UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
Kingston, Rhode Island
FACULTY SENATE
MINUTES
Faculty Senate Executive Committee Meeting #14 – November
30, 2004
1. The meeting was called to order at 1:07 p.m. on Tuesday,
November 30, 2004 in the third floor conference room in Green Hall, Chairperson
Boudreaux-Bartels presiding. All members were present.
2. The revised minutes of Executive Committee Meeting
#11, November 9, 2004 and November 10, 2004 were approved as distributed.
3. Announcements/Correspondence:
a. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels noted that the following
correspondence had been forwarded to the Executive Committee:
i) An E-mail message between Ms. Grubman and Vice
President Weygand on questions from his presentations to the Faculty Senate;
ii) An e-mail note from Mr. McElroy thanking the
Executive Committee for meeting with him the previous week and suggesting
ways to follow-up on the meeting.
b. Ms. Grubman reported that Professor Wenisch had
asked that the meeting between the Executive Committee and the CBUM Committee
to discuss the CBUM Committee’s informational report be postponed until the
spring semester. The Executive Committee agreed to arrange a meeting
after they establish a spring meeting schedule.
c. Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported hearing
from AAUP President Stewart Cohen that the Governor had asked the Board of
Governors to postpone until January action on the AAUP contract. As
a result, the Board moved their January meeting from the end of the month
to January 10. The intention would be to approve the salary plan even
if other matters were unresolved.
4. The Executive Committee met with Provost Swan from
1:30 to 2:15. The following matters were considered:
a. Ombud for Administrative Units: The
Executive Committee reviewed with the Provost their proposal for a designated
Ombud within each major administrative division who would clarify and codify
administrative rules and regulations. This individual would also be
the person who would respond to process and procedural questions, direct
people to the appropriate source of information outside that person's department
and review systems to recommend appropriate modifications.
Provost Swan said that she would not be able to attend the JSPC meeting
at which the Executive Committee would make their proposal and indicated
that Assistant Provost Katz might represent her at the meeting. She
agreed that current approval forms should be reviewed because they were out
of date and often misleading.
b. Mission Statement: The Executive
Committee asked Provost Swan whether there had been any further discussion
about the Board’s asking the three institutions to include outcomes assessment
in their mission statements. Provost Swan said that while the issue
was under discussion, URI’s mission statement was relatively recent in comparison
to those of CCRI and RIC. It was also noted that the JSPC had briefly
reviewed the statement in December 2003 and had agreed that the original
land grant mission of the University was still viable. Provost Swan
informed the Executive Committee that the Board planned to discuss with Dr.
Maki, their consultant on outcomes assessment, Associate Commissioner Carriuolo’s
proposal that CCRI, URI, RIC have common outcomes.
c. Honors Program Scholarships and Fellowships
Program: The Executive Committee asked Provost Swan about plans for continuity
of the scholarships and fellowships program should the Associate Director
decide to return to full-time teaching. Provost Swan said that it was
clear that the scholarships and fellowships program has been very important
to the University. She noted that, in fact, the Truman Foundation was
honoring URI for its scholars this year. She said that the Provost’s Office
was committed to ensuring the continuity of the program.
d. Alternative Funding Sources for Academic Departments
and Divisions: The Executive Committee asked Provost Swan for an
explanation of “Responsibility Centered Management,” a term that had been
used frequently during JSPC discussions about ways to generate additional
funding for the University. Provost Swan said that she was most familiar
with “Responsibility Centered Management” as it operates at the University
of New Hampshire.
Provost Swan explained that after a fairly complex process, UNH had
been able to allow some units to manage their own funds with the understanding
that they could reallocate economies they achieved for other needs within
the unit. She said that UNH had been successful in maintaining quality,
which was a high priority in efforts to effect savings. Provost Swan
said that she considered UNH’s ability to carry funds into the following
year’s budget essential to the success of the method.
As a follow-up on their meeting with Vice Provost Trubatch, the Executive
Committee asked Provost Swan to advise them as to what the faculty might
do to promote an increase in the number of URI patents licensed to existing
or start-up RI businesses. This should help bring resources into the University
for research as well as increase business and personal tax income to the
state.
Provost Swan said that legislation on public-private partnership had
been approved by the General Assembly and was undergoing legal review.
She said that the legislation was subject to approval by the Ethics Commission
as well. The Executive Committee and the Provost discussed the likelihood
that the proposed Research Corporation would be approved as well as the role
of the URI Foundation in supporting patents.
The Executive Committee asked the Provost about the structure of the
URI Foundation and the membership of the Board of Trustees. Provost
Swan said that she would provide them with a list of the members of the URI
Foundation’s Board of Trustees.*
* Copies of a list of members of the URI
Foundation’s Board of Trustees were delivered shortly after Provost Swan
left the meeting.
The Executive Committee suggested that the University consider developing
more cost centers as a way to increase funding and suggested that the JSPC
might pursue this possibility. Provost Swan said that in the past some
cost centers had lost money and had to be “written off” on a one time only
basis when the new accounting regulations went into effect recently.
It was agreed to continue to pursue the possibility of establishing new cost
centers
5. The Executive Committee reviewed the draft Agenda
for Faculty Senate Meeting #4, December 9, 2004. Following discussion,
it was agreed to ask the Academic Standards and Calendar Committee for more
information about the proposed calendar for 2010-2011 and proposed modifications
to other calendars.
It was agreed that they would determine the final form of the Agenda
for the faculty Senate by e-mail after Ms. Grubman had an opportunity to
consult Professor Loy about the proposed calendars.
6. Ms. Grubman noted that she had mailed blank schedules
for spring 2005 and asked the Executive Committee to return them as soon
as possible.
7. The Executive Committee discussed the following
matters of continuing Concern:
a. The Murphy Program Review Model:
The Executive Committee discussed what they would do next to follow-up on
the Murphy program review model and agreed that a small subcommittee
comprising Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels and Senators Martin and Rice would
review the questions and look for questions or responses that are unclear,
confusing, open to misinterpretation etc. and would report back to the committee
at their December 14 meeting.
In addition, Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels asked the members of the
Executive Committee to review the updated questions and scoring sheet that
she had forwarded previously to see if there were improvements from earlier
versions.
b. JSPC: The Executive Committee reviewed
the items on the agenda for the upcoming JSPC meeting, which was scheduled
for December 2:
1) The Executive Committee discussed the salient
points of their proposal for an Ombud for administrative units. They agreed
to recommend that a process be initiated to clarify and codify administrative
rules and regulations. This might include as a first step, updating forms
to ensure that there are no “hidden” steps or outdated titles on them.
From there, flow-charts and step-by-step instructions could be developed
and would be posted and publicly accessible.
The next, and even more essential step, would be for each unit to
establish an administrative person who would respond to process and procedural
questions. If that person couldn’t provide answers it would be his/her responsibility
to consult with the equivalent person in a different unit until the necessary
answers were found as to how to direct people to the appropriate source of
information outside that person's department. These persons should
be at a sufficiently high administrative level that would ensure that they
could review systems and recommend to the appropriate Vice Presidents modifications
that would streamline processes, reduce the number of required steps, and
ensure that people would be able to easily identify how to go about getting
through the system.
They also agreed that the term “Ombud” wasn’t precisely what they
intended and that perhaps a better term for this position (e.g. troubleshooter,
facilitator, process administrator) could be identified during the discussion.
2) The Executive Committee discussed the Charter
High School proposal that was forwarded to them by the President. A
number of questions were raised about the proposal including whether, and
to what extent, the University should be involved in the project.
c. Survey: It was noted that the responses
to the survey had dwindled down to only a few each day and the Executive
Committee agreed to set a deadline for receipt of the surveys. It was
agreed that Ms. Grubman should announce on the Faculty Senate Listserv that
that the deadline for retuning the surveys was December 15.
d. Copies of the revised Space Policy were distributed.
Senator Kowalski said that he would discuss the changes with Ms. Newman and
would report back to the Executive Committee at their next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Sheila Black Grubman