Steering Committee Meeting Minutes

March 26, 2008

Voting Members: BD Rao-PHY, Snehasis Mukhopadhyay- CIS,  John Kremer-PSY, Martin Bard-BIO, Dean Bill Bosron, Kathy Licht-ES, Dean Bart Ng, Stephanie Sen - CHEM Non-Voting Members: Ray Chin-Past President, Steve Randall-President, Jane Williams-Secretary, Dean Andy Gavrin, Dean Pam Crowell Absent: Will Geller-MATH

  1. Pre Randall called the meeting to order at 10:00 am.
  2. Identified a few changes to the agenda. Agenda was accepted.
  3. Bart Ng raised the issue of having the wording changed on PhD diplomas. It doesn’t appear that it is the time to push for this. The push appears to be coming from the Campus Administration. But Bart has asked the chairs to provide information about this issue, so we are prepared to move towards this greater autonomy. This change would need to go through a fairly orderly process and Purdue will expect this process.
  4. Bart Ng indicated that he will start the search process for Pam Crowell’s replacement. He has asked Debbie Allard to initiate the paperwork to start the process of the search. This will be an internal search. And will hope to have overlap with Pam before she leaves. Bill Bosron updated us on other searches: Chemistry got their new chair and they are using the remaining funds to open another position; Michael MacLeish was hired to be a new Assoc Professor with tenure in Chemistry; Ucase position is moving forward – are trying to recruit a chemist; Earth Sciences position failed and reopened; math is in the process of identifying the person to receive an offer; the director of the Regenerative Biology Center failed – they are reconstructing it as a position at a lower level and will not be the director – they are reviewing applications at this time; CIS converted a lecturer position into a faculty position – they have had 4 interviews to this point.
  5. Bill Bosron discussed the budget. The general fund will be flat, the global salary raise will be 3.5%, our income (tuition) is up.  Even with the cost of enrollment shaping, state appropriation number is slightly up from last year, assessments went up about 700,000 from last year (consistent with past trend). We should be positive which should result in money towards faculty hires next year, even with substantial money going towards the debt.
  6. Bart Ng discussed the April 15th faculty council meeting. The issues at the base of the letters from Rick Ward and the SOS SC will be the focus of the discussion. We need to advertise this meeting as it will be open to all faculty.
  7. Bart Ng met with Michael McRobbie last week. Tried to communicate to him that we have a lot of strengths and people are doing good work. Bart believes that he is very concerned about the school and its finances. He will raise issues of how financial decisions get made for IUPUI. He is seeking a meeting with Neal Theobold. Bart came away from the meeting feeling pretty positive.
  8. The SC meeting minutes from Feb 27, 2008 were accepted with one change.
  9. Steve Randall discussed some concerns about the March 19th budget meeting. Time was mainly spent on understanding the budget, rather than making substantive suggestions. SR felt this spoke strongly for the need to have a committee with strong knowledge so that the meetings can be more effective. WB suggested that we develop a description of the committee. JK suggested that we could make this happen in SC – and this should be a priority of the SC.
  10. JW described how the administrative review process was going. Final data collection day is Monday, March 31st. Had a discussion about including NTTF data with the tenure track data, rather than keep them separate. May be different for chairs than Deans and something we should discuss with them next year.
  11. JW described the outcome of the bylaw voted – a motion was passed to destroy the ballots. Suggestion to make a bylaw change that allows electronic voting in bylaw changes. Will try to get that change initiated by the Spring Assembly Meeting.
  12. Set the Spring Faculty Assembly meeting. Wed April 30th was suggested.
  13. We need to identify a secretary nominee for the SC. Discussed the need to reinforce this role if it is so important. We will initiate a discussion with Bart about this.
  14. The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 am.