EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MINUTES
Present: Alloway,
Bolin,
Absent: Alexander, Beck, Hachtmann
Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Location: 201 Canfield Administration Building
Note: These
are not verbatim minutes. They are a
summary of the discussions at the Executive Committee meeting as corrected by
those participating.
______________________________________________________________________
1.0 Call to Order
Moeller called the meeting to order at 3:04 p.m.
2.0 Chancellor Perlman
2.1 Budget
Chancellor Perlman stated that there is not much new yet on the budget but if the Appropriations Committee’s 2.1% budget increase for the university holds this will have serious, negative impacts for UNL. He pointed out with only a 2.1% increase and including a 5% tuition increase UNL would have to cut $8 million from its budget. He noted that there is $34 million worth of mandatory expenditures that cannot be avoided under any reasonable circumstances. He stated that the Appropriations Committee’s budget recommendation would provide for only $9 million of these expenses.
Chancellor Perlman noted that initially the university requested a 5% increase not including salaries.
Chancellor Perlman stated that there is no request for an increase to cover health insurance. He pointed out that the steps the university has taken over the last year will not require any increases in health insurance costs for this year and if things hold, only a small increase next year.
Chancellor Perlman reported that one option the legislature can do is to delay or avoid the $3.9 million payment that is due from the university on deferred maintenance. He noted that utilities cost still need to be dealt with. He pointed out that the legislature put money towards these costs last year but the money was not put into the university’s base budget.
Chancellor Perlman stated that another mandatory expense is covering the operation costs for new buildings. He noted that this amounts to approximately $1.4 million. He pointed out that there is not much control over the mandatory expenses.
Chancellor Perlman stated that he is meeting with legislators, particularly the new legislators, to let them know how UNL was affected by the 2001-03 budget cuts and how we are working to be efficient. He stated that 84% of the budget is in payroll but people need to remember that the university is a service industry and the raw material we work with is people. He pointed out that although there is some concern about the total number of employees in the system across the state, only about 33% of these people are in teaching and research and 17% are in cooperative extension.
Chancellor Perlman stated that he also provides information to the senators on student census figures and what part of the state the students come from.
Chancellor Perlman stated that information is provided about how UNL has cut almost $31 million from the base budget in the last five years.
Chancellor Perlman stated that the legislature wants to know that we are spending the money correctly. He noted that some of our cuts did achieve efficiencies. He pointed out that we merged two colleges, eliminated the teaching and learning center, closed the hotel, closed research components of the museum, just to name a few things.
Chancellor Perlman stated that the report on efficiency provides some interesting information. He noted that a chart is provided which shows the number of tenure track faculty members from 1996-2006 relative to enrollment. He pointed out that the number of tenure track faculty members has gone down considerably although it is starting to rise a little. He noted that the enrollment figures have basically stayed the same so the campus is doing more or the same with fewer resources yet we have been able to increase retention and graduation rates.
Chancellor Perlman stated that financial transactions for the campus have increased by 8.6% but the staff needed to monitor these transactions has decreased by 20%. He pointed out that the number of campus facilities has increased but the percent of staff needed to maintain these facilities has decreased.
Chancellor Perlman stated that the Appropriations Committee has completed hearings and will now be working privately to develop their budget. He stated that the Appropriations Committee budget goes to the floor of the legislature sometime during the second week in April.
Ledder noted that one of the
problems seems to be that there is an assumption that we are over taxed in
Moeller noted that the Executive Committee has met with Michelle Waite to see how faculty can help in contacting legislators and how we can spread the word about the work of the faculty.
Chancellor Perlman stated that
another point to make is that the university has been able to accomplish what
it has in recent years because the faculty has stayed with him through these
difficult times. He noted that the
faculty recognized that cuts had to be made and public education around the
country was going through the same difficult times. However, he does not know to what extent the
faculty will stay when they hear that governors in many other states are making
significant investments in higher education and knowing that
Moeller stated that recruiting
new faculty members could be difficult as well if the university is forced to
make large budget cuts again. Ledder
stated that it has not been difficult to attract new assistant professors in
Mathematics but the department is offering market salaries to these
people. Chancellor Perlman stated that
there was a recent article that talked about the brain drain that has occurred
at the
2.2 Budget Reallocation
Procedures
Moeller asked how the Chancellor will proceed if the university gets a very small budget increase. Chancellor Perlman stated that he hopes that we will not get to this point but we would be in the same situation as before. He noted that we will not know about the budget increase until May. He stated that not much can be done for the next year except to manage the cash flow.
Chancellor Perlman stated that his intention would be to have vertical cuts. He noted that if this is done he would comply with the procedures that are in place. He noted that the process of making cuts will take awhile.
2.3 Salary Parity Issues
Moeller noted that this has been discussed before. She stated that new professors are being hired at the market rate while those professors who have been here for a long time have a lower salary. She pointed out that this can be very demoralizing for people who have been loyal to the institution. She stated that several faculty members have now raised this issue.
Chancellor Perlman stated that one way the administration addresses this issue is to hold back a certain percentage of the increases for the Vice Chancellors and Deans to use to help deal with these kinds of issues. He pointed out that there are hard choices that have to be made by the Deans and Chairs when dealing with these cases. He noted that it is not possible to correct these issues from his level because he does not have all of the information to determine whether an increase is meritorious or not.
Ledder stated that, although he has never been involved in the department evaluation process, it is his understanding that an instructor is evaluated according to merit and then the merit rating is used to determine a percentage raise without regard for where the current salary lies relative to market value. Chancellor Perlman pointed out that how this is done varies greatly from department to department, even within the same college.
Flowers stated that within some colleges there are some constraints for Chairs getting access to the Dean’s allotment of salary money. He stated that the Chairs feel that the rules that are imposed on them by the Dean restrict them from addressing salary parity issues. He noted that the difference in salaries can end up being a significant amount when the salary parity occurs over a period of years. He stated that some departments feel they cannot equitably balance out the salary issue. Chancellor Perlman stated that this is the reason why the administration holds back a certain percentage of the increase. The amount a department may receive for salary increases might be subject to negotiation depending on how things happen at the department level. He stated that he expects the Deans and Chairs to help solve the problems they see.
Ledder stated that he remembers when a certain portion of the salary increases was given to deal with salary compressions. Chancellor Perlman stated that he remembers this as well but noted there are a series of issues with salaries that are complex and each department handles it differently. He pointed out that he cannot manage each department and the decision whether it would be better to do merit increases or compression increases must be decided at the department level.
2.4 Diversity Plan
Moeller stated that she received an email message from the chair of the committee asking if the plan is to be a comprehensive plan for both faculty and staff or whether there should be separate plans. Moeller asked if there is a timeline for the committee as well.
Chancellor Perlman noted that a committee was formed and produced a draft document which was distributed to the campus. He noted that the Senate raised concerns about the draft and as a result he turned the whole process of developing a new draft to the Senate. He stated that the new committee will need to decide whether to write two separate plans or develop a comprehensive plan. He stated that the process will be the same in that the plan will need to be taken to the campus for discussion.
2.5 Department
Management Concerns
Moeller noted that complaints have been made against some department chairs. She stated that Senior Vice Chancellor Couture will be consulted about the problem and what can be done. Chancellor Perlman stated that the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Access has access to outside mediation services and this might be considered.
2.6 Issues
on the Horizon
Chancellor Perlman stated that Vice Chancellor Paul’s five year evaluation will need to be conducted this year. He reported that Vice Chancellor Paul has provided the necessary information for the evaluation but consideration needs to be given about what faculty committees should be involved in the evaluation. Chancellor Perlman noted that Vice Chancellor Paul is in a unique situation because he does not have faculty members who report to him yet in another way he works a lot with faculty members. Chancellor Perlman stated that he is thinking of having Professor Van Etten serve as the liaison person for the evaluation. Chancellor Perlman stated that he is inclined to use the Research Council and Research Advisory Board for the evaluations.
Chancellor Perlman reported that some interesting things may develop for the university with the former Starship 9 lot downtown. He noted that no public announcements have been made yet.
Chancellor Perlman stated that the 2015 Visioning Group is moving forward. Moeller asked if there was a price tag attached to the numerous things the Group wants to do. Chancellor Perlman stated that building an arena would be over $200 million and the other plans would be additional money. He noted that the original proposed budget for the Antelope Valley Project was over $200 million and it is now being worked on. He pointed out that most of the money for the 2015 Visioning Group projects would be from private sector dollars and hopefully federal dollars. He stated that things are moving along with the Group and there was a lot of enthusiasm at the meetings held in town about the Group’s goals.
Chancellor Perlman reported that a consultant has been hired by central administration to look into distance education and how the university might better position itself in this area.
Chancellor Perlman stated that he
is leaving for
3.0 General Education Advisory Committee
Members (Professors Janovy, Peterson, Mitchell,
Fuess, and Woodward)
Moeller stated that the Committee wanted to meet with the General Education Planning Team (GEPT) to make sure that both groups are progressing on the same page and to get an update on what is happening next with the general education revision. Peterson stated that it is the GEPT’s interest as well to meet and discuss what is going on. He noted that it is extremely useful to get input from the faculty and having the discussion in the Executive Committee minutes is helpful.
Peterson noted that the general education committees were charged with developing four proposals. Two of these have been developed and approved by all colleges. He noted that the first two proposals are contingent on the remaining proposals being approved and nothing will be changed with the current general education program until the full package is approved.
Peterson stated that the committees have been identifying some key issues that need to be discussed. Some of these key issues are what an agreement between an Achievement Centered Education (ACE) committee and a department would look like; what would a course proposal form look like. He noted that drafts of these forms can be found on the general education website (http://www.unl.edu/svcaa/gened/). He stated that the committees have also spent time talking about an ACE oversight committee. He noted that the committees have tentatively decided that the third proposal will deal with a list of courses for the general education program and the fourth proposal deals with governance and assessment. He pointed out that Assistant Vice Chancellor Wilson has suggested that the committee’s concentrate on the fourth proposal before tackling the third proposal. Ledder suggested that the committees re-label the proposals switching three and four since the list of courses will probably be done last.
Peterson noted that one of the issues that must be considered is how to handle transfer students. He stated that there will need to be some sort of committee structure that would oversee the program and approves additional courses.
Peterson stated that the committees have heard that they are not getting as much faculty input as is needed for developing the next two proposals. He stated that they are trying to address this and they are considering putting the minutes from the meetings on the website. He noted that there is also an open forum being held on Monday, March 26th at 2:30 in the city campus union.
Ledder stated that he has not heard about the open forum and pointed out that a notice should have been sent to the whole faculty as soon as the forum was scheduled. Peterson stated that a message has been sent to the Deans and Chairs asking that each department have at least one representative at the open forum. Ledder objected that an open forum should be open to all faculty members regardless of whether they are picked as a department representative or not. Earlier, GEPT had asked Ledder what he thought the Executive Committee could contribute to the process--one possibility would be that the Executive Committee could make sure that information about an open forum was well publicized.
Moeller asked if there is a clear agenda about what the forum is about. Janovy stated that he assumed the publicity was being handled by the Academic Affairs office. Ledder replied that in any case the publicity was insufficient.
Janovy stated that time and time again he has tried to keep the committees on track relative to the charge given to them. He noted that all of the input that has been received has been looked at by the committees and members of the committees have met with every conceivable group on campus.
Ledder stated that there are two different issues that need to be considered when thinking about the value of soliciting input from the faculty. He stated that the first is whether the committees need input to make good proposals. He indicated that he has no doubt that the committees will come up with good proposals; the other issue is whether the faculty will approve the proposals. He stated that in order for faculty members to approve the proposals they need to be able to provide their input. He noted that if the process does not appear to the faculty as being faculty driven, the faculty might feel that the proposals are being forced down their throats.
Janovy stated that there are campus wide representatives on the General Education Advisory Committee (GEAC). Ledder pointed out that the GEAC members were appointed by administrators, not elected by the faculty so they don’t necessarily represent all faculty viewpoints. Moeller stated that the perception is that the members on the GEPT and GEAC were appointed by administration. She noted that the bigger issue is how to make the process transparent so that everyone is informed so faculty members feel they are encouraged to come to the open forum. She suggested that getting the most exposure about what is going on would help create the ground swell that is needed from the bottom up so faculty members feel like they have been heard and are part of the process.
Woodward pointed out that it is difficult to get faculty members to attend open forums and they usually do not get involved until they are angry about something. He noted that the committees felt that they had to do an open forum quickly because it would be difficult to get people to come during April with the end of the semester approaching quickly.
Mitchell stated that there is some concern that if not all comments made by faculty members are addressed people will accuse the committees of not listening. She stated that the committees want to offer something that people can respond to. Ledder pointed out that this is the reason why faculty members are feeling they are not able to give input because they are not given the opportunity to provide input before the proposals are written. The perception is that by the time the proposals are made public the committees don’t want to make changes to a document in which they are already heavily invested. Janovy stated that this is the wrong perception. He pointed out that Assistant Vice Chancellor Wilson has asked the committees what is going to be done with all of the input that has been provided. Janovy stated that the input will definitely be taken into consideration but not all of it might be written into the proposals. He reported that he has heard from many faculty members that they do not want to vote on a proposal that could then later be changed. Ledder agreed that once the proposals go out to the colleges they should be very difficult to change. The problem was that the committees seemed very reluctant to consider changes offered in the period between the October open forum and the point at which the proposals were sent to the colleges. Mitchell stated that some changes have been made based on the feedback from a couple of colleges.
Ledder stated that his main concern is that the committees get input on the next two proposals before anything is put into writing. He suggested that some of the ideas of the proposals should be discussed at the open forum so that people can provide their input on them. He pointed out that in order to get someone to vote it helps them to understand the objections to some of the things they may want in the proposals. Controversial issues should be discussed in a public meeting so that the committees know what faculty members think about the issues and faculty members have a change to hear counterarguments to their views.
Moeller stated that suggestions from the faculty members should be introduced at the open forum as well as other issues that the committees want to discuss. Peterson stated that the committees have been thinking about the topics they want to discuss. He stated that an update will be given on what has been happening with the reform. He stated that the hope is to get input on the governance and assessment of the program. He noted that this could be a thorny issue. He stated that there has been discussion about whether there should be two ACE committees and what the makeup of these committees will be. He noted that there is some thought to having one representative from each college with each representative having veto power.
Peterson stated that another question that needs to be addressed with having governance committees is who should be on the committees besides the representatives from the colleges. He noted that the hope is that additions to the committee lists and the governance structure will not require approval from each college curriculum committees.
Moeller asked if the University Curriculum Committee should handle the governance of the program. Peterson stated that this was discussed but there is the thought that there should be a separate committee. The other question is where the committee would be housed. He suggested that the GEPT and GEAC might need to consult with Associate to the Chancellor Howe about the administrative structure of the committees.
Janovy noted that unless every college has a representative with veto power the colleges have given up some of the power over their curriculum but if there is veto power it could be a hostile working mechanism. He noted that the stickler is that the program is campus wide yet each college has power over its curriculum. He stated that if the current general education courses were reviewed there are probably only five or six of them that might cause problems. Ledder agreed that the rule that each college has power over its own curriculum makes it very difficult to get a general education program in place but it speaks well of us that we are trying to do it anyway. He pointed out that the colleges would only need to delegate a very small portion of their rights to the committee in order to deal with the general education program.
Fuess stated that the problem with this open forum is that it had to be done this academic year but it couldn’t be done in April. He pointed out that there clearly needs to be a follow up to the forum after the input has been considered. Woodward stated that the committees are suggesting coming up a list of topics to discuss at the forum.
Ledder stated that one of the things that the committees should try to do is to get a sense if there is a lot of opposition to any particular idea that is presented. He noted that if there is a significant concern from a particular college this will need to be dealt with. He pointed out that without an open forum the committees will be able to estimate the extent of opposition or agreement with some of their ideas. He stated that just getting input from the GEAC is not enough.
Ledder suggested that the Senate could help after the forum by sending out a survey if the committees decide they want more feedback on specific ideas or concerns. Moeller noted that a survey can provide some encouraging data to the committees.
Woodward stated that one of the bigger challenges is how to populate the list of courses. Fuess stated that there is the expedited list which is the list of courses that are commonly accepted by all colleges. Ledder stated that he gets the sense in Arts & Sciences that if there is a proposal that puts a course into the program because it has already been accepted into the current program, the proposal won’t pass. He noted that an issue that has to be addressed is what outcomes the course meets. He pointed out that the current courses in the program were approved because of their content, not student outcomes, so these courses would need to have their outcomes reviewed before anyone could judget them suitable.
Woodward stated that the departments would have to be presented with the contracts to determine whether the current courses would work in the general education program. Mitchell stated that the departments would have to agree that the courses met the criteria of the outcomes. Ledder pointed out that the focus of the reviews does not have to be on the content but just whether it meets the appropriate outcomes.
Janovy reported that on the website is a summary of the March 9th meeting, the draft governance proposal sheet, the draft agreement form. He noted that there has not been much discussion on the department agreement form. He stated that the majority of the courses on the current ES/IS list should come through okay but he acknowledged that some will be questionable.
4.0 Announcements
4.1 Syllabus
Policy
Ledder reported that ASUN was meeting this evening and will be voting on the syllabus policy. He stated that he has added a couple of footnotes to the policy. One clarifies the use of the terms syllabus and course documentation used in the title and content of the policy. The other footnote states “this document is intended to provide guidelines for instructors to follow in communicating to students about their courses. The lack of specific rules for determining course grades is not a valid argument for grade appeals.” He noted that the footnotes can certainly be amended by the Senate at the April 3rd meeting.
5.0 Approval of 3/7/07 Minutes
6.0 Unfinished Business
6.1 Executive
Committee Elections
6.2 Safe Assignment Policy
Flowers stated that he will check with Dean Giesecke to see if the current draft is the final draft that should be presented to the Senate.
6.3 Pound/Howard Award
Moeller reported that she has received more email messages from Professor Bahar. The committee agreed to have Moeller send out a letter explaining the Executive Committee’s decision not to second-guess the Honorary Degrees Committee’s decision.
7.0 New Business
7.1 Report
on March Board of Regents Meeting
The meeting was adjourned at 5:03 p.m. The next meeting of the Executive Committee will be on Wednesday, March 28th at 3:00 pm. The meeting will be held in 201 Canfield Administration. The minutes are respectfully submitted by Karen Griffin, Coordinator and Rick Alloway, Secretary.