Minutes of the
Fifth Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Fourth Senate
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
January 10, 2005
12:00 P.M., Kettler G46
Agenda
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of December 13, 2004
3. Acceptance of the agenda – J. Grant
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a. Indiana University – B. Fife
b. Purdue University – E. Blakemore
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – G. Bullion
6. Committee reports requiring action
7. New business
8. Committee reports “for information only”
Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-9) – J. Grant
9. The general good and welfare of the University
Positioning IPFW for a place of prominence within the higher education community
10. Adjournment
Presiding Officer: G. Bullion
Parliamentarian: D. Turnipseed
Sergeant-at-Arms: G. Steffen
Secretary: J. Petersen
Senate Members Present:
B. Abbott, R. Bean, L. Beineke, E. Blakemore, S. Blythe, W. Branson, J. Brennan,
M. Codispoti, S. Davis, P. Dragnev, D. Erbach, B. Fife, L. Fox, R. Friedman, P. Goodmann, J. Grant, S. Hannah, L. Hess, P. Iadicola, A. Karim, L. Kuznar, L. Lin, M. Lipman,
N. McFarland, M. Montesino, G. Moss, G. Mourad, A. Mustafa, E. Neal, M. Nusbaumer,
D. Oberstar, A. Perez, D. Ross, H. Samavati, J. Tankel, S. Tannous, J. Toole, S. Troy,
G. Voland, L. Wark, M. Wartell, N. Younis
Senate Members Absent:
C. Erickson, J. Garrett, D. Goodman, T. Grove, S. Isiorho, Z. Liang, L. Meyer, R. Murray,
G. Schmelzle
Faculty Members Present: J. Clausen, S. Sarratore
Visitors Present: S. Alderman, J. Dahl, K. Kilbane, (News-Sentinel) R. Kostrubanic,
M. McIntosh, P. McLaughlin, K. Stockman (Journal Gazette)
Acta
1. Call to order: G. Bullion called the meeting to order at 12:01 p.m.
2. Approval of the minutes of December 13, 2004: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
J. Grant moved to approve the agenda as distributed.
The agenda was approved as distributed.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a. Indiana University:
B. Fife: I would preface my comments today by stating that I am sharing my own personal opinions and do not purport to speak on behalf of any group or any set of individuals.
I believe that a discussion is growing on campus with regard to the present status and future of this institution. Such deliberations are both necessary and desirable. I believe that IPFW has matured a great deal over the course of its 40-year history. I applaud the contributions made by our predecessors. Yet it is now time to look forward. We all want prosperity at IPFW. Who is against making this institution more effective in its primary academic mission? The real quandary is “How do we do this, how do we accomplish this noteworthy goal?” I believe that the primary solution lies in the examination of the current governance structure. With great respect for Indiana and Purdue Universities, I content that IPFW has outgrown the management agreement. I advocate outright independence for IPFW. As a public institution of higher education in Indiana, IPFW has established its own identity and traditions. The present reality is that IPFW does not truly offer Indiana or Purdue degrees, but an IPFW degree. Furthermore, we offer a quality education to our students and should collectively take pride in our efforts on behalf of our students and the community.
Some will argue that this is a radical measure. There are some precedents, however, that suggest otherwise. On September 15, 1965, the Evansville campus of Indiana State University was chartered for students in the southern part of Indiana. On April 16, 1985, legislation was signed which established the University of Southern Indiana as a separate public university. In the commonwealth of Virginia, the northern branch of the University of Virginia began operations in 1957. In 1972, the Virginia General Assembly established George Mason University as an independent member of the commonwealth system in public higher education. There appears to be no negative residual for either institution in gaining their autonomous status.
Thus, I look forward to an open, transparent debate over the future of this institution. The Senate is obviously a plausible form for such a discussion, but this requires campus-wide participation. I hope that this comes to pass. I would also welcome an open forum with our area legislators who are currently serving in the Indiana House of Representatives and the Indiana Senate. Their input is essential when ascertaining the future of IPFW within the complex network of higher education in Indiana. The future of IPFW is bright and full of promise. I look forward to the time when the IPFW community, with state legislative approval, adopts a new name, engages in more local decision making, and confronts the challenges and responsibilities of the 21st century and beyond in earnest.
b. Purdue University:
E. Blakemore: Just to let the Senate know, Speaker Fife’s remarks do not come as a surprise to me. We discussed the issue to some degree at the Executive Committee. If you will look under “The general good and welfare of the University: Positioning IPFW for a place of prominence within the higher education community,” you can see that the Executive Committee would like to hear a discussion on this issue, and I certainly support Professor Fife’s call to discuss the future of IPFW. I am not yet sure how I feel about the notion of independence; but just to let everybody know, there was a lot of discussion of this idea in the Executive Committee. The idea to discuss it and to talk about the future of IPFW, I think, is very well timed.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – G. Bullion: The Presiding Officer had no report.
6. Committee reports requiring action: There were no committee reports.
7. New business: There was no new business.
8. Committee reports “for information only”:
Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 04-9) – J. Grant:
J. Grant presented Senate Reference No. 04-9 (Items under Consideration by Senate Committees and Subcommittees) for information only.
9. The general good and welfare of the University: Positioning IPFW for a place of prominence within the higher education community.
G. Bullion: As Professor Blakemore indicated, we had some discussion within the Executive Committee on the topic of positioning IPFW for a place of prominence within the higher education community. We chose the words that go here because that probably is where we think this discussion should take place. Frequently, when you get into a topic of this type, it is one that brings forth a high degree of emotion, all the way from the emotion that says we should not discuss it to going to some kind of preconceived outcome. That was not the nature of the discussion that took place within the Executive Committee. We were framing the topic within the academy represented here at IPFW. Should we not have open debate on this topic? Any resolution that would come forth could be years down the road. But is it something we should continue to ignore, or should we be listening to each other and finding out what the sentiments are? All of it was cast in the context of how we can make this institution a better institution and position it for success 20 and 30 years down the road. We are not talking about 2005, 2006, or 2007. We are talking about much further down the road. So, with that being said, do any of the members of the Executive Committee want to comment on what I have just said?
B. Fife: I wonder if there is any interest within this body for a convocation to openly discuss all sort of differential views on the topic of our future?
G. Bullion: That was a question that was being posed by the Executive Committee: how could we go about this? Should we call a convocation and have open debate? That certainly is one avenue; no doubt there are others that we did not address. Do you have any suggestions?
S. Hannah: At the most recent meeting of SPARC, the Strategic Planning Committee, they looked into ways to engage campus-wide discussion on the future of the university in preparation for the next “round” of the strategic plan. At our meeting, we were discussing a number of different options for doing that. So this is very timely, as Elaine pointed out. We did not come to an immediate conclusion at that meeting; but we were thinking of, perhaps, an all-day conference where a wide range of people could come together to talk about it and give it careful consideration. The exact method of doing it is still up for discussion in SPARC, but the idea of an all-day conference on the subject was kind of where the discussion was ending up at that meeting.
P. Iadicola: Is there a particular context in why this issue is important at this particular juncture? Has there been an analysis of the management agreement showing that there are particular problems that need to be addressed? This seems to be coming somewhat out of the blue, and I am just afraid that if you have a convocation about this issue without setting forth a context as to what this issue is or why there is a problem, I am afraid you will get rather small attendance. So, my question is, what is the context for bringing this issue forth at this point?
G. Bullion: I can only offer my point of view. From my standpoint, it is more in the context that it is a discussion that we have not had openly for ten years or more. With that said, is that not perhaps an adequate reason to have this discussion?
Secondly - I think this is coming from probably some of my interest in the community - the state of Indiana has lagged badly in terms of the performance of its economy in the last 20 years. The discussion that started at the state level over the past two or three years has helped to focus attention on what the role of higher education is in perhaps helping to be a partial solution to that. When you move the topic into that realm, then you really do have to start asking the question, “Has the structure of higher education in the state had anything to do with the outcomes that perhaps we have experienced?” We obviously cannot profess to speak for the structure of higher education in the state of Indiana, but we certainly can speak to one component of it. I think that that helps, given the interest of the legislature; and given the current agenda that is being formulated by the governor, there are ways to engage in this kind of discussion without it being threatening. I think ten years ago, if you had come forth with this type of suggestion, admittedly it would have been categorically rejected by the powers that be as perhaps being far fetched. I am not convinced that that is the case today. I think that we can have discussion on issues of this type within the broader context of, “Is the state’s best interest being served,” or “Is the region’s best interest being served?” What changes are needed to evoke that?
B. Fife: In responding to Professor Iadicola’s question, I would just say the context for me personally is maturation; however, I would not want to presume to set any parameters or analytical framework for such a, hopefully, broad-based discussion. I would hope that we could discuss this issue in a very open way and that people would not feel constrained or bound by certain conditions in discussing our future. That is my context.
G. Bullion: It also seems appropriate that we identify what some of the issues are and engage in a period of study to examine those; and that, itself, could be a two, three, or four-year process, not a two-month process.
J. Grant: Just as a point of information, a convocation requires 20% of the voting faculty to approve.
M. Wartell: (Chancellor Wartell introduced Melissa McIntosh, IPFW’s new Affirmative Action Officer.) Melissa just started today. She has a law degree from Indiana University, and she also comes to us through being legal counsel with the IRS, and the labor department. Please make her welcome. I am sure she will do a great job for us.
I do not know if you have seen enrollments for the spring. We are continuing with this trend for which I wish I had a better explanation, and that is that we are up about 1.2% in credit hours and down about 1.1% in headcount. There are simply more full-time students. The other interesting aspect of our enrollment statistics is that our applications are down. And they are down mostly in part-time students. This may be a result of the economy getting better – I do not know what we are really seeing. National trends are that unemployment is decreasing, but local trends are that we are the highest unemployment area in the state. And we are higher than we have been in a while. So, I have little explanation for our enrollment trend. Getting more full-time students probably means that our academic reputation is improving – we are getting more of the students that we want to get, and we are headed for that 60% full-time/40% part-time ratio that I think will be a whole lot healthier for us. The housing continues to be successful.
I have the IPFW Statement of Integrity here that was worked on by a broadly representative committee and which was commented on by the Faculty Affairs Committee of the Senate. I will give it to the Executive Committee to discuss so they can put it through the Senate rigors, so it can be approved by the Senate as part of the campus policy structure. Edna Neal led the committee, so you can direct any questions to her and/or Susan Hannah.
Jack Dahl has provided me with the annual “Where are we” with respect to funding per FTE student for every campus in the state. It only seems to get worse. In fact, we are 15 out of a total of 16 right now, above Ivy Tech, at $4,009 per student. The University of Southern Indiana is above us, but they are above us by approximately $225 per student. Even if we had their budget, it would be $225 times $8,400 FTE. If we were where Indiana State is, at $8,623 per student, it would mean much more money. We will continue to remind our legislators of this.
Please remember that we have a legislative budget session coming up. This is biennial budget-setting time. Anytime you encounter folks out in the community, it might be helpful to us for you to remind them of how good IPFW is, because we are.
We will be working to retain what we have and to attempt to get the enrollment change funding. That is very important to us because we have grown significantly over the last several years. Following the formula, we would accrue $1.7 million in addition to our base budget. That is very important to us, and we need for that to continue.
We also need to attempt to obtain the repair and rehabilitation money. Also, we have one major capital project that we would like to have authorized this year, and that is the addition to Gates, Walb, and the Library – to connect those into one building.
S. Troy: As a person who is new to Indiana, why is it that we are so low? Are we not regarded highly by the legislature?
M. Wartell: No, it is historical. We may not have been regarded highly by the legislature in the past. We are now dependent on a formula-based funding budget. We get more money based on getting more students or less money if we lose students. That formula-based budget was enacted without zero basing in the earlier budgets. So, we started out low, and there is no way in the formula system that we can catch up. In fact, we lose a little ground with increasing enrollment. The trouble is, that is also the way we fund expanding and new programs: by increasing enrollment and using the accrued funding. We are a very successful institution at this point, and to continue that success we need to retain our enrollment change funding.
P. Iadicola: I would like to go back to the question I asked earlier about the context for the issue of the management agreement and tying it into the funding-formula issue. Could one suggest that in moving towards independence that this campus can be in a different position, vis-à-vis a funding formula, in terms of change in credit-hour allocations?
M. Wartell: Actually the evidence indicates that we would not. The University of Southern Indiana is on exactly the same formula funding that we are. They are independents and they are 11th out of 16.
P. Iadicola: Do you see this as possibly a negative?
M. Wartell: No, I do not believe it will change anything. I do not see it changing our budget position. Realize that all the institutions, except for Purdue University West Lafayette and Indiana University Bloomington, get enrollment change money. Bloomington and West Lafayette are essentially capped. All of the regional campuses take part in enrollment change money. I think we are looking forward to a good legislative session. We have some very friendly legislators right now.
10. The meeting adjourned at 12:27 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty