Lincoln University curators unanimously voted Thursday to change the school's definition of "academic faculty."
Debra Greene, the former history professor who now is the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs (VPAA), told the six board members at Thursday's meeting the new definition would state, "'Academic faculty' are those members of the faculty who have an academic appointment of .75 FTE (full-time equivalence) or higher, who is a member of a department in which a degree program is housed, and whose condition of employment is probationary, leading to tenure, or a tenured-track appointment.
"It basically means those people whose primary duty is teaching."
The board's vote came on an action item listed on a revised agenda available at the meeting but that had not been included on the meeting agenda originally circulated a week before Thursday's meeting.
The wording adopted by the curators was not made available to the public before or after the vote Thursday.
Greene, who proposed the change in wording, told curators the new definition started with the one used by the Faculty Senate, which says, "The Faculty Senate shall be composed of all permanent and temporary, full-time members of the academic faculty (academic appointment of .75 FTE or higher)."
But several faculty members noted the original definition didn't include any mention of tenure, and not all of Lincoln's teachers are tenured or are eligible for tenure in the future.
When asked about the change, LU President Kevin Rome told the News Tribune, "Lincoln University needed to clarify the definition of 'academic faculty' as a policy issue."
Biology professor Aimee Busalacki, who also serves as president of the new LU-MNEA (Missouri National Education Association) chapter, wondered if the language change was an effort to limit the number of faculty who would be covered by any collective bargaining agreement between Lincoln and its faculty.
"The term that was being used from (Lincoln's) Human Resources department for 'academic faculty' was assigned to a list of people, and by redefining that term, it is now representative of a smaller group of people," she told the News Tribune after Thursday's curators meeting. "I don't know at this time how many will be affected.
"We certainly know right now that it is not agreed upon that others - besides the academic faculty - be part of our bargaining unit."
After more than a year of conflict with Rome and former VPAA Said Sewell, a number of LU faculty members last fall asked the NEA to represent them in talks with the administration.
At last month's Faculty Senate meeting, math teacher Stephanie Clark reported on behalf of the LU-MNEA that the union wants to include the faculty who teach full-time as well as those with a three-quarters teaching load who "are also all considered full-time faculty."
The union also has proposed to include the faculty who work in the Inman E. Page Library, serve on Lincoln's Research staff and the on-campus Extension program.
Clark said last month the union also proposed including LU's department heads, "because that is a fluctuating position - and (many) department heads (have) basically almost a full course load."
However, LU administrators prefer to limit the union negotiating unit only to those who teach full-time, Clark said last month, reporting then the MNEA lawyers were to meet with the curators during a scheduled closed session Thursday.
But that meeting didn't happen, Busalacki said Thursday afternoon.
"We were supposed to have an evidentiary hearing with the two lawyers presenting their arguments - one for LU-MNEA and the other representing the university interests," she explained. "We were informed (Tuesday) that the university had obtained additional legal counsel and that in this regard, that legal counsel would like to do additional investigations that would include more time and, they were saying, would actually save us money and time in the process."
Rome declined to comment about the schedule change, telling the News Tribune: "The university's counsel is working with MNEA at this time."
At their Nov. 10 meeting, the curators approved a two-page policy on collective bargaining that, among its provisions, requires the bargaining process to finish by the end of April.
But, Busalacki said, negotiations haven't started, and the curators aren't scheduled to meet again until April.
"At this point, we feel this is just another stalling tactic by the university," she said, "and we would like our constitutional right to be able to do collective bargaining with the university."