September 2012

FACULTY REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY MEETING

September 14, 2012

Attendance: Pam Shockley, Brian Burnett, David Moon, Katie Kaukinen, Andrea Hutchins, Mandi Elder, Jeff Spicher, Bob Durham, Tom Zwirlein, Tom Napierkowski, Craig Elder, Kathy Blair, Monique Dooley, Pam Carter, Rebecca Webb, Christine Robinson, Suzanne Cook, Curt Holder, Andrea Wenker, Carla Myers, Anna Kosloski, Barbara Frye, Christina Martinez, Edgar Cota-Torres, Sheri Trumpfheller, Dorothea Olkowski, Dave Anderson, Jackie Berning, Corinne Harmon, Jeff Ferguson

Call to Order / Approval of Minutes:

Motion to approve the minutes from May 11, 2012 meeting by Amanda Elder

Seconded by Bob Durham

Motion passed unanimously with 1 abstention

Reports of Visitors:

Pam Shockley, Chancellor:

Enrollment is strong and not uniform across the state at all - many higher ed institutions are flat and down in numbers. Our campus Strategic Plan was unanimously approved by the Board of Regents in June and the Facilities Master Strategic Plan was also approved this week. So we are now in a position to request state funding. Margaret Doell is our new ACE Fellow this year. She is the Chair of the Art Department at Adams State and will be reviewing our governance processes. Other exciting news is the passage of 1A, which leased Memorial Hospital to University of Colorado Health. We are meeting next week at a retreat to start the discussion of the procedural steps which need to be taken to transform this hospital into a branch medical campus for UCCS in two years. This will allow 30-40 accepted applications to be designated to UCCS. Anschutz had 4700 applications this fall for 160 slots. For the third year in a row, UCCS had the highest acceptance rate in all of Colorado to the Anschutz Medical Campus. We are regularly in the top ten, which includes Harvard and Stanford, of acceptance rates into Anschutz. In reviewing the parental leave policy of Boulder compared to UCCS, the Boulder practice differs slightly from the APS leave policy because it is open only for faculty. Boulder does not use as much sick leave. PESA is included in the system policy but not in the Boulder policy. APS needs to be more consistent across the system and must include PESA (which is strongly supported by the Chancellor). This policy does not include classified staff because they are governed by the state. This policy is under review this fall and faculty input will be solicited. The SGA has been told that the Grade Forgiveness referendum needs to go through faculty governance. There is a non-tenure track faculty forum on September 27 from 2pm - 3pm in UC 302 to discuss non-tenure track faculty issues. We will institute multi-year contracts and our goal is to be ready and finished by January 2013. The process is now in Legal as the clinical practice category needs to be incorporated. We have an unusual situation occurring this year concerning December commencement, which affects 48 students who are scheduled to take finals the same day as commencement. This is the highest number of students affected by this situation, which is becoming a bigger issue each year since we have gone to two graduation ceremonies. How does the faculty want to handle this situation? Faculty input is needed very soon concerning this issue. Our commencement marshal, Rebecca Laroche, will not be able to serve as the marshal in December due to a previous engagement at Columbia University. Therefore, Teri Switzer, Dean of the Kraemer Family Library, will substitute as the commencement marshal. We have also reached capacity at the World Arena for our May commencement, so we will have two ceremonies that day: one at 11:30am for LAS, all degrees; and the second one at 3:30pm for all the other colleges. President Benson will attend both ceremonies and dual degree students will have choices. 42% of our graduates were first generation college students and we do not want to limit their number of guests. There is a system-wide taskforce established to examine technology in teaching and Dean Venkat Reddy is coordinating the function of aligning technological decisions for our campus. The quality of education and technology is a top priority, not just technology for technology sake. Our summer enrollment was down and we missed our summer budget by $647,000. As a result of this situation, it is clear that Budget and Finance needs to coordinate with Enrollment Management and steps have been put into place for that to happen. As a result of recent tragedies, we have been re-examining our response teams. The Student Response Team is complete and is tighter than other campuses. The Faculty/Staff Response Team is still in progress but is almost complete. We all need to be vigilant and intervene quickly when necessary for everyone's safety. Be sure to call Public Safety for any emergency. The Provost search has resumed and the committee will meet on September 20^th. Many candidates have stayed in the pool and 66 new applications came in during the summer.

Brian Burnett, Vice Chancellor for Administration & Finance:

We currently have 9777 students enrolled. We are up in non-resident and international students. It does not appear that the tourism revenues of the state budget were substantially impacted by the Colorado state wildfires this summer, but we'll know more when the new revenue forecast comes out on September 21. The state revenues are actually recovering and the governor's office might ask for more money for higher ed (possibly a 7% increase - our share would be about 1.3 million), but maybe as a one-time request. More information on this possibility will be disclosed on November 1, but the good news is that we don't see any state budget cuts coming. The expansion of the housing village is underway and the Lane Center is scheduled to open in January 2014. The Board of Regents approved the Recreation Center expansion; the addition of a second parking garage with a recreation field on top; and the addition of a new academic office building, which should open in August 2014. It is a good time to build now because the lending rates are historically low. Finally, Austin Bluffs Parkway is scheduled to be widened next summer.

David Moon, Interim Provost:

Enrollment figures indicate an increase of 5% in headcount and 5.5% increase in student credit hours. First-time freshmen are up 5% to 1447; transfers are up even more to 124, so we have quite a few more transfers than first-time freshmen and we continue to be a transfer-heavy institution; our minority enrollment is the highest ever for first-time freshmen; we are up in non-resident students and hopefully international students as well; continuing students are up overall; 68% of freshmen returned, which is lower than last year; graduate enrollment is down slightly. Changes in Academic Affairs: Peter Braza started on August 1 as the new LAS Dean; Peg Bacon retired as Provost effective July 1; Kelli Klebe is the new Graduate School Dean and is also serving as half-time Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs; Kee Warner is also assisting in this role too. Dean Venkat Reddy is the Chair of the Online Task Force, and they are working on keeping up with the national trend. Dave Anderson is the Director of the Faculty Resource Center (formerly the Teaching and Learning Center), which serves as an online push and resource center for faculty. Finally, the General Education Taskforce is moving forward with Gen Ed reform.

Katie Kaukinen, SPA Faculty:

As of 2010, and as a condition of grant funding we received for this program, there is a mandatory requirement from the federal government to educate freshmen and transfer students on violence prevention. In 2011, 94% of all our freshmen did receive violence prevention education. Unfortunately, transfer students are more difficult to access. We have been able to give presentations in Freshmen Seminar classes and we are available to do trainings with faculty on presentations in their classes. Please contact us for assistance with this instruction.

Jeff Ferguson, General Education Taskforce Faculty Co-Chair:

A review of the progress of the General Education Taskforce was presented to the assembly. Gen Ed reform is now being assimilated into the curriculum and mapping teams are meeting with the different departments to see how this Gen Ed reform can be mapped within the majors. There will be a faculty vote in December to approve the adoption of the new university-wide Gen Ed framework and Gen Ed faculty governance structure.

Dave Anderson, Faculty Resource Center Director:

An introduction and explanation of the Faculty Resource Center was presented to the assembly.