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University Governance Faculty Council

Minutes of February 7, 2011 1:30­3:30 PM

Chancellor's Conference Room

Members Present: Steve Ackerman (CSM), Jane Adams (CLA)Patrick Barron (CLA); Ann Blum (CLA); Matthew Brown (CLA); Reyes Coll­Tellechea (CLA); Jay Dee (CEHD); John Ebersole (CSM); Billie Gastic (MGSPGS); James Green (CLA); Varda Konstam (CEHD); Lusa Lo (CEHD); Deborah Mahony (CNHS); Emily McDermott (CLA) Celia Moore (CLA); Marc Prou (CLA), Carrie Ann Quinn (CLA); Manickam Sugumaran (CSM), Jessica Whiteley (CNHS)

Ex Officio: Keith Motley (Chancellor), Winston Langley (Provost)

Representatives Present: Lynne Tirrell (BOT), Catherine Lynde (RFSU), Michael Mahan (RPSU), Neil MacInnes­Barker (Undergraduate Student Government), Sameer Tandon (Graduate Student Assembly)

The meeting convened at 1:30 p.m.

I. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Professor Varda Konstam (Chair) opened the meeting and asked for a motion to approve the agenda. The motion was put forth, seconded, and the agenda was unanimously approved.

II. REPORTS

A. Chair ­ Varda Konstam

Welcome all. This semester promises to be bountiful, as evidenced by today’s agenda. Many of the agenda items reflect the direction that our campus will be taking, trying to honor past traditions and accomplishments, while simultaneously anticipating and responding to a changing context in Higher Education globally, nationally and locally. With a new president coming on board, I suspect there will be some changes. Our challenge is to continue to be planful, and accommodate, innovate and thrive in these changing times. No doubt there will be competing tensions and important questions that will emerge throughout this semester. Today’s agenda is representative of the diversity of issues that will be coming before the Faculty Council, including issues related to retention rates, retirement, and new and modified programming on the graduate level and undergraduate level. Before we proceed with the agenda, I am delighted to announce that Professor Jonathan Chu has agreed to serve as parliamentarian while Professor Mo Cunningham is away on sabbatical. Thank you Jonathan for your generosity. On behalf of the Executive Committee, I would like to welcome two new members of Faculty Council: Professors Ping­Ann Addo and Arjun Jayadev, both of whom are representing the College of Liberal Arts. Lastly, in an attempt to complete the work

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coming before us each month, all reports will be posted. Members of the FC will be knowledgeable beforehand, and if logic prevails the time allocated to monthly reports will be significantly shorter in duration. Please be sure to read the reports and the documentation provided to you in support of the motions before each meeting.

B. Faculty Representative to the Board of Trustees ­ Lynne Tirrell

My report is going to be very short. You have at your seats a written page of my report in more detail. I just want to highlight some things that are there. One is kind of a compendium of information about our president. Of course you’ll find out more about whether he’s as wonderful for us as the trustees think he will be. But the fact that he understands the urban mission ­ his campus has had such remarkable success with improving graduation rates for students of color. All of these things bode well for his relationship to UMB. So I’ve highlighted some of those. Also some links to websites where I got information. Secondly there’s a lot in the report about the A&F committee, which the board approved. I think that might be particularly interesting for you. Finally faculty council. I recorded some of the information about what’s going on with the other campuses. I’d look especially at the comments from UMass Lowell and UMass Amherst. There are a couple of points on there that are worth looking at. That’s all.

Report to the Faculty Council, U Mass Boston From: Lynne Tirrell, UMB Faculty Representative to the Board of Trustees, Re: The Board of Trustees, the Intercampus Faculty Council, December Meetings and January Special Meeting Date: 4 February 2011

The Board of Trustees met on Wednesday December 8th at U Mass Amherst. The Intercampus Faculty Council met immediately following. There was a special meeting of the Board, on Thursday January 13 th , to hear the final report of the president’s search committee, and to decide amongst the three names forwarded to the full Board.

Major News: The Board enthusiastically selected Robert L. Caret, President of Towson University (Maryland) to be the next President of the U Mass System, beginning July 1. 2011. Dr. Caret has been president of Towson U since 2003. Before that, he was president of San Jose State University in California from 1995 to 2003. Dr. Caret has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry (University of New Hampshire, 1974) and a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and mathematics (Suffolk University, 1969). He originally hails from Biddeford, ME.

Some important facts for UMB’s relationship with Dr. Caret:

• Understands Urban Mission: (from the Towson bio on the web): “Caret’s vision of Towson University as Maryland’s Metropolitan University was instrumental in relocating the national headquarters of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) to Towson’s campus. Caret served as Vice President of that organization (2004­2006) and then President of CUMU (2006­2008).”

o Towson is a large suburban campus, with a very diverse student body. (328 “beautifully landscaped” acres, their website boasts)

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o Worth visiting: Towson 2016: Building Within/Reaching Out http://wwwnew.towson.edu/tu2016/

• Values Diversity: In Nov. 2010, Dr. Caret instituted “President’s Diversity Awards”, to “recognize individuals and departments that have made efforts to foster greater awareness, understanding and advancement of diversity and inclusiveness at Towson University”. These six annual awards include four awards of $500 each to students, faculty, or staff individuals, and two awards annually of $1000 to departments, either academic or administrative. Faculty awards can be based on research or other activity. This is part of a broader program on the Towson campus called “Reflective Process for Diversity”

• Improved Graduation Rates: It has been widely reported that Dr. Caret’s leadership brought the graduation rates of African American and Hispanic students to the same level as white students. (eg, Boston Globe, Jan 13, 2011) I haven’t seen that data.

• Strong on Partnerships: He built strong partnerships with businesses, non­profits and civic organizations. You can find lists here: http://www.towson.edu/president/

Board Meeting 8 December 2010 The Board approved the reports and actions of the Committees.

Administration & Finance Committee Wed Dec 1, 2010.

President ’s Report:

• President Wilson reported that stimulus funds and strong leadership from the campuses helped UMass to end the year in good shape. Cost cutting and revenue enhancement were key. Revenue enhancement came primarily from enrollment growth. He reported that our Bargaining was funded: FY11: 1.5%, FY12: 3.5%, FY13: 3.5%. Our last raise was JULY 2007! He later added that year 2 funding is uncertain.

• President Wilson encouraged continued strategic investments for growth, even though we are anticipating challenges in FY12 and beyond due to loss of stimulus money and diminishing state support. (Expected loss: $62.9 million)

• BONDS: We’ve had a ratings upgrade: Moody’s to Aa2, Fitch’s AA. This lowered our bond interest rate from 3.8% to 3.2%. With the amounts we are dealing with, the savings in debt service will be significant. Current UMB bond; $11.2 million

• Strategies for Financial Stability: Advocacy (the FY12 appropriations process is underway); Fundraising; 5 year Financial Planning; Reform Efforts (construction reform, efficiency task force, etc).

• President Wilson also raised the prospect of evaluating collective bargaining, compensation, and employee benefit models.

There was, at this point, some discussion about getting out of or bargaining with the GIC, because our employees are significantly younger and healthier than the GIC average, so we pay more for being in this pool than we would independently. Also, we pay the state for all the employees who are not on the state payroll, and that is very costly. (We cannot insure them outside the state system, at this time.) Chair Karam put the point as a question: are we subsidizing other agencies?

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Building Authority Update: David MacKenzie reporting. 2010 saw the largest U Mass bond issue in history, with the lowest fixed interest rates ever (3.30% vs. 4.37% last year). The University will save about $52 million in interest over 30 years. Also, saved a lot on fees by bidding it out ourselves without investment bankers brokering the bonds. Trustee Karam: “Whatever you can do to get these built in the next year, you should do. The savings in construction costs will be major.”

Efficiency Task Force Update: Two main initiatives: (1) A spending analysis, looking to capture the most savings, particularly on facilities and energy, including looking at elevator contracts, which are notoriously bad. They hired an outside consultant to look at strategic purchasing systems from the bottom up and the top down. (2) IT review, started in June. Making progress.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Approved: a motion to authorize the president’s office to prepare and submit the FY2012 State Budget Request.

• Approved: a policy stating that all new employees will be subject to appropriate background checks as a condition of employment. This includes verification of education previous employment, and licensure (where applicable), reference checks, and criminal background checks. For some positions, this could also include reviews of financial history, credit, and motor vehicle records. These reviews are kept separate from other personnel files, would be conducted by an office designated by each campus, and information in the review can be challenged by the employee (the new hire).

• Approved: New University Information Security Policy. Tightening up.

CASA :Committee on Academic and Student Affairs: met Wed Nov. 17, 2010.

Discussion Item: Athletics. Athletic Directors from each campus reported. Charlie Titus reported about the UMB Athletics programs.

Information Items: AQUAD and PMYR. The Board needs explanations of these systems from time to time, because there are always new members, and they all want to be sure that we are engaged in both self­assessment and external evaluation.

Executive Session: Tenure & other personnel matters, and Honorary Degrees.

The Intercampus Faculty Council met immediately following the U Mass Board Meeting. In the reports from the campuses,

U Mass Medical School reported that their motion concerning the creation of a digital archive is continuing in discussions, and will likely be addressed by their governance body in the beginning of 2011.

UML: Provosts are talking about more inter­campus collaboration and coordination—they are under pressure to reach out across the system in their program development. Heavy emphasis on interdisciplinarity.

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UMD: NEASC visit. Reports severe concern about faculty governance being within the Union, as per their contract.

UMB: Varda Konstam and I were in attendance. We reported that the EMK Institute groundbreaking is scheduled for April 2011, and the Integrated Sciences Building will break ground the weekend of Commencement in June. Very exciting times. We also reported that we are working to be noted as Carnegie Research High, which has since become official. (!!!) We told them about our strategic plan, which they can find on the web, and that we are starting very preliminary conversations on campus about the Bayside property.

UMA: Football might move to Foxboro. Commonwealth College is getting new dorms, located in the heart of the campus, which all think is a great development. Trying to develop an “Integrative Experience” element for every discipline, combining Gen Ed, the major, and real world experience. They also reported that faculty are required now to pay for their own release time out of all grants received.

The Board Committees are meeting this month, on Feb 9 th and 14 th , and the whole Board meets on Feb 23 rd at U Mass Lowell. The Intercampus Faculty Council meets immediately following. These are open meetings, so you are welcome to attend.

Some new business: CASA will consider a set of LGBT protections in the late spring. There is work going on to assess the development of a School of Pharmacy, jointly run by Amherst and Lowell. More on this soon.

C. Faculty Staff Union Representative ­ Catherine Lynde

I’m usually brief as you know, but I’m going to be a little bit longer this time. My apologies. In the name of shared sacrifice for the university. I am going to report to you today on outrageous raises for a number of folks in the upper levels of the administration. My report is based on data I had for the last 3 years. What I found were raises considerably beyond the 0% we all got for a couple of years and the 1.5% we got recently. I only looked at a small subset of the administrators. Their raises are up to 8.5 times what the rest of us received in FY 10 and FY 11; they ranged from 6.1 to 12.8%. After bringing this to the Chancellor’s attention, I was given more information about these raises suggesting they are not as egregious as I first thought. Most of them occurred in the last FY, rather than this one. Also, the administration says these raises are justified by a variety of things: equity adjustments, promotions to new positions, moving from interim to a permanent job, pay for performance, etc. One case was a data entry error – only noticed when I inquired. While I do not doubt any of this, I want to point out that there are many, many employees at this university who are worthy of similar raises – but won’t receive them. It seems to me that, it doesn’t matter whether these raises were “deserved” or not; I would argue they were unnecessary in this budget climate, unfair, and therefore, very poor policy.

Obviously I’m referring to the budget situation facing us next year. In FY 12, the situation looks considerably grimmer: there will be no Federal Stimulus Funds, the state faces a $2B structural deficit, and the Governor proposes about a 10% cut in Higher Ed support – meaning we will face probably a several million dollars deficit here on our campus. In the meantime,

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our students paid an additional $400 in fees per semester last year. This year they’re paying $1000 more. My understanding is that fees will most likely rise another 5­7% next year; that’s another $200 per semester.

If we count up the dollar amount of the administrators raises mentioned above (over the 0% and 1.5% faculty got), we find they are sufficient to hire a couple of additional advisors for all our new students, or to hire another faculty member to help teach these new students, or to cover potential layoffs of existing staff. Those funds could have been used to help close the budget gap for the next FY. Furthermore, another 5­6 additional advisors could be hired if a position that has been vacant for 3 years had not been recently filled.

Obviously these sums don’t add up to enough to make a huge difference. However, they’re still problematic, because they decrease the confidence we have in the administration that they will in fact do everything they can to not layoff employees and to hold down costs to students. Furthermore, we put up with ridiculously bad physical working conditions – in the name of the future buildings and our current lack of funds. I don’t think these raises help to foster our willingness to work under such poor conditions. These raises say that either (1) those who receive them are several times more productive, more worthy, than the rest of us are – an unlikely assertion. Or, (2), we need to give them this money in order to keep them at UMB. If this is true, it suggests a pretty low level of commitment to the university – which is also a problem.

I urge the administration to reverse these raises and limit all employee raises to the same level as the rest of us must live with – now and into the next fiscal years as well. There is precedent for this in that several lower­paid folks have had their promotions and salary increases rescinded recently.

I would also hope that the Faculty Council would monitor this kind of activity closely, especially since the financial situation will remain dire for the next several years. Thank you.

At this point, the Chair opened the floor for questions.

One councilor asked if the raises included faculty. The FSU representative responded that those raises were strictly limited to administrative positions, non­unit in particularly.

Another councilor asked what action could the Faculty Council take in this matter. The Chair responded that all matters that are relevant to faculty come before Faculty Council, and this was such matter. The role of Faculty Council is what faculty decides it is, in terms of being an advisory body. So for example, if there was a decision next month to have a motion to reinforce the Union’s recommendation it could be presented to the Executive Committee, and we would have the option of placing it on the next Agenda.

The FSU representative suggested that perhaps the Faculty Council Budget and Planning Committee could report on the matter. A councilor who is also a member of the Council’s Budget and Planning Committee said that the role of the Faculty Council and of the Budget and Planning Committee is advisory; therefore, were the B&PC to produce a report on the matter could only be aimed at provoking a response by the administration. Basically, said the councilor, we’re looking at provoking publicity or shame to change the situation.

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Another councilor thanked the FSU representative for her report, and suggested that the Union’s membership would appreciate the information. Perhaps, the councilor said, the report could be included in the Union’s Newsletter.

Another councilor expressed her gratitude to Catherine Lynde and to the Union for bringing this important matter to the attention of the Faculty Council. The councilor suggested a meeting between the administration and the Unions to discuss the matter in depth. She expressed concern regarding the pay raises for administrative, non­unit members. On the matter of the Faculty Council advisory role in this issue, the councilor stated that Faculty Council can also sit down and openly discuss all matters regarding faculty, especially Union matters. Finally, this councilor noticed that the Boston Globe has been showing signs of concern regarding the salaries of public servants, including professors. The councilor expressed support for a meeting between the Union representative and the Chancellor, and stated that it was an important matter.

Another councilor intervened to remind all councilors their charge, in a broad sense, is to be conduits to our colleagues and our departments, which is who we represent. Whatever matter gets raised here and discussed in any substantial way we take back to our faculty members whom we represent.

D. Professional Staff Union Representative ­ Michael Mahan

My report is very brief as well. There is a copy circulating.

Report submitted and circulated: The professional staff union (PSU) is concerned about the talk of possible student fee increases for the upcoming semester. The PSU doesn’t feel that constantly escalating fees are the way to deal with chronic under­funding. The PSU encourages the university’s Board of Trustees and the President’s office to seriously explore other options, such as those put forth by the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts (PHENOM). For more information on their ideas and proposals, go to

www.phenomonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=256:phenoms­ legislative­agenda&catid=37:legislation&Itemid=98

F. Undergraduate Student Government Representative ­Neil MacInnes Barker

Mr. MacInnes Barker presented the following report.

A couple things I wanted to mention. One thing is that faculty are getting some interest from faculty to bring the whole UMass system to be smoke free, tobacco free, with the help of Linda Jorgensen, Kathleen McAndrew, and others. We’ve put a request to the Board of Public Health, for a grant of between $10­20K. This is something over 406 universities nationwide have done. I believe we have an institutional responsibility to the students. The highest rate of new smokers is between the ages of 18­24. I smoke occasionally, but not on campus, because of my leadership role. It’s the right thing to do for people who are trying to quit. Brian

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Dumser is someone who has quit after many years of smoking. We need to support people like Brian.

You’re going to see passed around a very colorful chart that shows what student government is putting together for all of our relative departments and agencies. If you want to take it with you, you can make copies and we will put a report on the website that you can review. One example of a pop out is the state relations board, of them is the purple one on the second page. A lot of things you can need students to participate in, collaborate on. You can let them know what student government does. The third page is what we’re developing as the administrative contacts. We’re working on that.

The last couple of things. I’m also now vice chairman of the Massachusetts Student State Advisory Council. Last week we had a really productive meeting with universities and colleges all over the state, talking about making universities and colleges more affordable, with the budget the governor has on his desk right now. We’re looking at bringing more of a presence to our legislators and to our state reps, which is part of what the purple on that chart is leaning to. It was a very productive meeting. It’s bringing UMass Boston and the UMass system to ­­ we’re in a collaboration with Massachusetts state universities and colleges. We have similar concerns and interests..

F. Graduate Student Assembly Representative – Sameer Tandon

The GSA representative indicated that there was no new information to add since his December report, which is posted on the FC website.

G. Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance­ Ms. Ellen O’Connor

[Ms. O’Connor made a Power Point presentation, which is posted on the Faculty Council website. The A&F report she refers to below is also posted there.]

The doings of administration and finance in December and January are posted on your web site so I won’t be giving you a line­by­line reading of the 6­page report.

However, because we are beginning the FY 12 budget process, I did ask for the opportunity to frame that prospect for you and lay out some of the options that we are looking at with regard to the budget for next year. I start with a statement of hope. Just look back at the last three years. What we have done in 09, 10, and 11. The amount of money: Some has come from reallocation. We have new money $46M over the last 3 years to invest in significant set of areas of the campus. In detail on the next page you’ll see, what is Academic Affairs, what is Central, the amount of money for in Financial Aid, graduate assistantships, for debt service. This will be put on the Council’s website. But I start the presentation for FY 12 with that we’ve managed to get through the last three years and have made a significant set of investments in the campus.

I wanted to show you a new stat that we’re trying to understand and work with. It’s from the IPED that’s the Institutional Research Data Collection Effort. It is talking about the cost per student and the revenue per student. You will see that we’re looking at UMB since 07,

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actually declining amount of money per student, and that’s quite remarkable. And what that is the result of is even though we’ve made all that significant investment on the previous page, the growth in the number of students is faster than the rate of growth of investment. So those of you who remember your algebra will figure out that the average cost is going down. So that we, by the numbers anyway, and you can affirm yourself, are having trouble keeping up with the rate of growth in the number of students. However, we’ve got a cost per student that’s running between $23­24K. At the same time, the amount of revenue per student is contributed by the students is running between $9300­10,000. Now every school, with the exception of the for­profit schools, does not rely exclusively on tuition and fees. But the contrast between student revenue and the cost is pretty significant at UMB.

Now I want to talk about the future looks like as we forecast it. This is an exercise that we went through for the BOT and it began with what does next year look like, the following year, the following year, the following year. Start with the prospect of growth. We have a very significant prospect for growth in terms of the number of students. Then forecast what, using a set of assumptions I’ll go to in a second. Forecast what the revenue will be, and what the expense will be, and look at the gap. Every year that we’ve done this, you start off with more expenses than you have revenue. It’s concerning to us is that as we look out, the gap gets bigger and bigger. That’s a trend. What troubles us about this is that it’s negative, and it’s getting more negative.

We do forecast an increase in enrollment, as I’ve already said to you. It does lay out a 3% increase in student fees, as well as the retained tuition, which begins for UMB in FY 12. We expect the state appropriation will grow 1­2%. That’s probably not a likely assumption. As well as we will fund the collective bargaining agreements in 11­14, as agreed to. And that as Catherine observed, there is no federal stimulus money.

Let’s go to the expense assumptions. The expenses are related to the growth in enrollment are built in. We have new tenure stream faculty, additional financial aid, we have a “kitty” if you will for as yet undetermined strategic initiatives. We have provided for collective bargaining. We have opened the new academic and research buildings. We’ve provided some general fringe and increase in general inflation. That’s how you do the model to get the numbers. We’ve got a gap, a very significant gap. This is an exercise in how we do the budget.

We do a base case: revenue, expense, what you think it will be, and how do you get them to meet in the middle. One of the options we are looking at is adopting a tuition and fee model that will let the sticker price, if you will, of tuition and fees rise, more than the cost of inflation, but provide significant additional financial aid for students. Let the sticker price, if you will, of tuition and fees rise, more than the cost of inflation, but provide significant additional financial aid for students. That’s one of the revenue options. We’re also looking at having University College and the state tuition and fees match, and use grant overhead to help offset the budget problem reserves. The problem with reserves is that they’re one time, you do it once, it’s great, but what do you do the second year, the third year?

Our concern is that we’re losing the federal stimulus money. There is going to be an expected decrease in the state appropriation and additional collective bargaining. That’s not against collective bargaining. That’s a money discussion – where do we get the money to do that. Part of the reason that I’m making this presentation is to invite the Budget and Planning

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Committee of the Faculty Council to give us advice about the direction in which we’re going. These are struggles that are not unique to UMB. It has to do with getting a balance between keeping ourselves accessible and also continuing to get us to this next level of excellence that we desire to be as a university.

Now through the next several months we’ll be having discussions, through June, formal and informal, trying to figure out the ways to close the gap. What President Caret will be adding to the formula, and what his contribution will be. I also wanted you to be aware that the that is the most concerning matter is that we do want to go to multi­year planning, we do want to go to multi­year budgeting. And as we look out, it gets more and more negative in very significant amounts of money. It will be quite challenging to address it. To say it in an extreme way, we at one end keep ourselves affordable by not growing. What does that do to the value of the degree? On the other hand if we grow without regard to the cost of our principal revenue sources, which is now tuition and fees, what will happen to students and our commitment to accessibility that we have?

These are the sorts of discussions that we’ll be having. I do welcome and ask for your advice and support. I’m glad to answer any questions.

After thanking Ms. O’Connor and stating that her report certainly raised very serious concerns, the Chair opened the floor to questions.

The BOT representative stated that she was confused when going over her own notes from the A&F meetings, where President Wilson said that collective bargaining was funded, with great enthusiasm. He went through the numbers and added that we haven’t had a raise since 2007. But then he said that funding for year two is uncertain. The BOT representative understood the 1­1/2 percent faculty rate has been funded, however it seemed that anything beyond that was not clear. The councilor asked for clarification on the matter.

Ms. O’Connor responded that the UMB team built the raises into our budget and that that’s part of the gap. We want the 3­1/2 % raise for collective bargaining. So does that mean we go up on tuition and fees to cover that? One of the things that President Wilson was saying is that thing is that the Commonwealth will not be coming up with the collective bargaining dollars. It’s up to the University to figure out how to come up with these collective bargaining dollars.

Another councilor noted the following regarding the depreciation number in Ms. O’Connor presentation: Depreciation is a non­cash expense, that sort of money that is part of our expenses but is really not an out­of­pocket expense. So that money is growing from 15.6 to $11M right there. If you add our needs in some ways, this made­up depreciation number does not match up. All the revenues are cash. But this expense is not an out of pocket cash expense.

Ms. O’Connor agreed on the nature of depreciation numbers in general but stated that the case was different for the University of Massachusetts, because the Board directs that reserves will be set up for new buildings, and require that the university set aside cash in the budget to provide for the depreciation and upkeep.

Another councilor thanked Ms. O’Connor for her report and asked that she elaborate a bit more about the line on Educational and General expenses, because they go from $278M in the current year to $382M in FY 15, and if we were to adjust that number somewhat, it could

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alleviate entirely the gap. The councilor assumed that there were some assumptions behind that.

Ms. O’Connor stated that the line to which the councilor was referring was the line that carried all of the assumptions on the succeeding page of the collective bargaining, the unspecified strategic initiatives, the additional debt service, the new faculty lines, and so on.

The same councilor asked what account for the biggest chunk: $100 +M. Ms. O’Connor responded that there was no single item that constituted the majority. It is this 3 or 4 items that drive that number. Number of new faculty, fulltime tenured faculty, each year, X worth of new initiatives each year, projects to keep up with student growth, etc.

A councilor inquired why we would be expending less per student. The councilor expressed concern that by charging students more but spending less on each one that the University would be short­shrifting them.

Ms. O’Connor responded that in no case is the amount that the student is paying more than even 40% of what the cost is and that this was not a sensitivity analysis. In Ms. O’Connor’s opinion we’re swinging a thousand dollars is not like the end of the world. That’s maybe 3, 4%. What the chart meant to demonstrate, said Ms. O’Connor is that that even though we have invested significant new dollars in the past, the growth in the student body is so terrific that it is driving the average cost down. We don’t budget by these costs. This is a calculated number. It’s a gross measure, but it does indicate what’s happening.

A councilor asked whether UMB benchmarks its expenditures per student to comparable institutions. Ms. O’Connor responded that we are beginning to do that.

H. Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs­ Professor Winston Langley

The Provost presented the following report. Good afternoon, and welcome back to the second semester of our academic year. Please know that my office exists, in large part, to help you; so feel free to ask for help (beginning with your respective departments and colleges), as you face challenges for which you need help.

1. PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH—A number of concerns have been raised with me (and the Chancellor, I am told, will be taking with you about the new president) regarding the search. The burden of those concerns is that there was insufficient campus in­ put, in the process.

While it is true that there could have been more inputs, I would like to indicate that members of the committee reached out to all campuses to obtain sentiments concerning the dominant issues which should form the basis of our deliberations, the strengths and weaknesses they see in the way the system has been functioning, the type of university they would like to see evolve, and type of person they want to lead it.

In the search for presidents, as distinct from the search for chancellors, individual campuses do not have the same range of involvement. This is a Board of Trustees search, not a campus

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one. Finally, there are many constraints in searches for presidents and chancellors. People do not want their names released.

2. SEARCH FOR DEAN OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE—We are in the final stages of our search for the dean of our newest college. We will begin seeing the second of four finalists, today, and expect to see the other two in the next week or so, weather permitting. The participation of members of the university community, in exchanges with the candidates, has been very good, and we are thankful for that participation.

3. LIBRARIES—I have used part of the intersession to look at our libraries, to see how they are helping s to forge ahead in our ambitious teaching, research and service missions, in general and how they are building to accommodate our graduate program (they have long served well our undergraduate programs), and how they are responding to the challenge of the urban university with its broad and complex interests. We are pleased to say that, although we have weaknesses, whether in broadening the scope and reach of archival emphasis (and we cannot have strong, not mention excellent, graduate programs without rich archival/original sources), of data bases, of digital commons emphasis, quality of collections (especially journal collection), or of personnel skills, the libraries, under the leadership of Dr. Ortiz and his team (in the face of meager resources), are doing well. We will be reporting to you about the future of our libraries, sometime next fall or spring. At that time, I simply want you to know that we have been focusing on the libraries and that we have a committee looking at their future.

4. ACREDITATION ISSUES—The College of Nursing and Health Sciences is coming up for re­accreditation, and external reviewers will be here later this month. We will keep you abreast of developments.

5. HONORS PROGRAM—Two students, from our honors program, have done very well and we are proud of them. One is Noreen Chioma Okwara, a Biology major. She applied to and was accepted to the Global Issues Internship in Uganda, for the summer of 2011. The purpose of the internship is to expose students to issues/conditions such as AIDS, poverty, hunger, enabling them to interact and come to know those who have been working in these areas as well as people suffering from those conditions. The goal of the program is to help students better experience broad global issues in a way that will motivate them to become global citizens. She recently returned from a trip to New Orleans, where she worked for Habitat for Humanity, helping to repair homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. She is a regular volunteer with the homeless at a local shelter and takes blankets and other supplies to the homeless on Boston Common. Severin Garvey McKenzie is a Chemistry major, originally from Dominica. He has been awarded the Organization of American States Scholarship. This scholarship is given particularly promising students from member states of the OAS; it is given in support of the last two years of undergraduate study and covers tuition, books, living and travel expenses, with the understanding that the recipient will return to his or her country for two years, after completing his or her program of study. This two­year return can be postponed for research or graduate studies. Mr. McKenzie wants to complete his medical education and then return to Dominica to help that country repair its health care system. He was a presenter at the tenth

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Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority students, held in Charlotte, North Carolina, last November.

6. FACULTY/STUDENT STUDY ABROAD—One of the objectives we set for ourselves, as a campus, is that of linking our local roots to a more global orientation. Among the actions taken were the creation of our Office of Inter and Transnational Affairs and the appointment of Professor Hyun, Associate Provost, to lead it. We felt that, while we would follow some of the traditional study abroad and exchange program for students, in the pursuit of that orientation, we would, in addition, focus on like programs for faculty. Our thinking here is that the experiences, views, and orientations of our faculty are ultimately likely to yield a more profound, long­term and broader impact on the culture of the campus.

This year, under the able leadership of Dr. Hyun, we have faculty members going to Mexico, Australia, Hong Kong, Albania, Portugal, and Haiti, to pursue research. Of utmost importance, at least one student will be accompanying each of these professors, in their respective research focus. Last year, we sent faculty members to the Dominican Republic and to India. This a relatively small program (and here I must say thanks to the Chancellor for his support), but we hope to expand it in the years to come, as we work to transform our the University of Massachusetts Boston. As promised last semester, we will make a comprehensive report to this body on the inter and transnational work of OITA.

7. RESEARCH EXPENDITURES—Congratulations, to the Vice Provost for Research and Strategic Initiatives, Dr. Zong­Guo Xia, and to our faculty. Last year, our research expenditures (part of how we are measured, nationally, as a research university) amounted to $51, 347, 412. That is nearly an 11% increase, over 2009, and puts us in good standing.

I. Chancellor ­ Dr. J. Keith Motley

Good afternoon everybody and thanks to all of you for getting the semester off to a wonderful start. I know that there have been many challenges, but it’s also exciting for us as a campus and as a University community to come back together and continue on this journey. I know the weather has been frustrating, to make some decisions around these efforts. I urge your patience. Each year we get better. Each year we hope we don’t have to make these decisions. Spring is not far behind, so hopefully all of this will melt away and be something that stays in our minds.

New president: I had an opportunity and it’s been exciting for me to have the opportunity to watch this entire process from sort of afar. But as I’ve gotten to have the opportunity to meet our new president, I’m excited about all the possibilities. We’ve been meeting with him, and I can tell you he’s a man who is very passionate. He is committed to public higher education. He’s been a chancellor and president twice so he knows what it’s like to have a system, and understands what it is as the chancellor to not have someone micromanaging campuses. He understands that. It’s important for all of us who lead the campuses in the system. He is someone who is a do­er, he doesn’t accept no for an answer. His greatest test is going to be what Ellen talked about earlier, which is how to use this opportunity as a new leader here in Mass. to gain from that, hopefully in that 6­8 months or whatever the honeymoon period is, he’ll be able to access for us the kind of funding that we’ll need, to continuously move on. So

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we’re going to expect much from him but he’s also going to expect much from us. Although he’s going to get to know each of the campuses, he’s going to do it in fairly fast mode. He’s going to be here on campus visiting. You will all know. I don’t want it to be some normal kind of campus visit, so we’ll put together what will bring him an understanding of who we are. He’s also the kind of person who doesn’t need an invitation to visit. He doesn’t like the feeling of being a lame duck where he is in MD. He’s also looking for housing and he’s trying to convince his wife of where they should live. I’m looking forward to working with him and I hope that becomes a reality for you also. I think it’s appropriate to have some kind of way of saying thank you to President Wilson. He’s been a very supportive president of this campus. I consider him a friend and someone I enjoy working with. A letter that I saw that he wrote to the Trustees talked about the notion of his serving the Lowell campus and the Boston campus, he’ll be welcome here. The Provost and I will be refining that.

I was so excited last week to come back from being away for a week and being told to get on a plane to go to Washington DC on the same day as the State of the Union. I went down to the 2011 Inaugural National Mentoring Summit. It was a wonderful summit. I had the opportunity to speak there. At the meeting were leading mentoring organizations, researchers, as well as the First Lady on the day that her husband had an unbelievable speech to make. Mentoring means so much to me. One of the initiatives that we work with is a national institute called “Do the WRITE Thing,” and it extends to Washington. Prof. Jean Rhodes will serve as the Alliance’s first research Director. She’ll hold the Mentor National Endowed Chair. I want you to join me in congratulating her and also this university for another wonderful opportunity going forward.

Our Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy: That is a center about which we’ve been speaking for some time as part of the developing bridge partnership with DFCI. We had some exciting developments last week. The Mass. Life Science Center on January 26 approved a $2M capital grant, part of a planned $10M investment to enable to make the final steps of establishing our Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy. I want to thank Dr. Benz, the President of Dana Farber and his team, and also members of our team, Provost Langley, Dean Grosovsky, Vice Provost Xia, and also Associate Vice Chancellor John Ciccarelli for their patience, and the resources for seeding this important biomedical research. They could have given up but didn’t. We received all kinds of letters that said no, over the years, they continued to convince folks that they needed to fund this project. Thank you for that.

A committee has been organized to do a national search for the best leader for University Advancement Group. I am asking the Provost to lead this committee. Feel free to offer suggestions to the committee for who would be an outstanding leader for this very important position.

Our Board of Visitors met again in January. They came from all over the country. They faced weather that they hadn’t seen in a long time. They made that meeting and I’m grateful to all of them. They’re off to do wonderful things.

The College of Management should be congratulated, because again they maintained their accreditation with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, and that’s not easy to do. Congratulations to our dean.

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I also want to thank our staff from our work groups who help us deal with this adverse weather. I have written to them to try to let them know that all of you thank them for keeping us open and ready, for helping us have a wonderful beginning to this semester.

The Chancellor then addressed the issue of pay raises issued earlier in the meeting by the FSU representative. He thanked Professor Lynde for her report. He acknowledged that the Union brought up information that he did not know about and thanked Professor Lynde for informing him directly. He stated that he was not at liberty to discuss personnel issues publicly. He also affirmed his willingness to attend a meeting on the matter.

II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Motion to approve the minutes from previous meeting.

The Chair asked for a motion to approve the minutes from December 6, 2010: The minutes were approved unanimously on voice vote

IV. MOTIONS FROM THE GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE

Motion 1. to approve Motion to approve AMST/WOST 325L, “Sexual Identities in American Culture,” to satisfy the Humanities Distribution.

The motion was seconded and unanimously approved by a voice vote

Motion 2. to approve ART 222, “Survey of American Art,” to satisfy the AR Distribution.

The motion was seconded and unanimously approved by a voice vote

V. MOTION FROM THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS

Motion to approve a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Dean Grosovsky presented the proposal. After the presentation the Chair opened the floor for discussion.

One councilor congratulated the CSM on the development of the program and asked if there are plans to phase out the transfer program we currently have and how many students would take the opportunity to finish their BS at UMB. Dean Grosovsky estimated that a 99% could take advantage of the new program at UMB. Currently there are 83 Engineering Majors at UMB.

The FSU representative asked about faculty resources for teaching these 83 or more students in the two tracks. Dean Grosovsky stated that the College has been discussing this with the

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Provost. The program currently has two faculty lines, and will hire 8 more over a period of time. We will be hiring faculty as the university continues to grow. The university hires faculty every year. We’d emphasize hiring to build this program. This would be a strategic decision to emphasize hiring to build this program. Some of this growth will happen with developing new programs, and help our students and help our research, and help the comprehensive profile of the institution. Initially, there is a request for one line.

After discussion ended, the Chair asked councilors to vote on the motion. The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

VI. MOTIONS FROM THE GRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

In the absence of the Chair of the Faculty Council Graduate Studies Committee, Professor Joan Liem, Dean of Graduate Studies, presented the following motions.

Motion 1. Motion to approve the following new courses:

College of Liberal Arts ANTH 673 – Anthropology of the Object: A Graduate Socio–Cultural Odyssey ANTH 676 – Anthropology of Nature, Place and Landscape CLSCS 670 – The Life and Works of Julius Caesar CW 620 – Techniques of Fiction LATIN 602 – Caesar LATIN 609 – Lucretius LATIN 690 – Master of Arts Final Paper LATIN 699 – Master's Thesis

College of Management MBAMKT 683 – Foreign Direct Investment and Offshoring

John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies DISRES 694 – Integrative Seminar GERON 630 – Residential Long Term Care Management

The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

Motion 2. Motion to approve a name change from Special Education/TVI to Vision Studies, College of Education and Human Development.

The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

Motion 3.Motion to replace one course in data analysis, EEOS 611 (Applied Statistics) or EEOS 623 (Introduction to GIS) with EEOS 601 (Introduction to Applied Statistics) or EEOS 611 (Applied Statistics) or EEOS 623 (Introduction to GIS),College of Science and Mathematics.

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The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

Motion 4. Motion to change the name of the Graduate Programs in Dispute Resolution to the Graduate Programs in Conflict Resolution, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies.

The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

Motion 5. Motion to approve course changes for Psych 790, Latin 670 and Latin 675, College of Liberal Arts.

The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

Motion 6. Motion to approve the new certificate Global Post Disaster Studies with a focus on Reconstruction with Vulnerable Populations, University College.

The motion was presented by Professor Adenrele Awotona.

After the presentation the Chair opened the floor for discussion.

A councilor asked for information regarding the program governance structure. Professor Awotona stated that the Provost has established a Steering Committee that will handle matters of governance for this program at University College.

After discussion ended, the Chair asked for a vote. The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

Motion 7. Motion to approve the following courses, Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities After Disasters (CRSCAD), University College.

(These courses are part of the new certificate, Global Post Disaster Studies with a focus on Reconstruction with Vulnerable Populations)

CRSCAD 501 – Social Vulnerability to Disasters CRSCAD 502 – Climate Change, Food and Water Resources CRSCAD 503 – Topics in Rebuilding Sustainable Communities After Disasters CRSCAD 521 – Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Sustainable Post Disaster Reconstruction CRSCAD 522 – Migrants and Refugees

The Chair opened the floor for question. A councilor asked whether the new courses would require hiring new faculty. Professor Awotona responded that the program already has enough full­time and part­time faculty. The motion was unanimously approved by show of hands.

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Provost Winston Langley thanked councilors for supporting the Engineering program and the Graduate Certificate. He stated that the approval of these two programs represent two gigantic steps for the future of our University.

VII. ENROLLMENT AND RETENTION RATES: CURRENT STATUS. JOAN BECKER

Vice Provost Becker presented a report on behalf of the Graduation and Retention Committee, which she co­chairs along with Kathy Teehan (Enrollment) and Andrew Grosovsky (CSM). The report is posted on the Faculty Council website.

Retention rates are the measure of year 1 students who enroll in a fall cohort who come back for the next fall cohort. Graduation rates have to do with persistence through degree completion. Typically what gets reported publicly are six year graduation rates for first time full time freshmen. The publicly reported graduation rates for colleges and universities are based on 6 years FT/FT freshmen. At UMB we report our graduation rates for transfers as well. They’re not publicly reported to things like IPED but they’re reported to our President’s Office and we keep track internally, because about 60% of our students come here as transfers. Obviously, for us, it is an important measure of student success.

These measures matter, in part, because they are one of many measures of whether the quality of education here at UMB is of a high level. Low retention and graduation rates are perceived as reflecting a lower quality education.

There are also financial implications. It costs a lot more to recruit and bring new students in than it does to educate them. Every increase in retention/graduation rates affects positively the bottom line because we’re not spending as much to bring new people in here. It also matters because we are required by the federal government to report. The Federal Government takes what’s reported in IPED when a student files for financial aid. They publish the retention and graduation rates of very institution that they have listed. That’s new. That’s a big change in the information that’s available to families as they’re making decisions about what college to attend. And finally we got a lot of bad publicity. Last year The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education and a book, Crossing the Finish Line, cited UMass Boston an example of an institution that did a particularly poor job at retention and graduation.

In terms of retention, the first place UMB needs to improve is Freshmen retention. Why do our students leave? Some students leave because they’re not doing well academically. Some leave because it isn’t a good fit. And we’re losing a lot of students to transfer. Institutional Research ran a report which shows that of the Fall 09 entry cohorts, for freshmen about 253 students did not return the second fall semester. Of those, just under half of them had transferred to another institution. Of those, just under 38% had enrolled in a 2­year institution, 62% at another 4 year institution, including 19% at another UMass campus. For transfer students, more like a third of the students who did not return had transferred elsewhere, with 32% going to a 2­year institution, 68% going to a 4­year institution, including 13% going to another UMass campus.

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Our committee has been looking at best practices. The national literature is very clear on things like first year seminars, supplemental instructions, advising programs, undergraduate research, learning communities, and targeted support and intervention programs make a difference. We have some of those programs at UMB. But I would say that one of the problems that we have is that we have a lot of scattered programs, and we’ve been working hard over the last few years to make those more integrated.

We’ve begun to really dig at what is it about the culture here at UMB that supports retention and graduation and what are the things here that really hinder it. And we are trying to have an honest conversation about the things we do here that work against us.

Academic and social connections matter. They really matter on a campus like ours where we don’t currently have a residential experience. And when we do have residence halls the majority of our students won’t be living in residence halls, so we have to integrate the academic and social connections.

One of the things that we have – the big giant light that came on for all of us – is the need to be very clear about what it means to be on track, to graduate. What it means to be off track. An astoundingly high number of students at UMB are off track. Some of the things that we’re looking at that will be part of our recommendations are to use technology to build a system that will allow people to know which students are on track.

We need to increase need based financial aid, on campus employment and college sensitive employment opportunities. Too many of our students are working in jobs that have no connection to what they do in school. For some of our students work is their first priority and school is their second priority. We need to give them the freedom to flip that and make school the priority. They need help, they need to have real jobs on campus, or jobs with local employers that are flexible.

We do need to build residence halls. We are losing students because of that. We need to significantly increase college based advising, community building, and college based success levels. We have made significant investments in some wonderful examples of pilot programs that are happening in some of the colleges.

We also need to increase centralized services and advising, career services and tutoring.

We need to improve the first year experience. That’s one of the very positive things about the learning community model that are being piloted in CLA and CSM. Students are participating in the learning communities. They’re feeling connected, and we need to figure out how to make that connectedness work for all students. We need to look at what’s working and what’s not working in the classroom that’s supporting retention, we really need to expand things like service learning, civic engagement and other community­building activities. We need to increase study abroad and undergraduate research opportunities.

And the last thing is we see challenges is – how do we ensure that all of the units and all of the departments understand the importance of improving retention and graduation, but have the capacity to do something about it. How do we build a system of accountability, so that when we say that it’s all of our responsibility, that that doesn’t translate into no one is accountable and responsible.

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We really need college based success programs and major advising. We hear it every month. We have a lot of priorities. We need to make major investments and make some hard choices. We’re not going to fix the problems we have on improving retention and graduation on the cheap.

After the report, the Chair opened the floor for questions.

One councilor asked why so many students drop out of UMB (as opposed to transfer to other institutions) – whether it was for academic or financial reasons. Joan Becker stated that she did not have that information with her at the time. The councilor stated that it would be very important to know whether academic of financial matters was the cause of the enormous drop out rate.

Another councilor stated that the relationship between admission and graduation needs to be studied as well because, in her words, if we are admitting all the best students fully qualified to be here, then our retention rate is truly abysmal. But if we’re admitting some people who really don’t totally belong in a university, losing them is not a bad thing.

Another councilor suggested that since the Faculty Council has a standing Committee on Admissions the issue of graduation/admission perhaps could explored further. The same councilor wondered whether the lack of systematic assessment programs identified during UMB’s last NEASC review could also be a factor in our retention/graduation rates problem.

Several councilors expressed interest in continuing the dialogue. The Chair invited Vice Provost Becker to come back at another meeting and instructed councilors to send her questions by email. In the interest of time, the Council had to move to the next item on the agenda.

VIII. RETIREMENT: PRE AND POST RETIREMENT OPTIONS. FRANK CARO

Professor Caro presented the following report on extending late career options for faculty members.

If we look at the UMB faculty a couple of years ago, 45% of the tenured or tenure­track faculty were 55 years of age and older. Based on past experience, it is very likely that 90% of them will no longer be here 15 years from now. So the issue of late career options is a highly pertinent matter for many faculty members here.

There are a lot of universities around the country who have addressed this matter by developing systematic options for faculty to phase out gradually. Structured programs that over a period of years, one, two, three years, they gradually reduce their effort and then they retire. It seems to work out well from the point of view of both faculty and for the universities. A number of forces that have led to some attention to this issue here at UMB in the last couple of years. First of all, our context is that UMass Amherst has established a small program. Secondly, the University got a grant from the Commonwealth Corporation for

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the Institute for Community Inclusion. They did this study that involved focus group interviews.

About a year ago, as a result of that effort, a committee was formed with some people designated as union representatives and some as administration representatives to study this issue. We came up with, in a certain sense, two basic kinds of recommendations. One is clarification of existing policy. Turns out that there are some policies which facilitate gradual retirement. But there is very uneven knowledge of those options. That’s a whole level of faculty, department chairs, college deans, extending as far as the Provost’s office and Human Resources as well.

Some of what’s needed is simply clarification of existing policy. We’re also proposing that there be an explicit phased retirement program that would not be mandatory. But that there would simply be something there that faculty members in late career could negotiate with their departments, deans, and so on. And I should say that what we’re proposing is something that would include a modest incentive, where people would get in exchange for making an agreement to retire at a certain date, there would be some kind of modest incentive, in reduced workload, that would encourage them to proceed on that track. We’re also recommending that there be more explicit information about post­retirement options. And that’s something which already exists, but is not well known. Finally, we’re also recommending that there be more explicit information about what would characterize a partial retirement option. That’s one where people would reduce their work effort going to part time status. That’s something that’s possible within the existing framework but not widely known.

After the report, the Chair opened the floor for questions.

The BOT Representative asked how complicated the process of negotiating pre and post retirement would be for people who have Optional Retirement Programs.

Professor Caro stated that of the faculty who are 55 years of age and older, over 50% are involved with the State Retirement Program right now. Part of the context is that the state retirement program provides people with very strong financial incentives to retire once they’ve reached the point of where they qualify for 80% of their income if they retire. The typical person in that cohort started at age 39. By the time that person is in their late 60s, they’ve reached that threshold and it’s a very powerful reason to leave. For younger people, the majority people are in the Optional Retirement Program; for them, the development of these phased retirement programs is a little bit easier. It’s my projection that over the next 10 or 15 years, the discussion of how to do that is going to move, since there are more people who are in the Optional Retirement Program.

A councilor asked how this information is going to be disseminated across the University. Anita Miller of the Provost’s Office, stated that the information will be included in the next orientation session for Chairs which will take place later this Spring.

A member of the public asked how much this program would cost the University. Professor Caro stated that that the only part of this that has an explicit cost associated with it is the phased retirement program, where there would be a little bit of incentive; And the question is how would that incentive be structured, that’s all going to depend on negotiations between the

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university administration and the Union. The large part of this is cost­neutral. You have a faculty member who is in late career. With the partial retirement program s/he is going to go ¾ time instead of full time. So first is reduced compensation the university can put that money to good use. It’s cost­neutral.

IX. NEW BUSINESS

There was no new business

X. MOTION TO ADJOURN

The Chair asked for a second on the motion to adjourn. The motion was seconded and approved unanimously. The meeting adjourned.

Minutes submitted by Reyes Coll­Tellechea, Associate Chair/Secretary Joyce Morrissey