The
Regular session – April 14, 2008 – 3:30 p.m. – Jacobson Faculty Hall 102
office: Jacobson Faculty Hall 206
phone: 325-6789
e-mail: facsen@ou.edu web site:
http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/
The Faculty Senate was called
to order by Professor Steve Bradford, Chair.
PRESENT: Albert,
Apanasov, Basic, D. Bemben, M. Bemben, Benson, Bradford, Brown, Brule, Callard,
Clark, Conlon, Croft, Edy, Forman, Franklin, Ge, Grasse, Horn, Knapp, Livesey, Magnusson,
Marcus-Mendoza, McDonald, C. Miller, Milton, Miranda, Morrissey, Moses, Radhakrishnan,
Reeder, Riggs, Roche, Rogers, Russell, Sadler, Schmidt, Skeeters, Tan, Trafalis,
Trytten, Veil, Verma, Vitt, Warnken, Weaver
ISA representatives:
Cook
ABSENT: Bass,
Eodice, Greene, Halterman, Kershen, Rambo, Striz
________________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Announcements:
Darwin 2009
Committee A workshop
Health insurance
Senate Chair's Report:
Retiree plaques
4+4 login
Pre-finals week
Concealed weapons bill
Budget
Honor Council
Preliminary nominations for councils/committees/board
Grading scale
Pick-A-Prof
________________________________________________________________________________
The Faculty Senate Journal
for the regular session of March 10, 2008 was approved.
Several OU departments are
sponsoring a series of events throughout 2009, called “
A Committee A workshop on
dealing with disruptive individuals will be held on April 18. For more information, contact Rachel Meyer in
the provost office, rmeyer@ou.edu.
Human Resources Director
Julius Hilburn said it was his pleasure to provide an update on the process to
evaluate proposals for medical and dental insurance options that will start in
January 2009 for employees and retirees.
He introduced Assistant Director Nick Kelly, Marcy Fleming from the
Human Resources staff, and Prof. Darryl McCullough (Mathematics), Chair of the
Employment Benefits Committee and member of the proposal review committee.
Last year, a recommendation
was made that the University should go to the marketplace every 3 to 4 years to
get proposals for medical and dental benefits.
A request for proposals was sent out in December 2007 for medical and
dental benefit plans, for a vendor to administer our Flexible Spending Account,
and for benefits programs for retirees.
In looking at the proposals that were submitted, several factors were
taken into consideration: pricing,
networks, plan designs, and programs that encourage wellness and provide
support for major illness or injury. Responses
were received for medical from
In evaluating pricing, we are
interested not only in pricing for the first year but over a three-year
period. It is not in our best interest
to get the lowest price for one year if it spikes the next year. We want consistency in price and to minimize
disruptions for employees that occur with a change in insurance providers. Vendors base their rates on the University’s
claims experience. We have received good,
aggressive pricing from the vendors, and there is good competition for our
business. The committee is working through
some network issues.
In the last meeting, there
was a lot of discussion about comparing the private insurance companies with
the state’s HealthChoice plan that is administered by OSEEGIB. For several reasons, the evaluation committee
and Employment Benefits Committee decided not to wait for the state to come out
with its plan in August before making a recommendation. The state did add a national network but
priced it 50 percent higher than its in-state PPO. The committee does not think the state will
have any significant price advantage, and the rates historically have been
higher for dependents. The state is not
able to provide multiple year guarantees.
Decisions about plan design are based on the overall group. The plan has some wellness initiatives but
nothing beyond what we could do on our own.
OU would rather make its decision in the May/June timeframe, rather than
wait until August, to allow six months to plan for and manage communication and
implementation.
The next steps in the RFP
process are to address some network issues, complete the pricing negotiations,
and clarify the remaining plan design issues.
Mr. Hilburn will give status reports to the other governance groups. The committee expects to have the best and
final bids from the vendors by the committee’s May 9 meeting and will make a recommendation.
Then the Employment Benefits Committee
will make its recommendation on May 15. The
plan is to have the final recommendation on the June regents’ agenda, as
opposed to what has happened in the past: waiting until the September regents’ agenda.
Prof. Bradford asked if there
would be enough information by the May 5 Faculty Senate meeting. Mr. Hilburn said he did not expect a further
update until the committee meets on May 9.
Prof. Bradford mentioned that OSU went with BlueCross BlueShield this
year. He asked if we could learn
anything from their experience. Mr. Hilburn
replied that OSU was self insured, then went with the state plan for many
years, and just changed to BlueCross BlueShield. They have had some transition issues but seem
pleased with their decision. However, it
is a transition, and one should never minimize the impact of changing vendors. For example, there could be some differences
in networks and drug costs.
Prof. Radhakrishnan asked
whether the analysis of previous claims had shown that our experience had gone
up. Mr. Hilburn said our claims
experiences have continued to increase.
The vendors who bid on our business look at our actual claims experience
and then decide what they are going to propose.
Prof. Livesey said he thought the new pricing structure was aimed at
making the pool more representative. He
said he realized that the plan probably had not been in place long enough. Mr. Hilburn explained that changing the
contribution strategy was to make coverage for dependents more affordable and
to increase the number of employees who cover dependents. Mr. Kelly reported that there was a seven or
eight percent increase in the number of people who enrolled dependents in
January, which is a net of close to 100 dependents. Mr. Hilburn said we wanted to reduce the
number of people who leave the plan; this year we had a net addition of
employees who chose dependent coverage. The
group that just enrolled will not show up in the claims experience until the
second half of this year. We are not
getting any benefit yet in terms of the proposals submitted, but we would
expect an improvement over time.
Prof. Livesey asked whether
the prescription drug plan was part of the negotiation. He said co-pays for generic drugs are sometimes
80 percent of the actual cost. A lot of
insurers are changing to expensive high tech drugs that have a 20-30 percent
co-pay, which prices them out of most people’s use. Mr. Hilburn replied that we are not looking
at any significant change in the co-pay structure for prescription drugs. Our approach is a dollar amount co-pay. Some plans introduce a percentage of the cost as
a way to control costs. The proposals we
have received mimic our current plan design.
There could be some differences in what drugs are on the formulary and
some pricing differences from one vendor to another.
Prof. Moses asked whether any
consideration had been given, when discussing wellness, to some sort of premium
differential for smokers versus non-smokers.
Mr. Hilburn said a committee had been formed to look at wellness. Professors Bob Dauffenbach from the Norman campus
and Gary Raskob from the HSC are co-chairs of the committee. The committee quickly concluded that wellness
initiatives should be done with incentives as opposed to penalties. Rather than conditional premiums for smokers,
the committee is looking at adding smoking cessation benefits. The members also are investigating whether we
could offer other incentives, for example, rebates or merchandise, within our
budget for health care. Prof. Moses asked
whether OSU’s decision to go non-smoking in July would reduce health care costs
and whether OU was considering such a plan.
Mr. Hilburn said HR was not involved in an active review of that issue. A non-smoking campus does reduce costs over
time. Last year, we added some smoking
cessation benefits, including nicotine replacement and behavior modification,
to help people quit smoking. Before that,
we would tell employees they should quit smoking, but we did not have any
benefits to support that. Prof. Marcus-Mendoza
noted that the
Prof. Apanasov commented that
Mr. Miller remarked that
smokers cost more in terms of health insurance.
We should consider adjusting premiums as an incentive to quit smoking
and so non-smokers would not feel as though they are subsidizing people who
choose to smoke. Mr. Hilburn responded
that a premium difference is in some plans but not many. Our philosophy is to provide incentives, not
penalties. Also, there is the issue of
certifying the non-smoking status. It
may evolve to that, but there is not a lot of sentiment among the various
committees to impose a surcharge. There
are rules against having discriminatory features in a plan. Prof. Miller argued that it should be phrased
that we would charge less for non-smokers.
Prof. Bradford responded that if we hire somebody who smokes, we would
be adding something else into the hire: that they will pay more and this campus
is unfriendly to smoking. Prof. Miller replied
that we should say they will pay less if they stop. Prof. Bradford agreed that we should
encourage them to stop smoking, but he said he did not want to tell his
colleagues who smoke that they would have to pay more. Prof. Miller said his colleagues do not want
to subsidize people who smoke. Mr.
Hilburn said he would share this position with the committees. Prof. Vitt asked if there was actually
verifiable, quantitative evidence that the kind of incentive program that the
committee is suggesting works. He said
businesses are considering incentives that will get people to quit smoking and
that will feed back positively across health care. Mr. Hilburn responded that there is evidence
that certain incentives generate changes in employee behavior. Prof. Bradford added that the wellness
committee should seek evidence about the programs that actually work. Mr. Hilburn reiterated that the wellness
committee is looking at evidence-based changes, so the group will look at the
data and at alternatives. Prof. Miller said
his point was that referring to it as higher premiums was framing it as a
penalty. It could be framed as an
incentive by saying individuals could save money by quitting smoking. Prof. Bemben asked, “Why stop at smoking?” If someone is overweight or not exercising,
should we add higher premiums for them too?
Mr. Hilburn said that is why the first step is the encouragement
approach as opposed to a difference in premiums.
Prof. Forman asked about the
status of retiree health benefits. Mr. Hilburn
explained that one of the recommendations of the health care options committee
was that the issue of retiree medical benefits was so complicated that the
committee needed additional time to make recommendations. The guiding principles are to make sure that
we can sustain and support the valuable retiree medical benefits that we offer
and that any recommendation should not motivate people to retire any earlier
than they normally would have in order to preserve a benefit. One recommendation that was made last year and
has been implemented is anyone hired on or after January 1, 2008 has a
different retiree medical eligibility than current employees. Something needed to change long term in our
retiree medical benefits, and we had to draw a line somewhere. The committee is not focused on anything that
would change the benefit levels for current retirees, employees who are eligible
to retire or employees who are relatively close to retirement. The committee thinks individuals who are
several years away from retiring have some ability to react to changes that might
occur. To define “relatively close” the
committee is looking at data to determine if there is a natural point to draw
the line. Any transitions that are made
should be gradual. After meeting several
times, the committee still does not have a final recommendation. The members have reviewed competitive
practices; they have looked at retiree medical benefits at Big 12 universities
and peer groups. They also have been looking
at funding requirements, long-term benefit design and funding
alternatives. Twenty percent of our
employees will meet the age and service requirements to retire within five
years. Within 15 years, half of our
employees will meet the age and service requirements to retire. This year we will spend about $6 million on
retiree medical benefits, or about 10 percent of our total cost of medical
benefits. Over the next 5 to 6 years, the
figure could double to $12 million and double again in another 5 to 6
years. As a percentage of our overall
medical cost, retiree medical is going up at a much higher rate than the other
components. A new accounting requirement
was imposed this year that requires public sector employers to provide an
estimate of the cost of the post-retirement medical benefit obligation. OU’s is more than $500 million and
growing. The committee looked at several
scenarios aimed at managing the cost while sustaining the benefits. No plan has already been agreed to or
recommended besides the eligibility of people hired after January 1, 2008. Before the members make any recommendations, they
will share their thinking with the campus community and solicit comments and
suggestions. Prof. Forman asked whether
there was a legal opinion as to what OU can and cannot do. Mr. Hilburn said plan sponsors can modify
benefit plans, so we have the flexibility as an organization to make changes in
benefits going forward. However, we are
sensitive to the impact of potential changes on people. There will be no rate increases in programs
other than medical and dental.
Prof.
Bradford reminded the senators that the Faculty Senate office has taken on the
responsibility of having plaques prepared for faculty who retire. He said the retirees really appreciate the
plaques. Unfortunately, sometimes it is
difficult to get descriptions for the plaques from the units.
The
Information Technology office is in the process of changing the 4+4 login. Many systems are affected, so IT is testing
the new login with some volunteer groups.
The change is expected to be made in the summer.
The
Student Association passed a resolution asking the Faculty Senate to change the
policy in the Faculty Handbook regarding pre-finals week. Currently, no projects worth more than 10 percent
should be due in pre-finals week. The
students want to change it to 5 percent and to eliminate special case
deviations. There is no time to go
through the whole approval process and have a new policy in place for the fall. Therefore, the Executive Committee decided to
ask the senators to discuss the proposal with their constituents and decide
whether the Faculty Senate should have its own resolution. Prof. Marcus-Mendoza asked for an explanation
of the special case deviations. Prof.
Bradford responded that if faculty members have a special circumstance in which
they need to have a larger assignment due the last week of classes, they can state
that in their syllabus. The students want
to do away with that and change the 10 percent to 5 percent. Prof. Apanasov said it would be like
eliminating the last week. Prof.
Bradford pointed out that OSU has a policy of 5 percent, and no student or
campus organizations can have functions during that week. Prof. Miller remarked that students really are
asking to push forward assignments. Prof.
Bradford said that was a good point; however, the resolution has passed and was
presented to the Faculty Senate for consideration. This issue will be discussed at the next meeting.
During
Spring Break, Prof. Bradford asked the senators to vote by e-mail on a
resolution requesting the state legislature to reconsider a bill that would
allow people to carry concealed guns on campus.
The results were 42 voted, with 39 voting to approve the resolution, two
voting no, and one abstaining. So far, the
bill has died in the Senate, but there still are attempts to bring it back as
an amendment. Prof. Bradford thanked the
senators for their responses. He said he
would have preferred to have had a meeting and get input on the resolution, but
the bill came up in between meetings.
President
Boren has indicated that the budget is exceptionally tight and is not expected
to get better the next two years. The president
still is committed to a salary increase, at most two percent. A salary increase and other expenses would
require a larger tuition increase than we would want.
Prof. Bradford said after
listening to last month’s presentation of the student Honor Council, he read
about an experiment on student honesty done at MIT. Prof. Bradford concluded that it does good
just to remind students to be honest.
The Senate Committee on
Committees’ preliminary nominations for the end-of-the-year vacancies on
university and campus councils, committees, and boards were distributed at the
meeting and will be voted on at the May meeting. Prof. Brown thanked the senators for
volunteering and for nominating faculty for committees. She said three full-time tenured faculty members
were needed to serve four-year terms on the Faculty Appeals Board.
Prof. Benson asked for an
update on the expanded grading scale. Prof.
Bradford said the regents were opposed to changing the system. OSU decided not to go forward with such a
plan. As the new student grade system is
put in place in fall 2009, faculty will enter plus/minus grades, but the plus
and minus will not appear on the transcript.
With a year’s experience, we could go to the regents and say that student
GPAs did not change. Prof. Schmidt commented
that a large body of research shows that plus/minus grading does not harm
grades. Prof. Bradford explained that
the regents had heard from students who thought plus/minus grading would hurt
their chances of getting into medical school.
If the president has to use a lot of political capital to get this
approved, however, the faculty might want to reconsider. Prof. Miller said the plus/minus grading
would only hurt the students at the very top.
It could help the students below.
Prof. Bradford said the average student’s GPA should stay about the same. Prof. Trytten noted that the students at the
top tend to be the most vocal.
Prof. Milton said he had
received an email from the Graduate Student Senate chair about Pick-A-Prof. The Student Association pays $8000 a year to
subscribe to the service. Pick-A-Prof is
a web service that provides students access to the grade distribution of
faculty and to comments that have been posted.
The Graduate Student Senate has some concerns and asked Prof. Milton to
bring the issue up to the Senate for future consideration. Prof. Bradford said he would ask the Provost.
The meeting adjourned at 4:58
p.m. The next regular session of the
Faculty Senate will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, May 5, 2008, in
Jacobson Faculty Hall 102.
____________________________________
Sonya Fallgatter, Administrative Coordinator
____________________________________
Roberta Magnusson, Secretary