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September 2005 - IFC Report

Report from IFC meeting of September 30, 2005

IFC members: Paul Speck, Teresa Thiel, Richard Wright

  1. FAS system questions and problems will be handled on each campus. There will be at least two people on each campus, one an IT person, who will solve local problems and report more general problems to the System office. On the UMSL campus Lori Morgan functions as the operational person, to give people access, help with access and entry problems, etc., and Mary Brown from IT will help with any technical issues and work with the UM System on programming, etc. if necessary. Larry Westermeyer also will help with the reporting from FAS if needed. All of them have been trained by the FAS folks, and I understand will receive more training and information as needed.
  2. Executive Order 6A concerns the issue of who may provide comments concerning the tenure and promotion of regular faculty. There had been previous discussion about changing the rule to allow non-regular faculty to provide written comments on tenure and promotion cases. The current active version allows only faculty at the same rank as or higher rank than the candidate to contribute comments. There was some discussion by IFC about restricting these comments to faculty at a higher rank than the candidate, which is currently the practice in many units. This will be discussed further at a future meeting.
    Executive Order 6A
    Prior to the deliberations of the promotion and tenure committee, all tenured members of that department or school holding the same rank as or higher rank than that of the candidate (or, in larger departments or schools, all tenured members of the particular academic field holding the same rank as or higher rank than that of the candidate) shall be given the opportunity to provide written and signed comments to the promotion and tenure committee regarding the candidate being considered.
  3. VP Ken Hutchinson stated that the exclusion of domestic partners from the Metropolitan Life Long-Term Care Policy for the university was the result of the policy by the Board of Curators to exclude domestic partners from university benefits such as health insurance. Paul Speck pointed out that other family members, such as parents, who are not eligible for health insurance, are eligible for long-term care. One major difference is that the university contributes to health care premiums but not to long term care premiums. Hutchinson agreed that this was true and said that he would continue to explore the possibility of including domestic partners in the Metropolitan Long-Term Care plan.
  4. VP Hutchinson also stated that the university could probably provide the tuition reduction benefit for dependents of retirees at relatively low cost and that this was under active consideration by the President.
  5. The IFC asked Hutchinson to discuss the possibility of allowing retirement for those with a combined age and years of service of 85. The major issue is that this will cost the university about 1% of total compensation; therefore, with current salary increases of only about 2%, the change would decrease the annual salary increases by about 50%.
  6. Executive Guideline No. 15: IFC agreed with the change in the rules that now will not allow extra compensation or summer salary for administrators at the level of dean and above.
  7. Representative Carl Bearden sponsored House Bill 742 that would provide funding to Missouri public and private colleges and universities by allocation of money to students. The money would follow the student to the institution in Missouri that they attend. This would result in the shifting of state funds to private institutions. This new policy would apply only to new state allocations. For example, with $20 million in new funding, currently $9.3 million would go to the UM System. In the Bearden model this allocation would decrease to $4.2 million. The major beneficiaries would be the 2-yr publics (which would see an increase from $3.2 to $4.8 million) and the privates (from $0 to $5 million). The bill is likely to be modified in the current legislative session.
  8. Missouri Government Review Commission met Sept 22 in Columbia and rejected by a vote of 13-4 a proposal that stated that Chancellors for the UM System would be selected by and report to the Board of Curators. The commission approved by a wide margin two proposals to create cabinet level secretaries of higher education and elementary and secondary education, to be appointed by the Governor. They also approved a change in the compositin of nine-member CBHE to include the UM System President, one chancellor from the UM System, two presidents from four-year colleges and universities, two presidents from community colleges, one president from independent colleges and univeristies and two lay citizens. No more than two members can come from any one congressional district. Paul Speck asked if under this formula it were possible that CBHE might have no representatives from an urban university. VP Knorr agreed that that was the case.
  9. The IFC will continue the discussion it began last year concerning the roles, responsibilities and privileges of non-tenure track faculty, including a more appropriate name for them, possibly "professional track" faculty.