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SPSU Home >> Vice President Academic Affairs >> Meeting Minutes >> DEANS COUNCIL

DEANS COUNCIL

Deans Council Meeting

B-120

May 2, 2012

 

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

Members:  Bill Barnes, Dave Caudill, Tom Currin, Steve Hamrick, Ruston Hunt, Joyce Mills, Thomas Nelson, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Jeffrey Ray, Han Reichgelt, Zvi Szafran

Members Absent:  

Guests: 

 

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following

• Formula Funding – will all go to Academic Affairs:
  • Additional $200,000 for faculty positions beyond what we planned for – send forward recommendations for additional positions to fill
  • Capital budget will go up next year approximately double so need to designate projects to spend the funds on.  Szafran suggested mini grants, renovations, seed money for faculty research, etc.
  • Approximately $500,000 to $600,000 will be available to support online education and to pay for continuing development of the converged model of instruction
  • OS&E budgets will increase by approximately 10%
• Georgia Highlands – will be signing a three-year extension (with two one-year options) to continue to be housed on our campus.
• Renovations – Building K and the Baptist Student Union will not be torn down this year but hopefully next year
• Bookstore and gaming room may be changing spaces; a suggestion has been made that the Bookstore move upstairs and use the downstairs to create an adult learning center, military center, etc.
• EOY funds proposal – Szafran distributed the consolidated lists from the deans for review.
• Building O – Tom Currin formally requested that scheduling of Building O be assigned to Barry Birckhead instead of him.
• IT – Han asked for reporting capabilities out of DegreeWorks.  Szafran wants to invite Sam Conn to a strategy session on several items:
  • Enterprise system for capturing faculty data
  • Implementation of “workflow” module in Banner
  • Online instruction – how to supply services
  • Software purchases – identify need then purchase appropriate software to accomplish goal
• EOY worksheets – due to Zvi by May 4, 2012
• Pre/Post-Tenure Review – packets were due last week and quite a few are still missing.
• Non-faculty Personnel Needs – will be discussing this next week
• Searches – some are concluding, some offers are pending.  Some applicants for our lecturer positions have higher credentials than required and while he understands that we need to get the best qualified wonders if this is the best approach when hiring faculty in this particular category.  Our goal should be to have a good mix of different types of faculty and wants to be sure masters candidates are given equal consideration as those with a Ph.D.  He asked the deans to work with their department chairs on this.
• BCP Split – the two chairs are reviewing the proposal to split the department and it will come to the deans in the near future.
• MSCE – downtown for review; DPS going down soon.
• Russ Hunt raised a question about the reporting structure of Graduate Studies.  This will be discussed at the next expanded Council meeting.
• eCore enrollment is down 25% from last year this time which was up 40% over the year before
• Hamrick expects summer enrollment to be down.  It was asked why registration is shut down for three weeks.  Szafran will follow up with Steve about this.
• Tuition Payment Plan – the Board of Regents has contracted with a company which will allow students to purchase a tuition payment plan for a small fee of approximately $50-$100.

 

Item #2.  Capital Budgets

Szafran distributed the consolidated capital budget requests from the deans for discussion and prioritization.  Tom Currin stated that his opposed to this process of determining who gets what.  Szafran stated that he expects to be able to fund most of the requests.  The Council discussed alternative ways to distribute the funding and it was agreed for now that Tom Currin would create a rubric to use next year.  Szafran asked if any of the items on the list could wait for two weeks until he is sure more money will be available.  For now, Szafran will sign off on the departmental requests already submitted for items approved today and needs departmental requests for additional items as soon as possible.

 

Item 3. Converged Teaching Model

Szafran talked about the converged model of teaching and stated that the Council needs to discuss any issues or concerns around this method of teaching.  Potentially $500k is available to SPSU to support on-line education.  After much discussion it was determined that the Council needs to develop an internal policy to address issues.  This discussion will continue.

 

Item 4. New business

• iPads – Anyone who needs information on purchasing an iPad should refer to the IT policy.  Szafran has received a couple of requests for iPads and has returned them for more justification. 
• Solar panels – will be installed on Building Q tomorrow
• Math issue – students who fail here must retake the course here, not elsewhere, but our policy contradicts the BoR policy and denies the student the right to take the course as a transient.