The fact-finding hearing today started at 9:30am and went until about 4pm; it was devoted entirely to the issue of selecting comparable instutions for use in the remaining hearings on substantive issues related to wages and fringe benefits. I've just put the entire presentation and a short introduction up elsewhere on the website [0] and I'd encourage you to check it out. As I note there, we had requested to make a voice recording of the hearing, but the administration objected to the transparency and scrutiny. (Well, they just said it was inappropriate - I'm filling the reason based on our experience in negotiations and FOIAs.*)

We went first in the morning. Back in Nov when we first met with the fact-finder, both sides brought comparable institutions, but there was no overlap. He wanted to schedule a hearing to resolve it; the administration suggested mid-January and we said we could do it then or the next day. The compromise was today and we got to go first since we claimed to be ready. As you'll see from the presentation, we argued for the MAC generally before refining it to a smaller subset of those institutions.

Somewhat to our suprise, they had no questions for us during the time provided for cross-examination. They started their presentation, which relied exclusively on Carnegie classification to establish that the appropriate comparables are other Michigan MA-L institutions: UM Dearborn, Northern Michigan, Grand Valley, and Saginaw Valley. We had argued that there are multiple factors to consider, including but not limited to Carnegie, that their own strategic plan uses the MAC, and part of that plan is to build doctoral programs to increase the Carnegie level.

What strikes me most in retrospect is that they showed 1 document that included the peers they want to use in fact-finding. That was a business school accreditation study that includes 500 institutions. They didn't produce another EMU document that uses the peer group mentioned above. All the reports, all the strategic plans, etc and the first time they ever use this peer group is in fact-finding with us.

Of course we don't know what Kerner (the fact-finder) will do. The mode of fact-finders seems to be to find a way to split the difference, so he'll try to find at least 1 institution on each list. We'll have to see about the rest. he's determined to have his decision by Jan 2 and scheduled an additional hearing on Feb 13, earlier than the existing scheduled meetings. Looks like the process is finally moving a bit.

* Over the summer, we negotiated over getting faculty on a facilities committee that would deal with the deteriorating conditions of our classrooms. Part of the language we requested repeatedly was that the committee be open to receiving complaints from the EMU community and that they release a yearly report on their activities that included the problems they studied, the obstacles they found, and the solutions they proposed. But that was objectionable.