Council of Deans
Unapproved Minutes
January 13,2003
Members:
McKellips
Buckley
Burgess
Dawe
Goode
Neale
Soe11e
Young
Other Attendees:
Tony Pokorny
1. McKellips read from a letter from the Oklahoma State Department of Central Services "The Central Purchasing Division has recently awarded a statewide contract for Automated External
Defibrillators. The contract will provide access to AEDs for state personnel and other authorized
statewide contract users as first responders in life-threatening situations." The letter goes on and
describes this equipment a little more detail. McKellips is sure we do not have any specific plans
right now to acquire something like that but at some point when we have the money we should have
this equipment available somewhere on campus. It is almost standard now to have that equipment
in public places. Airports now have them and a lot of golf courses are putting them in stock at their
places. There will be a demonstration ofthis equipmen{in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, January
15, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. if anyone is interested.
2. The next item concerns classroom management. McKellips stated that prior to putting
SBI in, Yvonne had a strong management role in assignment of classrooms on campus. People are
would work with her on that basis because she has charts in her office where if someone calls and
needs a classroom at say 10:30 she can look through her charts and identify the open spots. Also if
someone calls and wants to know ifthere is a class at a certain time in a certain building, she can do
that very easily. With SBI she does not have that capability any more.
a. McKellips asked Yvonne to explain the changes. Yvonne mentioned that she does
not have the capability of being able to find a classroom for someone when the initial schedule is
being input by Janie Harrell. When Janie enters a room number from the forms that the departments
send her initially, if she has already entered another class in that room the system will not let her
enter another class in the same room. Yvonne does not have the capability to locate another room
at that point in the process.
b. The way the old system operated was if department chairs did not know what room
to schedule a class in, they would just pick a room, put their class in that room and the system would
take whatever room number was entered even if a class was already in the same room. When
Yvonne received the room utilization printout, that printout would show the word "Conflict" iftwo
classes were scheduled at the same time. She would then find another room for one of the classes
and the conflicts would be resolved prior to the printing of the schedule. She mentioned the
procedure she follows now when she [mds a conflict, is look for other available rooms, calls the
department secretary to make sure her suggestion for the move is acceptable and then sends a memo
to Janie so Janie can change the room number in the system. A copy ofthis memo is also sent to the
dean of the school and the department chair involved.
c. Yvonne does not know what Janie is going to do when there is a conflict. Neither
Janie nor the department chairs will be able to call Yvonne at that point in the process because she
will not know what rooms the classes have been scheduled in. After all the classes have been
entered into the system and put into rooms, Yvonne will obtain a room utilization printout and after
that point, she will be able to prepare her charts and help people find rooms from that point on.
d. After some discussion, McKellips mentioned that creating some dummy rooms might
be the solution. Yvonne agreed that would probably work because once all the classes have been
entered and she has a room printout she would go to the dummy rooms listed on the printout and
then [md places for those classes in those rooms. Goode will look into setting up dummy rooms.
3. McKellips stated that the deans might be interested in some information that he had
received at the last Vice Presidents meeting about what is being done at various universities to deal
with budget reductions.
a. Northeastern has moved their summer school to four days and made their summer
school salaries on an hourly basis like we do our night classes - per credit hour. They have made
them fairly hefty as compared to what we pay so that it is not a total salary reduction. They pay
$900, $1,000, $1,200 and $1,500 per credit hour depending on rank. It is not like working for
adjunct/overload wages but it is a way of reducing the salary. The four day schedule has some
compensation for the loss of salary and they just say to people, you are not obligated beyond your
class schedule and your basic advisement in the summertime. They have tried to compensate for the
loss of salary with some extra personal time in the summer. This seems like something reasonable
to think about.
b. Southeastern is ahead of everybody in one respect. At some point if these budgets
keep declining, there probably will be some programs that will have to be looked at. Southeastern
spent two years ranking their programs with regard to which ones would probably go if there was
a budget cut. They had a set of criteria, the first of which was centrality to the mission of the
institution. They ranked their programs on a three point scale - absolutely central, less so and least
so. Every program now is either ai, 2 or 3 as far as centrality to the mission is concerned. They
also have some parameters that have to do with enrollment - number ofmajors, number ofgraduates,
etc. that you would ordinarily look at with programs.
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c. Southwestern - everybody has increased the size of their Camp classes, which is
always a place where manpower is a problem. Southwestern has gone to 30; East Central is 28 and
they all say they expect to be at 30 in the Camp classes by fall.
d. Another way some ofthem are saving money is that in their major courses they have
reduced the offerings of upper division electives. In other words, not give students the choices they
have given them in the past. That forces upper division enrollments and individual classes to grow
because of the lack of choices.
4. McKellips stated the last time the Council of Deans met, he talked to the deans about
some requests that have been received for delivery of courses electronically to high schools for
concurrent enrollment. He has written a letter, copies of which were distributed. He is requesting
the deans furnish him (1) any suggestions they have about what he is planning to do and (2) item 2
on the survey page is what he is asking the deans to come up with. McKellips asked the deans to
take this with them, look it over, and ifthey see anything in those two pages that he needs to rethink
or correct, let him know.
5. McKellips stated that he has been trying to communicate with Brad Avery who is our
Director of Internal Auditing. He has been reviewing with him some possible ways to implement
the oversight process in procurement. What he hopes to get is a list of several processes that, from
the auditor's point of view, are acceptable.
a. The system that McKellips has been using for years and the one he proposed to Avery
in writing, is that the secretary or data clerk, enters the requisition information, prints out a copy of
that requisition and gives it to the supervisor, director or department chair. The director signs that
printed copy, dates it and places it in their file. Then the data clerk or secretary transmits the
requisition to the next level in the hierarchy. In this case it might be the dean. At the deans level
it is ordinarily received by the secretary who prints out a copy, the dean reviews it to be sure it is
consistent with what the department is supposed to be spending money for, signs and dates that copy
and places it in the file. Then it is transmitted to the purchasing agent. The purchasing agent
assumes that it has received the two signatures. He may not really know but if it gets to him that is
supposed to be the case, that there are two signatures on hard copies indicating that it came through
the channels and was approved. Then when the purchase is made the invoice goes back to the
originating department. The supervisor who signed the original requisition looks at the invoice and
compares it to the signed requisition and if it matches signs the invoice, makes a copy ofthe signed
invoice, attaches it to the requisition, and places it in the file at that level. That signed invoice goes
to the next level supervisor which is probably the dean. The dean looks at that the copy signed by
the department chair and looks at the requisition they have in the file. lfthey agree the dean signs,
makes a copy, attaches it to their copy of the requisition, and sends it on to the Business Office for
payment. What has happened is that you have two locations where items that were ordered and
received have been verified.
b. The electronic method is still a possibility and we may go back and implement that
alternative. McKellips mentioned that the electronic version that we started with at Cameron, was
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that a data clerk or secretary entered the requisition, then the department chair opened up the
requisition electronically, looked at it, and ifit was right, entered an approval code then transmitted
it to the next level at which time there was no reason for a secretary to be involved. The dean opened
it up electronically and ifit was okay, put in his approval code. That system didn't release it to the
purchasing agent until both those approval codes had been entered. That is a very good system
except that at the deans level they did not like dealing with the technology of the system. That is a
very good system that is as foolproof as the other one but again everybody has to be willing to deal
with the technology involved.
c. Discussion was held about what the auditors have found regarding situations ofabuse
of the system.
d. Question was asked if the Provost should be the second level of approval on the
requisitions coming from the deans. McKellips replied that yes he should be seeing those.
McKellips has been talking with Rick about it and he thinks we can do it about however we want
to do it. Discussion followed.
e. McKellips is looking at writing up two or three alternatives as possible procedures
for implementation and will talk to Glen Pinkston when he comes in. He may favor one over the
other but at least McKellips will have them cleared with Brad Avery and he will know what his
options are.
COMMENTS
D. Goode - Goode asked on item 4 ofthe survey form, ifMcKellips would want to put the name of
a person at Cameron the people can contact if they need some assistance with that item. She said
it should be Jeff Hagy, X-2419. He talks to a lot ofthe high schools anyway and is a good person
to talk to.
Buckley - There have apparently been some problems with enrollment ofparticular transfer students.
They come in having had, for example, a College Algebra course and then the system will not let
them enroll in Elementary Calculus because they haven't been equated yet in the transfer process.
Asked if there was any way to speed up equating Cameron courses to transfer courses. There is
apparently a placement block on that. This evidently is a placement issue and deals with Math and
probably English. Maybe this is not a big issue and only a few ofthem are out there. He understands
that when a transfer student comes in we don't do the equation oftheir courses to Cameron's courses
until they request it or just prior to graduation. McKellips asked ifthere is a task force or group that
is an oversight committee for tIns SBI installation process that is collecting information on these
kinds ofproblems. He stated it sure seems like one is needed. We have talked about two problems
here today and he knows of others that are fairly significant. Goode replied that no, not that she
knows of. Discussion followed. McKellips stated that we need to get our anns around the whole
problem. If we are doing it the way we are doing it now, everything has the same priority. This
leaves Goode and her crew and SBI to figure out which ones need to be worked on today and which
one can wait. Ifwe had some group ofpeople which would include people with technical knowledge
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of the system and people with some information about admission policies, regulations and
curriculum matters, we could have all these issues flowing into that group ofpeople. We could then
help IT and SBI, and others know which ones we really need to get after first and which ones we can
live with for a while. When these problems are individually brought to one person like Debbie,
everyone feels the one they found needs to be solved right now because it is a problem for them. If
everyone consents to that idea, then McKellips asked them to help him identify the individuals we
should have in that kind ofa group. These people should monitor this system for a year or so. Every
time an event happens there will be issues that will arise. McKellips asked deans to e-mail him their
thoughts on who should be in this group. Even ifthey do not have a specific person in mind, tell him
what kind ofpeople should be in the group. If any ofthe deans have anyone that is helping with the
implementation within the departments and has some understanding ofthe system, then let him know
that. (Those mentioned were Marshall Ferrell and Velton Flowers.) Short discussion followed.
Dawe - No comments.
Pokorny - No comments.
Young - No comments.
Neale - No comments.
Soelle - No comments.
Burgess - No comments.
Adjourned 12:35 p.m.
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