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: Russ Hunt, Joyce Mills

Guests: Sylvia Carson, Diane Payne, Dawn Ramsey

Item 1. Updates

Dr. Szafran updated the Council on the following:

Budget – The USG has asked for 4, 6, and 8% budget cut scenarios; SPSU has contingency plans for all three. Revenues appear to be up in the State as well as enrollment.
HOPE award discussions at the statehouse may negatively impact students but no final decisions have been made to date
New Programs – The System Office approved our letter of intent for the M.S. in Architecture and approved the Certificate in Architectural Studies. An identical minor will be coming to the faculty for approval soon.
Regents Test Requirements – The committee approved our proposal for SPSU to be exempt from the Regents requirements; must be approved by the Chancellor still.
Campus Construction – done or nearing completion in most areas
Internal Operating Budget – Szafran is setting up budgets for the Division of Engineering, Graduate Studies, International Programs, and student assistants for the new learning commons in the Library.
Physics Space – Alan complimented facilities on the timely completion of major projects – labs and offices are almost ready in Building H. He will be meeting with the architect soon to remodel the vacated Physics space. Dawn asked about the splitting of Biology, Chemistry & Physics. Alan explained his vision for the department and that officially it remains one department.
Building J – the gaming lab is moving to another space and the old ATTIC space is being remodeled into one classroom and 6 faculty offices.
VPBF – the search for a new Vice President for Business and Finance will start immediately.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner – On August 26 from 12:00-2:00. Dr. Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2006 will speak to our campus.
Fulbright Scholar-In-Residence – Eszter Simon, our Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence has arrived on campus for the year. Tom Rotnem was away on a 1-year Fulbright last year and Omar Zia will be on a Fulbright this coming year.
Engineering Camps – the Division of Engineering’s engineering camps went very well. The camps were geared toward middle and high school students and generated a lot of interest in an aeronautical engineering degree.
Graduate Studies – applications are up 10%; acceptances are up 15%.
STEM Education Coordinator – George Stickel has been hired as the STEM Education Coordinator
New PR Associate – Sylvia Carson introduced Diane Payne, the new Associate Director of Public Relations.

Item 2. Advising Workshop Plans

Dawn distributed handouts on the faculty advisor training pilot. Twenty-two faculty attended and she reported that it went very well. The full roll-out is planned for Fall 2010 and will consist of 10 sections for up to 20 faculty in each section. Becky Rutherfoord and four teaching fellows will be conducting the workshops. The workshops are intended for full-time faculty only. There will be a pilot for part-time faculty in the fall and it was proposed that part-time faculty who attend should be paid a stipend in the amount of $150. Dawn also talked about expanding new faculty orientation. After discussion it was decided to move some of the content to a mandatory session later in the semester, possibly a Friday at noon and get sponsorships for an accompanying lunch, and stay with the two day schedule we are currently using. Szafran thanked Dawn and her committee for all their hard work.

Item 3. Orientation

Tom Currin talked about orientation in the past versus present day and suggested that a lot of the information requested during orientation could be printed in a bulletin and asked Steve if this could be done and how expensive it would be. Steve responded that it could be done. Han talked about how his school handles orientation and that it is working well because of their computer lab and lab manager. Comments from the Council:

Transfer credit evaluations continue to be a problem as they are generally not completed until the student commits to attend orientation so Admissions gets backed up. It was suggested that some schools charge a transfer credit fee and that it is done at the same time as the admission process and has had positive results.
Graduate orientation is a problem with students not being able to self-register for transition courses. It was suggested that Steve set up test score and pre-requisite table as a solution. Nikki and Han will discuss this.
Currin suggested having students who just went through orientation talk to orientation leaders and then bring the orientation leaders to Deans Council to discuss issues. It was also suggested to bring Bob Brown, Ron Lunk, and Ron Koger to a future meeting.
Charge a fee for transfer credit evaluation? All agreed it is a good idea. Szafran will check to see if this can be done. One of the biggest roadblocks in this area is the volume of transfer credit evaluations to be done in the amount of time available with the number of staff available.

Item 4. PeopleAdmin Process for Graduate Assistants

Nikki Palamiotis discussed the PeopleAdmin process we will be using soon for hiring graduate assistants. As this process could be in place as soon as September 1, 2010, there is an urgent need to set up a workflow that will work for all schools. Han described the process used in CSE to choose and hire graduate assistants. Szafran talked about moving all graduate assistant budgets to Graduate Studies as a way to better cost our expenses and plans for growth in Graduate Studies, size of graduate students versus undergraduate students, and need to have goals and plan in place.

Item 5. New Degree Proposals

Tom Currin distributed a handout on suggestions for new program options in engineering. After reviewing options in Systems Engineering at other universities, he came up with four possible concentrations and will send this information out to the faculty for review after kick off week. Szafran discussed ideas for new programs as well and suggested Environmental, Forensics, and Biotechnology as good fits with our mission. Gabrielli stated that there is no mechanism in place for development of multi-disciplinary degrees. Zvi asked if these suggestions should be pursued this year. Comments from the Council:

Stick with approved degrees and add options/concentrations/certificates in the suggested areas as this avoids BoR approvals
Szafran responded that there are structural problems with doing this as there is no space in existing programs.
Leave off “technology” when marketing to remove constraints
Szafran sees the deans sharing concepts with chairs and getting all involved in creating new programs
How would ET department regard offering some new non-ABET accredited programs?