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

Members: Bill Barnes, Dave Caudill, Tom Currin, Alan Gabrielli, Steve Hamrick, Ruston Hunt, Joyce Mills, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Jeffrey Ray, Han Reichgelt, Zvi Szafran

Members Absent: Han Reichgelt, Jeff Ray, Nikki Palamiotis

Guests: Venu Dasigi for Han Reichgelt, Dawn Ramsey, Jerry Turner

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Szafran introduced George Turner (Jerry), Interim VP for Business and Finance, hired as a consultant until the search for a permanent replacement for Patrick McCord is concluded. Jerry spoke briefly and encouraged the Council to contact him with any issues or concerns that he may be able to help with. Jerry’s email address is gturner@spsu.edu.

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following:

The USG presidents will be meeting with the Chancellor tomorrow.
The BoR will be meeting about the University of Georgia degree proposal about engineering next week. There was a full article about this in the Atlanta Journal Constitution recently.
New Hires – Szafran shared the proposed budget for new hires with Dr. Rossbacher, approximately $1,800,000 ($1M for highest priorities). While it is unlikely we will be able to fill all positions (and would do well if we were able to accomplish our highest priorities), we will proceed with the searches as in previous years and make adjustments as needed along the way.
Budget – SPSU will begin next year with an approximately 4% budget cut due to loss of stimulus funding. Mandatory fees will continue in some form.
ETC Bldg. – The ribbon cutting ceremony for the new building will be delayed until January 2011. Faculty will begin moving to the new building in late October. Furniture and equipment will be delivered near the end of the month and will be delivered by 13-15 semis. The Savannah Walk will be poured soon.
Library – the new reference librarian, Amy Coughenour, started last week. The computer lab is working out very well.
Physics faculty will begin moving on Friday.
Bldg. E Renovations –Jerry Turner will look into the status of the contract.
Old ATTIC Space – is still having some issues with phone lines, air conditioning, etc. Alan Gabrielli will follow up on these issues.
Academic Advisors – the search is going well and applicants have been narrowed down to the top three for each of the schools. Interviews will begin next week and the hope is to have the new advisors in place by mid-November.
Outreach Position – Alan is working on getting the search committee together.
VP for Business & Finance – we’ve received over 47 applications to date. The search committee will meet next Monday.
TCSG – Dave Caudill gave a brief update on our articulation with the TCSG’s and stated that he has received course descriptions and forwarded them to Jeff Ray and Austin Asgill for review.
MS in ARCH – The full proposal has been forwarded to Dr. Szafran and they are working on the budget.
Advisor Training – There are still 8 faculty who have not signed up for the training. The names were given to the deans for follow up.

Item 2. Phased Registration

In response to complaints from some departments, Steve Hamrick asked for feedback on the current phases of registration. Based on comments from the Council, Steve is willing to develop a plan for two phases versus three to accomplish the same goals with less work. He will bring his plan to a future meeting.

Item 3. Academic Program Reviews

Dr. Szafran asked the Council for clarification on the P&P dealing with academic program reviews. The P&P states that the review committee prepares the report and implementation plan and submits it to the chair and dean. Szafran’s question was what happens if the chair and/or dean disagree with the committee’s report and who makes the decision as to what goes forward to the VPAA for final approval. The Council agreed that the chairs and deans have an advisory role only and that the committee should have the final decision on the report that goes to the VPAA.

Item 4. Academic Integrity Policy

The final draft of the Academic Integrity Policy was submitted to the Council for review. Minor revisions were made and it is ready to send out to the faculty for review.

Item 5. Healthcare IT Proposal

Russ Hunt brought the proposal for a Healthcare IT Center to the Council for approval. The only issue raised was that the proposal does not contain an interdisciplinary component which has been required of all centers. Szafran suggested adding collaboration with the Business Administration Department to the proposal to bring it in line with the other centers, and Hunt will follow up on this.

Item 6. New Business

Building G - Szafran asked that Tom Currin, Alan Gabrielli, and Jeff Ray work together on space allocation issues for Building G. Currently the classrooms are not online for general use so all requests should be addressed to one of them. Classes will be assigned in Building G only if absolutely necessary, and only on a temporary basis pending results from the Master Planning process. Additionally, Szafran suggested that all changes to the usability of any classroom, i.e. converting a regular classroom to a computer classroom, etc., be done in the way of a proposal to the UITAC since this could potentially affect multiple departments. This will be followed up on with UITAC.
TADL – Venu asked if there would be enough space in TADL for all of his faculty who are developing online courses. Dawn responded that there are a total of 18 spaces available and 17 applications to date. The deadline is October 15^th for fall of 2011. Ramsey explained the reason for only having 18 spaces and stated that priority would be given to faculty actually developing courses.
Future Cities – Dawn announced that the Future Cities competition will be on January 22, 2011, and asked for volunteers. There are currently 41 schools registered compared to 35 schools registered last year at the same time. Of those 41 schools registered, 33% are new to the competition.
Advisor Training – the pilot training for part-time faculty will begin soon with rollout to all part-time faculty in the spring. A special session will also be offered for administrative assistants.

Meeting adjourned at 3:43 P.M.