Berklee Faculty Union: Home

Minutes from Union Executive Committee Meeting
January 21, 2010
Present – Prince Charles Alexander, Rick Applin, Charles Cassara, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Danny Harrington, Jonathan Holland, Haidee Lorrey, Jeff Perry, Diane Richardson, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Mike Scott, Will Silvio.

1. Mike opened the meeting, we discussed the minutes from the last union/management meeting. Jeff will send out revised minutes for approval next week.

2. A chair’s son has tragically passed away. We will send a card. The current grievances that need the chair to be present will be in abeyance until the chair returns.

3. A faculty member that changed syllabus during the semester is still awaiting decision from the dean and the SVP/AA, this member has received an unsatisfactory review, the union will be grieving that as well. With an unsatisfactory review, this faculty member will lose their three-year contract. The syllabus is a legal document between the student and the school.

4. A faculty member was reprimanded for using computer during a department meeting. We met with the chair and dean, and will be meeting the SVP/AA. We are only asking for a letter of apology from the chair.

5. A faculty member was given an unsatisfactory review for behavior in a past year where the faculty member was given a satisfactory review. This is not the proper procedure – the issue was not documented in the previous evaluation.

6. The benefits group has been meeting and sharing information about possible options for the school. The next step will be to talk about pension and the options for the school. Everything has been on hold until Washington works a few more things out. The main thrust from the administration has been for us to take the responsibility – self-insured, we manage our own pension portfolio, etc. We are not committing to anything, we are listening to ideas, and this summer during the bargain is when the decisions will be made.

7. We need to put the CRI on a Union/Management meeting – how will the hours be affected for part-time faculty, etc. We need to investigate the options for OUR faculty. Workload issues, we would like to reduce the Full-Time workload, which means more hours for part-time. The new Liberal Arts course First Year Seminar has a lot of issues in it that have not been worked out yet – extra prep time, advising, etc. There are a lot of issues to be discussed before bargaining sessions start this summer.

8. Three-year contract – we have language to make the hours mandatory, we can make adjustments to that language – instead of 27 units per year, average 27 units for three years. We will discuss in future meetings before bargaining begins.

9. Three-year contracts, 50-minute lessons, workload reduction for FT, increase weighting for hours – 1.5 and 1.25, we need to discuss what we are willing to trade for these big ticket items.

Union notes from Union / Management Meeting
December 10, 2009
Present – Rick Applin, Charles Cassara, Peggy Codding, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Jonathan Holland, Haidee Lorrey, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Mike Scott, Will Silvio.
Management – Larry Simpson, Jay Kennedy, Kari Juusela, Darla Hanley, Amelia Koch, John Eldert, Mark Campbell, Jeanine Cowen.

1. Larry opened the meeting, student evaluations. Mike brought up several issues. The public report of individual response rate for each faculty is inappropriate.

Larry responded: we just wanted to make more data available to everyone. We have agreed to do an on-line evaluation to prevent faculty from using class time. We wanted to create a possible dialogue between faculty, not alienate or shame people. We want to get the response rate higher.

Mike: what about the model that Emerson uses, the grade will not be released until the student fills out an evaluation. The old procedure took away class time, we may need some kind of forced mechanism.

Larry: as of now, we will not go to the extreme of holding up grades to increase the response rate. We will not be sending out the individual information to all faculty. Mark Campbell mentioned that right now we are not using Colleague to do the evaluations, we would need a module or mechanism to manage the data.

Mike: the work resides with the students, they need to fill out the evaluations, and perhaps Student Affairs can help them understand the importance of the evaluation process. Also, the fact that one class has been separated out of all other classes is not acceptable. We all agreed to a specific set of questions and content, if that is changed, it is a violation of the contract. The intent is ok, but it must be bargained or at least agreed to by the union. It is a breech of contract.

Larry: I have not seen the separate evaluation, I would need to see that and we can follow up at a later date. Mike passed out the list of questions. We discussed them and their intent. Larry, the intent is connected to the CRI, we should come back to this.

Mike: we need to hold the information until we can bring this issue to a conclusion. Had we been consulted, we would have provided a service and helped the process along.

2. Faculty Performance Reviews – Mike. There have been a significant amount of negative reviews, 8-10 faculty have contacted the Union about their reviews. It is across all divisions and departments, no one particular department or division.

Larry: we have asked chairs to accurately evaluate all faculty in a fair manner.
In the past, chairs have given faculty satisfactory reviews when the faculty are not performing up to par.

Mike: in the past, chairs have given warning about the possibility of receiving an unsatisfactory review. Perhaps we can set-up a warning procedure, there are a lot of ramifications from an unsatisfactory review: wage renegotiations, part-time to full-time, three-year contracts, benefits, etc.

Larry: there is no requirement for a minimum of unsatisfactory reviews in each department, we are asking the chairs to do their job, evaluate the faculty. The grievances that are to be presented will help us learn about our procedures and evaluate our evaluation process.

3. Article XXV Benefits Study Committee meetings – update. Jay, we have had three great meetings, we have only talked about health, but more to come, it has been very eye-opening and educational.

Minutes from All-Faculty Meeting
December 3, 2009
UEC Present – Prince Charles Alexander, Rick Applin, Charles Cassara, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Jonathan Holland, Jeff Perry, Diane Richardson, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Mike Scott, Will Silvio.

1. Mike opened the meeting, we presented a large package to management last summer during the bargain, we want to go ahead and present the same package again next summer. Highlights include, lowering FT load, increase classroom teaching weighting to 1.5 and performance classes to 1.25, increase minimums for each rank – specifically Professors, PT 3-year contract, defined benefit plan, benefits, PT conversions to FT, etc.

2. Recent arbitrations – 3-year contract issue and guaranteed hours vs. pay, 27 units. We lost the arbitration and now have a lot of work to do to adjust the language of the PT 3-year contract during the next bargain.

3. We currently have the largest student population ever at the college, 4,130. They chose to spend their money on buildings and remodeling those buildings.

4. Charles Cassara presented this year’s budget, electronic copies have been sent to all faculty and are available on the website. Jackson called for a vote to accept the budget for 2009-10 that Charles presented, Jeff seconded, and the vote was unanimous to accept the budget.

5. Elect delegates for AFT-Massachusetts conference: Beth, Marti, Jonathan, Mike, and Rick Applin, Jackson and Jeff will be alternates. Rich made a motion to accept the delegates, Scott Free seconded, and the vote was unanimous.

6. Discuss and vote on extending current Union Executive Committee members’ terms by one year to maintain continuity in the event next summer’s negotiations go beyond September 1. (This would mean the union elections scheduled to take place in April 2010 would, with the approval of the members present at this meeting, be rescheduled for April 2011.)

A faculty member mentioned the possible solution: have the elections and any new members would join the bargaining team, and take over in Sept., perhaps not very conducive to the bargaining process. Discussion continued.

Peter C. made a motion to accept the extension, Rich G. seconded, 44 in favor and 1 opposed.