Present: L. Alpert, E. Campbell, S. Clark, S. Cohen, D. Conley, L. Dann, R. Davis, J. Dawson , J. Earl, P. Gilkey, J. Grzybowski, E. Housworth, B. Jenkins, R. Kellett, S. Kohl, C. Lachman, D. Levi, E. Luks, R. McGowen, G. McLauchlan, D. Merskin, R. Moore, G. Moreno, M. Paris, C. Phillips, L. Robare, N. Savage, J. Schombert, P. Southwell, F. Tepfer, N. Tublitz , M. Weiner
Excused: B. Altmann, C. Brokaw, M. Epstein, C. Gary, K. Helphand, M. Hibbard, L. Blake Jones, P. Mills, M. Nippold, J. Terborg, T. Wheeler
Absent: M. Dixon, S. Kolwitz, A. Schultz, G. Waweru,
CALL TO ORDER

The special meeting of the University Senate was called to order by Senate President Peter Gilkey at 3:06 p.m. in 177 Lawrence.
STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY

President Gilkey gave a brief report citing several notice of and motions received regarding an updating of legislation for the Distinguished Awards and recipients for this year.
NEW BUSINESS

Moving to the business at hand for the special meeting, President Gilkey recognized Mr. Wayne Westling, Senate Budget Committee (SBC), to review the report of the SBC circulated earlier to the faculty and members of the senate. Mr. Westling indicated the report was the culmination of months of working with the administration, soliciting comments from faculty members directly, consulting with the Council of Deans, listening to the town hall meetings, and reviewing the recent instructional faculty surveys. In particular, he drew attention to the graphs available in the survey, which compared five criteria by sex, tenure status, and school, college, or division in CAS. Clearly, there are disparate views among the faculty.Nevertheless, the SBC prepared three separate documents for discussion and action: (1)Basic Principles of Compensation for Instructional Faculty at the University of Oregon, (2) University Senate Budget Committee White Paper: A Plan for Sustained Competitive Parity in Instructional Faculty Compensation, and, (3) White Paper Implementation Guidelines for 2000-2001.(All documents are posted on the senate web page at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/senate.html.
 

Mr. Westling highlighted several items in the White Paper document stating that the goal was to move compensation from 82.1% parity to 95% parity of eight peer institutions.He reminded everyone that compensation means salary plus benefits, and that the committee looked at averages for each rank.The SBC estimates that it will require approximately $6 million to achieve and maintain the 95% level of parity. Further, Mr. Westling went on to say that about $2.75 million is need for average salary increments for fall 2000.This money will come from (a) reallocation of funds and (b) taxing auxiliary services (points A and E on the White Paper document. The implementation guidelines are for the first year only ? the SBC will continue to develop the plans for ensuing years based on the principles outlined in the first document, and using the planned strategies from the White Paper document.

Mr. Westling gave an example of how the proposed formula for salary increments would work for this fall, taking both merit and cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) into account. Currently, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is 3.3%; 200% of that is 6.6%, which exceeds the 5% available for salary increments, so consequently, the salary increment formula used would be such that 50% (of the 5% available) would be dispersed for merit and 50% would be disbursed for COLA.

At this point, Senator Greg McLaughlan, sociology, stated that as a sponsor of US99/00-7, a resolution on salary increment dispersal based primarily on COLA, he had been working with the SBC to address issues the COLA resolution raised to assure that all faculty performing at satisfactory levels received some COLA.He indicated his willingness to withdraw the COLA resolution provided that the three resolutions proposed by the SBC all passed substantially unchanged.Thus, the three SBC resolutions under discussion are:

Resolution US9900-12 -- The UO Senate endorses the Statement of Principles from the Senate Budget Committee presented to the UO Senate on 29 March 2000.
Resolution US9900-13 -- The UO Senate approves the Senate Budget Committee White Paper presented to the UO Senate on 29 March 2000

Resolution US9900-14 -- The UO Senate approves the Implementation Guidelines presented to the UO Senate on 29 March 2000

In the ensuing discussion, Senator Chris Phillips, mathematics, raised the issue of the 80% salary floor for each rank, suggesting there would be a salary compression effect for full professors.President Gilkey replied that the issue also was discussed in the Faculty Advisory Council which said that a written statement explaining the reason for any discrepancy between newly promoted faculty and longer term faculty at the same rank could be made to the provost, who ultimately approves or disproves the salary recommendations.Provost Moseley added that the value of both a ìfloorî and the COLA is to provide a check for such discrepancies, that is, to identify outliers and to account for them with a written rationale, or, to correct the situation.It is in essence a check and balance mechanism.

Another question was raised concerning who was included as instructional faculty, specifically, whether instructors and senior instructors are included in the proposed resolutions.Mr. Westling replied that this initial work of the SBC dealt with tenured related instructional faculty members, in part because the necessary data for analysis was readily available for these faculty members.Nevertheless, the intention is to develop similar documents for other faculty members; these resolutions represent the first step in analyzing data and developing compensation plans.Several faculty members spoke in support of the importance of solidifying similar compensation plans for non-tenure track faculty as well. Lastly, a question regarding inequities among various departments was asked, reaping a reply that comparisons among UO departments and their peer comparator institutions are on the agenda for the SBC for next year.

With no one wishing to discuss the resolutions further, each was put to a vote in turn. Resolution US9900-12, Resolution US9900-13, and Resolution US9900-14 each passed unanimously. Accordingly, Senator McLaughlan withdrew Resolution US99/00-7, with no objections.President Gilkey warmly thanked the SBC and praised its members for their tireless work and efforts in bringing these documents to fruition. ADJOURNMENT With no other business at hand, the special meeting of the senate was adjourned at 3:49 p.m. Gwen Steigelman Secretary