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

ALC MEMBERS: Charles Bachman, Tom Ball, Bill Barnes, Richard Bennett, David Caudill, Lance Crimm, Tom Currin, Venu Dasigi, Ameen Farooq, Alan Gabrielli, Steven Hamrick, Ruston Hunt, Andrew McMorran, Joyce Mills, Julie Newell, Mark Nunes, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Phil Patterson, Dawn Ramsey, Jeffrey Ray, Nancy Reichert, Han Reichgelt, Ronny Richardson, Becky Rutherfoord, Khalid Siddiqi, Sandra Stone, Denise Stover, John Sweigart, Zvi Szafran, Margaret Venable, Andy Wang, and Tim Zeigler

MEMBERS ABSENT: Lance Crimm, Ruston Hunt, Dawn Ramsey, Denise Stover

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following:

Enrollment is at an all-time high of 5,170
Evening Engineering programs were approved at the August BoR meeting
New Construction on campus is valued at approximately $100 million dollars
Chancellor Davis visited SPSU today
$90 million dollars in sustainability money for this year and next year may have to be replaced by structural means
New programs – eight have been approved this past year
MS in Architecture proposal is almost complete
Education proposal – still in progress
Master’s level degrees and above being talked about on campus
Six ET programs were recently reaccredited for 6 years, and IT was newly accredited.
Accreditation/reaffirmation likely for SPSU by SACS
Many opportunities for mini grants—announcement recently sent out
Budget – no further bad news. Our 7-7.5% increase in enrollment will help to cover some of our budget shortfall.
Parking deck is due to open at the end of September. The parking fee is $75 for faculty and staff who choose to park there. Issues or comments about parking should be directed to Kasey Helton.
Julie Newell is looking for volunteers to help hang emergency flyers in the classrooms as well as help accessing locked classrooms. She will send out the details in an email.
New labs have been created for the Sciences to accommodate growth. IT is moving to the lower lever of H building which will allow Physics to move to the second floor. Zvi will talk to IT about reconfiguring the layout of the area near the lower level elevator to make access easier for handicapped students going from one building to another.
Continuing Education is close to having a contract for new space off campus. ELS will occupy the WE Building when they move.
Pandemic – The University System of Georgia is collecting information on the plans each campus will use in the event of a pandemic. SPSU has a committee that met yesterday to discuss what our campus would do in the event of an outbreak. The committee recommended educating the campus about using good hygiene. Szafran recommended faculty work with students if they become ill by posting coursework on the web, communicating with students via email, etc. If faculty become ill they should make arrangements with colleagues to cover their classes. Dr. Szafran requested a copy of each department’s plan and stated that if part-time, non-benefited faculty become ill and they can show that they became ill as a result of their work at SPSU they can claim workers compensation.
Graduation rates are receiving more scrutiny by the Chancellor – more to follow
QEP – Szafran encouraged everyone to help Bob Brown in any way possible to help this be successful

Item 2. Start-up Issues

It was asked if there is any way to hold faculty liable if they withdraw from an employment offer at the last minute as this has caused problems this semester with both full-time and part-time faculty. Szafran will check with the Legal Department at the System Office but if not possible he suggested that perhaps we can strengthen our offer letter verbiage.

Szafran talked about a Board of Regents policy being enforced restricting part-time faculty to half-time employment across the University System. Szafran has been talking with the System Office to see if this policy can be modified – no resolution has been reached. The definition of full-time at SPSU for part-time faculty is 18 credit hours per semester.

Graduate orientation problems occurred this semester with offices not being open at night and with orientation/fee payment deadlines. Steve Hamrick is working on the fee payment problem for the future. It was also discussed that information concerning graduate orientation needs to come from the Admissions Office only to avoid confusion for the students. Transfer credit evaluation continues to be a problem. Faculty and student enrollment has grown but not staff and this needs to be addressed. It was also suggested that our admissions deadlines are creating problems with transfer credit also. Currently SPSU is the only school with deadlines so close to the beginning of classes.

Item 3. Online Instruction

Dr. Szafran briefly talked about recent discussions on campus and in the Deans Council about online instruction, and asked if there were any lingering concerns. The following comments were made:

Need data about what our students want
Finding more and more students don’t want on-line if given a choice
Make online available where demand is and realize that demand will change next year and the next as the TCSG’s come on board
Need planning among the departments that have online programs especially if they expect core classes to be available on-line for their students
Suggest using graduate assistants to do studies/surveys about on-line courses, orientation, etc.
Offered ENGL1101 online for the first time as a pilot and only had one student register before classes began and was only able to add a few more students
Get mini grants to see what our students want, case studies, more research, etc.
Currently approximately 140 students are taking 220 courses in eCore.
Calc I offered online with a very popular faculty member only registered 6 students – all live sections with same faculty member filled to capacity
Szafran stated that some programs have higher demand for online courses; our student demand is between 17-50% with the national average being at 25%. He is not arguing that we should be offering more than we need or than our students want.
Review the courses taught online as test courses to see how successful they were and make adjustments to the number of online sections offered.
Need to look outside campus about demand as those students taking online undergraduate programs will need core online
Fee schedule for online versus live needs to be addressed
Online transfer courses must be accepted if they are from an accredited institution

Item 4. Capacity

The evening engineering programs were designed for transfer students with major courses coming available in the next two years. Tom Currin expects 90-100 students in the spring. Support departments will need to know demands before planning the schedule so coordination among the departments will be critical. Arts & Sciences will meet with Tom regarding this in the very near future.

Item 5. New Business

Co-curricular programs will be the first agenda item at the next ALC meeting. Dr. Szafran will resend information about Elon University.

Steve Hamrick asked the Council for input about allowing ROTC to use a small office on campus to make it more convenient for our students. Currently our ROTC students must drive to Georgia Tech. All agreed that if space is available they have no objections. It was suggested to bring this to Faculty Senate also. Additionally, Hamrick will email the campus for input.

Meeting adjourned at 4:17 PM.