ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FACULTY WELFARE

To: Members of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate

During the 2000-2001 academic year, the divisional Committee on Faculty Welfare (CFW) met five times.

I.

The primary activity of CFW is providing campus review of and input to the business of the University Committee on Faculty Welfare (UCFW). UCFW holds all-day meetings two or three times each quarter at the Office of the President of the University of California, in Oakland. The chair of CFW represented the Davis campus at all UCFW meetings in 2000-2001. (This is stated predictively with respect to the final two UCFW meetings, scheduled for May 18 and June 11, 2001, after the date of submission of this report.) Among the important issues engaged this academic year by UCFW are:

1. Retirement Age Factors. (The UCRS [UC Retirement System] enhancement package adopted by the Regents, raising the maximum age factor to 2.5 at age 60 effective 1-1-2001, implemented UCFW’s recommendation of the best package among a set of nine competing alternatives.)

2. Equalization of benefits for domestic partners vis-á-vis formal spouses. (This is a continuing project of UCFW. Presently health benefits have been extended to same-sex domestic partners. Pending issues are the extension of retirement benefits to same-sex domestic partners, and the extension of domestic-partnership benefits to opposite-sex partners.)

3. Reevaluation and possible reform of retirement benefits for health-science employees. (Medical-school faculty receive a substantial portion of their income from clinical and other sources that are not integrated with UCRS. Retiring medical-school faculty face a much more substantial diminution of their customary income than do other faculty.)

4. Reform of the sabbatical-leave-in-residence program to permit full-time, substantial service and advising to substitute for part-time teaching as the qualifying activity for “in-residence” sabbatical-leave status. (UCFW’s recommended reform is moving forward to likely adoption by the Regents.)

5. Reform of the standard sabbatical program to permit faculty on sabbatical leave to engage in outside professional activities to the same extent as faculty not on leave, and to permit faculty receiving less than full salary while on leave to “top up” their income to its normal level by receiving outside research funds. (The first reform has already been adopted; the second is moving forward to likely adoption by the Regents.)

6. Monitoring of systemwide success, and analysis of reasons for failure, in faculty retention and faculty recruitment. (UCFW makes recommendations for enhancements in faculty salaries and benefits based in part on this investigation of why we succeed or fail to attract or retain the faculty we want.)

7. Advocacy of systemwide initiatives to enhance child care for faculty and staff. (UCFW is the systemwide leader in this effort.)

8. Development of an internal, UC educational-fee-waiver program for qualifying dependents of faculty and staff. (UCFW’s initiative appeared likely be implemented during or shortly after this academic year, but the initiative now faces local campus resistance for cost reasons, compounded by the general, energy-related deterioration in the state’s financial condition.)

9. Improvement and extension of faculty housing programs to redress the high housing costs facing new faculty in many campus localities. (UCFW is taking an active role in developing new strategies for coping with high housing costs that are making it very difficult for new faculty to buy homes close to most UC campuses.)

10. Revision of rules and policies governing conflicts of commitment and outside professional activities. (UCFW has taken a lead role in making sure that needed reforms do not unnecessarily burden legitimate faculty activity or intrude on faculty autonomy in the use of personal time.)

11. Planning for the future of UC health plans. (UCFW’s Task Force on the Future of UC Health Plans is the major player representing the Academic Senate in this crucial arena.)

12. Developing proposals for a new phased-retirement program that would allow senate members to enter into binding preretirement contracts governing the terms and extent of postretirement teaching and service free of the federal tax-code problems that doomed past university programs of this nature. (A subcommittee of UCFW is working on this issue, gathering and analyzing data on past practice at UC and current practice at other universities.)

13. Investigation of possible changes in UCRS investment policy that by hedging against inflation would permit UCRS to fund more generous COLAs (cost-of-living adjustments) for annuitants. (This UCFW initiative is still in its infancy.)

14. Faculty salary continuance and disability insurance. (At UCFW's request, UCOP [UC Office of the President] has asked an outside consultant to review internal reports, faculty issues, UC's disability plans, products available in the marketplace, and the possibility of simplification and coordination. A proposed timeline and cost estimate should be received from the consultant in approximately two to three months.)

15. Health care facilitator program. (This extemely successful program was initiated at the behest of UCFW in conjunction with CUCEA [Council of UC Emeriti Associations] and CUCRA [Council of UC Retirees' Associations]. Funded by UCOP, its expansion to a total of 13 locations throughout the UC system – including the hiring of a Health Care Facilitator at U.C. Davis – should be completed by 2002. UCFW is monitoring the progress of the program’s rollout and operation, and will have a continuing oversight role.)

16. Pre‑tax contributions to DC (Defined Contribution) Plan for faculty summer salary. (This UCFW initiative was approved in November by the Regents. The contribution rate will be 7% of eligible summer salary, divided evenly into an employee pre‑tax contribution of 3.5% and an employer contribution of 3.5%, paid by the same funding source that provides the summer salary. UCRS is a “Defined Benefit Plan.” For various reasons it is impractical to bring summer salary within the coverage of UCRS. This initiative is designed to provide supplemental retirement income from UC's parallel “Defined Contribution Plan” to offset partially the loss of summer salary that many retiring senate members have customarily received as part of their annual income.)

17. Faculty parking issues. (This is an area of increasing local concern at many campuses. UCFW is looking at appropriate systemwide responses.)

II.

In addition to its coordination with and support of the work of UCFW, the divisional committee engaged in the following local activities:

18. Assisted in the initial planning for a faculty mentoring program, in response to a request for assistance from Vice-Provost Barry Klein.

19. Met twice with Elizabeth Hansen, director of the campus Benefits Office, to review and propose reforms of the procedures used locally and systemwide to set up postmortem benefits for survivors of deceased campus faculty and staff.

20. Resolved unanimously on 5-9-2001 to oppose the recommendation of the Special Committee on Personnel Processes Reform (SCPPR) that CFW be given the mission of surveying and reporting annually on faculty salaries at comparable universities. This task is too important to be done in a perfunctory manner. It should be performed by some campus institution or officer adequately staffed and supported for this purpose. Delegating it to CFW would overwhelm CFW capabilities and imperil CFW’s performance of its traditional mission, which is “To review and consider in a timely fashion matters concerned with the economic welfare of the Faculty, such as salaries, benefits, insurance, retirement, housing, and conditions of employment,” and to “advise the Faculty on proposed changes or improvements.” (Divisional Bylaw 77.) While “review and consider[ation]” of comparative salary data is consistent with CFW’s mission under present Bylaw 77, the origination of this data is not consistent with that mission. The present membership of CFW strongly urges the Representative Assembly to modify SCPPR’s recommendation by specifying some other means for the origination of comparative salary data, with CFW’s role being confined, on its own or in collaboration with other senate bodies or campus entities, to the “review and consider[ation]” of this data.

21. Discussed (through the committee chair) response strategies with a faculty member bothered by cigarette smoke brought into offices when smokers outside a building congregated near intakes for ventilation systems.

22. Responded by written memoranda to requests by divisional Senate Chair Jeffery C. Gibeling for comments re:

1. The proposed campus Community/Diversity Leadership Position. CFW concluded that the proposal was insufficiently developed with respect to the responsibilities of the proposed new position (12-4-2000).

2. The proposed revision of APM sections concerning non-senate academic appointees. CFW took no overall position on the merits of the proposal but pointed out a potentially sensitive change affecting the academic freedom of non-senate academic appointees (2-21-2001).

3. Proposed changes to systemwide Bylaws 195 and 335 relating to proceedings before the University Committee on Privilege and Tenure. CFW found serious flaws in the presentation of these proposed changes, with the effect of concealing their scope and significance to the prejudice of individual senate members (4-5-2001). Minor changes in the materials incident to their final presentation to the Academic Council were found insufficient to meet these objections (4-23-2001).

4. The proposed UCD Health System Drug Testing Policy. CFW expressed serious reservations and called for the policy to be substantially rewritten (5-4-2001).

5. The proposed new University Policies on Whistleblowers and Protection of Whistleblowers. CFW expressed qualified approval but called for more attention to the need to protect University employees falsely accused by purported whistleblowers (5-9-2001).

6. Proposed revisions of the Faculty Code of Conduct and related University policies and procedures. In its preliminary report to Senate Chair Gibeling on May 10, 2001, CFW opposed these revisions as dangerously vague. Although our resources do not permit an exhaustive, line-by-line analysis, CFW is preparing a more detailed report to be sent to Professor Gibeling by June 1st, his deadline for comment. Conscious of our own institutional limitations, CFW urged Professor Gibeling to undertake close personal analysis of this dangerous proposal.

Respectfully submitted,

Gilmer Apaka (UCD Staff Assembly representative), Eric Conn (emeritus member), Elizabeth Constable, Kim Coontz (Academic Federation representative), Gail Finney, Stuart Hill, Norma Landau, John Oakley (chair), Chih‑Ling Tsai.

Dated: May 11, 2001