Chair’s Written Report to the Steering Committee, November 1, 2011

Next week, the Florida Board of Governors will meet at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. It will consider the FIU proposal for a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences. The Board will also take up a recommendation in the draft Florida Higher Education Classroom Utilization Study that, “Each student should be required to take at least one off-peak, night or week-end course and two on-line courses prior to graduation.” This is certainly one response to the projected dearth of Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) funds to build more classrooms. Already the net assignable square footage of owned classroom space per FTE student in the SUS has trailed off a bit to 10.60 and is likely to fall still further. Whether the recommendation represents a practical way to speed students’ path to graduation remains to be seen. Even the authors of the study worried about building maintenance and campus logistics issues that would come from implementation of the recommendation.

Our University’s budget is built on student enrollment growth utilizing the Internet, off-campus rental facilities, and increased instructional and laboratory facilities on both the main campus and BBC. Physical access to our Biscayne Bay Campus and its classrooms, however, once again threatens to become a grave concern. According to The Miami Herald, developer Michael Swerdlowis bidding to revive the Biscayne Landing Project. In 2002, I met with Mr. Swerdlow to express the University’s concern that his Project and the adjacent public schools would put several tens of thousands more car trips per day on BBC’s only access road. Mr. Swerdlow took the position that an overloaded access road was FIU’s problem, not his. He suggested that FIU should clear the trailer camp immediately to the south of his development and put a road through there to the Biscayne Bay campus. He was unmoved by the rejoinder that the University was not funded to build access roads. He felt that the City of North Miami was behind his project because it would yield considerable tax revenue. This is a clear case of private and local public (City of North Miami) interests conflicting with those of a state agency serving our state and region.

I also conveyed to Mr. Swerdlow concerns raised by our environmental scientists about the environmental dangers posed by the former superfund site on which he proposed to build Biscayne Landing. He was confident that his approach would eliminate the dangers.

Because this matter potentially disturbs our academic program and our entire university budget, I have asked for a briefing on the matter by President Rosenberg and will see him next week to discuss this.

Since we last met Provost Wartzok has announced that the University has subscribed to the Faculty Scholarly Productivity database managed by Academic Analytics. The database captures articles cited in articles but not books cited in articles or books in books. Nor does it capture book chapters. For those in the book-oriented disciplines, this is a matter of serious concern, as this fundamentally flawed index could be used by administrators as a gauge for making personnel or program decisions.

At our meeting next week, we will fix the agenda for the Senate’s November 15 meeting. Included on the proposed agenda are presentations by and dialog with our CFO, Dr. Jessell, and the chairperson of our Board of Trustees, Mr. Albert Maury.

We should also follow up on the concerns expressed by Osama Mohammed of Engineering and Computer Science at our last meeting that there be, at least for some courses, a standard syllabus so that instruction at the next level be more efficient. The Senate, of course, briefly discussed this in its discussion last spring of academic freedom. Moreover, at that time, there was a consensus that the teacher should cover all the material in the approved syllabus, though how she or he did so was up to the individual instructor as a matter of academic freedom. Apparently, the problem has not been resolved. It needs to be resolved, if we are to improve our retention and graduation rates, something we must do.

Respectfully submitted,

Tom Breslin

Thomas A. Breslin

Chair