Meeting minutes: December 7, 2011
Meeting highlights: Exceptional Merit, Changes on Campus, Salary Negotiations Meeting date: 12/07/2011 Present: Randy Phillis, Steve Brewer, Eric Berlin, Bob Paynter, Art Keene, Carol Will, Jim Smethurst, Christopher Couch, Maciej Ciesielski, Emma Dundon, Eliot Moss, Eve Weinbaum, Steve McGinty, Meghan Banach Bergin, Michael Sugerman, Joe Levine, David Gross, Banu Subramaniam Lori Reardon, Mickey Gallagher, Ferd Wulkan
(1) Randy suggested that MSP organize the labor coalition on campus to invite Elizabeth Warren to UMass. -general agreement
(2) Minutes from 11-16-11 approved
(3) Exceptional merit -there have been problems with the implementation -College Personnel Committees sent up very unequal numbers -Provost wants to reconvene the original committee in order to solve the problem for this year, and to work out long-term solutions for implementation in the future -Lots of discussion about problems with implementation -confusion about who should apply -confusion about how many awards would be given -confusion about what constitutes "exceptional" -lots of differences among the CPCs in their processes -Bob suggests that we create an amendment to the MOU that clarifies what the CPCs are supposed to do in future -Randy, Joe, and Maciej will meet with the Provost this afternoon to discuss the way forward
(4) Financial changes on campus – what do they have in common? -changes on campus include football, changes in peer mentoring and RA programs, cuts in UHS and increases in costs -Ferd attended a meeting of a campus coalition that is trying to come up with responses to the administration's decisions
Comments included: we need to get more activist faculty into the Senate - we should frame these issues in the context of student educational standards - we can do impact bargaining about how these changes affect our workplace and our ability to get our work done - we need to think about these changes and possible bargaining in terms of specific outcomes - there is a major problem of process on this campus in which decisions are made in back rooms and then presented as finished products. We need to push back against the implementation of these processes. - all of these individual issues need to be strung together as issues of "university governance" -discussion around the work (not) being done by the Faculty Senate
The Board agreed to set up two working groups to bring proposals to the next Board meeting – (1) one about how MSP should relate to the Faculty Senate and (2) one about how to educate/address larger issues of university governance and changes taking place on campus
(5) President's office offered a NAGE-like offer -a new 2-year contract with agreed-upon financial parameters -administration wants agreement by 12/9 so that they can put it in the initial budget (House 1) rather than as a supplementary budget -all UMass system unions have been provided the same offer and we have to figure out how to respond -Mickey: it is possible that we could end up with nothing if the legislature doesn't approve the money (unlike State Colleges and Community Colleges who have guaranteed salary increases) -Randy: in a meeting Caret stated that if these raises aren't funded "we" (the university) will go after the state to fund the trigger money. This means that the administration admitted that the trigger levels were met. -we have now opened bargaining, which means that the bargaining team is empowered to make decisions to come to an agreement that will be brought to the membership for a vote
(6) The Provost is looking for an MSP member for a committee on how teaching evaluations work at UMass -Provost pointed out that faculty of color tend to get slightly lower evaluations on standardized evaluations -Mickey: we need to be careful about giving authorization to a committee who might come up with approaches that are not in concert with the goals of the MSP.
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