Nashville on Friday. Here's what happened, more or
less.
Dr Sidney McPhee has left the TBR building to become
the
new president of MTSU. He was, in my opinion, a great
advocate for faculty concerns, and will be missed.
An
interim should be announced by August 1st, with a
permanent
replacement hopefully to be named by January 1st,
2002. In
the meantime, duties of the office of academic affairs
will
be handled jointly by half a dozen capable folks.
UPDATE ON FACULTY COMPENSATION
The rules for outside employment are being reconsidered.
I
was concerned with one of the new clauses, stating
that
outside work should be related to the employee's
school-work (I complained, for example, that as a
math
teacher, the new wording would effectively prevent
me from
teaching guitar lessons, as if anyone would pay me
for
that, but you get the point, hopefully.) That stuff's
just
under discussion, and is not yet actionable. I will
let you
know what's decided.
There is also a consideration of a modified procedure
to
give campuses the direct ability to extend counteroffers
to try to retain employees considering leaving this
sinkhole for greener pastures. As it stands, counteroffers
are possible, but must go through board approval.
The
change would allow campuses to extend counteroffers
at the
(apparently) President's discretion. I thought this
was a
bad idea (relating to ill-will between have and have-not
departments, as well as differences from campus to
campus,
as some Presidents would be perfectly willing to use
this
mechanism, but others not so enthusiastic about it.)
Nothing will be acted on before the October meeting.
CHANCELLOR'S COMMENTS
The chancellor spoke briefly about the budget process.
TBR
is proceeding as if the current budget will not be
vetoed.
The current budget provides a 2.5% salary increase,
2/3 of
which is to be provided by the state, 1/3 by the campuses.
The Geier settlement is fully funded. Only 1/4 of
the
money needed for capital improvements was approved,
with no
new building allowed. All in all, the budget allows
for a
5.5% increase on education spending.
I was surprised to learn that the Regent's Online
Degree
Program (RODP) was NOT funded, and the institutions
will be
assessed a fee to pay for it. The campus assessment
is
based strictly on a pro-ration of total campus budgets,
and
is not linked in any way to enrollment figures.
The Board passed a resolution based on the premise
that the
long-term budget outlook is so bad, the Board should
hold a
retreat in October to begin discussions as to how
specifically money can be cut. One idea under consideration
has 4-year schools getting completely out of the
Developmental/Remedial business. There is a suggestion
that
the 4-year schools should cease their development
of
off-campus and satellite campuses, leaving such development
to the two year schools. Most chilling for me, Chancellor
Manning pointed out that a "natural target" is faculty
workload. While not going into specific detail (those
would
presumably come out of this planned retreat,) Manning
suggested that we begin to prepare ourselves for this
debate, suggesting we lift the level of talk out of
# of
hours taught, focussing instead on broader concerns
like
student credits/faculty hour.
These are all simply ideas at this point, we will
know more
about specifics in November.
There were a number of questions for the Chancellor,
most
of which focussed on budget issues. For the most part,
his
responses can be summarized by a quote he gave (I
didn't
catch the reference,) "When facts run up against
perception, the facts disappear." He suggested that
while
the Presidents were doing what they could to work
on
business leader's perspectives, we as faculty members
would
probably be better served by a large volume of individual
contacts, more so than an organized massive demonstration.
He said that we need to develop a communications strategy;
to determine what the specific needs are, then develop
a
strategic plan for communicating those needs.
ASSOCIATE OF FINE ARTS DEGREE
This has been deferred for two years. The chief academic
officers expressed major concerns that the hours required
for a legitimate degree program almost force an abridgment
of general education requirements. This degree will
be
re-addressed after the articulation initiatives have
been
in place for a bit.
EXCEPTIONS FOR PROMOTION FOR JLA, MM, MLS, MFA and
the like
The Chancellor is going to discuss terminal-degree
exceptions related to promotion (or lack of) at the
next
President's meeting. I believe that it is the opinion
of
the Academic Affairs office that the exception rules
are
acceptable as they stand, but that some Presidents
may not
be using them. If the Chancellor feels that there
is any
confusion regarding this exception rule following
his
discussion with the Presidents, he will consider suggesting
a change to the current policy explicitly stating
which
non-PhD degrees are considered to be "terminal". Apparently
the ETSU faculty handbook contains language on this
issue
that could be adapted for TBR policy.
REGENTS ONLINE DEGREE PROGRAM (RODP)
Despite not being funded by the state, the RODP is
still
on. The courses most in demand for this first go round
are
Spanish I, Biology, and Music Appreciation. More
information than you could ever probably process is
available at
http://www.tn.regentsdegrees.org/
Of particular interest,
a)The deal with
Dell is on (a purchase agreement
between Dell computers and the students, staff, and
alumni
of TBR institutions,) and you can check out the details
at
http://www.tn.regentsdegrees.org/Dell.htm
b)Information
FOR FACULTY about the RODP resides at
http://www.tn.regentsdegrees.org/faculty.htm
including information on setting up online courses,
software training in lots of basic software packages,
and
access to the TBR Virtual Library.
ARTICULATION INITIATIVES
Work continues on the common rubricking (I bet that's
not a
verb). A module of transferable course requirements
has
been drawn up to guarantee smooth transfer from TBR
to UT
schools; the schools are now charged with determining
which of their courses are going to be used to satisfy
the
requirements of the modules. For example, Pellissippi
has
to determine which basic math courses meet the six-hour
math requirements of the general UT-TBR transfer degree,
and every other school has to do likewise. This transfer
agreement specifically does NOT supersede the articulation
agreements we have in place with UT in specific majors,
but
can be used by the students as an alternative. Basically,
TBR tried to address the legislative mandate to have
a 60
hour transfer degree, but without stepping on the
individual school's autonomy.
I feel like I have left out something, but I can't
find
anything in the 22 pages of notes I took (someone
help me,
please). I may send a brief reinforcement note tomorrow
to
prop up this creaking excuse for a report.
dave
----------------------------------------
DAVID VINSON
Email: dvinson@pstcc.cc.tn.us
"Pellissippi State Technical Community College"