Meeting of the Full Faculty

Minutes Meeting of the Full Faculty 1/26/2011 Raccoon Mountain Room, University CenterDr. Steinberg called the meeting to order at 3:25 p.m The minutes of the September 2010 full faculty meeting were approved as corrected. (Fanning/Marlowe) Marica Noe was elected faculty secretary by acclamation Colleen Harris was elected to the Faculty Senate as assistant professor-at-large by acclamation. Mike Bell and Shela Van Ness were elected to the Faculty Senate as associate professors-at- large by acclamation. Report from the Faculty Senate Motion: To postpone the second reading vote on the General Education Resolution until the 41 hour problem is resolved. (Harris/ Norwood) The motion passed on voice vote. We have a new Faculty Evaluation of Administration instrument, the hours to Sophomore standing have been raised, there is a new English proficiency test, more inclusive language has been added to the anti-discrimination policy, there is open dialogue between TUFS (the council of system –wide faculty senate representatives) and the Senate Higher Education Committee. The Handbook Committee is revising the Handbook; this process will take two years. We need to clearly define the faculty role in shared governance and service expectations for faculty. We met with UTC legal to be sure recommendations will be board ready when they are made. There will be a Task Force studying faculty roles and rewards after a literature review. We have also begun revising the committee process. SACS Report We are at the end of our ten-year accreditation cycle. We began the re-accreditation process last fall, submitting our compliance certification report last September. In November we received a report from the off-site review committee giving us preliminary findings, telling us where they need more information or clarification. We will answer these questions in a focus report that will be submitted during the second or third week in February that will be reviewed by the on-site committee. We will also submit the QEP (Quality Enhancement Plan)report at that time. The on-site committee will review both of those reports and will visit our campus from April 4-7, 2011. Their visit will primarily be to talk to us about our QEP. Their report will be submitted and over the summer we will have a chance to respond. They will decide on our fate next December. We are currently about half-way through the process. QEP Report Linda Johnston says the QEP document is edited ready and up for us to read on the SACS website. This was a two-year undertaking by a broad-based committee ; we have taken faculty input seriously and used it. There will be a blog on the SACS website so faculty can post comments on the QEP . It will go to SACS on in mid-February. Now we are planning a marketing strategy to bring attention to the QEP; everyone should all participate. Thanks to the faculty for input. Report from the Provost The SACS reviewers focused on specific areas in our report: faculty qualifications relative to their teaching assignments, whether we actually follow or implement our policies, whether we provided documentation on issues such as the evaluation of adjuncts and handling student complaints, institutional effectiveness, the financial audit wasn’t ready.

In late summer Jan Simek offered the other UT campuses the opportunity to go through a Gap analysis similar to the one the Knoxville campus went through as part of its attempt to become a top 25 research institution. This analysis shows us our current position with respect to peer institutions and where the gaps in performance are. There is a task force of diverse individuals from across campus working on this project. The charge from the Chancellor was to develop an action plan to assist UTC in accelerating its strategic progress, so that we can go to the next level with the current strategic plan. The task force determined a legitimate set of peer institutions to identify improvement opportunities based on the gaps. This is an effort to focus our efforts in a strategic way. A video clip was shown in which the Chancellor told us that the gap analysis would give us hard benchmark data to show where we need to focus on our strategic plan, where we need to achieve excellence. Our goal is to be among the top five public master’s degree-granting universities in the South.

To reach the Chancellor’s goal, the primary emphasis will be on developing the undergraduate honors program, applied research in experiential learning, and improvement of selected masters programs, consistent with the strategic plan and the statewide funding formula. The current THEC peer institutions list is being phased out because of the new funding formula. A new list of peer institutions that includes aspirational peers is now in use in this process. A set of metrics was established to measure UTC’s progress against the new peers, such as the 6-year graduation rate, faculty salaries, bachelor degrees awarded, Pell grants awarded, the student–teacher ratio, expenditures per student, tuition and fees. We outperform all peer institutions in terms of the UTC Foundation Endowment. But our alumni giving rate is pretty substantially below average. The Task Force developed a rubric to measure community engagement in five areas: education, public service, business and industry, health and environment, and Destination Chattanoonga (the rebirth of Chattanooga as a destination and relocation center). Within each of the five areas, we are measuring our progress in enhancing knowledge, advancing community priorities, and driving the local and regional economy. Question and Answer Period for the Provost Q:Where does UTC fall in terms of course load with respect to our peer institutions? A: This is difficult comparative data to get. Q:There was an interesting article in the paper last week about a study that measured how much students learn in college. Where in your metrics system is this question addressed? A: None of our metrics measure this but it is of concern to all of us. Q: If we want to be among the top five universities, shouldn’t we try to measure how much our student learn? A: I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be some attempts to measure that but I’m not aware of that at all. Q: What about the per student expenditure for athletics? A: US News does not include athletic spending or any other expenditures for ancillary activities. You can make the argument that a dollar spent somewhere else is a dollar taken away from academic support, but it’s not in the national data set. None of the peer institutions are among the Division I institutions that make a profit from athletics so all the peer institutions are subsidizing athletics. Q: Is there a metric that shows the ratio of-full time to adjunct faculty? A: We don’t have that information yet. All of the institutions are struggling with this. US News does measure the percentage of faculty that is full time but it is not a dominant metric in the overall rankings. Q:Several of the goals will require financial resources but does the legislature have any interest in providing this financial resource. A:They have the interest but whether they have the capacity is the question. Tax collections have been above projections. But the state isn’t out of the woods yet. The trend nationwide is pretty clear: state support for higher education is in trouble. Q: How can we give more masters degrees if we don’t offer assistantships for students? If the budget is eroding, how can we do this? A: The new funding formula encourages us to provide assistantships because it is based not on enrollment but outcomes. Q: How do we raise graduation rates if we don’t lower our standards? A: That is an unfortunate myth; if you look at the founding formula there is a graduation rate metric but it is weighted at only about 5% of the funding formula and that’s for a six- year graduation rate. A 40% 6-year graduation rate is not acceptable. This is not a function of the quality of the students that we’re getting. The students we are getting are equal to or better than what our peers are getting. The more students we have graduating, the higher our funding get. This is why we are moving our admissions balance in terms of student enrollment from more freshmen to more transfer students; you can graduate a transfer student faster than you can graduate a freshman. Q:How are we doing in terms of administrative salaries and performance? A: I don’t have that data. We should be able to get it. Q: If one of our core values is bringing in students who don’t have the financial resources for college, it seems that if our goal is to increase graduation rates and not have grade inflation, we should raise the ACT score if we want to increase graduation rates. A: There needs to be a healthy balance between having high academic standards and bringing in students with poor financial resources. It’s a balancing act. We must match the infrastructure to coincide with the group of studnets we’re recruiting and attracting. If you’re gearing your academic program and support services to the top 10 per cent of students and recruiting to the top 50 percent, that’s a problem. We have to bring these things into better alignment. Find a balance between programs and recruiting strategies. Report from Vice-Chancellor Brown We are in a financial rebalancing cycle. The past five years have been the most turbulent financial period ever due primarily to reduced state allocations, performance-driven funding formula Our financial model is on the web; we post everything we do. Since 2008 almost 13.2 million dollars has been cut from the base budget; real dollars that won’t ever come back to the base budget. We need to find better ways of using existing resources. Tuition and fees have gone up while state assistance is down from a few years ago 58 % to 38.5% now. Stimulus funds have allowed us to avoid massive layoffs. Our institutional fund balance (for emergencies) is now $5.5 million dollars. We have managed with scarce resources very well. There have been no audit findings for this campus; in fact, the audit letter is glowing. Auxiliary services are strong and food services are making money. South Campus is now managed by us and we have turned that operation around and are now 1.2 million dollars to the good. Our bonded debt rate is quite low; we have about 46.8 million dollars of bonded debt. Enrollment revenues have grown; this growth in revenue has helped us offset cuts. We have spent money on market adjustments for faculty to keep a competitive work force. We saved 32 million dollars on energy. President DiPietro told THEC and will tell the legislature that we need a raise. We need to reinvest in summer school, transfer scholarships, QEP and SACS review, graduate assistantships, faculty lines: 2.2 million dollars of items are under discussion. THE has recommended a 7% increase in tuition and fees; this will generate about 2 million dollars in funds. A 3% raise will cost 2 million dollars. The raise conversation is 3-5 per cent. Question and Answer Period for the Vice-Chancellor for Finance and Operations Q: Why have we no ongoing program to replace computers on campus? A:The strategic plan is addressing that. Q: Why not include the state allocation per student as well as tuition in figuring revenues for faculty compensation A: We will do that. Q: Has the summer school plan fully addressed the issue of using summer school to make sure that students who are missing a course or two in their majors can complete their program in the summer? A: That concern is at the core of the new summer school plan. We will do a marketing blitz to ask students what we need to teach in the summer. Q: I’m confused. I’m hearing around campus that what the new summer school plan will do is encourage the offering of large introductory courses. A: The new program will be student-centered. Q: Will students get Hope scholarship money for summer school? A: That conversation is back on the table. Faculty Concerns Dr. Steinberg said that she would like to start a conversation about enfranchisement because most faculty do not attend the full faculty meetings. Therefore, she would like to move voting online. Q: What would be a quorum if we voted on line? A: We would also have to determine how long the voting would remain open. Marketing says voting online gets a lesser response. A: We’ve had this conversation before. There is an online voting mechanism in the handbook. Q: There should be an informed electorate and if people don’t come to the meetings, they might not be informed. The meeting was adjourned at 4:45p.m. Recorded by Marcia Noe