a.    Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels reported on recent correspondence with the President regarding his request for a 30-day extension on Faculty Senate Bill #04-05--24.  Following discussion, it was agreed to pursue the matter further with the President.

b.    Chairperson Boudreaux-Bartels announced that the Board of Governors Meeting scheduled for April 11 at URI had been rescheduled for May 2 at the Office of Higher Education.

c.    The Executive Committee discussed notes which had been sent to them by e-mail from the March 30 meeting of ADVANCE leadership and chairs of mathematics, science and engineering departments with President Carothers, Provost Swan, and Vice President Weygand.  It was remarked that many of the issues addressed at the meeting had been mentioned by members of the Executive Committee in various forums.

d.    The Executive Committee discussed Ms. Grubman’s e-mail to them on her correspondence and conversations with Vice Provost Swift about the Summer Session Marketing campaign. She had reported that a committee comprised of Assistant Provost Katz, Associate Dean Ferszt, Dean Richmond, Ms. Dibello and Vice Provost Swift, along with some students, had approved the advertising plan. Ms. Grubman reported that Vice Provost Swift had explained that the campaign had been designed to attract 18-19 year old students.  Emphasis was on time commitment: that it was a concentrated program and any references to "easy", "beach", "break", "vacation" etc. that may have been used in previous years had been removed.

The Executive Committee agreed that it would be valuable to have a report on the demographics of summer school students to determine whether the campaign met expectations.

e.    The Agenda from that morning’s Council of Deans meeting was circulated for information.

a.    The proposed University Calendar for 2005-06 through 2010--11 (Faculty Senate Bill #04-05--24):  President Carothers reported that he had requested an extension of time for the calendar because he had received communications from faculty members on both sides of the calendar legislation and he wanted more time to consider the issues before taking any action.  He asked members of the FSEC for their advice and discussion ensued.

b.    Executive Committee recommendations for budget priorities:  The Executive Committee apologized to Provost Swan for not having been able to discuss the priorities with her earlier as all of the recommendations affected Academic Affairs and the Academic Affairs Budget. It was noted that the previously scheduled meeting with her to discuss these items had been cancelled because of her accident.  Provost Swan reviewed the recommendations with the Executive committee and explained that she had already followed up on some of them.  Both President Carothers and Provost Swan indicated that they were concerned about the potential allocation and whether additional money would be available for new initiatives.  

c.    Issues related to encouraging interdisciplinary activities:  The Executive Committee expressed their appreciation to the President and Provost for their support of interdisciplinary activities and suggested that barriers to those activities were found at lower administrative levels.  The Executive Committee reiterated their support for central coordination of interdisciplinary activities and restated their proposal that the Provost designate a faculty member to investigate how other institutions encouraged interdisciplinary work and to offer possible solutions to remove some of the barriers.

d.    University-wide Land Grant, Sea Grant, Urban Grant Initiative: The Executive Committee followed up on their earlier suggestions for eliminating obstacles to interdisciplinary endeavors by proposing that the three federally funded grants be combined under a university-wide initiative. They suggested that uniting the three grants under a central administration would be another way to remove barriers between and among colleges and departments. It was noted that for a brief period the three grants had been united administratively and more faculty from different colleges and departments had been involved than they were at the present time.
            
e    Distribution of lab fee and arts fee income: Provost Swan said that the issue of the art fee had been resolved by including it as part of tuition.  She said that she was aware of concerns about the distribution of these funds from lab fees to departments and had asked Assistant Provost Katz to make recommendations for improving the allocation.  She said that the laboratory fees were not allocated directly to departments; they were transferred to college budgets and the deans made the decision as to how they were to be distributed.

f.    University freeze on filling vacant staff level positions:  In response to the Executive Committee’s question as to whether the University had frozen positions as they became vacant, President Carothers said that although there was no official freeze on positions, he has been making the final decision as to which vacancies would be filled and when. He said that he regularly receives a list of vacant positions, which he evaluates for setting priorities on refilling. He agreed to clarify whether the current procedure used for most positions is that they must first be vacated before they will appear on the refill request list sent to him. Concern was expressed about the hiring delays introduced by not being able to advertise for a position until after it was vacated.

g.    Representation of Deans on the JSPC:  President Carothers asked whether the Executive Committee would consider the possibility of including an academic dean on the membership of the JSPC.  Discussion ensued with regard to whether one dean could speak for the deans as a constituency, noting that the Provost serves in that role on the JSPC as the Council of Deans’ liaison between the committees and the Dean’s Council.

It was suggested that deans and more members of the faculty might participate by serving on subcommittees of the JSPC.