IFO MnSCU Meet and Confer

Unofficial Notes

April 26, 2007

IFO Present:  Cathy Summa, Cindy Finch (taking minutes), Pat Arseneault, Steve Bohnenblust, Nancy Black, Debra Japp, Annette Schoenberger

MnSCU Present:  Becky Sobelewski, Leslie Mercer, Chris Dale, Gary Langer, Manuel Lopez, Linda Baer, Louise Hoxworth, Mary Leary, Ron Dreyer, JoAnn Simser, Deena Allen, Linda Milne

Called to order 8:35 a.m.

Policy 3.37/Procedure 3.37.1 – Minnesota Transfer Curriculum, Policy 3.21/Procedure 3.21.1 – Undergraduate Credit Transfer:

IFO:  We have no issues with this policy/procedure.   We appreciate JoAnn and Louise making the changes. 

IFO:  Thank you for all your hard work JoAnn, you’ve done a great job of listening to us.  This was hard work.

MnSCU:  There have been a lot of conversations back and forth and a lot of good work.

IFO:  Thank you. 

Procedure 3.5.1 Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) Program:

IFO:  We did not have a copy of the PSEO.  Is this going forward?

 

MnSCU:  It’s not going forward in the same way.  It’s procedure.  You received this version on the 18^th from Crist.

MnSCU:  Procedures don’t go to the Board. 

IFO:  We can hold this for later discussion.  What did you want to call to our attention?

MnSCU:  The policy, which has been explained.  There are two taskforces working on the policy and procedure.  One was on credentialing 3.5.1.  It’s only part 4 that we wanted to talk about on concurrent enrollment and qualifications of faculty.  Minor changes have been composed since the last time you reviewed this.

IFO:  I haven’t compared the two.  I sent correspondence to Linda Lade.  I don’t have that with me so I’m at a loss.

MnSCU:  Cyndy Crist was unable to be here today.  The main changes are as a result of the meeting of the Credentialing taskforce - a subgroup of the bigger PSEO group.  That draft was at the last meet and confer and was taken for another review to the full group of PSEO who had some minor changes.  The first change is at the top of page 2 sub part d, instructor support, it was sub part f. and now it’s sub part d.  The rational would be to explain the support a concurrent enrollment instructor would get before they are designated in their duties.  The change was simply in the reordering.  In the last discussion we discussed how the terms faculty member, liaison and mentor weren’t used consistency and how they were used.  The words mentor and liaison were seen to some as not being the best and it seemed confusing to put both of them in with a “/” so the decision was to make it faculty member - line 24, page two was changed to member.  Nancy, you pointed out faculty was misspelled, it’s been fixed.  The only other thing changed is the language on page 3 having to do with the qualification of the PSEO concurrent enrollment instructor.  On the bottom of page two, the consistency is for the 2 year colleges in their procedure having to do with college credentialing.  And for the state universities the credentialing is determined by the academic departments.  Those words are just a little clearer than before.

IFO:  Line 3, there it is, the word faculty is misspelled.

MnSCU:  Oh, that didn’t get fixed.  Those are the changes.

IFO:  We’ll have to discuss this further.

IFO:  Why July 1, 2007?  Are we going to have to rush?  Now we have to rush to get people to teach who may not be qualified.

MnSCU:  We have been operating without any procedure for the last year.  The legislature said the procedure wasn’t acceptable. The only urgency we have to tell the campuses this is the quality they should use.

MnSCU:  We don’t want to lose another year.

MnSCU:  We’ll look at the rest of the procedure and this will come back out in the fall.

IFO:  May I ask, if the intent is if one state university were to qualify a teacher in one subject and that teacher were to approach another state university to teach something similar, does that hold the second state university…

MnSCU:  No.  These contracts are from year to year.  While institutions can grandfather they don’t have to. It’s an option.  There are some qualifications on performance.  It doesn’t obligate someone to follow another person’s practices.

IFO:  Suppose a high school teacher has a break in service as a concurrent enrollment teacher.  High school teachers approved as concurrent enrollment teachers…does that mean if someone was a concurrent enrollment teacher three years ago and want to teach they are “approved”?

MnSCU:  That would be the case.  I think that happens in small districts - they may not have a concurrent enrollment course every year.  A teacher may do it this year and not next year.  We’ve not specifically addressed your question.  Is that an issue?

IFO:  It could be.

MnSCU:  We can make a distinction on that. This is going out for a full consultation.

IFO:  We may want to consider that as we consider courses expiring.

MnSCU:  Good point.

IFO:  There are references to sub part d. but you moved it and it needs to be checked.

IFO:  Would it be possible for college or university certifying the teacher, I guess it would be universities only, to include as a requirement continuing development (i.e. additional course work)?  I’m concerned about the language, “…have performed in a satisfactory manner…”  Does that mean once your approved you don’t have to do anything more?  Sometimes our academic disciplines change; we should be able to impose that. 

MnSCU:  This is a semester approval.  A college or university doesn’t have to rehire a person even though they have successfully taught.  You’re not obligated.

IFO:  I misunderstood then.

IFO:  There are interesting applications.

IFO:  I’m seeing this different than what you say.

MnSCU:  If you have performed satisfactorily, and we wish to rehire/recontract you, you’re not obligated to contract for the same faculty year after year.  You’re not obligated. 

MnSCU: I understand it that way.

IFO:  It’s not clear.

MnSCU:  It’s clarified in the call for response.

MnSCU:  Lines 5-8.

IFO:  Satisfactory manner, how do you assess satisfactory manner?  If the instructor gives the students all As and they get a bonus, certainly the instructor will say everyone….

MnSCU:  It is determined by the college or university.

IFO:  To be fair to the instructor we need some kind of benchmark.

IFO:  What is satisfactory today may not be satisfactory five years from now. The way it’s worded the individual is performing in a satisfactory manner.  Can we require these individuals to have upgraded their skills within the discipline?  This says these individuals should not be required to provide additional evidence of their qualifications.  We may want this in the future on maintenance of their qualifications.

MnSCU:  If they didn’t qualify before but they’ve been doing a satisfactory job, it’s not evident of their qualification but evident of their continuing to performance in a satisfactory manner.  I understand.

IFO:  We’ll need work on this one. 

Policy 3.36/Procedure 3.36.1 Academic Programs and the Related:

MnSCU:  Policy and procedure copies are being passed out.

MnSCU:  This has been one of our more complex attempts moving policy through consolidation of several groups.

IFO:  We want to thank Ron for going above and beyond. You’re a pleasure to work with.  We’ve put in a lot of work – Debra Japp and Cathy Summa in particular.

 

IFO:  There is an issue. Cathy is interested in the policy.  There weren’t any changes made in the policy from the comments of the Academic and Student Council meeting that took place way back on the 5^th of April.  I didn’t see any changes result from that meeting.  I’m not saying there should have been…they look fine to me.

MnSCU:  They are just editorial in character. Those changes are noted on the copies, see line on left margin.

IFO:  Our concern is with the procedure. We have a couple.  The first is on page 2 line 17 dealing with the minor.  We have “depth and breath” and I don’t know if we want to do “and/or” breath but we would prefer that. 

IFO:  Page three in the sub part P on upper-division the definition on line 26-7.  I prefer that to say “and” rather than “or” determined by faculty.  With the definition of course level of upper-division on lines 31-32 in the document you handed out, change “or” to “and” on line 32.  As a stickler point, upper-division and lower-division courses should be hyphenated. 

IFO:  The next is the definitions of baccalaureate degrees, your hand out page 9 starting on line 5.

IFO:  Is it your intent to limit the baccalaureate of arts to fine arts and liberal arts? That would be a change in the system.  We have baccalaureates of art and science in geosciences. I don’t see the need for that restriction in an age where we are talking about the liberal citizenry.

MnSCU:  It’s a change in the practice from what has been approved in the system over the years.

IFO:  At SCSU the baccalaureate of science, is teaching, we know that I’m not going to say I don’t’ care but in spite of this policy that’s not what’s been happening over the years on the campuses, I don’t know where that came from.

IFO:  Whether we want to keep a blind eye to current practice or conform this to what we are practicing…

IFO:  They are defined by what you do outside the courses not inside the major.

MnSCU:  There is no national standard on this.  There is equivalent language in current policy.  We could modify this.

IFO:  We’ve been operating with current policy and we’ve done whatever the outcome is in the baccalaureate of arts/science, the current policy hasn’t stopped us from doing that…now it’s in procedures.

MnSCU:  Why do we have a BA and a BS, it’s in the terminology.  Should we throw it away and make it meaningless?

IFO:  We can’ fix this here today.

MnSCU:  We’ll get back to you.

IFO:  Be careful.  We have successful institutions and we don’t want to come down on them.

IFO:  The question is, is it the intent in the procedure to reflect something in the policy or should we strike it?  It’s not necessarily relevant to the way we’re operating or aligned with national norms.

MnSCU:  Why do we have distinction of the labels “BA” or “BS” if these aren’t the right labels?  We would work on this to make sense.

IFO:  It’s determined by disciplinary standards. I think most of us follow what our discipline does nationwide in general. Then we’re constrained by what the institution has determined a BA or BS degree.

IFO:  You could strike those two sentences. And say a baccalaureate degree…credit programs.  Insert a baccalaureate degree (BA or BS) and strike the specifics; that may take care of it.

MnSCU:  That makes sense; certainly we can do that.  There should be a deliberate determination either by institution or department.

IFO:  Math is an area I’m not too familiar with.

IFO:  Math has standards for BA and BS; those are math society standards.

MnSCU:  Should it say determined by department per discipline?

IFO:  You could use disciplinary standards.  That really is how the faculty decide and it’s very strange when they start taking the institutional standard that had been created before we were offering this.

MnSCU:  The discipline nationally would be more universal than other types of baccalaureate degrees. We can work in some language.

IFO:  This is the big one - lines 18-19. Our issue is we have the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum (MN TC) proposal procedure and policy.  We just said it was ok and note every institution has to have the MN TC.  I’m not sure it’s necessary here.  We feel this limits an institution to only the MN TC.  For example, what if a student has an AA degree from New York and does not have a clue what the MN TC is and you’ve just defined they can’t be awarded a baccalaureate degree.  Now we’re telling them they have to be held to the MN TC.  All of our institutions want to facilitate transfer, but I don’t think we want to be limited and that is what this language implies to us.

MnSCU:  I agree. I think we have common goals. Do you have some suggested language?  How do we maintain our commitment to the MN TC?

IFO:  We have a policy - it says we have to have it.

MnSCU:  The other policy covers it, and you’re saying we don’t need to speak to it.

IFO:  You’re right.  How many flags do you want to waive?  One possibility is to add at least one possibility is MN TC, now you’re waiving out that there could be one.

MnSCU: I have your memo.  The language is degree requires completion of a 40 credit general credit curriculum.  Each institution should have one curriculum that fulfills the MN TC.

IFO:  An example with the Transfer Committee; we try to take transfer students and provide all sorts of possibilities to make it easy for them to transfer.  For me, until we work out the procedure for changes that are less onerous than now, it really hampers the flexibility of the institution.  Bemidji is encouraging students to take foreign language. I would suspect nationwide institutions would count this.  With the MN TC currently only the second year counts.  The U of M said second year not first year.  It took 3-4 years and in our minds approval of the U of M since they are a partner, my concern is this hampers institutions for change.  If every institution has to have it, but if others want to allow something that better fits their missions, first year foreign language, that should be appropriate.

MnSCU:  Instead of having two separate tracks, MN TC courses and your own set of gen eds that are not part of MN TC.

IFO:  This language takes out the right of what some institutions are doing or want to do.  Is the intent to make it MN TC only?  If not, the language needs to be flexible.

MnSCU:  “Fulfill” isn’t flexible enough?

IFO:  “Fulfill ALL” is the word.  

MnSCU:  How about “fulfills the intent”?

IFO: You’re saying you have to do that as part of the gen ed curriculum?  To force us to have that as our gen ed curriculum - we don’t want to do that.  One discussion we had with the HLC was that the state office isn’t supposed to be interfering with the mission and what the institution is, and this is a direct interference.  It doesn’t leave us any room do our own thing with curriculum.  It makes no sense.

MnSCU:  Let’s go back to the intent of the MN TC.  It’s a consultative process.

IFO:  The issue isn’t transfer curriculum but that the institution should be able to have its own. We have a pretty decent gen ed program that the students choose over MN TC.  Ours is more flexible.

IFO:  Several of these degree options at the 2 years in the procedure says they have to include three areas of transfer.  That precludes them from taking upper-division courses that prepares them for the work they need to do.  That’s a real problem.

MnSCU:  That’s a bigger discussion we need to have.  When we get to a more comprehensive review of the MN TC.  It’s over 10 years old.  The issue of being more flexible and up to date, we need to take that conversation in a deeper place.  For purposes of this where do we go?

IFO: You need to cross out “fulfill all of MN TC.”  It’s in the MN TC policy and that’s clear.  We don’t need it here.

IFO: “..fulfills the intent” does that work?

IFO:  No.

MnSCU:  When I proposed that I meant the intent of the student to go elsewhere and not gen ed.  Are we disagreeing philosophically here or is this just words?

MnSCU:  I think the area of concern we’ve heard from the students is what about the student who chooses the general ed and does not fulfill the MN TC and then transfers to another institution. That’s the concern.  Those students going to another institution that have not fulfilled the MN TC or the goal area or a course that’s designated MN TC even though it’s designated gen ed by the institution.  The omnibus law does not apply so the other university does not need to accept that as part of their MN TC. That’s not saying they don’t - many do.  That’s the concern.  It’s not for the student coming to the university with the alternative gen ed, it’s the student who transfers to another.

IFO:  We can’t protect every decision a student makes and hold them harmless, but we can try.  It’s not the intent of the institution that offers an alternative.

MnSCU:  Students don’t march through with high intentions, they are in the now.  When a transfer opportunity or requirement comes to them, they didn’t know.

IFO:  We are going to protect them from that?

MnSCU: No, we need to make it clear what we are doing.

IFO:  If a student decides they’ve completed the gen ed at an institution and it’s put in the MN TC for them.  At SCSU, the MN TC is a subset of the gen ed program, so if a student wants to take another program they are outside of the gen ed program.  If they picked courses that don’t technically fit the MN TC but are allowed in our gen ed program…

MnSCU: I think you’re the only ….

IFO:  Winona does this too.

IFO: …and Bemidji.

MnSCU:  At Winona the difference is that the student who completes the MN TC and then completes the additional gen ed courses so the student doesn’t choose whether they are doing MN TC or the college/university requirement to the GELS when the student comes in they make the choice whether they want the gen ed or the MN TC. That’s the dilemma. The only difference is environmental.

IFO:  I think at the university level we are going to say institutional decisions about gen ed should be at the institutional level.  To impose one gen ed program for all institutions we find limiting.  It is not to any institution’s benefit to make it difficult for the students to transfer in or out.

MnSCU:  Is this the student’s choice?

IFO:  Yes.

MnSCU:  Both are available to students and they need to deliberately select one.

IFO:  They are adults.

IFO:  Deliberate selection – I’m hearing it’s different on different campuses.  We don’t advertise the MN TC, we advertise our gen ed.  The concern is the specialty programs (i.e. engineering) where they don’t fulfill the same.  I don’t want to impose additional things on them making it more difficult to produce an engineer.  Our gen ed does meet the intention, we needed to go through HLC, MCATE, I don’t want to see it say you have to do it all. It’s more difficult for students.

MnSCU:  It is fair to say there is a 40 credit gen ed….

IFO:  We don’t make it clear to students, we show them the major counting toward their major.  It’s essentially double dipping.  We tell them this is what you need to take.

MnSCU:  We’ll keep working on this and we’ll put in a couple of alternative possibilities.  This is going to the Board in May.

MnSCU:  By next Thursday.

IFO:  One last thing, master’s degree on page 10 it is the same as with the baccalaureate degree. 

IFO:  Any more comments?

IFO:  You’ve done a great job integrating all of these policies and procedures.  I appreciate how difficult it is.

MnSCU:  We’ll work on some alternative language.

Biennial Faculty Development Survey:

MnSCU: This is the third version of this survey from the CTL Steering Committee who recommended we do this biennially in 2002.  I appreciate you letting faculty know this is coming out.  It’s not so different from what we did last time expect for recommendations made by the Committee last month.  This is the draft of the survey incorporating these recommendations.  We want to do this as early as possible in the academic year, mid-August to mid-September.  The survey is used by CTL and faculty developers on the campuses who have additional input on the survey - they get to add five questions of particular campus issues.

IFO:  Start by telling us what you mean when you are seeking our endorsement.

MnSCU:  When the survey began, pre-Pehler who suggested sending a letter to faculty encouraging them to give their input.  That’s what I mean.  We’ve had a lower response from state university faculty than from community college faculty.  It’s in the 20-25% response rate, that’s ok, but we want a truly informative response. 

IFO:  We rarely endorse anything.  It’s a big deal to endorse something. We have no major objections - go for it.

MnSCU:  More data would be helpful to all concerned, anything you can do to help us get more participation so we have more valid results.

IFO:  What do you do with the results?

MnSCU:  It informs CTL all the time.  There are some pretty surprising results just from the state university. Overall the highest interest topic is student learning and student motivation.  As for what have the individual campuses done with the data, we look at our CTL leaders’ annual report that is on-line - some make more or less use of the data.

IFO:  We don’t have a problem with the survey going out and or the timeframe.  Our Board meets tonight and tomorrow.

MnSCU:  Your approval and other suggestions are great.

IFO:  It’s not so much the survey as other aspects… Do you know who your CTL campus leader is?  60% don’t know.

MnSCU:  We spent $600k each year on our CTL leaders.

IFO:  How much does Winona get?

IFO:  $1,250

IFO:  You’re taking about spending $600,000.

MnSCU:  The person handling CTL receives $1,500 in compensation, the institutions get about $3,000.  SCSU hasn’t even bothered to take the $3,000 since their own investment is so great. 

IFO:  Encourage campuses to support development programs for faculty.  Pushing ITeach, we don’t see as helpful to what our needs are.

MnSCU:  As the university centers are maturing and getting additional resources, that’s where we want to help the local level and have a systemwide conference be just an additional piece.

IFO:  I think we’ve finished.  Thank you!

Adjourned 9:35 a.m.