FAC100998

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FACULTY REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY MEETING

October 9, 1998

Minutes prepared by: Paul Harvey, Faculty Secretary.

PRESENT: Members of Faculty Representative Assembly; VCAA John Pierce; VCAF McDaniel; VCSS Shockley; Associate VCAF Ed Paris.
Regrets: Rex Welshon, Tom Napierkowski

Guests: Jan Tharp; Ron Fitz, Professor Robert Lorch; Sgt. Susan Szpyrka, UCCS Police Operations

COMMENTS FROM ADMINISTRATORS

Cleve McDaniel, new VCAF, was introduced to the Rep. Assembly. Assembly. His comments focused on parking and the budget.

Parking: always a challenge, particularly so for commuter campus. Concerning the email discussion about Lot 5: it's open now because of delay of library construction. Still don’t know when it will go offline. WE can keep it open now but must plan with assumptions that it will always be offline. More HUB spaces have been sold, but waited beyond first four weeks of semester—but this was not related to Lot 5 but simply because more HUB spaces could be sold. In the meantime, we are not ticketing anyone who parks there even without HUB ticket. Sgt. Susan Szpyrka pointed out that a portion of Lot 4 will also eventually be gone, translating into a loss of 397 spaces. We are fortunate that Lot 5 was open for all parkers, because Lot 5 was needed to handle overflow that could not be accommodated in Four Diamonds. Lot 6 (next to CITTI building): has never been filled all semester, even when other lots are over-full, even empty when in other lots cars are parked illegally. Zwirlein asked about future of 4 Diamonds. Susan: only related to temporary overflow, we don’t have the resources to run shuttles beyond the first few weeks of class. 4 Diamonds only for temporary crush at beginning of semester; a shuttle for 4 Diamonds will cost $3000 a week, which cannot be accommodated in the present budget. Total shuttle cost for year is already 250K.

Dan Dandapani asks what is holding up library expansion. John Pierce answers that the gift agreement with El Pomar has not been completed yet, and the chancellor is still is in negotiation. Second question related to the engineering lot

Why aren’t students without HUB ticketed when they park in Lot 5? Answer: 1) cannot enforce without signs, and signage not there presently because of costs. Other reason, according to Susan, is that overflow parking cannot be accommodated yet without usage of some Lot 5. Question: is there a plan for a light west of Columbine and east of the dirt lots? Answer: the only reason that road is there now is for construction. That road will be closed in the future after construction is over. The city will not put a traffic light there because there are restrictions on how many lots can be in a parkway, and because that road according to future plans is to be closed. Question: is there a contingency plan for Lot 5 is Library Expansion does not begin? Answer: may be some plans, but at present have to plan under assumption that it will be closed. Already were required to take off meterage and signage in July, to prepare it for construction, but as a result that makes it impossible to enforce ticketing non-HUB parking, plus Lot 5 is in fact needed to accommodate non-HUB parkers since we can no longer afford to park at 4 Diamonds. Also, it would be very hard to enforce tickets on non-HUB parking there now since it has been implicitly allowed this semester. Charlie Shub asked if some lots could be stipulated for faculty/staff only, since Lot near CSB is not as convenient as Lot 7 for Columbine residents. Answer: that is being looked at for a future plan. One problem is that dorm students simply must have a place to park, but their cars don’t turn over. Also, Public Safety is researching gating lots and selling permits for particular lots only, but more research has to be done before any move can be made on that. Eric Olson pointed out the lighting problems in lots near Dwire. Answer: we follow up on light problems immediately, and will try to fix those with longer-term bulbs.

COMMENTS FROM VCAA PIERCE:

Chancellor cannot be here until later today, so VCAA Pierce will speak in her absence. The American Institute of Architects is awarding our housing village the state’s design award for last year. Next month CCHE will discuss the EE stand-along PH.D. degree; have been trying for over a year to get that separated from Boulder’s program. Will be voted on at the next meeting, but there are some objections still from Colorado State who fear a development of an engineering school here of some significance. Next week Regents will meet on our campus. Regents will discuss crucial issues such as new Mountain Lion mascot and change of school colors—that issue is expected to produce fiery debate. 2 coaching changes in athletics have recently come on-line: women’s basketball coach and volleyball coach. FTE for this year is up 4.1% (head count up a little over 1%), the biggest increase in the state. Regarding enrollment--not to mention in other areas--Denver and Boulder are flat.

COMMENTS FROM FACULTY PRESIDENT

Next week 12:30 to 1:30 is the Health Benefits Forum, on Thursday October 15. Regents also on campus that day. Opportunity to meet with special counsel appointed by President Buechner to gather information about health benefits audit. She is in information gathering mode. Health Benefits forum is in 124 B and C, Thursday October 15. He will also be discussing the benefits plan for the 2000 year and give some recommendations. Dan Dandapani will be publishing an email with a list of questions that the President’s consultant wants to know.

Next Fac. Assembly meeting will be in Columbine and will be a full faculty-assembly meeting in lieu of a Rep. Assembly meeting. At that meeting we will probably do a presentation of TLE—TLE implementation team is in process of moving to developing presentations to campus groups to inform people of where we are—first of these will be in November.

Faculty Council (system-wide) was here yesterday. System-wide committee is being formed to deal with ASP. Proposed implementation dates are July 1 for finance systems and Nov. 1 for human resources system. Project leader for system-wide ASP left last spring, and an interim person is now in place but haven't found a permanent director. Today interviewing 2 candidates, hope to have permanent person very soon. Need to hire permanent person soon. For system-wide ASP committee, we need one LAS person and one faculty from professional school to serve on this system-wide committee.

Question: rumors swirling about centralization of certain functions, esp. as regard benefits office. Budgets will be centralized—that is assured. Budgets will go to Consolidated Service Center on July 1. That doesn’t mean that the person himself/herself will be centralized—could have a person on campus that would be paid for through central budget (for example, a local benefits officer that would be paid through a centralized budget is possible).

Question: how will ASP savings be returned to local campuses, as President Buechner says will happen? Cleve McDaniel says that there are positive aspects to ASP that go beyond the budget problem. Current budget info. Is woefully missing key pieces of information, and streamlining processes and creating better budget information are key. How much that will create in terms of savings simply isn’t known yet. Charlie Shub remains concerned that accounts payable, benefits, student success, and other local functions will be centralized, and that we will have to deal with problems over the phone rather than having a local person. Pam Shockley says that she is very opposed to centralizing student success functions, especially financial aid—centralizing that would be disastrous for her office and for this campus. SIS needs upgrading but now delayed because PeopleSoft proved to be such a poor performer in terms of student systems. So for the present we are stuck with old and slow processes. On the positive side, this gives us the opportunity to argue AGAINST a one-size-fits-all model; student success here is simply different than students at Boulder and Denver. Cleve McDaniel is concerned not with 90% of process that is standardized, but 5-10% of process that is not standard. Currently, Health Sciences is our only ally in arguing against centralizing these processes. McDaniel and Shockley agree that People Soft was not worthy to be optioned to replace SIS system—their student services system is still really in Beta Test. People Soft known primarily for financial systems, their other systems not good enough yet. So, for the present, SIS is it and question of centralization of financial aid and other student services will continue to be fought, with McDaniel and Shockley working

Another issue at Faculty Council is how to deal with faculty salary problem. David Groth was at Faculty Council records, and said first step is simply to generate data so we can make some comparisons. Tom Zwirlein passes around list of questions that could be asked to generate database to provide solid data on faculty information problem. Would remain confidential—database would be to run averages off by discipline, campus, etc., keeping names confidential. Data form is called the "Faculty Resources Project, Data Availability Research."

P and T Committee: new members getting on committee. We’ve had good representation on that system-wide committee with Professor Lorch, but he has now stepped down from the committee. Lorch would like panel chair from this campus to be vice-chair of P and T. Grievances from UCCS to this committee are disproportionately high so it’s important to have UCCS people there.

Another important system-wide issue is the FCQ. Vice-Pres. Groth is definitely supportive of looking into changing FCQ. Many on Faculty Council were surprised that in 1994 Regents passed resolution mandating multiple means of evaluation; huge bulk of research shows that the way we use and administer FCQs on this campus is simply invalid; comparing faculty from different disciplines, use of questions that have proven to be statistically invalid, use of FCQs as a punitive measure to discipline faculty. Vice-President Groth, our Chancellor, administration agree with faculty that FCQ must be changed. Appears that at long last action is moving forward on dealing with FCQ question.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

EPUS

Last time EPUS was here, put forth draft plan for Professional Implementation Plan; published that on email, got feedback, and have rewritten the policy to take into account that feedback. Professional Plan is part of larger issue of post-tenure review and the Administrative Policy Statement giving general guidelines for how we implement post-tenure process.

Post-tenure tenure appears to be a 100% solution to a 2% problem. Good reason to feel uncomfortable with what we are being required to implement. EPUS has responded by trying to simplify, clarify, and streamline the process as much as possible in the professional plan, keep as many protections for faculty as possible, keep the professional plan from being yet another long and complicated form that we have to fill out each year. Gist is that all tenured faculty will have to produce five-year professional plans; this set of guidelines will help to protect faculty and keep the process from being too cumbersome.

Discussion and approval of Professional Plan Implementation Guidelines delayed until old business (see below). .

PERSONNEL AND BENEFITS

Issue of benefits for NTT faculty discussed, rumors that Boulder is already doing that, have plenty of money. Answer: Arts and Sciences is taking care of this problem through "financial reallocation," correcting a $300,000 problem within their gigantic budget. That’s not an answer applicable to this campus, obviously. We have such a heavy historic reliance on part-time faculty, and such a small budget, that our problem is disproportionately large. Richard Blade points out that we are at about the national average in terms of percentage reliance on NTT faculty. However, our compensation level is almost certainly not at the "average level," Professor Harlow Sheidley pointed out.

FCQ: We pay Boulder $17,500 a year to print, analyze, and package our FCQs. This opens up options for us. Our intent is not to save campus money—although that would be a good side benefit—but to analyze the FCQs in a way that will actually help local faculty, allow us to use different questionnaire, use the FCQ correctly rather than in a punitive fashion. Possibility of using mark recognition software or other technologies that could be purchased for the local campus at reasonable prices. Could also look at outside vendors; in 92 one outside vendor gave a detailed bid at $8000 a year, so there are some options in that regard as well.

Administrative Performance Appraisal (APA).

We need a small bit of money to hire a Visual Basic programmer to get the computerized APA up, rather than using the paper version. Email will be used over putting it on the Web because committee thinks there will be more response that way, and also security issues are much more difficult on the Web. Professor Morley has been assigned the task of shortening the APA, since many sentiments were expressed last year that the form was too lengthy.

VCAF McDaniel talks about the upcoming CPP (pay for performance)—dry run planned for July 1, with expanded implementation group with many folks from staff executive council and also some from faculty that would be in a supervisory role.

Prof. Shub reports on health issues—have to limit visits, raise co-pays, etc. in order to keep premium increases no higher than they already there. Importance of upcoming health benefits forum stressed--we need to talk about our health plan, or lack-of-plan.Audit report available on Web.

BUDGET:

Another tight year for the budget--to put it charitably. Report from Cleve McDaniel: The campus overspent its budget in 98, which impacts FY 99. Also, enrollment increases were projected at 6%, but were actually 4.1, so we have less money to expend than planned. Next Monday vice-chancellors will meet with Chancellor to deal with problem of mandatory expenditures, how to deal with deficits, and get the budget out on the table as soon as possible. It’s better to do this end on the front-end than later, when it would be more difficult to turn around what we are doing. Trying to deal with realistic projections, should have recommendations very shortly. Mandatory expenditures are taking up the base as well as other monies; examples include large utility rate increases (10% increase in gas rates, for example), other essential expenses that must be met.

Question: where does this over-spending come from? Why is deficit so much larger last year than in previous years (deficit including over-spending, higher-than-expected expenses, and other factors)? Answers are various and complex, having to do with increased mandatory expenditures (such as for utilities), increasing demands on services, etc.

Richard Blade reports on general direction of budget and long-term planning. Long-term budgeting being put into place. All budget initiatives will be judged by TLE goals of the campus—must be taken seriously. Budgets in future will utilize IRMS: Integrated Resource Management System. These are all major changes in how the budget is done. Moving up budgetary calendar is also a major piece of this. IRMS people would like to see our future recommendations in March, meaning we will start planning for 2000 this month. Questionnaire will be sent out to start that process. Also trying to create database that will be workable with IRMS and ASP—deal with question of having data to deal with all-funds budgeting. Budget system put in place in 1977 is woefully inadequate considering what we have to produce now for budget reports, for projections and all-funds budgeting. Trying to figure out now how to integrate budgeting process with IRMS. For example: core curriculum. If that requires a particular investment to make it go, that would not fall under any one college and not under the normal budgetary process.

WOMEN’S

Report sent out on email. Meeting planned on going through the tenure process, designed especially for women’s faculty, using Harlow Sheidley’s awesome tenure binders as example.

ACPC

Report passed around, full details of discussions on the ACPC page. Big issue for near future is distance education and various issues revolving around that. The Technology Task Force has been hard at work and has developed a set of recommendations for structuring computing services in the future. That draft plan awaits a response from the chancellor.

MINORITY AFFAIRS

Minutes distributed on email; full details available on the Minority Affairs Committee page.

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

Soccer team ranked 25 in nation, tied for 6^th in region. First team here to be nationally ranked. Athletic Director Cubero is looking at formalizing team mentors, faculty mentors who take an interest in particular teams to help them meet potential employers, transition to real life, etc.

NCAA is requiring a self-study every 5 years; target date for next one is July 2000 to have next self-study completed. Advisory committee will be working with Director Cubero on next one; will have excellent model from Theo Gregory’s 95 study to build on. Finally, we do have a club hockey team now on campus. Charlie Shub has agreed to drive the Zamboni.

OTHER COMMITTEES

Eric Olson and David Moon are chairing the undergraduate curriculum review committee (general ed.). Will be moving ahead with that in the near future. Square table or round table issue resolved; virtual table appears to be in order. VCAA Pierce emphasizes that this committee was picked with faculty involvement; it's not "his" committee.

OLD BUSINESS

EPUS Professional Plan document: Mark Malone discusses changes made since old document presented in last meeting, from feedback presented in last meeting—some cosmetic and grammatical changes, and some substantive changes regarding appeals process. Professor Morley concerned about appeals of below expectation ratings going directly back to the same committee that made the first below expectation ratings—need to have independent appeals committee. After much discussion, EPUS had decided to keep the language pretty general, with the language of "appropriate committee," since trying to make it more specific raises various objections since different colleges/departments have very different experiences.

Don Morley proposes change in bullet ten, to be worded as "There must be an appeals process available where any and all matters pertaining to the annual review can be considered by a group of peers whose selection is independent of the source of the negative evaluation." Motion made and seconded to accept this as friendly amendment. Motion passes unanimously.

Suggestion: substitute "scholarly, creative, and/or research work" research, writing, or creative work" in place of the word "scholarly," so as not to produce conflict between this document and the rules governing the university. Motion made, seconded. Motion passes unanimously.

Suggestion: concerned that in paragraph on first page there is another inconsistency between official university document that emphasizes "evaluation" and "accountability" versus this document that deletes word "evaluation" or "accountability" altogether. University says that purpose of professional plan is both for development and accountability; this document does not address the latter

Responses: Professors Malone and Lorch suggest that EPUS intended to make the document as friendly as possible to faculty development, and to prevent it from being used as a punitive tool. Also, the university document is in conflict with itself, because it suggests that it is for development but also that it is an evaluative tool. Finally, this is a document designed for shaping our local notion of what a professional plan should be, and we want to align it with AAUP Guidelines as possible. Thus we want to emphasize development, which is the main concern of the AAUP. .

Discussion ensues on whether the local professional plan implementation guidelines should or should not contain reference to "accountability." Pro: this would make it in line with Regents statement: Con: this document should be about development, not euphemism of "accountability" which implies document is intended to draw blood, i.e. be used punitively.

Motion and second that word "accountability" be included. Motion defeated: 0 for, 13 opposed, 1 abstention.

Bullet 7: word "meeting expectations" changed to "meeting or exceeding expectations." Approved.

Discussion of what "5-year plan" means. Does it mean that we are looking ahead 5 years in our work, or that this is a plan for work to be completed during that time and evaluated. Prof. Malone says that intent of legislation/regents is to move to heavy evaluations every 5 years--so this is supposed to be a plan of work completed, not a projection of where we will be thinking 5 years in the future.

Motion made and approved to approve Professional Plan Implementation Guidelines, subject to minor, technical, non-substantive changes to correct a few typos in the document. Professional Plan Implementation Guidelines will be edited and corrected to reflect changes above and also to correct a few typos and will then be passed along.

NEW BUSINESS

Professor Swartzendruber pointed to issues coming up in near future about long-term planning for campus, namely course scheduling. 10 minute gap between course scheduling becoming increasingly difficult and impossible as campus grows and walking distances grow. We will have to deal with that issue, can't ignore it.

ADJOURNMENT:

members vote with feet, exiting wearily at 2:50 p.m.