Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes
October 9, 2014, 3:10 P.M. Skaggs Building, Room 169

Call to Order –roll call
Chair Lodmell called the meeting to order at 3:10 p.m.
The Interim Registrar Joe Hickman called roll.

Members Present: B. Allred, L. Ametsbichler, J. Bardsley, A. Becker, T. Beed, A. Belcourt, B. Borrie, S. Bradford, M. Brooke, J. Bunch, A. Carpoca, J. Cavanaugh, J. Carter, A. Chatterjee, T. Crawford, J. DeBoer, M. DeGrandpre, H. Eggert, D. Erickson, L. Frey, E. Gagliardi, S. Galipeau,L. Gillison, J. Glendening, S. Gordon, M. Hamon, K. Harris, L. Hart-Paulson, S. Hines, W. Holben, M. Horejsi, L. Howell, U. Kamp, H. Kim, A. Kinney, C. Kirkpatrick, C. Knight, R. LaPier, A. Larson, B. Larson, G. Larson, J. Laskin, B. Layton, S. Lodmell, P.Lucas, M. Mayor, M. McGuirl, M. Nielson, M. Raymond, S. Richter, S. Shen, D. Shepherd, D. Sherman, S. Stan, K. Swift, A. Szalda-Petree, S. Tillerman, E. Uchimoto, R. Vanita, N. Vonessen, A. Ware, K. Zoellner
Members Excused: M. Bowman, L. Gray, D. MacDonald, J. Montauban, J. Sears, D. Schuldberg

Members Absent: J. Banville, T. Crowford, M. Kia, C. Palmer, A. Sondag, K. Wu
Ex-Officio Present: President Engstrom, Provost Brown, Interim Associate Provost Lindsay

Guests: Clay Christian- Commissioner of Higher Education, Lucy France- UM Legal Counsel


Minutes: the minutes from September 11th and September 25th were approved.

Communications:

The meeting began with the UM minute.

·  President Engstrom
President Engstrom congratulated Professor Belcourt on her Harvard Fellowship and recognized Professor Rosenzwieg’s NASA Grant.
President Engstrom introduced Commissioner Christian and provided some background information. The Montana University System is governed by the Board of Regents (7 members appointed by the Governor). The Board has a professional staff in Helena, the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education (OCHE). Clayton Christian has held the Position of the Commissioner of Higher Education for three years. He was a member and Chair of the Board of Regents before accepting the Commissioner position. It is very unusual for a Board Member to become Commissioner. He is a graduate of UM and has been a great advocate for the University. He also has several family members who have graduated from UM or are current students.

·  Commissioner Clayton Christian
Commissioner Christian shared a few thoughts regarding what is going on in the system from the Board and his perspective, then opened the floor for questions.
Montana Board of Regents and the Commissioner’s Office are focused on three priorities included in the Strategic Plan with the goal of quality student success: 1) Access and Affordability, 2) Economic Development, and 3) Efficiency in the System Legislators over the past few years to develop a College Affordability Plan (CAP) which has had the effect of holding tuition for Montana about the lowest in any state of the nation over the past 8 years. This plan has not held expenses down. There has been growth both in enrollment and budget, which is apparent in the increased MUS system budget from $980 Million to $1.5 Billion over the past 10 years. The Board has been trying to improve the state contribution to the system’s budget. Other initiatives in this area are time-to-degree, retention, completion, dual credit, and developmental education reform (such as Ed-Ready).


With regard to Economic Development OCHE has been active in acquiring collaborative, consortium grants. The System was awarded the Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) 3 and TAACCCT 4 grants, which will ultimately do good things in Montana. We are working hard to put together a research initiative in hopes of driving new investment from the State into the research sector of the University enterprise. The Initiative would tie into the Governor’s Main Street Montana project. The MUS System is one of the most efficient systems in the country. This is both a topic of pride and concern. The Board needs to assure the University is provided with the resources necessary to maintain quality. Performance funding and the long range building plan legislative initiatives are included in this area.

The top priority for the legislative session is a comprehensive pay plan for the system. Tuition cap will probably be a part of this. Sometimes this is equated to an overall freeze, but that is not the case. Expenditures have not been capped. Commissioner Christian showed a few slides that showed the trend in state appropriations since 1992. During the tuition freeze era, the state contributed more funding. The highest state appropriations have occurred in the CAP (full tuition freeze) years. This year will be the highest state appropriation at 39%. Tuition dollars are obviously tied to enrollment. Other components of the legislative session include present-law-adjustments and long term building plan with an emphasis on deferred maintenance. The Clapp Building and Music Building are high on this planning list.

Questions
Senator comment: We rely on our quality adjunct faculty, but they usually do not benefit from negotiated increases or merit increments in pay plan negotiations. Christian: The separate pay plan for adjunct faculty is a Board choice. The current approach has been an increase across the board and then creating a pool for recruitment and retention. This is a tough issue, because there are not enough resources to fix all the problems. There is no intent to leave any employee category out of the pay plan. The Board is very committed to finding all the resources it can. In the last session the Legislature provided funding for about a 1.4% salary increase, ultimately the increase was a 2.9% with the creation of a recruitment and retention pool. The Board reallocated funds to be as fair as possible. The Board understands that the faculty, staff, and administrators are the greatest assets of the institutions. If we don’t properly fund salaries or can’t recruit and retain them there will be stagnation. The pool does not go a long way to addressing Montana’s low salary rankings. There has been some headway, we were ranked 51 out of 50 in salary level, and are now ranked in the mid-40s. We have a long way to go with regard to compensation.

Mayer: In terms of the legislative agenda what priority are you giving to equalizing the state contribution to TIAA-CREF? Over the last couple of legislative sessions there has been a lot of money put into the states teacher’s retirement system (TRS), which has widened the disparity between the two retirement systems.


Christian: This item is included with compensation and is the top priority in lobbying efforts. There’s some cynicism regarding this issue because the university made the deliberate choice to move from TRS to the ORP. OCHE continues to argue that this shouldn’t change the state’s contribution. At the system level this is viewed as a huge barrier to recruitment and retention. It is a significant challenge.

Chair Lodmell: The shrinking state contribution country wide parallels increase burden of student loan debt. Presumably the anticipated accumulation of debt is a deterrent for people to engage with higher education. In addition Montana is facing a significant shortage of individuals with post-secondary education in the workforce. Could the State strategically work on the problem of reducing students anticipated debt to arrive at Complete Montana Goals?

Christian: Tuition has risen significantly in many parts of the country but it has not in Montana. The overall cost of education hasn’t grown any faster than the consumer price index. What has grown is the portion the student is paying. This is the result of a funding switch from state paying 80% to 40%. That funding has been absorbed by students. This can be a deterrent for families, they are interested in value. He is not convinced that this correlates with student debt. Student debt is a significant issue that OCHE is tracking and working on. His personal feeling is that the huge rise in student debt has a lot to do with the Government raising the debt level. Borrowing has more to do with human behavior than the cost of education.

Martin: Faculty members working in the Clapp building are very supportive of the emphasis on deferred maintenance. The asbestos in the building is a health concern.

Christian: OCHE is getting support from the State’s Architectural and Engineering (A & E) division in this regard. There are some challenges. Anytime work is done on the Clapp building there are significant cost issues because of the asbestos. He is not an advocate for advocating for expansion building, the universities already have 2/3rds of the state buildings. He is advocating that we take care of existing buildings. Defered maintenance in general ($60 million) absolutely has to be addressed.

The College Affordability Plan involved a pledge by the system to try to freeze tuition if it was fully funded by the state. There was no trade for the funding. The last agreement provided new money linked to performance funding. The language went something like, “We are going to give you more money and encourage you to put a metrics system in place. If you do this, it is entirely up to the university system if you do. How it is done and how it is monitored is up to the system.” Legislators understand and respect the constitutional divide between them and the University System.

The Board of Regents governs the University System and the Legislature appropriates money. The appropriation of new money for the first time in 20 years has to do with knowing the system is working on some of the Legislatures objectives for the University System. The conversations regarding what the University wants to accomplish and what policy makers want to accomplish are productive.

A few years ago the University moved away from using the terminology of super tuition to program fee. Program fees have not been frozen with tuition, but as part of the overall pledge have had very moderate (2-3%) increases. This topic was also discussed at his lunch with the academic deans in terms of how the program fee should be handled, what is reasonable, and whether there should be a bifurcated fee structure system between residents and non-residents. MSU is also looking into this issue. There is state statute that suggests we cannot use state dollars to supplement non-resident students. Non-resident students are a good source of revenue. Non-resident students are approximately 20% of the student population and pay 50% of the total tuition. This is intentional. There is also the question of the auxiliary services that run at a less than breakeven point, such as parking or other provided service. Should the resident and non-resident students pay the same rate? We also have to consider the right price break point for non-resident students. It is something that will be investigated further.

Gagliardi: This funding freeze is widening the gap in the Law School in terms of things we can do for our students.
Christian: What the system really needs is a good solid investment by the state and a modest tuition and fees increase. It has just never been possible to work both sides. Had we not gotten the CAP agreement the University of Montana would have seen an 8% increase in tuition last year and a 5% increase this year.
We have had tremendous fortune in Montana of attracting world class talent even though we are extremely low on the pay scale, but we can only push our luck so far –before we start to lose the quality that has made the system what it is. It’s a matter of balancing the legislative process. The faculty salary discussion is not an easy one at the legislature because the same salaries which are below the fairness level for faculty are 2 to 3 times the average Montanan salary.

Knight: Montana State University has a higher tuition that the University of Montana.
Christian: The different campuses were given latitude over the last few decades to develop pricing strategies with regard to residents and non-residents. The strategies varied. UM tried to hold increases to resident tuition as low as possible. In the end this strategy created a $900 gap. This is wrong and it needs to be corrected. There is no basis for why tuition at one institution in the system is more than the other. This has been difficult given the CAP. We need to narrow the gap. UM has also been given a discount for the first two years of lower undergraduate credit. He is not so sure this is the right strategy. We need to find a way to adjust these to be back on level playing fields.

A few years ago Dennis Jones, President, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems was hired to look at the Montana’s cost of education from side to side within the system. He found that there was less than a half of 1% difference between the two sides. The tuition variance is at the top of his and President Engstrom’s list to try to fix.

The disparity has actually grown due to the base plus budgeting model adopted in 2006. The previous model had an FTE component. The last across- the- board tuition increase increased the disparity.

Commissioner Christian was thanked for visiting with the Faculty Senate.

·  UFA President David Shively
The State election is coming up. Please encourage your colleagues to vote. In 2010 only 34% of UM Faculty voted. Faculty were sent a link to the Secretary of State’s website which provides information about whether you are registered to vote. Improving the legislature is a long term goal.
The UFA is visiting departments to find out bargaining priorities for your units. Compensation is the first priority, but the UFA will try to open other items if it hears there are issues that need to be addressed.
The data to begin the inversion / compression work will not be available until after the November 1st paycheck. Payroll is currently entering salary increase information into Banner.
The UFA has made significant progress with OCHE in terms of negotiating compensation. OCHE understands the inversion and compression problem. The problem has gotten bigger from the 2010 analysis, but the negotiations have not been adversarial. Thus far the pool has mostly dealt with the inversion problem. Last cycle there were maximum awards of $1000 for inversions between ranks. The ranked inversion was based on percentage differences of faculty within the same units inverted by rank. There was money left over so the same calculation was applied to inversion within ranks.
The base salary level of non-tenure track faculty is an important consideration. Another issue is to consider providing a mechanism for lecturers to be given merit based increases, since there are not levels (career ladder) within the rank. Non-tenure track faculty members are eligible for merits but often there is no money. The UFA is interested in the possibility of creating a merit pool for non-tenure track faculty. It is hoped that this would be new money, but this is unknown. This is a clearly an equity issue. There are several non-tenure track faculty with high exposure in the community. They deserve some financial recognition.
Senator Gillison: There may be a time when the tenure track faculty will need to stand in solidarity to perhaps accept less so their non-tenure track colleagues can be given something to acknowledge their contributions. This is always difficult because there is only so much money available for the pool.
This is why the UFA is going to work on two levels- the salary floors and merits. We need to open the door, but it will be a long term project. He thinks OCHE is receptive to this, but will need to hear the message repeated each year. The bargaining process is inclusive of non-tenured faculty.