Academic Senate Minutes December 09, 2003

Chair MacConnie called the meeting to order at 4:03 p.m. on Tuesday, December 09, 2003, in Nelson Hall East, Room 102 (Goodwin Forum).

Members Present: Butler, Cheyne, Dalsant, Derden, Dixon, Dunk, Fonseca, Fulgham, Green, Klein, Knox, Kornreich, MacConnie, Marshall, Meiggs, Mortazavi, Moyer, Mullery, Newsom, Oliver, O'Rourke- Andrews, Paselk, Paynton, Sanford, Schwab, Shellhase, Snyder, Sonntag, Thobaben, Varkey, Vrem, Wieand, Yarnall

Members Absent: Richmond

Proxies: Sorenesen for Coffey; Platin for Kiesling

Guests: C. Terry, Budget Office; K. Carlton, Arts, College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences; D. Collen, Athletics; S. Jones Deffenderfer, Faculty Personnel Services; R. MacFarland, Student Disability Resource Center; Numerous coaches, staff and students from Athletics

1. Announcements and Communications

Chair MacConnie announced:

Greta was called out of town so the minutes for the November 18 senate meeting will be approved at the next senate meeting.

If there is no objection, the agenda for today's meeting will be revised by adding the approval of the fall graduation list as item number 3.

Merry Schellinger, who has been hired to take Greta's place in the senate office, was introduced to the senators.

An email regarding the Appropriate Program Balance for Integrated Teacher Preparation and proposed community college regions was sent to all senators earlier this week. If anyone has comments or concerns on this proposal, please forward them to Senator Snyder by December 11.

Chair MacConnie reported on the discussion items from the statewide senate chairs' meeting held last Thursday in conjunction with the Conference on Student Success:

Communication - Improving communication between the statewide senate executive committee and the campus senates, especially on first read items and issues that may be important to local senates, was discussed.

Intellectual Property - There is a revised report titled intellectual Property, Fair Use, and the Unbundling of Ownership Rights. Owing to the length of this document, it was agreed that the group who developed the report will draft an executive summary and efforts will be made to forward a copy of this summary to all faculty. This document should be read by all faculty and may be found at the following address: www.calstate.edu/AcadSen/E-Senator/Reports/Intellectual_Prop_Final.pdf.

Graduate and Post Baccalaureate Education - A report of the Task Force on Graduate and Post Baccalaureate Education in the CSU was distributed and briefly discussed. A copy will be kept in the Senate Office.

David Spence, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, spoke about facilitating time to degree which was the focus of the conference. He also talked about the budget and its potential impact on the CSU. At this point it does not look promising since there are some significant cuts that may occur. Also noted was the importance of getting to the citizens of the State of California a message concerning what the CSU does for the state and for local regions to possibly reduce the size of the suggested reductions.

2. Committee and State Senate Reports

Associated Students - Associated Student President Newsom announced that free food and coffee will be offered to students in the study lounge from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Sunday through Wednesday of finals week; AS is facilitating the book exchange so that students may sell their books to other students; and AS is facilitating a canned food drive.

Senator Platin announced that the CSSA Conference will take place on campus in Goodwin Forum. Goals for the conference include approving the MOU; approving the student stance on the long term student fee policy; working on Calstate Cares, which will be directly related to outreach; approving and discussing the Board of Trustees' budget request to the legislature; approving legislative positions and creating the initial review board that oversees the student trustee selection process. Protests to the Outreach cuts will take place in Sacramento tomorrow.

OAA - Provost Vrem announced that during the last round of budget cuts, the California community colleges were successful in reducing their cuts by persuading the legislature of the effects such cuts would have on the system. This is what the CSU must do. We need a letter-writing campaign to the legislative members, and we need to have a united effort to inform the citizens of the State of California of the real value provided by the CSU.

A team of faculty, students and staff attended a Conference on Student Success: Facilitating Transfer and Degree Completion, held in Los Angeles, There were eight areas discussed concurrently: (1) academic discipline road maps and master schedules; (2) road maps, transfers, and regional articulation; (3) facilitating transfer--statewide efforts; (4) degree audits and advising; (5) the first-year experience; (6) innovative teaching and learning models; (7) experiences outside the classroom; and (8) academic policies and research. The goal is to improve students' progress to the baccalaureate degree. The Humboldt team met during the conference and will be meeting again this week to discuss what steps should be taken on this campus.

CFA - The bargaining team met yesterday and things appear to be more positive than negative. CFA is organizing a statewide rally in Sacramento. The $15 billion bond and the spending cap bond were shut down by the legislature; it is thought that the legislature is not necessarily needed to pass such bonds and spending caps and the idea is to take it directly to the people. This will be joined with a letter-writing campaign. The end of the year social will be held Monday, December 15, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Plaza View Room, jointly hosted by the General Faculty Association and the CFA.

Statewide Senate - Senator Thobaben reminded senators that she and Senator Snyder are the two statewide senators for Cal Poly Humboldt and should be contacted with any questions or concerns. A questionnaire will be distributed to some campuses asking what their statewide senators have done with potential resolutions. The intellectual property report is a replacement booklet that was updated and supposed to be published; a short executive summary is worthless except for notifying people that the report has been completed. Regarding the potential budget reductions, rather than have individual departments from campus send to Assembly members the message that such a unit is likely to be in layoff mode should such reductions occur, Provost Vrem believes that a message from students and parents to the same Assembly members would carry more weight. Senator Thobaben stated that some of the strategies being discussed at the conference included limiting international students, limiting transfer students from out of state, limiting the number of units students will be allowed to take, etc., and requested that any ideas regarding the CSU system under discussion be made public.

Senator Snyder stated that a discussion regarding the order of layoffs on campus would be helpful. The complicating factor involved in the budget discussions is that while the Chancellor is painting a bleak picture for the January budget, there also is the belief that either through public pressure or the political process the Governor can be convinced to present a better budget at the May revise. So the message is that between the January budget and the May budget, things may get better. From a planning standpoint, registration has occurred and most hiring of teaching faculty has been completed so planning for such a scenario at the department level needs to take place.

3. Fall Graduation

It was moved and seconded (Yarnall/Paselk) that the Academic Senate of Cal Poly Humboldt accept the final graduation list for Fall 2003 and recommend the graduation of all persons whose names are on that list subject to the provision that any student whose name is on the list and who has not fulfilled the requirements for graduation, will have her or his name removed from the list and that student shall not be graduate. Voting occurred and MOTION PASSED.

It was moved and seconded (Yarnall/Paselk) to make this an emergency item for immediate transmittal to the President. Voting occurred and MOTION PASSED.

4. TIME CERTAIN 4:30 P.M.

Athletics Program Update - [Dan Collen]

In addition to the information included in the agenda packet, a handout titled Athletics Goals & Objectives 2003-2004 was distributed by Dan Collen, Athletic Director. A PowerPoint presentation provided additional detail on the Athletics Program, including program review information. Included in the presentation were the Mission Statement of Athletics, its affiliation with NCAA and the importance of academics. Also highlighted were the community involvements of Athletics, the continuing effort to bring about a diverse student population, fundraising activities of Athletics, committee membership and work, management of scholarship dollars and the accomplishment of facility updates. The complete budget of Athletics is posted on its web site.

The Office of Civil Rights investigated Humboldt approximately two years ago and found no violations with the department but suggested that some areas of concern did need to be addressed. A final report was submitted in October, and the OCR has not yet indicated whether this meets its last requirement.

Several committees have been assigned to oversee certain aspects of Athletics, The policies and procedures of the Athletics Grant-in-Aid Committee and the Athletics Compliance Committee have been adopted by the Academic Senate and when any changes occur, the policies and procedures are returned to the Senate. These two committees meet on an on-call basis. The Intercollegiate Athletic Advisory Committee has become much more active in the past two years. The Committee meets monthly, and the membership has four faculty, two community members, two students, an academic dean, a coach, the director of Student Life and nonvoting members include the chair of the Health & Physical Education Department and the Athletic Director. The Student Athletics Advisory Council meets regularly, and its membership consists of two members from each intercollegiate team who discuss student issues and community projects.

The coaches, staff and students in attendance at the senate meeting introduced themselves.

Discussion comments included:

On the revenue and expense chart, why is it that football cannot generate more fundraising money, camp revenue, donations, etc. since it is a major sport on campus. [Some of the gross revenues of fundraising are not just dollars. The camps are an area for potential growth.]

The process for deciding which of the sports will have a full scholarship begins with a meeting of the coaches who work toward being as competitive as possible compared to the average of the GNAC. Almost all of the sports have seen an increase in scholarship monies during the last two years. Men's soccer and women's volleyball show the least amount of support right now.

Sources of revenue generated include monetary donations, as well as in kind donations such as the softball complex, the scoreboards, lodging and meals.

The total amount of state dollars to Athletics is approximately $2.1 million: personnel costs are approximately $1.4 million in salaries and $400,000 in benefits; and approximately $300,000 in operating expense money. The remainder of the budget is student dollars or fund raised dollars.

Appreciation was expressed to everyone from Athletics who attended the senate meeting.

There was general agreement to revise the agenda and discuss the budget policy first and then the RTP process.

5. Discussion Item: Draft Budget Policy - [Saeed Mortazavi and Carol Terry]

Carol Terry identified and expressed her appreciation to the committee members who worked on the draft budget policy contained in today's agenda packet: Saeed Mortazavi, Joan Berman, Steve Carlson, Randi Darnall Burke, Chip Dixon, Karen Earls, Susan Higgins, Emilia Patrick and Lori Rudebock.

Discussion on revising the budget policies and process to be more open and understandable by the campus community started approximately two years ago. The central form of budgeting is what created such things as the university reserve and the funding pool to ensure sufficient monies for benefits and salaries. In an effort to decentralize all such budget initiatives, the Committee needed to exercise caution in its deliberations so that all factors were addressed.

The new budget process has been approved by President Richmond. During its discussions, the Committee struggled with whether policies should remain at the division level or should go to the department level. Given that much of the frustration on campus centered around the method used for funding positions and if such positions would still be in existence at the same level and salary, the Committee came to terms with this issue and decided that the budget policies should remain at the division level. The divisions include Academic Affairs, Administrative Affairs, Student Affairs, and the President's Office. The recommendation is that it is the division's responsibility to develop a policy for the budgeting of salaries, benefits and operating expenses which will reach the college and the department levels. The Committee discussed various methods for funding salaries and benefits, a university reserve, and taxing of roll-forward monies.

The recommendations offered by the Committee include department level budgets for salaries and benefits, which are based on a position inventory. This inventory will evolve continuously as different budget decisions are made, will always be up to date, and will be maintained in the Budget Office. Expense budgets at the department level are critical to the university because in an attempt to identify a reasonable level of funding for a department, a review of peer institutions will be made and then a determination will be made if Humboldt is moving in the proper direction.

Probably the most controversial point is how to fund a university reserve. After a long struggle, the Committee decided to recommend that a university reserve of $2 million, which is approximately 2.4 percent of the University budget, be established over time. Given the current fiscal situation and the fact that funding is tight, the Committee believes it is important that $1 million be moved to the central reserve fund of the university. To accomplish this, a base reallocation off the top of the university's budget is recommended. During the years following the move of the initial $1 million to the university fund, $300,000 would be added to this central reserve annually until the goal of $2 million is reached. As an interim measure, the Committee reviewed the idea of taxing year-end balances at the 10 percent level until the reserve goal has been reached and then the tax would be discontinued. An annual accountability must be in place so that all allocations are reviewed and become part of the public discussion that is part of the open budget process.

Comments included the following:

Concern was expressed that given the budget situation and the possibility of program elimination, it would be difficult to support the reserve fund when programs are being eliminated.

Regarding the budget allocation at the department level, concern was expressed regarding smaller programs. Most likely the smaller departments would be unable to fund such things as sabbatical or difference-in-pay leaves, and the base budget, which would be based on faculty salaries, would make a difference if the department had full professors at the top step versus new assistant level professors. The benefits seem to be for the larger departments. [The Committee struggled with this topic. What would come from the divisions would be policies around recapturing salary savings.]

In the situation of a fractionated lecturer position wherein the individual in such a position does not receive benefits, it would be a divisional policy that would be needed. An alternative would be to set up a position with a full-time funding level and hire two or three part-time people who would be paid from this funding line during an academic year. That way, there would be an ongoing revenue source to cover salaries. Any savings from benefits or salaries not expended would be awarded according to the policy developed by the division.

The current reserve is $71,000. For a campus with a budget of $125 million, this is not fiscally responsible.

The Committee believes that the President would come before the new University Budget Committee to propose what he intends to do with the reserve money. When the University has a sufficient level of reserve, its use would be for things that were not considered during the course of the budget cycle. The budget process we have on campus states that work will be done through the departments and the structure of the university and will make initiatives known to a campus committee. Such a committee will deliberate and prioritize the funding in an annual budget process. The university reserve is not a secret fund; the campus community should know the budget details.

Chair MacConnie reminded senators that this is an initial reading for information to be relayed to the Committee. The Committee will then consider such feedback, determine what revisions need to be made, and then return to the senate for approval of a revised policy. Obviously there are many questions and comments so this item will be on the agenda at the next meeting.

The policy is posted on the Budget Office's web site, and an email version will be sent to all senators.

Additional Item

Chair MacConnie announced that a final agenda item is to recognize Greta's work over the years. Previous senate chairs and current senators applauded Greta for her dedication and loyalty, and presented her with several tokens of appreciation. Greta thanked everyone and expressed her gratitude for such a warm and thoughtful farewell.

Meeting adjourned 6:00 p.m.