Minutes of the
Fourth Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Eighth Senate
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
December 8, 2008
12:00 P.M., Kettler G46
Agenda
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of November 10, 2008
3. Acceptance of the agenda – B. Abbott
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a. Purdue University – N. Younis
b. Indiana University – M. Nusbaumer
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – S. Davis
6. Committee reports requiring action
a. Indiana University Committee on Institutional Affairs (Senate Reference No. SR 08-7) – M. Nusbaumer
b. Executive Committee (Senate Document SD 08-5) – B. Abbott
7. a. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-8)
b. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-9)
c. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-10)
8. New business
9. Committee reports “for information only”
10. The general good and welfare of the University
Chancellor’s Remarks: Strategic Plan
11. Adjournment*
*The meeting will adjourn or recess by 1:15 p.m.
Presiding Officer: S. Davis
Parliamentarian: A. Downs
Sergeant-at-Arms: G. Steffen
Secretary: J. Petersen
______________________________________________________________________________
Attachments:
“Results of the Election of the Indiana University Faculty Board of Review” (SR No. 08-11)
“Report from Question Time (SR No. 08-8) - W. McKinney” (SR No. 08-12)
“Report from Question Time (SR No. 08-9) - W. McKinney” (SR No. 08-13)
“Question Time – regarding promotion and tenure standards” (SR No. 08-10, included from the agenda for reference during discussion)
“IPFW Strategic Plan for 2008-2014” (Attachment A)
Senate Members Present:
B. Abbott, N. Adilov, S. Ashur, S. Blythe, W. Branson, J. Burg, J. Dalby, S. Dhawale,
P. Dragnev, B. Dupen, R. Elaver, C. Erickson, R. Friedman, J. Garrison, J. Grant, I. Hack,
P. Iadicola, J. Jackson, M. Lipman, K. McDonald, W. McKinney, L. Meyer, G. Moss,
G. Mourad, D. Mueller, M. Nusbaumer, K. Pollock, T. Prickett, D. Redett, L. Roberts,
J. Summers, R. Sutter, J. Tankel, C. Thompson, W. Utesch, M. Walsh, G. Wang, M. Wartell, M. Wolf, N. Younis
Senate Members Absent:
A. Argast, S. Beckman, E. Foley, T. Grove, D. Liu, J. Lutz, G. McClellan, D. Moore,
K. Moustafa, T. Parker, M. Ridgeway, A. Ushenko, G. Voland
Faculty Members Present: O. Chang, L. Finke, B. Kanpol, D. Linn, V. Maloney, D. Tahmassebi,
D. Townsend
Visitors Present: J. Dahl, R. Kostrubanic, K. Soderland (Journal Gazette)
Acta
1. Call to order: S. Davis called the meeting to order at 12:01 p.m.
2. Approval of the minutes of November 10, 2008: The minutes were approved as distributed. (Note: Suleiman Ashur was present at the November 10, 2008 meeting).
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
N. Younis moved to withdraw Senate Document SD 08-5 (Approval of replacement member of the Executive Committee) from the agenda.
Motion to withdraw SD 08-5 from the agenda passed on a voice vote.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a. Purdue University:
N. Younis: Happy Holidays, everyone!
b. Indiana University:
M. Nusbaumer: Peace on Earth, good will toward all!
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – S. Davis:
S. Davis: My report is just a little observation. Some of the conversations I have been having are ones of a little bit of doom and gloom, I think, coming with the budget next year. I am not privy to these things, but it is just things from here and there and everywhere, things are going to be tight, things are going to be tight at the administrative level. We need to get our strategic plan going, things are going to be tight at the faculty level, and the line level. We are probably going to see some solid freezes on some types of lines, and I would guess at least soft freezes on other types of lines. From what I hear, we are being held to a one percent, or two percent.
Happy holidays and happy New Year!
6. Committee reports requiring action:
a. Indiana University Committee on Institutional Affairs (SR No. 08-7) – M. Nusbaumer:
J. Burg distributed ballots for the election of the Faculty Board of Review. The results are attached. (See SR No. 08-11).
7. a. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-8)
Q: In reference to Senate Document SD 96-4 which states the following: "That it be the policy of Indiana University-Purdue University that all administrative personnel who hold academic rank be expected, as a condition of their appointment, to be responsible for the teaching of one class per year in the department in which they have academic affiliation."
Could you provide the Senate with a report delineating the number of administrators above departmental chairs who have academic “rank” and the course number, title, number of students, and semester each has taught in the past three years?
Executive Committee of the Fort Wayne Senate
W. McKinney: I have a report here to be attached to the Senate minutes. I will go through these by school and college with a rundown of the numbers briefly out of the Office of Academic Affairs. These are assistant deans, associate deans, deans, associate vice chancellors, and vice chancellor.
Office of Academic Affairs: 4 sections taught
College of Arts and Sciences: 3 sections taught
Doermer School of Business: 22 sections
School of Education: 7 sections taught
College of Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science: 25 sections taught
College of Health and Human Services: 4 sections taught
Division of Public and Environmental Affairs: 2 sections taught
College of Visual and Performing Arts: 11 sections taught
These sections were taught by administrators above the rank of department chairperson.
P. Iadicola: Could you give us some indication of how many administrators would be eligible under this policy to teach or be required to teach under this policy?
W. McKinney: I do not think there is a requirement. I would be happy to follow up with a full number. All I have is what the question asked about what was taught. I can get you a report of all the administrators who hold faculty rank.
P. Iadicola: The question dealt with the number of administrators above department chair who have academic rank. So, how many within each school have academic rank above department chair?
W. McKinney: According to the report, there are 28 administrators above the rank of chair.
P. Iadicola: How many total sections over that three-year period?
W. McKinney: There are 74 sections.
N. Younis: For educational purposes for me, are the associate deans above the department chairs?
W. McKinney: That is a good question. I do not have a good answer for that.
P. Iadicola: Could you give us a sense of what your policy will be as it relates to administrative personnel above the rank of department chair and the expectations for teaching?
W. McKinney: It seems to me that the expectations for teaching have to be what is best for the students. In my mind, those individuals who are at a rank, or have duties, above and beyond department chair are in those positions and have the duties that they have apart from teaching for a reason. They serve the university and ultimately the students in other ways. If there are those occasions when one of those individuals comes to me and says he or she would really like the opportunity to do some teaching within his or her home department, I am certainly open to that. I have spoken with the Department of Philosophy about teaching a seminar or class through that department at some point if they are so willing to have me and if it is agreeable with both the chancellor and the department. It is not something that I am prepared to say that I am going to require everyone to do, just giving everyone’s differential responsibilities in a particular semester or academic year. I have to keep in mind the time that they can devote to the class given everything else but, if they come to me, I am certainly willing to take a look at that. We can work that out on a case-by-case basis.
P. Iadicola: Just to give you a little bit of background on this particular issue: I know this intimately since I am the one, I believe, who brought this up before the Senate many years ago. The position was that it was very important for administrative personnel to be in touch with the classroom experience of that faculty as well as being in touch with the quality of the students coming into this institution, and the difficulties and challenges at times in terms of teaching a diverse body of students. I felt it was very important to have those administrative personnel who were supervising faculty and would be hearing student complaints about faculty to also have the experience of being in the classroom and teaching those same students. It was not an issue of if they had other time to devote. This was believed to be very important for them to be able to do their other administrative responsibilities and to have a good sense of the nature of the teaching at this university.
W. McKinney: To a certain extent, you have a very important point. I looked over your initial resolution, and I have looked at the Academic Officers Committee response to that. “Upper-level administrators, present and future, who hold faculty rank should, as a condition of their appointment, be responsible for teaching one regularly scheduled class per year.” I think that “should” is not necessarily a “must.” There would have to be a balance there to do what is right for the students. A lot of you probably heard me say this when I interviewed for this position last year. I take that notion very seriously, and I took it seriously at my former institution, and that is why I have spoken with the folks in the Department of Philosophy about that. It is something I want to look at on a case-by-case basis to do what is best for the students. In principle, I think it is important to know what those classroom and laboratory situations are and the classroom facilities are like. It is all too easy in this job to find yourself on an island. I think it is important to not be on that island.
M. Wolf: Will this be something you will ask these people or is it voluntary as you stated?
W. McKinney: I am not going to seek it, at least I do not intend to at this time. As you can see by the report, administrators have been teaching with what I think is great frequency over the last three years. When those individuals come to me with those kinds of requests, we will look at their duties in a particular semester, and the course they want to teach. I am not only open to that, I am supportive in those cases. It is not something that I intend to require.
b. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-9)
Q: Per Senate Document SD 06-09, which requires the Faculty Affairs Committee to send questions concerning faculty salary increment distribution to the administration:
1. What were the total increment monies allotted, how were they dispersed and by whom?
2. Of the increment monies distributed by the Deans and VCAA, how many faculty received increments for equity and special merit and what was the total dollar amount distributed in each category?
3. How many faculty were recommended to the VCAA by the Deans in each category? How many faculty received funds from the VCAA who were not recommended by the Deans in each category?
4. From which administrative level(s) does recommendation for equity, compression, and/or super merit come?
5. How are promotion increments determined?
6. Why has the focus of equity increases been at the full professor level? How have equity increases been distributed among the faculty ranks (including Continuing Lecturers)?
Why must the department be sure to give some extra merit to those that are recommended for merit increases at the college or university level? How can we encourage those working adequately or even to their full ability when we must award them less than the suggested increment?
W. McKinney gave the report to the presiding officer to be included in the Senate minutes.
M. Nusbaumer: I would like to suggest that the reason that full professors are given the bulk of equity or at least were recommended by the Senate to give the bulk of the equity to full professors, is because the Senate made salary recommendations last spring to the administration based upon the level of inequity to emphasize full professors in the equity consideration.
c. Question Time (Senate Reference No. 08-10)
S. Davis: Professors Linn and Maloney from the Department of Chemistry have speaking privileges.
Question 1 (see attached question): What other higher educational institutions in Indiana have been required due to legal arguments to remove confidential reviews from the PT process and does this policy, required by OAA, also need approval from faculty governance bodies as well as West Lafayette?
W. McKinney: I will basically address the last paragraph in Question 1. “Why this confidentiality is now required (in terms of external review letters) since the Indiana Code in question was written in 1983 and both Indiana University and Purdue University have policies in place which are not so extreme as to eliminate confidential reviews.”
In terms of other Indiana higher education institutions, my understanding in going back over the history that led to the policy in question is that it would only apply to public Indiana higher education institutions.
I would assume, given the legal opinion on this, that all public higher education institutions are required to do so. How they go about doing it is a whole other story. That is where you see some wide variation. In consulting Promotion and Tenure documents at other public institutions, and in e-mail exchanges with some of my colleagues at some of these other institutions, you do find some wide variation. It is interesting that at Ball State University, candidates for promotion and tenure do the solicitation of the letters and put the letters in their files. There, the letters are not confidential because they are getting them and putting them into the file. Indiana State University also seems to do things in a similar way. At Indiana University Northwest, the departments solicit the letters, but note in that solicitation, (which is pretty much in our best practices document), that according to Indiana open records access law, candidates may view these letters. It is letting those individuals know that these letters are not confidential. I just received an e-mail from Indiana University Bloomington. While they do not come right out and say that the letters are not confidential, the fact of the matter is that every candidate for promotion and tenure is aware that under processes of gaining access to public records, they can view those letters unredacted. Within the Purdue system, my understanding is that there is some variation among not only the campuses but there is also some variation among departments.
The fact of the matter remains is that, ultimately, no matter how you go about doing it, the candidate can ask to see the letters unredacted. So it just becomes a matter of how you do it. You give the letters to the candidates right up front as a matter of course, or you deal with it case by case as candidates say they would like to see what has been written about them and what has been put in their file.
The follow-up in that particular question: Does this need approval from faculty governance bodies as well as Purdue West Lafayette? My understanding is that it does not need approval from West Lafayette and, since it is a matter of law, it probably does not need approval from faculty governance bodies. I would be more than happy to have the conversation, probably with the Faculty Affairs Committee.
M. Wolf: Our department has to abide by this, but we say in our letter that the candidate has opted to not see the letter. Is there a way you can find if that is a legal way those individuals see their opportunity under Indiana law to do that?
W. McKinney: This is a right you cannot waive because we are a public institution, and at least that is what I see going through the body of records I have. Again, I would be happy to sit down with the Faculty Affairs Committee and have a chat with the legal counsel again. It is my understanding that this is one you cannot waive.
P. Dragnev: What is the difference between the graduate student recommendation letter and this letter? I see quite a lot of similarities.
W. McKinney: You mean where it says, “I hereby waive my right …”? That is a good question. I do not have a good answer to that.
D. Linn: It is the Buckley Amendment to FERPA. It allows students to waive their right to confidentiality. Apparently faculty do not have access to the Buckley Amendment. That is the only thing I can see.
W. McKinney: This is a nice case of what legal scholars call the norm conflict. It is not like we are looking at right and wrong here.
M. Wartell: Just one issue with Senator Wolf’s question. There is a difference between waiving your right and choosing not to exercise your right. The way you stated it at first, it was choosing not to exercise your right.
K. McDonald: I guess I am still confused because my understanding was that this campus now says you keep identifying information on all external review letters for the candidates.
W. McKinney: Yes, unredacted. In other words, who wrote the letter, etc.
K. McDonald: We were one of those departments that did not do that, but in soliciting letters I always wrote in my letter as chair that the person can get access to this information. It sounds like the way we were doing it before was fine, that it conformed to the letter of the law.
W. McKinney: My understanding is that the template, the way you may have been doing it, was fine. The idea was to get uniformity across the campus so that when all these materials go up to the campus-wide Promotion and Tenure Committee, as an institution we have uniformity. There may have been pockets on campus that were doing these things in different ways. This was an attempt at some uniformity.
R. Friedman: I like the way Senator McDonald’s department does this. We do it exactly the same way, so it seems like we are abiding by the law. One of the things you said was that it did not need faculty governance approval because of the legal issue, so if there are several ways that departments are doing this that are following the law, then why cannot there be some discussion then about the best way this is done?
W. McKinney: There is no reason why there cannot be discussion. In my reading of the memo that came out last June, it did have in that paragraph about the letters that did not stipulate how chairpersons write those letters. There is just a model template out there on how you might do it, but there are other ways of basically making these external reviewers know that the person for whom they are writing has the right to access those letters. So long as that information is conveyed, that would be departmental discretion.
R. Friedman: So it is a suggested template, we do not necessarily have to follow it, but then the question you run into is what might be perceived as inconsistencies between departments and schools. For example, we in chemistry redact the identifying information.
W. McKinney: The redacting piece is something that, again, in going over the notes from legal counsel last year, we could not defend giving …
R. Friedman: In the solicitation we say the candidate has full access if they so choose. That seems to me like we are following the law as long as we make both the candidate and the reviewer aware that that possibility exists. We are just removing the identifying information when we actually hand that copy of the letter to the candidate.
L. Meyer: If you have the right to see it, why redact it?
W. McKinney: You have the right to see the original that goes into your file.
L. Meyer: If you have the right, then why not show it to them? It is kind of like playing a hiding game here: I won’t show it if you don’t ask.
G. Mourad: Does that candidate in the Chemistry Department know that they received a letter with no affiliation name that they do have the right to ask who wrote the letter?
W. McKinney: Senator Friedman, do those in your department know that they have the right to see, in a redacted letter, what was redacted?
R. Friedman: Absolutely. Each candidate is given a copy to put in his Promotion and Tenure case of the solicitation letter. The solicitation letter that I write says in there that you, as a reviewer, should be aware that the candidate can have full access to the letter. So the candidate is well aware of that.
G. Mourad: Then why do it?
V. Maloney: In talking about this, we fully realized how imperfect it is. If somebody writes a negative letter, then that candidate is going to want to find out who it is and rebut it. However, maybe someone writes a positive letter but it is not overly glowing or has a few criticisms. The person, if he is successful or even if he gets denied, might decide to let that lie. The idea is that perhaps a reviewer might be a little more open about what they say if there is some measure of confidentiality. We would like to have as much information as possible to judge a candidate, and if providing this partial cover provides some more information, that is what we are looking at.
W. McKinney: This is what I meant by the fact that we are balancing two goods here. This is not one of those cases where you say this is clearly wrong and this is clearly right. You are trying to balance what is an obvious good of having as much information as you can to make an important departmental decision, which becomes a college decision, which then obviously becomes a university decision. I do not think that anyone disagrees with that. We are trying to balance that with what has been codified in state law as a personal good which is free and open access to information about yourself, particularly in employment in a state agency.
V. Maloney: We fully recognize that good.
W. McKinney: This is one of those cases where it makes it very difficult. If this was not codified in state law, we could have a great academic discussion about this. This is one of those cases where I am afraid that the law is carrying the day here. I have a call in to West Lafayette just to make sure how they are handling things. I am more than happy to sit down with the Faculty Affairs Committee and have the discussion. Right now we have a policy in place, but nothing prevents the discussion. The way I see legal advice for us at this point is, when it says open access, it literally means open access. You see the letter, nothing taken away. It would not be defensible if it were to come to a court of law to say this is what I saw in this case. Well, why did you not see the whole thing? We could not defend, as an institution, why information was redacted, given the context of the law on the books. I am always willing to have the discussion if this body wants to move it to the Faculty Affairs Committee.
G. Mourad: This whole process is very similar to submitting a manuscript to a peer review journal. The corresponding author is like a candidate. You submit a manuscript, it goes to the editor, which here is the committees (dean, vice chancellor), and the editor gives it out for reviewers to review. Then the reviewers write, send back to the editor, etc. However, the author who is the applicant in this analogy has the right to see everything written in the letter without the name affiliation. That makes perfect sense. I believe that candidates should know that if the law says that, they should know that. You cannot seek information from reviewers and tell the candidate a different story.
Question 2: Would it be possible to implement a process to obtain a single set of standards so that we can best serve all candidates that undertake the PT process at IPFW?
W. McKinney: There is an analogy with the process in journal submission, but it breaks down at a point. If you look at the references in terms of confidential reviews in this paragraph, talking about the Pfizer vs. Science case and a couple of others, the analogy is there, but it breaks down because these are all private entities, and we are a public entity, under public law, and there you are exactly right. That is where the law kind of trumps what has been done here in terms of upholding confidentiality in the private sector. Would it be possible to implement a process to obtain a single set of standards? That is what this policy tried to do, implement a single set of standards. So that we can best serve all candidates, when we undertake the promotion and tenure process at IPFW. Again, I am more than happy to sit down with the Faculty Affairs Committee if this body is willing and have this conversation within the context of what we have now.
D. Linn: It seems like our discussions with other institutions and candidates coming in indicates to us that other chemistry departments are doing something very similar to what we do. I think there are good reasons for that as we discussed in this document and tried to put down in writing. I think some institutions are ready to put it out there and say, “this is our standard,” and we believe we are doing the legal thing. In order to make sure that we have quality maintained, you have an option to sue – that is your option under the law – but we believe this is a good policy for not only our candidates but also for the institution.
W. McKinney: Just so I am clear, the “we” here is the Chemistry Department. The policy is that you let the external reviewers know that the letters are not confidential? You let them know that under Indiana law they are not confidential?
R. Friedman: The candidate has full access if they so choose.
W. McKinney: So how is that not consistent with what we are doing?
R. Friedman: We are taking out the identifying information.
M. Wartell: It is a two-step process that they are using.
W. McKinney: In terms of identifying material, can the candidate ever see that?
R. Friedman: They can see the full letter.
M. Wartell: I think that the basic solution in this is that we will act in concert with what legal counsel has advised. I do not particularly care as long as the university is protected, whether it is a one-step process or a two-step process. Some candidates will choose a zero-step process. As long as it is the candidate’s choice, I think we are still within the bounds of our open-records system.
R. Sutter: I would make the suggestion that the Faculty Affairs Committee take up this issue to make a best-practices recommendation because there are departments where candidates who are putting together their case are on a regular basis seeing those letters as they are putting together their case whereas others do not have access to those letters. Their chair is informing external reviewers that the candidate has the right, but they are not seeing that, they are not mentioning those letters in their dossier. It almost sets up sort of a two-tier system.
B. Dupen: In my department, I am handed the letters, and I am expected to put them in the case, so I am not looking at a copy, I am not looking at anything redacted, I have the paper. If there were something I was embarrassed about in there, I would probably write something in my case. There are a wide range of practices on this campus.
R. Sutter moved to refer the topic of this Question Time, to develop a best practice, to the Faculty Affairs Committee for further study. Seconded.
M. Nusbaumer: I would also like to see the Faculty Affairs Committee address more detailed explanations of whether or not candidates who are working their way through the process have opportunity to have this knowledge or not have this knowledge.
S. Davis: That would be part of the best practice.
Motion to refer to the Faculty Affairs Committee passed on a voice vote.
8. New business: There was no new business
9. Committee reports “for information only”: There were no committee reports.
10. The general good and welfare of the University:
J. Tankel: In spring, there are going to be possibly two vacancies on the Educational Policy Committee. In the past, and with other committees, replacement members have been solicited interpersonally. Given that the Educational Policy Committee is a standing committee, the committee felt it was important to have an open solicitation. There will be an e-mail coming to all senators. There will certainly be one vacancy in the spring (J. Tankel), and there may be a second vacancy. This would be a one-semester-only position on the Educational Policy Committee, and then the position(s) would be available in the spring for a term to start next fall. Please give it serious consideration. The EPC is a very important committee. There are already four units represented on EPC, so it does not matter in which unit you are currently employed.
M. Wartell: I have three items for discussion during the general good and welfare: 1) Strategic Plan: 2008-2014, 2) the athletic report, and 3) budget recommendations for next year.
(M. Wartell gave a PowerPoint presentation on the Strategic Plan: 2008-2014. [See Attachment A, attached.])
M. Wartell: 1) You should all have received copies of the long form of the Strategic Plan. This is the short form, and it is the form which we presented to the Purdue Board of Trustees. It is different in several respects from the previous Strategic Plan, the most important of which is the budget aspects. If you remember, in the previous strategic plan, we raised fees about $500 per student, $17 per credit hour. In this strategic plan, we do not have the luxury of doing that, so we do not have the kind of funding behind this strategic plan that we had before.
This strategic plan was developed in collaboration with SPARC (Strategic Planning Assessment and Review Committee) and the Community Advisory Committee as well.
Our mission has not really changed at all, but the values have changed slightly. The baccalaureate framework has come into existence since the last strategic plan.
The vision has changed somewhat and expanded. In the last mission statement we aspired to be a nationally recognized regional university. That limited us in ways that felt uncomfortable. What we want to be is a nationally recognized university known for its regional impact. That expands our horizons a little bit, and that is important.
The center section of this graphic shows that our primary attention is placed on students and then on the university community as the people who work at the university, the faculty, the staff, and the university itself. We develop partnerships in the community in order to support the community and have the community support the university. We cover around 11 counties, so we have a rather broad geographical area to cover.
Within those three ideas, we have a set of shared initiatives: increasing enrollment, enhancing student academic qualifications, and graduation rates. The Indiana Commission on Higher Education is pushing very hard on that. We need to internally push ourselves on that issue because we do not want the students coming here in a revolving-door sort of institution where they come in and go out. Economic and personal financial decisions often cause that. I think it is important to realize that graduation rates are something that we need to shoot for, and we have encompassed that in a phrase called the culture of graduation. We are trying to develop that in the university.
With expanding community partnerships and increasing gift grant contract funding, you will understand that is very important with the current economic conditions in this country that it is hard to know exactly how our donors will react. There are some universities that are reacting very quickly. Clemson University is a good example. They are very dependent on their endowment. They are enforcing a five-day unpaid leave for every employee at Clemson University. In fact, they have already taken it out of the salaries and said employees can choose when to take the five days between now and the end of the academic year, but they have to take five days because they are going to get five days less salary. As I said, some institutions are reacting very quickly. I do not believe we are in that position, but it is a very interesting reaction.
There are three major goals: 1) foster learning and create knowledge, 2) develop quality of place and experience, and 3) contribute to the development of the region.
We have many projects within the community that are supporting economic development. When you look at the total number, I think it adds to more than 250 projects. The engagement office has done a great deal to support our services areas.
There are a large number of assessment areas that are listed in the Strategic Plan.
Total financial aid awarded: We want that to expand with our fee change. If our fees go up five percent we want to have at least five percent more total financial aid awarded. We do not have a strong alumni group yet – we are a young university. We have to depend on the community for support. They have been wonderful in terms of gifts to IPFW.
We have chosen a set of comparative peer institutions. I was especially interested in the City University of New York in Staten Island because they have a 100 percent acceptance rate and 82 percent retention rate, and a 46 percent graduation rate, which is stunning when you think about it. I called up the president to find out what they are doing. It turns out that they are the amalgamation of a community college in a two-year institution, and it turns out they do not count the community college people. You can see the differences in the lower acceptance rates and higher retention and graduation rates. I think we have to take pride in what we do as an institution in terms of giving people a chance, but it also hurts us in terms of graduation rates. You can see that we are up about 24 percent right now.
P. Dragnev: Are any of these universities part of a state-wide system like we are?
M. Wartell: Actually, City University is part of a city-wide system, which is a massive city-wide system. Nebraska and Oklahoma are state wide, I believe.
J. Dahl: Whether they are part of a multi-campus system is also influenced by whether it is a state agency or a state board of regent state. The rules come from different slices in the government structure.
M. Wartell: They (peer institutions) are all state or city institutions.
We have put a budget on this, and it is a very conservative budget in the sense that we are looking at expanding enrollments (about a three percent a year enrollment expansion), and so we have looked at the $30 million total as the state support that we will get based on enrollments. Last time we just added $500 a student to it.
2) Athletic report. We do not have the data from the federal government on peer institutions. We will have it in January.
3) Budget: We start out with a recommendation from the Indiana Commission on Higher Education. Then sometimes simultaneously we get a House Ways and Means budget, and we get a governance budget. Sometimes they are simultaneous, sometimes they are not. Then there is the conference committee in the Senate, and really the Senate does not provide a budget on its own. It is the conference committee which does the final budget. Usually the Indiana Commission on Higher Education is the high water mark. This year I hope it is not the best budget to look at. Rather than just looking at the standard enrollment change formulas that we previously looked at, and we are doing very well in terms of enrollments, the Indiana Commission on Higher Education changed the formulas and gave us credit for enrollment change, but they also rewarded us for changes in graduation rates, transfers from Ivy Tech to other institutions, and on-time degrees. The result was that of all the institutions in the state, we got the third largest increase in the state. That is 16 institutions including 2 community colleges. That is reason for a certain amount of bright outlook.
The second reason for a bright outlook is, after us and maybe two others, everybody else lost money. We got a little over one percent in the first year of the biennium and a little less than one percent in the 2nd year of the biennium. At least we are going up. The bad news is that it is not a lot of money. Remember that our income stream comes from both state and from student fees. So it will be interesting to see what our student fee assumptions will be.
I think there is reason for concern, but not worry. We will work with our legislators to do the best job we can for the institution.
We opened bids for the next phase of student housing. We already have all the authorizations. The bids came in about $3 million below our estimate. That is wonderful news. So when we open bids for the student services building in January, we hope we will see something similar. Both projects are on time and the bridge project is ahead of schedule in a lot of ways. It is a beautiful structure.
I hope you all have a great holiday season.
11. The meeting adjourned at 1:15 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty