Minutes*
Faculty Consultative Committee
Thursday, November 3, 1994
10:00 - 12:00
Room 238 Morrill Hall
Present:
John Adams (chair), Carl Adams, Sheila Corcoran-Perry, Dan Feeney, Virginia Gray,
James Gremmels, Kenneth Heller, Roberta Humphreys, Robert Jones, Geoffrey
Maruyama, Michael Steffes
Regrets:
Thomas Burk, Morris Kleiner, Gerhard Weiss
Absent:
Lester Drewes
Guests:
Provost William Brody, Professor Judith Garrard, President Nils Hasselmo
Others:
Rich Broderick, Maureen Smith (University Relations)
[In these minutes: (With President Hasselmo:) reorganization, the role of the Research Vice President,
non-academic expenditures, impact of the provostal structure, connection between institutional goals and
individual faculty, critical measures; (with Provost Brody:) status and future of the Academic Health
Center]
1.
Discussion with President Hasselmo
Professor Adams convened the meeting at 10:00, discussed briefly with his colleagues issues they
wished to raise with the President, and then welcomed President Hasselmo to the meeting. Professor
Adams told the President the Committee had a few questions that it would like to pose.
The first question is the President's general view of governance with respect to the president's
office as the reorganization of central administration: What will be the most effective way to continue
the dialogue under the new structure?
The President said it is essential to establish a system that links faculty more closely to the basic
decision-making of the University; that is part and parcel of the institution. The problem is not that the
administration and faculty do not talk; the problem is linking the conversations at the institutional level
with the provosts, colleges, campuses, and departments. Is there a better way to make the connection
between consultation and the units?
Discussions with him and with the Senior Vice Presidents should continue, but consultation at the
level of the provost will be very important--and it must be linked to the colleges as well.
*
These minutes reflect discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the University of Minnesota
Senate or Twin Cities Campus Assembly; none of the comments, conclusions, or actions reported in these minutes
represent the views of, nor are they binding on, the Senate or Assembly, the Administration, or the Board of Regents.
Faculty Consultative Committee
November 3, 1994
2
One critical question is how to link the institutional agenda with individual faculty members.
Faculty now feel a disconnection between that agenda and their daily lives. There would be much to be
gained were there effective links between the colleges and departments and the institutional agenda.
The second question has to do with the ambiguous role of the Vice President for Research and
Dean of the Graduate School (VPRDGS) in the promotion and tenure process. If the provosts make
promotion and tenure decisions, and they report to the President, what is the role of the VPRDGS in
faculty decision-making? Does he or she get involved at the provostal level, or afterwards?
The departments must make the hard decisions, the President said, and not forward
recommendations in the expectation that there will be a gatekeeper somewhere along the way. He
wrestled with this question, the President related, and finally decided to give the decision-making
authority to the provosts, because they will be held accountable. There will be technical review by
Academic Affairs and the VPRDGS, which means only determining if the provosts and chancellors are
making reasonable decisions that meet the University's academic standards. It will be a quality control
measure, to review tenure decisions made over time to be sure there is no inadvertent lowering of
standards.
The real responsibility for faculty personnel decisions must rest with the faculty in each
department, said one Committee member; that is the only place accurate judgments can be made.
Beyond that, the University should check to see that the process was followed and consider the aggregate
results of decisions. How many such additional processes are needed?
The provost makes the decision, the President said. The Senior Vice President for Academic
Affairs and the VPRDGS consider how the system is functioning rather than review individual cases. As
one goes up the levels of review, the President agreed, it is more and more technical because those doing
it do not have the expertise about the disciplines.
The third question of the day, Professor Adams then said, is the issue of non-academic
expenditures increasing more rapidly than academic expenditures. The President recalled that the
University has had major infrastructure problems to deal with, but pointed out that $13 million was
shifted from administrative to academic expenses in 1991. He told the Committee that he grits his teeth
when he realizes how much money infrastructure expenditures require, but observed that without an
infrastructure, the academic enterprise cannot function. He said he believes a major portion of the
infrastructure-building period has occurred--except for the problem of deferred maintenance. Even the
1995-97 biennial request, if funded fully, would not make any major inroads on this problem; the
administration is simply trying to make sure the University does not slip any further in that very large
liability.
The final question from the Committee is also related to the reorganization: As the provosts
arrive, and issues that used to end up in his office, and in Academic Affairs, are taken up by the provosts,
how will he ensure that the University stays in one piece, rather than become balkanized?
An exaggerated statement of the case, the President replied, is that there has been too much central
control (sometimes on minor issues), preventing decision-making by the units, while on major strategic
issues, the units have been left to go where they wished. It is his intent to reverse that situation. Provosts
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November 3, 1994
3
should tackle major issues and make decisions; they will be held accountable for them. The objective
will be to shape an institutional agenda within which the provosts and chancellors can fit their decisions;
the same is true for colleges and departments.
This, he said, is related to the connection between institutional plans and individual faculty and
units. The administration will work hard to bring the provosts into central decision-making, and the
provosts and chancellors will sit with the senior vice presidents to deal with institutional issues. The
institutional agenda will be driven by the provosts and chancellors--they will not be kept in the dark.
If that is so, said one Committee member, then central administrative offices must SERVE their
customers, not control them. They must see themselves as service organizations on which the provosts
can depend. This will be a difficult issue, as the service and control aspects collide. The President
agreed that structural, functional, and cultural issues need to be resolved, and that the central
infrastructure is to serve and back up the provosts, deans, and departments.
Asked what issues he wished to bring up, the President said one had already been mentioned, that
of the connection between institutional plans--U2000--and deans and faculty members. The connection
has not been achieved, he said, but it is critical that it is. Part of doing so may be in refining the
language; more of it may be spelling out the implications so they make sense to faculty members.
What are the obstacles to clearer communication between his office and the faculty, the President
was asked? These same questions have arisen through the presidencies at least since Wilson; what is the
source of the difficulty in communicating University directions and linking them with faculty work?
Part of the problem, the President said, has been that administrative lines have been clogged;
issues and agendas do not move smoothly and effectively from the central administration to the vice
presidents (soon to be provosts) to deans to departments and faculties, and back again. He expected, in
his previous position as vice president for academic affairs at another institution, that deans would
discuss issues with chairs, and they in turn would discuss them with the faculty, and disagreements
would be made known. That did not happen. Asked if this was a distinctively Minnesota problem or "a
variation on a national headache," the President said he thought it was the latter.
One reason for the problem is structural, said one Committee member. Faculty are themselves
decision-makers who teach and do research and who are very busy. They are interested in governance
issues only to the extent they can make decisions that have an effect. The University's governance
system does not allow that--for example, on promotion and tenure decisions, the faculty do not make the
final decision. This lack of ability to make a decision strips the importance away from making it. The
same is true for budgets.
In the case of promotion and tenure, the President observed, most departments see a confirmation
of their decisions, but there are some departments that make bad decisions. There must be a check on the
process. The quality of new faculty hires, he added, is tremendous, and the administration would not
interfere with departments that are doing a good job. That is how the process should be cast, it was said;
the faculty make the decisions, with higher level review to make sure the department is functioning.
The President noted he has also been asked about Responsibility Centered Management (RCM).
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4
The heart of RCM, if properly implemented, is that (at the college level, which are the units that would
have the responsibility) it makes clear the factors that affect the health and welfare of the unit, such as
tuition revenue, deployment of faculty, number of students, how they are taught, and so on. The
President said he would see RCM as a mechanism to assign responsibility and authority to units and also
make the elements that go into their decisions very clear. For example, curricular decisions have
profound financial implications, but those implications at present are often invisible.
Discussion then turned to the critical measures, and whether or not, for the institutional measures,
there will be corresponding numbers for the colleges. The answer thus far has been "no." If that is the
case, the measures will not move downward and there is no reason for faculty to be involved in them.
The institutional measures are intended to set a direction, the President said--so, for example, all units
will need to attract better students. But there has not been an attempt to arithmetically apportion the
goals to each unit.
How will graduation rate improvement be parceled out to the deans, the President was asked. Will
the undergraduate college be held responsible if there is no change? Will departments be expected to
improve their numbers, and held accountable if they do not? There have been no conversations about
these things in the colleges.
The system being established, the President said, includes an evaluation process as part of the
planning and budgeting cycle, in order to determine if units are moving in the right directions. Each unit
will set its own benchmarks, and set ones that make sense to it. But it does NOT make sense to add up
all the unit measures to make a University total. Some units have no sponsored research, for example, so
it would be silly to expect them to use sponsored research funding as a critical measure.
It was misinformation to say that there would be no measures below the institutional level; they
will cascade down, the President said. But the call for plans for November, it was pointed out, is for
colleges, so there is still no reaching down to departments. The reason departments and faculty are not
marching in the same direction is that no one has yet asked them to.
On the issue of diversity, the goals are institutional, but one can be concerned that the President
saying so is not enough. There is no connection with the units, and unless he and his lieutenants insist
that diversity will come to pass, it will not. The provosts, the President said, will be under direct
instruction to work with the deans on the goals.
On graduation rates, there should be a standard below which a unit cannot go. That has not been
said. The President then explained that he did not mean units will not be held accountable for the critical
measures, only that they cannot simply be added up across units to arrive at an institutional goal. Each
unit must take action on the measures and show cause why they have not moved. But the units vary, so
there must be appropriate measures for each. Units WILL BE held accountable, he assured the
Committee; that is the whole thrust of the measures and evaluation.
The problem with something like the institutional graduation rate is that it must be interpreted to
the units or it doesn't make sense. There must be communication, while at the same time the
administration must not be overly controlling or directive and "put a stake in the sand."
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5
These are directional statements, the President said, not quotas. The graduation rate has improved
over the last six years. Centralization is a sign that things are not working well and that the
administration must intercede. During his tenure, he observed, there have been draconian measures
forced on the University by circumstances, not because of his predilections. The reorganization is
intended to decentralize decision-making, but at the same time the University must hold together.
The structure is trying to set the direction, and develop numbers for the institution; the faculty
must buy into the directions and one hopes they will. It is then up to the units to determine how they fit
into the plan, said one Committee member. Interaction will go up and down, as the process evolves.
It is the sentiment of the Faculty Affairs Committee, Professor Feeney reported, that what drives
the University is faculty sentiment and morale. It would be helpful to have more insight at the grass roots
level about the institutional agenda, something directed at individual faculty members, so they would
have some idea of what the people in Morrill Hall are thinking. The message should not come in large
printed doses--no one will read them--but they would help avoid cynicism.
The President agreed and noted that various measures have been tried. The problem is not that
information is not available; it is that information in this age competes for attention, because there is an
ENORMOUS amount of information available. He said he wants the lines to deans and department
chairs to open up so there can be an interpretation of the institutional agenda that makes sense to faculty.
At the level of the college and the provost, there must be a linkage with the consultative structure.
Professor Adams thanked the President for joining the meeting.
2.
Discussion with Provost Brody
Professor Adams welcomed Provost Brody and called for introductions. He told Dr. Brody that it
is important that the Committee meet with him, as the University evolves, and learn his views on
management and governance issues as well as the plans he has for faculty participation in the governance
of the health sciences.
Dr. Brody told the Committee that the processes of this university are different from those at
places he has previously worked. He said that there is a subculture within the Academic Health Center
(hereinafter AHC), and is strongest in the Medical School: there is a more corporate flavor to it, while
the other health science units tend more toward the norm of the rest of the University.
As with elsewhere in the country, the AHC is in the midst of a revolution--not evolution--and all
its sources of revenue are under stress. There are also changing expectations of what the AHC should be.
With market reform in health care--which is taking place irrespective of anything going on in St. Paul or
Washington--changes are coming. The changes affecting the AHC, he surmised, may simply mean that it
is a few years ahead of the rest of the University in terms of what will happen: The public wants health
care at outlet malls, not downtown department stores. The same may be coming in education as well.
The question is how the AHC fits in, he told the Committee. It must compete in the health care
industry--but if it competes, it can lose its flavor as a teaching and research institution that is different
from community medicine. But if it does not compete, there will be dramatic economic consequences.
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The University has a hospital with a $300 million annual budget, but it is there only because the
AHC is an educational and research enterprise. Increasingly, however, patients are locked out from the
University hospital, which causes both it and individuals to lose revenue that has helped pay for the
education of students. The economic consequences for the University can be profound. What happens to
the AHC is a very important question for both the state and the University. Dr. Brody related what is
occurring at several other academic health centers, where a decline in patient numbers has led to mergers
or sales of hospitals.
In order to react to the environment, the AHC needs a very different governance structure, one that
will allow it to be more flexible in responding to competition. The competitors, he said, are very
efficiently organized and can make changes rapidly, whereas the University might take years to make
similar decisions, if it thought it should do so. The message from the legislature is that the AHC should
compete, but there are no answers to the questions of how it should do so.
There are also changes in thinking about the structure; the independent departments controlling
resources has been called into question. Departments must act as an integrated group, because the
departments affect each other a great deal.
In this context, he said a question that is important to him is how to get faculty involved in the
process. The Medical School is lucky to get 100 (out or 650) faculty to attend a meeting.
In response to a query about what he planned to do, Dr. Brody said he had a list of about 40 items,
all of which were high priority. First, the leadership positions must be filled. The financial shortfalls in
some of the Medical School departments must be dealt with. There is no one solution for the issues they
face, he said, but problems to be faced include working as groups--and that change has begun on the
clinical side. The cultural change will take some time. A fundamental issue, whether in research,
education, or clinical offerings, is the effective allocation of resources--which could be money, faculty,
or space.
As he looks inside the health sciences to tackle problems, how does the rest of the University fit in
and how is it to be connected to the health sciences? There are a lot of connections, Dr. Brody observed,
and he said he appreciates opportunities to build programs such as those in Biomedical Engineering and
in Neuroscience, for example. The question is how to strengthen the relationships. Once the provostal
structure is in place, the three provosts can talk, but the linkages are best if faculty-organized, not created
at the top. The job of the provosts is to identify resources to provide support for the faculty--which is
difficult in an environment of "downsizing."
One hears that medical schools do not need their own teaching hospital, one Committee member
said; they could use city hospitals. Dr. Brody agreed, noting that neither Harvard nor Johns Hopkins own
their own teaching hospital. However, in both instances, they work with hospitals, the primary mission
of which is teaching and research. In the five Boston area teaching and research hospitals, for example,
the department heads are faculty members at Harvard, although the staff are not University employees.
The talk about closing the University Hospital misses the point. Dr. Brody said. There are fine
hospitals in the Twin Cities, but none are willing to become a primary teaching hospital for the
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University, dedicated to research and education. The AHC needs a laboratory for the education of
students, and that goes well beyond medical students. Some of that education already takes place in the
community, but there is a need for one hospital whose primary mission is teaching and research.
In addition, he said, the University Hospital is doing well financially and is the most modern
hospital in the Twin Cities. But in ten years, it is estimated that the Twin Cities will need only half as
many hospital beds as it now has; if the number of patients at the University Hospital get too small, it
may be difficult to maintain it.
What about spinning the Hospital off as a separate corporation? Some universities have done that,
Dr. Brody said, and some have SOLD their hospital, but that does not obviate the need for a teaching and
research hospital. Privatizing does not solve the problem, which is that a hospital needs to be in a
network to attract patients--which is difficult, when the University Hospital should also be an open
resource for all the people of the state.
Presumably the University Hospital should be able to provide its services at a competitive rate, it
was said, unless the rates are being used to subsidize the research or teaching. The Hospital is very
competitive, Dr. Brody explained, and it receives some state dollars to offset teaching costs. The
problem is that health care corporations are all merging and the philosophy is to keep the patients within
the system.
Even being competitive does guarantee that patients will come, Dr. Brody reaffirmed in response
to another question; the networks want to keep patients in their system. Patients are more important than
money, and it would be easier to get financial support from the networks than it would be to get patients.
Another problematic issue, Dr. Brody then explained, is that the state funds for the Medical School
have not grown proportionately with the growth in the size of the Medical School faculty, which has
increased through research and clinical funds. When federal subsidies for medical education declined,
clinical income was used to support it. There was a lot of cost-shifting to support research and teaching,
but those clinical funds are also now drying up.
Asked about cutting costs or not doing some things, Dr. Brody agreed that the AHC must decide
what it wants to do. Just as with the larger University, it cannot be involved in every area of research; for
example, only the outstanding programs will be competitive to attract research money, so the AHC must
decide where its best opportunities lie.
One Committee member inquired if the change in medicine should not lead to a greater integration
of the health sciences with the rest of the University (e.g. in biochemistry), rather than have a huge entity
driven by clinical medicine, and perhaps not have a hospital but instead have the state pick up a
reasonable share of the costs of education of students in the health sciences, as it does with other
students. That is the model of the two-year medical school, as is the case at Harvard, Dr. Brody said,
where students take courses at the University and then do clinical work at a teaching hospital, where
faculty are supported by clinical fees rather than University funds.
The problem is that the Hospital and Medical School are very separate from the rest of the
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University, and one cannot achieve the economies of scale that are wanted. Pre-clinical instruction is
very intensive, with small numbers, and cannot be supported by tuition. At Harvard, for example, those
costs are offset by a large endowment. That model would be possible, but it would require a
substantially larger investment by the state. Even then, however, there would still be no teaching and
research hospital, and one would need to be developed.
As for the possibility of a small, research-focused hospital, Dr. Brody replied to a question, a
hospital has to be full service even if it specializes in heart transplants--all the other departments are
needed for the patients. Perhaps a sub-facility in a larger hospital could be established.
There has not been a creative discussion with the outside community about the hospital, Dr. Brody
said. It needs to be understood that the University Hospital is unique, and that much would be lost were
it to be closed that would NOT be lost were one of the community hospitals to be closed.
Asked about the quantity and type of federally-funded medical research he expects, Dr. Brody said
he did not expect federal funds to diminish but that competition for those funds will be greater. In
addition, the mood of Congress has been to cut indirect cost funding. Research will be increasingly
multi-disciplinary, driven by research areas such as genetics, aging, and outcomes assessment.
One Committee member inquired if he sees a way to translate these questions to the faculty. He
has met with the faculty senators from the health sciences, he said, and has a health sciences consultative
committee. People are busy, it was noted, and often haven't the time to attend to the big picture. One
problem, Dr. Brody said, is that faculty go to a committee meeting, reach a decision, and nothing
happens--because they are not given the resources they need to implement change.
Should they make decisions, or be in constant touch with decision-makers so that the latter have
the information they need? This is often a frustration for committees, which may be because they
misunderstand their role. In the health sciences, perhaps, the bosses decide, versus the need for all to
agree in other units or nothing happens. Another model, Dr. Brody replied, is to have a faculty
committee and give it resources (e.g., faculty positions) and let them decide how to allocate the positions,
subject to the understanding they must be within the departments. They could allocate a position to
Physiology, for instance, and when positions become vacant, they revert to the committee to assign. That
is more than an advising role, as long as faculty lines do not violate department organization.
One real opportunity, even with the antagonism that sometimes exists, is that the health sciences
are in the heart of a major research university, said one Committee member. Those opportunities must be
captured. If the Hospital were moved elsewhere, it would be more difficult for faculty to be part of the
research university. It may not make sense to have several biochemistry departments, but it is helpful to
have clinical faculty in juxtaposition with the basic science faculty. It would be a different place were
the Hospital to move.
The Committee has been inquiring of his activities in the health sciences, it was said, but thought
should be given also to the extent to which the provostal model will change when the other two provosts
are appointed. He is plowing new ground, it was observed in several dimensions.
Another Committee member suggested that the interest of the University in clinical education
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should extend beyond the health sciences; in other professional fields, the University has backed away
from clinical education--perhaps to its detriment, as the world looks to connect more with the University.
Now it is more focused on other things, but the model of clinical education could be seen as beneficial to
other parts of the institution.
Dr. Brody was asked about his relationship with the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Dr. Brody, noting he has only been at the University for about two months, said he has had a number of
meetings with Dr. Infante and their relationship is excellent. Issues will arise in the planning and
budgeting process, he surmised; the situation is ambiguous when the AHC is a provostal unit while the
rest of the University is not. He said he believes he will present budgets to the President as a unit, not as
seven units. Those individual budgets will be presented to him, he said, and he will present the package
to the President. There is the potential for some tension with the central administration in that process,
he observed--although not with the President himself.
When the provostal structure was proposed, one Committee member recalled, there was concern
that it would make it harder for faculty to participate in the undergraduate missions (this question was
raised by some health science faculty). Some would like more such involvement. Has there been any
discussion of this issue, about the place of AHC faculty in undergraduate education?
The provostal structure should not change that at all, Dr. Brody contended. Even at places where
tuition has followed the student, within an institution, there has been collaboration. There are lot of
things that can make it difficult; willingness to participate is most important, so long as the mechanisms
allow it. It is easier to create disincentives, he observed, than it is to "incentivize" such participation.
Professor Adams thanked Dr. Brody for joining the meeting and expressed the hope that he could
meet again with it later in the year. Dr. Brody thanked the Committee for the opportunity.
Professor Adams then adjourned the meeting at noon.
-- Gary Engstrand
University of Minnesota