MINUTES OF FACULTY WELFARE COMMITTEE, THURSDAY, JANUARY 13TH, 2011, 3:00 P.M.

 

Regular, voting members present: Katrina DuBose, chair, John Reisch, Andrada Ivanescu, Ken Ferguson, Michael Hartley, Christine Avenarius

 

Regular voting members absent: Louis Warren

 

Ex-officio, voting members present: Laura Ingalls, Charles Broklage, Chris Locklear, Susan Simpson

 

Others in attendance: Marianna Walker, Lori Lee, John Toller

 

 

ACTIONS OF THE MEETING:

 

Agenda item 1:

Approval of December 9, 2010 minutes: approved.

 

Agenda item 2:

Brief report on joint meeting with Faculty Governance by Katerina DuBose. Comments by Marianna Walker

 

Agenda item 3:

Part VI section I Employment Policies Item B. Collection of Money was returned to the committee by the chancellor. Chancellor suggested to avoid bypassing the audit trail and involve the Dowdy Student store.

 

Committee had lobbied to remove the whole section. The issue is: neither a student member nor a faculty member should be put in the position of collecting money. The question arose of if there is any limit or threshold that could be exempt, e.g. collecting money for pizza.

 

Marianna Walker suggested to reduce the bouncing of policies/work conducted by the welfare committee by sending revised sections of the faculty manual to “expert informants” prior to submission to the senate.

 

Committee members agreed to ask Donna Payne for further information on a possible threshold for the collection of money. We need information on this issue from the internal auditor.

 

Agenda item 4:

Review of Faculty Manual Sections.

 

Agenda item 4a. Part VI Section I Part L. Travel and expense allowances

We distinguished between 2 scenarios: paid travel and unpaid travel. In both cases a preapproved travel form needs to be filed. That includes scenario 2: travel that will not be reimbursed. Privately financed travel needs to be approved because this insures prompt reaction from the workers compensation fund. Faculty members will get compensated in case of accident even if they haven’t filled out forms ahead of time. However, the process will take much longer. Another reason given to fill out the form is to document the fact that duties are missed while traveling independent of reimbursement.

 

Motion to be approve the travel and expense allowance sections. Seconded. All in favor.

 

Agenda item 4b. Part VI Section VII Part B Weapons Policy.

Ken Ferguson reported that the weapons policy is tied to state law. There are a few reasonable exceptions, e.g. ROTC.

 

Several revisions were discussed during the meeting.

The final version of the weapons policy should be as follows (or an approximation thereof):

 

It is a violation of university policy for any member of the faculty to possess and/or use a weapon on any university owned or controlled property, including at extracurricular events sponsored by the university. Any faculty who violate this policy may be subject to serious sanctions imposed by the university in accordance with due process as outlined in the tenure and promotion policies of the faculty manual, as well as punishment in accordance with state criminal law.  For further details and certain exceptions, see North Carolina General Statute 14-269.2 (at Web site http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_14/GS_14-269.2.html).

 

Motion to approve the weapons policy as revised. Seconded. All in favor.

 

 

Agenda item 4c. Part VI section I Part E. New Faculty orientation

The semantics of shared governance were discussed. All were in agreement to highlight the need to encourage new faculty members to participate in the activities of shared government, to participate rather than simply know about it.

Discussion about the inclusion of a reference to the faculty orientation at the Brody school of medicine.  To allow the inclusion of other faculty orientations, we agreed to take out the wording “at the beginning of the academic year”. Furthermore, we decided to emphasize that orientation might be continued throughout the year by key administrators and faculty leaders to assist faculty and new administrators.

 

Members of the committee agreed on several changes. An approximation of the final version is posted here. Michael Hartley has recorded all changes to the final version.

 

New faculty are encouraged to attend the East Carolina University New Faculty Orientation Programs. The program offers a variety of resources, including information on benefits, parking, technology, research, and tenure: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/facultyorientation. New faculty members are invited to participate and serve in the shared governance of the university. Orientation of new faculty may be continued throughout the year by key administrators and faculty leaders to assist the faculty and new administrators in becoming acquainted with the practices and procedures of the university. Ongoing programs, including information on mentoring, are available through the Office for Faculty Excellence: http://www.ecu.edu/ofe/.

 

New faculty are encouraged to attend the annual Faculty Convocation, which is scheduled at the opening of each academic year, for the purpose of  becoming acquainted with the chancellor, the chair of the faculty senate, and key administrative personnel and their responsibilities, and with the relationship between faculty and administration.

 

Motion to approve the section on New Faculty Orientation as revised. Seconded. All in favor.

 

 

Agenda item 4g. Part VI. Section III Part I Grants, contract and cooperative agreements

Instead of going to point 4d. on the agenda, committee members decided to first address point 4g, because it was deemed to call for fewer discussion than point 4d, 4e, and 4f.

 

Charles Broklage presented his revisions. Changes to some of the wordings in respect to the rewardees were discussed. Marianna Walker suggested to send the revised section to Vice Chancellor Mageaan before voting on it and subsequently sending it to the senate.

 

Agenda item 4d. Part VI section I Part J Salary Policies

Clarifications were presented regarding green card issues for international faculty. Some of the cleaned up language (e.g. “payment” instead of “paycheck”) was explained.

Further discussion ensued about the sections that the committee deleted, but that the senate would like to see inserted back into the documents. In particular, the wording “under total compensation” raised questions. A suggestion was made to write “… the following provision will be deleted when the supplement payment policy is resolved and will be removed when the correct action has been taken.”

 

Linda Ingalls requested further clarifications.

Marianna Walker suggested that we need to look at UNC policy since UNC policies supersede any specific internal policies. Hence, the committee agreed that further information needs to be collected, especially from the university attorney. The revisions of the faculty manual need to be completed by end of April. That means we need to have researched these issues and revised the policies by that time. Everyone agreed that further investigation of the issues I necessary, also in respect to EPA personnel policy and salary conversion rates for 12 months personnel.

 

No further vote was taken. Committee agreed to contact university attorney.

 

Agenda item 4e. Parts VI Section II Parts A-M Welfare Benefits and Leave

Faculty Senate members have suggested that too many part of the previous sections were left out in revisions. The committee needs to review this section again and decide which sections of the so called “laundry list” of benefits need to be put back into the document, e.g. flex reimbursement plans, etc.

The committee agreed to keep the section “benefits and leave” together as a section.

Everyone is aware that benefits are subject to change at all times.

A few other things were discussed in detail:

-          Educational benefits for retirees were taken out, because they don’t exist any more. It was overturned by the legislators and not many people were using this benefit.

-          GA supplemental pay policy is under sharepoints now. And the charge of the committee is to fill out that outline.

-          Senate suggested to add the notion of disabilities to the workers compensation section. Right now the workers compensation section applies only to accidents but not to disabilities. John Toller reminded everyone that the specifics of any disability plan (long term or short term) are open (not filled out) and subject to change (by, for example, Blue Cross Blue Shield)..

 

Further discussion on how to streamline our working process with the wishes of Faculty senate members. Marianna Walker suggested to get some of the changes screened ahead of time by sending our changes out to selected senators. Once we have their input, we can make additional adjustment and also know what to expect in a senate discussion.

 

Questions were raised about how any of the changes will show up in the university policy manual. At this point most committee members are unsure how all the pieces will fit together and what should be referenced (e.g. social security) and what can be left out or stay unreferenced and unlinked to any further information.

 

John Toller volunteered to work on the disability plan and have people in his office write something and post it on sharepoint, including the links to specific information.

 

 

Agenda item 4f. Report on Part V – Section G. Faculty Absences

John Reisch reported on the complications to draft a section on faculty absences. The complications refer to the definition of absence and the consequence of absences. Does absence due to illness need to be treated differently than absence due to conference visits? What about research activities? How can absence or presence to do research be monitored?

Should every small illness, e.g. flu, be reported even when it has no effect on teaching schedules.

It was agreed that faculty need to be told about the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) as a benefit that may apply for anyone who has frequent absences due to illnesses.

Another issue are DE instructors who have become more numerous on campus in recent years. They are not physically present on campus. How does that fit the definition.

 

GA policy states that any supervisor needs to know and take action in case of any absences of faculty members. Supervisors should take steps to replace an absent person (e.g. in respect to teaching, or committee duties), not the absent person him/herself.

 

We agreed that “absence” does not seem to be the right word anymore.

Suggestion to change it to “being unable to perform full time duties.”

 

In addition, committee agreed that further definitions of DE faculty and their duties were needed.

 

No vote was taken. John Reisch and Linda Ingalls agreed to change some of the wording and then send the revised section back to committee members.

 

 

The meeting adjourned at 5:35 pm.