Present: Ash, Banach, Barker, Brewer, Domier, Gross, Levine, McGinty, Phillips, Phillis,

Staff: Gallagher, Reardon, Wulkan

Absent: Adams (on leave), Brandt, Brigham, Danai, Luce, McDermott, Misra, Paynter, Schmalzer, Smethurst

1.         Minutes of April 21, 2010

            The minutes were amended as follows:

            a) Megan Banach should be listed as present.

            b) The report mentioned in Item 4 should be named and/or described

            In addition, it was noted that Allen Barker was surprised that Item 6 passed unanimously since he would have voted against it.

The minutes as amended were approved unanimously.

2.         The Past Year

            Randy Phillis described, and Board members commented on, some of the work MSP has done this past year:

            a) Much work happens behind the scenes at the MSP office; kudos to the staff.

            b) Reorganizations, including

• choice of old or new PC in the new College of Natural Sciences for members going through major personnel actions
• our concerns about how much faculty time would be taken up proved to be true
• continuing to work with Commonwealth College faculty so as to minimize the negative impact of the changes in the delivery of honors courses
• ongoing impact bargaining on merger of Legal Studies and Political Science

            c) Work-Life Committee gathered and analyzed data and issued great reports

            d) Helped initiate the MTA’s Revenue Campaign

            e) Negotiating over Gen Ed changes, getting a foot in the door for negotiating workload.  Our position has been that changing from 3 to 4 credits must require additional work for faculty and students.  We want to assure that past practice will govern support for units as well as individual workloads.

            f) Distance Ed/Continuing Ed.  While we are negotiating over fair compensation, we are aware of more complex issues concerning the direction of the university.

3.         Next Year

            We expect to:

• Continue the above

• Deal with the proposed SBS-HFA merger and its impact.  It was noted that HFA faculty voted 143 to 8 against the merger.

• Start planning for the next contract negotiations which will start January 2011.

• Attend department faculty meetings in the fall to inform, listen, and engage

• Get the contracts funded!  [Randy reported on the recent meeting he and other higher ed union leaders had with the Governor.]

4.         Upcoming events

            a) End-of-Year party for MSP activists May 18 (Grade Submission Day) at Mickey’s house.

            b) Board Retreat in late August

            c) Summer Board meeting – June 2 at 10 AM (hopefully after we know the outline of the University budget)