Mānoa Faculty Congress Minutes
of October 21, 2009

Draft Minutes

Chair David Ross opened the meeting in the Architecture Auditorium at 3:05 p.m.

1. Approval of the February 18, 2009 Faculty Congress Minutes

The minutes were approved as submitted.

2. Chair's Welcome and Report

a. Comments on the Congress

• Meets twice a year
• Membership: all faculty
• All members of the university community are permitted to participate. “University community” to include faculty, staff, students...even administrators. Please identify yourself and your affiliation when you speak.
• Congress can only entertain resolutions referred to it from the Senate or by petition. Anyone in a hurry to introduce a resolution should get a senator to introduce it from the floor in the ”new business” part of the Senate meeting.

b. Comments on the agenda.

• VCAA Reed Dasenbrock switched his topic for today from WASC to Enrollment Planning in part because of the budget implications of UHM enrollments.
• President Greenwood was invited but was already scheduled to be in DC today.

c. Chair’s Report Part 1

• BOR announced during its last meeting that former President McClain's declaration of financial exigency was officially authorized by the Regents. This was news to most if not all of those present.
• The Senate and SEC have followed up on the Sept. 2 Town Hall meeting in several ways:
• --Minutes of the meeting have been posted at
  http://www.hawaii.edu/uhmfs/minutes/2009_10/Minutes_special_Fac_meeting_re_budget_9_2_09.pdf
• -- CPM has taken up some of the questions raised during the Town Hall and will today offer the Senate a resolution on the faculty and financial exigency. Senate will also discuss creating a possible Senate task force relating to that topic.
  • Retirement survey results have been distributed.
  • Representation on committees still not 100%.
  • SEC is pushing for clear and credible financial information; starting to get some.

d. Chair’s Report Part 2: Small accomplishments

• The Senate + administration-negotiated policy for the reorganization of UHM units is now official Manoa policy.
• The SEC/VCAA agreement on workload policy reasserts that the department is the locus for setting workload policy.
• The Budget/Prioritization work group is posting minutes (or minutes-like things) after minutes-less months.
• In general, the administration is working to follow established good-governance practices.
• The new FS email list allows the FS chair to communicate readily with the faculty.

e. Chair’s Report Part 3: Some setbacks

• Faculty voice in executive searches is still unevenly heard (e.g., Cancer Center director vote).
• Faculty has lost some ground in securing representation on key committees.
• A&S Reorganization is still in limbo, which some see as accomplishment, others as setback.

f. Chair’s Report Part 4: Last week’s Board of Regents meeting

• Chancellor in her presentation on UHM strongly advocated on UHM’s behalf.
• Faculty testimony was offered by Ross and others.
• Chairman Karr’s statement on Exigency was something of a surprise. It has subsequently been learned that exigency statement supposedly was officially authorized on 8/23 during a BOR executive session on collective bargaining.

Question:  Did BOR authorize the UH president’s statement on exigency, or did BOR declare exigency?
Answer:  We don’t know the particulars.  What we know came out yesterday afternoon.

3. Report on the State of the Library - Paula Mochida, Interim Librarian

The Library budget reduction was 10%, or $1.7M.  $1M+ in acquisitions funds were cut, with over half of that involving serials.  Library tried to retain materials that faculty and students need and use.  The increasing costs of library materials runs contrary to the library’s many years of a flat, and now a decreased, budget. The 2008 one-time legislative infusion of $1.8M was used for electronic hardware that will continue to be used to provide electronic materials.

Hamilton Library is soon to begin its 6th post-flood year. Full Hamilton restoration is finally expected by the end of March.

The Library has a new strategic plan, developed a year ago, with 8 action plans. Various librarians are heading implementation teams, with advice from consultants as useful. Libraries now provide the primary computer labs of UHM. The Student Success Center has itself been a great success, and has impacts on recruitment.  Libraries continue to support area studies, student instruction, and digitalization of materials.

Mochida asked the faculty to support the international open-access movement to help ensure open access to research materials.  This is driven by a fact:  libraries cannot afford the exploding costs of copyrighted materials; we need new approaches to “publication” that guarantee open access. Mochida also encouraged the faculty to guide students in making full use of the libraries’ many treasures.

4. VCAA Reed Dasenbrock:  Report on Enrollment Planning

WASC will be here December 8-10 to look at our accomplishments and our promises. Faculty members who wish to be involved should contact Myrtle Yamada in the VCAA’s office.

Dasenbrock has submitted a statement on UHM enrollment goals for Senate consideration.  Participants in the August enrollment-planning retreat stressed UHM’s role as a shaper of Hawaii citizens’ futures through our bachelors’ degrees (80% in the state), graduate programs (nearly all in the State), and preparation of physicians and attorneys.

Proclaiming UHM’s needs is not as effective as emphasizing what UHM does and wants to do to better serve the people of Hawaii.  He suggested 5 goals:

• to increase our student enrollment.
• to help more of Hawaii’s high-school grads see the benefits of enrolling at UHM.
• to facilitate the transfer of successful students from CCs to UHM.
• to increase UHM outreach to and representation of our State’s minorities.
• to do what we must do and can do to enhance student success/graduation rates.

Our first commitment must be to our HI students.  If we succeed at this, the rest will fall into place.

Q: Why isn’t the administration emphasizing these goals to our legislators?
A: VCAA looks forward to doing this, and has already begun.

5. Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw: Update

Listening sessions and the teach-in were helpful for UHM. The Chancellor has gotten the message about unbalanced administrator vs. faculty salaries and the administration’s lack of advocacy for UHM.  She frequently confronts assumptions that UHM is a ready source of cash during hard times.  What she is trying to communicate is UHM’s role in the community and UHM’s significant contributions to the State and the world.

Her administrators are in frequent contact with legislators.  Legislators want to tap into UHM’s expertise—which means faculty.  We need to let legislators know how many UHM students live in their communities.  Legislators see CCs as the primary resource for citizens who need new skills in order to face our economic realities.  They need to know that UHM is “the next stop” for those CC students.  UHM will soon provide major briefing for the legislature on UHM in the community and in the world.

UHM brings in more than $1M per day in outside money for research.  We educate most of the community’s leaders.  We need to stress these positives in order to show how much we do and how much more we can, with help, accomplish for the State.

Q:  Has the UHM administration offered a list for retrenchment to the system or BOR?
A:  I do not have a retrenchment plan.

Q:  How much of savings from the HGEA salary cut comes to UHM?
A: (VC Cutshaw) About $2M.

Q:  Can we get your words and information on UHM into local newspapers?
A:  What I say is posted on my website. I want “your stories” to use in my talking with citizens and with our news outlets.

Q:  How will we deal with the continuing $5M athletic-program deficit reported in this morning’s paper?
A:  Athletic programs cover 80%+ of their costs. We need to work on the rest. Legislators remind me that the community strongly supports athletics at UHM.
A: (Cutshaw) UHM pays $2M for janitors, etc., in the athletic complex; athletics pays for rest.

Q:  Is anyone looking at the very expensive UH system?  Its costs for UHM are incredible.
A:  (VH) We at UHM sometimes feel that we are 1 of 10.  But we are really 1 of 1, a nearly billion-dollar industry.  We need to partner with other system campuses, but we have to advocate for ourselves.
A:  (Chair Ross):  BOR thinks that the system exists because the UHM faculty wants it. If we don’t, we have to talk about that.

The chancellor’s prepared text of her address is at
http://manoa.hawaii.edu/chancellor/communications.html

6. Adjournment

The meeting of the Faculty Congress was adjourned at 4:09 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Thomas Hilgers
Senate secretary