Chancellor Manning started the meeting with a discussion of the budget crisis.
He reports that the legislature seems equally split between those who want to
implement an income tax, those who want to raise the sales tax, and those who
want to generate no new revenues. In the event that no new revenues are
generated, the so-called DOGS budget would have to be implemented, which would
require a "sizeable" tuition increase to maintain services as is. Formal
action on tuition increases will take place at the June TBR meeting, but there
will also be a special "called" meeting of the board on May 13 designed to
help everyone understand the implications of the possible outcomes resulting
from legislative budget decicions.
Dr Manning suggested that the most immediately visible cuts will be the loss
of all Centers of Excellence, and the cutting of a large number of technology
center services (and the elimination of some technology centers altogether),
but that deep cuts will do damage to the entire system for many years to come.
He discussed the differences between the goals outlined in the Defining Our
Future document and the "out of the blue" recommendations that came from THEC
last week. He noted that many of the stated goals from the two documents run
counter to one another, as if THEC had no idea what TBR was attempting with
Defining Our Future. This was exceedingly disappointing to TBR staff, given
that THEC was in on DoF from the very start and for six months, but dropped
their recommendations on TBR about three days before they were approved and
publicized by THEC. Both of these documents can be found on the TBR website.
Things weren't very hopeful, although he did comment that for the first time,
there seemed to be sincere belief among many lawmakers that additional money
was needed, as opposed to previous opinions that it was simply a case of money
not being wisely managed.
Dr John Rudley, who is one of the TBR financial guys, gave a brief
presentation on the use and regulation of campus Technology Access Fees
(TAFs). TAF guideline revisions were distributed; these primarily assure that
Technology Fee money will not be simply added to the campuses general funds,
that these fees will be used for technology development and upkeep.
Dr Rudley went on to discuss aspects of the budget problems. Among his
comments
-->College presidents are fighting like mad for a 17-30% fee increase. 30%
would "almost" cover losses to the DOGS budget.
-->Some TBR board members are publicly stating that they will not approve such
an increase, but then they were making the same claim last June about three
hours before they did vote for a tuition hike.
-->The two-year schools will suffer much more than the four-year schools in
the first two years of a post-DOGS budget. Since remedial will be eliminated
from the four-year schools, and developmental will be cut back, these students
will have no option but to go to the 2-year schools. Unfortunately, we are in
a two-year budget cycle, so if we see a massive increase in enrollment, we
won't see any additional money to deal with these students for two years.
Effectively, if FTE suddenly rises from 4000 to 4500, the two-year school
would still have 4000-FTE funding until the budget cycle catches up.
I will say that Dr Rudley was as straight a shooter as i have dealt with in my
two years on SubCouncil. He was excellent.
In other news
LOW ENROLLMENT PROGRAMS
TBR has begun to generate a list of low-enrollment programs. Now why do you
think they would be doing that? To more heavily publicize these programs to
give them a better chance to succeed? HA HA HA
Anyway, this list has been submitted to the Presidents of the 4-year schools,
and will eventually work its way down to us.
60/120 DEGREE REQUIREMENTS
The curriculum change that gets TBR degrees down to 60/120 was briefly
discussed. There were a number of reps who decried this move, especially as it
restricts a discipline's ability to require students to take specific courses
seen as crucial to a full understanding of that discipline above a bare-bones
curriculum. (Science and nursing personnel seemed especially put out.)
As a result of this discussion, Faculty SubCouncil unanimously passed the
following resolution.
"The Faculty Sub-Council resolves that we are philosophically opposed to the
adoption of the reduction in the number of credit hours to 60 for an
associates degree and 120 credit hours for a bachelor degree.
We strongly believe that a reduction in credit hours lessens the value of a
degree and will lead to inadequate training of our students in their
discipline".
In addition to the academic concerns that led to passing the resolution, a
couple of reps expressed fear that this move sets up the legislature to
supplement funding of only up to this many hours for students (ie, if after
changing your major, you are going to require 140 hours to graduate rather
than 120, the state would subsidize only up to 120, and the student would be
expected to pick up the full cost for the 20 "additional" hours).
USE OF ACT FOR PLACEMENT
This is still being considered, with system-wide implementation now likely for
fall 2003. Pellissippi will continue its pilot of this program; Treva Berryman
emphasized that ACT would not be the sole placement tool, and that Compass
would still be available for back-up if the ACT placement for a student was
deemed not to be appropriate.
COMMON CALENDAR
It's back to the drawing board; TBR thought they had all the kinks worked out,
until the Academic officers refused to vote on it. There is a lot of dissent
from school to school about how to accomplish a common calendar, and the
present plan has been scrapped. The issue won't go away, though, because of
financial aid and Regent's Degree implications for the system.
REVISIONS TO A-100
These revisions were discussed, but I think I am going to leave this
discussion to Joanne Thomasson, as I am not getting the gist of what they are
doing. It's a complex issue, and the overriding philosophy now seems to be
that developmental classes shouldn't be treated any differently, logistically,
from other courses the colleges offer. Thus the removal of the two-attempt
rule, and lots of other substantive changes to many of the restrictions that
previously applied to the administration of these courses.
Sorry about the first-draftiness of this document; hope some of it makes
sense. The next meeting is on July 26th, if you want me to get some sort of
business added to the agenda.
Call me sometime.
dave