Board Attendance: Banach, Barker, Berlin, Brewer, Couch, Dundon, Gross, Keene, Levine, McGinty, Moss, Phillips, Phillis, Smethurst, Subramaniam, Will

Staff: Gallagher, Reardon, Wulkan

1.         Board Minutes of November 2, 2011

            Approved unanimously

2.         Updates

            a) HELC

            Secretary of Administration and Finance Gonzalez still won’t commit to putting in for funding for the new contract, but is more open than before.  If we want to have the possibility of having funding included in the Governor’s H1 budget, we would need to bargain quickly, at least for the money.  We will ask members to vote 12/1 on bargaining for the “NAGE” economic parameters as opposed to the one-time trigger back pay.  The grievance about the university not paying the trigger back pay would be put in abeyance until we actually get the raises.

            b) Campaign for the Future of Higher Education

            Alex Phillips reported about the second national meeting, held in Boston 11/4-11/6/11.  It included about 70 people from about 20 states.  About ½ tenure system faculty, about ½ non-tenure and staff.  Board members were encouraged to review the Campaign’s 7 Principles.  Ferd will send out more information.

            c) University Capital Campaign

            Alex Phillips reported about capital plans for the next 5 years.  Considerable funds would come from the campus operating budget.  This led to a spirited discussion about the campus’ football plans.  Board members were urged to attend the Faculty Senate meeting that will be discussing this.

            d) Officer Vacancies

            Due to personal conflicts, John Brigham is resigning and one other officer is also considering doing so.  Board members were encouraged to submit suggestions for new officers to the officers.

3.         Contract Preparations

            Joe Levine reported on the work of the Contract Committee and the Board reviewed 2 documents.  One was the list of Principles formulated to guide bargaining.  The other was the Principles plus proposed proposals under each principle.  Most of the meeting was spent discussing the principles and proposals, leading up to a vote to recommend the principles to the Membership for ratification on December 1.  The most controversy surrounded the proposed principle that included the statement “RESEARCH (including creative activity) IS HALF THE JOB OF THE TYPICAL TENURE-STREAM FACULTY MEMBER. “

            A motion was made to approve the Principles document and present it to the membership December 1.

An amendment was offered to “where appropriate, insert ‘librarians” into the language”.  This passed unanimously.

            An amendment was offered to table the above Workload principle and ask the Contract Committee to rework it and email it to the Board for feedback prior to 12/1.  This passed unanimously.

            The original motion, as amended, passed unanimously.