Minutes of the
Third Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Fifth Senate
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
November 14, 2005
12:00 P.M., Kettler G46
Agenda
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of October 17, 2005
3. Acceptance of the agenda – J. Grant
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a. Indiana University – B. Fife
b. Purdue University – N. Younis
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – G. Bullion
6. Committee reports requiring action
7. New business
8. Committee reports “for information only”
Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 05-5) – J. Grant
9. The general good and welfare of the University
10. Adjournment*
*The meeting will adjourn or recess by 1:15 p.m.
Presiding Officer: G. Bullion
Parliamentarian: D. Turnipseed
Sergeant-at-Arms: G. Steffen
Secretary: J. Petersen
Senate Members Present:
B. Abbott, A. Argast, S. Blythe, W. Branson, J. Brennan, J. Burg, C. Champion,
M. Codispoti, S. Davis, P. Dragnev, D. Erbach, C. Erickson, B. Fife, R. Friedman,
P. Goodmann, J. Grant, T. Grove, P. Hamburger, S. Hannah, C. Hill, P. Iadicola, L. Kuznar, L. Lin, D. Lindquist, M. Lipman, M. Montesino, G. Moss, R. Murray, A. Mustafa,
D. Oberstar, E. Ohlander, D. Ross, H. Samavati, G. Schmelzle, J. Tankel, S. Tannous,
J. Toole, S. Troy, M. Walsh, L. Wark, M. Wartell, N. Younis, J. Zhao
Senate Members Absent:
R. Bean, L. Fox, D. Goodman, A. Karim, Z. Liang, L. Meyer, G. Mourad, D. Mueller,
E. Neal, G. Voland
___________________________________________________________________________
Attachments:
“Strategies for Excellence: The IPFW Strategic Plan (Annual Report for Year 4: 2004-2005)” (Attachment A)
“Faculty Pay Frequency Options” (Attachment B)
Faculty Members Present: J. Clausen
Visitors Present: J. Dahl, R. Kostrubanic, K. Stockman (Journal Gazette), K. Tolliver
Acta
1. Call to order: G. Bullion called the meeting to order at 12:00.
2. Approval of the minutes of October 17, 2005: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
J. Grant moved to approve the agenda as distributed.
The agenda was approved as distributed.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a. Indiana University:
B. Fife: Colleagues, please let me know if you have any ideas or issues that you feel are not being considered by the Senate in its committees at this time. I would appreciate hearing from you. I also wanted to express my disappointment in, and opposition to, the proposed pay frequency changes for Purdue-paid faculty members which includes faculty in Purdue and Indiana University disciplines. Faculty are asked to vote on two choices, both of which are far less tenable than the current pay dates. It seems to me that Purdue officials are allowing the computer program in question to establish the policy and have completely forgotten about the human being in the organization in the realities of today. I encourage all of you to respond vocally in steadfast opposition to these proposed changes. Like everyone else, faculty members have financial obligations. The current pay dates allow us to address these responsibilities in a far more optimum manner than either of these choices.
b. Purdue University:
N. Younis: Hello, everyone! Today I will highlight two issues that have been mentioned by the faculty: the dean’s annual evaluation of the chairs and the niche of IPFW.
First, higher education has changed since the early 1990s. Now assessment is the thrust of change and is a big part of curriculum development, the creation of new degrees, achievements of programs’ objectives and outcomes, faculty accomplishments and administrators’ performances. At the last meeting I talked about the lack of evaluation feedback by the deans to the faculty. After the meeting, it was brought to my attention by faculty and chairs that some deans have not given feedback to their chairs, in some cases in more than one year. In my opinion, this is problematic for the following main reasons:
1) The chairs do not know how the faculty perceive their leadership. As one chair stated, “How do I know what faculty think of my work and leadership if I do not get the faculty feedback?”
2) We are asking the faculty to submit their opinions, expert advice, or criticism of the chairs. It is only fair and respectful to the faculty to use the information that they have provided. Currently, some deans are not able to use the faculty input as they are not getting an annual written performance appraisal to the chairs.
3) We are sending the message to the faculty regarding chair assessment, that their opinion is not important, as the basic annual review of the chairs is not done.
The second issue is the niche of IPFW. In general, we classify a university as a teaching or a research institution. The question is ‘Who are we?’ This university has come a long way and is positioned to be the best university in northeast Indiana. But, in talking to the faculty, it appears to me that we really do not know our niche. The majority of the faculty think that we should be a teaching institution. Some say we should be a research institution because of the limited funding from the state. So I suggest we define ‘Who are we’ through dialogue and discussion – we should decide what we want our niche to be.
Currently we do not have many faculty with the rank of Professor on this campus. While we emphasize that teaching is the primary duty of the faculty, we tend to measure the success of faculty based on their strength of research. And of course, we forget about service.
I am not promoting one way or another; I am simply saying that we need to decide ‘Who are we’ without lowering the standard.
Thank you.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – G. Bullion: There was no report.
6. Committee reports requiring action: There were no reports.
7. New business: There was no new business.
8. Committee reports “for information only”:
Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 05-5) – J. Grant
J. Grant presented Senate Reference No. 05-5 (Items under Consideration by Senate Committees and Subcommittees) for information only.
9. The general good and welfare of the University:
C. Erickson: The Childcare Taskforce met with the chancellor and the vice chancellors a couple of weeks ago. We had a good meeting and we presented the results from the survey that we conducted last spring. We are now taking the next step into devising a business plan: what would a new childcare center look like. No decisions have made here, we are still exploring our options. If anyone is interested in seeing the results from the survey – there were around 719 respondents, including a lot of students – please contact me.
J. Tankel: I know you all wait patiently and anxiously for my e-mails from the Educational Policy Committee, but I do want to remind you, if you have not seen it, that the deadline for comments on the Goals and Objectives project has now been pushed to February 1, 2006. We will be having at least two open forums in January, so please continue your discussions in your department and get that information either directly to me or to Jacqui in terms of responses from your particular units, and we will be back to you in the new year.
S. Hannah: I am distributing a brochure that Dr. Erin Frew, Director of Assessment, has developed which provides some questions and answers with regard to Academic Program Assessment. I will pass these out and ask you to be on the lookout for them in other places.
I would like to follow up on something that Nash Younis said about ‘who are we?’ The strategic plan struggled with that question, and the next generation of the strategic plan is struggling with that question. The Strategic Planning and Review Council, on which many of the faculty leaders sit, will also be wrestling with that, so it remains an interesting challenge for us.
S. Davis: I had sent out a memo e-mail to Jacqui Petersen on the pay frequency that Professor Fife spoke to. Jim Ferguson is out of town, but Kirk Tolliver is here to speak to this.
K. Tolliver: As Professor Davis mentioned I am here to talk about pay frequencies. You should all have received a note about the proposed pay frequencies and been given an opportunity to vote for one of two proposed frequencies. One is for nine full payments starting with September 10 of each year and going through May 10. The other is for ten payments, eight of which will be equal, and then a partial payment the first month and a partial payment the last month. There are several things to consider when looking at the two pay frequencies. One important consideration is that with the nine equal pays, there is a significant gap between the last spring payment and the first fall payment. I believe it was 125 days between payments if that is the option chosen. With the ten payments, we do not have that same problem. In fact, we are lessening the gap between what we have now with the current system with a payment May 15 and then again August 31. However, we are talking about two partial payments in May and August. The projection on the handout shows, for the ten payments, a half payment in May and a half payment in August. However, if you will notice, there is a little asterisk that says August and May payments may vary by semester start and end dates. We actually have more work days in August than we do in May, so I think what you will find is that the August payment is going to be larger than what is shown, and the May payment is going to be significantly smaller. Instead of the sample $10,000 payments shown on your handouts, they are going to be slightly over $10,000 because the system is going to average it over the whole number of work days worked. There are other considerations. Withholding will be higher with fewer payments, for example. That is something you can adjust, but it is something of which you will need to be aware. It will have an impact on your net pay. This will affect only Purdue-paid people. It will not affect Indiana University-paid people.
S. Davis: You mentioned something about voting. As you understand the voting so far, Purdue has gone really against the nine-month?
K. Tolliver: What I hear in the voting so far is that it has been about 3-1 against the 9-pay option.
S. Davis: It seems like there is no other option. I really object to them having just the two criteria put in there. They had mentioned something about a 12-month pay. That was tried here in the past, wasn’t it?
K. Tolliver: It was. When I first started at the university, that was something that was offered; quite frankly not many people used that option. I think we were down to about a dozen people on campus, so it was dropped a few years ago. Financially, it is not really a good idea because the university simply holds back your pay and pays you later in the year, and it is a no-interest loan to the university.
R. Friedman: Will this affect chairs who are on a 12-month pay?
K. Tolliver: No.
P. Hamburger: There are disadvantages with this pay, but there are advantages as well. For instance, you are benefited in that if it goes into your retirement sooner, then you can gain more money. So you really have to look at it very carefully to see which is more beneficial for you. If you count how much money you gain and how much money you lose – because you lose some – you gain on the market probably much more. I do not believe this is a bad proposal, though we are used to the ten-month, and it was very convenient for many years.
The other thing I would like to mention is that we are paid in the summer, so this long gap will not be that long because most faculty have either a grant or teach in the summer.
Third, we can raise an issue, which should be a serious issue, if you change it for ten month, then the summer payment will not be 1/10 because then we are hired for nine months, and then it should be 1/9, which is 11.11%. So we have to look at it very carefully when we propose something mathematically, and decide which benefits you more than disadvantages you. If you put money in the market sooner, then that is a good advantage.
W. Branson: Does the website give you a chance to make comments if you want to suggest a different alternative?
K. Tolliver: Yes, it does. You are allowed to vote for one of the two options, and there is a comment section, so there certainly is a place to write in.
C. Erickson: I am a little unsure about the status here. Is this something that Purdue is going to institute whether we vote on it or not? Is that the case, or have the Purdue faculty voted on this?
K. Tolliver: The Purdue faculty have been sent the same thing that you all have been sent. They are still in the blueprinting stage, so I would not say that it is set in stone, that it is going to be one or the other. There may be a chance to change.
S. Troy: I just wanted to clarify Professor Hamburger’s point. Are you saying, from the market value, it makes more sense for us to put more money in and do the nine month?
P. Hamburger: You get your money sooner so you get your benefit sooner. It depends on the market. If your money is invested in the market sooner, you gain more. You have to be very careful when you vote just because you are used to a system. You have to sit down with some economist, accountant, or mathematician. I found that for me, I would come out better with the nine month than with the ten month, though the ten month was very convenient because I am used to that payment. For me, though, it would be better, and I believe that, for most faculty, the nine month would be more beneficial. Actually, there are many universities who pay nine months. I was on sabbatical for a year, and it was a nine-month pay. And the summer pay was nice. Everything was 1/9, even if you have a National Science Foundation grant. The National Science Foundation grant goes by 1/9.
A. Argast: I would not want to argue math with a mathematician. It looks to me like they are going to hold back a paycheck until September 10. Now, I get a pay in August. It is not like you are going to get your money sooner. You get it a month later, and if you go with the nine equal payments, you are not gaining anything in the market. You are not going to put it in as soon as you do now.
P. Hamburger: Not necessarily, because we are paid August 31. So that is ten days. But then the rest is divided by nine rather than ten. You have to sit down with a calculator and figure it out, and that is what I did. I said that there are some disadvantages, but there are advantages as well.
N. Younis: Regarding the ten payments, I am still not convinced how the software can recognize the date of payments, for example August 31 and May 31 and all in between, but it cannot divide it between ten equal payments.
W. Branson: My understanding is that the computer software can do anything that they want it to do. If you believe that is a proposal you would like to see, with ten equal payments, I would write that in as a comment: “To me, ten equal payments makes the most sense.”
N. Younis: That is what we have been doing: ten equal payments.
W. Branson: That is correct.
N. Younis: So why fix something that is not broken?
W. Branson: I think you are going to have to write that in. It is important to respond.
N. Younis: I did.
K. Tolliver: Indiana University has faced the same problem with PeopleSoft and, what they have done, rather than look at actual days worked, is to base the faculty work year from August 1 through May 31. They solved the problem by simply saying you have worked the whole month and paying people at the end of the month. The problem that that causes is with summer, which we may run into with the Purdue ten-pay also, in that if you are teaching in May and you are also getting paid 1/10 of your salary in May, then you are going to have a very large payment at the end of May and a lot more withholding. We have run into that with Indiana University, and Indiana University has actually had to do some refunding of withholding.
C. Champion: When are the payments for insurance deducted from a paycheck for the people who choose either nine or ten months?
K. Tolliver: It is my understanding that we will do a similar schedule in that they will be deducted during the nine or ten payments, not during any summer payments.
C. Champion: So it would be uniformly distributed through the amount of payments.
K. Tolliver: That is correct.
D. Oberstar: I recall, when I was on a ten-pay schedule, that they did not take out things level; but rather, in September, the first paycheck, they used to add three times the amount of insurance, etc. that was not deducted during the summer. Has it turned recently into a level thing?
K. Tolliver: That has been one of the differences between Indiana University and Purdue University-paid people. Indiana University folks have always been charged the first pay in the fall for the three months of deductions, whereas with Purdue it is always calculated over ten months.
D. Oberstar: So Indiana University faculty will be working with the same program if we are Indiana University paid?
K. Tolliver: I believe that is true.
P. Hamburger: It is funny that this example is run on a paycheck of $90,000. So, if we were paid $90,000 we probably would not have this problem, right?
M. Wartell: You are being asked for your opinion. I believe they will take it into account. You are being asked for it at exactly the same time as the Purdue faculty, the Calumet faculty, and the North Central faculty. Make your opinions strongly known because it will have an effect on those committees. The committees are made up of people like you.
B. Abbott: I have been here long enough to remember seeing these pay periods changing for the Purdue paychecks over time. When I was first hired here I came off a summer, where I was getting no money, into here and not getting paid until September 15, and that was for only three weeks of work. Then it was moved back to the end of September and it was like starvation time until that first paycheck came around. I was very glad to see the changes that were implemented over the years and give us this ten-month system where we now get paid September 1 or August 31, right off the bat. I thought that was all an improvement.
J. Toole: Maybe I am missing something, but in the very first point, under background, it says “replicating the current pay schedule creates an unacceptable risk of missing pay deadlines.” I was wondering if you could explain what that is. It makes it sound as though it would be difficult to change the software and that there is some problem.
K. Tolliver: I wish I could respond to that. I honestly do not know what that risk would be.
S. Davis: If you look at the nine months, it looks like there is a pre-paid schedule in the summer, so if you teach first summer session, you will be getting paid the first and second; if you teach second summer session, you get paid the second and third?
K. Tolliver: Again, I am not sure of the details. I calculated the way I think the system is going to calculate it, by actual days, so that if you teach Summer I, you are going to get two weeks on that May 31 pay, perhaps three weeks; and then with the nine months, you are going to get part of it on June 10 and part on July 10. So what that means is that there will be unequal paychecks because there are different numbers of days in those payperiods. With either the nine pay or the ten pay you are going to have unequal summer payments. With the ten pay, if we are going by calendar months, you are going to have part of your academic pay in May, which is a short check, plus you are going to have the first part of Summer I in that pay. This means that you are going to get probably 20% more than your normal paycheck in May and then get a little less than the normal paycheck in June, if you are teaching two classes. With the nine-pay system, we are actually talking about pay periods that go from the 15th or the 14th of the month, so with the nine-pay system, you are going to get probably 70% of your pay in one check and 30% in the other. So I did my own projections with someone making that $90,000 and teaching two classes in the Summer I. They would get roughly $13,400 on that June 10 check and $4,600 in the July check. We are used to equal summer payments. Currently, the Purdue-paid folks get three equal summer payments paid every other week; and with either of these scenarios, it is going to be different, and there are going to be withholding consequences by changing to the new system.
N. Younis: Roughly speaking, what is the percentage of faculty that teach in the summer? Is it a high number or a small number?
S. Hannah: Some departments, like Engineering, it is very little. Other departments, like English and Math, are larger numbers. So there is quite a bit of variation.
J. Dahl: There are about 200 sections in each of the two summer sessions. Some people double up and teach only one. We have a few associate faculty, but very few. So, of our 350 faculty, out of 400 sections, most have an opportunity; but there are cases, like in Engineering, where there is next to nothing offered.
N. Younis: The reason I am mentioning this is because the percentages are small – we should have the policy here to benefit the majority of the faculty. That includes the people who are going to teach in the summer. So, the summer issue should not be the obstacle.
P. Hamburger: Something you need to look at with the summer teaching is the summer grants because those who have summer grants cannot teach. I believe the majority of the faculty, probably 80-85 percent, teach in the summer or have grants.
K. Tolliver: Jack Dahl just made a good suggestion: could we do a straw poll and report back to West Lafayette who prefers nine versus ten versus current? Is there anything else?
D. Erbach: I think that is a good idea, and I would like to include 12. It sounds like at one time hardly anyone was interested in 12, but I have talked to a number of people who would prefer 12.
L. Lin: I second that.
G. Bullion: I am hearing two other alternatives being offered here for an expression of preference, and that is going to create some complications. How should we do this?
D. Oberstar: I suggest that you have three possibilities: 1, 2, and neither. You do not need to specify the various options: there is X percentage of the faculty among faculty Senate members who say neither of these two plans.
G. Bullion: And “neither” will tend to default to the current system. We will now take up the issue of a completely different option. Then we will do a straw poll.
J. Grant: You are asking only Purdue-paid faculty to vote on this?
S. Hannah: Those of us who are 12-month faculty should not be setting the rules. These should be ten-month Purdue-paid faculty; and if I were you, I would put all four of those choices there to make it absolutely clear: the current system, 9-month, 10-month, and 12-month pays.
A. Argast: I represent geology. It is an Indiana University-affiliated department. I have at least three faculty who are Purdue paid. So, if I am here as a representative of my department, I want my vote counted on this. I am representing them as much as anybody else.
M. Lipman: I would suggest that this is not the right group of people from which to take a straw poll. If you would like to have a straw poll informally, then the entire faculty should be sent an e-mail that says “Please vote,” but this particular body is not representative in that sense of the whole faculty.
P. Iadicola: There may be a larger issue here that is related to this. This is the one-size-fits-all problem, and it may be that Purdue University and the various workloads of their faculty, especially during the summer months, is significantly different than this experience at IPFW. I do not know that, but it seems to me that that should at least be questioned. Maybe the model that comes out of Purdue West Lafayette or the model that comes out of Bloomington for that matter, does not really fit IPFW very well. It may be time to actually have some kind of consideration as to what would be the cost of doing this on our own, if we added one system for Indiana and Purdue faculty.
J. Dahl: I suggested the straw poll, not as a poll of the faculty, but in order to introduce what was strongly supported in terms of the current arrangement. If this group sent that as a strong signal, I think it would serve to interrupt what is currently a process that is leading to a decision. And if that turned into an actual vote with current pay as an alternative, that is fine, but if nobody here supported it, then it is not going to need to be pursued any further.
B. Fife: I agree with Vice Chancellor Dahl. The two issues are not mutually exclusive. We could have a straw poll of all folks affected, but we could also have a vote here. Why not do both? I think the signal will be a strong one in both cases. But at least all folks could have their perspectives offered in a public forum. So I think we should do it here. And if Mr. Tolliver or Mr. Ferguson wants to send out an e-mail to everyone and let them vote, that is fine, too.
N. Younis: I would like to suggest that every voting member who is sitting here have the right to vote as one university. This is going to affect us, and I trust that my colleagues will vote for the better of this university.
P. Goodmann: Along those same lines (I cannot remember who said it), “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This looks to me like the bean counters wagging the dog.
B. Abbott: Could we just have a straw vote on how many of us, at the present moment, would wish to see the current system stay in place?
G. Bullion: I have heard a suggestion that we do basically a straw poll here and then also a poll amongst the faculty, conducted by Human Resources or Human Resources with the Senate. It would still be useful information.
P. Hamburger: I have a question about the role of the faculty. Those that respond respond to Lafayette. Why do we want to do this twice? West Lafayette asked us to respond.
M. Wartell: Let us make sure we do the most effective thing. If taking a poll of the entire faculty ourselves lessens their desire to respond to Purdue’s feedback form, I think we are making a mistake. You want your voice to be heard as loudly as possible. It struck me that you want to ask three questions. You want to ask 1) the possibility of the current system, 2) the nine- or ten-month options, or 3) choose between the three. And, if there was an alternative, could there be a 12-month pay period? So the 12-month pay period should really be a separate question.
G. Bullion: If we conduct the straw poll, the straw poll will have two options: 1) a change, and then you will not be arguing the issue of nine or ten because you have the opportunity to express that on the website, or 2) the status quo.
(The poll was taken from all voting Senate members present: The results are as follows:)
Option 1 (a change in the system to either nine-month or ten-month pay): 1
Option 2 (status quo): 39
3 abstentions
J. Brennan: If a straw vote was held, I would be in favor of a 12-month pay schedule. I have always been in favor of it and, even though I am an Indiana University-paid faculty member who is going to retire pretty soon, I still think that is better.
G. Bullion: We can do a straw poll on that.
From among this group here, how many would prefer a 12-month pay schedule?
Prefer 12-month pay schedule: 7
Do not prefer 12-month pay schedule: majority
D. Erbach: Are we not taking a straw poll between the nine- and ten-month alternatives?
G. Bullion: No, because you can go to the website and do that.
M. Wartell: Please do that – please express your opinion.
P. Hamburger: Are we still going to do a poll of the faculty?
G. Bullion: That was not agreed upon today.
10. The meeting adjourned at 12:47 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty