MSU FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES September 25, 2002 MEMBERS PRESENT: Young, Gipp, Morrill, Sherwood for Giroux, Engel, Kommers, Schlotzhauer, Linker, Leech, Taylor, Howard, Stewart, Jones, Nehrir, Conant, McMahon for Weaver, Cloninger for Amend, Levy/Bandyopadhyay, Bogar, Bond, Jelinski, Pratt/McKinsey, Fisher, Lynes-Hayes, Prawdzienski, Kempcke, Knight, Faculty Affairs Chair Walter Metz. MEMBERS ABSENT: White, Anderson, Chem Engr, Comp Science, Lefcort, Locke, English, Idzerda, Lynch, Hoffman. The meeting was called to order by Chair, Rich Howard, at 4:10 PM. A quorum was present. The minutes of the September 18, 2002, meeting were approved as distributed. John Sherwood was thanked for his work as Chair of Faculty Council during the past year. Chair's report - Rich Howard. - The Board of Regents meet in Butte, September 18-20. - In response to a question, it was noted that Regent Margie Thompson's term ends in February, 2003. Regent Ed Jasmin's term ends in July, 2003. - Chair Richard Roehm has added two seats to the table at the Regents' meetings: a faculty representative (Rich Howard, selected by the MUS faculty representatives) and a student representing associated students (a member of the MSU-Northern associated students). - A strength of the MSU faculty is that when the regents talk with MSU-Bozeman faculty, they are assured they are not talking with the faculty union. - UPBAC met yesterday. There are difficult issues that must be considered. - Chair Howard and Chair Elect Jones will provide input they gather from faculty. - "A Communication from the Strategic Planning Committee to the University Planning and Budget Analysis Committee Regarding MSU's Capacity for Growth" (http://www.montana.edu/upba/spc/documents/index.html) was distributed and briefly discussed by UPBAC. Faculty Affairs Committee report - Walter Metz. - The Committee is completing its discussion of a proposed post-tenure review policy. It is anticipated it will come before UGC Steering Committee next week. Discussion with President Gamble. - FY03 budget: - UPBAC has done a remarkable job in preparing it. The President had hoped to have a planning/budgeting process in place within three years of his arrival. The process may be ahead of schedule. - The President meets with faculty, student, and classified leadership regularly. He hopes to gather a President's cabinet, about 40 people who will meet every 4-5 weeks to give input. - The task of UPBAC and other university committees and individuals is to remember what a university is and determine how to maintain a balance between price and quality. MSU balances its purpose - to discover new knowledge and to educate - very well, at a reasonable price. - The position taken on faculty salaries is healthy. MSU must be prepared to continue promotion and tenure salary increases, as well as equity raises for faculty, professionals, and classified staff as appropriate. - Discussion took place at the latest BOR meeting regarding funding of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Extension Service, and Fire Training School. There were proposals to backfill the funding of these agencies from MSU and UM state money. The motions regarding the matter were defeated, but a compelling argument needs to be made to the legislature to fund these agencies appropriately. - The 2003 legislature opens in January, faced with a serious budget deficit, now expected to be $250 million. - Budget reductions are expected in state agencies, so UPBAC will have to make choices to maintain balance. Students will probably be asked to make up some of the deficit, because an increase in state funding for universities is unlikely. - The university system will recommend the state make specific investments in the system, providing information about the expected return on the investments. - Both the revenue and expenditure side of the university budget will need to be addressed, to achieve balance. - UPBAC will be encouraged to focus on strategic priorities. The planning committee will be expected to make recommendations, which then need to be tied to budgeting. - On October 23, there will be a town hall meeting which includes representatives from all four MSU campuses and state and community leaders. - The state and national economic impact upon Montana's universities will be discussed, as well as ways for the four units of MSU to work together as productively as possible. - Recruitment and retention are an important component of the university. - This has been a great recruiting year for MSU. - The mix of students is good. A larger percent of out-of-state students than in the past adds diversity to the university. - The additional students have an economic impact on the Bozeman community. - Private fund-raising has been very successful. The President set a goal of $10 million over two years, and by the end of May, $9 million had been pledged. Early this fall, an additional $2 million was raised, so the two-year goal has been raised to $15 million, providing $750,000 per year for scholarships from an endowment. - Faculty are a key element in recruiting and retaining students. - If students are accepted, the university needs to make a commitment to keep them. - A number of good students leave the university each year. How does the university keep them here, especially those in the top 10 % who leave? - A goal is to increase retention and graduation rates. How can this be done? What is the appropriate size for MSU, given available resources? - Faculty initiatives, similar to the large-classroom task force, need to come from the faculty to address the issues of retention. - Discussion followed. - Exit interviews could be used to gather information about why students leave before graduation. A significant number of new students do not appear to have the skills necessary to succeed in university-level classes. Somewhere in the system, students who are not doing well in a specific area but might succeed in other areas need to be helped. - There needs to be a support system to help faculty with student advising. Services must be provided for students who need specific kinds of assistance. Although faculty are a front-line of advising, it can't all be left to faculty, and it needs to be determined how best to organize advising and then follow through. What advising model will work at MSU? Faculty advising, centralized advising, and student -to-student advising might be included in the model. There needs to be some reward for faculty advising students, or it is not necessarily a priority. - An immediate consequence of recruiting and retaining students may be overcrowded classrooms, which can turn students away. Adjuncts provide one means of supplying teachers, but the available pool is not consistent in all disciplines from semester to semester. - Retention of students varies widely across campus, so some areas need more work than others. The number of students a faculty member advises must be a consideration. - There needs to be communication between departments and colleges during the advising process. - The President challenged the faculty to give these retention issues some thought and come up with some ideas to address them. As there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at 5:15 PM. Joann Amend, Secretary Rich Howard, Chair