A&S Planning and Budget Commmittee Minutes Oct 4 2000

Minutes: A&S Planning and Budget Commmittee

October 4, 2000

 

Members present: Bruce Adams, George Barnes, James Brennan, ex officio; Susan DeWitt, Julia Dietrich, ex officio, Stephen Edgell, Linda Gigante, P. J. Ouseph, Pamela Takayoshi

The meeting was called to order at 11:05 a.m.

The primary business of the meeting was to discuss with Dean Brennan current and upcoming initiatives that would have budgetary impact. The dean briefly discussed each of the following:

  1. A proposed new M.A. program in Pan African Studies that has been sent to the Curriculum Committee. A copy of the proposal was given to committee members to read in preparation for discussion at a subsequent meeting.
  2. A new program that would allow A & S undergraduate students into graduate-level classes beginning in their junior year. The intent of the program is to retain more undergraduate students for our graduate programs and to speed their progress through those programs by enabling those students to complete their M.A.'s in five years. The dean believes that the program should help with retention, bring money into the college, and increase graduate enrollments. A more complete description of the program will be given to this committee when it has been examined by the Curriculum Committee and before it is sent on to the Graduate School.
  3. Problems with GEN 101, Campus Culture. The dean plans to scrap the College's support for the current GEN 101. He has asked the Provost's Office to allow A & S to retain most of the money now used to pay for GEN 101 to teach a new one-hour, required, introduction to A & S studies which he described as a "modes of inquiry" course. He outlined three possible ways by which faculty could be recompensed for teaching the new class. These will be discussed in subsequent meetings.
  4. Expenditures on new technology. The dean reported that $3 million given to the university by the state for high tech purchases. Of the half ($1.5 million) allocated for instructional support equipment A & S was given $350,000. This is the largest sum given to a college though the smallest per student allocation. The dean expects to spend approximately 200,000 on upgrading classrooms with new equipment and most of the rest on constructing a virtual classroom. The other $1.5, which will be spent on research equipment, has not yet been allocated among the colleges. The committee briefly discussed the importance of having a fund for maintaining or replacing equipment lost each year through breakdown, obsolescence, and theft.
  5. Staff salaries. The dean wants to make salary catch ups for college staff a priority for the next years.
  6. Lecture Lump Sum and +20. The committee discussed the linked problems of further reductions in the departments' Lecture Lump Sum funds - another $300,000 will be taken from the college's total fund in each of the next three years - the annualization of A & S faculty salaries, and the hiring of part-time lecturers. The dean would like to have studies conducted that would show the cost of various ways of moving toward annualization and off of +20 compensation.

The minutes of the committee's previous meeting of 13 September were approved as circulated. These have been posted to the committee's web page.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:10.