March 4, 1999

TO: The Faculty Consultative Committee

FROM: David Hamilton & Roberta Humphreys

  As you requested, we met, along with Gary Engstrand, and reviewed the recommendations of the Task Force on Faculty Consultation. Our advice to you and to FCC follows the lettered and bulleted recommendations on pages 2-4 of the report. It is our general view that many of the recommendations have been followed from time to time; what is needed in many cases is simply implementation and regularization.

The Task Force proposes a set of guiding principles on faculty governance and consultation for consideration and adoption by the FCC.

We do not recall if FCC ever adopted the principles. If it favors them, it should do so. Perhaps it should also take them to the University Senate, and if approved there, SCC could seek administrative endorsement of them. If adopted and endorsed, they annually should be provided to all members of the Senate and members of Senate committees.

We agree. We recommend that SCC consider developing a "job description" for Senators, which the Senate might approve. Such a description should then be provided to all Senators, and perhaps distributed once annually by email to all faculty so they know what roles their representatives are expected to play.

Orientation materials should be one piece of paper with bullets.

After Senate elections are complete each spring, all Senators (new and continuing) should be provided a list of committees with open positions and asked if they wish to serve.

This is related to the first bullet of item C.

We agree. A notice to this effect should be included in orientation materials for committee chairs, and the Senate office should perhaps remind them of this admonition periodically through the year. We also believe it would be useful to distribute to Senators, either in docket materials or as handouts at Senate meetings, a "list of issues pending" (similar to the list Gary has prepared for FCC recently) and the status of the issues before each committee, so the Senators are kept apprised of what is occurring. It might not be a bad idea to distribute these lists to senior officers and deans as well.

We understand that this is done each summer, but it should be made regular, including consultation with the President.

We would modify this slightly, to say that "each standing committee should invite ex officio representation from administrators from the AHC, as appropriate" rather than "should consider whether to invite" AHC representation. We believe such representation would ensure adequate consideration of how issues affect the AHC, and we also believe that AHC administrators could be informed by the discussions about how issues affect non-AHC parts of the University.

We understand that this is already being done.

We have several comments about this. First, we understand that a separate discussion about the ASE provostal FCC is continuing, and we support that conversation. Second, we do not believe that in practice it is possible for the Twin Cities FCC members to meet with the Provost and discuss matters related only to the Twin Cities campus. On the occasions when those meetings have been held, issues of interest or concern to all campuses have invariably arisen, and it is inappropriate to have those discussions without the coordinate campus representatives. Third, we recommend that FCC meet twice per year, on a regular schedule, with the Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences, to hear from him about issues in the AHC and to communicate to him whatever larger faculty concerns may be before FCC.

The experience FCC has had with this has not been successful. We do not have a recommendation on how to accomplish the goals of this item, which we do endorse. This is perhaps something FCC should discuss, and perhaps something the FCC chair could raise on the floor of the Faculty Senate for discussion.

In general, we do not agree. Such joint meetings are very large, and tend more to be in the nature of information sessions, with reports from administrators, rather than consultation. Perhaps on specific issues, where information is needed, such sessions would be useful, but it should be understood that the committees would then individually take up whatever issues might be raised at a joint session. While we are sympathetic to the objective of reducing the demands on administrator time in consulting about the same issue before several different bodies, in our experience each committee brings a different perspective to whatever the issue might be, and that different perspective can help strengthen any document or position being taken by the administration on an issue.

We agree. We observe that the administration sometimes concludes it should do something, proceeds, and then adds faculty later. We recommend that SCC or FCC, as appropriate, request the administration regularly to provide to it a list of major activities or plans it is considering, so that FCC/SCC can decide whether it is important to have faculty views expressed. We point out that it is dismaying to suddenly receive a big report from some group or committee that we have never heard of and be asked to consult on it. (We wish to emphasize, however, that we have not seen this occur for some time, and this is not something we have seen the administration do recently. The current administration has been open and consultative in a timely fashion, and we applaud the current senior officers in this respect.)

Our overall comment about this is that we are uncertain what FCC can do to see that these recommendations are implemented. Perhaps such committees should request that they regularly be scheduled to meet with the executive committee or senior decision-making body of the college convened by the dean.

Some colleges are too small reasonably to require an elected consultative committee; in discussions of major issues, the entire faculty may participate. Each college should, however, have a meaningful consultative process.

It may be more time-consuming than is needed to require college consultative committees to meet both with the dean and separately and to have regular meetings. This should be decided by the committee.

We agree in part and disagree in part. In the case of the Faculty Senate, it could be seen as an insult to make them ex officio members of the Faculty Senate, when every member of the faculty has the right to attend meetings, participate in debate, and make motions. In the case of the University Senate, this may make sense, because anyone not an ex officio member needs the permission of the body to speak at meetings.

We understand that FCC will now hold annual meetings with chairs of college FCCs. Such a meeting could incorporate this recommendation.

We recommend that the chair of the AHC FCC be an ex officio member of the Senate FCC, not the Senate. The issues confronting the AHC are of importance to the entire University, so the AHC FCC chair should be a member of the FCC. We do not know if the AHC FCC chair receives any stipend similar to that of Senate committee chairs or the FCC chair, but we recognize that this recommendation, if implemented, would create a significant extra demand on the time of the AHC FCC chair, so such compensation should be considered.

If the preceding recommendation is adopted, this item is moot.

We agree. FCC should take this up with the President or Executive Vice President Bruininks and Vice President Carrier.

We agree, but beyond encouraging them to attend (which they rarely do), we do not know what else FCC can do.

We agree in part and disagree in part. We do not believe this would be a wise use of time for first-year faculty members, and we know that there already are a number of orientation sessions of various kinds offered to new faculty by the administration. We agree that such sessions could be useful for newly-appointed administrators. At present there is nothing of this kind required by the University, so FCC might raise this with Executive Vice President Bruininks and Vice President Carrier.

If the "Focus on the Future" events sponsored by the AAUP and FCC are successful, and regularized, we believe they will accomplish the intent of this recommendation. If they are not, then FCC should reconsider how to effect this recommendation.

We agree. We recommend that the FCC chair contact the President and Secretary to the Board/Executive Director each year that new Regents are elected.