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 16th 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 22nd23rd23rd, 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.