Volume VI, 6

 

Minutes of the Academic Council Meeting
February 17 , 2005

 

VI, 6 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by President Michael Hilgers. Roll call was taken, and absentees noted were: Tom Schuman, Michael Meagher (Jeff Schramm substituting), Massimo Bertino, Jim Martin (Will Canu substituting) David Van Aken, Paul Worsey (Gary Mueller substituting) Robert Stone (Ron Fannin substituting), Neil Book, Roger Laboube, Tom Petry, Todd Hubing, S. N. Balakrishnan, Gih-Ru Lea, Gary Thomas, Y. T. Shah (Harvest Collier substituting), and Debra Robinson


There was a motion and second to approve the minutes of the January 20, 2005 Academic Council meeting. The Academic Council body voted to accept the minutes.


1 REPORTS AND RESPONSES

A. PRESIDENT'S REPORT - Michael Hilgers

a Board of Curators Meeting approved a 3.5% educational fee. Introduced an addition to the collective rules and regulations on executive performance guidelines. President Floyd also announced that he was issuing an executive order that was putting a freeze on all unfilled administrative positions throughout the system. Issued an order for all Chancellors to begin a review of our administrative processes to make sure that we are running as efficiently as possible. The Board of Curators meeting here in April has changed and will only be on campus for one day. Our traditional opportunity for having a breakfast for them has ended. I am working on having members of the Academic Council invited to the reception the night before.

b Follow-up of motions: (1) Campus-wide discussion list serve has been created and I have sent an e-mail out announcing that the list serve is AC-L and available for use. Academic council members are able to communicate issues of importance to the faculty as a whole with an opt-out capability. (2) Promotion and Tenure Committee Motion (two-part motion) a. Requested the Provost to send letters to all tenure-tracked faculty clarifying their date when their promotion dossiers would be due. b. Requested in processing request for extensions for tenure consideration that the Campus Promotion and Tenure Committee be involved if there is a need for discussion. Provost agreed and this motion has been taken care of. (3) Strategic Planning Committee motion made at the last meeting regarding open forums. The dates have been set, and we have had one open forum and more will continue. Check out the Strategic Planning Web site if you haven't.

c Faculty Accomplishment System - Have received several e-mails and organized help sessions on 2/23 in EE every 1 1/2 hours. Times are 9:00, 10:30, 12:00, and 1:30. Two people from the UM Systems will be here to help, so bring your activity sheets and start entering.

d IFC - There are several ongoing issues. Administrative review, non-regular faculty, public occasions calendar, and computer usage and privacy issues.

 

B. CHANCELLOR'S REPORT - Robert Mitchell

a Private Giving - We are on track with $18 million. This is the largest year in UMR history for private giving.

b UM System has announced a flat appropriation for next year.

c Toomey Hall - We now have a total of $7.5 million in contributions. Our target goal is $11 million dollars and we believe we are going to make it.

d The senate amendment to change Southwest Missouri State to Missouri State University is under way. President Floyd was contacted and then he contacted the Board of Curators to compromise. Missouri State University shall offer engineering programs and doctorate programs only in cooperation with the University of Missouri. The name change from Southwest Missouri State to Missouri State University will not allow any additional state funding.

e Resource Requirements for MBA, Bioengineering and Toomey Hall.

MBA: After the last academic council meeting and a meeting with Vice President Lehmkuhle it was decided that we needed to charge a professional school fee for an MBA. That means $500/student credit hour in-state, and $800/student credit hour for out of state tuition. Plugging those numbers in will give us a higher revenue that we anticipated.

Bioengineering Degree Program: This is an important program with Washington University being the largest, and the program is growing nationally. The proposed BS degree in Bioengineering shows the use of institutional resources during the first three years, and then no additional need for institutional resources during the following years. The costs the first three years is mostly equipment. I have personally asked for $500,000 from Lehmkuhle to get this program started and some of the equipment bought. Lehmlkuhle didn't commit, but he thinks that there would not be a problem with state helping.

Toomey Hall: We have current gifts of $7.5 million and $3.5 million from a mini-campaign. Then $10 million UM bond for the rest of the money. It is possible that we will receive $2 million from the Department of Economic Development. If we do, the $2 million can be used to make the payments on the bond for 3 years.

C. PROVOST'S REPORT - Harvest Collier

Enrollment: We are up in enrollment as compared to last year. This year we have 5,006 with last years number being 4,926, that is up 1.6%.

Research: In research, Wayne says that we have $17.3 million in awards with 1.1% up from 04 with $17.1 million as of this time last year.

Under-graduate and Graduate Studies: A system is being implemented on Academic Alert to replace the early warning paper system that we are working on right now that will roll out in the fall.

UMR NCA Self-Study Team - being established in order to begin planning for the campus's preparation for its next 10-year accreditation evaluation. The team will consist of representatives from each campus component.

Dates to remember: April 13, 2005 is UMR Undergraduate Research Day. We encourage all departments to encourage all students to participate. OURE applications for 05-06 is April 1 - if students want to participate.

School of Extended Learning: Enrollment is up from 397 in 04 to 493 in 05.

Information Technology: 297 phones currently on VOIP core, and will continue on that schedule.

3 REPORTS OF STANDING AND SPECIAL COMMITTEES

a Budgetary Affairs – Motion that Academic Council moves that Budgetary Affairs will host a series of open forums on Resources Allocation Management. Moved to vote and motion passed by voice vote.

b Curricula - Motion for DC 0143, School of Engineering, Basic Engineering was approved by voice vote and passed. Motion for degree change was voted on and passed. Motion for CC forms to be approved were voted on and passed.

c Student Affairs - no report.

d Public Occasions - Referred to the committee part of President Floyd's Strategic Action Plan that all campuses be brought to a common academic calendar. Still issues with it so there will be a continuance on it.

e Administrative Review Committee - Third year we have done this. This year we plan to review Provost Shah, VC Robinson, VC Eggert and Dean Mitchell. Reviews will be sent soon and hopefully have the results about the end of March. Motion: Academic Council moves to approve the plan to review Shah, Robinson, Eggert and Mitchell, in addition to the next level main administrators (short forms) who report to those people. Motion was seconded, discussion, and approved by voice vote and passed.

 

4 OLD BUSINESS

a Report on financing of new initiatives - Robert Mitchell covered this in Chancellor's Report.

5 NEW BUSINESS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

a Staff Council: No report

b Student Council: Nathan Mundis
Nathan read the letter listed below to be entered into the minutes:

February 16, 2005

Dear Academic Council:

Student Council hereby suspends our participation in the Information Technology/Computing Committee (ITCC) until such a time as we are satisfied that this committee is fulfilling the charge given to it in the University of Missouri – Rolla Faculty Bylaws and new committee leadership is elected. Our participation in this committee so far has amounted to a waste of the students’ time and resources as well as much frustration.

This committee is charged to: “advise the Provost and the Chief Information Officer in the formulation and implementation of information technology (IT) and computing activities on campus.” Currently, in the opinion of the student body, this charge is not being met. One issue of major concern to the student body is the use of revenues collected through the IT Fee. Currently, there are 1.4 million dollars in IT Fee revenue not being spent by the CIO as he is waiting on ITCC input into how to best upgrade CLCs to meet the needs of both the students and faculty. This issue has not been discussed at a single ITCC meeting that Student Council has attended this academic year. This is just one example of how the ITCC is not meeting the charge given to it in the Faculty Bylaws.

Instead of giving input into IT and computing activities on campus, the majority of an ITCC meeting is spent nitpicking the allocation of the IT budget into different accounts than have been used in the past. At the November 2004 meeting, the ITCC Chair asked the student body representatives present if the student body was concerned with this distribution. Nathan Mundis, Vice President External Affairs responded that the CIO had presented his budget to Student Council and not one concerned or dissenting comment was made, thus the student body was content with the use of the IT Fee revenue. After this meeting, the ITCC Chair clandestinely solicited opinion from the other student council officers as to whether Mr. Mundis in fact represented the voice of the student body, asking the question, “ Is there anything else one might say in describing what Nathan Mundis seems to view as student acceptance of the CIO transferring these funds?” At the Next meeting in January, Student Body President, Julia Rosemann attended for the expressed purpose of reiterating the student perspective about the transfer of this revenue. Sadly, the topic was again discussed at the February meeting while other topics, such as “computing activities on campus,” were mostly neglected.

Because of the lack of progress made by the ITCC, because of the ITCC’s concern with accounting details that do not affect the amount of input the ITCC has on computing activities, and because of the surreptitious actions taken by the committee’s chair to circumvent the government of the student body; student council reiterates that it is forthwith withdrawing its participation in ITCC until such a time as new leadership is elected and the committee begins to progress toward fulfilling its duty to the University.

Sincerely,

Julia C. Rosemann and Nathan L. Mundis
President Vice President External Affairs
UMR Student Council UMR Student Council

c Council of Graduate Students: No report

d Council of Graduate Students - no report.


Mike Hilgers adjourned the meeting at 3:05 p.m.


Respectfully submitted,
(electronically submitted,
04/08/2005 )
Kurt Kosbar, Secretary


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