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Scenes from Faculty Senate

Joint Strategic Planning Committee

Thursday, May 8, 2008

2:00pm - 2:42pm

President's Conference Room, Green Hall

Attendance: Robert Carothers, Donald DeHayes, Peter Alfonso, Bob Beagle, Tom Dougan, Bob Weygand, Dayle Joseph, Jim Miller, Laura Beauvais, Dana Kovarsky, Margaret Ordonez, Joanne DiBello, Domingo Morel, Abu Bakr, Ann Morrissey. Guest: Linda Barrett.

FY'09 budget overview: Ms. Barrett reported on efforts to assemble a budget for the 2008-09 academic year based on the state's reduced contribution and the unknown nature of tuition income at that time. She explained that the final amount of the potential funding cuts was still uncertain because of the state's income projections for May. President Carothers said that he expected that the University could expect an additional cut once the potential deficit figures for state income were included in the Legislature's predictions. It was further noted that projected revenue is dependent on the size of the incoming freshman class, including the proportion of instate to out-of-state students, retention rates, and numbers of transfer and continuing students.

Ms. Barrett said that the University planned to pay for all of the retirement incentives and the reimbursement of faculty for retirement medical contributions before the end of the current fiscal year. She also noted that the cuts based on the University's not agreeing to furlough faculty and staff also were incorporated into the FY'08 mid year budget.

President Carothers thanked Ms. Barrett and her staff for their efforts to build a budget when faced with so much ambiguity.

Tuition waiver and/or instate tuition for graduate research assistants: Senate Chairperson Miller said that the Executive Committee wanted to raise the topic of reducing the amount of tuition charged to out of state graduate students noting that the faculty were convinced that they could get more and better graduate students and more and better grants if they did not have to budget for out-of -state tuition.

Provost DeHayes said that he was considering some possible alternatives, which might reduce the tuition charges for some out-of-state graduate research assistants based on competition among principal investigators for a limited amount of funding to be provided by the Provost's Office, the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, the Dean andthe Principal Investigator. He said that if was implemented on a trial basis, the University could discover whether it leads to more and/or better graduate students or research grants.

Ms. Grubman announced that it was the last official meeting of the members of the 2007-08 Executive Committee. She explained that Chairperson Jim Miller and Senator Laura Beauvais were leaving the Senate and that Senator Dana Kovarsky had decided not to seek another term. Ms Grubman said that the Senate would elect new officers on May 15 and that Vice Chairperson Celest Martin and Senators Barbara Costello and Margaret Ordonez were on the Ballot for the 2008-09 Executive Committee.

President Carothers expressed his appreciation to the members of the 2007-08 Executive Committee and thanked them for their service on the JSPC this year.

The meeting adjourned at 2:42 p.m.