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Scenes from Faculty Senate

Joint Strategic Planning Committee

July 9, 2003

1:15 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Green Hall Conference Room

Attendance: Robert L. Carothers, M. Beverly Swan, Bob Beagle, Tom Dougan, Ann Morrissey, Abu Bakr, Michael Rice, Judy Beckman, Mary Hollinshead, Faye Boudreaux-Bartels, Kevin Lopes, Earle Degraphenried, Vern Wyman (representing Linda Barett)

Annoucements:

a. President Carothers reported that the budget had been passed by the General Assembly and that the Governor vetoed it this morning. He explained that it would have to go back to the General Assembly. He noted that the higher education portion of the budget will not change and will be down about $800,000. He indicated that about half of the money will come to URI, the Commissioner will have about $500,000 which would probably keep the total about even with fiscal'03.

b. He noted that we had a very large orientation this year with the largest crowd of parents ever and we may have more freshmen than we projected. He said the projected enrollment growth figure was approximately 350. He said that about 50 of them were graduate students, transfer students and in-state students.

c. President Carothers also reported that the Office of Higher Education had been charged with reducing FTEs in the system by twenty-seven positions.

Minutes: The minutes of the June 25, 2003 meeting were approved as distributed.

Strategic Plans for Student Senate: Kevin Lopes gave a brief presentation on his personal goals for the Student Senate and identified three areas of concern to students:

  • The lack of undergraduate traditions at URI;
  • Concerns about the outdoor track;
  • Arming of the campus police.

There was a brief discussion on some of the issues brought up and he thanked the committee for giving him the opportunity to speak.

Strategic Plan Metrics: Abu Bakr gave a brief update on the status of metrics for the strategic plan. Abu reported on his meetings with University Advancement (Paul Witham), Enrollment Services/CCE (Harry Amaral, Midge McMahon and Ed Ferszt), Budget Office (Linda Barrett), Institutional Research (Gary Boden), and Chris Wessels (IITS)

a. University Advancement - Progress has been made in clarifying fundraising data. Future Information supplied will include:

  • funds raised - the total amount of funds raised by Advancement as pledges or commitments of support, and
  • cash received - the amount of money collected in a calendar honoring pledges and commitments.

b. Enrollment Services - discussed establishing a metric to assess "average unmet financial need."

It was agreed that the intent of the strategic goal should be clarified (increase competitiveness / reduce financial barriers for needy students), the definition of 'Unmet financial need' agreed upon and classification of students included in the measure.

Abu said that the actual baseline may be established in Fall'03 by using PeopleSoft for data manipulation.

c. Enrollment Services/CCE Facilities - the effort being undertaken is to establish information related to facility usage in Providence as well as Kingston. It was noted that the room scheduling software is not programmed to provide the specific data requested.

d. Institutional Research - has developed variables and model for determine operating cost per student. This metric may be modified using operating costs supplied by the Budget Office.

e. IITS - Abu will work IITS to establish a database of institutional data that will support monitoring of the strategic plan metrics and will anticipate future institutional data needs.

JSPC Communication Document - Working Draft: Ann Morrissey distributed a working draft of the JSPC communication document and solicited input from the committee members. It was agreed that Ann would revise the document based on the committee's advice and would bring a revised draft back at the next meeting.

Planning Survey Update: Ann Morrissey gave an update on the surveys about planning processes that had been distributed to deans, directors and department heads.

It was suggested that Ann include some of the comments of the department heads in the revised draft of the JSPC communication document.

Next Meeting: The next meeting will be held on July 23 at 1:00 p.m. At this meeting it was agreed that Linda Barrett would review and discuss the implications of the combined budget/capital projects cycle. It was agreed to cancel the August 6 JSPC meeting because the President would be unable to attend.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:05 p.m.