Faculty Council Meeting of Tuesday, 18 March 2003

President: Joe Liles; Vice-president: John Woodmansee; Secretary: Floyd Bullard

Minutes

Announcements

The meeting began at 3:51PM.

Steve Warshaw made an announcement about summer reading.  He would like volunteers for a committee to discuss summer reading.  Two faculty members volunteered.  Steve welcomed other volunteers.

Agenda Item: Discussing the Possibility of a Three-Year Contract for NCSSM's Executive Director

Ed McBride shared a copy of an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education (24 May 2002) entitled "For Presidents and Boards, a Handshake Is No Longer Enough".  The Board plans to discuss at the next meeting (27 March) and vote on in May giving the Executive Director (ED) a three-year contract effective 1 July 2003.

Ed said that there were four reasons for the Board to give the ED a multi-year contract.  1.  It is a proactive action.  Rather than waiting for a crisis, they want to put this in place now.  2.  It is their responsibility and duty to offer such a contract.  3.  There is a trend towards contracts for executive directors in "the education industry".  4.  This assures continuity and stability of leadership at NCSSM and for the school community.

Ed said that the ED currently has a one-year contract.  [Note: since the FC meeting, Ed contacted Joe Liles and corrected himself, saying that the ED does currently have a contract, but it is an "at will" contract with no specified term.]

When asked whether at the end of the three-year contract the Board could release the ED freely or whether there were provisions, Ed said they were still working out the details.  He later clarified by saying that in fact at the end of a three-year contract, "it's over" (unless a new contact is offered.).

Ed said that this proposal was initiated by the Board, not by Jerry or the administration at NCSSM.

In response to a question, Ed clarified "a crisis" in his earlier statement: if the ED left mid-year, hiring a new ED could be very hard, especially if highly qualified applicants were themselves requesting multi-year contracts.  However, Sandy Rothchild answered a question by saying that if an ED broke a contract, there would be no penalty to the ED.  But Ed said that that just isn't done in education; people fulfill their contracts.  A faculty member added that in her experience, if it ever got out in educational circles that an administrator broke their contract, that person would have a very difficult time being hired for a high level administrative job.

In response to a question, Ed said that he did not himself have a contract.  Jo Ann Barber said the same for herself.

Ed responded to question by saying he didn't know why no UNC system school gave contracts to their chancellors.  But our market is different: public schools.

In the published agenda it was suggested that this meeting might be voted to be a closed meeting.  At this point in the meeting, the non-faculty members present elected to leave.

A motion was made to recommend to the Board that a multi-year contract not be offered to the ED at this time.  It was seconded.

Discussion ensued.  Many arguments were made in favor of the motion.

"In changing the term of the Executive Director's contract to a 3 year contract, the Board will be making a financial commitment to that Director for that time. This financial commitment in effect constitutes a 3 year mandate from the Board of Trustees for the Executive Director. But I would argue that for many reasons this is not the time for the Board to commit itself financially or to give such a mandate."

The administrators under the ED not having job security themselves means that the ED does not necessarily receive good advice from them.

It was pointed out that the supposed trend in higher education towards contracts appears (from the article Ed shared) to be a trend towards written contracts over handshake agreements, not towards multi-year contracts.

It was pointed out that at many universities where contracts are being given to administrators, the faculty also have tenure.

Someone said that there are now (since changing the classification of the head of security's job and creating the Deputy Executive Director position) two tiers of EPA jobs under the ED. 

EPA jobs under the ED do not have job protection and serve at the pleasure of their supervisors.

If the ED had a three-year contract and the next tier of administrators did not, there would be ample opportunity for an ED to "clean house" and replace many administrators; and this probably isn't something that is best for the school.

Someone stressed that the issue at hand was not a vote of confidence (or no confidence) for the current ED, but was about the long-term interests of the school.

The motion was called to question.  It was requested that this vote be made by secret written ballot.  The text of the motion was written on the blackboard: "We the faculty recommend that the Board of Trustees not change the current term of an Executive Director's contract to a multi-year contract at this time."

There were 50 faculty members in the room at the time of the vote.

vote: 43 in favor of the motion, 5 against the motion, and 2 abstentions.

A motion was made that the result of the vote be reported to the entire Board by Joe at their next meeting.  That vote was seconded and voted upon unanimously in favor by a show of hands.

It was announced that the FC officers have worked with Carol Hughes (Board of Trustees Chair) and will modify the form used by the staff council to gather input from the faculty to the Board of Trustees regarding the ED's job performance.

The meeting adjourned at 4:59PM.