MSP EXECUTIVE BOARD WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2007

Present: Banach, Barker, Brewer, Brigham, Freeman, Ganz, Gencarella, Gore, Hemment, Ishii, Lovett, Luce, Moffitt, Page, Pfeiffer, Phillis, Scharrer

Staff: Reardon, Wulkan, Gallagher

Absent: Barrington, Danai, Gubrium, Lawrence, McDermott, Paynter, Smethurst, Sutherland

1. Minutes

MSP Board Minutes of September 12 were approved unanimously

2. Committees

Goal: Committee should have their first internal meeting within 2 weeks, and a first meeting with the administration by mid-October.

Family Issues had their first internal meeting 9/25, reviewed what has been accomplished and started preparing to tackle outstanding issues

The Health Insurance Committee met with the administration, and a letter has gone to all new hires, explaining their options for interim coverage, and announcing that there will be a process for reimbursements.

Computer Replacement Committee: Steve Brewer has agreed to chair.

The Phased Retirement, Faculty Liability, and Sabbatical joint committees are supposed to complete their work and make recommendations by 12/31/07.

Max is hoping each Board member will serve on a committee. A list will be emailed to Board members today. We expect to do regular committee reports to the membership.

3. Organizing Ourselves for Bargaining

Goal: Visit each department to discuss highlights of the contract, and the schedule and expected issues for the next round of bargaining, and to get feedback from members. E

ach Board member is being asked to select 4-5 departments where they would be in contact with the dept. rep (or find one in rep-less departments) who can hopefully schedule MSP to have 15 minutes at a department meeting some time this semester.

Ideally, each Board member will meet with their group of department reps and develop an ongoing team relationship

It was suggested that some colleges (e.g. Engineering) have college faculty meetings and we might try to present there.

It was suggested that we do centralized invitations, and the Board discussed the pros and cons. The MSP office will keep track of department meetings and make sure a knowledgeable person attends.

Stephanie will prepare talking points.

Max pointed out that this is hard work but that there is lots of love for the MSP out there and that this is the best year to be out there organizing.

Preparing for Bargaining: Since we did an issues survey recently, this year’s survey will be different and will focus more on gathering information and stories to support our issues. [We will ask at department meetings if members have other issues.] Each committee should come up with questions for the survey, and draft short updates for regular bulletins to members Max explained that this past round, MSP did better at communicating with other unions, both on this campus and throughout the MTA. This time, we want to take this further with joint training, and a meeting of MTA higher ed locals to start coordinate our issues and bargaining strategy more. This is exciting, complicated, and delicate.

4. Harris announced a conference sponsored by the Harvard Trade Union Program about the Future of Labor Relations in Higher Education on October 2, and recommended that MSP be represented.

5. General Faculty Meeting Friday, 9/28 – reconvened from recessed meeting in JuneMSP Officers and Faculty Senate leadership worked out the agenda, which includes discussion of the Board of Trustees, the Governor’s Readiness Project, and the proposal for a single gen. ed. program. The Board discussed the general lack of faculty input and related issues.

6. Chancellor Search

John explained that 14 of the 25 people on the search committee are UMass alums, students, faculty, that he was optimistic, and that this would be a good forum to discuss the future of the campus. The committee’s first meeting was the same day (9/26). John thought that all the ferment at the general faculty meeting was not helpful for the process.

The Board discussed that the message should be: whoever comes as Chancellor should know that this campus takes faculty governance seriously. There was discussion of adding a positive resolution about the search to what would be voted on at the General Faculty meeting.

Ray mentioned that there was a Trustees committee studying Division I football and that we should be proactive around this (bad) idea. It could be brought up in the search.

Board members stressed that the Chancellor search and reorganization plans were closely connected.

7. Outreach to Agency Fee payers

A letter signed by all Board members has gone to all paying the agency service fee. Board members were asked to sign up to talk with agency fee payers they knew in order to try to persuade them to become members. There was then a broader discussion about “cultures of resistance” in certain departments, the need to look at agency fee payers by rank, and more general ways to increase union consciousness.

8. PHENOM

Various upcoming events were discussed, and members are encouraged to attend:a) Hearing on Textbook legislation 10/2 at the State Houseb) Talk on Free Higher Education by Adolph Reed 10/17 on campusc) Higher Education Summit 10/26 at Framingham State College