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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING
Thursday, March 22, 2007
CSU 202
Approved Minutes

In attendance: Stephen Bohnenblust, Roger Severns, Paul Hustoles (recorder), Mary Visser, Tricia Young, Glen Peterson, Don Descy, Daardi Sizemore, Theresa Salerno, Wayne Allen, Jean Haar, Gerald Schneck, Evan Rusch, Ron Nickerson, Scott Page, Steve Gilbert

Guests: Wayne Sharp, Anne Blackhurst

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

1.  Minutes of February 15, 2007—Schneck/Sizemore moved to approve.  Passed.
   
2.    Call for Additional Items/ Reordering of Agenda—Hustoles: The proposed Student-Athlete Drug Policy.

3.    President’s Report
    a.    Enrollment  Management  Summit  (Friday,  March   23,   8:00  a.m. - 3:00   p.m. Midwest  Wireless   Civic  Center  Banquet  Room)—Bohnenblust:  Some  of  you  will  be
attending.  Don’t forget the breakfast starts at 7:30 a.m.
    b.    Spring Picnic—Bohnenblust: Do  we want  to do  it before  finals  or the  week of?  Visser:  I think  the week  before finals is better.  Young:  I prefer  finals week.  It is  more casual and  relaxed.   Bohnenblust:  How about Monday or Tuesday of that week? Visser:  Tuesday is better  because we  can  remind  people that  Monday.   Bohnenblust: Prices  fluctuate, but whatever the better price,  we will get.  I  anticipate that we will get a better deal than in the past.  Severns: And they set up all the tables and clean up.
    c.    Action Alerts from Russ Stanton— Bohnenblust:  If  there is ever a year to pay attention to this,  this is the year.  Remember that a lot of the Chancellor’s proposed money is fenced.  We need to  get more of it on the bargaining table. 
    d.    HLC— Bohnenblust: The HLC visit was this week for the CSP program.  Preliminary reports say that we came out very well.  Congratulations to the CSP faculty as well as the Graduate Committee. 

4.    IFO/MnSCU Committees
    a.    MnSCU's Spring Diversity Conference Planning Committee (1 Needed Statewide)
    b.    Board of Trustees Academic & Student Affairs Policy Council (1 Rep from State University System)
    c.    Instructional Management System (IMS) Advisory Council
    d.    Affirmative Action Person
    e.    Action Person
    f.    MnSCU’s Academic and Student Affairs Emergency Management Procedures Task Force (2 System Wide Needed)

5.    2007 SPRING APPOINTMENTS
    a.    SBS Replacement on Planning – Spring 2007 -
    b.    Addition to the VP Search Committee for Technology – CIO – Mary Hadley
    c.    Extended Learning Search for Director of Program Development – Queen Booker
    d.    Family Weekend Planning Committee for 2007 – Nancy Sprengeler
    e.    Facilities Master Plan Update Working Group –Perry Wood
Visser/Sizemore moved the slate.  Severns: We need a Business rep on Planning too (2007-2009)  Passed.

6.    Discussion Items
    a.    Shaded Grading—Bohnenblust:  The MSSA did  pass a motion  that said they are interested in this.  It would seem appropriate that we look at this.  This  could be geared to Graduate,  UCAP and  Gen Ed.  Hustoles: I would recommend that UCAP be the place to begin  that discussion as undergrads would constitute the vast majority of the students.  Schneck:  I would  recommend it  for several groups.  Shading grading can be very useful for students who barely miss a grade to give a better indication.  Peterson: The Graduate Committee needs to be involved.  Hustoles: Let's not have two Committees trying to invent the same wheel.  Perhaps a subcommittee from both could  do this. Bohnenblust:  We could form a committee to do this.  Page: The Grad committee’s plate is  filled.  Severns:  We could  get it  on the agenda for  the  early fall.  Nickerson: I agree.  Bohnenblust: Let’s put it down for that. 
    b.    Web Cams—Bohnenblust: We have a challenge with the web cam  proposal.  A key idea is the  suggested level of access  to the web  cam views.  Sharp: The LTR has a subcommittee  that  drafted the  guidelines.  [Demonstration  followed.]  To  get to  all  the web  cams, you have to have permission.  About 450  have requested this.  Bohnenblust: With just restricted access, could anyone get in?  Sharp: Anyone with Mavmail.  Bohnenblust: Why would we want to?  That has nothing to do with security.  Sharp: There is a lot of faculty who want to have access to their own computer labs.  Severns: Could you break it into 4 categories, separating out the faculty from the Mavcard population?  Sharp: That might be a possibility.  Schneck: Why does some of this have to be live?  Why not streaming video?  Sharp: There could be a time delay.  Visser: We do have great access, but does the public need to see everything?  Sizemore: My biggest concern is about security.  I appreciate how you changed the angles of the cameras in the classrooms but the ones in the gyms scare me.  Severns: Several people have expressed this concern to me.  Sharp: But we also had a student who wanted to check out a room to see if it was occupied and safer to go to.  Sizemore: But at least we could move some of these to a limited access.  We could still use pictures for marketing purposes.  Visser: Is there some action you need from us today?  Sharp: There has been a concern about increased theft.  Page: If you want something interactive, why not put a video clip up of the facility?  Severns/Schneck moved to request a fourth tier that is faculty/staff only.  Visser: Was that brought up in the committee?  Sharp: Nope.  Haar: I still have a safety issue concern.  Bohnenblust: How many women were on the subcommittee? Descy: None. Gilbert: The security is a mixed blessing.  Security could watch to provide security.  Rusch: But security has access to all of it anyway.  Motion Passed.  Sizemore/Visser moved that we look at moving some public access cameras to more secure access with the idea of public safety in mind.  Visser: We want to make sure we are not causing problems for the females.  We need to get some females on that subcommittee.  Sizemore: How long are the images kept?  Sharp: For one semester.  Descy: For restricted access, do you have a record of when someone logs in?  Sharp: I fear not, but we would have to research that.  Gilbert: Every crime I just heard mentioned was made by a member of the campus security.  I think video is a solution.  Schneck: There are parental concerns about the safety of their children.  Gilbert: I would like to ask law enforcement professionals.  Does this access increase or lower security?  Bohnenblust: I think that is in inherent in the motion.  Consultation with law enforcement would be important.  Hustoles: I think it is appalling that this committee didn’t have female representation on it.  Allen: I agree.  If we are not feeling unsafe, we can easily be blind to these issues.  Motion passed.  Bohnenblust: Descy will take these motions back.  Descy: There are nine women on the main committee although none of them volunteered for this subcommittee.
    c.    Textbook Price Containment—Bohnenblust: We set up a committee with the students.  Sizemore has served on this committee, as well as a statewide committee on this.  There is a bill in the legislature regarding this. There will be money set up to explore a pilot rental system.  Sizemore: At a state school of less than 5,000.  It will probably be a community college.  Bohnenblust: This has been a hot button issue for some years now.  We have some suggestions. One thing in particular is when students buy a book and then use it very little in class.  Sizemore: There is a state report called Strategies for Reducing Textbook Costs. It talks about the different stakeholders and what everyone can do to help.  Maybe we could put out a brochure about tips about what we could do.  For example, that all sections of the same general education classes use the same textbook for three years. The students wanted to make sure that we would not let vendors talk to us about new texts without talking about prices.  Bohnenblust: We are trying to avoid anything mandatory, such as a mandatory textbook rental.  Allen: I think it is really important that we convey to students that a professor might use the book even if they don’t.  Schneck: The vast majority of students expect less than 10 hours outside of class for all classes.  Page: What about books on CDs?  Sizemore: If the CD version is more effective in terms of price, that could be considered.  Bohnenblust: Sometimes custom publishing doesn’t work.  Hustoles: It has worked very well for us.  Sizemore: It makes for interesting conversations.  Also, there is a bundling option, for example, one book came with The Wall Street Journal.  A teacher just communicated with the bookstore to allow for optimum usage.  Schneck: I went directly to the publishers on a few textbooks and they were willing to sell them directly to the students for half price, although they couldn’t be returned.  Haar: It would be good for us to make a good faith effort for the students.  Sizemore: Do you like the idea of a handout?  Consensus.  Bohnenblust: Do we want to endorse these suggestions?  Nickerson: I object to the use of the term “gen ed.”  We really want to say “multi-section courses.”  Sizemore: Sure.  Schneck: When I was investigating e-type documents, it only includes their own proprietary textbooks.  Sizemore: Does this sound good to promote the same text for multi-section courses?  Nickerson: Three or more years can be a real challenge.  Sometimes the data changes very frequently in some disciplines.  Let’s say “multiple years.”  Schneck: At the UW system, we could not change a book for every 8 years.  That was a major problem for the faculty.  Hustoles/Descy moved to endorse the following ideas. 
•    Look at creative development and use of alternative materials.
•    Encourage faculty to more fully utilize books that are required.
•    Encourage faculty and departments that have multi-section classes, to consider adopting a single text that will be used for multiple years.
•    Continue to stress the importance of getting book orders in on time. Passed. 
   d.    Wellness & the Failure of the Smoking Policy—Bohnenblust: Do we need to do anything else with this?  Salerno: Was  a memo going out? The Meet and Confer minutes reflected the President’s commitment to the possibility of banning smoking. Page: Smoking outside of Armstrong Hall is a joke.  The policy is still a joke.  Salerno: We are getting a new sign. 
    e.    Informal Policy Review:  Repeating of Undergraduate Courses      http://www/mnsu.edu/acadaf/pdfs/CourseRepeatPolicyRevised2006.pdf
Nickerson: Is this the same policy that we looked at before?  Hustoles: This is updated.  Please forward your concerns to us. 
    f.    Informal Policy Review:  Access for Students with Disabilities    http://www.mnsu.edu/acadaf/pdfs/accessforstudentswithdisabilities.pdf
Bohnenblust: I did receive a comment on this.  Who or what will determine if there is administrative or financial hardship?  We will bring this up to the Meet and Confer.  Peterson: Under procedures, it should be “support and advise” I think.  I am very concerned about the last page, first paragraph, the discussion about how faculty may not access some information regarding reasonable accommodation.  I think the wording could be misconstrued to the disadvantage of the student.  Schneck: If you investigate case law, public institutions don’t get away with saying “we can’t afford it,” regarding the point about economic hardship.   Peterson: And who would answer the questions?  A court of law.  Bohnenblust: Our concern would be how that decision would be made before it became a legal issue.  We will bring this to Meet and Confer.  Schneck: This also speaks to us as faculty and staff.  Peterson: And I still plan to talk to Julie Snow to get her perspective,
    g.    Article  20,  Section  I:  Directors  &  Other  Coordinating  Assignments— ( no comments or concerns)
    h.    Personnel Calendars (Article 22, Section D., Subd. 2)—Bohnenblust—There is a probability that various support staff will not be working on Veterans’ Day even though we will have classes. 
    i.    Student Teacher Supervision (Article 10, Section B., Subd. 3.)—Descy: I gave this to the director of student teaching.
    j.    LTR Charge—Bohnenblust:  Somebody asked  me about  the  committee charge. Descy: No one has seen this since 1997.  Bohnenblust: Is it time to review this?  Descy: We get a new charge when we get a new administrator.  Bohnenblust: Remember, we were looking at a group to help us formalize how committees are formed or structured.  Would it be fair to ask the LTR to look at their charge?  Descy: Except that we get a new charge at the top of each year. Schneck: Regarding the three-year staggering of membership, nothing has happened yet.   
    k.    Research Advisory Group—Bohnenblust: When I looked at this I had some concerns about this idea because it appears that it would be a parallel group to one of our Sub Meets.  Dean Blackhurst: I envisioned this as a group rather than a committee.  My motive is to get the directors of RASP and CESR to talk to faculty as much as possible.  We want to serve faculty as much as possible.  It is important that they find out what the faculty needs.  So I asked the college deans to recommend faculty within their colleges.  They gave me long lists.  We tried to put together a group of six  faculty that we felt would be representative, including senior and junior faculty and areas of diversity.  We were concerned that an at-large and nominating process might not result in that.  After I talked to Bohnenblust, I thought that we might add some reps from FA committees.  The current committees seem to be overwhelmed with their own work.  Hustoles: I think that faculty need to select faculty to represent us.  I am also concerned about the huge number of committees out there that serve ad nauseum.  Nickerson:  maybe this group is a subgroup like Gen Ed was to UCAP.  It could be an alternate to setting up a stand-alone committee.  Severns: I agree with both Hustoles and Nickerson.  I have some concerns about the selection process although I understand that our standing committees are overwhelmed.  This concept does need to be put within some structure.  I don’t see any reason why a subcommittee couldn’t report to the committee.  Nickerson: That's why I suggest the Gen Ed/UCAP model.  Sizemore: There are six reps but Library and Unaffiliated are not included.  If there is a group created, someone from the Library needs to be included.  Schneck: It is mentioned that committee members only serve two years.  Blackhurst: There might be some policy concerns regarding this.  But we want your feedback as we don’t want to do nothing.  Visser: You have done a good job of getting to the departments and I think that is part of your jobs.  I don’t want to see another layer between us.  I am also concerned about the  way people were chosen although I agree with the intent of this.  Nickerson I also think it was a major oversight not to include the library.  Blackhurst: I totally agree.  Sizemore: I would like to hear from the Research Committee.  Severns: Would it be appropriate to table this until our next Exec Meeting and have Radeloff report to us?  Visser: I would hate to lose their input.  Sizemore: The advisor group to CETL is Faculty Development. Allen: Radeloff is feeling overwhelmed.  Why not attach a subcommittee to this?  As far as selecting, why not do it the way we do it for all other committees?  Visser: Are these faculty listed even FA members?  Bohnenblust: Yes.  Hustoles: I really disagree with the concept of any dean appointing faculty to a committee.  This is a systemic question.  Nickerson: I agree and think we should let the Research Sub Meet figure out how to proceed.  Bohnenblust: I had three issues when this was presented to me: first, the deans wouldn't be any more successful than we are with achieving diversity.  Second, they can talk to any one they want to at this point.  Third, I don’t want to have a parallel group that can possibly influence decisions.  If you don’t like what you get from one group, you go to the other.  Dean Blackhurst can go to any group she wants to now.  Nickerson/Hustoles moved that the Research Committee make a recommendation on this. Passed. Young: We don’t recommend this, yes?  Gilbert: You would like the committee to know there were strong reservations about this?  Consensus. 
    l.    Compensation for Faculty Work Group—Bohnenblust: This has been a contract issue.  This is  potentially a very good thing for  us.  We will ask  in two weeks to  pick the group that  will work on  this.  Nickerson:  I am in a program that  doesn’t have a graduate program so my concern is limiting it to people who just supervise this.  Sizemore: I think it is great that we have an administrator asking for faculty help and is willing to pay for it. 
    m.    Diversity Events  and Food—Allen:  This Saturday is African Night. We were assured that there were going to be exemptions for food preparation.  Students can’t bring food to their events.  I have done some background research on Sodexho. They have a very bad track record.  Students are threatening to take these events off campus.  The people we are trying to involve are being alienated. Nickerson: I echo this.  We spent days trying to get exemptions for the Somali celebration.  There is something wrong with that.  Bohnenblust: We will bring this to Meet and Confer again.  Nickerson: The Diversity Commission had a real challenge getting permits.  Sizemore: Is the Meet and Confer meeting soon enough? Go to VP Swatfager-Haney and start there.  Bohnenblust: I can do that.  Should I include Allen?  Consensus.  And Nickerson?  Consensus.  Visser: We all remember how much VP Swatfager-Haney squirmed at Meet and Confer.  We should talk to Cindy Janney as well.  We don’t want to blindside them.  Schneck: Is the contact in violation of Minnesota or federal law?  We have a legal liability.  Bohnenblust: I will meet with VP Swatfager-Haney and Janney along with Allen and Andy Phemister (consensus Nickerson substitute).
    n.    Professional Search Committee Chairs—Bohnenblust: Lori Lamb’s office came up with this idea. This would be voluntary on the part of departments. Individuals would help the departments who don’t run searches very often. A group of faculty could be trained to do this.  A department could choose from the pool.  She also mentioned that these faculty would be compensated.  Do we want to pursue this?  Consensus.
    o.  Student-Athlete Drug Policy—Hustoles: I am our rep to the Policy Committee and we recently saw an “MSU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics Student-Athlete Drug & Alcohol Education Testing Program” document.  First, I had no idea that such a “department” even existed.  More importantly, they were going to institute this as “policy” without it having gone through any vetting process.  While it could be argued that it is very narrow in scope, it directly impacts many of our students, counselors and us.  It  needs to be carefully looked at by the larger university community. Hustoles/Visser moved to bring this concern forward and request that this go through the regular policy procedure.  Passed.  Bohnenblust: We will bring this to Meet and Confer
   
7.    Policies up for Review    http://www.mnsu.edu/acadaf/Resources/Policies.html
    a.    Undergraduate Admissions       http://www.mnsu.edu/acadaf/pdfs/AdmissionsPolicyDraft.pdf
    b.    Repeating of Undergraduate Courses     http://www/mnsu.edu/acadaf/pdfs/CourseRepeatPolicyRevised2006.pdf
    c.    Access for Students with Disabilities     http://www.mnsu.edu/acadaf/pdfs/accessforstudentswithdisabilities.pdf

8. Informational Items
    a.    Next Executive Meeting - Thursday, April 05 @3:00 p.m. , CSU 204
    b.    Last FA/AD Meet & Confer for Spring Semester, 2007– Thursday, May 10, 2007 @ 3:00 p.m., CSU 202 (AD Chair/FA Agenda)

The meeting adjourned at 5:06 p.m.

Paul J. Hustoles
Recording Secretary

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