College of Liberal Arts NTTF Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes
February 11, 2022

Present were:  Margaret Miller (chair), Pam Duncan, Kyla Masciarelli, Courtenay Biser-Suarez, Steve Shulman, Aunterria Bollinger, Debbie Swann, Dani Castillo, James Roller, Sadie Kinney-McGrath, and Tom Conway.

1. The minutes from January 28 were approved.

2. We welcomed James Roller from the English Department. James is filling in for Luciana Marques, who is on maternity leave.

3. Ballot results: Margaret and Sadie had administered a survey to the committee regarding changes to the MOO, and Margaret reported on the results.

  • We approved adding an optional non-faculty teaching representative (appointed position) to the committee.
  • We voted to remove the compensation for membership on the committee, which is to be counted toward service requirements instead.
  • We had been asked to choose among three options to count NTTF in the different parts of the College for purposes of representation on the committee. We voted for Option 1, which basically retains the status quo.
  • Margaret and Sadie will work together to incorporate these changes into the MOO.

4. Provost/CCAF Task Force report: Today’s agenda included discussion of a document from Spring 2021 summarizing the recommendations of the CCAF Task Force. Most of us had not had the opportunity to thoroughly examine it.  Tom noted that the issue of pay equity—arguably the most salient to NTTF—does not appear to be directly addressed in the document.  On the subject of pay equity, Tom informed us that the university Office of Institutional Research has published data that conflates the salaries of CCAF with “CCAT”—those moving into transitional status in advance of retirement. Since the latter are paid significantly more than CCAF, this makes the average NTTF salary appear much higher than it actually is in information provided to the public. Tom said Institutional Research has acknowledged the mistake.  Pam suggested we watch closely to make sure it is corrected soon.

General frustration was expressed that the document seems to just propose “further discussion” rather than concrete action.  We postponed our own further discussion of the report to give us the opportunity to read it in more detail.  In the meantime, Margaret will check to see if the CCAF Task Force is still in place.  Steve said he would see Task Force chair Alex Bernasek later today; he will ask her about this and about the absence of the pay equity issue in the report.

5. August professional development workshop: This was postponed in Ellie’s absence.

6. Subcommittee on service: Margaret asked who might be interested in serving in this capacity, but Courtenay pointed out that we need more clarity on what it would involve—the purpose, the time commitment etc.—before making a commitment.  The subcommittee is faced with answering several questions on service:

  • Wasn’t the addition of the service requirement originally intended to recognize what NTTF are already doing? Tom said this is correct.  James found 2015 minutes of this committee that confirms such original intent. Sadie will email them to us.
  • That intent seems to have changed when the path to promotion was developed, so that it is a new requirement in order to be promoted. This needs to be clarified.
  • How many hours of service required for less than 100% FTE? Is it proportional, or is it always 4 hours per week regardless?
  • How does service get quantified, and how do we keep it from being counted as “teaching”?

Steve said he would bring the service issue up to Alex Bernasek as well.

7. New business: We discussed the lack of equity in University provision of computers for NTTF.  Some departments do not provide laptops, upgraded Zoom (to hold meetings longer than 40 minutes), or Adobe Acrobat, so that NTTF end up paying for these out of their own pockets.  Courtenay suggested an ongoing focus on this issue, as well as the sad state of technology across campus that makes it difficult to teach.

Respectfully submitted by Pam Duncan