August 25, 2006

Meeting of the Faculty Alliance

Friday August 25, 2006, 1:00pm-3:00pm

Carter Conference Room 204, Butrovich Building, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Draft Minutes

1. Call to order and roll call

Members Present:

Shirish Patil, Chair of the Faculty Alliance and President, UAF Faculty Senate

Cathy Connor, Chair-Elect, UAS Faculty Senate

Chuck Craig, Chair, UAS Faculty Senate

Jon Genetti, President-Elect, UAF Faculty Senate

Bogdan Hoanca, 1^st Vice President, UAA Faculty Senate

Paul Layer, Past President, UAF Faculty Senate

Kerri Morris, President, UAA Faculty Senate

Tim Hinterberger, Past President and Current Representative,

Graduate Affairs Board, UAA Faculty Senate

Lynn Shepherd, Past Chair, Faculty Alliance and UAS Faculty Senate

Others present:

Pat Ivey, Executive Officer, System Governance

Ted Kassier, Senior Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs

Dave Veazey, Assistant Vice President, Academic Affairs

2. Adopt Agenda

MOTION: passed without objection

“The Faculty Alliance moves to adopt the agenda for the August 25, 2006 meeting. This action is effective August 25, 2006.”

3. Approve April 28 and May 12, 2006 minutes

http://gov.alaska.edu/Faculty/Minutes/2006/04-28.html

http://gov.alaska.edu/Faculty/Minutes/2006/05-12.html

MOTION: passed without objection

“The Faculty Alliance moves to approve the April 28, 2006 and May 12, 2006 minutes as amended. This action is effective August 25, 2006.”

4. Reflections on Alliance Meeting with Executives

Shirish Patil recommended that the Alliance wait until late September to see if we really need a retreat with President Hamilton in October. There is still the issue of how the Alliance can get the faculty representatives on the Distance Education Steering Board to report to the Alliance.

Ted Kassier thought the discussion with executives and the Alliance was good today. Meetings like this help move discussions in a positive direction.

Dave Veazey said the Alliance asked how administration and faculty/academic issues intersect and how do we deal with that. His experience is that every year, communication between administration and the Alliance has gotten better and that everyone involved can appreciate the creative tension between the two while at the same time moving toward a common goal. The important thing is to identify common issues that administration and the Alliance can work on together and establish a collaborative approach rather than the Alliance just having a check box where issues have to be sent to the Alliance before they are implemented.

Paul Layer said that last year, the Alliance was told it was an impediment to change by several people at the Alliance retreat. Even to acknowledge that the Alliance has a checkbox is a step forward.

Patil urged administration to give the Alliance as much notice as they can. The Alliance knows that sometimes things have to come at the very last minute but that should not have to happen on every single issue.

Lynn Shepherd said that last year on two separate occasions, faculty retirement action items were distributed to the Alliance just before going to the Board, and when she tried to give information to the Board that the Board asked for, she was stopped by administration. Shepherd strongly urged that faculty and academic issues requiring Alliance action before going to the Board of Regents go to the Alliance at least one month in advance.

5. New Business

5.1 National Accountability Standards

http://gov.alaska.edu/faculty/2006-07-06.national-accountability-agreement.pdf

Ted Kassier said that accountability is a key issue on the national table, and the university needs to be taking account of it in general terms.

Patil said that faculty need to work with K-12 so that the university and its faculty are not blamed because the students don’t succeed because the students came into the university from K12 unprepared.

Elements that university advocates need to measure are different than what other entities want to measure for accountability. Different stakeholders have different ideas of what needs to be measured.

There is a significant need for resources to be put into the hands of faculty to implement and meet some of the accountability standards. More and more things are being added to the faculty workload that must all be accomplished within a 30 unit workload, regardless of the amount of work it takes. Accountability on the faculty side keeps increasing and it must all be compressed within a 30 unit workload somehow. In order for faculty to appropriately advise students and get involved in developmental education and student readiness, the university has to allow release time to do these things. Otherwise, the effectiveness of the entire process is in jeopardy.

This institution is thinly staffed in terms of faculty and the institution itself feels the increased pressure for accountability. That’s why the university needs to add positions to respond to all of these increase expectations and pressures that are being placed on the institution from outside.

The statewide budget has exploded and yet the university does not have the faculty to do the work. Morris has experienced constant negativity with respect to how faculty are treated and wants to see respect verbally and in writing and in recognition. Change has to come from both sides.

At this point, the national accountability reports is an item of information and no action is required. At the same time, faculty should continue to participate in the development of accountability measures and in determining what should be measured.

UAF and UAA processes for faculty evaluation of administrators will be shared among Alliance members.

5.2 Employee Appreciation Program

Public affairs director Kate Ripley is heading up an employee appreciation program to increase public awareness of the university as an employer; that the university has 8,000 faculty staff and student workers and they are the reason the university is successful. The thought is to start small. Ripley has received $30,000 from Conoco/BP for this for spots on public radio to start. She wants governance buy-in before proceeding and would like one or two faculty to sit on a subcommittee to shape the program. Alliance members should contact Ripley with recommendations on faculty to serve. Nancy Andes from the office of community engagement at UAA was suggested. Lauren Bruce was also suggested as was Joy Morrison.

5.3 Draft Governance Regulation

http://gov.alaska.edu/staff/2006-08-15.governancereg.pdf

MOTION: passed without objection

“The Faculty Alliance moves to amend Section E.1 back to “It is the responsibility of the Faculty Alliance to represent the university faculty senates in areas…” This action is effective August 25, 2006.”

5.4 Review 2006-2007 Alliance Calendar

http://gov.alaska.edu/Faculty/calendar/default.html

The Alliance calendar was reviewed. Meetings are scheduled as follows for the balance of the year.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006, 8:00am-9:30am
Wednesday, October 18, 2006, President's Retreat, Fairbanks Wednesday, November 15, 2006, 8:00am-9:30am
Wednesday, December 13, 2006, 8:00am-9:30am
Wednesday, January 24, 2007, 8:00am-9:30am
Wednesday, February 21, 2007, 8:00am-9:30am
Wednesday, March 21, 2007, 8:00am-9:30am
Wednesday, April 18, 2007, 8:00am-9:30am
Wednesday, May 9, 2007, 8:00am-9:30am

5.5 Committee and Council Assignments

Systemwide Academic Council

Sharish Patil will serve as Alliance liaison.

Bogdan Hoanca will serve as Alliance alternate.

Research Advisory Council

Paul Layer will continue as Alliance liaison for RAC.

Tim Hinterberger will continue to serve as alternate.

Student Services Council

Kerri Morris will serve as Alliance liason to the Student Services Council

Chuck Craig will serve as alternate.

Information Technology Council

Jon Genetti will serve as Alliance liaison to ITC.

Bogdan Hoanca will serve as alternate.

Educational Technology Team

Steve Hamilton will continue serving as Alliance liaison to ETT

Lynn Shepherd will serve as alternate.

Business Council

Cathy Connor will serve as Alliance liaison to the Business Council

Paul Layer will serve as alternate.

Human Resources Council

Bogdan Hoanca will serve as Alliance liaison to HRC

Tim Hinterberger will serve as alternate

Retirement Committee

Lynn Shepherd will serve as Alliance liaison to the Retirement Committee.

Jon Genetti will serve as alternate

5.6 Outline Major Alliance Issues 2006-2007

The major Alliance goal for the year is student success and working with K-12 so future students are prepared to work and succeed at the university level.

5.7 Other New Business

PBB Measures for Outreach Activities

This PBB measure was supposed to deal with how faculty are engaged in reaching out to communities, what boards do they serve on, what advisory committees do they serve on, how do they reach out to K12, what are they doing throughout the state. If that gets underway, Nancy Andes from the office of community engagement at UAA should be part of this.

6. Old Business

6.1 Electronic faculty workload

www.alaska.edu/swacad/efar

The name has been changed to “the electronic faculty reporting system.”

6.2 VPAA position

Sharish Patil has been asked to chair the search committee. Betty Hasler, of the executive search firm  of Hodge, Niederer and Cariani will be coordinating search efforts.  Hasler also headed up the searches that resulted in the hiring of President Hamilton and chancellors Maimon and Jones. in Anchorage.  Search committee members will also include two additional faculty from each campus, system executives Jim Johnsen and Wendy Redman UAA Dean Tom Case and Provost Michael Driscoll, Buck Sharpton and Bernice Joseph from UAF;  Jeff Johnston Sitka for UAS; Stepp for staff Alliance and one Coalition member.  Will share Alliance draft as starting point.  Betsy will develop the comprehensive job description.  Nov-Dec hope to have 8-10 semi finalists to interview by audio or video and finalists by January, campus visits in February.

6.3 Other old business

There was no other old business.

7. Reports

7.1 Systemwide Academic Council

http://www.alaska.edu/swacad/sac.htm - see especially “SAC Info”

Academic Planning

http://www.alaska.edu/swacad/planning/

Meetings

http://www.alaska.edu/swacad/files/minutes/SACminutes5-9-06.pdf

http://www.alaska.edu/swacad/files/minutes/SACminutes7-5-06.pdf

http://www.alaska.edu/swacad/files/minutes/SACminutes7-27-06.pdf

http://www.alaska.edu/swacad/files/minutes/SACminutes8-15-06.pdf

In the July 7 memo from Craig Dorman on student success, the first boldface statement was EACH MAUL WILL INSTITUTE MANDATORY TESTING….in addition, MAUs will increase the scope of their testing…

Shepherd said there is a crying need for advising at the program level. There is constant turnover in advising center. The advising center is too much at a distance from the programs to give adequate advice. Program people say hardest to fit into schedule is advising and marketing. People are needed to help faculty in those areas, get them up to speed, or obtain get faculty release to keep the 36 percent of students.

Two years ago, UAA faculty senate disapproved mandatory testing. Any mandatory testing must go back through the senates for action prior to implementations. Campuses have to figure out how to meet Craig’s mandate.

If money for development education is at the statewide level, then why not money for advising?

7.2 Business Council

http://www.alaska.edu/faculty/2006-08-16.bc-agenda.html

http://www.alaska.edu/faculty/2006-08-16.ACAS-projects.pdf

http://www.alaska.edu/swoir/publications/missionsmeasures/mmindex.xml

http://www.alaska.edu/swbudget/pm/details.xml

7.3 Human Resources Council

No report was given.

7.4 Retirement Committee

http://gov.alaska.edu/faculty/2006-06-29.Retirement-Committee.pdf

No report was given.

7.5 ETT/DESB