TABLE OF CONTENTS
Attendance at the meeting
Approval of June minutes
Call for Academic Senate nominations
New Business
EXECUTIVE BOARD:
President : Kathryn R. Challoner
President - elect : Harvey Kaslow
Secretary: Loren Laine
Members at Large: Wendy Mack, Austin Mircheff
GUESTS:
Dean Van der Muellen, Dr. R. Kaufman ( Medical Chief of Staff), Dr.
Elaine Kaptein
REPRESENTATIVES :
Anesthesiology: absent
Biochemistry: Frank Markland
Cell and Neurobiology: Gene Albrecht
Children's Hospital: absent
Emergency Medicine: Michael Orlinsky
Family Medicine : Steve Stumpf
Medicine: Mohammad Akmal
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology: Axel Schonthal
Neurologoical Surgery: Peter Gruen
Neurology : Patricia Anderson
Norris Medical Library : Alice Witkowski
Obstetrics and Gynecology: David Miller
Ophthalmology : absent
Orthopedics: Thomas Hedman
Otolaryngology : absent
Pathology: Leslie Khawli
Pediatrics : Laura Wachsman
Physiology and Biophysics : Austin Mircheff
Preventive Medicine: Wendy Mack
Behavioral Sciences: Bruce Gross
Radiation Oncology: Silvia Formenti
Radiology : absent
Rancho Los Amigos : absent
Surgery : absent
Urology : absent
1) All new representatives were welcomed and introduced. A Quorum was present.
2) The minutes for the June 3rd meeting were approved.
3) President Challoner issued a call for nominations for Senators to the Academic senate and announced that there were four open positions. A ballot will be made out and a vote will take place at the August meeting. The date of the Senate retreat is August 25th at the Faculty center.
4a) Dr. Peter Hesseltine explained the CPSA prinicples that had been developed and discussion issued. Dr. Van der Muellen expressed a concern that the opening sentence "all monies received by USC from the CPSA shall be used only to further the acacdemic mission of USC" would not be acceptable to the County. Dr. Kaufman expressed a concern that the recommendation that the USC Faculty shall be paid for their services at a minimum of the AAMC mean salary for their rank would result in faculty lay-offs - the problem being that there was not enough money to retain all current faculty at that salary level. Dr. Van der Muellen stated that to the best of his belief no money was being diverted to corporate or private entities outside the USC School of Medicine. He also stated that principle 4. was an internal issue and did not belong in this document. Dr. Challoner invited input from all present. The consensus was that while all were in favor of the general principles, how the principles will be operationalized was best left to the negotiating team. Dr. Van der Muellen urged that recommendations of this nature be kept an internal issue so that we may approach the negotiating table with a single unified purpose. Dr. Van der Muellen updated the faculty that the University has received the cheque from the County and no money has been held back. Dr. Kaufman described the re-engineering project that will be launched and stated that faculty will be involved in this purpose and further information will be forth-coming. President Challoner mentioned the issues raised at the Attending Staff Dinner and the request by Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa to lobby for a 750+ bed replacement facility. She will arrange for addresses and a facts list and a sample letter to be placed on the MFA www page.
4b) The new Governance Document has been received from the Provost. Dr. Challoner distributed with the minutes a breakdown of the changed language in the old and new Governance documents. Since the old document was stated not to be in conformity with the University By-laws, the MFAEB are reviewing the By-laws. Dr. Albrecht asked what the position of the MFA is to this new document. Dr. Challoner replied that the position is that we have received the document and are reviewing it, with a view to revision and that Dr. Van der Muellen has indicated a williness to work with us on the new document. Dr. Kaslow explained that both the old and new Governance documents gave the trustees the unilateral right to amend the Governance document at any time ("The Board of Trustees reserves the right to alter, amend or revoke the foregoing document in part or in whole at any time.")
4c) The letter from the Provost, the Executive Dean and the Interim Dean to the Basic Science Faculty was distributed to the representatives for their information. Dr. Albrecht clarified that the letter restores the salaries of the Basic Science Faculty to a twelve month basis but does not address the issue of contracts.
5a i) The version of recommendations to the Appointments and Promotions committee was reviewed and it was felt that further revisions were necessary before a vote could be taken. The document was returned to the MFA Executive Board for further work.
5a ii) After some revision to the recommendations
regarding teaching problems in Cell and Neurobiology, a vote was called
for. (Final version attached to minutes).
President Challoner asked for a roll call and the final vote was - Aye:
15, Nay 0, abstentions 0, and 9 absent. Anesthesiology Absent
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Yes
Cell and Neurobiology Yes
Children's Hospital Absent
Emergency Medicine Yes
Family Medicine Yes
Medicine Yes
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology Absent
Neurological Surgery Yes
Neurology Yes
Norris Medical library Absent
Obstetrics and Gynecology Yes
Opthalmology Absent
Orthopedics Yes
Pathology Yes
Pediatrics Yes
Physiology and Biophysics Yes
Preventive Medicine Yes
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Yes
Radiation Oncology Yes
Radiology Absent
Rabcho Los Amigos Absent
Surgery Absent
Urology Absent
5b) Two letters were circulated to the MFA representatives. The first letter was a letter sent to the Provost by President Challoner June 3rd re contracts for the Faculty of the School of Medicine. The second letter was a response by Dean Ryan to President Challoner's letter requesting further details about the clinical restructuring plan. In view of Dean Ryan's letter that no further details were available and the concern expressed at the June 3rd MFA meeting that the faculty did not clearly understand the clinical restructuring plan at this time, President Challoner reported that the MFA had abstained in the vote of the FEC June 25th giving Dean Van der Muellen approval to implement the new clinical restructuring plan.
6) The time and place of future MFA meetings was distributed. The representatives from the Department of Psychiatry had requested another meeting time as Tuesday at noon interfered with their Department's meeting. President Challoner said that she will bring the request to the MFAEB for consideration but that at this stage it would be very difficult to change the time and book another meeting place.
The MFA representative to APLACH is Dr. Donna Shoupe.
The MFA representative to the A.M.A is Dr. Rodanthi Kitridou. President Challoner had received a binder and an invitation to the A.M.A national meeting in Chicago on June 21/22. This information had been given to Dr. Kitridou, however there were no funds to pay for her expenses to attend the meeting. Dr. Kaufman reported that he did not attend the meeting either and there were other available avenues to bring agenda items to the A.M.A.
The time and place of the MFAEB meetings was announced (every Tuesday at noon in the KAM Biochemistry basement conference room except when the MFA meeting occurs) and these meetings are open for anyone to attend.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 pm. The next meeting of the MFA will be on Tuesday August 5th at noon in the Norris basement conference room.
Attachment: Recommendation 1997-98-001