Dear Nathan:

Here is my canonical report about the IFS meeting at PSU Friday/Saturday December 7/8. Bear in mind that it is not a formal document but just my impressions as to what happened.

The two letters I took up there from you were useful - the stuff on shared governance for Bob Turner of WOU was well received by him and the letter concerning the situation at OSU was useful in focusing the discussion of the IFS on the matter.

The meeting Friday began with a speech from President of OSU Bernstine. Lesley Lehman (State Board) spoke next. She was followed by Betsy Johnson (State Representative from Scappoose) who again reiterated that the legislature does NOT understand the matrix for funding higher ed. She stated that she was tired of seeing the Chancellor and the Presidents of the OUS institutions and wanted to see a "human face" on higher education. This is a familar refrain we have heard from other state legislators in the past. The afternoon session concluded with Roger Bassett (on the State Board) who explained the dangerous direction in which support for higher education is heading. There was no substantive discussion of the budget cuts nor of the chancellor selection process by any of the guests.

At the business meeting Saturday, I presented the letter from Nathan about the situation at OSU. The reaction of the folks from OSU was useful and let me paraphrase a bit of what was said by the folks from OSU and elsewhere (not UO).

There is no hint of a request for a bailout - that was a straw man. The lack of faculty involvement in the process had been rectified within the past week. The OSU Senate Executive Committee had asked their president for a private 3 hour meeting. They had communicated the depth of faculty concerns. There is to be both a financial "first phase" and then a second phase of "redesign". The OSU President offered to turn over the academic part of the redesign 100% to the faculty senate. The timetable was changed - the academic restructuring plan is due in June 2003. There is a phase to justify the redesign - i.e. why do we need it. The bottom line was that the faculty were actively involved. The financial problem was theirs to correct and plans are in place to deal with that. There is no plan to touch tenured faculty at this point in time. There are contingency plans in place. The OSU President had good ideas - they cost money - and the financial administration didn't track costs. There was a loose system throughout campus of spending. There were unanticipated new expenses. Some of the other institutions saw things coming and took cuts in the past 2 years preparing for the future and OSU didn't. There were perhaps problems with the number of scholarships given. Some members of the IFS applauded the decision of the President of OSU's to involve the faculty at OSU in the academic restructuring. It was decided to use part of the UO letter dealing with faculty involvement as one of the points to make to the State Board in December (with all references to OSU deleted) - administrations should take great care in budget cutting - protect faculty and involve faculty in the decisions.

Information was provided concerning the possible WOU Strike. We were told there are 215 faculty at WOU with 130 union members. At the vote last week there were 91 votes cast - a request was made for a secret ballot but the voting was by hand vote with 80 Y, 7 N, 4 A to authorize a strike vote. The situation is uncertain with a possible strike in winter quarter.

There was a discussion of the Chancellor search process and the future strategy to be considered by the IFS to ensure adequate faculty and student input into the process.

The meeting ended with the appointment of the officers for 2002: President: Elaine Deutschman (OIT), Vice President (and President Elect) Bill Danley (SOU), Secretary Marc B. Levy (SOU), Academic Council Representative Bob S. Turner (WOU). Bill Danley has been on the IFS for a number of years and was just appointed to a new 3 year term. The next IFS meeting is at the UO February 1/2. Jim Isenberg and Ann Tedards are in charge of inviting folks to the Friday meeting.

Respectfully and informally submitted

Peter B Gilkey (IFS Senator)