2000-2001 Faculty Council Minutes – Meeting #12 – November 14, 2000

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University of Idaho

FACULTY COUNCIL MINUTES

2000-2001 Meeting #12, Tuesday, November 14, 2000

Present: McKeever (chair), Smelser (vice-chair), Bitterwolf, Brunsfeld, Chun, Coonts, Fritz, Glen, Goble, Guilfoyle, Haggart (w/o vote), Hong, Kraut, McClure, Nelson, Nielsen, Olson, Trivedi Absent: Finnie, Foltz, Goodwin, McCaffrey, Meier, Pitcher, Thompson Observers: 3

Call to Order. A quorum being present, Faculty Council Chair, Professor Kerry McKeever, called the meeting to order at 3:30 p.m. in the Idaho Commons.

Minutes. The council, by voice vote, accepted the minutes of the November 7, 2000, meeting as distributed.

Chair’s Report. Chair McKeever formally welcomed two new student members of the Faculty Council: Colin Glen, representing the undergraduate students, and Pankaj Trivedi, representing the graduate students.

McKeever continued her statement concerning the good work of the Faculty Council that was interrupted by a motion to adjourn at the end of the last meeting. She said that the council was being complimented for its good work this year by faculty, staff, and students.

The chair called the council’s attention to a memorandum from the faculty secretary. In response to a councilor’s question at the last meeting, the secretary asked the registrar which version of the catalog was to be considered “official” – the printed or web version. The registrar responded that the web version is the official version of the catalog. It represents changes approved after the publication of the catalog. However, the council was reminded that neither version was to be considered a binding contract between the U of Idaho and students.

McKeever reminded the council that today is the deadline for submitting nominations for the University Promotions Committee. Councilor Kraut said that she had only been able to find one faculty member from her college willing to stand for nomination to the committee. McKeever said that the one name should be submitted and that the provost in consultation with the Faculty Council leadership was responsible for the final make-up of the committee and would find a way to make sure that her college was properly represented on the committee. The chair said that the vice chair of council is up for promotion and his place on the provost’s consultation team would be taken by the faculty secretary.

The chair said that she attended the legislative tour sessions and reported that she was getting very good at talking about faculty salaries to legislators without ever mentioning those words. She said that for “education week” (education budget presentations to the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee) she was going to ask for faculty volunteers to go to Boise and help with the educational lobbying efforts. Expenses cannot be reimbursed for this work, but she hoped that some people would be able to donate their time to help with this important task. Information packets will be available to help the volunteers direct their energies toward the important issues. She noted that the information being gathered by the council/senate leadership in Idaho’s institutions of higher education is proving that we are losing too many faculty and staff members who work in areas that are crucial to the state of Idaho. McKeever said she would have more details on this lobbying effort at the next council meeting. She also told Dean Hatch that even though research vacancies are being filled, there is still a need to tell the legislature about how these temporary losses and pauses in research efforts have an adverse effect on our educational mission in the state of Idaho.

Committee on Committees Report. Professor Haggart told the council that the university-levelcommittee preference forms, which are used by the Committee on Committees to make appointments for the 2001-2002 academic year, have been mailed to all resident faculty members. The effective operation of faculty governance at the U of Idaho depends on the willingness of faculty members to take an active role in university-level committees. He urged the council to, in turn, urge their constituent faculty members to complete and return the forms as soon as possible. McKeever said that she believed that there had been a request from the membership of the Faculty Affairs Committee to have a firm meeting time set for that committee. The secretary said that he would check the minutes from last year and inform the Committee on Committees of any needed action.

University Curriculum Committee Report. The University Curriculum Committee forwarded to the council item FC-01-005 as a seconded motion. FC-01-005 calls for the discontinuance of the B.A. degree (offered by the College of Letters and Science) in child, family, and consumer studies. The main degree in this academic program would then be the B.S.F.C.S. degree in child development and family relations offered in the College of Agriculture by the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences. The motion was adopted by unanimous voice vote.

Report on U of Idaho Athletics. Mike Bohn, Director of Athletics at the U of Idaho, gave the council his annual report on the status of the athletic program. Bohn began his presentation to the council by providing details concerning the construction of the Vandal Athletic Center. The first phase (a new storage facility) has begun on this $13 million ($7.3 million has been raised to date) project.

The completed building and renovation project proposes to have 7,000 square feet of weight room space, 4,200 square feet dedicated to sports medicine, and 2,300 square feet committed to an academic center. All of these areas will then be on a par with what schools have in the Sun Belt and Western Athletic Conferences. It has been eighteen years since any major changes have been made in the athletic operation’s physical space. Bohn said that all of these additions will make the U of Idaho more attractive to prospective student-athletes. The plan also calls for the incorporation of a computer lab that would be available to the entire campus community.

Bohn also noted that there will be an immediate improvement for basketball games in the Kibbie Dome with the phasing in of a “spectrum” atmosphere for the fans. Black curtains will surround the bleacher seating areas, a new lighting grid will be hung immediately above the playing surface, and a new score board will be incorporated into the center court lighting grid.

Bohn then provided the council with the actual athletic budget figures from last year and the working budget for this year. He pointed out the “cap” that has been placed on all Idaho institutions of higher education by the SBOE/Regents in connection with state support for intercollegiate athletics. Bohn said that he would like to see the U of Idaho’s athletic programs mirror the stature and standing of its academic programs. Significant progress has been made, but he felt that they were still not at an equal level. New staff positions added to the program this year include a female trainer and an additional position in academic support. He said that the athletic budget has been running “in the black” for the last two years – mainly because of the ample income coming from away game guarantees.

He asked the council to give him feedback on how the Athletic Department can attract more fans and general support from the faculty and staff. What will it take to get more faculty and staff to attend games? It was suggested by members of the council that the department might want to find ways to accentuate the “student” part of the student-athlete – the fact that they are being successful in the classroom and have a high graduation rate – as a way to attract the positive attention of faculty members to the athletic teams and programs. Bohn said that academics could be given better visibility at games. Chair McKeever asked council members to email her with suggestions.

The council had several questions concerning the budget figures. In particular:

1. Why is less money being allocated in appropriated funds for “gender equity?” That lower figure represents our ability to offset some of the gender equity requirements with other funds. Actually, this is an area that will continue to grow – perhaps with the addition of more women’s sports – swimming and softball are two options being studied at this time. Our women’s participation rate in intercollegiate athletics is now over 40% – a new high in the history of the U of Idaho. However, we are still lacking in appropriate funding for recruiting, operating budgets, and salaries in the women’s programs.

2. Why are the budget expectations for ticket sales considerably lower this year? The main reason is the elimination of the “12th Man Campaign” that was used to help meet our attendance requirements for our upgraded division status last year. Ticket sales were counted – whether or not the people ever occupied a seat. People did not see the need this year. Also, our win-loss record is reflected in ticket sales. Weather can also be a factor in ticket sales. All of those things add up to a lower projection.

3. How does the revenue from last week’s game in the Kibbie Dome compare with that of playing a game in Martin Stadium at WSU? Our last game had the best attendance in a very long time. We had excellent faculty and student support. The WSU game in Martin Stadium brought in more revenue, but last week’s game came in second. The challenge issued by the ASUI to the faculty and staff had a negative ring to it and caused many faculty members to not attend that game. Unfortunately, some people don’t understand that many faculty and staff regularly attend games. I appreciate the feedback and we certainly don’t need that negative feeling.

4. What is “auxiliary support?” Auxiliary support is that support that comes from auxiliary enterprises like the bookstore, residence halls, dining facilities, and the golf course.

5. What is meant by and included in the category of “game guarantees?” When a school comes to the U of Idaho to play a game we have to guarantee a certain amount of money to that team and likewise, when we go to play an away game we are guaranteed a certain payment. This year, the guarantees total over $1.2 million. We are putting our football team under tremendous pressure by playing Washington, Oregon, West Virginia, and Washington State – games that have a large financial return for the program. We cannot generate enough ticket sale money in this market area. Boise State University generates $2 million more than we do in home game ticket sales because of their large stadium and population base.

6. What does it cost us to use the facilities at WSU? Is there a potential of Idaho being “pushed around” by WSU? The cost is $25,000 per game, plus the expense of buses, clean-up, security, etc. all add to the final cost. Playing in a larger stadium offsets these costs because of increased ticket sales. The NCAA says that we must play over half of our games in a stadium that seats more than 30,000 people. So next year we will play three games at WSU and 2 games in the Kibbie Dome. We come out ahead financially by playing games at Martin Stadium. They pay us $200,000 to play them whether we call it a home game or an away game and, we pay them $25,000 to play someone else in their stadium. They have been very supportive overall.

7. What are the long range plans for playing fields for minor sports? The soccer teams are playing on the site of a former dump. When it rains the field is very unsuitable for play. We need to locate new areas to develop into playing fields.

8. What does being in the Sun Belt Conference do to your travel budget? The travel budget will certainly be different in this conference, with three new teams in the south-central part of the country. However, we have decided to bus our team to most of the area games with WSU, Boise State, Washington, and Montana. Oregon or Oregon State would only be short, inexpensive air charters. These economies will offset the higher cost of playing three conference away games in Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and/or Texas. The big plus factor with the Sun Belt Conference is a bowl game at the Super Dome in New Orleans.

Athletic Director Bohn then presented the council with information concerning the academic progress and standing of the student-athletes at the U of Idaho. In the spring semester (1999) 47% of all student-athletes achieved a 3.0 GPA or higher and 19 student-athletes had a 4.0 GPA. The overall GPA average for all team athletes was 2.85, which is just slightly higher than the average for all U of Idaho students. He also said that the graduation rate for student-athletes who complete their eligibility is an impressive 89%. He also noted that the U of Idaho women’s basketball team has a team grade point average of 3.216. Bohn reminded the council that there are now clauses in the contracts of coaches that make them accountable for their team members’ grades and graduation rates and becomes a part of their performance evaluations. He said that the football coach has a “three strikes” policy that includes academic infractions and can result in the player being kicked off the team and losing his scholarship.

Report on the U of Idaho’s Research Plan. Charles Hatch, the interim Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, provided the council with an update on reactions to the recently published “Enhancing and Sustaining Scholarly Activity at the University of Idaho: A Plan of Action.”

Hatch said that the committee working on this plan had received about 40 responses, which included both individual contacts and responses from several forums and group presentations. The committee will begin the process of reviewing the responses and making adjustments to the research plan next week. He identified several structural issues/problems that had come to the committee’s attention:

  • concern about inappropriate biases created by having a plan that is so heavily focused on the recovery of indirect costs
  • concern that the plan offers no guidelines concerning the relationships between the U of Idaho centers, institutes, and colleges with respect to the distribution of recovered indirect costs; especially with the upcoming implementation of responsibility center management
  • concern about the proposed decentralized responsibility center financial management model vs. the centralized model presented in the research plan
  • concern about the very strong science and technology bias of the committee members, which the critics of the plan feel drives too many aspects of the research plan
  • concern that the plan focuses on actions, but says very little about the implementation of action plans

Comments and Questions. Councilor Goble raised the issue of the necessity for having an improved National Science Foundation (NSF) ranking as a top priority. He said that the goal of becoming one of the top 100 NSF research universities in the country, while being a good idea in and of itself, speaks mainly to science and technology research. The successful and respected research institutions have highly regarded research in the humanities and social sciences, as well as excellent research programs in the sciences. People should think about this in terms of a total program – not just a program that wants to improve its NSF ranking. Professor Goble said that the research plan becomes “irrelevant” in terms of the kind of scholarship that he produces. The title should be changed because it does not speak to areas outside of the “hard sciences.” He also called the council’s attention to the fact that the goal of tripling the expenditures for the library by having a 700% increase in the number of periodicals and increasing three-fold the expenditures for subscriptions within the next 5 years did not seem a very realistic goal.

Councilor Hong reminded the council that using the NSF standards, which only apply to federal grants, will leave out grant success that comes from industry and private grants. Other factors should be used in determining how the U of Idaho ranks nationally in terms of research dollars acquired. The intent wasn’t to say that we should achieve our goals by achieving a certain NSF ranking. What we were trying to do was identify scholarly activities that this campus needed and could use to enhance its scholarly programs, actions that could help researchers who are seeking both private and federal grants.

The idea of the rankings was to try to put the U of Idaho in context using a variety of measures. Councilor Goble said that it was becoming clear to him, as the discussion progressed, that the research plan really needs to clearly say that there are a variety of ways to measure our standing among research universities.