Personnel Services Committee

November 21, 2002

Members Present: Ray Bailey, Kate Blackwell, Janet Bush, Connie Childress, Patti Hill, Joe Horobetz, Barbara Howard, Kurk Lew, Ella Moore, Ruth Schena, Melody Seeber, Larry Shapira, Aggie Taormina, Ellen Wertman, and Dave Williams

Members Absent: Jean Braden, Donna Principe, Bill Schran and Eric Trumbull,

1. Call to Order: Ray Bailey called the meeting to order at 2 p.m.

2. Review and Approval of the Minutes: The minutes of the October meeting were approved as distributed.

3. Chair's Report: Ray Bailey briefed the committee about the Chancellor's Faculty Advisory Committee Meeting that took place November 7 and 8. Dr. Bailey was re-elected chair of the group.

A. The Chancellor plans to build on the lobbying effort of last year. The Chancellor would like to see more students and more people from the business community participating in the lobbying efforts.

B. NVCC's Medical Education Campus is a top priority for new funding in the VCCS. The other VCCS colleges understand why it is important to support this.

C. Revisions in the VCCS 29 will go to the college presidents at their December ACOP meeting. These proposals bring the VCCS 29 in line with SACS minimum standards. The proposals have been grouped into two categories. The first can be effected at no cost and the second will have budgetary impact. The Chancellor is interested in enacting all the proposed changes at once regardless of the potential budgetary impact.

D. Despite the fact that there is no money in state government for employees' salary increases, SCHEV data indicates that VCCS faculty lag behind all other groups in comparison to the 60th percentile of the applicable peer group. SCHEV has recommended that VCCS faculty receive an average 7.9% pay increase for the next three years. CFAC adopted a resolution stating that securing adequate faculty salaries should remain a major priority for the VCCS.

E. The Chancellor will be empanelling a group to review the VCCS funding formula. The Chancellor says that the pie needs to grow before we argue amongst the colleges about how it should be sliced. Nevertheless, the study will begin.

F. The Chancellor has asked the institutions to provide a list of "unfunded mandates." Mandatory testing is an example.

G. Ray raised the question of the presidential search process and was joined by other representatives. The Chancellor said he would "take it under advisement" to change the process for selecting semi-finalists.

H. The Chancellor admitted that there can be no help to reduce reliance on part-time faculty in the near future, given the budgetary situation.

I. The Chancellor expressed gratitude to the State Board for rising to the occasion by increasing tuition to offset the bulk of the budget cuts. CFAC voted officially to thank the Chancellor and his staff for their work to reduce the impact of the budget cuts on the VCCS.

4. Vice President's report: Alison Baker briefed the committee on Administrative Council activities in regard to budget planning. She said that the agenda had shifted away from budget reductions to a four-pronged study of ways to increase revenues and reduce costs in order to move the institution ahead despite the state's budget crisis. The four new areas of study will be: A. Increasing revenue through tuition and fees; B. Increasing revenue and meeting our mission through entrepreneurial activity; C. Increasing revenue and meeting our mission through increased non-state revenues from federal, local and private sources; and D. Decreasing costs and increasing efficiencies through reorganization.

5. Old Business:

A. Janet Bush reported on the Classified Emeritus program. The Classified Subcommittee has received seven nominations so far. Calls for nominations have been published in the Intercom. Dr. Bassett has agreed to print the names of the classified emeritus in the College catalog. The Subcommittee will meet during the first week of December to develop a slate of candidates to recommend to the President.

B. David Williams reported on the Presidential Sabbatical program. The Faculty Subcommittee will meet on Friday December 13 to review applications. Patti Hill reported that a very few applications have been received but several application forms have been requested. The subcommittee members said that selection criteria should include the benefit both to the College and to the individual. The primary question is whether this project is worthy of a sabbatical leave. Dr. Williams will put an evaluation grid together and send it to the subcommittee members with the goal of a completed instrument to use at the December 13 meeting.

Dr. Bailey reminded the group that the Committee is responsible for evaluating the program before the end of the year.

C. Agatha Taormina reported on her exploration of the College's orientation programs. She had concluded that a great deal of orientation material and programming should be crafted into an on-line course that would be available to all employees, whether they were new or not. She said she had been finding many people who were not aware of their benefits. However, she had found little energy or enthusiasm in HR or elsewhere about a project to improve orientation. Dr. Taormina said that she was retiring soon and so would not be able to continue to work on this issue.

The Committee referred the issue to Vice President Baker asking her to come back with suggestions that might be worked on later in the year or next year.

6. New Business:

A. Proposed Changes to the Equal Opportunity Statement: The College's Equal Opportunity Statement currently reads, "It is the policy of both Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) and the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) to maintain and promote equal employment and educational opportunities without regard to race, color, sex or age (except where sex or age is a bona fide occupational qualification), religion, disability, national origin, marital status, veteran status, political affiliation or other non-merit factors." A member of the senate has proposed removing the words, "veteran status, political affiliation" from the statement.

The Committee was unanimous in opposing the removal of those words. However, discussion turned to some criteria, such as sexual orientation, that could be added to the list. In addition, section 6.2000 of the Faculty handbook contains some references that are no longer applicable. Vice President Baker said that Everett Eberhardt was working on revision of that material to be submitted for consideration with the next update of the Handbook. The Committee asked that Mr. Eberhardt be invited to discuss this with the Committee at its January meeting.

B. The VCCS has adopted a retirement incentive program that allows some retiring faculty to opt to continue teaching up to two-fifths of a regular load at the faculty member's full-time rate at retirement. The Committee was very favorable about such a program. The following resolution was adopted by acclamation:

"The Personnel Services Committee recommends that the College administration consider adopting the new VCCS approved retirement incentive program at NVCC."

C. Patti Hill said that an employee asked her to raise the question of the Northern Virginia Differential with the committee. While there was not a great deal of optimism that anything could be done, the committee agreed to put the matter on the agenda for the January meeting for further discussion.

7. Meeting Schedule: There will be no meeting of the committee of the whole in December. The Faculty Subcommittee will meet on December 13 to develop a slate of candidates to recommend for the Presidential Sabbatical. The Classified Subcommittee will meet the first week of December to develop a slate of candidates to recommend for the Classified Emeritus recognition. The next meeting of the full committee will be on January 16 at 2 p.m. in the Provost's Conference Room on the Annandale Campus.

8. Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 4:15 p.m.