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Faculty Assembly


President's Report for Faculty Representative Assembly
September 10, 1999

Welcome back. This looks like a year of great change! Last year there was a broad campus participation in determining TLE goals and objectives that will govern the future development of the campus. This year the campus will look at reorganizing the administrative and support structure of the campus and reprioritizing budgets to achieve alignment with those goals. Other major things to be completed or worked on this year include

* Completion of the facilities master plan, including the west campus (Beth-El has moved there this fall).

* The systemwide budget allocation formula.

* A new peer group of institutions to be based on the future vision of the campus rather than historical considerations. Things like salary equity use this peer group.

* Establishing a campus-wide core curriculum.

* IRMS, or the "integrated resource management system", will provide data so budget decisions can be made on the basis of all funds -- not just State appropriations.

* Implementation of the Regents' post tenure review.

* Major centralization of many services such as purchasing, payroll, benefits.

* Possible major changes in CCHE policies regarding "quality indicators", capital project justification, and such things as new programs and teaching loads.

My own priorities for this year include

* Promoting even broader participation in decision making through forums, email reports to the faculty as a whole, email discussions, and encouraging faculty reps to report to their constituents and elicit input during unit meetings.

* Provide input into organizational restructuring and new decision making processes to be established (e.g. salary distribution oversight, which is done at some of the CU campuses and now encouraged by the systemwide Faculty Council).

* Set up systems that will provide continuity on the long term (i.e. continuing spreadsheet record to keep track of committee membership and terms).

* Deal with various constitutional issues.

In regards to the first, I want to encourage frequent email reports to the entire faculty and encourage email discussions. A draft is attached. Your input will be appreciated. A campuswide forum on email policy shall probably take place sometime this year, but I want to encourage the VOLUNTARY practice of courtesy.

In regards to the constitutional issues, there are many operations that are not in compliance with the constitution and by-laws, a copy of which can be found at http:/lweb.uccs.edu/facassembly/constitution.htm . (Double click on the link to go there.) Among the issues that need to be dealt with are as follows:

* GSPA needs to be represented in some aggregation on some committees and through a rep on others.
Currently GSPA is essentially left out of the constitution.

* Possibly reps to the Faculty Rep Assembly need to be elected to 2 year terms instead of one.

* A faculty assembly library committee needs to formally replace the historical ad hoc committee. I already have formed that committee in anticipation of your approval. That is under new business on this month's agenda.

* I believe there needs to be a non-tenure track faculty committee of the Rep Assembly as well. That also is under new business this month.

* There is no official awards committee. I think we need to provide for that.

* Probably electing committee chairs by June 1 is not practical, and it is rarely done now.

* Misc wording problems and inserting sections on a quorum and proxies.

These and other issues were brought up at an ad hoc meeting of interested faculty this summer.
Volunteers to examine these and other constitutional issues would be appreciated.

Not dealt with last spring because of more pressing issues was the parking budget. I provide an attachment that should answer MOST of the questions pertaining to the costs of parking. Finally, I am meeting with the VCAA shortly to discuss the official faculty appointment period. I have already told John Pierce that I believe the faculty will be best served to make the period as short as practical in order to promote the highest man-day compensation for grants and externally funded programs. Specifically, I recommended beginning one week before classes and ending at the end of classes each semester. Your input is invited.

After discussing the procedures of appointing members to all the committees, I decided to do it over a period of time: roughly during the month of September. That is going very well, and the complete committee membership list should be part of my report next month.

Respectfully submitted,

Richard Blade, President