Printable Version

Mānoa Faculty Senate Minutes
of September 16, 2009

Draft Minutes:

Present : Anna Ah Sam, Denise Antolini, Bruce Barnes, Edoardo Biagioni, Rhonda Black, Robert Bley-Vroman, Ronald Bontekoe, Paul Brandon, Kent Bridges, Maxine Burkett, John Butler, James Cartwright, Richard Chadwick, Beei-Huan Chao, Meda Chesney Lind, David Chin, Joel Cohn, Robert Cooney, Robert Cowie, Martha Crosby, Elton Daniel, Shirley Daniel, Michael DeMattos, Milton Diamond, Patricia Donegan, David Duffy, Ariana Eichelberger, John Engel, Ernestine Enomoto, Elizabeth Fisher, Sheri Fong, Jonathan Goss, Jay Hartwell, Thomas Hilgers, Ellen Hoffman, Judith Inazu, Carol Kellett, Jon Matsuda, Luciano Minerbi, Richard Nettell, Thanh Truc Nguyen, Torben Nielsen, Ian Pagano, Julia Patriarche, Martin Rayner, Robert Richmond, Stacey Roberts, David Ross, Scott Rowland, Bruce Shiramizu, Nicolaos Synodinos, Mirella Vasquez Brooks, Charles Weems, Hsing Wen, Jean Young.

Absent : Garrett Apuzen-Ito, William Chapman, Keith Claypoole, Stewart Curry, Guliz Erdem, David Ericson, David Garmire, David Griffith, Rosanne Harrigan, Vilsoni Hereniko, Susan Hippensteele, Kim Holland, Lilikala Kaméeleihiwa, Barry Lienert, John Mahoney, Andrew Nichols, Martin Oishi, Katrina-Ann Oliveira, Vaughan Phillips, Weilin Qu, Sarita Rai, Daniel Sanders, Magi Sarvimaki, Kaimi Sinclair, Siang Tan, Douglas Vincent, Guiangyi Wang, William Ward, Anna Wieczorek, Leven Wilson, James Yates, Halina Zaleski.

EXCUSED: 

Other faculty present : Mark Brislin, Tiana Cho, Sandy Davis, Aza Frafalr?, Ken Kipnis, Synthia Quintana

Chair David Ross called the FS to order at 3:06 p.m.

1.      Introductions

David Ross, Senate Chair, introduced

Senate Executive Committee
Martha Crosby, NATSCI
Shirley Daniel, SCB, SEC Secretary
Thomas Hilgers, LLL, Senate Secretary
Susan Hippensteele, SOCSCI
Martin Rayner, JABSOM, Vice-Chair
Halina Zaleski, CTAHR

Senate Standing Committee Chairs
CAB - David Chin
CAPP - Sarita Rai, Richard Chadwick, co-chairs
CA - Rosanne Harrigan
GEC - Scott Rowland, Chair
CPM - Thanh Truc Nguyen
CSA - Jay Hartwell
CR - Jason Maddock
MAC - Paul Brandon
CFS - Rhonda Black

Webmaster
Carol Kellett

Parliamentarian
Robert Bley-Vroman

2.      Approval of May 6, 2009 meeting. See draft minutes.

The section of the minutes involving the Committee on Student Affairs was amended as follows:

Many issues before CSA had to do with who we want as UHM students.  There are great numbers of issues involved (as mentioned earlier today by VCAA). Advising remains a CSA the concern. A growing concern is advising for students who transfer from UH community colleges. Similarly, CSA wonders if advising (or a lack thereof) is a factor in the decline in numbers of international students (or is it the shrinkage of funding for international students?)  CSA’s report on advising and international students has been forwarded to VCAA. CSA is also concerned about the decrease in enrollment of international students at UHM, which seems to relate to increased tuition and cuts in scholarship availability.  A report on these issues has been forwarded to the VCAA.

Hearing no objection to the amended minutes, Ross declared them approved.

3.      Chair's Report

Ross presented the Chair’s report, with emphases on recent SEC activities, the Senate’s “standard operating procedures,” current challenges, and suggestions for improved senate operations.

His slides from the report are posted at http://www.hawaii.edu/uhmfs/agendas/20090916_slides.pdf

4. Reports, questions, and discussion

a. Ross asked standing committee chairs to report, if they wished, on current committee business. He also invited senators to ask questions of those chairs. (Q = question.)

CAB: has been working on budget matters. CAB regularly interacts with the UHM Prioritization and Budget committee.

Q: What is happening?

A: CAB recommended that the UHM Office of Safety report to the Vice Chancellor for research instead of the Vice Chancellor for Facilities, Budget, and Administration.

CFS: is working to improve voter turn-out in Senate elections. It will welcome recommendations and suggestions.

CA: is preparing a resolution that defines what is required for an athlete to attain “student in good standing” status. The resolution may be presented at the next Senate meeting.

CPM: is working to learning legal meanings and implications of “retrenchment.” Is continuing its work on dossier simplification, faculty workload, and the faculty wiki handbook.

GEC: is working on a resolution on Foundations requirements for presentation to the Senate, with a draft resolution likely next month.

CSA: is reviewing the draft Strategic Plan for international education. CSA will likely offer a status report at the next Senate meeting and hopes to make its recommendations 2 meetings hence.

MAC: worked during the summer to chart the relationship among the Manoa Assessment Office, the faculty Senate, and VCAA. The new committee is confronting the politics of assessment, making necessary contacts, and eager to take on policy development in areas affected by assessment.

CAPP: is concerned about new program proposals. Should UHM be starting new programs right now, or should everything be put on hold?

Webmaster Carol Kellett requested minutes from standing committees, once minutes have been approved. She asked committees to contact her at caroly@hawaii.edu. She also asked each senator to check personal website information and send her corrections.

b. Ross invited general questions (Q) and comments (C) from the floor.

Q: What’s up with the budget?

Q: What has happened subsequent to the faculty “Town Hall” meeting?

A: Posted minutes from the SEC’s 9/8 meeting reflect SEC’s discussions subsequent to the Town Hall meeting. SEC will post a summary of suggestions from the Town Hall meeting after the 9/21 SEC meeting.

C: Kathy Cutshaw and all other Vice Chancellors will present budget information on 9/23 at 9:30 in Hemenway Hall Auditorium.

C: CAB has requested much more transparency on UHM’s budget. The 9/23 meeting will be a response to that request.

C: SEC has sent a memo to the Chancellor on shared governance, partially in an effort to promote credibility in budget decision-making. The memo is posted at the FS website.

C: VCAA Reed Dasenbrock noted that much of the data necessary for decision-making is absent; he and the other Vice Chancellors are working to find out what they need to know. The Budget & Prioritization group, of which he is co-chair, would welcome specific proposals on the UHM budget.

C: UHM accounts for 52% of the total UH budget but UHM was hit with 73% of the UH system-imposed budget cuts.

Q: Why don’t we retrench all those new administrative positions at the system and at the community colleges? The number of new administrative positions in both areas has grown astronomically.

C: Administrators all got 7% raises in January. Recently, we were told that administrator salaries were cut 7%. How is that a salary “cut”?

Q: Who is the Assessment Committee? I hear that it’s mostly administrators.

A: The Manoa Assessment Committee (MAC) is modeled on the General Education Committee (GEC), which has been quite successful as a faculty governance unit. MAC has 9 faculty members; 3 faculty members who constitute the Assessment Office sit in on MAC meetings.

O: (from a professor who noted that he is not a senator): If retrenchment is declared, it’s about closing academic units, not specifically about cutting faculty. I hear that BOR is meeting in November to hear proposals from the administration for implementing retrenchment. That leaves us on the Senate only 2 months to provide due diligence on retrenchment plans. That is an impossible pace for rational decision making.

Q: Strong indications support the notion that retrenchment planning is underway. Should the Senate tolerate the merger of the budget group (established as a short-term entity) and the prioritization committee (established as a long-term task force)? Is the UHM budget the real reason behind each proposal that will be coming forth? How can we be hiring new administrators if we are in state of financial exigency? Perhaps there is avoidance of reorganization, which requires that set processes be followed, in favor of retrenchment, for which processes are less defined.

O: Administrators have many opinions of how both reorganization and retrenchment should proceed. There is no consensus.

O: Chancellor has invited deans to propose retrenchment actions before the November BOR meeting. We don’t know if deans will actually respond.

Q: If it seems to FS that admin is not following AAUP guidelines, what can we do?

A: First, we need to ask where the federal stimulus money has gone. Is it true that $10M has gone to the UH system? If so, for what reason? That entity does not offer instruction and does not conduct academic research. Second, note that only 5 campuses in the USA are undergoing retrenchment. Retrenchment is a rare event. AAUP sets rigorous standards for retrenchment. Remember, we of the UHM faculty are stewards of an incredible tradition, one which involves doctoral programs, supports cutting-edge research, and contributes substantially to the state economy. AAUP guidelines would not seem to support, e.g., the building of new campuses (such as UH is sponsoring in west Oahu and on Maui) while UH’s flagship, research-comprehensive campus—UHM—is being dismembered. AAUP demands rigorous faculty oversight of retrenchment. We may have to demand that oversight, since we aren’t apparently being asked.

O: Retrenchment action, even talk, leaves the junior faculty extremely insecure. Please don’t overlook us.

O: Faculty members on the Budget working group/Prioritization committee were rather surprised when retrenchment was suddenly introduced as the topic in a summer meeting. AAUP demands incredible rigor in retrenchment efforts, a rigor not yet evident here at UHM. Some deans seem to be pushing the cutting of programs. Real motives for those cuts are far from clear.

If there actually is retrenchment at UHM, it is unclear whence it comes and how it is to proceeds. Yet some Retrenchment Trains seem already to be running.

O: (from Senator Duane Stevens, self-identified as the UHPA president): UHPA’s Board of Directors, which includes several senators here present, meets at 6 tonight. UHPA’s membership can expect email by 6 a.m. that will contain important information. UHPA members can expect campus meetings relating to topics in that email between 9/23 and 10/2.

O: (from Senator Richard Natelle, self-identified as a UHPA BOD member): Remember that we do have a contract. Its language on retrenchment is very clear. A dean has told me that he has been asked to name programs that s/he can do without. Is that driven by real need, or is it a threat intended to scare faculty into accepting a salary cut? Since retrenchment won’t have financial results for 2 years, one can wonder what is behind current public behaviors. Unless our legislature provides a budget for UHM that supports our mission and can withstand a veto, we are in deep trouble.

O: UHM has no publicity campaign to support what we do. The governor is winning the war for public attention and buy-in by virtue of UHM silence.

O: My dean is actively preparing a retrench plan. We are told that we must all assist with the effort. All of us at UHM are nervous, anxious. Why is only UHM actively pursuing retrenchment? Who made this a UHM-exclusive problem?

Q: I assume that UHPA will pass on to us a UH offer of a 5% salary cut, maybe with other things, tonight. If the faculty supports that cut, it will save UHM $10M this year. But I’ve heard that the salary cuts will have no impact on retrenchment plans. Is UHPA prepared legally to challenge the retrenchment effort of the BOR? Is UHPA prepared to spend its PAC money to run a public publicity campaign?

A (from Duane Stevens): We will have an education campaign over the next 2 ½ weeks, initially targeted toward faculty members. The UHPA contract will not change tonight—only faculty can change the contract. The UHPA legal team has been pressing faculty rights in the current contract. Article 30 gives us an ‘evergreen’ contract—active until a new contract is accepted. While we have the current contract, retrenchment language in the contract must be followed.

O: SEC pleaded with the Chancellor to publicize UHM’s accomplishments and what we contribute to the community, region, and country. We have seen little in response—perhaps because UHM administration doesn’t want to advocate for UHM without a primary push from the UH President.

O: UHM could launch legal action relating to the state constitution’s UH-autonomy statutes. The union cannot bring such actions.

O: The union cannot advocate for UHM, since the union represents all UH faculty. Only UHM can advocate for UHM.

O: The current prioritization committee is not sufficiently organized to plan retrenchment ‘in real time.’ The real agents of retrenchment currently are the deans. Watch your dean or you will be blindsided.

Ross, noting the time, ended the question/observation period.

5.      Other business

a. It was moved that the UHM Faculty Congress meet on October 21, 2009. The motion passed unanimously.

b. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:44 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Thomas Hilgers
Secretary