SOS Steering
Committee Meeting 10/06/2000
Minutes
Attending: Kathy Johnson (Chair), Pam Crowell (Bio),
Dennis Devine (Psych), Paul Dubin (Chem), Jon Luke (Math), Andrew Olson (CSCI),
Steve Wassall (Physics); Fritz Kleinhans (Sec), Kathryn Wilson (Assoc Dean),
Crystal York (Dir P&A)
KJ
opened the meeting and the minutes of 9/15/00 were accepted. She reported that the new SOS Faculty
Assembly web site is up and running at:
www.science.iupui.edu/facultycouncil/home.htm.
Two
agenda items were discussed: (1) Career
Day and (2) the SOS Budget.
Career
Day:
KJ
discussed the possibility of opening up Career Day (in January) to all SOS
departments. However, the departments
that currently host Career Day (biology, chemistry, psychology) are concerned
about space (the current Rm UC115 is not big enough) and the costs of putting
on a larger Career Day are prohibitive.
Also, each Dept would have to assign someone to assist with the
undertaking as a lot of work is involved.
PD inquired if University monies might be available for such a project,
but the consensus was 'probably not'.
PD went on to suggest that recruitment for employees is intense these
days and companies might be willing to pay to participate. It was then pointed out that companies are
represented by their SOS alumni, not their recruiters and that Career Day is
more of an information exchange for all levels of students rather than a recruitment
fair for seniors. Thus charging might
not be appropriate. The consensus
seemed to be that we want to expand Career Day this year to include other
departments, but that the recruitment implementation may have to wait till
January 2002.
SOS
Budget Exercise:
KJ
brought the budget exercise before the Committee. The Dean, DS , had previously asked the Committee to develop a
mock budget via consensus for the SOS.
KW indicated that the Dean was looking for 'good ideas' and was seeking
to provide faculty with a wider understanding of the issues and problems faced
in creating an SOS budget. There was
some discussion of whether it was smarter to run a balanced budget or a deficit
as some other schools in the system do.
CY noted that in the past Bloomington has put pressure on the SOS to
spend all our money by year end, even though this did not suit the SOS's fiscal
needs. Further it was noted that our
Assessment expenditures (taxes) have been rising steadily every year. KW reported that the Dean was committed to
a balanced budget and preferred conservative estimates of income to avoid
deficits and surprises. The Committee
agreed that a budget based on a 3% drop in enrollments was most realistic.
KW
noted that RCM budgeting allows good flexibility so what we should discuss are our
basic priorities. Money could be moved to meet them. CY opinioned that the days of RCM may be coming to an end as
Bloomington does not seem as happy with RCM as we. This was generally viewed as a step backward for the SOS.
KJ
noted that there were limits to what we could accomplish in one meeting and
that we should decide whether we wanted to try to create a 'macro' view of the
budget or get into the nitty gritty 'micro' details of the budget. The Committee responded with a chorus of
questions concerning the budget material we had been given and requests for
more details, which KW and CY did their best to answer. In consequence, the meeting was devoted to
explanations and clarifications of the budget process and a sharing of concerns
about the major issues facing us.
Needless to say, a detailed budget was not created in 90 minutes!
PD
noted that conservative planning created a problem for graduate student
recruitment. Student offers are made
before we know how much money is available and, if we are too conservative, we
under recruit the number of students we need and can afford. PD and others expressed the concern that the
issues faced by Departments in creating budgets varied between Depts and
between Depts and the School. Thus one
size fits all would not work.
JL
(and others) expressed the concern that the budgets, departments get to operate
each year comes from the difference between two large numbers; income and fixed
expenses. Thus it might be wise to
concentrate on these two large numbers and their change over time, rather than
how to split up the small difference between them. It is especially troubling that many fixed expenses can be
expected to rise in the future while our income remains flat or decreases. In a few years the difference of these two
large numbers could be negative. This
is undoubtedly the reason that the message from the Deans office often seems to
be 'teach more student contact hours with less faculty'.
Several
Committee members expressed the concern that they felt the main message from
the SOS administration was 'learn to do with less' and that it would be better
for morale to spend more effort trying to think about how to increase income. KW noted that the Dean had reserved money in
the budget for curriculum reform, which could lead to better, and more courses,
which, in turn, would yield students, and money. KJ expressed the concern that although Psych felt good about
their courses, they found it a difficult and expensive proposition to determine
the changing job skills their students needed in the 'real world'. There was some discussion about building
ties to the local community and KW noted that CSCI had built strong ties to
local industry, albeit with a major expenditure of effort.
KW
noted that Certificate Programs were potentially a good way to raise income and
was being effectively used by CSCI. At
the undergraduate level these only require approval at the campus level. At the graduate level Certificate Program
approval has to go to Bloomington or West Lafayette. CY noted that, as a current non-science IUPUI student, she found
it difficult to find suitable courses for non-science majors to take and
thought we could profitably expand our offerings in this area.
Several
including JL, PC, SW and others expressed concern that our large enrollment
courses generated significant revenue, but the resources for these courses were
sometimes the first to feel the pressure of reduced budgets, e.g. for part time
faculty in Math. There was general
support for the idea that the School should continue its relatively new
practice of hiring tenure track faculty whose primary responsibility would be
in the area of teaching. This seems
essential if our faculty size is to shrink while faculty try to maintain their
research activity. KW noted that this
would become easier as this type of position gains wider acceptance among the
faculty and administration.
Concern
was expressed that some departments increasingly have to rely on ICR (F&A)
funds to pay basic expenses. It was
generally agreed that it is best for these funds to go to graduate programs and
research. CY reports that the current
ICR split is 20%-Univeristy, 7%-Deans Office, and 73% Departments.
FK
expressed special interest in 18-20 retirement expenses and how they affected
the School budget. The answer is murky,
but it seems that the direct cost to our SOS budget is about 20 to 25% of the
true cost of 18-20. Thus 18-20 funds
are largely outside of our control/jurisdiction.
KW
discussed several SOS and University programs that support student
scholarships/fellowships and research.
These were generally viewed as desirable even in a tight money
environment.
KJ
called the meeting to a close after two hours, happy that we had covered a lot
of ground but disappointed that we had not been able to reach more of a
synthesis. Our next meeting (11/3/00,
10 AM in LD 124) will address the SOS Strategic Plan and set the agenda for the
Fall Faculty Assembly meeting on 11/13/00.
fwk
10-9-2000