Faculty Forum to discuss budget, MOA

Cassie Buchman, Administration Editor

Faculty Senate will meet at 2 p.m Tuesday in the Booth Library Conference Room 4440 for an introductory meeting regarding the new semester.

After a short recess, the senate will reconvene at 3 p.m in the Doudna Fine Arts Center Lecture Hall.

Dr. Jemmie Robertson, faculty senate chair, said they will introduce new members and begin the process of internal committees at the meeting.

“There are 8-10 committees within the Senate,” Robertson said. “Every year we try to get volunteers on these committees to get up and running as soon as possible.”

He said tomorrow will be brief.

“The meetings usually run up to two hours, but tomorrow will be about a 40 to 45 minute session,” he said.

At the faculty forum, chemistry professor Johnathan Blitz will talk about the recently passed Memorandum of Agreement, and philosophy professor Grant Sterling will talk about the budget.

“We  thought it was important to schedule the forum because of the turmoil during the summer,” Robertson said. “It is to give opportunity for the faculty senate to address questions people are having.”

The Memorandum of Agreement was voted on by a collective bargaining agreement that extended the annual contracted faculty members contracts for another year.

To do this, members of the faculty gave up their potential 1.5-percent raise for this year.

“The raise will be deferred a year,” Robertson said. “The reason we chose to do this was to mitigate the effects of people being laid off.”

Although a majority of people who voted in favor of passing the memorandum, there was some disagreement.

“At the forum, we want to give a voice to people who feel a little aggrieved,” Robertson said. “There hasn’t really been a strong amount of people who are, there’s just some concern.”

Some of those who are concerned are those who stand to retire in the next year, as they will not be able to recover the raise that is deferred until the following year.

They would not be able to recuperate next year’s raise that was deferred because the retirement income is based on the rate of the person’s pay over the last four years.

“Although it seems like a small number, it adds up over 20 years,” Robertson said.

Something Robertson said is lost in the conversation about the memorandum is that the annually contracted employees are still being terminated after their extended contracts are up.

At the forum, Blitz will elaborate about how the decision was arrived to pass the memorandum.

“It will mostly be a questioning and answering session,” Robertson said.

 

Cassie Buchman can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]