Present – Dennis Cecere, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Danny Harrington, Jonathan Holland, Teodros Kiros, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Will Silvio.

Marti made a motion to accept the minutes from the previous meeting. Rich seconded and the vote was unanimous to accept the minutes.
We have a possible grievance with workload in the Composition department for the spring semester.
Jeff passed out the revised budget for discussion. The information will be placed on the website for download. We discussed the budget and the possible increase to stipends. Stipends have not changed since 2003 while our faculty has increased exponentially along with the responsibilities of the Executive Committee. Danny made a motion to approve the new budget with stipend increases, Rich seconded, and the vote was unanimous to accept the budget.
Jackson will be contacting Roget Brown to discuss the possibility of a faculty presence with the Board of Trustees. There are two visions for Berklee, one from the administration and one from the faculty. If there is no voice on the Board, only one vision is being represented. There is such a top down managerial style currently; the vision of the faculty is not being represented. The faculty union is mainly working on wages and working conditions and not being allowed to share our vision. For the first time in the history of the institution there are no musicians in leadership roles; Berklee is becoming corporate. The Board only knows what they are told by the administration. They don’t know what are working conditions are, or the space issues for offices. The door should be open for faculty to share their feelings. There is a dissonance between the corporate model and the cooperative model.
We discussed evacuation procedures and the need to have better communication throughout the college.

Minutes

Minutes from Union Executive Committee Meeting