January 13, 2005
Members Present: Judy Benavides, Gene Brown, Janet Bush, Fran Emory, Charlie Errico, Marsha Fisher, Barbara Hathaway, Joey Horobetz, Barbara Howard, Marjorie Kinnaman, Bill Schran, Bill Shannon, and Ruth Stanton
Members Absent: Myles Embry, Gert Heslin, Patti Hill, David Lavis, and Maxine Toliver.
Guest: Myrtho Blanchard
1. Call to Order: Chairman Errico called the meeting to order at 2:10 p.m.
2. Review and Approval of the Minutes: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Chair’s Report: Charlie Errico talked about the president’s Sabbatical. The Faculty Subcommittee met on December 9 and evaluated the applications and selected professors Hodge, Haid and Seyler as the Sabbatical award winners. The criteria are that the sabbatical shall benefit the College as well as the individual and that the project go above and beyond what is normally expected of a faculty member at Northern Virginia Community College.
Members of the subcommittee agreed that the procedure went well and that the three awardees were all most deserving of the honor.
Charlie offered thanks to Patti Hill for staffing the process. The president wrote to the winners and Charlie announced their names at Cross-Campus day.
4. Vice President’s Report: Alison Baker reported on issues before the state legislature. The governor has recommended three-percent across the board salary increases for all state employees. He recommends partial funding for the Medical Education Campus once again, he recommends increasing VCCS funding by about $3 million, and $25 million of the $60 plus million requested to complete the bond-funded capital projects.
The College is has asked members of the legislature to offer budget amendments to fully fund the Medical Education Campus and the VCCS has requested full funding for the budget gaps in the state-wide bond projects.
Salary improvement continues to be a high priority in the Administrative Council, but new resources have already been pledged to creating five new faculty positions, funding increased costs and staffing for the Student Services reorganization, and staffing the new teaching centers in Arlington and Reston.
5. Classified Salary Adjustments: Myrtho Blanchard reported on the salary equity and market adjustment processes that were completed at the end of 2004. A total of 203 employees received special salary increases, either because their salaries were not in line with peers within the College, or because the salaries of employees in a particular cohort averaged more than 10% below the Washington Metropolitan Area average for that profession. Nearly 40% of all employees received a special increase.
The committee was satisfied with the process and thought that the results were being generally well received.
Myrtho reported that the survey of employee morale demonstrated that the College’s supervisors need more training in employee management, staff evaluation and discipline. HR is developing training plans that are likely to engage all the College’s supervisors to some extent.
7. Old Business:
A. Classified Emeritus: The Classified subcommittee reviewed the nominations for Classified Staff Emeritus and has recommended six people for that distinction. Charlie will forward the names to the president.
B. Enhanced Retirement Program: Bill Shannon agreed to explore the situation for an appointment reduction program for teaching faculty. There are faculty active in trying to establish such a program at Mary Washington. Bill will report back at the next meeting.
C. Faculty Salary Equity: Ruth Stanton passed out two reports to the committee. The first is a proposed change to the way faculty merit increases would be distributed when more than the across-the-board salary increase is authorized. In such a case, the amount over the appropriated percentage would be deployed differently depending on the academic rank of the faculty member so that the salary compression experienced by the upper ranks can be diminished. All faculty, regardless of rank, would receive something beyond the base increase under the plan.
The committee agreed to the proposal. Charlie will take the proposal to the Senate for its consideration and recommendation to the President.
The second report suggested that a study be undertaken, much like the one for classified staff, with an eye toward establishing greater equity between the pay of the longer serving faculty and those more recently appointed. The Committee agreed to endorse this proposal as well, and determined that this recommendation could go directly to the President, as doing a study is not a governance matter for the Senate to consider.
8. New Business:
A faculty member approached Charlie and asked if he can be compelled to submit a leave slip when he refused to attend activities on January 3. With little deliberation, the Committee all agreed that January 3 is included in every faculty member’s contractual obligations. Activities prior to the beginning of the teaching session after the winter holidays can be mandatory so that a leave slip was appropriate.
9. Next Meeting: The next meeting will be on February 10 at 2:p.m.
10. Adjourn: The meeting adjourned at 3:45 p.m.