Date: March 10, 2006
To: The Academic Community
From: Jennifer Ballengee, Secretary
Subject: March 6, 2006-Meeting of the University Senate
The sixth regular meeting of the University Senate was held on Monday, March 6, 2006 in Rooms 314-315 of the University Union.
" CALL TO ORDER: Prof. Sullivan called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m.
" ROLL CALL: Absent were Senators Cox, Roberge, Tabak, Butler, and Kikenea. Also absent were Vice Presidents Moriarty, Rubin, and Clements.
" APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Prof. Rosecky moved to approve the Agenda; the motion was seconded by Prof. Webster. The Senate voted unanimously to accept the Agenda.
" APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF FEBRUARY, 2006 MEETING: Prof. Rosecky moved to accept the Minutes of the February 6, 2006, Meeting; the motion was seconded by Prof. Storrs. The Senate voted unanimously to accept the Minutes.
" REPORTS OF EX OFFICIO SENATORS
REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT:
The President announced his intention of putting together a small involved group of faculty to work on action items in the Vision 2010 initiative. He is inviting the President of the Senate and the President of the AAUP, the CUSF representative, and the chair of RPAC to serve on the committee. He will probably invite one additional faculty member, most likely a junior faculty member. He'll solicit nominees from those senior faculty who are also serving on the committee.
Pres. Caret then reported current legislative business: There are challenges to the operating and capital budgets. The state wants to trim the whole budget; there's a possibility that there will be trimming to higher education there. Health Benefits is one area in which cuts may occur. They're also discussing a tuition cap, even though students have indicated that they will accept a raise in tuition. In the capital budget, there were 4 or 5 projects that were totally eliminated from USM schools; none of those were Towson's.
There's a new bill called House Bill 364, and a Senate companion Bill 998, that have been proposed by Morgan State University. It realigns how programs will be approved in the future, taking all power away from MHEC and the Board of Regents.
Prof. Vatz: There's no connection between the Business Master's program and Morgan State's introduction of this Bill?
Pres. Caret: MSU wanted to take MHEC to court; barring that possibility, it has introduced this bill. One of the things it says is that you can't approve a program that is already offered in a 35-mile radius of another USM school.
REPORT OF THE PROVOST:
The FY07 budget is well under way; it will be submitted to RPAC and the department of finance next week. The Administration is trying to guess at the budget based on the amount of funds they're anticipating from the State. In order for TU to accommodate the 1000 new students expected next fall, this is a big challenge. There are many search committees this year: TU is hiring 28 new faculty, 13 new staff, and also a number of replacements. There are about 60 searches going on right now in Academic Affairs.
The Provost is almost finished with P and T recommendations, which he'll share with the President in the next few days.
The three major searches that Academic Affairs is conducting presently are for a new Dean of COBE, a new Dean of CLA; those two searches are currently in process. Three finalists are identified in the University library search. The Provost anticipates that all finalists will be run through before Spring Break.
The Provost will then sit with each of the three search committees to discuss the finalists; he'll then review the decisions with the President, and they'll come to a decision. Everything is on course with getting people in place by July 1.
Prof. Vatz: When will tenure decisions be announced?
The Provost responded that the tenure and promotion of Asst. Prof. will be announced by mid-March, particularly if there are negative decisions. The other decisions will be announced about a week later.
REPORT OF VICE PRESIDENT SHEEHAN (ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE)
Vice President Sheehan offered some welcoming remarks to the Senate.
" REPORTS OF OFFICERS OF THE UNIVERSITY SENATE
CUSF REPORT, PROF. SIEGEL:
A tuition cap was discussed at the CUSF Executive Committee meeting. Everyone recognizes that the surplus that the state has from Health Benefits comes from a variety of sources; it's been claimed that faculty and staff of the USM system have not been utilizing their prescription benefits because the prices are so high now. CUSF would like to improve the prescription benefits.
There is a textbook working group getting started; there are three CUSF faculty representatives and student representatives; also representatives from bookstores. There's also a textbook author representative. They will probably use a comprehensive report from the State of Virginia to inform deliberations. She'll send a copy to anyone who wants it.
CUSF has also developed a resolution on Merit Pay [attached]. This document is pretty much a parallel of what CUSF recommended two years ago, which received system support. CUSF is trying to urge University presidents to put away a little bit of money, in order to address salary inequities.
CISF has written letters to legislators asking that support from TIAA-CREF go up.
CUSF is watching legislation on academic freedom. There is a bill now in the House Ways and Means Committee. It's particularly relevant to teaching science. The Reading Bill is also a concern of CUSF; it's back under consideration this year.
The Regents faculty awards have been decided and approved by the board.
Also, CUSF sent a letter to David Nivens (lobbyist and Chair of the Board of Regents) asking that salary be a dashboard indicator for USM institutions [attached].
AAUP REPORT, PROF. MCLUCAS:
The Spring meeting of the Towson AAUP chapter will be held on Wed., March 15, in Linthicum 107, from 3:30-5 p.m.
Issues that have been brought to the AAUP President's attention recently: Salary compression, problems of shared governance, and problems with teaching load documents (the Senate dealt with that last year, and yet there's still confusion across the University; there's not a clear place to go in order to mediate departments teaching load).
There's interest in reviving Committee W, the committee for women in the profession.
Situations have arisen recently involving representatives from outside agencies being placed on faculty search committees. In the CLA, there was a situation in which 12 IDIS directors contacted him to let him know that a search had been launched without their approval. These are serious threats to Shared Governance that the AAUP is committed to addressing.
Prof. McLucas also reported a problem in communication between administrators and faculty. He's gotten between 12 and 20 specific complaints from colleagues about these sorts of issues. He's proposing a forum in which faculty and administrators learn to speak each other's languages. There's a real tension being experienced by faculty who should be getting thanked for their service, but are instead being hassled by administrators.
Pres. Caret responded that he's been on and off the campus for 31 years; he's always prided himself on providing leadership when necessary and also collaboration when it's appropriate. In his role, he continued, he has to make sure that his personal philosophy is the philosophy that guides the campus. He's not ready to determine who's right and who's wrong; sometimes people feel so strongly that they're never going to be happy. In other words, he concluded, the Administration here has respect for faculty dialogue.
Prof. Sullivan reminded the Senate that there is a system of committees to deal with grievances and issues. People should avail themselves of Senate committees, which are facilitated in part by the AAUP.
The reason that the AAUP is a voting member of the Senate, he added, is in order to raise these concerns.
SGA REPORT, SENATOR ACCARDI:
Senator Accardi passed out a list of recent SGA accomplishments and the "What's Up, Doc" newsletter.
Students have gone to Annapolis to discuss things with legislators.
Tigerthon had better attendance than ever. Students have been very involved.
SGA has worked to extend dining halls. One will be open in April-May until 10:30 p.m..
Student Leadership awards are held annually in May, forms are due this Friday.
Prof. Sullivan announced to the Senate that we are going to move to e-mail distribution of minutes and Agendas beginning next month.
Prof. Siegel: Is there a way that we can post the agenda on the Web?
Prof. Sullivan: We'll distribute things electronically and post the agenda on the web.
Prof. Sullivan concluded that it was approved by the Senate to have documents and agenda distributed electronically.
Prof. Sullivan then noted that consistent with what the Senate suggested last year, departments were to create point systems to determine workload, then submit them to Deans for approval, then send them on to the Provost. As far as the Executive Committee is concerned, this is what is happening.
Prof. Rosecky: Speaking for COBE, there was some confusion about whether there was to be a point system for the college or for the department.
The Provost responded that it was delayed because the administration knew that some organizations would be changing their accreditation standards, so COBE was delayed. He has received point systems from all departments in CLA and COFAC, and is currently expecting documents from the Fisher School and CHP. He doesn't expect COBE for another month.
Prof. Rosecky: There are some problems, though, because "intellectual contribution" is a difficult term to define.
Prof. Sullivan: ASCAP is the accrediting body for the college of business and economics. This makes COBE a little bit different.
Prof. Siegel: I'd like to move that the Provost provide a report when all of the programs are in.
The Provost responded that he understood from the Senate policy that he would provide a report.
Prof. Siegel: What is the relationship between Distance Education and workload? Do we have any group on campus working on the principles of that?
The Provost responded affirmatively. Academic Affairs proposed last summer to do 5 pilot projects by which the committee on Distance Learning could assess the variables of distance learning. There are two groups under this committee: one of faculty who are designing these programs. The other is a logistics group working under Jeff Schmidt, dealing with issues like libraries, getting an ID if you've never been to Towson, MD, tuition scale, etc. The pilot programs will be run through DECO. There will be business plans for each of these programs. They're very expensive in terms of personnel time. The administration is working out how to negotiate these costs. TU should be ready to market the five programs by the end of March; they're scheduled to begin in the Fall.
Prof. Siegel: I'm less concerned about these programs, than about the individual courses that faculty may develop within their departments.
Provost Brennan: I was talking about credit-generating courses. They all will go through Curriculum and through the Senate.
He added that the university currently supports 1500 hybrid courses. There's a tremendous amount of faculty energy being exercised in developing those courses. That's an area TU should be looking at more closely.
Prof. Hartzler-Miller: If you received a workload report from the College of Education, it doesn't represent departmental negotiations.
Prof. Sullivan then asked if the policy for reporting workload documents is being enforced. The Provost then listed the colleges that had these documents; COBE was not included. Prof. Hartzler-Miller then noted that departments in COE had actually not been given the opportunity to do this.
Pres. Caret: When I was Provost, we hired a CIO on the academic side, and we hired Dean Dennis Hinkel, because of his interest in distance education, particularly in the K-12 area. We don't have to reinvent the wheel here-we can easily pull this sort of information together. Over 25% of university courses in the nation are online.
Prof. Ballengee: Does that number include for-profit universities?
Pres. Caret: Yes.
This means that Towson's move toward online courses, in as much as it is motivated by this figure of 25%, is modeled in part on for-profit universities. Not coincidentally, legislation (undoubtedly developed by Sally Stroup, former lobbyist and executive for the University of Phoenix conglomerate and current Assistant Secretary of Postsecondary Education) has just been passed removing from universities restrictions like campus and library requirements, facilitating a greater capacity to offer degrees that may be earned entirely online.
The Provost noted that there is a project at University College called Quality Matters, which does assessment in terms of learning outcomes. He then noted that, in terms of learning outcomes, there is no difference perceived between what we do online and what we do in the classroom.
Prof. Little expressed concern about faculty evaluations, particularly about things like office hours. We meet often on e-mail, and phone; yet we're also required to have six hours of office hours.
Prof. Sullivan asked the Provost if he wanted to raise a point of information about Family Studies.
The Provost explained that a request came through CLA that was approved by the department and the Dean and submitted to the Provost. It concerns a name-change for a department in CLA. The Senate reviewed and approved the Department of Family Studies last year. The Department is requesting that it change its name to the Department of Family Studies in Community Development.
Prof. Eskow, chair of Family Studies, explained that the department felt the name didn't fully reflect how much their course materials reflect community service and education.
Prof. Vatz: Does the name change imply a further extension of the curriculum?
Prof. Eskow: It reflects our current curriculum.
Provost: This was run past the College of Health Professions.
The Provost then added a second point of information, which concerns the housing foreign students. TU has had over the past year a few delicate situations in which students are being housed by faculty. Students will need to use all of their resources in order to receive a VISA, so at times they will stay with faculty to help support themselves. There have been two documented cases of sexual harassment and one of exploitation with students in this situation. In all three cases, the administration only found out after the fact. He feels that this is an awful situation to put a student in. After consultation with people in Academic Affairs, the Administration has crafted this policy statement [attached]. This is an important protection that TU can offer to foreign students.
Senator Accardi asked what happened to the guilty faculty member.
Provost Brennan replied that there was no policy to enforce at that time. In addition, i one of the cases, it was difficult to prove, since it was not the faculty member but a member of the family who committed the violation.
" NEW BUSINESS
1. Motion 05/06-25:
Receive Annual Report of University Assessment Committee
(Executive Committee)
The Motion was tabled, since the Senate never received the report.
OLD BUSINESS
1. Discussion Item: Salary and Benefits, Provost's Report
Provost Brennan reminded the Senate that at the last meeting Assoc. Provost Leather talked about a series of issues that are important for discussion as the administration is framing the priorities for Academic Affairs going into the FY07 Budget. What Academic Affairs has attempted to do is identify the issues in six areas, and try to associate a pricetag with them [attached]. First, it seems important to provide some kind of benefits to full-time lecturers. At the present time they're not receiving any benefits at all. The entire package of benefits for FTTT faculty is worth about 35% of the salary that that individual is paid. What they're proposing for lecturers is less than that; it focuses less on retirement and more on health care. TU is a PIN school, and thus cannot give salary benefits without a PIN. Most lecturers are not on PINS; it's unlikely that the state will give us 100 PINS, so TU will need to set up some fund from which the lecturers can draw.
The second item is lecturer salaries. The administration is looking at a payscale that would add increments of $500 or $1000.
The third area is salary compression. It's a complicated issue. It relates to ranks at certain areas. The critical issue of compression targets those younger colleagues who were hired before, during, or at the end of the three year freeze. Compared to more recent hires, they are suffering compression. This refers to faculty who have been here either 8 years or less.
To move Towson salaries to the 85th percentile would cost $1.9 Million.
The Fifth area addresses continuing incremental increases in P/T salary.
The Sixth area is Merit; this was a request made by the Senate at the February meeting. There are a series of questions about what that would mean if TU went to a percent of base or an average merit per faculty.
This whole package represents TUs desire to preserve the kinds of traditional processes that we have all accepted, in terms of the Merit process as it now exists, and not to take away from that. It's going to be a fairly finite pie. Hopefully, it will be bigger than it has been in past years, but it will still be finite. There are a number of issues to address and the administration won't be able to address them all fully. Last year, Salisbury University Senate voted to give a Health Benefit package to lecturers, knowing that it would be at their own expense.
Prof. Siegel: This money would come from our 2.5% merit pool? There's no other pool?
Provost Brennan: That's not clear yet. TU is encouraged to keep the 2.5% merit pool intact. But at the same time, we're going to propose using institutional resources to expand that.
Prof. Vatz: Are you saying that for the lecturers fund, it would or would not constitute a zero-sum game with respect to faculty salary?
Provost Brennan: We don't know. It's a matter of saying that if we decide this is the highest priority, and give lecturers 32% of their salary in a benefit package, we'll have to figure out where the rest of the money is coming from.
Prof. Vatz: For years and years there have been particular interests that come out of faculty salaries, and there's always something claiming a need to come from faculty salaries.
Pres. Caret suggested that if TU receives the full allocation of the budget, there will be a lot of enrollment growth money; there's no reason why the administration couldn't look into allocating some of that money for some of these purposes. The first step is to find out the budget; then determine the parameters within which it can be spent. The third is then to determine how we can spend it.
Provost: But 2.4 million dollars of the enrollment growth money is already gone, because of the new hires.
2. Discussion and Benefits: Salary and Benefits, RPAC Report
Prof. David Vanko (chair of the Research Planning and Advisory Committee [RPAC]) handed out and explained an interim report on RPAC's activities in the last couple of months [attached]. They met in December and January.
The process is going to be that when VP Sheehan sends RPAC his budget allocations, RPAC will hear justifications for the allocations. RPAC tends to look at requests from each place and mark them as priorities, and then provide those recommendations to the VP of Administration and Finance.
Prof. Sullivan noted that each of the colleges has a representative on this committee.
Prof. Siegel raised a Salary Compression question: It seems to her that all of us had our salaries frozen for three years. Assistant Professors get more merit than anyone else. People in the upper ranks haven't had a fair salary in recent years otherwise. Assistant Professors have a better chance to increase their salaries than other professors. (It remained unclear how this is possible.)
She then spoke in defense of health benefits for lecturers: When she was a department chair and had to hire a lecturer, she felt terrible. Those who've been here the longest deserve something, she added.
The Provost noted that staff cannot be held in this contingent position for more than 2 years.
Prof. Leshnoff noted, as someone hired in 2001, that there was no salary increase for three years. Now people are being hired at thousands of dollars more than what those hired in 2001 are making.
Prof. Hartzler-Miller asked for clarification of #2 under budget amounts. She noted that there are two options: it says make sure all lecturers are at least 32,000 and 34,000.
Provost Brennan responded that most of them are at those minimal amounts. One option is that instead of giving everyone $500, the administration would build in a floor that would be required of everyone.
Prof. Leshnoff: Do you recommend that we prioritize these things? When should this be expected?
Prof. Little: Among the 123 lecturers that you mentioned, are there new ones being created?
Provost Brennan: No.
Prof. Vatz: The apparent momentary disagreement between Jonathan and Martha is a synecdoche for what the problem is here. Both of these difficulties are true and valid. We need some time to get information on this, about the history, and about the implications.
Prof. Siegel: Do we have senior lecturers?
Provost Brennan: We have a few. We have about five. On a rare basis, we have taken a lecturer and put them on a PIN in order to give them benefits.
Prof. Sullivan proposed to end the meeting, since it was six o'clock. He noted that Senators should send him e-mails and comments.
Prof. Ballengee: What information do we need?
Prof. Siegel: I have information from all the schools with mean salary by rank for all USM schools. Also helpful would be median salaries, compared with peer institutions, by rank, over the years…
Provost Brennan: Unless you break it down by disciplines, it becomes meaningless.
Prof. Little: I'd like to see that. I'd like to see the allocation of Merit money over the years.
Provost Brennan: There's no way I can do that. And what's the point?
Prof. Sullivan: If we get additional information, we'll move to provide that before the meeting.
Provost Brennan: I think I can get that information by the next meeting.
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