Mānoa Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Minutes of October 5, 2009

Present: Hilgers, Crosby, Zaleski, Rayner, Daniel and Ross

Invited: VC Hernandez

The meeting convened at 2:30 in HH 208

1. VC Hernandez (regular monthly meeting with SEC)

Hernandez provided copies of UHM statistics from the National Survey on Student Engagement. The report compared UHM to Carnegie peers, Manoa selected peers and Arts institutions.

A. Hilgers asked about UHM’s status compared to peers for time to graduation, and the number of credit hours, particularly hours in excess of graduation requirements. He noted that after the new gen ed core was developed, the total credits to graduation for UHM students declined, but has crept back up as some majors have added more requirements. Extra time required to graduate and extra credits may negatively impact student satisfaction as well as the UHM budget.

Hernandez indicated that he didn’t have the specific data on the trends. In his experience, this can be mitigated a little by charging students more once they hit a certain number of excess credits (for example, 180). The committee noted that some of the problems are transfers from CCs or other campuses. If students started at UHM rather than one of the other campuses, they might have fewer credits that don’t count toward their degrees.

There also are inconsistencies for students with double majors in different colleges, for example, Hawaiian Studies and Anthropology. A&S majors require 104 credits of A&S courses. These issues have implications for enrollment management. There are similar courses in different colleges which don’t count across colleges. A double major should only require about one extra year of classes, most of which you would expect to be upper division.

Hernandez noted that national data suggest that as costs go up, students will do less of major switching and other behaviors which cost them money. While allowing students some flexibility, the UH may want to better advise students or somehow limit them from “wasting” time taking courses that don’t count toward their major. We may find that it is cost effective to hire more advisors to help students.

B. With regard to enrollment management, the UHM is on the last stage of renovating 2 dorm towers. These dorms will be back on line in fall 2010, with 500 additional beds available. The actual cost was less than budgeted, so the administration is looking at Johnson Hall for potential renovations. The size of the Johnson units might make them The 2002 study indicated that student housing was one reason students did not matriculate to UHM. The administration is doing another study now. But there are certain floors dedicated for themes, such as languages, education, international issues, etc. These have proven very popular and might draw some students to UHM.

C. The committee asked if any of the student funds were being “borrowed” against by other UHM units (e.g. athletics). Hernandez said he doesn’t believe so. His recollection is that the last such borrowing was for Banner implementation.

The committee inquired whether there are sufficient funds to appropriately maintain Frear Hall. Hernandez says he believes there are.

D. Regarding enrollment management, applications are up for the fall. Enrollments may go down in spring, but not significantly, so revenue should be steady.

Recruitment efforts have been increased. The UHM has organized a day for “the Manoa Experience” for October 17. This is open to the public, and students, teachers and counselors from across Hawaii. The VCSA office is also visiting more schools, trying to engage alumni to help. The VCSA developed lists of Hawaii high school students with high GPAs and SAT scores and the students were invited via email to the UHM experience. The lists will be provided to Deans, particularly if they indicated a major in the dean’s college. There is also a group of people in phone banks contacting them. We may need more faculty participation in these events, but particularly when the bright students are admitted and are deciding whether to choose UHM.

E. UHM is trying to develop a separate application for our admissions. Right now there is a common application form across UH. He wants his personnel to be able to spend more time dealing with students rather than processing papers. Right now they look at every single transcript. They’d like to be able to audit them on a sample basis.

F. With a UHM specific application, we could also include a separate scholarship application. Currently UHM awards most discretionary scholarships after students have accepted and agreed to come. It is not the UHM general practice to use scholarships to attract students. He’d like to change that.

There are 2 types of scholarships that could be allocated to various levels of students. The Achievement awards come from tuition waivers. The other scholarships come from UHF funds. Some of these funds end up not being awarded. The only scholarships that VCSA has are the Regents scholarships. This is not enough, and we need to be able to have more incentives to encourage the better students to come to UHM.

The SEC noted that the issue of UHM scholarship policy could be taken up by the Committee on Student Affairs; the liaison will mention this to CSA.

Some lower-income students miss out on financial aid and end up paying more by going to the CCs rather than UHM. Sometimes this prolongs their time to graduation. National data show that especially for some minority populations, students who live outside the home finish college faster.

Another initiative is that students can now be admitted as Honors students and don’t have to wait until they arrive. Honors students can enroll a day earlier, have an advisor and get a few other advantages. We can better use these incentives to recruit the best students to UHM.

The committee also recommended coordination with placement tests to will allow students to enroll in the correct science and math early on.

VCSA noted that there are many such perks that can easily be offered. We just need to better organize this and promote it. He meets with high school counselors in September, and wants to get ready for this by next fall.

G. The VCSA also noted that there are more students who have mental health conditions that require special attention. Unfortunately, some of them may be subject to suicidal tendencies and need to be monitored. At any point in time, there is an average of 5 students under suicide watch. He anticipates this number may grow as the number of veterans returning to school increases. Staff training is needed.

Costs and budgets relating to student health issues have decreased. There are many licensing, record-keeping and other issues that must be dealt with. The VCSA has asked student health services to look at where back-office and compliance issues can be combined to maintain the personnel for one-on-one counseling services.

Swine flu vaccinations are coming soon. Priority will be for younger students.

The VCSA left the room.

2. The Chair’s report was circulated earlier.

Chair Ross noted that he got a formal letter on personnel in the assessment office. The committee discussed ways in which the office’s needs can best be met. (

There are similar issues with regard to the offices involved in international education.)

COR report: The SEC discussed a draft resolution from the PBRC opposing the dissolution of PBRC. There may be a similar resolution coming from CRCH.

The SEC noted that we have received a resolution from the TIM school opposing the dissolution. The SEC is very concerned about the administration’s lack of understanding with and compliance with shared governance.

Other reports: The SEC agreed to move forward with the retirement survey as soon as possible.

There was a proposal by the VCAA to centralize classroom control.

The SEC noted that we might consider graduate student representatives for the Research Committee. UG student representatives might also be appropriate for CAPP and CSA.

Torben Nielson will serve on the revenue allocation splinter committee of the BPW.

There is a report on UHM institutional outcomes that needs to be circulated to appropriate standing committees.

On Oct 21 there will be a faculty congress and senate. For the Congress, we will invite the President. The VCAA also wants to address the Congress. A librarian is also going to be invited to discuss the library’s $1 million cut.

The BOR will be meeting on Thursday October 15. The UHM administration is most likely presenting a report on how UHM is meeting its mission/strategic plan.

If standing committees wanted to send a letter to the BOR, then we should organize this soon, particularly if there is some statement or concern regarding UHM’s mission as an R1 university. Such letter would be transmitted via Chair Ross at the meeting. We might want to emphasize the role of UHM, etc. We might also want to involve the students.

The liaisons will convey this message to the CAB and CAPP.

3. Meda Chesney-Lind, Ken Kipnis, John Goldberg-Hiller, David Stannard entered the room. Everyone introduced themselves.

The group of 6 (including Jon Osorio and Mari Matsuda) has been meeting to address the budget issues and possible financial exigency. They are planning a “teach in.” They have met with Chancellor Hinshaw and conveyed their message that her Chancellorship might be in trouble. They thought the meeting went well.

The group of 6 noted that UHM should follow the AAUP guidelines for financial exigency. The administration has been tip-toeing closer and closer to this. There is also no official retrenchment underway, although the SEC noted that the UH Pres mentioned the word several times at the last BOR.

The group of 6 would like to form a committee that would 1) investigate more details about the state’s budget crisis and how “real” it is. Such committee should include The SEC noted that 2 of the VCs have come to the SEC talking about the need to have a committee to address these issues. Before the Budget & Prioritization efforts were combined, the budget group was dealing with administrative cost savings and such, and the faculty were appropriately represented on the budget committee. However, since the BPW combined there was no appropriate representation from faculty.

Chair Ross noted the SEC’s dissatisfaction with the administration’s approach to shared governance. He particularly noted the fallacy in some of the data being used to measure efficiencies, etc.

The Group of 6 noted that the Senate is also perceived as perhaps not being proactive enough. They noted that this is the worst economic crisis they have seen, and that the normal senate committees might not be adequate to address this situation. Rather, an ad-hoc committee might be needed to address these specialized issues, and involve some specialists knowledgeable on the issue.

The SEC noted that their charge is limited to UHM. There have been suggestions that a higher level task force be convened to address issues at the State level.

The group of 6 recommended that the Senate should consider looking at more state-wide information, particularly in light of local news headlines.

In their meeting with the Chancellor and the VCAA, the Group of 6 noted that both of these administrators said there was no formal retrenchment planned.

The SEC brought up the possibility that rather than forming a committee to discuss exigency, the Senate might instead propose a resolution that could address the rumors about exigency and retrenchment and remind the administration of the AAUP guidelines, and the requirements for exigency and retrenchment. Pieces of the resolution could come from CPM, CAB, etc.

The group of 6 discussed their “teach in” a little more. They also mentioned that there are a few other experts on the state budget that will be involved.

There need to be additional data on the cost of administration.

The group of 6 and SEC discussed the agenda for the faculty congress, and whether this would be a logical time to introduce a resolution calling for a larger investigation.

The issue of the time control of the meetings will be critical. The SEC discussed perhaps sending some communication to the faculty or proposing resolutions prior to the meeting so that an action could be taken.

MET

Discussed Gartley and Enrollment Planning. I have circulated the latest version of the docs for the latter.

BW

Discussed the EP document. Questions were raised about resources to handle increased students, answer was about buildings. Some pushed on faculty resources.

VCAA said bottom line was to communicate the idea that (a) Education is core mission of UH, and (b) UHM should be the main locus for this, at least for Hawaii's good students.

Some admissions issues were raised, including whether we can revisit the current "guaranteed admissions" criteria for both transfers and for students out of high school.

One Dean asked what happens next. RD said the EP report would go to Senate for consultation/approval. I pointed out that except for the question of resources, the document should be relatively uncontroversial, given the repeated Manoa Faculty calls for most of this.

SUGGESTION: we refer to CAPP and CAB, and ask for a motion (probably for November meeting) to approve subject to reservations (with list of any reservations).