MSU Faculty Association Social Event for all MSU Faculty

To all MSU Faculty:

You are cordially invited to attend a social event hosted by the MSU Faculty Association on May 11, 2013.  This event, which will begin with a brief general membership meeting, will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, 4155 South Nature Center Way, Springfield, MO; phone: (417) 875-8853.  Cocktails will be served, one free beverage—alcohol or soft drink—will be provided along with a variety of hors d’oeuvres. Additionally, there will be a cash bar.  MSU faculty who are not members of the MSU Faculty Association are invited to attend.  So, please come and enjoy your colleagues in this special off-campus event.  Please RSVP to Reed Olsen (rno174f@gmail.com).

Sincerely,

Executive Committee of the MSU Faculty Association

Reed Olsen, President
John Satzinger, Vice President
Mary Ann Jennings, Treasurer
David Lutz, Secretary
Cameron Wickham, Member at Large

Benefits of Unionization

The original Faculty Senate Report on Unionization concludes unanimously that the benefits of unionizations outweighed the costs (see the link to the right).  The report identifies the following benefits:

1.     Faculty under no obligation to join the union or pay dues; however, all those in the collective bargaining unit—even those who don’t join the union—may vote on bargained contracts (Note: the decision on which faculty members can vote on bargained contracts is actually reserved for union members. For example the unions in Springfield have in their bylaws that you must be a member to vote.)

 

2.     Collective bargaining for salaries, intellectual property rights, workload

3.     Faculty decide the composition of the bargaining unit and issues to be negotiated 

4.     Collective bargaining for employment policies, shared governance, promotion & compensation policies

5.     Collective bargaining agreements legally binding for both parties, making that contract enforceable

6.     Experienced negotiators whose job it is to negotiate (complementing the MSU faculty who rotate into leadership positions)

7.     National databases accessible (sic) for issues as they emerge affecting MSU faculty; helps faculty track university conditions over time and match changes at MSU with national trends  

8.     Knowledge of university system for information gathering (what information is necessary, what form, where it is, persistence in accessing it) • Legal counsel for professional issues

9.     Reduced rate for personal counsel 

10.  Two million dollar liability insurance for faculty (note: now four million dollars).

11.  Voice in public policy—linking MSU faculty to the efforts of professional lobbyists on behalf of faculty 

12.  Salary differential between union/non-union universities (see Appendix III)

13.  Consulting source for local issues—access to national trends

14.  In periods of institutional transition or times of crisis, union provides a stronger faculty voice

The purpose of this post is to inform you of your benefits under a collective bargaining agreement, focusing primarily on three issues, based on new evidence and new academic studies.

Students and Universities Benefit from Faculty Unionizing

Number 11 on the list above is a notation that the university is likely to benefit from lobbying efforts provided by MSU FA affiliation with our national union--NEA in Washington, D.C. and state affiliation with MNEA in Jefferson City.  In addition, a new study detailed recently published by the Chronicle of Higher Education shows that:

An unusual new study of the effects of faculty unionization on public universities—rather than on just faculty members themselves—reaches the controversial conclusion that such institutions generally become more efficient and effective when their professors form collective-bargaining units (emphasis added).

How exactly does unionization benefit the university and, by extension, its students?  “Unionization contributes to lower budgets, higher graduation rates, and a greater number of degrees and completions," asserts the author in the Chronicle article.

These positive results primarily come about because unionized Universities spend 2 to 3 percent more of their budget on instruction and less on administration.  As a result, student success rate, “as measured by the share of students who graduate within six years, earn degrees, or complete some other academic program” improves at unionized Universities.

Of course, improving funding for the core mission of MSU, as noted in an earlier post to this blog, is one of the major goals of the MSU Faculty Association as is improving student learning and success.

Faculty also Benefit from Unionizing

You will notice that a number of the “Pros” listed above speak directly to how faculty benefit from unionizing.  A recent academic paper, also highlighted in a Chronicle of Higher Education article, further provides evidence on exactly how faculty benefit.

When faculty members discuss unionizing, the debate tends to revolve around the question of whether so banding together gives them more say over their college's affairs or actually leaves them worse off, by hurting their ability to work cooperatively with their institution's administration. A new study of public four-year colleges concludes that unionizing appears to give faculty members considerably more clout in some key areas and does not seem to do them much harm (emphasis added).

That is, unionizing either improves the faculty position on campus or has no negative impact.  In what areas, exactly, are improvements found?  Faculty influence improves the following:

·        Faculty Salary Scales

·        Individual Faculty Salaries

·        Appointments of Academic Department Heads

·        Appointments of members of University committees

·        The Institution’s Curriculum

·        Faculty Teaching Loads

Interestingly, the Chronicle article also discusses concerns voiced by many skeptics of unionizing in higher education including that faculty unions have limited power due to their inability to strike; unions create both an adversarial relationship with the administration and a faculty less willing to be involved in shared governance.  Many of these concerns were also listed as “cons” in the MSU Faculty Senate report referenced above. The authors’ of the study “did not find anything in their study results to affirm such fears and criticisms.”

Updated Data on Faculty Salaries between Unionized and Non-Unionized Universities

The Faculty Senate Report on Unionization included data on salary differentials between faculty by discipline at unionized and non-unionized universities.  That data was from academic year 2008-2009.  Included in this link is an update from the same source for academic year 2011-2012 (the full report is in a link to the right).  Note that these are differences in means by discipline and as the table below illustrates, some disciplines have higher means on unionized as compared to non-unionized universities while for a few disciplines just the opposite is true.  Overall, however, unionized faculty have average salaries that are $2,668 (3.65%) higher than non-unionized faculty. 

Interested readers should note that there is a large and diverse set of published literature that addresses the impact that unionization has on average faculty salaries at an institution.  In addition to discipline, other variables found to have an impact on results include cost of living, rank, and state specific effects.  Although that literature often finds positive impacts of unionization on faculty salaries controlling for these other factors, such is not always the case.  For a discussion see the linked Chronicle of Higher Education report.

Report on Informational Meeting Held 2/28/2013

The main purpose of today’s blog post is to report on our informational meeting held for faculty on 2/28.

Let me start by saying that the weather, both the fact that the meeting had to be postponed and the fact that the weather the day of the meeting was a bit poor, tended to reduce attendance at the meeting.  That is unfortunate but not in our control.  The attendance at the meeting was about 25 people, including NEA staff and faculty members who were presenting at the meeting.  That made for a small group but we had quite a good presentation and a spirited question and answer period at the end of the presentation.  The powerpoint slides are linked for interested faculty to examine in the links at the right.

In addition to the Q&A, the presentation included four main areas:

·        Background of the MSU Faculty Association

o   The discussion here focused on the history over the past several years leading up to the MSU Faculty Association, including the report to the Faculty Senate in Fall of 2010 referenced in the links to the right.

o   The bottom line of the report was a unanimous recommendation from the Ad Hoc Committee investigating unionizing that the advantages of unionizing outweighed the disadvantages.

·        Statistics from the Listening Campaign: What did Faculty actually say?

o   One-on-one visits with individual faculty by union members (faculty) asking both: (1) what are your concerns in your job and (2) What is your opinion of MSU faculty joining together to negotiate a binding collective bargaining contract with MSU?

o   Approximately 20% of all full-time faculty at MSU have been visited to date.

o   Top Concerns included: (1) Faculty shared governance (70% of interviewed with that concern), (2) Increase salaries (66%), Better University Administration (56%).  The full list is available in the presentation.

o   With respect to the question about MSU faculty joining together the results showed 76% of respondents with a positive opinion, 6% with a negative opinion, and 22% who did not know enough.  Note: Some faculty answered both positive/negative and “don’t know enough”, so the totals do not add to 100%.

·        What are the Benefits of Unionization and Collective Bargaining?

o   The main benefit is an enforceable contract that cannot be unilaterally changed by the either party.  Note: the Faculty Handbook is not an enforceable contract but could become so via collective bargaining.  See the Faculty Senate Report on Unionization for more discussion.

o   Other benefits include: Due process, fairness, mutual accountability, contracts tailored to our campus.

o   Collective Bargaining in Missouri legally requires good faith bargaining by both parties.

o   Common Elements of Faculty Collective Bargaining Agreements

·        Employee rights, salary and benefits, tenure and promotion, workload, academic freedom, grievance procedures, intellectual property, sabbaticals, merit pay.

·        Next Steps – What is the MSU FA going to do going forward?

o   Continue Listening campaign

o   Build membership and support

o   How can you get involved?

·        Participate in the listening campaign – contact an MSU Faculty Association member/officer to have a visit from a member. 

·        You can also help by talking to your colleagues.  We are interested in having small meetings with faculty from different departments/colleges as well.

·        Join MSU Faculty Association (there is a Spring special.  Join now and pay no dues until September.)

·        Serve on MSU FA committees.

·       Become an MSU FA leader.

Information from the Question and Answer Session

The following includes a selection of some of the questions and answers from the Q&A session but does not include all of the discussion.

Q:        How were the 20% of the faculty selected for the listening campaign?

A:         During and immediately after the report to the Faculty Senate in the Fall of 2010, members of the Ad Hoc Unionizing FS Committee received emails from interested faculty members.  These faculty formed the basis of the original contact list.  Thereafter, the list was expanded, mostly randomly, to include all colleges/departments.  The goal is to eventually talk to as many faculty as possible.

Q:        What steps are necessary for the union to gain recognition from the university? How many members are needed?

A:         No specific number of members in the MSU Faculty Association is required although membership is necessary for a successful organizing campaign.  One of the purposes of the listening campaign is to determine interest and support for the faculty.  As you can see, to date we have very positive results.  If a third to half of all faculty indicate support then we can move to a card campaign. 

Q:        What is a card campaign?

A:         A card campaign is where faculty are asked to sign a card.  A signature would indicate that the faculty member wishes for the MSU Faculty Association to be their exclusive representatives for collective bargaining.  Faculty signatures from the card campaign must be certified by a neutral third party (e.g., League of Women Voters) but are anonymous to the MSU administration.

Q:        What happens after a successful card campaign?

A:         For private employee unions in Missouri, a state agency would oversee an election of all faculty for the union to represent employees.  For public employee unions in Missouri no specific procedure is in place to secure the union the right to exclusively represent faculty at MSU.  Recent court cases suggest that the card campaign itself might be enough to secure the right to exclusive representation although an election may also be necessary.

Q:        Even if faculty vote for Collective Bargaining, why would an employer (MSU in particular) be obligated to bargain with the union?

A:         A 2007 Missouri Supreme Court ruling gave public employees the right to collective bargaining based upon the state constitution.  A series of Missouri Supreme Court cases since 2007 have found both that public employers must have a process in place to recognize unions and must also bargain in good faith.  FYI, if employers refuse to have a process (an election) in place to recognize a union, then the MO Supreme Court has found that a card campaign will be substituted for that process.  Note: Bargaining in “good faith” is commonly interpreted by the courts as parties being willing to make progress towards a contract.

Q:        Who is eligible to sign a card and/or vote in an election for exclusive representation?

A:         All full-time faculty at MSU Springfield.  Other groups, such as per course faculty and graduate students normally will organize separately.  Often times the impetus for organizing on a college campus comes from one of these groups rather than the full-time faculty.

Q:        Administrations come and go and there is good reason to have agreements like CB for consistency.  But there are state legislative issues that add a lot to our problems. How do we organize without upsetting the state legislature and thereby making it even worse for us?

A:         The NEA has effective national and state lobbyists to help with such issues, including funding higher education.  For example, the Missouri NEA helped the MSU Faculty Association to lobby Governor Nixon on MSU board appointments, including submitting names of potential Board members and for a general philosophy that would result in board members that had more positive attitudes toward faculty.  A refusal by the legislature to act on some issues, however, may sometimes be positive (e.g., as discussed above, successful card campaigns may actually substitute for an election for exclusive representation.)

Q:        A fairly long and detailed question asking generally about whether the national NEA will over-ride the local chapter (MSU faculty) on issues.  The basis for the question was an understanding that MSU faculty would tend to have a better grasp of a large number of issues than the state or national NEA.  How does the NEA interact with the faculty locally and how will we be allowed to decide such issues locally?

A:         The contract that is negotiated as part of the collective bargaining process is between the local faculty represented by the MSU Faculty Association and the university.  The NEA is not directly involved in this bargaining, although they do provide support including training, advice on bargaining and access to a national database of higher education contracts at other universities. Second, a Collective Bargaining Agreement does not cover everything.  For example, issues regarding curriculum are rarely part of a collective bargaining agreement.  Faculty control the MSU Faculty Association negotiating team and what the union wants to go into the CB agreement.  Finally, the final enforceable contract must be ratified by the faculty.

Q:        Public employee unions in Missouri cannot strike, so where would the bargaining strength of a MSU union come from even if the faculty did support unionization?

A:         Most importantly, the strength of the union comes primarily from the collective action of the faculty.  MSU faculty collectively have an enormous amount of power at MSU both because faculty have tenure and because they are the primary providers of MSU’s product, education of students.  Also important is that the collective bargaining process helps the faculty through the MSU Faculty Association to build a productive relationship with the administration, which also gets things that it wants in the CB agreement.

Q:        Is Missouri now/in the future a right to work state?  The implication of the question was how Missouri being or becoming a right to work state would affect collective bargaining in the state.

A:         The answer started out with what it means to be a “right to work” state.  In a right to work state non-union members cannot be forced via a collective bargaining agreement to pay either union dues or a portion of “union dues”, usually referred to as a “fair-share” to help defray negotiation and enforcement costs.

No, Missouri is not a right to work state.  There have been past attempts for to pass right to work legislation in Missouri, which have always failed.  There is no legislative action currently ongoing to become a right to work state.  Although this does mean that collective bargaining contracts in Missouri may have “fair share” clauses (see above) in contracts the NEA does not include such clauses in their contracts.  Hence, non-union faculty at MSU would pay no dues or any “fair share” portion of dues.

Informational Meeting Postponed until 2/28

In the previous blog post, I noted an informational meeting for all MSU Faculty Members to report the results of our listening survey of faculty.  This meeting was scheduled for 2/21 (tomorrow) but it now appears that we will have bad weather periods of snow tonight and tomorrow morning followed by freezing rain tomorrow afternoon.

As a result of the anticipated bad weather, we are rescheduling the meeting for 2/28, same time and place.  The original post is recreated below with the updated date.

Informational Meeting for All MSU Faculty Members

To the right, you will notice a link for a flyer regarding our upcoming meeting to report the results of the MSUFA one-on-one listening survey of faculty.  This has been a time-consuming and labor intensive activity and is far from done.  Let me summarize the information on the flyer:

·       All MSU Faculty are invited to an information meeting about our listening survey and the MSU Faculty Association.

·       Date/Time: February 28, 2013 @ 3:30 to 5 pm.

·       Place: University Heights Baptist Church, 1010 South National Avenue (on the SE corner of National and Grand) just south of the Educational Community Credit Union. Come in the Grand Street door and you will be directed to the meeting room.

We will have a panel of speakers, who will present the finding from the listening survey including both MSU Faculty Association members and representatives of the Missouri NEA.  You are cordially invited to come and learn what your colleagues view as the major concerns they have about their jobs at MSU and what they think about collective bargaining at MSU.

There will be a Question and Answer session and light refreshments will be served.  Please come and join us as we discuss the future of MSU.

Informational Meeting for all MSU Faculty Members

I have two issues to discuss in today’s blog post.  First, I wanted to do a follow-up to my last blog post regarding the state of the MSU budget.  I think it safe to say that the budget situation has improved in the past several months, which is certainly good news.  Second, I am happy to announce that the MSU Faculty Association is finally ready to give an intermediate report in a public meeting for all MSU Faculty members regarding our listening campaign over the past 6 months.

MSU’s and Missouri’s Budget

First, let me briefly note the very positive news about the budget and tax receipts in the state of Missouri.  Governor Nixon noted those positive at a news conference he held this past Monday a summary of which you can read at:

http://politicmo.com/2013/02/05/nixon-releases-funds-for-higher-education-spending/

To summarize:

1.     The State general revenue fund is up currently over the past fiscal year by 18.5%.  Income tax collections, which are the largest source of tax collections, are up 6.1% for the current fiscal year and continue to show improvement each month.

2.     Gov. Nixon announced that he would release the ~ $8.5M of withholding from the current FY budget in higher education.  Of this, $7.1M is to go to four year colleges including MSU.  This is an announcement that the current FY higher education budget will be fully funded, which has been extremely rare in the recent past.

3.     At his recent State of the State address, Gov. Nixon released his budget for the next fiscal year, which has built in an approximately 4% increase in funding for higher education with, as I understand, some possibility that performance funding will be applied for that budget year.

These announcements and, especially, the trend in tax collections for Missouri, are extremely positive.  If acted upon by the legislature, the increase in state funding for higher education will be the first in Missouri since the beginning of the recent financial crisis.

There remain, of course, important concerns on campus at MSU regarding budgetary priorities.  Most importantly, it remains the case that the core mission of MSU, defined to include academics (instruction), research, and public service remains underfunded in the MSU budget.  Notwithstanding President Smart’s recent announcement that MSU had met all five of the Performance Funding measures by the State CBHE (Clifs-notes-vol-2-no-4) the method by which MSU met the core mission requirement was solely a result of changes in how the numbers were calculated (apparently mandated by the data collection protocol and not by MSU) and not by any actual improvement.  In fact, funding of MSU’s core mission actually fell slightly as a percent of the total budget when discounting the changes in the accounting method.  As a result, the core mission at MSU remains underfunded in the budget and needs to be addressed for future performance funding. 

Improving funding for MSU’s core mission, especially funding for instruction and research, remains one of the fundamental priorities of the MSU Faculty Association.

Informational Meeting for All MSU Faculty Members

To the right, you will notice a link for a flyer regarding our upcoming meeting to report the results of the MSUFA one-on-one listening survey of faculty.  This has been a time-consuming and labor intensive activity and is far from done.  Let me summarize the information on the flyer:

·       All MSU Faculty are invited to an information meeting about our listening survey and the MSU Faculty Association.

·       Date/Time: February 21, 2013 @ 3:30 to 5 pm.

·       Place: University Heights Baptist Church, 1010 South National Avenue (on the SE corner of National and Grand) just south of the Educational Community Credit Union. Come in the Grand Street door and you will be directed to the meeting room.

We will have a panel of speakers, who will present the finding from the listening survey including both MSU Faculty Association members and representatives of the Missouri NEA.  You are cordially invited to come and learn what your colleagues view as the major concerns they have about their jobs at MSU and what they think about collective bargaining at MSU.

There will be a Question and Answer session and light refreshments will be served.  Please come and join us as we discuss the future of MSU.

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.