Content
Wednesday, November 6, 2019, 8:30 AM
300 AGH or Call In
Attended: VC Mike Boehm, Maria de Guzman, Jenny Keshwani, Aaron Nygren,
Anna Lowe (recorder)
Attended Via Phone: ACV Richard Bischoff and Joel Cramer
Absent: Ron Lewis, Stephen Wegulo, Carlos Urrea
Agenda:
- Institute-wide P&T Committee vote follow up and next steps – Jenny
- Update on IANR Staff Liaison Council discussion – Rich
- Faculty salary market analyses and adjustments – Mike
- Graduate Assistant Health Insurance - Rich
- Extension Educator realignment of reporting structure – Mike
Graduate Student Health Insurance
Vice Chancellor Boehm thanked the Liaison Committee for writing a letter on behalf of the faculty expressing concern about the graduate student health insurance situation. VC Boehm has presented and discussed the letter with the Executive Leadership Team including Chancellor Green and Interim Executive Vice Chancellor Moberly. The administration is continuing to have conversations regarding graduate education including health care costs and tuition rates. They are continuing to discuss ways for UNL to remain competitive with peer institutions. IANR and CASNR continue to enhance and develop the UNL graduate student experience.
Institute-wide P&T Committee vote follow up and next steps
Vice Chancellor Boehm expressed gratitude to the Liaison Committee for their hard work with reviewing the IANR promotion and tenure process and with crafting the proposal for an Institute-wide P&T committee. This is an important issue and the committee did a great job with elevating the issue, obtaining informative feedback, and reflecting and responding to the feedback received.
VC Boehm shared that he is personally a firm believer of shared governance.
It is encouraging to see such a large number of faculty engaged with the process. 67% of faculty that were eligible to vote submitted a vote.
The proposed design of the Institute-wide Promotion & Tenure committee was providing opportunities for various types of faculty to be engaged. It gave non-tenure and non-tenure track faculty an opportunity to serve on this committee.
The vote results reaffirm a positive view of the IANR administration. The promotion and tenure process will remain as is for the time being. A candidate’s package is subjected to the following review process: the department P&T committee, the unit administrator, dean(s), council of deans, and the Vice Chancellor. In the current process there is only one time where faculty provide a recommendation on the file. VC Boehm will continue to hold Deans accountable to ensure that they are reviewing each candidate’s materials in a fair manner. • As individual departments continue to refine their promotion and tenure guidelines, will they incorporate elements highlighted in the proposal for the Institute-wide committee?
The Liaison Committee will not current move forward with any additional action steps regarding an Institute-wide Promotion and Tenure Committee and will determine if sometime in the future they’d like to revisit the idea.
Faculty salary market analyses and adjustments
2/3 of our current extension educators have been hired in the past 5-7 years. A large turnover among extension faculty can be attributed to generational shift, chronic turnover, and disparities in salaries.
A specific disparity in salary existed with the starting salaries of youth and early child educators vs. crop or beef educators. Salary changes were made to have consistency among starting salaries for the various educators including market adjustments for current educators.
This past year, IANR administration began reviewing disparities among tenure-track faculty salaries. 144 tenure-track faculty in IANR saw market adjustments to their salary. Throughout this process IANR was cautious to not create any new disparities including gender, race, etc.
Between educators and tenure-track faculty, $1.25 million of recurring funding was invested into the faculty. This is important to note since there were $4.5 million per year for 3 years of budget cuts and IANR continued to be able put money into their faculty.
Extension Educator realignment of reporting structure
Currently in Extension, there are 5 directors responsible for supervising 182 extension educators and staff at extension centers. While tenure-track extension specialists report to a unit leader, the center director still provides local oversight. Therefore, the center director is currently supervising anywhere from 35-50 people.
The new model of 11 engagement zone coordinators will have one coordinator supervising about 11-12 people. This will allow the coordinator to focus on mental well-being, onboarding, and development of faculty and staff.
In addition to engagement zone coordinators, there will be program leaders who will oversee a specific focus area. For example: Rick Rasby will oversee beef extension, John Westra and Bill Kranz will oversee water, and Don Macke will oversee Rural Communities.
This can be considered to be the most substantial change with extension since Nebraska Extension was created.
Some of the details are still being worked out and VC Boehm highlighted the importance of faculty having a voice in the process.
Update on search process for engagement zone coordinators: the search committee is making recommendations to Dean Hibberd. The next step will be for candidates to have interviews out at the zones.
IANR Staff Council Discussion
AVC Bischoff has been meeting with a group of 7 staff members representing a variety of different positions in IANR. The group has been exploring the benefits of a staff council to IANR. Some of the benefits discussed include: having a voice to upper administration regarding staff concerns, opportunities for professional development, creating connections with staff across departments, etc. Other colleges or units on campus that currently have a staff council include: College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering, College of Education and Human Sciences, and Student Affairs. • The next meeting for this exploratory group is on November 21st. They have invited a representative from the current staff councils at UNL to provide some feedback/advice based on their experiences.
An email has been sent to all IANR staff making them aware that these conversations are occurring and providing them a survey link if they’d like to offer any comments for the exploratory group to consider.
Updates re: Office of Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity Engagement Team: Group of administrative professionals whose primary responsibilities are keenly focused on promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. AVC Bischoff is a member of this team.
Council on Inclusive Excellence and Diversity: intended to represent institutional leadership from colleges and primary units on campus, administrators whose responsibilities include diversity and inclusion, and representatives from key institutional groups. Some of the leadership representing IANR includes: AVC Bischoff, Associate Dean Awada and Varner, and Assistant Dean Frerichs.
The State of Diversity Address will be an annual event and is open to faculty, staff, and students. AVC Bischoff encourages everyone to attend.
Update on N2025 Strategic Plan
The Executive Leadership Team is working on developing measures of progress for the six aims of the plan. VC Boehm is focusing on measures of progress related to Engagement. The Vice Chancellors will provide an update of the 24 measures (four for each of the six aims) at the Expanded Deans’ Council tomorrow.
IANR has scheduled two open forums for faculty and staff to discuss the N2025 Strategic Plan. Details of the plan can be accessed on the Chancellor’s website and comments about the plan can be left there are well.
IANR Strategy and Vision
VC Boehm noted that he will be focusing on the next iteration of an IANR Strategic Plan. This plan will be reflective of UNL’s overall strategic plan. He is looking into bringing to campus a professional group of analysts and strategists who are familiar with Nebraska and IANR. This professional group will work with a group of faculty and staff to outline IANR’s vision and plan. The goal is to kick this off next spring.
Meeting adjourned at 9:35 AM.
Distributed electronically to the IANR Liaison Committee for review.