Volume XXXX, Number 10
Minutes of the Academic Council Meeting
November 1 1 , 2004

XXXX, 10 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by President Michael Hilgers. Roll call was taken, and absentees noted were: Paul Hamacher, Charles Chusuei, Pericles Stavropolous, Trent Watts, Michael Meagher, Mark Mullin, Robert Stone, Neil Book, Roger LaBoube, Tom Petry, Hal Nystrom, S. N. Balakrishnan, Michael Davis (with Gregory Gelles substituting), Gary Thomas, Y T Shah (with Harvest Collier substituting), Paula Lutz (with Paul Parris substituting) , and Mariesa Crow (with Bob Laudon substituting).

There was a motion and second to approve the minutes of the October 21, 2004 Academic Council meeting.  The Academic Council body voted to accept the minutes. 

Michael Hilgers made a motion that the agenda be revised to accept Larry Gragg on the agenda to speak about the Chancellor's Search Committee. Motion was seconded, and approved by the committee.

1 REPORTS AND RESPONSES

A. PRESIDENT'S REPORT - This report was presented by Academic Council President Michael Hilgers
.

a. Strategic Planning - UM System has established a system-wide strategic plan. The system has 16 areas, and they have strategy for achieving these things. Academic Council has been charged with developing the strategic plan for this campus. Mike has formed a steering committee that is overseeing the process with two major subcommittees; a research allocation management committee; and the vision committee. On our Academic Council web-site there is a link to the planning web site. Please check this out as new information is posted often. Two main investigative themes that have been discussed over the last six months. 1. We have been looking at the state of financial help with the University, and 2. We have been looking at marketing analysis.

b RP & A is working on procedural guidelines on how referrals are handled and meetings are run. We are trying to go to a paperless meetings and get the material in your hands well in advance of the the meeting so you can give it more thoughtful consideration before you attend. Part of this is because we carry a lot of responsibility because of the strategic planning effort.

c Inter-Campus Faculty Council- continue to discuss the issue of non-regular faculty. System to develop the rights, responsibilities and privileges that should be afforded to non-regular faculty in our system. We referred an item to our personnel committee that is an operations incentive plan. UMR was again praised for their contribution.

d The faculty accomplishment system is functional. We will be doing our faculty accomplishment this spring. Start putting your activities in now.

e President Floyd raised a couple of issues. One of the issues he looked at is when he looks over the system as a whole he sees some strong inconsistencies of when it comes to the tenure and promotion process with regards to student input to the process. He said there isn't a coherent process with that. Amendment 3 was discussed.

f The Board of Curators will be visiting next week and there will be some open forums, and we will be hosting a breakfast where we will be showcasing a few things that are happening on the campus.


B. Chancellor's Search Committee - This report was present by Larry Gragg. Larry answered questions that he had received through e-mail. He also discussed how the decision was reached for a closed search by the committee.

Motion was made to take a vote that we believe that the search should be closed. Motion was seconded and vote was taken. The motion was defeated, on a 15 to 7 vote.

Mike Hilgers turned the meeting over to Robert Schwartz as he had to attend a thesis presentation.

C. CHANCELLOR'S REPORT - This report was presented by Dean Robert Mitchell.

Mechanical Engineering Building was discussed and how much it will cost to build the Toomey Building.

D. PROVOST'S REPORT - This report was presented Harvest Collier.

a IT - They are reporting fall of computer account maintenance in November due to people leaving whether it be students, faculty, or employees. Reports that Application teams prepare for Blackboard inter session maintenance. Progress is being made on the IT support transition for physical facilities. Web Help desk survey was recently put into production. The survey allows people to give feedback for every trouble ticket entered/completed. The FSA atlas for software used to meet Federal requirements tracking international student was successfully upgraded. New web site for Distance and Continuing Education was migrated by IT application teams into documentum and launched November 4.

b Enterprise reporting - University-Wide initiation has begun to identify reporting solution for reporting from peoplesoft suite of software to UMR offices of Institutional Research and IT are participating and evaluating the product for the corporation that provides that software.

c Networks and computing - the voice over on IP has been completed in the ME Annex building gearing up the voice in IP in Civil and Havener Center is being brought on line.

d Library - newspaper digitalization is being announced. and electronic resource initiative is being announced. UMR library system office has received $500,000 as part of Pres. Floyd matching money program. We will be receiving a matching amount from the campuses, all of which will be used to purchase additional electronic resources for use by campuses.

e From the solution center: the department desktop enhancement program is currently in phase two with departments verifying their replacement plans.

f The Office of Graduate and Undergraduate studies - there has been a series of advising conferences being placed on this campus with 5 sessions planned through the end of the academic year seeking to build capacity to successfully assist the students to better achieve their academic objectives.

g The center for education research and teaching innovation is developing a series of distinguished workshops and including visiting academic admissions and offering faculty first-hand engagement in the successful implementation of best practices in daily teaching processes. There has been a series of leadership luncheons that have been initiated as well by CERTI and provides an avenue for timely discussion on relative issues as in campus leadership, and by developing this series it has permitted an opportunity for visiting well-known educators to come to the campus and offer out-side of the box perspectives where science and engineering education will be going.

h Lastly a note from Henry Wiebe - At the last session Academic Council approved the UMR Global to School of Extended Learning effective 7/1. Pres. Floyd has approved Henry's title from Vice-Provost to Dean of the School of UMR School of Extended Learning.

3 REPORTS OF STANDING AND SPECIAL COMMITTEES

a Curricula - Recommended changes in the degree proposals and were passed by the Academic Council. Also CC forms were passed by the Academic Council.

b Student Affairs - No report

c Personnel Committee - No report

4 NEW BUSINESS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

a Motion by Jerry Cohen to establish AC members to have access to an all faculty e-mail list. The Academic Council members will henceforth be given access to an all-faculty email list (titled AC-L; all non-faculty Academic Council Members will be included), separate from the administration’s all-faculty list (which has no opt-out possibility) and constructed with an opt-out possibility for UMR faculty who do not wish to receive mailings from the AC members. Members who avail themselves of the list shall limit their messages to items dealing with UMR campus governance (vs. e.g., announcement of events) and shall abide by acceptable usage policies specified by the Rules, Procedures and Agenda committee. Members who violate these regulations may have their AC-L privileges revoked by a two-thirds vote of the Academic Council members present at the Council’s next regularly scheduled meeting. Also, for reasons of anti-virus protection, no attachments may be sent by the AC members on the AC-L e-mail list. Motion was accepted with revisions in bold and passed by the council.

b RP&A has appointed Administrative Review Committee for the coming year, and Frank Blum in in charge of this.

c Staff Council: No report

d Student Council: Open forum on student activities fees voted on it and it will go up less than 1% and will go by the Chancellor and Board of Curators and we will know about that. We also had a presentation from IT and health services on what they do with our fees with them. CERTI group on PRS devices on feedback from students.

e Council of Graduate Students - no report.

f Referrals - None.

Robert Schwartz adjourned the meeting at 3:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
(electronically submitted, 11/30/04 )
Kurt Kosbar, Secretary

*Minutes of the Academic Council are considered official notification and documentation of actions approved.