COE Senate Meeting
September 11, 2009
(3237 Benjamin 9:00-11:00)
Chair: Bob Lent
MINUTES
Senators in Attendance
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Paula Beckman, EDSP
Christy Corbin, At Large
Pat Campbell, EDCI
Bob Croninger, EDPS
Paul Gold, EDCP (minutes recorder)
David, Imig, At Large
Hong Jiao, EDMS
Andrea Jones, Undergraduate Rep
Bob Lent, EDCP, Chair
Betty Malen, EDPS
Hanne Mawhinney, EDHI
Bob Mislevy, EDMS
Sherril Moon, EDSP
Connie North, EDCI
Geetha Ramani, EDHD
Marvin Titus, EDHI
Judith Torney-Purta, EDHD
Invited
Donna Wiseman, Dean
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Actions on Electing a Secretary for the Senate
No volunteers—proposal to rotate responsibility by department by meeting over time
General Informational Matters
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Several Senate seats remain open (administrative professionals, graduate student). Special elections
are being undertaken to fill seats by next Senate meeting on 10/02/2009
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Process for identifying future Senate agenda by soliciting suggestions from department personnel
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Subcommittees on Budget & Awards need to constituted
Budget
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Update provided by Dean Donna Wiseman
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Town Hall Meeting on 09/04/2009 briefly acknowledged
College Budget Reduction Proposal to Provost Farvardin must be submitted by Dean Wiseman
by 09/15/2009; each department had submitted its own 8% budget cut proposals for the current
academic year to Dean Wiseman as a basis for her drafting a College-wide proposal to the
Provost.
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Budget cuts may severely affect COE missions: several senators emphasized need for make a
strong case that budget cuts may severely impede COE research, teaching, funding graduate
students
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External funding: Provost expects Colleges to generate external funding independent of State
support. At present, State covers 25-30% of University budget, but this level of support may
decline to 20% over next 1-2 years
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Grant application submissions to external funding sources: one senator described how the weak
economy is threatening grant-supported academic-school district research partnerships. For
example, Prince George’s County’s school district is questioning whether it will proceed with
funded partnerships with COE faculty because it cannot meet its financial commitments.
Withdrawal leads to cancelling grant awards, and a loss of creditability of UMD/COE to federal
(e.g., NSF) and other granting agencies. One senator encouraged Dean Wiseman to inform both
the provost and the president of this issue as their engagement may be useful in future
campus/district discussion.
COE Reorganization
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“Dean’s Advisory Committee on Reorganization (DACR)”: Bob Croninger circulated a DACR
summary to senate members. The DACR viewed its role as advisory only, completed most of its
work by the end of Spring 2009, and submitted its proposals to Dean Wiseman at that time. The
DACR summary included the committee’s membership, purpose, timeline, activities, and
guidelines for discussing a menu of reorganization models and criteria by which these models
should be viewed. Cost-savings were not considered, given the unavailability at that time of a
well organized COE resource assessment by which to judge viability of proposed new units.
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Faculty Critique of Models: Several senators indicated that COE faculty, broadly speaking, did
not have adequate opportunities to critique reorganization models over the summer. Dean
Wiseman stated that her office faced a timeline for the budget proposal to the Provost by
September 15 and considerable pressure to amend the proposal based on the college's decision
about reorganization by October 15.
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Costing of Models: Data are now available to assess each model cost across line items such as
tenure-track faculty, adjunct faculty, and administrator salaries/benefits, graduate student
assistantships, external non-state funds (e.g., grants), student enrollment, and outreach revenue.
The Dean promised to add these materials to the reorganization webpage.
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Information to be Submitted to Provost: Provost will see a range of the cost benefit analysis from
the three models embedded within the September 15 budget proposal.
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Potential Cost-Saving Actions: Reorganization cost reductions will include reducing the number
of department chairs and the consequent reduction of administrative salary supplements, lowering
faculty/staff ratio, savings from merging courses, increasing class sizes, and eliminating small
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programs (e.g., low faculty, low enrollment). Provost is aware that COE is running some
programs without tenure-track faculty, some tenure-track faculty are not teaching their full load
(requiring hiring of adjunct faculty and graduate assistants to teach certain courses), similar
courses are being taught by several programs resulting in course overlap, and some class sizes are
very small.
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EDSP Reorganization Proposal: Sherril Moon & Paula Beckman presented recommendations for
the reorganization planning and voting process. Salient recommendations and discussion issues
included the following:
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Model Amendments must come from a Department Chair to the Senate Chair by 9/23
Senate Steering Committee will review of amended proposals according to several
criteria. Amended proposals not meeting these criteria will not be presented for
discussion on 9/25.
College Assembly on 9/25 to consider original and amended model proposals. This
would be a change from the originally announced organization of the meeting, which was
a meet-and-discuss with potential colleagues. Questions raised included: Who will
preside over the meeting (e.g., Senate Chair)? How much time will be given to presenting
models? Which faculty will present models? It is likely that presenters of the original
three models will be selected by the Dean; presenters of amended models will be selected
by departments.
Faculty and staff will vote electronically subsequent to the meeting, giving an up/down
vote to each model or amended model.
Non-tenure stream and tenure-stream faculty votes should be calculated separately
because they comprise a considerably different proportion of faculty across departments.
What criteria will the Senate use to determine which models (original and/or amended),
receiving a certain % of “yes” votes will be selected for a second, final electronic vote?
The second stage electronic vote will implement a rank-ordering system.
What roles will the Senate & the Dean after voting on model?
During these discussions, several Senators reported distress among members of the
faculty (especially the younger faculty) about how issues such as promotion/tenure will
be dealt with. It was reported that members of the faculty at all levels have expressed
concern about issues such as disruption in the management of grants under a revised
structure with changes in staff and problems with recruiting high quality full time
graduate students with new department names (especially if programs within current
departments were to be assigned to different units in the new structure).
Senate Formulated the Following Process for Reviewing and Voting on Proposed Reorganization
Models (Sequence of Actions)
Amendments to reorganization models must:
1. Be submitted by at least 1 department by 09/23 and supported by a majority of faculty in that
department
2. Amend existing models, not propose all-new ones
3. Be consistent with the COE Strategic Plan
4. Discuss implications for the College and include an intellectual and, if possible, general economic
rationale
Selection of Amended Models – Senate Steering Committee will:
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1. Review amended models on 9/24 in terms of the above four criteria
2. Invite presentation of amended models at the 9/25 College Assembly
3. Design a first-round voting procedure for COE faculty/staff of models presented at 09/25
Assembly (Yes/No for each model)
4. Design a second-round voting procedure for the most viable models identified by the first round
of voting (second-round voting will involve rank-ordering of models receiving most support from
faculty/staff)
COE Assembly—09/25
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The three original models will be presented
Any amended models meeting the above review criteria will also be presented
Assembly will be managed by the Senate with aid from the Dean’s Office
Subsequent faculty/staff electronic vote on 09/25 models
Senate Selection of Models for Second Round of Voting on 10/05
1. Senate will review results of first-round voting at 10/2 Senate meeting
2. Senate will identify selection of final models for second-round ranked voting—depending on the
number and complexity of models, similar models may be clustered/consolidated/pared down to
reduce proposals to manageable number
Model Selection for Submission to Provost
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Faculty/staff electronic vote on 10/05 models
Senate advises Dean on voting results regarding models
Dean selects final model for presentation to Provost
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