Faculty Assembly Minutes: January 31, 2007
Call to order: Nick Reeder,
President of Faculty Senate, called the meeting to order at 3:00 pm in Rm.
4011.
1. Fire-Door Update
Dr. Mary Gaier, Vice
President for Organizational Development, and Woody Woodruff, from Facilities
Management, were introduced by Nick to provide an update on the College’s
efforts at dealing with the fire-door issue.
Dr. Gaier made brief introductory comments, noting that her office would
continue to provide communication with the campus on this issue but that Woody
was the “expert” and would provide details and answer questions. Woody explained that he was not defending any
one position at this time, but wanted to provide information so that everyone
would understand the issue and understand what is being done to bring about a
satisfactory solution.
Woody noted that the major
impact of the code enforcement was affecting buildings 1-7 and some areas in
Building 8. Buildings 9-20 are minimally
affected. The reason is that buildings
9-20 had sprinkler systems installed when built or renovated and, therefore,
are up to code. Buildings 1-7 do not
have a sprinkler system; therefore, fire doors were installed to meet code
requirements. However, in order to
satisfy requirements for fire containment and egress of public areas, the fire
doors must remain closed (unless they are electromagnetic and can be closed
automatically in case of fire).
Regardless of what has transpired in the past, the fire code
requirements are now being strictly enforced by the city of
Woody acknowledged that
having to keep all the fire doors closed is creating problems for HVAC as well
as problems for students, staff, and faculty, and he asked for patience as the
College seeks a solution. He reminded
the assembly that the fire marshal could assess a $1000 fine for each door each
day a violation is recorded, and he expressed thanks that the campus, for the
most part, appeared to be in compliance, with the exception of the occasional
trash can/book/rope/chair propping doors open.
He noted that employees could be liable for part or all of any fines
imposed, and he expressed the hope that no staff, faculty, or administrator
would risk being fined by propping fire doors open. In addition, he said that the fire marshal
could close the school (or at least the buildings affected) in the event of
code violations. Even if this is an
unlikely scenario, it remains a legal possibility.
With respect to possible
solutions, he expressed optimism that a solution for those occupying inner
offices in office suites would soon be forthcoming. As to the larger scale issue, he presented
two main options under consideration: sprinklerizing the affected buildings or
installing electromagnetic and/or handicapped accessible devices on classroom
and office doors. Installing sprinklers,
according to Woody, would allow for more flexibility during future renovations
(allowing for the use of glass walls, for example, such as Financial Aid
has). But he reminded the audience that
no decisions had been made as yet, that the College had hired a firm to study
corrective measures, and that once a decision had been made, it would still
take time for the bidding process, not to mention the time it will take for any
work to be done, assuming the College chooses to make changes rather than
continue with the status quo of closed door compliance. From the tenor of the discussion, it did
appear that the College is seriously looking at taking a course of action
rather than staying with the very unsatisfactory status quo.
In response to questions,
Dr. Gaier indicated that she was confident we will have a solution soon and
asked, as did Woody, for patience and compliance in the interim. Woody noted that propping a door open
temporarily while moving items into and out of an office was not a
violation. When asked if space heaters
were allowed, he said “No” and urged employees with heating problems in their
offices to contact HVAC immediately. Finally,
when asked why we didn’t use our own internal expertise rather than an outside firm
to fashion a solution, Woody noted that it was required to have licensed firms
do any corrective work, but that Sinclair personnel would certainly be involved
in the process. Both Mary and Woody
mentioned that they had saved all e-mails received, that they welcomed any
suggestions, and that they would continue to do their best to communicate with
the campus about the issue.
2. Realignment
Cross-Functional Team Update
Mike Burns, representing the
Realignment Cross-Functional Team as its facilitator, summarized the
committee’s work to date. He noted that
the group had received nearly 200 reports from the college’s budget units by
the deadline of December 15. These were
the responses to the common set of questions distributed earlier during fall
quarter, recommendations that were limited to five pages each. Faced with approximately 1000 pages of
information to review, Mike explained how the group used a survey tool as part
of the process to collect input from each member of the committee. He shared a sample with the audience to show
how the feedback helped the committee during the discussion process. In addition to the reports, the committee had
access to other institutional data to provide context for their discussions. Mike added that the committee tried to narrow
the ideas presented to those that would have the most impact, noting that their
charge was to identify noteworthy recommendations for processes that will
enhance efficiencies as well as to identify opportunities for increasing
revenues. Mike admitted that the
committee had been granted a short extension from February 1 to February 5 for
submitting its recommendations to the Operations Council, and that its report
would be in the neighborhood of 75 pages.
The next step will be for the Operations Council to review the report
and make recommendations for implementation.
Mike mentioned that the committee’s report will be posted (location on
the college web site to be announced) as will links for any data used in the
process.
3. Assembly President’s
Report
Nick Reeder, Assembly
President, reviewed progress made on four key issues identified as important by
faculty in response to a Senate survey.
First, little progress has been made with regard to reorganization of
the academic divisions. Originally
time-tabled for fall quarter, then moved to winter quarter, Nick reported that
the Provost Council has been discussing the issue but as yet has nothing
concrete to share with the faculty.
Second, college-wide realignment is moving along on schedule (see Mike
Burns’ report above). Nick mentioned
that Senate had requested representation on the Operations Council in order to
be more directly involved In the
process, but its request was denied.
Nevertheless, Nick assured the audience that Senate would provide input
once recommendations were made. Nick
added that the other two high priority items on the list, retrenchment and new
faculty hiring practices, were both being acted upon by Senate.
As for current issues that
had surfaced in Senate, Nick listed the following: fire door issue, merit
eligibility for retirees, math chair search committee irregularities, Faculty
Issues Team, and on-line Faculty Handbook.
Nick noted that the fire door issue, as covered earlier in the assembly
meeting, would be ongoing. He reported
that Senate had forwarded a recommendation to Dr. Grove that the Collegewide
Merit Committee allow recently retired faculty who meet all eligibility
requirements for applying for Collegewide Merit to submit an application. He added that Senate would be addressing
possible ambiguity in the Faculty Handbook with respect to merit
eligibility. Nick stated that issues
surrounding Handbook violations related to the process for hiring a new
chairperson for Mathematics had been resolved satisfactorily. For a FIT update, Nick deferred to Ned Young,
who would be reporting later during the assembly meeting. And finally, Nick mentioned that senators
Amanda Romero and Tom Singer had agreed to work with IT to make the online
Faculty Handbook more user-friendly.
In closing, Nick reminded
assembly members about upcoming elections during spring quarter, the first
elections to be held electronically.
Offices open are Vice President, which is President-Elect this year
(one-year commitment as VP followed by two years as President), Secretary, and
Representative to Sinclair Leadership Team.
He also asked for volunteers from ALH, BUS, EGR, and ELHS to serve on
the Elections Committee, indicating he already had representatives from LAS and
FPA.
4. Retrenchment Policy
Update
Jim Brooks, chair of the
Faculty Retrenchment Committee, gave a brief history of faculty retrenchment,
stating that a policy had been written in 1985 but not officially submitted for
approval to Senate. Then in 1995, Senate
officers revised the policy and held informal discussions with Dr. Sifferlen
about it, but other issues surfaced and once again the policy was never
officially approved by Senate. Last
spring, Senate raised the issue of retrenchment once again, in light of discussions
about reorganization and realignment, and Jim volunteered to convene a
committee of volunteers to revisit the original policy and review policies at
other institutions. Furthermore, Jim met
with Janet Jones, Human Resources director, to discuss working together on a
college-wide retrenchment policy. Janet
indicated this was a high priority item for her office and that she and Saundra
Schuster, the college attorney, were looking into developing a “framework” for
retrenchment and welcomed our input on it. However, no “framework” has been received, and
indications are that the administration is, at present, not working on
developing a retrenchment policy, so the Senate requested the committee to
provide a Faculty Retrenchment Policy for its review by February 1. A draft was presented to Senators at the
January 24 meeting, and it will be discussed at the February 7 meeting. Once Senate has provided feedback, two things
could happen: one, it could be returned to the committee for further revision;
two, it could be shared with faculty for feedback. Ultimately, Senate expects a policy to be
approved so that it can be forwarded to the administration and, finally, enter
the Faculty Handbook for 2007-2008.
A short discussion followed,
with faculty expanding on the history, explaining the original policy was
written during a downturn in enrollment, with some departments/programs fearing
cuts and feeling at risk without a policy in place. One reason offered for the initial policy not
being pursued was that at the time Dr. Ponitz, who was not in favor of having
the policy according to one faculty member, agreed to a significant salary hike
for faculty if Senate agreed not to press the retrenchment issue. A question was raised by one faculty member
as to the usefulness of pursuing such a policy if it was apparent that the
administration was not in favor of it or did not view it as a priority
item. In response, another faculty
member strongly advocated for having a policy to prevent the administration
from acting in an arbitrary way in the event circumstances warranted cutbacks. Having a process in place, according to the
faculty member, was the only way to prevent across-the-board cuts or expediency
in place of fairness. Jim expressed
optimism that Senate would reach consensus on a policy and that it would be
sent forward spring quarter. He further
stated his preference for working with the staff and the administration on a
comprehensive policy, and hoped that the faculty’s efforts might serve as a
catalyst to advance the discussion.
5. Faculty Issues Team (FIT)
Update
Ned Young, chair of the
Faculty Issues Team, reviewed what the team had been doing in recent months,
reminding the audience that it had surveyed some forty colleges in an effort to
benchmark attributes in compensation systems.
To help sort out the information, a consultant from the Hay Group who
has a long history with Sinclair and its system of compensation is working with
FIT. Based on a preliminary
consideration of the survey results, FIT is looking at increasing the emphasis
on the following areas as it attempts to design a more satisfactory system of
compensation for faculty: become truly merit-based; extend external
competitiveness based on rank averages rather than overall average salary; pay
premiums for hard to find/hire disciplines; focus on range widths and starting
salaries for ranks. Conversely, FIT is
looking at decreasing the emphasis on the following: across-the-board
increases; range closure; use of average salary as an external benchmark. Ned reminded the audience that these areas of
emphasis and de-emphasis are tentative, and that FIT is working with the Hay
consultant to draft a survey for faculty that would provide FIT with more direction
from the assembly on these points.
After Ned had presented his
slides, comments from the floor included the difficulty of designing a rating
system based on performance, and that this had been tried many years ago and
after several iterations finally been replaced by our current system. Questions were raised about the impact of
health care and whether that needed to be included in our compensation
talks. A suggestion was made about using
a step system for basic compensation and merit for “above and beyond”
awards. Another faculty member cited the
Air Force’s use of a ranking system for compensation which included quotas with
respect to promotion; he added that this led to “cutthroat behavior.” Comments were made about professors needing
to get merit in order to qualify for raises (note—this is not true; what is
true is that receiving merit will assure a professor reaching closure within a
24 or 27 year time frame), and other comments were made about our system being
hard to understand (see previous comment about professors and merit, which is a
case in point of misunderstanding). Ned
hoped that the survey would help FIT resolve issues surrounding Sinclair’s
system of compensation. He also
indicated, in response to a question, that the results from the benchmarking
surveys would be posted on the FIT website for easy access (tba).
New Business
Cindy Beckett made an
announcement about the Achieving the Dream initiative, urging faculty to be
aware of activities related to it, including a return visit to the campus by
Dr. Kay McClenney on Friday, February 2.
Cindy indicated Dr. McClenney would be meeting with faculty and
administration and sharing data to help us “make informed decisions” with
respect to student learning, retention, and success.
.
The Assembly meeting was
adjourned at 4:28 pm.
Submitted by James Brooks
Approved by Faculty Senate: February
7, 2007