Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 1:50pm.
Approval of Minutes:
The minutes of February 15th were approved as written.
Vice-President Joan Shapiro (presiding in President LaFollette’s absence) called the meeting to order and gave the Vice-President’s Report:
Vice President Shapiro requested that if faculty members are no longer on committees, please send the update to the Faculty Senate. She also asked that the updated charges of the committees be sent to her. It is important to have current information on file.
Candidates are still needed for the EPPC, the Personnel Committee, the Sabbatical Committee, the Budget Review Committee and other various committees. All of this information is available on the Faculty Senate website. VP Shapiro made passionate plea to faculty members to participate on committees. She emphasized that the faculty voice is very important, and particularly during these challenging times.
Vice President Shapiro then called on Senator Michael Jackson to give the Nominating Committee Report. As of this time, there are two candidates for the position of Faculty Senate President: Paul LaFollette and Marina Angel. Vice President Shapiro is the unopposed candidate for Vice President and Roberta Sloan is the unopposed candidate for Secretary. Senator Jackson mentioned that faculty members can still self-nominate through a petition process as explained on the Faculty Senate website.
President’s Report – Paul LaFollette:
President LaFollette stated that he feels the principal concern of the university at this time is the budget situation. President Hart, Vice President and Provost Englert and Vice-President for Budget Tony Wagner are all in Harrisburg today speaking with the legislature.
President LaFollette shared the current activities of the Faculty Senate Steering Committee, which include working on the university bylaws revision and planning the 2nd FSSC/Dean’s retreat. The Committee on Administrative and Trustee Appointments (CATA) has been asked to provide nominees for two committees; the search committee for the new Provost, and the search committee for the new Dean of Libraries.
The FSSC is also bringing the constitution and bylaws of the Faculty Senate up to date. President LaFollette pointed out some of the new proposals contained within the new Faculty Senate bylaws update and also mentioned that in some cases the revisions were simply to clarify the language. He will be sending out the proposed revisions to Faculty Senators across the university. One of the goals of the revisions is to make certain that the actions of the FSSC and the Faculty Senate conform to the bylaws.
Both April and May Faculty Senate Meetings will be University Senate Meetings rather than Representative Faculty Senate Meetings. This will allow the faculty members to vote on the new revision to the Faculty Senate Constitution. It is hoped that the revised university bylaws will be ready to be reviewed before the end of the year, and then voted upon electronically. In this way, both will be implemented by fall, 2011. President LaFollette hopes that as many faculty as possible will come and participate at the April and May University Faculty Senate Meetings.
Professor Marina Angel (Law) stated that she hoped that the amendment to the Faculty Senate constitution and bylaws will be sent via email to all senators. President LaFollette responded that he intends to do so.
President LaFollette then turned the meeting over to Vice-President Shapiro to preside since President LaFollette needed to be elsewhere.
Guest: Professor Leroy Dubeck, Chair of the Faculty Senate Budget Review Committee:
VP Shapiro introduced Professor Leroy Dubeck, chair of the Faculty Senate Budget Review Committee. She extolled his many accomplishments. Professor Dubeck gave a presentation and shared information and his view regarding the 2011-2012 budget at Temple University.
Some of his remarks included: Pennsylvania, unlike the federal government, has to operate on a balanced budget. Last Tuesday, the governor announced his proposal for the next year’s budget. The total decrease from the year before is $450 million, including the decrease that is due to the end of stimulus funding.
During 2010-2011, Temple had three appropriation lines; Stimulus money expended for non-recurring expenses, funding from the budget for higher education, and money which went to the Health Sciences Center through public welfare funding that came through the Medical School. This last funding source came from the Federal Government. This coming year, there will be no stimulus money and no federal funding for public welfare. Combining those losses with the reduced funding that the governor has proposed will mean that Temple University will have a $104 million dollar reduction in funds. That is if the governor’s budget prevails. There can be secondary impacts as well. For instance eliminating funding for teachers to pursue advanced degrees will, no doubt, impact the enrollment in the College of Education.
Professor Dubeck further explained that the Temple University Health System budget is inexorably intertwined with the main campus budget and that significant cuts in Medicaid will also have a negative impact on the 2011-2012 budget. He further explained how last year Temple’s Budget was better than expected because one outgoing senator was convinced to change his vote at the eleventh hour.
Professor Dubeck said that there is a possibility that if Shale Drilling is taxed, Temple will get more funding. Shale drilling taxes could garner 200-500 million dollars per year. However, even if this happens, there will be many requests for portions of this potential funding. He also mentioned that higher education was not the only entity to suffer from the governor’s budget proposal, but probably Education has been hit the hardest. Now that we know the worst case scenario, the important thing is to do everything possible to strive for the cut to be reduced.
The Huron Group has been brought in to examine the implementation of possible efficiencies. Professor Dubeck and other selected faculty members will be meeting with them soon.
Professor Marina Angel (law) stated that under former President Peter Liacouras, the budgets of the Health Sciences Center and the Temple University were separated in order to make certain that losses from the Health Sciences Center did not bankrupt the university. She wonders why they are now combined and stated that she believes the combination of the two positions of Dean of the Medical School and Executive Director of the Health Sciences Center was a very bad move. She said that she would like to know why this was done.
Professor Angel continued and said that she is not convinced that the university is in such bad financial shape. She pointed out the surprising fact that two days after the governor’s budget announcement, the university administration announced that it had hired a new Vice-President in charge of university architecture. She mentioned that this will entail not only the salary and benefits for a position which she believes is questionably needed, but also the costs for the new VP’s assistants, staff and office suite. Her question was how the university could make such a move if it is in such bad financial shape as has been reported.
Professor Dubeck said that the funding for the new Science Building has been approved, but money for the building of a new library and the renovation of Paley Library into classrooms, has not been approved.
Professor Art Hochner (Business and Management) said that the university must plan for the worst case scenario and a variety of slightly better scenarios. He stated that since there will be a reduction in funding; the university has the choice to raise tuition or take other measures. He emphasized his belief that the primary functions of the university are teaching and research. He called this a “labor intensive” enterprise, in that a large portion of the budget is spent on salaries. He said that he hoped that choices to be made will not hurt our students and make it more difficult for faculty to do their jobs. He also mentioned that it is important that faculty and students have the support of staff in order to do our jobs well. He said that faculty service is totally taken for granted. Professor Hochner further said that he believed there should be a special task force to examine budget priorities and made recommendations and that this task force should be composed of members of the Faculty Senate, TAUP and the Faculty Senate Budget Review Committee. He said that there should be more transparency and joint decision making in planning for the various possible scenarios. He believes that there should be shared decision-making regarding the 2011-2012 budget.
Professor Hochner continued and said that it looks as if student numbers will go up slightly or remain level. He said some options are to have a hiring freeze, offer buyouts, and to invoke involuntary layoffs. He said he felt that it is very important to have union representation when making these decisions.
Professor Stephanie Knopp (Art) said that it is important that we do all we can to Harrisburg and that we should educate our students about the budget situation so that they can do the same.
It was asked, “When is the faculty voice going to be heard?” It was mentioned that the Administration has mandatory costs, and that next year these include an increase of 28 million dollars in salaries and benefits. There would need to be a 5% tuition increase to cover these costs. It was mentioned that the budget problem can not be solved just by raising tuition.
Vice President Shapiro continued the meeting leading the ensuing discussion:
Professor Art Hochner (Business and Management) moved that the Faculty Senate, Faculty Senate Budget Review Committee and TAUP should work with the administration to create a representative task force to deal with the budget crisis facing us. The motion was seconded and then passed unanimously.
Vice President Shapiro suggested putting the students in the center of the discussion. She asked “When should the faculty voice be heard?” Professor Dubeck responded that he feels the faculty voice should be heard now. We will not know about the budget soon. It is unlikely that it will be passed before the end of May, and it may be as late as June 30th or after, however, planning must take place now. VP Shapiro mentioned that alumni, students, and parents, as well as faculty can have a significant impact. This is the time to speak loud enough in a voice that can reach people. She asked “How can the faculty as part of the Temple family best help with the budget issues we face?”
Professor Trish Jones (Education) suggested that through the Development officers and our collegial assemblies, we might be able to reach alumni and donors who could assist with a willingness to become involved.
Professor Joe Schwartz (CLA) asked “Who’s going to lead the organizing of these initiatives? He said that he thinks that Ken Lawrence is doing a good job but the most important thing is to contact the legislators who will be the decision-makers. He stated that contact from constituencies is the most effective way of organizing. This can happen all across the state. He said that it is important to target those senators who need to change their voting patterns and be more pro education.
Senator Frank Friedman (Business and Management) shared that the first Faculty Symposium featuring keynote speaker Mary Burgan will take place from 2:30-4:30 in Kiva Auditorium on April 7th. He hopes that the Faculty Senate and the Faculty Herald will be able to sponsor a symposium every semester. There will be a faculty and student panel following Dr. Burgin’s presentation.
VP Shapiro suggested using the Faculty Senate Listserv for discussions on these topics. She mentioned that she felt that our public relations effort should be stronger. For instance, how many people know that Temple University is the sixth largest provider of professional education in the United States? This is one example of an important statistic that will help our case. She said that there is enormous expertise on campus in PR that the university is not using to “get the word out.” She concluded that the public should know what we do now and what we have done in the past.
Professor Art Hochner (Business and Management) suggested that information should come from people on the front line. He said that the impact this budget cut has on students should be emphasized. He suggested that people write letters to the editor of newspapers and also make use of the op Ed pages in various publications. He said that contacting newspaper columnists would also be a good idea. He further suggested that we encourage our students to become spokespeople.
VP Shapiro concluded the meeting by mentioning that the effort should be student focused and that she is certain that many of us can eloquently state our case.
Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at 3:03 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Roberta Sloan, Ph.D.
Faculty Senate Secretary
