From: Susan Rakowitz [srakowitz@fairfield.edu]
Sent:
Monday, October 26, 2009 10:54 AM
To: Richard DeWitt
Cc:
Crawford, David; Dennin, Joseph; Preli, Rona; Tromley, Cheryl
Subject:
Re: Academic Council motion
Rick,
The FSC supports the proposal to add the
FSC chair to the Budget Committee. Increasing faculty representation on the
Budget Committee enhances faculty/administrative collaboration in general, and
does so in a way that is advantageous both to our committee and to the Budget
Committee. The Budget Committee takes no votes, so persuasive arguments are
paramount. Having more faculty making such arguments means the faculty
perspective is more likely to be heard. The benefits to the FSC of having one of
those voices be a member of our committee are even clearer. The Budget Committee
discusses the parameters of changes in compensation. It's advantageous for the
FSC to have a voice in those discussions as early as possible. Furthermore, the
administrators who meet with the FSC are deeply involved in those compensation
discussions in the Budget Committee. If the FSC does not have a representative
in the room for those meetings, we are at an informational disadvantage when we
meet with the administration. In light of these arguments, we support extending
Budget Committee membership to the FSC chair. Allowing the chair to pass that
additional time commitment of 2-3 hours per month to a designee from the
committee seems reasonable, and is, in fact, precisely the way the President
made the invitation this year.
We are not concerned by the objections
raised below. The two committee limit applies to standing Handbook committees
and "special committees". The Budget Committee is neither. With regard to the
additional time commitment this change would place upon the chair, service is
part of our jobs as faculty members. As with scholarship, there is no clear
definition of precisely how much service is appropriate. As with scholarship,
then, faculty members typically do more service in some years and less in
others. Chairing the FSC, with or without a concomitant seat on the Budget
Committee, makes for a heavier than average year of service, but not necessarily
heavier than, for example, chairing Rank and Tenure or publishing a book. It
doesn't make sense to pull out of one of these examples for course release. What
seems much more important is that we have merit guidelines that ensure that all
schools and departments value service, and do so to comparable
degrees.
Susan Rakowitz, Chair, FSC
From: Richard DeWitt <rdewitt@mail.fairfield.edu>
Date:
Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:21:20 -0400
To: "'Rakowitz, Susan'"
<SRakowitz@fairfield.edu>, <pbayers@mail.fairfield.edu>,
<pcaster@mail.fairfield.edu>, "'Deak, Edward'"
<deak@mail.fairfield.edu>, "'Scheraga, Carl'"
<CScheraga@fairfield.edu>
Cc: "'Preli, Rona'"
<RPreli@fairfield.edu>
Subject: Academic Council
motion
Memo
To: Salary Committee
Chair, Educational Planning Committee Chair, and faculty
representatives
to the Budget Committee
From: Rick DeWitt, AC Executive
Secretary
Date: 10/19/09
Re:
Academic Council motion concerning FSC, EPC, and
Budget Committees
- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -
- - - - - - - - - -
At its 10/5/09 meeting, the Academic
Council passed a motion requesting the Salary Committee, Educational Planning
Committee, and Budget Committee consider and report back to the Council on a
recommendation involving these committees.
Below we have included
the text of the motion along with the relevant section of the minutes from the
AC meeting. We have also included items AC members communicated to us concerning
the recommendation, the section of the AC Subcommittee on Governance Report
relevant to the motion, and correspondence between the President and AC
Executive Committee involving this recommendation. The entire report from the AC
Subcommittee on Governance and the complete minutes of the relevant AC minutes
can be found on the Faculty Secretary’s website.
In addition, the AC has long had an item concerning
the Budget Committee on its list of Pending Items. The AC Executive Committee is
researching this item and will take this opportunity of renewed interest in the
faculty representation on the Budget Committee to get this item back to the AC
for resolution. We will be in touch again if there is more AC business for your
committee to consider.
We
would ask that you consider this request and report back to us at your earliest
convenience, including any relevant documentation (for example, minutes of
meetings at which this is discussed).
As always, thanks to everyone
for your work on these important
committees.
Motion and excerpt of minutes from AC meeting of
10/5/09
MOTION [DeWitt/Tucker]: That the Academic Council pass on
recommendations numbers 3, 6, and 7 to the relevant committees to consider and
report back to the Academic Council.
Prof. Rakowitz noted that regarding number 3, the
Public Lectures and Events Committee informally provided her with feedback; they
did find in favor already and found very productive. On the other two, number 6
we are asking for the subcommittee. For number 7 it’s fuzzy whether they are a
committee; she’s not sure what to make of that.
Prof. Mulvey stated that
procedurally we should send this to the Public Lectures and Events Committee and
get something formal from them that they think it’s a good idea and why. For
number 6 again, procedurally it is better for us to get the Student Life
Committee to weigh in on the recommendation. For number 7, the Budget Committee
is not a Handbook committee and we elect three representatives (point of
information). We should send it to these committees for information and
recommendation.
The vote was held by ballot.
MOTION
PASSED: 9 in favor, 8
opposed.
Items AC members communicated to the AC Executive
Committee regarding the proposal to add the Chairs of the FSC and EPC to the
Budget Committee. Some of these were communicated after the 10/5/09 AC meeting,
and so do not appear in those minutes.
1.
The FSC and EPC are labor
intensive committees, with the Chairs of those committees having an especially
heavy workload. If the Chairs of those committees are expected to serve on
another time consuming and labor intensive committee (such as the Budget
Committee), perhaps a course release is appropriate for the FSC and EPC
committee chairs.
2. The
Faculty Handbook, I.C.a.5., places limits on the number of committees on
which a faculty member can serve. So placing the Chairs of the FSC and EPC on
the Budget Committee may have the unintended consequence of forcing that chair
to resign from another committee. (There is some question as to how to interpret
this limitation. According to Journal of Record policy, such questions of
interpretation are settled by the AC with administrative approval, so it may be
that the AC will need to consider this interpretation issue.)
3.
An alternative suggestion: Have
the EPC and FSC elect and recommend to the President a committee member (not
necessarily the Chair) to serve on the Budget Committee for that year, with the
President deciding whether to appoint the individual recommended.
4.
There is the short-term issue as well as a long-term
issue. In the short term, the President has already indicated that he
intends to appoint the FSC Chair and the EPC chair to the 2009-2010 Budget
Committee. If the committee chairs do take on this duty, the committees may want
to consider holding a new election for chair since the individuals agreeing to
stand for election to chair did so without understanding all they would be
required to do. The long-term issue of whether the FSC Chair and the EPC chair
should be added to the Budget Committee is what the Academic Council is asking
your committee to consider and report on.
Section from AC Subcommittee Report with
recommendation 7, regarding expanding faculty membership on the Budget
Committee]
7. EXPANDING FACULTY REPRESENTATION ON THE BUDGET
COMMITTEE
The subcommittee recommends that the
Academic Council pass a motion that requests the University President to add the
chairpersons of the Salary Committee and the Educational Planning Committee to
the membership of the University Budget Committee.
Rationale: Over ten years ago, the university
administration agreed to allow elected faculty representatives to sit in on the
university’s Budget Committee. (This committee was then called the “Finance
Committee”, but the name was changed to avoid confusion with the Board’s Finance
Committee, which has a very different role.) Faculty have since been electing
such representatives, and three faculty have been participating in the work
alongside the vice presidents, the executive vice president, and representatives
from the student body and staff.
This recommendation would improve
shared governance by 1) increasing faculty participation in conversations
regarding the allocation of key campus resources, and 2) placing elected
chairpersons of standing faculty committees that conduct business often related
to the allocation of resources in conversation with the broader context of
resource needs on campus. This broadening of faculty participation in
substantive conversations regarding fiscal resources would contribute
significantly to the budgetary
process.
Email of 10/6/09 from
President von Arx to AC Executive Committee
From: von Arx, Jeffrey,
S.J. [President@fairfield.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, October
06, 2009 4:21 PM
To: Preli, Rona; Dewitt, Richard
Subject: University
Budget Committee
Rona and Rick –
I
understand that the Academic Council passed a motion to seek the views of the
committees impacted by various recommendations made by the Academic Council
Subcommittee on Governance. Recommendation #7 from the Subcommittee reads as
follows:
The subcommittee recommends that the Academic Council pass
a motion that requests the University President to add the chairpersons of the
Salary Committee and the Educational Planning Committee to the membership of the
University Budget Committee.
As the person to whom this
motion is directed, I thought I would voice my opinion. I think that this
recommendation responds to concerns expressed by the faculty about inclusiveness
and transparency in our budget processes and I support it. As the
University Budget Committee is formed in the coming weeks, I plan to invite
these two additional faculty. If the Academic Council passes a motion in
support of this change, it would be much appreciated.
JvA,
SJ
Email of 10/7/09 from AC
Executive Committee to President von Arx
From: Richard DeWitt
[rdewitt@mail.fairfield.edu]
Sent: Wednesday,
October 07, 2009 11:02 AM
To: 'von Arx, Jeffrey, S.J.'
Cc: 'Preli, Rona';
'Dewitt, Richard'
Subject: RE: University Budget
Committee
Jeff,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts
and recommendations with Rona and me concerning the proposed motion to include
the chairs of the Educational Planning Committee and the Salary Committee on the
Budget Committee. We think there is broad support for including additional
representatives on the University Budget Committee and are pleased to move
forward with this proposal.
The Budget Committee is an
administrative committee and, of course, we respect your authority to appoint
whomever you want to that committee. The Council, as you know, is asking the
relevant Handbook committees to consider the proposal before the AC weighs in
with a recommendation to you.
Basically, we think the Council will
want to consider all the consequences (intended and unintended) before taking
action. One concern, not expressed until after the meeting, is that the Handbook
has a limit on the number of committees on which a faculty member may serve.
(And, the Journal of Record has a subsequent interpretation of this Handbook
language). So the proposal may have the unintended consequence of requiring the
chairs to resign from one of their other committees. Also, both the FSC and the
EPC are incredibly time-consuming committees. Asking those chairs to sit on
another committee that meets very, very frequently is asking for a major
commitment that, perhaps, these individuals did not expect when they agreed to
chair their respective committees this year. Perhaps the AC might recommend some
course reduction for the chairs in exchange for a major new time
commitment.
In any event, we do expect the AC to work on this
quickly and have their recommendation to you this fall. Again, we think there is
broad support for additional representatives on the Budget Committee, and we
look forward to working with you in moving this
forward.
Regards,
Rick
Rick
DeWitt
Executive Secretary
Academic Council