Faculty Caucus Minutes

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

(Approved)

Call to Order

Senate Chairperson Dan Holland called the meeting to order immediately following the Senate meeting.

Approval of Faculty Caucus Minutes of 4/25/07 and 8/29/07

Motion 1: By Senator Borg, seconded by Senator Kaesberg, to approve the Faculty Caucus Minutes of April 25, 2007 and August 29, 2007. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Information Item:

10.09.07.01 Mid-Year Proposed Salary Enhancement Program (Provost Presley)

Provost Presley: With the approval of the Executive Committee, with an eye toward moving this process along as quickly as possible, I have written a memo to Dan Holland asking for the Faculty Caucus’ endorsement of the third year of the Salary Enhancement Program in order to begin the third mid-year raise project, which, as in the past, is designed to recognize under-recognized long-term merit. The endorsement constitutes a waiver of the ASPT processes so that this mid-year process can be done, as in the past, based on merit and not based on cost of living or across the board raises.

We would like get this process underway and completed before the end of the semester when the DFSCs and CFSCs have difficulty scheduling meetings for themselves as their part of the process and so that the raises can be effective January 1, 2008 without a lot of the machinations that we have done in the past to make it retroactive.

Senator Wang: The whole process would have to be completed before December 15, 2007 in order to go on the January payroll?

Provost Presley: Yes, that is correct.

Senator Wang: So, very soon this process would have to start?

Provost Presley: Yes, the DFSCs and SFSCs would have to begin thinking about it very quickly and Institutional Research and my office have to begin thinking about it very quickly. That process has started.

Senator Wang: When do you think a formal notification will come from your office?

Dr. Kay Moss, Assistant Provost: The timeline, assuming that… (inaudible-not at microphone)

NOTE: Kay Moss’ 10/19/07 e-mail response about the timeline question above: “I sent the email about the timeline to the Deans today, so you could use today's date (for formal notification). The Deans will receive the salary files by November 26, if not before, after preparation of those files by Deb Smitley of Planning and Institutional Research. It is intended that midyear raises be received in the January paychecks.”

Senator Fazel: In our Planning and Finance Committee meeting this evening, we did discuss the implementation of this program. Although we appreciate the fact that we have this process in place and that the university cares about faculty salaries, there were a few suggestions and ideas that were brought up and we will need more time to discuss those and come up with recommendations. The issue that we thought we could discuss tonight was how the funds should be divided. Who should be getting this money? What do we mean by merit? From our discussion, it came to light that different colleges interpret merit very differently and in some situations, it is defined as the top performers and who are already paid the biggest raises during the regular raise period, who also get the biggest raises during this process because it is only based on merit. There is not much attention paid to how far faculty are behind medians or averages of comparative institutions.

Provost Presley: I don’t know how you can possibly say that.

Senator Fazel: In some of the colleges, that has happened.

Provost Presley: I can give facts and figures about how many people get what size raise and I don’t see the facts and figures backing up what you are saying. I don’t know that the Faculty Caucus wants to demand a standardized approach to merit, for one, and I don’t see how you can say that since the entire reason for the existence of this process is to deal with salaries that are lagging behind the median. All of the information that is given to the deans and to the CFSCs is on a huge spreadsheet that has nothing on it except that. They are looking at everyone’s salary as a percentage of the median for their rank and their discipline across the country. That is what the recommendations of the DFSCs and SFSCs are mapped on to. So, frankly, I don’t know how to react to that observation.

Senator Fazel: The DFSC has said that the college asks it to forward three to five names of the top performers in a department. Everyone else would get one percent, but those top performers would get the bulk of it. I asked if there was any attention paid to how far people are behind the medians for their disciplines and they said, ‘no, that is not what we were asked for.’

What you are saying is exactly how I thought the process was supposed to work when we discussed this in the first year in the caucus. I think that faculty agree that we do not want to reward people who do not perform, but performance, at the same time, is not defined as the source. I do remember that we discussed that this money is not for superstars. This is for people who have been performing meritoriously in the long run and who are way behind in terms of medians or averages. I thought we came up with an agreement about that, but in practice, apparently, that is not happening in every unit.

Provost Presley: It is entirely a matter of the Faculty Senate if they wish to redefine merit for the purpose of this exercise.

Senator Holland: I am not sure that anyone in particular wants the Senate dictating what merit means. I think that this came back to part of the other discussion that we were having this evening about the difference between average and median. From what you are saying, the vast majority got one percent, a few people were in the five to six percent range and that gave you an overall average of 1.9%; but, if you looked at the median, it is somewhere around one percent.

Provost Presley: 1.9%.

Senator Holland: That is the average, though.

Provost Presley: Do you have the median figure in front of you?

Senator Holland: No, I have no idea. May I speak for the committee for a moment? I think what we thought would be a very good thing was for the Provost’s Office to communicate again to the deans that the goal of this is not necessarily rewarding superstars, but to reward meritorious performance, and what merit means is still up to the departments. Because we have so many new chairs this year and this is the first time they are going to do this, they really need to hear either from your office or from the dean as to what they are really supposed to be trying to do.

Provost Presley: Yes, we have new deans and new department chairs and it is difficult. The ASPT process, which I am asking you to waive, is extraordinarily voluble on this subject. There are a lot of rules to follow and it is difficult to do this in a uniform way and to respect the various procedures that are already in place in the colleges. What I was insistent upon from day one with this was that the DFSCs and CFSCs be involved. I wanted them to have input, as did the deans. We have done massive analyses of how this has been done. There is a lot of data that is available about this and I would be happy to share that and to continue to share it and to listen to issues about fine tuning this.

Senator Klitzing: I am also appreciative of the program. I think all us appreciate comparison to other means. Are the directions given to the SFSCs comparable to those given to the deans? Having sat on an SFSC, I know that very few people went out on our list. Our discussions primarily were on merit and about the ones who had scored very highly. When it got to the dean’s office, I believe that there is another layering that perhaps those of us who work on an SFSC may not have known about as far as it might include compression and inversion. So, are there different directions given?

Provost Presley: No, all that I have asked from the SFSCs and DFSCs is that they forward ranked names of faculty members who have demonstrated significant and consistent merit over the last five years. I don’t place any numerical limit on that. It varies with the cultures of the units. In some colleges, the CFSC sits down with the dean and goes over this; in other colleges, the dean does it after the input from the DFSC. So, there is variation there and it is me trying to respect the variations in the cultures and processes in the colleges.

Senator Poole: In the College of Education, the DFSC’s charge was to rank people from most deserving of consideration to those who were least deserving. It seems to me like discussions of percentages are not that helpful if one of the reasons to do this is to address issues of compression. If you have two faculty members who have been strong, long-term meritorious performers and there is a discrepancy because one person started out lower or because someone’s best year was a year that there was less raise money, it would make sense to me that someone could get a 6.9% raise, though they were not necessarily the highest paid faculty member of the group. So, percentages don’t help me to understand what has happened.

Provost Presley: I can tell you the high raise, the low raise and virtually everything, except what everyone received. In the College of Business, where the compression issues are the worst across campus, there was probably a low raise percentage there. I have not given absolutely uniform instructions to the deans

When the deans sit down and look at the spreadsheet that they operate from, the name of every single faculty member in every single unit is there, together with an individualized analysis of that person’s years in rank and that person’s degree to which they exceed or fall below the mean for their discipline across the country. So, they are looking at a spreadsheet with everyone’s name on it with that input about merit from the DFSCs. It also has recommendations on there about the amount available. There are all kinds of recommendations included that are purely mathematical about moving the person toward the mean with the amount available. There is a lot of attention paid to that, but the merit issues are mapped on to that.

Senator Klitzing: So if from the SFSC or DFSC, there were 20 faculty and five faculty come out of that based on merit, averages or what have you, does the dean have all 20 of them? How do those five, based on the interpretation of the SFSCs or DFSCs, map then onto this grid that you are talking about?

Provost Presley: They get more money; it boils down to that.

Senator Klitzing: So, other people that may not come out would get some money, but the others are getting the bulk of the money?

Provost Presley: Every time this issue has come up before the Faculty Caucus, I have reminded you with exactly this kind of observation. The goal of this has been to reward merit, to move the averages closer and to move individual salaries, where merit is demonstrated, higher, obviously, which is something that you can’t help but do. But the goal would be met if, for example, we gave all of the money available to Dan Holland, because that would raise the average by exactly the aggregate percentage that we have available. No one wants to do that. Very few deans want to give raises to a few people; they give raises to almost everyone.

Senator Alferink: With respect to the issues that the Planning and Finance Committee raised, I wonder if some confusion is caused if the language that is in the second to the last paragraph of your memo goes to the colleges and to the departments. In particular, in the last line, it reads, “demonstrated significant and consistent merit that may have been insufficiently rewarded." I don’t have a problem with those with greater merit getting more money if they are not sufficiently rewarded, but maybe it would be better to not to put that out front as much and maybe just say “consistent merit that has been insufficiently rewarded consistent with their accomplishments”. In other words, what you are really worried about is making sure that merit is recognized and that the raises that occur are consistent with their achievements over time.

Provost Presley: Yes, that is a constant concern. That is the reason that I look over every sheet to try to do exactly that. I am happy to change a couple of words there, but I don’t think that it will have one ounce of an effect on the operations of an SFSC. They do what they do; their ideas of merit are what they are. If you direct me to change that word, I will.

Senator Ellerton: Sometimes, I think it is recognized that the issues of salary of compression and inversion have arisen for historic reasons, not because of bad performance over particular periods. Just from some of the conversation, it can almost be implied that there was not enough reward at certain times and, therefore, that is why inversion happened. While that could be the case, it would be nice to have a word about, “for historic reasons”, or something in there about inversion.

Provost Presley: Since this is an Executive Session, I hope….

NOTE: Executive Session was not called at the beginning of the discussion. However, a section of the minutes will be recorded as closed minutes, unless otherwise directed by the Faculty Caucus. Executive Session minutes are not available for review to anyone outside of the Faculty Caucus.

Executive Session (Closed Minutes Section Deleted)

Open Session Continued:

Motion 2: By Senator Borg, seconded by Senator Zhang, to endorse the procedure for the mid-year salary increase process for the year.

Senator Fazel: I would just appreciate it if that point were clarified for the deans; otherwise, everybody supports this proposal.

Senator Holland: I think it is a good idea to reinforce this to the deans and the new chairs.

Provost Presley: That is a very good idea; we have new chairs who have not been on this campus long enough to have gone through this process.

Vote On Motion 2: The motion to endorse the mid-year salary enhancement program was unanimously approved by the Faculty Caucus.

Action Items:

University Curriculum Committee Faculty Election

Ramaswamy Radakrishnan of the College of Business was elected by acclamation by the Faculty Caucus to the University Curriculum Committee for the term of 2007-10.

Parking Board Faculty Election

Jeff Bakken, SED, was elected by acclamation by the Faculty Caucus to the Parking and Transportation Advisory Board for the term of 2007-10.

Communications:

08.30.07.01 Schedule for Administrative Summative Evaluations (Provost Presley)

Senator Holland: We have one communication item. It is a schedule of when various deans and chairs will be evaluated.

Provost Presley: You will notice that there is a very light schedule this year. There is one person on the list whose evaluation schedule may be in error, which I just noticed. That is the date for Rick Boser; it seems to be a little out of whack with the other people who are in that column. I will let you know if that has to be corrected.

Adjournment

Motion 3: By Senator Stewart, second by Senator Thompson, to adjourn. The motion was unanimously approved.