Faculty Senate 2/14/12

A report on this month's Faculty Senate Meeting.  (Agenda here.)

Upcoming events

• On Friday, February 24, at 3:00 G. W. Reid, the executive director of the IBHE (Illinois Board of Higher Education) will speak on performance based funding, and take questions. Faculty were encouraged to attend; he's not going to every campus, and this will be a good opportunity for SIUC faculty to give him our input and show our interest in this process. 
• On February 29 President Poshard will speak on campus about employee pensions, from 1:30-3:00 in the student center auditorium.   

Program review. For me the highpoint of yesterdays' Faculty Senate meeting was what didn't happen: there was no significant discussion of the draft document on program review, despite a lengthy and somewhat critical review of the draft document circulating about that process. This was in large part due to the unspoken rule that after a meeting has gone for over an hour, everyone starts to clam up, together by Senate President Bill Recktenwald's urging us to submit comments in writing rather than engage in an extended discussion. The Chair of the Undergraduate Education Policy Committee, Stephen Ebbs, had to buck Recktenwald a bit to say anything at all.  He was answered, cordially, by Alan Karnes, co-chair of the committee that produced the Program Review Report; Karnes said that this was just the sort of feedback his committee wanted. Karnes also made the smart observation that the Public Act's requirement that universities report underperforming programs directly to the legislature, rather than merely to the IBHE, was particularly scary. It was unfortunate, though, that there was no more discussion. I don't entirely blame Recktenwald for this--he is also responsible for organizing the faculty panel on program review earlier this month, and so is hardly suppressing debate on this. It is rather probably part of the m.o. of the organization to have meetings consist far more of reports (mainly by the Chancellor and Provost) rather than discussion, much less debate—especially debate, which is scary.  But reports, unlike discussion and debate, would perhaps be better left to written form, perhaps with quick oral summaries; we don't need to hear which streets are going to be repaved this summer, etc., when we could be discussing more pressing matters. More on program review, perhaps, in another post. In what follows I'll try to cover other highlights of the meeting.*

Cheng: no layoffs or furloughs next year

I finally made time to listen to the Chancellor's regular "morning conversation" gig on WSIU radio from Tuesday (6/14). The big news item was her statement that "the deans" have informed her that there will not be a need for either furloughs or layoffs next year. This even if cuts to state allocations are somewhat worse than the 1.1% in the current budget, perhaps as high as 3%. Thus the overall state budget news, and its impact on SIUC, is good, at least in comparison to last year.

Cheng did return to the issue of a "structural deficit" on campus, and said that "right sizing" the budget (a lovely corporate euphemism), together with meeting this year's cuts, would result in a reduction on campus of somewhere between 2.5% to 5%. Those cuts sound pretty steep, and I also don't fully understand what Cheng means when she talks about a structural deficit, since SIUC ran a surplus last year. My guess is that some of these cuts will mean cutting positions that are already empty--i.e., resigning ourselves to the fact that we're going to have fewer staff in some areas.

Cheng also characterized this good news as meaning that we would be able to move forward to a "better and brighter future" with "employees and programs" intact. This line, if taken literally, will come as a comfort to any worried about the sorts of large-scale program cuts that have gone on elsewhere. Apparently our "right sizing" is going to be done largely via attrition. No suggestion of an end for the hiring freeze, however, or hint of an end to the freeze on salaries.

As I suggested in response to Poshard's email announcing the better than expected state budget, this relatively good news ought to make negotiations easier. But if the administration insists on retaining the power to unilaterally declare furlough days, even if they say they won't need it next year, we'll still have are real debate on our hands. And of course there are other issues, starting, for the FA, with the status of tenure.

Three more matters after the break: the GA healthcare debate, Cheng's more general statements on negotiations, and Cheng's evaluation of her first year in office.

IEA on the state budget struggle

I'm not up on all the details of the legislative process, but a quick glance at this IEA report shows that the union is indeed fighting to prevent the sort of pension troubles I mentioned in the last post.  My worry about the IEA's role was misplaced.

This is what happens when one posts in a great hurry--I'm hoping it's at least as much a reflection of the nature of blogging as of my sloppiness & ignorance.

Those of you who wonder about why we should have to pay union dues ought to check out the news on the IEA website.  If the IEA helps prevent (or at least alleviate) these massive cuts to our pensions, you'll have the IEA (and its dues-paying members) to thank. We won't agree with every position the IEA holds, or every tactical decision the union makes, but they are huge player in state politics, and state politics matters.

Lobby Against SB 312

Details from Jonathan Bean, who argues that pending legislation could mean a massive pay cut in order to fund our pensions.

I'll quickly make one response to him here, though.  He asks where the FA is in response to this.  At graduation and grading exams. We don't have a full-time staffer on the pension front. That's because we don't have a full time (or part time) staffer. So, yes, our concerns tend to be local--though, hey, I'm trying, aren't I?

If the IEA is selling us down the river, though, that would be another story. In their potential defense, this may be the perennial debate between choosing to help improve a bad deal to make it slightly less bad and resolutely opposing a bad deal which doesn't get any better, and may well get passed despite one's opposition.

Lobby for HB 3700

A quick post to encourage one and all to follow Glen Poshard's advice that we lobby on behalf of HB (House Bill) 3700, which would cut state funding for SIUC only moderately.  The obvious argument to make is that state funding for higher education has been in decline for years, and that while the state's budget is troubled, higher education has already suffered more than its fair share of cuts.

Here's contact information for Mike Bost.

Here's contact information for David Luechtefeld.