The Board of Trustees approved a number of action items at their April 7 meeting, including faculty promotions and parameters for the Fiscal Year 2010-11 budget.

Vice President for Administration and Finance Natalie Lutes’ FY 2010-11 budget presentation noted major revenue items including a nine percent tuition increase, and stimulus funding of $4.3 million, a $5.6 million reduction from the current year. The combined College Opportunity Fund stipend and Fee-For-Service appropriation remains the same.

Lutes also reported proposed FY 2010-11 expenditures including faculty promotions and equity adjustments for both administrators and faculty to bring them up to 85 percent of the College and University Professional Association (CUPA) average. An amendment to provide a four percent salary increase for tenured and tenure track faculty and visiting faculty led to a discussion among the board members about the rationale for proposing this increase during a bad economy.

President Stephen Jordan reminded the board that a few years ago, “We laid out a compensation philosophy that says 50 percent of faculty should be above the median. We have continued to monitor results. We’ve looked at it across entire faculty, by rank and by school,” said Jordan. “It was only last week that I was provided with the latest data that showed we had fallen way behind.”

Board Vice Chair Robert Cohen said, “I think this is a really tough issue. Personally I think there’s nothing more important to an institution than the quality and the depth of its faculty. At the same time, as Board members, part of our job is to be fiduciaries for the institution and for the long-term good of the institution. I work in business everyday and don’t hear of four percent salary increases. I think it’s a goal, but not sure we should get there in one year.”

Jordan emphasized that because the College has been very conservative during the economic downturn over the last two years, this expense is plausible. “We thought we had the responsibility to put it on the table and argue the merits. We are prepared to share and make our case to the finance committee.”

Jordan added, “As a matter of priority, we need to continue to invest money in current people first…I just want permission to move forward with the conversation.”

President’s review
Board Chair Adele Phelan announced that there would be a review based on a sentence in the College’s contract with the president that reads: “During the second year of this agreement, the board will engage a professional consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of Dr. Jordan’s performance.”

“We will be working with the Association of Governing Boards for Higher Education in conducting comprehensive campus review. We are fully aware that the faculty needs to be involved and that students need to be involved, said Phelan. “The Campus process will begin sometime in fall. We’ll begin preliminary conversations soon.”

President Jordan said the results of the Campus Climate Survey and the Faculty Senate survey could be provided to the Board to use as one of the instruments provided to AGB consultants.

Intellectual Property
Faculty Senate President Lynn Kaersvang announced in her report an opinion by General Counsel Loretta Martinez. “We can indeed use the computer systems to do professional work without the intellectual property implications of that being that the College owns it. In other words the computer is our pen. We can use it. We can move forward with it and we can do that and still own what we do. That is an extremely significant opinion in terms of the faculty being able to continue our push toward preeminence.”

Tenure and Promotions
The Board approved tenure and early tenure for 22 professors, along with 24 faculty promotions.

“I acknowledge the high level of achievement and wish our faculty the best in their career here,” said Jordan, noting that the “teacher evaluations were almost off the chart.”

Phelan added that “nothing breeds success like success.”

Go to “Faculty promotions, tenure announced” for the list of faculty receiving tenure or promotions.

The Finance Sub-Committee meets 7:45 a.m., April 20, on the 7^th floor at Writer Square. Click here for the agenda.