April 2006

Board of Trustees Report

It would be redundant for me to speak of buildings, the IPFW strategic plan, and new degrees offered at IPFW as Chancellor Wartell has already eloquently addressed these issues; I would like to summarize the major issues that were discussed at the Fort Wayne Senate meetings during the past year.  These issues are as follows:

1) Fort Wayne senate discussed a proposal for changing the policy regarding faculty summer salary.  In the past, the policy has been that there was to be a minimum of 10 students for a summer session course, or the course was dropped.  In the summer of 2005 a new policy was suggested to pro-rate the faculty summer session salaries based on the number of students enrolled in a course, if less than 10.  The result of this discussion will be that each course is considered on a case-by-case basis.

2) We have formed four Call for Action committees to explore various issues important to IPFW faculty and students; these committees deal with issues as varied as the role of IPFW faculty in governance to examining revenues and expenditures at IPFW.

3) IPFW is a teaching-focused institution and enthusiastic debate his arisen over an old senate document that expects all administrative personnel that hold academic rank to teach at least one class per year.  Currently this is not consistently being done at IPFW.

4) The discussion that generated media interest was the issue of IPFW’s Division I Athletic program budget.  The expenditures exceeded the actual budget and the senate highlighted this issue.

5) IPFW is looking for a new sport conference, since we moved to Division I.  We have approved the affiliation process with the men’s soccer team which will be a part of the Mid-America Conference (MAC) and the women’s soccer team will be affiliated with the United Soccer Conference.  We are lacking conferences for some of these sports and we will continue in our support to find a conference.