Interinstitutional Faculty Senate Meeting

Portland State University

December 2006

 

Friday, December 8, 1:00 p.m.

 

Present: Joel Alexander (WOU), Lee Ayers (SOU), Sarah Andrews-Collier (PSU), Scott Burns (PSU), Mina Carson (OSU), Larry Curtis (OSU), Michael Cummings (PSU), Paul Doescher (OSU), Marye Hefty (OIT), Solveig Holmquist (WOU), Jeff Johnson (EOU), Kathie Lasater (OHSU), John Nicols (UO), Maureen Sevigny (OIT), Steve Tanner (EOU), Steve Teich (OHSU), Bob Turner (WSU), Craig Wollner (PSU), Kate Hunter-Zaworski (OSU)

 

Absent: Muriel Shaul (OHSU), Jeanne Wagenknecht (UO), Dan Wilson (SOU)

 

I. Neil Bryant, OUS Legislative Representative

 

A.  Provided an update about the legislature and handed out a 2007 legislative guide for helping faculty understand the legislative process and ways to work within this process. Shared that during the last legislative session, in which higher education was successful, OUS came to the session with a unified message.

 

B.  Stated that in Oregon with the Democrats winning the Senate, House, and Governor, it feels like the Cubs in preseason. The challenge for the House is that the Democrats have not led for years. Committee assignments are expected next week.

 

C.  Reviewed the Governor’s budget, which is the best for higher education since 1999. Stated that the challenge is to hold onto this budget. The Governor’s budget includes $40.7 million general fund to support campus operations including the following:

• $9 million for the four regional campuses and the OSU branch campus in Bend.
• $8 million to increase faculty salaries.
• $6.9 million to reduce the faculty-student ratio.
• $14.6 million for projected enrollment increases.
• $2.2 million for energy cost increases over the past six years.

 

D.  Asked and answered the question “How can you be effective with the legislature?” You need to become friends with your own Senator or Representative. Don’t send emails. They get hundreds a day. Personal notes (hand written) are good. If your note is longer than a page, you are in trouble. If you make a personal visit, be kind to staff people. Don’t blow off the staff person. Be conscious of the time factor. You make more money than legislators. Therefore, do not say or imply that you need more money. Say instead, “Our school cannot fill searches. We cannot compete with the Washington schools.” Be prepared to answer this question: “Are you missing a class to be here?” The answer better not be yes, or it better be that someone is covering your classes. You can talk about how class size is going up, and this is impacting quality. You need to know in advance if the person you are talking to went to college, including where and when. If you need to know their voting record, call us. Phone calls do not help a lot. Do invite a legislator to campus or to your class. Be helpful and respectful at all times. Prioritize your request. Know that as a former member of the Ways and Means Committee, I used to ask those who came to me for money the following question: “What are three things that I can do for you that do not cost money?” Prepare for questions like this. Letters to the editor are good right now. You can thank the Governor for the budget for higher education. Also, as you leave the meeting, give a sincere thank you.

 

E.  Mentioned the following contacts as important for higher education:

• Leadership in House and Senate
• Subcommittee on education for Ways and Means
• Substantive committees

 

II. Dan Bernstine, PSU President

 

A.  Welcomed IFS members to Portland State University.

 

B.  Explained that PSU has 26,000 students this year. Our growth is at 5-6% a year. Unfortunately, the state resources are not growing with us.

 

C.  Shared a major challenge for PSU is the difficulty of purchasing land for expansion. We expect our next major expansion to be a student recreation center, which is responding to a student vote. I have been trying to find funding to coordinate our availability to grow and accommodate the growing student population.

 

D.  Explained that PSU is the major developer in this part of Portland. We put retail in the bottom of our buildings. This funds our buildings, but more importantly, we are building community. We are an anchor for a $1.2 billion contribution to the economy of the region. We are a major citizen for the region. Our academics include community learning and service learning. We take advantage of the fact that we are in a green city. All new buildings are silver or gold in environmental ratings. We work hard to promote the fact that we are the urban university.

 

E.  Stated that the Governor’s budget has some significant progress for the system as a whole. Now, it is harder to hold a budget than it is to increase a budget. How do we hold on to what we have received? The answer will need to be a coordinated and system wide effort. It is time for significant investments in infrastructure and for faculty salaries for those facing salary compression.

 

III. James Sager, Senior Policy Advisor for the Governor’s Office

 

A.  Provided a broader perspective on issues Neil discussed. The idea of competition between K-12, community colleges, and the university system has been a major focus of the Governor. He has made it very clear that we come into the session as one unit. We will not raid from one constituent to support another. We are all going in with the same message. In fact, we are requesting from the legislature that we start this session with an education enterprise presentation before we break into subcommittees so that they see the comprehensive nature of the proposal and how these things tie together.

 

B.  Explained that the $8 million dedicated to faculty salaries is above the portion of the salary pot that goes to the universities. This allows the campuses to deal with additional salary issues. It is not a one time investment but multiple investments over the next 8-10 years.

 

C.  Shared that another major proposal of the governor is to fully fund head start. The governor has dedicated a specific funding source, which is increasing the corporate minimum. We get a 17 to 1 return on investment in head start programs.

 

D.  Stated that the Shared Responsibility Model will allow the state to dramatically increase the amount of funding assistance to the most needy students and also provide funding to the middle class Oregonians. We can tell current 8^th graders that four years from now we will make it financially feasible for students to go to college. This is a major commitment to post-secondary education.

 

IV. Tim Nesbitt, OUS Board Member and Newly Appointed Deputy Chief of Staff for the Governor

 

A.  Shared that he co-chaired the affordability initiative for the OUS board and stated that there has been a significant gain with a 77% increase in the opportunity grant. The legislators then asked us a legitimate question: “When will we be done? When will we know we have a truly affordable higher education?” We went back and worked on this. Higher education is not an entitlement. You should earn it. However, what reverses the dynamic of the discussion is when people hear that you can’t work your way through college any more. In the 1970s, you could work your way through college by working during the summer or part time during the year. Now you need to work 50 hours a week all year. This is not affordability. So, we came up with the Shared Responsibility Model. It begins with the student contribution based on what you could earn in a minimum wage job in the summer and 10-12 hours a week during the school year. The model then includes a family or household effort and the federal PELL grant. Whatever costs are left over, the state will cover. We will see some grants as high as $5000 and some as low as $200. So, we will have an absolute measure of affordability. It is a dynamic model.

 

B.  Shared the Governor’s three major priorities as the education enterprise, healthy kids, and renewable and sustainable energy development.

 

C.  Explained that the Governor is asking the business community to pay more. We have a budget that we can celebrate as the best budget that we have had in 10 years, but we have the opportunity to do better. This is a governor who campaigned on strategically raising taxes and changing the tax structure, and I don’t think another governor in the country did this. Finally, we will repeat the theme that we always have the responsibility to do our best. This is a period of reinvestment. If we can tax fairly and spend wisely, I think we can be successful. “It is unusual to have a budget that allows us to distribute gain instead of pain.”

 

V.  Melissa Unger, Executive Director, Oregon Student Association

 

A.  Shared that the OSA is a coalition of student governments. We are the statewide student voice. We are the voice in Salem for students. We are a fierce lobbying group for higher education.

 

B.  Reviewed four issues that OSA is taking forward to the legislature:

1)    Funding and tuition. We think the Governor’s budget is a step in the right direction. We are working to keep this money. We believe this will be a challenge. We are headed into session expected to keep this money, and this will be a fight. Our proposal right now is to fight to protect what we have.

2)    Shared Responsibility Model. The Governor funded this, but the fight will be in passing it. It is better than the Oregon Opportunity Grant. But we need to pass this model.

3)    ASPIRE (Access to Student assistance Programs In Reach of Everyone). We are very excited about this high school mentoring program. Volunteers from the community work with students to help them apply for and get accepted into college.

4)    Tuition equity in state tuition for undocumented students. The bill says that a student who graduates from an Oregon high school (with at least 3 years in an Oregon high school) is considered an Oregon resident even if the student’s parents are undocumented. This is a hot button issue. In two sessions, we have introduced it twice before, and it has not passed, so we see this as an uphill battle.

 

C.  Stated that the Governor’s budget is a step in the right direction. OSA will take OUS’s lead in the legislative session. In reality this budget might take us to 44^th in the nation for funding. Our standards are a little low. The budget is based on poor tax increases. We want to hold on to this. Democrats have a lot of people to answer to, and higher education does not have the advocates.

 

D.  Shared that OSA is completing a survey of over 6000 OUS students and that the results will be available in a report OSA is preparing.

 

E.  Explained that OSA wants to have a rally. We want to reframe higher education to include community colleges. We are trying to join these things together. We need to make a statement that higher education needs to be a priority. The damage has been done to students. What can we do to undo the damage? The rally date has not been set. This needs to be a community rally.

 

 

 

 

VI. Representative, Scott Bruun, West Linn, Oregon Legislature

 

A.  Introduced by Scott Burns as a member of the state House of Representatives and a Republican who supports higher education. Mr. Bruun has degrees from UO and PSU, and is the CFO of a construction company.

 

B.  Eloquently shared that the Republicans in Oregon did not lose the election because of a presently unpopular president, and unpopular war, and occurrences of system abuse but because “we failed colossally to be the party with the big ideas.”

 

C.  Shared his thoughts about the big ideas in the next legislative session:

1)    The first big idea is the way we collect revenue in this state. Oregon has the worst tax system in the nation. We almost exclusively get our income from personal income taxes. We tax the things that we want more of in this state. We don’t see the tax revenue returns from this. What you tax you get less of. We need to come up with a consumption tax. I would vote no on a sales tax, but I am cosponsoring a revenue neutral consumption tax bill that will exclude food and medicine. It will be a lifetime reduction in personal income taxes. The best way to sell this is if you pay taxes in Oregon now, you will see a tax reduction by implementing a consumption tax.

2)    Issue two is health care in Oregon. It is a near crisis with 600,000 uninsured in Oregon. This is a huge issue in the 07 session. The question is what do you do? I am not a fan of expanding the Oregon Health Plan extra population as well as the health insurance for kids. It will be paid for by an 87-cent tax on cigarettes. Another idea is combining Medicare and Medicaid. The third idea I like the best is the Massachusetts plan, which is a comprehensive plan from a progressive state. It is the “best plan for Oregon.” It gets the most people covered for the best cost and gets away from the third party payee method.

3)    Issue three is higher education. This is the most important component to Oregon’s long-term viability. The Governor is a very good man, and I am happy for what he has done for higher education. Oregon’s professorial faculty is paid in the bottom quartile, and that is a travesty. We have seen a long-term runoff in the state’s investment in higher education since Measure 5. “A nice place to live” will not sustain Oregon for the next 20-30 years. There is no higher return from the state dollar than what we get from higher education. Our graduates will ensure that we can enjoy the good times we are seeing now for the rest of our life.

 

D.  Shared that a push back will occur in higher education. We have a 20% budget growth for this biennium. The push back will come from the folks who say that it will be hard to sustain this during the next economic downturn. Are we setting ourselves up for the same kind of anguish we have passed in the past? The Governor’s budget is way too much. It is not sustainable. Some of this can be solved if we change the tax structure, but this solution is two years out. If we face another 9/11 or a bubble in the business cycle, we have real problems. I like the idea of the rainy day fund. The problem is how this will be funded. The corporate kicker is bad policy, but the problem with this is the corporate kicker is based on a forecasting mistake. We may never have another corporate kicker. If we are serious, we need to be serious about funding the kicker.

 

E.  After open discussion of several issues, stated that the 800-pound gorilla in the state budget is K-12. My hat is off to the Governor for seeing that this competition between K-12 and higher education is incredibly unhealthy and has to end. It is not simple.

 

F.  Explained that we need to make the state an investment Mecca. We have the talent coming out of OUS and we have a great state. We need to get our tax house in order. The state of Oregon has the highest taxation on investment gains. We have to be losing something. We are giving something up by having the highest taxation on risk of any state in the nation. I am talking about trying a revenue neutral consumption tax. I think this is how Oregon can say “yes” to a tax.  I believe that if you increase the incentive to work and invest in Oregon it will be revenue positive over time. 

 

VII. George Pernsteiner, OUS Chancellor

 

A.  Stated that the budget we have for 2007-09 is the best we have seen in 10 years. It will be a challenge to keep it in the next few months. This budget is an investment in Oregonians, in the future, and in prosperity. It is the idea that if Oregonians are going to be successful in a global economy, they need a greater level of education and skills than in the past. Except of the state police, the budget emphasis is all in areas that deal with education ands skills development. The Governor’s strategy this time is to convince people that an educated citizenry is essential for the success of the state. It is too soon to know if this will resonate with the advocates for different groups or with the legislators.

 

B.  Reviewed the budget. The capital budget is without question the largest in dollar terms that the state has ever proposed. They rolled in nine new construction projects. Every campus has a new construction project. It means we have to raise a match. It means the Governor is saying that we need to invest in the infrastructure. The Board asked for $58 million for maintenance, and all was funded. In addition--all the tier one and two projects were funded. We have never seen this kind of investment. It will tax our ability to do all the work, but it is part of an essential investment in our future.

 

C.  Shared that the Governor proposed increases in every area that the Board sought in its policy option package. The essential budget was funded in full. We received several of our other policy packages. Health Care Workforce Proposal was funded in full. We received a $17 million increase in the ETIC budget from the state targeted mostly to OSU and PSU to maintain and increase their engineering programs. We received $1.6 million for the EOU rural access program.

 

D.  Stressed that the Governor is taking a broader view of higher education. Higher Education can be part of a solution for Oregon in areas like research and commercialization. The Oregon Inc. received $38.2 million as a budget line. ONAMI received $10 million, and $7 million has been set aside for drug development for infectious diseases (an OHSU and OSU project). A renewable energy program and “wave” energy program (for energy independence) were also funded. This session research is a major area for funding in the state.

 

E.  Shared that this is a good budget that begins to make progress. We are a long way. This is a five biennium effort. The Governor knows that this is not enough and that continued investment is needed. We worry about the fact that with a recession OUS is the first to get whacked.  It is a good start as a budget, and it is only a start. It is important that we are all supportive of the proposed budget.

 

F.  Stated that the “legislative concepts” of changing the Optional Retirement Plan (ORP) and independence from PEBB have been taken off the table at this point. We were planning drastic actions because we were afraid the wolf was at the door (Measures 41 and 48), and we have now pulled these actions back. It doesn’t mean these are the wrong things to do, but not during this legislative session. We need everyone pushing in the same direction. This is a good budget, and we do not want to subtract from this.

 

G.  Mentioned that an issue for the legislative session will be what credits count in what categories. (Shared an example from a student at Clackamas Community College who wanted to count an auto body shop class as math credits when he transferred into OSU.)

 

Note: At 5:00 p.m. the secretary left for another obligation. The Chancellor and IFS Senators continued their discussion.

 

Saturday, December 9, 8:30 a.m.

 

Present: Joel Alexander (WOU), Lee Ayers (SOU), Sarah Andrews-Collier (PSU), Scott Burns (PSU), Mina Carson (OSU), Larry Curtis (OSU), Michael Cummings (PSU), Paul Doescher (OSU), Marye Hefty (OIT), Solveig Holmquist (WOU), Jeff Johnson (EOU), Kathie Lasater (OHSU), John Nicols (UO), Maureen Sevigny (OIT), Steve Tanner (EOU), Steve Teich (OHSU), Bob Turner (WSU), Craig Wollner (PSU), Kate Hunter-Zaworski (OSU); Dalton Miller-Jones (PSU), member of the Board of Higher Education and former IFS Senator

 

Absent: Muriel Shaul (OHSU), Jeanne Wagenknecht (UO), Dan Wilson (SOU)

 

I.  Meeting Reports

 

A.  Provosts’ Council Report. Sarah Andrews-Collier reported that the OUS Board approved the BS in electrical engineering at OIT. The Board approved the UO undergraduate certificate in writing, public speaking, and critical reasoning. The Provosts’ Council approved to move forward for external review the OHSU doctorate of nursing program.

 

B.  State Board Report. Scott Burns reported that John Minahan was appointed president of WOU. Neil Bryant gave a legislative update to the Board. The year was about putting together a strategic plan and a budget. I believe because of the relationship with IFS the Board talks about quality when it talks about strategy. We will be asked to have faculty input to Susan Weeks Comparator Committee (salaries). In Scott’s report to the Board, he shared seven to eight indicators of academic quality. He is working with Susan to use data to show how academic quality is impacted within OUS. Dalton Miller-Jones asked for ideas for finding ways to measure the index of stress within OUS. Anecdotally, he hears that faculty and staff are being substantially stressed by added demands and fewer resources.

 

C.  Joint Boards Articulation Commission. Maureen Sevigny reported on the meetings looking at articulation issues (SB 342 issues of transferability). Right now the direction and focus of the commission is unclear.

 

D.  EDP (Excellence and Delivery and Productivity or More, Better, Faster). Maureen Sevigny stated that it appears that EDP is closing down and passing responsibilities to UEE (Unified Education Enterprise).

 

II. Group Discussion

 

A.  Note: Based on the changing directions and focuses reported in the committee reports, Scott Burns will ask the Chancellor in January and IFS in February what committees IFS members can provide support to.

 

B.  A group discussion included the following issues: PASS has reappeared (mechanism to make CIM and CAM fit with the university). Bob Turner recently attended a meeting. K-20 and academic quality. We could help faculty from OUS talking to faculty from community colleges and K-12.

 

C.  Articulation agreements are undermining the AAOT agreement. The problem is layer upon layer of articulation agreements, and the agreements need to occur at the programmatic level. Who is at the table in the discussion from high schools at the articulation discussions? We are pushing significant students away from higher education who are from rural districts. At EOU we are dependent on the community college transfers. The students at the community colleges really need to know if their classes are going to fit in the 4-year college majors. Coordination is not a bad idea. Once ATLAS (the central database) is up and running, it will take away some of the problems. Part of the confusion is the AAOT is doing work that it has never been designed to do. It works for liberal arts degrees, but it does not work well for science or technical degrees. From the department level, we do not think globally. We are getting department specific courses at the lower level, and this penalizes the students, is terrible for the community colleges. There is no central way to work with the community colleges. It would be nice to have a central place to communicate with community colleges. We do things at the school level that do not apply to other schools. We want students to be successful, but we do not have a good mechanism for doing this. The articulation agreements are where we can really help each other. We have two conflicting systems going on. We have tremendous funding disincentives that go against articulation issues. People do not understand curriculum. It is faculty driven. It is not administration driven. People do not understand the ramifications of making a course change. Paul—Curriculum belongs to the faculty. This discussion should be part of the quality issue. Legislators are driving the process to make their constituents happy. Performance based accreditation for higher education is being discussed. We will have to do what the K-12 folks have been doing.

 

D.  Scott Burns summarized the discussion as 1) community college and university articulation issues; 2) program by program, universities and colleges need to be communicating about curriculum, and faculty need to be involved; 3) Are we satisfied with the students coming in from high school and community colleges?

 

III. Election of Officers for 2007

 

A.  The following officers were nominated and elected for 2007:

 

• President, Mina Carson

 

• Vice President, Lee Ayers

 

• Provosts’ Council, Sarah Andrews-Collier

 

• Secretary, Marye Hefty

 

IV. Comments from Friday’s Meetings

 

Two issues are no longer on the table at this time. The Chancellor reported Friday that at this time the OUS will not move out of PEBB and the Optional Retirement Plan will not be changed.

 

V. Dates for Next Year

 

Next year’s meetings are scheduled as follows:

 

• February 2-3 (Friday and Saturday) at OSU

 

• April 6-7 (Friday and Saturday) at WOU (with the possibility of the Friday meeting in Salem)

 

• June 1-2 (Friday and Saturday) at SOU

 

• October 5-6 (Friday and Saturday) at PSU

 

• December 7-8 at OHSU

 

VI. Old Business

 

A.  Scott Burns reminded IFS members to contact legislators with hand written notes or emails. For faculty and staff who do not know their legislators’ names, he shared using www.leg.state.or.us to access legislator names by zip code.

 

B.  Scott has a meeting with Susan Weeks related to furthering quantifying and communicating issues related to academic quality.

 

C.  John Nicols led a discussion about issues associated with the “College Now Program.” A major issue is that some high school courses (with no AP test or reviewed standards) are entered as credits into community college transcripts without a high school designator. In other words, the credits appear to be earned at the community college. The system is so seamless that there is no way to tell where the student did the course. Anecdotal evidence is that there are quality problems. IFS members shared that the community college teachers are unhappy about this too, but the college campuses get money from this. Some of the students are arriving now with 20-30 credits of College Now. The students understand what is going on, and they are playing the system. You can earn university credits without the AP exam. All of this fits under the criteria of academic quality. One solution is to have students take the courses provisionally. Can they do the assignments in college classes? If not, let’s not accept the classes. We need to meet with community colleges. Parents of high school students look at College Now courses as a financial advantage. Now many schools limit the amount of college credits accepted when a student comes in. Vanderbilt accepts no incoming credits. I have no problem with AP. I have a problem with College Now. Community colleges are not regulated by a system like universities are in Oregon. This is the problem. In California the community colleges fit within the university model.

 

D.  Action Item as a result of the above discussion: An IFS representative from each campus will talk to the campus Provost about this issue, and we will put this on the February agenda. The UO IFS senators will ask the UO Provost to present this issue in the Provosts’ Council meeting.

 

VII. Campus Reports

 

OHSU. The tram is open in January to the public. The new president (Joe Robertson) has been touring the state. We just rolled out the first nursing consortium class.

 

SOU. In November, the SOU president implemented article 11, which allows her to cut programs with tenured faculty without declaring exigency. We have $3.4 million to cut this biennium. By March, we need to have a plan in place so that we can give notice. The leadership is looking at SOU in a 20 year plan.

 

WOU. John Minahan is the new President, and we are excited to have him.

 

PSU. Debbie Murdock, government relations officer, had a stroke. An alumnus has taken her place (Dick Feenie). We had a failed search for vice president for student affairs. Our biggest crises is our land-locked status. We are short on classrooms and space. We are flat overall in enrollment.

 

EOU. Our enrollment is down by 2% FTE. We will finally have a faculty senate.

 

OSU. Enrollment is flat. The fiscal situation in most colleges is not good. The university is going to keep looking at debasing the budget (5% possible). The budget improvements will help us from going deeper in the hole. We have dug such a deep hole it will hard to get out. Faculty morale has not recovered yet. This will shake through, but it will take five years. The new IFS member will be JoAnne Sortie.

 

UO. Not much visible is happening. The College of Arts and Sciences dean position search has not begun yet.

 

OIT. The self study report is complete. The campus is involved in a strategic planning effort. Enrollment is down 4.7%, but we have an increase in out of state students.  The faculty senate is forming a committee to investigate structural concerns with the Provost’s office

 

VIII. New Business

 

A.  Action Item: For the February meeting, have IFS members find out how intellectual property is addressed on their campuses, and discuss this at the  February meeting.

 

B.  Dalton Miller-Jones shared a letter that is circulating for Presidents to sign. The letter states that OUS Presidents strongly endorse the new high school graduation requirements, including 3-4 years of English language arts, 2-3 years of math, and 2-3 years of science.

 

C.  Finally, the meeting was closed sharing deep gratitude for Scott Burns’ stellar leadership during the last year.

 

The meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m. Saturday.