Interinstitutional Faculty Senate Meeting
Oregon Institute of Technology
October 7 and 8, 2005
Friday, October 7, 2005
Present: Scott Burns (PSU), Sarah Andrews-Collier (PSU), Mina Carson (OSU), Larry Curtis (OSU), Paul Doescher (OSU), Marye Hefty (OIT), Solveig Holmquist (WOU), Robert Mercer (PSU), Marny Rivera (SOU), Steve Tanner (EOU), Maureen Sevigny (OIT), Steve Teich (OHSU), Bob Turner (WOU), Jeanne Wagenknecht (UO)
Absent: Lee Ayers (SOU), Paul Engelking (UO), Grant Farr (PSU), Dick Fairley (OHSU), Peter Gilkey (UO), Katie Lasater (OHSU), Muriel Shaul (OHSU), Jim Tooke (EOU), and Nathan Tublitz (UO)
I. County Commissioner John Elliott: Klamath County Economic Development
A. Asked for a dialog. Explained that Klamath County has unique attributes. We are far enough away from Salem (government) that we have to figure out how to do things well. We can make things happen here that can’t happen in smaller or larger communities. We are some 65,000 to 66,000 people on 6 thousand square miles with 57% owned by the federal, state, or local government. We are at a critical mass where we can make things happen. We are not as factionalized as some other areas of the state.
B. Spoke about one of the identifying characteristics of this community which occurred in 2001—the irrigation water shutoff to the farmland in the Klamath Basin. That year taught our community that we can talk to each other and still get things done. Ever since I have been in office, I have fought the silo mentality. As long as people had enough money, they didn’t talk to each other. The lack of water forced us to look at opportunities. We need to look at what niche we can provide in Klamath Falls. The global market—especially the labor component—will be the issue for us (and every community).
C. Shared his insights about education. There is a theme in the President’s saying “soft bigotry of low expectations.” We need to recognize that we are not competing with another American City; we are competing with China or India. Anywhere where others are educating better than us is our competition. Too much of America is judged by quarterly performance. We have lost a huge amount of intellectual capacity in this state because of changes in PERS. People in their mid-50s we forced out because we cannot guarantee the benefits promised.
D. Explained that he is the Chairman of the Oregon Consortium, which is a group of 24 rural Oregon countries that work on workforce development. The declining educated workforce in Oregon will affect the economy in this basin.
D. Shared changes in Klamath County. We are seeing a growth of wealthy people in this community, for example at the Running Y Resort. No one is coming in at the bottom end in the housing market in this country. In our county, the average age of new comer is 54. People are moving in without families. They bring in a wealth of experience. How does our community deal with this? When the novelty of the house wears off, what are these people going to do in this community? In the last year, we have seen a 5.6% net increase in property taxes. On existing homes, even though a house increases in value, it is still on the tax rolls of what it was before. The new builder picks up the increased tax burden.
E. Mentioned some good things happening in Klamath Falls. The state approved new power plants in Klamath Falls, which will result in a billion of construction in the next few years. This will bring in specialized engineers. It will bring in construction jobs temporarily until the plants are finished
F. Stated that the community needs to partner with higher education. We have a great need here for experimentation research. We need to help people through the extension service at OSU, which has been a great partnership for many years. In addition, we have a tremendous opportunity here at OIT with the Health Care Center and the huge needs for health care in 10 years.
G. In response to a question, stated that K-12 and then higher education are his priorities. Measure 5 hit right when people could still get a mill job. They didn’t believe that they needed higher education to succeed. We are reaping the whirlwind of this decision.
II. OIT President Martha Anne Dow: Welcome (Dr. Dow arrived late because of her participation in the OUS Board Meeting.)
A. Welcome to OIT. Very pleased to have you here.
B. Mentioned that the main administrative building is being retrofitted to meet seismic building codes, and she is currently housed in the student union with the students and is engaging in student discussions.
C. Discussed how OIT is rejuvenating our strategic planning process which started for her in 1992 as provost and then in 1998 as president in 1998.
D. Focused her initial talk on how Klamath Community College developed during this planning process in 1998. We had the opportunity to host the community college as part of our college, but some of our faculty and alumni said to not do this because it didn’t fit our mission. As we assisted the development of the community college, we had some paranoia; what will happen to us related to draining our own campus? I am pleased to say that through all this, we were able to put together a partnership that I think is working well. We have both evolved. I am looking forward to continued work with KCC.
E. Emphasized that an important aspect of strategic planning is for OIT to “brand” itself in a way that will support the pre-K through 20 model so the state of Oregon recognizes our value.
F. Discussed that the OUS schools’ challenges are different, but when it comes to the support from the state we are all in it together, and we must be in it together. The legislators are really only us. So, why don’t they support higher education? What is the issue? The bottom line is that the economy and the revenue are just not adequate for the state’s areas in social services, safety, and K-20 education. We as educators have to help figure out a way to participate more actively in reviving our state’s revenue streams. Where is the revenue going to come from? So, we have the support but not revenue? So, where do we go for support?
G. Talked about this lack of financial support as the driver for OIT’s Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) concept in funding its proposed Center for Health Professionals. Today at the Board Meeting we asked for approval of a concept where our OIT foundation has created an LLC, and four members of our LLC are board members of our foundation. The purpose of this LLC is really to help us enhance our capacity and our quality in our allied health programs. This will help us get a building constructed and get the equipment. It is like putting up a self-support program within our institution but is much broader (like our Boeing program). Our foundation decided to step up to the bar. We had asked for a G bond, and we didn’t get high enough on the priority list. We can’t wait for the G bond; it can be 10 years. The LLC is responsible for the financial risk of our building. They will hire the architect, get the loan/funding in order to construct the building, and we have asked them to then lease the building to OIT. The LLC will take on the financial risk. We do need to support the lease. We have asked to support our rent by tuition from the health program—facility lease and operation costs. This is not unique, but what looks unique to the board is that we are asking for differential tuition. In reality, I think that just about everyone already does this. The entire programs at OHSU are based on differential tuition. If it is not directly overt, it is embedded. The issue for the board is we have asked to be able to increase tuition 5% from 2006-2011. We are expecting our capitol campaign to offset needing to do this, but we want this option. In the board’s mind this is a new thing policy wise. The OAR says the board has the power to set tuition, but the legislature has always gotten involved, so each session we wait until they tell us how much we can raise tuition, and by then it is August. We are trying to model how to execute a business plan—faster rather than later—take in more students, improve the quality, and prove that this can work for education—mainly in allied health. We want to tell OHSU, we are pleased to be the host for the nursing program. We also see OHSU as a revenue source, so when we host them in our building, we would like some participation in our revenue stream. Our engineering programs are currently suffering from enrollment declines. We want our IT, engineering, and computer programs to be integrated with our health programs in a way where students can focus in areas like medical informatics.
H. Stated that she thinks that this OUS Board is providing new opportunities for us and new ways to move forward with quality. I think the new board will be innovative. I feel very positive about this. I don’t think this board will get us more revenue out of the state, but it will make more difference in how we move together, and how we do the strategic K-20 initiative, and find our partners out there.
III. OIT Provost Dave Woodall: Welcome and Overview of Provosts’ Council
A. Explained that he is the president of the Provosts’ Council, which was created in 2004 with the advent of the new board. Discussed how the president’s role is selected.
B. Shared the responsibilities of the Provosts’ Council. We evaluate proposals from OUS schools for academic programs, and we give feedback and make recommendations. We give critical feedback about evaluating proposals for academic programs. Does the degree align with the mission of the school? Does the school have the resources? Has a comparison been made to other programs? What is the economic impact? For graduate degrees, we ask for an external review from outside the state. If we find serious concerns, we ask the institution to go back and look at the degree. We recommend to the OUS Board the approval of new degrees. We also review department names, school names, and these types of changes. We approve these name changes. I find it to be a very effective, critical review system.
C. Stated that he believes the council should report to the OUS chancellor and not to the board. Every meeting now must be open to the public because we report to the board. Every time a reporter comes into the room our conversation changes.
D. Shared that the Provosts’ Council wants to work on quality in higher education. We want to work with IFS. We see your group as a second conduit for higher education. There will be challenges, but we are in it together, and I think it will be productive. We love having an IFS representative at our meetings. We need the faculty voice. We are about creating and running quality programs. The problem we all have is the definition of quality. We need to have the quality conversation in the coming year.
IV. Chancellor George Pernsteiner: Chancellor’s Report
A. Mentioned that in yesterday’s OUS strategic planning meeting lots of discussion occurred about some of the tradeoffs that might happen among enrollment, tuition, and faculty salaries. After the meeting, board members shared we will not get more money from the state, so do we need to look at different instruction methods? Do we then get into differential tuition for different experiences? So for whatever dimension of quality we will be discussing, we need to think about ways to translate this into different instructional modes. I am giving you the signal that the board is thinking along these lines in addition to traditional lines. The reasoning is that there is nothing wrong with traditional education, but Oregon does not want to pay for the traditional model of education. As you think about the definition of quality, make sure it includes different modes of instruction.
B. Stated that for the first time he thinks that there is a recognition in the state of the economic value of research. Senate Bill 853 comes up with a mechanism by which donors can get tax credits for donations that they give. This money then comes to the universities to commercialize the research. The question is how do we do this in a way that is effective for the faculty and the universities? We need to look at the rules surrounding intellectual property.
C. Mentioned that the Access and Affordability Workgroup will look at the Minnesota shared responsibility model, which might be a way to get funding for enrolment.
D. Stated that David McDonald is going to Western to be the enrollment director. For his replacement on the EDP committee, what kind of person do we need? We need someone who has a deft touch, can travel, and listen to and talk to all the groups. This is an important position because this committee works with alignment, SB-342, advanced placement, and many other things. Also, the Chancellor’s office is hiring a graduate program research director.
E. Discussed a report that documents failed or diminished hiring searches because of low salaries and benefits. The group discussed how compression equity (inversion in finance) results in top faculty leaving the state. The problem also exists with administrators. It is a morale issue, and it relates to the quality issue.
F. Concluded with a repeat request to provide him with IFS’s information on higher education quality, and the group discussed issues of quality. What are our measures? Give me something that is legitimate and then we can figure out if we can measure it. We need to put out a marker of quality because as long as we balance the budget everything will be seen as okay, even though class sizes are getting larger, faculty are paid less, etc.
V. Klamath Community College President Fred Smith: K-20 Initiatives
A. Shared candid ideas and opinions, which are not documented in these notes.
B. Expressed the need to put together our faculty with the OUS faculty and work out what is best for the students. We all exist for the students or we should not be in this business. If all stand together, I think we can move the legislature, but we must stand together. We must answer in one voice from both sides.
C. Mentioned that his institution would rather cut a deal with OIT and other colleges that work within the Oregon Transfer Model. We are working on our campus to define success. We are getting to the point where it is student by student. We are about students succeeding. We have to start thinking, and don’t cow down to it. This will be a lot of work for the faculty and I am not sure in the end if it makes any difference. I am on the educational excellence committee. I have 19 faculty and 200 adjuncts, and faculty are scarce resources and I don’t like to misuse my resources.
VI. OIT Faculty Senate President Brad Burda: OIT’s New Faculty Compensation Plan
A. Shared the process and results of the OIT compensation plan. We took three charges:
We decided to look at compression, equity, COLA (cost of living increase), and merit.
B. Explained the parts that are the basis for the plan that was implemented:
C. Shared recommendations:
D. Shared what has been accomplished to date:
E. Shared what has yet to be accomplished:
A compensation policy
F. Bob Turner commended Brad Burda and shared that the IFS should get faculty up to speed on how to track the finances of the institutions. This is a time that faculty could get a handle on this issue.
VII. ASOIT President Catalina “Cat” Clarke: Student Perspective on Academic Quality
A. Shared that our students here are concerned with quality and affordability. What does quality me to our students? We need to remember that OIT is a hands-on school. Are we hands-on or are we distance education? These seem in opposition to each other. There is nothing engaging about the distance education classes we provide. Web-based is ridiculously easy. It is easy to cheat. We need to decide at OIT if we want to be hands-on or distance education based. I wish OIT would decide.
B. Shared things OIT needs to improve quality: up-to-date technology and more capstone projects.
C. Asked faculty to seek out students to get their ideas about quality.
Saturday, October 7, 2005
Present: Scott Burns (PSU), Sarah Andrews-Collier (PSU), Mina Carson (OSU), Larry Curtis (OSU), Paul Doescher (OSU), Marye Hefty (OIT), Solveig Holmquist (WOU), Robert Mercer (PSU), Marny Rivera (SOU), Steve Tanner (EOU), Maureen Sevigny (OIT), Steve Teich (OHSU), Bob Turner (WOU), Jeanne Wagenknecht (UO)
Absent: Lee Ayers (SOU), Paul Engelking (UO), Grant Farr (PSU), Dick Fairley (OHSU), Peter Gilkey (UO), Katie Lasater (OHSU), Muriel Shaul (OHSU), Jim Tooke (EOU), and Nathan Tublitz (UO)
8:30 a.m.
I. Election of Officers
A. Mentioned that Art Lacore, a founding father of IFS, died last year. Mentioned a possible remembrance for Art Lacore.
B. Discussed names for officers in 2006, motioned, voted, and approved the following new officers/committee duties:
1. Mina Carson (OSU) will be the IFS President elect.
2. Sarah Andrews-Collier (PSU) will be the Provost Council Representative
3. Maureen Sevigny (OIT) will be the JBAC representative.
4. Solveig Holmquist will be the representative to the More, Better Faster workgroup (EDP)
5. Either Scott Burns or Steve Tanner will be the representative to the Academic Excellence and Economic Development (AEED) Committee. The decision will be made after Bob Turner finds out the meeting dates and times.
6. Marny Rivera will ask Lee Ayers if she will work on pre-K through 20 issues with the Joint Boards Working Group.
C. Bob Turner will ask the chancellor for release time for the above committee work. Specifically, he will ask for a .2 FTE course release for the Provost Council Representative, and a one course release for all other committees.
D. Discussed how during the February meeting we will devote substantial time during the Saturday meeting to determining how to effectively communicate with legislators, which will include strategies, points, how this might happen, and what we want to discuss. We will work with Neil Bryant, who suggested the idea at a previous meeting.
II. Academic Quality Document
A. Bob Turner provided the history and context of this document, which was drafted by Lee Ayers, Maureen Sevigny, Steve Tanner, Steve Teich, and Nathan Tublitz. The draft focused on peer institutions, which may not be the focus the chancellor and OUS board needs.
B. Nathan Tublitz resigned from IFS for personal reasons.
C. Bob Turner shared that because of his work on the WOU self-study, he is learning about measures of academic quality. He has learned about four measurement categories: 1) learning outcomes test, 2) surveys of people who have left, 3) U.S. News and World Report and other publications’ reputation surveys, and 4) performance indicators (most of the OUS stuff falls into this forth category). The final category, performance indicators, is not the only way or the most direct way to measure quality. Academic quality can be measured, but it cannot be measured by only one category. The best way to get at the quality is to apply at least three measures from the above list. To the best of our knowledge, OUS does not have any data on the first two categories
D. A lengthy discussion ensued regarding the draft document “Academic Quality at OUS Institutions: A Report by the Interinstitutional Faculty Senate (IFS)” which had been prepared by an IFS subcommittee during Summer 2005 and recently amended by IFS President Bob Turner.
Key questions and points raised in the discussion included:
1) Who is the audience for the report? Is it the State Board of Higher Education, the Chancellor’s Office, or the citizens of Oregon?
2) Should IFS stick with the original draft document or adopt the “Turner” revised document? Should the report be one document or three?
3) What is the desired impact of the document? This ties in with Question 1 regarding audience. If we say we’re awful, will that motivate the state to change? There is a need to think strategically.
4) The end product should have a clear and concise point that cannot be ignored. There was concern that the “Turner” revised document might be easy to pick apart and allow the message to be diluted or ignored.
5) Do we want to produce an academic paper stating that more research is needed or produce an imperfect document that makes a clear point?
6) Are we really measuring quality?
7) Is it important to show that our true comparators, based on quantitative similarities, are very different from our publicly stated comparators?
8) The report is missing some key elements including graduate studies, the effects of students being employed many hours, and changes that have happened over time (such as the decrease in funding per student FTE), especially in the aftermath of Measure 5.
9) Take home message: academic quality at OUS institutions is not what we’d like it to be.
10) The performance indicators are disturbing. There are trade-offs between access and quality. Trying to improve quality with no new resources will require a decrease in access.
E. A second thread of the discussion addressed distribution of the results, both as a written report and in a short oral presentation to the State Board. It was agreed that blind-siding the Chancellor, Provosts, and the Board would not be desirable so advance discussion with some key stakeholders is necessary and appropriate.
F. The resulting plan of action is for Bob Turner to condense the message that we are not really measuring quality and to emphasize the quantitative measures contained in the original document. Bob will circulate a draft for IFS comment before presenting it publicly.
III. Meeting Reports
A. Maureen: Senate Bill 342 is a reality. We have ear of provosts who know OUS faculty need to be involved in discussions. Become knowledgeable about what SB 342 requires in terms of reporting back.
B. Bob: IFS reps need to read sections A-G because they need to be reported on by the legislature. One of the issues is AP. Conversations have taken place regarding constructing a table of AP exams and credits granted for AP exams across the state. We are supposed to come up with a constancy across the state. Please take this to your senates and get feedback. This is one of the SB 342 items we need feedback on.
C. C. Jeanne: Has sexual harassment handout that needs to go to our senates.
D. Maureen: Maureen sent around handouts on background check policies (Appendix E and F). It’s causing anxiety. Senate Bill 2157 authorizes background checks. There will be some flexibility for individual campuses to interpret the statewide policies. Being allowed is not same as being required. Should faculty be required to have these extensive background checks (credit, employment history, driving record, etc.). OUS is not saying faculty or others need to be subject to that kind of scrutiny. The provosts don’t want to push it. Keep your ears open, but don’t panic. There is no need to report back to campus. Desire is to protect institutions from bad hires.
E. Bob: Tasked with creating a policy that says background checks will be conducted into items that have the potential to impact the job for which they’ve been applying and some kind of process for doing so.
F. Mina: Sick leave bank. The simple news is that we wanted to know what practices were. There is only a practice for unclassified at Western. What would have to happen to create a sick leave bank for unclassified would be to change the OARs (OSU would begin groundwork). This document is only for IFS senators in current form, as there is a suggestion that it won’t happen. Because we underreport, this would be like giving a huge gift that doesn’t really exist. Mina appended relevant stuff and would like us to look at Western’s model and see if we see a problem allowing OUS to create a sick leave bank.
G. Bob: Do we want OSU to do work for us? Group says yes.
H. Maureen: textbooks. To keep textbook costs down, this came through Chancellor. Students are concerned about rising costs of textbooks. Is there something we might want to consider to keep costs down? Is this something IFS or individual senates would be interested in doing? For instance, agreeing on one book and buying in larger quantity or asking textbook companies to stop bundling unnecessary stuff.
I. Bob: This is a high visibility item with some potential for IFS to have good press.
J. Mina: People behind this visited advisory committee at OSU. We are interested in collaborating, but not wanting to become a bad guy in this. Big issue is “shall” versus “should” language.
K. Schedule will be worked on over email
L. Each senator is responsible for emailing their campus and meeting reports.
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