Minutes of the
Fifth Regular Meeting of the Twenty-Eighth Senate
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
January 12, 2009
12:00 P.M., Kettler G46
Agenda
1. Call to order
2. Approval of the minutes of December 8, 2008
3. Acceptance of the agenda – B. Abbott
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties
a. Indiana University – M. Nusbaumer
b. Purdue University – N. Younis
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – S. Davis
6. Committee reports requiring action
7. New business
8. Committee reports “for information only”
Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 08-14) – B. Abbott
9. The general good and welfare of the University
10. 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
______________________________________________________________________________
Attachment:
“Athletics Report for 2007-08”
Senate Members Present:
N. Adilov, A. Argast, S. Ashur, S. Beckman, S. Blythe, W. Branson, J. Burg, D. Charlesworth, J. Dalby, P. Dragnev, B. Dupen, C. Erickson, E. Foley, R. Friedman, J. Garrison, J. Grant,
T. Grove, I. Hack, P. Iadicola, J. Jackson, M. Lipman, D. Liu, G. McClellan, K. McDonald,
W. McKinney, L. Meyer, G. Moss, G. Mourad, K. Moustafa, D. Mueller, M. Nusbaumer,
T. Parker, K. Pollock, T. Prickett, D. Redett, M. Ridgeway, L. Roberts, J. Summers, R. Sutter, C. Thompson, J. Toole, A. Ushenko, M. Walsh, G. Wang, M. Wartell, N. Younis
Senate Members Absent:
B. Abbott, S. Dhawale, R. Elaver, D. Moore, W. Utesch, G. Voland, M. Wolf
Faculty Members Present: O. Chang, L. Finke, G. Miller, K. O’Connell, D. Townsend
Visitors Present: J. Dahl, M. Franke, R. Kostrubanic, P. McLaughlin, K. Soderland (Journal Gazette)
Acta
1. Call to order: S. Davis called the meeting to order at 12:00 p.m.
2. Approval of the minutes of November 10, 2008: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Acceptance of the agenda:
M. Nusbaumer moved to approve the agenda as distributed.
The agenda was approved as distributed.
4. Reports of the Speakers of the Faculties:
a. Indiana University:
M. Nusbaumer: Welcome back. Unfortunately I have two items of discouraging news. First, Indiana University President Mc Robbie has issued a Memorandum that serves to delay Promotion & Tenure candidates from being informed of the Chancellor's decision until after President McRobbie approves the decision. I have sent an email to the President urging him to reconsider this decision at IPFW, as we have worked hard over decades to create a unified process. His Memorandum now serves to disrupt this process at the expense of Indiana University faculty on this campus. I also offered to discuss the situation further. I have received no reply.
Second, as the Chancellor has already informed you, there will not be any fall bonus money, as Purdue President Cordova has suspended them for the system. While we all realize there are difficult times coming, I am troubled that the first actual budget reductions are directed at already-underpaid faculty and others on this campus.
b. Purdue University:
N. Younis: Happy new year colleagues. Just a friendly reminder to please include the disability statement in your syllabi, similar to the one passed by the senate. Have a great semester.
5. Report of the Presiding Officer – S. Davis:
S. Davis: Chancellor Wartell did call the faculty leadership in and informed us of the decision to not issue merit bonuses prior to the announcement. Hopefully this type of working together will continue. I feel that the chancellor and vice chancellors are very good in including all constituencies, if not in the decision, but at least keeping them apprised of what decisions will be instituted. Please feel free to use Speakers Nusbaumer and Younis and me for any issues that you would like brought to the attention of the administration. That is what we are here for.
The keystone of what we are trying to achieve is equity, accountability, and transparency. I am a Rawlsian. A Rawlsian takes the position of the most disadvantaged person in the decision process. So, for faculty issues I put myself in the position of a sociology professor. That's my joke for the session.
6. Committee reports requiring action: There were no committee reports requiring action.
7. New business: There was no new business
8. Committee reports “for information only”:
Executive Committee (Senate Reference No. 08-14) – B. Abbott:
Senate Reference No. 08-14 (Items under consideration by Senate Committees and Subcommittees) was presented for information only.
9. The general good and welfare of the University:
P. Iadicola: For the good and welfare of the university, I believe that faculty should have an ability that today is only really granted to the Registrar and to the students. That is the ability to withdraw students from classes for lack of performance.
This past semester 30 percent of my students in my introductory sociology class achieved an F. Of that percent, only three of the 26 students who failed actually completed all the course material. The vast majority of them missed one, two, three, or four exams and/or missed writing assignments. We do have the power to fail students, but in the context of trying to address the problem of retention at this university, and given that we are currently almost an open-admissions university, I think it may be important that faculty have the ability to actually withdraw a student prior or after the withdrawal date and prior to the assignment of the final grade. Steps could be built in where faculty could be required to speak to the student to attempt to correct the deficiencies.
I have noticed so many times in the last several years I have been teaching here that students, with their work responsibilities, relationship responsibilities, and the freedom of responsibility from attending classes on a regular basis that the requirements of their education tend to be lower on the list than it should be. I think that students need to have somewhat of a wake-up call besides the F at the end of the semester; a wake-up call that basically says that because you are not meeting the course requirements, I am going to withdraw you from this course. Right now, essentially the Registrar has that ability for failure to pay, but also for lack of attendance.
So many times I have had students who will take the first exam but never see them again, and actually some show up for the final after missing the second and third exams. I think this is something that is worthy of consideration, and that in the meetings to come I am going to be developing some kind of proposal. I am looking for co-sponsors for this type of measure to basically enhance our ability to tell students and take action to encourage them to take their educational responsibilities more seriously.
M. Nusbaumer: I think all of us recognize financially that this state, and therefore this university, will be going through some rough times. To the extent that our campus has control over how we deal with those difficulties or situations, the leadership has talked to the chancellor and vice chancellor and they have assured us that we will at least have input into any considerations they may have in that regard.
A. Ushenko: What would be the advantage of Senator Iadicola’s proposal?
P. Iadicola: The advantage would be that it would prevent students from receiving a failing grade which would then have them being removed from the university for failure to perform. If we are concerned about retaining students, it seems that we want to prevent them from receiving a failing grade. A withdrawal is certainly less severe and may also give them fair warning. I think the step before you actually withdraw a student may actually encourage students to fulfill their responsibilities.
M. Nusbaumer: I think there is another issue involved here because the Indiana Commission on Higher Education seems to be moving towards making the university accountable for, among other things, the number of students who complete our courses. I think it is quite unfair to make us, as an institution, responsible for students failing to complete our courses because they have failed to do the work. This gives us a way to begin to differentiate that. I am not sure what the right solution is.
S. Davis: If you are interested in this, contact Senator Iadicola and get a motion to come forward for debate.
M. Wartell: 1)The Athletics report has been submitted to the secretary and that will be in the minutes of this month’s meeting.
2) The enrollments for this spring are up about 4.7 percent. The interesting aspect of that is that we had a 66 percent increase in transfer students over last spring. Just an anecdotal remark: “students coming in and saying one of my parents lost their job, I can no longer afford to go to the school at which I was.” That is kind of a sign of the times, although I do not think we will see the standard “bad economy-good for education” balance that we usually see. I think students will be transferring between institutions and looking for less costly alternatives. I think that is the kind of thing we are seeing. Mark Franke believes we will see a big bounce in the fall. We will try to deal with that, but it is going to be more difficult as the financial picture either worsens or even stays the same.
K. McDonald: What do you mean by the big bounce in the fall?
M. Wartell: I mean it will go up.
3) With respect to the budget in general, I reported to you that the Indiana Commission on Higher Education gave us a budget which was not great but it was not a terrible loss for us. The governor has since, as a result of the December revenue forecast, come up with a budget that is different. It is not as supportive of higher education. What it amounts to is approximately a four percent decrease and then a slight increase for the ways in which we are satisfying the ICHE requirements: students finishing classes, increases in enrollment, those sorts of things. We are not hurt quite as badly as many other institutions, but it is still about a three percent decrease.
Depending on what our fee assumption is; that is, what students fees are for next year, that may or may not create serious difficulties.
As of right now, and I tried in the letter I sent out to campus to be reassuring about it, there will be tight times, but it will not be disastrous times. That is the way we are looking at it right now. There is no reason to preach doom and gloom at this point. The special merit is one issue where Purdue University made the decision for us, but that will make, except for our own personal paychecks, the loss of the one percent that the governor has mandated for this year much more easily absorbed.
G. Moss: I was wondering if the budget is cut, but our enrollment goes up, what percentage of enrollment going up does it take to offset the state withdrawal?
M. Wartell: Our budget really is made up of tuition and fees plus state support. It is about 50-50. If state support goes down, we can make that up in student fees. I would assume at this point that the current loss could be offset by increases in student fees, not increases in student enrollments. Increases in student enrollments, in order to get that into the base budget from the state, have to come with incentives from the state, and the state is not doing much of that right now. We are not getting our usual enrollment change increase. That is why I am saying that we probably will be all right. This all depends on the April revenue forecast for the state. If the April revenue forecast is a disaster, then it is not clear exactly how the legislature and the governor will react.
Remember once again that the legislature is the final act on the budget. As someone said to me the other day, using a baseball analogy, this is like the third inning in a nine-inning game, the governor’s proposal. We still have the House, then we have the Senate, then we have the conference committee, and then we will see what happens from there.
K. Moustafa: You mentioned we may not have the poor economy/increased enrollment balance that we have in most of the recessions. Could you talk about that a little bit because it looks like maybe we will be getting it in the fall?
M. Wartell: It looks like we are getting a little bit of transfer, but ordinarily folks look at educational enrollments increasing overall. I do not think we will see an overall educational increase, and, if there is one, we may not be the beneficiary to the extent that we were in the past because we do not have the part-time enrollment that we have had in the past. Part-time enrollments are those folks that are most affected by the economy. When I came to the university, we were 30 percent full time and 70 percent part time. We have almost reversed that. So we are about 70 percent full time. I do not think we will see that increase occurring with the balance.
P. Iadicola: There was a time at this university in which very minimal increments were given. Actually it was based on the salary.
M. Wartell: I believe it was in the early 90s and anyone making less than $40,000 received a base increment, and anybody making more than $40,000 got no increase.
P. Iadicola: If we are going to have a situation of either very low increments or no increments at all, will the faculty have input into any decision that is made regarding how minimal amount of increments will be disbursed?
M. Wartell: I am glad to discuss any of that with anybody who wants to discuss it. The reality of the situation is that, if it comes to that sort of thing, I think the decision will be made beyond this campus.
A. Ushenko: Doesn’t the increased tuition help us a little bit?
M. Wartell: Yes, it does. Increasing tuition helps offset decreasing state budgets. That is why our tuitions have gone up.
M. Nusbaumer: Just to follow up on the special merit, given the timing that this occurred this year, I am sure you and Vice Chancellor McKinney probably already have a list of people who you were planning on giving the special merits to. I realize we may not get this back next year, so are you going to have people make recommendations, are you going to carry this forward, do you have any plans on how you are going to handle these?
M. Wartell: First, the way this is being described is a suspension for this year. Second, we will carry that forward. We will just make sure, for those folks who were deemed worthy by their chairs and colleagues, we will try to extend the time period, and make sure that the recommendations were not totally ignored.
K. Moustafa: Would you consider, at least for the people, especially for those of us who are untenured, letting us know we were on the list?
M. Wartell: That is a really interesting and nice pat on the back sort of thing. I do not think that is a bad idea. We will discuss that at the faculty leadership meeting and see what we can do. That is a nice suggestion.
G. Moss: This year, with the new policy that you cannot recognize more than 15 percent, probably fewer people are going to be affected. It is because of that policy that you had to give more to fewer people, so fewer people will be affected. I think the letters are a great idea.
S. Davis: I think it should be noted that this impacted the administrative and clerical as well as faculty.
K. McDonald: Getting back to the enrollment issue, do we have any preliminary analysis of graduate programs? The reason I ask that is I know that our graduate enrollment is up, and I am hearing some students say they are going ahead and applying because of the job market.
M. Wartell: It is distinctly possible. Jack Dahl will have that analysis in a week. He will publish it and give it to you.
B. Dupen: How does the new budget affect the construction plans?
M. Wartell: It does not affect the construction plans. We were extremely fortunate in that our Student Activities Complex – the connection of the three buildings – has gone through all the approvals that it needed to before the governor’s restrictions. In fact, every single one of our sister Purdue campuses lost the support for buildings for this next budget year. In some cases they lost architectural and engineering money.
W. Branson: Any project that had not been through the budget committee process was, in essence, suspended, and the budget committee will not hear until they know more about the budget and what is going on until the suspension is lifted. We are having to delay some renovation projects because one of the cuts that does not get talked about much this year was in addition to the one percent operating budget cut, the state is withholding the repair and rehabilitation money they give us, which is about $800,000 [note correct amount is $600,000], so there are some projects, like a new roof for Walb Union that we are delaying until we can find other money or until that money comes back.
M. Wartell: We have had to prioritize projects. With regard to the Neff Hall renovation projects, what will happen is that folks who move out of Neff, specifically Nursing, is that extra space in Neff that will be taken up by whoever moves or expands in Neff, it will be without any remodeling at this point. We will use rooms as they are. I am sorry about that, but that just cannot be a priority.
S. Davis: What about IT support and Library and teaching support and things like that?
M. Wartell: We have not had to cut that at all yet. We will protect the education component to the extent that we can. We will just have to see what happens.
L. Meyer: With Nursing moving, will the renovations still occur in the area we are moving to?
M. Wartell: I think that they have to.
N. Younis: I am speaking on behalf of the faculty, they are trying hard to work out and stay healthy. However, there is a rumor that faculty and staff locker rooms will be gone with the new renovation. Is that true? I heard that from about five faculty.
M. Wartell: I have not heard that, but I will check that out. I do not see any reason why that would occur.
R. Sutter: Is there any sense you might have regarding when and if the rainy-day fund might act?
M. Wartell: No.
G. Mourad: What is the status with replacing positions, not new hires, but replacing retirees?
M. Wartell: Vice Chancellor McKinney is looking very carefully at that. When we have needs, we will do the best we can to replace them. We are not looking at cutting that part of the budget. Vice Chancellor McKinney is going to be looking for efficiencies, and he has already discussed that with the deans. At this point, if enrollments justify, we will do the best we can to replace everybody.
I do not want people to feel like they cannot retire because they are afraid of the position not coming back. I used to work with an administrator who said institutions have many more flexibilities than individuals, many more options than individuals. It is really true. You need to do for you what you need to do.
Thank you. It is not all doom and gloom. I hope the letter that I wrote to you indicated that. We are growing and still have a great university. We will have to tighten our belts and look carefully at the expenditures.
10. The meeting adjourned at 12:37 p.m.
Jacqueline J. Petersen
Secretary of the Faculty