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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING
Thursday, April 01, 2004
3:00 p.m.; CSU 285
Approved Minutes

In attendance: Stephen Bohnenblust, Roger Severns, Paul Hustoles (recorder), Barbara Keating, Sonja Meiers, Mary Visser, Don Larsson, Dick Swanson, Don Descy, Jim Kapoun, Gregg Marg, Wayne Allen, Jim Petersen, Nancy Fitzsimons, Joanna Mink, Ron Nickerson, Daardi Sizemore, John Thoemke, Nina LeNoir, Mark McCullough, Lisa Baures.  Guest: Georgia Holmes and, for a time, Angela Monson.

The meeting was called to order at 3:06 p.m.

1. Minutes of March 04, 2004—Severns/Marg moved to approve.  Passed.

2. Call for Additional Items/ Reordering of Agenda—none

3. President’s Report
a. E-mail voting regarding state and local elections—Bohnenblust: If someone is off campus, are we OK with allowing them to vote electronically?   Severns/Mink moved to allow electronic absentee ballots for IFO and FA elections.  These will not be anonymous, but they will be confidential.  Passed.
b. End of Semester Get-Together—We are planning some kind of picnic or gathering sometime in May.  We are thinking about spending $5.00 per person.  LeNoir: Would this include families?  Bohnenblust: It could.  This would be during the day.  Chartwell’s would cater.  Hustoles/Keating moved to support this idea.  Passed.
c. Delegate Assembly—Our nursing resolution did not go through.  There were a few resolutions that came through us that were poorly worded.  We’ll do better next time.  The Delegate Assembly was not particularly eventful until we got into the discussion of the vote of no confidence for the Chancellor.  We will discuss this later.
d. Contract Negotiations—The negotiations are stalled.  Holmes set out an email on Monday.  Holmes: We did file an unfair labor practices lawsuit.  It is in the news now.  Bohnenblust: The unfair labor practice is regarding the health care impositions.  This lawsuit could end up costing us about $100 a member.  This is going to be an expensive lawsuit, so much so, that it could require a dues increase.
e. Deans, VPs at Fall Retreat—Last year we invited VP Olson and President Davenport, do we want to expand an invitation to the Deans?  Visser: I cannot see the harm in it.  Is there an expense?  Bohnenblust: It costs about $10 a person.  Larsson: It seems like President Davenport likes to have the responsible person at hand.  Keating: It is the Deans who have more contact with us, so it is good to have them there.  Hustoles/Visser moved to invite the Deans and VPs to lunch.  Passed.
f. John Roberts Severance Pay—Roberts will be getting severance pay.  That’s some consolation.
g. MSU Credit Card—The list of faculty was given to a credit card company.  This was an inadvertent gaffe from Development and we have been told that this will not happen again.

4. IFO Task Force Appointment
a.    IFO Action Committee—still no volunteers

5. Confirm/Selection/Replacement Appointments
a.    Faculty Advisory for the Pre-Doctoral Fellowship - 3 Needed - David Rafter-Laverny (SBS); Betty Young A,H&N
b. Affirmative Action Search Committee - 1 Needed
c. Learning Round Table 3 year term:  Need 1 from each: AH&N - Gerald Schneck; Business; SET; At Large - James Grabowska (A&H)
d. Enrollment Management Committee (2 At Large Needed); Randall McClure (A&H);
Visser/Keating moved to confirm the above appointments.  Passed.

6. Discussion Items
a. Vote of No Confidence for Chancellor McCormick—Bohnenblust: This came from the floor at the Delegate Assembly.  We had some concerns about what the goal of this would be.  We finally resolved that we would take this back to the campuses and recommendations would go back to the IFO Board.  It would seem prudent to ask: What are we trying to accomplish?  We need to know what the benefits of this would be as well as the potential problems.  We need a list of concerns that we can bring to Chancellor McCormick.  Visser: It would be good to have a discussion about this amongst the faculty.  Perhaps a short, open meeting would be appropriate.  Bohnenblust: We could ask the Board or the Executive Committee to come up with a list of concerns and bring them to the Chancellor.  Larsson: What was the discussion?  Hustoles: There was no discussion.  It was mostly an “off with his head” movement.  Visser: It was very badly handled.  Bauers: What was the motivation?  Hustoles: It seemed to come mostly from the lack of a contract.  Bohnenblust read from a note from a  faculty member from St. Cloud citing the Chancellor’s inability to represent 4 year universities, to be effective in state wide Meet and Confer, to resolve faculty grievances and to effectively resolve a contact.  Bohnenblust noted that Meet and Confer is very different at the state level.  Severns: We can’t have a vote of no confidence specifically for the lack of a contract.  That would be an unfair labor practice.  What you can say is that we have problems with the allocation model or we have problems with incompetent representations to the legislatures.  We have many problems with some of the vice chancellors and with the relative importance of the 2-year vs. 4-year schools.  Those are the kinds of things we could talk about.  If this chancellor, given his personality, sees this as personal, he may react badly.  I would suggest that we make a list of recommendations and let Bohnenblust take this to the IFO Board.  It is appropriate to talk about issues.  Visser: I think the Board will do whatever the campuses instruct us to do.  Larsson: There are enough concerns with MnSCU to justify conversations.  Back when we were going to go on strike, it was impossible to get a vote of no confidence against Chancellor Morrie Anderson and he was demonstrably incompetent.  Thoemke: Do you have a sense as to how much of this was a negotiation ploy?  Holmes: Add one more thing: the failure to resolve grievances in a timely manner.  Keating: Can we talk about general hostility, incompetence, or interference from the central office, including the way they treat our negotiating team?  They could at least be polite and come on time.  Hustoles: The Chancellor seemed disembodied, disconnected in many ways, during his speech to us.  He mentioned 2-year colleges four times but not once did he mention graduate education.  He seemed surprised at some of our questions, like he didn’t know who his audience was.  I think we should present a list of concerns.  Keating: IFO President Pehler noted that sometimes the Chancellor doesn’t hear things the first time.  The last time we voted no confidence, it took two years.  We need to establish a record here.  Severns: If we want to have a meeting, we need to do so very soon.  Thoemke: If we have a meeting, we need to start with a list of concerns.  Visser: I realize that the Board is made up of the elected representatives of the faculty.  I am concerned that the newspaper is calling.  Can we put some information on our website?  We need to get information out and some input from the faculty.  Severns: If we put something on the web, we must be very discreet.  Keating/Hustoles moved that we identify issues and concerns regarding Chancellor McCormick to take to the IFO Board.  Thomkme: Chancellor McCormick and MnSCU too.  Passed.  Bohnenblust: Do we want a general meeting?  Severns: I would suggest that we wait until the General Meeting in the fall.  Mink: If we are going to have a meeting, we want people to attend.  No one will come during finals week.  Severns/Menk moved to have something ready for the membership by the fall General Meeting.  Passed.
b. Children’s House/Academic Master Plan—Bohnenblust: This is a potentially serious issue.  On March 15, the Children’s House faculty got a letter indicating that they were going to be terminated at the end of this semester.  The most senior member came in 1985.  They are IFO faculty members, but not tenured.  The impetus is to switch them to MSUAASF contacts.  The administration  estimates a savings of $45,000 a year in salary.  There is no doubt that Children’s House is bleeding red ink.  The primary cost is staff.  Where it relates to the master plan is that VP Olson talked about programs growing and shrinking and that this will be done at the college level.  The concern is that this can happen under the radar.  When we checked with the state IFO office, they said that if this goes to the state mediators, we would probably lose this one.  It is likely that they will determine that these look more like MSUAASF positions than IFO positions.  We could choose to do nothing and help them with their benefits.  Or we could fight this, perhaps through public opinion.  Severns and I could meet with President Davenport and ask him not to do this.  Holmes: They were put in our bargaining unit because they are licensed teachers.  But this could still be an issue.  We did file a petition when one of the SRCs were switched.  We are losing a lot of these by default.  Severns: We actually talked about this to both Dean Miller and VP Olson before we talked to President Davenport.  They appear to be backing away a bit.  Apparently there is an agreement that predates MnSCU.  There is some confusion as to whether or not that actually applies.  There is some indication that they might leave 4 of the 5 people where they are.  Bohnenblust:  Another part of that is if they lose too much money, they could fire the faculty from IFO and hire different people under MSUAASF.  Keating: I was under the impression that a lot of students were supervised by that staff.  Severns: They are supervised by Education faculty.  Meiers: Did you talk about how Children’s House fits into our mission?  Bohnenblust: Absolutely.  Meiers: So the question is that they teach children?  Bohnenblust: There is some debate about who they are teaching.  Holmes: I sat on a HR task force that talked about bargaining units.  If the faculty are not with our unit, they might not be with MSUAASF either.  It might be better to have a hearing because they might personally get more in another unit.  Larsson: There have been many that have been much switching and we need to keep those in mind (computer and counseling).  The Children’s House are on fixed term?  That makes a lot of things problematical.  We would lose this if it went to mediation.  Swanson: We have been incredible good to President Davenport.  We gave Dean Miller a pass.  We cooperated with the challenge on the lack of inclusion on the athletic search.  Administration has been going after our people for years and years.  Why can’t we ask them to give us a year to study this to make some sense of this?  Those people are our members.  We went to the wall with Roberts.  Visser: I agree with this but we shouldn’t  make this only an IFO issue.  We need to find out what is best for them as individuals.  Also, things happen during the summer.  We need to put a time definite on any action.  Keeping them in our union might not be what’s best for them.  Keating: Are they required to be more self-supporting than other unit?  I thought that Children’s House was one of the tax payer supplemented services that we provide to the community.  Bohnenblust: I am not aware that they have tax subsidies.  I thought that this is a stand-alone program.  You have individuals there in their mid-fifties.  When they retire, the administration can hire much lower priced faculty.  Keating: But that’s true for all of us.  We should look at the history.  We need to find out what the expectations are for self-supporting programs.  I don’t think day care is ever self-supporting. Bohnenblust: We could push President Davenport to make up, at the very minimum, the $45,000.  Meiers: This reminds me of the last Meet and Confer when HR Director Lori Lamb mentioned that we might not like the budget.  There are issues out there connected with the Academic Master Plan.  Peterson: The President just got $500,000 for the strategic fund, and that showed up because of the health plan cuts.  Visser/Swanson moved that we ask President Davenport to postpone the implantation of this plan to give the campus adequate time to study how this fits into the Academic Master Plan and the mission of the university for at least a year.  Passed.  Swanson: Do you want us to give you something else?  Hustoles: Give Bohnenblust the flexibility to negotiate.  Mink: We should do what’s best for those members.  Larsson: We could resolve that the Executive Committee fully support the FA President and FA Vice President in their aggressive pursuit of working in the best interests of the faculty in talking to the President and VP of the University.  Bohnenblust: I will accept the challenge.  McCullough: Have we talked to the faculty involved?  Bohnenblust: Yes, they want to maintain their salaries but they also want to maintain their jobs.
[The discussion jumped to “g.” because of the presence of guest Angela Monson.]
c. Evaluation of Administrators—Severns: We’ve passed this form out a couple of times and have received a variety of comments.  We will use the same document for all of the deans (except the Associate Dean of Nursing).  We are behind the timeline but we are ready to go.  Meiers: In talking to my Assoc. Dean, she had received the document and gave feed back to VP Olson.  Severns: And that came back to us.  We should ask her if she would rather receive the old format.  Bohnenblust: We have tried to give the deans input into what we are going to use, in hopes they would model this behavior.  Severns: Do we want to pass the results back just to the deans or to the deans and the President?  Keating: It should go to the immediate supervisor, the VPAA.  Sizemore/Fitsimmons moved that the evaluations go to the dean and their immediate supervisor.  Passed. 
d. Differential Tuition—Keating: I really appreciate the guidelines, however, when you talk about off-campus or online, are these exclusively off campus?  Severns: We are going to use the maximum of three times face to face rule.  Keating: I understand that this is an idea that we need, but I want to go on record that this will hurt working class students.  When this came foreword, it was only for the MBA.  We all need money.  Every time we need it, we can’t just ask the students.  I don’t like the concept but I know we need to do it.  Nickerson: I appreciate the fact that folks have put this together.  Items 4, 5 and 6 speak to the process.  But I have some real concerns about the guidelines.  When we voted down the College of Education request, it was because we asked for a policy.  This doesn’t speak to that.  I think Keating’s point is at the core.  I think this is an effort to push through a couple of proposals by a few colleges.  Some of this is about academic freedom.  Do I not pull students into class because I risk loosing differential tuition?  Also, #2 is redundant with #7 and item #3 contradicts itself.  I think that this is an example of a policy that has been forced together without some serious critical thinking.  Are we forcing certain programs to pay for themselves?  We don’t want to march there until we have more time to talk about this as a campus community.  I think that this is something that should not be dealt with today.  Swanson: Why do we need this?  Severns: The concept is that this would be for a limited group of programs, such as graduate programs, where there would be a demonstrable difference in costs.  For example, additional library resources or you have to give reassigned time to meet accreditation.  Then you have to spell out where the money would be spent.  This has been modeled after the definitions being used by extended learning.  I don’t think this should be seen as a rubber stamp.  There is a process that the request needs to go through.  Swanson: In the College of Business, deans took money off the top.  If new money doesn’t go to faculty, the administration will take the money.  Sizemore: There is a separate account.  This was VP Trauger’s idea so the money can easily be watched and monitored.  He also expects that this will work for very few programs.  These are faculty driven proposals only.  If we faculty don’t feel we need it, it won’t occur.  Proposals have to go to the appropriate committees.  There are a lot of back ups in addition to it going to Meet and Confer.  We want to make sure that the program needs it for program needs.  We do not touch upon undergraduate programs here except for online.  Larsson: Some of this needs cleaning up, a lot of checks and balances seem to be built into this proposal.  I would assume that the committees would scrutinize any proposals carefully.  Meiers: We sent these people off to do their work and I think they have done it.  I would like to support them.  These are faculty proposals.  Could we look at this every year?  Maybe just this first time?  Fitsimons: Is there a policy statement here?  That seems to be missing.  The application form seems to need more detail.  Sizemore: You would attach a proposal to the form.  Fitzsimons: Which of the entities listed would make a determination and how would you decide who merits funding and who doesn’t?  Nickerson: This is not a policy, it is a procedure.  Having worked with budget committees, this stuff is politically charged.  I can see some bean counter in St. Paul telling us that we can raise money so they can cut resources.  Sizemore: Both St. Cloud and Bemidji  charge differential tuition.  McCullough: On #4, it should read “must” rather than “should.”  Baures: Speaking for UCAP, things have to be specific.  I don’t want it to be a mystery.  Severns: Yes, the form is just a draft.  Yes, They will need to attach documents.  And #2 and #7 are not the same thing.  We deliberately did not put in guidelines because we wanted the Curriculum Committee and the Graduate Committee to come up with their own guidelines.  We don’t think there will be more than 12 or 15 proposal university-wide.  If you are not comfortable with that, now is the time to say so.  LeNoir: It strikes me that this should be referred to Budget and UCAP.  Fitzsimons: This doesn’t tell me if my program would be eligible to be submitted.  Larsson: Isn’t that the whole point of the proposal?  You have to make the case.  Bauers: I am a member of the Distance Learning Task Force.  Our understanding is that any online courses have to be self-supporting.  That colors things.  Sizemore: It is really important that we act on this.  It might not be perfect but we need to act on it.  Marg: If it is that critical, any dean has funds to support this. Nickerson/Swanson moved to send this to Budget, UCAP and the Grad Submeets to develop a policy statement to go with this procedure.  Sizemore: As an example, when things come up to the Submeet, does it come to this group (Executive Committee)?  We don’t do that.  Wouldn’t you rather have the Submeets working on these issues internally?  Nickerson: I think UCAP and Gen Ed has worked very well together and can be used as a model of cooperation.  It is important that we have a policy statement.  It is easy for us to look at course proposals because we have guidelines and the proposals speak to those.  It is important to have the guidelines and the policy in place.  They need to work together.  Larsson: But those committees are on the course level, not the program level.  In this case you already have the stipulation the program has to make the strong case for need.  I think each committee can give their own guidelines.  I am not uncomfortable with the way this is set up.  LeNoir: Can this be used against us?  A dean could tell us that we would have to pay.  Petersen: I don’t think this has anything to do with Budget and that committee should be removed.  The motion was defeated (in favor: 8; opposed: 9).  Sizemore/Severns moved that we support this document with a one-year review.  LeNoir: I have been involved with the Academic Master Plan and this is leading us down the path of self-supporting programs.  This means we might only support the programs that will make money.  Keating: I wanted to support the committees even though I don’t like this concept.  We’ve asked these committees to give these guidelines, perhaps a friendly amendment that UCAP and Graduate Committees proceed with their own guidelines for implementation?  Severns: I appreciate Keating’s  comments.  We don’t want to tie the hands of the committees.  I know also  exactly what LeNoir is saying, but undergraduate programs will not be considered.  The motion passed (in favor: 10; opposed: 7).
e. Personnel Calendars—Bohnenblust—If you have any concerns, get back to me.   We do have some different time frames for PDPs.  Larsson: Current calendars are now online. 
f. Flat Screen Monitor—Hustoles/Keating moved to allow Blom to purchase.  Passed.
g. Mentoring Proposal—Monson: Stewart Ross wanted me to act as a liaison to this committee because he couldn’t be here.  We’ve looked at other programs from different schools.  Ross wanted to leave things open so that they could be further developed.  He tried to be specific as it relates to money.  Bohnenblust: There would be some cost involved.  Does this look like a program that we want to get started?  Mink: Is this something that came out of your meeting with new faculty?  Bohnenblust: Yes.  Mink: I think we need to respond to new faculty when we can.  And I like the idea of getting paid.  Severns: It also dovetails very nicely with the new 1/2-day workshop at the beginning of the year.  Larsson: We have been going through four searches in our dept.  One of the most frequent questions we get refers to mentoring.  Fitzsimons: Are we are going to approve the concept or some of these details?  Had this gone thought the Faculty Development Committee there would be questions.  We have a role in this and would want to have something to say about this.  For example: do they need a letter of support from the chair and/or dean?  What about the required narrative?  Who is going to get those?  Why?  And what would they contain?  Petersen: I like the mentoring thing but what happens when a faculty member is not making it but the mentor takes ownership?  How do we avoid that?  Thoemke: I was on the Task Force as well.  The mentor would be outside of the department.  There are some issues that we need to get in to.  Part of the motivation to provide the money is that it would be too easy for the mentor to drop out before the mentoring would be complete.  Ross had in mind that perhaps the Faculty Development Committee would help to assess this.  Fitzsimons: At this time of the year, are we expected to address this before May?  We don’t have time.  Bohnenblust: I did discuss this with Ross.  I think it would be better off delaying this than to start off with something ill conceived.  We could wait a year. Severns/Keating moved to support the concept and ask the Task Force to work  with the Faculty Development Committee to work out the details about when to get this off the ground.  Mink: This wouldn’t exclude getting it up in the fall?  Fitzsimons: It can’t.  Visser: What is the relationship between the Task Force and the Committee?  I have a problem with that.  Bohnenblust: That would have been my fault.  I did not identify this as a faculty development issue.  Fitzsimons: I think the Task Force needs to come to us and present something to us.  Larsson: As we have established, task force reports should go to the appropriate submeets.  Passed.
h. Web Cam Issue—Bohnenblust: The instructor will be able to turn off the camera and there will be an indication if the camera is on or off.

7. Informational Items
a.    Next Meet & Confer, Thursday, April 08, 2004 @ 3:00 p.m. CSU 204 AD Chair/FA Agenda
b. IFO Presidential Election Voting:
1.    May come to FA office Thursday, April 8; Friday, April 9 or Monday, April 12 between 8:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. to vote
2.    May request an electronic ballot has to be returned by Tuesday, April 13 by 4:00 p.m.
3.    At request will send a ballot in campus mail or regular mail (need address) this has to be received by Monday, April 12, 2004.
4.    IFO Presidential Election - Tuesday, April 13, 2004 (Walk up - MH 240B)
c. Ballot Counting for Faculty Association Elections  - Tuesday, April 13, 2004 @ 1:00 p.m. - MH 240B
d. Last Meet & Confer, Thursday, April 29, 2004 @3:00 p.m. ,CSU 204 - FA Chair/AD Agenda
e. Last Executive Meeting, Thursday, May 06, 2004 @3:00 p.m., CSU 202

The meeting adjourned at 5:10 p.m.

Paul J. Hustoles
Recording Secretary

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