Chairperson S Written Report to the Faculty Senate September 3, 2013

Chairperson’s Written Report to the Faculty Senate September 3, 2013.

Welcome back to the Florida International University Faculty Senate. We hope you had a pleasant summer and are ready to continue the move forward of our worlds ahead University. Your service is invaluable to the University as members of the governance structure and guardians of the curriculum. Thanks for the continued service of our returning Senators and thanks to our new Senators for volunteering.

This summer we had six commencement exercises in which more than 2500 students participated. Congratulations to all. Thanks to the Faculty for their support, which is greatly appreciated by the students. This fall we have enrolled more than 4800 freshmen and 4816 transfer students. A copy of the enrolment profile is included in the Senate’s package for your information.

We have outstanding issues to resolve among them the change to the academic honesty policy, the development of procedures for online programs and the finalizing of courses for the Gen Ed changes.

The Graduate Council will take up the issue of the On Line programs and the Ad Hoc Committee will be dealing with the academic honesty policy.

As you may be aware, the State has reversed its position on the Gen Ed changes and has extended the time for implementation to 2015/2016 The core curriculum is back to 36 and there is now a list of courses that will make up the first 15 credit hours of common offerings for the system.

During the summer, The Governor vetoed a bill that would have raised tuition and so the mandatory 1.7% raise will automatically be in effect. We expect that the Budget Committee will have a discussion with the CFO on the University’s plans for control of expenditures and fund raising.

I have previously emailed the documented discussion from the Commission of Higher Education dealing with access and retention. There is a projection for 90,000 graduates by 2025 and information on their gap analysis which deals with filling jobs that require a college education. The Commission is also looking into which programs meet this need and those that may be terminated. Please read this document carefully. The document also mentions that the state hopes to have graduation rates above 70%. In order to achieve that goal, any two of UCF, FIU and USF would have to achieve rates exceeding 80% and the third above 70%. We will watch carefully to see where this goes.

You will be pleased to learn that classes for the MAST Academy have started at the Biscayne Bay Campus. The project is a result of discussions and agreement between Florida International and Miami-Dade Schools for the locating and use of facilities at that campus We are also proud to announce the opening of the 614 bed Parkview complex, just east of the nature preserve. As of opening day, the complex was 100% occupied.

Forms are going Hi Tech. There were revision made to the forms used to effect changes to courses and program. These changes in the forms will in no way affect the submissions but will expedite the approval process. The new forms are already posted on the Faculty Senate web site. More information will be forthcoming. However, you may use to the new forms now.

We are also proud to announce that at the white coat ceremony promoted by the School of Medicine, over 120 medical students were accepted and coats handed out. Congratulations to the School of Medicine.

The contract between the University and ASME has been ratified by the parties and approved by the Board of Trustees.

The Provost office has announced that there were 131 new hires this fall of which 70 were replacements and 61 were new.

Looking forward to a good year.

Thanks for your kind cooperation.

Regards,

C. Delano Gray

Chairman.