Council of Deans
Unapproved Minutes
April 21, 2003
Members:
McKellips
Buckley (represented by Bob Ziegler)
Burgess
Dawe
Goode
Neale
Soelle
Young
1. McKellips stated that each of those who have gone through the budget process have
learned that we have to be sure that whatever flexibility there is to deal with any future· cuts stays
there. Section 4.9.6 of the faculty handbook is titled Tenure Postponement - "Facility members
recommended for tenure by the Provost resulting from a positive evaluation for tenure by the
department and school but who are not awarded tenure solely because of the non-availability of
tenure openings may be offered one year appointments until such time as a tenure opening becomes
available contingent upon the individual maintaining tenure-eligible performance. If in the
professional judgment of the Department Chair and the Dean tenure-eligible performance is not
maintained during that period, the faculty member may be required to undergo another revaluation
for tenure, even in cases in which this results in a third tenure evaluation." As far as the total
perce.ntage ofthe faculty that are tenured at this moment, Cameron is in very good shape; however,
that is not true uniformly in the university. Many ofthe deans heard the President say there are some
things in budget cutting this time that she is opposed to - furloughs, salary reductions, or anything
that results in across the board cuts - she doesn't favor. She thinks we should look for targets and
make what she calls vertical cuts as opposed to horizontal cuts. Ifwe do that we have to be careful
about things like tenure. McKellips, when he made his recommendations to the President on tenure,
recommended that, because of the continuing fiscal crises, we declare that there are no tenure
openings available. He recommended we invoke this clause in the facility handbook so that people
who received positive evaluations for tenure wouldn't necessarily have to be reevaluated in the
future. The President has concurred with that recommendation. There will be several people who
received positive evaluations for tenure that will be notified they received a positive evaluation by
McKellips and that their request was approved by the President but that their tenure will be
postponed. The letter will also say that if, in the judgment of the Department Chair and Dean, they
maintain their tenure eligible performance until such time as the postponement is lifted, then they
will be tenured at that point without another evaluation. At some future date, somebody will have
to decide to lift the tenure postponement. IfMcKellips were making that recommenda~ionit would
be based on an improved fiscal situation. Ifit looked like the fiscal situation had stabilized and was
good enough for the institution to continue to exist at its current configuration with regard to
programs, departments, etc., then he would say let's lift the tenure postponement. Neale asked about
promotions without the tenure. McKellips stated that promotions are not affected by this.
Discussion followed regarding fiscal situation.
McKellips mentioned he had recommended to the President that the Faculty Council look
into the possibility of developing some tenure limits for departments and perhaps for the university.
We are not in trouble across the university - we are only about 50% tenured. We are not up against
any real limits there but in some departments it is a different story. We have had some situations
where deans recognize the problem but they do not have any guidance from anywhere saying a
department cannot go past 70-80%. It is just a judgment call if a dean does something like that with
no real supporting documents. Discussion followed.
2. McKellips stated that he still has not compiled the information he received from the
survey he sent out to the high schools in 11 counties about those interested in distance learning. He
has received responses from 25 high schools and everyone that responded either said they did not
have facilities or they would like to have some of the courses. The courses that show up in this
survey most ofthe time are General Psychology, American Federal Government, and both kinds of
History. There is also interest in ECON I and criminal justice and law enforcement courses.
Discussion followed.
3. McKellips stated our service learning designated facility contact person in the past has
been Dr. Harrison. The State Regents have asked us to designate a person to be our service learning
contact. Up to this point the responsibilities of this person have been to attend a meeting once a
month in Oklahoma City. What that person is probably supposed to do is come back to campus and
try to stimiliate some service learning activities. After a lengthy discussion, Dawe stated that he
would volunteer the Graduate School to help coordinate among the other academic deans in the area
of service learning. Someone in the graduate studies woilid attend the meetings in Oklahoma City.
He would take on the responsibility to coordinate some effort across all the schools. He wouldn't
be able to do it solely by himself - more of a coordinating position.
4. McKellips handed out a memo from June Rain, Coordinator of International Students.
Asked the deans to look at this and think about it.
a. Dawe asked if the idea here would be to allow international students to participate
in internships and receive a stipend by doing so. McKellips replied yes and stated that wherever they
do their internship might be willing to pay them. Internships have been done through the
Technology Department where the students were paid by the location where they were doing the
internship.
b. Soelle asked if these internships have to be a paid deal. McKellips replied that yes,
that is the point of all this. She stated that if the student is getting course credit for the internship,
she would disagree with that. Ifthey are getting course credit that is part oftheir academic program
they pay for just as they would pay for any other course. McKellips replied that at one time he made
that same argument but the world has changed in that respect. Now this is a very standard
arrangement in higher education for people to get paid to do internships and to get credit for it.
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McKellips stated that we have talked about making internships parts of our programs for a lot of
other reasons simply because they provide extra credentials a student can get that we can't make
available reasonably through our regular curriculum. There isn't much that can be done in the short
term for these international students but it is his judgment there are a lot of programs on campus
where internships have value. We have had some really good experiences with internships.
Discussion followed.
COrYIMENTS
Burgess a. Burgess met with some high school principles a week ago. Recruiting was discussed and
they indicated that the other schools are mit there recruiting once a week in all four high schools.
They set up during the lunch time. She asked where our recruiters go. McKellips stated that every
high school in all II counties has been assigned to one ofthe recruiters and they are supposed to visit
the high schools regularly. They have been assigned vehicles from the motor pool and those vehicles
are available to them all the time. They are supposed to be on the road five days a week. Discussion
followed.
b. Burgess also mentioned an idea about contacting local banks or businesses to make up
trinket type items that could be given to students. For instance, the item would advertise their
business e.g., Bank First Supports Cameron University. McKellips stated that something like this
would have to be a coordinated effort. Suggestion was made that VP for Advancement might be the
one to coordinate an effort like this. After the discussion that followed, McKellips said he would
bring this up at Executive CounciL
Neale - Asked about the fee waiver scholarships.
a. Her school has not awarded any oftheir scholarships. They did not have a list ofstudents
who might be eligible, etc. She called DuRant and she said they have already given out some of
those. McKellips replied that the recruiters have made more offers for those kind of scholarships
than were made available to the recruiters. If all those students were to accept she will probably be
trying to get some ofNeale's, but that really is not an option we started into this with. Soelle asked
if they would be in trouble if they now try to give some of these in their disciplines or have they
already all been given. Neale asked ifthey should proceed. McKellips replied yes. Just before this
all started he asked the recruiters to meet with the deans individually. He told the deans and the
recruiters, that one ofthe things that should be discussed when the recruiters meet with the deans is
whether or not the deans want the recruiters to make offers with the school's scholarships for people
in their disciplines. Discussion followed regarding requirements in awarding these scholarships whether it was a GPA or an ACT score or whether the President wanted some additional input on
these, etc. McKellips replied that he believes it is a 3.0 GPA and meet the Cameron admission
requirements which does involve an ACT score. Neale asked if they were to proceed with two
scholarships per program. McKellips replied yes. The idea is to get them awarded to beginning
Freshmen to encourage Freshmen to come here. It might be easier for the recruiters to award those
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than it would be for deans to have people go out and try to award them, but the option is there for
the deans to award them. Further discussion followed regarding obtaining a list of prospective
students and reporting requirements.
b. McKellips stated that one of the things that has not been done, which will probably be
his responsibility to do, is to take all the awards that have been made and see how much money has
been committed and then see if we can still put that same program into the total deal. He believes
we can. He doesn't think there is any danger but the recruiters have already gone over the mark on
these kinds of scholarships that have been discussed and he sure doesn't want to compound that
problem. Question was asked ifthe departments should hold off a little longer. McKellips replied
yes and he would try to get that done this week.
Soelle - Soelle - General discussion about commencement. Anything anyone wants to know is on
the website.
Dawe - Dawe - Asked if McKellips had heard anything on how to proceed with the MBA on-line
program and the contract with au Advanced Programs. Discussion followed.
Young - An item similar to what Burgess mentioned is that OSU gets local stores to donate donuts
and cookies to the Library during exam times. She was wondering if they might approach some of
the stores to find out if they would be willing to donate items of that type during exam week.
McKellips stated that he will also bring this item up in the Executive Council.
Ziegler - No comments.
Goode - No comments.
Adjourned 12:14 p.m.
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