Attendance by Officers and Members of the Executive Board:
 

President	Loren Laine	present
President Elect	Harvey Kaslow	present
Secretary	Peter Heseltine	present
Treasurer	Jerry Gates	present
Past President	Harvey Kaslow	present
Member-at-Large	Kathryn Challoner
Member-at-Large	Dennis O'Leary
Member-at-Large	Rebecca Sokol

Representation at the Meeting:
 

Anesthesiology
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology	Frank Markland
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Cell and Neurobiology	Shao-Yao Ying
Children's Hospital	Gary Lerner
Emergency Medicine
Family Medicine	Allan Abbott
Medicine	Om Sharma
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology	Joe Landolph
Neurological Surgery	Donald Larsen
Neurology
Norris Medical Library	Pamela Corley
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Ophthalmology	Ron Green
Orthopedics	Thomas Hedman
Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
Pathology	Florence Hofman
Pediatrics
Physiology and Biophysics
Preventive Medicine
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences	Richard Lamb
Radiation Oncology
Radiology
Rancho Los Amigos Hospital	Thomas Beardmore
Surgery
Urology

Also attending: Paul Pattengale, Bruce Gross

1.  Call to Order and Approval of Minutes:

The Meeting was called to order at 12:11 by the President, Loren Laine. When a quorum was present,  the minutes of the November 2, 1999 meeting were reviewed and approved by a unanimous vote.

The results of the election were announced and affirmed. Richard Lamb was elected Representative and Tom Hicklin Alternate. [Ballot results]

Ron Kaufman, Chief of Staff LAC+USC Healthcare Network was not present and this item was tabled.

Harvey Kaslow, President-Elect led a discussion of the proposed plan of Clive Taylor, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs to remunerate faculty according to a per-hour based formula. Two broad choices were debated: whether to give the money to the faculty or to return the money in some manner directly to the students.

A motion was proposed by Jerry Gates and seconded by Allan Abbott:

"Given the funds available for Dr. Taylor's proposal are derived from the tuition of those extra students accepted this fall, the Medical Faculty Assembly recommends that the Dean use this money to directly benefit students. Further the Medical Faculty Assembly recommends that the Dean either [return] these funds back to all students in this class or that he place these funds into a scholarship account so that these students will be able to reduce their debt burdens."

The motion failed on a vote of 3 in favor to 9 against and one abstention.

After further debate in which the issue of using the money to increase the salaries of those faculty earning less than the 50% percentile of the AAMC standards was discussed, with most Basic Science faculty representatives in favor of giving the money to the teaching faculty and the clinical faculty in favor of returning the money to students,

A motion was proposed by Allan Abbot and seconded by Jerry gates to accept Clive Taylor's proposal. A friendly amendment was proposed by Harvey Kaslow to consider two potential algorithms for distribution of funds to faculty to help faculty with teaching responsibilities that had been harmed by inappropriate past salary treatment, but did not violate important principles by which a University should act.

1.  Independent of time of service.  Move each faculty member up a defined fraction towards a benchmark.  For example, move all faculty up with compensation beneath 50% of the AAMC an amount allowed by the available funds.  Those at 50% or more than the AAMC benchmark would receive no funds.

2.  Dependent on time of service.  Starting at a specific time, determine what a faculty member’s salary would have been had they received the average raise awarded to other faculty.  Using this figure as a benchmark, move all faculty up a percentage towards that figure as allowed by available funds, but in no case cause compensation to exceed a benchmark, such as the 50% AAMC benchmark.

Allan Abbott declined to accept the proposal, the question was called, and the motion was approved by a vote of 12 in favor and one abstention.

Letter from Clive Taylor, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
The proposal
Originals and prior documents

A discussion was held concerning the best way to determine who were full time faculty and so eligible to vote in the Spring 2000 MFA elections. It was decided that the Office of Faculty Affairs would be asked to continue to develop and mail the ballots. Prior to their mailing the respective Department Representatives will review the lists and confirm their accuracy.

Harvey Kaslow, President-Elect presented the MFA with documents relating to the contracts received by some Basic Science faculty. It was noted that few faculty other than these had been issued any contracts.

Several clinical faculty representatives indicated they will enter a motion requesting the University share the details of the settlement agreement between USC and the Basic Science Faculty at the next MFA meeting.

Letter from Leslie Bernstein Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs to 23 Basic Science Faculty
Example of contracts

Ron Kaufman, Chief of Staff LAC+USC Healthcare Network was not present and this item was tabled.

Proposal for Restructuring  LAC+USC Quality Management

Loren Laine, MFA President listed the Clive Taylor Proposal, the CPSA and the Proposed Changes to the USC Retirement Benefits as topics for the Open Faculty meeting to be sponsored by the MFA on January 4 at 4:30PM in the Mayer Auditorium.

Medical School Academic Senators alerted the MFA to changes in the Faculty Retirement Plan that will come before the Senate for approval this week. After discussion during which many Representatives stated that neither they nor their constituents were sufficiently informed about the proposed changes a request that the Academic Senate hold a moratorium in the matter for 60 days to allow better communication with Faculty on the issue was carried by a  unanimous vote.

Proposed Enhancements to Faculty Retirement Plan

Submitted by MFA Secretary, Peter Heseltine