November 11, 2004
Members Present: Gene Brown, Janet Bush, Charlie Errico, Marsha Fisher, Barbara Hathaway, Patti Hill, Joey Horobetz, Barbara Howard, Marjorie Kinnaman, David Lavis, Bill Schran, Bill Shannon, Ruth Stanton and Maxine Toliver.
Members Absent: Judy Benavides, Myles Embry, Fran Emory, and Gert Heslin
Guests: Myrtho Blanchard, Ginger Ward
1. Call to Order: Vice Chairman David Lavis called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m.
2. Review and Approval of the Minutes: The minutes were amended to note that Patti Hill was in attendance and the minutes were approved as amended.
3. Chair’s Report: Charlie Errico arrived and assumed the chair. Charlie said he had published two announcements about the President’s Sabbatical, one to all faculty from the President and one that appeared in the Intercom. He will put another notice in the Intercom about a week before applications are due. While few if any applications have been received, we know of people who are interested and people tend to submit their applications closer to the application deadline.
Charlie sent a letter on behalf of the Committee to Dr. William Jackameit, Vice President for Finance and Administration at Piedmont Virginia Community College and a member of the VRS advisory committee on the Optional Retirement Program. In his letter, Charlie endorsed adding a social choice investment option in the ORP program as several faculty members at NVCC have requested. We understand that Dr. Jackameit is in favor of such an addition.
Charlie sent a letter on behalf of the Committee advocating a new Enhanced Retirement Program based on either of the two scenarios that the Committee discussed at its last meeting.
Charlie announced that Cecil Schuler died and that there will be a burial service at Arlington National Cemetery on December 20. Charlie reminisced about his relationship with “Dean” Schuler.
4. Vice President’s Report: Alison Baker reported that the College administration has been deeply engaged with the six-year capital plan and with work on the classified equity study. The outlook is good for next year’s budget with some chance of a higher than usual salary increase, particularly for faculty.
The capital budget will go to the NVCC Board at its November 29 meeting for its review. Some changes have been made in the overall program but the priorities have remained the same as was originally presented.
5. Chancellor’s Faculty Advisory Council (CFAC): Ginger Ward has replaced Ray Bailey on the CFAC and is happy to continue to report to the PSC as Ray did about its activities. The Council meets with the Chancellor and his staff during one afternoon, during which time the Council is briefed on VCCS activity. The Chancellor and his staff then leave and the Council develops an agenda for the following morning. The next day, the Council meets with the Chancellor and goes over its agenda.
The Chancellor’s legislative agenda is ambitious and places a high priority on increasing faculty salaries. There have been some changes in some professional development opportunities available to faculty. The programs provide participants with more benefits, but the opportunities are somewhat fewer, keeping overall costs about the same. The Chancellor reported that all resources in this program are not always spent during the year.
Dual enrollment is an issue for many faculty in the VCCS. There is concern about admitting children in the ninth and tenth grades to college level coursework.
When the issue of the ERP came up, the Chancellor was quoted as having said, “I would love to see us come up with an incentive program for faculty considering retirement.”
At Fran Emory’s request, Ginger asked about the possibility of providing tuition benefits for dependents. Karen Petersen said she would look into it, but she believed that doing so was not permissible under state law.
The cost of textbooks is a big issue for the Chancellor. There has been a taskforce on that subject at the VCCS and faculty are concerned about some of its recommendations.
The next meeting of the CFAC is on March 31 to April 1. Ginger would be happy to report on that meeting and in the mean time, she will appreciate hearing about any issues faculty wish to see discussed with the Chancellor.
7. Old Business:
A. Presidents Sabbatical: The Faculty subcommittee will meet on December 9 to review the applications for the President’s Sabbatical. Patti Hill will send out copies of the applications via e-mail on or about December 2 so that all subcommittee members can come to the meeting having read the material. Criteria for selection are benefit to the individual, benefit to the College and uniqueness. Examples of successful applications should be available in the libraries and applicants should discuss the program with people who have won the award.
B. Classified Emeritus: The Classified subcommittee will get together before the holidays to consider nominations for this award. Janet Bush will make sure this happens. Patti Hill reported that she had only one nomination so far.
C. Classified Salary Study: Myrtho Blanchard reported that the Seagal group had completed its work on the salary equity study and had delivered the results of the classified satisfaction survey. 150 employees will receive raises of between 3 and 10 percent based on the internal equity study. Approximately half of the increase fund remains unspent and these funds will be allocated to external market equity based on the recommendations of Seagal’s analysis of our external competitive market. In response to Dave Lavis’s question, Myrtho promised that work will continue on improving the accuracy of salary ranges across cohorts. Myrtho also reported that some work had been done by the Compensation Committee on the KSA (Knowledge, Skills & Abilities) policy under which classified staff might get salary increases for acquiring additional job-related credentials. The Committee will build on this foundation.
D. ERP: Charlie has sent a recommendation to the President from the Committee. The President and the Chancellor are enthusiastic about pursuing this possibility.
8. New Business:
A. Joey Horobetz asked about the status of the Faculty Handbook revision project. Charlie said that steps were being taken to update committee membership standards to include Medical Education. The further question was, to what extent anybody is looking at a full-scale revision of the handbook. Charlie said he would ask Al Ross what was going on in that regard.
B. Ruth Stanton said that her subcommittee working on faculty salary processes had met and was gathering data. The salary compression issue in the upper ranks is clearly the first priority, but faculty are concerned about equity in similar ways to the classified staff. Ruth suggested that the Seagal firm might do an equity study on faculty salaries. Increasing the promotional increase would also help deal with some of the outstanding issues.
C. Patti Hill reported on the changes made to the VCCS 29. That form sets the minimum standards for entering a particular faculty rank. Because of revisions that go into effect on July 1, 2005, several faculty members may be eligible for promotion when they would not have been prior to the revisions.
The VCCS has lowered the credential requirements for teaching developmental courses, but NVCC will maintain that at a master’s degree. We can now hire into the full professor rank. Teaching experience may be at any community college. It does not have to be in the VCCS. We can now hire a “freshly minted” PhD into the assistant professor rank when that person has no significant teaching experience so that we can compete with four-year institutions as to rank.
Efforts are being made to assure that affected faculty and their division deans know about the changes so that those eligible for promotion can put themselves forward.
9. Next Meeting: Our next regular meeting will be on January 13 in Seminar Room A, Ernst Center. Charlie wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and a good winter holiday.
10. The meeting adjourned at 3:50 p.m.