Department Heads Council Executive Committee

Department Heads Council Executive Committee

Minutes 12/03/13

Executive Committee Members in attendance: Joe Eska (co-chair), Mary Leigh Wolfe (co-chair), Janaki Alavalapati, James Tanko, Brenda Winkel, Eric Patterson, Rick Perdue, Ann Khademian, Steve McMullin, Bob Denton, Greg Daniel, Kevin Concannon, Kevin Carlson, Beth Grabau, Tom Thompson, Rapporteur: Katie Snead

Vice Provost Jack Finney, Mark McNamee

Guests: Martin Daniel, Bill Knocke

Part I. Meeting with Vice Provost Jack Finney and Provost Mark McNamee

Dr. McNamee provided updates on current Virginia Tech news and searches.

1. The search for a new Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences kicks off today, December 3rd. The membership of the search committee was announced in late November. Joan Hirt will serve as interim Dean. Isaacson and Miller, a search firm, is assisting with the search. The intent is to have the new Dean in place by July 1st.
2. Presidential Search: things are moving along quickly. Everyone seems to be happy with the progress.
3. Next semester, expect to see things move on the CLE. Expect there to be broad support for the CLE. Though it could get approval by the end of the Spring semester, there is no strict timetable.
4. We won’t know much about the budget until the end of March. We are expecting neither a lot of cuts nor new funding.
5. Question/Comment: Have there been or are there going to be changes in out-of-state acceptance rates?
6. The University is dependent on out-of-state student tuition. It is not likely that changes will be made regarding acceptance rates of out-of-state students.
7. JLARC (Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission) legislative series on Universities. Next one comes out next week. Great value to reports. Not clear on what they will focus on.
8. December 23rd is now an official paid holiday.
9. Question/Comment: Director for undergraduate research misunderstanding.
10. We are looking to strengthen/broaden research at the undergraduate level. We want to change the way this office helps coordinate undergraduate research.
11. We are recruiting a Coordinator of Undergraduate Research with clear roles within the university.
12. Rachel Holloway and Jill Sible are now in a better position to help the colleges.

Jack Finney provided updates on an upcoming Academic Leader Brown Bag series.

1. He is scheduling a spring lunch series for Department Heads. Amy Hogan will be running the “brown-bags”. Lunches will be scheduled at the Inn.

First two topics:

January - Start-up packages and practices. Jeff Early will speak.

February - inclusive language for recruitment. Lucinda Roy will speak.

Part II. Meeting with Martin Daniel and Bill Knocke

The time with Martin and Bill was allotted to committee questions.

1. Based on previous discussions, Bill discussed how the use of a simple form can ease issues that come up when working on a grant.
2. He suggested that departments create a form and have all faculty fill it out when approached to be on grant
3. As teams come together, especially if with little advance time before submission, committee members forget certain things or past decisions. The form works as a reminder.
4. Kevin Concannon. was asked to share his form with the executive committee.
5. Latham building: departments using the facility have to pay rent for office and lab space.
6. Rental costs: came out of agency 229 issue. Concept behind rent: there are certain shared costs of building (equipment, etc.). The cost of equipment is distributed across users of building. Rent covers centralized costs of operation of building.
7. Crowd Sourcing: There are faculty who wantg to do crowd sourcing.
8. Questions concerning how the money ultimately comes to the university and what is actually posted within the advertisements.
9. Vet school going through accreditation. Some support for doing a university wide certification.
10. Seems likely that the university should try and do a certification.
11. We need centralized funding for facility upgrades and need to define which facilities to include and not include in the process.
12. Innovation report – now making its way out to various groups (Deans, VPs)
13. Comprehensive document contains ideas faculty have and how faculty can be more innovative and how to support innovation. Notion of how IP processes could support these policies.
14. Recommendations about how these things are addressed in Promotion and Tenure procedures.
15. An effort to build research administration (way of handling research from pre-proposal to close-out) has struggled. There is no single research administration system that can be bought off the shelf.
16. Team currently reforming to further develop research administration.
17. We are developing tools for collaborative environments … database that is conducive to collaboration versus spreadsheets and documents that get sent around.
18. Big proposal – Virginia Tech needs to have change in big proposals.
19. We need centralized resources to allow faculty to stay focused on their detailed roles and not worry about funding, contracts, and/or resources.
20. We need these centralized resources on staff rather than hiring individuals.
21. We need more seed funding.
22. At Virginia Tech, we have a decentralized funding mechanism. Our system: money gets provided to us and then gets distributed across all costs versus getting money to use on the research only.