2000-2001 Faculty Council Minutes Meeting #25 April 10, 2001

2000-2001 Faculty Council Minutes – Meeting #25 – April 10, 2001

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University of Idaho

FACULTY COUNCIL MINUTES

2000-2001 Meeting #25, Tuesday, April 10, 2001

Present: McKeever (chair), Smelser (vice-chair), Brunsfeld, Chun, Foltz, Fritz, Goble, Haggart (w/o vote), Hong, McCaffrey, Meier, Nelson, Nielsen, Olson, Norby, Pitcher (w/o vote) Absent: Bitterwolf, Finnie, Glen, Goodwin, Guilfoyle, Kraut, McClure, Thompson, Trivedi Observers: 0

Call to Order. A quorum being present, Faculty Council Chair, Professor Kerry McKeever, called the meeting to order at 3:33 p.m. in the Brink Hall Faculty Lounge.

Minutes. The council, by voice vote, accepted the minutes of the April 3, 2001, meeting as distributed.

Chair’s Report. Chair McKeever reminded the council that next week’s meeting would begin with their attendance at the faculty, staff, retiree campaign kick-off for Campaign Idaho at 3:00 p.m. at the Idaho Commons. At 4:00 p.m. the council will assemble for their regular meeting in the Brink Hall Faculty Lounge. She urged all of the council members to attend the Campaign for Idaho presentation and encouraged them to bring a colleague to the program. McKeever also distributed invitations to the meeting with Governor Kempthorne that will be held on April 30th. She asked council members to distribute these invitations to colleagues and to encourage all faculty members to attend the meeting. Invitations have already been sent to department administrators.

FC-01-024. The council received a seconded motion from the University Curriculum Committee (UCC) asking for approval of a University of Idaho Leadership Certificate Program. This 18-credit program, open to all undergraduates, consists of courses and structured practica that provide academic knowledge mixed with practical, hands-on experience. To earn a certificate, students must complete a minimum of 12 credits in General Leadership and Communications courses and 6 credits in Leadership Development, all chosen from a prescribed list of courses. Completion of the program will earn the student a university “Leadership Certificate” and have that distinction placed on their official transcript. Departmental certificate programs can be offered without the approval of the UCC. This proposal represents the first request for a university-wide certificate program. The administrative responsibility for oversight of the leadership program resides with the college of the student seeking the certificate. The original request came to the UCC from Registrar Reta Pikowsky and Professor Alton Campbell. After a brief discussion the motion was adopted by majority vote (11 yea, 0 nay, 3 abstentions).

U of Idaho Outreach Initiative. Provost Brian Pitcher reported to the council about plans to reorganize the U of Idaho’s extension and outreach services. A major goal of this reorganization is to focus more university resources on rural economic development in Idaho. Pitcher emphasized that the university wanted to offer a comprehensive and coordinated outreach program of instruction, research, and service addressing key local needs. He said that the U of Idaho was going to focus resources to bolster the rural areas of the state economically and educationally.

Under the reorganization plan several university administrators would take on new responsibilities. Larry Branen, the current Dean of the College of Agriculture, would become the Vice President for Extension/Dean of the College of Agriculture. This change would mean that the U of Idaho’s outreach program would have its own vice president and the Cooperative Extension Program would also be placed under Branen’s office and renamed “University Extension.” Vice President Branen would then be charged with the responsibility to expand University Extension to be a truly university-wide resource. University Extension would incorporate all U of Idaho colleges, not just the College of Agriculture, to meet its new mission. Glen Wilde, Vice Provost for Outreach and Technology, will become the Vice Provost for Educational Outreach and the chief information officer for the U of Idaho. Barry Willis, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering, who directs the Engineering Outreach Program, will become the Associate Provost for Distributed and Distance Education and will report to Wilde. Provost Pitcher noted that none of these position changes call for an increase in salary – only an increase in responsibility.

Pitcher said that the initiative and administrative changes reaffirms “outreach” as one of the three principal role and mission goals of the U of Idaho – specifically to “expand the capacity and the delivery of outreach programs and services in keeping with the University of Idaho’s land-grant mission.” All of the changes and goals are being communicated to the affected personnel via a position paper being developed from the presentation made at the annual conference of Cooperative Extension educators held last week in Sun Valley. That information will be available to the entire university community on the U of Idaho web site at a later date.

In response to the presentation by the provost, Councilor McCaffrey noted that success in extension programs often depended onmeeting already well defined needs regarding both the program design and having a proper funding base. He also noted that the university needed to be careful in addressing these needs so that funding and people (at the county level) would not be directed away from current programs to a broader university-wide program. Provost Pitcher responded by indicating that the existing extension structure and budget would not be changed. He noted that within that broad framework of extension there is more that the university can be doing. The goal is to do more – especially on the rural development level – and to strengthen successful programs that were already in place in the College of Agriculture. Pitcher emphasized that “outreach and extension” will eventually become identified with several colleges, not just the College of Agriculture. Councilor Chun brought up the question of funding these new initiatives under the Responsibility Center Management (RCM) system. Pitcher replied that there are a lot of new sources for funding new programs that have not been tapped yet. In the end, the university will be required to make choices. Councilor Meier told the provost that working closely with local groups is the driving force behind the success of many extension and outreach programs. He suggested that a very important part of that acceptance would be to get the legislator from the locality of the extension program involved with the program – creating a partnership with that legislator. That, in turn, will eventually help the entire Idaho Legislature see the value of funding these kinds of programs.

Core Curriculum Report. Professor William Voxman, Coordinator of the University Core Curriculum, provided the council with an update on the core curriculum. The university sent two faculty members to a meeting of the American Association of Colleges and Universities on general education. They learned from that meeting that what the U of Idaho is attempting to do with its core curriculum fits in well with what is happening at other institutions of higher education – particularly in the practice of becoming more interdisciplinary. There was also considerable interest on the part of the participants in what the U of Idaho was doing and planning for its core curriculum. The plans to involve such a wide variety of our colleges in the core was of particular interest and seemed to be unique among land-grant universities. In fact, many experts in this field felt that the U of Idaho should go further, and take full advantage of its extension service in the design and teaching of these courses. The extension concept would also involve the delivery of the courses to outreaching areas as well as getting the distance sites to provide instructional resources for the core courses. The task force is looking into grant sources to experiment with that type of course structure and delivery method.

Professor Voxman said the core curriculum is going to offer seven core discovery courses (total of 23 sections) for incoming freshmen this fall. Advising guides, which contain descriptions of these courses, have been widely distributed on the campus. He said that it was gratifying that the faculty has responded so well to the call for core discovery courses. Workshops are being held in the coming weeks for instructors of these new courses. By this time next year we should have a good idea of the success of this venture. Early enrollment figures for these new courses has not been encouraging (350 enrolled out of 900 places available) so he urged the council members to strongly encourage departmental advisors to consider placing more freshman students in these courses.

Eight integrated science courses have been taught this year and more will be offered in the future. In response to a question from councilor Chun, Voxman said that a dedicated integrated science meeting room is certainly desirable, but current and future classroom shortages caused by campus construction precludes the possibility of dedicating any space. The second tier of the core – the clustering of courses around a broad theme or topic – is currently under development. A call for proposals has resulted in 11 proposals under such topics as: “American Ethnic Studies,” “Classical Origins,” “Medieval World,” and “South America and the Caribbean: Culture, Literature, Music, and History.” Cluster courses will be available next academic year on a limited basis for students who have already completed a year-long Core Discovery course. When fully developed these cluster courses will add depth and breadth to academic areas outside of the student’s major field of study.

Voxman said that next year the task force would have concrete recommendations for the Faculty Council concerning general education programs that they would like to see fully implemented at the U of Idaho.

Councilor Smelser expressed some concern over the time line for implementing the new core curriculum. He noted that his department, and perhaps many others as well, must consider some serious curriculum changes to be able to comply with the structure and offerings of a new core curriculum. Voxman said that he could not predict when the new core would be implemented. The task force is aware of the adjustments that must be made in some departments and, working with those departments, will try to accommodate those needs in its final recommendations.

Employee Friendly Task Force Report. This task force was created by last year’s council in response to the morale report done by the Faculty Affairs Committee. The task force was charged to “. . . identify changes which would make the institution ‘friendlier’ to those who are employed here and their families.” Councilor Foltz (chair of the task force) provided the council with the minutes of the task force meetings. He noted that U of Idaho President Hoover had appointed Roxanne Schreiber (Ombudsman’s Office) to head up a new university initiative called the “University Work and Life Program.” She told the task force that their work and proposals would fit within this new presidential initiative.

The task force focused its efforts this year on one initiative – a fee waiver proposal for dependents of U of Idaho employees. The basic idea was to provide the same fee waiver now available to spouses to all the dependents in that same family. Administrative response to this idea indicated that if the U of Idaho made such a plan available to its employees, then the SBOE/Regents would be required to make it available to the dependents of any state of Idaho employee. That would mean that the dependent of a Boise State University professor could attend the U of Idaho with a fee waiver, which was not what the task force originally had in mind. A suggested alternative was to come up with a scholarship program funded by the U of Idaho that would be made available only to dependents of U of Idaho employees. Such a program could be created without SBOE/Regents’ approval and with the limiting provisions.

The task force looked at other possible benefits, including a “cafeteria” approach of choosing benefits appropriate to the employee and family use of university facilities. Foltz said that most of the ideas were looked at using a cost/benefit analysis, because that is the question that the administration will always ask about any suggested plan. Another concern is the impact any plan would have on facilities and constituencies. He said that the task force would be pursuing the fee waiver idea during the next year. There are a number of questions that need to be discussed including: tax implications, the establishment of criteria of eligibility (length of service to qualify), and limitations on the number of fee waivers available to a family. Professor Foltz volunteered to remain chair of the committee even though this was his last year on the council.

Faculty Affairs Committee Report. Professor Jeff Harkins reported that the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) will be presenting its recommendations on two proposals at the next council meeting and holding two other proposals for further discussion next semester.

He said the issues that the FAC are dealing with affect all of the faculty members and administrators at the U of Idaho. The proposals involve benefits to everyone, but everyone will also incur some costs.

Harkins identified four areas that the Faculty Affairs Committee was asked to consider. He called them “cornerstones” of the project assigned to the FAC. The first cornerstone is to revisit the annual evaluation of faculty members, with a special provision for what is identified as “diminished performance” issues associated with the annual evaluation. The second cornerstone is the allocation of resources resulting from the evaluation results. This has so many significant implications that the FAC can only recommend creating a special task force or returning it to the FAC to work on next year. The third cornerstone was to look at the concept of the 5-year review. The FAC will only have minor recommendations for changes in the review. The fourth cornerstone deals with the compression or inversion of salaries, particularly for those that have been at the U of Idaho for some time. That issue is tied back to the allocation of resources mentioned earlier and will need further study by the Faculty Affairs Committee.

Harkins said that the instructions from the Faculty Council were clear. However, the Faculty Affairs Committee added the following premises to the charges that they were given: 1) the primary focus had to be that the faculty be evaluated as the professionals that they are, and 2) whatever the committee did to change the evaluation process needed to be both equitable and fair.

The Faculty Affairs Committee will bring forward recommendations in the following areas:

• position description form changes and opportunity for faculty to clearly express broad and encompassing goals and objectives for the next year – allowing the faculty member to be “creative” in their approach to future challenges
• performance evaluation
• common portfolio – using the curriculum vitae as the centerpiece of information
• requirement of a statement by the evaluating administrator of the basis for conclusions
• requirement of comparative information of evaluation scores in each academic unit – summary of scores
• improve the process of the evaluation conference – should always be available as a choice made by the faculty member
• opportunity for a written dissent report by the faculty member
• mediation in the case of dissent – ombudsman office
• any year where merit funds are not provided – that merit report is carried over to the next year when merit funds are available and is averaged into the year when resources are available
• diminished performance (ombudsman and university counsel consulted in these recommendations)
• clear focus on development – identify problems and provide development incentives
• involvement of peer review no later than the third year
• overall score is the key – not score in individual categories
• diminished performance trigger – overall score of 2-
• 1st year – conference leading to correction
• 2nd year – development plan – dean’s office brought into picture
• 3rd year – peer review
• 4th or 5th year – other procedures must come into play

The Faculty Affairs Committee is still discussing the diminished performance section of its report because it was suggested that it should apply to both tenured and non-tenured faculty members. That raises issues because of the normal occurrence of the third-year review for non-tenured faculty members. A solution to that problem will be worked out tomorrow. Chair McKeever clarified that the Faculty Affairs Committee will continue to work on faculty development and reward systems the rest of this semester and beginning again in the fall semester. Harkins said that progress has been made on those issues, but the issues are so large (such as the current 9 step scale used for rating faculty – ear-marking a percentage of matriculation fees for faculty salary adjustments) that they simply cannot finish before the time of the general faculty meeting in May. Professor Harkins noted that Professor McKeever will be the chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee next year and will have the background needed to get the committee deliberations off to a good start.