IFO MnSCU Meet and Confer
Unofficial Notes
April 13, 2007
IFO Present: David Bouchard, Cathy Summa, Cindy Phillips, Mary Kesler, Stephen Bohnenblust, Nancy Black, Annette Schoenberger, Elizabeth Dunn, Debra Japp, Russ Stanton, Cindy Finch (taking notes)
MnSCU Present: Mary Leary, Laura King, Ron Dreyer, Chancellor McCormick, Linda Baer, Cyndy Crist, Manuel Lopez, Gary Langer, JoAnn Simser, Al Essa, Mary Jacquard, Chris Halling
SU President: David Danahar, Southwest Minnesota State University
Called to order at 8:10 a.m.
IFO: We want to add an information item on science licensure if that is okay with you.
Capital Bonding Request:
IFO: We had concerns because there was a new process with the Board of Trustees discussed at the presentation involving academic review for capital bonding. We were surprised we had no idea there was an academic review. The academic review team has 43 members and not one was a state university faculty member. When we looked at the summary sheets that were distributed it ranked the projects. Where did this come from and what is the purpose?
MnSCU: It’s a new dimension to the capital project review program this year. When we were doing project presentation to the Board of Trustees two years ago they expressed interest as part of the continuous improvement process in having more communication from the administration. Last year they asked for input from the academic side of the house; we asked presidents to nominate for us someone from the academic administration from their campuses. Members on the team consisted of 10 Office of the Chancellor people, and 32 deans, provosts or vice presidents. They all came together at St. Cloud State University and we broke up in groups. Academic administrators reviewed it and the results came before the Board. Each project gets two scores/views. One is the score in the quartiles - a number score from this review process. The other is a placement in quartiles by the academic review teams. The comments we got from the academic administration didn’t influence the score but the project was part of the consideration of the score. It wasn’t in itself a score. It was instructive. We think it was a great addition to the process this year and we got wonderful feedback from the reviewers and the Board of Trustees. We asked for someone from the administration who could have an academic wide review. This review looks at it from a strategic plan and system as a whole. We rely on the faculty being involved when the projects are being developed on the campus. We certainly need faculty in the master planning effort.
IFO: Can you say something about why Bemidji State University and Northwest Tech came together?
MnSCU: It’s under the governors of Bemidji State and lumped together under the president’s leadership.
Chancellor: When the Northwest Tech didn’t work and we restructured, we moved East Grand Forks with Northland. Northland was already merged with Community Tech and under President Peters. We had four other tech colleges come under one unit. We thought this was a great opportunity in Bemidji to have these two institutions work together under one president. I see President Quistgaard as being president over both of those organization and we hope the students would integrate but the missions would be different. My memory is that this was good for Bemidji, it wasn’t forced. That’s the history. We didn’t think we needed a president for Northwest Tech.
IFO: I understand the history but sometimes they are separated out and sometimes they aren’t.
MnSCU: The academic coordinator is in one place?
IFO: No.
MnSCU: The work of the academic review teams didn’t result in the numeric …
IFO: You suggested that at this level of the academic review you want to look at a system level. It’s important to have faculty involved from that level if we want to understand the connection through the system to help faculty see the insight to working with the system strategic plans and to support the work of individual campuses. I believe it would be important for faculty to be involved in that review process.
MnSCU: This is the first year we’ve done this.
Chancellor: After all of this is done, each president has the opportunity to make their presentation to the Board in a public meeting. They don’t have to agree with the list. There was great autonomy and I commend your president for taking the time to sit through that.
IFO: We look forward to participating in the future.
MnSCU: I can’t make any promises.
Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) and Health Care Savings Plan (HCSP): (A handout was given by MnSCU.)
IFO: This was an issue concerning the HRA and the HCSP.
IFO: As you know the HRA account $600 is deposited in the account like a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) but it rolls forward. We have a twist that if the faculty member has more than $500 at the end of the calendar year, this $600 goes into this HCSP and the cut-off date for that determination is December 31. They have to check their balance to see if it’s more than $500. The problem this year is the $600 for those who had more than $500 at the end, that $600 should have went to the HCSP but it didn’t get there until the third week in March. Why did it take so long and what are we going to do so that next year it doesn’t take so long?
MnSCU: I think there’s another problem. At a prior meet and confer in November - two things happened. We did the data drop in November to see who is eligible and at that point you can determine who should get the HRA. You are saying when that money wasn’t deposited for those who had over $500 it wasn’t deposited into their account. We have to make the determination after the 12/31 claims date and then do the lop-off on the November date. It’s an administrative error that makes it more complicated to do it in January and request them not to combine the two accounts. Checks need to be cut in January or February. Two different checks at two different times and cut off November check.
Chancellor: How will faculty know what they have?
IFO: That second issue we had was the statement faculty members received. This needs to be clarified in a more user friendly way. I had a faculty member yesterday who asked why she only got $565 in her HRA this year. The reason is that’s the balance that carried over from last year. There’s nothing on the statement stating this was from last year and you did indeed get the $600. We need a simpler statement from Eide Bailey for the average layperson. Our faculty are focused on teaching. They find it irritating to track this down. It needs to be laid out simpler.
MnSCU: We can talk to Eide Bailey and Gary Janikowski.
IFO: There was some talk about changing the claim cut-off for claims post-marked by 12/31. We don’t want to change that.
Mission Creep:
IFO: At the last meet and confer we talked about this issue. We heard St. Cloud Tech is offering a baccalaureate degree in nursing.
MnSCU: That’s news to us. That would have to be proposed and listed on the list serve.
Chancellor: Maybe with a new president.
MnSCU: That would take a mission/legislative change (i.e. Fond du Lac). I don’t see that as an imminent issue. There are many barriers.
IFO: Perhaps it would provoke the same e-mail responses as Dakota County’s proposal on nursing programs.
Chancellor: I think this is one of the values in this system, one board and one organization looks over this. Across the country mission creep is an issue. I think that’s one thing we are direct about here. We like the idea if Anoka Ramsey and SCSU work together and SCSU offers the courses. I have no intention that any of these institutions are going to offer baccalaureate degrees. It’s not board or state policy - that is my intention.
Proposed Amendments to Policies and Procedures 3.16, 3.16.1, 3.21, 3.21.1, 3.37, 3.37.1, 3.5.3, 3.37 and 3.31.1:
IFO: We requested these materials because they are proposed in policies that you want to bring before the board.
MnSCU: We’re at second meeting on some of these. I don’t see any issues or changes on 3.16 or 3.16.1 International Baccalaureate Credit.
MnSCU: There were no revisions at the last meeting.
IFO: Our issue is you are bringing this to meet & confer but we haven’t seen the documents. While we acknowledge we have representation at the meetings, we don’t know at this point what is going forward and we haven’t received this in writing. We don’t want this to go forward and we prefer not to discuss this at the meet and confer today. We don’t want you to say this was discussed at meet and confer on this date.
MnSCU: What are the issues with the international baccalaureate policy and procedure? Nothing has changed from what you’ve seen before.
IFO: We don’t know. We want to know what it’s going to look like. We don’t know if you’ve incorporated our input.
MnSCU: The international baccalaureate you know because you’ve seen the language. Nothing has changed on the policy.
IFO: Okay, but we didn’t know that until just now.
IFO: As I understand, we asked for the most current version of each of these so we could be prepared to address them here with you today. We didn’t get a statement that the one you got is the same as the last one presented. We didn’t review any of these policies or procedures on the agenda. We weren’t going to spend our time on this until we knew if it was the current version.
MnSCU: I acknowledge that and I would like to clarify that for the international baccalaureate policy/procedure there were no changes and we should have articulated that to you. Because there are no changes, do you have any issues?
MnSCU: There have been no changes in the policy since it was last brought to meet and confer with this group.
The IFO had a brief caucus.
IFO: Thank you for letting us caucus. The faculty rarely speak in one voice. We have serious concern because many of these policies and procedures have serious ramifications they need to be out for comment for a certain amount of time. We have to hear from our local campuses. We have representatives on the committees. The problem we’re having is once those comments come in there isn’t ever a final incorporation or a legislative version to show you received the comments. We need that opportunity. Having said that, with the proposed amendments to Policy 3.16 and Procedure 3.16.1 international baccalaureate, it was discussed and there was no problem. We are willing to say go ahead. What we would like to propose is that we have a special one item meet and confer for the others and that we receive the material a week in advance so it can be reviewed by the campuses and our Executive Committee.
MnSCU: That’s fair. We’re talking about a way to improve this process. There is so much consultation. The one item meet and confer is a good idea. Could it just be with me and not the Chancellor?
IFO: We’ll talk about that this afternoon.
MnSCU: You probably want this meeting in the next couple of weeks?
IFO: We’ll talk, but these are too important not to carefully look at them. We know how closely they are scrutinizing these.
MnSCU: You might want to include Procedure 3.16.1 as there were a couple of clean-up changes. We may want one for discussion. The Policy 3.16 is fine.
IFO: When is the next Board of Trustees meeting? What is our target date?
MnSCU: The May Board meeting on the 16th.
MnSCU: Once you see this you’ll see your input. Do you want any of this now for purpose of discussion?
IFO: Could you send this to us electronically today?
IFO: We’ll take the hard copies you have and then send the electronic copies out.
MnSCU: The website is not the most up-to-date version of these policies and procedures, and that’s the issue.
MnSCU: The website is the most recent draft.
IFO: You’re still in the process of incorporating the changes from the last
meeting?
MnSCU: Yes, the draft on the web and is what you saw at that meeting.
IFO: We will recognize that what you’re working them, however when we meet with Transfer Oversight it sometimes changes the current version. We’re trying to coordinate to get a better understanding.
MnSCU: For purposes of clarification, we’ve had more complex issues with these. For this one, we want to get it right, and not just push. May/June is the time period.
IFO: I do appreciate the last meetings on the recommendations of 3.36 and 3.36.1 - substantial comments were made and we had the chance to work with those comments on your side. I like the website that has the current proposed policies and I extended that information out to the members of the IFO Board. I couldn’t get to the site from the MnSCU page though.
MnSCU: That’s because it’s an e-folio site.
MnSCU: For the proposed amendment to Procedure 3.5.1 Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) Program, item I don’t have copies and there are three documents. I will email them to Cindy Finch. I will have a short message that puts them in context together. If I just handed you the copies it might not be obvious how they fit together. This is the same materials as we brought to the policy council.
Request for the Strike Plan:
IFO: I’ll give a little background. It originated on my campus. On January 18th I requested copies of any strike plans that MSU Moorhead had with any group of employees and the response was this, it was not information available under the Data Practices Act. Our counsel requested an opinion from the MN Department of Administration Policy Analysis Division, and they issued an opinion two weeks ago indicating that MSU Moorhead did not comply with the statute that when it requested the contingent plan. They said some portions are protected under the plan for security inclusion which was part of the argument by MnSCU. Two weeks is a significant amount of time and we’re wondering if you have it for us today. When will you get it?
MnSCU: No, we don’t have it today, but are considering our response.
IFO: Does that mean you intended to challenge our request?
MnSCU: That means we are considering our response.
MN Online Request (Learning Outcomes and Courses):
IFO: The date we requested this information for on-line courses was March 22.
MnSCU: We are in the process of developing our response. Our data people are very busy with the legislature and we need more time. We expect we will have it shortly and I can assure you, they have been working on it and will have it to you soon.
IFO: The Board of Trustees has also asked for this
information. What’s realistic? I know the legislature is in session. Do you
anticipate having this by May 15? I’m trying to pin you down on “soon” and
“shortly.”
MnSCU: I’d like to ask Craig Schoenecker and get back to you.
Chancellor: When I read the paper, I saw where Walden, who is the headquartered in MN, spent $20 million on central IT and they have 40,000 students online. At Capella they’re taking over a new building in downtown Minneapolis. They will have 900 people in their central operation. They have 18,000 students. Those are two Minnesota companies and similar institutions are being created all over the country. I wonder how much business is there. I’d like a conversation with you about where you think this market is going. Judging from their advertisements, they have lots of money. They have powerful legal people in charge of representing those places’ accreditation, I see this as entrepreneurial for-profit. We can look ahead and see where we are. Our core value is quality. They are going right along with market spelling in terms of accreditation. Their lawyer is Elise Scanlin. They agree with the federal government that they will be accountable for their standards and accreditation. I see lots of development here. Maybe we need a faculty seminar and begin to talk among ourselves about the competition as to where we fit in this.
MnSCU: Nancy and I can talk about the best venue for this discussion. We are developing material on this.
Chancellor: Linda, this is where it is; let’s look at all the research. I want us to be future-looking and see an emerging ramp-up of how learning is offered.
IFO: I was going to add, in yesterday’s Fargo paper, the Minnesota School of Business, a large operation not accredited by our accreditation body, does on-line learning including MBAs. They just announced they opened a student lounge in Fargo and are doing this regionally around the area so students can come in a work on their computers and build those programs. Rasmussen is coming over to Moorhead.
MnSCU: There’s been an aggressive build-out.
Chancellor: At almost every intersection there is one of these new buildings that can move if it doesn’t work.
IFO: I guess I would hope the discussion would include a good objective value of how efficient and effective this is before we go “gaga” over this stuff. We need to ask the simple and tough questions: Is it more efficient or effective and do the students want this? When I look around we’ve thrown tens of millions of dollars at technology and I don’t see that it’s been all that effective. Phoenix has a 16% completion rate. Ninety-three percent of our students still prefer a traditional classroom setting. We tend to jump on trends ever since Doland has come to town. People have not scrutinized this like we do normal programs. I would hope people would approach this a little more sensibly and not jump on a trend.
MnSCU: The on-line folks have shown this is effective. Research shows this is effective and students are demanding this form of delivery. When the courses fill up in one hour…. We need to make sure we are benchmarking the quality. It’s not for everyone, but there is an area that is doing very well.
IFO: This is more about the entire university experience and not just courses. The most at-risk are taking advantage of these places and we take better care of them. I think the system as a whole has been reluctant to meet head-on the on-campus experience.
IFO: It’s clear we would welcome the opportunity to engage in this discussion more broadly. It’s import that this system recognize what it does well. We will always be strapped with limited resources. We may do ourselves harm by jumping on the trends and diluting our resources. We’re not against change; we need to build on the creative capital we have in this system and make our name for ourselves with what we do well.
They want to serve the underserved and the STEM - the statistics show this isn’t always serving the underserved.
Applied Doctorate:
MnSCU: In order to go from where we are to the next step we have to go to the institution involved in a change of status request with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Three weeks ago there was a focus visit at Mankato. A team came in (per a change of status request) sent by HLC. I was at the exit interview which went well. I don’t know if they got the written report. The next formal step is a vote by the Commission. They meet in June. In the interim the HLC gave permission to recruit (there’s a disclaimer on the materials subject to final approval). St. Cloud State University (SCSU) begins Monday morning. A seven person team will do the regular accreditation. One component of the self-study is a change of status request at the end of the response to the five criteria. That issue of capacity offered a doctorate will be addressed by a subcomponent not the whole team. That is next week. We will be there to discuss any questions they might have. On the doctorate of nursing, the consortium submitted materials last week to the HLC. They have received it and contacted me to say they looked at it to see if they can agree on an approach. Mankato had its visit with a specific focus team. SCSU built it into their process.
IFO: Are we recruiting students for the Doctorate in Nursing?
MnSCU: I don’t know. HLC has talked to our institution, the graduate deans, as to what is permissible with the statement. I know they have a waiting list. To my knowledge they haven’t put out any application requests yet. Mankato has a big waiting list. I can check for you.
IFO: Thank you that would be good. We’re concerned about the coding for registration.
MnSCU: There’s a work-around on Ken Niemi’s staff who has
worked on this for the coming year and because of the tightness of the time,
there is a longer term proposal for addressing it this year so it can be built
into the ISRS system. On the surface we have had discussions about admissions,
registration and IT and the codes themselves are relatively easy to do. It’s
building it into the system on a permanent basis and accommodating the
consortium. The coding is possible even now. It’s not agreed to yet but around
the table in a quick discussion they found easy ways to distinguish one level
from the other. There’s a short term solution for dealing with students that
registrars and admissions should have in their hands shortly.
IFO: So you say there’s a work-around?
MnSCU: Yes, we’ll more systematically address this next year. Moorhead is on a slightly different system than other institutions so we don’t want to force everyone in one specific direction. We’re looking for a longer term solution.
IFO: Does the system have a deadline for students to register given the provision status of some of these doctoral programs? When will you pull the plug?
MnSCU: The first hurdle is the HLC in June.
IFO: June is late.
MnSCU: I know, but there are waiting lists. The June HLC will be the key point. If we can’t make that we’ll have to delay it for one semester.
IFO: I’m thinking about faculty.
IFO: SCSU has made job offers already I believe and they don’t know if they are going to be able to offer the courses yet.
Chancellor: Once you’re in the process, the students are given full recognition once they finish.
IFO: Our concern is quality. I know the Chancellor expressed this concern. You want a good word out in the community that this is a program what will meet the needs of the students and the state.
MnSCU: We went through the process with the team at Mankato (it was enlightening) in the field of counseling student personnel. The faculty have all been officers of state, regional and national organizations. The program has all the accreditations it can have and the program is consistent with the program standards on the doctoral level. The external reviewers made those same points. The two reviewers who were administrators of the academic programs and run doctoral programs, were also very positive. Given the fact we created a process that added additional external reviews at the front end, we’ve got a whole series of checks and balances along the way. I feel comfortable the program will be quality.
Chancellor: I’ve been burned before. I want the reputation that we are doing the best we can be and on the other hand I do not want to be slow to act.
IFO: We have questions on our campus about the long-term financial viability of these programs. Judy Borgen said before there would be consideration in MnSCU with the internal reallocation.
MnSCU: That is still being developed.
IFO: Is there a time frame when we would see that formula or multiple formulas at this time?
MnSCU: I have to ask and get you information.
IFO: That’s obviously important to us. We’ll have to use those figures in our costs for the program.
Chancellor: Will the costs be heavier on the end or the beginning because of the time to supervise dissertations? That might be part of the thinking.
IFO: Even with the best case scenario, the model you gave us at a prior meeting, we are predicting a deficit in that program with the current allocation model.
IFO: I have a question about tuition waivers. In the employee contract there is a provision on tuition waiver. At a meeting last week we were informed that the way that was working would be changed.
MnSCU: That’s negotiable.
IFO: We’re not talking about negotiating that currently. The way it was explained, if someone from another state university came to St. Cloud on a tuition waiver, SCSU is essentially against that. The institution will create a policy stating that where the person works will pay the institution they attended.
MnSCU: That’s a software issue.
IFO: It’s related to the applied doctorate.
IFO: It’s related to budgets.
IFO: They said a lot of people who take that program will
be taking it on tuition waivers. Have you run the numbers on how will this
affect the budget?
MnSCU: A module that will track tuition waivers and there will be a net difference.
IFO: Will you enact this policy?
MnSCU: We’re not enacting a policy we’re running a program module.
IFO: I think our question is a financial issue. We’ve all got campus budget committees that are planning. If we are now going to be charged for our budget for our folks going away somewhere and we’ll be credited for folks going to us - that is change in the budget. Part of our question is an anticipated change we need to look at this coming year.
MnSCU: Let’s put tuition waiver on the next meet and confer agenda.
IFO: The applied costs will be used by a lot of the employees of MnSCU. When we’re planning our budget we don’t know how that’s going to affect us. That makes it difficult to plan the budget. We can put it on a later meet and confer agenda, but this is the context it shows up on our campuses.
IFO: It’s important to all of the institutions because it represents a significant change in budget. Right now we eat the cost. If we are not going to be reimbursed and charged for people who go away, that represents a significant change in all of our institutions budgets. Apart from the doctoral, when do we know this?
IFO: The next meet and confer is on September 7, 2007.
MnSCU: It seems there are several other issues. We’ll get back to you.
Instructional Management System/Desire 2 Learn Update:
(Handouts were distributed by MnSCU.)
IFO: I think we are making really good progress. At our January meeting we decided it was important to look at what was going on, but also in a broad context how we get academic input and talk about those effective people and as we started working on it the committee work sees results in those discussions and assigned a person pulling together a lot of pieces of this and we have some good information to communicate on Monday to talk about how employees deliver these things in a way people can work with. One of the things we work with is that all institutions are facing the same issue. Metro will have already started their spring semester when the D2L upgrade takes place. How do we decide to take current function and when do we add function. The positive is the recognition that academic people decide. We’re the ones who will be using the features, and we’re excited about the Monday meeting (4/23/07). We have some challenges. Now that we’re starting to pull together the agenda, we have a significant proliferation of overlapping committees. I’m hoping as we find some ways to talk about this we can find the missions of those committees pulled together. Al is proposing a meeting with me and Nancy. I would have to say we are making progress.
MnSCU: I want to thank you and I think we are getting the right context put together. The meeting is now happening at the right time with the right information.
MnSCU: I know David Bouchard has been investing a lot of time in this, and we are getting good guidance on a variety of fronts, not just academic but David has a lot of expertise in IT.
IFO: Agenda items are coming from the committee, we want to make sure the academic side has this opportunity.
Chancellor: Is what you are saying and David is saying, together?
MnSCU: I think so.
IFO: It is a significant time commitment.
MnSCU: The next handout on one of our proposals is going to begin with a story on innovation. Xerox Park in the 70-80s was one of the premier research and development organization in the whole world in terms of technology – network computing. Many of the innovations we use on a day to day basis (Ethernet, graphic user interface, laser printers, encryption, etc.). Xerox failed to capitalize on those innovations. Part of our proposed solutions is recognizing that we have innovations (with a small “i”) taking place on campuses every day. I do lots of campus visits. Every campus visit we make we see faculty are innovating. The challenge is how to create a pipeline so that the ones that are worthy to be carried to the next stage are recognized. Our proposal is to form a group of the academic innovation transfer committee. We have an existing committee - the Academic IT Committee. We’ve taken that group and had discussions on the theme and decided we’d change the focus on that group to an innovative transfer strategy. We’re talking about academic information structures. This group would do three stages of innovation. There are lots of experiments going on. Faculty are innovating and trying to identify which experiment has the potential to be taken to the next stage. That’s a little bit of money for some research to fund pilots. The successful pilots would become candidates for the next level. The focus of this particular group would be to recognize technologies. This group would have 22 members and 14 faculty. We would try to put some modest resources behind this committee to select technologies and bring them for adoption.
IFO: Isn’t that peer review for publication in research? If you’re suggesting we should profit I understand you want to recognize faculty, but that happens in peer reviews. The lesson in Xerox is they didn’t get a profit, and we’re not going to do that so I’m puzzled.
MnSCU: We have been investing CTL and target projects for faculty research but they still stayed somewhat isolated. Mike Lopez is doing a conference on how to serve the underserved better. You’ve been asking for results, these would be results. The power of the system should be to share with others and if there are implications on other campuses.
IFO: We’d like a written proposal. What I hear is a committee controlling innovation. Innovation isn’t controlled by a committee at the top. One idea that worked for the Xerox people, they just put them in a building. They didn’t have a committee nor were they asked to write grants. They were given whatever they asked for. So when you start talking about some committee overseeing innovation, I can’t imagine that.
MnSCU: This is not what this committee is about.
IFO: Can you write it down for us?
MnSCU: Yes. This group or whatever group would argue some entity needs to exist. There are innovations and interesting things faculty are doing in instructional technology. How do we identify the ones that are worthy of dissemination in a practical sense? This isn’t publications for research but we are talking about if a faculty member is using instructional technology in an innovative way. How do we benefit from that? What’s the mechanism?
MnSCU: We’ll write it down.
Chancellor: I take what all of you say very seriously; I listen. I didn’t hear what you heard I heard, Annette. We’re trying to create an environment where the talented instruction people can better serve and share with our colleagues so we can find new ways to serve our students better. I heard of faculty creativity on these issues of meeting the needs of our students in Minnesota. I respect you, Annette.
IFO: I heard you are putting together a group to review faculty work and your group becomes a grant awarding organization. Is there an expectation this group would be reviewing grants?
MnSCU: It’s helping faculty and facilitating them in finding grant sources and other resources. If we find a faculty member who is doing an interesting use of technology and they need more support, tell them CTL, Academic Affairs or an outside source has a grant, or here are some resources we may be able to provide. Finding ways we can help, promote, and support. What we are after is if that use of instructional technology has potential and if other faculty might benefit. We want to find a mechanism as to which other faculty can find out about it. We’re not just restricting this to on-line; this is instructional technology pervasively. How do we help identify and link faculty and support them?
IFO: I think some of the words that you used are probably a little loaded. Promising grants or benefits is another thing. As you craft a committee proposal, how you use those words will be scrutinized. When something has a financial possibility, we have politics. As I sit and try to do the D2L component in my course, I’m alone. I’ll go to someone who can help me, describe to them the program, get some ideas, go back and work it out. I’m not like David Bouchard and don’t know what possibilities are out there. I’ve been curious if I’m recreating a wheel that’s already been created. Even when I go to the IT people on my campus, they’re also limited by their knowledge. Part of this would be to bring the best practices or ideas together so if a faculty member wants to start this there are some access points. I want to know what else is out there. I know what I have in my course is very basic and structured by my old way of thinking and it’s not how students are thinking.
MnSCU: There are faculty experiencing in “second life” for instruction. Gary and I have tried to bring those faculty together.
MnSCU: I’d like to bring a proposal but with a few more words around it and have another conversation at the next meet and confer. We’ve got a good idea and I think we can be more comfortable when we understand. Debra, you’re so articulate. We all are in a constant learning mode.
Chancellor: Steve said “your” group - that’s a disaster. How do we get this to be “our” group? If it’s “your” group, we will fail.
IFO: Debra’s comment is what I was hearing. Many technology innovations come from knowing what the possibilities are. One of the other issues we are talking about is how we set and establish those criteria. Criteria have to be driven by faculty and academic issues. A lot of the things I’ve done have been in spite of what we’ve been able to do. If we can shift that around and find a good academic purpose then how we can facilitate that? As we’re establishing those criteria, assimilation models and the technologies have life cycles (innovated, standard, old hat) there has to be a mechanism in the system so new innovation can continue to be available to people. It’s an exciting idea and we want to make sure we talk about it in the context of the other committees.
IFO: That’s a real concern. We have 17 joint committees and now we hear some are crossing purposes and in this review we’d like a streamlined and clear understanding.
MnSCU: I would like to go to the past to suggest to some of you who are also veterans what we had as a mechanism in the old state university system. The Bush Grant faculty came together to talk about what they did in the classroom. We have past experiences and there have to be people on your campus who remember how those were. My first experience was when Linda took me to a meeting in the Northland Inn where we had massive break out sessions. I suggest we look back at that structure and think about what worked well and could be useable in this context.
IFO: Good idea.
5 minute break
Science Licensure:
(The IFO gave a handout.)
IFO: At the beginning of this meeting, we asked for an informational item on science licensure. Chancellor, we didn’t know if you were aware of it or not.
IFO: This was talked about in the last COPE meeting. The Board of Teaching has proposed a rule change in science licensure. Teachers currently licensed in one science field can take a final test in another science field and if they pass the test they can get up to three more licenses. This conflicts with your proposal to producing better STEM programs. Science faculty are frustrated and that’s putting it lightly. They think they should just cancel their programs.
Chancellor: I haven’t heard the governor talking that way. He appoints the Board of Teaching.
MnSCU: The last two sessions there was legislation introduced to do this in statute. Legislation has failed both years and it hasn’t made it to the omnibus bills. They talked about legislation to limit the Board of Teaching on making rules. I’ve been looking carefully through the omnibus bills and haven’t seen anything.
Chancellor: We advanced this, the Board approved and the governor recommended. We put in a double number of math and science teachers. I think we have our family together about doing it right on not agreeing about this kind of legislation. How do we now, as an organization, impact that?
IFO: This notice and there’s another document I don’t have today. I invite comment from anyone including yourself and if you can submit a written response to this proposal. If so, the faculty teaching in science preparation programs would see it as a strong show of support to know the Chancellor submitted a letter and the system office is behind what we do.
Chancellor: I see no reason why we wouldn’t do it and work the legislative angle. Are the school superintendents working against this because they can’t find people?
MnSCU: The issue is coming from small rural districts. Minnesota’s system for licensing science teachers is different than any other area because of the nature of the discipline.
IFO: That would be great, give us a copy. Also with the PEPER exams. I think if the word on this got out, one of the discussions would be just how discouraged they would be to be disregarded again. We would really appreciate your public support.
MnSCU: With the letter, we won’t be able to address some of the issues on this area. The letter goes to the Board of Teaching asking for a hearing any only responding to the need. The person who reads the letter is the administrative law judge and will only attend to the issues that respond to sonar. We might want internal communication with our folks. We communicate with them about faculty issues. I spent about 15 minutes saying you need to understand this for faculty in our system. There are a variety of venues.
IFO: Knowing the Chancellor has responded is important.
Chancellor: I believed I’ve learned a lesson. I thought everyone would agree a rural issues teaching advanced college work would at least have 18 hours in the advanced discipline. I think we ought to talk to the legislative leaders about our position. We ought to talk to the legislative people not in a self serving way but it is critical to state to have well prepared people in the sciences. Russ, should we try that?
IFO: Sure.
IFO: One of the things that as I talk to my rural students, they deserve as well qualified teachers as the kids who go to school in the bigger districts where there is more money. The legislature needs to make sure those kids get the qualified teachers and are as well prepared teachers as the larger districts. To me that’s the point.
IFO: You follow the Board of Teaching better than I do. Where is Education Minnesota?
MnSCU: They take the same position and have proposed it all along. They agree with us. Our issues come down to you shouldn’t license someone based on a single test. They think it’s not because they are already licensed.
Concurrent Enrollment Exceptions Report:
MnSCU: We’re getting close to sorting through the data - making sure everything adds up.
IFO: Good I’ll look for it on April 19 – Cyndy and I have a running joke on this. The legislature has said who is eligible to take these for college credits. We think this would be a good opportunity to have a dashboard with benchmarks to see if these students should be in those courses because this is an integral part of what is going on. If you put these students in these courses we are perpetuating a system that leads to more remedial works it is counter productive. Who checks in to see if those students should be there? Linda and I discussed this. Who does this? This is an issue of concurrent enrollment we thought this was a nice pilot for the Board on their dashboard.
IFO: It’s demoralizing for them (students). They get to college and can’t do this work.
Chancellor: I see the problem, but I just don’t know…
IFO: We don’t know who does this.
Chancellor: We administer students to your university.
IFO: What is the process and is it being followed?
MnSCU: We have some in our PSEO program to apply the student success model to. With the PSEO students we can also to look at data in the next report on biennially with the U of M on students on development courses and see if any took PSEO courses and if they did it in their discipline. Part of our challenge is separating the data from other PSEO and we’re not quite there yet as far as institutions that enter data.
IFO: It’s complicated, but I’m sure if you drill down into the data it will be rewarding.
Chancellor: How do we then merge from this so we can get at that? The Board is interested in those things; you see this can be a dashboard.
MnSCU: What is the actual numbers and how well are our PSEO students doing? This is more addressing are we maximizing student potential. David has commented that Southwest is tracking their students and finding how well they do.
MnSCU: Pradeep did a study two years ago on two-year institutions taking PSEO students and found that students graduate at a higher rate.
MnSCU: We will promise you a report.
IFO: I was at the confirmation senate hearings for the trustees and a trustee said there are many of our students in this system that come to the universities with a year and a half of PSEO. We have two flip-sides here - remedial and then these claims. Many students are successful in PSEO and it is appropriate and we are behind that. I don’t think there are many students who bring a year and a half of credits. People are making public statements and want to either be able to back up everything I say and I want to be able to back up what the trustees are saying or say no, I think they are trying to sort out what they are doing and there is some confusion. Our board listened to Gale Olson at their policy meeting. Certainly there are some trustees who are going in a different direction and it’s difficult when they are not on the same page.
Chancellor: Maybe we need to talk to the person.
MnSCU: The comment was to give an example of high school students who got their two-year degree and moved successfully to that baccalaureate. I know there are incidents of that but I don’t think there are a lot.
IFO: We are segueing into the legislative update before the other issues. It certainly seems as if a lot of the legislation is headed for a collision course. We’re listening to the governor and trying to be supportive as much as we can of the students point of view and we don’t want to be seen as in disagreement which is why we ask for the data but it doesn’t get conveyed that way all the time. I listen to the Board express concerns for access and remedial courses but their real focus seems to be on those students who are already achieving. We view our mission as serving the underserved, who attends our institution. The Board was not supportive in their discussion in this round of the DREAM Act as we see as integral in our mission - there is a disconnect. I don’t know where we are going with the Board. One thing I valued from teaching at Metro is being able to help those students who would not have had a chance.
Chancellor: The Board did ask for money, we had their DREAM vote once…
MnSCU: Some members were prepared to speak if it came up. It wasn’t asked at the hearing.
IFO: I was talking about the Board discussion when they postponed the vote and I told them they should be ashamed of themselves and I meant it.
MnSCU: They are on record as supporting the DREAM Act, the old board and some of the new board members would support the DREAM Act.
Legislative Update:
(A handout was given by MnSCU.)
MnSCU: Here is a summary of our request along with the governor, senate and house proposals. The schedule of the bill hearing was reviewed. Provision directing board policy on credit limits and that’s one that we’re feeling we want to attempt to eliminate in conference committee. The Board must adopt 120 semester credits.
Chancellor: We don’t know where that came from. We don’t think that came from us. Where did that come from?
IFO: It came from Doug Burg, Senator Rukavina’s aide.
MnSCU: We want that out of there.
Chancellor: Micromanaging…forget the issue, it should be up to the Board.
MnSCU: I wanted to check with you on confirmation of that’s where we’d like to head with that.
IFO: Yeah, we’ve had conversations. We’re fully supportive of the position, if you can’t get it out; we make suggestions not to use the work preponderance with Rukivina. Our position is we have to have the 120 minimum standard but there has to be recognitions that professional and others require up to 128 engineering, nursing,
MnSCU: We’d like to avoid compromise language. We’re still working on agreeable language between all our entities on the text book legislation. Study at the Senate, Pilot at the House, I think we’re pretty close on that language, except for one point?
IFO: No, we were close but there has been many drafts.
MnSCU: Another meeting is being set up.
IFO: One of the most frustrating, we’ve tried to be supportive of the students, but they seem to come out with a new version every other day. Every time you go out to the membership and ask for opinions, the students change again. They are saying they have to eliminate interference with language concerning academic freedom. What does MnSCU have against academic freedom?
MnSCU: That wouldn’t be the issue.
IFO: I’m referring to the 4…faculty and academic freedom. We want that in how it was shaded. 46.18 The shaded language, we were very concerned. I had a conversation with Scott Formo who is referring to entities who adopt and purchase. What’s an entity? “well we want to cover everything..” Faculty are the ones who adopt the textbooks, entity is not acceptable and in part of the language in particular lines 4723 where they said if the course materials are not available than the entity or bookstore could substitute a text book for the course. I suggested language changes instead of adopting say purchasing. I thought that might be helpful. If not, I told them we cannot support this.
MnSCU: We are in the same direction we want the language. I don’t know exactly why that one particular phrase on academic freedom. We’re still working.
IFO: When are they meeting again?
IFO: The person who said MnSCU said couldn’t support it without that Gail Olson said it had to come out it was Candy Wallace.
MnSCU: There is something about the language, but I know that’s the issue from our legal office, I don’t know the issue.
Chancellor: Those are Code of Value words I think maybe that’s got to be looked at in terms of culture.
MnSCU: Now we know it was a deal breaker.
IFO: When I asked the MSUSA student lobbyist for the response by the U of MN, he said that the U of MN had no issues. If a faculty member would have been there, there would have been some questions raised. The U of MN faculty lobbyist, Martin Sampson, conducted us and expressed concern over academic freedom.
MnSCU: All of a sudden the privates and U of M are involved.
IFO: At HESO Susan Heegard that textbook group where we had faculty representative never got together with the students who drafted this. There was a disjuncture when the language came through our faculty said they never saw the new language. Here’s another example of where we’re not connected.
MnSCU: Our rep has been working very hard with all of the committees too.
IFO: As soon as we get a copy we’d leap on it right away; they’ve been making substantive changes.
MnSCU: It’s hard to keep up.
Title IV – Financial Aid:
IFO: I put the whole issue on the agenda of how we track students and how we track their last day of activity. Then a memo came out that day telling us we had a new web functionality on our class management site where we put in our grades asking the faculty to begin tracking students by their last date of activity. What happens if you have a class of 300 students and 30/40 fail - you record that. Then the records office looks into that and now it’s a workload issue. Plus in these large classes attendance isn’t taken on a regular basis. Faculty called me immediately. I’m wondering how big the problem is. We want to come up with a good solution on how to get this information ready. One of the things that is part of the problem in 30 days they have to take care of reporting this information. There hasn’t been a conversation yet with the faculty as to the best practices to track this information with the least impact on workload.
Chris Halling, MnSCU’s Supervisor of Student Aid was introduced.
MnSCU: We do have issues with federal financial aid requirements. We are trying to make tools available to help them meet those requirement. It sounds like there has been a miscommunication. It’s potentially a gib issue. Three state universities have had problems with the return of Title IV that we need to identify. To review the files for all of those years, reconstruct what happened, and return the funds, it’s been a significant amount of work. They have been assessed penalties as well. In at least two assessments the institutions have been required to sign. We are trying to put together some tools to make it easier for schools to comply. We talked to the president who agreed to talk about the institution levels, the timing hasn’t been perfect, as you say. On the web class list what we suggested is that only twice during the term we would like faculty to go to those class lists – dropping and adding and at that point we want faculty to indicate those students they believe have not attended.
IFO: You make it sound simple you just go to this website and check off a box. That is really time-consuming if you have three classes with 100 or 1 class with 300, you’re talking about a several hour commitment. We don’t require attendance. You make it sound simple but it’s a great burden and software isn’t always the solution.
IFO: The date of last recorded attendance. I have students who attend the first few weeks and then skip until finals. Has anyone one gone to faculty who teach these courses to ask them how to do this?
MnSCU: There are two pilots taking place right now.
MnSCU: I believe at Metro state on the first day and second day of class and at SCSU they are asking faculty to volunteer.
IFO: There has been no conversation at SCSU. I would know.
IFO: When you said they were sent back to the campuses to talk about this, they haven’t talked to us.
IFO: I called my provost.
IFO: The first I heard about this was yesterday.
IFO: As someone who teaches these large classes, I work with registration. I always have a wait list. If you aren’t there, I can do an admin drop. It takes me the entire 50 minute class period to take attendance. I can’t do that and teach my class and do it twice more. There’s a technology base and it’s still costly to the students to accomplish this and I don’t see the institution doing that.
IFO: The faculty are asking what the schools are. There are some serious reasons for being asked to do this.
MnSCU: Mankato is also doing this. They are trying to find a way to fine-tune the process. It’s a process and it isn’t perfect. We want to find tools that someone can use in a reasonable way, if this isn’t reasonable, and then we need to find a way.
IFO: What disturbed me in your comments is “we” want to find a way for the institutions to comply with this. You talked to the leadership council; you need to find a way that works with the faculty. Just because you consulted the leadership council doesn’t mean the message is given to the faculty.
IFO: At Metro we agreed to one test in the second class period and it was brought to meet and confer as an experiment over the summer.
Danahar: I did bring those to meet and confer and explained the problem. This has serious potential and we need to work together to figure out how to get this done. I personally am unhappy about this. We have to figure out a way and quickly move this.
IFO: I realize how serious this is and I think faculty will want to cooperate but you have to talk to us because we are the ones who have to do it.
IFO: If you don’t have faculty buy-in you will jeopardize the financial aid and faculty careers. We need a thorough dialogue before these things go further.
IFO: How will that happen?
Danahar: I am surprised by the inability of those comments and the meet and confer and go back and explain. I’ve gone beyond that and I presented these issues. I’m surprised at the lack of attendance, so I do it over lunch. It’s difficult to communicate if people don’t want to be communicated to.
MnSCU: You’re trying to show in every case the student has attended beyond the 60% point. The other we want to identify if the student did continue then we don’t have to do this. We are trying to put tools in place to move us closer to where we need to be.
Chancellor: We all agree that we have to do this. I think the mistake I heard that is we assume our presidents are communicating this information with the faculty. Maybe what we need to do in Leadership Council is say this would be important for you to take this back to your local meet and confer. You assume they are doing that.
MnSCU: I sent a full memo to presidents. We are already under the scrutiny of the feds. You’re issues are rightly articulated. I’m going to send a memo to these groups. It looks onerous; you can’t imagine how onerous this will be …
IFO: For issues like this you may wish to mail a letter to faculty at their home address. It would draw attention and would get my attention.
MnSCU: Did you hear this at meet and confer?
IFO: They came to meet and confer with an “I got you” tone - you HAVE to do this everyday. We don’t have to take role every day. This is like a whole month to get with our own administrators to point out they don’t even know how to read these regulations.
MnSCU: Given the seriousness of what happened, we tried to find ways to use the technology being rolled out to use them as a tool.
IFO: Why do you presume that would be the way to help if you haven’t even asked faculty if there is a problem? You’ve already jumped, you haven’t had the discussion. That’s the part that is upsetting me.
IFO: We are way over time. The issue is process of communication and the other is how we are actually are going to be able to report this data.
MnSCU: Make sure it’s on your local meet and confer agenda.
IFO: Let’s make sure we keep talking. We have a serious issue. This is our last meet and confer this academic year.
Faculty Survey:
MnSCU: Should we do this now?
MnSCU: We can do this at our special meet and confer.
Adjourned 11:20 a.m.