IFS Meeting June 6, 2008

8:02 p.m. One IFS member reported that he suspects that governance will be largely impacted in the future. With financial problems happening all around now, this will happen more with the changes in administration coming at many campuses. Also, there may be issues with the IMD referenced during our discussion yesterday. Will incoming presidents be allowed to change the system of governance on their campuses. The member suggested that we ask one of our members contact the Chancellor to determine what the latitude will be when new presidents come in with the next few years. Also, our representative could ask the Chancellor what is happening with administrators as new hires. Are the salaries of the new presidents increasing more quickly than faculty at the present time. It was suggested that this could be added to the comparative peers’ project in the Chancellor’s office. Another suggestion is that this issue could be presented to the board in the IFS presentation at the next state board meeting. Preferably the IFS should contact the Chancellor soon and not wait until the October meeting.

Since Peter Gilkey has resigned from the Comparative Peers’ committee. John Nicols will act as the representative from IFS on this committee.

Regular reports:

President’s report:

Provosts Council report – more permanent Provosts are helping the interim Provosts. There does not appear to be conflicts over who is offering what programs. Susan Weeks comes to these meetings very regularly. She now acts as a deputy chair of the council.

JBAC report most meetings are telephone meetings with short notice. The revision of the AAOT was approved during the past year. Details are on the OUS website under meeting documents. Community College offering the AAOT cannot add any more requirements that those listed in the AAOT. There does appear to be a lack of communications as information is not always passed down to faculty involved. Since Maureen will be on sabbatical next year, IFS should consider appointing another member. Robert Mercer has been attending as a representative from another agency. He accepted appointment for a one-year term and then perhaps some new representatives to IFS will be willing to serve on the committee. At that time, Robert could act as a mentor for a new appointee.

Faculty Governance Meeting consensus. The IFS proposes to organize a meeting of the faculty leadership of the OUS Universities (including OHSU) to discuss governance issues. Each OUS University (and OHSU) will be invited to send 1-3 people (Senate Presidents, Senate Vice Presidents, University Council Presidents, Chair of Faculty Advisory Committee etc) to the meeting. The purpose would be to share information on the following topics to include, but not limited to: (a) what the existing governance structures are on each campus, (b) nuts and bolts governance issues, (c) administrative support structures for faculty governance, and (d) possible changes being considered to faculty governance structures. It would be co-chaired by IFS Senators Robert Mercer (Presiding Officer 08/09 PSU) and Peter Gilkey (Senate Vice President UO) with either the President or Vice President of the IFS invited to be in attendance. It will be held on the OSU campus in late January 2009. The Chancellor's office is to be consulted and closely involved in this endeavor.

Report from Dual Credit Task Force – Duncan Carter

Task Force came from IFS motion delivered to Chancellor’s office. Task force is comprised of wide group of stakeholders. Dual Credit is called by many different names in all of the colleges, high school and even other states. A 23-page report has been uploaded to the IFS website under the EOU meeting documents. The report looked at:

Students who took one part of a series at high school and then succeeding courses in colleges
Students who retake a course in college that the passed in high school
Where do dual credit students enroll in college
What is the retention rate of to the sophomore year for students who have taken dual credit

They did not find a large statistical difference for students who take dual credit courses in high school versus students taking courses originally in colleges. This information does not mean that there are some inferior programs. Also, there are students who cannot afford to take the dual credit courses because of cost. The task force has issued a recommendation for improving and expanding the dual credit programs. The next step for the task force is to look at dual credit standards and policy option packages for the future. The task force has asked that the student data be maintained and updated in the future.

Joanne Sorte reported on her participation on the OUS Student Participation and Completion Committee. The committee focuses on increasing the number of first-generation and other underserved students be prepared for entering, succeeding in and graduating from college through several programs that are now under discussion by the state board.

Motion and discussion on state salary pool. Peter Gilkey moved and Lani Roberts seconded the following motion.

Resolved: The InterInstitutional Faculty Senate requests that the President of the InterInstitutional Faculty Senate write to the members of the Legislative Emergency Board of the State of Oregon to ask them to release the $125 million appropriated for state agency salary increases in June 2008.

The motion passed unanimously.

Other items:

Campus reports were given.

Thanks were expressed to EOU for hosting the meeting.

The next meeting will be at SOU in October.

Meeting adjourned.