March 7, 2025

FSU Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

March 7, 2025 3:30pm (Zoom)

Executive Committee Members Present: Caroline Coscia (President); Suha Ballout; Lynne Benson; Jorge Capetillo; Andrew Elder; Monique Fuguet; Karen Grayson; Alejandro Reuss; Rania Said

Others Present: Lorenzo Nencioli (FSU Senior Staff Member); Maria Hegbloom (MTA Field Rep); Daria Boeninger; Rita Kiki Edozie

1. Approval of Minutes: There are no minutes to approve for the February 21, 2025, meeting.
   
    
2. FSU Elections:
   
   1. Candidate forum is scheduled for March 13 at 3pm on Zoom. Being run by Monique Fuguet and Travis Johnston.
   2. Voting opens at 9am on March 24.
   3. Candidates: https://www.fsu.umb.edu/sites/fsu.umb.edu/files/2025%20Candidates%20Slate_Spring.pdf
3. FSU Annual Budget:
   
   1. Caroline Coscia provided the following run-down via email:
      
      1. FSU Fiscal Year: Our fiscal year runs from July 1st to June 30th.
      2. Executive Committee and the budget: We are the governing body of the FSU and as such, we are responsible for matters relating to policies, goals and fiscal management. It is our responsibility to determine a budget to be presented to the full membership at our annual meeting. This requires a formal vote to recommend a budget to the annual meeting.
      3. Annual Meeting: An Annual Meeting is legally required. Its purpose is to share information about our activities, adopt a budget, adopt any proposed bylaws and take actions on any submitted new business items.
      4. Our Annual Meeting is Thursday, April 17^th: Once the Annual Meeting date is established, our policies contain a specific timeline for when communications are to be made to our members.
         
         1. Members must be notified of the meeting no less than 30 days prior to the meeting. This will be done in the March 10th Nuts & Bolts.
         2. The Annual Meeting agenda including the budget must be sent to members no later than 14 days prior to the meeting. The goal is to send the materials on April 1st.
      5. Annual Meeting and the Budget Recommendation: To send members annual meeting information including the proposed budget requires us to vote no later than March 28th. We are meeting tomorrow, March 7th and then again on March 28th. Beginning our discussion (and maybe the vote) on March 7th reduces the pressure to do all on March 28th.
      6. MSP and the JCC:
         
         1. We, along with the Massachusetts Society of Professors (MSP) at UMass Amherst, are officially and legally bound together as a single bargaining unit. A Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) consists of representatives from both FSU and MSP, which is the governing body for the bargaining unit.
         2. Prior to 2017, we bargained with MSP meaning FSU and MSP bargaining teams worked together and bargained with both UMA and UMB administration resulting in one contract.
      7. JCC Budget:
         
         1. The JCC handles the finances – receive dues monies from UMB and UMA human resources, pays MTA the member dues, maintains our checking accounts, and pays out bills. There is a paid staffer who does all this work. Each year a budget for the JCC is developed and adopted by the JCC. This will happen on March 14th. The FSU pays one third (1/3) of the JCC budget as our membership is about a third of MSP’s.
         2. The proposed budget (developed by the staff) was received a few days ago and our portion has an increase of $1308 to $22,200. There is a new line item of $3000 for Quick Books online. I will be asking about this when the JCC meets next week.
      8. Our Budget and Dues:
         
         1. Just a reminder that when you pay your dues, it goes to three levels – FSU, MTA and NEA. Dues are taken from your paycheck and UMB sends the funds to the JCC for deposit. JCC then pays MTA (and the NEA portion) of their dues.
         2. Each of the three levels has staff and expenses. As such, each level will most likely need to raise dues each year to cover cost of living increases.
      9. Our Budget proposal:
         
         1. We are keeping most lines with the same level of funding.
         2. Increases include our senior staff member’s salary, taxes and health insurance. JCC uses the cost-of-living rate for the increase.
      10. Dues increases – consistency:
          
          1. When we raise dues, it has been one year $5, the next $25, the next $15. We are not consistent. MTA will be voting at their annual meeting of delegates (May 2nd and 3rd) for a bylaw change to always increase their dues 2.5% each year. It comes to about $19. This allows for better planning.
          2. We (Caroline, Sana and Monique) would like to do the same in that we agree to raise the FSU dues portion every year by set percent. Our members will then not be surprised by any large increase.
      11. 2.5% FSU increase: We thought 2.5%, the same as MTA, might be the right amount. Look forward to your comments and suggestions.
   2. Monique Fuguet provided a presentation about the proposed budget.
   3. Discussion:
      
      1. People should email Monique with any questions about the proposed budget.
      2. We will need to vote on this in our FSU ExComm meeting on Friday, March 28.
      3. Caroline will get numbers about membership from Lorenzo.
      4. Caroline and others will be at the next JCC meeting, where they’ll bring questions about the budget increase.
4. AUP Action Committee: Wei, Daria, Monique, Lynne, and Maria will report back on the proposed action plan.
   
   1. Ray Lefebvre is going to be at the Faculty Council meeting on April 7 to discuss this.
   2. As many people as possible should attend that Faculty Council meeting.
   3. Proposed email campaign the week leading up to the Faculty Council meeting. We need a well-written statement: “This is why we’re objecting to this...” for members to use as a starting point.
   4. AUP Action Committee proposes an Email campaign first, then possibly elevate it to another action (“no one uses non-university devices, no phones for MFA, etc.”). Maria made the point that for a campaign like that, we would really want to make sure we have good numbers and support from members. That’s the only way it could be effective.
   5. Wei has suggested creating a form on the fsu.umb.edu site where people can submit their emails that get sent to a relevant set of administrators.
   6. Caroline noted that the planning and outreach for the email campaign should happen off the UMass Boston network.
   7. The working group will meet on March 11 to continue to plan.
5. Tabling initiatives around student support (Karen)
   
   1. Tabled for time.
6. Updates
   
   1. Spring Elections
      
      1. Voting opens at 9am on March 24.

MEETING ADJOURNS