Minutes of 29 January 2007 SACUA Meeting

Present: Combi, Frier, MacAdam, Potter, Riles, Seabury, Smith (chair); Carr, Leu, Schneider

8. Electronic mail message from T. Schneider to T. Sullivan dated 26 January 2007 regarding topics for 29 January 2007 SACUA meeting with her

13. Diversity Appraisal from the Office of the President, University of Washington

The minutes of 8 January 2007 were corrected and approved. The minutes of 22 January 2007 were approved without changes.

Combi, Charlie Koopman, Catherine Benamou, Hugh Aller, Gail Annich, and Rebecca Lange. According to Tom Schneider, in the past, it has taken about 25 nominations to get 6 candidates to run. Chair Smith asked members to contact individuals they believe would be good potential candidates. The SACUA Election Procedures Guidelines were distributed.

Professor Potter commented on the need for discounts either in locker fees or facility fees for individuals who regularly use the facilities for exercise. Chair Smith stated that he anticipates that the University will provide encouragement for healthy living by way of possible bonuses for weight loss, cessation of smoking, etc. Ms. MacAdam stated that there should be a push to provide more exercise classes before and after working hours or during lunch hours for employees. She stated that the CCRB, which is the closest facility, is unfriendly to older people. Chair Smith commented that M-Fit facilities, such as the Cube, are available and friendlier to older people.

5. Chair Smith and Tom Schneider had a meeting with a development officer during the am to discuss the recently established UM Faculty Senate Undergraduate Fellowship. It will be permissible to set up a committee that will chose scholarship recipients. The fellowship needs $25,000 to start.

6. Central Faculty Ombuds Search – SACUA should recommend individuals to the subcommittee. Discussion of two individuals followed. Both individuals are retired and have had experience which would make them excellent candidates for the position. The vote to forward the names was unanimous.

Discussion regarding the Search process ensued. A subcommittee made up of Bruno Giordani (SACUA Assistant Chair), Jeffery Frumkin (Assistant Provost and Senior Director, Academic HR), Lori Pierce (Associate Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs), and Daniel Sharphorn (Associate VP-Deputy General Counsel) will perform the first run of selection. Applications are then forwarded to SACUA and along with the Provost a selection is made.

7. Chair Smith and Professor Lehman met with the Provost to deliver the 14 December 2006 Report of the Faculty Grievance Procedures Task Force. The Provost will be able to respond in 12 weeks because she is currently busy with tenure and budget matters. She would also like to have a lawyer review the document. The Provost’s recommendation is Chris Whitman, Professor of Law. Professor Frier believes that the lawyer who reviews the document should be familiar with Michigan law. Chair Smith suggested that SACUA offer assistance with the tenure process.

Re-accreditation is necessary so that the University can disburse Federal financial aid. The accrediting agency is the North Central Association of College and Schools (NCA). It is necessary that the University can demonstrate that students learn what is proposed that they will learn. One of the proposed topics for the self-study document is "the University’s Place in the World", which would show international activities and relationships with international institutes. A director (faculty) will be named to run the reaccreditation process full-time with some staffing assistance.

Professor Frier asked what does assessment of learning mean. The assessment of what the average freshman student learns by the time of graduation or assessment of a particular area of study. Provost Sullivan responded that it would be the former rather than the latter. It is the responsibility of particular institutions to assess what students have learned.

Professor Potter asked what does Michigan offer that other schools don't, particularly in upper level classes. Provost Sullivan responded that Michigan offers many more majors than other schools. The Spelling Report is heading for the lowest common denominator, while Michigan is a select school. The "least common denominator" approach tests 1) critical reasoning, 2) quantitative reasoning, and 3) high order reading ability. The Rand Corp test wouldn’t challenge the average Michigan senior.

Ms. MacAdam believes there is a higher foreign language acquisition by Michigan students. Professor Frier offered that Javanese has been maintained as an area study. Javanese is not taught by 99% of universities.

Professor Potter inquired about the value of the self-study document beyond the accreditation process. Provost Sullivan stated that the information will be useful beyond the process because it will allow the University and units to determine future plans.

Provost Sullivan answered Professor Seabury's question about repetition of accreditation of units which require professional accreditation, such as the School of Social Work, by stating that if units are separately accredited, then the NCA will not repeat the process; the NCA accreditation is for the entire instititution.

Professor Riles suggested "Energy Research" as the self-study issue. Provost Sullivan stated that the self-study document needs to cover all units of the U and that if the topic does not cover all units, then the NCA would not be interested.

Follow-up on the Senate Assembly Action of Approving the Grievance Procedures Task Force Report and Recommendations

Provost Sullivan stated that she had met with Professor Lehman and Chair Smith regarding the topic. There were substantial areas of agreement regarding simplification of procedures; current procedure is cumbersome. There should be more done previous to formal proceedings involving dispute resolutions. She would like to speak to faculty regarding dispute resolution. The new procedures give SACUA both executive and judicial power and she disagrees with that.

Provost Sullivan has a long timeline to respond to the report since she is busy with both tenure and budget matters.

Professor Frier would like to keep dispute resolution open short of grievance procedures, but that mediation should remain open during all times of the process.

Chair Smith offered SACUA's help with the tenure process since that had been a suggestion made by a member of the Provost's staff. Provost Sullivan would like to get through one year in order to learn the process, since the process is procedural. The group that reads the files point out irregularites. Split decisions are the most difficult and need the Provost's input. Provost Sullivan wants to make it clear that she will not be a rubber stamp for the Deans.

According to Provost Sullivan, the creation would be President Coleman's choice. Michigan's approach to diversity is less centralized and more distributed to different units. The advantage of a single VP would be a single go-to person for the entire university. The University of Texas' VP for Diversity handled diversity and school and community involvement.

Ms. MacAdam wanted to know how the momentum of the Diversity Blueprint Task Force will be handled. Provost Sullivan stated that President Coleman wants the report to itemize suggestions for each constituency group to implement.

Chair Smith, who is a member of the Diversity Blueprint committee, stated that the suggestions being given by the current committee do not contain anything new. The current programs need to be assessed, which has not been done in the past.

Professor Seabury gave Provost Sullivan a commendation for presenting at a conference on poverty.

Chair Smith suggested that since Provost Sullivan met with SACUA today, that her scheduled meeting with SACUA on February 5 be changed. The matter will be looked into by Karen Gibbons.

There was discussion on the lack of movement by Provost Sullivan on the recommended grievance procedures. SACUA will maintain discussion with her.

Chair Smith announced that the next meeting of SACUA will be an executive session so that SACUA can discuss the functioning of the SACUA office.

AAAC - Professor Riles reported that on January 10, the committee met with representatives of the Summer Bridge program to understand better how well the program works. The committee expects to receive some additional information from them that was not available at the time of the meeting.

On January 24, the Committee met with the Provost to discuss a variety of issues. She confirmed that she is going ahead with the implementation of the class registration bracket change. Policy issues have been settled. Operational issues will probably delay roll-out until registration for Winter 2008. The Provost also mentioned that she instructed Deans to prepare budgets for three scenarios (3% cut, no cut and 3% increase).

The AAAC voted unanimously that instructors be notified by e-mail of any grade changes, even automatic changes of incompletes to other grades.

Several AAAC subcommittees are preparing draft documents on a variety of topics.

BSC - Professor Riles reported that the BSC met on January 16 and discussed acquiring data on administrative and faculty salary histories going back 20 years.

MAAC - Professor Seabury reported that the last meeting had been cancelled. There was discussion on the fact that the scheduled presentation on faculty governance at the next meeting is being done by non-tenured faculty (clinical).

FAAC - Erik Lundberg, Chief Investment Officer, gave presentation on finance and Ms. MacAdams has slides of the presentation.

Military Officer Education Committee - no reports given because Professor Frier has class at the time of the scheduled meetings.

Tenure Committee - Professor Frier reported that this committee has not had a second meeting yet. There is no report on the Kauffman case. The librarian issue was sent to the Rules Committee, but the issue regarding the inclusion of Clincal Faculty needs to be handled.

CESF - Chair Smith reported that VP of Government Relations Wilbanks gave a presentation regarding State funding. She reported that the repeal of the Small Business Tax will cause a shortfall in the State budget. There could be no funds this year, which could cause a call back.

Diversity Blueprints Taskforce - Chair Smith announced that the 3^rd public testimony meeting is coming up and thus far, there has been no adverse testimony. He observed that many members of this committee are entrenched in old programs. One new idea has been the creation of a Vice President of Diversity, similar to a position established at the University of Washington after the State of Washington adopted a law similar to Proposal 2. The position would oversee diversity-related programs. He noted that a Vice Provost for Minority Affairs position was created in the 1990's as a result of the Michigan Mandate. Lester Monts, currently Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, has as a portion of his portfolio the oversight of programs that involve underrepresented minorities. Professor Potter stated that the LSA Dean’s office has taken over all first year programs for minorities, while the programs should be university-wide.

Suggestions for possible guests at the February Senate Assembly meeting included Bill Martin to discuss athletics, or Paul Courant and John King to speak on the economics, digitization, etc. of the library.

Linda Carr, SACUA Support Staff

In each school, college, or degree granting division of the University, including those at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and at the University of Michigan-Flint, the governing faculty shall be in charge of the affairs of the school, college, or division, except as delegated to the executive committee, if any, and except that in the School of Graduate Studies the governing board shall be the executive board, and in the Medical School shall be the executive faculty.