Faculty Caucus Minutes

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

(Approved)

Call to Order

Senate Chairperson called the caucus to order immediately following the Senate meeting.

Approval of Faculty Caucus Minutes of October 24, 2007

Motion: By Senator Kaesberg, seconded by Senator O’Malley, to approve the Faculty Caucus Minutes of October 24, 2007. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Action Item:

Confirmation of Council for Teacher Education Faculty Appointments

Members of the Council for Teacher Education are appointed by the Provost, in consultation with the college deans, and confirmed by the Academic Senate Faculty Caucus. The following list of faculty members was placed before the Caucus for confirmation.

College of Education

Jeff Bakken, SED 2007-08

*Amy Coffman, Lab Schools 2006-09

Patricia Klass, EAF 2007-09

Phyllis Metcalf-Turner, C&I 2007-10

College of Arts and Sciences

Karen Coats, ENG 2007-08

Lisa Huempfner, LLC 2007-10

Bev Rich, Math 2007-10

College of Applied Sciences and Technology

Deb Garrahy, KNR 2007-08

College of Business

*Glenn Bailey, BEA 2005-08

College of Fine Arts

*Wayne Beckner, Art 2006-09

*Late Confirmation; Senate Office not informed of changes to membership.

Motion: By Senator Alferink, seconded by Senator Stewart, to confirm the appointments as a slate.

Senator Kaesberg: How is the representation established?

Senator Holland: The exact composition of the committee membership is in the Blue Book.

Senator Kaesberg: I don’t see a member from the College of Nursing.

Senator Borg: As a point of information, this was a council that was established when this governance system originated. It does contain representation from every college that has an education program, and if there is a nursing education program, it would be appropriate to nominate a faculty member. However, I believe that when the Mennonite College of Nursing was brought into the university, there were virtually no tenured faculty. I can speak from personal experience when I say that we were trying to protect the college from overextending the faculty on the various university committees. If it is now time to review that and there is a need for representation, then that would be an appropriate way to proceed.

Senator Kaesberg: It does indicate in the Blue Book, ‘one faculty member from the College of Nursing’.

Senator Borg: My guess is that the College of Nursing did not have enough faculty to staff all of the committees, so this is one for which they did not provide a representative. I would suggest that you take it to the nursing council and then bring it back to the Senate.

Senator Holland: I have just been informed that there was no nominee from the College of Nursing for this council.

Senator Kaesberg: No nomination for this time? Will we ever have a chance to put forward a nominee?

Senator Borg: Anytime a college forwards a nominee, we can address it.

Senator Kaesberg: I feel certain that there has been an oversight, so I will check into it.

Senator Thompson: Where do the nominees come from? Does the dean make all of the nominations?

Senator Holland: The deans and the Provost.

Senator Kalter: Are there vacancies on the council for any of the colleges?

Senator Holland: Just Nursing.

Senator Thompson: Do you know how many of these individuals are in administrative positions, versus teaching faculty?

Senator Holland: I am not sure; I know that Amy Coffman is the principal at Metcalf.

Senator Thompson: All of the COE nominees are administrators.

Senator Holland: Karen Coats is Director of English Ed. Provost Presley, do you know how many are administrators versus faculty?

Provost Presley: Just on this list?

Senator Holland: Yes.

Provost Presley: I know that three are; there may be more.

Senator Alferink: As a point of information, there is no representative from Milner Library on this list.

Senator Borg: These are appointments to be made; this is not the complete list of committee members.

Senator Holland: There is actually already someone from Milner serving; these are just new appointments.

The appointments were unanimously confirmed by the Faculty Caucus.

Advisory Item:

10.29.07.02 Salary Adjustments for FY09 Promotion In Rank

Provost Presley: This is an effort to keep the Caucus informed about changes in the promotion “bumps”, as they are commonly called. You may remember that this represents the second year of a three-year program. For the next year, FY2010, not the one indicated here, we expect the increase for promotion to remain the same, at $3,000, for assistant to associate. The one for associate to full professor will be $5,000.

This follows in the footsteps of the midyear raise process. This is something that we probably should have been doing all along. The decision was made to do this when I provided the President’s Cabinet with a survey/questionnaire by ASCU, in which it was asked, ‘What are your promotion bumps?” Ours, at that time, were among the lowest. There were few higher than this and the ones that were higher than this tended to be privates. Northeastern, and areas where there is a high cost of living. The $3,000/$5,000 seemed pretty much to be the mode and it was certainly the practice at the majority of institutions that we wanted to compare ourselves to.

Senator Kukla: Recently, hadn’t the promotions from associate to full been $2,000. So, for those of us who are unlucky enough to be in that pool, those midyear bumps don’t help us.

Provost Presley: They should.

Senator Kukla: Really, ok.

Senator Kalter: I think I missed a step in what you said. The sheet here says $4,500. Are you saying that we are on our way to $5,000?

Provost Presley: Yes, in FY10, I expect them to be $5,000.

Adjournment

Motion: By Senator Borg, seconded by Senator Zant, to adjourn. The motion was unanimously approved.