CHANCELLOR MANNING'S REMARKS
The Chancellor was convinced that the DOGS budget was happening. He says the
sales tax increase bailed us out temporarily, but it's no long-term solution,
and the future doesn't look much brighter in light of the rhetoric the two
governor front-runners are using. Of the 21 million provided to higher ed, TBR
got 17 million, with UT taking only 4 million.
Despite the 17 million, some institutions received NO additional funds,
according to the whims of the formula (which is about to go under the knife;
more on that in a bit.)
Dr Manning believes that legislators see higher ed as the "state's largest
discretionary fund"; there's no pressure on the state to improve funding. K-12
has lawsuits; Tenncare has federal matching; we got nada.
Dr Manning presented a summary of recent board actions, including the approval
of the 7.5% average tuition increase. They denied suggested increases to
athletic fees, Technology Access Fees (TAFs), and tabled a motion from the
institution presidents to loosen the ways in which the TAF money may be spent.
The salary discussion was interesting; the governor's budget called for an
average 2% higher-ed increase, rather than across the board, which seemed to
have been the prevailing misconception. Accordingly, some individuals could
conceivably receive nothing, though the presidents argued as a group that it
should be given across the board. There was a representative from TBR's
finance office who chimed in that the institutions were being asked "What can
you additionally provide?", with the hope being that the individual
institutions could come up with an additional 1% to bring the overall up to
the same 3% granted "state" employees, but this is a TBR suggestion, not a
mandate, and individual institutions may choose not to honor that.
He talked a bit about THEC's "Action Plan" for dealing with cost-cutting
requirements. Some of the proposals are just not going to be possible to
enact. For example, THEC has set growth limits at the institutions of from
3%/5years to 5%/5years, with institutions having to reimburse the state for
exceeding these growth levels; but in the most extreme case of how this is
going to go bad, MTSU projects to grow by 5% in the next year alone, and by
15-25% in the next 5 years. Under the current proposal, MTSU would have to
payback the state-paid portion of the student's education cost, which will be
disastrous for the school. TBR is pushing for "right-sizing"; unique cap plans
for each institution. UT, for some reason, is quite happy with this penalty.
Formula discussion included this factoid; under the current formula, if you
take into account the state's funding and the student's tuition, higher
education is 100% funded. When Lisa said just after the budget was released
that the schools would be 100% funded, this is apparently what Warren Neal
meant; that the student's tuition had been raised so much over the last few
years, that with the additional 21 million to higher ed, we reached the
funding goals according to the formula. Now, I'm no accountant, and this
certainly doesn't sound possible to me, but I heard it from two different
people that day. There is now a group moving as quickly as possible to reform
the formula, because if this is 100%, I'm Pee Wee Herman. The finance guy
pointed out two major problems with the current formula; in its original
formulation, it was based upon faculty salary data that at the time was 2
years out of date; and the cost-shift to students now has students paying 50%
more than the formula predicts.
Other Manning comments:
It would take 111 million additional dollars to raise our state funding per
student to the average of our peers.
There will be no new capital projects approved until we have an income tax.
Regarding faculty equity funding, we are around 90% of our peer averages; a
one-time across the board 11% raise would just about make us average
He cautioned against challenging the Tennessee State Employee's Association
(TSEA) over their failure to point out the difference to the draftors of the
governor's budget in "state" employees and "education" employees. "You don't
want them as enemies".
TBR is looking at insurance plans for adjuncts, most likely through the Farm
Bureau
The Chancellor also shared that some board members feel that we don't raise
enough money at the institutions privately
I will be sending part two of this, hopefully later today, which will include
how the proceedings touched on the difficult curricular issues brought up at
last Wednesday's Faculty Council meeting.
IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW ADVISING SCREEN FOR FACULTY
USE
Dean Ross, a TBR computer guru, shared the highlights
of a new system-wide
advising screen that seemed to very effectively give
all aspects of a
student's record pertinent to advising. This may be
complicated/delayed by a
new version of SIS just around the corner, but should
be available shortly.
PROMOTION AND TENURE TASK FORCE
First off, let me offer a public apology to Donnie
Thomas, who expressed an
interest in serving on this talk force; sadly, I submitted
his name after the
roster had already been secured.
Having said that, TBR sees a problem in that the current
policy is creating
the need for multiple exceptions; with this many exceptions
being sought and
granted, it is believed the policy could be punched
up to account for the
exceptions ahead of time. Dr Paula Short, Vice-Chancellor
for Academic
Affairs, said, and I quote "The Board understands
that this is NOT an open
door to doing away with tenure", and in fact made
just the opposite argument,
that this would put some teeth in the tenure policy,
and should eliminate any
suggestion of eliminating tenure.
INTERNET 2 TASK FORCE
I frankly don't know much about Internet2, though
I did dig up this web site
if you would like a brief description
http://www.internet2.edu/html/about.html
Dr Short sees Internet2 as an evolutionary step towards
more meaningful
integration of technologocial tools in delivering
courses, both in traditional
and web formats.
DEFINING OUR FUTURE
The Presidents have received general ed requirements,
the campuses are now to
go about the task of integrating the new changes into
their institution's
course offerings. THEC has finished review of a number
of engineering and
agricultural programs, but approveed no program elimination
so far, although a
list of proposed programs to be eliminated is due
to the board in October. Dr
Short said that she would be glad to report directly
to our Faculty Council if
we would simply offer her a formal invitation to do
so. She will discuss these
and any other necesary changes to programs.
GENERAL EDUCATION
Kay Clark, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic
Affairs for Community
Colleges presented a handout on general ed outcomes
and course parameters. He
stated to the full group that he was aware of the
"special" relationship
between PSTCC and UTK, and that every step was being
taken to maintain that
relationship in its present form; and that Dr Bruns
was in close contact with
his office in this matter.
He did say that the 60/120 change will "probably lead
to loss of some popular
2000 level courses at the community colleges", and
that "measurable outcomes
will require some sort of standardized comparison".
Indeed, there may have to
be a "system-wide" test.
He commented that the math outcomes are "moving away
from dependence on
algebra skills to real-world analysis", but he could
have said the same thing
a lot quicker by saying "think statistics".
(Personal aside: Molly, how does the quadratic formula
make you FEEEEEEL?)
He said that "Whatever courses that your institution
proposes to satisfy a
requirement will be accepted".
When challenged on the make-up of the committee that
put together the gen ed
outcomes, and its dearth of teaching faculty, Kay's
response has been that
many of the committee members are long-time teachers,
if not serving in that
capacity at the moment. This may be the one chink
in the armor of this work,
that over and over in policy, the case is made that
substantial changes to
curriculum need to come out of strong participation
of teaching faculty.
Otherwise, this gen ed stuff is indeed a "done deal".
PLANS TO REVISE PROGRAM APPROVAL POLICY AND FORMS
I didn't take much from this beyond the title, frankly
ACT PLACEMENT AND DSP SURVEY
Treva Berryman, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic
Affairs, talked a bit
about ACT placement. TBR is going to use it system-wide,
and it should be
fully implemented by October 1.
SACS UPDATE FOR RODP
Review is underway to assure RODP standards are up
to SACS standards
COMMON CALENDAR
I think I have already talked this one to death.
I think that's all I have. If you want further info
re: any of this stuff,
just let me know. The next meeting is in October (the
exact date slips my
mind), but if you would like to have a topic on the
agenda, now's the time to
let me know.
Call me anytime,
dave