March 16, 2006
Loyola Marymount University
Faculty Senate Minutes,
March 16, 2006
McIntosh Center, 3rd Floor, UHall
3:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
Present: Marta Baltodano, Cynthia Becht, Jeffrey Davis, Charles E. Erven, Omar Es-Said, Victoria Graf, Paul Harris, Blake Mellor, Ed Mosteig, Elizabeth Murray, K.J. Peters, Nina Reich, Rhonda Rosen, Susan Scheibler
Excused: William F. Cain, S.J., Jok M. Jok, Chun I. Lee, Suzanne O’Brien, Ralph Quiñones, Damon Rago, James Roe, Robert Singleton
President Graf called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m. A prayer for peace was read. The celebration of Patricia Walsh held concurrently in CTE was announced.
Announcements were made to congratulate recently tenured and promoted faculty, including Senators K.J. Peters and Susan Scheibler. President Graf also encouraged all faculty to visit the Collins Center to see the new landscaping. Approval for renovations for the Collins Center has already gone through. The Academic Vice President, Vice Presidents for Administration, University Relations and Business & Finance are contributing to the renovations.
I. Benefits Update - Margaret Halm, Benefits Manager and Rebecca Chandler, Assistant Vice President of Human Resources
1. Presentation of New Benefits Plan. LMU is changing the schedule for the benefits plan from the calendar year to the fiscal year (from June 1, 2006 through May 31, 2007) in order to correspond with budgeting. The Navigator has been renamed The Bridge and should go out next week to all faculty and staff. Insurance costs are continuing to rise due to rising health care costs. In order to institute an equitable change, benefits will be moved to a salary tiered structure. This move has been discussed and approved by the cabinet in order to ensure a more equitable approach for all who are impacted by this change. Beginning this year, single coverage participants will pay a fixed amount per month.
Discussion:
Q: Is LMU contributing the same amount as last year?
A: LMU is contributing more but single coverage contributors are now paying as well.
Q: Are insurance companies raising their prices or is LMU losing money? Tuition always goes up. Why isn’t the university covering the cost increases?
A: Premiums for renewal have gone up. Certain people are paying more but other groups in the salary tier system are paying less than they did before.
A: Some cost-sharing is required. If the university had absorbed all the increased costs of healthcare, merit would have been affected. We are trying to contain costs as reasonably as possible at the same time as making benefits choices available.
Q: Without seeing the figures from last year, it is hard for us to see exactly how much the university’s contribution has changed.
A: It is a 10 % increase to maintain our benefits package. This was a cabinet decision with consultation with the Benefits Advisory Committee.
Q: We recently had a conversation over salary increases not keeping up with inflation.
A: Unfortunately benefits cost increases are higher than salary increases.
Q: Could there be a 10% cost increase every year?
A: It could be more. We were actually pleased it was only 10%. Other institutions have had 20% or more. We have not had a cost increase for 17 months.
A: If the premium costs had been kept down, you would have had to pay more for services. At least what you pay is pre-tax. It will be taken out of your salary.
Q: Are the university and individual employees raising their contributions equally?
A: The university will be paying more for family coverage, moving from a 40/60 split to a 30/70.
A: It was a blend. We had to have a starting point for single contributors to make some kind of payment. When we looked around at other plans, no one had zero contribution by single coverage participants.
Q: Is the university paying all of the 10% increase?
A: No, it’s shared by the employee contributions.
Q: We don’t have the data of the LMU contribution. Would it be correct to say the structure you’ve outlined is how employees are subsidizing the increased costs?
A: In that the higher tiers contribute more and single coverage contributes more, yes.
Q: On the comparison page of your document, you have included business companies as comparators, which makes no sense. We are not a business.
A: We will remove the comparison.
Q: I like the four-tiered structure. I am just surprised to not have heard this change was in the offing.
Comment: This issue was first addressed two years ago in the Senate and will be mentioned in that year’s minutes. Having said that, the overall faculty compensation package is being nipped away. We will have to look at ourselves as a Senate and at ESOF to restructure how ESOF works with Administration. We need to have comparable data for both ESOF and Administration in order to restructure our conversations in a constructive way. Currently we are not having an informed conversation.
2. Merit and Promotion. $500,000.00 will be used for equity compensations this year. In an endeavor to improve faculty salaries, a new increase plan has been set up. This plan will move towards closing the market gaps.
The salary increase plan was discussed by the Faculty Senate with concerns expressed over the differentials between salaries obtained by promotions previous to this year’s changes and current promotions improved by equity advances. It was pointed out that the equity pool is finite and not everyone will be able to benefit from it. The increases proposed are for this year only but possibly may not change in subsequent years. Caution and careful consideration of the way in which equity changes will be undertaken were urged by the Senate.
II. Governance Subcommittee - Paul Harris
The following issues will be looked at by the subcommittee:
- Reassessment of the relationship between the Board of Trustees, Faculty Subcommittees and the Faculty Senate.
- Moving ESOF under the Vice President for Business and Finance to have more direct conversation with that office.
- Faculty Representation integrated into the Cabinet.
- Regular dialogues instituted between the President and the Faculty
- Faculty collegiality and community established through a Faculty Club or equivalent.
- Various models of governance examined.
The Faculty Senate discussed the progress of the Collins Center renovation as a venue for a Faculty/Staff/Alumni club. Currently there are limitations in respect to serving food but a conversation with the Vice President for Facilities will take place to address this issue. It was noted that revisions suggested on the organization chart were made by AVP Rose who has expressed support toward revising organizational structure and improving communication channels. Vicki Graf announced that AVP Rose has facilitated an invitation to the Senate Executive Board to attend the May 1 meeting of the Board of Trustees.
III. Faculty Handbook, Reduced Teaching Load Subcommittee and Core Curriculum Committee - Matt Dillon and Judith Scalin
- Faculty Handbook. The revisions that were approved by the faculty are being reexamined by AVP Rose. Consequently, the revised handbook will not be completed by the end of the semester. However some position descriptions have been added, the sexual harassment/discrimination policy is almost done and the history of LMU by Fr. Michael Engh will be incorporated.
- Reduced Teaching Load Subcommittee. The President is supportive of a reduced teaching load. After much research of teaching load numbers on other campuses, the subcommittee discovered that LMU is not as far behind as initially expected.
a. Several comparable and prestigious universities still utilize the same ratio as LMU’s current ratio.
b. The economic argument may not work because of the additional faculty positions it would require in order to implement the change to 3-2.
The report was discussed by the Faculty Senate. Long term, incremental strategies suggested included building a sliding scale for more course remissions, increasing the use of clinical faculty, hiring new faculty at the 3-2 ratio, and starting 3-2 with untenured and new faculty to allow adjustment time in preparation for tenure. The need for flexibility was expressed.
- Core Curriculum Committee. The committee has been interviewing faculty about their thoughts on the Core and dialoguing with Student Affairs, developing a paper on the status of the Core in order to effect minor or major revisions in the future. The summary of the paper will go out next week. A comprehensive letter and the document will be sent to faculty and will be placed on ManeGate as well. The committee is establishing a more formalized procedure for adding or deleting courses from the Core, to be approved by the deans. The next step is to look at revitalizing the Core in order to keep pace with the move to the next level. The Committee plans to look at the question of overseeing revisions to the Core. The original charge for CCC was to maintain the Core, not to revise it; however both the committee and AVP Rose feel that it is appropriate for CCC to add revision to its charge. A future meeting will be scheduled to clarify the committee’s charges and changes will be added to the faculty handbook. The committee wants to update its by-laws, including expanding its membership to non-tenured faculty and adding representation from Business Administration and Film & Television.
IV. Evaluation of Administrators Subcommittee - Omar Es-Said
It was moved and seconded to approve the model for the evaluations. The model was approved unanimously.
V. Rank and Tenure Subcommittee - Vicki Graf, Jeffrey Siker, and Patrick Shanahan
A draft of the revised policy for the external review process was submitted for consideration by the Faculty Senate. The proposed changes were discussed, with emphasis on the following areas:
1. The number of external evaluator names to be submitted by the faculty member and used by the chairperson.
2. The phrase: “the candidate’s most recent work since the candidate’s date of hire or the application for last promotion.”
3. Clarification of the term “scholarship” in consideration of diverse disciplines
4. Clarification of the words “objectivity” and “in good faith” in the sentence, “To ensure objectivity the evaluator…”
5. Access to the external reviews
Suggestions made included reducing the number of external evaluator names to a minimum of three to be used with 5-7 submitted, expanding the wording of “most recent work” to allow inclusion of earlier work, and adding “creative work” to “scholarship” to maintain inclusivity among the disciplines.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Submitted by: Cynthia Becht
Prepared by: Mary Stroud