Mānoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Minutes of April 6, 2009
Present: Crookes, Crosby, Hilgers, Keil, Ross, Tiles,
Wakayama
2 pm
Meeting with Vice Chancellor for Students Hernandez
Dr. Hernandez reported on the following:
1.
The warranty of the Frear Hall construction is nearly
over with a few final items to be addressed.
2.
Renovation of 2 of the towers began in January 2009.
3.
The planning process for the renovation of Johnson Hall has started with
discussions with graduate students and GSO to gauge interest in having this
become a graduate student dormitory.
4. Scholarship awards: Garrod, Cambra, and Hernandez have been having one-on-one meetings with each Dean to discuss the awarding of scholarships in each area, to ensure that they are being awarded and in a way that matches with academic goals. In recent years, scholarship money had been received by administration but had not in some cases actually been awarded. Also, awards in general should be made available as part of an incentive package for students to attend UHM; in the past these awards had sometimes been made after acceptance.
5. Financial Aid Services: A new director and assistant director have been hired.
Prioritization Review: Areas designated for ‘merge or
reorganize” are:
a.
Counseling and Student Development will be reviewed to determine whether
to merge it with University Health Services. (They share confidentiality issues,
fee for service, insurance collection, outside accreditation and licensing
structures outside of the university and special dedicated space.)
b.
Student Housing physical plant is separate from that which serves the
main campus, so this will need to be reviewed.
c.
Student Housing Conference Services – summer income offerings will need
to be reviewed; more partnerships with academic areas will be considered (inc.
bringing people here for language study; youth groups). Tours of Frear Hall will
be made available to department chairs so they can consider incorporating such
accomodations in two-day conference arrangements. Frear has 800 beds; most of
them will be vacant during the summer. Partnering with the East-West Center will
be possible.
Areas targeted for growth are:
a.
Student Housing Residential Life needs improving, and connections to
academic life must be strengthened.
b.
University Health Services : Thoughts are to establish a fee structure to
increase services. Also considering partnering with outside services such as
HMSA’s online access to physicians to allow after hours connections to an online
(videoconferenced?) doctor (as opposed to having a family physician available
5-9pm).
c.
New Student Programs will need to grow.
d.
SEED: programs in which we at risk students and give them extra
preparation; and the multicultural student services program likewise might be
able to obtain federal dollars to expand.
6.
Enrolment management. Hernandez recommended that recruitment, admissions,
and financial aid all need to be reorganized or restructured.
Enrolment status fall 2009. We are running a little bit
ahead of last year. The application deadline was moved up, so this doesn’t
necessarily represent a quantitative increased. We have accepted a couple of
hundred more students than the same time last year. WUEs have increased 12%
(they only pay 50% more than resident); non-resident students as a whole are
only up 5%.
SEC would like to see the cap on graduate students
(non-resident) removed. We understand that Linda Johnsrud has made an
informational presentation to the BoR at a previous meeting on this point, but
have not heard any further details and neither had Dr. Hernandez. Apparently the
BoR has reservations about opening up e.g., the Law School, to a large number of
non-resident or international students. But SEC thinks that having the maximum
number of “great student minds” approaching our graduate programs in e.g.,
biology, astronomy, etc., could only have positive effects for the university
and the state.
On the other hand, local qualified students who wish to
attend a four-year college are trending flat.
Student numbers in the ‘Accepted and paid deposit’ category
are up 30%; also denied admission to fewer students compared with the same time
last year.
Dr. Hernandez will be meeting with his recruiters (an
office within Student Services) to see what their plans are for more electronic
visibility.
Independent “investigators” visit campuses, such as UHM’s,
and ask our students their opinions of UH, which are then published in
for-profit publications. Dr. Hernandez is trying to find out what our students
are saying about us…
With Alan Yang, Dr. Hernandez hopes to target local high
schools and review transcripts so as to encourage more local students to apply
and stay here. This should be done earlier than January.
The effectiveness of the UH athletics/sports programs in
respect to admissions was discussed. Short-term causality between success of a
football season and a university’s admissions seems unlikely (the possible
Flutie effect); but a major investment in athletics etc can aid a university’s
name recognition.
3 pm
1. Approval of minutes of previous meeting as amended.
2.
Chair’s report.
a.
The Budget Workgroup meeting of last Friday was cancelled. They will meet
with Outreach Dean in the near future.
b.
The university is still dealing with the implications of the $33m cut.
Each Dean has been told to cut 4% of their budgets (=$11m); Kathy Cutshaw thinks
she can find the remaining $22m from tuition increases, RTRF and other increases
in revenues. (SEC feels this is not sure.) Security, facilities, and the School
of Hawaiian Knowledge will not get cut.
3.
Committee reports: several committees have meetings
coming up soon.
a.
CFS: would like to forward Marie Iding to be appointed
to be on the Distinguished Lecture Series committee. Also, SEC would like to
request that all Senators be sent a reminder a few days before the close of the
election for the new SEC.
b.
Committee on Administration and Budget has been asking
all VCs if they would go for big institutional grants, such as McNair (gifted
student honors type), Upward Bound, Embark; they cannot be secured from just
within e.g. Student Services.
CAB has also developed a flow-chart to assist with the
design and implementation of actions in which a unit is to be reorganized. This
will be part of the CAB final report for this academic year and will also be
reviewed at the faculty-administration retreat. CAB also met with Kathy Cutshaw
concerning how matters will be handled over the next biennium, accommodating “the
$25m hit” in tuition.
b.
GEC met in a joint meeting with the Foundations Board. They will bring an
informational statement forward concerning changing the foundations requirements
for symbolic reasoning and global-multicultural to be in the first two years.
English 100 will be a first-year requirement.
c.
CAPP: will move forward with a resolution to approve the BS in Computer
Engineering., and is preparing a memo on eCAFE.
4.
New Business
a.
Agenda items for next meeting with VC Ostrander were discussed. The most
important of these is the unelected nature of the Graduate Council, which has
been exacerbated by its recent intervention into the sunsetting of graduate
faculty status of professors, independent of department review.
b.
Agenda items for faculty senate meeting. Report from athletic director;
report from the FAR. Dossier simplification. Resolution on reorganizations. VC
Cutshaw will be asked to attend to answer questions about the UHM budget.
c.
SEC discussed agenda items for the faculty-administration retreat.
d.
SEC reviewed procedures for approving undergrad certificates. (These
generally do not require Faculty Senate approval, though some do.
Adjourned 4:30 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Graham Crookes
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