Restructuring Task Force Meeting Notes - Nov. 7, 2003

Present: Nunes, Hansen, Rundquist, Lawrence, Kang, Spaude, Larkin, Bayerl, Dobey, Cogdill, Murphy

Absent: SubbaNarasimha, Starks-Martin

Michael Spitzer presented :

Provost Spitzer thanked the task force for their work and dedication.  He commented on the notes he's read from previous meetings.  There have been some fascinating ideas, and some he's not anticipated. He didn't like the proposed model which had all Vice Presidents reporting to the Provost - in those models there's usually also a Vice President for Academic Affairs.  From what he's read of the notes and comments on the task force's web site, he sees that there seems to be broad consensus that a “mega-college” or college of science and liberal arts does not have any support.  The idea of more, rather than fewer, colleges, may be worth pursuing.  He indicated, as well, that the previously stated “no cost increase” limitation might need to be relaxed somewhat.  Dr. Spitzer said he does not want to influence the recommendations made by the task force, and has mainly come to answer questions.

Questions/Comments :

• How many people do you feel is too many too report directly to a provost?
  The issue is not so much a matter of the number of people, but more what the range of responsibilities represented is - all of academic affairs and administrative affairs is too much.
• Do you agree that your present relationship to the Budget Director is not the best because the Budget Director reports directly to the President instead of to you?
  I do have regular meetings with the Budget Director.  Also, my position with the other Vice Presidents is one of “first among equals” - I am, in effect, the chair of the VP's, and so have more influence about budget decisions than the other VP's.  It's important to remember that most budget decisions are made by the President's Council, not by an individual.
• The President's Council consists of the President, you, the other Vice Presidents, the Budget Director and the Athletic Director - do you feel that this composition makes it unbalanced against academics?
  That might be true if votes were taken, but that's not the case.  The President is responsible for budget decisions, though my recommendations count heavily.
• If the Athletic Director were replaced by the Diversity Director, for instance, on the President's Council, would it change the atmosphere regarding academic matters?
  There might be a different flavor, perhaps.  But most academic decisions are made in Academic Affairs Council rather than at President's Council.
• Can we assume now that we don't need to spend any more time on the issue of a “mega-college”? 
  That should be your decision.
• Is Rex Veeder's position the Community Outreach VP position?
  It's not Community Outreach, it's Faculty Relations.  Joe Opatz is the VP for Planning and Outreach.  We have talked about a Community Outreach/Social Equity/Diversity position.
• We've been hearing that lack of coordination in the area of general education is an important problem.  What do you think about balancing the need for general education with the need for the major & minor courses?
  We need to address the core and general education issues first as a way of stabilizing enrollment.  When students can't get their general education courses, they tend to leave.  We need to focus on the first and second year retention in order to get students to be able to move on to the major courses.
• Is there something in our structure that makes general education dysfunctional?
  I don't think those issues are structural.  The thing that would be structural would be to provide for a person who would be responsible for general education.
• Science and Engineering feels that the present college structure is stable.  But if there is the prospect of a school of engineering, accreditation may require that there be a dean in charge.  How do you feel about that?
  Beginning with a school of engineering is a viable mechanism for growing a college of Engineering.  I don't think an engineer as dean is necessary, but it would be good as a long-term goal. 
• What's the target number of departments in a school before being able to look at a college?
  I don't like the idea of numbers.
• How do you define a school?
  Sometimes there are schools within colleges, and sometimes there are independent schools.  A school with only one department is really not a school, however.
• What about a person to oversee general education?  Would that person coordinate all course mandates?
  Yes, such a person should be a part of that - coordinating the various components, and making sure we have enough seats.    

Semya Hakim presented :

Semya Hakim is Chair of the Human Relations Department, but is presenting to the task force mainly as the communication coordinator for the Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus, who wish to bring their concerns to the task force.

Any kind of restructuring always hits marginalized groups hardest.  The Caucus has three main concerns:

1. They are opposed to the restructuring of the colleges, feeling it would be detrimental to both students and faculty. Usually when this happens, untenured people are not kept on.  On this campus, minorities are more likely to be the younger, untenured faculty.  There is also concern that departments might be merged, and this is opposed by the affected departments (Human Relations and Multicultural Education, Ethnic Studies).  There has been a rumor that Human Relations might be moved to the College of Social Sciences; the Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus (and the Department of Human Relations) feels strongly that it should remain in the College of Education.  There has been concern that some racial issues course offerings might be eliminated.
2. They are opposed to the creation of a College of General Education, feeling it will take away from the interdisciplinary issues that are important - different departments have different course offerings.  Making general education a separate unit has the feeling of “ghetto-izing” those courses.
3. They are opposed to the restructuring of student services areas unless those areas want to be restructured.  They are disturbed by the idea of splitting up multicultural student services.  Students of color are far more likely to go to multicultural student services for assistance than to other student services.  There has been an increase in students of color taking advantage of services offered by multicultural student services.  Movement of GLBT services to merge with the Women's Center is also opposed.  They feel that there's an administrative agenda to split up student services.  Any attempt to dilute the services offered will hurt the campus.

Questions:

• What structural changes could enhance the work of those units?
  Restructuring of resources needs to happen - all those offices need more people.  We need to decrease the bureaucracy.  At the present time it seems like departments are being micromanaged by the administration.  It might help if there were an advisory committee who would talk about diversity issues, racial issues courses, etc.
• What about a Vice President for Faculty Relations and Diversity?  Is that model useful?
  No, at least not the way it currently exists.  So far it has only been used to silence people of color.  There was never a search for this position.  There are too many layers; nobody responds.  It's a matter of the right or wrong person more than the problem of structure.  We need a channel of communication between multicultural services; a coordinating position is all right, theoretically.
• Is there a formal link between the Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus and the Provost now?
  There are a few administrators who are part of the Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus; that's pretty much the only link.  But the administration has discredited the caucus.
• So this is a group of people who have had to assume additional job responsibilities beyond their regular duties by default?
  Yes.  Structurally something should be done, but I don't know what.  It could function as just another committee but because of the problems on campus, it is greater than other committee work.
• Would there be any benefit to putting student services together by means of something like a council of directors?
  Yes, that's a good idea, but it might be said that there already is - the VP of Student Life and Development already meets with the directors of student services, and they feel they're not being heard now.
• In light of budget cuts, students are now paying most of the costs of those student services.  At what point should the supervision of student services shift to student government because of that?
• In our discussions about general education, we feel pretty sure that rostering people in a college of general education won't work for us, but if there were a coordinator of general education or undergraduate studies, would there be the same danger of devaluing general education if it were organized that way?
  That option builds another layer of bureaucracy.  I'm not sure what kind of change needs to take place. What's the big problem we're fixing?  It's possible that the administration wants to ruin general education - they feel we shouldn't have so many general education offerings or so many racial issues offerings.

Discussion:

There are problems, but they may not be solved by restructuring.  For financial reasons, there is a constant squeeze between general education and major/minor courses.  We're being asked to run a leaner organization, but we need to think about how changes affect students.

Andy Larkin distributed copies of Dr. Frankie Condon's proposal for a Center for Excellence in Learning.

University Communications should be under the Provost.  At the present time the university website is organized by university communications.  Though there are both external and internal users of the website, people on campus should be considered the first users, and the focus should be more internal than external.  There should be more academic connection than advancement connection.

Buildings and Grounds shouldn't be under the Provost.

Perhaps budget and finance should not be under the Provost - he doesn't see the current structure as a problem.  It seems different than it was before we had a Provost - he has more input in budgetary decisions.

Incentive-based budgeting is not a good idea - that's a business model.

Human Resources and Buildings & Grounds should not be under the Provost.

The Budget Director should be under the Provost.

We have what amounts to two Vice Presidents for Administrative Affairs now.  We've had difficulty in the areas of budgets and Human Resources.  There's too much gap between the Provost and those two areas.  In the past, we had two VP's - academic affairs and administrative affairs - of approximately equal power who were more or less balanced.  With the provost model, we moved toward an imbalance with more strength in Academic Affairs than in Administrative Affairs.  But it doesn't seem this has been carried out when the Associate VP for Budget reports directly to the president.

In the model we're looking at for possible reconfiguration, it looks like we've overlooked institutional research.  Maybe we need to consider proposing an AVP for institutional research and planning and an AVP for undergraduate studies and curriculum.  But institutional research has been moved to MnSCU central office.

It's important to have some position overseeing, or coordinating, general education.  It may not matter so much whether it's a coordinator, a dean, or an AVP, but the idea that it would be a person responsible for general education is important.  It's become clear we don't want to roster people in that area.  Currently we're allowing committees to do the work of an administrative person.  Committees do not have the responsibility or the resources necessary.  The price for having a small number of administrators is responsibility being shared by faculty for decision-making, but faculty aren't necessarily able to do that because they don't have the resources.

Attachment:  Written submission from Semya Hakim

November 7, 2003

To:             Task Force on Restructuring
From:           Semya Hakim, Communications Coordinator, The Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus
Re:             Concerns about Restructuring

The Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus has three main concerns about restructuring.  When organizations are restructured, people of color, the programs we are in and students of color often get restructured right out of existence.  It is with that concern in mind that we bring to you three points:

1. We are vehemently opposed to the merging or restructuring of colleges.  To create a “mega-college” would be at a detriment to all students and the faculty.  When programs and colleges merge, people with the least seniority find themselves without a job.  Given that many faculty of color are untenured, we feel that they will be at the greatest risk.  Students would greatly suffer from a union of multiple colleges because the layers of bureaucracy would deepen.  Moreover, we worry that departments that have a good portion of classes on race and racism such as Ethnic Studies, Human Relations and Multicultural Education and Community Studies will be merged despite the fact that the missions of those three departments are very different. Specifically, there are rumors circulating that the Department of Human Relations and Multicultural Education will be merged with a department in, or moved to, the College of Social Sciences.  Human Relations and Multicultural Education offers racial issues courses as well as other Diversity/MGM courses and moving it would destroy those particular requirements.
2. We are also opposed to the creation of a College of General Education that would house the courses that make-up general education and the faculty who teach them.  Specifically, we feel that this will take away from the interdisciplinary intent of the Racial Issues requirement.  Students report that they appreciate having courses in multiple colleges to take their racial issues classes.   Any change Racial Issues classes would disproportionately affect faculty of color since we make up the majority of people who teach these classes.  Moreover, it would serve to “ghettoize” racial issues and other Diversity/MGM courses.  We have fought long and hard to be vital and active members in the academic environment and we are concerned that this type of change would be a step backwards.
3. We are opposed to the restructuring of student service offices unless recommended by the staff of a particular center.   We are greatly disturbed by talk of splitting apart Multicultural Student Services (MSS) so that their academic support programs are housed with other academic support programs.  We want to insure that this does not happen unless the director of that unit recommends it.  While some students of color utilize other programs, we find that they are more likely to go to MSS for academic help, tutoring and advising.  While MSS is not an academic unit, they have a mentoring program that sets up students of color with faculty/staff of color in their major.  This program is very successful and we see firsthand the progress that our students make.  We are also concerned about any plan to move the Sexual Violence Prevention and Advocacy Programs out of the Women's Center.  The Women's Center has hired several “Community of Color Advocates” and if this part of the Women's Center was moved elsewhere, we feel that students of color would not get the support they need and deserve.  Finally, we feel that any movement of the LGBT Center to the Women's Center will disproportionately affect students of color, as would the other changes described here.  It is important to note that all three of these changes satisfy an administrative agenda that does not best suit students of color or other marginalized groups. 

Thank you very much for your consideration of our concerns.  Feel free to contact me if I can provide additional information.