OAKLAND UNIVERSITY SENATE

Third Meeting
Thursday, November 16, 1995 
Minutes

Members present: Andrews, Benson, Briggs-Bunting, Buffard-O'Shea, Christina, Cole, Connellan, Dahlgren, Dillon, Finucane, Fliedner, Frankie, Garfinkle, Gilroy, Gordon, Hahn, Haskell, Hildebrand, Jarski, Kazarian, Keane, Kulwicki, Liboff, Long, Moore, Moran, Nesbary, Papazian, Perry, Pipan, Polis, Rice, Riley, Rohde, Rozek, Russi, Slywka, Schochetman, Schwartz, Sevilla, Speer, Talbert, Tower, Wharton

Members absent: Brieger, Downing, Graham, Kheir, Lilliston, Meehan, Miller, Meuser, Olson, Otto, Purcell, Reynolds, Sahu, Witt

Summary of actions:

1.  Approval of minutes as corrected (Ms. Briggs-Bunting, Ms. Gilroy)
2.  Committee reports (Research Committee--Ms. Schott-Baer; Academic Standing and Honors--Mr. Gaylor;  Senate Planning Review Committee--Mr. Eberwein; Academic Computing Committee--Mr. Mathieson)
3.  Motion to approve committee members (Mr. Dahlgren, Mr. Dillon) Approved.
4.  Motion to change membership specification on UCUI and Academic and Career Advising Committees (Mr. Andrews, Ms. Gilroy).  Motion to waive first reading (Mr. Andrews, Mr. Dillon)  Approved.  Main motion approved.
5.  Budget report--Mr. Russi

After calling the meeting to order Mr. Russi asked for approval of the minutes of the October 19th meeting. The minutes were approved (moved Ms. Briggs-Bunting, Ms. Gilroy seconded) as corrected (MACRAO rather than MACRO on p. 4)

Committee reports
Because several faculty scheduled to present Committee reports needed to leave early, Mr. Russi moved the reports to the beginning of the agenda and began with Ms. Schott-Baer who reported on the activities of the Research Committee. She acknowledged the hard work and effort put in by the committee members and summarized their accomplishments. The $132,000 research budget was distributed as 16 faculty fellowships, 9 faculty research grants, 6 special project awards and 1 Meadowbrook conference grant. Supplemental funding from the Alumni Association provided for a number of student research grants and the OU Foundation provided support for the faculty Research Excellence Award. The Committee received late notice that the funding for the Alumni Conference Grants would not be continuing after applications had been solicited;  however, Mr. Russi's office agreed to continue the program for one more year. The President's Colloquim Series was continued, guidelines were established and speakers selected for this year's series.  And finally, because of the difficulties encountered when comparing records of new vs. experienced researchers, a new award for research excellence of a young research was established on a 3-year trial basis.

Reporting on the Academic Standing and Honors Committee Mr. Gaylor delineated a busy year in which the committee handled 103 appeals, looked at internal problems and procedures, approved the concept of a university wide dean's list, revised the dismissal policy for part-time students (still to come before the Senate), approved a 1-semester extension for students in the AOP program and considered but did not approve the idea of a Freshmen Honors society.

Mr. Mathieson, chair of the Academic Computing Committee, talked about the committee's activities with regard to changes in academic computing, the move to distributed computing and networking and commented that hopefully soon everyone should be connected to the OUNet. The committee also considered the potential for closer collaboration between ACS and administrative computing. Noting that there is a wide variation in levels of support on campus, he reported that this year the committee will be focusing on desktop computing support and will also work on policies for web home pages and computing standards on campus. In reply to Mr. Nesbary's query as to how "soon" will everyone be connected, Mr. Connellan responded that it is a 3 1/2 million dollar multi-year project. Mr. Garfinkle expressed concern over computing support, wondering what sort of desktop computers ACS supported. Mr. Mathieson replied it depends. He reiterated the fact that support is uneven across the campus, that personnel is spread too thinly and that, understandably, they can't be expected to know everything. Mr. Russi pointed out that, given the demands on personnel, many universities have picked standard computer platforms and software packages and have support staff trained in those specific areas. Mr. Garfinkle suggested that minimally the university should provide support for MacIntoshes, PCS and Unix workstations.

Mr. Goslin reported that the Assessment Committee accomplished most of its goals for the 1994-95 year, namely, the establishment of procedures and protocols for administering assessment, revision of and implementation of the assessment plan, establishment of criteria for financial support of assessment; also, two faculty seminars were held, a resource library was begun, assessment of General Education was initiated, the committee disbursed funds to support assessment in several academic units and began examining the possibilities of a broader role for the committee on campus. He summarized their future plans and concluded by reporting how assessment has enabled various units to improve their programs.

The Senate Planning Review Committee report was presented by Mr. Eberwein who began by commending the outstanding work of the students (Heather Nicholson and Rayissa Slywka) on the committee. The Committee made recommendations concerning charter schools, the relocation of the Honors College to the VPAA's Office, the proposed graduate programs in accounting, software engineering and education, and we are very much involved in the deliberations regarding the OU Strategic Plan. Suggestions for future include the need to foster continuing cooperation between SBRC and SPRC, the need to ensure communication between SPRC and both UCUI and the Graduate Council and the monitoring of the implementation of the Strategic Plan.

New Business
Moving on to new business, procedural motions to approve the VPPAA appointees to the Human Relations Committee (moved Mr. Dahlgren, seconded Mr. Dillon) and to elect Senate nominees to the Police Oversight Committee (moved Mr. Dillon, seconded Mr. Tower) were quickly approved. The third motion, to change the outdated title 'Director of Advising' to the current title 'Director of Academic Services and General Studies' on the membership of UCUI and Academic Career and Advising Committee was moved by Mr. Andrews, seconded by Ms. Gilroy.  A motion to waive the first reading (Mr. Andrews, Mr. Dillon) was approved as was then the main motion.

Budget report
Mr. Russi then presented an overview of the University budget, using a series of charts to present the data on 94-95 budget, the outcome of the year, some special initiatives that were taken and then concluded with a look at the proposed budget for 95-96. He focused primarily on the general fund (Table 1) with its three funding sources (appropriations, student fees and indirect cost reimbursements from grants) since those are the monies associated with instructional costs.

The growth in enrollment in the past two years has had a significant positive impact on the budget. However, we are still faced with the problem of inadequate state funding and the fact that the burden of college costs are being shifted from the state to student tuition and fees (Table I). Since we can't continue to shift costs to students, efforts are being made to position OU for an increase in state appropriations. He reminded that group that in recent years the governor has singled out three universities for additional funds but OU has not been one of them. And since there is no formula funding in Michigan, the funding of higher education is politically driven. During the last 15 years, the net change in OU's funding has been the lowest of all the institutions and he emphasized his belief that we.must do better at influencing Lansing. He added that while grants and contracts are important, they are also a relatively stable element in the overall budget (11%) and that the biggest area we can influence is state funding.

Because of last year's growth in enrollemnt, the univeristy's audited financial statement shows a positive cash flow of $660,000. The expenses follow a typical pattern with instruction being the major category (Table III).  OU is ranked 3rd or 4th in the state in the percentage spent for instruction.  A number of one time allocations were reported (Table IV) and he discussed efforts underway to raise money for the Science/Engineering Building and equipment.  Money has been set aside ($650,000 in 1993-94 + $1 million in 1994-95 + $1.7 million from bid efficienty + $500,000 from OU Foundation=$3.8 million) to help complete the project.

In particular, money is needed for equipment ($500,000) for the animal care facility ($3.2 million),and for the renovation of Hannah Hall ($1.2 million). A fund drive to raise $1.1 million has been launched and he added that a number of faculty and administrators are involved in activities (grant writing, fund raising) geared toward obtaining additional funding. To date we have $400,000 in hand toward that goal. When the project was f irst proposed in the 80's it included an equipment budget of $5 million, however, that budget was pared back to $3 million when the project was finally approved. Looking at that $3 million budget they were able to identify an unallocated reserve of $600,000 and Mr. Russi proposes to build this unallocated reserve to $1.8 million by adding the $700,000 special allocation from the legislature and the $500,000 from the OU Foundation. He added that he hopes to multiply this money in reserve by using it to obtain matching grants.

He reported next on the proposed 1995-96 budget which included a state appropriation that represented a 3% increase and an additional $700,000 brought in by our lobbying efforts (Table Vii) . Student tuition was increased by 5.9%. Indirect cost recovery monies (grants) remained stable at around $1 million. Factoring in expenses it looked at first like a deficit situation but the growth in enrollment eliminated the deficit. Three proposals to implement the Strategic Plan were funded as was a strategic marketing plan for the university. He outlined other proposed expenditures, e.g., the director of governmental affairs classroom improvement and equipment, an equipment loan fund, financial aid, deferred maintenance, a technology improvement fund, the hiring of a multi-client lobbyist in Lansing (Table V).

Mr. Russie then reported on various programs to increase funding to academic units and to create budgetary flexibility for the deans and chairs.  The spring/summer incentive program is designed to give back money to schools/departments based on the success of their programs and, in 1994, a total of $93,000 of discretionary funds was returned to academic units.  In addition, the indirect cost recovery incentive program sends a portion of indirect costs (25%) back to the units.  There is also an incentive package for those units who can and want to take programs off campus whereby, after costs are subtracted from revenues, 75% of the remainder goes back to the academic units.  At the moment there are eight off-campus degree programs; several in the School of Education and Human Services will generate around an additional $75,000 for the school this year.  The academic year salary and grant program allows the difference between the academic salary of a principal investigator (assuming the grant covers it) and his/her replacement to be divided between the principal investigator, the department and the dean.   One other feature of this year's budget is the authorization of liaisons to work with college and schools to raise money with the money raised going back to the units.  He highlighted a number of the projects (Table VI) supported by the OU Foundation and he provided a 5 year overview of fund raising activities (Table VIII).    Donations and gifts are on the upswing after a slump in the early 90's; our goal this year is 6.5 million dollars. This money is used to provide direct support to the university.

Finally Mr. Russi turned to faculty hiring, summarizing the positions authorized by unit.  The timetable for recruiting faculty has been moved up and in September 1995 he authorized the hiring of faculty for the 1996-97 academic year.   Emphasizing his belief in early planning he reported that the Deans now have their personnel and operating budgets for 1996 and in late spring the 1997 budgets will be under consideration.   He also noted that all of the allocations made to date and the special features of the 1996-97 budget were made in consideration of the Strategic Plan and certain of its tactics.  And finally, he expressed his hope that the Senate is pleased with what is happening in the university, and the fact that the university is moving forward as can be seen in the growth in programs, facilities, students and cash flow.

Responding to a query regarding the availability of the charts presented at the meeting, Mr. Russi instructed interested individuals to contact Ms. Shirley Cobb at 3500.    Mr. Liboff asked for clarification of some of the figures related to the Science/Engineering building--he wondered if the $700,000 for equipment would be available for matching funds.   Mr. Russi replied a more accurate figure would be $1.8 million in new dollars;  however, the Animal Care Facility needs to be subtracted from that. Mr. McKay pointed out that we had hoped to have $5 million originally. Mr. Russi agreed but stated that, given the fact that we are not going to reach that goal, he was nevertheless striving to get much money together as possible for the building and its equipment.

Following a round of applause and with no further questions forthcoming, he entertained a motion to adjourn.

Respectfully submitted,
Linda L. Hildebrand
Secretary to the University Senate