What is Effective Faculty Representation?

I’ve had a number of faculty ask me what can/does the MSU union do?  I just wanted to spend a little bit of time highlighting one answer to that question from events that have occurred on campus over the past six months related to the mid-year raise just approved by the board and announced by President Smart in his Clif’s Notes.

As a faculty member, I have served on the President’s Executive Budget Committee for the past year.  You may, or may not, recall that last year employees also got a mid-year raise, which was supported by faculty representation on the Executive Budget Committee.  For the current year, a regular pay increase was originally proposed approximately a year ago.  That is, a 2 percent across the board pay increase was originally scheduled to be given in the summer of 2012.  The proposal made by the President was to reallocate money to allow for the pay increase even with an expected budget cut from the state of 7 to 8 percent of state funds.  However, early in 2012 Governor Nixon announced a 12.5 cut to higher education funding, and this scheduled pay increase was cancelled.  I believe it fair to say that everyone on the Executive Budget Committee understood that such steep budget cuts would not allow for employee raises during the summer of 2012.

However, under political pressure Governor Nixon lowered his recommended cut to higher education down to 7.78 percent.  Then, the state legislature passed a budget with no cuts to higher education.  In Missouri, the Governor has the power to withhold money from the budget if he/she does not think the legislative budget will be balanced.  Hence, the issue of withholdings by Governor Nixon remained an active issue at the end of the last academic year.  The President’s proposal at this time was to not give employees a raise and, in fact, employee raises were a very low priority at that time. 

I asked in the meeting why, if we were at worst contemplating an 8 percent cut in state funding to MSU and when that had previously been the case we had agreed to a 2 percent across the board pay increase, we were not now simply going back to that same pay increase?  That remains an open question.  At the time, the best that I could encourage the President to agree to was that we would readdress the issue of raises in the fall of 2012 when we knew the level of Governor’s Nixon’s actual withholding from our budget.  Let me note that the above details are for the most part present in the minutes of the Executive Budget Committee and in a number of past issues of Clif’s Notes.

When the Committee again met in September, a salary increase proposal was presented by the President and the CFO that constituted either a 2 percent or a 1.5 percent across the board increase.  Why, might you ask, would any faculty member on the Committee vote for the lower raise?  The President/CFO presented the medical plan as being in dire straits with low reserves and a number of large claims in the past 9 months.  Hence, the 0.5 percent reduction in the proposed salary increase would go into the health care plan on an annual basis.  The 2 percent raise was presented as being done in the “hope” that health care costs would go down.

No specific numbers were given regarding the medical plan just the assertion that the raise could not be given because of problems.  I was skeptical both because we had previously discussed the Health Care Plan in May 2012 (see those Executive Budget Committee minutes) and noted that the plan had performed well recently, the spikes in costs were likely random and the health care plan was currently out for bid, with the implication being that significant savings could be realized.

I also asked about the level of University reserves, which had been increasing substantially over the past 5 years while we were in the midst of an on-going financial crisis.  Here are those reserves over the past 5 years:

Missouri State University General Operating Fund Carry Forward Fiscal Year End
	$ Millions
2012	$ 61.4
2011	$ 59.8
2010	$ 53.2
2009	$ 47.7
2008	$ 46.1

Notice that MSU’s reserves have increased by a total of $15.3 Million over the past 4 years of our financial crisis or a 33 percent increase.  I, and other faculty on the Executive Budget Committee, have complained about budgeting in such a way that reserves go up during a financial crisis.  The committee had agreed in 2011, after an investigation by the CFO, that $40 to $45 Million in reserves was sufficient.

Hence, we had $15 Million in extra reserves that we could use to improve the salary increase and I proposed a third option for a salary increase, a 2 percent raise with any extra $ needed for the health care plan taken out of reserves, of which we had more than sufficient.  We had a vote, with my third option included and the majority of the faculty and staff on the committee voted for the 1.5 percent salary increase.  A minority, including several prominent administrators, voted for the other two options, both of which were variations on the 2 percent salary increase.

Here is the point of this blog post: Effective faculty representation requires both a willingness to challenge authority and an understanding of what are often complex issues, especially with respect to the budget as in this case.  President Smart noted just before having the vote that I had been rather aggressive in supporting a 2 percent raise.  To be an effective representative of faculty interests often requires a willingness to challenge authority, sometimes aggressively.

Why did other faculty on the Committee vote as they did?  I have talked to several but certainly not to everyone.  Nor, let me hurry to add, do I intend in this post to “blame” people for how they voted.  But there is a tendency by many people to defer to authority especially in the case where your vote is public, as it always is in these meetings.  That deference often comes down to, as one member told me later, believing what authority tells you – in this case the false premise that the University couldn’t afford a 2 percent raise.  At the time, the chance that this premise was true was essentially zero.  As is evidenced by the fact that the annual savings to the health care plan announced in the most recent Clif’s Notes were 5 times the approximately $500,000 needed for a .5 percent extra raise.  Those numbers, in fact, suggest that a 3 to 4 percent increase would have been a more reasonable raise given MSU’s actual budget situation.

As I noted in my previous blog post, President Smart neither understands nor particularly values the academic mission of MSU.  At best, he views academics as one of 2 dozen “priorities” and as he made clear at his open forum academics lies at the lower end of this priority scale.  Without effective faculty representation, this priority will never change.  Effective faculty representation is the best argument for a union that represents the faculty with the ability to negotiate salary increases and academic priorities.

Presidential Search

I attended Clif Smart’s open forum this week and wanted to make some comments about his presentation/candidacy.  I was not able to attend the open forum for the second candidate, Randy Dunn, due to illness.  There is a widespread perception on campus that Mr. Smart is the preferred candidate by the board.  This is partially because the current chair of the board, Gordon Elliot, announced publically when Mr. Smart was hired as the Interim President that Mr. Smart was the right person to be the permanent President.  But the perception also exists because of the limited pool of candidates in the current search as well as the fact that only 2 candidates are being presented to the University community.

I currently serve on the President’s Executive Budget Committee so have had personal interactions with Mr. Smart during his tenure as Interim President.  I also, as I noted in my questions to Mr. Smart during the open forum, met with him and Dr. Cofer as a member of an ad hoc Faculty Senate Committee investigating the possibility of unionization on campus.  At that meeting, Mr. Smart was serving as University Counsel.  So I have a few observations to make regarding his candidacy for President and his tenure as both University Counsel and Interim President.

The Open Forum

I won’t comment on the entire open forum other than to note that it is available on MSU’s YouTube web site:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l8nkxl5Lcc

The entire video is a bit over an hour long and worth watching.  The forum consists of an introduction of Mr. Smart, an opening statement by Mr. Smart, and then a question and answer session.  I’ll talk about three questions that were asked and Mr. Smart’s answers:

1.     At about 35 minutes a student asked, essentially, How would you help the university to grow into the MSU name and move from being a regional university to a statewide university?  I’ll note that given the long and involved answer Mr. Smart gave, it appeared that this might be a planted question.  Mr. Smart had obviously thought a lot about the answer at the very least.  His answer included the following points:

·       Grow Signature Programs – he had talked about this previously and reiterated it.

·        Grow Enrollment

·        Partnerships with Entrepreneurs for Development purposes.

·        Growth in the Arts.

·        Partner with K-12 across the state to enhance teacher education.

·        Grow Internationally.  Mentioned several initiatives take to visit countries besides China including countries in Eastern Europe, Vietnam, and South America.

·        Attract students within the Midwest, the larger U.S., and internationally.

·        Increase “the game” in Athletics

·        Increase the diversity of students/faculty/staff

·        Marketing to potential students with the goal to improve MSU name recognition

·        Signature Events.

2.     At about 47 minutes, Kent Ragan, Head of Finance, asked Mr. Smart about whether he would have a clause in his contract, were he hired as President, allowing him to have faculty status/tenure and “return to the faculty” if he were to stop being President as past Presidents have done.  Mr. Smart’s answer is long but the upshot was “no” I am not qualified to be a faculty member, I have no business teaching students.

3.     Beginning at about 49 minutes I asked two questions of Mr. Smart:

·        I noted that Mr. Smart was present as University Counsel in a meeting with Dr. Cofer by the Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee Investigating Unionization several years ago, so we had already had a discussion about collective bargaining.  I wondered what his current views as a Presidential candidate were on unionization and collective bargaining.

Mr. Smart basically said two things in response to this question.  First, he noted that the university currently negotiated with 2 staff unions and typified those negotiations as being fair, pleasant, and in good faith by both parties.  He said that if the faculty decided to unionize that the university would do the same with a faculty union.

Second, he also said that his opinion was that we did not “need” a faculty union.  That he felt that faculty and all employees, through university rules and guidelines (Faculty Handbook, etc.) had sufficient protections and that changes he had instituted by opening up decision making processes (e.g., budget committees with faculty representatives) meant that faculty were already real partners in decision making on campus.

·        I also noted that in his answer to “how do we grow into the MSU name”, he had thought about the answer, gave a long and detailed answer, which unfortunately totally ignored the role of academics in growing the stature of MSU.  I noted that the two universities in Missouri with the most stature in the state – MU Columbia and Washington University – were preeminent because of their academic reputation.  What role do academics – research – play in your vision of MSU and why did you forget to mention it in your original answer?

Mr. Smart said that research was an important part of a university like ours.  However, it is not realistic to think we will become like MU or Wash U in that sense.  We don’t have Ph.D. programs and can’t have them currently.  However, research is important.  He began talking about workloads that may be differentiated by faculty preferences, as has been discussed by all previous administrations in my tenure at MSU.  Continuing to do research and have grant opportunities is a piece of this out of probably 2 dozen pieces.  I apologize for leaving that one out.

4.     My responses.

·        There are some positive qualities that would be brought to the table by Mr. Smart were he hired as President.  He mentioned most, if not all, of these at various points in the open forum.  He does have good contacts with local business leaders, donors, and the local community, which would be a net positive.  He also has good contacts with politicians both local and statewide, another net positive.  All of these positive traits are in sharp contrast to both of the past 2 presidents, especially the immediate past president.

·        As I noted above, I, like many other faculty, have observed Mr. Smart in his service as Interim President.  My observations have been a bit closer than some because of my service with him on the Executive Budget Committee.  I have been an active member of that committee and I think it fair to say both that he has not always agreed with suggestions that I have made (in fact, I would venture that he has on occasion been annoyed with them to the point of commenting to that effect) but that he has tended to listen respectfully.  Actual listening must include the willingness to change decisions and that has occurred to the benefit of both faculty and staff on occasion.  That method of doing business stands in stark contrast both to how past Presidents have behaved but also to the way Mr. Smart behaved in the past as University Counsel.  Because of this past behavior there is rightfully some fear on campus of the Mr. Smart’s masque falling after the application stage and once he has the permanent position. 

·        Mr. Smart’s response to my question about collective bargaining is perhaps about what one would expect from a potential President.  We’ll bargain in good faith if you decide to have union but you don’t really need collective bargaining because I’m such a good guy.

My response to his answer is to say the following:  Faculty should not have to rely on the President being a good guy to have fair treatment and open and transparent university decision making and processes.  In point of fact, as is discussed in other posts on this blog, the original push to unionize the faculty was because other Presidents were not reasonable guys and because Mr. Smart as University Counsel advocated, counseled, and I think it fair to say, bullied faculty into changes to the Faculty Handbook that were resented by faculty and  formally objected to by the Faculty Senate via resolutions, a vote of no confidence, and ultimately a vote to formally accept the resolution recommending unionization of the faculty.  The main advantage of Collective Bargaining, again as discussed elsewhere in this blog, is that fair treatment of faculty and open and transparent processes is required/negotiated rather than occasionally bestowed by benevolent and magnanimous Presidents.

That is, given the recent history at MSU, Mr. Smart’s answer is both insufficient and misleading.  I do think that his answer that under him the university would bargain in good faith is an improvement to the answer of the immediate past President to the Faculty Senate Committee that met with him and Mr. Smart.  The answer from Dr. Cofer and Mr. Smart at that point was both pugnacious and insulting and included implicit threats to not bargain in good faith with any union.

·        Mr. Smart’s response to the question about his vision to the university and my question regarding why his vision did not include academics may be even more troubling, however.  Over the past four or five years the Faculty Senate has produced a number of reports detailing the decline in importance of academics at MSU.  These reports include the staffing report linked on this blog presented to the Senate in May 2011 but also include a number of other reports as well.

These reports detail that far from enhancing academics and taking steps toward academic excellence and enhancement, the university is already moving to debase its academic mission and instead enhance other priorities that often have little to do with either the business of MSU or fulfilling its statewide mission of producing educated persons or public affairs. 

More importantly, there is a growing body of evidence (academic research) that U.S. universities in general are failing in their primary mission to educate students.  Including, the well-regarded series of studies contained in Academically Adrift, these studies illustrate that cognitive learning by students at U.S. universities is decreasing and in some cases non-existent.  More importantly, the evidence from these studies that it is exactly the emphasis by university administrations nationwide on Mr. Smart’s articulated vision of how to grow MSU that are directly responsible for the failure of higher education in the U.S. to teach our students.  It would not seem difficult to grasp that shrinking academic budgets to pay for peripheral and sometimes trivial aspects of University life will have negative consequences on learning.  Let me note that in answering a follow-up question from another faculty about class sizes and academic quality, Mr. Smart made clear that academic quality had little importance to him.

It is troubling that in an obviously well thought out and, perhaps, planned answer to the question about his vision of what it means to be MSU, that Mr. Smart did not even think it important to mention academics, the key component to both a successful and well regarded MSU and enhanced learning by MSU students, while mentioning a whole list of other less important aspects of the university.  That suggests that the trend of a decreased emphasis on academics at MSU, declining academic budgets included, is likely to continue and even to accelerate under a Smart Administration.  This likely outcome is not acceptable to me either as a faculty member or as the President of the MSU Faculty Association.

Recommendations

I have not written my evaluation of Randy Dunn, primarily because I think it unlikely that he will be hired as President.  I agree with the wide consensus on campus, that Clif Smart will be hired as President as originally predicted by Chair of the Board, Gordon Elliot over a year ago when Mr. Smart was originally hired as Interim President.  I would not recommend that Mr. Dunn should be hired instead of Mr. Smart.  Rather, I would recommend that the university follow the normal course when the pool of potential candidates is so small that the campus community is presented with an inadequate pool of candidates. 

That is, the Board should announce a failed search and take steps to assure in the next search that an acceptable pool of applicants is assembled.  That would require at the least that the Board assure the taxpayers of Missouri and potential candidates that they intend to do an actual search where all qualified candidates will be carefully considered, that they will bring on campus an acceptable number of those qualified candidates and that the Board not pre-announce the winner of their Presidential sweepstakes.  I think under the current circumstances it will be difficult for a President Smart to be successful and, though painful, a credible search is the only reasonable solution.

Welcome Back

I want to welcome everyone back to school for the Fall 2012 Semester.  We have a number of things that happened during the summer on campus and we have an exciting academic year ahead.  Below I address a few of these issues.

The MSU Bookstore

During the summer a controversy arose with the MSU bookstore.  The Links to the right include a link to the most recent NewsLeader article on the topic.  As most of you will already know, during a routine internal audit of the bookstore irregularities with cash flow in the bookstore were discovered.  As far as I can tell, this was discovered at least partially by happenstance.  The auditors wanted to find a missing check for, as I recall, $16,000.  The Bookstore manager was on vacation but told them it was in his desk.  Rather than waiting for him to return, they opened the locked desk and found $81,000 in cash.  To date, more than $500,000 has been found missing from several cash accounts in the bookstore and the manager, Mark Brixey, resigned/was fired.  The university has referred the matter to police for investigation and have termed it “embezzlement”.

This is, of course, a major public relations blow to the university especially given an internal audit in 2007 that had previously found approximately $6,000 cash missing from the bookstore.  In addition, the 2010 audit from the State of Missouri auditor (see link to the right) found that cash controls were inadequate specifically as it related to the Child Development Center and ticket sales.  In the public discussion of this audit at the time, Auditor Susan Montee noted that they found no evidence of embezzlement but that given the loose cash controls embezzlement could easily occur.  I find It a bit alarming that it took another 2 years to find the loss of so much cash in the bookstore and that cash controls had not been tightened by the university.

MSU Budget Situation

Let me note that both the MSU budget outlook and state appropriations for FY 2013 have improved over the past 9 months.  The initial recommendation by Governor Nixon for FY 2013 funding for higher education in January was to reduce state funding by 12.5%.  By February this had been reduced to a 7.78% decrease.  In May, the State General Assembly FY 2013 passed a budget that held state appropriations flat with no decrease, later amended in June by the Governor to include a 1 % decrease in state funding for MSU. 

Initially the MSU FY 2013 budget was built upon an assumption of a 7.78 % cut in state funding. As noted in the June 27 issue of Interim President Smart’s Clif’s Notes, MSU Board of Governors in their June meeting agreed to 3 priorities for the “additional” dollars in state funding: (1) increasing salaries for employees, (2) making strategic investments in programs, and (3) restoring sources of one-time funds originally used to help cushion the planned 7.78% cut in state funding.

As a member of the President’s Executive Budget Committee, I have seen firsthand how the budget process was dealt with over the past year.  While it was not particularly fun to contemplate additional loss of state funding, the university administration did listen to faculty voices on budget issues especially as it related to priorities both for the initial cuts and then for priorities for the additional money once funding levels were cut by lower amounts.

Listening Campaign

As many faculty members know, the MSU Faculty Association has been engaged in a campaign to listen to faculty members on campus over the past year.  We plan to announce the results of this campaign in a public meeting for faculty members to be held in October (time and place to be announced).  The listening has been done one on one by MSU FA members to non-members and, hence, is labor intensive.  Let me just say both from my personal experience and reports from other members that this has been an extremely useful and positive experience.  We are not ambitious enough to think that we can talk to all, or even most, faculty members on campus.  However, we intend to get a significant percentage of the total number of faculty members.

An incomplete tally of results illustrate that the top 4 issues among faculty surveyed to date include: (1) increasing salaries, (2) improving faculty governance, (3) improving the university administration and (4) increasing faculty influence in priorities for university funding.  Given that it has been so long since merit pay has been funded and that even across the board raises have been so slight, it is not terribly surprising that salaries remain the number one issue for faculty.  The fact that improving the university administration is in the top 3 even a year after the exit of the previous provost and president is significant as well.  Of course, these are only preliminary results.  Stay tuned for more results in October.

Background Information – Unionization at Missouri State University

In April 2010, the MSU Faculty Senate passed a resolution (SR 15-09/10) directing the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to create an ad hoc committee to investigate the drawbacks and benefits of unionization.  The Ad Hoc Committee to Explore Unionization was formed in the Spring of 2010 and made its report at the October 2010 Faculty Senate meeting.  Interested readers can read the full 19 page report in the links section of this blog.  However, I just wanted to identify some crucial issues that led the committee to state in that report: 

For their part, the committee members agree unanimously that the benefits of unionization outweigh the drawbacks.

The committee report lists 14 benefits and 11 drawbacks.  The major benefit, as identified in the executive summary of the report, is primarily the right of unionized faculty to engage in “collective bargaining”.  Collective bargaining is discussed in detail in the report and in even more detail in the links to the right.  However, the main benefit of collective bargaining is the right by faculty to negotiate and vote on an enforceable employment contract.

The Ad Hoc committee report identifies a number of critical incidents that led to the senate resolution charging the committee to investigate unionizing the faculty at MSU.  These critical incidents are all related to 5 issues that are and have been especially problematic on campus:

1.    The state of shared governance at MSU.

The reports cites serious concerns about the state of shared governance that are both historical and on-going and include adversarial attitudes toward faculty role in shared governance by current and past administrations/boards.  These problems have continued with the recent change in administration, especially the unbalanced power relationship between administration and faculty. 

For example, the Provost’s office this past semester indicated in personal communication with union leaders that any university policy document such as the Department Head’s Handbook that have not been subject to shared governance supersede the Faculty Handbook.

2.    Due process with respect to published university policies.

The “Critical Incidents” section of the report identifies a number of incidents where due process of policies passed by shared governance were not followed.  These incidents related to “revisions of the Faculty Handbook, grievance, and reassignment.”

The problem of the administration not following approved policies is ongoing.  Even more problematic is the attempt, as noted above, by the Provost’s office to supersede the Faculty Handbook with non-approved “policies”.

3.    Faculty control of curricular matters.

Faculty control of curricular matters “is officially granted to faculty by Board of Governors policy and is institutionalized in the Faculty Handbook.”  The “Critical Incidents” identify a number of instances where this policy was violated, including actions by the Board of Governors itself. 

Problems have continued after the report was issued, with a confrontation at the April 2011 Faculty Senate meeting between President Cofer/Provost McCarthy and faculty over the administration's illegitimate attempts to circumvent the normal curricular process and outsource online classes.

4.    Protection and expansion of resources used for academic programs.

The committee report identifies a number of “Critical Incidents” that help illustrate the continuing erosion of resources dedicated to academics.  “In addition to wages used to recruit and retain faculty, a host of other salary issues exist which are of concern, including salary compression and inversion, equity, merit pay, workload, summer pay, and overload pay.”

The Faculty Senate Budget and Priorities Committee issued a report on staffing in May of 2011 that further illustrated this problem (see the links to the right for the full report).  That report showed, for example, that:

·         The number of ranked faculty had remained constant from 1993 to 2010 while over the same time period, the number of administrators had increased 31%, and the number of unranked faculty and professional staff had both almost tripled.

·         More importantly, the share of the total budget dollars for salaries for faculty had dropped from 50.6% of the budget in 1993 to 36.6% in 2010.

·         These negative changes in staffing adversely affect the ability of the university to fulfill its mission to educate students and have been an ongoing problem as the state’s level of support has eroded further.

5.    Higher education issues and trends in the state of Missouri.

The Ad Hoc Committee on Unionization noted that declining state funding for higher education, which has further decreased since the report was released, had serious consequences for the university.  A number of issues affected by these budgetary pressures were identified including:

1)    “Even before the severe budgetary crisis hit MSU, administrators attempted to change the employment policies that were put in place to protect faculty under these precise circumstances.”

2)    “Program management is occurring at the level of the Coordinating Board of Higher Education rather than locally at the state’s universities.”

3)    “The academic side of the university, most relevant to the university mission, is not being given appropriate priority.”

4)    “The state has historically underfunded MSU on a per student basis when compared to other state institutions.”

How can Unionization Help these Issues?

A negotiated, enforceable contract via collective bargaining will improve faculty shared governance and directly and positively affect Issues 1 through 4.  Unionization can primarily affect Issue 5 via access to state level resources that improve the ability of faculty voices to be heard in Jefferson City.  For example, the Missouri NEA has a full-time lobbyist, who is one of the most effective lobbyists in Jefferson City.  The Missouri NEA helped the MSU Faculty Association in the past year to identify competent and faculty friendly individuals to serve as members of the Board of Governors and helped us lobby the Governor about these Board replacements. 

Challenges Going Forward

Some of the major “cons” identified by the Ad Hoc committee related to the long and difficult process of organization.  An organization process that would require commitment by faculty, both as leaders and union members, to educate faculty, gain support and organize so that an election over collective bargaining would ultimately be successful.

The MSU Faculty Association has begun this process, but we can all testify that these concerns were well-founded.  Nonetheless, we have made several significant steps along the process of gaining the right to collective bargaining at MSU.  For example, as noted by my original email announcing this blog, a chapter of the NEA has been formed at MSU.  This past year as part of our organizing efforts we have instituted a one on one listening campaign that seeks to identify issues that are important to individual faculty on campus.  I will post more on the listening campaign in the near future.

Although the obstacles do exist, the prospects for success are actually quite high.  Not only are there a number of issues – many that are related or similar to those originally identified by the Ad Hoc Committee on Unionization – of concern to faculty but unionization resulting in collective bargaining and an enforceable contract will address most of those issues.

Annual Members Meeting

The MSU Faculty Association is having its annual members meeting on May 19 at 1525B West Sunshine at 2pm.  All full time faculty of MSU are welcome to the meeting.