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Council of University System Faculty

Executive Meeting: Monday, January 12, 2009

A. Chairman Bill Chapin called the meeting of the Council of University System Faculty (CUSF) Executive Committee to order at 12:10 p.m. on Monday, January 12, 2009 at the University System of Maryland (USM), Adelphi, in the Conference Room. Those in attendance were: Chairman Bill Chapin, Vice Chair Martha Siegel, Secretary Joyce Shirazi, At-Large Officers Joyce Tenney and Bill Stuart.

B. The December 2008 CUSF Executive Committee Meeting minutes were unanimously approved. (Moved by Joyce Shirazi and seconded by Joyce Tenney).

C. The Budget: The Governor’s Budget is embargoed until January 12th. We will do well with the Governor’s budget, so we need to work with him. All campus sessions with the legislature are cancelled this year.

D. Policy Initiatives with the Legislature: 1) The Bohanan Commission will present some of its findings and establish it ‘in principle’. 2) We get some money now from the Higher Education Investment Fund. The business community agreed on the higher tax. If we get it, we share it with transportation. If we want to keep it, we need to be enthusiastic. 3) Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA) will get put through as an emergency bill. It will help students with financial aid. 4) Affordable Health Care for Students may be an un-fundable mandate. There may be a push for statewide providers of healthcare for students. 5) Need clearer authority from MHEC regarding other institutions, in particular, for profits. 6) There are questions about mandatory union fees. It appears the non-union institutions want this. Fees can only be used for negotiation and not for political purposes. Graduate students are currently exempt. 7) There is going to be a University of MD Bookstore Resolution. We are trying to avoid unfortunate legislation. The Textbook Educational Policy is on a fast track. The Committee on Education Policy of the University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents will meet Wednesday, January 28, 2009. The Presidents will get it on February 2, 2009 and the Board of Regents (BOR) will have it on February 13, 2009. The CUSF textbook letter that Martha Siegel wrote is the core. We will have a policy by the February 13, 2009 BOR meeting. 8) There was lots of discussion about the STEM Task Force. TU President Caret is about to come out with a final report. He is doing more of the statistical analysis. The Governor wants legislation on this. So it will be in the pot with the Governor’s budget proposal. Not sure what will happen in the legislature. The opinion is that we are not doing well with STEM on all campuses. There is a proposal to fund it at 100% of the guidelines, but it has been condensed down to 15%. There is federal money out there. Therefore maybe it should be shovel- ready, just in case it can be used in one of President Obama’s initiatives. The Math for America nonprofit organization supplements new teacher salaries to enable then to make as much as $80,000 combined with some sort of matching funds, which was noted could possibly demoralize the other faculty members because they may not make that much money. UTeach is working well in Texas and Dr. Uri Treisman is in charge. Sr. Vice Chancellor Irv Goldstein has assured us that USM faculty are involved in the STEM effort.

E. Reports from Other Meetings: BOR Member David Nevins said that some faculty members are being irresponsible. The staff members say that instructors do not submit the information on time. Martha Siegel noted that the textbook (bundled) package has to be open information and that books are available from other sources. She also added that Irv Goldstein must send an early version of the bookstore resolution and STEM documents to us, before the February CUSF General Body Meeting to enable us to get it out to everyone before the meeting. Joyce Tenney asked Bill Chapin to mark the email message as urgent, when he sends it to the Senate Chairs.

F. Other Business: 1) In February, we will have CUSF nominations for officers, and we will vote in March and April. 2) We need to find out if the Department Chairs Workshop is on the calendar. The Faculty Senate Chairs Meeting is scheduled for May 1, 2009.

G. Guests atGeneral Meetings: We will invite the CUSS General Body or the CUSS Executive Board to one of our meetings, in an effort to join forces regarding the status of retirement benefits. We may ask Joe Vivona to come to either our March CUSF Executive Meeting or March CUSF General Body Meeting. The Chair of the BOR is coming to the May CUSF General Body Meeting at UMES.

H. The meeting adjourned at 1:45 p.m.

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