidents said we want some change. Talk was among technical college presidents on offering AA degree.  There can be no financial aid when you have an undesignated degree when going into a technical college.  How can students know what they need to know?  (Taskforce charge document was handed out.)  We are requesting faculty membership.

IFO:  It seems to be driven not by academics but by finances. You us said the reasons the technical colleges want designated degrees is for student to be eligible for financial aid?

MnSCU:  That’s one part of it…should all technical colleges have the authority to offer AAS?  The ongoing concern is the technical college mission.

IFO:  One of the objections raised with your inclusion of many committee members is this is at the level of academic policy and dilutes the role of faculty.  If a MSUSAAF person wants to be on this taskforce in terms of implementing the policy, fine; but in terms of giving feedback on the policy, I suggest if we had an equal number of state college academic reps…you need articulation and transfer agreements and I don’t understand why we have this disproportionate representation.

IFO: I’m trying to figure out if this committee is being asked to handle something that was handled by the Academic and Student Affairs Policy Council (ASAPC)?  Or is this new?

MnSCU:  This is a new task to study the visibility of expansion of who delivers and designates AA degrees.

Their recommendations will go to the policy committee.  They aren’t a subcommittee but will advice that council.

IFO:  I’m stunned with the number of people we are talking about.

IFO:  I see your timeline. How is this going to happen?

MnSCU:  My assignment to academic affairs is recent.  This deadline will be difficult.

MnSCU:  We will take another look at that.

IFO:  Having sat on the Academic and Student Affairs Policy Council for the last several years, this does need a group that focuses specifically on this. 

IFO:  When you say 3 state university academic administrators, could those include MSUSAAF?

MnSCU:  No.

IFO:  We would appreciate more realistic timelines.

MnSCU:  We’ll work on the timeline and size of the committee.

1.b.1 policy change request:

MnSCU: Renee Hogoboom is ill today and Whitney Harris is here.

MnSCU:  I consulted with Renee, the issue appears to be the group met and we are waiting for legal advice.  The group requested significant changes.  Additional research needs to be conducted.  I’ve told Renee that we need to move this forward and have something more definitive in the next 30 days.

IFO: Our concern was that two meetings were cancelled and we don’t know when the next meeting will take place.  Is this something that is going to “die”?

MnSCU:  No, we will make sure within the next week Renee communicates with you on the status and the legal advice we are to receive.  We will get back to you.

IFO:  We want a date of the next meeting or a request for possible meeting dates.  It’s so hard to get people together.

Centers of Excellence:

MnSCU:  We are at a place that is very ready for receiving proposals as of Monday.  I’m surprised we’re already here.  No matter where I go I’m either lobbied or critiqued.  We are in a continual quality improvement mode.  I don’t know if I’ve done my “groundhog day” with this group yet.  I apologize for the information meetings being at such a busy time.  We had over 200 people participate.  We are ready for the evaluations next week.  We received a total of eleven (11) Intent to Propose proposals.  There are two proposals in one area and three in the others. The board has indicated that if 2 are the very best out the whole group, 2 will be awarded and the others will go into the other categories when the recommendation is made.

Chancellor:  SCSU President Roy Saigo said this has generated remarkable enthusiasm. 

(A hand out given.)

Chancellor:  What kind of signals do we need to give Roy Saigo.  We don’t know our appropriations for the following year; should we use it as a case in the next legislative round? 

IFO:  We’ve worked very closely with Linda Baer and her staff in a very fast timeline in terms of complexity given the timing of the school year, faculty were interested in the concept and they saw this as an opportunity to offer programs to students they would not normally have a chance to. They also wanted more input in the request for proposals as it was quite restrictive.  There was also disappointment that the teaching center wasn’t a part of this.  That’s the heart of the institution.  They are very innovative and we are looking at teaching in general and we know the problems we are facing in the metropolitan area and you probably saw this Star Tribune Article “Is B- Good Enough?”  One of the things the Board of Trustees is talking about is students of color.  We need to deal with our urban population.  We need this teaching center; we are behind this.  We were delighted to hear the state university presidents had agreed on a plan to move ahead.  To us it’s a complex issue and the liberal arts were left out.  All of education is what makes Minnesota work.

Chancellor:  The legislature had something to say about this and we felt badly.  I think we’re trying to think about going ahead with the teacher center and find ways to finance it.  I believe we are committed to that.  If you say you don’t have the money then we need to find it somewhere.  

MnSCU:  It wasn’t our intent to drop that.  We felt the teacher center was critical and should be included when we were basically told though political channels that it was a “no go”. The presidents decided it was so important of a concept that they wanted to commit to us and move it forward to the political realm.  We are working on a plan that works specifically on system target goals; we are ready to hire a director. We have funds in the chancellor’s initiative fund.  We are working with the deans and liaisons to get this moving regarding expectations and goal setting.  I am meeting with the presidents, CAOs and deans of education. 

Chancellor:  We are working on another center that we will either fund internally or through grants.  Maybe we will get some publicity.

(10:35 a.m.)

MnSCU:  The Office of the Chancellor will commit to a half time coordinator.  Our problem is not having the resources.  In addition, we agreed with the deans there would be curriculum development money in the survey we conducted.  What do school districts need most?  Also what are we doing to improve our study teacher education for the pre-service educators and that is another context and will be attached to some of the grants in the department of education and the third piece is the degree granting program.

IFO: My understanding of what you said, Linda, is there will be Centers of Excellence in 4 areas and you said it is possible there might not be an award in one of the 4…here is the issue, best in class is leading the decision.  Look at the FAQs or call us if you hear rumors.

Chancellor:  One of our presidents told a group of people this is very political and it isn’t political at this point and the other rumor is that we’ve made decisions and we haven’t.  We’re trying to keep the integrity of this.

Mankato capital project $25 M:

IFO:  This is just going on the record that we were interested that President Davenport at the Board of Trustees meeting in September in his discussion of the $54 million being raised from the college of business donors had $25 million for faculty scholarships; at that meeting he was asked how this was to be dispersed and he said according to collective bargaining and the contractual agreements.  We were thrilled to hear of faculty being hired wanted this on the records.

MnSCU:  We are bound by the collective barging agreement and we believe you are too.

224 duty days:

MnSCU:  Do we have anything new on this topic?

IFO:  I guess we want to know exactly what was decided in terms of the degree of campus autonomy with exceptions on the 224 duty days.  We left off that there was some consultation with the presidents and some agreement with what exceptions could be made and we want to know that what would be.

 

MnSCU:  I am entertaining requests from the presidents to exceed the 224 duty days and acting on them.  John Asmussen’s group was going to study this in early September best practices to put in place when we would delegate this to presidents.  I did not get an update from John for this meeting.  We met with his staff member who is doing the study and review and is working on this.  I anticipate they will be done in November and we’ll see what information she’s come up with.

IFO:  You say “best practices” to allow for exceptions to the rule?

MnSCU:  Yes.  We want to delegate that to the presidents possibly through that review.

IFO:  We thought individual campus presidents already had that autonomy; we’re looking for a copy of a letter sent to the SU presidents giving them autonomy.

MnSCU:  I told this group we would meet with Asmussen and study to see if we could offer that autonomy.  Probably late spring was the letter that talks about them to exceed and send the request in and we would deal with it.

IFO:  Were there any guideline as to what would be viewed favorable or unfavorably?

MnSCU:  I’ve only had 2 requests that have both been approved.  That’s all the activity I’ve had in 8 months.

IFO:  If there is some kind of grant that would allow or necessitate more than 224 duty days, should faculty even bother applying for it?

MnSCU:  If it is truly additional work days as opposed to a salary issue, then I would encourage them to apply for it.

IFO:  Can the workdays be on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays?

MnSCU:  It’s hard to say yes or no.  What is the documentation showing that the work has been done on those days?  Again, bring some things forward.  Everything brought forward has been approved.  I don’t understand what the issue is.

Chancellor:  We want to get our 7 presidents talking and I would interpret the guidelines to give the presidents the opportunity to make the decision.  You know there are some serious problems in Wisconsin.  If you start paying people for more days than there are in the year, we’re in trouble and I want to have our presidents make the decisions and there needs to be some auditing.  We will need accountability.  We don’t want to stop hard entrepreneurial work.  We need encouragement for outside finding.

MnSCU:  John Asmussen’s team will finish their work around November. I wasn’t able to verify that with him today.

Chancellor:  The presidents are anxious to discuss common guidelines.

IFO:  Is there intent to ask faculty about those guidelines?  It may seem reasonable from an administrator’s guideline but maybe not from faculty?  You said your goal was not to put up barriers.  You need to hear from faculty.

MnSCU:  I had assumed that I would bring that back to this groups who is interested in this issue for a number of years.

IFO:  We will expect to see a draft document at the next meeting?

MnSCU:  We’ve been speaking about this for decades.  This discussion has been going on for a long time and dealt with in the contract decades ago.  Our HOPE is that we will have a report for you by the next meet and confer.

MnSCU Recruitment & Retention:

IFO:  We are concerned; in previous discussions we had talked about the need to do exit interviews and to have more delineated categories.  Remember the current category when people were leaving was did they die?  We thought that additional information would be helpful.  The interest in our retirement workshops has been wild.  We anticipate that many faculty will be retiring. 

(A handout was given.)

Chancellor: We have more students now than we did 10 years ago and have slipped in faculty.  We need to worry about retention and compensation.  I asked Bill to give us data.

MnSCU:  We just got this finished.  Gary helped compile the data; it is more data than last time, but we still need improvement.  The other thing I had the staff looking at was what other people do in other systems.  I’ve got a report here from California on their recruitment issues; you can tell that they are more sophisticated, broken down by academic discipline.  We’re a little more closer to accurate in our data but we still need more.  (Gave a California handout.)

IFO:  Was health care considered?

MnSCU:  Again, I don’t think that would be reflected in this…it would be in another form.  We try to fine tune this.  The Chancellor refers to our retirement.

IFO: Workload may be another reason for failure.

MnSCU:  Most of the time the reason for failure is unknown.

MnSCU:   I think the workload issue would fall into the insufficient pool area. I would think they would find that out early in the process.

Chancellor:  If there were a new chemistry professor coming on board I think the president has the authority to reduce the load and reassign time and finish their research, the president has the authority to do that.

MnSCU:  Certainly, and that happens.  That is negotiated as part of the deal. 

IFO:   We had several searches in our department last year.  We were told we needed to go forward with one, and we did and this was not a weird position, in my field there shouldn’t be such sparse numbers.  We had to go forward with a pool of two; one didn’t fit and we were told we had to go forward.  How many of us are told we need to go forward?

MnSCU:  What about your process or resources to conduct your searches, are they the same?

IFO:  No, it is harder to find those places to get applicants and we have to assume more of the costs departmentally.

MnSCU:  Do you get applicants out of the Chronicle?  Is it a place to advertise?

IFO:   It depends on the discipline.  We’re also looking for diversity.

MnSCU:  In terms of diversity, publications like the Chronicle & Black Outlook won’t get you results…you need to look at special interest groups. That’s where you will be more effective in recruiting diversity, like ESL.

Chancellor:  This is a process I was involved in.

(Time 11:08 a.m.)

MnSCU:  We feel comforted that California is doing worse than we are.  We are pleased with our retention data; the data we see is that our retention rates are very good. 

IFO:  In the search process we try hard to solicit candidates we do some foot work to become aware of other faculty and colleagues in surrounding states.  We work hard to recruit.  It is the foundation why faculty will stay.  Retained faculty has been the strength of our system.  It is the core strength why we have done so well academically.

IFO:  The people at Bemidji do not support this notion.  They think technology, our website attracts them enough.

MnSCU:  In terms of increasing the diversity pool, it has to be more than the website, you have to anticipate the opening and start you’re searching, not wait for the opening. …it needs to be cultivated. 

BOT orientation:

IFO:   Chancellor, you said you were committed to having unions participate in the BOT orientation.  We are having 4 new trustees this year; the first meeting of the trustee’s advisory council is October 12.  We put 16 names forward and the Governor picked one out of the 16 we recommended.

Chancellor:  Minnesota was sited as the most enlightened.  If the governor does this again this group will be so disappointed they probably won’t want to review/recommend again.  I would think it would look better for the governor to move forward.  Then they are strictly bipartisan appointments.  This Minnesota process I hope would not fade away.  I don’t think this group will continue to be ignored and want to continue participating.  We need to remind the governor that there is a process and tell him it would be good to respect the state’s process.

IFO:  Maybe it would be tactful if we brought this up at the start of the Twin Cities Advisory Council (TCAC) group.   It‘s an interesting process and it is an enormous investment of time.  The other concern I have is 3 students, no labor no faculty.  The BOT considers the faculty invisible and we need to work on that as a faculty...shared governance.  They need an idea of what your governance is.

MnSCU: When they did not go through the process of the screening by the TCAC, they were surprised at the amount of invested time.

Chancellor:  This process smokes people out who want to do it.

IFO:  The Trustee orientation was everyone from the Chancellor’s office and I think they need that union perspective.

Chancellor:  I would think this shows our family.

MnSCU:  We’ll get back to you.

Applied Doctorate:

IFO: We’ll take up the applied doctorate at the next meet and confer.   There are many complicated issues.   

Chancellor: We don’t have a lot of money and would hope we did this carefully and ensure we don’t have an embarrassing situation.  The worst thing you can do is turn out some principal on a degree that isn’t any good.  I would like us to do good thoughtful, not fast, high quality work.

IFO:  Did you get that Barbara?  We were told fall 2007 for applied doctorates and that is not possible. 

MnSCU:  We are beginning a master plan for the state on applied doctorates and that is where we start.  That is what the legislature wants us to do.

MnSCU:  We can talk about this next time.

NURSING:

Mary Rothchild

MnSCU:  From the legislative agenda, we have always wanted to expand the capacity of nurses in the health care industry.  We want to let you know how we have categorized this. 

MnSCU:  One is to fund and expand some of the enrollment in our nursing programs; we know you are having waiting lists and that is based on BS degrees. That is what they need to get the magnet status hospital classification and we are hearing a slow down in the two year level.  We are working on curriculum redesign so we can do some accelerated programs.

MnSCU:  We are having many retirements and therefore we need to address our nursing students to get their masters and the build out we are going in a collaborative way on the nursing doctorate.  The last one is we have talked to the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic regarding Allied Health and better coordinating clinical experiences.  We need better ways to do clinical experiences and I think we will.  Our goal is to expand the placement of simulation centers for faculty to use in education.  We are hearing that in the rural areas they are using these simulations to practice for low incident things that may happen.

Chancellor:  I‘d like to add this next time.  Whitney Harris is asking leadership to develop a plan to better serve American Indian students.  Linda has designated Mike to do that.

MnSCU:  Mary, what committee is working on this?

MnSCU:   The nursing education committee. Our advisory committee the general framework is in place for several years for the funds, the areas of concern to expand nursing and working with nursing faculty and the advancement of technology in nursing education and allied health and strategic partnership those 4 areas have been advancing for four years now.

Chancellor:  I am going to meet with the faculty.  At the IFO’s March 2004 Delegate Assembly I remember what was said.  It was there was substantial nursing faculty criticism; no one involves me at all…

IFO:  Kristin Juliar was working on the Mankato campus and the Mankato nursing program wasn’t aware of their initiatives.

MnSCU:  MSU, Mankato applied to be the lead institution for the health care industry partnership. Her expertise was based on project management; she is funded through grants and is housed there.

IFO:  We have concerns about communicating with the nurses on the campuses. When we talk about retirements, nursing will be hit hard.  There is a lot of money going in to this and we are doing so many things and when I look at what we are trying to accomplish there is more focus on carrying through and this is extremely important to all of us. We don’t want this to get lost in the shuffle…this is tied in D2L, salary competitiveness and recruitment.

IFO:  At Southwest we don’t have a nursing program but we have liaisons with other institutions.  Is this grant funding available for Southwest to start up a nursing program?  Are you receptive to seeing programs started?

MnSCU:  If that’s the proposal you want to bring forward we can consider it.

Chancellor:  It is a big thing to get it started and accredited.

Thank you!  Adjourned 11:32