ACADEMIC SENATE

MINUTES

April 14, 2005

11:30 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. ACADEMIC SENATE CHAMBERS

Members Present: Arkenberg, Bedell, Buck, Burgtorf, Cox, Emry, Fitch, Fromson, Gass, Gilbert, Gordon, Guerin, Hagan, Hall, Jewett, Jones, Junn, Kanel, Kantardjieff, Kelly, Klassen, Kreiner, Matz, Meyer, Michalopoulos, Nanjundappa, Pasternack, Rhodes, Rhoten, Schroeder, Shapiro, Smith, Vasquez, Vogt and Walicki

Absent: Allen, Alva, Azimi, Erickson, Fidalgo, Rahmatian, Randall, and Tavakolian

I. CALL TO ORDER

Chair Bedell called the meeting to order at 11:37 a.m.

II. URGENT BUSINESS

Senator Fromson said he had written numerous emails to various senior administrators and others regarding his deep concern about driving safety in the new Nutwood parking structure. He observed that people are not complying with the 8 miles an hour speed limit. In addition, because of the location of the parking structure and adjacent pedestrian walkways, many faculty from his college in particular, and others all over campus, are trying to navigate between speeding cars. This is a very dangerous situation. Senator Fromson requested the Executive Committee pursue this matter further.

Senator Hagan responded to Senator Fromson and said the university is aware of the speeding problem and is working on the problem.

Chair Bedell noted the Executive Committee will place this on their agenda.

M/S [Nanjundappa/Guerin] introduce the following resolution as an item of urgent business.

Chair Bedell asked for unanimous consent of the body to give Senator Nanjundappa 10 minutes to present the following resolution:

RESOLUTION ON FACULTY SALARY EQUITY ISSUES

CFA FULLERTON CHAPTER BOARD

APRIL 12, 2005

RESOLVED: That the University Initiative Program be suspended immediately and that the $600,000.00 in the CSUF Baseline Budget for initiatives be re-allocated to address faculty salary equity issues.

RESOLVED: That the salary equity issues at the assistant professor ranks be addressed first, followed by those among associate professors and then those at full rank.

RESOLVED: That a committee comprised of tenured professors and administrators jointly review faculty salary equity requests and make recommendations regarding salary adjustments.

RATIONALE:

Recently, junior faculty members in multiple departments have contacted CFA Fullerton Chapter leaders regarding emerging discrepancies between their salaries and those offered to incoming faculty. Significant salary discrepancies now exist such that in some instances, incoming new PhDs are being offered salaries 25% higher than those of assistant professors who were hired in the past few years.

If not addressed immediately, the CFA Fullerton Chapter Board is concerned that such inequities will not only erode the morale among junior faculty, but also will cause other junior faculty members to leave CSUF in search of pay equity. Indeed, over the three-year period from 2002-2004, a total of 46 faculty have resigned their positions at CSUF.

CSUF faces a critical shortage of permanent faculty members. The current ratio of tenure/tenure track faculty to full-time equivalent faculty positions at CSUF stands at 50%, far short of the 75% agreed to in ACR 73 (Assembly Concurrent Resolution) by the CSU, CFA, and the Statewide Academic Senate. With 1,150 faculty positions, CSUF should have approximately 300 more tenured/tenure track faculty.

CFA Fullerton Chapter commends the recent commitments made by President Gordon and Vice President Smith to search for 80 faculty members annually for the next five years to address this issue. However, even that pace will not remedy the shortage for several years when offset by faculty retirements, resignations, terminations, etc.

Faculty recruitment is a labor- and cost-intensive process; hence, retaining the quality faculty recruited over the past several years should be among the highest university priorities. Although suspending the University Initiative Program will not address all issues of salary inequity, it will send a strong signal to recently-hired faculty that they are valuable members of the community.

This resolution was passed by the CFA board unanimously. Senator Nanjundappa said he has met with a number of junior faculty during the last month. About eight junior faculty met with VP Smith and they expressed their concerns regarding the salary discrepancies that exist between those who are being hired now and those hired two to three years ago. The problem is very serious and needs to be addressed for two reasons: 1) it directly affects retention of junior faculty and 2) it relates to problems of morale.

Chair Bedell opened the floor for discussion.

A summary of the major recurrent comments included:

· While this is a serious issue that needs to be fixed, the campus should be very cautious about fixing a problem that really is a statewide system problem. There is data to show that the Cal State Fullerton campus is funded at the lowest rate of any of the CSU campuses. If we, on our campus fix this problem of salary issues internally, which is a state of California problem and a CSU problem, we will continue to remain at the bottom of the funding list. Part of the problem is to make the CSU Board of Trustees, the Chancellor’s office and the State of California in Sacramento aware of these budget issues and the serious negative impact it is going to have in the future. One of the problems with fixing a problem yourself is that you will set a precedent by fixing it internally, and hence the problem will appear to go away and you and the original issue will continue to be ignored. It is a fact that some colleges on our campus have second and third year assistant professors earning less than people who have recently been hired. The faculty are aware of this and they are among the most talented people we have and we should be worried about being able to retain them. This is a very serious matter and we should find additional salary monies for this purpose.

· The top administration recognizes that this is a very serious problem and we have been trying to wrestle with permanent solutions to the problem for quite a while and will continue to do so. This particular resolution is not a solution. These $600,000 Mission and Goals Initiative (MGI) funds were set up about ten years ago in order to fund university-wide initiatives. They probably have been some of the best and most effective funds used over those years. These monies funded many faculty initiatives, and they have funded many university wide initiatives between the university and certain communities that we live and exist in. In addition to faculty projects, these funds go towards a variety of very worthy student activities each and every year, as well as to other important staff-related projects. While it remains a small amount of money relative to the University’s entire budget, the funds are really important funds because they are available to all of the colleges and units on campus that are looking to improve the university in a myriad of ways. While this is a well written resolution, it will not solve the larger issue of CSUF having one of the lower funded FTES, though we are in a somewhat better position now that the Chancellor’s Office has designated that all new monies coming into the system are equal for all 23 campuses. Therefore, this solution is not a permanent solution. The MGI funds have had a positive impact on the campus in so many ways, and therefore should not be eliminated.

· One junior faculty Senator offered his own situation as a case study, stating that the discrepancy between his entering salary four years ago and the salaries of the new faculty that will start in the fall is $15,000. In spite of this differential, he wanted to counter a previous assertion of low morale and affirmed his love for the campus. He did, however, state that the junior faculty would like to see clear cut, proactive initiatives to address the salary inequity problem.

· To correct some of the previous budget figures, we should note that the funding for Fullerton in terms of CSU ranking is based on FTES and we are not the lowest funded campus in the system. When Chancellor Reed came six years ago, he indicated he would close the CPEC salary gap within three years. Obviously, if you look at the handout at your table on faculty salaries in California public universities, he has not succeeded in that effort. The gap is 21.4% at full professor, 7.1% at associate and 9.7% at assistant. Yes, the money should be there, when you think about how much money is being spent at the system level on CMS relative to how much money would be required to close the salary gap—we are spending far more on CMS than would be necessary to close the salary gap. Therefore, we should be against the resolution, because as stated before, this is a system-wide problem and not just a Fullerton problem and should be addressed at a system-wide level.

· Setting up a faculty committee to review the salary equity is not a good idea and most probably a violation of the contract. Faculty morale should be of concern as some junior faculty are considering leaving the campus just so that they can be hired back in order to receive a higher salary, sometimes to the tune of a $25,000 raise.

· We should vote in favor of this resolution to eliminate the MGI funds. As someone who was on PRBC and who read all of those proposals for the $600,000 MGI initiatives, my perception was that perhaps 10 to 20% were really innovative and important and would have a lasting impact on the university. The majority of projects in my view were a waste of money.

· We should not vote against the MGI funds for this institution—this money has not been wasted. It has funded a lot of very good projects and taken a chance on others by providing invaluable seed money. The faculty salary problem is a structural one and if one examines CSU’s salaries, one can see that tenure and tenure-track faculty salaries are artificially frozen by caps on SSI’s. The current failure of the state economy is one factor, but then CSU priorities are another factor. We need to fix the salary structure--that should be the top priority in negotiations on both sides rather than quibbling about much less important details.

· A junior faculty who is not a Senator expressed his appreciation for starting this dialogue on salary inequities. He characterized a kind of “schizophrenic morale”—faculty who want to stay, but who are then asked to serve on search committees to recruit their newer colleagues who are coming in at significantly higher salaries than their own. He stated that he has been on three search committees in the last three years and each time asked to recruit someone who would be making more than himself. The first year was at 7% higher, just 5 months after he signed his own contract. The second year 15%, and this year 25%. This is a real structural problem that needs to be addressed.

· If we look at statistics from Vice President Smith we can see that we have less than 50 percent of our faculty in tenure, tenure-track positions. We are spending a tremendous amount of time and money recruiting faculty and having a hard time and getting rejected. In addition, in terms of net faculty loss for 2004, we lost 36.5 tenure, tenure-track faculty and this should be of concern, since students deserve to have tenure, tenure-track faculty there to teach them, to do research with them, to launch them on their careers. Over the years we have spent around $6 million on MGI funds, and there have been some excellent projects; however, there has never been an evaluation of the University’s initiatives program either. These MGI funds are in the baseline budget that could be used to solve this salary equity problem.

· We need to correct some of the comments that have been raised about what the campus has done in terms of recruitment. As many of you know, up until the current budget reduction these past two years, Cal State Fullerton was putting in over $8,000 over and above what we were getting from the CSU into faculty salary lines. These supplemental dollars were permanent dollars and it’s only been within the last couple of years since the current reductions have occurred that we have been forced to stop that. We were involved as a campus in trying to increase faculty salaries for many years before this current discussion and those dollars that we were putting in went to many of the junior faculty when they were hired. Competitive faculty salaries have always been one of the highest priorities as far as we are concerned and we would gladly go back to doing that if and when we will get additional funds.

M [Pasternack/Fromson] a substitute motion “Resolved that the university administration immediately address the funding of market equity salary requests, and be it further resolved that the Vice President of Academic Affairs report back to the Senate by the end of the Spring 2005 semester as to the number of equity salary requests received, the total amount of such requests, and the total amount actually funded.”

M/S/P [Arkenberg/Kanel] to call the question.

Vote on the Pasternack substitute motion by show of hands. Vote: Yes=14 No=13

Senator Nanjundappa requested a roll call vote. Roll call vote: Yes=16 No=17 Abstentions= 2

Motion failed on the Pasternack substitute motion.

M and passed [Buck] to end debate on the Nanjundappa resolution.

Vote on the Nanjundappa resolution by show of hands. Vote: yes=15; no=16

A roll call vote was requested. Roll call vote: Yes=17 No=15 Abstentions=3

Motion passed on the Nanjundappa resolution.

Roll call vote attached

Motion was made to adjourn. Meeting adjourned at 12:54 p.m.

ROLL CALL VOTE

Academic Senate Meeting

April 14, 2005

Substitute resolution [Pasternack/Fromson]

NAME	YES	NO	Abstention
1. Allen, Rhonda
2. Alva, Sylvia
3. Arkenberg, Jerome		X
4. Azimi, Patti
5. Bedell, Jack		X
6. Buck, Vincent		X
7. Burgtorf, Jochen			X
8. Cox, Suellen	X
9. Emry, Robert	X
10. Erickson, John
11. Fidalgo, Reyes
12. Fitch, Nancy		X
13. Fromson, David	X
14. Gass, Joanne		X
15. Gilbert, Leon	X
16. Gordon, Milton A.	X
17. Guerin, Diana		X
18. Hagan, Willie	X
19. Hall, Jane	X
20. Jewett, Jade		X
21. Jones, Jessie	X
22. Junn, Ellen	X
23. Kanel, Kristi Lynn		X
24. Kantardjieff, Katherine		X
25. Kelly, Hilarie		X
26. Klassen, Vuryl		X
27. Kreiner, Jesa		X
28. Matz, Irene	X
29. Meyer, William	X
30. Michalopoulos, Demetri		X
31. Nanjundappa, Gangadharappa		X
32. Pasternack, Barry	X
33. Rahmatian, Morteza
34. Randall, Lynda
35. Rhodes, Brady	X
36. Rhoten, Sandra	X
37. Schroeder, Charles H.	X
38. Shapiro, Mark, H.		X
39. Smith, Ephraim	X
40. Tavakolian, Hamid
41. Vasquez, Philip			X
42. Vogt, Gayle		X
43. Walicki, Ken		X
TOTAL	16	17	2

Academic Senate Meeting

April 14, 2005

Resolution on Faculty Salary Equity Issues

[Nanjundappa/Guerin]

NAME	YES	NO	Abstention
1. Allen, Rhonda
2. Alva, Sylvia
3. Arkenberg, Jerome	X
4. Azimi, Patti
5. Bedell, Jack	X
6. Buck, Vincent	X
7. Burgtorf, Jochen			X
8. Cox, Suellen		X
9. Emry, Robert	X
10. Erickson, John
11. Fidalgo, Reyes
12. Fitch, Nancy	X
13. Fromson, David		X
14. Gass, Joanne	X
15. Gilbert, Leon		X
16. Gordon, Milton A.		X
17. Guerin, Diana	X
18. Hagan, Willie		X
19. Hall, Jane		X
20. Jewett, Jade	X
21. Jones, Jessie		X
22. Junn, Ellen		X
23. Kanel, Kristi Lynn		X
24. Kantardjieff, Katherine			X
25. Kelly, Hilarie	X
26. Klassen, Vuryl	X
27. Kreiner, Jesa	X
28. Matz, Irene		X
29. Meyer, William	X
30. Michalopoulos, Demetri	X
31. Nanjundappa, Gangadharappa	X
32. Pasternack, Barry		X
33. Rahmatian, Morteza
34. Randall, Lynda
35. Rhodes, Brady		X
36. Rhoten, Sandra		X
37. Schroeder, Charles H.		X
38. Shapiro, Mark, H.	X
39. Smith, Ephraim		X
40. Tavakolian, Hamid
41. Vasquez, Philip			X
42. Vogt, Gayle	X
43. Walicki, Ken	X
TOTAL	17	15	3