20 February 2003
3:30 p.m.
CSU 204
(Faculty Chair)
Notes
Attendance:
Faculty: Georgia Holmes, chair, Paul J. Hustoles, recorder,
Melodie Andrews, Don Descy (for Deb Anderson) Pat Earle, Jim Kapoun, Barbara
Keating, Donald Larsson, Gregg Marg, Richard Swanson
Management: Richard Davenport, Karen Boubel, Dean Trauger, John
Winkworth
1.
Reorder/Additions—None.
2.
FA President’s Report (FA) (Standing Item)—FA President Holmes reported that
the FA had their General Meeting last week. We
will be setting up a special meeting with the President as a result. Today is the IFO Lobby Day.
Clark Johnson, Steve Woehrle and Sonja Meiers had a meeting with Doug
Stang and Sandy Pappas, the chairs of the Higher Education committees in
the House and Senate. We did get some e-mails
from Russ Stanton (handout distributed). The first
discussed what was, in general, in the Governor’s Budget plan. The second is his best guess of what is happening
on the campuses. Our FA elections are proceeding:
we have five candidates running for FA President including Melodie Andrews,
Steve Bohnenblust, John Parham, Julio Sanchez and Dick Swanson and several
people are running for the IFO Representative positions.
The new FA President will start serving in May.
President Davenport: Is there Meet and
Confer in the summer? FA President Holmes: No. President Davenport: What if something comes up?
FA President Holmes: Extra duty days could
be added. President Davenport:
In Michigan there was a plan to meet if needed, with compensation. FA Question: Is the projected
15% tuition increase over two years? VP Trauger: For each year (discussed later).
3.
President’s Report (AD) (Standing Item)—We have several new hires to announce. David Williams will be coming soon
as the new Vice President of University Advancement.
We are hoping that he can come before August 1.
Interim Vice President Starr Kirklin will stay on until then. Our new Affirmative Action Officer is Lori Lamb,
from Washington State University. I attended
an all-day MnSCU retreat yesterday with a focus on Strategic Planning. We tried to focus the initial 21 goals into a more
workable number. We heard from the state demographer. One of the surprising things is that they are looking
for a population increase of 1 million people in the next ten years. The population increase extended from Moorhead through
St. Cloud to the Twin Cites to Mankato. In 1980
there were 558,000+ people in the 18-24 year old age group. Now we have 470,000. In
2010 this will go up to 535,000. There will be
a dip in 2020 down to 507,000. By 2030, we go
back up to 530,000. This does not include the
non-traditional student population.
FA: Are
you anticipating increasing the target enrollment? President
Davenport: We are holding the line until we can
get a different funding model. We have been in
a growth mode. Enrollment management is one of
our strategic goals. We have to look at space,
funding and the support services. The letter that
we just sent out holding the line at 2,100 new freshman students is predicated
on the fact that only 50% of those accepted actually enroll. What happens if that increases?
What if our retention rate goes up? The
appropriations model does not reward us for that. I
was in Granite Falls last week presenting our case for our capital improvement
projects including the Trafton renovation, the athletic expansion and the
purchasing of two parcels of land. We believe
that the student athletic facility will be funded as part of the vetoed funding
proposal. That has to go up as our #1 priority. Trafton is our official #1 with a footnote: it remains #1 only if the athletic building is NOT
funded. One of our students actually testified
and we were the only university represented at the meeting. Senator Hottinger is behind the bill but we have
to get Representative Sviggum. We are very concerned
with what happened with the State Chamber of Commerce’s position on state
grants. They support setting aside some
$60 million dollars that came from MnSCU’s budget to go into the State Grant
Program—about half of the grant money will go to students attending private
colleges. This is a huge hit and sets a precedent
for this State. We are going to try to overturn
this but we might not be successful. I told the
Chamber that now private school students are eligible for more money than
public school students. And we have to cut our
budget to pay for this. The private college council
spent a $1 million in a campaign to make this happen.
FA President Holmes: Our Chancellor was
very slow on this issue. FA:
There’s nothing coming down the pike that will affect hiring now, yes? President Davenport: We
are committed to the positions we are currently pursuing
4.
Senior Vice President's Report (AD) (Standing Item)—Senior Vice President Boubel: Yes, we are committed to new hires. At the last Cabinet meeting we committed to support
in the $700,000 to $800,000 range that we need for fixed-term positions,
to add all of the sections we know that we will need.
Assistant Vice President Winkworth will be sending a memo soon directing
us to proceed with hiring. We have that spending
authority now, earlier than last year. We want
to firm this up. There is no excuse to not have
the staffing in place for the students we know will be there. FA: There is nothing
that will change this, that will prevent us from having these students in
the fall? Senior Vice President Boubel: No. We didn’t have as
many probationary searches this year as we did last year, so this shouldn’t
be a problem. Vice President Trauger: St. Cloud State University had to pull some of their
searches. Maybe that’s what’s causing confusion. Senior Vice President Boubel:
Should I get something out to department chairs?
FA: Just reiterate your position all the
time. A short reaffirmation would be appropriate. Senior Vice President Boubel:
The $800,000 is new news. President Davenport: One precaution: we have to be sensitive to the non-faculty
staff. We do need to let the faculty know but
we don't want non-faculty to feel less secure. Senior
Vice President Boubel: There will be a 24 February
2003 Promotion and Tenure workshop. March 24-28
will be our annual Teaching Scholar week. We
will contact the ten current scholars so they can present their work.
5.
MnSCU/Legislative Relations (AD/FA) (Standing Item)—We have already covered this.
6.
Budget (AD/FA) (Standing Item)—Vice President Trauger: FA President Holmes passed around Stanton’s number
but he might not have had all of the information (handout distributed). In FY03, 10% of $62 million was cut from our spending
authority. Our FY03 adjusted budget will start
$1,753,873 in the red. The Governor’s plan would
decrease us by another $5,239,142. Vice President
Trauger presented several scenarios depending on tuition increases. A 15% tuition increase would get us to within $243,015
of balancing the budget. At only 6%, we would
have a deficit of $4,293,015. The Budget Sub
Meet is concerned about the affordability of our tuition.
The #1 value identified was having quality affordable education for
our students. These figures assume a salary freeze. If salaries were raised, every 1% would cost another
$610,660. Other variables were also listed. This is just FY04. We
don’t have anything from MnSCU for the FY05 appropriation.
And this is also predicated on the Governor’s budget being accepted. FA: Any sense of what
a possible war with Iraq would bring? Vice President
Trauger: We have been increasing our utility
budget, built into our base. We have accumulated
enough growth to protect ourselves. It would
also depend upon how long a war would be. President
Davenport: The general way of thinking has been
that wars are good for the economy but economists are now saying that this
is not the case today. FA:
Is there any plan to discuss how the war will impact the campus? Senior Vice President Boubel:
We talked about this in Cabinet, about pulling together a group (a
crisis management team), to discuss this issue. Given
our large number of International students, that’s going to be a high priority. FA: Tuition increase
is a State issue. Shouldn’t the MnSCU Board be
involved with the question of state-wide access to higher education, or do
we have to fight that locally? President Davenport: We are going to be pretty much left alone on this
issue. One of the primary goals of the Chancellor’s
plan is access. What groups are being limited
in terms of the higher tuition? No one anticipates
any colleges closing. Even Governor Pawlenty
has come out in support of the smaller technical regional campuses.
7.
Recurring Items (AD/FD)—a. Consultants—No report.
b. Administrative Searches—A handout was distributed. c. Campus Master Plan—The Planning Sub Meet and the architect
from the Cunningham Group should have new information within two weeks. FA: What about the University
Square project? Vice President Trauger: I called this morning but was not able to get information. It is my understanding that people will not be willing
to pay top dollar for an apartment unless parking is in very close proximity. A few weeks ago the developer said he was going through
with the retail part but not the housing. We
have heard several contradictory rumors. We have
no commitments or contract obligations at this point.
If this doesn’t go through, then the TIF (tax increment financing)
money goes away too. FA:
The October memo listed Trafton as 4th on the list. President Davenport: That’s what the consultant put
into the report. A lot of the assumptions that
were included in this plan are faulty. Vice President
Trauger: Ambling has built 500 beds and has approached
the University to partner. There would be a separate
foundation formed, with tax benefits for them. There
could be a revenue flow to our Foundation, if we assisted in this project,
of up to $30 million over the next 30 years. But
this has to be a financially reasonable and sound proposal for us to get
involved. If we did this, we would want to tie
this into our Residential Life Program. President
Davenport: We’ve asked the Urban and Regional
Studies Institute, including graduate students, to step up and help us with
our Master Plan. We have some of the State’s
experts right here. What they’ve been doing this
past semester is far better than what we received from outside consultants. d. Accreditation Update: The
Department of English has just concluded a visitation as part of their program
review. e. Parking—No report.
8.
President’s Decision on Academic Calendar (AD)—The President’s
decision on the academic calendars for the next three years (2003-04, 2004-05,
and 2005-06) was distributed. For 2003-04 the
spring break week has moved up one week from the version shared at the last
Meet & Confer. The major change from past
calendars is the non-class day in October. There
were no additional questions or comments.
9.
Faculty Association/Administration Mini-Retreat (AD/FA)—Assistant Vice President Winkworth
distributed data on FY2004 Positional Approvals as background information
for the upcoming mini-retreat. FA: Do we have access to data over a couple of previous
years too? AVP Winkworth:
We can try to pull it together. Senior
Vice President Boubel: We also wanted to whet
your appetite as to the kinds of data you might want to see. Let us know. Also, Dean
Flaherty wants to open up the discussion of a Friday/Saturday college. FA: Why did it end? AVP Winkworth: Neala Schleuning left her position in the Women’s
Center.
10.
Return to Work Policy for Non-Work-Related Medical Conditions (AD)—Vice President Trauger will get information
to FA President Holmes. This is something that
we are sharing with all bargaining units but this is mostly for AFSCME.
11.
Additional Discussion—FA: We
had some questions about the Equipment Allocation process.
Is this mostly based on FTEs? AVP Winkworth: Essentially, yes. We
would be happy to entertain different models of distribution. FA: We had a big discussion
in the fall about how to apply to the central pot of money. How and when do we do this?
AVP Winkworth: We discussed this with
the Deans. I remind them with regularity to submit
prioritized lists from the colleges. We have
received $800,000 to $1 million worth of requests from the AA Division. President Davenport: Am
I hearing that we don’t have a life cycle replacement plan? FA: No, we do not.
The meeting adjourned at 4:58 p.m.
___________________________________
______________________________
John M. Winkworth
Paul J. Hustoles
Reviewer for Management Reviewer for Faculty