IFO & MnSCU Meet and Confer

UNOFFICIAL NOTES

Winona State University

April 7, 2006

Present IFO:  Gerry Toland, Judy Kilborn, Cindy Phillips, Annette Schoenberger, Russ Stanton, Becky Omdahl, Stephen Bohnenblust, Patrice Arseneault, Cindy Finch (taking minutes), Nancy Black, Dave Larkin, Mary Kesler, Cathy Summa

Present MnSCU:  Chris Dale, Chancellor James McCormick, Gary Janikowski, Renee Hogoboom, Barbara Miller, Linda Baer, Whitney Harris (via conference call for 10 minutes)

Also Present:  Roland Barden, SU President Moorhead

Additional Agenda Item to Add:

The IFO would like to follow-up on CIP Codes from the March statewide Meet and Confer. 

IFO:  We are glad to be here to celebrate the inauguration.  We also want to acknowledge that Dave Larkin, Bemidji State FA President, will be retiring in May.

Restructuring of MnSCU Board of Trustees’ Meetings:

Chancellor:  Restructuring of the board background information was given.  A year before I started they had 64 meetings, this last year the BOT had 10 - 2 day meetings and 9 EC meetings, plus some hearings.  How many days does it take to serve?  The BOT has had some discussion and disagreement about this.  Bob Hoffman appointed Anne Shaw to head up a committee to look at the calendar to make it efficient.  She asked the staff to do some work and found that other systems around the nation (SUNY had 4 meetings, Pennsylvania had 4 meetings) along with ND - we were at the high end.  That doesn’t make it right or wrong but they’ve asked us for different arrangements.  I think Shaw will have a recommendation at the May meeting and I guess they will try to get the schedule to 14 days of meetings.  Not addressing routine but rather major policy issues will be the focus.  It isn’t important for the BOT to micromanage the system.

IFO:  Is the BOT calendar you have given us approved?  Do you expect that calendar to change dramatically?

Chancellor:  I think that will be finalized at the April meeting.  I would believe they would stick to the approved days but there could be fewer meetings. 

IFO:  How will this affect the unions’ ability to speak at the BOT meetings?

Chancellor:  I haven’t had heard anyone say you or the student unions couldn’t speak.  The committee meetings are important for you to speak at.  By the time we get to the Board meeting we want the committee’s recommendations.

IFO:  One of our concerns is that the committees would meet concurrently.

Chancellor:  I believe there is less enthusiasm for that.  Sometimes when a board gets mature you can permit the committee to make these decisions.  We need to tighten up the committee reports via the chair.

Barden: I’m a cheerleader for fewer meetings.  The work can be done in less time.  I believe that given how you have described the process of chairs of committees wanting to have committee meetings, means a lot of staff people have to do work and if we can redirect that to more useful resources we’ll all be stronger.

Chancellor: I haven’t heard any more intention to lessen the time for constituent groups.

MnSCU:  They want more time to hear the constituent groups.

IFO:  It’s more that we listen to the committees, and we do have concerns about participation and our contributions.  We don’t want the BOT to be blindsided to something that is a sensitive issue. 

Chancellor:  Your leader does a great job of giving a great report; she says a lot in a short period of time.

Institutional Self Review:

MnSCU:  We brought this item to you and you have been supportive of this as well as MSCF and I’m here to report this is moving along and we have some recommendations moving forward in terms of a proposal for institutional self evaluation.  We’ve done this before and now it’s time to do it again, per your recommendations.  We have faculty workgroup recommendations that have come forward.

IFO:  Our board is in favor of doing this but there is concern for paying for faculty time who are involved.  We expect that the people who are doing this work are compensated.  It’s a big project.

MnSCU:  It’s the first I’ve heard about that and I’ll have to take it back.  We did the last two without that being the case.

MnSCU:  You’re suggesting this wouldn’t be part of their load?

IFO:  When it’s been done in the past it’s been extra we think.

MnSCU: I’ll do a work analysis to see what it will take.

IFO: When is this meeting in September?

MnSCU: It looks like September 8, but that may be tentative.

IFO: There is a transfer oversight meeting in a couple of weeks.

IFO: We are meeting April 28 and we’ll discuss it further then.

Strategic Plan/Work Plan:

MnSCU: The newly printed work plan is being distributed (handout given).  We’ve had extensive conversations about these and the Board has done a lot of work.  The plan is in process right now in relation to the Chancellor visiting with all the presidents and constituents.  The work plan is being developed this year and we will be doing synchronization with the academic calendars; the actual work plan will be more honed in for the next three years.

Chancellor: I’m hoping this will drive the appropriations request and should reflect their four goals.  I’m hoping as we develop this advocacy document the board members will be good advocates to get it funded.

MnSCU:  We have heard major conversations from Presidents and Trustees about readiness, access issues of the strategic plan, and interest in strategic points for what meeting needs might mean.

Chancellor: I’ve met with 20 foundations and we listened to see if there might be some foundation interest.

IFO:  We too are looking at this and had questions about what was meant by some of the statements particularly number 4 (Innovate to meet current and future educational needs efficiently) and how they would be actually carried out and measured if they’re reached. How will we be able to say the goals have been reached; what baseline will we use?

Chancellor: I came back from AGB over the weekend; all the boards are moving toward having goals that they can measure.  The issues are when we invest the money how do we measure some things and know we are making progress.  I see this as more of an issue now than before.  Suggestions from all of you to describe things here and measure would be helpful.

MnSCU:  We had a discussion with the presidents about number 4 so we did an exercise with them at the last face to face Leadership Council meeting. 

Chancellor:  There’s interest that not enough students are getting through high school especially minority groups, since our population isn’t growing – we need to improve the supply line.  We supply 50% of the teachers to this state so we have a role in that.  Maybe some of the things we need to ask for is additional funds to help that process of getting people college ready.  Not only are many minorities not college ready but other groups as well.

IFO:  One thing we look at is how will you know that you’ve met these goals?

Chancellor:  That’s the action plan and for the few goals underlined, it make sense to measure those.  I don’t know how but the BOT is expecting us to have progress and measure it.

IFO: we think MnSCU should be helping the institutions to do this. 

Chancellor:  That’s what I always mean - MnSCU means all of us.

IFO:  The measurement is what has been done to help the institutions do this and if they can’t do this better.  Somehow when you’re sitting on the campuses you feel more that there isn’t that reflection.  When you’re writing your plans please take that into account.

MnSCU:  The plan is developed after talking to the presidents.  Serving the underserved population came from the legislature but the resources are on the campuses and we want to assist you in doing that.  We have those kinds of measurements. The point is well taken. It is about the campuses.  What is the role of the campus and what is the role of the OOC that might require more advocacies or be more specific?

Chancellor:  You’re right; all of this has to get done throughout the whole organization.

IFO:  One question is the multiple delivery options and how quickly things have expanded in that realm. Certainly when we look at serving students in MN we need to recognize we are not only serving MN but many more students’ public education is supported by the state.  The state is supporting public education for MnSCU, we are developing multiple systems for delivery (online) but who is taking those courses?  Not just citizens in MN it is national and international subsidized by the state.  Is this good stewardship? 

Chancellor:  We have out-of-state tuition rates.

MnSCU:  We have some students who are out of state and we can get you those numbers.  We have many people coming from other places taking courses here but it comes out in somewhat of a balance.

Chancellor:  If you’re a citizen of MN you don’t pay as much as a non-citizen who have to pay more fees.  Your point is that we don’t use existing resources to subsidized out of state? Is that fair?

IFO: Yes.

Chancellor: I invite you to meet with Linda Baer and Leslie Mercer before the action plan, you could give us a couple of hours to talk about that.  This is four years and my contract includes through the summer of 2009 and this is deliberately through 2010.  When I came there was no plan.  Your observations are appreciated.

Concurrent Enrollment Practices PSEO:

MnSCU: There has been some legislative action around this Board policy and this was unfortunate.  The issue revolved around high school teacher teaching college level courses. It indicated our Board policy should not hinder PSEO.

Chancellor: I withdrew it - people were piling up against this.  I’ve worked hard to understand MN and I missed this one.  I didn’t think anyone would disagree. I thought everyone would understand that you need at least 18 hours of graduate work in the discipline to teach it at a college level in the high school.

MnSCU: We are hearing from some of our community colleges and I have to get the data. We need a better data system to tell the story properly.  The legislature shouldn’t be meddling in board policy - that’s bad practice.  What we’re polling is something that’s been in place for many years, the other people we pointed out were the U of M website and they are very specific and prescriptive, which they should be.  We need a more comprehensive website to work with our high schools.  How will you face higher learning visits when you’re not proving the work with your high schools?

Chancellor:  The Chancellor of South Dakota took a Board position refusing to accept our transfers - when they checked into the Southwest English program it wasn’t certified. President Danahar has worked on that with the faculty.

MnSCU: We have a work plan that continues to work out and the Governor is pursuing Get Ready Get Credits.  We want quality and success for our students.

Chancellor: I’m anxious for Russ and others to try to help me understand how a state who wants to be number one would find this to be a problem.

IFO:  If you look at who the co-authors at the legislature were, most of them were high school teachers.

IFO:  How are we serving or not serving the underserved students?  I think if we knew, the legislature might have a better idea.

MnSCU: You’re right, thank you.

Proposed Amendment to Policy 3.16 International Baccalaureate Credit and Proposed Procedure 3.16.1 International Baccalaureate Credit):

IFO: We wanted an update on the clarification of what is actually being transferred.

MnSCU: At this point you will find this policy has been pulled from the BOT discussion this month for that very purpose.  We believe as supporters of what the campuses believe that in the IB policy there are two sets of tests, high and standard quality. That’s where the debate is.  We are holding to the high quality as is done nationally.

IFO:  We talked last time about getting data - do we have numbers?  Are they looking at this as all or nothing or parceling out in bits and pieces?

MnSCU: this is the whole package, we want to report comprehensively, Get Ready Get Credit.

Chancellor: we may find that teachers don’t have the credentials, it would have been good to know that but it could turn out that way.  If we go at this again we will need this data.

IFO:  How does this related to underrepresented students?  Is this widening or closing the gap?

MnSCU:  Those are the right research questions and we don’t know.

IFO:  We need to know if this is widening the gap.

MnSCU:  We still promise you that we will get a comprehensive list of numbers and we are still working on that.  I understand you are asking for data.  The commissioner is still talking about which level; you’ll hear more by September but we aren’t moving forward until we have the commissioner’s report.

Update on Proposed Amendment to Policy 2.9 Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress:

IFO:  I’ve been lobbied hard by my registrar, accounting and financial aid to state that if this was in place at mid-semester this year we would have dropped over 800 students or 1/5 of our student body.  There’s no one waiting behind those people to sit in their seats.  He called this policy absolutely ridiculous.  Financial aid said the same thing.  One other thing, after five days, if a student was dropped then the professor has to give written permission to the student to reenroll.  There’s a lot of paperwork associated with this.  It’s not a good policy and we are concerned.

Chancellor:  Several presidents also expressed their concern to me.

IFO:  It’s possible to meet the financial aid standards but they don’t have to be the same as the academic standards.

MnSCU:  One issue we have is standards for students and how many times students keep coming back, that’s part of what we’re talking about.  What is the absolute level of success for academic progress that is ok here?  The BOT is dealing with our problems with financial aid in determining we move forward with a single effort.  We want to make sure there’s success.

IFO:  We talk about access and diversity.  Diversity is a whole bunch of things when we talk about students as we know diversity is much more than a high school graduate coming to our school and getting a 4 year degree.  Sometimes when we are talking about promoting diversity and access, maybe these are some of the institutional barriers that we are creating.

IFO:  Can you remind us what stage this proposed amendment is at?

MnSCU:  It’s been pulled from the April BOT discussion for the second time; I will have to determine the exact status with my committee chair.

IFO:  Can we have information on how this serves under represented students?

1.B.1 Policy:

MnSCU:  This policy hasn’t been looked at for 11 years and it was due for a review by a committee.  Pat Arseneault and Steve Bohnenblust represented the IFO and we went through this together and the procedure.  This is the policy that we were hoping to get to the BOT in April but that won’t happen as I need to meet and confer with others.  The main changes: before our policy identified protected class – 12 protected classes the same as the State Human Rights Act – our policy used to zero in on four classes, we tried to take out the identification but we kept sexual harassment, then the other piece is consensual relationships (relationships between a student and employee – there are instances of interdepartmental relationships and we did think it wouldn’t be appropriate if there was authority involved).

IFO:  We were actually thinking about within a department or college we didn’t want to prohibit relationships but if the relationship exists there is recognition that the university would provide for reassignment for the authority between faculty and the tenure promotion process.

IFO: How does this apply to a faculty member who is the only one who teaches a course in a program where their family member is enrolled?

MnSCU:  We’ll have to look at that – nepotism works with that.

IFO:  This would only apply to the spouse; I’m not sure what you’d do about a one person program.

IFO:  Nepotism would apply if you wanted to hire someone from your family; it only applies to employment not to student/faculty situations.

MnSCU:  We talked a lot about the reporting piece. Part of this is very private to me - it could lead to disparate treatment.

IFO: I don’t have a lot of problems with the first part, the second part where there isn’t a preexisting relationship is a little different.  I’m speaking for myself, but I find this troubling.  We have many of situations where significant others are enrolled and taking classes and sometimes in the same department.  I’m a little uncomfortable with this.

IFO:  We spent a lot of time on that and I appreciate the work Renee Hogoboom has done.  She brought together a very diverse set of individuals. I give Renee credit for being so thorough.  We have a much improved 1.B.1 policy now.  There may be some training issues on how to implement this policy.  Thank you, Renee for conducting such a good process.

MnSCU:  You’re just seeing the policy now and now we have to do the procedures. We are aiming for having a clear procedure so people can know what they should expect.

IFO:  A good example is the protection for the rights of free speech and the prohibition of discrimination and harassment.  This should in theory take care of those issues. 

MnSCU:  We also had students in our group which brought forward some training issues which I’ll be mindful of when we go out to train on the new changes.

IFO:  The problem we had is people who conduct investigations - complaints are usually third party complaints.  This created problems in processing 1.B.1 complaints and we felt the need to address that in the policy, the implementation is harder.

IFO:  In terms of the procedure, can you give us a status of the draft?

MnSCU:  Hopefully by the end of this month, but we don’t meet again until September.  I’d like to take the policy to the BOT in either May or June. The procedure will be arduous.

Nepotism:

MnSCU: Linda Skallman couldn’t be here today and asked me to give an update. At the last meeting she said she’d have a discussion with the presidents and that hasn’t happened as the conversation got deferred.  It should be coming up and she has communicated with the IFO representative and scheduled a date is with Pat Arseneault.  That should come forward.

IFO:  Yes.

IFO:  Will the effective date change?

MnSCU: I don’t think Linda will submit the procedure for review until she’s all the input.

IFO:  Do you usually show procedures to the board?

MnSCU: No, we don’t ask for Board approval for procedures.

IFO: I’m trying to understand the time table.

MnSCU: The Board already adopted the policy, now we are looking at the procedure.

Applied Doctorate:

IFO:  We’ve heard rumors about taskforces being requested.

MnSCU: We haven’t heard about it.  I’ve been working with Manuel Lopez who is working with the graduate deans of nursing and education in particular.  I haven’t heard about a taskforce.

IFO:  If you look on the timeline September – spring 2007 it says MnSCU special taskforce. This has been handed out on our campus. 

IFO:  Our group has taken this as something that is a real fact.

MnSCU: I have to get back to Manuel on this.

IFO:  We had a question about the taskforce and we were asked by our faculty if we know the scope and mission of this taskforce.

MnSCU:  This will start in September 2006.   I will ask Manuel and communicate back to you.

IFO:  Yes, bring that back to meet and confer.  Another issue of concern is tuition waivers and how this impacts doctoral programs.  If some of these programs consist of others with tuition waivers we are concerned with local departments/colleges not getting enough support for the program especially if we are counting on differential tuitions to support them.

MnSCU: Human Resources is in discussion with them about that and there are big ramifications if the tuition waiver gets folded into this. I’m not sure of the HR timeline.

IFO:  It’s critical when there’s no funding to support these programs.

Chancellor: that program had to be financed by us with the U of M program.

MnSCU:   We’ll send a memo back to you with a status report.

IFO:  That’s a clear example of why we need to talk.  There are contractual issues that are implicated - load and credit  - entirely separate from academic concerns.  We need to be in discussion about this soon if we are going to work it out and it will probably have to involve some of our negotiators.

IFO:  On the funding, there is something evolving here that we need to be on top of.  When the original bill passed, they asked us if we want more money and we said no, because of enrollment and tuition.  But what’s happened is the legislature is repealing the funding formula and we will have to come to grips with having no funding formula.  We may have to ask for an appropriation.

Chancellor: I think with any enrollment projection we ought to ask for the money.

IFO:  With the change in the funding, will that change the landscape for having money for doctoral programs?

Chancellor:  They haven’t always funded what they promised anyway.

IFO:  This biennium we got $72 million for enrollment.

IFO:  One of our concerns is workload.

Chancellor: My own concern, I’m interested in having quality programs.  We’re new at this business.

IFO: Linda, were you going to share about the presidents’ discussion?

MnSCU: Yes, to find out the intent of the presidents about pushing out those degrees to give us a parameter, when we initially testified there were two strong campuses ready to go, two in the middle and one that said we don’t think we’re in this now.  We did send a letter at the end of March to the presidents to say we would be carefully proceeding and initiate a statewide market survey of the needs to see if we need additional resources. We talked about guidelines.  We were anticipating the Higher Learning Commission report on applied doctorates, health care doctorates, there are guidelines coming out of that to help us.  At this time we do not have additional resources.  At that time we said we would not need them, so did the presidents, now the formula has changed.  We are talking about a limited number over the next few years. We want a collaborative approach to nursing and doctorates. Where participants would grant the degree and would share the core curriculum, we have evidence of two or three tracks for EDD.  We’re being very careful and measured about our resources.

Break

3.34 Academic Semester Start Dates and Proposed Procedure 3.34.1:

IFO: the BOT planned a reading; can you tell us the status?

MnSCU:   We have continued to discuss this controversial issue, we responded on the benefits to date, this benefits 12,000 students who are going to more than one school at a time, it helps with our transfer students, manual work arounds, there’s an IT section where the manual work arounds get costly, it’s not a settled deal yet.  Ken and I have talked about how we can better understand ISRS.  This spring 28 campuses started and it didn’t crash.  We are still sensitive to this.  We are in the process of rolling out the IMS recommendations. There are significant resource issues from that report, we want to continue to work with Ken to be able to assess the viability of our system to support such a thing. We are talking more, there is new money proposed, there’s a supplemental request going through the legislature that includes IT of which we need more resources.  Ken and I will continue to talk about this.  It’s on the Ed Policy agenda, but we could delay that and go into a taskforce discussion to bring more confident information back to you about ISRS.  There is probably one school in the Metro area that isn’t in sync.  We thought to pilot these schools and bring you more information.

Chancellor:  I was moved by Annette’s description of the melt down in SCSU.  I asked Ken Neimi to get in contact with you about the breakdown.  Some of the presidents understand we need to do it and there is some lack of faith to get this done without meltdowns. 

MnSCU:  We have three visits that followed after Annette’s comments.

IFO:  Yes, we seem to have made progress. I’m also working on queries for helping departments plan better for their enrollment.

MnSCU:  We have a second meeting scheduled at St. Cloud on April 12, and one at Southwest at the end of April. These are very helpful and it begins to bridge technology.  We are happy to hear where you are and we can be more responsive in IT.  We were looking at the 07-08 start up.

Chancellor:  If you can get a year beyond that it can be easier for people to adapt. 

MnSCU:  You are setting dates as we speak; we said we would put it effective fall 07.

Chancellor: I don’t want to undermine the work of the committee but I think 07 is too soon…maybe July of 08 would be better.

MnSCU:  The first BOT reading is in April. I don’t like to take things that are so up in the air to the Board - I’d rather have it further along and with more IT assessment on the capacity. 

Chancellor: If you decide to pilot you can do the Metro Alliance group.

MnSCU:  We will monitor how the 27 started, no problem.

IFO:  How many students were involved in that?

Chancellor: We know that when the big institutions came on it did crash.

MnSCU: We want to do this carefully and measured.  Predominately the presidents were in favor but some were against.

IFO:  Thank you for taking IT concerns seriously and sending Joanne Chabot out.

MnSCU:   Alfred Essa was hired to take care of this.

Chancellor:  On the day we came up to Moorhead, several of us were talking and Ken had a candidate from within and a candidate from without.  We hired the outside candidate.

MN Online:

IFO:  There’s been a call for volunteers and there is enthusiasm.  The first meeting is on July 12 and we are requesting duty days.

MnSCU:  At this time, as of last week’s MN Online meeting, they determined the meeting won’t happen in July.  You’ll receive communication.  If we do another summer meeting then we will have duty days.

Systemwide Diversity Plan Update:

MnSCU: We’ve had some input since the last BOT meeting and have incorporated them.

IFO: I’ve been trying to compare your plan with the MnSCU Strategic Plan.  Then one of the questions we had I thought on an earlier draft I saw a definition or explanation of the terms “under represented and underserved.”

MnSCU:  That’s in the definitions document.

IFO: that wasn’t included…ok, I have it here…

IFO:  Are the definitions part of the plan?

MnSCU:  Yes.

IFO:  Yes, I saw them footnoted.

IFO: We had another discussion earlier today about the strategic plan of the BOT, on increasing access.  We were talking about students with diverse backgrounds, part timers, and when we talk about some of these terms it’s important to know that we talk about them in different ways.  When we were looking at this, another concern we had is how these are going to be implemented.  Is it your sense that this will happen primarily through campuses addressing these items?

MnSCU:  Yes, the action will occur on campuses. I was trying to give direction and keep focus on the goals we are trying to achieve.

IFO:   When a campus is addressing under represented or under served students, they may choose to focus on one particular group in its region.

MnSCU:  Yes.

IFO:   The individual campuses write their plans to turn them more concrete.

MnSCU:  Yes, it’s difficult to do a systemwide concrete analysis.  We have a set of diversity plans from the campuses submitted in 2003.

IFO:  Strategic direction in promoting quality programs and services, I think there’s some good thinking in goal 2.1 talking about helping faculty and being sensitive. In diversity goal 2.2 it says “increase the diversity of faculty and staff” but within that it seems we are defining diversity in terms of race and ethnicity only.  We were struck by the shift of the language of under represented and under served students which is broad to what is narrow in ethnicity.

MnSCU:  I hear you.

IFO:   We certainly hope one thing is that faculty will be involved in helping to assess some of these goals in diversity 4.1 in identifying removing barriers that impede develop to enhance success.  At different institutions there may be different barriers.  We’d like to make sure that as the campuses are looking at those diverse perspectives on the definition of barriers be considered.

MnSCU:   We had a couple of categories to access it was geographic, special needs, programs you need and where they are – academic, but there was a subpart on readiness access and then came the cultural piece.  We worked that out in relation to the Citizens Advisory Commission a few years ago.  I can share this component with Whitney.

IFO:   In the last few years, I’ve had students from high school with good transcripts and it doesn‘t reflect the reality of their preparation.  Many need remedial programs.

IFO:  Cindy Phillips referenced the importance of diversity goal 2.  I concur, in working with MIC we suggest in terms of goal 2.1, we like the campus climate assessments, but it might be wise to have climate assessments for the OOC as well.  There was a general concern from faculty overall in terms of implementing the diversity plan and concerns about funding and accountability.  In other words if MnSCU is going forward with the plan, it seems really crucial that campuses receive adequate resources to ensure success for these goals.  It seems significant dollars would go into these, that’s good, but dollars are attached.  The accountability concern is whether and how campuses will be held accountable to meeting these diversity goals.  Goal 4 talks about accountability in the sense that diversity is incorporated in the evaluative process but it isn’t clear how accountability will be carried out.  It is a concern.

MnSCU:  That’s the piece that as we move forward we need to look at across the board as well as contractual concerns and valid assessment tools.  It seems to me that’s the next step.

IFO:  Under diversity goal 1.1 - increase the number of under represented and under served students who enroll and a third bullet is a select number of institutions will recruit urban students.  I don’t know if you have something going on that is folded into the list or if this was the development - why an urban focus?

MnSCU:  The urban came from the taskforce.  There’s a big gap, but I don’t know that we couldn’t extend it to other areas.

IFO:   It might be interesting to look at our other non-urban opportunities so no one feels excluded.

MnSCU:  We do need this kind of feedback.

IFO:  We have a lot of goals here; how will we know when we achieve those goals?

MnSCU:  That’s the assessment piece we need to work on.

IFO:  Will there be performance indicators?

MnSCU: (the conference call volume was not clear for the person taking minutes)

Chancellor: Your goals should flow into the workplan of each president.

MnSCU:  Right.

Chancellor:  We’ll ask each president to incorporate that.  I think we’ll ask for appropriation funding.

MnSCU:  That’s the way I see it happening.

MnSCU: There’s a new hire starting on May 20.  We had 104 excellent candidates.  The person we hired is coming from Hamline University and she’s a go-getter.  She’ll be working with diversity plans.

Chancellor: We had a person in that position - Carissa Blue.

MnSCU:  Yes, she was temporary filling in for Stacy Wells who left.  We are presenting the definitions to the Board in April for under represented, diversity and under served.

Chancellor:  Every word has a different meaning to different members of the Board.  You couldn’t have a discussion because of different understandings.

MnSCU: Whitney has contacted each board member to identify what their definition is and to craft these new ones.

IFO:  Have these definitions changed since our draft in March?

MnSCU:   Yes, I don’t quite remember the wording of what has been changed.

IFO:  The BOT did ask if under represented students would include white males.

IFO:  We also have to think of under served as the adult learner or family bound.

Chancellor:   The BOT had to come up with one line for their vision on this: we want to enable the citizens of MN to succeed by having the most successful system in the nation.

IFO:  Is it your understanding that that BOT will approve the plan and definitions at the April meeting?

MnSCU:  Yes, they will take action.

Chancellor:  There may be some disagreement on the definitions, but at least we’ll all know what they mean.

IFO:  You need a definition everyone understands.

MN Online  (continued):

IFO:  When we were talking about MN Online Council.  We came to the conclusion that we would ask if you could increase the number to 7 faculty reps serving on this committee.  It’s becoming more and more important on each campus.  That’s a request to please look at that.  There’s dramatic increase in interest.

MnSCU:   Before we’re done we can determine the follow-up so we don’t have to wait until the next meet and confer.

IMS Advisory Council:

IFO:  Where is this in progress?

MnSCU:  We are taking recommendations and coming together. Ken Brand and I need to act on them.  We’ve had very good input and appreciate Barbara Keinath’s input and that’s where we are.  We need to get back to it and put it in a timeline.

IFO:  The only other thing we want to add as we move forward with increased use of IMS, we want direct involvement from Lynda Milne at CTL.  Secondly we recognize that there are different roles and uses for people teaching online and traditional classes.  We hope for a balance as we teach traditional courses we have different users.  Often what we’ve seen go forward is the enthusiasm for online and we want balance.

MnSCU:  Through CTL we feel we have balance.   On the other hand we need to preserve the active learning side for curricular advancements for faculty.

IFO:  There hasn’t been enough of that.

MnSCU: ok

Chancellor:   I’ve been trying to figure out what is going on with the high schools and at least Bill Gates says you have to have rigor that is relevant and these students coming to us have learned in different ways and we need to be relevantly creative.  There are opportunities to use our technology to make it more relevant.  That relevance and rigor is something we need to learn more about.

IFO:  It goes back to the supply line question and issues of diversity and how people use technology in their facility and ability to do so.  The under represented under served population doesn’t have computers in their home.

Chancellor: I’ve been going to these foundation visits, hospital foundations; they are talking about preparing nurses.  You can’t prepare a nurse without some work on the culture.  They proposed to have a way for them to practice on Hmong patients and understand them first then move on to another culture.    The same think might apply to teachers. 

CIP Codes:

IFO:  From the last meet and confer meeting, Linda Baer, you were going to check with Craig Schoenecker.

MnSCU: correct, related to PSEO.

IFO:  No, we heard there will be a standardization of what would appear on the diploma transcripts.  Would the local campus be able to have a subspecialities listed on the transcript?  I’m not aware that this relates to PSEO.

IFO: in my department we have two majors, one is accredited and one isn’t.  We can’t have them listed with the same CIP code on the transcript.  If you’re going to standardize the codes you need to work with the campuses.

MnSCU: I understand the issue and I need to get back to you.

IFO: Our accreditation requires that we know what is going on in the courses and if we don’t know than we can loose our accreditation.

MnSCU: Absolutely, that’s important.

IFO: it’s also a problem with transfer issues.  It’s a mess when you try to prepare for those.

End of the agenda.  Adjourned at 10:55 a.m.