AAUP MINUTES

October 6, 2005

Instead of our regular business meeting we met with President Bell.

Meeting called to order at 11:05 a.m.

President Bell:

He said he was pleased with the turnout for Career Day. There were a large number of recruiters and students involved. He encouraged everyone to check it out.

He thanked us for inviting him and also for helping make Tech. so successful. (Monday, October 3, 2005 we were notified that Tech. was chosen as one of America’s 100 Best College Buys.)

[Kristin Walker emailed Pres. Bell a list of questions prior to his visit, so he began by addressing those questions.]

President Bell:

September 28-30 (previous Wed., Thurs., and Friday) TBR met in Cleveland. They DID approve our modifications to the Campus Pay Plan.

We’ve been looking at inversions for a number of years. We have about $155,000.00 set aside for inversion already. We have been working with the board to address the issue. We had to broaden the plan in order to use that money for inversion. The new plan allows us to address inversion, equity, and merit pay, and also allows for one-time bonuses. So now we can move forward on inversions.

During the December meeting they will review our specific inversion plan. We will have a concrete model to present to them. It is still in the discussion stage but the approach will probably be:

--any assistant professor in an inversion situation will be given a salary at least $250.00 more than the last hire in that department

--associate professors in inversion situations will be given at least $500.00 more than the last hire in that department

--full professors in an inversion situation will be given at least $1,000.00 more than the last hire in that department

We are very close to being able to fund that with money we have held back. That should address 99% of the inversion problem.

Question from audience: What about instructors?

Pres. Bell: Not certain

Paul Semmes: [Said he knew.] It only affects Arts and Sciences and Dr. Barker has asked for information. It will apply to instructors. They will be given $130.00 more than the last hire in their department.

Pres. Bell: Looks like we have the money to at least catch up, and then we should be able to keep up with inversion from then on with new appointments.

Question from audience: Are others having to deal with this?

Pres. Bell: Inversion is not just affecting universities. It is significant in health care and education, but it’s also present in others. It is a nationwide phenomenon in education.

[Back to inversion on campus]: We will propose that this be retroactive to July 1. The board could recommend that it be implemented effective January 1. Don’t know though. If they stick to their rules, that is probably what they will do. We suspect it will happen retroactive to July 1, but can’t promise it. Certainly by next summer we will be caught up.

Regarding merit and equity pay, we will have to revise the campus evaluation system. He will ask Dave Larimore and Marvin Barker to appoint a committee for the revision. It’s been a long time since we’ve done it. Needs to be done though since we are moving to merit pay and since the faculty survey urged it.

He will insist on our incorporating the annual agreement on responsibilities more explicitly in the annual evaluations. Hopes we get new annual evaluations document soon, perhaps within the next three to four months. This may mean we don’t do any merit pay this time around. We may not get the option from the state anyway. He wants to begin a dialogue regarding annual evaluations on the merit posture that the university has. Wants over-all campus guidelines for consistency of interpretation of merit, but with room for college input of what’s important to each college.

Inversion is another extension of equity. Both inversion and equity are formula driven, and therefore easy to figure out. But merit pay is subjective. So we want to be pretty deliberate in how we put that forward.

Where the state gives us flexibility, we will enact plans other than across-the-board raises. The governor has expressed his desire to move away from across-the-board raises. It has inherent problems. We need more flexibility. What we don’t know yet is the extent of how hurricane Katrina will impact the 2006 budget. Katrina is having an impact on our state budget and may affect discretionary funds. He suspects it will. Tourism will drop due to gas prices and energy prices will increase impacting state energy programs. It’s way too early to tell. We’ll have to keep an eye on monthly estimates. The situation is rosy now, but probably won’t continue. He expects we will have some budget problems.

He hopes that we will get more campus autonomy. Not certain this will happen though. The governor is pushing for something other than across-the-board raises, but the legislature may not agree. If state resources are very tight, if we are down in the 2 or 3% change range, then they default to across-the-board raises almost every time at that level. They do this because, in their eyes, it is “much ado about nothing.” [it is small amounts of money]

Pres. Bell now fielded general questions from the audience…

Question: What do other campuses do regarding merit pay? Is there another model Tech has looked at or is interested in?

Pres. Bell: There are several models out there. The committee looked at all the campus pay plans. They were attracted to the Memphis model because it was less complex and gave campuses more flexibility. They didn’t find merit in every plan. But in the faculty survey it was listed as important. Our plan reflects the Memphis model. They looked at some out-of-state plans too. The value of this one is that it gives us more freedom to address equity, inversion, merit, and one-time bonuses.

Question: Do we have a model for the particulars of enacting merit pay?

Pres. Bell: Not yet. We need a new evaluation system, although not a dramatically different one. We also need to address details of how the campus pay plan will work with merit pay. It will be a campus-wide discussion eventually. We don’t have the mechanism for this as of yet though. He will rely heavily upon the deans, chairs, senate, and other groups.

Question: Was there a merit adjustment in the first couple of years of your [Pres. Bell’s] presidency?

Pres. Bell: Yes. There was some. A state mandate allowed us to do it.

Question: The psychological impact of that merit pay made many wonder why they weren’t included, making them wonder what they were doing wrong. What will be the long-term effects on the institution of merit pay?

Pres. Bell: Some people will be angry. It’s not a perfect system. It is difficult if not impossible to please everyone. One campus decision we’ll have to make is how much we want to put toward merit pay and equity pay. It will be challenging. He hopes that the mix of programs will help us move forward. The new plan opens new opportunities for us. We will watch that it is not abused.

Question: Will merit pay be a one-time bonus, or will it be added to base pay?

Pres. Bell: Don’t know yet. We will look at both options. His instinct is that it will be added to base pay. Both options would work. But he doesn’t know yet. The more traditional model is that it is a percentage of the base. But we’ll look at both.

Question: Regarding equity: What are the targets? National? Peer? Does it vary by college or department?

Pres. Bell: Under the current equity model it’s CUPA data (College and University Personnel Association). There were certain colleges at Tech. that objected to CUPA data but now it’s a better model. It’s a national average. It’s not the best of the best. It’s not the peer average used in the State Board of Regents plan either. CUPA data gives us some help because it considers different peers.

Question: Is it very difficult to obtain money?

Pres. Bell: When you raise tuition, typically you are just covering operation costs. You’re just trying to keep up with where you were last year. Typically we get two or three unfunded mandates every year. If there’s money left over it is typically used for pay. Tennessee has just become an above average tuition state, so we can expect there will be a lock down this year on further tuition increases. That will constrain us.

Question: Could merit pay be used instead for funding travel for conferences and research? You’d have more and happier people.

Pres. Bell: The state money cannot be moved to operating from compensation (payroll). Where we get our flexibility is through tuition increases. But the last fifteen years have proven a tough environment. We’re hoping that this year, and next, operating funds will be built back up.

Question: What are the plans for improving financing? We can’t keep raising tuition.

Pres. Bell: There are two sides. We have borrowed millions each year from our Renewal and Replacement money. We are about to wean off of that. Then we can start a dialogue about how to raise operations money. Operating endowments are very helpful. We need to look at more of that—more private funding.

Thanks for inviting me. Please come and see me if you have any questions.

Meeting adjourned at 11:55 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Paula Hinton

AAUP Secretary