Subject: iifs: ACADEMIC COUNCIL REPORT
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:55:42 -0800
From: Peter Gilkey

Dear Fellow members of the IFS.

I went to the Academic Council meeting today -- I was sitting in for Dan Edge who had a timing conflict -- it was a phone conference and all I had to do was toddle over to Susan Campbell hall here on campus. Here are my notes on it. Nothing in it should come as any particular surprise.

Peter B Gilkey

The academic council covered the following main features:

• 1) Special meeting of the Board 21 March 2003 to discuss
  • a) Budget priorities b) Tuition policy
  • c) Enrollment planning issues
• 2) Legislative update (ways and means planning)
• 3) Draft OUS Diversity report
• 4) Minority Teacher report (response to the minority teacher report act of 1991)
• 5) First year student performance on 10th grade benchmark
• 6) Faculty salary goal setting model

Under item 1. The Board Meeting
It is expected that the board will focus on funding priorities and reduction alternatives. The ever dropping floor for the "quality funding index" now seems to be 72% of our comparator schools.
The board is expected to discussing ratifying the tuition surcharges and making them permanent. The institutions are expected to discuss what the institutions can handle in the way of enrollment beyond what the state funds. The discussion may involve discounted tuition and removing the plateau.

Under item 2. Legislative update. The "efficiency act in higher education" has been amended slightly and is now going forward. Upcoming ways and means committee hearing on the Higher Ed budget and on the construction budget (defered maintance etc). Hearings on the budget will start Monday April 1 and continue thru Wed April 9. (NOTE: this will surely impact on our meeting in Salem 5 April). Hearings on Higher Ed Budget close around 14 April. Final budget passage will await the revenue forecast of 15 May. At that time they will decide how far beyond the 2/4% budget cuts they will have to go. Looking at 4/6, 6/8, 8/10 cut package.
FYI - The state legislature has asked the various agencies to provide "what would happen if we had to cut the budget x%" and that is what is being talked about above. I got the impression we were expecting cuts at the 4% level. Most schools could sort of handle cuts at the 6-8% level without going after academic programs. The higher the cut level, the more problematical things get.

Items 3-5 were reports. I have copies but won't go into details.

Under item 6. Faculty salary goal. The resources are simply not there. It was a policy option package in 99-01 but things have deteriorated since then. There is no such policy option package now. But we should think ahead to 05-7. It is a Long term problem. We are in a bad position with low salaries and increasing enrollment. It is a long term goal but it is unrealistic to expect progress now -- a mistake to raise expectations given current budget problems.

The meeting ended with a question as to what GOOD news was available. After a long pause, one Provost said he was going to Arizona to a meeting next week where it wouldn't be raining. Laughter. Another long pause. Another provost indicated her team was going to the NCAA's. More laughter. But the basic conclusion I drew was there was not a lot of good news.

Respectfully submitted

Peter B Gilkey IFS Senator