Council of Deans
Unapproved Minutes
November 26, 2001
Members:
Sullivan
Buckley
Burgess
Dawe
Goode
Harrison
Neale
Soelle
Young
Also Present:
TonyPokomy
1. Agenda Item 1 - COl Items of Interest
Sullivan stated that there were three items that came up at the COl meeting that he wants
to share with the group.
a. First item is faculty salaries. The Chair ofCOl is Jim Pate who is the Academic Vice
President at Northeastern and as chair of the COl he was called upon to testify before the State
Education Committee at Oklahoma City three or four weeks ago. Representative Larry Ferguson
could not understand why higher education had to pay such high salaries compared to public school
teachers. He had the assistant superintendent of public instruction there and Ferguson asked what
they paid their teachers. The reply was that for a bachelors they paid $24,000; for a masters, $26,000
and for a doctorate $32,000. Ferguson then turned to Pate and said, this is what public schools pay
their teachers, now why do you pay this much over here which is quite a bit of a difference? Pate
tried to defend that but of course we are not competing with the public schools. Pate did not
articulate the point that we are competing against biological research labs, industry and the like
rather than the public schools. We may be hearing more about this as time goes by. If Sullivan has
an opportunity to send one of our deans up to argue that point he plans to do it, because the deans
have good articulate arguments.
b. Another subject that came up in the COl meeting is faculty workload - total faculty
workload, notjust 12 hours per semester teaching load. Sullivan feels that all this is stemming from
what happened at the Department of Health and Human Services with ghost employees. Sullivan
feels that this is an issue that we may face with online instructors who could be on campus
infrequently. Additional thought must be placed on this issue.
c. Dr. Ross has asked that ifwe have program changes that we anticipate wanting to get
approved by the State Regents that we give her a draft copy prior to the time it goes to our Board.
That allows them to take a look at it so they can tell us if there is anything we might need to do
before it gets blessed by our Board. Short discussion followed.
2. Agenda Item 2 - Recruitment and Retention
a. Sullivan stated that he will be handing out drafts of three or four memos and what he
would like for the group to do is take a look at these and give him constructive feedback, i.e., a better
way to make these happen or at least any concerns and considerations.
b. Sullivan handed out the draft memo regarding recruitment and retention. One ofthe
things he has found as he has visited with the departments is that they would like their recruitment
waivers allocated earlier in the year so they can start using those in the spring and not have to wait
until summer to get them handed out. What Sullivan is interested in is that departments have a plan
and this is an attempt to get them to write some kind ofa recruitment plan. It doesn't have to be very
extensive at this point in time. Sullivan has asked for the plans in January. That may be too soon
but he would like to have the deans input on this. Also there is a best practices list that he will get
to the deans. There might be some good ideas on the list that can be incorporated into the
recruitment and retention plans - not that they all have to be incorporated.
3. Agenda Item 3 - Deans Review of Department Budgets
Sullivan stated that we are about mid-way through the budget year. He asked the group
to review their departmental budgets. One dean mentioned that the biggest budget problem is that
the budgets have been flat for so long and the student and the faculty counts are going up. Lengthy
discussion followed.
4. Agenda Item 4 - Summer School Issues
a. Sullivan stated that he has looked at all the summer school budgets except Business
and most ofthem are within the money. He has one that needs to be adjusted.
b. Sullivan distributed a memo to the deans regarding summer school and a document,
"Summer School Faculty Salaries, Regional Universities." Sullivan asked the deans to take a look
at this memo and think it through. This is absolutely not a done deal whatsoever but it is a way to
make ourselves competitive with Southwestern, East Central and those institutions we compete with
at least to some degree in terms ofthe 4 day summer school operation. Sullivan imagines it would
be favored by our students. Other institutions say that it is very definitely favored by students and
faculty alike. Sullivan asked that the deans give him feedback on this. Discussion followed.
c. Sullivan distributed a copy of the summer budget request from Buckley. Sullivan
stated the format oftrus budget is very usable. In the past Sullivan has tried to express to the deans
2
that when they are giving him information on which he is making budget decisions, they need to
provide him with enough information.
d. Sullivan asked that Soelle provide him with some additional breakdowns. Maybe
next year at this time he won't need them, but he needs them this one time.
5. Agenda Item 5 - Service Learning Program
a. Sullivan distributed a draft of a memo regarding Service Learning Program. He
stated that we have been in a hiatus with our service learning program because when we started
looking at it at the beginning of the semester we found that program improvements were needed.
b. Sullivan stated that he feels the way to handle this is to make the Service Learning
Program something that is administered within the particular school. Ifwe are going to have service
learning it should be managed by the dean of the school or at least the dean should oversee it.
c. Sullivan has drafted up some guidance and he would appreciate feedback from the
deans. He would like to have any suggestions the deans might have for improving this. He will
incorporate appropriate changes and then have the President and Joe Harroz take a look at it.
Lengthy discussion followed which included discussion ofrisk management assessment, internships,
application and screening process; background checks for new hires; background checks for student
teachers going into the public schools, public school students who work for ITS, etc.
6. Agenda Item 6 - Joint Appointments
a. Sullivan distributed a draft memo regarding joint appointment of faculty members.
At the moment this issue mainly involves Burgess and Buckley because this is focused on the
implementation of the Center ofExcellence in Advanced Computing Technology and the way that
has been set up. Again, this is for deans to look at and give Sullivan feedback on CEACT and the
way he has outlined it.
b. Sullivan stated that he would also welcome feedback on the entire concept ofjoint
appointments. What he is trying to get to is create an operational entity that has faculty members
assigned to it and yet does not violate the basic principles ofour faculty handbook for having people
evaluated and promotion-tenure decisions made from their department level. This is new to higher
education and Sullivan believes there is some way to make this work. What we are trying to get to
with the CEACT is an actual center ofexcellence with faculty assigned and with an entrepreneurial
mission in the middle. Sullivan asked for the deans wisdom on the particular way to handle this as
he has laid out in the draft memo.
7. Sullivan stated that Dr. Richard Braley gave an extremely interesting presentation this
morning and he will try to get Braley in to give it to this group. It was really out-of-the-box thinking
about the idea of doing a center for oil and gas security that we could playa major role in.
3
COMMENTS
Burgess - Stated that she received a very strange e-mail this morning from someone supposed to be
out ofAfrica. It stated that it was being sent to her because they fully trust that she will not disclose
this information - his father was the president of something and they got booted out ofthe country
and they have 20 million dollars they want to invest in the United States. Burgess asked if anyone
else had received such an e-mail. Reply was that several have received one. Goode mentioned that
there is a site that such e-mails can be reported to. She will furnish that to Burgess. Short discussion
followed.
Soelle - Stated she would like to raise the issue ofthe online assistants. She feels that it is going to
be different for various courses. In Liberal Arts the kinds of courses they offer, assistants would be
principally needed for grading essays, Comp I and Comp II, American History Survey, Political
Science Survey, Philosophy, and to a lesser degree the three humanities offerings. As far as student
workers, Liberal Arts has a policy where they try not to hire student workers from their own
discipline; the very reason being they do not want them looking at grades and possibly their friends
and colleagues materials. She has been working with Dawe on the possibility of using our own
graduate students because that at least raises the level of expertise a little bit although someone in
the Masters Program still only has a bachelor's degree, but it takes away the issues ofethics that go
along with student workers grading papers. In a discipline where the materials are different, it might
be a different issue. Her chairs are not trying to get out ofthe responsibility or not participate; they
just want the issue to be solved before they get there. Very lengthy discussion followed.
Sullivan stated that he hopes the development and the delivery schedules for summer and at
least the development schedule for fall will be topics at the online meeting tomorrow afternoon. It
may be possible to also revisit the student assistant matter. By then Sullivan hopes to have some
more information about how, for example, Central Florida is handling this and also Rogers State.
Sullivan stated that he really likes everything that was done last year with the exception of maybe
a question about - what is category C, level 2. Most ofthe policies that are in place are pretty sound.
Further discussion followed.
Neale - Had a question about summer school and the budget and perhaps going to a different
payment system for faculty. She stated that if we go to $500 per hour, which is average for an
Assistant Professor, that would be about $3,500 for the entire summer if a faculty member taught
7 hours which is now considered a full load. They are presently being paid 20% of their salary
which is say $7,000. Neale thinks we are going to have trouble getting faculty to teach summer
school ifthey are only going to get half ofwhat they are accustomed to. Sullivan replied that is not
his proposal. The proposal he has is that they will still be eligible for 20% of their salary but the
requirement would be based of 8/8 instead of 7/7. Panhandle pays $500 an hour and that is the least
expensive summer school in the state. If you go on down in the document Sullivan previously
handed out, you will see that Cameron is probably the most expensive. Neale stated that she was
just making sure because if faculty were going to be paid by the hour and they are accustomed to
something else, that would make a difference in their willingness to teach summer school. Sullivan
4
stated that this would bring us in alinement with other regional institutions in the state. Neale stated,
"you are not proposing payment by the hour but it would be 8 hours instead of 7." Sullivan replied
it would be 8/8 instead of 7/7.
Buckley asked - when the students come to summer school and pay their tuition, does the
income from that generate sufficient monies to pay all the salaries? Sullivan replied that last year
salaries exceeded our summer school income. Sullivan quoted statistics on enrollment and amount
of dollars generated ($771,580). Salaries cost us about $70,000 more than we took in. Discussion
followed.
Dawe made the comment that we might be able to address this if we reconsider the idea of
graduate instructors getting 4 hours of salary and just pay them 3 hours instead of 4 and then give
them some sort offlat stipend for teaching graduate courses. This may actually achieve some type
of compromise between the idea of offering 8 hours where you have to have 8 hours to get a full
load. It would also address the issue of some of the accrediting agencies that only allow faculty to
teach so many hours. With the expansion ofthe MBA Program at additional sites we could free up .
some faculty; they could teach 4 courses instead of 3 and still be within the 12 hours. Burgess
stated that this would not work for them. If a faculty member teaches a graduate course, their
accrediting agency assigns it 4 hours. Discussion followed.
Pokorny - No comments.
Dawe - No comments.
Young - No comments.
Harrison - No comments.
Buckley - No comments.
Goode - No comments.
Adjourned 12:10 p.m.
5