MSU FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES March 19, 2003 Members Present: Gipp, Sherwood for Giroux, Kommers, Leech, Taylor, Stewart, Jones, Yoo, Nehrir, Conant, Bradley, Weaver, Cloninger for Amend, Bandyopadhyay for Levy, Bogar, Bond, Pratt, Lynes-Hayes, Prawdzienski, Kempcke, Knight. Members Absent: Young, Morrill, McDermott, White, Anderson, Schlotzhauer, Linker, Howard, Chem Engr, Locke, Engl, Jelinski, Idzerda, Lynch, Fisher, Hoffman. Others Present: Fedock. The regularly-scheduled meeting was called to order at 4:10 by Chair Elect Warren Jones. A quorum was present. The minutes of the March 5, 2003, meeting were approved as distributed. MSU Bookstore renovation - Mark Frisby, General Manager. - The MSU Bookstore was incorporated in 1931, as a non-profit corporation. The Bookstore moved into the SUB in the 1960's, and the textbook area was added in 1976. - Bookstore funds on deposit will be used for the $1.2 million renovation. - The Bookstore will become much more inviting, with better flow of traffic, although no space will be added. - The renovation is being done in three phases, with the first phase well underway. All merchandise will continue to be available during the entire project. - It is anticipated the project will be finished by July 31. - The MSU Bookstore will continue to be the lowest-priced textbook operation in the United States, including on-line operations. Chair's report - Warren Jones, Chair Elect. - Roger Rippy, Director of the University Police, has distributed a memo explaining the parking fee increases proposed for 2003-04. It is proposed that all fees be raised about 5%. During discussion by Council members, several points were made. - Regents should be asked to pay attention to the fact that in this matter and others, university user fees continue to increase at a faster rate than the users' ability to pay. - It seems discriminatory for university employees to be required to pay parking fees when other public employees in the state do not. - Faculty lot designations should be implemented. - Levels of parking permits should be reallocated, making enough more-expensive permits available to fill the demand. Then, it may not be necessary to raise fees on all parking permits. - What is the goal of raising fees? Is it to reduce demand, build additional lots, or maintain current lots at a higher level? - Although a parking garage could be one solution to the demand on parking, it is generally understood that a parking garage would be substantially more expensive that the current parking arrangement. - It was suggested Roger Rippy be invited to Faculty Council to discuss parking issues, or that UGC Steering Committee prepare a memo to be sent to appropriate individuals stating concerns of faculty regarding parking. - UPBAC has reviewed the budget amendments, which total $2.1 million. - None of the amendments received an affirmative vote from the majority of the committee. - The committee is now beginning to discuss what approach to use if there are budget reductions. - A major concern is the affect upon MSU and UM if the regents change the cost-of-education model to support the smaller schools at a higher level than the two major universities. - The Board of Regents is meeting in Helena March 20-21. One of the agenda items is discussion of the above-mentioned model for reallocation of funding. - The search committee for the Vice Provost and Director of Extension is being formed by the Provost. Faculty Council is asked to provide nominees for a Faculty Council representative on the committee. - Jim Knight and Wayne Gipp were nominated. - Shannon Taylor moved the nominations be forwarded to the Provost. The motion was seconded and carried. - Faculty governance positions for the coming academic year will be filled before the end of spring semester. - Because of the increased emphasis put upon shared governance by the current university administration, Faculty Council members are asked to seriously consider participating in university governance through their participation as the Chair Elect or as the Chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee. - The University Governance Council Nominating Committee will solicit nominations for the positions, as well as for others. Faculty Affairs Committee report - Jim Knight. - The Committee would like to meet with University Legal Counsel Leslie Taylor to discuss the two Faculty Handbook amendments yet to be approved by the administration (Section 1312.00 - Conciliation and Grievance Complaints - Deadline for Filing and Section 620.00 - Role, Scope, Criteria, and Procedures). Retention issues - Warren Jones. - During fall semester, President Gamble met with Faculty Council to discuss retention. At that time, the President stated that retention is a faculty issue. - To pursue the issue, some questions need to be answered: Why do students leave? Who are they? - This semester, Faculty Council Chair Howard, Chair Elect Jones, and Dean of Students Courtney Stryker have met to discuss retention. - Dean Stryker is now considering data needed to gather useful information, rather than gathering the information anecdotally. Information to consider include student lifestyle, study habits, and size of the community from which a student comes. - Discussions and information gathered so far indicate that faculty do need to be involved in retention, but there are likely to be many areas affecting student retention that faculty are not able to influence. - There will continue to be further discussion of student retention. As there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at 5:05 PM. Joann Amend, Secretary Warren Jones, Chair Elect