LFA General Assembly - Minutes - November 4, 2019

Library Faculty Assembly (LFA) Fall General Meeting

November 4, 2019

This LFA meeting was webcast.

Present

• Present were all LFA officers.
• 14 members are required for a quorum
• 30 members (including Dean Smith) were present (see Appendix I)

Minutes

Betsaida called the meeting to order.

Approval of April 23, 2019 meeting minutes

Minutes are approved with the following amendments:

• Change ECPT to UCPT.
• Change to spelling of Nominating and Ballot.
• Update committee names to include full name and acronym.
• Change ORCID ID to ORCID.

New members

Introduction of Letha Johnson in her new faculty role as Kansas Collection Coordinator.

Dean's update

1. Merit and equity raises
   

   Admin has prepared a memo detailing the method and criteria used for merit raises, distributed to University Senate and to attendees. (see Appendix II)

   In addition to the merit raises, two additional kinds of equity raises were implemented:

   • Equity raises for all staff making less than $40k (from library funds). This differs slightly from the KU-wide increase for all staff making less than $35k.
   • Provost provided funds ($11k) to award gender equity raises for selected faculty (12 or 13 individuals) and recommended division of these funds. Libraries used annual evaluations to determine relative awards.
     • Provost's office provided gender gap analysis for each level of faculty, to ensure equal pay for equal roles.
2. Average gap (pre-raise) was 1k to 2k. How much of this gap was closed has not yet been analyzed.
3. Provost intends to address staff gender pay inequity next year.
4. Morale
   

   In response to some questions around utilizing the strategic plan's action items to address faculty and staff morale, Dean discussed specific areas that admin might use to help address morale:

   • Salaries (compare to peers and to other faculty)
     • "Can be addressed when we have the money"
     • Challenging because this must be base funds, not just one-time funds
   • Engagement (Are faculty engaged?)
     • Continue to support prof development
     • Provide vision (library-wide and as relates to individuals)
   • Supervisory relationships
     • Support methods to develop relationships
   • Campus issues
     • Encouraged faculty to participate in campus issues Comments from attendees
   • The need for engagement with co-workers, not just with work/tasks
   • Some members hear expressions of burnout/disconnect – e.g. “How does vision connect to me?”
   • Concept of "more" is challenging and disheartening – i.e., always do more services/stuff/innovation without letting other things drop off the list
   • Faculty have a responsibility to support co-workers (i.e. vertical responsibility with admin and horizontal responsibility between peer roles)
   • Suggestion for faculty to not focus on campus/stat-wide activities; rather, try to make efforts to improve the library’s environment – e.g., admin providing feedback, balancing productivity expectations with professional growth)
   • There may be notable (and valid) concerns around communication and trust for faculty to be able to provide feedback/comments in a safe (and anonymous) venue
   • Encourage open discussion about what people value at work to help inform addressing morale concerns – i.e., focus on people/values rather than just work activities
   • A note on the makeup of LFA: ~1/3 of LFA is Assistant Lib, 1/3 Associate, 1/3 Full. Members are invited to develop ideas for building research success, support for LFA (talk to Lars).
   • Dean mentioned article in recent newsletter re: needs of new faculty and how this relates to a supportive environment, which results in productivity and satisfaction
   • Dean mentioned need for faculty to express needs to admin/supervisors. Hard to meet needs if they are not communicated.

Reports from committees (internal)

Sabbatical Leave and Post-Tenure Review Committee (Sara Morris) - no applications for sabbatical, two PTTR to review in the spring

Library Committee on Promotion and Tenure (Jamene Brooks-Keiffer) - in process of reviewing one P&T file, three PTTR to review in January

Committee on Research and Scholarly Activity (Andi Back) - still has LRF money to be applied for. Still money in GRF (deadline in February, awarded in next fiscal year). Betsaida asks about seeing past applications (titles are available on web, maybe contact individuals).

$6k was unclaimed last year (13k available). Lars mentions requirements around human subjects and IRB approval (i.e. plan ahead). There are some restrictions (e.g. no travel)

LFA Exec (Betsaida Reyes) - ad-hoc committee to review web presence for committees. Possibility of appointing a web person to be in charge of uploading, etc. Proposal to reduce membership of LFA Exec committee (from 7 to 5) will be addressed in an upcoming special meeting.

Reports from committees (external)

International review committee (Whitney Baker) - campus reorganization last year to improve processes for international students

University Committee for Promotion and Tenure (UCPT) (Ada Emmett) - initial meeting to discuss upcoming meetings. Most of this work happens in the spring. Dean Smith notes that his opportunity to address the UCPT re: differences in faculty librarians (e.g. how to treat professional work vs. teaching requirements) did not happen this year as it has in the past. He should talk to Chris Brown for further review on this.

Faculty Senate Research Committee (Lea Currie) – (1) Special charge to address rankings in Association of American Universities (AAU). KU is not on the verge of being removed from this group but could do more to improve standings. (2) Special charge to identify intra- mural funding available for research. This is being challenging to get this info from some schools on campus. The committee is surveying the schools and units on campus and have asked the Provost’s office to supply any information they might have.

University Senate Planning and Resources (Sara Morris) - will spend much of this year focusing on evaluating the new budget model and monitoring the budget in general. There are also a number of special charges to investigate the revenue generated by the sale of Oldfather Studio and investigating contracts with outside entities at the Union.

Committee on Academic Computing and Electronic Communications (Angie Rathmel) - working with Mary Walsh: DUO implementation, Microsoft services moving into the cloud (e.g. mail), IT governance, town halls as a method of communication and for IT to receive feedback. Mary notes that there is no campus-wide IT governance at the moment, new hire (Tom Roderick?) is guiding the process to develop a campus-wide governance system.

More information will be forthcoming.

University Senate Libraries Committee (Betsaida Reyes) - met on October 10. They presented the charges. The dean provided background as to why sharing information on cancelled journals is challenging. The committee choose to prioritize reviewing the Open Access policy as their main work for this year. Regarding the request for improved communication, the dean agreed to share relevant messages with Dorothy Hines so that she can distribute among this committee rather than adding them to our listserv. The committee was split between meeting once a semester or monthly. (Agenda and Special charges documentation are included as Appendix III and IV. Full roster is available here. )

Betsaida thanked everyone for participating. Meeting adjourned.

Appendix I

Sign-in list of meeting attendees:

Betsaida Reyes

Brian Rosenblum

Fran Devlin

Lars Leon

Carmen Orth-Alfie

Jamene Brooks-Kieffer

Andi Back

Whitney Baker

(unintelligible)

Letha Johnson

Ada Emmett

(unintelligible)

Sara Morris

Beth Whittaker

Scott McEathron

Lea Currie

Michael Peper

Sarah Goodwin Thiel

Neal Axton

Miloche Kottman

(unintelligible)

Angela Rathmel

Kent Miller

Kevin Smith

Michiko Ito

Rebecca Orozco

Karna Yonger

Vickie Doll

Marianne Reed

Appendix II

Method used to distribute 2019 merit raise pool for KU Libraries Oct. 2019, Dean KL Smith

As an initial matter, the library decided to maintain the division between the two pools of merit raise money, one for faculty and one for staff. We were told that we could combine them, but in our case felt that this would disadvantage the library staff unfairly.

To determine merit rankings, we averaged the overall ratings that each faculty member received in their last three evaluations (using 1 for needs improvement, 2 for meets expectations, and 3 for exceeds expectations). This resulted in six levels of rankings – 1, 2, 2.33, 2.5, 2.67, and 3.

We determined to use an “equal dollar, equal percentage” method, which slightly reduces the impact of the highest salaries on the merit pool. Under this method, each merit pool was divided in half. One half was applied against the number of faculty at each level to determine the percentages that would, overall, distribute the entire pool. For the other half, the same calculation was used to determine flat dollar amounts for each ranking level.

These methods resulted in the following distribution for faculty:

This method also has the effect of creating quite a number of different overall percentages, when the total amount of the raise is calculated as a percent of the original salary. Thus there are not simply six different overall percentages; they vary much more widely than that (between 1.06 and 3.16), because they depend on variations in the original base salary. The average overall percentage of the merit raise, however, is 2.5%, which makes sense since we distributed the entire merit raise pool, calculated as 2.5% of eligible salaries as of July 1, 2019, using this method.

For USP Staff, the same method was used to calculate raises. Because the pool was different, and there are a larger number of staff in the UPS classification, the percentages and dollar amounts are different, as follows:

As with faculty, the average merit increase for UPS employees, as a percentage of their total salary, was 2.5%.

Merit raises for USS staff were distributed according to the Memorandum of Agreement that governs this process, which does, itself, employ a mix of percentage and flat dollar amounts.

We also distributed two different equity pools. The libraries own base dollars were used to provide equity adjustments to all staff making less than $40,000. This resulted in equity adjustments of between $500 and $1,000, distributed so that lower salaries within this range received the higher adjustments. There was also a small pool of gender equity money provided at the last minute by the Provost’s Office. This money was distributed based on a combination of salary level and merit ranking, following guidelines provided by the Provost.

Appendix III

University Senate Library Committee Meeting

October 10, 2019 2pm-3pm

455 Watson Library

1. Faculty, Staff, and Student Introductions
2. Discussion/Selection of Secretary for USF Libraries for 2019-2020
3. Review of Specific Charges for USFY 2020
   • Open Access Policy
   • Develop strategic plan for addressing charges
4. Review of Standing Charges for USFY 2020
   • Develop Strategic Plan for addressing charges with formation of a subcommittee
   • Collaborate with Dean of Libraries Kevin L. Smith
5. Schedule next meeting (frequency)
   • Proposed meetings: November and December (2019)
   • Proposed meeting: Once per month in Spring 2020
6. Next meeting
   • Review Open Access Policy
   • Others charges to address
   • Chair contact Standing Charges Subcommittee

Appendix IV

FY2020 LIBRARIES COMMITTEE

Approved by SenEx: May 28, 2019

Approved by University Senate: September 12, 2019

For further information or to schedule a meeting with SenEx to discuss charges or the committee’s work, contact SenEx Chair Suzanne Valdez.

• Minutes of each meeting should be e-mailed to the Governance Office (govern@ku.edu) as they are approved. The minutes will be posted to the Governance web site.
• If the committee is recommending a change to university policy or rules, SenEx must officially receive that recommendation by March 24, 2020 in order to meet timeline requirements for full review by Governance.
  • Please send a report of the committee’s actions on each of the charges, as well as any recommendations the committee wishes to make concerning charges or membership for the following academic year, to University Governance, at govern@ku.edu, and submit the final report by April 17, 2020.

FY2020 Standing charges:

1. Monitor and support the Libraries’ long-range planning and allocation of resources—staff, physical space, equipment, collections, digitally-based information, etc.—in light of the needs of different academic disciplines and the budget situation. Assist in communicating about planning resource allocations to support teaching (including both undergraduate and graduate) and research. Report issues and recommendations for action to SenEx. (ongoing)
2. Assess and assist with the effectiveness of communication between the Libraries and students, faculty, and staff, about topics including but not limited to library-based instruction in classes and academic programs in support of university-wide learner outcomes. Report issues and recommendations for action to SenEx. (ongoing)
3. Obtain a report from the Open Access advisory board concerning activities, and long-range planning for Open Access at KU.

FY2020 Specific Charge:

• According to the Open Access Policy for University of Kansas Scholars, the policy should be reviewed every three years. The policy was last reviewed and updated in FY2017. http://policy.ku.edu/governance/open-access-policy

In addition to a general report on the level of acceptance of this policy and issues encountered in getting it established, the review should address the following:

1. How well it has been accepted by publishers, which publishers do not support the policy, and whether this has contributed to researchers being unable to put their work in the repository;
2. The percentage of the faculty who are participating;
3. Whether there are particular disciplines or research areas that are “underrepresented” in the repository.
4. Improve communication between the Libraries Committee and the Libraries, request members be added to the Libraries listserv.
5. Request a list of journals that are being cancelled. Review and provide comments regarding the list. (as noted in attached memo)
6. Review current Library Consortiums and the possibilities of establishing a Library Consortium within the KBOR Universities.
7. Review possible current digital access to various local, regional and national newspapers.

We know that the cancellation of these subscriptions will have far-reaching effects on student scholars and faculty researchers at our university. KU Libraries understand that many of these resources are vital for the work that you do, and the decision to cancel these packages was made after much deliberation and analysis. Many of you will recall that KU Libraries conducted a survey in 2016, seeking faculty feedback on journals most important to their teaching and research and to their discipline. This information, in combination with other factors such as cost and usage data, continues to guide our decisions about resource renewals and cancellations.

We encourage you to visit the libraries' content budget website for more details and updates on how KU Libraries continue to address this bleak situation, to offer your own feedback, and to learn how you can help support actions and alternatives to counteract the publishing crisis.

Though challenges lie ahead, KU Libraries and the Office of the Provost are dedicated to serving the evolving needs of scholars, students, and instructors at KU, and we appreciate your continued support.

KevinL.Smith,Dean of Libraries

CarlLejuez,Interim Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor