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Administrator Comments Zwirlein Comments Salaries Discussion
EPUS Old Bus. .(Library) New Business (Email motions)
Minutes of Meeting of the Faculty Representative Assembly, February 12, 1999.
Present: Zwirlein, Swartzendruber, Blade, Harvey, Welshon, Sheidley, Malone, Fennell, Morley, Carlson, Dandapani, Chambers, Jillson, Oleszek, Hagedorn
Regrets: Napierkowski, Warner, Carey
Visitors: Robert Lorch (representing EPUS); Jacquelyn Beyer (representing Library), Jan Tharp (representing PESA); Tom Huber (representing Academic Computing Policy Committee in place of Doris Carey)
Administrators present: VCAA John Pierce, VCSS Pam Shockley.
COMMENTS OF ADMINISTRATORS
VCAA PIERCE:
Core Curriculum Committee is close to agreement on goals. 7 more meetings scheduled through semester. Plan is to figure out how to reach those goals through the curriculum, which will prove to be a difficult task. More details on Core Curriculum report may be found below in committee reports.
Computing Task Force does have a nearly completed white paper final report detailing their proposals for the organization of IT. The Computing Task Force wants to look at the final report one more time, and run it by the chancellor one more time before taking it to ACPC.
Service task force is about at the same status—nearly complete report, soon to be sent to appropriate committees.
TLE implementation team for the campus has about completed its work. Work of that team has been a model for the system; people have worked cooperatively, productively, and efficiently. Diverse campus constituencies represented, efficient move from goals to strategies to objectives. System puts our way of doing it out as model for others. Next task is to integrate local TLE goals with IRMS budgeting strategy. Will be going through a sort of trial on that this year.
Chancellor wants us to take a look at the academic calendar, see whether we are using the academic year efficiently. This is a good issue for EPUS; right now EPUS has a number of other high priority issues on its plate, this could be a good issue for EPUS’s agenda take next year.
COMMENTS FROM VCSS SHOCKLEY.
Over 5% increase in student credit hours; small increase in freshman, tiny decrease in transfers, overall undergraduate up 3.3% from last spring; grad students down 3.7% from last spring. Continuing Students overall up, mostly because of better retention rates. Applications for next fall are very strong for next fall. Shockley thanks everyone involved for opening classes, changing times, making other adjustments to accommodate students.
One particular regent—Regent Robb—has an interest in a common curriculum that goes through all 3 campuses, which may complicate local negotiations on the core curriculum.
COMMENTS FROM FACULTY ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT TOM ZWIRLEIN
A number of things to report from Faculty Council meeting yesterday:
Phased retirement approved by regents and will start in fall. But for first year, because of problems with our computer systems, we can only apply the 50/50 rule for the first semester. Hopefully as ASP is implemented this will become more flexible, because systems will be able to handle them.
Bank One will only give one service award system-wide for $10 K; in past they gave 4 awards, one for each campus. John Miller will investigate the reasons for this change.
Diversity Summit: will be held March 31, with Pres. Buechner hosting.
Faculty Handbook will be going up on Web; Michele Dahlin wants volunteers to look at beta of Faculty Handbook on Web to test internal search engines, see how the Web handbook appears to work. Ken Rebman is on committee looking at Handbook. Says that it is largely a compendium of other information, such as regental guidelines and Administrative Policy Statements, all of which are already on the Web. So the Web-based Faculty Handbook will be largely a pointer device to the appropriate places to find information. The new Web-based handbook will replace the outdated ones in the binder. The Web site should have a "what’s new" section so historians and archivists can keep track of changes in the handbook over the years.
Faculty Salaries Comparisons: Bill Fisher (VCBF) has produced a report showing what we will have to do if we want to increase faculty salaries 1% over Boulder-Denver CPI over the next several years. No easy answers for how to do that, but there are a variety of options. This report could be a good way to drive our forum on salaries next Friday, whether the options stated are workable or not. Questions also can be raised as to whether we have been compared with the right peer group or not. We can distribute this to our forum next week, and use the full time at the forum to discuss these issues.
Question from Bob Carlson: what is the aggregate figure at this campus in terms of salary differentials between this campus and peers? Answer: depends on which peer group is used for comparison. Another issue is the difference between salary versus total compensation, including benefits. Carlson raises issue that data collected by administration don't show the full extent of the problem. Example: Salary survey for Math Departments nationwide, for example, shows that local associate professors in math are 12% below nationwide mean, and for full professors the situation is worse.
Answer from Tom Zwirlein: He would characterize it differently. System administration is finally recognizing that there is a problem, and is in a data-gathering mode. At this forum we can give some better idea of what more data can be still yet gathered. There are substantial differences by discipline. Administrators at Central are now willing to put together a better data base than before so we can understand the problem. That doesn’t mean we’ll be able to fix it, but we can't fix what we don't yet fully understand. For example: looking at just salary alone, we come out looking pretty fair compared to some institutions; but if the full compensation picture is considered, then we come out less well.
Carlson’s response: As faculty we have been leaving salary rectification issues to the administrators. We have to be more active as faculty members. Carlson suggests that he’s been hearing about faculty salary issues since 1990 and situation seems to go from bad to worse. Zwirlein urges Carlson to be on system-wide Faculty Personnel Committee, which is looking at this issue in depth.
Carlson: we have developed too much of an attitude of passivity, that there’s nothing we can do about it. Putting me on Personnel Committee will keep me busy but may not do much to get others involved. We as faculty have to define and push for resolution to problem. Why don't we put faculty salaries on the agenda for every meeting, make it top priority and address it each month?
Zwirlein: this is precisely what next week’s salary forum is all about. We have to think about what strategies we can start employing—some of the strategies suggested in the Fisher document are less than desirable (stop hiring new faculty, increase teaching loads, et al).
Carlson: Problem is that this body (Rep. Assembly) continues, whereas the Forum does not. So the Forum itself isn’t going to do anything. Answer from Zwirlein is that the Forum is an opportunity to talk about specific recommendations that we have that we can bring to Rep. Assembly and to administration.
Oleszek asks: what is the purpose of the Forum? Can faculty have the incentive to go given perception that forum will be gripe session, nothing will come out of it--perception that parking forum ended up this way, talk and no action.
Carlson: likely consequence of continued salary deterioration is demoralization, focus on personal lives, jobs, etc. People will become so discouraged by faculty salaries that they will direct their energies elsewhere. Zwirlein: other people may vote with their feet and leave. Not being able to travel, not being able to make copies, et al: all are demoralizing.
Idea: this must be on the agenda on the next meeting, we MUST have followup. We should ask the Chancellor to give her ideas on what comes out of this forum. We must do something to make sure that the Forum has some consequences, that it is something other than mere venting.
Zwirlein agrees that faculty salary issues will be on the agenda for the next meeting (as a follow-up to the forum), and that faculty salaries discussion can be made a part of the Rep. Assembly agenda until the matter is addressed adequately.
Continuation of comments by Zwirlein:
Regents will have discussion of "loophole" of primary unit criteria, mentioned in today's Silver and Gold Record. Dossier will include some summary of the primary unit criteria—loophole will be closed. Primary Unit Criteria must be used as a factor in the final decision.
Fuller information on that is published this week in the Silver and Gold Record.
FCQ update: EPUS is looking at it as well as system-wide Personnel committee. Recommendations will probably include paring it down, formative evaluations (mid-semester check-up evaluations that can’t be used for formal evaluation; perhaps could be used for one course a year). Richard Blade points out that he asked about what kinds of statistical correlations can be made, such as between grades given and popularity of faculty. Answer given was no, no such correlations will be made.
Gerry Oleszek points out that best questionnaire won’t accomplish anything if it is not used properly, if (for example) it is to be used for punitive purposes, etc.
Missed Class Time Policy: Charlie Shub put out information on missed class time policy for athletics. Paul Harvey has posted that statement and discussion of the IACC committee on the Faculty Assembly Web page. Basic policy is that athletic department should not schedule students in such a way that they have to miss over 5 classes due to practice, competition, etc. Faculty have right to have no accommodations for any misses; there’s no requirement to do so. But IACC would like to suggest that faculty take into consideration that student-athletes are ambassadors for the university, aren’t missing class just to take vacations, etc.
Still need some volunteers for the "List of 20," which is a third-level review committee for those who want review/appeal at Third Level. Need total of 20 people system-wide, we need 3 or 4 names for people to serve on that. For individual involved, this would probably involve sitting on one panel over 3 years. It’s important work, but won’t necessarily involve endless time.
We do also need a replacement for Dan Dandapani for system-wide Personnel Committee. Meets first Friday of month in Denver.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
EPUS
We reviewed the UCCS Grad. School Policies that had been drawn up by local ad hoc Committee. EPUS recommends approval of CU-Springs graduate school policies, as amended by Assistant VCAA Rebman. Revisions made today are not yet on Web, will be soon. Motion to approve Grad. School policies will be considered at next Rep. Assembly meeting. EPUS’s Professional Plan has been approved by the system-wide Vice-Chancellor. EPUS will now be meeting every 2 weeks to consider the rest of the post-tenure review policies (besides Professionial Plan). Recommendations for non-tenure track faculty, and other issues. EPUS has a very full agenda,
Motion to be presented: EPUS recommends approval of the UCCS Grad School Policies and Procedures prepared by the Ad Hoc Committee on Graduate School Policy, as amended by VC Ken Rebman, to the UCCS Faculty Assembly and Graduate Faculty.
PERSONNEL AND BENEFITS
Have been studying the FCQ issues. All the private vendors that could do FCQs for us would cost us twice as much as doing it through Boulder (which costs about $17 K). What is left open is possibility of doing it through a one-time expenditure for a Web-based FCQ software package. This would only cost about $2000 to $5000. But it also raises security problems, and may require that FCQ be mandatory for all students in a class in order to make Web-based FCQ workable, which is probably not humanly possible. Don Morley also reports on his own FCQ research, which suggests that the way we use FCQs on this campus is deplorable. For example, it is statistically invalid to compare professors from very different disciplines, which is precisely what is done on this campus. At the very least, FCQs should hold less weight in terms of faculty teaching evaluations. P and B also is considering revised sexual harrassment policy, grievance policy, and service reward policy. .
BUDGET
Vice-Chancellors have presented individual budgets to Chancellor. We expect that at our meeting on the 25th, the Chancellor will provide us with a unified budget proposal. UBAC has developed budget principles to guide our consideration of the Chancellor's Unified Budget proposal. We will also look at the Budget through TLE goals and principles. We should be doing this on the 25th.
WOMEN’S
Report posted on email. Nancy Cott, a pioneering scholar of women's history from Yale University, will speak on campus Monday the 22nd.
ACPC
Check ACPC Committee Page for report presented to Faculty Assembly on 12 February.
ICAC: already reported. See Athletics Policy Page for details
CORE CURRICULUM
We’re working on goals statements. Eric Olson passes around goals statements, showing the current state of the discussion. Committee not satisfied yet with statement, want to work on it more and get internal consensus before sending it out on faculty email. Have looked to see what kind of consistency there is now across colleges. So far only Eng. 131 meets the definition of a true core requirement. Some campuses have true core requirements for everyone; others just have vague mission statements with no particular requirements.
We will be working to figure out how to deal with multiple issues involved such as large number of transfer students, the complications involved with articulation transfer agreements, and how such issues fit into to a vision of a campus-wide core curriculum. Likely outcome will be some sort of compromise solution, involving a flexible core. But long ways to go before we get there.
OLD BUSINESS.
Motions being considered, introduced by Rex Welshon, posted on the Library Expansion Issues Page.
Richard Blade asks about first proposal—can we really tell the library how to spend its internal funds, on materials versus its other needs such as personnel, staying open later, etc. Answer from Tom Huber: When LAS spends its money, it affects just LAS; when the library spends its budget, it affects all units. Blade responds that we face a problem that affects all libraries--vicious cycle of increasing subscription costs causing decreasing subscriptions, thus fueling further increasing subscription costs. There is little we can do locally to solve that problem.
Bob Carlson: sees lack of journals as primary crisis. He would like to see motion amended to have materials budget keep up not with CPI, but with the rate of inflation in journals costs. Harlow Sheidley interjects that in some fields, such as history, books are the primary materials. So the problem varies between disciplines. Moreover, increasing expenditure on journals is wiping out budget for books, which hurts fields like history in which books are primary.
David Fennell and other faculty suggest that this is a feel-good motion, doesn’t accomplish anything by itself. VCAA Pierce points out that the motions help to prioritize difficult issues and could be helpful in terms of letting budgetary committees know what is important.
Suggested amendment: that we change "at least matches the rate of inflation" to "that prevents further deterioration of the collection." Discussion: concern expressed that this changes the spirit of the motion, and could be counterproductive. For example, if it's necessary to raise library materials budget by 15% to keep up with journals, that comes off the top of what comes into the campus budget, making it impossible to raise salaries or do much of anything else. Journal inflation more or less impossible to keep up with.
Friendly amendment: that the phrase "campus budget plans" be replaced by a phrase such as "Executive Team." Blade suggests that it be recommended directly to the Chancellor. Welshon sees that as a friendly amendment: insert "Chancellor" after campus, strike "campus budget plans."
Vote on amendment: "that is adequate to prevent further deterioration of the collections."
Dan seconds. Vote: 6 for. 8 opposed. 1 abstains. The motion fails.
Vote on amendment to incorporate phrase "or budget to access such materials" after the phrase "library materials budget." 12 for. 1 against. 3 abstentions. The motion passes.
Full motion as passed now reads: The Faculty Representative Assembly recommends that beginning the next fiscal year the Chancellor plans for a rate of increase in the library materials budget (or budget to access such materials) that at least matches the Boulder-Denver consumer price index.
2nd motion: insert "chancellor" after Budget Advisory Committee. Accepted as friendly amendment. 13 in favor, 2 abstain. Motion passes.
Full motion as passed now reads:The Faculty Representative Assembly recommends that the Library Advisory Committee, the University Budget Advisory Committee, and the Chancellor seek means to augment the library materials budget, including both private dollars and regular university budget support.
NEW BUSINESS
Email motions. Tom Huber describes recommendations that come from Academic Computing Policy Committee. (see full text on ACPC page). General discussion of notion of separating faculty-l and faculty d lists. Objections raised that such a division not necessary, that it would tend to suppress discussion, and that if people object to email they can just delete. Others feel division will aid and enhance discussion, that listservs are common medium of scholarly exchange that work in other settings. Question raised: shouldn't we have a concrete sense of what faculty really want, through survey or plebiscite? Should we bring it up for a full-faculty vote? Others feel that we are a Representative Assembly and thus are empowered to act for our constituents. No consensus reached in the discussion, idea to table further discussion until the next meeting favored by all present. Split email proposal will be reconsidered next meeting under the heading of "Old Business." It being past time for adjournment, motion made and seconded to adjourn.
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