Council of
Founders Suite,
November 2, 2005
9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Illinois
State University Academic Senate Chairperson, Lane Crothers, called the meeting
to order at 10:00 a.m.
Present: Lane Crothers, Host/Illinois State University, Cynthia Valenciano, Chicago State University, Jeff Ashley, Eastern
Illinois University, Allen Shub, Northeastern
Illinois University, Rob Benford, Southern Illinois
University-Carbondale, Pat Langley, U of I-Springfield, Terry Bodenhorn, U of I-Springfield, John Prussing,
U of I-Urbana/Champaign, Steve Rock, Western Illinois University.
Absent: Representatives from Governor’s
Guests: Phil Adams,
State Government
Issues
Phil Adams,
Mr. Adams: The legislative veto session is
wrapping up this week and from our perspective, the major piece of legislation
that is going to be dealt with in the veto session is a package referred to as
the ethics package. It has been put together in large part by Speaker Madigan
and his staff. There are two pieces of that are of major importance to us. One
is a section that we refer to as “naming rights”. This has substantial changes
and restrictions on what we could and couldn’t do in terms of fundraising as
related to sponsorships, naming rights and, in some cases, just basic gifts
from graduates or friends of the university. We have been working for about six
months on trying to get some agreement on some language that would soften the
blow. Last night, we found out that we had been fairly successful in doing
that, in large part, due to the efforts of Terry McClendon, who works on the U
of I Urbana campus.
What
we have gotten them to agree to is no restriction on gifts to the university
from individuals. There would be no change on gifts from corporations if in
fact they were endowed, funding faculty positions, or scholarships. There would
be no change in terms of sponsorships. Sponsorships would mostly mean gifts to
the university that allow for performances of various kinds. However, only
those sponsorships of $25,000 or less would not be subject to this act. Those
are all very important things especially with the declining State GRF dollars
over the last three to five years. So,
our efforts in those fundraising aspects have been very successful.
We
were very worried when this proposal came out. The original restrictions in the
bill were very severe. It is a combination of about four pieces of legislation.
The original package was aimed at the current administration because, about a
year ago, the Governor’s Office decided it wanted to sell the naming rights of
some of the state facilities. I think the Speaker and other leadership in the
House and Senate, having watched this administration, were a little concerned.
This new bill will designate specific buildings that will never be available
for corporate sponsorship, such as the capitol building and the
There
are multiple sections of this bill, one of which deals with the Procurement and
Purchasing Act. There are state procurement officers and we have our own
designated procurement officers for higher education. Those officers have done
several things for us, including acquiring large master contracts for
commodities. They have been able to get us exemptions that allow us to do
purchasing in areas that are special needs areas for higher ed that don’t
equate with the Department of Conservation and such units. If this bill were to
pass, an individual at the Board of Higher Education would be designated as the
official purchasing person for higher education. On the surface, that doesn’t
sound all that bad, but I am very concerned that this has to do with the administration’s desire to control campus activities.
I
think it is accurate to say that since this administration has been in office,
you would be hard pressed to find one specific example of the administration
showing a pro-public higher education stance. In fact, they have shown quite
the opposite. Right after getting elected, their first activity was to try to
take away the management of the Income Fund from the universities and give it
to the Governors Bureau of the Budget. Fortunately, we able to beat that back
and they have not tried since then to go after that fund, but they certainly
have not done anything to show that they are supporters of public higher
education.
Public
universities did do fairly well when we compare ourselves to general state
government agencies. We have certain monies available that are not available to
the standard governmental department. During the Ryan, Edgar and certainly the
Thompson administrations, there were monies available in the budget and higher ed faired fairly well. That is not the case with this
current administration. I am convinced that even if there was money, we
wouldn’t be getting any of it. I don’t think that they believe, from a
political standpoint, that they get much out of sending money our way when they
can send it to K-12. I don’t think that that is going to change.
I
think that they are beginning to, in some cases completed, taking control of
some operations that are very important to all of us. The SURS Board has
basically been replaced and the new board I would maintain is going to be
listening much more closely to the state capitol than they are to those of us
in higher ed. Some of the trustee appointments have
been over the objections of presidents, alumni and friends of individual
universities.
Over
the next month or two, they are going to basically appoint all new members to
the State Scholarship Commission. That will result in Larry Madigan no longer
being the director of the commission. What the Governor tried to do last year
legislatively, but couldn’t do, was to sell the ISAAC program to a private
investing company. In return for monies received through that sale, the ISAAC
program would leave state control and would be controlled privately. It’s not much
of a leap to assume that the interest on the Guaranteed Loans is going to go
up. In order to sell the program, they are going to simply skip the legislative
process by making the changes on the ISAAC Board, which would then vote to
voluntarily sell that program. The State will receive about $300 million in
revenue from the sale. I don’t think that we are going to be able to do a great
deal about it, but we need to chip away at the edges of it.
It
is a shame what they are doing with the loan program, but in terms of the
long-term welfare of our employees, it is much more important that we stay on
top of the SURS situation. People on the SURS Board have been there for long
periods of time, so they understand the process and are guided by what kinds of
decisions are most beneficial, within the ability of the system, to pay for
employee pensions.
Prof. Rock: Is Mitch Vogel now Chair of SURS?
Mr. Adams: He is.
Prof.Rock: He comes out of a great tradition of union
leadership. I can’t imagine that he is going to change things dramatically.
Mr. Adams: I think that having the ability to make the decision himself, he would do
the right thing. However, there is a concerted effort by the Governor’s office
to place Pat Welch as the Director of SURS. The administration passed a bill
last year, the so-called “six percent”, which basically says that institutions
are going to have to pay the pension costs for anything in excess of a
six-percent increase in salaries for those individuals who retire. That, in itself, is not that bad. We are
engaging in efforts to “negotiate” exactly what is included in that cost to the
university. When you include things like summer school teaching and a variety
of other things into that whole package, nobody leaves getting more than six
percent. I don’t think any of us know where this is headed, but clearly the
administration, which is basically John Filan and the
Bureau of the Budget, is trying to offload as much as possible to non-GRF
dollars across the board. They are doing this in part by requiring employers to
pick up bigger and bigger pieces of the SURS costs and health care costs.
We
receive substantially less in state GRF dollars and things are a lot more
challenging. That’s gets me back to the most important issue, retaining control
of the Income Fund. It is imperative that we maintain that control. We now have
on-campus authority for setting tuition and fee rates. The Truth in Tuition Act
has caused rates in tuition to rise faster than they were going up previously.
A couple of us sat in a room with a group of legislators and told them that
this was what was going to happen. They don’t particularly care for the tuition
increases and I am concerned that the next governor in office is not going to
be able to resist placing some kind of cap on tuition or a reversal of the act.
We have to stay on top of this.
Prof. Prussing: In
Prof. Crothers: If their programs are five-year programs, then the tuition would not
increase.
Prof. Rock: You have talked about three of the four streams of revenue. Are they
targeting us on grants?
Mr. Adams: No, I really believe that the only reason for that is that they don’t
see a way to get their hands on them. It is very complex, so it is just simpler
for them to try to control the Income Fund. Once we beat them back on their
attempt to control it, I don’t think that they will come back at us because we
had a very compelling argument. It is very compelling to say that you are
hurting us by fewer GRF dollars, so don’t also take away our ability to raise
these funds ourselves.
Prof. Crothers: One question I have concerning the ethics test is about the 15-minute
reporting. Is that on the radar again?
Mr. Adams: There are a couple of misunderstandings about that. No one is being
required to say, ‘in this 15-minute period, this is what I was doing’. We
negatively report now. At the end of the month, we say, ‘I had two vacation
days’. The Auditor General is going to force us to have some kind of positive
reporting system. There are lots of ways to do that; I don’t know how far
individual campuses have come. We, here at ISU, have had a couple of meetings
with a company that assists in tracking. We have told them what we want, what
we have been doing for a long time, and they will find ways that allow us to
meet the requirements of the law without making it ridiculously difficult. I
think we will have some type of online, self-reporting mechanism. What they
have shown us so far does not appear to be too onerous a task. This 15 minute
thing has gotten a lot of play, but has not really progressed.
Prof. Ashley: Our institution has an analysis called activity reporting. Isn’t that
positive reporting?
Senator Valenciano: I would think so. We have
put together an hourly and a percentage rate of about seven category of types
of work that faculty do.
Senator Langley: Ours is broken down into direct instruction, indirect instruction,
graduate and undergraduate, research, etc. and that gets put into the cost
study. Every faculty member has to do it.
Prof. Crothers: What is the buzz on the election?
Mr. Adams: We have an incumbent that has $25 million in the bank, but we also others
involved in some kind of investigation concerning the administration’s official
governmental pay. All of those investigations, not withstanding, I don’t know
of anyone who is really a viable alternative in terms of getting elected.
Prof. Rock: You talked about the ethics package and things that wouldn’t change
because of the naming rights section. How does that affect the university?
Mr. Adams: If a corporation wants to name a building after itself on campus, there
are certain restrictions against that. Naming rights mainly concern corporate
names on state buildings. They did agree to permit postings of acknowledgment
of corporate funding within rooms upgraded with corporate funds. We could post
something, within the room, like, “Funds provided by Caterpillar”, but we
couldn’t place a sign out front that says, “Caterpillar Conference Room B”.
Prof. Ashley: I know that we are trying to work on some relief on the pension bill.
With one summer class, suddenly you are in violation and the institution is
stuck paying off an annuity for the rest of someone’s life.
Mr. Adams: What bothers me a little more is that when Mr. Filan
talks about TRS; they would include in the calculation vacation and sick leave
payout. That is an enormous amount of money. If we are going to have to pay
that; it is going to have a dampening affect on
someone’s benefit only to the extent that it is going to take resources away
from the institution that could go into other things like salaries.
Prof. Langley: Are we calculating 9-month salaries over 12 months? If you make $100,000
when you also teach in the summer, are we looking at the $100,000 as 9 months
or 12 months in regard to the 6% limit? I think that faculty
are being harmed with the nine month contracts unless the nine month
contracts are being treated as 12 month contracts so that the limitation is
being calculated fairly. Faculty teaching summer school are
performing work for services rendered. It is not a raise. The other question is
why should you do work that you don’t have to do? We are not required to teach
summer school. I just think that the whole concept has no relationship to what
we do.
Prof. Crothers: One point of view is that these are people who are structurally underpaid
and this is their last chance to get compensated. From the State’s perspective,
we are overpaid and under worked.
Mr. Adams: There is some of that, but it is simply a matter of the administration
having an enormous budget problem. They are trying to, as creatively as they
can, to grab everything that the State has normally paid for and offload those
things in a variety of ways. They are doing this across the board and we are
just caught in that net. Because of our control of the Income Fund, ultimately,
about 45% of our faculty over the last five years have
had pay raises. It makes it more difficult to explain to the State the
difficulties that the 6% rate increase will cause us. Those raises don’t mean
that every year we are not falling behind our peer groups.
It
just comes down to the fact that they are trying to generate more dollars for
their state budget problem and doing it anyway that they can. I don’t think
that they are necessarily evil people, but the student loan program really
bothers me because I know that those kids and their folks who take those loans
are going to pay substantially more interest than they are now. The company
that takes over that program is going to be a publicly traded company. If they
are willing to pay for the program and hand the State $300 million for it, then
they think that there is profit in it. The only profit in loans is interest.
The money that that generates, unlike ISAAC, is not going to go back into
additional monies available for loans. It is going to go back into the profit
side of the company.
Prof. Rock: Higher education in
Mr. Adams: In that area, I don’t think so, because I think we have a great story.
We have people who are great producers. Parents have called me and are just
overwhelmed at the kind of treatment that their kids get. That story is out
there and it is a good one. You do need to get your constituents to stay on top
of things like the State trying to take control of the Income Fund. You need to
get boards to understand how important that is.
Prof. Ashley: Are we doing a good enough job of contacting legislatures or asking those
parents when they call us to call their state legislator and tell them that?
Mr. Adams: In previous years, we had a senate district that had three state reps.
The current Lieutenant Governor led a
charge to cut a third of those out; it passed overwhelmingly. What that did is
it created a very small number of competitive districts. The Illinois Senate
next year is only going to have about three or four races in which the
non-incumbent has a chance. The House is proportionally about the same. So,
what that did is lock in undefeatable races and through that,
strengthened the leadership so dramatically that you literally have about four
people who are making all of the decisions.
It
is important to cultivate a relationship with a member that has a particular
stance and who has a relationship to a school. One such person is Jay Hoffman.
No one is closer to the Governor than Jay is. Jay played baseball here and I
personally believe that last week when we received our two new trustee appointments
that it was solely because of the relationship that Jay has with the university
and the Governor. Dan Brady is a local state rep from here who
is part of the Republican leadership, but he and Tom Cross have had a personal
friendship for sometime. You have to find out who
those people are and you have to develop relationships with them. We are not
going to have the standard assistance anymore because 95 to 98% of the people who win once and are in office, can’t lose.
The
people that are representing your operations are doing a good job. The ones
that are reasonably new have really put a lot of effort into finding out a lot
more about how this complex business called higher ed works…how faculty do
their jobs, what they need and the kinds of things that they can do to help
make them more productive. It is just a little more difficult when the people
who are working against us are controlling all three heads of government.
Prof. Prussing: For the last two years,
we have had a so called “flat budget”. If that goes on year after year, we are
digging ourselves into a hole. A flat line budget does not only mean a
decrease, but, in addition, the costs that have been handed back down to
institutions means that we have even less discretionary monies. That is very
disturbing, especially the health care costs that the university now must pick
up.
Mr. Adams: This is a hard thing to get across to members of legislature because
they deal more with state agencies than state institutions. What is a tough to
get across to people is what we have is a slow diminution of quality of lot of
what is that we are about, whether it’s fewer smart classrooms, seminars and
conferences or larger student-teacher ratios.
Prof. Crothers: We have not had an increase in departmental operating budgets in ten or
twelve years. So, many departments are requiring students to download their
syllabi. It’s small things like that that affect the
quality of the education experience and it becomes additive.
Shared Governance and Relationships with University Administrations
Prof. Crothers: One of the topics on our agenda is the question of shared governance.
For example, Allen e-mailed about the remarkable facilities that are about to
be offered to shared governance at
Provost Presley: I will do that, but let me follow up a little bit on what Phil was
talking about. It is remarkable to the extent in this state that all state
employees have been demonized and budgets balanced on their backs. We have
about 700 tenure/tenure-track faculty here. From FY00 through FY06, we
authorized 534 searches for faculty. We had 153 people retire and 184 people
resign. The university lost approximately 40% of tenured/tenure-track faculty
within five years. I am convinced that that is a result of the revenue in this
state.
I
do exit interviews on a random basis and I spoke to one individual who had
taught 11 different courses. The semesters during
which she was not on campus because she was teaching at cohort institutions,
she was expected to also meet the expectations of her department. That story is
not unusual. I think that talking to lobbyists about these situations is very
important. Lack of state revenues affects our ability to attract the best
faculty. It affects our operating budgets. In order to avoid the constant cycle
downward, we are going to have to do it on the backs of our students.
Everything that we try to do to lessen that takes away from the excellence of
the faculty.
On
the other hand, one of the things I have found very compelling at this
institution is the success of shared governance. I have been at unionized
institutions where there was some good shared governance. At other institutions
where I have worked, shared governance involving the faculty was kind of a
misnomer. I am pleased that it works so efficiently here. At every level in the
university, college and department, there is an administrative and faculty
council that set policy and procedures. We have an Academic Senate that
includes every constituency on campus, AP, civil service, students, faculty. Quite literally everything that is of interest to
the university level goes through that group. The Academic Senate acts on
revisions to policy. I think that provides for real input and consensus or lack
of consensus on issues that move through the system. I think that it works
really well. The problem with it is that it takes a long time. Faculty who haven’t had experience with moving things
through it simply think that it takes too long. Sometimes, however, things take
so long because there are intractable issues.
Prof. Rock: To what extent does the administration make policy at ISU? Does the
administration set the policy and then the faculty just react
to it?
Provost Presley: The faculty make the policy. If we are revising
a policy or creating a policy, we will bring it to the faculty.
Prof. Crothers: I am trying to get my faculty to understand that the administrators are
the experts with the resources. John and others have now staffed administrators
to our committees on an issue-by-issue basis. So, we have that kind of
administrative staff-level research available concerning policy, largely in a
cooperative manner. This is not generally a hostile procedure.
Provost Presley: The President is required by the Creation of Policy Policy
to consult the Senate whenever there is a new policy being considered or a
current policy being revised.
Prof. Crothers: Since the 1998 constitution, no president has rejected an action of the
Senate.
The
members of the council expressed concerns about shared governance at their respective
universities. Some stated that there was a problem of mutual distrust between
the administration and the faculty. Others stated that shared governance at
their universities did not really exist because faculty were
not invited to share in the decision making processes. Provost Presley stated
that at
The
Council further discussed collaborative issues. Professor Langley noted that
there are models of collective bargaining where governance is part and parcel
of it. Rutger’s, for example, has a very integrated
model in which there is no distinction between faculty governance and
collective bargaining. Collective bargaining also offers a legal process for
bargaining. Members suggested talking to members of AAUP concerning adversarial
relationships. A council member suggested that this group consider issuing a
statement about the principles of shared governance. Professor Crothers that
stated that, this year, the IBHE Faculty Advisory Council is also working on
that question. He added that he has written a document about the privileges and
responsibilities of the Illinois State University Senate Committees and would
be happy to share that document with members of the Council. The ISU Senate, in
coordination with the Provost, is also revising the policy for the Academic
Freedom Ethics and Grievance Committee, a committee similar to a judicial
review board, as well as the Administrator Search and Selection Policy.
Professor
Crothers praised former President Vic Boschini and
former Provost Al Goldfarb who helped to create a climate in which cooperation
became normalized. They each had a very positive style of communication and
working with others. The transparency at ISU began to improve. They imagined a
better future and that better future involved a strategic planning document
called Educating Illinois. Those
ideals were actually institutionalized such that now, for example, when a
budget request is made, the individuals making the request have to account for
those requests in terms of the strategic plan. The Vice President of Finance
and Planning is a member of the Senate and is very faculty-oriented. Professor
Crothers stated that it is the building of those kinds of models and the hiring
of people with those kinds of attitudes that makes the difference.
Afternoon Session
Prof. Ashley: There are still concerns about the faculty time-reporting required by the
Act and how they are defining a work day. Time spent at home thinking about a
project is not counted in the definition.
Prof. Prussing: The definition needs to
actually reflect a faculty lifestyle.
Prof. Crothers: The Faculty Productivity Report drafted by the IBHE Faculty Advisory
Council is a very good report, but legislators don’t believe it. Unless it is
in the classroom or in the lab, our time is not productive in their view.
Prof. Valenciano: The average faculty
member does work at home and in the library. Are they really serious about this
reporting?
Prof. Crothers: Yes, if they can figure out how to track our activities.
Prof. Benford: Faculty productivity can
only be measured in outcome measures—the quality of the work. It doesn’t mean
how much time is spent in the classroom.
Prof. Crothers: What we call research for a project is meaningless to them. They don’t
consider the preparation time as legitimate.
Prof. Benford: We need to articulate the
value addedtiveness. Almost all advances in any area
come from university research.
Prof. Ashley: Didn’t Kaplan say that research at anything but at the flagship
institutions is meaningless?
Prof. Crothers: You are right, he did. But public universities have worked very hard
with him. So, he has actually taken the stridency off of that, but that
attitude is certainly quite common.
Prof. Valenciano: Our representative on the
FAC says that productivity has taken a back burner. Yes, they came in hard and
they really condemned the way that faculty worked at universities, but they
have learned a great deal in a short amount of time and are actually backing
off on those kinds of ideas. Is there a new flame under everything?
Prof. Crothers: I would say a shift in the flame; what they are now saying is ‘accountability
of hours’. So, it is no longer whether teaching or research is legitimate, but
can you account for your hours? Are you actually using them the way that you
claim? The problem with that, particularly for the research hours, is that the
answer is no, I can’t account for my research hours in any direct sense. You
can write down, ‘I spent today reading…’ Those hours are not observed by
others.
Prof. Valenciano: Surely, we can think of
ways to categorize research and make it much more pliable.
Prof. Rock: To what extent was this just a ploy? ‘We are going to go after
productivity. We won’t give you any money; the class sizes are going to
increase and all of these other things are going to happen, but you are happy
now because we didn’t go after the productivity.’ Just like with any new
paradigm; you forget about the other things that you were complaining about.
Prof. Crothers: I have the appropriately cynical mind to wonder about that myself,
except that if you were in the role of Senate Chair when this administration
came into existence, you saw that they were like bulls in a china shop. They
were coming after everything.
During
the first meeting that Jim Filan had with the vice
presidents of business from all the state universities, he asked whether or not
we needed to cut our grass in the afternoons. The point is that at that level,
they were looking at everything. I think that they meant it when they walked in
the door, but when they couldn’t get it, they gave up
on that form of productivity reporting. But there has to be more to it, whether
they will want the 15-minute increment accounting or some other form of
accounting.
Prof. Rock: It’s just going to be extra work for people, probably chairs or their
secretaries.
Prof. Crothers: What about SURS issues, other than the systematic thievery of our
retirement systems. Are you getting the e-mails from the Save Our Pensions
group? I get e-mails quite often from them and I want to distribute something I
received recently entitled, “Pension Commission Recommendations”. In the short
term, we are lucky, because when the law was changed, it did require the
Comptroller’s Office to have the fiduciary responsibility of the retirement
system, so they have to view it in the client’s best interest.
Prof. Valenciano: Is there any way that we
can request the people on the board and those that are to be appointed give
their bios to at least the Faculty Senate or the union so that we know who they
are. I have been a faculty member for 11 years and I have no idea who is on the
board.
Prof. Langley: What if we work through the IFT to get some names?
Prof. Ashley: Last year, we wrote a letter at Eastern about state support for higher
education and circulated that around. Should we continue to doing that kind of
thing?
Prof. Crothers: There is amended version of it in your packets, which ISU’s Senate
approved and sent to the Governor and other legislators.
Prof. Benford: Is something like this
just falling on deaf ears?
Prof. Crothers: As long as they keep it inside their little club, they can allocate
anything they want and claim that they are solving the state budget problems
without raising taxes. If money comes back to higher education any time soon,
it will go to MAP and retirement. It will be a long time before we actually see
any new state money at the university level.
Prof. Benford: Do you have any sense of
the net outward migration of faculty from
Prof. Crothers:
Prof. Benford: I wonder
if we could actually demonstrate with data to show that there is a negative
impact of some of these legislative policies.
Prof. Bodenhorn:
UIS is trying to keep track of the exodus of faculty.
Prof. Crothers: We did that
study just this year. As you heard from the Provost, there has been a 40%
turnover of faculty over the last several years.
Prof. Benford: Every
place is going to have some of that. Do we know what the net loss is and can we
actually use that as an argument for being a little smarter in the changes that
are made within colleges?
Prof. Crothers: We
could find that out in the exit interviews if that issue keeps cropping up in
the standard list. Perhaps we could bring that to the attention of the
presidents.
MAP Funds to Private Institutions
Prof. Langley: We are
not turning over the MAP funding system (to the State), are we?
Prof. Crothers: No,
just the student loan system. There is a document in your packet about issues
concerning MAP. There has been a long-term conversation on the IBHE Faculty
Advisory Council about it. Our university has decided that since the maximum
MAP award is lower than our minimum tuition, if you are eligible for the full
MAP, we will make up the difference out of our General Revenue Funds.
Prof. Benford: How do
we compare with other states in providing state monies to private institutions?
Prof. Crothers:
Prof. Bodenhorn: There appears to be a
movement nationwide to give state money to non-accredited institutions because
the State has been cited as being discriminatory.
Truth in Tuition Law
Prof. Crothers: I don’t
have a sense that the Truth in Tuition Law is a problem for any us in a
low-inflation environment. Essentially, all it is a four-year guarantee of
price. ISU freezes fees as well.
One Council member expressed concern about the addition of fees to use
for deferred maintenance and utility costs. He stated that the major concern
was that the additional fees would affect affordability. Senator Crothers
stated that last year, the administration put forward a new fee structure. It
didn’t first come through shared governance and it was protested. The
administration pulled it back and brought it to shared governance. He added
that, in theory, fees should go up even slower than tuition increases. The only
fee increases should be to cover any salary increases in the fee-paying areas.
One member stated that one of the problems with Truth in Tuition is that the
tuition increase in the fifth year will seem very dramatic. Another noted that
some universities are going to see double digits year after year. He stated
that they were trying to keep it under 10%, but when you build those on top of
each other, at the end of that, you still have a 40% increase in the fourth
year.
Professor Crothers gave an example of sending two children to college,
five years apart. You can send one to
Professor Benford stated there is still a large
amount of money coming to the university from the State in various ways.
However, as the proportion of the university’s budget supported through State
revenues decreases, attempts by the State to assert control over universities
have increased, which is a contradictory set of trends.
Professor
Health Insurance Benefits
Prof. Crothers: When
health insurance benefits are negotiated with CMS, AFSCME is the only one that
gets to be a part of the negotiations. I think that the uproar about the elimination
of the choice of Health Alliance has been reconciled and the transfer from
Caremark to Medco has gone rather smoothly.
Prof. Shub: The
problem with changing providers is that a preferred drug with one provider is
not necessarily a preferred drug with the other. If they want the preferred
rate, we have to start switching our prescriptions. With Caremark, you could
get three months of a prescription at a retail pharmacy. I am not sure if you
can do that with Medco.
Prof. Crothers: I have
not heard very many complaints about this.
Prof. Shub: With
Medco, you can get a two-month supply at the two-month supply rate from retail
pharmacies, but you can only get a three-month supply at the two-month supply
rate by mail order from Medco.
Prof. Crothers: I have
heard a few questions about which pharmacies are affiliated with Medco. I
believe that Walgreens was trying, but the process was never completed.
Prof. Crothers: Here at
ISU, we had an audit done of our policies and procedures for dealing with
Patriot Act requests. The Senate passed a resolution, which is enclosed in your
packets, about those policies. Have any of you done anything similar? Do you
continue to hear about the pressures asserted by the act? I understand that
they are trying to remove the requisition of library records from it.
Prof. Benford: We are
taking a horrible hit in terms of international students because of changes in
policies. Not only that, we had one student who was to go to the American
Society of Criminology meeting in Toronto, who decided not to go on the advice
of our chair. Because the student is from
Prof. Crothers: I had a
meeting yesterday with our Vice President for Graduate Studies. Our graduate
numbers have gone down by approximately 250 students over the last couple of
years. He thinks that the Patriot Act is only a small piece of it. He believes
that biggest factor is that we gave back many of the graduate assistantships.
Prof. Benford: That is
certainly part of the problem. We also gave back graduate assistantships and we
raised international tuition drastically. I think we need to stand up for the
faculty, if for nothing else, and assert the advantages of having an international
community on campuses. We all benefit from it; it is another very important
dimension of diversity. If you want to have a more secure, safer world, it is
going to entail having understandings cross culturally rather than closing our
borders.
Prof. Valenciano:
The Faculty Senate is trying to put together a subcommittee that would
work with international studies for studies abroad. Our Senate President has
put together a proposal for 70% of our students to have an opportunity for
studies abroad. That’s wonderful, but since that time, less than 1% has
actually done it. Part of problem is that I think our faculty
just don’t know how to make these things happen. Are other presidents
pledging these experiences for their students? How are you monitoring it? Our
studies abroad program only has five people in it and has affected less than 3%
of the students.
Prof. Crothers: One of
our goals is to increase study abroad; I am not sure of the percentage of
students currently doing so.
Prof. Ashley: Our percentage
is about 2%, but our goal is 70%. Students are trying to come up with the
resources. Unless the institution is subsidizing this in someway,
not everyone can afford to study abroad. Our study abroad director has gone as
far as including a study abroad component in the overall tuition bill. More and
more parents are expecting a study abroad experience. The biggest obstacle is
the number of faculty who are willing to accompany students.
Prof. Rock: I have
just been asked to co-lead a three-week
Prof. Shub: We are
doing some funding for studies abroad at Northeastern. We recognize that most
of our students work, so they really can’t take off a semester to study abroad.
So we are doing the one, two or three-week trips as part of a course. I know
that, theoretically, the President would like everyone to have international
experience.
Prof. Bodenhorn: Are you
distinguishing between study abroad and travel abroad?
Prof. Shub:
Most of our students can’t take time off from work, so I guess we are
doing the travel abroad instead.
Prof. Bodenhorn:
One of the things that we are trying to do at UIS is set up a gradient by
which the students pay UIS tuition and only have to pay airfare for study
abroad. We are working hard on generating sources for funding to help offset
airfare, too. But we are sending very, very small numbers—I think only about
.25% of the entire student population.
Prof. Ashley: Another
obstacle that we have for increasing study abroad is the curriculum and the
credits. Is it going to count toward their major or does it come in as a
transfer credit? If it does not count toward their major, there is a great
disincentive to participate. But if in working with departments, we can
identify the classes that offer studies abroad that count as requisites of a
major, then that would be a major improvement.
Prof. Benford: It seems
that you would get a greater advantage by subsidizing international students to
come here because they have contact with hundreds of our students and faculty.
But, I think that they both should happen, studies abroad for our students and
bringing international students to our campuses.
Prof. Crothers: For the
next meeting, we might want to do further research and find out what our rates
are and what our programs are.
Lobbying on Behalf of Higher Education
Prof. Crothers: The
question of lobbying by this group is always on the agenda. Historically, the
idea has been for perhaps a Thursday/Friday meeting in
Prof. Rock: For
last couple of years, as the IBHE Faculty Advisory Council (FAC) meetings have
been hosted at different institutions, we have tried to bring in
representatives from that district to discuss our concerns. Those meetings have
gone exceedingly well. However, I don’t think it ultimately made any difference
in the last legislative session, but certainly legislators were made aware of
issues brought up by the FAC. I think that the other group that is doing a lot
on this is the UPI. UPI has a lobby day each spring with people going to
Prof. Crothers: That
ties to the next question. This group has met consistently for the last couple
of years at ISU, which is fine. We have met in
Prof. Ashley: If we
were to have a two-day meeting, which would include lobbying training, who
would do the training?
Prof. Crothers: The idea
would be to have our legislative liaison or UIS’s legislative liaison to come
in talk about what it all entails.
Prof. Valenciano:
Someone working with economic development would best understand how
universities are being cut out of the picture.
Prof. Rock: Our FAC
(IBHE Faculty Advisory Council) rep was appointed by the Senate; therefore, I
don’t know that we are not duplicating the message. A number of student
governments have a lobby day. It would be nice if everyone descended upon
Prof. Crothers: I agree
with you; I do think, however, it is the relationships that you build over time
that build the patterns of trust and communication. We might bring some
statewide officials into contact with this body.
Prof. Rock: We met
with Elliot Regenstein, who is the Governor’s ‘director of education’. We had a
real honest conversation and he got an earful from FAC. We have brought in
people from the IBHE, and although we are regionally based, we have literally
had an opportunity to talk to legislators on both sides of the aisle.
Prof. Crothers: Our
Senate has met with our State Representative; I don’t know if that happens on
all campuses.
Prof. Bodenhorn: Perhaps
all of the campuses should speak with their own legislative representatives on
a regular basis.
Prof. Crothers: We have
taken on annually inviting our state legislators to Senate meetings. Dan Brady
has come every year that we have invited him. Those conversations have turned out
to be positive and cooperative. What I am hearing then is that you don’t
particularly think that a separate lobbying day is important. You don’t think
that having people come into this body is necessarily important, but we do
think it is a good idea for faculty to liaison with legislators as much as
possible, which includes inviting your elected representatives and others to
your own Senates.
Prof. Valenciano:
I am not sure that that is exactly
what I am hearing. Inviting a state representative to this body is important. I
don’t know if anyone said that that wasn’t.
Prof. Ashley: Rather
than having individual lobbying days, if all of the senates
got together and had more of a unified effort, we would have a stronger voice.
Working in concert would be a more sound strategy than having everyone doing
their own thing.
Prof. Rock: I agree
with that. There might be two other things that could happen. One is having as
many elected governance leaders of our campuses hold a press conference and
speak as one voice about the critical needs for higher education. The other
thing that could be useful is to have the lobbying day and, whether or not the
lobbying is effective, it is what we might learn and take back to our campuses
that will help our colleagues. The one trip might not be effective, but we
might be able to learn some things.
Prof. Crothers: This
lobbying would be near the end of the year when everyone is tired, so it may
not be a good time to do it.
Prof. Ashley: Then why
don’t we do it in the fall?
Prof. Crothers: Because
they are generally not in session in the fall.
Prof. Ashley: But, in
the fall, we could plan what it is that we are going to do in the spring. If it
comes up every year, obviously people think that it is worthy of doing. What has
been the primary obstacle other than late in the semester?
Prof. Langley: I think
that the idea is very tempting, but I guess I have watched
If citizens across the State of
Prof. Valenciano: I wonder
if it would be beneficial to connect with student organizations and student
newspapers because they at least have a publication that goes out.
Prof. Langley: They do;
but I think that there is some conflict of interest between us and our
students. Our students are going to be pushing for lower tuition and I
appreciate that. In one sense, the four-year guarantee is good because it keeps
those students happy for four years. At the same time when students go down and
talk to legislators about bigger classes, not being able to get into a section
or get into a required course, not being able to graduate on time, those
lobbying efforts by the students have been quite effective.
Prof. Crothers: Except
the State is responsible for those negative things happening.
Prof. Ashley: I agree
that decisions are being made by a handful of people. Would our chances of
getting the ear of those decision makers increase if we were a unified group of
the faculty from the Senates of all of the universities go down at one time, rather
than having each university trying to get the ear of a legislator or
legislative staff member for a couple of minutes? Perhaps, we might have a
better chance at getting to them as a unified front.
Prof. Prussing: On many
issues, students and faculty are on the same page. Many legislative districts
are covered by our students and that is a huge leverage tool. Students could
talk to their parents and get their parents to talk to their local legislators.
Prof. Rock: The
legislators will listen to the students; students have more influence than
faculty.
Prof. Benford: However
we decide, I would like to at least go with the notion that Prof. Valenciano mentioned—to at least get one of these leaders
to talk to us as a unified body in the absence of having a groundswell of
lobbying in Springfield in April.
Prof. Crothers: The
fundamental question remains: where do you want the meeting to be? The location
will make the access to legislators and staff different. In
Prof. Langley: We can
have it in
Prof. Benford: I am
willing to go either place. I will still be on the Senate in the spring, but
not in the fall.
Prof. Bodenhorn: Meeting
with the powerful is useful, but having leverage means that it needs to be more
than our group. Someone mentioned a session with the media and that would
certainly attract public interest. Maybe something we should consider is some
kind of letter to the legislature in which we say, collectively, that these are
the issues that threaten the quality of higher education.
Prof. Crothers: This
body has done a letter to the editor before and it got published in some
newspapers, but not in others.
Prof. Bodenhorn: It seems
to me that we don’t have a whole lot of leverage with the politicians unless we
are also at play in the public arena.
Prof. Ashley: I think
that we are doing a pretty good job of convincing parents and students of the
importance of higher education. We could do a better job of educating the
public as a whole. Having an educated workforce is what is going to bring jobs
to the state.
Prof. Crothers: We may do
better to go after the powerful staff. If I am hearing you right, it sounds
like we are going to try to meet in the spring in
Prof. Langley: The best
timeframe would be the last two weeks in March because April starts getting
very busy for the legislature.
Prof. Ashley: Would it
be possible to bring up some of the issues that we want to discuss, have it
very streamlined so that we can show that we are unified, so if someone does
come in, it is not just everybody throwing different ideas at them. We should
all be on the same agenda.
Prof. Crothers: We could
set such an agenda by e-mail.
Prof. Benford: What
about having the meeting on Tuesday, March 28?
Prof. Langley: We could
tentatively set it for the 28th and e-mail everyone who is not
present to see if they are able to meet on that date.
Prof. Ashley: Should
we also try to do some functional lobbying on that day. We could meet the
evening before and get things organized.
Prof. Valenciano: It might
be beneficial for this group to invite a representative from the FAC to join
us.
Prof. Langley: I could
ask the FAC representatives at U of I to attend. We also might want to figure
out how we can interact more with FAC.
Professor Crothers began the discussion concerning the letter to the
Governor drafted by the Council concerning higher education. He stated that
some Senates had already gone beyond this in that the ISU and Eastern Senates
had already endorsed letters to the Governor and circulated those. He added
that he was unsure if the Council should forward the letter to the Governor or
instead should set up a press conference.
Before addressing Professor Crothers question, one Council member asked
to talk about the how the changes in funding streams had affected other
universities. He expressed the concern that with the change in the funding
stream from primarily state revenues to tuition and fees, it has not only meant
a difference in the sources of revenue, but also it has meant a difference in
which individuals control the greater proportion of the revenue. The shift in
the control of revenue has resulted in a shift of the power of a broader
constituency to the power of a few individuals. He stated that this has
affected hiring as departments have lost lines. He asked if other universities
were experiencing the same difficulties. Professor Langley responded that there
did not appear to be a shift in control because of the shift from General
Revenue Funds to tuition funds. Professor Crothers stated that lines were controlled
by the Provost’s Office with the Academic Impact Fund and that the decisions
were fairly open to discussion.
Professor Benford stated that as new tuition
dollars have come to replace those lost in General Revenue Funds, there was no
back filling to make up for the recessions that affected departments and
colleges. It has diminished the quality within the classroom and in research.
He asked for suggestions about how to stop this. He added that new tuition does
not save us, because it gets spent on things like capital projects. Professor
Crothers stated that he had not had a chance to think about this. He said that
he would do so and asked others who had ideas to share them with Professor Benford.
Adjournment