Inter Faculty Organization
Board of Directors
REPORT
November 8-9, 2007
Present: John Palmer, Dave Warne, Judy Kilborn, Russ Stanton (Thursday, part of Friday), Georgia Holmes, Debra Peterson, Tamara Berg, Bill Ng, Don Larsson, Jim Grabowska, Cathy Summa, Cindy Phillips, Fred Hill (Thursday), Nancy Black, Mike Ruth, Wayne Alexander, Derek Webb, David Bouchard, Patricia Young, Elizabeth Dunn, Louise Mengelkoch, Jan Loft, Vicky Brockman, Donna Blake (part of Friday), Pat Arseneault (part of Friday)
Absent: Valerie Geaither, Cindy Finch (illness)
Call to order. 6:33 PM
Approval of Oct. 11 and 12 Board minutes discussed.
(Alexander, Larsson) Move to approve minutes as amended, passed.
President’s Report
Nancy has been to every BOT meeting and talked at each Board member for the past three and a half years. She attended the retreat last year for two days. A few days before the retreat this year, she got an invitation to speak briefly and thought 5 minutes wasn’t enough time. She requested the public cassette tapes from the sessions, and listened for 2-1/2 hours. They only recorded the public speakers part. They had outside speakers – a person from a Somali organization who had some very relevant things to say. The most important thing they did was invite for the first time the head of the House Higher Education Committee, Representative Tom Rukavina and from the other side, Senator Sandy Pappas. They said the legislature gave $152 million to the system because they wanted to keep tuition flat, they wanted faculty to be compensated, and they intended to cover inflation that the Governor wasn’t covering. Sen. Pappas said the money was for the core budget and that some feeling of trust needed to exist between the legislature and MnSCU. They recognized the need to attract more students to the system.
There will be another Board of Trustees meeting this week. Nancy pointed out to Bemidji today that they have a campus profile set for Tuesday at 10 a.m. Elizabeth Dunn, BSUFA President, is supposed to be there. It’s when they showcase the campus, and they rarely talk about faculty.
Nancy is interested in the MnOnline cost study that will be presented at this next meeting. Will also have another closed session about bargaining. These meetings sometimes have been very detail oriented. The new chair of the MnSCU Board runs things on time, and he has a good sense of humor.
Negotiations Report
Rod Henry, IFO Chief Negotiator, was present to give a report.
Move to Executive Session with staff, passed.
(Alexander, Grabowska) Moved out of executive session 7:29 PM, passed.
Government Relations Report
John Palmer, IFO Government Relations Co-Chair, was present to give a report.
(Palmer, Bouchard) Move the goals on the Government Relations report be endorsed by the Board, passed.
see items 1-13 though only 12 proposals.
Delegate Assembly
You should be announcing on your campuses and educating the new faculty as to what Delegate Assembly is and that expenses for delegates are paid by the IFO. Board members are booked into single rooms all others have roommates unless otherwise determined in advance by the Faculty Associations. Jeff Ringer (parliamentarian) recommended we appoint ahead of time a teller to count the votes. We can have Board members act as tellers.
Board of Trustees Teaching Award
The Executive Committee talked about the award. Linda Baer asked for a report--she’s disconcerted about the lack of university participation.
The question is, do we participate in the selection process? No action was taken by the Board.
MnSCU and IFO Committee Appointments
Graduate Council: Mankato requests to be represented on the Graduate Council by Tim Secott, replacing Scott Page. (Larsson, Grabowska) Move to appoint Tim Secott for Scott Page, passed.
Assessment for Course Placement Committee: Mankato nominated, Esther Smidt, Mankato, Modern Languages (Phillips, Alexander) Move to approve Esther Smidt, passed.
COPE: There is a change in COPE membership for Metropolitan State. (Summa, Bouchard) Move to approve Rosa Fagundas for COPE, passed.
Textbook Committee: Larsson has volunteered and we have one more vacancy. The Committee will meet this Thursday at 2 p.m. Nancy forwarded that to the students.
Taskforce on Degree Credit Caps: Manuel Lopez of the OIC scheduled 18 hours of work in 3 weeks of back-to-back Friday meetings in late November and December.
IMS Advisory Council Update: Dave Bouchard reported that the most recent meeting was held at Metro State. This Council is going to be the most important system level planning for academics. A handout given to the Board by Dave Bouchard was at the meeting and represents a breakthrough for all the basic things we’ve been asking for since January (see 4C). D2L has never been held accountable for its technical performance and progress. Archiving and purging capabilities have been needed for more than two years. We should have purging tool in the next few weeks, and archiving by March. D2L’s contract is up in 1-1/2 years. We’re inviting alternative systems to present to the IMS council. Folks from U of M with a dual-platform model presented. Unscheduled downtime is coming soon, which should fix a lot of the problems. For example, quizzes are not secure. We have authorized MnSCU to do a study.
You may want to check on budgeting issues on your campuses regarding technology. To see if they have faculty input. Students seem to know about budgeting for technology.
Palmer— What happens with a common start date next year? What about a crash on D2L?
Bouchard—We don’t have an answer yet. This time they have conceptual ideas to work on it. But no implementation details yet.
Look at the goals on 4C--laid out by Al Essa. There are not many people on the IMS Council. The meetings are dominated by staff who are very busy. But so are faculty and students. We cannot meet all these goals ourselves. We are going to be called upon to do some of these items. We need faculty to say what is important to make D2L work for us. We are going to be doing some survey work to find out. Faculty will need staff support.
Mankato has discovered a plan called COOP—Continuity of Operations Practices. Tied to planning by staff for contingencies —tornado, fire, chemical spill, etc. What about the academic side? Your student records? Research data? Classroom facilities, esp. specialized ones. Where do we go in a disaster?
IFO Presidential Nomination Committee
Larsson, Alexander, Dunn
A draft position description for the IFO president was presented. There was discussion of the appropriateness of writing such a description. We are in agreement that these criteria cannot be mandated. Is there any useful purpose to be served by providing this list (included as a handout in the packet) to candidates and/or voters?
(Dunn, Phillips) Move to amend the document title: “qualities potential candidates and voters may want to consider” passed.
There was further discussion regarding the wording, need, and appropriateness of the description.
(Alexander, Larsson) Move to table until the next board meeting, passed.
(Larsson, Peterson)—Move to executive session, passed, 9:12 PM
(Phillips, Larsson) Move to go out of executive session and report out the new approved position descriptions for General Counsel and Director of Grievance and Equity Issues, passed 9:32 PM See handouts.
(Phillips, Bouchard) Move that the president be authorized to appoint a committee which will write a position announcement for General Counsel, set a salary range, and circulate those items to the IFO Board for comment, but not wait until the next Board meeting to begin advertising the opening, passed.
(Alexander, all) Move to recess 9:35 PM, passed.
Reconvened at 8:05 AM 11/9/07
IFO Office Report
Donna Blake gave a report. Email addresses are now available for all Board members—see list in your packet. Use these addresses for restricted materials when notified by the IFO office.
Wireless service at local FA offices—There are some that are similar to wifi and don’t require that we wire in. See handout in packet.
Judy encouraged to look into wireless boxes that plug into the wall. You could even take it home or off campus. Others have a notebook card that accepts the signal.
Office lease—Donna researched the area market. Our current lease is $22.95/square FT. There is movement and there are vacancies in Blair Arcade right now. It is a highly desirable building.
Current real estate values are low right now. We may want to think about buying something. There are cheaper lease rates in the area.
Donna—wanted direction about further investigation concerning office rental or purchases. The question was raised; do we know what we need specifically? The staff has been very happy where they are. It seems premature to look at this point. We need to make some other decisions first. Buy or lease? Those are very different. We’ve got our office physically in good shape. We have discussed moving the glass divider to increase the size of the conference room.
IT support—We switched services and found a cheaper alternative with DuraLogic. They have a very good back-up system and we are saving $200/month. We have tested the backups.
Telephone—We are also saving money with our new phone provider Eschelon.
The auditors suggested that we designate the Executive Committee as the Audit Committee. The Executive Committee has made this recommendation that we do so.
(Alexander, Young)—Move that we change the Operating Procedures as recommended to name the Executive Committee as the Audit Committee. Passed.
Chapter IX: Committees Of The Board
B. Executive Committee (EC)
8. The Executive Committee shall serve as the audit committee and be
responsible for meeting with the auditors annually to review and approve the audit.
(Alexander, Peterson) Move to change language of the Operating Procedures, Chapter VIII.E.6.a on class action as per Donna’s handout, passed.
Financials
Since it is not the end of a new month since the last Board meeting, there are no new financials to review.
IFO IFOSA Contract Negotiations
Nancy reported that we are in meetings with the staff on negotiations. Their contract runs the same time as ours. The IFO team includes Bruce Svingen, Elizabeth Dunn, Cindy Phillips, and Nancy. We are lucky to have a great staff.
(Mengelkoch, Loft) Move to go into executive session 8:32 a.m., passed.
(Phillips, Grabowska) Move to report out campus staff position descriptions, and MOA and go out of Executive Session 8:46 a.m., passed.
Report out: The updated job descriptions for the campus staff that more clearly reflect responsibilities at Mankato and St. Cloud.
Report out: MOA to give Tiffany Nelson a total of $600 as a bonus for the unprecedented number and timing of Negotiation sessions. Note: this is not a precedent.
Travel Procedures
We have a MnSCU proposal for new language on travel procedures. They are proposing language that is threatening a lot of field programs. Does it come out of the accident involving Mankato students? Have our insurance rates gone up? Two years ago in Michigan three students died. There have been one or two less serious incidents within our system that we are aware of. The training for the larger vans needs to be strengthened, and we need better oversight. Safety should absolutely be our number one priority, but the measure looks overly prescriptive. The result may force people to outside vendors. We already can’t go into Wisconsin or other neighboring states. It is very restrictive for programs that require field experiences.
We are of course very concerned for the safety of all participants and should make that clear at Meet and Confer.
Failed Searches
We’ve requested from Mary Leary a definition of “other reasons” in the failed searches categories, but it turns out that MnSCU doesn’t have a consistent policy—campuses vary. We will follow up at the next Meet and Confer on November 30. There is some data such as this that we need every year, but we need consistent definitions.
‘What happens to the money allocated for a position if the search fails’ is a key question. Overall, this is an important piece of data. Elizabeth Dunn has started a list of conditions of a failed search.
Overseas on-line market, 7 CTL and 7 MnOnline Rep Request, and MnOnline
At the last statewide Meet and Confer, we asked what the system is doing with MnOnline courses internationally. The reply was vague, some of us feel it doesn’t fit the central mission of the system. Study abroad, on the other hand, is a two-way exchange and a benefit for our students as well. Apparently there was a proposed MOA signed between MnOnline and Vietnam. Who has the authority to do this? At the MnOnline Council meetings we’ve asked lots of questions including a request for four (4) additional IFO representatives (we currently only have three). Now they are forming an ad hoc group to look at the purpose of the MnOnline Council.
MnSCU and Gary Langer are talking about looking at increasing our relationship with e-college. They also have voluntary workgroups, and they are doing things like e-tutoring with Smarthinking, but we don’t have appointed representation. This is having an effect on peer tutoring on the campuses--which is an important part of our students’ educational experiences.
Technology fees have become an increasing concern for students. They are trying to figure out what is being charged. The system is taking in money and the students need accountability. Ask your student government representatives about this issue.
IT Committees and Regional Meetings
David Bouchard reported that we may have a discussion soon on the IT committee structures. Currently MnSCU has six committees and at least four are not meeting. We are hopeful of progress.
Ready or Not Writing Program
There is $22 million in the budget for underserved students. We asked that CTL be involved because the money seems to be going exclusively to Student Affairs. In this program, college faculty are being asked to assess high school English papers and evaluate whether or not they are college ready. What is the next step is our question—what action is taken if the students aren’t ready?
Equity and Labor Relations Report
Pat Arseneault presented her two reports—Equity and Grievance. Not a lot has changed on grievance logs. We’ve been in arbitration and negotiations.
Apparently a couple Fair Share faculty members have been contacting the MnSCU office because they believe they are being discriminated against because they can’t serve on committees under PELRA.
In the MnSCU Graduate Council there have been questions about reimbursement for nursing doctorates. Someone thought it was settled because of an e-mail Pat sent. Pat explained that her e-mail was misunderstood. We requested a stay on the tuition from the system office, but MnSCU has required that the nursing doctoral students pay and refused the stay. Pat will send another e-mail to clarify to our members.
Judy—What about people who didn’t file, will they get reimbursed?
Pat—yes, if the arbitration goes our way. Have them contact me so I have their names.
John—What about faculty in the EDD cohort—I have one who has a financial aid package. If the employer pays the tuition, the status of the Financial Aid will change.
Pat—They should contact me.
Pat—Equity report—See Pat’s report. Salary Review Committee visits to campuses are under way. We don’t have the final results yet but will soon begin discussing remedy.
Moved to Executive Session with staff 9:38 AM
(Palmer, Grabowska) Moved to go out of executive Session 9:56 AM, passed.
MnSCU Diversity Award Committee
We requested three representatives for the MnSCU diversity award committee, but MnSCU turned us down because they needed representatives from other units and students. We will have two representatives only. At the meeting chaired by Whitney Harris the system office expressed a series of objectives for the award, but they mostly focused on external relationships. We began to articulate other goals and asked for institutional awards rather than for the work of individuals. We will continue to meet through the spring instead of awarding in this spring.
Pat briefly discussed the consequences of a request we made from MnSCU under the data practices act. In summer of 2006 the Moorhead FA requested the strike plan at Moorhead which was mentioned in the pandemic plan there. They refused to provide it and felt they didn’t have to because of the
Data Practices Act, claiming it was labor related or security was involved. IFO requested an advisory opinion from the Department of Administration, and the Commissioner said that in her opinion it did not fall under those categories and therefore it could not be withheld from the union (except for any parts that may actually be security related). We filed a lawsuit in July 2007 alleging they are violating the Data Practices Act. The lawsuit is going forward.
Campus Reports
Southwest: Jan Loft—See written report. She adds that if you hear anything about SW call Jan and she will do her best to give you her perspective.
St. Cloud: Judy Kilborn—See written report. They have several new projects based in part on the arrival of the new president. One is the academic plan. They are also in the middle of a work plan. They are working on more effective uses of PDPs and annual reports, 1.B.1 processes, diversity issues, improving consultation on searches, sharing workload (including disputes over associate deans replacing department chairs), number of meet and confers, number of elections, committee work. It all adds up to a work speed-up.
Moorhead: Cindy Phillips—The Moorhead president, Roland Barden, has announced his retirement effective summer 08. Who appoints faculty to college committees is an issue with grievances at various stages. Voluntary system of accountability is on the agenda related to the dashboard desired by MnSCU. They are participating in John Gardner’s program for retaining students. They are facing new challenges from the proliferation of programs in the Fargo-Moorhead area—some have accreditation to offer bachelor degrees or MBAs. This is creating a climate of rapid change in the educational environment in the region.
Metropolitan: David Bouchard—Notes a proliferation of MBA programs in Twin Cities. Three new ones in the last six (6) weeks. They are undergoing a presidential search and new Provost. Metro will know by November 14 if they are going to participate in the teaching awards. They are working on several grant opportunities for serving underserved populations. They have determined that their local constitution needs a face-lift and have a new Website coming up soon. The site incorporates new ways of doing committee support that will be helpful. It was noted that the system office has decided that DARS needs to be fixed. There has been no time for proper consultation and the problems are profound.
Bemidji: Elizabeth Dunn—The Provost also handed her reading on the voluntary system of accountability. Bemidji is also struggling with the issue of associate deans and have a grievance underway. Workload speed-up is an issue too. There is a push for national accreditation for programs that don’t have it yet—probably even more important now than 10 years ago because of the competition. There is concern that it may hurt resources in liberal arts. Private school opportunities in Moorhead hurt BSU enrollments too. UMD this summer was advertising a workshop on the shores of “beautiful Lake Bemidji.” We had a good work-around for DARS – grad plans. Not happy with DARS as the sole way of tracking students. BSU is considering reorganization of colleges and departments—very challenging.
Mankato: Don Larsson—See Written report. Growth targets and enrollment management are a big issue at Mankato. Continuity of operations planning is a new interest and has an academic phase. They are close to reestablishing a space for CEL in the metro area. The chairs of the Graduate, General Education, and Undergraduate Committees met with administration and FA to look at proposals to improve curriculum process. This has been a good example of co-governance. The MN State Senate bonding group is due on campus and they’ve asked for faculty participation. VP Olsen went to Korea, president went to India, and they are negotiating articulation agreements.
Winona: Bill Ng for Bruce Svingen—They are restructuring at Winona and the FA has been negotiating with the administration. There has been some controversy over numbers of faculty participating on all-university committees and their role. They have many searches going for administrators—VPs, HR director, Affirmative Action Officer, University Librarian, etc. At least one replaces a faculty line—an associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts. They’ve already restructured College of Education and have asked for an associate dean there. The hiring of faculty is way below average compared to administrative searches. Note the article by Darrel Downs on the IFO website (November Update) addressing the $62 million allocation at MnSCU. Surveyed the adjunct faculty on laptop use. They indicated strongly that they can’t do their work without them. The administration had suggested that adjuncts share their computers! The academic calendar—settled a level 2 grievance on that topic. The FA plans a social event to help rally the troops for negotiations.
Academic Affairs Report
Cathy Summa and Louise Mengelkoch, IFO Academic Affairs Coordinators gave their reports.
Cathy Summa:
The IFO Academic Affairs Committee met in November and discussed legislative goals with the GR committee. You will be hearing more. They meet again December 14 and are developing white papers.
COPE met October 19 and has deans and faculty from Colleges of Education. A primary concern is how to respond to initiatives on STEM and the Teachers’ Center at Metro State. The deans from the 4 non-participating universities expressed concern about being kept out of the loop. The teachers’ center is going to focus on STEM, but they may be duplicating the efforts of other organizations in the state such as the Science Museum.
PSEO—There is a problem with the system policies/procedures on PSEO coursework. The procedures do not have any language that limits those courses to lower division. They did not want to consider language to do that, but faculty on the campuses need to make sure to keep those courses at the lower division.
Assessment for Course Placement—We are still working on Accuplacer scores and hoping to have students take fewer tests.
Our math and English students are placing in remedial courses in South Dakota.
Louise Mengelkoch:
The MnSCU Graduate Council—See written report—Several campuses want to put in new proposals for applied doctorates. MnSCU wants to slow down and assess what we have. Nancy mentioned that we are learning more about the outsourcing of Nursing instruction at Metro State. They may be usurping some of our teaching rights. There are 190 students each year. We need to remember that the taskforce on the 120/60 credit limit is due to start meeting. Our goal is to support the limit with sufficient local control for academic quality and waivers when warranted. Nancy gave background information that the legislature sees it as a way to help students with tuition costs. This is also about the two-year institutions—a 60 credit limit when some of their programs are 90 plus credits. The legislature directed that MnSCU have a policy but provide for waivers. Nursing, engineering, education, accounting are programs we worry about. The Accounting program is partly about the CPA preparation. What else should we pay attention to? Another area of concern is the BFA degrees which are credit intensive but require no accreditation. Also accredited business programs will be a bit over and another is graphic arts or design, also Social Work and Construction Management
Accountability
Nancy reported that a considerable amount of time in the Board of Trustees and system office has been spent on the dashboard. The BOT is really big on drilling down. It is going to come down to a report card. The BOT wants to keep it simple. We have expressed our dismay repeatedly. Indicators for quality of student learning are of particular concern and they haven’t been developed.
The Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) has national norms. It may not be incompatible with the system underway (dashboard). Several state universities (BSU, Winona, Moorhead, St. Cloud) seem to be involved in looking at this. There is a significant cost to administer tests and surveys to get the college portraits. Retention issues are primary. Some aspects also call for paying students to participate. Will students actually try to demonstrate what they know?
Electronic Voting
(Palmer, Alexander)—Move that the IFO Board form a taskforce to implement electronic voting at the statewide level in time for the 2008 election for IFO president. This includes the purchase of any necessary voting software to be made accessible via a union-run website. Motion discussed.
(Peterson, Young)—Move to amend by replacing the first sentence—“Move that the IFO form a committee to study electronic voting and make a recommendation,” passed.
Motion as amended, passed.
The president will send out an inquiry and establish a well-populated committee.
Evaluation of Deans
Cindy Phillips reported that last spring we authorized the formation of a committee to look at administrator evaluations. Mankato seems a successful example. Their president expects it in their portfolios. Southwest also does it with different features. It might be useful to adopt a statewide position of expecting FAs to evaluate administrators. This committee could suggest processes to do that. It would create a higher level of expectation. By administrator, we mean deans, VPs, presidents. It may be too late to take it to Delegate Assembly, but the committee should get on with it.
Nancy is going to appoint a committee and will seek volunteers.
Allocation Recommendation per DA Resolution
This came as a request from the Delegate Assembly. See document 3b in the packet for the committee recommendation from Dave Bouchard, Cindy Phillips, and Annette Schoenberger.
Dave stated that committee members tried to recognize the role of adjunct and community faculty. We also looked at membership numbers and several formulas. Sample four as presented in the handout was the one the committee liked.
Cindy Phillips stated that part of the issue was the special allocation for campus staff at St. Cloud and Mankato. We revised how we count faculty for the allocation—adjuncts are now counted as 1/3 of an FTE. We’d like a decision today because it will affect the budget presented to the Delegate Assembly. We looked at campus expenses and holding campuses harmless. All campuses will get the same per capita amount and will be held harmless if we use the suggested formula.
(Phillips, Larsson) Move that the Board recommend allocation based on sample 4 to Delegate assembly and that the treasurer prepare budget based on the same, passed.
(Alexander, Webb) Move to adjourn, passed. Adjourned 12:47 PM.