IFO MnSCU Statewide Meet and Confer
Unofficial Notes
January 26, 2007
IFO Present: Nancy Black, Stephen Bohnenblust, Debra Japp, David Bouchard, Annette Schoenberger, Mary Kesler, George Seldat, Cathy Summa, Pat Arseneault, Cindy Finch (taking notes), Elizabeth Dunn, Cindy Phillips, Russ Stanton,
MnSCU Present: Chancellor McCormick, Barb Miller, Gail Olson, Deena Allen, Jim Jorstad, Gary Janikowski, Lynda Milne, Mary Leary, Chris Dale, Bill Tschida, Cyndy Crist, Linda Baer, Judy Borgen, Gary Langer, Leslie Blicker, Mary Jacquart
Called to order 8:07 a.m.
IFO: We wanted to share information with you about the MnSCU server. The search engines don’t work properly if you type in the MnSCU address in the URL line. You are taken to a search engine instead of the website. It’s happening more often in the evenings.
MnSCU: We’ll check with IT.
Code of Conduct:
IFO: We have reviewed the draft that you presented us at the last meet and confer. We would like some additional time to look it over. We did see something that was potentially problematic that we’d like to bring to the table. There are a variety of statutes identified here and there is also a hodgepodge of interpretations of the statutes that we haven’t look at in as much detail as we’d like. The language may fit more with individuals with a 9-5 type job and some of these things are certainly left open for interpretations. An example on sub part D, (page 2) is an idea of the vagueness. Most of us will do some type of consultation or something outside that would be related to our university activities. It’s a question of how those activities would be interpreted.
IFO: I do some outside work. It’s not clear as to whether or where you draw the boundaries on something like that.
MnSCU: Are you saying in terms of accepting compensation?
IFO: Yes. Another example is honoraria made by employees on their own time. For instance, let’s say I spoke at a conference and someone gave me a $100 honorarium/token for speaking. Is that on my own time or company time if it’s paid by someone other than a state agency? It is vague.
MnSCU: We want people to understand, and have more uniformity so they don’t have to guess at that. I don’t think we can possibly anticipate every one of the angles. We’re planning to have a list of FAQs but that won’t cover all the instances.
IFO: When you say you want uniformity, I wonder if that’s not an impossible goal; we have so many differences. With faculty not being on an 8-5 time clock and so many teaching the evenings, it’s hard to set timelines.
MnSCU: We have that problem whether or not we have a code and the more insight the better. We’re not going to be able to outline the answers for each person.
IFO: Again, with that whole issue of employees on their own time, how that would get interpreted, we have a collective bargaining agreement dealing with workload and then the nature of our work.
MnSCU: Would it be helpful to include something in the description where employees also need to consult their collective bargaining agreement in term of work time?
Chancellor: Isn’t part of the problem trying to make sure there isn’t any inappropriate influence?
MnSCU: I don’t know if MN is much different than most states on these issues; it’s to give people a better understanding of what they need to be watching for and give them a process. Your example is good.
IFO: The corollary that I would draw to faculty life is in terms of how we operate with granting agencies. The National Science Foundation (NSF) invites you to sit on a review panel, within the NSF process there is a code of conduct and a conflict of interest and I’m obligated to let them know. I exclude that from my work. They compensate me by flying me out on the government’s time and give me a stipend. One could make the argument, it might benefit me in the future, the simple act of reviewing, but by not allowing me to do this would disadvantage the system because all of the other systems are doing this.
MnSCU: Another example, after the contract was entered into with TIAA-CREF they did pay for MnSCU staff to be trained and we said fine, because we already had the contract.
IFO: How do we deal with the nuances?
MnSCU: We have links to the actual text, but we also want to orient employees to show them their general responsibilities to give you more guidance.
IFO: As we were going through this looking at the links, there are three statutes at the end after Subpart J, and we are looking at the language so we can have a reasonable idea of the employee ethics, which we are certainly not against. It appears as if you were interpreting the statutes, some things were omitted. We want to examine it carefully so we understand it and have a mutual agreement.
MnSCU: This has not gone out in publication form. This will go out next week in draft form when there will be an additional opportunity to give feedback.
IFO: We’d rather front-end the understanding than be involved in something drawn out.
IFO: With coaching, I don’t think it’s realistic to make people read all the statutes. How it’s administered is going to be difficult. Is there some type of appeal process? The language has potential for interpretations; faculty may not have time to read or think about this. I’m concerned.
MnSCU: I understand. To put it in perspective we didn’t do anything new here. This is to collect the things we all need to be responsible for and we want to put that in a central place. This is intended to be helpful to everyone.
IFO: The problem that we have is one of interpretation and application and we know there will be a department chair or dean who will read this language and tell a faculty member …thus and such, and if their relationship isn’t wonderful, they would be told what they can and can’t do. People read statutes differently. I applaud the notion of making it more available, but I think if we put this out there we have to take responsibility for its application. If someone tells a faculty member you can’t do this or that, you create tremendous turmoil in that faculty member’s life even if later we learn the dean screwed up. There’s a responsibility to carry through.
MnSCU: I agree with you. One of the things we have talked about in the workgroup we had is the need for training in these issues. I’ve been doing a training component and all of our supervisors are required to go through this and we spend time on these various issues. It’s good to have one document that appends every other document. Anita Rios and Jeff Hustons (sp?) are working on developing an ethics training component for new employees’ orientation. Training in education is very important for everyone. We would go out to the colleges and universities and do this training on these issues.
IFO: That takes us back to one of the first points, faculty context for this is very different than the context for a bookkeeper and you cannot do one size fits all trainings. I’m confused by that - under prohibited gifts, examples for accepting textbooks and teaching materials. But I don’t see in the statute that text books may not be sold.
MnSCU: You’re right. That’s an interpretation we made.
IFO: It raises questions we’ll address later.
Chancellor: For people who do consulting, we don’t want to preclude that.
IFO: This is something we’ll want to continue discussing. I do have a request and you said you’d be sending it out and something about discussing it again in February. It’s January 26 and if you’re expecting feedback, maybe we could get a mutually agreeable date. Maybe by February 23, the next meet and confer, we could have a discussion.
MnSCU: Maybe we could put the deadline at the 26th of February.
MnSCU: That’s fine. We’ve also gotten feedback from other people and we’ll probably be making revisions including the IFO’s feedback.
IFO: Have you already made revisions?
MnSCU: No.
MnSCU: Before it goes out again there may be more changes.
PSEO:
MnSCU: You brought the topic of PSEO and credentials to the table and we’d like to hear your questions.
IFO: This is a hot topic and one of our concerns is standards for requirements. There have been varying levels of requirements. Also these standards are not always followed throughout the state. There’s a certain amount of tension. We want to know what’s going on and want to request the exception report and know when we might expect that.
MnSCU: We have a taskforce established on credentials that has met monthly since October. It has 19 members including k-12, campuses and the Office of the Chancellor personnel and should be finished by February. It’s resulting in changes 2.5.1 in the system procedure. You’ve been represented at each of the meetings and we appreciate your feedback. Russ has attended one meeting. The group has been guided by the quality of concurrent enrollment, the support provided by the colleges and universities, the professional development and quality of the materials. We’re under pressure by the Governor/Department of Education to have more options for students to be required to have college credits in high school. The group continues to work on how to come to clarification of the definition of concurrent enrollment and how it differentiates with college level courses in the high schools, references to accreditation standards, acceptable credentials for those teaching, national organizations that relate to best practices, the crux of the issue gets down to agreements with the school district and our colleges/universities, and a consistent financial agreement. We haven’t studied this in a couple of years …the credentialing question, mentoring, those are the things the group has been talking about and are working to have recommendations soon.
Chancellor: The faculty at the colleges/universities needed to have something to say about the credentials of the person taking the class. I didn’t even question, that everyone in the state where we value education that everyone would agree to take a college course a faculty member would need at least 18 hours in the discipline you’re teaching. I was shocked people in Minnesota wouldn’t agree. I was shocked. It sounds like you’re getting ready for a new piece of legislation. I was shocked.
IFO: If the Governor were to push on this to get every high school student a year of college… It seems monumental for the resources needed. It would also bring up more credentialing issues.
Chancellor: I do think there are students who have mastered the high school program early. It’s good if we can give them the opportunity and not waste their senior year if they are properly taught. I don’t know how that’s going to work.
MnSCU: We’re leading the issue that you must have college credentials. This group will be talking about the credentials and what would be expected for adjunct faculty. Those students are the high performers and they are successful. It should be success for the student rather than everyone getting some credit along the way.
IFO: Are we talking to the U of M? The U of M underbids us in Crookston and they offer no guidance. If we’re talking about credentials, we need to coordinate with the U of M.
MnSCU: The U of M has a strong website. We’ve had conversations about Crookston.
IFO: It adds to our workload.
MnSCU: That’s a good point, the other thing that helps us if we can keep working toward high school standards toward readiness for college.
MnSCU: We do have a group that meets with all the technical college campuses. On paper when you follow-up, everything looks good then we hear anecdotal things that don’t match.
MnSCU: Mentoring can have two parts. And a secondary level that addresses more credentialed teachers.
IFO: Credentials of the teachers - is there any discussion about the qualifications of the students? Most of the students who go on to a two year college have a rigorous testing that places them somewhere taking college classes in the high school; second, are we getting any information about how the outside of MnSCU or the U of M accept these concurrent classes for high school and college credit?
Chancellor: The Chancellor of South Dakota is a good friend of mine. They did not accept courses from Southwest State and they knew nothing about having to qualify the faculty member at the school district. There are some problems we have to be aware of. If the English department didn’t know who was teaching the course, there is something wrong. If we’re going to give them credit, our faculty needs to have given their approval.
IFO: We know the Governor’s plan but we have a responsibility. This is not a Minnesota issue, this is a nationwide issue. We need to say more about this at the legislature; it’s costing billions of dollars for remedial work. We want students to have those opportunities; we’re concerned that when they get to the university they will be successful….there are few standards and misunderstandings.
Chancellor: We should be concerned about our supply line. We have a culture.
Center for Teaching and Learning – Core Outcomes:
Tom Morped (sp?), MnSCU Assistant Director for Grants, was introduced.
IFO: We talked about this at the last meet and confer.
IFO: There was a CTL Steering Committee meeting on Wednesday. We discussed many of these issues, but want to make sure we understand each other. The core outcomes survey instrument is going to the CAOs on the campuses and should have little impact on faculty. If a CAO starts pressuring faculty to contribute, you can say no, you should be doing it. Can we say that?
MnSCU: Absolutely, this was intended for the CAOs.
CTL Designed for Learning Award:
IFO: We still have concerns about the fall-out of getting involved with Twigg. We are interested in the assessment of these programs, and the return on investments. We believe CTL has documented the success of the program through the Bush Awards, and we want to see that program continue. We’re not so sure about the Designed for Learning Initiative on increasing efficiency and decreasing costs. This may impact us and student learning negatively.
MnSCU: As you pointed out, this is a complementary additional program. We want to improve. These are pilots for that purpose.
IFO: These are 8 grants for 20k each. The Bush grants reached more faculty.
IFO: We will continue these discussions at the CTL meetings.
MnSCU: Right.
Chancellor: Twigg didn’t work out so well but she is getting lots of momentum around the country.
MnSCU: She cares about the right things.
Chancellor: In a few months we may want to circle back there and see how she’s doing.
MnSCU: We’re still participating in a peer opportunity for a lesser amount of money.
It connects people who are doing the work together.
IFO: One concern the IFO has with CTLs operation is that there are many projects moved their way that is distracting from the bulk of their work. We’re working that way with the Steering Committee. Projects like the Teaching Award wind up taking a long time and create confusion. This project took three years to work through the pipeline.
CTL Board of Trustees Award for Excellence:
IFO: I want to make it clear that the IFO has and continues to support the concept of the Teaching Award - that was the action our Board of Directors took and we have not changed that position. The IFO has not said anything at all about the process to date. The reactions are from the campuses in origin and so the reasons the faculty at Moorhead State chose not to participate, are not always the same as other campuses, this is a campus by campus response. To the best of my knowledge, the process that came out was far too cumbersome and required too much effort. Our faculty have said this is too much work. It is certainly too much work for the possibility of receiving the award. We were quite concerned on our campus. I received a number of responses. I was thinking about nominating someone until I saw the process. The goal for the trustees seeing the credentials of fine faculty has been subverted by the process. It’s my understanding the whole process didn’t come to the CTL or our Board.
MnSCU: It was never advertised that the full nomination package had to go at the first level.
IFO: When we read the documents, we didn’t reach that conclusion.
IFO: I want to reiterate, it is different on different campuses. Bemidji State was the first to say they weren’t participating, which was part of a misunderstanding on the application process. Also there is an old issue of awards that has ill feelings; the monetary award caused the most concern. It was a messy process and we opted out last fall, I don’t know if we’ll reconsider; it’s part of the overall problem of the messiness of how it came out and a lack of awareness of while it was in process.
MnSCU: This is our first year and we are learning.
Chancellor: There was a misunderstanding on the application process.
MnSCU: It was discussed at the CTL and there were other discussions.
MnSCU: When you said the faculty at Moorhead didn’t want to participate, are you talking about one of two faculty or the faculty association?
IFO: Under our contract our faculty association is the voice of the faculty.
MnSCU: Who decided?
IFO: Why do you care?
MnSCU: The faculty association doesn’t assign work, why…
IFO: We had no one come forward to express any interest. If we had we may have taken a different approach. We have one faculty member who expressed no interest in being nominated, but who had served on the sub committee at the state level who was a proponent for us to continue to participate, but that is the single statement I have seen that in any way disagrees with what I’ve told you. To the extent any one was chosen, there are no people.
MnSCU: The point I’m getting at is a distinction of what the faculty association is saying to the faculty members. It’s not the faculty association’s role to say we won’t participate. If there was no interest you can’t argue with that.
IFO: On our campus we voted to have a committee but no one volunteered. You may say that people didn’t have to prepare it but I will tell you that no one on any of our campuses including our provosts thought you didn’t have to prepare the entire package to apply, I think you can say whatever you want but …
IFO: What happened on our campus (Mankato) – the CTL and the faculty association does work together fairly well, and it was given to the faculty association to determine how to do this. The process that’s required requires the formation of a group that’s going to review the nominations and bring 6 or 7 names forward. When the group that would be doing that was looking at the process and timelines, they determined between the time we received the process and looked at the process and be able to have names brought forward, we could not do that appropriately during the given time frame, and the concern is if we did it in the timeframe we had left is we would not be doing it justice. I guess the worry is we may have done a half-assed job.
IFO: I would suggest there would be a clear list of instructions sent to Nancy Black specifying what exactly you need to do at each step and revise the timeline. We don’t have consistent access to the website.
IFO: I want to reiterate the faculty association is the voice of the faculty, not a single faculty member came forward. I don’t want any pretense that we are squelching faculty who want to participate.
IFO: No one at Metro has come forward.
IFO: We have problems getting faulty to staff a committee. We had two faculty and they weren’t well qualified they were young and felt compelled for PDP purposes. This is also evidence of the workload put out to the campuses. It is becoming very difficult for faculty to do their jobs. This is representative governance; this is not the faculty association imposing their will on faculty. We act on behalf of the faculty; faculty express their concerns I took this to our faculty senate; not one person agreed with this.
MnSCU: The award?
IFO: Not necessarily the award but the timeline, we’re exhausting faculty.
IFO: These faculty association presidents are the voices of the faculty. We do have representatives on CTL, we did have IFO faculty on the subcommittee, and this was a group that did not communicate fully. At this level with the faculty you know our position. Some of our members believe this is merit pay which we are against- forms of recognition to honor faculty. Faculty did express this is more trouble than tenure; Minnesotans don’t like to say how good they are. The Carnegie Professor of the Year, which we frequently get, has no money attached to the award; it’s a nice plaque. There might be other ways to reward faculty that don’t cause dissension.
IFO: If you really want to honor faculty we have 4 or 5 faculty on our campus who won’t survive this year. Honor those people.
Chancellor: We ought to keep the idea alive and look at the procedure. If the money award is a problem maybe the person could give the money to the library in their honor.
IFO: (nodding yes)
Chancellor: They also could take the money, take the income tax, and give it to the library and take the deduction. The intent was meant to be a positive recognition of our faculty.
IPESL:
IFO: What we are asking for is an accounting of all costs associated with IPESL. The system did receive $12 million but we would like an accounting including administrative expenses. Can we expect that by February 23?
MnSCU: (nodding yes)
MnSCU: Yes.
MN Online:
IFO: This has become a very big issue. We have three IFO reps on this committee and every campus is engaged. I’ve been asked to request additional representatives for the IFO for each campus to be involved. We also had a few issues we wanted to talk about that have serious long range implications for the system. At the November and December meeting there was a discussion about joining with the Vietnamese Community College. The cost of membership is $5,000 per year. We have concerns; we are trying to serve citizens of this state as best we can. When we looked at tuition, the community colleges have the highest tuition in the country. The Chancellor said we may have to put in more money into the community colleges for their tuition. It is not really the focus of what we think MN Online should be. We understand MN Online is not a profit making institution. We should have a global perspective but do we drain our resources? Our response is perhaps only if you charge them three times the tuition for global online.
MnSCU: This was an opportunity brought by Lake Superior College. If there isn’t systemwide interest in this, Lake Superior will do this themselves.
IFO: Would it be possible for us to get an accounting? The more MN Online we’re doing the more it seems to be costing the system. How do we want to serve Minnesota? We want to get the biggest bang for our buck.
Chancellor: Even though one college is doing to do it - it doesn’t take MN money to do it.
MnSCU: They’ll charge.
IFO: This is the tip of an iceberg. The DFLers are pushing for information on foreign call centers. Why are we serving this population when we have underserved students here? Lake Superior has had financial problems in the past; it could be a drain on the system. Are we making money on MN Online and is it coming back to the campuses?
MnSCU: With your analogy to off shoring work, is the opposite, we are in shoring work. The mission isn’t to make money.
MnSCU: The Board has asked for a report on the return investment on MN Online and we are preparing a report that will be available probably by May.
Chancellor: The question might be does Superior increase the amount they take from the pot because of these Vietnamese students? If it doesn’t take money from others then it shouldn’t be a problem.
IFO: Another part is if faculty are doing these courses they are not able to do other work teaching students in the classroom.
MnSCU: Your normal workload doesn’t change, it might, but we cannot force faculty to take overload.
IFO: At the MN Online Council there was discussion on negotiations on virtual office hours. That can be terms and conditions of employment.
MnSCU: In terms of conditions of employment, this isn’t part of regular load, faculty don’t have to accept these assignments.
IFO: If the dean says this can only be taught online…
MnSCU: To the extent that it is outside of regular load….
IFO: Workload is more than just I don’t want to do it. I’m tenured. If I’m not tenured and a dean is saying I need this, then there is a normal desire to please the dean. I’ve been in the system for 26 years. Is there a community college in Vietnam and where is it located?
MnSCU: This is a consortium. This is the association of community colleges. They are looking for online providers.
MnSCU: This is all exploratory. There are no signed agreements; it may pan our or not. It may be an opportunity for many of our campuses.
IFO: We have been informed that there will be CTL workshops on alternatives to proctored examinations because there are costs associated with proctored examples on the campuses. Many finals are required in person on the campus exams. We hear CTL was considering giving options on assessments that did not involve proctored exams - we look at this as the tail wagging the dog. We are the professionals. There are several reasons for being there in person and taking the exams. We like the students to come in and take the final exam in person. Then we know who really is there. We don’t want this workshop.
MnSCU: Then you don’t have to participate.
IFO: We want more representatives on MN Online.
MnSCU: I think there was a misunderstanding, all there is on a CTL workshop associated with this project is we subscribed to a web-seminar held nationally or alternative online assessments.
IFO: When things get translated on campus when they come down to the department level, if it costs too much, we have to cut the budget. There’s talk of a workgroup looking at share enrollment and shared revenue, that’s serious. We have a lot of concerns about MN Online and we want to be more of a part of this.
MnSCU: You have reps serving on this committee.
IFO: Yes, we have 3 and we’re asking for 7.
Quality of Compensation Benefit Reporting:
IFO: We’ve had two cases where the communication of faculty of what’s supposed to happen and what did happen is less than stellar. One is the HRA contribution and the recent weird stuff going on with supplemental compensation. We get an email saying this, then we do that, then we get another email….what happened? Who’s in charge? When you hire these people don’t they get training?
MnSCU: The SRP is due to the Department of Finance. When they went into the program, they somehow changed the SRP codes to terminate it at the end of the year. Deductions were not taken in the first paycheck of the year for faculty. Faculty were on January 5th then notified that they would have double deductions on the 19th. For most that did happen. If you were in your last SRP those people also had double deductions - an error that affected 55 people. The state said they’d write an official site check, they tried to let the campus HR folks know what was going on, but all of that should have been happening yesterday.
IFO: Did you get a copy of the emails?
MnSCU: We drafted what needed to be said.
IFO: Do you have to have a faculty person who reads those for you for clarity?
IFO: We need a faculty focus group.
MnSCU: There is still 198 people system wide who did not have checks and could not take the deduction on the 19th - retired or adjunct people. Out of those 198 only 23 are state university people. We got a list late in the afternoon yesterday that has the names.
IFO: Have we outsourced and can we notify those people?
MnSCU: The campuses will have to notify them.
IFO: Thank you for the lists. I distributed them last night. We’re glad you and Pat discussed that. Some of the names didn’t match the campuses though.
HRA:
MnSCU: It appears there was a misunderstanding. We weren’t there so we don’t fully understand, but with respect to the issue of the $600 employer contribution that appeared on the second November paycheck there appears to be a miscommunication of when that would be deposited. Even though the new plan year begins on January 1, it takes longer for us to get the money and figure out who is eligible and who gets the HCSP or HRA. Gary and I concluded the November eligibly determination and the November payroll was a good idea. It was to build some synergy around this open enrollment but it seems to have produced a lot more work. We can’t reconcile until the end of the year. It creates additional effort to know who is getting a contribution at Eide Bailey or MSRS. I don’t know if either Gary or I was fully aware of this. Eide Bailey has to accept and process every claim that is postmarked by December 31 before they decide which account this goes into. But with the holiday they don’t get processed until the first week of January. We need to have the claims submitted by December 31, this delay causes consternation. We’re going to make some small changes.
IFO: If people think they have until December 31st to postmark, the end of the school year is a busy time, so people will wait until after Christmas to process, it’s a big change. We need to find out from EB how often this happens.
Chancellor: We’re conditioned with taxes.
IFO: We need to make sure our HR people understand.
MnSCU: We had another problem with getting the file. We had a couple of eligible faculty on November 1 and there was a termination date at the end of the semester. The campus went in and fixed that. They initially resigned then changed their mind…then they qualified and they couldn’t figure out why…
MnSCU: If we talked about the possibility last year this time, of moving of the determination date to the end of the year and the two week delay of getting the $600 posted to the HRA account.
IFO: There wasn’t a misunderstanding with the date, it was supposed to be January 15, and one of my faculty checked, and it wasn’t in there.
MnSCU: There were 2 faculty…
IFO: Two faculty disrupted the whole system.
MnSCU: EB doesn’t like to upload unless it’s accurate.
IFO: Why would you put on a person check in November that they have $600 available when it isn’t available until January? That’s what creates the confusion. This is a simple benefit, faculty have better things to do than to learn the arcane details of how this works.
MnSCU: There were some ideas, but in the spirit of what Nancy said, looking for ways to fix the problem than fix the blame, it may be time to change that.
MnSCU: It’s nice for faculty to see their $600, but maybe it was the wrong way to approach this.
IFO: Would it be feasible under the law to modify the system so when I make my fall elections, I want to spend it this year or put in my HCSP? That would simplify things, if you want to save or spend it.
MnSCU: For anyone who has a 2007 account, EB wasn’t sending back the claims; they knew people had money coming so they didn’t reject those claims.
IFO: The reason this got really big was because when the person went to look and saw there was no money there, HR at SCSU said they didn’t know what was going on, they didn’t say we don’t know we’ll find out and we’ll get back to you. I don’t know if it’s a training issue but when a person calls their local HR about a compensation issue an the response is we don’t know, that’s a problem. It’s not an issue I can solve. It’s more than just this.
MnSCU: HR is more of a customer service climate.
D2L:
IFO: We want to discuss data security training and the methods of implementation. We are excited about the technology initiative; it is going to be a good hearing. The Governor is including $60 million of the $70 million we requested. That $60 million represents 48.8% of the suggested amount of the system. We want to improve the academic delivery. We decided it would be worth our time to look at some of the budget issues involved - where are they going to spend the money? We could see that from the material we were provided - 79 new IT management positions will be filled. How much of that goes toward the academic delivery? Approx 39 of the positions relate to the software development function within IT. They are going to be creating most of the software. Almost all of that is in terms of improving the administrative system. If we’re going to be measured, I only found 5 positions on academic IT. A lot of our performance measures will deal with academic delivery but the allocations don’t reflect that. This software development group seems to be moving in a different direction than most of the industry.
IFO: Is it true that there is free software created in Stanford?
IFO: The start point software is free.
IFO: Serving the same purpose as D2L?
IFO: With the administrative purposes. There are other systems available. A concern is that D2L has been fragile and is not very scalable. As load increases it can be difficult to manage. With security training, from the last time we met, the problem I raised then seems to have been dealt with. There has been a very good change in the approach with the ISRS system which seems to have reduced the security system. We are concerned about D2L delivery issues jeopardized by this training and the precedent this sets - the process of adding people so they are ready for the security training. Because the offering group doesn’t have the capacity to offer the classes, the D2L staff on the campuses have been asked to get that done. With no change in campus support, which are helping us to deliver academics, they are now being distracted to do this. We have 1,000 new people that need to be added to the system to do this. If we don’t have new people then the academics would probably suffer in some way. Section sizes of the classes we will be constructing, we found, it is very likely they will be 4 times the size we’ve ever been able to manage before, and we are very concerned. We have found the way this is getting rolled out is this…with the security training, instead of having one central point; we have to have 37 points on each of the campuses instead of 1. If any changes need to take place, 37 need to take place, not 1. The monitoring of the actual success is very problematic at this point. We have to monitor the people who have completed this. I have not been able to find the process for monitoring this but as I understand it currently the local HR isn’t monitoring this but the same people monitoring the academic delivery of the on-line classes. We’re taking a staff administrative function and superimposing it on people who are working on the academic side and this is a fragile system. Issues like where the security function is best ministered. It needs to be discussed. The procedure we are putting forward was developed by the U of M. The thing that is most worrisome is the decision was made at the IMS Advisory Council to implement version 8 of D2L in June, on top of all of these concerns. We should be focusing on having a successful implementation of version 8; it might compound issues that can cause us problems. This does strike us as setting a precedent. If we’re using an academic system and now pulling in those staff administrative functions and the budgeting - this may look like the perfect storm. This could cause a serious problem; we all hope this security training works, but it will be at the expense of the academic mission. We want the IT budget to support D2L to do its work, we hope the structures we‘ve set up on our campuses are not overtaxed.
MnSCU: Very well articulated and important to be said. The IMS Advisory Committee will be meeting on Monday.
IFO: I will be there.
MnSCU: I’m leading the IMS Advisory Committee. The critical nature of the enterprise plan is to fix failing infrastructure, but we better get to at least middle level of service areas. We will be able to take on some of your issues on Monday.
IFO: Although this D2L is important, to me it’s far more important to plan for the technology money. Is there a plan to have a software unit that functions like a business? Why the need for these 79 people?
MnSCU: We can bring that back, we aren’t prepared today, we are meeting on Monday. We are testifying on senate and house committees.
IFO: Chancellor, what your plan is with this? I know you don’t get involved with small issues, and I’m wondering about your reaction.
Chancellor: This won’t be decided until the end of the session.
IFO: The people are being stretched too thin.
MnSCU: I’m the project manager as of today. I am on an interim. I was the D2L implementation team leader. Coming to understanding a systemwide understanding is something I take near to my heart. I’m also adjunct faculty at Metro State. I’m MAPE and IFO at the same time. Bev Schuft, IT Security Director, had another commitment today. Thank you for your comments. I would like to say without a doubt for every comment you’ve made from our standpoint we would not move forward if we thought anything would happen with D2L. The way the course is set up, it’s very low intensive tools. When you teach on D2L there are features that caused the drain on the system, big quizzes, big grade books, etc. This is designed to look just like a web site. There may be one sign-off form to say yes; I’ve completed this. It is true that the internal folks working on the server and hardware needed to throw more hardware at it. D2L claims they’ve fixed problems, and version 8.1 will be an improvement. The scalability factor is purported to be better so we are hopeful this will be the case. Between now and then there is enough server capacity to handle it. The load could double and people would not be concerned about this. We think 10-15,000 people will go through this training over a nine month period. People are just clicking on arrows. Load has been assessed and our IT people say there will not be a drain in the system. Chuck Morris and Mike Yanke can help if you have more questions. Before this decision was ever made to do it on D2L we addressed this. In terms of section sizes being bigger, without a doubt they will. It could be possible that any one school or college could put their people in one course in sections of 100 at one time. We’re recommending it be a staged process. I’ve asked all campus HR directors to locate the appropriate members to serve on a team. We have 37 campus teams; we went around 5 times met with 3-4 people on each campus. On the campus the academic folks would get involved, we are trying to keep it at a limited role, the rub is more on the HR side. Would the HR folks determine the most appropriate way of tracking? We have not felt that this is the role of the D2L site administrator, the people who know D2L…getting the enrollments done. Chuck Morris will be assisting our campuses; I think bulk enrollment is fairly slick.
IFO: Our people gave us a different idea. We talked to some of these people on two different campuses. They understand the time commitment would be significant and they felt they would be tracking enrollments.
MnSCU: If you think of a process flow diagram, there are three basic modules - it’s expected to take 15-45 minutes per module. Then there are some sandwich items, up front. We are asking for a pre-assessment, and we can measure if the security awareness program had an impact at all. Based on campus input we’re asking for a check-off form of participation. We’re probably understaffed so we are probably missing some communication. What can we do to create a D2L template to take the burden off the campuses to approximate automation, to minimize the role? It’s true that someone on each campus will have to export data for who has completed courses. Rest assured we are trying to minimize the load and certainly someone we are encouraging HR to talk with their leadership cabinets to see who is appropriate to do the tracking. Each campus is handling it their own way. 50% are assigning it to an HR position.
IFO: I need clarification 100 names…..you said 100 names…
MnSCU: We do think D2L is uniquely and well set up to offer systemwide training by the same token we have to look at how something like this would be offered to put everyone in a single course. But in order to do management we are going to recommend creating groups of 100 and that will be set up by our office.
IFO: I’m overseeing a course with 350 people in it. I am hitting that limit but no one is telling me there is that limit.
MnSCU: There’s an automated process to email all but that’s what limits the 100.
IFO: We are being encouraged to develop more efficient ways to manage large numbers of students so the sections can be larger, ultimately we could save money. I’ll die in the trench but ok, it could go up next fall.
MnSCU: That is a capacity issue.
IFO: No one has ever communicated to me that there might be a problem as to how large we want to get this. We have excellent support on D2L.
MnSCU: The IMS Advisory Committee wants to deal with this. I want a subgroup with a focus group to handle this.
IFO: D2L is there to facilitate this kind of learning?
MnSCU: The people who work with this communicate that to the campus. Half of my new role is to develop a robust end user.
IFO: I think the issue when we heard a request of $70 million in technology; we’re disappointed there isn’t more money going to the local campuses. We don’t have enough money to do what we need. We need more help on the campuses. When D2L crashes, faculty are the face of D2L to the students. I agree you need more D2L support in the system office; the D2L website has been having trouble for at least a month. The campuses need more support. We want to hear from you some good justification on what the local campuses are going to gain from investing $60 million in 79 new staff positions in the central office.
Chancellor: In my opinion this has no chance of going through unless the Presidents, faculty and students feel this is in the best interest. Each of you are being asked to testify, unless this has local support believing this helps. We need to understand the efficiency of doing it together rather than each campus doing this alone. If the Presidents worked on this, I’m under the impression the presidents have worked through their committees…
MnSCU: We can discuss this at another time and limit it to the issue on the agenda.
Chancellor: This needs to be fully understood so the legislature sees a unified position.
Legislative Update:
(2 handouts were given)
Chancellor: The Board requested $177 million. Our first request on page 3 is inflation. This is the largest budget increase ever recommended by a Governor. We want the inflation money added to this and the governor to buy down the tuition. I’m for keeping student costs affordable.
MnSCU: We have our first hearing at Metro. Having it at the university enhanced the story, February 1-6 and 7-8 are the next hearings. The House is hoping to get their bill out by March 8.
Chancellor: I think it’s just the beginning. I think there could be a lot of changes as it develops.
IFO: Faculty are extremely disappointed in what’s come about. We feel disappointed when we see money for one time performance and expanded utilization for awards of excellence, when the inflations has gone up faster than our pay. Faculty are very disappointed.
Chancellor: The governor has proposed $25 million to the system if we hit his goals. If that $25 million were in the base that would be better, since it’s not in the base it won’t continue next year.
MnSCU: I’ll be working hard to get that inflation number in there.
IFO: To add to the disappointment, it looks like the biggest appropriation the governor has recommended. $55 million is one-time money and we went through that back in the Carlson administration. It’s one of the things that destroyed the quality of higher education. We went through year after year of one-time money, and now we’re back into that mode. You can’t fund salaries on one-time money. It’s going to be tough.
IFO: When I testified I said we shared the pain and the faculty expect to share some of the gain. I recently learned that many sabbaticals have been denied. At Winona there are 23 mandatory sabbaticals.
IFO: Because of a back-up during the years there wasn’t any money, sabbaticals were denied and they will back up again.
IFO: This will perpetuate the system. It’s not as if the situation will get better.
IFO: I don’t know what we can do about this. That’s not the only thing we want to fund. What troubles me is with most of performance measures; you can’t fund innovation on one-time money and assess the effectiveness of the innovation. How can we get that message across to the Governor?
Chancellor: He did his thing and now it’s in the House and Senate. If you’re creating a legacy of change, consideration of the base is important. HEAPR is ok for one-time money. We need to be careful of what should and should not be one-time money.
IFO: Could we have Ken Neimi at the next meet and confer so we can discuss the technology initiatives?
MnSCU: This has been a cross walk from a major technology plan and the CIOs were on that and that led to the budget request to where we are going next.
Chancellor: When you say Ken Neimi you say Linda Baer in the same voice. From what David Bouchard said, we haven’t done the job we need to do.
IFO: Before we leave I want to thank everyone. What faculty get discouraged about is when their own system doesn’t support them and I have to talk about the $10 million in innovation management systems to compensate the most productive employees appropriate peer groups. We really think this is very unsupportive of our previous discussions. This erodes trust and we’ve repeatedly said we thought this was actually insulting to us given the current state of the faculty compensation. Faculty get really upset when they feel they work for the system and the system doesn’t support them.
Chancellor: I understand that is your concern. There is an appetite on the board to try to recognize outstanding people and they mean it in a positive way and how that works out relates to negotiations… I want you to know we have a Board who believes you can’t thank the very best enough. They want to reward people. That’s a good intent of trying to find a way.
IFO: I think it’s going to be worse this year in terms of how people are feeling on the campuses. What we’re seeing is outstanding individuals every where. Everyone is working hard, from what I’ve seen on the campuses all faculty work hard. It’s insulting to say work harder, take another grant, jump up for IPESL, do more work, and then you’ll be rewarded with more work.
IFO: Is that how the system office runs? Grants?
Chancellor: I do. It may not appear in the end
IFO: It’s appeared repeatedly.
07-08 Meet and Confer Dates:
IFO: We put forward dates to you for next year. If your office could get back to us.
MnSCU: We’ll get back to them.
Adjourned 11:05 a.m.