MINUTES
—February 6, 2012
Faculty Senate —East Tennessee State University
UPCOMING MEETING: FOLLOWING MEETING:
February 20, 2012 2:45 pm
Forum, Culp Center
February 27, 2012 2:45 p.m.
Forum, Culp Center
Present: Jim Bitter, Sally Blowers, Wesley Buerkle, Randy Byington, Sandy Calhoun,
Sharon Campbell, Charles Collins, Bruce Dalton, Mohamed Elgazzar, Todd
Emma, Susan Epps, Emmet Essin, William Fisher, Virginia Foley, Allan
Forsman, Rosalind Gann, Evelyn Hammonds, David Harker, Ken Kellogg, Tom
Laughlin, Kurt Loess, Theresa McGarry, Lorianne Mitchell, Bob Morgan, Tami
Pearson Alan Peiris, Kelly Price, Delanna Reed, Aimee Rowe, Eric Sellers,
Jerry Shuttle, Bill Stone, Jerry Taylor, Paul Trogen, Men-Yang Zhu, Yue Zou,
Ron Zucker
Excused: Keith Green, Ronald Hamdy, Rick Hess, Jim Kelley, Brian Odle, Thomas
Schacht, Melissa Shafer, Kesheng Wang,
Guests: Fred Alsop, David Champouillon
2011-2012 Faculty Senate
CALL TO ORDER: Vice President Byington called the meeting to order at 2:55 p.m.
Vice President Byington requested approval of the 12-5-11 the minutes. A motion to approve the minutes was made by Senator Shuttle. The 12-5-11 minutes were unanimously approved. A new faculty incentive plan has been introduced to the academic council by the
Research Advisory Council. Dr. Bill Duncan was invited to answer questions that we may have regarding the plan.
Faculty Incentive Plan – Dr. Bill Duncan
Dr. Duncan gave a brief introduction about the new incentive plan which grew out of the
Memphis plan. When Dr. Woodruff was the Vice Provost for research there were questions about how we provide incentives to faculty performing research to write grants that include a portion of their salary. When I came to ETSU, Dr. Bach asked me to take a look at the recommendations and think about what should be done in regards to moving forward. The
Research Advisory Council was assigned the task to think about how an incentive plan could be. A version of the Memphis plan has already been implemented in the Medical
School. The Research Advisory Council discussed several versions of the plan before deciding upon the plan presented to the Academic Council. This is a plan that provides an incentive to faculty, potentially increases salary, when permitted to put salary on grant. This includes research, instruction, and service grants where the funding comes from outside of the University. On most federally-funded grants and some foundation grants, the institution has the option of using salary recovery as incentive. Federal rules regarding compensation do not allow a permanent salary increase to be made with direct costs from the grant. That

2 is one of the rules we have to deal with when addressing funding from outside. However, the Memphis plan allows for the use of state dollars to increase salary for the duration of the grant. When writing a grant, many investigators may not include a portion of their salary on the grant, but in doing so are leaving money on the table that the University could benefit from. In most cases the salary on the grant is allowed. By including salary on the grant, you are freeing up state dollars that could be used by the department for other items such as additional teaching support, graduate students, etc. NSF already allows 2 month summer salary. It is appropriate to use this model as an option. Dr. Duncan stated that there has been some confusion about indirect and direct cost. This plan does not affect the indirect costs that are usually returned to the department.
Senator Laughlin asked if the salary incentive was paid through direct costs from the grant?
Dr. Duncan stated that the direct costs from the grant would cover the portion of the salary requested. The salary recovered would be returned to the department and you would be eligible for incentive compensation.
Senator Laughlin asked if this could be done for 9 months of salary.
Dr. Duncan said you can only get 2 months salary support on an NSF grant which is why many faculty may request support for the summer months. Not all funding agencies let you take your salary from an award. However, there are many that will let you do that.
Senator Emma asked two questions. First does this incentive plan affect salary equity?
Second, we are currently as faculty, involved in teaching, research, and service. Could placing such a strong emphasis on research result in a conversion to only a research facility.
Dr. Duncan stated that there are grants for all three activities, not just research; therefore, this is going to apply to teaching and service, not just research. Dr. Duncan stated that
ETSU has a fair number of service activities where quite a few dollars are provided through grant funding, only 14 million of ETSU’s grants are for research. In fact, the majority of 54 million in external funding received by ETSU in 2011was for instruction and service related activities. We need to grow in all of these and all are important components to this university and to this plan.
Senator Byington replied to Senator Emma’s first question by stating that by law the direct costs from a grant cannot increase base salary.
Dr. Duncan explained that an increase in salary is not allowed using direct cost from federal grants. This plan provides a mechanism where the university can give incentive compensation to a faculty member.
Vice President Byington further explained that the plan has nothing to do with equity.

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Senator Campbell further explained the money is extra, but only for time of grant funding.
Therefore it cannot be used in salary equity, because salary equity is a permanent increase where the incentive pay is only for the duration of the grant.
Senator Zou explained that the money is more like a bonus.
Senator Kellogg stated that before he came to ETSU his research was primarily funded through the DOD and the NSF and asked if the pools of money to perform instruction and service are similar to those grants?
Dr. Duncan stated that some funding opportunities are indeed smaller than the DOD programs. A fair amount of NSF programs provide support for instructional activity.
Senator Kellogg asked what size of grant would I expect to bring in when doing a service activity?
Dr. Duncan stated that some service and instructional grants can reach 5 million.
Senator Kellogg stated that he has always limited the number of salary dollars he used as a rule he would sell two months of his time and the department used the money to hire someone else. When the grant was complete I received more funds from the indirect costs to tide me over until I could write more grants.
Dr. Duncan stated that without this plan, if you wrote your salary in and had salary recovery, that goes back to the department. Under this plan, you would have a defined amount you would be able to receive.
Senator Byington stated that you know it up front at the time you submit the grant.
Senator Campbell explained since you know it up front at the time you submit the grant the department chair or the dean cannot negotiate you out of it as they could with the indirect costs.
Senator Kellogg asked what about the indirect cost money I receive at the end?
Senator Campbell responded that the indirect cost money was for use by the administration and therefore the discretion of those funds would be up to the department chair.
Senator Sellers asked if policy can be used to increase salary other than to pay for summer months.
Dr. Duncan stated that if the award was coming from NSF, the answer would be no. NSF limits salary requests to a total of 2 months. This can be spread over the 9 month academic year or to provide 2 months of salary support in the summer. NIH provides support on a 12 month basis. You would be able to apply that to 12 months.

Senator Sellers remarked that a grant pays for 40% of my 9 month contract and I buy my 3 months out with direct cost as well. So it pays 100% of 3 months. Then I receive indirect costs on top of that. So how does this affect me, it appears that the department will be losing the costs that would be used to pay an adjunct to cover my courses while I am performing research.
Dr. Duncan stated that this plan affects no indirect costs at all. This play only affects direct costs in the form of salary recovery. This is a case where your chair may lose, because rather than having all of those funds to pay an adjunct some of those funds will come back to you as a bonus.
Senator Sellers asked if this would be above and beyond my 12 months?
Senator Duncan stated yes.
Senator Sellers stated that right now he receives all of his indirect cost money. So likely, with this plan the chair may not be as willing to return as much indirect cost funds.
Senator Loess asked why the College of Medicine has different percentages for return built into their incentive plan?
Dr. Duncan stated that this plan, as revised, is different from the QCOM plan. The QCOM plan has already been approved by TBR. The benefit is not only that you will receive an incentive, but aids the university in the retention of faculty. If the university is unable to retain faculty who are successful in obtaining external funding, it is expensive to recruit a new faculty member to replace them.
Senator Campbell stated that from the viewpoint of the administration this was beneficial because there is no guarantee that you will be able to recruit someone of that same quality who will bring in those same dollars.
Dr. Duncan affirmed Senator Campbell’s statement by adding especially with our low salary average. He added that the chair and the dean sign off on the grants therefore they are on the hook to cover your cost.
Zou asked why is there a difference in compensation among junior and senior faculty. It does not seem fair, particularly for those faculty who are research track and their salary is expected to come from grants.
Senator Elgazzar stated that it seemed more equitable to have all receiving the same percentage of return.
Senator Byington responded that they have been told that at the time QCOM put their plan in place, they had no confidence that salary equity would ever be addressed. The used the percentages because the data suggested that the faculty of higher rank were further away from their equity base pay than those recently hired in.
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Senator Emma expressed that it is a salary equity plan of sorts.
Senator Byington expressed that this is only temporary fix for the duration of the grant funding.
Sentor Byington informed the Senate that within the meeting between the executive committee and Dr. Noland, Dr. Noland stated that f aculty salary equity is not a priority, it’s
THE priority.
Senator Campbell further stated that Dr. Noland stated he is going to do everything in his power to persuade TBR to buy in to an equity plan, even if the university had to spring for it and spread the dollars out over a 3 year implementation plan. His statements to us indicated that he is committed.
Senator Laughlin asked for a person on a typical 9 month academic contract who is teaching three courses a semester, how is release time compensated for in this plan.
Dr. Duncan replied that most grant s don’t give release time. The rules and regulations that govern the University determine how release time will be handled. This plan would allow for salary recovery funds to become available to provide incentive compensation to the investigator and return the remainder to the department.
Past President Champouillon stated that we’ve been talking about merit pay for years. It seems that with the different pay percentages for different ranks it has the potential to develop into a class system which negates the reward for hard work. It also leaves out those who bring in funding from sources other than grant proposals.
Dr. Duncan replied that Dr. Champouillion has an interesting point and it is of note that the decision of whether you’re eligible is decided by external evaluators not from within the university. If the proposal is judged to be of such high quality that you’ll receive an award, then the plan would provide a mechanism for rewarding faculty that are successful in bringing in funding from external sources.
Past President Champouillion stated that we get paid to play, but we get no time off. It’s essentially a 2 nd job.
Dr. Duncan stated that he appreciates the observation.
Senator Emma stated that when we speak about ETSU, we speak about it as a regional school, all access school, a school for teachers. Classroom time is valued. Does this symbolize a movement away from an institution that puts the instructor in the classroom and instead values a teacher who sits in the office and writes grants?
Dr. Duncan stated that my best professors were the ones who were on the cutting edge.
Their research and scholarly activities inspire students. It was a research professor that

6 inspired him to be a scientist. This plan will help attract, and retain faculty that will excel in research, service and instruction
Senator Loess stated that one of the issues about this incentive plan is the percentage.
We’re talking about salary recovery based on your salary. Why is 50% the number and not
60, 70, or 80.
Dr. Duncan stated that the Research Advisory Council tried to come up with a plan that would be fair among all colleges.
Senator Loess asked, “If there is one number, why is it 50%?”
Dr. Duncan replied the committee originally recommended a sliding scale for incentive compensation. If you would like to make a recommendation, we’ll be happy to take that.
This is a balance between compensation and departmental requirements. A percentage of
80% for the faculty member reduces money for the department.
Senator Loess stated that if the grant were a 5 million dollar grant, is it fair to say that the department will get something of that.
Dr. Duncan stated that for most big grants 10% comes back to the college. State dollars have gone down this helps replace them and the indirect cost is fair amount for large grant.
Senator Loess asked if it is a large grant, does it make sense to have a differential?
Dr. Duncan replied that for an average federal grant of about $100,000, $18,000 in indirect costs is returned to the department.
Senator Sellers stated that there is a lot more to sitting and writing grants. You have to do a thousand hours of research to get t he 10% chance of grant funding. You’re more likely not to get funded. The benefit to doing the research is you get to know other people who are doing research and writing our text books. It makes it easier to teach from a textbook if you can tell the students that you have met this person and what they are researching. It brings more to the classroom.
Senator Emma stated that this was beneficial, but the only way to get a short term raise is to keep writing grants at the expense if other obligations.
Senator Campbell stated that you still have to put in clinic time, classroom tim e, while you’re writing a grant. The benefit of writing a grant is the educational experience you get from performing the research. This adds to the classroom experience when your students know that you are fully participating in uncovering questions that are being asked in your field.
You don’t get release time for this, you continue with your other obligations, you spend more of your personal time working or spend less time performing service while writing the grant.

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Senator Taylor asked if you were to submit a grant today under a current policy for 100,000 but then this policy was enacted, how would this change the handling of the grant?
Dr. Duncan stated that the policy addresses how the salary recovery will be handled in that grant. If under this plan, you include 20% of your salary, this amount would be available to provide support to the department and incentive compensation to you.
Senator Taylor says so it helps generate additional funding that wouldn’t otherwise happen.
Dr. Duncan responded yes.
Senator Forsman asks if there is a concern that once you have a constant form of compensation being returned to the investigator that the department chair would choose to use the indirect cost money that originally being given to the investigator for other purposes.
Dr. Duncan stated that the faculty member can still negotiate with the department chair for the indirect costs; that does not change.
Senator Peiris expressed a concern that any money coming from the salary may reduce the willingness of the chair to supply the indirect costs to the grantee. Furthermore the percent returned to the grantee should be based on the size of the grant obtained not based on the rank of the grantee. For example if a grantee brings in a grant that is 5X their salary, they should be rewarded to a greater extent.
Senator Trogen asked if this decreases the chairman’s ability to say we’re not going to give you anything. Does it guarantee faculty a bigger chunk?
Dr. Duncan stated that it shouldn’t affect that.
Senator Trogen asked if this plan will help the faculty member not have to negotiate as much. Will they be guaranteed something?
Dr. Duncan stated that this gives a grant awardee, the guarantee that they will receive additional compensation from salary recovery funds.
Past President Champouillion asked if this is approved in the future and the investigators get more money, does that mean the university gets less money from the grant?
Senator Campbell explained that in fact the university would get more money. The salary money that is requested from the grant funding agency is used to calculate how much indirect costs the university will receive. By increasing the amount of money you request on the grant, you will increase the amount of money the university receives in both direct and indirect costs.
Dr. Duncan replied the decrease that could occur would be a decrease only within what the department receives and has access to spend. There would be no decrease, but rather an

8 increase on the university level when requesting salary money and the university will receive additional indirect costs, a portion of which the department will also get.
Senator Byington added it is a way to provide an incentive for people who don’t want to put salary on the grant to put salary on the grant.
Dr. Duncan stated that you could set down and try to manipulate the system to get the optimal money possible, but the truth of the matter is the only time I ever wrote the grant was because I am interested in science and the grant funding agencies see through the manipulation and recognize when you are interested in the science behind the grant.
Therefore the manipulations will end up in not receiving the grant funding.
Senator Kellogg stated that he has never found this type of model to have parity across the board. This discussion is misleading. Every university has a pre agreed upon indirect cost.
In general, if you send a proposal for $4 million
. The funding agency won’t give 46% of that.
Senator Campbell stated that the indirect costs are negotiated with each university prior to grants being written. Once the contract is agree upon all grants written to that funding agency follow that agreement, the funding agency cannot negotiate you out of the indirect costs.
Dr. Duncan stated that the university must request the rate specified in the DHHS Indirect
Cost Rate Agreement. However, some private foundations do not provide indirect costs.
Vice President Byington thanked Dr. Duncan for taking time to come and meet with us.
The floor was then opened to committee updates.
Committee Updates
Bill Fisher updated the Senate on issues being monitored by the Legislative Affairs
Committee. He stated that there are three items considered to be significant. The first is restructuring legislative districts
—federal, state, and local—because of the 2010
Federal Census. Lt. Governor Ramsey will add part of Carter County to his district.
Second, a resolution prohibiting a state income tax on wages and salaries recently cleared the House. The Senate has already approved the measure. Now this resolution must be passed in the next session of the Tennessee General Assembly by a 2/3 majority in both House and Senate. If Republican membership increases by two members in each body as a result of the November 6, 2012, election, they will have enough votes for approval. Therefore, the November election will be significant. There are a couple of state districts that are new and up for grabs. This will be interesting to watch. Third, there is a proposal to change the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement
System. The change does not involve state employees and teachers. As of July 1,
2010, Johnson City left the TCRS and adopted a new program for employees hired after that date, with personal employee contributions required. Now other local groups statewide are considering the same approach for new employees only.

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The floor was opened for Senator Campbell to give a report from the OIT Survey
Committee. Senator Campbell stated that the results from the survey are complete with regard to the questions that are direct statements and the percentages are overwhelmingly significant in favor of change on most issues. The comments are being analyzed for significance by category by Dr. Leslie McCallister in the sociology department. Dr.
McCallister has agreed to have those statistics ready for us by the March 2 meeting with Dr.
Noland if the Senate agrees that we should take the matter forward to Dr. Noland. Today, the committee would like to know how the senate wants to act on the results of this survey.
Are we ready to take the survey to Dr. Noland during the next executive committee meeting?
Past President Champoullion made a motion that the Senator Campbell make a presentation to Dr. Noland on the results of the survey. Senator Bitter seconded the motion.
Vice President Byington opened the floor for discussion.
Senator Zucker asked if the Senate was interested in making a change in policy? I have asked members from my department what they thing about changing the policy. We agree that extending life cycle of computers is feasible, but if we allow everyone to go and purchase their own computers and expect OIT to support them, that’s very difficult.
Senator Stone commented that most of the things that he has asked for is doable.
With regard to the old computer that were in his lab. They were still functional, but since
OIT would no longer service them, he had to purchase new computers and have them
“dumbed-down” to work with the operating system and software that was available to run the equ ipment. This took two to three weeks of OIT’s. This was time that we did not have access to our equipment to perform analyses.
Senator Campbell stated that we are not asking for OIT to spend their time looking for out of date hard drives, and/or motherboards that are not purchasable from Tiger Direct or New
Egg.
We’re just asking for very basic things. Simply put we want advice, as to how some issue may be fixed. For example, what type of ram or what type of hard-drive is needed?
These types of things would take about 5 minutes for a service technician to look inside the computer determine what type of parts the computer is currently using and supplying us with the technical name use for our search and purchase. Sometimes that is not even the issue.
Sometimes an operating system software update made the specialized software defunct and simply reinstalling the software would make the computer operable. We have no idea what software updates OIT is pushing through that may render our specialized software in operable. We are asking for a little dialogue between a service technician and ourselves to assist us in repairing the problem as opposed to calling them and hearing, “Sorry that computer is 6 years old we will not help you.”
Senator Zucker stated that he completely agrees, but is more concerned about what will happen when we allow people to purchase non-standard OIT machines. For the OIT people to maintain all of the different varieties of software may impair their ability to service all of us.

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Senator Champouillon stated that by taking this to Dr. Noland what would likely happen is he will probably have a committee investigate how changes could be made that will enable better service from OIT. Our job when speaking with Dr. Noland will be ensuring that we have the proper representation on that committee so that the changes that are made will benefit all of us and not allow for service impairment.
The discussion was moved to the vote which resulted in all in favor of the motion with one abstention.
The executive committee report was given by Past President Champouillion salary equity-
THE number one priority. His plans are to implement a three step equity plan that will maintain equity our equity status so that our pay falls so far below equity again. He wants this done in 3-4 years. One good thing is President Noland has relationship with THEC and the governor.
Senator Byington expressed t he importance of the President’s desire to maintain equity throughout time. Without this type of plan we may be in the same position several years from now.
Past President Champouillion stated that President Noland mentioned using student fees to bring salary to an equitable position and was a bit concerned that the students may not go for it. He stated that Senator Campbell reminded him that the students are generally willing to accept student fees if they think that we are good stewards of the money and believe the fees will directly improve education, they would do it. She gave an example of the Student
Center at the medical school which was built primarily on student fees.
Jim gave a very nice report on the state of the Academic freedom policy and requested
President Noland’s support.
Past President Champouillion mentioned that President Noland had a theme of doing things in chunks. With regard to the performing arts center he suggests that we raise enough money to build the performance hall and plan on getting that started, and then when the state provides funding add the classrooms to the building.
Vice President Byington stated that his idea requires more thought and planning.
Past President Champouillion reported that there was a discussion regarding pedestrian safety. He is thinking about closing off the center of the campus to traffic. You could still keep the shuttle, but make it a traffic-free campus.
Senator Pearson asked if part of that discussion included parking because when all of the parking in the middle of campus is removed we will require additional parking.
Senator Campbell stated that additional concerns with the project include the consideration for the buildings in the center of campus that will require deliveries, such as the Carol Reece
Museum (for displays and exhibits), the music building will need to have access for loading

11 and unloading when the marching band and other performers move large instruments to offcampus performance. The dormatories will need to have vehicle access for moving days.
Further there needs to be some consideration to University School and the fact that this school relies completely on parents delivering the students to the school (no bussing). A traffic pattern must be mapped out for that. Senator Campbell reiterated that it is not as simple as planting grass and walking. There must be some allowance made for some of these activities while cutting off the rest of the traffic.
Senator Forsman stated that if you go close traffic completely, there are some clinical programs whose patients will have difficulty getting to the clinics.
Campbell reiterated that so many places have to be open to the community.
Vice President Byington stated that there have been 8 pedestrian-vehicle accidents since
October and there is no pattern to the location.
Senator Gann asked are faculty fair game?
Vice President Byington stated that almost all of us have almost been hit at one time or another, including President Noland.
Senator Stone stated that many of the cars do not yield to pedestrians.
Past President Champouillon stated that the issue was a “two-way” street that often the student pedestrians were too involved with their cell phone or ipod to focus on traffic.
Senator Trogen stated that there is parking and safety committee that has been looking at the same question and we need another representative. Senator Trogen gave a poster presentation on the parking problem at crosswalks emphasizing the fact that both driver and pedestrian cannot see at crosswalks where there is parking permitted along the road.
Senator Gann stated that she walks to and from campus walking 4 miles a day and is angry about the lack of respect for pedestrians.
Vice President Byington stated that there are some places that could be closed.
Senator Gann further you can always do special things for disabled and deliveries.
Senator Campbell stated that she was not opposed to closing off major traffic, and in fact was in favor for doing so. She wants to make sure that the process is well thought out because once you put grass down, you are making a major alteration that will be limiting the
University to those options for deliveries, disabled, and clinical revenue.
Vice President Byington asked if there were any further questions.
Senator Emma asked where the salary equity numbers could be obtained.

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Vice President Byington stated that he was not sure that HR was in the process of generating those numbers.
Senator Bitter said that you can call HR and find your number.
Past President Champouillon stated that the new handbook will be up in one week. .
Senator Campbell asked where any missing links within the handbook could be reported.
Past President Champouillon replied that Kim Blevins in Dr. Bach’s office would be taking care of the editing and missing links.
Senator Harker moved to adjourn; the motion was seconded by Senator Bitter.
ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 4:25 p.m.
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Please notify Senator Sharon Campbell ( campbese@etsu.edu
or x92029), Faculty Senate
Secretary, 2011-2012, of any changes or corrections to the minutes. Web Page is maintained by Senator Doug Burgess ( burgess@etsu.edu
or x96691).