OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY COUNCIL MINUTES
Minutes, September 15, 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. Nesreen Alsbou, Mr.
Dr. Joseph Blankson, Dr. Bryan Boulanger, Dr. Joanne Brant, Dr. Tevye Celius, Dr. Mark
Cruea, Dr. Natalie DiPietro, Prof. Melissa Eddings-Mansuco, Prof. 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, Dr. 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 April 21, 2015: The Chair had received a correction from Ron Peterson
regarding these minutes; the amended minutes were approved.
II.
Elections: Erica Neely was elected Secretary by acclamation. Michelle Musser was
elected Vice-Chair by ballot. Lauren Newell was appointed Parliamentarian.
III.
Reports from Constitutional Committees
a. Budget & Appropriations: The committee is working on the budget; it will be
presented at the Board meeting on October 16th.
b. Academic Affairs: The Provost asked them to look at Appendix 5 of the Faculty
Handbook on procedures for adding/deleting programs; they are updating current
guidelines and adding guidelines for doing a full program review.
c. Student Activities: Has not yet met.
d. Personnel: The committee will be updating the Faculty Handbook on personnel
issues. They will also meet to consider sabbatical applications.
IV.
Reports from Operational Committees
a. Athletics: Has not met yet, but Men’s Cross Country is off to a great start.
b. Information Technology: Renegotiated the cable television contract and managed
to save money while increasing the channels offered. Monday-Friday during the
semester there are more than 4000 wireless devices connected to the network
(which is around 3 per student); it is good we added new infrastructure to deal
with this.
c. Cultural & Special Events: Currently working on confirming speakers for this
year.
d. International Affairs: Has not yet met.
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e. Religious Affairs: Will be continuing work from last semester on establishing a
policy for off-campus people who are coming on campus to work with students
for religious purposes. This also needs to conform to new Title IX guidelines.
f. General Education: Looking forward to new help from Dr. Eunhee Kim who will
be moving to a new role as Director of Academic Assessment. She will be
looking at the artifacts we have amassed in Taskstream and considering how best
to assess them and improve our efficiency at handling them.
V.
Other Reports
a. Vice Presidents
i. Academic Affairs: We received a clean bill of health from the Higher
Learning Commission when they met in June; our next site visit will be in
ten years. Since we were not given any projects to work on by HLC, we
are able to pick them for ourselves. Accreditation never truly ends,
however, as from November 9th-11th representatives from the United
Methodist Church will be on campus to review our programs and our
relationship with the UMC. Brian Keas finished his term as faculty
fellow; Lynda Nyce has joined the office full-time to continue work on
increasing our international student recruiting. Will also be focusing on
retention, as noted in opening activities from this year. Lastly, a group is
looking at how to improve the first floor of Heterick Library to make it
more inviting and accessible to collaborative learning; funds were
received for this purpose. The group will be soliciting student and faculty
feedback.
ii. Financial Affairs: Has been in audit mode over the summer; their report
will be released to the Board in mid-October. Operationally, we have
improved from a year ago; while these expenses are still at a deficit, we
have worked hard on expense controls and the like. Non-operational
expenses look less good; the investment market was not good to us, and
we had expenses from the VROs last year. Will be meeting with the
Cabinet, Deans, etc. before the budget goes before the Board in midOctober; they will know more after we have more information on
enrollment for this semester. They are working on developing responses
to the 500+ ideas on how to cut expenses that were submitted from people
on campus. Lastly, there is a project to renovate/revitalize Macintosh
center; this should hopefully be completed in January.
iii. University Advancement: Have made some changes to Homecoming,
which is coming up from the 25th-27th. We will have inflatables rather than
rides this year due to cost. We also will be bringing food into King Horn
to combat both the weather and cost issues. Communication and
Marketing are working on the new webpages; please report any broken
links to them. There is an Open Forum on Branding on Monday. The
Alumni Journal is in production and will be in mailboxes soon.
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Advancement is working on the campaign for Engineering, which is in its
quiet phase right now.
iv. Enrollment Management: Bill Eilola is in Toledo recruiting, so his report
was shared by email. The Colleges of Arts & Sciences and Pharmacy
have decreased enrollment this year. The Colleges of Business and
Engineering are up. The College of Law is roughly the same. Within Arts
& Sciences, the largest decreases in deposits come from biology, nursing,
and psychology. The number of full-time, degree-seeking international
students has increased. Recruitment travel has started – the teams are out.
Financial aid packaging parameters are being completed for this year and
new scholarship awarding has begun. The Strategic Enrollment Planning
process continues; they will be meeting with consultants this week.
v. Student Affairs: 188 organizations registered for the fall career and
graduate school fair on Thursday – they had to turn people away due to
lack of space; have encouraged those organizations to attend the winter
career fair. Family Day is Saturday along with the Harvest and Herb
festival. Homecoming is the following weekend and Residence Life is in
need of convertibles to transport dignitaries in the parade. Please let them
know if you can help. Sorority recruitment was last week (there are 77
new Pan-Hellenic members) and fraternity recruitment is currently
occurring. Sodexo has started working with Capabilities, Inc. which helps
provide opportunities to people with differing abilities; there will be
several individuals working in the dining hall, accompanied by their career
coaches. University Disciplinary Board training is being held September
24th, October 1st, and October 3rd.
b. Deans
i. Arts & Sciences: We have welcomed Fulbright scholar Benjamin Ayettey
from Ghana. He is well known in Ghana and will be teaching African
drumming and dance as well as working with our students on a number of
events this year. The Fall Musical and the Taylor 2 dance company are
also upcoming this semester.
ii. Business Administration: no report
iii. Engineering: Were ranked 39th in the nation by U.S. News & World
Report for undergraduate programs that did not offer a doctorate; that is up
from 44th last year. Recently received accreditation statements; all five
programs were reaccredited by ABET for the maximum duration of 6
years. The new engineering education program received its initial
accreditation. This program is currently small but will be recruiting more
for it.
iv. Law: the Iceland exchange program is becoming a study abroad program;
they expect approval from the ABA. Constitution day is Thursday. On
Friday there will be a memorial for Professor Mike Lewis.
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v. Pharmacy: Representative was not present, but they announced that their
accrediting body will do a site visit from October 6th-8th.
c. Student Senate: Welcome Fest had over 160 organizations and businesses in
attendance. Tunes on the Tundra has returned and was very popular; more than
650 tickets were sold. Two new organizations have been approved so far this
year. Elections begin on Thursday, September 17th. The Budget Appropriations
Process began today, September 15th. Second with Senate, a way in which
students can provide feedback to Senate members, will be held during the first
week in October. They are preparing for the October Board of Trustees meeting.
d. Health Services Advisory: Are focusing on the rollout and signage for the
Tobacco-Free campus initiative. They are also working on the medical plan
renewal; they have sought quotes and are working on rate design. Human
Resources has pushed out some dates for Healthwise screenings and the like;
people should keep a look out for those.
VI.
Chair/Faculty Comments: The Chair noted that she was approached with the question
of when the President would share the Provost’s evaluation of him. No other
questions or concerns have been raised.
VII.
President Comments/Questions: Reminded people about the forums on Branding,
Title IX, and SEP; notifications about these went out via email recently. They are
launching the Provost search; the committee hopes to have two search consultants on
campus at the end of September to discuss matters. With regard to budgetary matters:
when we receive the enrollment numbers this week we will be in a better position to
know where we stand financially and how to close the gap; the gap has widened
because we have fewer students than we expected. While this is partially offset by a
decrease in financial aid expenditure, there is probably a 1.5-2 million dollar addition
to the budgetary gap. The Board meeting is on October 16th, so the budget will need
to be finalized by then. The allocation for compensation is currently still in the
budget and remains a priority. Orientation for three new Board members happened
recently. The October Board meeting also hosts the Lehr Society meeting, at which
we will be recognizing nine donors who have given at least $100,000 to the
university. We will also be officially dedicating Kerscher stadium. The President
mentioned a number of opportunities for student involvement coming up this year,
and noted that ONU did well in ratings/rankings for this year, especially in terms of
the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Lastly, the College Scorecard was released
by the Federal Government this week and it does not seem too bad. If you put ONU
in to the site (at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/) you will see that we get a very
favorable report.
VIII.
Unfinished Business: None.
IX.
New Business: None.
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X.
Announcements: Chair Melissa Eddings noted that she is going to be calling for
reports early enough that Council members would have time to read and absorb them;
if this means that people can only submit preliminary reports, that is fine. She
believes it will improve our discussions if we are more informed prior to the Council
meeting. She will thus be aiming to receive information a week in advance. (If you
do have a long report and wish to be nice to the secretary, bring a copy to the meeting
as well.) Leonard Riskin will be giving the Kormendy Lecture on “Focus, SelfManagement, and Mindful Awareness in Law School and Beyond” at 11 a.m. on
Friday, October 2nd in the College of Law. This is open to everyone. The Pray for
America bus tour is arriving this Thursday evening and will be in the chapel
sanctuary from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Friday, September 18th if anyone wishes to pray
with them; at 1 there will be a send-off prayer in the chapel garden. On Wednesday,
October 28th at 6 p.m. the NetVUE speaker Tim Clydesdale will be coming to speak
on the topic of vocation. Also, everyone should have received the white paper on
vocation that was sent out recently; please send any feedback to vocation@onu.edu
XI.
Adjournment at 6:34 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Erica L. Neely
Secretary of University Council
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