Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Council
January 29, 2003
Excerpts
Present: S. Barber, D. Kaiser, J. Mohan, M. Montgomery, J. Mutti, R. Osgood, M. Schneider, J. Swartz.
The meeting came to order at 4:20 in the Nollen House Conference Room.
The minutes and excerpts of 12/18/02 were approved.
President's Remarks
The President repeated that the Board of Trustees formed after the October meeting a separate committee to consider the issues surrounding new athletic facilities. The committee met and decided the College should focus on replacing Darby with either an interim or permanent facility and that we need to hire an architect. This action was approved by the executive committee of the Board in late December. As a result, a small group of people (R.Osgood, D.Clay, J.Hunter, D.Fairchild, J.Brand, and several trustees) interviewed five architectural firms in New York City and St. Louis last week. The College is about to talk further with two of the firms about engaging in broad range planning. Among the most critical decisions is siting the facility. The Trustees have stated that approximately 50% of the cost of the new facility should be paid for through fundraising. We already have enough money in hand and in pledges to meet that trigger and move forward with a basketball and volleyball facility (which would not include a fitness facility). The firms have been told to assume that the PEC must go. M. Montgomery noted that the President approached the Executive Council regarding participation but no one could make the time for travel. In the fairly near future the President said he will appoint a committee with a broad membership to help plan this project.
The President noted that he agreed that there are issues regarding parking areas near the Science Center. He noted that the issue is not resolved but under consideration. He noted that there has been discussion of "greening' and improving storage of bicycles.
Dean's Remarks
The Dean distributed a spreadsheet to update the progress of faculty searches. He noted that four regular or tenure-track positions had been filled in the fall semester.
There was discussion of the progress of planning in the Department of Education.
There was discussion of the progress of self study and external review in the Department of Philosophy.
The Dean distributed a proposal from the Economics Department that has two one-year replacement positions that we are currently seeking to fill. There was discussion.
The Dean noted that Council would be receiving Consortium for a Strong Minority Presence proposals at the end of the week. The Academic Sub-committee of the Budget Steering Committee has decided that we will only make one appointment through this program next year.
Council Remarks
M. Schneider recounted a discussion in the most recent Science Division meeting regarding the latest version of the next phase of construction having dropped the staff and custodial break room. There was broad discussion of this issue.
M. Schneider also noted that he had received a note from Christopher McKee about the recent bankruptcy of Faxon/RoweCom (the vendor for serial subscriptions) He suggested that it is likely that this will not resolve itself within the relatively near future. Schneider asked how we will continue our subscriptions. The Dean stated that he is monitoring the situation.
M. Schneider asked to hear something more substantive about the POSSE program. The President suggested that Jim Sumner present information at a faculty meeting. D. Kaiser asked what the program participation costs Grinnell. The President responded that each participant would be offered a grant equal to tuition and there are administrative fees charged by the POSSE Foundation, and on campus programming requirements.
Faculty Salary Process
The Dean noted that there are two separate issues at this point in the discussions: 1) those that came up as a result of the salary process conducted this year; and 2) those involved in the long-range resolution of this issue. The President asked that Council make recommendations to him so that he can share those with the Trustees Budget Committee in a teleconference call scheduled for February 6th.
M. Schneider noted that he and M. Montgomery looked at trends at peer institutions in the three faculty ranks-assistant, associate, and professor and built a model which aims to achieve parity among the ranks in comparison with our peers and given time in rank. In order to achieve this objective there would need to be fairly high raises at the very beginning of the assistant professor career. The President thinks that this is a worthy objective but would be uncomfortable seeing full professors' salaries lagging behind the rate of inflation. Schneider suggested that what we have been doing in the past few years is adding money to the salaries of assistant professors' salaries trying to achieve that parity. However, what happens to parity when you enter merit into the calculation is that you tilt the result back in favor of the associate and full professors because the scholarly productivity and service (for which points are given) parts of the equation favor those ranks. In order to overcome this perverse effect of merit we need to make one-time sizable investments in the salaries of our assistant professors. Montgomery stated that the faculty need to be presented with this information and buy into it. The Dean stated that he will need the Treasurer's Office to test the model to make sure of the numbers we are proposing. The President noted that he appreciates the effort going into thinking about this issue because it elevates the concerns and judgments of the faculty to the level of Trustee involvement and they really want to do something to address this problem. The Dean noted that judging from what he recently heard from Deans around the country is that this is relatively a very good time for Grinnell to do this.
The President left the meeting at 5:40 p.m.
M. Montgomery noted that it would be good for Council to keep in mind that relative pay is one issue, but when considering relative compensation Grinnell faculty fare very well. The Dean responded that peer comparison of non-salary compensation is complicated because FICA is a wash across institution, tuition benefits are lumpy, health insurance premiums is lower than on either coast, and retirement is the largest contributing factor. The AAUP publishes salary and total compensation figures only. J. Mutti asked whether the Dean was able to find data on length of service in rank. He said he had spent enough time trying to determine it was not worth continuing. What he surmised from his research is that our faculty are approximately a half year less experienced than those of our peer institutions. D. Kaiser noted that if the data are not readily available then we need to abandon the argument that the difference in compensation is demographically based. There was discussion on whether expression of raises should be stated in absolute dollar figures or percentages. D. Kaiser thanked the Budget Committee for their extraordinary effort in this area.
There was discussion of the next Council agenda.
The meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m.
Secretary
Karen Wiese