October 21, 2009

FACULTY SENATE MINUTES
OCTOBER 21, 2009
Present: Sara Breau, Rodney Bushway, Steve Cohn, Ted Coladarci, Robert Dana, Cynthia Erdley, Susan Erich, Janet Fairman, Robert Franzosa, Per Garder, John Gregory, Michael Grillo, William Halteman, Kirsten Jacobson, Blake James, Cary Jenson, Deborah Killam, Dennis King, Dorothy Klimis Zacas, Irv Kornfield, Judy Kuhns-Hastings, Larry Latour, Craig Mason, James McClymer, Sid Mitchell, Harlan Onsrud, Tina Passman, Paul Rawson, Joyce Rumery, Steven Sader, Dan Sandweiss, Michael Scott, Evelyn Silver, Phillip Silver, Kathryn Slott, Susan Lambrecht Smith, Touradj Solouki, Claire Strickland, Shihfen Tu, Roy Turner, Janet Waldron, James Warhola, Stephanie Welcomer, Vivian Wu, Huijie Xue.
Absent: Andrei Alyokhin, Daniel Belknap, Douglas Bousfield, Thomas Brann, Chris Campbell, Fei Chai, William Congleton, Raphael DiLuzio, Catherine Elliott, Todd Gabe, Duane Hanselman, Michael Kinnison, Howard Patterson, Justin Poland, Mark Wells.
The meeting opened at 3:15 pm.
Senate President Judy Kuhns-Hastings announced that the Chancellor would be on campus on Wednesday, October 28, and strongly encouraged everyone to attend. Accompanying the Chancellor will be Board of Trustees members Lyndel Wishcamper, who will facilitate the meeting, Eleanor Baker, and Marjorie Murray Medd.
Associate Provost Stuart Marrs was asked a question regarding H1N1, student absences, and whether faculty would be able to ask for physicians’ notes explaining the absences. Dr. Marrs stated that UMaine concurs with the CDC in recommending that doctor’s notes not be required. The student should not be absent for more than 14 days. That being said, individual faculty can decide on their own how they want to handle a student’s absence from their class. Two employees have tested positive for H1N1, 5 students have been tested at this time. There will be an immunization clinic held on November 9 and 10 at the Field House. Faculty and staff will have the flu shots available to them the following week at Cutler Health Center.
President Kennedy was asked if the Board of Visitors is fully informed as to what is happening with the New Challenges, New Directions. Dr. Kennedy said that there is a BOV member at ever NCND forum. He said that they will be on campus next week if any of the faculty wanted to meet and talk with members of the board.
A question was asked regarding cuts and whether some programs are seeing larger cuts than others. Janet Waldron replied that it is not programs they are looking at but areas, energy for example. She said she tends to think the cuts are being shared levelly.
Dr. Grillo asked if the senate could get a spread sheet of costs and revenue per program. Janet said that her office is working with the Provost and Dean’s on this info. She said that from 2004 forward there has been an 80% increase in costs. Her office is working with institutional research to gather this data for a spread sheet.
Dr. Roy Turner inquired as to how the AAPWG committee is gathering information to see if programs meet criteria.
Dr. Hunter said there is a lot of data that can be collected centrally. If they need further data they will collect it from the departments, it depends on how deeply they need to dig for figures. Dr. Turner pointed out that much information is solely at the department level and not necessarily accessible through centralized databases.
Dr. Rice commented that originally the add-on to PeopleSoft was a wish list item, but now it seems to be a concrete item that will be implemented.
John Gregory replied that he is on the committee looking into this. The committee has met two times with vendors and once with just the members of the committee. The cost study indicated that it will cost 1.2 million in one-time money and $600,000 in ongoing funds. The portal is a web based tool, one for students and one for faculty which will make access to PeopleSoft easier. A single sign-on site to logon to with a long list of things it would be able to do.
The portal will be an informational item at the BOT meeting in November. UMF has a portal and the person from UMF who oversaw this is co-chairing the committee. A question was asked about the security of the portal, Mr. Gregory said that he had not heard anything that would indicate any problem with security, but he would check further. Janet Waldron noted that there will be an RFP process if this proposal goes through.
Dr. Kornfield asked about allocation of money. Is Academic Affairs to give back 4 million for the next 4 years? What are we forseeing in loss of personnel?
Dr. Hunter said the situation is very serious. The degree of cuts over the next 4 years will be very serious, however she cannot give a number because deliberations are underway.
Dr. Kennedy said they don’t have the exact figures as yet, but they are looking at position costs and the amount of dollars to be cut from the budget.
Janet Waldron said that UMaine is ahead of other campuses in sharing the numbers. These are all assumptions at this time (e.g. mid-year curtailments), these numbers could change with time. They are looking at the gap between revenue and expenses. In February we will need to finalize our budget for FY11.
Judy Kuhns-Hastings asked Dr. Kennedy what his vision is of what is to come.
Dr. Kennedy said he had had a meeting that day with the Dean’s. We are in a siege mentality, looking ahead at the focus and strengths of UMaine. Factors under assessed include things like: size of program, ratio of undergrad to graduate students, in-state to out-of-state enrollment, quality of the program, and the program’s academic priority. The urgency of considering our focus and strengths is growing – if you project the level of cuts, it fundamentally changes us as a land-grant.
Craig Mason commented that the size of these cuts is overwhelming, and that the general public in this area has no idea what is happening with the budget here at UMaine. He wanted to know why nothing
has been sent to the Bangor Daily News informing people of the cuts and the threat of elimination of faculty. He asked how we are communicating the size and impact of these cuts to our constituents.
Dr. Kennedy stated that we need to pick the timing of such a letter and that we do not yet have all the facts required to write a letter like this.
Sue Hunter stated that State Rep Emily Cain will meet with the campus presidents tomorrow to provide information and advice. Sometime between October 28 and the Holidays is when we will have a better idea of what our cuts will be, we will then make sure the public is informed.
Dr. Mason commented that we are in peril of losing our best & brightest students in Maine.
Dr. Slott ask why we are spending money on the new portal while in the process of cutting programs that should be more important. The Chancellor say there will be no restructuring of the University of Maine System, but if we cut too much would we be in violation of the Morrill Act which created Land Grant Universities.
Dr. Passman stated that as the Land Grant status is conferred by the state Legislature, could it be changed to another campus?
Dr. Kennedy stated that other states have modified Land Grant Status to include other institutions in the state.
Dr. Grillo stated that we don’t anticipate losing programs to other institutions but still say some of our programs will be pared away. He has heard from colleagues at UMS that that campus is positioning itself to be the new Arts & Sciences institution.
Dr. Kennedy said that some of the other campuses feel they may be saved during this process.
Janet Waldron made a comment referring to the new PeopleSoft portal. She said that UMS had received many comments from our campus regarding all of the problems that we had had with PeopleSoft and that could be why they decided to move ahead with the implementation.
Dr. Welcomer asked if plans are in place for students to transition if a program is being eliminated.
Dr. Hunter replied that there are.
Dr. Slott said she had spoken with alumni who were concerned that Alumni Hall had taken over the funds from the Alumni Association.
Dr. Kennedy said that a committee had been formed to asses the funding, the Alumni Engagement Program. In the past we had spent $750,000 with out telling them what to do. Right now we are not giving them that funding and have taken over certain functions, for instance the UMaine Today magazine is normally sent out to 12,000 subscribers, last month it was sent to 85,000 alumni and friends of UMaine.
Committee Reports:
Board of Trustees Rep – Dr. Robert Rice
No report. He will have a report at the next senate meeting.
Academic Affairs – Dr. Tina Passman
The committee has met once. They are working with the Office of Student Records on language in the catalogue. Will have a meeting with Assoc Dean Al Kezis regarding academic forgiveness. Are working with the Constitution & Bylaws committee on the charge to the Academic Affairs committee. The General Education committee is discussing Gen. Ed. Assessment for NEASC .
Constitution & Bylaws – Dr. Michael Grillo
No Report
Research & Scholarship – Dr. Touradj Solouki
The committee is working with the Office of Sponsored Program on gettings number of internal success rates for grant proposals. They are also looking at software that could be used by multiple users on grant proposals.
University Environment – Dr. Daniel Belknap
No Report.
Library Advisory Committee – Dr. Howard Segal
No Report.
Service & Outreach Committee – Dr. Deborah Killam
The committee has been busy working with focus groups and students groups that have community projects. There are also looking into the possibility of gen ed credit for service projects.
Committee on Committees – Dr. Shihfen Tu
The Committee on Committees has received requests from the administration to nominate faculty representatives to serve on the committees listed below. If you are interested in serving on any of these committees or you would like to nominate a colleague, please let me know. Thank you.
1) Honorary Degree Committee – The President’s Office requests two tenured faculty representatives. They meet once a year in mid November. The term is three years. Joe Carr is the chair.
2) Review Committee for Dean Ashworth – The Provost’s Office requests three faculty representatives, two from NSFA and one member external to NSFA. Dean Hecker is the chair.
3) Review Committee for Dean Sandweiss – The Provost’s Office requests three faculty representatives, two of them must be members of the graduate faculty . Dean Anne Pooler is the chair.
Program Creation, Review & Reorganization – Dr. James Warhola
The PCRRC has a full committee. Please visit the AAPWG web site to keep informed of what is happening. Majors are under the purview of the committee, but Minors are not.
General Education – Dr. Tina Passman
Report given with the Academic Affairs report.
Ad Hoc Response to the Taskforce – Dr. Michael Grillo
Please send him questions and comments for the Chancellor’s visit on October 28.
Finance & Institutional Planning – Dr. Craig Mason
The committee has met twice and has had frank discussions. He thanked Janet Waldron and Claire Strickland for all of their assistance and help. They are trying to gather information to look at options, putting everything on the table factoring in retirement, overloads, adjuncts, gen ed requirements, the library. They are weighing every option available as there will be no one solution to the budget issues.
Graduate Student Government – Jason Bolton
Jason mentioned the recent Graduate Student Social held at the new Graduate School in Stoddard Hall. He also said that he will make sure that graduate students will attend the Chancellor’s visit on campus.
Student Government – Nate Wildes
Nate stated that if any students are needed to serve on senate committees to let him know. Representatives from Student Government recently visited Augusta where they met with Governor Baldacci, the President of the State Senate and Chancellor Pattenaude. He said the meetings went well and were very productive.
Old Business – There was no Old Business.
New Business – There was no New Business.
The meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm.