National-Louis University
Faculty Senate Report To The Board Of Trustees
(June 20, 2001)

The members of the Faculty Senate are pleased to offer our fourth semi-annual report of our recent achievements, our current work in progress, and our concerns. We are passionate about wanting to return our university to a state of optimum healthfulness. We are enthusiastic about the promise of our institution and are hard at work on a variety of activities to help realize that promise. Although this has been a very difficult year and the challenges facing us are daunting, we know that our Board of Trustees is energized, our administration is hard-working and on task, and the faculty is committed to seeing this transition through. We are appreciative of this continuing opportunity to report directly to you and are eager and ready for additional interactions as you may find appropriate.

Achievements:

• Communications. As described more fully in our mid-year report, the Faculty Senate has committed itself to modeling transparency and accountability by posting extensive information about its plans and activities on the University website, holding meetings in the Interactive Video Classrooms on all of the Chicagoland campuses, communicating to the community-at-large through the university-wide group mail, and reporting regularly to the college and library faculties. Two-way communication between the Senate and its ten standing committees has been facilitated this year by the active engagement of Senators acting in a liaison role to focus our collective activity. We have worked closely with administrators and staff on five hoc committees and task forces which have all completed their work in a timely manner. More than one-third of the faculty actively served the university this year by participating in faculty governance through the Senate.
  
  
• Performance Review of Faculty. The final step leading to a regularized performance review of tenured faculty was taken this week when names of faculty members were randomly drawn to determine who will be in the first group scheduled for the review process beginning in 2001-2002. This action is the result of the work of two Joint Senate and Provost Task Forces on Performance Review which were appointed, convened, and completed their work this year. Recommendations for the new Performance Review processes for tenured faculty and for non tenure-track faculty were presented to and approved by the Senate in January of this year. Every faculty member at NLU will now participate in a Performance Review with an Administrator on a regularly scheduled.
  
  
• Accreditation Process. The anticipated award of ten year accreditation by the North Central Association is a triumph for the university as a whole and for the ongoing work of the Faculty Senate. Many, many faculty assumed key roles in the self-study, including past and present Senate chairs who led three of the five NCA subcommittees and served on the NCA Steering Committee. We believe that the candor and straightforwardness of the self-study, which was so appreciated by the accreditation team, was a testament to the collaborative participation of faculty throughout the process. As facilitated by Judy Christensen, the self-study was an excellent example of what is possible when administration and faculty are able to work together in a climate of open information, collaborative process, and participatory leadership.
  
  
• Academic Planning. The Senate Academic Planning Committee has completed an extremely challenging year. Starting with a newly revised Senate Academic Planning Handbook in August of 2000, this group implemented the first pilot year of a development and approval process for new academic programs intended to be more inclusive, more timely, and better documented than before. Also implemented for the first time ever at NLU was a new university-wide process for the periodic review of all existing programs. Add to all of this the emergency fast-track review mandated by the Provost in April of the four CAS programs which were closed in January and you have an idea of the workload of this committee this year. The group was able to complete all of these tasks by the end of the academic year as well as offer preliminary recommendations about how both of the piloted processes could be made more effective in the future. Receipt of a specific and detailed proposal for revision of the academic planning handbook from this committee is anticipated by the Senate for September of 2001.
  
  
• Faculty Salary Survey. The Faculty Welfare and Compensation Committee received the Arthur Andersen Inc. survey of comparisons between faculty salaries at NLU and those at peer institutions in December. This became the subject of considerable discussion and analysis along with similar data compiled from --- the AAUP as reported in Academe, and the Status of the Profession as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education. At a special meeting of the Senate in January the Provost and the Faculty Welfare and Compensation Committee made presentations on "Compensation Policy at NLU: Past, Present, and Future." A survey on the compensation preferences of faculty members was reported to the Senate in February: Increasing base salary was the number one preference of the majority of faculty. The Committee then developed a detailed "Compensation Adjustment" plan which was recommended and endorsed by the Senate.
  
  
• Adjunct Faculty Issues. One year ago the Faculty Senate accepted the report of a joint faculty-administration task force (including adjunct faculty members) which addressed three questions regarding adjunct faculty: How to achieve consistent university-wide policies for adjuncts; How to gather accurate information on adjuncts, and How to include adjuncts in faculty governance. The task force made 37 specific recommendations, most of which were referred to the Provost who promised a report on their disposition by February. A year ago, the Senate appointed a new Task Force to Investigate Ways of Including Adjuncts in Governance. This group reported in May, proposing the creation of an Adjunct Council which would work closely with the Faculty Senate. This proposal was approved by the Senate as a two-year pilot to begin in September of 2001. The Adjunct Council members will: a) Participate on selected Senate Committees; b) Develop a model specifying the processes of their inclusion in faculty governance, and, c) Propose any necessary language revisions to the Faculty Guidebook and/or Faculty Association Constitution. The council's report is expected by Senate prior to April of 2003.
  
  

Work in Progress:

• Technology. The University Technology Committee (UTC) was established by the President this year to assess and improve the strategic plan for technology that was approved by the Senate last year. In response to a request by the Senate, this group has convened a small ad-hoc committee to look at copyright and intellectual property issues with a view towards proposing a university policy that will come to the Faculty Senate for review. The Senate has received no reports on the work of this group this year and is unaware of any progress on the copyright and intellectual property issues. In an effort to better ensure communication between the Faculty Senate and the University Technology Committee, the Senate decided in May appoint the Chair of the Senate Academic Technology Committee as an automatic, at-large voting member of the UTC.
  
  
• Marketing. We are pleased with the new 'brand" marketing campaign, but counsel that continuing efforts are also needed to market niche programs to particular constituencies and market segments. Our broad-brush marketing campaigns need to be augmented by program specific and locally targeted efforts as well. Many of the core businesses of our university depend upon word-of-mouth communication by satisfied graduates and their employment supervisors, many of whom have witnessed the success of the cohort model. A marketing program which accentuates these positives would be welcomed by faculty.
  
  

Faculty Input into Administrative Review: The Faculty Senate has been asking for three, going on four, years for faculty input into administrative review. The Provost reported in January that study continues of this subject and that sample survey instruments from other universities are now being collected for review. The Senate is being asked by increasing numbers of faculty to sponsor its own independent survey of the effectiveness of administrative leadership. We are hopeful that progress on this issue can be made in a timely manner.

• Consultation: Numerous decisions were made this year absent of appropriate Faculty Senate consultation. These include closing 4 academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, changing health care providers, imposing involuntary furloughs and salary reductions, and, discussions with Roosevelt University. The President has apologized for some of these failures to consult, promised that his administration will attempt to improve communication with various university constituencies. However, we believe that consultation before decisions being made would go a long way toward improving the efficacy of the decisions and a climate of collaboration and trust.

Concerns:

• Financial Support: The fragile financial condition of the organization continues to be a subject of extreme concern for everyone in the university community. Recent involuntary salary reductions for administration and staff are cause for alarm. The faculty's concern is exacerbated by the lack of a raise this year. As of June 20th, faculty contracts for 2001-2002 have not been forthcoming.
• Salaries: The Arthur Andersen Faculty Study reported that the average salaries of NLU faculty are below the average mean salaries of comparable institutions by 8.9%. The 1999 average increase was 3%. The projected 2000 increase was 3.3%. NLU faculty salaries are significantly behind (-15.2 %) those of their peers at other institutions.
• Budgetmaking Process: Once again, a Spring Freeze has been visited upon us because enrollment forecasts were not realized and expense budgets built upon unrealistic projections have to be pared. Faculty have difficulty comprehending how enrollment projections miss the mark year after year. We understand that NLU is attempting to change from expense-based to enrollment-based budgeting. Faculty believe that the budget making process should become more participatory, transparent and bottom up, starting at the program level. Budgeting at the department and program level would include many more persons in the task of understanding and managing our financial resources responsibly.
• Information for Program Review. The regular review of existing programs was piloted this year by the Senate Academic Planning Committee. This process created a demand for adequate fiscal and enrollment information as a basis for review. The Senate Academic Planning Committee found the such information lacking, , inaccurate or inadequate in every case but one. Faculty are prepared to to participate in the review of the fiscal viability of academic programs but cannot do so in the absence of meaningful data. The lack of program level participation in developing budgets as well as the lack of access to budgetary information prevents intelligent fiscal analysis by faculty constituents who are otherwise well-informed and qualified to review the operations and effectiveness of their programs.
• Assessment. Faculty members have worked hard to create a coherent university-wide assessment plan, which is mandated by the North Central Association. Our previously operating Assessment Council has lapsed, which is why the NCA Self-Study flags as an "opportunity for improvement" the need to "reconstitute a University Assessment Council to develop a university-wide awareness and understanding of the need for integrated assessment processes."
• Faculty Participation in University Planning. Nearly two years ago, the Senate joined with President McCray in establishing the University Planning Committee. This group, comprised of the Senate Academic Planning Committee as well as several persons appointed by the President, discharged its task in January of 2000, and disbanded. Since then, NLU has had no planning group. The faculty believes that a clearly defined university-wide planning vehicle and feedback loop to enable the continuous setting and achievement of goals and objectives for the future should be re-established and recommends that the Senate Academic Planning Committee play a central role.
• Program Closures: NLU faculty have primary jurisdiction in the area of program and curriculum review, according to the Faculty Association Constitution and in accordance with NCA guidelines. In the past, this jurisdiction has not been exercised uniformly across the colleges and programs of the University. The Senate, in cooperation with the Provost, established a procedure for university-wide program review a year ago. The recent Program terminations in CAS however, bypassed this procedure. After the terminations were announced, the Provost requested that they be reviewedon an emergency fast-track basis. We believe that the program review policy must be continued, modified in any ways necessary to ensure that it will be the single process through which University programs are reviewed, continued, modified, and-when necessary-eliminated.
• Termination of Faculty: NLU's Policy Statement on Promotion and Tenure (adopted by the Board of Trustees, July 22, 1995) states, "National-Louis University understands tenure to mean only that a faculty member has a continuing full-time appointment within the University subject to the conditions prescribed herein." (our italics) The Policy Statement does not contain any conditions suggesting that in some cases faculty might be tenured to individual programs, rather than to the University, nor does it state conditions that might lead to the termination of a tenured appointment. It is important that the University honor its contracts and not terminate tenure appointments without adequate policy-guided cause. Adequate cause clearly must be judged on a University level and not a cause involving only specific programs. We are also concerned that tenured faculty were threatened with termination in a manner apparently inconsistent with the long established professional guidelines of the American Association of University Professors. The Senate stands ready to work with Administration to collaboratively develop a reduction-in-force policy which will make clearer the rights and responsibilities of tenured faculty and the conditions and processes under which programs may be closed or faculty terminated.
• Mergers and Affiliations: Affiliations of the University's academic programs, in whole or in part, require considered input and careful planning by the faculty and academic administrators who will be involved. Agreements to form affiliations without, as our Chairman has written, "a thorough review process by a broad cross-section of our university," would be neither prudent nor productive.

In conclusion, the Faculty Senate believes that the present intersection is a critical one for our university. Our challenges are many, some critical, but we continue to have confidence that our Administration is defining the problems we face, devising strategies for addressing them, and beginning to have some limited success in moving toward solutions. The Faculty Senate wishes you to know that we remain passionately committed to the mission of National-Louis University. We are focused and engaged; our shoulders are at the collective wheel; and we seek expanded opportunities to contribute to the growth, integrity and health of our university.