Meeting summary: Boulder Faculty Assembly

Editor's note: In addition to news coverage of meetings of the systemwide Faculty Council and Staff Council, the Faculty and Staff Newsletter posts meeting summaries or minutes as provided by councils and assemblies at the campus level. To submit material, please e-mail Jay.Dedrick@cu.edu.

BFA Meeting - Dec. 9, 2010

Here are highlights from the Boulder Faculty Assembly's Dec. 9 meeting. For more detailed information, please visit www.colorado.edu/BFA to read the most recent minutes, reports, current motions before the assembly and other items of interest to the faculty.

I. Chair's Report:

• Football coach search committee. The BFA's rep Liz Bradley commended the BFA's resolution (BFA-X-R-111510), reported the selection of Jon Embree, and that the committee was composed of herself, Ric Porreca, David Clough, V.C. for Diversity Bob Boswell, and three community members.
• Faculty Council ad hoc communications committee. The committee plans to develop recommendations for improved communication at CU both internally and externally.
• Regents' relationship with faculty governance. Faculty Council has expressed concern that the relationship has become too adversarial. Regent Joe Neguse will attend the BFA meeting March 3.
• ISIS. Some issues have been resolved but several serious challenges remain. Engineering Assistant Dean JoAnn Zelasko has been charged with finding solutions, especially for graduate admissions.

II. New BFA ad hoc committee on university outreach. The BFA approved a resolution creating the ad hoc BFA committee to help the university create an outreach program for influential members of the public, including political, industrial and business leaders, to help advocate for CU (BFA-R-120910).

III. Special Report: University Counsel Dan Wilkerson. Highlights included the following:

• The BFA's two program discontinuance motions do not take the correct procedural position to achieve their goals. The resolutions should have sought to amend either regent laws (in the case of severance pay) or Colorado statutes (in the case of notice rights).
• Wilkerson agreed to meet with an ad hoc committee of BFA members to discuss John Sleeman's interpretation of the Post Employment Compensation Act with regard to instructors.

IV. Special Report: Senior Associate Vice President Jill Pollock. Highlights included the following:

• Payroll & Benefit Services is moving to Denver, but International Support Services will stay in Boulder.
• Pollock gave a history of self-funded health insurance at CU, and reported that the university is trying it again beginning this year with stronger controls. Benefits include saving money and added flexibility to offer plans tailored to CU's population. For example, plans that acknowledge the community's commitment to healthy lifestyle choices. The plans themselves have not changed very much. Anthem has been retained to provide administrative services.

V. Special Report: Provost Russell Moore. Highlights included the following:

• CU continues to examine several funding scenarios in anticipation of more information on Colorado's final higher ed budget and potential tuition increases. Merit pay increases remain a possibility.
• The Research Diamond is a consortium of Colorado State University, the School of Mines and two of CU's campuses to take advantage of the unique strengths of each institution and use economies of scale to be more efficient, such as common procurement and/or health care systems.
• The new CU Guaranteed admission program for transfer students from Colorado community colleges is not significantly different from what has been done in the past.

VI. The next BFA meeting is 4-5:30 p.m. Feb. 3 in Wolf Law room 204.

Speakers include AVC Michael Grant on the voluntary system of accountability, and Provost Russell Moore and CFO Ric Porreca on the Boulder campus budget. All faculty are welcome to attend.