General
Faculty Meeting Speech, Thursday,
January 6, 2000
by
Stella Anderson, Faculty Senate Chairperson
Welcome. I
want to cover several current Senate
issues in some detail and also
provide a brief update on a couple of
the issues addressed in our Fall meeting.
Andy Koch, Vice-Chair of the Senate will
follow with information on upcoming faculty
elections. Please note that we
will then open the meeting for questions
and comments.
I want to begin
by covering some key changes in the Faculty Handbook. Last semester
a question arose concerning the legal status of our Faculty
Handbook. I think most of us have always assumed that the Handbook was
a legally binding document. However, the Board of Trustees asked that
our contract letters explicitly reference the Faculty Handbook, in
its entirety, as part of our employment contract. It is important
that faculty recognize that this change means that the Handbook is
a legally binding document for all involved parties, establishing the rights
and responsibilities of all involved parties.
As such, the
Senate has the responsibility of ensuring that the policies and procedures
contained in the Handbook truly reflect the values
of an academic community, as well as mutually agreed upon minimum standards and
procedures. The Senate has, for some time, been working, along with
the Office of Academic Affairs, on a comprehensive set of revisions to the
existing Handbook. It
is our goal that these revisions will receive approval from the BOT in March
and the BOG by the end of the term. At that point, these changes would
go into effect -- the Handbook would then be accessed from the webpage
until printed copies are available. Until that time, please note that
the 1989 printed copy of the Handbook, by and large, remains in effect. There
have been some changes made that are in effect -- you should have notices of
these changes from the Office of Academic Affairs. In the interim,
if you have any questions about current policy or procedure, please contact
us.
Along these lines,
the Senate has recently asked for an important addition to the Handbook,
that is, a statement on Parental Leave benefits. We
believe that the Handbook should make explicit past practice and what
has been informal policy. Dr. Durham supports such leave, and faculty who
have requested such leave have been given a semester of leave, with pay. He
has then provided the funds for the department to hire someone to teach in
that person's absence. While this has been past practice, our goal is to
have a formal, written policy that establishes a minimum standard leave that
faculty do not have to negotiate.
I want to turn now to
the issue of faculty workload. Last semester the Senate asked for a reduction in mandatory office hours and a standard,
maximum 9-hour teaching load. Both of these proposals involved changes
in the existing policy statements in the Handbook. Dr. Durham has indicated
that he does not support the Senate's proposal on office hours and that he will recommend
that the Chancellor not support the proposal. The standard 9-hour
teaching load remains an open question.
As a result of raising
these issues, discussions quickly became focused on the larger issue of total
faculty workload. We approached the
Council of Chairs and they have agreed to work on a joint committee on faculty
workload. This committee is charged with examining any and all policies
that affect workload. This is not a study of workload - we already know that
overall workload is a problem. Indeed, the recently completed Faculty
Quality of Life study attests to the overload issue. Any number of recommendations
may emerge - we sincerely hope that, in the end, faculty will have a more
realistic, manageable workload.
In addition to the
workload issue, we are concerned about the existing grievance procedures. As I mentioned in my remarks at the Fall meeting,
the General Administration, in response to faculty concerns, established a
Task Force on Internal Dispute Resolution. Dick Robinson, in appointing
this task force, said:
"At some locations the programs
apparently work well, to the mutual satisfaction of
faculty and administration, as evidenced
by the fact that usually the faculty hearing
committees and administrators agree on
the proper disposition of charges or
complaints and there are few appeals
from final administrative decisions to the
boards of trustees and the Board of Governors. But
at other locations it appears that there is a high level of dissatisfaction,
as attested by frequent disagreements between faculty hearing committees
and administrators and numerous appeals to governing boards."
Unfortunately, our experience
has been such that we are in the latter group. As
an update, at the November 19 Faculty Assembly meeting, the Assembly asked
that the Task Force adopt the following principle:
"In accordance with the 1966 joint statement
on university governance of the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing
Boards of Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of University
Professors, 'The governing board [board of trustees] and president [Chancellor]
should, on questions of faculty status, as in other matters where the
faculty has primary responsibilities, concur with the faculty judgment except in
rare instances and for compelling reasons
which should be communicated in detail.'"
This statement operationalizes
an important principle of shared governance. The aforementioned
principle gives deference to the findings, conclusions and recommendations of faculty grievance committees. This
should be a guiding principle for our grievance system. Unfortunately, in
our case, rather than embracing this principle, the competence of the members of
the Grievance Hearing committee has been questioned. This, however, is extremely
difficult to defend since committee competence is only questioned when the committee
finds for the faculty member.
This is, in many
ways, a sad commentary. Nevertheless, that is where we are at this point in time. This is not a small matter - these
procedures are there to protect
all of us. We must have a system that is seen
as fair, just and effective. As a community of scholars we are supposed
to have this kind of self-regulating system. In the absence of
deference for the faculty committee's findings and recommendations, we
need to seriously consider the value of outside binding arbitration as
an alternative means of resolving any case in which the Chancellor fails
to concur with the Faculty Hearing committee.
Finally,
last but not least, I want faculty to be aware of some issues related
to the academic salary budget. We are concerned that a significant
portion of money allocated by the State for salaries for Regular
Term Instruction is being used to pay salaries associated with a
number of different, non-teaching positions.
Faculty should
note that the university receives State appropriated funds for each teaching position, with the number of positions determined
on the basis of Student Credit Hours generated. In fact, the State
expects that only personnel directly involved in classroom instruction are paid from
these particular funds. More importantly, our ability to provide
needed classes and manage teaching loads is restricted when these funds
are required to cover non-teaching positions.
The Senate
has asked for a long-range plan to move all salaries of persons not teaching at least 1/2 time to more appropriate categories. Further,
we have asked that salary money that is recovered in this process should
then be applied to reducing course loads for faculty such that we achieve
a maximum, 9-hour load (or equivalent).
Dr. Durham
has already indicated his willingness to work on this issue. Let
me give you one example of the impact of this issue. It
has been the case that approximately $800,000 from the academic salary budget has
covered several coaching and development officer positions. This is down
from over $1 Million in coaching positions alone. An additional $300,000
reduction is expected in the next year as a result of a small portion (that
is $25) of the recent student fee increase.
It is important to recognize that $800,000 from the instructional
salary budget equates to 14, if not 15, full-time faculty positions. And,
unfortunately, this example only reflects a part of the problem - too many other
non-teaching positions are currently being funded from the instructional
salary budget.
These positions have,
for some time, been funded with instructional salary money - without doubt it will take some time to acquire back the
appropriate money to support classroom instruction. That is why the Senate
believes that we must develop a long-range plan to accomplish this goal. We
appreciate the efforts of Dr. Durham and others in addressing this issue. We must make
progress in this area a priority if we want to maintain the integrity of
the academic salary funds.
