1994-95 UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA No. 1
FACULTY SENATE MINUTES
NOVEMBER 3, 1994
The first meeting of the Faculty Senate for 1994-95, was convened in 25 Law
Center, Minneapolis campus, on Thursday, November 3, 1994, at 3:35 p.m. ( immediately
following the University Senate meeting). Coordinate campuses were linked by telephone.
Checking or signing the roll as present were 115 voting faculty members. President
Nils Hasselmo, presided.
I. MEETING SCHEDULE
Information
Other 1994-95 meetings of the Faculty Seante are scheduled as follows:
Thursday, February 16, 1995
Thursday, April 20, 1995
Thursday, May 18, 1995
II. ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSE TO FACULTY SENATE ACTIONS
Information
A. Amendment to Regulations Concerning Faculty Tenure re Cargiving
Responsibility
Approved by: the Faculty Senate on May 19, 1994
the Administration on October 12, 1994
the Board of Regents - action scheduled for November
1994
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CONSENT AGENDA
Action (3 minutes)
Agenda items III. through V. are considered to be noncontroversial or
"housekeeping" in nature and are offered as a "Consent Agenda" to be taken up
as a single item with one vote. Any item will be taken up separately at the
request of a senator. A majority of those members present and voting is
required for approval.
III. MINUTES FOR MAY 19, 1994
IV. SENATE OFFICERS
The chair of the Faculty Senate recommends the following officers for
1994-95:
Parliamentarian--Karen Brown
Abstractor and Clerk--Martha Kvanbeck
V. COMMITTEE ON COMMITTEES
Committees of the Faculty Senate, 1994-95
FACULTY AFFAIRS: Faculty: Daniel Feeney (chair), Carole Bland, Rose Brewer,
Daniel Canafax, Carol Chomsky, Mary Dempsey, Ann Erickson, Kinley Larntz,
Willard Manning, Richard McGehee, Ken Roering, Michael Sadowsky, Bernard
Selzler, W. Donald Spring, James Stone, Yang Wang. Academic Professional:
Judith Gaston. Ex Officio: Carol Carrier, Dianne Mulvihill, Roger Paschke,
George Seltzer. Students: Anne Sales, 1 to be named.
JUDICIAL: Faculty: David Ward (chair), Ron Akehurst, Jean Bauer, Hyman
Berman, David Born, Susan Brorson, Jonathan Chaplin, Laura Cooper, Genevieve
Escure, Edward Foster, David Frank, Shirley Garner, Susan Gerberich, Hillel
Gershenson, Curtis Hoard, Edward Kaplan, Tarald Kvalseth, David Lykken, Larry
Miller, Steve Nickles, Carla Phillips, Angelita Reyes, Sharon Satterfield,
Harold Schwartz, George Sheets, Patricia Tomlinson, Oriol Valls, Billie J.
Wahlstrom, Carol Wells.
INFORMATION:
FACULTY CONSULTATIVE - Faculty: John Adams (chair), Carl Adams (vice chair),
Thomas Burk, Sara Evans (winter and spring quarters), James Gremmels, Roberta
Humphreys, Robert Jones, Geoffrey Maruyama, Harvey Peterson, Michael Steffes,
Gerhard Weiss (fall quarter). Ex Officio: Sheila Corcoran-Perry, Lester
Drewes, Daniel Feeney, Virginia Gray, Kenneth Heller, Morris Kleiner.
JEAN QUAM, Chair
Committee on Committees
DISCUSSION:
The Consent Agenda was approved without discussion.
APPROVED
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VI. FACULTY CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
Critical Measures and Performance Goals
Action
MOTION:
That the Faculty Senate endorse the following five critical measures:
- Characteristics of Entering Students by Campus
- Graduation Rate by Campus
- Underrepresented Groups/Diversity
- Sponsored Funding by Campus
- Instructional Direct Expenditures per Student by Campus
and the process whereby specific performance goals will be defined and
redefined in the future.
COMMENT:
The U2000 agenda addresses six areas of activity and concern. Academic
Affairs developed eighteen "critical measures" that will be used to assess
University progress toward U2000. For each of the "measures," a series of
"performance goals" is being developed to guide effort and monitor our
performance as an institution.
In September 1994, the Regents received draft material on the first five
"critical measures": characteristics of entering students, graduation rate,
underrepresented groups/diversity, sponsored funding, and instructional direct
expenditure per student, with recommendations for "performance goals" for the
University as a whole and for the various campuses.
In November 1994 Academic Administration will ask the Regents to endorse
the five "critical measures" and a few overarching performance goals, leaving
to the faculty and Academic Administration the development and refinement of
the remaining "performance goals," recognizing both the complexity of the
task, as well as the ways that explicit goals will influence activity at the
department, program, college, and campus levels.
The motion expresses the faculty belief--shared by Academic
Administration--that the Regents need not codify every University performance
goal at this time, and the Faculty Consultative Committee endorses the view
that the development and implementation of performance goals should take place
over time, with due attention to the diverse missions and workloads of the
departments, programs, colleges, and campuses of our University.
JOHN ADAMS, Chair
Faculty Consultative Committee
DISCUSSION:
Professor John Adams, Chair, Faculty Consultative Committee, presented
the motion endorsing the five proposed critical measures and the process
whereby specific performance goals will be defined and redefined in the
future. He then drew the Faculty Senate's attention to the commentary
accompanying it. As a point of clarification, Professor Adams noted that the
motion only endorses the critical measures and not specific performance goals.
One senator proposed deleting "Graduation Rate by Campus" as one of the
measures because he did not feel it was an appropriate measure of quality. A
motion to suspend the rules in order to consider the amendment was necessary
and was subsequently approved.
Senators opposed to the amendment argued that students should be able to
expect to graduate in a reasonable amount of time with the assistance of
faculty and the University. Including graduation rate as a critical measure
may put some pressure on students, but it will also put pressure on the
University to help students attain that goal. It would be peculiar for the
University to say it is concerned about giving a whole sense of education,
defining that in terms of a degree, and then turn around and say it is not
concerned whether people complete a course of study or not. Deleting
graduation rate as a critical measure would send that mixed message.
Speaking in favor of the amendment, one senator noted that approximately
50 percent of the students who graduate from the U of M are transfer students
and he urged senators not to endorse using graduation rate as a critical
measure until there are solid indicators for graduation rates for both
incoming freshmen and for transfer students.
The vote was then taken on the amendment to delete graduation rate as
one of the five critical measures and it was not approved.
Before turning to the vote on the original motion, one senator inquired
about the monetary costs associated with increasing recruitment of
underrepresented groups, and the source of those costs. President Hasselmo
responded that diversity is one of the six strategic areas of U2000 and the
biennial request for the current biennium includes an item for diversity. The
added costs of recruitment to ensure diversity would come out of that
particular budget item and has been budgeted taking into full consideration
the need to also enhance recruitment of all students.
Does the administration plan to use the five critical measures to
evaluate units within the University and, if so, will a unit's performance
affect the amount of resources it will receive? Yes, President Hasselmo said,
the critical measures and performance goals will be used in appropriate ways
to set planning parameters and to evaluate performance of units.
Hearing no further discussion, the original motion was then approved by
a majority of members present and voting.
APPROVED
VII. FACULTY CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
Academic Freedom and Responsibility Statement
Information and Discussion
Professor John Adams, Chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee (FCC),
reported that the Board of Regents has requested the FCC to review the three
existing Academic Freedom and Responsibility Statements (1938, 1963, 1971).
There was consensus among FCC members and others who were consulted in this
matter that the 1938 statement is one of the earliest and strongest statements
of its kind in American academia and deserves to be endorsed with some
modifications. It is the hope of the FCC that one revised statement would
replace the three existing statements. The committee is currently working on
a revision keeping in mind the need to satisfy the administration's legal and
administrative issues and the academic issues that lie at the very heart of
what faculty are trying to do in the academy.
Professor Adams encouraged senators to review the three existing
statements that were distributed and to contact him with suggestions. It is
the FCC's intent to bring a revised statement to the Faculty Senate in
February.
VIII. PROGRESS REPORT OF THE COMPENSATION WORKING GROUP
Information and Discussion
Professor Carl Adams, chair of the Compensation Working Group (Working
Group), reported that the committee was established by Senior Vice President
Infante and the chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee to address
compensation issues for faculty and academic professional staff. While the
Working Group recognizes that the reward system for faculty and P&A staff is
much broader than just compensation (e.g., the quality of students, the
quality of the environment, etc.) the emphasis of the committee is on direct
compensation. If the University wants to be one of the relatively few major
significant research institutions in the country, maybe in the world, as U2000
suggests, the University must be able to attract and retain a faculty that is
able to be competitive with the institutions it is trying to compete with.
The University must determine where it needs to be in order to be competitive
with its peer institutions in the labor market. In other words, does it want
to be at the 50th percentile, the 75th percentile, or where. Furthermore,
Professor Adams said, if you look at these peer institutions you can quickly
determine the size of the financial issue. Data that has been broadly
distributed suggest that the University is perhaps $10,000 per person behind
its peer institutions. If there are 2000 faculty, this may be a $20 million a
year problem. When inflation is factored in it could easily exceed $20
million.
This leads to another issue, Professor Adams said. If the University
had the resources available, how would they be distributed and would the
institution have the ability to distribute them in a way that is particularly
beneficial. Many people believe that the only method of modifying
compensation is to make changes in base salary. That is a very conservative
approach because changes in base salary are changes that need to be funded as
long as a person is employed with the organization. The Working Group has
discussed the notion of introducing flexibility, temporary changes, that would
allow more people to get more compensation without the conservatism associated
with the current kinds of thinking. These might be in the form of
augmentations, bonuses for good work, group incentives, etc. Introducing
flexibility into the system would allow the University to do more for the
faculty and put them in a better compensation position. It could also make
the University more competitive both in the acquisition and retention of
faculty. These kinds of flexibilities, Professor Adams noted, are not without
difficulty. For example, there may be increased administrative costs
associated with the plan and there is the potential for abuse.
Another important issue the Working Group has addressed is the notion
that performance is associated with compensation. The committee does not
suggest that if you pay someone more you automatically get more. It simply
doesn't work that way, said Professor Adams. On the other hand, if you have a
compensation scheme that allows you to attract and retain better people, you
can perhaps see a very distinct correlation between compensation and
performance. It is very difficult to get clear analytical data in this area,
he said, but the Working Group is attempting to obtain data that show that the
overall quality of an institution correlates with the ability to compensate
better.
Last, Professor Adams said, the Compensation Working Group does not want
to get involved in the financial strategies of the University. However, if
faculty believe this is an important problem, and the Working Group believes
it is, then faculty must find ways to put the financial strategy together.
Faculty may have to be prepared to recommend asking students to pay a little
more for better quality, and to argue that a better capability will allow
faculty to generate increased overhead contributions from grants, a better
institution will allow it to generate more gifts, a better quality of activity
will allow the institution to reasonably charge increased service fees or new
service fees for things that it provides, etc.
One senator inquired whether the Working Group was suggesting that
productivity can be increased by downsizing middle management? The committee,
Professor Adams responded, is attempting to gather data that will allow them
to look at the direct versus indirect costs and how the University compares
with its peer institutions. In this process, it will be important to look at
whether the University is as efficient administratively as it ought to be.
IX. OLD BUSINESS
NONE
X. NEW BUSINESS
NONE
XI. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 4:30 p.m.
Martha Kvanbeck
Abstractor