General Faculty Meeting

November 15, 2000

 

Original Minutes of 11/15/00

Meeting called to order by M Hanna at 2:40

 

Annual Memorial Service – Faculty Senate and Chaplains Office is having a memorial service for deceased faculty. The families have been invited. This is in place of the eulogy that has preceded the General Faculty Meeting.

 

M Hanna introduced Dr. Jackson who gave a presentation on the Performance Plans, the new Budgeting and the First Year Highest Priorities.

 

Dr. Jackson - The drafts were completed October 27 and were available on the Web and were distributed to Faculty Senate Resource and Planning Committee. The Deans and Vice Presidents examined the draft plans and looked for cross-cutting areas. The final Performance Plans will be submitted to the President on Dec 1, 2000. Between Dec 4th and the 20th  the Cabinet will review the plans with the Portfolio owners. On Jan 19th zero based budgets are to be presented to the President. On Feb 2nd the resource allocation will be completed and a final decision will be made by the President after review by the Cabinet. The Budget will then be presented to the trustees on Feb. 16th.

 

The new Budgeting process will be built from the base up and will be based on the Performance Plans and the rank ordered activities and initiatives.  By definition the highest priorities will get funded and not everything will get funded.

 

The first year highest priorities are:

 

  • Research Initiatives: Biotechnology and IT
    • Constellations
    • Building: Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies
  • First Year Experience – this includes everyone, undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff. C Powell is working an orientation program for staff and E. Knolls is looking into new activities for students, such as wilderness experience or community service activities.
  • Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center
  • Process improvements
    • New budget process
    • Hiring, promotion and tenure
    • Intellectual Property – we want to encourage more activity in this area, but also deal with conflicts of interest issues.

 

The Constellation Focal Areas in IT are:

 

  • Future chips and revolutionary computing
  • Tetherless world and pervasive computing
  • Multistage computation and high performance computing

 

The Constellation Focal Areas in BT are:

 

  • Functional tissue engineering
  • Integrative systems biology
  • Biocomputational and bioinformatics
  • Biocatalysis and metabolic engineering

 

The constellation search committees in IT and Biotechnology have been formed. The constellation in Bioinformatice is in Place and consists of Chip Lawrence and Michael Zuker. Funding to support Physics, IT and Entrepreneurship has been received via a gift form the Kodosky’s. The trustees have given approval for constellations ahead of endowment support.

 

Provost Bud Peterson and VP for Research Art Sanderson are looking at graduate research assistant tuition cost sharing. There is a committee that will be looking at space. There are taskforces in place to look at  the First Year Experience and the Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center.

 

A Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Student Center advisory committee has been formed consisting of  J. Dordick, R Spilker, R. Siegel, J. Salerno, M. Shur, J. Fisher, D. Haviland, O. Holms, G. Peterson (ex-officio) and Co-Chairs A. Sanderson and T. Mirczak. Siting work is underway and groundbreaking is expected to occur in late 2001 or early 2002.

 

An Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center planning commit has been formed  consisting of  John Tichy, chair, A. Belfour F. Bronet, C Carletta, D. Haviland, O. Holmes, L. Kagan, E. Knowles, C. McIntyre, N. Rolnick, P. Shur, H. Chesbrough, A. Williams, L. Johnson, M. Brown, and Honorary Trustee H. Apkarian. We expect the center he improve the quality of life and showcase unique assets. The ground breaking is expected in the Fall of 2001.

 

A Space Utilization, Management and Allocation Committee has been formed consisting of  VP Administration (Acting) T. Mirczak, chair, Provost B. Peterson, VP Research A. Sanderson, Interim VP Student Life E. Knowles and CIO J. Kolb.

 

QUESTIONS

 R. Nobel for FSP&R Committee. The faculty are concerned that with the rapid pace of the planning process that they will not be able to have input into the process.

 

President Jackson. The faculty should make there concerns know to the P&R committee, and their Dean’s. They should also be aware that the process will be reviewed each year and they will have input on that process.

 

Question Why move into new directions when some of the current programs are not functioning and the infrastructure is falling apart?

 

President. Part of the plans will have to reflect actions that will address these concerns. Will all be addressed? No, but certainty some will be addressed. All the Deans plans call for more faculty, if we are going to get more faculty then we need a stronger endowment. I intend to rebuild this institute back up the best way we can.

 

Question. I am concerned that the current emphasis devalues engineering.

 

President  We will put resources into engineering, but will also put resources into other areas.

 

Question  What happens when the money obtained from fundraising does not match the areas we are interested in building.

 

President That is a good question. One example is endowment that needs to be raised to support new faculty. One way to jazz up getting money for the endowment is the constellations.

 

 

Professor Noble then presented some comments from the Faculty Senate Planning and Resources Committee.

 

  • What is at issue is maximizing the credibility and collegiality of the process
  • For the plan to succeed, the current faculty have to own it.
  • The P&R has identified several pressure points that relate to the credibility of the process.
  • The timing of the process: faculty are concerned that they cannot participate fully given the pace of the process.
  • Complexity of the task and process.
    1. Many of us who have been deeply involved are just beginning to fully understand the process
    2.  Mechanisms for faculty involvement in cross cutting initiatives are not adequate and if is not clear that conversations across schools have taken place based on the existing performance plans.
  • Involvement of Faculty in the final step of the process
    • The academic plans appear to make substantially more recommendations that can possibly be carried out – the rubber meets the road in the selection process.
    • Will items be funded in the final decision making process that are not contained in the academic plans?