Kenn Bisio
Faculty Trustee
Date: 12/17/14
To:
RE:
Tenured, Tenure-Track, Category II, and Affiliate Faculty
December 2014 Trustees Meeting
Dear All Faculty,
I was on the December meeting’s agenda. I had five minutes to speak to the Trustee’s. I gathered my
topics for presentation from the meetings I have held each month. If you have not attended these meeting,
or don’t know about them, these are drop-in meetings where I find out what is most important to you, the
MSU faculty.
I stayed within my five minutes. These are the topics I brought forth.
Summer 2015:
1

Summer semester, 2015. This semester will start one week after the end of the Spring 2015
semester. The reason this semester has been moved forward is because the financial aid office
cannot make distribution of funds to students quick enough. This means, as I understand it, that
students enrolled in the summer semester were not getting their student loans until almost the end
of the semester. Judi Diaz–Bonacquisti, associate vice president of Enrollment Services, made a
unilateral decision1 to move the start of the summer semester close to the end of the spring 2015
semester. Dr. Sheila Rucki, president, MSU Faculty Senate, found out about this decision and
engaged Diaz-Bonacquisti in a couple of emails. Diaz-Bonacquisti gave a presentation at faculty
senate and said it was necessary to start the summer semester early so that students can get their
financial aid money. I am concerned because faculty has worked very hard the past two summers
to increase enrollment. Moving the start of the summer semester close to the end of the spring
semester will have a profound impact on its enrollment. I imagine summer 2015’s enrollment will
be significantly lower than last summer. This, coming at a time when fall was down 3.4 percent
and now spring 2015 is down 5.4 percent. Each percentage point equates to about $1,000,000. I
am also concerned that this unilateral decision was made at the time when shared governance is in
its infancy at MSU. This seems, to me, to be a financial aid problem that needs fixing.

Another concern is some faculty save the time from the end of the spring semester to the
beginning of the summer semester to work on, and / or, complete their scholarly activity. With
the start of the summer semester so close to the end of the spring semester, this could become
problematic leading to the possibility of some faculty not completing the required scholarly
activity.

When all this is said and done and the summer 2015 semester starts early, at the end of the day,
financial aid is still broken. This is not unexpected because financial aid is very understaffed.
These were no conversations until after the decision was made.

Here is a 2009 report by Sacramento State University (California) that illustrates the students who
enroll in summer have better retention rates.
http://www.csus.edu/ihelp/PDFs/R_Steps_to_success.pdf

I have talked to several faculty and have discovered I was not the only one who worked all of
May (I taught a Maymester course), all of June and all of July before I received half of my
summer salary (I was expecting half my pay on July 1, I was paid on July 31). I was paid the last
half of my summer salary at the end of August (August 31). The assistant to the director of
Human Resources told me that my pay was delayed because HR “could not input my information
quick enough into the system.” (I still have the voicemail). I have taught every summer. I should
be in the system. Several other faculty suffered the same fate. If you are scheduled to teach the
summer 2015 semester, have your program coordinator make sure HR knows. This glitch in HR
is completely unacceptable.

Following are links concerning higher education summer school and Pell Grant funding.
http://www.hirono.senate.gov/press-releases/sens-hirono-reed-whitehouse-and-rep-hinojosaintroduce-bill-to-expand-pell-grants-help-year-round-students

This Time magazine article is interesting.
http://time.com/2809014/graduation-rates-pell-grants-education/
Shared Governance:

The committee, co-chaired by Dr. Winston Grady–Willis, chair of Africana Studies, and Braelin
Pantel, associate vice president of Student Engagement and Wellness, and dean of students, have
held two meetings since receiving the charge from Dr. Jordan, president of MSU, in late October.
This committee has very good representation from across the campus. This committee has a
tremendous amount of work to accomplish before May, 2015. At the end of the spring 2015
semester, this committee will report their findings to Dr. Jordan on how to proceed with a shared
governance plan. I am on the advisory board to this committee. If you have ideas you’d like me to
share with the committee, please email me at, bisio@msudenver.edu.
Other topics I need to present to the trustees and to Dr. Jordan:
Professional Conduct Task Force:

I am a member of this task force. We are looking at other universities and what their campus
climate looks and feels like when dealing with professional misconduct. This committee was
formed at the midterm of the fall 2014 semester. I think this committee was started because of last
year’s filing of complaints about unprofessional conduct directed at the members of the Faculty
Senate Retention, Tenure and Promotion committee. An outside investigator was hired, and after
many months, a report called the Cutler Report concluded this committee and its members did not
commit any unprofessional conduct.

Faculty have suggested that I ask the trustees to release the findings of the Cutler Report to the
MSU community. The pushback, I imagine, will be that this report is about personnel issues and
protected by executive session. My understanding is that state funds were used to pay for the
report and since we are a state university, the findings of the report should be made public.
Department Guidelines

There has been vigorous discussions that department guidelines be structured as such when a
tenure–track faculty is hired, that faculty will be under the department guidelines of the date of
hire. Meaning, a tenure–track faculty will be under the department guidelines from the date of the
hire. If the department guidelines change during the course of earning tenure, the faculty will
have the option to move to the new guidelines. I think this is good because it will encourage
departments that have the need, to fine–tune their guidelines while it simultaneously protects
faculty who are seeking tenure.

House Bill 1319:

Basically, the funding model will provide MSU Denver with an increase of more than 16 percent.
Over the next five years, funding changes are limited to plus or minus five percent of total state
funding proposed by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Hickenlooper has proposed a 10 percent increase in state funding in higher education funding for
FY 2015. This means no state university of college can receive less than five percent and no more
than 15 percent.

If the Colorado assembly approves this, it will mean that MSU Denver will receive about $2.2
million more than under the old funding model that had a 10 percent, across the board increase.

MSU Denver students are the winners of this decision.

Dr. Jordan, Loretta Martinez, university counsel, Steve Kreidler, vice president, administration,
finance & facilities and chief financial officer, and Christine Staberg who helps MSU Denver’s
lobbying efforts. Below is the email from Steven Kreidler concerning HB 1319.
From: Kreidler, Steven Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2014 3:48 PM
To:
Anderson, Myron; Golich, Vicki; Burtness, John; Jordan, Stephen; Lucas,
Catherine; Martinez, Loretta; Morehouse, Percy
Cc: Rucki, Sheila; Torres,
Luis
Subject: CCHE Passes 1319 Recommendation
Hello team:
Loretta and I just left the CCHE meeting and want to report that the model
that was recommended by FAMET and the EAG was approved by CCHE this
afternoon without changes. They also approved a resolution to support the
use of the $15 million to assist with transition for universities who receive
less in the new model than others and to support the dictates of the Master
Plan. In the end, the CDHE staff have determined that it will need $6m of
the $15m for the transition portion. The remaining $9m still does not have a
defined use, though general conversation and ideas floated by various
Commissioners sounds as if they prefer some kind of grant model rather
than a splitting of those funds amongst the universities. There was clearly
no consensus about the direction or intention of the potential grants.
Just wanted to give you all a quick notification.
Best
Steve and on behalf of Loretta
Certificate Degrees:
Approval of several certificate degrees:







Additive Manufacturing Engineering Certificate (18 hours).
Advanced Composite Materials and Manufacturing Certificate (15 hours).
Brewing Science Certificate (21 hours, with 23 hours of prerequisite courses). Seems like this
should be an extended major with Marketing.
Health Data Science Certificate (18 hours).
Water Studies (15 hours).
Wellness Coaching Certificate (18 hours, with ITP 2500, 2700, 2950, 3900, 4400 and 4910 as
prerequisite courses).
Autism and Significant Severe Needs Certificate (12 hours with a one-hour field experience
class).
Approval of BA degrees:

Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education (33 hours required General Studies, 76-hour major).
Concentration choices are:
o Culturally and Linguistically Diverse
o Applied Developmental Psychology
o Literacy
o
o
Mathematics
Chicana/o Studies
Archived:


Sports Industry Operations Certificate
Teacher Preparation Content Area Programs
Have a wonderful winter break and I look forward to hearing from you/seeing you next semester.
Sincerely,
Kenn Bisio
Faculty Trustee