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Notes on Labor/Management Meetings
April 11, 2005
Present: UUP: Jim Dix, Fran Goldman, Beth Kilmarx, Dennis Selzner, Darryl Wood; Management: President DeFleur, Sheila Doyle, Ann Glossl, Jeff Hadley, Sylvia Hall, Karen Kocan, Joe Schultz
- Introductory remarks: UUP noted that we are a member driven organization and issues we raise are the result of their concerns. Two themes emerged upon review of items for today's discussion: Policies and Procedures are either not clear or non-existent and there is little or no enforcement of those Policies and Procedures that are in place. Finally, UUP noted a number of past accomplishments with the university, including Advocacy Day, the Part-Time web-site/booklet and the revision of the Professional's Evaluation Form.
- Health and Safety: UUP explained that issues of most importance to the membership concern traffic and personal safety and that enhanced enforcement of traffic laws would be effective in increasing traffic safety. UUP expressed concern over three issues: confusion about where to report safety issues (University Police?, Physical Facilities?, Personal Safety Committee?, or Environmental Health?); whether safety complaints are logged; and the procedure by which complaints are followed up.
The President stated that it depends on what kind of issue it is and that there are appropriate groups on campus who are tasked with dealing with such issues. The President further stated that the Personal Safety Committee has already identified some areas and has directed those to Facilities. The President also stated that the views on traffic safety are multifaceted and discussions have included going to yellow flashing lights and closing roads. However, CUE (Committee on the University Environment) is opposed to the yellow flashing lights and although there have been two separate plans on closing roads, there is no money to do restructuring since it is not part of any major construction budget.
UUP suggested that it might be helpful if there was a central place where concerns could be logged that might be similar to that used by the Computer Center's Help Desk in which concerns are logged and when resolved, the individual is notified. The President said that we do have a type of log with the Personal Safety Committee and they can look at that. However, she said she was reluctant to create more jobs, but that maybe there could be some reorganization or get people together on how to communicate better.
- Academic Freedom: UUP stated that its interpretation of Article 9 (Academic Freedom) of the contract includes the prerogative of instructors of record to assign grades. UUP further stated that only under extreme and unusual circumstances would administration change grades. The President did not give an unequivocal statement of agreement with this interpretation. The President indicated that academic freedom applies to professors but also applies to students and that there are court cases (citations will be provided) which lay down principles that have to do with fairness, clear guidelines etc. UUP requested that they be given copies of the court cases which Management agreed. UUP indicated that they would respond in some way when the court cases are sent. The president stated that administration could institute a review of grades when there was a complaint from a student, a faculty member, or a administrator.
- Strategic Plan: UUP inquired about the status of the draft Strategic Plan. The President stated that it is no longer a draft and a final version would be available soon. After the second draft the Vice Presidents made some small changes but did not include anything with a major thrust. UUP noted that neither the first or second draft addressed the infrastructure. The President stated that the university gave differential reductions to areas. Each Dean handled this in a different way and needed to figure out how to approach the issues and set priorities. The President indicated that the Strategic Plan did not address the strategy by which individual schools should respond to resource reductions.
- Internal Consideration Plan: UUP stated that although there had been some problems with the procedures being followed we have been working with the President's Designee and have hopefully, solved this problem and that we will not need to bring this issue to the table again. The University presented revised promotion numbers for Professionals that have occurred in the past three years through the Internal Consideration process. For year 2003 – 44%, last year – 40%, and this year - 50%. Over the last 2 years, 28 Professionals have been promoted due to an increase a significant and permanent increase in duties and responsibilities.
- Downtown Center: The President stated that the plan is based upon widely shared flexible space. At the present, in terms of offices, MPA and Continuing Education will be there. There will also be space for conferences and community activities , and for other BU units that want to move there. The President said that we are not building a huge infrastructure. UUP asked whether parking would be a problem. The President replied that it is not an issue and that Senator Libous was working on getting an evaluation to buy the Blind Work Association building. UUP also asked whether there would be Student Services Offices. The President said that there will be broadly defined support services, mostly computers linked to campus and maybe one fulltime staff member.
UUP asked that they be in process for getting responses. The President said that they are at the concept and design stage and that down the line there would an Implementation Group and if there were UUP related issues we would be kept in the loop. UUP stated that they were concerned that they had been hearing about external pressure from elected officials for the use of the building. The President stated that since this is a community education development approach, it is appropriate to have discussion with elected officials at all levels. Everyone has ideas about what should be there and people have a right to ask.
- Charge-backs: UUP stated that it felt that charge-backs were an unnecessary diversion of funds. The President stated that it was necessary to do this because so much had been taken from State dollars and dedicated to Academics there was a need to recapture some costs since Administrative area had been depleted. They will continue to evaluate the charge-back process. Management stated that there is no overhead on approved charge-backs and that they are only charging for the real cost.
Archived LM notes:
Feb, 2007 | Jan, 2007 | Dec, 2006
Nov, 2006 | Oct, 2006 | Sep, 2006
Jun, 2006 | May, 2006 | Apr, 2006
Mar, 2006 | Feb, 2006 | Nov, 2005
Oct, 2005 | Oct, 2005 | Sep, 2005
Apr, 2005 | Mar, 2005 | Feb, 2005
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