Restructuring Task Force Meeting Notes - Nov. 14, 2003

Present: Larkin, Kang, Rundquist, Hansen, Spaude, Starks-Martin, Murphy, SubbaNarasimha

Absent: Bayerl, Lawrence, Dobey, Cogdill

Larkin distributed a draft memorandum of a beginning of a recommendation.

Dennis Nunes distributed a note from Richard Rothaus about a structural model for Graduate Studies and Research at Cleveland State University, and an accompanying organizational chart. It represents a difference in representation, not a change in funding.

Eungmin Kang distributed a response from the History Department stating that they are opposed at this time to moving from the College of Social Sciences due to the lack of sufficient information regarding the proposed College of Humanities.

Andy Larkin met with the director of Nursing, the director of the Women's Center, the coordinator of Athletes for Success in the Classroom, and the director of Multicultural Student Services. It was clarified that the Athletes for Success in the Classroom program is part of Multicultural Student Services; they help all student athletes, not just minorities. The Life Skills program is also set up in the athletic area. Andy hasn't had a chance to talk to  Rex Veeder or Tom Andrus of the American Indian Center.

The first item of the draft memorandum suggests a Council for Student Diversity and Social Justice. This would require no restructuring. It is perceived as a committee recognized by the university, and made up of the directors of AIC, MSS, SDS, GLBT, and the Women's Center, to meet monthly and to advise the VP for Student Life and Development and the President.

What about international students? There is no formal or informal linkage between MSS and international students. One thing that bridges this gap is that Caucasian students are included in some of the social aspects, but MSS provides academic services only to minority students. A representative from International Studies should be part of the council.

Pro arguments:

• It would provide an umbrella of communication.
• It would be cost-free and would help solve some of the problems we have.
• It would highlight our efforts to promote diversity and equity on campus.

Con arguments:

• Where's the power? Maybe we need to call it an advisory council.
• It would be more work for the people involved, but it's within their schedule.
• There's always a fear that when we set up an advisory council we feel we've solved the problem. Will they have any power, any influence? Will they produce a set of ideas that will not be responded to? Will they have a way to effect changes? Will their discussions be disseminated to the campus community and not just the VP for Student Life & Development?

Item #2 is a recommendation that there be a Dean and a School of Undergraduate Studies. The Write Place should maybe not be included in the group of things under that dean. There would be no physical relocation and no re-rostering. The advantage is to bring together all the academic support services for discussion, maybe partly for budget, to be an advocate, for resources, to be a spokesperson whose responsibility it would be to nurture these areas. It doesn't mean that person would do personnel decisions. This needs to be brought out in the writing of that paragraph. It would be somewhat parallel to the role of the Dean of Graduate Studies.

Gretchen Starks-Martin shared a document showing the placement of academic support services in the 25 institutions SCSU typically compares itself with. Most academic support services are housed in academic areas. These institutions don't do research, don't have journal articles, don't make presentations; they are not premier institutions we want to compare ourselves with. She submitted a similar document showing placement of academic support services in a group of “flagship” universities. In all of these, all of academic support services are in an academic area. All of these institutions also have grants. This is a good reason to have academic support services housed within an academic area.

If nobody was rostered under this dean, how much power would it really have? Dennis Nunes is in that position. Power isn't necessarily the most effective way to get things done. This person would be responsible to solve the problems, not to take problems to the Provost to solve. This person has to have some authority. This would add a voice for general education.

We need to include the word authority as well as responsibility.

Is this kind of like a council but with a dean in charge? Yes, it would be an effort to coordinate general education because we have three colleges that offer general ed courses, but no re-rostering is being recommended. Again, this dean would act as an advocate; in the current structure there is never a request for resources for general education from a dean in the way there is from other deans for majors, minors, programs.

If someone were interested in working on Frankie Condon's proposal, would this also be the place to locate it? Yes.

If we compare this to the structure of the Graduate school, would the FTE's go back to departments? Yes. Where would the funding come from? It comes out of working with the Provost and the other deans to identify the needs of the various programs. It emerges from constant interaction; resources flow because of having a spokesperson for the programs.

The need to develop general education feeds our majors and minors – if general education isn't adequate, the majors and minors dry up. Every program lives and dies by our general education success. We can't do well by general ed with classes of 200, 400, 700 students. We're on the slippery slope of majors vs. general ed. The problem is that too many of our resources are going into general ed. We're looking at an effort to coordinate it so that it might take fewer resources. Retention is also a key issue.

We want to encourage transfer students, but we're the only MnSCU university that allows students to transfer with only 12 credits, and this means that they've likely not taken many of the general ed classes, such as writing, when they transfer in.

Pro arguments:

• A unified approach can provide a “voice.” One of our charges is to meet the needs of our students. What we're trying to achieve is maximizing the possibility of making personal connections with students. This kind of organization will be very good. There is now some lack of focus, which would be addressed by this kind of structure. There are some plans to move some of these things to Centennial Hall, but we're not necessarily recommending that they all need to be located in the same place. At the same time they want a closer collaboration with the other support areas.
• This person could look at all the areas together, to provide vision and leadership. We have a faculty committee for general education, but nobody works with them. This is an advantage of having this position.
• Funding is not directly related to enrollment. This position could be effective – we have a clear idea of the need. This dean could influence hiring decisions and would have critical input.
• The power/voice comes from having a seat on dean's council; it seems like everything is in place for this to be successful.

Con arguments:

• Additional cost, a new budget line (but in the proposal for reorganizing the Office of Academic Affairs we're recommending consolidating two Associate VP positions).
• Would this dean take away authority from the VP of Curriculum? It would report to Provost, as the other deans do. This supports our flat vs. tall structure.
• The cost of this proposal will also include support staff.

Item #3 is to recommend considering a School of Nursing and Health Sciences and a School of Engineering. These two areas have specific accreditation needs; making them somewhat separate entities, each with an associate dean, would help with that.

Several specific scenarios have been suggested. We're saying to the Provost that these are possibilities – it should be the colleges that make the recommendation. The recommendation for COSE doesn't have to come from this committee. We might recommend that it seems to have merit; the Provost might form another committee made of people knowledgeable about the College of Science and Engineering, its own members, to look into that specific recommendation. Our committee doesn't have people who can make a knowledgeable decision. COSE wants something more concrete – the colleges would like to know if this is going to die on the vine. If we say we recommend a timeline, and even a process, it seems quite likely that that will happen. We should phrase it strongly and allow the process to begin here. We should recommend that it begin immediately.

Item #4 is for the possible division of the College of Fine Arts and Humanities into two colleges. We could use similar wording – that the college begin a discussion about its structure and organization, to result in a recommendation to the Provost by a specific time. It needs to be discussed further before COFAH would be ready to divide, but there's the opportunity to begin the discussions – there's momentum. There are some accreditation issues in COFAH also.

Item #5a is reorganizing the Office of Academic Affairs by consolidating the AVP for Curriculum, Assessment and Student Appeals with the AVP for Faculty Relations and Diversity. Is the consensus that we are recommending this consolidation? It's not really combining two positions, it's moving some of the faculty relations duties to Affirmative Action.

Can one person really handle both curriculum and faculty relations? Faculty relations issues are specific to particular colleges at particular times; they aren't routine or day-to-day things.

Pro arguments:

• There has been some help from the AVP for Faculty Relations with the problems in COSS.
• It's good to have this position because there's a person to contact when something happens, but it may not have to be an AVP – it might be an ombudsman or ombudsperson in the Provost's office.

Con arguments:

• The faculty relations person has no authority.
• Combining the two calls for expertise in two widely diverse areas.

We should suggest that the Provost look carefully at staffing directly in his office, and ask him to think about how the staffing should work for him. It means we're raising the issue, but not making a specific recommendation.