SOS Steering Committee Meeting 9/28/2001

Minutes

________________________________________________________________________

Attending: Pam Crowell (Biol), Dennis Devine (Psych), Kathy Johnson (Chair), Fritz Kleinhans (Sec), Joe Kuczkowski (Assoc Dean), Jon Luke (Math), David Malik (Chem), Kim Nguyen (Assist Dean), David Stocum (Dean), Gautam Vemuri (Physics); Kathryn Wilson (Assoc Dean),

KJ opened the meeting with introductions and a review of the Steering Committee Functions. These are listed in the SOS Bylaws of the Faculty Assembly. As President of the SOS Faculty, KJ is an ex-offico member of the SOS Chairs Council. Because of a teaching conflict, PC and FK will attend for KJ this Fall Semester. Our Steering Committee minutes will continue to be posted on our web site as the mechanism of dissemination.

Steering Committee meeting dates of Nov 2 and Nov 30 were set. The SOS Faculty Assembly Agenda must be set at the Nov 2 meeting. The Faculty Assembly will be on a Monday in November when LD010 is free.

The meeting was then opened for any issues the faculty representatives had brought:

PC reports that Biology is concerned about problems getting computers serviced by the SOS support team. The issues/problems appears to be the following: On PC's, Windows is prone to 'breaking', particularly when new software is loaded. SOS Support has spent an inordinate amount of time, recently, fixing PC Windows problems. As a result, new faculty computers are being delivered with password protection so that only SOS Support can install new software. This all raises LOT'S of issues. KW suggested that the Technology Committee address this problem, so discussion of this issue was shifted to that committee.

DM would like to replace mud with bricks around the south end of the LD building. The history of this 'battle' was reviewed. Evidently bricks are expensive and will cost about 30k$. To keep 'on' the issue it was recommended that we communicate with Bob Martin with copies to Emily Wren. Snow removal problems were also discussed. JK reported a broken rib on this account.

JL expressed concern about the loss of one gravel parking lot in October. Currently, faculty/staff parking goes 'sour' by 11 AM. This will probably change when our east gravel lot is closed for building construction.

KW gave a trial presentation of her/our Purdue Schools' Strategic Plan and received several suggestions.

Statistics emerging from this discussion: The SOS teaches 23% of all campus student credit hours. SOS graduate program enrollments have been dropping from the 70's to 60's to 50's over the last three years

DS presented the Annual Planning/Budgeting Report 2001 prepared for Trudy Banta. For this year the SOS is in good financial shape, albeit, at the cost of several unfilled faculty positions.

A discussion of financial and credit hour problems followed:

Allied Health has major problems

Salary increases are currently the fastest growing segment of our budget.

Part Time salaries, will be raised.

Credit hour declines continue to be a critical problem. Although Biol and CSCI have gained, there have been serious drops in Chem, Math, and Psych. The lions share of our credit hours come from service courses and there is little we can do when other schools drop requirements. DS urges that we search for alternatives, such as Certificate Programs and new MS programs, to make up as much of the loss as possible. He also urged that we rethink our Dept curriculums and seek ways to be more efficient in meeting our educational goals. While striving to maintain our credit hours, raising our external funding will substantially help our financial situation.

KN noted that University College is not adequately aware of our course offerings.

We ended with a brief discussion of SOS research facilities infrastructure issues. Some infrastructure is supported by the entire school and other, such as animal care, by only the faculty using it.

We adjourned at noon.

_______________________________

FW Kleinhans

Physics

SOS Faculty Secretary

10-1-2001