Minutes of the University Senate January 12, 2000

Present: B. Altmann, C. E. Campbell, S. Clark, S. Cohen, J. Dawson, J. Earl, P. Gilkey, J. Grzybowski, E. Housworth, L. Blake Jones, S. Kohl, C. Lachman, D. Levi, E. Luks, R. McGowen, G. McLauchlan, D. Merskin, P. Mills, R. Moore, G. Moreno, M. Paris, C. Phillips, L. Robare, D. Sanchez, A. Schneider, J. Schombert, P. Southwell, F. Tepfer, J. Terborg, N. Tublitz, M. Weiner, T. Wheeler

Excused: D. Conley, M. Epstein, C. Gary, B. Jenkins, N. Savage

Absent: L. Alpert, Brokaw, L. Dann, R. Davis, K. Helphand, M. Hibbard, R. Kellett, S. Kolwitz, M. Nippold, E. Pfeiffer

CALL TO ORDER

Senate Present Peter Gilkey called the regular meeting of the University Senate to order at 3:05 p.m.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

The secretary reported that a senator had requested a minor change in wording in the November 10, 1999 minutes.President Gilkey asked that the wording change be accepted and asked for a vote to approve the November minutes as amended, which resulted in unanimous approval.Asking if there were any corrections or additions to the December 1, 1999 minutes and hearing none, they were approved as distributed.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE FLOOR

President Gilkey began his announcements on a somber note by advising the senate that Senator Jane Gray, biology, had passed away January 9^th after a short bout with cancer. Since her arrival at the university in 1963 she taught undergraduate and graduate students in biology, geology, geography, and anthropology. The members of the senate joined President Gilkey by standing for a moment of silence in remembrance of their colleague Professor Gray.

On another matter, President Gilkey again reminded everyone that most documents related to senate business, such as the Senate Budget Committeeís White Paper discussed later in the meeting, are available on the senate web page http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/senate.html. He also noted that a Town Hall meeting on faculty compensation and budgetary matters, sponsored jointly by the University Senate, Faculty Advisory Council, and the UO chapter of the AAUP, would be held January 26^th at 3:00 p.m. in 177 Lawrence. President Gilkey encouraged senators to attend along with faculty members from their constituencies as this meeting would provide an opportunity to ask questions and expression opinions about the Senate Budget Committeeís White Paper distributed earlier this week to the faculty.

President Gilkey drew the senatorís attention to the packets of materials distributed, noting that it included an update on the PEBB situation.IFS representative Paul Simonds, anthropology, reporting from the December 15^th PEBB board meeting said that there was little willingness by the board to consider the concerns expressed by higher education.OUS gave notice to separate from PEBB (which had to be done before January 1, 2000 to keep the option for leaving PEBB open), but a decision to leave or stay with PEBB does not have to be made until March Progress also has been made concerning recommendations to modify the policy on staff fee privileges to permit a transfer of this benefit to a family member. Recommendations made by an OUS task force will be considered at the February 18^th Board meeting.

STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY

Senate Budget Committee Report. Senate Budget Committee member Wayne Westling, law, gave an overview of the White Paper on instructional faculty compensation which had been distributed to instructional faculty earlier in the week Explaining that it was the first phase of their attempt to developed a concerted long-range (5 to 7 years) plan aimed at significantly augmenting faculty compensation (salary and benefits), Mr. Westling stated that the goal is to achieve sustained competitive parity by bringing the average instructional faculty compensation to 95% of parity relative to our comparator institutions.Simply put, this would require a minimum of 2.5% increase over and above cost-of-living each year until parity is reached. The White Paper describes what is meant by compensation, compression, equity, and who the eight comparator institutions are. Mr. Westling further outlined how the new funding model provides both opportunities and hazards for funding the compensation goal and he noted several options for funding trade-offs necessary to achieve the compensation goal. In addition to the upcoming Town Hall discussion on the faculty compensation issue, the faculty will receive a survey in early February asking for their opinions on, among other things, which options to pursue in the coming months and years.

With the floor opened for discussion, questions were asked concerning the 95% of parity goal (rather than 100%). Senate Budget Committee member Michael Kellman, chemistry, explained that the cost of living in Eugene is approximately 95% of the cities where our comparator institution are located, and the 95% goal, in the committeeís opinion, was achievable Other questions focussed on the importance of student enrollments in providing extra funding in the new model. It was pointed out that increasing the number of undergraduate resident students by 100 would generate approximately $800,000 of revenue; 100 graduate students would result in $1.6 million. Student retention is also very important in the funding plans.Further, a small increase in tuition, which has been frozen for several years, also would have an impact on meeting the compensation goal. Provost Moseley noted that the drive to increase enrollments is not done at the risk of lowering standards; on the contrary, SATís of the freshmen are up, in part due to the Deanís Scholarships Program.

In keeping to the agendaís stated discussion period, President Gilkey suspended discussion of the Senate Budget Committeeís report suggesting that senators return to the topic if time permits near the end of the meeting.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

New Committee on Committee appointment. President Gilkey noted that Ms. Jane Gordon, law, had agreed to fill a vacancy on the senateís Committee on Committees. He asked for a show of approval by hand vote and the appointment was confirmed.

NEW BUSINESS

Executive Session. The senate moved to Executive Session from 4:05 to 4:15 p.m. for consideration of awarding an honorary degree.

Motion US99/00-4 withdrawn. Senator Jereme Grzybowski, ASUO, indicated that since last month when he gave notice of his intent to move that add/drop deadlines be increased for internships he had met with Registrar Herb Chereck and had resolved the issue. Consequently, the motion was withdrawn.

Resolution US99/00-7 distribution of salary increases. Senator Greg McLauchlan, sociology, introduced the following resolution:

Resolved, That the University Senate asks that the administration adopt written guidelines for the allocation of faculty salary raises according to the following principle: That funds available for salary increases will be first distributed such that all faculty who are satisfactorily performing their duties will receive a raise commensurate with the increase in the Oregon cost of living index since the last round of salary raises. Furthermore, only salary funds in excess of the amount needed to satisfy the above condition (i.e., full COLA raise) may be distributed in the form of "merit" or "retention" salary increases.

Senator McLauchlan prefaced his comments concerning the resolution saying that he and his co-sponsors, Senator Suzanne Clark, English, and Mr. Randall McGowen, history, brought forward this resolution in the context of other ongoing salary discussions (such as the upcoming Town Hall meeting and planned faculty survey) as a topic for serious consideration throughout these discussions.Accordingly, his intention was not to bring the resolution to a vote at this meeting, but to put the resolution on the floor as a part of these deliberations.

Senator McLauchlan provided a handout that charted a comparison of consumer price index (CPI) increases with cost-of-living (COLA) increases, merit increases, and retention funds used to augment UO faculty salaries over the past nine years. The total cumulative percentage of COLA increase over the nine years was 12% compared with a CPI of 34%. Because not everyone receives merit increases or retention raises, the effect is that salaries of faculty who are performing satisfactorily over the past nice years are completely outpaced by increase in the actual cost of living. Senator McLauchlan suggested that when monies are used for merit increases or retention funds before meeting COLA increases for all faculty members, the result is to deprive some faculty and effectively increase salary compression.

In discussing the resolution, Senator Pricilla Southwell, political science, pointed out that some departments have developed systems of merit distribution agreed to by their faculty members that are already in place. This resolution would negate such systems. Provost Moseley noted in referring to the chart, that although the COLA percentage (12%) has not kept pace with the CPI (34%) over the nine years, the total distributions (39%) to faculty has. A suggestion was made that Senator McLauchlan do a further analysis to compare the highest 20% with the lowest 20% of faculty within each rank during 1989 and in 1999.

With discussion winding down and the hour growing late, Senator Chris Phillips, mathematics, moved to postpone the discussion on this resolution until the February 9^th senate meeting. The motion to postpone was passed by hand vote.

Notice of Motion US99/00-8 extension of tenure probationary period due to pregnancy or childbirth. President Gilkey indicated he had received notion of motion for the February senate meeting to amend the current policy (3.130) and extend the tenure probationary period to include faculty members with parental responsibilities for a new baby or child. (A comparison of the current policy and proposed policy changes can be found on the senate web page.)

Return to White Paper discussion. Having concluded the regular business of the meeting, President Gilkey invited the senators to resume their earlier discussion of the budget committeeís White Paper. Senator Phillips asked a question concerning the proposed phasing out of the $2.2 million of state funds that is expended for athletics. Vice President for Administration Dan Williams explained that after the Autzen expansion is finished in 4-5 years, the revenues gained from that facility would likely enable the subsidy for athletics to be completely phased out. Senate vice president Jim Earl remarked that the savings from the Autzen expansion is too far in the future to have any real impact on the budget committeeís plan to address compensation issues now.

Senator Gryzbowski asked if more GTFs would be recruited with the effort to increase student enrollments. Mr. Kellman responded that the budget committee is not suggesting any change in teaching ratios involving GTFs. Provost Moseley noted that GTFs teach approximately 20% of classes, including labs, which is a lower percentage than most of our peer institutions.

ADJOURNMENT

With discussion winding down, the meeting was adjourned at 5:05p.m.

Gwen Steigelman, Secretary