OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY COUNCIL MINUTES
Minutes, October 20, 2015
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. Kelley Reilly Kroustos, 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 September 15, 2015 meeting were approved
II.
Reports from Constitutional Committees (submitted reports are attached)
a. Budget & Appropriations: no further report
b. Academic Affairs: no further report
c. Student Activities: To add to our report: We have put forth a proposal to include
the Director of Student Involvement as a voting member of the committee. It was
unanimously accepted by committee and has submitted it to secretary of the
faculty; should be seeing that proposal within the next few weeks and will
hopefully vote on it in December to amend constitution to include them on
committee.
d. Personnel: To add to the report: we are continuing to review 18 applications for
sabbatical.
III.
Reports from Operational Committees
a. Athletics: No report
b. Information Technology: Jeff Rieman is working with student representatives to
evaluate residence halls and strengthen our network.
c. Cultural & Special Events: Have had a poet and artist on campus as a joint
collaboration. Also had the Taylor 2 dance company working with students and
with schools in the community. Most recently had the fight choreographer on
campus. Met October 16th and are still working to solidify the speaker series.
The music subcommittee is looking at bringing a group in called Bibik
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(gypsy/jazz fusion) and a group from Kenton that does (South Asian) Indian
music.
d. International Affairs: Met last week, dealt with a SWAT analysis of conditions on
campus for international students. We will continue to work with this.
e. Religious Affairs: No report; has not met since our last meeting.
f. General Education: EXDS classes are posted to course offerings for spring;
thanks to the faculty who were willing to help out with the spring offerings.
There have been questions about how to look up the course offerings for EXDS.
To do this, please utilize the "Schedule/Catalog Search" feature on the registrar's
website, or click on "Class Schedule Search" in Self-Service Banner under
"Faculty and Advisor Services". Punch in the Spring 2016 term, select EXDS for
the department name, and execute the search. To see which majors are restricted
from a particular EXDS 2001 section, click on the course title orange hyperlink.
Also, note that we have some new EXDS courses on offer, so people should take
a look before registering. Also, to clarify: all students seeking bachelor’s or
pharmacy degree must complete ONU general education requirements. This
includes transfer students.
IV.
Other Reports
a. Vice Presidents
i. Academic Affairs: In addition to the budget, we did other things at Board
meeting. Both public health major and environmental studies minor were
reported and approved by the Board so can move forward. One of our
goals is working on a retention program based on data rather than
anecdotes. This year we offered freshman the chance to take college
student inventory; this should give us data to work with. Ruffalo Noel
Levitz helped us identify some issues to be aware of. They also helped
identify freshmen to pay special attention to so we can work on things
before they become problems. As mentioned before, we are particularly
looking at sophomore-junior year retention.
ii. Financial Affairs: To add to the report, we had 350 attendees at the health
screening and 85 retirees at the forum on Saturday.
iii. University Advancement: Just a reminder that campus campaign will be
focused in spring rather than fall. Everyone should have gotten a coupon
for free coffee – we will be doing more in the spring.
iv. Admissions and Financial Aid: We are monitoring undergrad applications.
Comparing year to date, we see a bit of a drop compared to last year
(around 35-40 applications.) We can’t make a direct correlation because
last year our app online went live July 1st and this year went August 1st,
but this gives us an idea of where we stand. We are working with colleges
to take corrective action. Pharmacy and Engineering have done a phone
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campaign; Business will be doing so next week. Have met with A&S to
plan similar actions. We have had over 1000 students who’ve visited
campus but haven’t applied. This is a great way to reach out to them to try
to encourage them to apply if they are still interested. Pharmacy is doing
interviews 10/27 and have about 85 students who have been interested.
The earlier deadlines are more competitive for students who want to make
a decision earlier; applications are up. In addition, we are working on
scholarship and financial aid parameters; the true cost calculator went live
on the webpage today for families to be able to make calculations about
costs. Next week we will have visit from strategic enrollment planning
people.
v. Student Affairs: (Expanding on the bullet points in the report and adding
topics) Dining Service Improvements: we’ve been made aware of
students’ concerns about dining services’ food quality and are focusing
attention on it. Student senate’s dining services committee which was
inactive for the past year has become more active, is meeting regularly,
and have noted some improvements based on their requests to dining
services. We plan to keep monitoring the situation and hope to see
continued improvement.
McIntosh Center Enhancement Updates:
construction continues, although slower and a bit later than we’d
originally planned. We will have a progressive opening of spaces;
everything should be done in January but will have a grand opening for
one area soon. Title IX: We have had first title IX case and from inception
to completion have gone through the process. So in case people think it’s
much ado about nothing, we want to note that we have had a case. Trick
or Treat is tonight: It should be done by about 6:30, but until then the
campus is full of characters. Leadership day: This is November 7th and is
sponsored by student involvement. We have several sessions planned but
welcome any faculty/staff with area of expertise that might be relevant.
Please talk it up with any up and coming student leaders. Lastly, Student
Affairs staffs from Findlay, Bluffton, Heidelberg, and Tiffin will be
coming to ONU.
b. Deans
i. Arts & Sciences: To add to the report, please partake in the cultural
events we’re sponsoring; there are many activities over the next week.
We also will be welcoming second international scholar, Hong Xu, for the
year next week. She teaches English language and will be here for 6
months. Her university focuses on technical education, so there might be
opportunities to interact with other departments. Lastly, there were 22
teams at annual math shootout today. So we had 88 students on campus
participating in this problem-solving competition.
ii. Engineering: no report
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iii. Pharmacy: no report
iv. Business Administration : Our accounting graduate program is currently
delivered by a blended method, but we desire to move it to a completely
online format. Julie Hurtig and Academic affairs is helping us approach
the Ohio board of regents and higher learning commission to get approval
to do that. We expect to submit that within next four weeks.
v. Law: The college received a grant from the State Department to educate a
group of Afghani lawyers. This is a 3 year grant, but it could be expanded
for up to 5 years. Second, we have been working with alumni office to
connect at alumni events – have had good law turnout and look forward to
doing that more often.
c. Student Senate (Gina Grandillo was absent, so Adriane Thompson-Bradshaw
expanded on the bullet points as best as she could): Budget Appropriations and
Appeals – all are completed, they are in the process of distributing money to the
104 groups that approached them. Board Meeting – Gina was present at student
affairs committee, but was not able to attend general board meeting due to a
family engagement. Second with Senate – This is the process by which senate
members are polling/surveying students on campus about concerns and are
feeding those concerns back to us.
d. Health Services Advisory Committee: no further report
V.
Chair/Faculty Comments : postponed until after the President’s report.
VI.
President Comments/Questions: Update on Board meeting from this past weekend.
Brought to the Board for the first time this early the proposal for tuition, room, and
board recommendations and had an action item on that. Proposed that we increase
total cost to around 3% for students. After dialog with Ruffalo Noel Levitz we
realized we were going to be putting the calculator up earlier and wanted to make
these decisions now so that families could use it and get more reliable information
while they go through college search process. (We usually do this decision making in
January.)
Budget was approved. It included a request and approval for a one time endowment
draw of $3.5 million. To make budget work with gap of around $8 million we needed
some investment income to help us have some time for our proposals to come to
fruition. (As a reminder of history: last year we asked for a $2 million draw and that
is sustained this year.) We provided documentation in advance to the Board to walk
them through reasoning about why we were asking for the draw.
About the budget itself. This budget makes significant investments in a number of
areas. First and foremost, we’ve been really committed to keeping a salary increase
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in this budget. The amount of salary compensation will be the same as in the last
budget. [See clarification on this point in the questions below – ELN] Some of the
endowment draw will help us with enrollment and retention of students to help with
net tuition revenue. It also includes a component for faculty support related to
investing in assisting faculty who wish to seek and compete for grants. Some
additional dollars for planning and assessment, particularly around a multi-year
financial planning system we want to implement.
We also had some reductions, including reductions to the benefits area. First, the
retiree health insurance plan, i.e., what we’ve offered to all employees who were here
prior to 2001. (It was closed at that point so no new members.) We have frozen the
annual contributions at the 2015 level. In addition, there is an administrative and
faculty eligible incentive retirement plan (voluntary severance plan) – we have frozen
new entrants into the plan this year which gives us a chance to take some time to look
at what we might do in its place. This program was under discussion a year ago when
going through budget process, and we retain the concern that it’s not really meeting
the goals for which it is intended. We might be able to do better at creating bridge to
retirement, particularly for faculty. Lastly, retirement and the 403(b) plans. We
haven’t presented a proposal to the Board about what exactly we’re going to do,
because we are still considering the feedback received from forums, through email,
Personnel, B&A, etc. We want to see if there are better ways to achieve some
savings while maintaining retirement readiness for all of our people (and balance
those goals going forward.) We also want to give employees some flexibility –
current mandatory system doesn’t do that. Hopefully in the next few days we will put
together a proposal; this is still under review. We had an intended savings in our
presentation of $700,000; we have reduced that to $500,000. If we can’t achieve that
level of savings after we figure out what we’re doing, we’d have to do something else
in the budget to achieve that savings.
In addition to action on budget, had discussion on branding. Had a representative
from RNL present about scope of what they’re doing with us to the board. (Partly
had this so board could see why we were asking for extra draw that related to this.)
Was pleased Melissa could contribute to the Board meetings about the budget.
There was a great deal of concern and hope that some of these proposals and
opportunities will take advantage of time available and come to fruition. The
presentation from RNL seemed to help increase confidence in our opportunities and
there was recognition that we’re trying to navigate rocky shoals of this budget issue
and don’t want to do anything that devalues the work of people on campus. This
seems like why they were willing to go beyond 2 million draw.
Q: Was it a $3.5 million draw on top of a $2 million or was it $1.5 million extra?
A: On top of it. The $3.5 million was a one-time draw for this year – next year we
won’t have it. The $2 million draw is continuing and will get stepped down
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gradually. By FY 20, hopefully, it will go away and we will not be drawing off the
endowment. Remember also that we’ve been adding to the endowment over time.
Q: Is the $500K that we need to save just for the 403b cuts or everything?
A: Just the 403b. If what we ultimately decide to do for best interests of faculty/staff
doesn’t yield the $500K in cuts, we’ll have to look elsewhere to cover those costs.
Q: You said that the pool of money for faculty compensation was the same as last
year – how does that give us raises?
A: The additional amount is the same as the additional amount last year – we aren’t
saying that the total amount is the same as last year.
V.
(revisited) Chair/Faculty Comments: Melissa reiterated concerns that had been voiced
to her, mainly in terms of compensation package and retirement in addition to the
health benefit reduction for retirees. There’s a concern among faculty that they might
not be able to retire when they thought they would. Has the university considered the
implications of older faculty hanging on because they can’t afford to retire? (How
would this impact recruitment, keeping up with students even if faculty are past their
prime, etc.) Answer from the president: we are trying to keep in mind that overall
rate of savings that is recommended for retirement when making these decisions.
TIAA-CREF are involved with this.
Q: Dennis DeLuca: Would university council consider changing university
governance in faculty handbook 2.1.2. Seems like over the summer there were some
changes to the handbook that didn’t come from any meetings that the faculty were at.
Lots of work lately on Appendix 5, which is the adding/deleting program part. He is
worried that some programs might be deleted without true faculty input and problemsolving. Would like change so that faculty have real say.
A: Joanne Brandt noted that changes for faculty expectations came from University
Personnel committee, who brought them to university council, the council voted, then
it came to university faculty, and the faculty voted on them. It seems like there was a
standard process followed here. Catherine Albrecht noted that Appendix 5 changes
are going through the process too. Melissa Eddings noted that we need to take
seriously representatives on the council who are the voice of their division, college,
etc. They should bring faculty members’ concerns to the council.
Dennis: There doesn’t seem to be much direct input into these decisions – it’s fairly
hierarchical, via committees, etc. Mostly seems like university can change whatever
they want. The process doesn’t seem effective. Wants some kind of consensus rather
than all these indirect things.
More discussion about this. The point was made that the Personnel Committee might
also want to look at language in preface, since it doesn’t make it clear what language
is binding and what is advisory. Bryan Boulanger invited people to write to the
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Personnel Committee and note sections that could use work and any language
changes that people would like; governance can always be improved.
VII.
Unfinished Business: none
VIII.
New Business: none
IX.
Announcements: We omitted asking about announcements, so none.
X.
Adjournment, 6:29 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Erica L. Neely
Secretary of University Council
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Submitted Reports
II.a Budget & Appropriations
B&A has met regularly as the FY2016 Final Operating Budget has been prepared and finalized.
Discussions have also included feedback re the budget and benefits forums held by Dr. DiBiasio
and Mr. Ballard on October 2. The next scheduled meeting will be on October 20 and will cover
the Final Budget as approved by the Board of Trustees on October 17.
II.b Academic Affairs
Academic Affairs is working on the creation of a program review for Appendix 5 of the faculty
handbook. We have defined what a “program” means for program review. We are now
determining what pieces of information need to be included in the actual review, both
quantitative and qualitative information. We have been looking at a variety of examples from
other schools and from on campus sources.
II.c Students Activities Committee
Student Activities Committee met on October 9 to discuss two student organizations: The
College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP) and the Ohio Northern Photography
Association. Both organizations have been asked to revise and resubmit their documents.
II.d Personnel Committee
The Personnel Committee continues to meet weekly. We have discussed the impact of budgetary
changes on faculty, and are working to revise handbook language regarding fixed term
appointments and sections 2.9-2.10 of the Faculty handbook. We will be reviewing applications
for sabbatical leave once all of those have been received.
IV.a.ii Vice President For Financial Affairs
Most efforts in the office have been focused on the preparation of the Final Operating Budget for
2015-16 to be submitted to the Board of Trustees for their review and approval on October 17. In
addition, Human Resources has been holding forums to discuss employee medical and voluntary
benefits for calendar 2016 as well as portals for online open enrollment and Healthwise. A forum
for retirees and their health coverages will be held on October 17 as well.
IV.a.v Student Affairs
Dining Service Improvements
McIntosh Center Enhancement Updates
IV.b.i Getty College of Arts and Sciences
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The Getty Council advisory board will meet October 17, 2015.
The Department of Technological Studies hosted an "Eating with Industry" dinner with alumni
on October 8 and a golf outing for alumni on October 9.
The ONU Symphony Orchestra will be performing Sunday, October 25, at 5 pm, and the Wind
Orchestra's first fall concert is Wednesday, October 28, at 7:30.
The Department of Theatre Arts will present Two Gentlemen of Verona October 22-25.
The Elzay Gallery is hosting an exhibit on "Mapping Katrina." The opening reception and talk
by Dr. Jimmy Wilson will be Friday, October 16.
Students in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will be presenting posters on their
summer research on Friday, October 16.
IV.c Student Senate
Budget Appropriations/Appeals
Board Meeting
Second with Senate
IV.d Health Services Advisory Committee
The Committee met on September 28 to discuss the forthcoming employee medical plan
enrollment for 2016. In addition, Human Resources has been holding forums to discuss
employee medical and voluntary benefits for calendar 2016 as well as portals for online open
enrollment and Healthwise. Three forums in total were held. A forum for retirees and their health
coverages will be held on October 17 as well.
Health screenings are scheduled for October 17 and 28. There will also be an ONU Benefits fair
with various vendors on October 21.
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