Minutes from All-Faculty Budget Meeting

Present UEC – Michael Abraham, Prince Charles Alexander, Dennis Cecere, Peggy Codding, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Danny Harrington, Teodros Kiros, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Will Silvio. 

1. Jackson opened the meeting. Peter made a motion to approve the minutes from the previous meeting and post on the web. Peggy seconded and the vote was unanimous to accept the minutes.
    
2. Jackson discussed the bonds that have been issued and the concept of the bondholders watching over Berklee and their expectations.
    
3. Jeff presented the budget. Danny made a motion to approve the budget as proposed, Rich seconded, and the vote was unanimous.
    
4. AFT National will have Jackson, Will, Danny and Rich in attendance. Wendy, Peter, Jeff, Danny, Beth, and Jackson are interested in AFTMA. Rich made a motion to accept the list of delegates, Danny seconded and the vote was unanimous to approve the delegates.
    
5. Jackson and Roger Brown went out to lunch to start the semester. Roger would like the students to become ambassadors for Berklee. 
    
6. Jackson discussed the Instructor Initiated Withdrawal for ensembles and private lessons and its return starting this summer.
    
7. Jackson discussed the ADA compliance and the plans that management has in adjusting the 150 building. The discussion has been going on for 10 years and it is only in the last 6 months that movement has been made by management.
    
8. Part-time faculty are being given pending classes that are not being published – how can students sign up for classes that they don’t know about? This is affecting people on part-time 3-year contracts. Also, 57 classes were dropped due to lack of population before add/drop even started in the spring – this has also affected people on part-time 3-year contracts.
    
9. BCBS – the college has changed the PPO options without consulting us. If we want to make the specific terms of the health care in the contract, we need to bargain it. Right now it is just a percentage of what the college will pay. The college may be making significant changes to the offered health plan in 2013, through a consortium. 
    
10. In our next Union / Management meeting we will be given an accounting of the 2.5 million shortfall.

Union notes from Union / Management Meeting

Present – Michael Abraham, Prince Charles Alexander, Dennis Cecere, Peggy Codding, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Teodros Kiros, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, and Will Silvio.  

Management – Larry Simpson, Jay Kennedy, Bill Whitney, Kari Juusela, Matt Marvuglio, Jeanine Cowan, Amelia Koch, Chris Connors, John Eldert, Stephen Riggs.

1. Jackson opened the meeting, 150 Mass Ave Building Access Project Overview-Mac Hisey. We have an approach that is feasible and a viable. The plan will have two entrances that are accessible at 142 and 150. Mac presented several drawings that showed the project at its end state. There will be several stages – the short-term is immediate ADA access, the drawings show beautiful glass and brick (similar to the drawings of the 160 building) that is more of the end game; first, lets make it ADA compliant. Now there are three elevators, we will add another for four total. The new elevator will be adjacent to the dorm elevators. Alumni Affairs will be moved. 
   
   Mac – we went through 10-12 designs, they are all expensive, and this plan seems to be best for all involved, with the best entrance and flow.
   
   Wendy – an elevator is a good answer, but in the case of a power outage people from the basement and other floors need to get out of the building.
   
   Mac – we will have that issue in any building with more than two floors. We have an ADA consultant that we have been talking to through the entire process and will continue to work with him. The cost will be in the millions.
   
   Stephen – there are smaller areas where we will need to remove a few stairs and put in a ramp.
   
   Mac – we are happy to talk about the financial costs for this project and all other topics. We will be ready to discuss the 2.5 shortfall at the next meeting.
   
   Jackson – is the 2.5 million shortfall being addressed in other areas like budget cuts, etc?
   
   Mac – we are trying to keep ahead of any financial situations before they create a problem and we run at a deficit.
   
   Enrollment – we are admitting more students, about 300 more to insure that we hit our target enrollment. We are looking at increasing revenue through hitting our target enrollment. 
   
   Larry – this spring we are 100 students lower than we had last spring, we were not expecting this. We need to get better at hitting our goals and maintaining our enrollment. We will not be increasing the student population; we are just admitting more students to insure we hit our goals.
   
   Financial aid v. scholarships – we should bring Mark Campbell in to discuss this topic and enrollment.
   
   Jackson – we are looking for an accounting of how the 2.5 million shortfall happened in the first place.
   
   Mac – the 2.5 million is a cost overage not a deficit.
   
   Larry – we had the budget in place before any student signed up for any 50-minute lesson or the ACI course. We are now looking for ways to resolve the issue.
    
2. Part-time conversions – where do we stand? February of 2013: we will be doing all 12 conversions at that time. We agreed to the 12 being done before the end of the contract in 2013 and that is what we are going to do. We will look at the divisions and the needs of the college as we make the choices.  The merging of the writing and technology divisions has been very successful at this point – a lot of cross-curricular activity.
    
3. Spring 2012 grade submission deadline – currently it is Thursday May 17, management would like to move it to Wednesday May 16.  We discussed the possibilities and we will discuss further at our next UEC meeting.

Minutes from Union Executive Committee Meeting

Present – Michael Abraham, Prince Charles Alexander, Dennis Cecere, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Danny Harrington, Jonathan Holland, Teodros Kiros, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Will Silvio. 

1. Jackson opened the meeting. On Monday Jeff and Jackson will be having a meeting with a financial advisor to look at options for making our dues work for us a little more.
    
2. The BAFT just sent out an e-mail querying the faculty in regards to any health care issues with Blue Cross Blue Shield. Recently, a letter went out to faculty outlining the new health plan and the options available to faculty. There is a probable change in 2013 with a health care consortium that may give us more options.
    
3. Salary re-negotiations are upon us. Dennis has volunteered to crunch the numbers for faculty to see where they fit.
    
4. The newsletter is almost complete. Mike Scott is writing an article, Jackson is doing an article, and Jeff has included the budget numbers. We should be complete by Monday, an electronic version will be sent out to all faculty.
    
5. An all-faculty meeting has been set for March 8 and a part-time faculty meeting on April 19th.
    
6. Jackson has sent an information request to Larry Simpson regarding cancelled classes and their populations at their cancellation, we still have not heard back. A second request that part-time faculty participating with NEASC should be paid their hourly rate because this is service to the college.
    
7. Jackson will be meeting with Larry Simpson next week to cover the Instructor Initiated Withdrawal and the possible re-instatement of the policy for performance oriented courses.
    
8. Tom Gosnell called in reference to the Greater Boston Labor Council; he is looking for our support and our involvement.
    
9. We should look at bringing OSHA in to look at our working conditions: mold, air quality, and overall cleanliness.
    
10. Wendy, Peter, Jeff, Danny, Beth, and Jackson are interested in AFTMA.
     
11. For the March 1st Union/Management meeting, management will be presenting us with the ADA plans for 150 and going over the 2.5 million shortfall.