OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY COUNCIL MINUTES
Minutes, January 19, 2016
Roll: (Absentees Underlined) President Daniel DiBiaisio, VP David Crago, VP William Ballard,
VP Shannon Spencer, VP William Eilola, VP Adriane Thompson-Bradshaw, Dean Catherine
Albrecht, Dean Eric Baumgartner, Dean Steve Martin, Dean James Fenton, Dean Richard Bales,
Rev. David MacDonald, Dr. Alisa Agozzino, Dr. Khalid Al-Olimat, Dr. Joseph Blankson, Dr.
Bryan Boulanger, Dr. Joanne Brant, Dr. Tevye Celius, Dr. Mark Cruea, Dr. Natalie DiPietro,
Prof. Melissa Eddings, Dr. Kami Fox, Ms. Gina Grandillo, Dr. Dong Hyun Kim, Prof. Kelly
Kobiela, Dr. Kristen Sobota, Dr. Heath LeBlanc, Dr. Jed Marquart, Dr. Michelle Musser, Dr.
Erica Neely, Dr. Lauren Newell, Dr. Ed Potkanowicz, Prof. David Savino, Dr. Shane Tilton
Melissa Eddings, Chair of Council, called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. in Dicke Room 230.
I.
Minutes of November 17, 2015 meeting were approved
II.
Reports from Constitutional Committees (submitted reports are attached)
a. Budget & Appropriations: See report.
b. Academic Affairs: See report.
c. Student Activities: See report.
d. Personnel: See report.
III.
Reports from Operational Committees
a. Athletics: The committee hasn’t met yet this semester. We’re currently in the
middle of winter sports, as well as having received some fall post-season awards.
Good things going on over at King Horn.
b. Information Technology: As a reminder, ONU provides 5 licenses of Office 365
for faculty members, so don’t purchase your own license and then regret not
taking advantage of this perk!
c. Cultural & Special Events: No report.
d. International Affairs: No report.
e. Religious Affairs: No report.
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f. General Education: We are in the second year of reviewing seniors graduating
under our current requirements. Last year we had about thirty students who didn’t
meet requirements but were trying to graduate; this year it has blossomed to more
than 90 students. It is very time-consuming for Julie to try to work with all of
them. Although we provide advisors with reports and students with reports, it
doesn’t seem to be enough, so we have concluded that some changes need to be
made. First, we are proposing that DegreeWorks be the one and only source of
information, instead of having to match both Taskstream and DegreeWorks up.
The current process of using both packages can be troublesome in terms of
determining graduation requirements, particularly for people who don’t use the
software every day. We would like to hear from faculty if they have concerns
about this proposal. Second, in order to try to ensure that students actually submit
their artifacts, we are going to propose through the General Education committee
that instructors fail students in their classes who don’t submit the relevant artifact
for the course. This will be easy for faculty to do – you can use the software to do
a quick visual check of students, so it wouldn’t be much burden on faculty. This
would likely be a big enough incentive to get students to actually comply with
general education requirements. If we truly believe in our general education
policy, we need a solution that makes it easier to see where a student is in the
process and to encourage timely submissions so we aren’t always scrambling to
get everything taken care of. Third, there is an ongoing problem with the 2
additional tag requirement. DegreeWorks can’t handle this – we have to have a
human go through and add those artifacts manually. We would love to change
this so it can be automated; we need to think about possibilities that might make
this easier.
Q: Should the students maybe receive an incomplete rather than a failure if they
do not submit their artifacts?
A: We are open to that, but incompletes are a heavier burden on faculty and
administration, given that they involve pieces of paper that go through an
administrative chain of approval etc. But if we think it would be preferable (and a
big enough incentive to motivate students) we could certainly do that instead.
Q: If the requirement two additional tags go away, will students still be able to
waive tags?
A: That is only a rule for the College of Pharmacy, since every college
implements the general education slightly differently. However, we would have
to review and see what the impact would be for the College of Pharmacy. It turns
out that the majority of students don’t actually use their waivers, so the impact
might be minimal. (For the interested, the tag students most try to avoid is
aesthetics.) Waivers are more useful for transfer students than freshmen, really.
IV.
Other Reports
a. Vice Presidents
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i. Academic Affairs: Since the President is in Washington D.C., VP Crago
will be reporting for president too; both reports are consolidated in that
section.
ii. Financial Affairs: See report.
iii. University Advancement: The A-Z directory has launched; this is
important to faculty and it’s on the webpage now. Just go to the
faculty/staff audience button on homepage and it’s there under all the
tools. It should be complete, since it was based on the previous version.
C&M is in the final stages of creating the campus talking points. Lastly,
we are doing some edits to the online project request form based on
feedback from users.
iv. Admissions and Financial Aid: Update on progress for fall 2016. As of
the January 15th report, undergraduate applications have increased by 660
applications. A couple of groups we’ve been keeping an eye on are
female applicants and minority student applicants. We have a total
increase from last year of female applications of 447 and of minority
applications of 372 for the year to date. The College of Pharmacy has
their last round of interviews this week and a catch up date next week. We
should have a good estimate soon on the total number of offers they’re
going to be sending out soon. One word of caution about our application
numbers: about 65% of them are coming through the Common
Application, and about 35% from our application. Typically the Common
Application has a lower yield than our own, so keeping an eye on things.
We’re also working on conversion and yield activities. We are designing
a 4 to 5 email campaign working on return on investment. We are going
to send out a postcard reminding students to file on time for the FAFSA.
We are also working with marketing on some messaging to our accepted
student pool, using IP addresses to try to direct messages directly to their
home; we are hoping this will help increase our yield. A few quick
reminders: Orange and Black Student day is on April 2nd. We are also in
the midst of recruitment for Fall 2017 and beyond. Polar preview days are
on March 12 and April 6. We have a new director of International
Admissions, Rosa Edmond, who started January 4th; she is happy to meet
with people if they are interested.
v. Student Affairs: See report. Also would add that we are hopeful the coffee
kiosk will be up and running for Monday…
b. Deans
i. Arts & Sciences: See report. Note that the Improving Teacher Quality
grant was funded to support our high school chemistry teachers’
workshop. We also had a huge amount of participation in the recent
robotics tournament.
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ii. Engineering: We have completed the schematic design phase for new
engineering business. We worked throughout fall semester with students
faculty, staff, and got a design we’re happy with. We will be presenting it
to the Board of Trustees next Friday. Fundraising continues. On February
22nd we will be having the annual Spotts Lecture; the title is “Creative
Collisions.” Preceding that will be our distinguished alumni awards
dinner.
iii. Pharmacy: No report.
iv. Business Administration: We are in the process of preparing to send out
invitations to the Pinnacle Award event that we sponsor. Two alums will
be honored with these awards this year, which recognize sustained and
significant time, talent, and treasure donated to the college and university.
The event will occur in early March.
v. Law: No report.
c. Student Senate: No report.
d. Health Services Advisory Committee: See report.
V.
Chair/Faculty Comments: None.
VI.
President Comments/Questions:
Vice President Crago is covering this. The way the New American Colleges and Universities
(NAC&U) works is that the Presidents form a governing group; Dan is currently in Washington
D.C. for their semi-annual meeting.
Update on searches: The Provost search is in semi-final stage; we have a significant number of
folks to get through. We are hoping to have on campus interviews very early in February;
schedules will be sent out and there will be ample opportunity for faculty to meet with them.
Because of confidentiality issues surrounding this, candidate names are withheld until we get to
finalist stage.
The same confidentiality concerns apply to the Business Dean search. The profile should go up
today or in the next couple of days. We’re shooting to have those interviews in April, at a time
when the new Provost would have a chance to participate (both for their sake and the candidates’
sakes.)
Updates are going on at Macintosh. In addition, a major renovation is in the planning stage for
the first floor of Heterick library. The planning group met all fall; they seem to have narrowed
things down to one idea of how they want to do this. They are going to meet this Friday with the
President and the architect and try to come to a final resolution on this. Then we can hopefully
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talk to some additional donors, although most of the money has come from our previous
campaign, so the project is funded already. Our plan is to be able to do renovations over the
summer so by the time people come back in August we will have new first floor in the library.
An update on College Credit Plus, for those who remember that name – the renewals are due on
February 1 for next year. We expect to have all of the high schools who have participated in the
past continue to participate with us.
We have contacted the Deans to let them know that there are 10 grants of $2000 a piece for
developing online courses; they have the information and timetable for applying, so if you’re
interested in applying, talk to your Dean.
On the topic of external grants: Several things are going on in this area. In the fall we created a
working group of faculty on the advice of the Deans who have been involved in soliciting larger
grants that contain within them the provision for hiring adjuncts or visitors to cover people while
they’re working on the grants. We didn’t really have a policy before about how to deal with this,
but the working group has developed a policy and brought it to the Provost; he plans to talk to
the heads of the Academic Affairs Committee and the Personnel Committee to see who wants to
take the project on and bring it to Council before the end of the year. (Both committees have
heavy load, so he’ll let them figure out who gets the project.) This would ultimately result in an
appendix to the Faculty Handbook, so it needs to come through University Council. ONU is a
place where faculty are involved in teaching and it’s important that they’re in the classroom – we
don’t want to move to being a place where people can just buy out their teaching; they need to be
in the classroom. So we’re working on this policy.
The university has signed contract with McAllister & Quinn, which is an organization out of DC
that provides assistance on grant-writing and finding appropriate grants. Their focus is on
institutions like us – they work on grants in the range roughly of $500,000 to $5,000,000. They
will help us write one grant proposal a quarter. Becky will still help faculty with their other
grant applications, but ONU will use this firm’s expertise to apply for one significant grant per
quarter.
We’ve been successful recently in receiving external funding for grants, and we will have a panel
next Friday for the Board from folks who have been involved in receiving these grants. Dean
Baumgartner will also be talking to them about the engineering building, and three students will
talk about their experiences with high-impact learning. These presentations will give us a chance
to let the trustees see what we’re trying to do with external funding.
Q: how long are the contracts for college credit plus? A: One year – that’s all we’re permitted to
do. We have the opportunity for students to come on campus if they want. We looked at online
courses, but people didn’t want to do that. So these are all done in high schools and the
credentialing is hard because the faculty who run the courses need to have at least a Master’s
degree in the subject.
VII.
Unfinished Business: none
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VIII.
New Business: none
IX.
Announcements:
X.
Adjournment, 6:05 p.m.
The next University Council meeting is February 16th.
Respectfully submitted,
Erica L. Neely
Secretary of University Council
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Submitted Reports
II.a. Budget & Appropriations
-
Last meeting was December
Will begin meeting in mid-January
Early focus – spring semester enrollment & NTR
Longer focus – 16/17 budget development
II.b Academic Affairs
The Academic Affairs Committee has almost finalized our draft of the Program Review and
program deletion criteria, which will then go to the Provost and back to the committee before
coming to Council. We will begin working on the draft for program addition, which will be
based on the criteria already listed and the review criteria.
Academic Affairs also was presented with a request from the Committee of Academic Policy
Oversight in Arts and Sciences to make some changes to the wording of the Common Syllabus.
The committee decided not to make those changes as we felt that all items were additions that
can be added by individual schools, colleges, or faculty without changing the template. We did,
however, recommend updating the link for the disability policy, which is broken.
This semester we will be continuing with Appendix 5. We also have some wording changes to
the Student Grade Appeals Procedure that we will be discussing. Our first meeting of the
semester is January 27.
II.c Student Activities
Student Activities Committee has approved the following student groups as recognized student
organizations of Ohio Northern University: The College of Psychiatric and Neurologic
Pharmacists (CPNP), the Ohio Northern Photographer’s Association, and the ONU Disc Golf
Club.
II.d Personnel
The Personnel Committee met on December 7, 2015 and again on Jan 11, 2016. The Committee
continues to work on language in sections 2.4.A and 2.8 of the Faculty Handbook, in preparation
for work on section 2.9. The Committee will be examining handbook language on travel funds
and timing of sabbatical applications.
The Committee is also working on salary
recommendations for the Budget and Appropriations Committee, which will be submitted in
mid-February.
IV.a.ii. Vice President for Financial Affairs
Financial Affairs
- Focus on 15/16 operating results esp with Spring semester NTR and NSR
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-
-
16/17 Budget
o Requests are in for the most part and are being compiled
o Will start looking at FTE and NTR forecasts in February
Prophix system contracted for budgeting/reporting/planning
o Design work will begin in February
o Hopefully use for budget reporting and monitoring in 16/17
 Planning will be more for 17/18
Human Resources
- Online benefits enrollment was successful – fewer laggards than in the paper system
- Year-end & beginning work – esp W2s, new employee setups, etc.
IV.a.v Student Affairs
At 7 p.m. in the English Chapel Dr. Jonathan Walton, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals
at Harvard University and Pusey Minister in Harvard's Memorial Church, will be our guest
speaker at the campus Martin Luther King, Jr. observance. His topic will be the intersection of
religion and social justice. We welcome all to attend.
- McIntosh Center enhancements continue. There have been a few challenges that have caused
delays, but we have been assured that the Main Lounge area should be complete by the end of
this month. Work on the Bear Cave (also known as the former bowling area) will continue
through at least mid-semester.
- Good News Bear and Orientation Leader applications are now being accepted. Please
encourage any students you believe would be well suited for these roles to apply.
- Resident Assistant interview day will take place this weekend and residence hall staff for next
academic year will be selected by mid-semester.
- Members of the Student Affairs staff completed an 8 hour Mental Health First Aid course in
late December. The training, which was coordinated by the National Council for Behavioral
Health, further prepared staff to provide initial help to people experiencing problems such as
depression, anxiety disorders, psychosis and substance use disorders.
- Officers from all of the sororities and fraternities on campus will participate in a leadership
training session this weekend.
- Wednesday, January 27th from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. there will be a Winter Welcomefest held in
McIntosh Center. This will be an opportunity for student clubs and organizations to do second
semester recruitment for additional membership and for students looking for new ways to get
involved on campus to make a connection.
- We have approximately 122 recruiters and more than 67 organizations registered to be on
campus on Thursday, January 28th for the winter career fair. Students from Arts and Sciences,
Business and Engineering are encouraged to attend. They may register online from the Polar
Careers webpage.
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IV.b.i. Getty College of Arts and Sciences
The Department of Technological Studies hosted the ONU Polar Bear Classic VEX Robotics
Competition in the ONU Sports Center on Friday, January 8.
The Department of History, Politics and Justice is hosting its annual Mock Trial tournament
January 16-17, with over 100 students from twelve colleges and universities on campus.
The Department of Theatre Arts is hosting an Acrobatic Flying Workshop, led by ZFX, a world
leader in performer flying, for ONU students and faculty January 17-21 at the Freed Center.
ONU students will have the opportunity to study and perform with guest artists Ballets with a
Twist during the group’s January 23-31 residency on campus. The ensemble will perform a
concert entitled “Cocktail Hour: The Show” on January 30 at 7:30 pm and January 31 at 2:00
pm.
On Saturday, February 6, ONU will host the first annual Steel Band Day. The ONU Steel Band
will be joined by the Toledo School for the Arts, Glass City Steel Band, Ada Junior Steelband
(the Wild Steel-ions), and the Steel Band from Clark Montessori High School in Cincinnati.
Jeffrey Martin, ONU music education graduate, is the full-time steel band director at Clark
Montessori. The ONU Steel Drum Band and the high school bands will play several selections
on their own and together.
Fulbright scholar Benjamin Ayettey, Dr. Sarah Waters, and the ONU African Dance and
Drumming ensemble will perform a Fulbright Extravaganza concert on March 10 at 7:30 in the
Freed Center.
District Science Day will be held Saturday, March 19.
The annual Student Research Colloquium will be held Friday, April 22, 2016; the deadline for
applications is Friday, March 11.
IV.d. Health Services Advisory Committee
-
Next meeting scheduled for Feb 2
Focus on healthy campus – how do we increase participation from present ~20%
What needs to be in place to enhance our program and how to fund
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