Missouri Association of Faculty Senates

Agenda, Spring 2009

Monday, February 9

Location: Hotel Capital Plaza

4:30 – 5:30Executive Committee (St. Joseph)

5: 30-6:00 Orientation Presentation (St. Joseph)

7:30Dr. Tim Gallimore Assistant Commissioner DHE

  • gave a folder with information important initiative from DHE: MO Coordinated Plan for Higher Ed, LAMP (Learning Assessment in Missouri Postsecondary Education) Update; Curriculum Alignment Initiative Update; Improving Teacher Quality Grant
  • he will tell us where we are on economic stimulus and budget with understanding that we realize it is changing by the minute; DHE was asked to coordinate 15, 20, 25 percent cut scenarios (had to submit their own dept budget using same criteria)
  • these were sky is falling scenarios; governor pulled back with promise of level funding if no tuition/fee increases, lots of questions about how good that promise was given fact that it was based on funding coming from things other than tax revenues
  • DHE is happy that we are not talking about those types of numbers (dept itself has had to submit 5, 10, 15% since governor came in) but issue is still not settled
  • gathering info from institutions to provide to CBHE and legislators regarding financing institutions and assisting students
  • even if stimulus money is infused it will not be there in a couple of years so we all need to prepare for that, state will not be able to provide similar funds when federal dollars end
  • Is not enough money in state revenues to fund what we want to do in higher education now and it is naïve to think they will be able to do so in several years
  • need everyone to come up with new ideas on how to finance higher education: sober thinking, entrepreneurial thinking, out of box thinking, take on more leadership to find alternate funding streams
  • need support from faculty for issues faculty don’t generally concern themselves with; changes that will make a difference in quality and affordability of higher education; think about such things so that overall position of higher education can be improved statewide
  • partner with community, business, community colleges
  • What can you do differently? courses of instruction, more efficient service, better results from students, create something different?
  • how can we make jobs in higher education sector; how can higher education look at itself as a job creating sector, why don’t we try adding faculty members?
  • Need to address what is nature of future student? Displaced workers, workers wanting to improve skills, change careers
  • Higher ed needs to poise itself to morph into something else to meet those needs
  • Other main issue is stimulus package; CBHE will meet about policy issues over budget and student financial aid later this week; seeing proposals to reduce amounts that go to private without increasing amounts going to public
  • What’s in stimulus for students is meager (extra $500 in Pell grants) but overall for institutions it might make a big difference
  • Question re community colleges: Missouri Promise would extend A+ program, DHE is working on draft legislation; he would say don’t be afraid of them but he recommends partner up with them right away
  • Political forces and economic forces have a particular agenda but quality control rests with faculty, CAI is designed to try to fix that, students shouldn’t be leaving one level without preparation for next level
  • Quality must be maintained, thinks current problem is because K12 has not held the line
  • DHE has looked at every line of stimulus package to see where we can fit in terms of improved quality and that is what we should be focused on if transfer students aren’t ready, fail them, weed them out if they are not meeting expectations
  • Is legislature aware of the timing problem? governor does not set budget, and ability to grant waivers does not rest with governor or legislature

Tuesday, February 10

9:00–11:30Legislative visits

1:00 Business Meeting:

Call to Order

Members in Attendance:

Officers: Cheryl Riley, Past President; Michael Cobb, President; and Kathryn Brammall (TSU), Secretary/Treasurer, Brenda Blessing (MWSU), Member-at-Large. Advisory Council members:Paula Kemp (MSU) and Candy Young (TSU). Delegates: Ken Bowman (HSSU), Cheryl Cifelli (MSSU), Pauline Nugent (MSU), Margaret Weaver (MSU), Michael Schulz (MST), Stephanie Chamberlain (SEMO), Rick Althaus (SEMO), James Guffey (TSU), William Wiebold (MU Columbia), David E. Ewing (UCM), and Gerald Kangas (UCM),Guests: David Robinson (AAUP), Otto Fajen (MNEA), Brian Long (COPHE).

Minutes and Budget

  • Minutes accepted

Secretary/Treasurer’s Report

  • Questions regarding is there a way to save money on hotel, particularly banquet, discussion about various alternatives, particularly possibility of moving Oct meeting to different hotel, pointed out that current hotel meal and room rates are good and proximity to Capitol is benefit, other hotel we have used charged much more for room rates and meeting rooms, decision was to stay with current setup

President’s Report

  • Executive committee met by teleconference, mostly just discussed setup for this meeting

Old Business

New Business (set date for Fall meeting)

  • 5-6 October; always first Monday
  • Orientation went well, could we post agenda (or even basic template) online, yes
  • Concern at UCM regarding health insurance, there is some indication that cost of dependent care is preventing hiring young faculty, was a proposal for universities to join state system but UMO opposed it (their plan is better than state system and it isn’t economically sensible for them to join state system), we need to revisit this
  • Consumer Information system: did it go well on various campuses? UCM 16% response rate; TSU don’t know response rate yet but process went smoothly, did it electronically; MSSU used the same evaluation as regular class evaluations so very high response rate, at least 80%

Liaison reports:

AAUP, David Robinson

  • Sent around newsletter and contact information for state and national AAUP; mentioned increased interest from UMSL; also information on what is going on at Mizzou regarding their grievance procedure; also Mizzou AAUP has written to Governor to ask him not to reappoint their current Board of Curator President; boards of governors are a continuing interest for AAUP, these are political appointments but they do have duties to universities
  • Reminded us of their upcoming state meeting (28 February)
  • Questions about summer training institutes, also fall introduction/orientation trips to Washington, national meeting in June
  • Requirement to set up a chapter, 6 members? if you do not have a chapter state conference serves as your chapter and David Robinson is your contact

MNEA, Otto Fajen

  • Public sector collective bargaining: constitutional right but teachers/professors exempted from legislation; have been working with large number of labor groups on various issues; particular sticking point over dispute resolution, different agendas between employers and employees; going to talk to school boards to see if there is a chance to get perhaps “benign neglect” from employers on a bill to remove all exemptions from bill (ie get law to match constitution); Missouri School Teachers Association represent some teachers but are opposed to collective bargaining, he thinks this opposition is curable; removal of exemptions would give us access to established state process (currently covers about 300,000 public sector employees)
  • Currently structure to establish union is driven by employees; 30% of bargaining unit can petition for vote, majority of those voting to necessary to agree
  • Budget: not very far along, House committee has only heard presentation from DESE at this point; absent federal stimulus package this is going to be one of the worst budget years in memory; even a 4% loss may be optimistic: no current indication that major withholds are coming for rest of this year (SEMOs rep seems pretty sure that 3% withholding is likely); revenue gap could be as high as a $1 billion without federal stimulus money
  • Question driving legislative debate: Do we want to use federal stimulus money for ongoing things or just one time expenses? House seems to be favoring latter but it may not be reasonable
  • TABOR (Tax Payer Bill of Rights) another resolution introduced into House last Thursday and being heard this week; appropriations can never grow beyond CPI growth, result is that income tax will be continually reduced to reduce appropriations, very problematic since so many things are already funded so low compared to other states
  • HB227 Human Rights Commission and Discrimination, changes “unfair treatment” to “adverse action”; allows all kinds of mistreatment to be okay because they don’t meet legal definition of “adverse action”
  • HB 191, tax credit bill, concern from some legislators that tax credits are unaccountable back door though which state revenues drop, might be some effort to get accountability structured in during Senate debates
  • to sign up for listserv (low traffic, no discussion just daily news) and newsletter and other information

COPHE, Brian Long

  • budget is big issue, inextricably tied to what is going in Washington, watch stimulus package (ie what strings?) and then State House, Senate, and Governor’s reaction
  • Deal with governor is still out there but governor can’t control house legislature responds
  • If Senate or House enact large cuts, there is the mechanism to get waiver over CPI (currently 0.1%)
  • Cuts to Mizzou extension programs surprised COPHE and they don’t support it
  • governor suggests that the total budget recommended for MU and Lincoln is flat or even slight increase because he has supported Caring for Missouri programs
  • Governor cannot enforce specific internal cuts to Extension so if universities want to protect Extension they can but will have to find cuts elsewhere in the budget
  • Very big concern of his that political capital is gained by legislators for supporting students through scholarships, tuition constraint, etc but there is no political capital in supporting institutions
  • COPHE is trying to convince legislature that supporting institutions is supporting students
  • Access Missouri originally got support from COPHE because we were so low on need based funding, but at that time funding was $30 million but is now being funded at $96 million which has vastly increased funding to private universities
  • Want scholarship program revamped to provide more funding to more students
  • COPHE having a hard time convincing legislators that we lose money on every student we accept so having more students with scholarships totaling half of what it costs to educate them doesn’t work economically for public institutions
  • A+ proposal has all kinds of problems incl not having enough community colleges in all areas and fact that we don’t have universal A+ schools
  • House Subcomittee on Education 18 and 24 February, Chairman wants presidents to come in and testify on 15, 20, 25% budget cuts
  • House is adamant that stimulus money cannot be used for recurring expenses
  • We need to emphasize that the distinction is between the unpalatable and the disastrous, reminder that legislature is looking at closing universities
  • Truman’s president suggested that one way to package stimulus funding is as a bridge: used for recurring but it is “one-time” funding to prepare us for where we will be in 2 years
  • Long thinks we are in for some really rough days in near future and will be all over the media; but he doesn’t think we will end up at 25% cut level, 17-18% still possible
  • What are we doing in Washington: COPHE has not gone but all or almost all institutions have someone in Washington
  • Governing board issue: what’s potentially on the horizon regarding a centralized governing board for all institutions: Shields and Nodler did indicate interest early in session but stepped back from that, stone silence at this point

DHE

Legislative

  • Nothing in addition to other liaison reports

Member Senate reports:

Harris Stowe State University

Lincoln University

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri Southern State University

Missouri State University

Missouri Western State University

Northwest Missouri State University

Southeast Missouri State University

Truman State University

University of Central Missouri

University of Missouri-Columbia

University of Missouri-Kansas City

University of Missouri-St. Louis

  • Please read all these reports at

Determine Nominating Committee (Cheryl Riley, Chair)

Brenda Blessing, Paula Kemp

Adjourn