TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting February 9, 2012 Page 6

February 9, 2012

Tulane University Staff Advisory Council ATTENDEES ATTENDEES

OFFICERS UPTOWN CAMPUS Lane, Christopher,Chair PRESENT Cantero, Linda PRESENT Orgeron, Laurie, Vice Chair Chavez, Gwen, Immediate EXCUSE Past Chair D Bouyelas, Sheri, Election PRESENT Eugene, Zina PRESENT Coordinator Bourgeois, Kathy,Recording PRESENT Griffith, Mike Secretary Ardeneaux, Carol, Keck, Jeanny PRESENT Corresp.Secretary Lossi, Suzanne, Member At PRESENT Leonard, Angelica PRESENT Large Loshbaugh, Alysia PRESENT DOWNTOWN CAMPUS Mitchell, Scott PRESENT Conners, Linzi Murphy, Louise PRESENT Davis, Patrick O’Dwyer, Lisa PRESENT Haase, Tanya Platner, Rob PRESENT Heisser, Michael PRESENT Richards, Whitney PRESENT Kivell, Anita Robinson, LaShanda Leger, Kay PRESENT Smith, Lawrence PRESENT Miller, Michael PRESENT Vega, Kimberly PRESENT Pasternak, Merisa Weingart, Kady PRESENT Pick, Amy PRESENT Slatkin, Allan PRESENT Stewart, Patsy PRESENT Vasquez-Lockhart, Yesenia PRESENT Graham, Tiffany (proxy) NORTHSHORE Hyde-Augillard, Sharon (proxy) Guichard, Kenny Mann, Forbes (proxy) Waguespack, Desiree EXCUSED Page, Karissa (proxy) West, Corrie RESIGNE Pierlus, David (proxy) D Schneider, Louie (proxy) Schor, Meredith (proxy) Souquet, Jon (proxy) Sugarman, Meredith (proxy) Ussin, Nikita (proxy) Woodard, Cathy (proxy) TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting February 9, 2012 Page 2

INVITED GUESTS AND VISITORS Michael Bernstein, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academics

* Via teleconference All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2011 – 2012

Call to Order: Christopher Lane, SAC Chair, called the February 9, 2012 meeting of the Staff Advisory Council to order at 3:30 p.m. The meeting was held in room 201 of the Lavin Bernick Center.

I. Review and Approval of the Minutes

December 2011 minutes were approved

II. Guest Speakers Michael A. Bernstein, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academics, was our guest speaker. He talked about some of the key things that they are working on in Academic Affairs this year. There are a variety of strategic objectives, which are tasks and projects above and beyond what they are expected to do on a day by day basis. Scott Cowen has called on the University to start a major process of strategic planning through the next academic year. The ultimate goal is to have the outlines of a new general strategic plan by the end of the spring semester 2013. In 1998 Scott came on board as our fourteenth president and he started a strategic planning process. A strategic plan was formulated and deployed in the early two thousands. Then Katrina came along and gave us a new strategic plan, which was the renewal plan. About 87% is in place, and 13% has been discarded or forgotten. Now that six years have gone by since the storm, it is time to formulate a new strategic plan. Ultimately, the agenda is to publicly launch a new capital campaign perhaps in the 2012-2013 academic year. The University has many needs. A new fund raising effort is something we need to undertake. To do that successfully, we need a strategic plan. If nothing else, we need a good story to put out there to persuade our partners, collaborators, alumni and supporters to engage in our new capital drive. Academic Affairs has the task of undertaking two major efforts. One is a data gathering effort. Katie Busby, the director of Institutional Assessment, is leading that effort. Rhonda Coignet, Randy Leget and some others are part of that team. They are gathering data about where we are today and how that compares to our key peer institutions as far as financial resources, student quality, faculty numbers, staffing capacity. They are basically constructing a score card and looking at that relative to our peers. Maybe by June 2012 they will have a preliminary run of what that score card looks like. In order to formulate a plan to go somewhere, we have to know where we are. Michael has gathered a strategic planning team composed of faculty from all of the schools and units. He calls it the Crazy Ideas Committee. They have been asked to think broadly, abstractly and as wildly as they wish about where they see higher education going in the next five, ten or fifteen years. We know that there are an array of challenges and opportunities out there for us in the industry. Student learning and the ways that we deliver instruction are changing as well as the markets that we serve. The competition is also changing. We have to figure out what the opportunities as well as threats are going to be for a higher education institution like ours over the next decade or so. He has challenged the faculty in this group to think aggressively about the future of their disciplines, their units and their degree programs. He often turns to the deans when they meet and asks them if the list of TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting February 9, 2012 Page 3 departments that they have in their school will still be there in ten or twenty years. We know that the department structure that we have today is structured on a platform that was created about one hundred years ago. We are a very fine, fairly small, under resourced private research University. We charge a premium price for the products that we deliver, so we have to think carefully about the opportunities and threats that are going to affect us over the next decade. The hope is that the groups will have a report by June 2012 that will go out to the schools, the senior leadership team and will generate more discussions and debates that will carry on through next year. Ultimately the hope is that whatever the master strategic plan will be evolving into, the individual schools and units will have formulated strategic plans of their own next academic year.

The Altman program is a new curriculum in business and liberal arts. Students will end up getting a dual degree. They can get a bachelor of science in management and a bachelor of arts in an international studies area such as Political Science or a language area. The goal is to train a couple of dozen students each year in a very special multi disciplinary program in business and liberal arts. We have a very significant gift from alum, Jeffrey Altman, to drive this initiative. The goal is to create business leaders for the future that have a powerful set of tools in business management and are very well trained in foreign language and cultural studies. They are trying to start what initially will be a co-ordinate minor for the undergraduates in social innovation and social entrepreneurship. This is also a multi disciplinary field involving Business, the Liberal Arts, Public Health and even Architecture. A student majors in a core program like Chemistry, English or Business, but then might do a co-ordinate minor in this area, and learns how to use business tools and other insights to address pressing social needs. They just formulated their plan, and the proposal is before the faculty in the School of Architecture. They said that they would like to be the sponsoring faculty, but it would be available to all students.

The University is starting a special freshman program in Costa Rica. We have been given the opportunity to utilize a facility in Costa Rica. The Spanish acronym is CIAPA, which is Center for Applied Political Administration. It is a teaching facility with dorms, which can accommodate forty or fifty students. It also has eating and classroom facilities. Our goal is to have a program like several other Universities have experimented with where forty or fifty freshmen spend a semester there. Their focus will be Environmental Studies.

John Perdew was the first faculty to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences in about fifteen years, the Dinwiddie renovations were completed, the NCAA compliance is complete, the Weatherhead family donated two hundred million dollars, which we will receive over the next several years and we are working on increasing our retention rate.

The Medical School has become popular. Tulane receives about one out of every five applications. We had about nine thousand applications for one hundred seventy five slots last year. Before Katrina, one out of two undergraduate applicants received a yes letter, and now one in five or six students receive a yes. We received about eight thousand applications for sixteen hundred spots. We are becoming a first choice school.

We also have some challenges. We are working on improving our IT security. The Medical School is a challenge. The graduation rates need to increase. Our peers are in the low to mid nineties. The economy, local and national leadership, Security on campus and the surrounding area are also challenging. John Barnwell is our new Police Chief. The faculty and staff are too lean.

Tulane does not charge an application fee nor does it plan to do so. TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting February 9, 2012 Page 4

We need more classrooms, library space and dorm space. The library is adding two additional floors. We will be building a new football stadium and one more dorm is in the planning stages. It will be located between the chapel and Zimple Street across from the Boot. They are trying to get the faculty to utilize classrooms more efficiently.

Chris asked about the technology expectations of the staff and faculty. Some professors aren’t as into the new technology as much as the younger professors. Charlie McMahon has already started to upgrade the backbone with fiber.

III. Report of the Chair, Christopher Lane

No report

IV. WFMO Liaison

No report

V. Officer Reports

A. University Senate

No Report

B. Board of Administrators

No report

VI. University Senate Committee Reports

1. Benefits

Nothing new to report

2. Budget Review

No Report

3. Information Technology

No Report

4. Equal Opportunity

No Report

5. Physical Facilities

No Report TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting February 9, 2012 Page 5

6. Social Issues

No Report

VII. SAC Sub-Committees

1. Election Committee

No report

2. Electronic Technology and Information

No report

3. Staff Appreciation

Corrie West is no longer a SAC member. Lawrence Smith volunteered to look into going back to having a staff luncheon instead of a staff appreciation fun day. He asked Alysia Loshbaugh and Suzanne Lossi assist him. A motion was made and approved to replace Corrie West with another member.

4. Staff Issues

No report

5. Health and Wellness

No Report

6. Community Service

No Report

VIII. Old Business

No report

IX. New Business

No Report TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting February 9, 2012 Page 6

X. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 5:10 pm

Respectfully submitted, Kathy Bourgeois Recording Secretary