Cleve McDaniel, new VCAF, was introduced to the Rep. Assembly. Assembly. His comments
focused on parking and the budget.
Parking: always a challenge, particularly so for commuter campus. Concerning the email
discussion about Lot 5: it's open now because of delay of library construction. Still
don’t know when it will go offline. WE can keep it open now but must plan with
assumptions that it will always be offline. More HUB spaces have been sold, but waited
beyond first four weeks of semester—but this was not related to Lot 5 but simply
because more HUB spaces could be sold. In the meantime, we are not ticketing anyone who
parks there even without HUB ticket. Sgt. Susan Szpyrka pointed out that a portion of Lot
4 will also eventually be gone, translating into a loss of 397 spaces. We are fortunate
that Lot 5 was open for all parkers, because Lot 5 was needed to handle overflow that
could not be accommodated in Four Diamonds. Lot 6 (next to CITTI building): has never been
filled all semester, even when other lots are over-full, even empty when in other lots
cars are parked illegally. Zwirlein asked about future of 4 Diamonds. Susan: only related
to temporary overflow, we don’t have the resources to run shuttles beyond the first
few weeks of class. 4 Diamonds only for temporary crush at beginning of semester; a
shuttle for 4 Diamonds will cost $3000 a week, which cannot be accommodated in the present
budget. Total shuttle cost for year is already 250K.
Dan Dandapani asks what is holding up library expansion. John Pierce answers that the
gift agreement with El Pomar has not been completed yet, and the chancellor is still is in
negotiation. Second question related to the engineering lot
Why aren’t students without HUB ticketed when they park in Lot 5? Answer: 1)
cannot enforce without signs, and signage not there presently because of costs. Other
reason, according to Susan, is that overflow parking cannot be accommodated yet without
usage of some Lot 5. Question: is there a plan for a light west of Columbine and east of
the dirt lots? Answer: the only reason that road is there now is for construction. That
road will be closed in the future after construction is over. The city will not put a
traffic light there because there are restrictions on how many lots can be in a parkway,
and because that road according to future plans is to be closed. Question: is there a
contingency plan for Lot 5 is Library Expansion does not begin? Answer: may be some plans,
but at present have to plan under assumption that it will be closed. Already were required
to take off meterage and signage in July, to prepare it for construction, but as a result
that makes it impossible to enforce ticketing non-HUB parking, plus Lot 5 is in fact
needed to accommodate non-HUB parkers since we can no longer afford to park at 4 Diamonds.
Also, it would be very hard to enforce tickets on non-HUB parking there now since it has
been implicitly allowed this semester. Charlie Shub asked if some lots could be stipulated
for faculty/staff only, since Lot near CSB is not as convenient as Lot 7 for Columbine
residents. Answer: that is being looked at for a future plan. One problem is that dorm
students simply must have a place to park, but their cars don’t turn over. Also,
Public Safety is researching gating lots and selling permits for particular lots only, but
more research has to be done before any move can be made on that. Eric Olson pointed out
the lighting problems in lots near Dwire. Answer: we follow up on light problems
immediately, and will try to fix those with longer-term bulbs.
COMMENTS FROM VCAA PIERCE:
Chancellor cannot be here until later today, so VCAA Pierce will speak in her absence. The
American Institute of Architects is awarding our housing village the state’s design
award for last year. Next month CCHE will discuss the EE stand-along PH.D. degree; have
been trying for over a year to get that separated from Boulder’s program. Will be
voted on at the next meeting, but there are some objections still from Colorado State who
fear a development of an engineering school here of some significance. Next week Regents
will meet on our campus. Regents will discuss crucial issues such as new Mountain Lion
mascot and change of school colors—that issue is expected to produce fiery debate. 2
coaching changes in athletics have recently come on-line: women’s basketball coach
and volleyball coach. FTE for this year is up 4.1% (head count up a little over 1%), the
biggest increase in the state. Regarding enrollment--not to mention in other areas--Denver
and Boulder are flat.
COMMENTS FROM FACULTY PRESIDENT
Next week 12:30 to 1:30 is the Health Benefits Forum, on Thursday October 15. Regents
also on campus that day. Opportunity to meet with special counsel appointed by President
Buechner to gather information about health benefits audit. She is in information
gathering mode. Health Benefits forum is in 124 B and C, Thursday October 15. He will also
be discussing the benefits plan for the 2000 year and give some recommendations. Dan
Dandapani will be publishing an email with a list of questions that the President’s
consultant wants to know.
Next Fac. Assembly meeting will be in Columbine and will be a full faculty-assembly
meeting in lieu of a Rep. Assembly meeting. At that meeting we will probably do a
presentation of TLE—TLE implementation team is in process of moving to developing
presentations to campus groups to inform people of where we are—first of these will
be in November.
Faculty Council (system-wide) was here yesterday. System-wide committee is being formed
to deal with ASP. Proposed implementation dates are July 1 for finance systems and Nov. 1
for human resources system. Project leader for system-wide ASP left last spring, and an
interim person is now in place but haven't found a permanent director. Today interviewing
2 candidates, hope to have permanent person very soon. Need to hire permanent person soon.
For system-wide ASP committee, we need one LAS person and one faculty from professional
school to serve on this system-wide committee.
Question: rumors swirling about centralization of certain functions, esp. as regard
benefits office. Budgets will be centralized—that is assured. Budgets will go to
Consolidated Service Center on July 1. That doesn’t mean that the person
himself/herself will be centralized—could have a person on campus that would be paid
for through central budget (for example, a local benefits officer that would be paid
through a centralized budget is possible).
Question: how will ASP savings be returned to local campuses, as President Buechner
says will happen? Cleve McDaniel says that there are positive aspects to ASP that go
beyond the budget problem. Current budget info. Is woefully missing key pieces of
information, and streamlining processes and creating better budget information are key.
How much that will create in terms of savings simply isn’t known yet. Charlie Shub
remains concerned that accounts payable, benefits, student success, and other local
functions will be centralized, and that we will have to deal with problems over the phone
rather than having a local person. Pam Shockley says that she is very opposed to
centralizing student success functions, especially financial aid—centralizing that
would be disastrous for her office and for this campus. SIS needs upgrading but now
delayed because PeopleSoft proved to be such a poor performer in terms of student systems.
So for the present we are stuck with old and slow processes. On the positive side, this
gives us the opportunity to argue AGAINST a one-size-fits-all model; student success here
is simply different than students at Boulder and Denver. Cleve McDaniel is concerned not
with 90% of process that is standardized, but 5-10% of process that is not standard.
Currently, Health Sciences is our only ally in arguing against centralizing these
processes. McDaniel and Shockley agree that People Soft was not worthy to be optioned to
replace SIS system—their student services system is still really in Beta Test. People
Soft known primarily for financial systems, their other systems not good enough yet. So,
for the present, SIS is it and question of centralization of financial aid and other
student services will continue to be fought, with McDaniel and Shockley working
Another issue at Faculty Council is how to deal with faculty salary problem. David
Groth was at Faculty Council records, and said first step is simply to generate data so we
can make some comparisons. Tom Zwirlein passes around list of questions that could be
asked to generate database to provide solid data on faculty information problem. Would
remain confidential—database would be to run averages off by discipline, campus,
etc., keeping names confidential. Data form is called the "Faculty Resources Project,
Data Availability Research."
P and T Committee: new members getting on committee. We’ve had good representation
on that system-wide committee with Professor Lorch, but he has now stepped down from the
committee. Lorch would like panel chair from this campus to be vice-chair of P and T.
Grievances from UCCS to this committee are disproportionately high so it’s important
to have UCCS people there.
Another important system-wide issue is the FCQ. Vice-Pres. Groth is definitely
supportive of looking into changing FCQ. Many on Faculty Council were surprised that in
1994 Regents passed resolution mandating multiple means of evaluation; huge bulk of
research shows that the way we use and administer FCQs on this campus is simply invalid;
comparing faculty from different disciplines, use of questions that have proven to be
statistically invalid, use of FCQs as a punitive measure to discipline faculty.
Vice-President Groth, our Chancellor, administration agree with faculty that FCQ must be
changed. Appears that at long last action is moving forward on dealing with FCQ question.
EPUS
Last time EPUS was here, put forth draft plan for Professional Implementation Plan;
published that on email, got feedback, and have rewritten the policy to take into account
that feedback. Professional Plan is part of larger issue of post-tenure review and the
Administrative Policy Statement giving general guidelines for how we implement post-tenure
process.
Post-tenure tenure appears to be a 100% solution to a 2% problem. Good reason to feel
uncomfortable with what we are being required to implement. EPUS has responded by trying
to simplify, clarify, and streamline the process as much as possible in the professional
plan, keep as many protections for faculty as possible, keep the professional plan from
being yet another long and complicated form that we have to fill out each year. Gist is
that all tenured faculty will have to produce five-year professional plans; this set of
guidelines will help to protect faculty and keep the process from being too cumbersome.
Discussion and approval of Professional Plan Implementation Guidelines delayed until
old business (see below). .
PERSONNEL AND BENEFITS
Issue of benefits for NTT faculty discussed,
rumors that Boulder is already doing that, have plenty of money. Answer: Arts and Sciences
is taking care of this problem through "financial reallocation," correcting a
$300,000 problem within their gigantic budget. That’s not an answer applicable to
this campus, obviously. We have such a heavy historic reliance on part-time faculty, and
such a small budget, that our problem is disproportionately large. Richard Blade points
out that we are at about the national average in terms of percentage reliance on NTT
faculty. However, our compensation level is almost certainly not at the "average
level," Professor Harlow Sheidley pointed out.
FCQ: We pay Boulder $17,500 a year to print, analyze, and package our FCQs. This opens
up options for us. Our intent is not to save campus money—although that would be a
good side benefit—but to analyze the FCQs in a way that will actually help local
faculty, allow us to use different questionnaire, use the FCQ correctly rather than in a
punitive fashion. Possibility of using mark recognition software or other technologies
that could be purchased for the local campus at reasonable prices. Could also look at
outside vendors; in 92 one outside vendor gave a detailed bid at $8000 a year, so there
are some options in that regard as well.
Administrative Performance Appraisal (APA).
We need a small bit of money to hire a Visual Basic programmer to get the computerized
APA up, rather than using the paper version. Email will be used over putting it on the Web
because committee thinks there will be more response that way, and also security issues
are much more difficult on the Web. Professor Morley has been assigned the task of
shortening the APA, since many sentiments were expressed last year that the form was too
lengthy.
VCAF McDaniel talks about the upcoming CPP (pay for performance)—dry run planned
for July 1, with expanded implementation group with many folks from staff executive
council and also some from faculty that would be in a supervisory role.
Prof. Shub reports on health issues—have to limit visits, raise co-pays, etc. in
order to keep premium increases no higher than they already there. Importance of upcoming
health benefits forum stressed--we need to talk about our health plan, or lack-of-plan.Audit report available on Web.
BUDGET:
Another tight year for the budget--to put it charitably. Report from Cleve McDaniel:
The campus overspent its budget in 98, which impacts FY 99. Also, enrollment increases
were projected at 6%, but were actually 4.1, so we have less money to expend than planned.
Next Monday vice-chancellors will meet with Chancellor to deal with problem of mandatory
expenditures, how to deal with deficits, and get the budget out on the table as soon as
possible. It’s better to do this end on the front-end than later, when it would be
more difficult to turn around what we are doing. Trying to deal with realistic
projections, should have recommendations very shortly. Mandatory expenditures are taking
up the base as well as other monies; examples include large utility rate increases (10%
increase in gas rates, for example), other essential expenses that must be met.
Question: where does this over-spending come from? Why is deficit so much larger last
year than in previous years (deficit including over-spending, higher-than-expected
expenses, and other factors)? Answers are various and complex, having to do with increased
mandatory expenditures (such as for utilities), increasing demands on services, etc.
Richard Blade reports on general direction of budget and long-term planning. Long-term
budgeting being put into place. All budget initiatives will be judged by TLE goals of the
campus—must be taken seriously. Budgets in future will utilize IRMS: Integrated
Resource Management System. These are all major changes in how the budget is done. Moving
up budgetary calendar is also a major piece of this. IRMS people would like to see our
future recommendations in March, meaning we will start planning for 2000 this month.
Questionnaire will be sent out to start that process. Also trying to create database that
will be workable with IRMS and ASP—deal with question of having data to deal with
all-funds budgeting. Budget system put in place in 1977 is woefully inadequate considering
what we have to produce now for budget reports, for projections and all-funds budgeting.
Trying to figure out now how to integrate budgeting process with IRMS. For example: core
curriculum. If that requires a particular investment to make it go, that would not fall
under any one college and not under the normal budgetary process.
WOMEN’S
Report sent out on email. Meeting planned on going through the tenure process, designed
especially for women’s faculty, using Harlow Sheidley’s awesome tenure binders
as example.
ACPC
Report passed around, full details of discussions on the ACPC
page. Big issue for near future is distance education and various issues revolving
around that. The Technology Task Force has been hard at work and has developed a set of
recommendations for structuring computing services in the future. That draft plan awaits a
response from the chancellor.
MINORITY AFFAIRS
Minutes distributed on email; full details available on the Minority
Affairs Committee page.
INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS
Soccer team ranked 25 in nation, tied for 6th in region. First team here to
be nationally ranked. Athletic Director Cubero is looking at formalizing team mentors,
faculty mentors who take an interest in particular teams to help them meet potential
employers, transition to real life, etc.
NCAA is requiring a self-study every 5 years; target date for next one is July 2000 to
have next self-study completed. Advisory committee will be working with Director Cubero on
next one; will have excellent model from Theo Gregory’s 95 study to build on.
Finally, we do have a club hockey team now on campus. Charlie Shub has agreed to drive
the Zamboni.
OTHER COMMITTEES
Eric Olson and David Moon are chairing the undergraduate curriculum review committee
(general ed.). Will be moving ahead with that in the near future. Square table or
round table issue resolved; virtual table appears to be in order. VCAA Pierce emphasizes
that this committee was picked with faculty involvement; it's not "his"
committee.
OLD BUSINESS
EPUS Professional Plan document: Mark Malone discusses
changes made since old document presented in last meeting, from feedback presented in last
meeting—some cosmetic and grammatical changes, and some substantive changes regarding
appeals process. Professor Morley concerned about appeals of below expectation ratings
going directly back to the same committee that made the first below expectation
ratings—need to have independent appeals committee. After much discussion, EPUS had
decided to keep the language pretty general, with the language of "appropriate
committee," since trying to make it more specific raises various objections since
different colleges/departments have very different experiences.
Don Morley proposes change in bullet ten, to be worded as "There must be an
appeals process available where any and all matters pertaining to the annual review can be
considered by a group of peers whose selection is independent of the source of the
negative evaluation." Motion made and seconded to accept this as friendly amendment.
Motion passes unanimously.
Suggestion: substitute "scholarly, creative, and/or research work" research,
writing, or creative work" in place of the word "scholarly," so as not to
produce conflict between this document and the rules governing the university. Motion
made, seconded. Motion passes unanimously.
Suggestion: concerned that in paragraph on first page there is another inconsistency
between official university document that emphasizes "evaluation" and
"accountability" versus this document that deletes word "evaluation"
or "accountability" altogether. University says that purpose of professional
plan is both for development and accountability; this document does not address the
latte.r
Responses: Professors Malone and Lorch suggest that EPUS intended to make the document
as friendly as possible to faculty development, and to prevent it from being used as a
punitive tool. Also, the university document is in conflict with itself, because it
suggests that it is for development but also that it is an evaluative tool. Finally, this
is a document designed for shaping our local notion of what a professional plan should be,
and we want to align it with AAUP Guidelines as
possible. Thus we want to emphasize development, which is the main concern of the AAUP. .
Discussion ensues on whether the local professional plan implementation guidelines
should or should not contain reference to "accountability." Pro: this would make
it in line with Regents statement: Con: this document should be about development, not
euphemism of "accountability" which implies document is intended to draw blood,
i.e. be used punitively.
Motion and second that word "accountability" be included. Motion defeated: 0
for, 13 opposed, 1 abstention.
Bullet 7: word "meeting expectations" changed to "meeting or exceeding
expectations." Approved.
Discussion of what "5-year plan" means. Does it mean that we are looking
ahead 5 years in our work, or that this is a plan for work to be completed during that
time and evaluated. Prof. Malone says that intent of legislation/regents is to move to
heavy evaluations every 5 years--so this is supposed to be a plan of work completed, not a
projection of where we will be thinking 5 years in the future.
