A&S Planning and Budget Commmittee Minutes Oct 8 1998

Art's & Sciences Planning and Budget CommitteeMinutes of 10/8/98 Meeting

    Members attending:
  • George Barnes
  • Julia Dietrich (ex officio)
  • Stephen Edgell
  • Robert Kimball
  • Nathan Schwartz (Chair)
  • Wiley Williams

    Visitors attending:
  • Jeanie McCabe

The minutes of September 24, 1998 were approved.

Dave Baugh sent us a partial response to our inquiry as to the ratio of general lab workstations that belong to I.T. versus those that belong to A&S.; He responded that no workstations in A&S; are owned by I.T. Only workstations in the general user centers are owned by I.T. He stated that a further count would take some time and he would report on this later. The Committee is of the opinion that there are no A&S; workstations open, in general, to students.

The Committee discussed the issue, raised by Steve Edgell, of who should serve as the ex officio member from the Dean's office. Of course, the Dean can choose the person. Julia Dietrich reported that she had discussed this with Randy Moore and it was his choice that she be the designated person. Steve Edgell thought that the Dean should assume this role and work closely with the Committee as the best interface with the Faculty. The general opinion of the Committee was that Randy Moore should be encouraged to work closely with the Committee and bring issues to us in their early planning stages. However, the Committee rejected requesting that he act as the ex officio member of the Committee.

The Committee next discussed the issues and possible problems raised by the changes in the Division of Transitional Studies (DTS). DTS is no longer an enrollment unit. That means that there will no longer be students in DTS. Rather, the students are now enrolled in the other Colleges with the overwhelming majority now in A&S.; However, little or no budget lines or other funds came with them. The administrative and instructional monies are still in DTS. It was noted that these students were enrolled in our courses before and still will be. Instruction of remedial courses was, and continues to be, funded from DTS. However, there are costs with having these additional students in the College. The ultimate destiny of DTS is open at this time. It has been proposed that it become a learning resource center. Some of the issues associated with these changes, besides the increased cost noted by the Committee, are: having more conditional status students in the College will lower the success rate for students within the College, which could hurt us with accrediting agencies; it also has an impact on the issue of what the University is doing to aid disadvantaged students. The Committee resolved that the Faculty is certainly not opposed to taking on these students, but we are opposed to increased responsibilities without increased resources.

We next turned to discussion of possible future Committee activity. One item is that we must make a report to the Faculty Assembly by midyear on the budget. We also discussed the possibility of making a comparison of funding of A&S; units in Kentucky universities. The Chair was charged with contacting the Office of Planning and Budget to see what information might be available. He will also explore what staff and information resources might be available within the Dean's Office to help explore this issue. He will bring what he can collect to our next meeting. We added the issue of faculty compensation in the College, both as an issue of an overall low level of compensation as well as an issue of salary compression at the senior levels. The Chair will also explore sources of information on this from the Office of Planning and Budget and the Dean's Office. Surveys across Kentucky universities and across the nation (e.g., the Oklahoma Survey) will be sought. It was suggested that as part of its Planning mission the committee consider strategy and tactics for increasing the overall quality of the college. The last issue identified for future Committee study was that of reallocation within the College.

Our next meeting will be October 29 at 2:30, in a place to be announced.

The hour allocated for the meeting having expired, the Committee adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

Steve Edgell

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