Thanks for the wonderful support of all the Maricopa Community Colleges faculty. You have made a difference in making sure that faculty issues surfaced this year and that faculty’s voice was heard. Although many of you teach at night, you found the energy to come to board meetings in support of faculty initiatives.
I would be naïve to say that all faculty issues have been resolved. There are many still facing us. While faculty’s primary responsibility is teaching, in today’s society our attention cannot be limited to instruction. Faculty have been forced into political arenas relative to instruction and their work environment.
The Faculty Executive Council has done an outstanding job of keeping faculty apprised of current issues. Membership is up this year; this is a sign of a strong association.
Again, thank you for the many fine contributions that you have made in support of all faculty.
Willie Minor, President, Faculty Association
This year’s "Meet and Confer" process has been split into two parts.
Salary/Professional Growth Request
Dr. Waechter requested that we submit our Salary and Professional Growth
Proposals directly to the Board by December 10, 1999. We did meet
this deadline and the following was proposed for Faculty.
At its April 25, 2000 meeting the Governing Board approved the following:
No discussion occurred on this portion of the proposal between the
Governing Board and your Meet and Confer Team. It appears to be more of
a continuation of employee alliance philosophy without representation or
an employee alliance. All employee groups received the same salary
adjustment although not all salary groups submitted proposals. With
respect to the salary increase, there was no group distinction.
Proposals to change the Residential Faculty Policies
This year the team recognized that the District was intent on holding
the line on salary increases, so we tried appealing to the Board team for
increased flexibility and options for faculty. One proposal was to
combine faculty sick leave and personal leave into "paid leave".
Faculty would then be able to use these days as needed. This was
coupled with a proposed increase in the sick leave pay out for unused sick
leave upon retirement. Both of these proposals were discussed candidly
with the Board team and both have been rejected.
The Professional Growth program of MCCCD has long been recognized as both an important benefit and a program which assists faculty in reaching their professional goals. Over the past year, working under an existing Memorandum of Understanding for Professional Growth, faculty have examined the current program to consider how it might better serve all faculty of our district.
In February a presentation was made to the Dean of Instruction group to collaborate on proposed changes. As a result of that very productive meeting, two Deans of Instruction have joined the Faculty Memorandum of Understanding Team to continue to develop our ideas. As a result of that meeting, we have identified two areas of the RFP that can improve the Professional Growth program for all of Maricopa. First we need to recognize the new opportunities for learning that exist in the 21st century and second we need to remove barriers that exist in the professional growth opportunities for our diverse faculty.
First the current program allows faculty with masters degrees to earn up to 75 hours beyond the masters. Twenty of those hours can be in, what has been referred to as, non-academic hours. However as learning opportunities have increased, we recognize that the 20-hour limit should be changed.
This program was built on the old paradigm that all professional growth took place in formal courses. Today learning opportunities have been redesigned, repackaged, modularized, mediated, and expanded in ways we could not have imagined 30 years ago. Professional Growth opportunities today need to be evaluated on their merit, rather than on their attachment to a single instructional system.
The second change that is needed is the removal of barriers that prevent many faculty from participation in the Professional Growth program. Removing the limit of 20 non-academic hours is the first step in this process.
Many faculty simply cannot find multiple hours of upper level academic coursework that would benefit them in their teaching roles. A few examples that were discussed with the Deans of Instruction Group may help clarify this situation.
Our Computer Information Systems faculty face constant certification and training challenges, yet none of their training will be in an academic setting. Allowing these individuals to receive credit for this ongoing training keeps faculty motivated to remain in the teaching environment, rather than moving to business and industry.
Likewise, our medical faculty face incredible changes in medical technology and techniques. The training to keep abreast of these changes, again, is not available in an academic venue.
Other technical areas face this same dilemma, where training and growth opportunities are available, but not in the traditional academic course model. Dropping the limit on non-academic hours allows these faculty to more fully participate in Professional Growth.
We proposed allowing faculty with a doctorate degree to be eligible for incremental horizontal advancement through our current Professional Growth program. We need to recognize that many faculty who teach at the community college with a doctorate degree, may have a subject specialty that may require exposure to refreshing experiences to remain current in their teaching areas.
We believe these two changes, removing the numerical barrier that placed a high emphasis on academic hours and introducing the opportunity for faculty with a doctoral degree to participate in horizontal movement on the pay scale, will strengthen our professional growth program and ultimately the learning that takes place in the classroom.
Implementation of these two changes will increase the pool of eligible Faculty, and thus will increase the already burdensome recordkeeping workload of the Professional Growth secretary, which is what prompts us to request an increase for this position from 1/2 time to full-time. The increased load for the committee members will necessitate reassigned time for those faculty that serve in this role.
We believe these changes will allow all of Maricopa to increase in excellence.
We have a number of other proposals that involve little or no money,
but are important to a healthy and positive environment.
Our last scheduled meeting is May 2, 2000 with the Board Team. Some proposals have been tentatively agreed (TA'd), but the substantial proposals remain under discussion and are unlikely to be TA'd this year. We have had a number of requests and concerns expressed about when ratification ballots have been received in the past. Our priority, without jeopardizing any true benefit we believe could be TA'd this year, is to send out ballots before the end of the spring semester.
We have a number of ideas to assist in a more productive process, and will be working on a potentially new model for next year. Finally, along with your ratification ballots, you will be receiving a survey. We hope you will take a few minutes out of your busy schedules to complete it and mail it back with your ratification ballot.
FACULTY ISSUES WITH RESPECT TO THE ASRS
Two issues have surfaced with respect to the ASRS (Arizona State Retirement
System). First, if you were a full time faculty member in 1990-91,
you should check your last ASRS report. You are likely to find that
it shows that you have received credit for a partial year of service during
your tenure at MCCCD. For example, on my statement, which came out
last fall, it showed that I had 11.66 years credit with the ASRS, despite
the fact that I had completed 12 full years of teaching in the District.
The size of the fraction of a year that faculty received in 1990-91 seems
to vary from one faculty member to another.
I decided to use myself as a guinea pig to see what was involved in
correcting this error. I called Ann Adams at District Office.
In response to my question about how many faculty were affected by this
problem, she suggested that it was possible that every full time faculty
member in the District may have been. Apparently there was a mistake
on the tape that the District sent to the ASRS following the 1990-91 school
year. She went on to inform me that each faculty member must ask
the ASRS to make the correction, if they were credited with a partial year.
So, I called the ASRS. (602) 240-2000. After eight minutes on hold, I explained my problem to Jerod, the ASRS member service representative who took my call. He explained that it would be necessary to research this correction. What that entailed was that the ASRS would have to call the MCCCD office to verify that I had been a full time employee that year, who had worked the entire year. He explained that this would take about two weeks. I am pleased to report that after about three weeks, I did receive notice that I now am credited with a full 12 years in the ASRS. I was advised that faculty who find themselves credited with a partial year should make the correction as soon as possible. These errors only become harder to research as the years go by. Of course, it is unclear why the District has not sent a corrected tape to ASRS.
Another area in which the ASRS is having research difficulties is for
faculty requests to buy years in the ASRS for past service with other state
employers. Some faculty are reporting that this process has taken
them months, and has entailed call after call to ASRS. In one case
that has been reported to me, the faculty member had worked for ASU back
in the 1960s and 1970s. Even in this case, which involved a local
employer, the research has been difficult. It seems that ASU’s records
are spotty, if they exist at all, that many years back. A log of
this faculty member’s calls to ASRS spans several months and nearly a dozen
calls. Furthermore, he has yet to receive written verification of
the years of service being credited. It will apparently show
on his next annual report.
ASRS is reported to have about 10,000 buy back requests, so it is taking
months to process them. With respect to these issues, the sooner
they are researched, the better.
Peoplesoft Problems Continue
The November 1999 issue of Peerpoint! listed a number of problems faculty were having with the pay reporting of Peoplesoft. Most of those problems do not appear to have been resolved. Items which have not been corrected from the November Peerpoint! include:
Out of concern about the problems with Peoplesoft, the Faculty Executive
Council unanimously passed a motion at its April 28th meeting that calls
for an independent audit of MCCCD payroll systems, processes and procedures
since July 1, 1999.
Big News about the Legislature’s
Dual Enrollment Study Committee
The last issue of Peerpoint! reported that the State Legislature was
considering a bill (HB 2365) to create a dual enrollment study committee.
The committee is intended to consider, among other things, “minimum standards
necessary to ensure the highest level of quality instruction”. As
originally written, there were no residential faculty from any community
college district who were to be members. That has changed.
When the Senate Education Committee met to consider the bill, the chairman
of the committee, Senator John Huppenthal, offered an amendment to add
a full time faculty member to be chosen by the Governor. The
bill has since been passed and signed by the Governor. At the behest
of the Faculty Executive Council, President Willie Minor has written to
the Governor to recommend Faculty Association President-elect, Rosemary
Kesler, for the faculty position on the study committee. Good luck,
Rosemary!