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Council of University System Faculty

Executive Meeting: Monday, April 7, 2008

USM Adelphi, Chancellor’s Room

Present:
John Collins (UMBI, Chair), Bill Stuart (UMCP, Vice Chair), Martha Siegel (TU, At-Large),   Alcott Arthur (CSU, At-Large), Joyce Shirazi (UMUC, Secretary)

Guest:
Irv Goldstein (USM, Senior Vice Chancellor, Office of Academic Affairs)
John Collins called the meeting to order at approximately 12:45 p.m.


Faculty Senate Chairs Meeting

Bill Stuart reiterated that he is coordinating the Faculty Senate Chairs meeting with CUSF and the Chancellor. The meeting will be held on Friday, April 18, 2008 from 12pm to 2pm at USM in the Chancellor’s Conference Room. Those who are planning to attend are currently notifying him. VSA will be a topic.  Martha Siegel noted that VSA is a good topic but it should not be the only one.  Another point that she made regarding the agenda for the meeting was that the faculty at Goucher College do not get sick leave because they are not on 12 month contracts and when they are sick they refer to the Family Leave Act for sick time off. Elaborating she noted that we do not want to mess-up what we already have, but we need to compare this. Sick leave is a very loose system since most of us have collegial leave. So we need to be careful to not hurt ourselves if a comparison is made to private MD colleges, i.e. Goucher College. The Federal Government only allows a certain amount of sick leave to be taken at retirement. The meeting agenda should perhaps include planning for the future and budgeting. Alcott Arthur stated that he will take minutes at the meeting since CUSF Secretary Joyce Shirazi can not attend the Faculty Senate Chairs meeting.

Textbook Information

Martha Siegel suggested that CUSF review the report from the TU Faculty Senate regarding textbook information. Martha Siegel just wanted to know how to represent it at the TU Faculty Senate meeting later today.  We agreed that CUSF discussed these issues and it was the sentiment of CUSF, without an official meeting or CUSF represented at the meeting of the TU Faculty Senate. Martha Siegel suggested that CUSF send out a letter since faculty are ordering textbooks now.  She recommended using the same letter sent out by David Parker with a change in the date.  John Collins said that he would send it to AAAC and the Senate Chairs.

BOR Faculty Awards

The BOR Faculty Awards Meeting and Ceremony will be held at the Board of Regents meeting on Friday in Hagerstown at 8:30am. Members of the CUSF Faculty Awards Committee are invited.
 

Irv Goldstein joined the meeting at 1:20 pm.

Budget/Legislative Issues

Irv Goldstein stated that Hagerstown will only lose $100,000. This will perhaps come up again on the Bohanan Commission. Hagerstown costs for running an old, state-owned building are very high. USM will get a 9% increase and keep the enrollment funding. We lost the $6.8 million across the system, but we still have the dedicated funding which is paid for by the corporate income tax that we share with transportation. As of Friday, the COLA still was there with no limits for higher salary. The BOR, not the legislature, will decide about in-state, undergraduate tuition.

Irv Goldstein noted pertinent legislation that did not make it, including Bill #49, which is Senator Joan Conway’s duplicate program bill and the textbook bill. Senator Conway did not bring the program duplication bill to the senate floor. There could possibly be a task force for textbooks. Senator James Rosapepe considers any money made on textbooks as a kickback. However that money pays for student related activities such as part of the bond debt for the Student Union at UMCP. Irv Goldstein also added that the bill that does not allow the use of standardized testing for college admission, which is referred to as the SAT Bill is still around. He noted the excellent work done by PJ Hogan and also noted that Joe Bryce helped with some of our legislative issues.

In response to a question from Martha Siegel about sustaining and expanding, Irv Goldstein explained that this year we have received good funding over 9%. TU is growing and will need new faculty which they will be able to fund through an expansion of enrollment funding from the State. SU is also growing. Frostburg is doing fine. They will have a new nursing program. UMES and UMB have very well regarded physical therapy programs. There is an outstanding doctorate physical therapy program at UMES.

 

Other

Irv Goldstein noted that he will not attend the April CUSF meeting and that Teri Hollander and John Wolfe can not attend, as well because we will have to be at the AAAC meeting. He added that if Jim Sansbury attends, that is fine because that he knows about benefits.

Concerning the Carol Twigg Initiative, we will have preliminary data this summer and the real implementation will be in the fall. The word of mouth seems to be very positive.

We are finalist in a Lumina Foundation grant. Thirty-six states applied and USM is a finalist.  Each semi-finalist receives $100,000 and if we get it, we will use it for items such as Closing the Achievement Gap and the Carol Twigg Initiative.

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