Faculty Senate Meeting
Minutes
February 11, 2002

 

Attendees: Greg Poston, Ben Matus, Tracy Marshall, Lee Poehls, Ken Tow, Aniruddh Hathi, Jean Turner, Bob Larsen, Gwenn Kelly, Stephen Range, Roy Rost, Mike Torres, Brandon Thomas, Steve Betros, Rick Porter, George Reamy, Terry Ehrhardt, Ronald Neuman, Ruth Gray, Dale Bullock, Barbara Lease, Jeff Looper, Richard Wheet, Debi Cisneros

Guests: Brenda Cornell, Mark Long, Francette Carnahan, Rich Morris

SSN on Colleague – Francette Carnahan

Francette has been with the TSTC System for 2 years.  In 1984, TSTC was the third client to purchase Colleague.  The student system has been the same since 1984.  In 1994, the structure of the system was changed in release 14.  Financial aid would no longer run with release 13.  It was not surprise when Ed called and discussed the faculty concerns. The Senate needs to understand how the system is structured.  What options do you have and the ramification of those changes.  Francette needs to understand all the issues to make it happen.

Demographic is the core of the system. This is where base data resides.  Vendor (file), student, courses taken, and faculty information resides on the student module of the Colleague system.  Access to information is available to all with access on the student module.  Student module does not have access to HR or FA (Financial Aid) modules.  Instructors are needed in the student module to assign classes, or assign advisors, scheduling, curriculum information, office hours etc. As an employee in a public system you have less rights.

Francette is willing to explore all options as long as the faculty realizes the ramifications of some of the options.

When Francette goes in under REGP (admissions and records use) and does a search for John Jones’, she gets thirteen pages. She is unable to take faculty names off the student module.  One of the options faculty have is to only use the last 4 digits of their SSN in the student module on Colleague.. Modification screens cannot change for different areas.  The only things that can be private by law are the SSN, home address, # of dependants.

Another option is to go into a record and put a privacy code. This is a 2-step process.  Operator (all) put in a privacy code, which will allow DNR (do not release) if there is no DNR access authorization for a user an error message will read, “You do not have privileges to view this information”.  The ramification of this change is that the financial staff, HR staff, and scheduling staff will need access. In addition, if you do not have the DNR access you cannot see your own record

Francette can tweak to make it work, but she needs to know what the faculty wants. If you have any questions, faculty can call Francette at extension 3984. When TSTC purchased the update they did not purchase the right to the source code to this application.

Q: Out of all the options is sounds like the first using only the last four digits of the social security number is the easiest to do, what are the ramifications to this option?

A: The top half can be easily done. Only HR will be able to see the record.  Control who you give access to the student module employee, curriculum, those that need access to do their job

Q: Why can’t you take the faculty out off the student module?

A: Some schools do not buy the faculty module is why it is in the student module. TSTC bought the generic piece of software.

Q: DC assigns classes, and in each department they have employee ids, why is there any need to be in the student system?

A: There are other things in the module. Office hours are in a different module than in faculty. Students are at same risk as faculty. Come up with plan of who faculty want to limit access to faculty records.  You must include yourself. There is an all or nothing. Once you put into effect it will work!

Comment: Who are we concern about seeing data? General faculty (no need to have access), Hackers, there should be central access to do the registration like other colleges and let faculty do advising.

Q:  In a DC meeting we were told by the Dean of Instruction, which came from Sam Williams that it was all or nothing.

A: Not true..  Faculty could always get to this information just not as easy to get to the information in previous version.

Student worker what would they need? They get 4 screens for faculty class schedule, office hours.  Student workers do not have access to update screens, What do they need to do their jobs? Make a decision.

Q:  SSN to lookup.  Can you # out the first 5 digits and still search by name or student ID?

A:  yes, you can do this

Q: once you past that screen can you still see SSN?

A:  YES

Defeat purpose of Colleague to lock down this data.  What is the use of putting in a privacy code if you have to give access to everyone?

Richard Wheet suggestion; form a committee to make recommendations.  The decision is not just up to this campus it has to be a system-wide.

Q: Is there any  record of who access what?

A: Probably could do it but the process may slow to a halt.

ACTION ITEM:

The following faculty were appointed to the Committee for Colleague Recommendations by the faculty senate president::

This committee will meet with Francette Carnahan to determine the options and the resulting ramifications of each option.  The committee will present a brief report at the faculty senate executive meeting in February and make a full presentation to the Faculty Senate at the March meeting for a final decision.

 January Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes.

 ACTION ITEM:  approved

 President’s Council Report (Richard Wheet)

Shelly Sheffield the Colleague guru told the council that colleague was not working as well as thought. Will do a test run of a mock registration on February 18 - 19 or February 24 - 25. They will also run reports during this time to see if the system gets bogged down. It was asked if they have reason to suspect it will run better than last registration. The general opinion was “no”.

Richard stated the if they possibly lowered tuition it would give the middle income students who cannot get financial aid a chance to come to school at TSTC. The council did not understand the concept so it was dropped.

Charles Reed presented the new COP on Emergency Procedure plan, which was approved by the council, and it will be sent to all departments

A revised COP 7.30 was handed out but Dr. Grulick and Richard Wheet noted that it was not the most current version. The most current revision is on the web. 

Board of Regent Meeting (Richard Wheet)

Tuition was raised $2 but lab fees were removed.

Dr. Ellis stated that the airport was making a profit. Money from the operation of the airport cannot be used for the campus but only on airport needs

Continuing Education deficiency trying to pay off

Buildings to be demolished; old pump building, old telecommunication building., and one other.

Enrollment, according to systems, is based on recruiting but they seem to ignore retention due to what may be recruited. System had no hard data on enrollment due to Colleague.

Waco Campus is the only one that has any faculty going to regent meetings.  The advantage of having Waco faculty attending is that the regents and some of the system employers are made aware that there is faculty at the campuses.  The Regents know the Waco faculty senate representatives now by name and faces (not just numbers on a ledger sheet). It seems that we are the only faculty senate that receives money out of all the campuses.

It was also mentioned that Richard and Ed did some excellent sucking up to the board and made sure the regents knew, in no uncertain terms, that they were being sucked up to.

Faculty Ranking

Waco campus is the only one that has not gone through ranking update.  We are at square one again.  Certain administrators do not have a clue on what was written and they are trying to read more into than intended.  We are not close to having it done in the way it was intended.  We will need to find out how the other campuses did their ranking so that it can be done the same system-wide.

Q: If we are going the old route for ranking is there going to be money there for the pay raise?

A: Richard stated that the money is there and they are giving the raises.

Election Committee 

Faculty Senate elections are coming up.  An election committee is needed to get nominations for officers and chairs and to run the election.  The nomination committee will make a list of candidates and list of their qualifications. If the candidate would like, they may put a statement on web and the committee may setup a general time for the candidates to answer any questions from the faculty. One of the things that this committee needs to make sure of is; “Does this person want to do it!” We do not want them to come back and say they never wanted the position.

Richard would like to have a member from each cluster: computer, transportation, academic, and engineering.  No one from the transportation cluster would volunteer.

ACTION ITEM:

The following faculty members were appointed to the Ad Hoc Election Committee by the faculty senate president:

The committee shall solicit nominations by ballot for the offices of President-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer and Standing Committee Chairs, from the eligible full-time faculty membership at large by March 15, 2002.

The Committee will certify the accuracy of the qualifications and eligibility of the nominees. A nominee must be a qualified voter to be a candidate.

The Committee shall then prepare and distribute a slate of candidates, along with a summary of pertinent biographical data to all faculty members who are eligible to serve on the faculty senate representative by March 22, 2002.

The Election Committee shall distribute to the eligible membership a ballot with instructions containing the candidate names by the second Monday in April but not before April 1, 2002.

 Officers will be elected from the membership at large through secret ballot.

All official ballots shall be returned and dated no later than the no third Monday in April and will be counted by the current senate officers.

Election to office will be by plurality vote. In case of no plurality, a run-off election will be held between the two candidates with the most votes.

9-month Faculty Contract Update – Mark Long

Option 1: Eighty-five percent of pay calculated it by taking 75% of the yearly salary and then adding 10 % of the 75% figure.  This in actuality is only 82.5% of the yearly salary.

Faculty contract proposals are still in process.

There are several additional options, in one of these options the faculty member would get 75% plus a bonus according to years of service but the bonus does not amount to the additional 10% in option 1.  Another option would play 75% of the annual salary and $750 in educational benefits in lieu of the additional 12.5% or 15% (depending on your math skills).

Dr. Grulick was the one that put this proposal together.

It was Mark’s initial understanding that this was to put rules in place for those that are on current 9-month contracts As of this time there are nine people on 9-month contracts.  They would like to see forty faculty by the end of the year next year.  A copy has already been sent to Dr. Ellis, she has the proposal at this time.

For those taking the 9-month contract, their vacation time would be frozen. Faculty on contract would not be able to take the fall time off.

Q: Who came up with these options?

Option 1- John Hendry 85% of base pay.

Option 2- 75% of base pay plus bonus (not sure)

Option 3- Amy Patrick school bonus $750 tuition reimbursement

It is Mark’s understanding that there would be a questionnaire to discuss pay, years of service, and benefits that faculty would like to see to go to 9-month contracts but this did not happen. Proposals were already there at next meeting that he attended. Expectation of 9-month contract were explicit, teach classes, office hours, committee work. Mark was told that TSTC has own statutes in civil code.  Faculty will be given assignments on off time (during the 3-months off).  Mark asked to see the standards of other state colleges asked and the workload differences at other state colleges but were ignored.  The administration wants to sometimes treat us as faculty and sometimes as state employees depending on what TSTC wants us to be at that time.  We are all faculty deemed by legislature. Since the faculty did not get the 4% raise the State of State was required to grant every employee (except for faculty), TSTC can longer state that we are not higher education faculty and classify the faculty as regular state employees as the mood strikes them.  Faculty members are considered exempt employees, which means that we have to work as long as it takes to get our job done. TSTC cannot have it both ways. State law says all state employees work 40 hours week, but if we have to work more we do not get paid more.  Institutes of higher learning by state statute do not have to use the normal 8-5 if they deem necessary for the effective operation of the institute.

Still negotiating contracts.  Dr. Ellis will not force people to go to a 9-month contract. Comments suggestions go to Mark Long.

Faculty Load

TSTC-Systems has indicated that they will write a SOS general enough for all campuses.  Dr Ellis did say we could write our own COP for input into the campus procedure.  There is no hurry on COP 7.3 due to SOS.

It was recommended that the faculty load not be based on an arbitrary load but based on the individual faculty member and the individual classes assigned.  Load should not be based on whether or not the faculty is classified as academic or technical but on the needs of the individual courses being taught.  Let the department faculty, department chair and dean decide how the loads are distributed based on student and course needs.

Q: What is the deal the maximum class size?

A: State law states that any class smaller than 10 has to be approved by Board of Regents.  Maximum size still needs to be discussed. The worst thing to do is raise the class size when the majority of our students need more attention, which can only be accomplished with smaller class sizes.  Class size should be based on the course and the needs of the particular students in the course, not arbitrary numbers.

Q: It was suggested that at the DC level there was too much inappropriate overload being paid out.

A: Talk to Dr. Ellis about this problem; if there is a problem with inappropriate overload, go after the department chairs in question.  Do not go after everyone.  Go after the problem!

Another problem is that there are people that are used to the overload pay and it may be difficult to wean them away from it.

The college rose the contact hours to receive more money so they need to hire more faculty members to cover the increase by using the additional contact hour funding. If there is repeated overload in a department, hire a full time faculty member.

Dr. Ellis wants three faculty members and the dean of instruction to discuss faculty load with systems but the class size issue also needs to be discussed.

New Business

None

Meeting adjourned