Assembly Highlights for February 2003

WCU's delegates to UNCs Faculty Assembly, Mary Adams, Mary Anne Nixon, and alternate Marie Huff represent our faculty's concerns at the system level, reporting what they learn from system administrators and other delegates annually and making resolutions and recommendations. Because we believe the knowledge we gain in Chapel Hill to be potentially more powerful than our recommendations, we'd like to share our findings in report form as soon after meetings as possible. 

Below you'll find a short summary of discussions we thought of greatest concern for the WCU community at the last session, along with links to the web pages for the Faculty Senate and the Office of the President for you to read more.

These notes are not the official assembly minutes. You can read official Assembly minutes at the UNC main site.

Summary of Findings

Note: Some documents linked to this report are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have it, download it here:

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printable version of these notes

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I. Visit from Board of Governors Chair Brad Wilson

1. In his campus visits, Chairman Wilson noted that “staff salaries” are of universal concern. He promises that the Board will “collectively lend their voices” regarding the seriousness of this issue. (President Broad says she is studying “policy reform” that could effect changes without action from the legislature.) Another universal concern is “salary and benefits structure” for faculty.
2. When asked why the Fac. Assembly Chair couldn’t have a seat on the Board of Governors, Wilson replied that he doesn’t foresee a change and that he thinks he already understands the faculty point of view.
3. Wilson professed astonishment when Delegate Adams asked about perceived “administrative creep.” He says he welcomes any study that attempts to “maintain appropriate ratio of faculty to administrators” as long as it does not “micromanage”. (President Broad later seconded this statement, saying she expected to hear that administrative costs have actually gone down. VP Bataille pointed out that focused growth schools like WCU were given funds and directed to hire retention and recruitment administrators)

Of Special Concern to WCU: Two Resolutions

In the last session, the assembly passed two resolution, which both came out of WCU:

1. a resolution in support of SPA Salary increases
2. a senate-sponsored resolution on the Retirement plan

1. Respondng to both resolutions, Assembly Chair Dick Veit wrote a letter to the General Assembly urging that the state return funds to TSERs and to support a substantial pay increase for staff. You can view this letter here.
2. Pending from WCU delegation: a resolution to study apparent “administrative creep” over the last several years, a resolution to ask campuses to review their Intellectual Privacy documents in the light of new e-learning initiates, and a resolution to ask campuses to review the role of service in all TPR documents.

Budget, Salary, Benefits

1. President Broad and others constantly reiterated how bad the budget outlook was. Though NC was one of only 13 state to balance its budget this year, we did it by spending “one-time funds” that won’t be available to balance next year’s budget, we will have to close a 10% gap with new cuts.
2. By 2004, experts are predicting a deficit of $552 million in the health plan, and they expect to pay for it by increased premiums and deductibles. One delegate commented that healthy spouses and children are being driven out of the state health plan because of rising costs. He and J.B. Milikin, VP for Advancement, agreed that the state plan is in a “death spiral.”
3. State health plan’s biggest expense: medication for ulcers and depression.
4. A strong point in our favor: “more and more evidence suggests that people perceives universities to be ‘critically important’ to economic recovery.”
5. Some hostile legislators want to target F&A (Facilities and administration) funds and vacant salary funds. One even has University F & A costs as a screensaver.
6. One reason for WCU faculty salary lag is that we were one of only three schools that did not submit a plan for tuition increases in 1998. All raises are currently frozen by the Board of Governors.
7. Alan Mabe, in charge of planning, says that one problem is that the university funding model is based on “perpetual growth,” so schools that don’t grow are always penalized. He expects we will review it in the next couple years.
8. The Assembly Budget committee is working on a resolution for next session to create an accessible web site with lots of budget information on it.
9. The Benefits committee is concerned that UNC schools have no consistent policy on serious illness and disability.
10. Betsy Brown of Academic Affairs praised WCU’s efforts to increase pay and benefits for our non-tenure-track faculty, noting that we were previously among the state’s “most egregious” offenders.

Advancement and Public Affairs

1. Milliken again emphasized the UNC Advocacy Notebook (online at http://www.northcarolina.edu/pa/advocacy_notebook/) which emphasizes “talking points” about the budget. The key is to enlist the support of education by business and industry leaders and, he implied, to vote for Democrats.

Diversity and Globalization

1. Bataille says that the Homeland Security Act has “disquieting implications for those of us committed to the free exchange of information.” We must work to protect the rights of international students.
2. Recent legal stuff threatens our “minority presence funds.” We can still recruit minority faculty by setting aside funds to hire those who can help with “strategic directions of the university.” If we don’t believe our university is “diverse enough,” we should find a back door to fund minority students.
3. More talk about opportunities with Monterey Tech.

Recruiting and Retention

1. Though enrollment is up, enrollment from NC high schools went down this year, which could endanger bond funds. Recent program reviews suggested that education schools, especially MA programs, were under-enrolled.
2. Bataille pointed out that NC should work on getting its own citizens to college. In two counties in the Rocky MT. region, 30% of adults didn’t go to college, which is worse than some third-world countries).
3. Despite a good articulation agreement between state universities and community colleges, we have no real articulation among state schools. Fixing that might increase retention and enrollment.

Planning

1. The Academic Freedom and Tenure committee emphasized that faculty should have a key role not only in reviewing faculty positions and programs but in determining “how much administration” is too much. VP Bataille said that since administrative numbers are constantly changing, no real effort had been made to track or study those numbers. Mabe added that we should begin a conversation about how many tenure track faculty we actually need.
2. UNC (state-wide) will be participating in a TIAA/ Cref Institute study of “senior (50 and older) faculty” about “late-career life issues.” Faculty should be encouraged to participate, because (i) it will help TIAA/Cref prepare improved “toolkits” for senior faculty and (ii) it will generate data we can use.

For more information and the full minutes, please go to the link for the faculty assembly.