Given the importance of the March 25 Faculty Senate meeting, and given that the FCC unanimously endorsed the Prez's ultimatum to faculty, it is regrettable that the FCC closed the two-hour meeting that it held prior to the Faculty Senate meeting on March 25. So much for accountability. The minutes are appended below.
Minutes*
Faculty Consultative Committee
Thursday, March 25, 2010
12:00 – 2:15
N202 Mondale Hall
Present: Michael Oakes (chair pro tem), Melissa Anderson, Carol Chomsky, Chris Cramer, Shawn Curley, Janet Fitzakerley, Kathryn Hanna, Caroline Hayes, Emily Hoover, Brian Isetts, Walt Jacobs, Jeff Kahn, Russell Luepker, Jan McCulloch, Martin Sampson, Kate VandenBosch, Cathrine Wambach, Becky Yust
Absent: Marti Hope Gonzales, Nancy Carpenter
Guests: President Robert Bruininks; Provost E. Thomas Sullivan
Other: Kathryn Stuckert (Office of the President)
[In these minutes: Faculty Senate meeting]
Faculty Senate Meeting
Professor Oakes convened the meeting at 12:15 and accepted a motion to close the meeting. It was adopted unanimously.
The Committee discussed the Faculty Senate meeting that immediately followed this meeting, identifying the major issues, those who might speak, and the order in which matters would be discussed.
The President and Provost joined the meeting at 1:30; the Committee discussed with them the major issues that appeared to be of concern to faculty at the upcoming Faculty Senate meeting.
The Committee noted the distinction between the 2% compensation pool increase and any individual's potential salary increase: The delayed 2% compensation pool increase is not an across-the-board 1% raise for all faculty and P&A staff.
Professor Oakes adjourned the meeting at 2:15.
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And what is truly amusing about this is that later the FCC chairs admitted that even they didn't know what the Administration was up to:
ReplyDeleteAt the April 1 [sic] FCC meeting we heard:
"Professors Gonzales and Oakes reported that they have been pressing the President and Provost for strategic plans and scope of mission discussions and have worked on the fiscal crisis the entire year. They have no idea what the plan is. That is a problem, which is one reason why the Regents Professors were invited to join the Committee today."
So why was the FCC breaking bread with the administration two hours before the March 25 meeting and going along with their plans? Wasn't that the time to force the issue of actual consultation and shared governance?
It was also very disappointing to see this cheap shot:
"Professor Chomsky said she endorsed the idea of the Regents Professors speaking. The administration hears from this Committee, with considerable communication in private, and it also hears shriller voices(who complain correctly about concerns like the failure to justify administrative expenses, but aren’t doing so effectively [cough, cough])."
And the FCC is doing so effectively, Professor Chomsky?
If you don't hear the frustration from many faculty members out here, I don't know what to say.
And it is not clear to me at all that the FCC is doing an effective job of insisting that shared governance not be a sham.
When the chair of the FCC stands up before the Board of Regents on a regular basis and claims that everything is hunky-dory, this is what is going to happen.
The Board will support the President and the faculty will be left standing there, holding an empty bag. And the FCC bears some responsibility for this situation.
As someone recently said: "Step up, or step aside."