Commission Meeting Minutes
1-31-12 9:00 am
Keyser Room
Welcome and Announcements
Present: Gary Blomquist, Patty Charles, Amy Childress, Chris Coake, Kelly Corrigan, Ana de Bettencourt-Dias,
Dana Edberg, Stacy Gordon, Michelle Hritz, Janita Jobe, Trudy Larson, Stephen Maples, David Ryfe, JoAnne
Skelly, Reg Stewart, David Zeh.
New Meeting Schedule will be twice a month for two hours rather than once a month for three hours. This way
all members should be able to attend at least one meeting per month.
The senate office was creating a FaceBook page and a Webpage for the Commission. The web would be
mainly for informational items, documents, interim reports, and documents to share with the Commission
members. The FaceBook page would be utilized for daily interactions. David would send friend requests our
constituents, regents, the senate and any others that would like to have information on the Commission.
Bill Sparkman has offered the commission an opportunity to work with a graduate class. The class was tackling
some of the same issues the commission was and Sparkman offered research assistance. This research
would be in making projections about how our qualified applicant pool will change over time. Most students
come from Washoe and Clark Counties and it would be helpful to know what a 7th or 8th grade student looked
like. The demographics in the state have change and have actually been shrinking.
The President scheduled a Town Hall for February 1, 2012 to discuss the immediate future of the university.
President Johnson
President Johnson thanked the committee for being available and willing to do this work. This committee
reminded him of the dedication and perseverance of the Budget Advisory Committee, who met frequently over
a short period of time with good results.
Ryfe came to the conclusion that the only way to grow the university was with future student revenue. Grants
and gifts were important to the university but those could not create enough flow from year to year to sustain
the university.
Johnson said that state funds were difficult to come by and that made it hard to see growth happening there. It
goes back to student revenues, and market wise, there is the ability for some growth in fees, but the regents
were reluctant to raise fees. We keep about one-third of our fees. The enrollment management program was
designed to focus resources on those students most likely to graduate. If we get to keep our tuition and fees,
then we would increase the revenue stream and be able to be responsive to a number of students. We would
then want to grow at a moderate rate. Johnson thanked the committee for thinking about these things.
Ryfe: 4 things:
1. Only institution that grew enrollment over the past year (doing more with less which gave us the one
time money)
2. Complete College of America goals: graduation rates could be increased by enrollment management
by 5 to 7%. We have been varying around the mean for the last decade.
3. Tuition retention extremely important.
4. Affordability and Access
All these have problems, we don’t want to solve the old problems and ignore the new problems, need to
balance the two of them.
David asked Bruce to speak about what the budget pie would look like over the next ten years.
Bruce Shively
Shively went over the spreadsheet with the projections for the next 7 years.
The 114 million was expected to be our appropriation for next year, this would include: UNR, Agriculture
Experiment Station, Cooperative Extension, Intercollegiate Athletics, and Business Center North. This did not
include the School of Medicine and the State Health Lab.
Western Undergraduate Exchange Program allows for steeply discounted tuition and fees. Once on the WUE
program a student cannot become a resident of the state. Other out of state students if they have a job, live in
Nevada for 12 months, and are not claimed on their parents’ taxes can establish residency in Nevada.
There will be no increase of General Funds in FY 2013 and perhaps a modest increase in 2015. The
assumption being made was that the only increase would be funding health insurance and any salary
increases. If the NSHE gets control of their tuition and fees, then they could most probably have to pay a share
of salary increases.
Both in-state and out-of-state enrollment have increased.
Shively did not think that state would reduce our general funds appropriation if we got control of our tuition and
fees. More of a partnership, the state will accept responsibility for their share, students and parents would
accept their share too. If the state authorized increases for merit and COLA, Bruce felt they would come up
with their share for these.
On the expense side, salary is 2/3 of our budget. No COLA in 2014-15. There would be an increase in health
insurance costs, however, even in this biennium the legislature came forward with some funds to offset.
In the future we would need to look at reallocating some funds to Information Technology.
The university receives several million dollars from financial aid. Maples said that in the past 17% of our
students were Pell eligible, but it is now closer to 30%.
The university receives a special allocation from a slot machine tax for deferred maintenance of our buildings.
While our instructor to student ratio should ideally be 20:1 it is more like 27:1. With the new technologies
available, we could reach more students.
There was discussion regarding the legislature putting a cap on out-of-state students in the future, so the
university could still serve Nevada students.
Excellence Group Reports
Reginald Stewart met with Interim Dean Chris Cheney from the College of Education. Campus wide, it seemed
that everyone was in a holding pattern, but with guarded optimism. COE’s dynamics changed dramatically with
curricular review and it seems that people are expected to lead, but no one is in charge.
Janita Jobe met with Scott Casper, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. CLA touches everything
because of the core and they have an impact on every student. They take their mission seriously and are trying
to create productive and creative citizens. They appear to be gun shy after the curricular review process.
Ryfe thought that there would be a significant difference between those units that were heavily affected by
curricular review.
Trudy Larson spoke with Dean Jeffrey Thompson. The College of Science is in the process of doing a new
strategic plan. They have a strong community advisory board and questions were asked of the department
chairs and the community in formulating their plan. A focused UNR strategic plan would be helpful. We have a
lot of structural barriers that prevent bringing in talent across campus. Change of promotion and tenure so that
excellent instructors are rewarded. We need an economic development office.
Ryfe said we don’t have the resources to be like the larger institutions. Utah would be a good example of what
we could achieve. If we are not in the top 50, it gives us greater flexibility to define ourselves.
JoAnne Skelly met with Dean for Engineering Manos Maragakis: Their strategic place was implemented in
2010. They were working on gaming (not gambling) programs to help people with disabilities improve their
lives. They have adapted ways to grow with the research funding. Their scholarship and programs were strong.
They don’t always have the student services they need for their students and some of their students were not
as strong as they would like. The College of Engineering sponsors a lot of programs to get future students on
campus, but there was not much coordination with student services and follow-up.
Christopher Coake spoke with Interim Dean Donica Mensing from the School of Journalism.
One of the frustrations of Journalism was the instability in leadership. The new dean will begin in April. The
journalism profession has changed drastically They are worried about placement rates. They are known for
focusing on community needs, dedicated to undergraduate education, are in favor of innovation in their field,
and are very well networked in the political structure.
Steve Maples spoke with Shannon Ellis the Vice President for Student Services. Their strategic plan has been
in place since 2008 and has been influenced by the past two presidents. They have been striving to grow
undergraduate enrollment rates and increase the retention rates, diversity and talent. They have been working
on a culture of completion and the graduation rate is 53%. No changes have been made to the plan for the last
several years. Discussion has ensued about fee for service rather than fighting for limited resources.
The themes appear to be lack of institutional strategic plans that give guidance to all programs, the interim
mode has the university in a holding pattern. We can frame the issues before the new people take the
positions so when they come in they have some guidance. Lilly came on campus with the idea of growing
campus and the campus became very fractured. Glick came on campus to fix that and got stuck in the budget
issues. We are still a fractured campus. This is the best environment to create change; the question is not
whether or not to change, but how to change. This is where Ryfe sees the commission helping.
There are several tensions at work that need to be managed:
1. Aspiration to have a national reputation and decide what our image will be. Students may be driving
that change as they will be paying more of the cost of education.
2. Resources, what is our capacity?
3. Students: the kind of students we have and the kind of students we want.
4. Access and affordability are in the cultural outlay of Nevada.
Should this commission work with the search firm?
We have access to the Chancellor and Chairman Geddes.
Meeting adjourned: noon pm