THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA
FACULTY COUNCIL MINUTES

October 4, 1990
Signal Mountain Room
University Center

ELECTED MEMBERS PRESENT: Tom Bibler, Stan Byrd, Pedro Campa, Terry Carney, George Helton, James Hiestand, Steve LeWinter, Chris Mawata, Gary McDonald, Ed McMahon, Peter Pringle, Edgar Shawen, Mary Tanner, Gavin Townsend, John Trimpey, Margaret Trimpey, Jeannette Vallier, Ken Venters, Paul Watson, Donald Weisbaker, Rock Wilson, Terry Zivney

ELECTED MEMBERS ABSENT: Michael Bell, Rick Callaway, Delores Craig, Robert Dardenne, Betsy Darken, Gail Meyer, Lyn Miles, Colbert Whitaker, David Wiley

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Henry, Joseph Jackson, Fred Obear, Charles Renneisen

AMONG THE GUESTS PRESENT: Anissa Anderson (Echo), Martha Butterfield, Paul Gaston, Jim Poston, Neal Riley, Roy Stinnett

Summary of Action Items of Today's Meeting

Faculty Council recommends that academic units contribute a smaller amount to the State impoundment than the $405,000 that is now planned.
Neal Riley is to report back to Faculty Council on recommendations for proportions of impoundments among the various academic units.
Margaret Trimpey is to convene the ad hoc Women's Committee.
Pedro Campa is to convey the charge of the ad hoc Women's Committee to Fred Obear.

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order by President Pedro Campa at 3:16 pm. The minutes of the 20 September 1990 meeting were corrected and then accepted by a unanimous voice vote.

The correction was to add that, in the discussion of the Academic Calendar, Jim Hiestand and others expressed a concern about the unequal length of the Fall and Spring semesters. [Also, Jim Henry's name was removed from the list of "Elected Members Present" and added to "Ex-officio Members Present," Robert Dardenne's name was removed from the list of "Elected Members Absent," and a subject-verb disagreement was corrected.--Sec.]

Report from Budget and Economic Status Committee

Budget and Economic Status Committee Chair Neal Riley discussed the goals of the Committee for the year. The Committee has decided to address primarily the issue of faculty salaries this year. This is a result of the fact that faculty salary was the main concern of the faculty as revealed in the results of the Faculty Concerns Survey conducted last year by Pedro Campa. The committee is going to survey salaries at other institutions in order to determine how we stand on a comparative basis. In the past, comparisons have been made with local public school teacher's salaries. He said this seems inappropriate, particularly for the faculty in the professional schools. Other institutions comparable to UTC are being sought with whom salary comparisons would be more appropriate.

Riley also introduced Martha Butterfield, chair of the subcommittee on benefits. This subcommittee is going to look at the benefits of maternity leave and TIAA/CREF portability upon retirement, among other things.

Riley then presented the Committee report on recommendations for dealing with the cash impoundment order from the State of Tennessee (Attachment A). He explained that impoundment [to seize, take or appropriate summarily--Sec.] is the action taken by the State after it "fully funds" the University by the THEC formula. Thus, the State gets to claim that it is fully funding the University while, in fact, the University is not being fully funded.

UTC's impoundment is about $900,000, or about 3% of the total State funding. The Academic units of UTC are to share, i.e., give back, about $405,000 of the total impoundment. The Provost asked the Budget and Economic Status Committee to make recommendations to her as to the allocation of this impoundment among the various academic units.

After much discussion, questioning and clarification, Terry Zivney moved the adoption of a slightly revised version of the Committee's "Motion #1:"
The [Faculty Council] recommends that impoundments from Academic and Academic support divisions be minimized with a greater proportion of the impoundment coming from non-academic areas.

The rationale for this motion is that the Faculty Council wants the impoundment to have a smaller impact on the areas of UTC that are directly connected with the educational mission of the University. This motion passed by a unanimous voice vote.

Terry Zivney also moved the adoption of the Committee's "Motion #2:"
The [Faculty Council] recommends that academic school impoundments be allocated as a percent of each academic unit's proportion of the total operating budget.

The rationale for this motion is that those academic units with larger budgets would share, i.e., give back, a larger portion of the total "academic school impoundments." [Presumably this is the same thing as saying each academic unit would give back the same percentage of their "total operating budget" to the impoundment.--Sec.] Neal Riley made it clear that each academic unit's head was free to choose where to find the money to give back, but the amount was to be determined based on "total operating budget."

Upon questions from Mary Tanner and Margaret Trimpey, Neal Riley explained that the term "Total operating budget" was one of three easily seen line items in the budget documents; the other two are "Salaries" and "Equipment." He didn't seem to think it made a whole lot of difference whether this "Total operating budget" or some other budget item or combination of budget items was used to determine the impoundment-sharing amounts among the academic units. Mary Tanner, John Trimpey, Don Weisbaker and Edgar Shawen spoke against the motion. They seemed to feel that paper-and-phone heavy academic units would share disproportionately higher than would equipment heavy academic units. Jim Hiestand, Margaret Trimpey and Chris Mawata asked for clarifications. Neal Riley, Fred Obear and Martha Butterfield offered clarifications. The clarification at times was simply a slower reading of portions of the Committee report.

Paul Watson said that before the Faculty Council made a decision he wanted to see actual figures on the results of various ways of figuring the proportions. He stated that without these figures, no rational decision could be made. A motion to table was made by Ed McMahon. It carried by voice vote, with one abstention. Neal Riley was instructed to bring back to Faculty Council the results of his figuring the proportions by considering "Total operating budget" only and by considering "Total operating budget" plus "Equipment." John Trimpey stressed the importance of including non-instructional academic areas in the calculations; in other words, all areas under the Provost should be included in this impoundment-sharing calculation.

Ad hoc Women's Committee

Pedro Campa announced the membership of the ad hoc Women's Committee to be

Margaret Trimpey (Nursing)
Stephanie Bellar (Political Science)
Ren‚e Cox (Music)
Mimi Hernandez (Library)
Fritz Efaw (Economics)

This committee was formed at the suggestion of last year's Faculty Council after the report prepared last year by Leila Pratt on such things as women's tenure and promotion, and women's salary. Margaret Trimpey was asked to convene the committee to elect a chair.

Fred Obear mentioned the existence of the standing administrative Women's Committee and named the membership and charge and actions of that committee (Attachment B). He mentioned that the sexual harassment survey started last year was going to be extended to include students this year. He expressed hope that the Faculty Council committee would not overlap the administrative committee. Pedro Campa gave assurances that there would be no overlap in the work of the two committees. Fred Obear requested that he receive a copy of the charge to the Faculty Council's ad hoc Women's Committee. Pedro Campa agreed to do this.

New Faculty Council Member

Pedro Campa introduced new Faculty Council member Tapan Sen, replacing Ziad Keilany from the Business School.

Death Benefit Fund Co-signer

The Death Benefit Fund by-laws require three faculty members to be available as co-signers for the benefit check. Due to the retirement of Dick Garth (a former co-signer) a new co-signer needed to be named. Ed McMahon was nominated and elected by acclamation.

Task Force to update the EDO Document

Pedro Campa was requested by Provost Sandra Packard to name individuals to serve on a task force to update the current EDO process and document. Pedro Campa announced that upon consultation with the Executive Committee of Faculty Council, he had decided not to name anyone to that task force. He said that he wanted to wash his hands of the whole EDO process, document, etc.

Member Concerns

Jim Hiestand, conveying a colleague's observation, mentioned that the Chancellor's and Provost's statement of goals give little attention to "research grants and contracts."

Rock Wilson brought an observation that possibly the three hours credit for Freshman Seminar is too much.

John Trimpey expressed concern that some of his students don't have textbooks for 2 classes he teaches due to the University Book Store's ordering light on the number of books he had requested.

Terry Zivney expressed his amazement at the awesome power of members' expressing their concerns in Faculty Council. After last meeting, at which he had expressed a facility concern about the lack of a private telephone in a faculty member's office, he returned to his office to find the telephone situation had been remedied.

Facilities Concerns

None!

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:15 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Henry