NOTE: At times, issues of confidentiality may require that some items discussed in meetings be excluded from these minutes.

ALC MEMBERS: Robert Glenn Allen, Austin Asgill, Tom Ball, Bill Barnes, Richard Bennett, Renee Butler, David Caudill, Lance Crimm, Tom Currin, Venu Dasigi, Ameen Farooq, Alan Gabrielli, Steven Hamrick, Bob Homer, Ruston Hunt, Sonny Kim, Andrew McMorran, Joyce Mills, Julie Newell, Mark Nunes, Ilseok Oh, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Phil Patterson, Dawn Ramsey, Jeffrey Ray, Nancy Reichert, Han Reichgelt, Ronny Richardson, Richard Ruhala, Becky Rutherfoord, Khalid Siddiqi, Denise Stover, John Sweigart, Zvi Szafran, Andy Wang, and Tim Zeigler

MEMBERS ABSENT: Dawn Ramsey, Denise Stover

GUESTS: Ron Dempsey, Lawanda Coleman, and Christina Palaski

Item 1. Updates

Ron Dempsey spoke briefly to the Council about what is going on currently in his office. He reported that last year was our best fundraising year ever and that we are 10% ahead of last year so far. His office is focusing on the strategic plan and working with the departments for donors for naming the new ETC building and distributed brochures describing the Center and the naming opportunities available. Dempsey also announced that a new campaign development officer has been hired and will be starting next week. He introduced Christina Palaski, who talked briefly about new I.R.S. regulations regarding fund raising events and encouraged everyone to notify their office when preparing such events for the most current guidelines and regulations. Lawanda Coleman talked about budget reports, forms for processing check requests and where they can be located on the web site, and what to do if a department has over $10,000 in a foundation account and they want to convert it to a certificate of deposit. The Foundation office can help set this up. They also informed the Council that reimbursement requests under $25 to an employee can be handled by petty cash instead of by check by using the same reimbursement form.

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following:

Szafran stated that he is a little behind on emails, etc. due to the unexpected closing of the University and is trying to get caught up.
Budget – as of this moment the status of the budget is that the Governor is holding back more money – approximately an additional 2%. Szafran stated that he still expects to have end of year money and that the departments should have departmental requests ready. However, next year’s budget outlook looks grim at this time:

We are losing stimulus funding.
The University System can expect an additional budget cut of 8-9% in state funding relative to the beginning of 2010-2011, amounting to an approximate 4% overall cut for our campus.
The tuition increase percentage probably won’t be announced until May. The rumor is for a 13% increase but Szafran is not sure if this will include the two existing mandatory fees or if this will be on top of them. Students are already meeting with the legislature to protest. In addition there will be cuts to the HOPE Scholarship and associated book allowance.
In the Governor’s model budget, there is zero formula funding allocated which could mean a more than one million dollars additional cut for us.

Searches – In light of the current state of the budget, Szafran suggested that we may not even be able to do half of the searches currently in progress for new faculty. He promised to search for unallocated money to help fund new faculty and look closely at positions vacated by retirements/resignations to see if they are the highest priority for filling or if it will be better to hire faculty elsewhere where there is a greater urgency. Szafran will meet with the deans once he has a clearer picture of the budget but sees no need to bring candidates in for interviews until he has determined which searches will progress and which ones will be cancelled. He stated that the department chairs should consult with their dean before inviting any candidates for interviews. Szafran further suggested future ways to free up money for new positions might be to:

Increase class sizes
Direct money from capital to personnel
Cut back course releases

He hopes we won’t have to resort to any of these. Szafran and the deans will work together to identify how we could make up the shortfall. He also stated that next year will be another year without raises. Szafran also talked about a trend among some university systems to distribute formula funds based on graduation rates.

Board of Regents – Chancellor Davis will be gone effective June 2011 and Susan Herbst will also be leaving around the same time.
New CFO – the search for our new CFO has concluded and Bill Prigge has accepted the offer. He will begin March 1, 2011.
Out-of-State On-line Students – Szafran talked briefly about Rule 609 of the Higher Education Act which requires institutions with on-line students living out of state to comply with all the rules, regulations, reporting requirements, etc. of the student’s home state, which could be a large problem. More to come on this.
UGA Presentation – Jeff Orr and Zvi Szafran did a presentation at the University of Georgia on desegregation recently and reported that it went very well. They will present the same talk on campus as well as at the PSLSAMP meeting.
Outstanding Engineering Student – a mechanical engineering student in the Division of Engineering won the outstanding engineering student of the year award from the Engineering Alliance. SPSU submitted two names for this award and the students were ranked first and second.
Outstanding Engineering Technology Student - a civil engineering technology student won the outstanding engineering technology student of the year award.
SACS – SPSU recently received a letter stating that no follow up reports are needed and that everything is fine.
New Core Curriculum – Alan Gabrielli stated that the new core was approved but not all of the core learning outcomes were approved. Alan and his committee will continue to work on these.
Academic Integrity Open Forum – there was low turn out at both open forums with the most controversial issue brought out was that if this policy is adopted, faculty will have less discretion to resolve issues around academic integrity and will be forced to use the new process.
Faculty Equity Adjustments – the Faculty Senate has accepted the charge to look at the equity adjustment process for faculty.
Evening Engineering – Tom Currin and Evening Engineering will be featured in tomorrow’s Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Item 2. QEP – SPSU 1001 Implementation

Becky Rutherfoord stated that the syllabus for SPSU 1001 will go out soon and that the departments need to decide if they will use SPSU 1001 or add it’s content to an orientation course. Both must meet the same learning outcomes. Zvi will poll the departments to see which option they will choose. Faculty teaching SPSU 1001 will be paid extra compensation if the course puts their workload over 12 hours. The rate for SPSU 1001 is $500 for the course.

Item 3. Search Concerns

There were several complaints about the way the searches are progressing this year and some suggestions for changes next year. Dr. Szafran will talk to Human Resources and share concerns from the ALC.

Item 4. DegreeWorks

Steve Hamrick updated the Council on the progress with DegreeWorks and announced that Maralee Clark will be working with him on the implementation. Maralee will also help with SmartCatalog. There will be training for everyone in early April and Steve hopes to have all the undergraduate and graduate programs finished by April.

Item 5. Selecting Faculty for Various Development Activities

Regents Teaching Excellence Award – Szafran announced that the deans will review the applications and choose one to submit.
NSF Regional Grants Workshop – Szafran will support a limited number of attendees for this workshop

Item 6. New Business

Julie announced there will be four workshops scheduled to help faculty with web reports for advising. All full-time faculty can have access to web reports by submitting the necessary form to IT.
Game Jam will be this weekend on our campus. Participants will be locked up for 48 hours to write computer games.
SACS – Bob Homer encouraged all to do assessment and document the results in preparation for our 5 year follow up report for SACS and to be sure faculty credentials are updated.
Julie Newell is working on a hiring process project and asked everyone to let her know of problems with the new on-line application system.
University Closing for Inclement Weather – need to establish a policy for dealing with on-line classes when the University is closed due to inclement weather, etc.

Meeting adjourned at 4:01 P.M.