Donald Paquet, Pranab Banerjee, David Critchett, Jim Salisbury, Bill Johnson, Steve Murray, Denise Lazo, John Ribezzo, Christine Fox, Steve Forleo, Robert Melucci, Rosemary Castigan, Donna Meda Patton, Karen Allen, Joselin L, Alli, Kim R, ( not all attendees signed in)
2:00PM
Accept Meeting Minutes
Letter sent out regarding student newspaper. Newspaper has had no allocation from student government. Recently received a $5000 allocation. Also received a donation from THE ANCHOR ( RIC's student newspaper). Looking for donation from others for old computers etc.
Letter sent regarding Engineering Department and the discussion of room allocation. Bob Shea spoke about this at the Chairperson's meeting. He wanted to make a point that it was just a suggestion that one of the Engineering labs be used for other functions.
Letter sent regarding the elections for Governance positions. Voting will take place Dec 15-19. There will be representation on the governance committees from the Faculty Association. Faculty Association agreed to wait to assign those appointments until after the elections. President asks that names of potential members be forwarded to her.
Letter regarding sick leave bank. Past practice has been to have members fill out a form indicating their donation of a sick day to the sick leave pool. This didn't work well. Members might forget to fill out the form etc. Faculty Association met with HR and agreed to change the procedure to filling out a form if you DO NOT WISH to contribute to the sick leave bank.
Emails and rumors about a 10% cut in pay. No truth. Ramona has an appointment to sign the contract at 2PM, Monday, Dec 8, 2008. This has been verified and confirmed by the President of the college. Hold up was the consideration and questions about the distribution of the equity adjustment. CCRIFA Understood that the equity adjustment was supposed to be applied to the rank minimums. Because this was left out of the contract and we were aware this was left out, it caused the holdup of the signing of the contract. Last week the request was denied. Too costly, No equity adjustments in the rank minimums. State is in a desperate situation. It is in the best interest of the FacultyAssociation to have a signed contract. Executive Committee will be asked to approve proposals for the adjustment distributions for years 2 and 3.
$1 taken out of dues for the Political Action Committee fund. Marge reports we have to redo the whole procedure. Steps to take are to submit another "Notice of Organization". Controller's office will authorize Faculty Association to get individual signatures from all faculty. The Executive Committee members are asked to go to their departments and make sure they get the PAC notice. Signatures will e needed to authorize the contribution from individual paychecks from dues to the fund. Purpose is to give members the opportunity to attend meetings/fundraisers/.
Report on 3 grievances.
2 filed on behalf of the same individual. Other grievance was filed related to the summer pay rate.
In summer 2007 Summer session 1 and summer session 2 the new rate was not paid for sessions before July 1. Past practice (2004 ) all summer school sessions were paid at the new rate. This request was denied. Next step is to go to BOG.
Administration maintains that the Faculty Association knew of the July 1 date for new rates, past practice doesn't apply.
Tom Landry adds that "overlap courses" will be paid properly. The error will be corrected. This is not a grievance issue, it is an error that will be corrected.
Executive Committee list has been updated.
Minutes from previous meeting and current Executive Committee listing posted on the CCRIFA website.
Current increase in dues to $4 a pay period.
Ramona asks for a motion to be put on the floor.
Dave Critchet asks to put motion that was tabled from previous meeting and put it back on the floor. ( Tabled Oct 3. Item B – " Presentation and Vote on Peer Equity Adjustments for 2008-2-009 and 2009 – 2010)
Don Paquet seconds the motion.
Vote: Passes. Unanimous.
Motion is on the table. Discussion.
VP – Denise discussion rationale for proposal of the way the adjustments would be distributed. After researching finding show not much of a discrepancy; recommendation is that adjustments are close to equal across the board. Salaries that were skewing "the numbers" were taken out.
Administration would not agree to change the rank minimums.
New hires will make the distribution amounts slightly different than calculated values because there will be more faculty members included in the distribution of the 305K than the estimated distribution currently.
Recommendation from the President's Office is to come to some agreement so that funds that are currently available do not disappear.
Motion to Accept equity adjustments as proposed for 2008-2009 and 2009 -2010 is already on the floor.
Vote: Approve 26 , Reject 0, Abstain 2.
Motion passes.
* Request is made to switch the order of agenda and addess item C. ( ByLaws and Constitution changes first).
Discussion – President feels that some of the Bylaw changes will be affected by the inclusion of the Speaker position.
Dave Critchet points out that 2 articles will be affected by this change. ( PAGE 3 , PAGE 13)
President wants to keep the order. David Critchett objects to decision and asks for a vote. Order remains.
Motion made by Denise to " Establish the position of a Speaker of the House".
Joe Allen seconds.
Discussion: Why have this position? Elected position with assigned duties. Speaker's job is solely to run the meeting. Idea is to keep order at the General Faculty Meetings.
Dave Critchett makes a motion to postpone discussion of the issue until the next meeting.
Pranab Banerjee seconds.
Discussion – Please send description of the position to the Executive committee- information has
No further discussion. Vote to postpone discussion is unanimous.
Handout – brackets indicate existing language, Shaded area indicates proposed changes.
Slight change – section Page 4 under Vice President 4.4 part A Association bracket and Executive committee shaded.
Motion is made to vote on ByLaw changes Point By Point. Motion is seconded.
Vote is unanimous.
Head count for quorum. 29 present 27 needed for a quorum ( necessary 2/3)
Article 1 – remove NEARI -
Discussion: as long as we are part of NEARI we are formally and legally, CCRIFA/NEARI,
Vote to add in association 25 vote to approve change.
Vote fails, Need 27 or (2/3's)
David Crichett's moves for a 5 minute recess. Motion seconded. Vote fails.
Move to accept the wording change to the first paragraph o f Article III.
Seconded.
Discussion:Make an amendment to remove the word association.
Vote : No longer a quorum.
David Critchett moves to postpone consideration of changes in the Bylaws until the next Executive Committee meeting.
Motion is seconded. Vote is taken. Unanimous- Motion to postpone passes.
John Mowry wants Faculty Dining room designated as so.
John Mowry makes a motion to " Write letter that proposes that the Faculty/Staff dining area is designated as such and that some type of sound baffling is installed to cut down on the noise"
Motion is seconded.
Discussion: Add to the letter an sentence asking to stop charging Students a $10 fee for student union.
Vote on writing a letter. Approved – unanimous.
Security Issue on the Providence Campus. Security issue on Warwick Campus as well.
Joselin makes a motion to establish an all vounteer subcommittee study group to examine the safety issues across campuses and report back to the Executive Committee in February or March.
Motion is seconded, Discussion. President can set up and appoint members to the subcommittee.
Vote unanimous to approve. Motion passes.
John Mowry – point of information- credit card .. if using at the gas pump should always hit the clear button after your sale.
Motion to adjourn. '
3:30PM