NOTE: At times, issues of confidentiality may require that some items discussed in meetings be excluded from these minutes.

PRESENT: Charles Bachman, Bill Barnes, Richard Bennett, David Caudill, Venu Dasigi, Ameen Farooq, Alan Gabrielli, Steven Hamrick, Renee Butler for Ruston Hunt, Andrew McMorran, Mike Murphy, Julie Newell, Mark Nunes, Jeff Orr, Phil Patterson, Dawn Ramsey, Ronny Richardson, Khalid Siddiqi , John Sweigart, Zvi Szafran, Andy Wang, and Tim Zeigler

ABSENT: Joyce Mills, Nikki Palamiotis

Item 1: Updates from Dr. Szafran

Board of Regents

Our Mechatronics proposal will appear as Mechatronics Engineering on the October Board of Regents agenda. Dr. Szafran does not anticipate any problems with it being approved.

Georgia Tech has submitted a proposal for a Master of Science in Systems Engineering, a copy of which was forwarded to SPSU for review.

Dr. Szafran discussed the methodology used by the BoR regarding their looking at the cost of delivering education at SPSU compared with other USG institutions. In this study, they compare our costs with a national sample taken from the Delaware study, as well as with similar institutions as generated from IPEDS. He noted that the institutions we were compared with were mostly similar in size of enrollment but not in the type of programs offered. We have generated a list of more comparable schools to send to the BoR for their consideration.

Master Planning – Paulien & Associates will have an on-campus presentation for faculty on October 5 in Burruss on our space utilization and quality. Their study will help determine future building needs.

China – Dr. Szafran and Richard Bennett visited China last week and met with two partner universities – Northeast Normal University and North China University of Technology. Szafran reported that they are both very good institutions and that the visits went very well. Both universities value their relationships with us and are working on better preparing their students for study here. During his visit Dr. Szafran also met with other international universities interested in partnering with SPSU. Out of these conversations, the idea of creating a program in which students would take the majority of their courses at their home institution and then study abroad at each of three partner universities, providing a unique global experience, was discussed. Richard Bennett reported that the programs are going well; we have 57 students on campus between the two programs and expect 25 more in January. Some of the students here now will remain and the numbers for next fall could be even higher than this fall.

SPSU 1001 – Approximately 129 students are enrolled among the sections being offered. It was suggested that these courses should be available at the beginning of the semester for students who want to take it right away rather than waiting until after the early warning students are identified. Currently sections are created and offered several weeks into the semester and are built around student needs. It may be possible to do both in the future.

Item 2: Restructuring Academic Affairs

Dr. Szafran distributed a handout prepared by Ronny Richardson and an ad hoc committee for restructuring Academic Affairs. The committee, made up of department chairs, came up with two reorganization models. The first model would be our current structure with the addition of Business Administration as a separate school as the only change. The second model would have all departments reporting directly to the VPAA and would also have a dean of graduate studies and a dean of undergraduate studies.

Dr. Szafran expressed his preference for the first model and asked that the Council consider how we would handle engineering with any model chosen. Other points to consider would be how to determine the level of administration needed for the schools of CSE and BA; what benchmark would be used to determine which departments become schools; are there accreditation issues associated with our structure once we begin adding engineering programs; and what are the benefits to having a School of Business Administration. It was noted by one department chair that the committee did not agree to support a separate School of Business. Dr. Szafran asked Ronny Richardson to explain the benefit of separating Business Administration into its own school. He explained that the biggest benefit would be one of competitiveness with other schools of business.

Dean Caudill talked about the benefits of having engineering and engineering technology separate. Comments from the chairs included

Dr. Julie Newell stated that a structure that fosters accreditation is good but that these proposed structures do not address the question of how to handle engineering and that dealing with engineering does not necessarily mean that we must restructure.
Prof. Tim Zeigler assured the Council that ABET will not have a problem with a combined engineering and engineering technology structure because they only accredit the program.
Dr. Khalid Siddiqi is against another restructuring as there have been three in the last four years.
Professor Charlie Bachman favors one person over engineering instead of having engineering programs in two schools headed by two different deans.
Dr. Venu Dasigi and the CSE faculty all favor keeping the CS departments together.
Dr. Phil Patterson is in favor of an engineering school and making decisions on the administration of this school as we go along. This discussion will continue.

Dr. Szafran distributed an article about the Computer Science Department at Georgia Tech and stated that we may want to look at our own programs to see if we can be more flexible regarding course requirements, etc. as outlined in the article.

Item 3: SACS

Dr. Szafran distributed a streamlined handout from last year’s outcomes assessment minus the non-academic portions for the department chairs to use for this year’s assessment preparation. Szafran talked about the following steps we need to follow to prepare for our next SACS visit:

Step 1 – Determine academic and administrative goals – 8-12 goals

Step 2 – Integrate University goals with departmental goals

Step 3 – Correlate departmental goals with courses being taught in the department

Dr. Szafran also talked about how to measure each goal and suggested that testing in classes, looking at how many students pass professional license exams, go on to graduate school, etc. as some ways to show success. He also stressed that we must assess each program, set a benchmark to determine what is successful, re-examine the method used, make changes if necessary in the goals, benchmark, etc. and repeat. Before the next SACS visit we must evaluate each course and list outcomes. All course syllabi should include outcomes expectations and faculty should also include outcomes of course assessments in their annual status and activities report.

Item 4: Other New Business

Reminders: Mid-term grades are due. Steve Hamrick will check with Kelly Payton to see if departments can run a report to see who has not reported mid-term grades. Hamrick reminded the chairs to look at the tool he sent out to identify errors in the fall schedule and get them corrected as soon as possible. The fall schedule has to be correct before the spring schedule input can begin.

Lab fee accounts should be set up by the end of today.

Dean Ramsey announced that the Distance Learning Taskforce has only received proposals from some schools. Dean Ramsey is also coordinating the Future City competition, which will be on our campus on January 27, 2007. Additional middle schools are needed to participate and she also needs campus volunteers. Volunteers are also needed for the PSLSAMP Conference, which will be on campus October 20. Please contact Dean Ramsey for more information.

The Council was reminded that students who receive CLEP credit, AP credit, or out-of-system credit for Area E1 must meet the State of Georgia's legislative requirement that all students have knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and of Georgia history by taking History 2911 or by taking a test for credit by examination.

Meeting adjourned at 4:30 P.M.