Attendance: The attendance list is unavailable currently; it will be posted shortly. A quorum was present.
The meeting began at 12:06pm on 8 April with the chair, Philip Troyk, presiding.
Blue Cross / Blue Shield: Mary Henry, Benefits Coordinator in the Human Resources Department, reported on the changes in the health insurance system that are upcoming for all staff and faculty beginning 1 June 2005. IIT is replacing its Cigna coverage with Blue Cross / Blue Shield. The coverage will be comparable or in some cases superior to our current coverage, and the price will not be significantly different from the current plan. The PPO coverage will be very similar to the current PPO; the HMO choice is being replaced by a Network plan with somewhat different attributes. The optometric benefit will be superior to the current one.
Next meeting: In view of the large number of items under consideration at this meeting, Phil asked if the council would want to meet on 15 April in order to consider business that will not have been concluded by the end of the 8 April meeting. The council agreed to this plan.
Domestic partners benefit: Jay Schieber presented his proposal to alter the language describing the extension of fringe benefits to domestic partners. The current staff handbook specifies that the benefits are available to spouses or to same-sex domestic partners. Individuals wishing to claim the domestic-partner benefits must fill out a simple form attesting to the longevity and stability of the relationship. Jay's proposal is to remove the "same-sex" language from the document so that the benefits could be extended to opposite-sex domestic partners as well. He moved for the consideration of the proposal; Glenn Broadhead seconded the motion. Mary Ann Smith and Allan Myerson have been consulted as to the legal and financial consequences of the proposed change. After some discussion, Joel Goldhar moved to table consideration of this proposal until the 15 April meeting. His move to table passed unanmiously. Andy Howard will ask Mary Ann Smith to attend the 15 April meeting and amid Arastoopoursk her to clarify the administration's view on the subject. n.b.: Andy did contact Mary Ann, and she agreed to look into this matter and attend the meeting.
Officers of University Faculty Council: Phil observed that the Faculty Handbook specifies that University Faculty Council members for any given year should be chosen by 15 April of the previous academic year. The individual academic units may choose their own methods of selecting representatives on the council, provided that the choices are not made by a dean or institute director. Andy agreed to determine which academic units had members whose terms were expiring and send e-mails to the relevant academic unit heads asking them for the names of their new or reappointed representatives. n.b.: This email did go out shortly after the meeting, and nearly complete responses have been received. Officers are to be appointed at the May University Faculty Council meeting.
Certificate Programs and MPA Programs in Public Safety and Nonprofit Studies: Deliberation on these programs will be deferred to the 15 April meeting. The text of the proposals will be posted on the University Faculty Council website.
Faculty spending from gift and indirect-cost rebate accounts: Hamid Arastoopour requested time to discuss his concern over the management of the gift (6), endowment (4), and indirect-cost (3) accounts for faculty members here. He has visited other universities recently and believes that, in many ways, IIT compares favorably to those other schools -- but not terms of management of gifts to faculty. In most instances, unspent balance in a 6 account after the year in which the donation arrives is absorbed into the university's central fund, and the receiving faculty member must present a budget request in order to spend against the budget in any subsequent year. He believes the difficulties in accessing these funds will get worse rather than better as IIT's determination to emerge from dependence on draws from endowment come to fruition. He encouraged the Faculty Council to develop a plan to deal with this issue and present that plan to the senior administration.
A general discussion of the seriousness of this problem ensued. Phil said he has scheduled a meeting with President Collens to discuss this issue. Hamid said that the university has a number of other financial problems facing it currently, but most of the others lie outside of the control or management of the faculty. Phil asked Howard Chapman whether he has a preliminary financial report ready; Howard said he did, and that he would distribute it on an off-the-record basis at the end of the meeting.
Hamid said that mid-level administrators are spending substantial amounts of time dealing with the gift-account problem and are losing productivity as a result. Joel Goldhar observed that the underlying problem is structural rather than allocational: he believes that there are too many high-level administrators on the campus, and the money that is being spent on their upkeep is the root cause of the gift-account problem and many other woes. He argued that until the university constructs appropriate financial awards for faculty progress, it would be premature to focus on the 6-account issue. Phil and Hamid estimated that the College of Engineering is short about $2.5 million in 6 accounts; the total for the university is roughly twice that. Hamid asked what kind of policy the University is establishing to close these gaps.
Joel suggested that the underlying difficulty is excessive centralization: we need to recognize that there is insufficient local autonomy in the laboratories, programs, colleges, and schools. He asked Hamid how the other schools he had visited were managing these accounts. Hamid said that the money is usually available, no questions asked; in some cases administrators might ask the recipients how they plan to spend the money, but there is no interference with the rate of spending.
A discussion of 4 (endowment) accounts, as well as 6 accounts, ensued. Jay Schieber observed that a number of administrative decisions have put the spending authority in the hands of people with no accountability. Andy commented that the difficulties in spending the funds in 6 accounts have also arisen in the 3 accounts established by the Graduate Dean as returns on indirect costs from external grants and contracts. Joel argued that either the faculty will obtain some accountability or talented faculty will leave. Phil said he believes that the administration is at least acknowledging that there is a need for discussion of the problem.
Membership on Ph.D. and Master's Committees: Sud Nair presented a proposal from Grad Studies Committee that had been unanimously approved at Feb meeting. It allows one outside member, not affiliated with IIT, to serve on as a voting member of a master's or a Ph.D. applicant's committee. Phil asked how the outside person was to be vetted: Sud replied that the outside member must have a doctorate in the area of the research and be active in research; also, the nomination of the outside member must be approved by the Dean of Graduate Studies and the head of the student's academic unit. Joel suggested that the process should also allow non-category I IIT faculty, some of whom do not hold doctoral degrees. Phil suggested that the intent of this proposal is deliberately narrow in its extension of voting rights, to outside members who are active in research. Glenn suggested a rewording of the proposal so that the requirement for a doctorate would be introduced with the vaguer word "should". The purpose of this particular proposal is to open up our committees to individuals from other institutions (other universities, national laboratories, industrial scientists) who are category-I-like in their functions. The question was called, and it passed unanimously.
Reorganization of the Provost's Office: Joel offered a written report from the ad hoc committee on the organization of the provost's office. He proposed that the council approve the report and forward it to the provost. One of his guiding principles in drafting the report was to emphasize that student affairs and student life issues are important to recruitment; these issues, on the margin, are the ones that influence students' decisions about whether or not to attend IIT. They are also parts of the students' undergraduate experience. An extended discussion of his report ensued.
Jay suggested that the step of eliminating the graduate college is extreme. He asked if other schools are doing that: Joel said he doesn't know. Jay argued that the graduate college does have gatekeeping responsibilities, and that these should not disappear during the reorganization. Phil suggested that the graduate studies committee could operate without a graduate college. Geoff asked whether the proposed reorganization will actually reduce the number of administrators, which is a goal many council members are seeking. Several council members argued that we need to avoid losing any essential services upon implementing the reorganization.
Glenn Broadhead brought up the specifics of the undergraduate college, most of whose functions have now been redistributed. The entities remaining in the undergraduate college are his Communication Across the Curriculum, the Educational Services office, and the Academic Resource Center. Don Ucci is the interim dean over these activities, but he also functions as an associate provost, so his role is complex. Allan has proposed grouping these functions, along with the Dean of Students' office and one other function, under a single dean with faculty standing; Joel is proposing a similar dean-titled position associated with faculty affairs. Glenn asked about approvals of Ph.D. dissertations, and expressed skepticism about the longevity of the administrative arrangements we might be establishing at this point. Establishment of positions with titles like "Vice Provost and Dean" lead to two different reportage relationships, but that's a price we might have to pay. One of the attractions of a position with "Dean" in its title is accountability: the faculty handbook specifies a procedure that must be followed in hiring a dean.
Joel proposed rewording his Recommendation 2b, so that part of the title of the second position would be "Dean of Faculty." Jay argued that are a lot of things in Joel's document that need discussion and a lot of these issues haven't been resolved. Phil said we recognize that something needs to change, and that the challenge is to figure out a plan to get us from where we are to where we want to be. Geoff argued that there's a principle that the positions should be appointed from the faculty and with faculty approval. He also suggested that there need to be financial restraints on what the central administration does. He advised against doing detailed recasting of the Provost's organization chart, and suggested that we might want to distill Joel's recommendations into a different format. Phil suggested that someone draft a shorter response that distills Joel's report as well as the spirit of the current discussions.
Joel suggested a more straightforward approach: to modify the language regarding the second dean's position and then submit it. Glenn expressed some uncertainty: he admires the effort to impose a rationale for some discrete roles, but suggested that we need to have a clearer idea of what Allan himself has in mind for an organizational chart. Howard suggested that we should go one step further: perhaps the faculty should work with Myerson to help design a new administration. Phil suggested that we should ask Allan to come back with an articulation of his vision of the new organizational chart, and if he doesn't have it finalized he should consult with us. After additional discussion the Council agreed to delay action on this report until the 15 April meeting.
Financial report: Howard Chapman distributed a draft of the end-of-year financial report. He asked how aware the council was of the major changes in the medical benefits for staff and faculty; Phil said that Mary Henry had presented those changes at the beginning of the meeting, but that her report on the impact of the change is not yet ready. Howard had developed his report as an update to the spring 2004 report. There are some encouraging items in the report, and some other less favorable news. Glenn asked that the financial report be a featured item at the 15 April meeting. Howard observed that assembling this report in the spring is less than ideal, because the numbers will be much clearer in the late summer. He suggested that the report should be distributed in a cleaner form when the university's budget is released in the fall. Phil commented that it's easier to focus on it in the fall anyway.
15 April meeting Joel asked if we could begin the 15 April meeting at 11:30 rather than noon: Phil agreed to pursue that.
Adjournment:The meeting adjourned about 1:55 pm.