It was my pleasure to attend the Winter 2000 Faculty

Subcouncil meeting, held in Nashville on January 21st.

These are my notes and comments regrading those proceedings.

I will frequently make reference to Dr. McPhee. That's

Sidney McPhee, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

After approval of the minutes, Dr. McPhee talked briefly

about the all-but-approved new Chancellor, a Dr. Stanton,

who has served most recently for TBR as president of ETSU,

preceeded by a stint as president of the medical school.

Dr. McPhee stated that "we (faculty) will be pleased with

his leadership".

Focus on Academic Excellence and Quality-Dr. McPhee feels

that board meetings focus all too often on the financial

aspect of things, and that academics have been given short

shrift. To help rememdy this situation, Dr. McPhee has

instituted a program wherein institutions will nominate

members of their faculty who will make short presentations

to the board touting "exceptional programs and/or

teachers". If you are interested in the nomination process,

Dr. McPhee indicated that Dr. Bruns' office will be

responsible for nominations from our institution.

Clarification on Temporary Instructor Policy-Dr. McPhee

distributed a memo that originated in his office regarding

institutional use of temporary fulltime instructors as

opposed to fulltime tenure track. Policy states (and I am

quoting the memo here) that temporary appointments for

teaching faculty "employed on the basis of state

appropriated funds" are only permitted when "permanent and

continued need for the position has not been

established..."(and I am through quoting).

The limit for such appointments is three years. If the

institution feels a need for an extension of the temporary

position after the passage of three years, the institution

must apply for special permission from the Chancellor.

Dr. McPhee strongly stated that temporary positions are in

no way intended to circumvent the tenure process, and that

such positions will be approved sparingly.

Update on Post Retirement Program. Dr McPhee stated that

this program has been popular, and that at the June 1999

board meeting, the program was reviewed and extended

through June 30, 2001. He could not commit to what would

happen after that date, but said that the program is widely

thought to be "successful".

Distance Education Committee Report-We received a draft of

this extensive report, which certainly appears to be a

comprehensive document confronting most of the issues

related to distance learning. Lana Doncaster was the

chairperson of the TBR Distance Education Committee (I

believe she just rotated off of that committee), and would

be better able than me to respond to specific questions

regarding the document. The areas addressed by the position

paper include addressing current policy, articulation

concerns, quality standards, tuition, collaboration

partnerships, network infrastructure, policy barriers,

funding, student testing, institutional policies, support,

and processes, faculty access to technology, faculty

training, incentives and rewards, workload issues, tenure

issues, student services, student advising, off-campus

support services, and others.

This document is around 25 pages long, and as it is in

draft form, your input is encouraged and welcomed, but all

such comments must be submitted no later than February

20th. If you are interested in any specific aspect of the

paper, let me know and I will forward the appropriate info.

Articulation Initiatives Status Report-Progress continues

on trying to establsih common rubrics in what has been

identified as the "32-hour core curriculum". I told Dr.

McPhee that I had spoken with faculty members that were

concerned that this was just the first step towards an

eventual centrally-controlled curriculum, but he

convincingly reassured me that this project was not tied to

the school's individual curriculua(???, I don't know the

proper usage, I am a math guy), and never would be.

Instead, it is meant to address a concern regarding the

number of hours students are effectively losing when

transferring from one institution to another. Apparently,

the legislators are on the edge of becoming involved; a

piece of proposed legislation was to have been introduced

on January 13 (there is some question as to whether this

actually occurred), House Bill 2029, which states, in part,

"If an articulation agreement is not in effect by January

1, 2001, the penalty shall be that for every class that

does not transfer from the two-year to the four-year

institution, the four-year institution will lose 75% of

that amount of state funding attributed to each class due

to the fact that there is no articulation agreement, and

the two-year institution will lose 25% of state funding

attributed to that class."

The move to common rubrics is then partly intended to be a

show of good faith to the legislature that the schools

are actively involved in addressing this problem, that

would hopefully stop such drastic (and badly written)

legislation from becoming law. It will also take care of

other related problems. At Vice-President's SubCouncil, a

vote was taken to go beyond the 32 hour core, instead

completing this task for as many courses as possible, so as

to avoid repeated work later. Faculty SubCouncil voted

unanimously to support this suggestion.

I have a list of the current rubrics, so if you have some

interest in how the naming/numbering of your specific

discipline will go, let me know.

Brief Update On Renaissance Center-Basically, work

continues. The center is sponsoring a number of

seminars/training sessions/task force

discussions/conferences.

Other stuff: Someone from the insurance office explained a

new federal law, which she referred to as the HIPPO law.

Employees may only enroll with health coverage if they do

so during their INITIAL eligibility period or if they lose

their current insurance due to a "life changing event",

including death of a spouse or ex-spouse, divorce, legal

separation, termination of spouse's or ex-spouse's

employment, and a few others. This came as a shock to me; I

had never heard of such a thing. There is a form headed

"Application For Special Enrollment By Qualifying Event"

avaiable in Human Resources, if you would like to see the

complete list of "qualifying events".

Finally: some comments regarding the less formal 2-year and

4-year institutional powwows. (Most of these falling under

the heading of cautionary tales, nightmares, or potential

horrors.)

At Columbia State, faculty are required to spend

37.5 hours per week on campus, travel time from one campus

to another doesn't count towards their hours, and only

administrators are allowed to use school cars. This from

the CSCC rep.

At Cleveland State, advising has recently been

moved from the academic area to student services; some

professional staff there have been accused of steering

students away from certain professors. This from the ClSCC

rep.

One question that kicked around that Dr. McPhee

agreed to have the legal department research...if you

evaluate an adjunct, and that is the only evaluative tool

used, and later the adjunct is not renewed due to your

negative assessment, are you legally responsible? Dr.

McPhee thinks not, arguing that with adjuncts, it's not a

"termination"; when the adjunct contract is over, it's

over, but it intrigued him enough to have it looked into

further. I have already volunteered to not evaluate any

adjuncts this semester.

Tennessee Tech rep reassured members of SubCouncil

that the presidential search at TTU had significant faculty

input and involvement.

Don Wyndham proposed a statewide faculty

colloquium, similar to the regional one that

was recently held here which featuring talks devoted to

serving students with disabilities. Dr McPhee was very

enthusiastic about this idea, and said he would "absolutely

find the resources" to sponsor such an endeavor.

Someone mentioned trying to form a PAC again. I

didn't hear much response, but apparently a couple of

members of subcouncil are continuing to look into the idea.

Dr. Mcphee said that he had received word that the

governor's budget includes a "significant" pay raise for

faculty. My fingers won't cross far enough.

There was a December Board Resolution that would

explore a plan for cutting enrollment in the event budgets

are cut. When asked if this could possibly extend to

community colleges, it was suggested in discussion that we

don't have open enrollment; we have "qualified" open

enrollment.

While there have been no formal discussions about

cutting developmental programs, it has been mentioned

informally, and such a notion is conceivable, though

unlikely. Dr. McPhee pointed out that Georgia eliminated

their developmental programs recently, and the state is

just starting to wrestle with the implications of that.

Here's three factoids to ruin your day, during these

financially strapped times

1)Georgia is "struggling" with what to do with the

$400 million leftover education monies that did not get

spent last year.

2)Kentucky's governor announced recently that he

had an additional $70 million for each 4-year state school.

3)The state of Mississippi is awarding 7-9% raises

to teachers.

Brother can you spare a dime?

My apologies for grammatical problems.

----------------------------------------

DAVID VINSON

Email: dvinson@pstcc.cc.tn.us

"Pellissippi State Technical Community College"