Minutes of the Faculty Senate meeting December 8, 2004

The regular meeting of the 2004-2005 Faculty Senate was called to order at 3:30 p.m. by President Klaus Bartschat.

The following senators were present for all or part of the meeting. Bartschat, Clapham, Courard-Hauri, Dore, Esposito, Freeman-Miller, Gilbert, Gillespie, Lyons, Morrow, Pandit, Petersen, Reincke, Rozycki, Sanders, Simpson, Tice, Wade.
Absent: Allen, Alexander, Frank

The November 2004 minutes were accepted.

President Maxwell’s report
--The recently announced $10 million dollar gift from two Drake alums has already been deposited! These individuals represent a very positive experience in higher education fundraising. President Maxwell indicated that a question was submitted to him concerning the $5 million dollars of scholarship monies announced in that recent gift. Drake plans a 5.5% payout from that endowment to aid students. Any additional monies earned will be put back into principle.

-- There has been some very hard work done by various Drake officials communicating and coordinating with the City of Des Moines and neighborhood representatives concerning the Clark Street sewer project and stadium project. The stadium project will begin on schedule believes President Maxwell.

Senator Esposito mentioned a concern that he and others have about Drake being able to maintain the 75/25 split offered in the current retiree health care benefits. President Maxwell replied that there is a strong commitment to the principles of AAUP at Drake. Ultimately this benefit is determined by the Board of Trustees, but so far the decisions have been respectful of the campus community interests.

The shared governance commitment includes allocation of resources. He stated that he is committed to and responsibility for ensuring that the Board hears the voices of the campus, both the concerns and the aspirations of the campus community.

Senator Courard-Hauri issued his thanks to President Maxwell for his work with neighborhood residents, giving him credit for bringing various factions together. President Maxwell indicated that the stadium project issues of street vacation and conveyance are in process. The December 20th City Council meeting will include on its agenda the next phase of that legal process. The actual conveyance publication is expected for April 2005. The body was reminded that no monies for the stadium project are being diverted from operating funds. There has not been any movement yet on the funding for the Phase Two of the project.

Provost Troyer’s Report
-- The implementation of the new room scheduling software continues. Provost Troyer indicated that he would like David Wright to make a presentation to the Faculty Senate as was done for the Dean’s Council.

-- Provost Troyer announced that about three weeks ago, he had received a copy of the management letter from the auditors. There was a reference in that document concerning the lack of integrity of the enrollment data. He clarified that some previous checks and balances are no longer in place with the new administrative system. For example: there are examples of the drop/add policy is not being consistently being followed. Drake has been sited for not showing diligence.

Provost Troyer said that he has instructed the Student Records Office to not process drop slips received after the official drop date. Now after the drop date: drops must be signed by Vice Provost and Dean of the School/College before processing.

He has asked CAAD (Council of Academic and Administrative Departments, chaired by Vice Provost Wanda Everage) and the Office of Student Records to explore the possibility of Drake having a Census Day. He is open to suggestions from the faculty that would do something towards bringing the enrollment data back into line.

Several senators gave their impressions of the current process. Examples included: a) the completed drop/add form that never leaves the student and thus not processed, b) students registering for more courses than they intend to take, thus creating the ghost enrollments, c) faculty maintaining private waitlists for courses with selected enrollments.

The group was encouraged to offer their suggestions and concerns on this matter directly to Ms. Everage.

President Bartschat’s Report
--The Master Campus Planning consultants will be on campus on December 15th. Seven faculty indicated that they planned to attend the informational session set up for faculty.

-- An Environmental Task Force has been formed in response to the student presentation last September. David Courard-Hauri is the chair. Other committee members are: Mark Chambers, Alex Gates, Nancy Reincke, Renae Steichen, Brad Toussaint. The Task Force plans to bring a report back to the Senate by March 2005.

-- The Sabbatical Task Force chaired by Klaus Bartschat will be issuing a survey to the tenure and tenure-track faculty. The purpose of the survey is to get an idea of why persons do not take sabbaticals. An additional purpose is to know what salary percentage options the faulty would prefer. Currently the option is 70/85%. Formerly, the option was 50/100%. Provost Troyer indicated that it is common, among ANAC schools, to limit the number of persons who go on sabbaticals each year. This is not what he wants for Drake.

-- President Bartschat indicated that a revised I and IP grading policy will be coming to the Senate for consideration, hopefully in January. Senator Gilbert, University Benefits Committee Chair, distributed the results of the recent Medical Benefits survey. Almost 500 responses were received.
Lon Larson, Co-Chair of the Retiree Health Benefits Task Force, began the review discussion of the recent presentations by the Humana Company. It is an employer-sponsored retiree plan option which Drake is considering. There was a summary of retiree benefit comparisons and a copy of the corporate presentation distributed.

Senator Gilbert, Co-Chair of the Retiree Health Benefits Task Force distributed a one page summary of the pluses/minuses of this possible change which he had personally complied.

The discussion began with the clarification that this benefit option only covers Drake retirees. They would have no choice except to join this plan, if Drake chose this company.

Concerns included:
a) knowing how much Humana’s rates have changed over the years and how that compares to other plans (Humana has had an average 7% increase compared to Drake’s double digit increases for the past couple of years)
b) whether Drake would be looking at drastically different rates each year
c) should Drake be looking at other options
d) how hard will it be for Drake to get out of this plan, if that became desired and what would the accounting liability be after leaving Humana
e) Humana’s overall relationship to Medicare and how they actually save money through their Medicare contract. The relationship creates a cash flow ‘up front’ for Humana from Medicare per enrolled person.
f) Drake’s cost savings per year vs. over several years and whether these savings were actual dollars or liability dollars only
g) The mail order drug benefit’s inclusion and how prevalent is should or should not be available, especially to the retiree community
h) Whether this large administrator’s ability to reduce paperwork will ease the stress on Drake enrollees
i) Understanding the Medicare restrictions for catastrophic medical claims which Humana uses
j) federal government seemingly positive interest in these types of solutions for health care and that impact on any decision Drake makes Upon proper motion and vote, the meeting was extended.
Human Resources Director Vanessa Marco indicated that the greatest change is that now the calculation method for Drake is based on dollar utilization of benefits and Humana utilizes a price per visit costing method. Humana has been asked for some further data so that a more direct comparison can be made.

There were again general statements made that Drakes does not want to raise the percentage contribution made by current retirees and does desire to address the issue of the persons hired after September 1, 1994 gaining benefits. The Humana plan would be available to the persons hired post-1994.

President Maxwell indicated that if Drake changes companies, not its benefit policies, then there is no need for Board of Trustees action. The FY06 budget assumptions will be presented in January to the Board and he indicated that it would be nice to let them know of this possible change in resource allocation.

Informational meetings for the retirees are scheduled in January. Further feedback is expected from those sessions.New Business:

Senator Reincke moved and Sanders seconded:

Academic Concentrations and Academic Certificate Programs
approved by the Faculty Senate will appear on a student's transcript
once the degree is earned.

Linda Krypel, Chair of the University Curriculum Committee (UCC) began a preliminary discussion of the motion and distributed a rationale for the motion. She outlined the basics of the situation which included confusion as to whether or not this desired change needed to come to the Faculty Senate. It is clear that the UCC would like the approved certificate programs such as the Global Ambassadors Program to appear on the transcript.

Noting that there was no longer a quorum present, the body adjourned. at 5:45 p.m.

Secretary, Nancy Geiger