Faculty Policy Council
Minutes of the September 13, 2010 Regular Meeting
Location: Norman 158
(Approved by FPC on 10/11/10)

Members Present: Tina Smith-Bonahue (FPC Chair, SESPECS), Paul Sindelar (Secretary), Bernie Oliver (SHDOSE), Jeff Hurt (STL), Nancy Corbett (SESPECS), Stephen Smith (SESPECS), Stephen Pape (STL), Cyndy Griffin (SESPECS), Allison Adams (STL), James Algina (SHDOSE), Cirecie West-Olatunji (SHDOSE), Hazel Jones (Guest, SESPECS), Twyla L. Mancil (Graduate Assistant)

Time called to order: 2:00 p.m.

Approval of Agenda and Minutes
Approval of Agenda: Stephen Smith moved to approve, Stephen Pape seconded, unanimous approval.

Approval of April 26, 2010 minutes: Stephen Smith moved to approve, Nancy Corbitt seconded, unanimous approval.

Announcements
Welcome to Naomi Castillo.
Naomi is the Business Manager who joined the COE over the summer. Naomi has been instrumental in helping the COE implement RCM and will be meeting with BAC and other faculty groups as we develop new models for allocating and acquiring resources.

FPC Website
Thanks to help from Rosie Warner, the FPC website is coming along. This year will involve a great deal of transition and decision-making; the website is a means to allow faculty to follow along with discussions that occur in FPC and committees. FPC representatives to committees are asked to please convey to the committee chairs the importance of posting committee meeting times and minutes to the website. John Donaldson knows to expect to hear from us, and has agreed to help post material in a timely way.

Old Business

Evaluation Task Force (Summer) Report
Name of Reporter: Stephen Smith, SESPECS

Related Action: In accordance with action by FPC at the April 26th meeting, 2 meetings were held between a delegation from FPC and the Provost were held over the summer. The discussions lasted between 45 minutes and an hour and included talks about leadership issues and the future of the college. At the second meeting, it was determined that having the Provost share information directly with the faculty would be helpful. As a result of these meetings, arrangements were made to have the Provost address the faculty at the COE on September 24th, 2010.

New Business

Responsibility Centered Management (RCM) Report
Name of Reporter: Naomi Castillo, Business Manager

Discussion:
The University’s inception of RCM as the new business model was addressed, as well as the goal of transparency as it relates to RCM. The incorporation of both revenue and overhead assessments within the RCM model was also discussed. Colleges will now be responsible for paying for their own overhead assessments. For the current year, the College of Education (COE) has paid for the overhead assessment upfront. The total amount that was charged to the COE was $6,978,719.00, which has also been broken down by individual units. The decision to pay upfront was made in part because there was a reserve in the College that had that amount and the College had access to carry forward balances as a result of Distance Education (DE) balances. Other colleges across the University have yet to pay for overhead assessments for the current fiscal year. Previously, before the RCM model was adopted, the core offices (e.g., the President’s Office, the Provost’s Office, etc.) would receive the money from tuition returns and state appropriations, take what they needed to run their core offices, and then disperse the rest throughout the unit. With RCM, they quantify the activities based on student credit hours to generate revenue, give the revenue to the colleges, and then charge assessments to run their core offices.

Two major challenges were discussed in relation to RCM: a) ensuring that all data from the Provost’s Office is correct given the merges between the schools and b) implementing systems that account for overhead assessment for future terms because it is likely that the COE will not have such a large reserve in future fiscal years (e.g., if state appropriations undergo a cut).

In regards to Distance Education (DE) activities, such activities no longer enjoy a separate revenue stream; they are now tied into RCM, tuition, state appropriation activities, and student credit hours that feed into the overall student credit hour amount generated at the college level. The previous agreement was that the COE would receive 95% of the revenue and the Provost would receive 5%, whereas under RCM you may receive up to 70% for students who are majors in your courses and 30% for students who are not majors but are enrolled in your courses.

Discussions ensued regarding making budgetary information more readily available for faculty to review. This information was distributed to School Directors at the Budget Summit and DAC members have the data. Concerns regarding how helpful it would be to share all data were discussed, and a consensus was reached that in order to ensure transparency all faculty should have access to this information. It was emphasized that a recurring theme for the present fiscal year is “hold everyone harmless this year” so that operations across the College can be maintained in the black and then work can begin on an equitable model of allocations for next year. It was agreed that progress had been made regarding coherency, but that dissemination was still an issue.

Allocations to individual units should be finalized by September 21, 2010. The main focus at present is to set the budget for this year so School Directors know what they have to work with for the rest of the year. Emphasis was placed on moving forward in a uniform manner with open communication between schools and the Business Office to ensure operation at the College level as an organized unit.

Discussions also addressed the inclusion of student credit hour activities within the RCM model, but its exclusion of research activities, as well as the encouragement of entrepreneurial activities, both on-book and off-book, under the RCM model. For off-book activities, the College receives 100% of the revenue and are taxed at a rate of 11.8% (the following year), which essentially make off-book activities like grants. The advantage of off-book activities is that they are not tied to state appropriations, which can be subject to budget cuts. However, there is a need to maintain or increase student credit hour generation so as to ensure the College gets the same proportion of state appropriations. The message was conveyed that all new programs should be tried off-book first, but that a balance should be sought between the generation of student credit hours and off-book activities. Questions arose regarding who can do off-book activities, as well as who makes the final decisions regarding off-book activities, and it was posed that this should be addressed in November during Dan McCoy’s visit. At the FPC meeting in October, Ana Puig from OER and Matt Hodge from the Development Office will discuss grants and development activities, and Dan McCoy will address DE and off-book opportunities in November.

Ideas to move the Business Office toward an analysis (vs. process) driven model were also discussed in relation to assistance with cost analyses for individual faculty and schools.

Related Action:
FPC Chair will pose that the information regarding budgetary data be made more readily available to the COE Dean, Catherine Emihovich, and Associate Dean, Tom Dana, including FPC secretary and BAC co-chairs in the communications. It was suggested that such information be available on the COE’s webiste.

Provost Meeting with COE Faculty Report
Name of Reporter: Tina Smith-Bonahue, FPC Chair

Discussion:
As a result of an outgrowth of meetings this summer, the Provost is coming on September 24th at 2 p.m. in the Terrace room. The Provost indicated his agenda for that meeting is to discuss the COE position in terms of the University and state contexts and to talk about what we should be doing as a college to move forward for the future.

Questions were raised regarding opportunities for faculty members to ask the Provost questions during this meeting, as well as regarding the attendance of the COE Dean and Associate Dean. It was indicated that the Provost stated he would entertain questions and that because the meeting was an open one, the Dean and Associate / Assistant Deans would make their own decisions regarding whether or not they attended. Efforts to promote constructive communication between FPC, the Dean’s Office, and the Provost’s Office were discussed. The importance of faculty attendance at the meeting with the Provost was also stressed.

Related Action:
FPC Chair will send out an email to faculty regarding the meeting.

Strategic Planning
Name of Reporters: Tina Smith-Bonahue, FPC Chair
Hazel Jones, 2009-2010 LRPC Chair, SESPECS

Discussion:
In email communications and during the summer meetings, the Provost suggested hiring an external consultant to help the College engage in strategic planning. Further, he offered funds from the Provost’s Office, thereby furthering the efforts of the Productivity Task Force from the Spring. One major task discussed was identifying a group from the College who could lead the strategic planning effort. It was suggested that the Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) seemed the logical FPC committee. Because the LRPC only has six members, further discussion ensued regarding the need to add members to ensure certain units are represented. It was also suggested that the budget needs representation on the LRPC and that having representation from the Productivity Task Force from the previous year would be beneficial. Clarification of the role of the external consultant was also discussed, as well as the process of strategic planning. Some members were concerned that climate issues needed to first be addressed and wanted to ensure that the work of the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) and the Productivity Task Force from the previous year not be abandoned in relation to strategic planning. A need was identified regarding devising a way to make decisions about monies for the College and individual units that do not polarize the schools. Concerns about the involvement or lack of involvement of COE leadership, including the Dean and Associate Dean, in the strategic planning process were also discussed. The strategic planning process was viewed by some as a way to formalize the principles of COE Schools so as to aid in the hiring process of future deans.

Motion: (Cyndy Griffin) Ask the LRPC to explore the abovementioned issues: to look at the FAC proposal, anticipate the role of a consultant in this process, delineate the scope of the “planning” or activity, plan who should be on the committee, and outline the constitution of the committee. The motion was seconded by Bernie Oliver, and unanimously approved.

Fall Faculty Meeting (Oct 25th at 3:00)
Name of Reporter: Tina Smith-Bonahue, FPC Chair, SESPECS

Discussion:
Addressed the need to re-evaluate based upon the meeting with the Provost. Two topics of discussion related to budget included addressing how the money was distributed this year and how will things look in the future—to what extent will individual school efforts be kept in the school (vs. a more cooperative structure). Summer pay was also suggested as a topic for discussion. The method for paying for Summer A 2010 was discussed.

Related Action:
Feedback regarding agenda items will be communicated to the Dean and Associate Dean at the Agenda Committee to see what they propose by way of their presentation. BAC members will offer input regarding facilitating conversations about the budget.

Collective Bargaining Agreement Report
Name of Reporter: Tina Smith-Bonahue, FPC Chair, SESPECS

Discussion:
The new collective bargaining agreement has implications for the COE. The need to develop policies or change existing policies to be in compliance with the collective bargaining agreement was addressed. It was suggested that FAC be charged with this task.

Related Action:
Ask Associate Dean to give FPC an overview of the collective bargaining agreement.

Constitution issues
Name of Reporter: Paul Sindelar, FPC Secretary, SESPECS

Discussion:
Concerns were raised at previous Curriculum Committee (CC) meetings regarding anomalies in relation to the FPC constitution, including the existence of two versions of the constitution on the COE website and procedural issues. Based on these concerns, it was proposed that the constitution as a whole needed to be updated. Discussion ensued regarding the College vs. University CC decision-making process. Concerns voiced about items never getting pushed through the University CC once decisions are made at the college level. The committee recognized need to do a close reading of the constitution. It was suggested that an ad hoc committee be formed to do a close read of the constitution and recommend possible amendments

Motion: (Allison Adams) To form an ad hoc task force to look at the constitution just as it relates to committees. The motion was seconded by Bernie Oliver, and unanimously approved.

Related Action:
Request for FPC members to recommend members for the constitution task force

Committee Reports

Budgetary Affairs Committee
Name of Reporter: Cyndy Griffin, BAC Co-Chair, SESPECS

Discussion:
Working on setting a time up to meet. Will look at coming up with principles faculty believe should guide future budget decisions, as well as ways to keep faculty informed and aware. Summer compensation plan is due in November. Nancy Waldron and Doreen Ross are co-chairing.

Curriculum Committee
Name of Reporter: Paul Sindelar, FPC Secretary, SESPECS

Discussion:
Have met once and took action on 11 proposals that were mostly holdovers from the Spring that were kicked back from the University level. The schedule of meetings and deadlines for submitting new proposals have been circulated among faculty and posted on the CC website.

Diversity Committee:
Name of Reporter: Bernie Oliver, SHDOSE

Discussion:
Have not met but are in the process of scheduling a meeting. Ended the previous year with the idea of having a diversity series and started inviting faculty from across campus and other places. Currently looking at ways to fund those efforts. Dean suggested trying to coordinate efforts with those of the
Lectures, Seminars, and Awards Committee.

Lectures, Seminars, and Awards Committee

Name of Reporter: James Algina, SHDOSE

Discussion:
Are in search of a committee chair and will meet soon because the first set of awards and papers come will be coming out on October 1st.

Faculty Affairs Committee
Name of Reporter: Alyson Adams, STL

Discussion:
Meeting October 11th with FEO applications as the first task. Also review sabbaticals in the Spring, FEOs twice a year, have been charged with 3rd year review/tenure promotion process, and looking at how the collective bargaining agreement is affecting policies. Still an issue is the Clinical Professor promotion criteria that was presented in April and didn’t go to vote, so that will likely be reported on in October and voted on in November.

Long Range Planning Committee

Addressed above

Research Advisory Committee
Name of Reporter: Stephen Smith, SESPECS

Discussion:
Will be contacting members to schedule a meeting time. Also, will be considering COE policies relating to fellowships.

Related Action:
Contact Troy Sadler regarding a related report on fellowships and contact Ana and Matt in anticipation of their presentation in October.

Distance Education and Technology Committee
Name of Reporter: Tina Smith-Bonahue, FPC Chair
(Jeff Hurt had to leave the meeting)

Discussion:
Have not yet met.

Related Action:
Contact Dan McCoy in anticipation of November presentation .

The meeting adjourned at: 4:06
Minutes submitted by Twyla L. Mancil; approved at the regular FPC meeting on October 11, 2010.