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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING
Thursday, September 7, 2006
CSU 204
Approved Minutes

In attendance: Stephen Bohnenblust, Roger Severns, Paul Hustoles (recorder), Mary Visser, Georgia Holmes, Tricia Young, Anne O’Meara, Pat McKinzie, Daardi Sizemore, Theresa Salerno, Gerald Schneck, Paul Brennan, Candace Black (for Evan Rusch), Ron Browne, Ron Nickerson, Scott Page, Linda Duckett, Steve Gilbert, Cheryl Radeloff. Dan Cronn-Mills; Glen Peterson

Guest: Rajiu Kapadia

President Bohnenblust called the meeting to order at 3:07 p.m.

1.  Minutes of August 22, 2006—Nickerson/Sizemore moved to approve.  Passed.
    
2.    Call for Additional Items/ Reordering of Agenda—Sizemore: Please move the Web Cams and IPESL to the top of the discussion list.  Bohnenblust: Add SEGWAY policy to discussion list.

3.    President’s Report
    a.    State IFO Action—Bohnenblust: The team will get together next week.  We do not have a state IFO Action Officer at this time and we don’t have one from our campus.  We still do not have a Campus Negotiator.  Our current team, from all campuses, is all male.  We need representation on this.  This would be for the short term.  The group is just getting reorganized.  Jim Grabowska will be back when things start heating up.  
    b.    Thank You Card—Bohnenblust: Our FA room has been redecorated thanks to Gwen Griffin.  We are also asking people with a native language other than English to write a welcome on the walls.  (Card was passed around.) She was kind enough to do this for materials only.  Thanks Gwen!
c.    Campus Security— Bohnenblust: We are not going to have additional security, however, there is also no need for armed police.  We will put this on the Meet and Confer agenda to have President Davenport confirm this.
 
4.    IFO/MnSCU Committees
    a.    Negotiator needed
     b.    MnSCU Assessment for College Readiness (ACR) Committee (Needed by September 6)- English (1 faculty member); Mathematics (2 faculty members) Mark Zuiker; Reading (1 faculty member); ESL (1 faculty member)
    c.    Biosciences education & Research Work Group (4 Reps Needed for State University System) Gregg Marg
    d.    PSEO Working Group (2 Needed from Statewide University System) Sherrise Trusedale.
    e.    DCR (Defined Contributions Retirement Plan) Advisory Committee (2 Needed from Statewide University System)
    f.    Board of Trustees Academic & Student Affairs Policy Council (1 Rep from State University System)
Hustoles/Sizemore moved to approve the slate above.  Salerno asked to be sent information on the Biosciences Committee.  Bohnenblust will comply.  Passed.    

5.    FACULTY ASSOCIATION COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS NEEDED
a.    College of Business Needs Representation on the following: (All 2 Years) – Unit Representative; General Education
    
6.    2006 FALL APPOINTMENTS
    a.    Interim Vice President – Roger Severns
    b.    Program Review & Assessment – (1 Year Replacement for SBS’s Avra Johnson) – Paul Mackie
    c.    Program Review & Assessment - (2 Year Appointment for Educ Carole Milner) – Jackie Lewis
    d.    Planning – 1 Year Replacement for COB’s Brenda Flannery – Stephen Larson
    e.    Program Review & Assessment – (2 Year Term) – SET – Scott Fee
    f.    IPESL Committee – Candace Black (FIG); Dan Cronn-Mills (UCAP); Brandon Cooke & Jim Rife (General Ed)
    g.    Nominations & Election Committee 2006-2007; AH&N – Jim Petersen (Chair); Bus – Jane Baird; Educ – Don Descy; Lib – Victoria Peters; SET – Gregg Marg
    h.    Morris K. Udall Undergraduate Scholarship Program Liaison – Gwen Griffin
    i.    University Student Conduct Board - A&H – Dan Cronn-Mills; James Dimock; Andi Lassiter; Chuck Lewis; Craig Matarrese; Matthew Sewell; AH&N – Autumn Benner; Joye Bond; Lynnette Engeswick; Sue Fredstrom; Roy Kammer; Bruce Pietz; Bus – Steve Woehrle; EDU – Beth Handler; Cheryl Kalakian; Lib/Unaf – Chuck Cantale; SBS – Chris Corley; Cecil Keen; Tony Filipovitch; Susan Freeman; Barbara Keating; Hanh-Huy Phan
    j.    Admissions Appeal Board (35 Needed) A&H – Christa Brown; Dan Cronn-Mills; Chuck Lewis; Randall McClure; Nancy MacKenzie; Ellen Mrja; Stewart Ross; Marshel Rossow; AH&N – Autumn Benner; David Bissonnette; Lynnette Engeswick; Roy Kammer; Lori Meyer; Glen Peterson; Andrew Phemister; Lib/Unaf– Barb Bergman; Chuck Cantale; George Corey; Miranda Hellenbrand; Kari Much; Victoria Peters; Nancy Rolfsrud; Nancy Sprengeler; Amy Wagener; SBS – Colleen Clarke; Kebba Darboe; Robin Wingo; SET – Gregg Asher; Edward (Ned) Williams; Mezbahur Rahman
Hustoles/Holmes moved to approve the slate above.  Passed.

7.    Discussion Items
    a.    Web Cams—Bohnenblust: Severns and I witnessed these in action.  Anyone can access these cameras on the website.  We brought up this issue to Meet and Confer last year.  Hustoles: This was discussed at Meet and Confer and the VP who instituted it is now gone. This would be the time to bring it up again.  Sizemore: The LRT was supposed to examine this issue. They should report back to us.  Bohnenblust: We will ask for a legitimate reason as to why there is universal access to our workspaces.  Nickerson: I would also like us to have the ability to toggle them on and off.  Severns: We have a group working on a policy for this and the Administration just turned them all on before there was even a report. Page: Is there a policy about students bringing a camera to class? Visser: I had a student who brought a camera and was not only filming the teacher but students as well, without their permission. Radeloff: What about stalkers?  This is a safety issue. Bohnenblust: It’s time to get an answer. O’Meara: Is this under the purview of ITS? Yes. McKinzie: Last time I tried to find the website I couldn’t find it. We might want to survey the students or people who are actually under view. Duckett: We are trying to be sensitive to diverse cultures—for some, this would be a reason to leave the institution.  Gilbert: In the spirit of informed consent, at least we should be aware of where they are.  Radeloff: Would someone have to get permission to film my class? Isn’t this the same thing?  Holmes: There have been some cases where students have tired to sell notes from the class.  The courts have ruled that the information belongs to the professor.  Severns: It bothers me that these are on all day and all night.
    b.    IPESL—Bohnenblust: We did get reps from some submeets. We don’t have a summary for today.  We were looking at a broad umbrella of “Critical Thinking.”  For those of you on the permanent group, you are not obligated to stick with this.  The goal is to have some demonstratable improvement in student learning.  AVP Flannery will help with the academic part and VP Fagen with the administrative part. It looks like we have a good shot at this. O’Meara: Gen Ed was meeting about the assessment of category 1C and we were discussing the possibility of using some of this money for that.  Bohnenblust: This committee should get paid some kind of stipend. I was thinking about $1,500.  The group is going to have to do some work.  Severns: The general feeling was that a flat rate would be fairer than a duty day rate.  Nickerson: I have no problem with paying people or with paying people a flat rate but there is an equity issue with similar kinds of work.  Duckett: That’s a little more than one hour of adjunct; maybe we could tie it to something like that.  Holmes: $1,500 sounds cheap to me.  Homes/Severns moved to ask for at least $1,500.  Passed.
    c.    Honors—Kapadia: I am here to ask for more support from you.  Brennan: What are you asking us to do?  Bohnenblust: There is no specific action needed at this time.  We want to make sure we are supportive of this proposal.  Black: Is the general intent to make it more rigorous? Kapadia: Right now there is no depth or breadth.  The idea is to make the Honors Program associated with each department.  I think there should also be a general education component to it. There should be some sort of Honors project.  Brennan: What is the percentage of the degree program.  Kapadia: Right now Honors is a minor and students take 17 to 34 credits. O’Meara: It’s that variable? Kapadia: Yes.  Brennan: Would that have an affect on any majors? Kapadia: Right now they take classes as a minor. I would propose that the student has to take several courses in their department anyway, but some would be identified as an honors course.  Perhaps they do some extra work.  Brennan: So you could have 3 or 4 students in a given course that would be further enriched?  Kapadia: Yes. Sizemore: Has there been a decline in the honors students? Kapadia: No. But there is no continuity. The students don’t get the depth.  The Honors Program is in name only.  Cronn-Mills: And it does exclude some credit intensive programs.  This idea integrates Honors right into the program.  And your answer to compensation? Kapadia: Right now faculty are getting an overload pay and that would be true even if you had only one student in there.  Brennan: And the Honors project? Kapadia: The portfolio would be under the guidance of the Honors Director but it could be done under a faculty member. We have several outcomes identified in the Honors Program. This portfolio could be used to meet any outstanding outcomes not achieved.  Nickerson: I have no problem with this but we have to be very careful about which of our committees would be involved in designating Honors courses and someone has to be in charge of assessment.  We don’t want to have the same problems that we have had with Cultural Diversity. Brennan: We need more of the technical details fleshed out.  Cronn-Mills: One way to do this would be to sit down with one department to work out some details to exemplify. Salerno: Research takes a lot of time for undergrads.  There is no load. Giving overload on no load is nothing. There is also a supply issue.  It costs money to do these projects. You have to work through that too.  Nickerson: This is an unpredictable number. There would need to be some way to let faculty know how many Honors students they might have.  Severns: I’m generally not in favor of flat rates but in terms of the compensation, if it was x amount of dollars per course, it wouldn’t make any difference how many credits the course would be.  McKinzie: The permission system would permit the faculty to have control. Gilbert: You could cap the number of Honors slots available. Page: Or run it where it is x amount of dollars per student.  Holmes: I like the idea of some controls. If you’re good at it, you get punished by it.  Brennan: Do you envision that students who don’t commit to Honors could still take Honors classes?  Kapadia: definitely. Bohnenblust: Please put together a skeletal proposal for our information.
    d.    Van Rates—Salerno: The van rates changed over the summer for the fall.  It is impacting curriculum. We take a lot of local field trips and those are more expensive.  This benefits long trips. This is an issue of communication.  It is not going through any curriculum process. Bohnenblust: Two issues, there was a change without any communication and the change itself.  Hustoles: We are expected to come up with a budget by March.  Then a change like this is made in the summer and we have no way to cover for it. Our Children’s Theatre Tour is greatly impacted by this but we had already set revenue goals. Did this come from Athletics? Visser: Welcome to our world.  Anything that Athletics decides, it gets foisted on the rest of us.  We need some say too.  Schneck: Are these changes coming from the same direction? Bohnenblust: We will put this on Meet and Confer, no notice and the actual impact of the change. Browne: What calculations have been done on the actual cost? What is being subsidized?  Cronn-Mills: They are robbing Peter to pay Paul. McKinzie: We have rented cars on the outside with their blessing, when none were available.  Schneck: There are fixed costs and non-fixed.  They could have a two-pronged approach for overnight trips and for those that are not.  Severns: Did this come from vehicles or from Athletics? Bohnenblust: Let’s not speculate. We’ll make sure we get someone who can answer these questions at Meet and Confer.
    e.    DA Resolutions for Negotiator—Bohnenblust: We did agree that we would send our Delegate Resolutions out to find out what our priorities might be. This is fairly extensive, items passed by the Delegate Assembly.  What I would suggest, the simplest way of doing this, would be to send it out to the faculty to identify as many as they want.  They could tell us all the items they would want as a priority.  We would not want to make the results public. Hustoles: How about indicating, say, three categories, most important, less important, no interest; to get a more inclusive survey and not just a bunch issues called out by those very few who might be interested.  Nickerson: This has to be a quick sort because there are so many issues.  O’Meara: It is quite possible to read all of these but it is possible that you can read this and not understand them. Hustoles: Isn’t that the American way? We always vote without knowledge. Those who care will take the time to understand.  Young: We could also include a “no opinion” to register that.  Black: Could we provide an explanation?  Visser: Or a direct link to the contract?  Bohnenblust: Let’s decide how simple or complex we want to make it.  Severns: Can we do a Zoomerang?  Visser: This is easy to do and I could make some suggestions at the next meeting.  Gilbert: Who has access to the results?  Bohnenblust: That’s the big question. Schneck: Last year Grabowska and I put together a survey.  We kept the data very tight.  Young: These resolutions are statewide. Would this survey go to other campuses?  Bohnenblust: No, there are other campuses that think this is a bad idea.  I will work with Visser to come up with some examples.   
    f.    Graduate Faculty Status—Bohnenblust: I just got this from Dean Blackhurst.  There are a couple of key changes.  The 16 hour max is now gone. Also the 5-year cycle moved to a 3-year cycle.  Page: We thought it would take five years to ramp this up.  A 3-year cycle is really not going to work.  We also felt that the 16 hour maximum teaching load was essential.  That wasn’t negotiable when we talked about it with Dean Delgado.  Nickerson: I would agree. Without that, there is no incentive. Schneck: I could see people coming in that were able to carry monies with them.  What about the match?  What are you going to match for release time? Hustoles: This is going to kill the undergrad programs.  We have a terminal degree MFA and we never get extra pay. But if any faculty member in any department can qualify for this, who will teach the classes?  Let us be free to negotiate with our college dean for reassigned time the way we do now.  Despite the Administration’s assurances, this would have to negatively impact the undergraduate curriculum if no one is left to teach it.  Scheck: Even graduate programs are vulnerable. Page: We started out the conversation offering the 16 credits only to doctorate programs.  We then opened it up to the entire university.  Many felt they were doing as much research and it would create the have- and have-nots.  We tried to build a system where the colleges would devise a system on how to develop the status.  We also were aware that if we didn’t ask for it we would never get it. Young: I want to support what Hustoles said about negotiating reassigned time in departments that need it.  If we put the 16 credit max, wouldn’t that affect the IFO contract? Bohnenblust: No, that just speaks to teaching load.  Bohnenblust: There doesn't seem to be any difference between the two statuses the way it reads now. Radeloff: I am concerned as a junior faculty member. Are there ramifications regarding publication expectations? Page: We would assume that doctoral faculty would have to be producing more. Schneck: I came from the University of Wisconsin system. They were very abusive with what we call fixed term faculty.  Basically we were there to generate the credit hours so that the regular faculty could get the release time. Bohnenblust: One of the recurring themes is the budget implication. I don’t think we have any firm numbers or even intelligent speculation.  Do we want our Graduate or Budget Submeet to look at this?  Nickerson: I have been saying all along that we have no additional resources to put forth in these doctoral programs. The only place it can come from is undergrad programs.  Bohnenblust:  When the legislation was proposed, we (State IFO) supported the including of doctoral programs even though we knew there would be no new resources.  Holmes: The financial implications should not be the determining factor in determining this policy.  I think the Graduate Committee has thought through this very carefully. O’Meara: The Administration is going to say things like “endowed chairs,” “fundraising” and the things they always say.  It might be counter-productive to ask for numbers now.  Young: Holmes makes a good point.  Maybe budget is a separate issue.  We need some ways of distinguishing faculty who can teach in the doctoral programs. This is one means of trying to distinguish. Does this do it well enough? The first 700 courses are going to be offered next fall if this gets approved. The School of Nursing is only looking at 1.5 FTEs to be devoted to the doctoral program as our part of the consortium.  Page: There are a lot of different issues that went into this. One is how quickly this is moving.  The other is What about the consortiums? We wanted to have something rather than being told what we will do. We didn’t want to have different criteria for different programs. I can’t speak to programs that don’t have the doctorate. But CSB has increased tuition to cover some of this cost. Bohnenblust: We could throw this back to the Graduate Submeet. Holmes/Page moved to support the original Graduate Committee proposal and that we raise the issue at Meet and Confer.  Hustoles: With all due respect for the good work of the Graduate Committee, once you broadened this issue beyond the doctoral programs, you made it much more of a budgetary issue. And Holmes will remember that we have constantly had the discussion about which comes first, budget or planning.  Once they were together, then separate, now meeting together again.  This issue does not simply lie within the prevue of one committee. Hustoles/Brennan moved to table the motion. Motion passed.  Young: I was looking at the dates on the review. Bohnenblust: Let’s remember our role.  Hustoles: We still need to put this on Meet and Confer so the Administration knows how concerned we are about the ramifications of these issues. Duckett: And we have to ask for budget implications. Cronn-Mills: What are other institutions doing? Page: As far as I know, we are the only ones who have done anything about this.  Bohnenblust: IFO Reps, this could be an item for the State Board. Nickerson: There is no reason that the curriculum development cannot continue while we discuss this. They can be working while we continue to discuss faculty status.  
    g. CESR Director Position Description: Bohnenblust: We brought up some issues.  I met with Dean Blackhurst to discuss them. This is a faculty fellow position.  This could include data collection and research design. We talked about it being tied to the Grants Office. She was fine with that.  The concerns we raised were answered.  Radeloff: What about the Faculty Research Submeet meeting with this person? Bohnenblust: I don’t remember.  I will discuss #8 with Dean Blackhurst. Visser: apparently the negotiations for the director of RASP fell though and I am extremely concerned about that.  Duckett: Is this a 0.5 position?  Bohnenblust: I believe so. Bohnenblust: We can ask at Meet and Confer about RASP. Nickerson: Since we don’t have a director for that, it might not make sense to hire this CESR position yet. Visser: This position’s duties are mind-boggling.  This is all of grave concern.  Radeloff: Is CETL staffed the same way?  Duckett: It is now one full time and two 0.5 positions.  
    h. SEGWAY: Bohnenblust: We asked for a policy.  The policy that’s being proposed has a September deadline.  (Bohnenblust read from the policy.)  Severns/Nickerson moved to oppose the policy. Schneck: There are likely some legal issues regarding this issue. Nickerson: My department owns a SEGWAY.  There is nothing about this in the policy.It is crazy. Schneck: What about electric wheelchairs or carts? Motion passed.
    i. Academic dishonesty Loophole—Bohnenblust: I think UCAP was going to look at that issue.  Cronn-Mills: Grad and UCAP will look at this.  
    
8. Informational Items
a.    New Faculty Workshop Q & A – Russ Stanton – Tuesday, September 26, 2006, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in CSU 201 – Individual ½ Hour Appointment beginning at 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. and again at 2:15 p.m. MH 240B (Call 2479 or email donna.blom@mnsu.edu to schedule a ½ hour appointment

b.    Next Executive Meeting – Thursday, October 5, 2006 @ 3:00 p.m., CSU 204.

The meeting adjourned at 5:01 p.m.

Paul J. Hustoles
Recording Secretary
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