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FACULTY SENATE MEETING MINUTES SC117 ATTENDANCE Present: Damon Bahr, Deborah Baird, sub. for John Balden, David Brandt, Joe Buchman, Elaine Byrd, Eddy Cadet, Ernest Carey, Malcolm Crawford, Kathie Debenham, Jeanille Gooch, Eldon Greenhalgh, Ron Hammond, Jill Jasperson, Chris Jones, sub. for Stephanie Larsen, Dave Manning, Duane Miller, LouAnn Provost, Kirk Rasmussen, Liliana Riboldi, Grant Richards, Pres. Kerry Romesburg, Merlin Smith, Keith Snedegar, Dr. Lucille T. Stoddard, K.D. Taylor, Jon Turner, Lynn Turnquist, sub. for Cristine Veit, Forrest Williams, Laurie Wood Absent: Max Christofferson, Jeanette Hall, Chester Heath, Gary Noll, Don Wilson Excused: Doug Miller, Tom Perkins Guests: Andrea Brown, Lisa Lambert, Linda Makin, Val Peterson CALL TO ORDER Grant Richards, Faculty Senate President, called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Minutes for December 8th and January 12th were approved. ACTION ITEMS No actions items scheduled for this meeting. INFORMATION ITEMS
Linda Makin handed out a packet explaining the funding categories that are used for UVSC projects. There are three different forms of funding, and money cannot be moved from one source to another. - The General Operating Budget is an on-going, base operating budget for the institution which includes salaries, benefits, and operating expenses. It comes from tax funds and tuition. - One-time/supplemental funds come from tax surplus funds and is provided for specific, one-time projects. - Capital Facilities funding is for construction of new facilities or remodeling of existing facilities. It comes from state bonding. Linda's handout will be available on the senate's Web site, and explains how the money at UVSC is used. It was noted that 61% of the operating budget comes from tax funds, while tuition from students pays 37% of our operating budget. Our students pay the highest proportion in the state for their education. The average for the state is 25%. The handout also shows the recommendations made to the legislature by the governor as well as the recommendations made by an independent fiscal analyst. Highlights were: Linda's document also includes UVSC's detailed line item budget request, a chart showing the number of unfunded FTE we currently have, our estimate of Y2K needs, and a chart showing that currently UVSC has the lowest assignable square feet per FTE in the state, again emphasizing our need for a new building.
President Kerry Romesburg also commented on the legislature and pointed out that the county's Chamber of Commerce has put together a list of the most important things they wanted to see done for this county: 1) Fund enrollment growth, 2) the Information Sciences Building at UVSC. President Romesburg emphasized the value of contacting the legislature. He feels that this is the worst budget for higher ed. from the governor in 12 years. The top three items for capitol facilities are: 1) a swimming pool for SUU; 2) repair of a U of U building; 3) UVSC's Information Sciences Building, -- but it looks like there will not be funding for the third item. President Romesburg pointed out that the building is the only item on the list that provides additional access to students for education. If we do not have this access, we will be turning students away, students who truly need the education. It was also pointed out that there is a bill to use the current surplus to give a tax refund for income taxes, but that income taxes directly fund education. There is also a bill to decrease the food tax. The new twist on it is to decrease it by offering a refund from income tax, thus again directly hurting education. Other legislative items of interest include Dixie College's press to be a state college. They have enough votes in the legislature to become a state college. The legislature will probably threaten the regents to make Dixie a four-year school, and if the regents won't, then the legislature will. That is how UVSC came about, and that is also what happened with the switch to semesters. The difference between Dixie and UVSC is that they have 3,500 students and we have 18,000 students. They plan to add three bachelor degrees the first year and three more shortly after. One senator asked about our behavioral science four-year degree. The response was that this was still progressing very slowly. Other four-year degrees need to move more quickly in the curriculum planning stages so that they can soon begin the approval process Val Peterson spoke to the senators about the power of communicating with our legislative representatives. If they don't hear from us, they don't push our interests up the priority list. If you do write to our legislators, be sure to tell them how much we appreciate what they do for us. They are doing a wonderful job. Recommendations included: 1) Do not use a form letter. 2) Write as a concerned citizen, or parent, not as an employee of higher education. We have a lot of districts represented at our college. Public education uses the power of lobbying far better that does higher ed.. Public ed. has the PTA, the School Board Association, and the Superintendents Association. Val distributed a pamphlet which lists the names and contact numbers for the representatives of each district. President Romesburg recommended that we focus on the two main needs for our school, which are to fund enrollment growth, and to build the Information Sciences building. Val also recommended that we could fill out the survey forms that come in the mail from various representatives. The reps say that very few people actually fill them out and send them back, and that those that are returned are meaningful. There is only one nomination. Others who have been nominated have declined. Laurie moved that Janet Bennion be approved by the senators to be the faculty senate secretary- elect, until there is enough interest to hold an election. The motion was unanimous. A paper showing the faculty senate committee vacancies that will be coming up in the spring was distributed. Laurie also noted that she has sent in two names for the AA/EEO vacancies. Jill Jasperson explained that there are currently five places in our policies where grievances and appeals processes are described. The committee would like to have it all in one place. Chris Jones wondered if it were correct to pool grievances and appeals into one thing. Debbie stated that the student handbook doesn't need to be muddied up with the employee grievance policy. Jill stated that she understood the concerns, but that there are some things that do apply to both students and employees, i.e. sexual harassment. The committee will study the issue and make a presentation at the next meeting. Duane Miller explained that we should be getting faculty merit applications next week. They will first go to the dean, then to the department chair. The committee has only seen two of the three new four-year degrees that were supposed to be brought forward this year. They had only planned on meeting once a month for the rest of the year, but might need to work out a new schedule to pick up the pace. Formative evaluations should be going to the chairs next week. Senators were also reminded about the two tenure workshops. Anyone can attend either meeting Next week the senate will vote for one of the two budget proposals There is no option for status quo. A few questions were raised about whether the senate should relinquish this vote to the faculty-at-large. Another concern was how a senator should vote when his department is split over the matter. Some feel that this decision is the responsibility of the senate. Most of this was left for continued discussion at the department level with the matter scheduled to be an action item at the next senate meeting. REMARKS Grant reminded the senate about the Faculty Appreciation Night basketball game on January 29th. President Romesburg was asked about the status of acquiring the Journal building, but he responded that it does not look like we can come up with the money because they have now asked for considerably more. It would be such a good thing to acquire these seven acres adjacent to the campus, but there is no state funding for it. ADJOURNMENT Grant Richards adjourned the meeting at 4:30 p.m.
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