Maryland's Public System of Higher Education

Council of University System Faculty

CUSF Meeting of December 18, 2003

DRAFT Minutes

Council of University System Faculty Meeting

December18, 2003 at Coppin State College

Present: Frank Alt (UMCP), Patricia Alt (TU), Alcott Arthur (CSC), Zane Berge (UMBC), Vince Brannigan (UMCP), Bill Chapin (UMES), John Collins (UMBI), Gertrude Eaton (USM), James Gelatt (UMBC), Stephanie Gibson (UB), Irg Goldstein (USM), Denny Gulick (UMCP), Steve Jacobs (UMB), Adelaide Lagnese (UMUC), Marci McClive (FSU), Raymond Morgan (UMCES), John Organ (BSU), Anjali Pandey (SU), Dave Parker (SU), Doug Pryor (TU), Lee Richardson (UB), Frank Robb ( UMBI), Martha Siegel (TU), Joyce Skirazi (UMUC), William Stuart (UMCP), Joyce Tenney (UMBC), Paul Thut (UMB), Jay Zimmerman (TU)

The meeting was called to order shortly after ten o’clock. Laurie Harris (Vice President, CSC Senate) and M. DeClarke (President, CSC Senate) brought words of greeting and introduced Stanley Battle, the CSC President, who spoke briefly about developments at CSC in the creation of a high school academy.

The minutes of the previous meetings were approved as modified.

Vice Chancellor Irv Goldstein gave the report from the System Office. The Mandel Report, with slight modifications, is now out. Once the Governor has officially accepted it, the University System and the campuses will have six moths to respond and report, particularly in the area of business efficiency. To respond to the Efficiency and Effectiveness Committee, it will be necessary for us to work for better public understanding that the competition for faculty is both a national competition and one that is discipline-specific and for better understanding of the difference between faculty course load and work load. Questions of time to degree and enrollment management in view of the anticipated increases in enrollment also demand our attention. Tuition is also a matter of general concern, so that the January document on financial aid may well prove to be controversial. The current version of the Strategic Plan has caused some concern for the Provosts and the AAAC: there appear to be promises of action not coupled with the necessary resources and some unclearness lack of claritylack of clarity about the relationship between announced USM goals and the work of the campuses. In the last matter, Vice Chancellor Goldstein emphasized that, given the differing missions of the campuses, not every campus would be carrying out every activity listed. In further discussion with the Vice Chancellor, Wwe all agreed that, given the continuing financial tightness, it is most important that the process of assigning merit increases must be transparent on each campus.

During discussion of reports of the Chair and others who had attended meetings of other bodies, it became clear that we need to clarify the difference between faculty and other state employees in that we bring dollars into the system as part of our work.

The situation at Bowie State University does not seem to be improving and could lead to an appeal from the faculty there directly to the governor.

The pending appointment of one of our former campus Presidents, Calvin Burnette, to head MHEC should be of benefit in increasing MHEC understanding of the USM.

The committee working on the selection of Regents’ Faculty Award winners has completed its work and will send its ten recommendations on to the Board of Regents. All campuses are encouraged to work to assure a larger pool of applicants in years to come.

The proposed changes to the ART document will now go on to the USM offices and to the AG’s office for their reaction. The only significant change suggested at the meeting was rewriting the section on Instructors to allow one to three year appointments (instead of just one-year appointments).

During discussion of the Systems Appeals Process, we agreed, with one dissention, that there should be a mechanism for appeals of violation of BOR policy or of campus policy pursuant to BOR policy to go off-campus even without favorable campus senate action, and that all appeals should pass to the Chancellor rather than to a subcommittee of the BOR. The business of rewriting the text describing this process should be completed by our next meeting.

Chair Siegel gave special thanks to those giving testimony to the Special Committee on Higher Education Affordability and Accessibility.

While the January CUSF meeting will take place at USM in Adelphi, our February 16^th meeting will be in Annapolis, at which time we will visit our legislators to inform them of our concerns and hopes for the upcoming legislative session. On February 22^nd23r^d23rd, there will be a Student Poster Session for the legislators from twelve to four in the afternoon. We need to be sure that students are prepared and present for this session.

Marci McClive and Gertrude Eaton reminded us of the Chairs Workshop that will be taking place on January 16, the day of our meeting in Adelphi. Martha Siegel will bring greetings to the Workshop during the morning. Since we will both be meeting in the same building, we will probably be getting together at lunchtime.

Chancellor Kirwan’s USM Strategic Plan should be taken as a set of guideline for the campuses: each should take or leave any of the particular parts, depending on their relevance to the particular campus. In general, there will be more emphasis on service, perhaps without so much of the traditional distinction between service to the campus/system, service to the disciplines, and service to the community.

Discussion near the end of the meeting made it clear that, in the matter of tuition, it might be better if we were speaking of "expenditure", a combination of the state contribution with the student’s tuition contribution, since this corresponds more closely to reality.

The meeting was adjourned shortly after two o’clock.