Faculty Senate Steering Committee

Minutes for February 25, 2014 – 1:00 P.M.

GL 835 – Modesto A. Maidique Campus

LIB 210 – Biscayne Bay Campus

Present: Juliet Pinto, Alan Gummerson, Joerg Reinhold, Cliff Perry, Juan Lozano, Renee Silverman, Patrick Schmidt, Martha Pelaez, Patricia Pereira-Pujol, Leonard Bliss, C Delano Gray, Marianna Baum

ABsent: Osama Mohammed, Pablo Simon, Jan Osei Tutu, Jennifer Doherty-Restrepo

Guests: Juneisy Hawkins, Douglas Wartzok

1. Approval of the Agenda. Moved and approved.
2. Approval of Steering Committee minutes of February 11th, 2014. Moved and approved.
3. Chairperson’s Report.

I hope you read the document from the American Council on Education entitled “Credit for Prior Learning”. This may help to guide our discussion on MOOCs. Please note that HB 7029 refers to conformity with procedures from this body.

The University has begun its budget planning for 2014-2015. The Meeting is to address the new model adopted by the Board of Governors for funding the SUS.

The topic addressed included but was not limited to:

  • The new funding paradigm.
  • Historical Perspective
  • Future expectation.
  • Budget Gap
  • What are the strategies identified to evaluate changes to programs and services to maximize our Worlds Ahead goals and objectives.
  • A New Era-Accountability & Performance

The Ad Hoc Academic Integrity Committee will be attending its first seminar to be held in Jacksonville this Thursday sponsored by the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI). Note there is also a proposal to elevate the Ad Hoc Committee to full Committee status.

The University Core Curriculum Oversight Committee has almost completed its work. The Committee was charged with making the curriculum conform to the requirements of the Gen Ed law passed by the State in 2013.

In their presentation, any course that is currently in the core curriculum at FIU remains in the new core curriculum at FIU.The full report was forwarded to all Senators under separate cover.

There will be an iReal Town Hall meeting on Friday March 7 from 10:30 AM to noon in the Graham Center. A presentation on the current status of the project will be made at this meeting. Please try and attend.

There was a ground breaking ceremony this morning at 1930 SW 145 Ave in Miramar (off Pines Blvd) which will be the site for the FIU/Broward College new classrooms in Broward County. The construction will be completed in time for classes in the Fall.

Thanks for your kind cooperation.

4. Topics for discussion and action:

A. Parking and Transportation recruitment of new appeals officers.

B. Procedure for implementation of undergraduate online programs with in-person equivalents.The discussion revolved around the issue of whether all new undergraduate online programs (with particular reference to cases where an in-person program already exists) must go through Curriculum Committee. Right now, only proposed graduateon-line programs must go through the Curriculum Committee. It was decided to direct the matter to the Curriculum Committee, which should make a motion in order to close the loophole.

C. Tabled motion from Online Review Committee – Laurie Shrage, Chair

Motion: The Faculty Senate approves the recommendation of the Online Review Committee thatduring a semester in which a faculty member is mostly teaching online and holding office hours with students online, (1) departments, and other units which coordinate faculty meetings, will attempt to find some way to accommodate faculty who are telecommuting (e.g., via speaker phone, Skype, Adobe Connect…), and(2) departments and other units will permit online faculty to carry out their service assignments online, where this is feasible and does not significantly inconvenience other faculty or our students.There was an objection raised and seconded: Why limit these privileges to online faculty?It was suggested to table the motion and put it on the top of the next meeting’s agenda. Motion tabled.

D. Agenda for the March 4th, 2014 Faculty Senate Meeting. Moved and approved.

5. Provost’s Report – Provost Wartzok.

  1. This morning the Provost sent to the Faculty Senate office his nomination of Alberto Carvalho for an honorary degree. Mr. Carvalho has already been named as the Florida Superintendent and National Superintendent of the Year. The decision on the nomination requires the action of the Faculty Senate and the Board of Trustees. The honorary degree would be awarded during FIU’s Spring 2014 Commencement exercises. There will be a Board of Trustees meeting in March that will include discussion about the award.
  2. This past Friday the Honors College held its undergraduate research symposium. The symposium attracted students from across the state. It also attracted big-name universities such as Columbia and Cornell to recruit for their graduate programs.
  3. The Deans and Vice Presidents held their off-site meeting last Wednesday. Three important matters were discussed.
  4. The budget: The short-term good news is that money was found to cover the deficit for 2014-2015. (The 2% that was formerly the working assumption is not going to take place.) There is a long-range structural deficit. Even supposing we get our share of the $40 million in performance funding every year, five years from now we would have a funding deficit of close to $30 million dollars if we do not change our spending patterns. This is based on the assumption of the average higher education price index (HEPI) inflation, no tuition increases, and only our share of $40 million annually in performance funding. The portion of our $1.2 billion budget that goes to normal operations of the University is $400 million. Hence if inflation is 2% we need an additional $8 million each year just to continue doing what we have been doing. If inflation were the average HEPI rate of 3.4% we would need $13.6 million annual increase just to keep even.
  5. An update on the report of the iREAL commission. (This conversation will continue at the Open House on March 7 with an assessment of reasonable goals and what to do with the Strategic Plan for 2020 under the current funding scenario.) During this part of the discussion, the group went through all 36 of the Board of Governors’ (BOG) indicators so as to predict where we will be in 2020. On some of the indicators the deans and vice presidents were together in their 2020 estimates; in others there was a wide range. To take one example: the entry class should have a median of 1750 on the combined SAT. (Last year the median was 1714.) The reality check is that only 13% of high-school graduates in Miami-Dade County score 1750 or above. We have never had much success in enrolling the top 6% of the graduates who get full rides to top universities. Hence In enhancing quality we would then draw only 7% of high-school graduates. We must discuss these trade-offs. The Provost asked the participants to look also at one thing that could be significantly different between FIU in 2014 and FIU in 2020. They were asked not to just extend the current trend line. The only significant difference that was suggested came from one person who said that we will take all academic programs off the BBC, which would then become a public-private partnership to subsidize the MMC. In reality, this couldn’t happen because the State of Florida owns the land.
  6. The group looked at adding to the performance funding model. We were able to add one out of the 10 indicators—the one chosen by our Board is the number of undergraduate degrees awarded to minorities. The indicators are problematic for research universities like FIU because 9 out of the 10 focus on undergraduate education. The group came up with 7 additional criteria. These 7 criteria, which are specific to FIU, will be going up to the Personnel Committee. Some of these criteria deal with the following issues: number of research doctorates; total research expenditures; and start-ups (but not based on the BOG’s definitions). For example, in the FIU-specific definition, startups would not only be intellectual property spinoffs, but also start-ups that would not have been successful without university assistance. One of the positive things to come out of iREAL was a lot of strong support from the Vice Presidents and Deans for research. An important goal is that by 2020 we must be recognized as a Carnegie Very High Research University. Doctoral programs will be crucial to achieving this goal.

6. Unfinished Business. No.

7. New Business. No.:

Announcements

The next Faculty Senate meeting is on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 at 1:00pm in WC 130 in MMC. All are invited. The next meeting of the Steering Committee is on Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 at 1PM in GL 835. Go to facultysenate.fiu.edufor regularly updated information on the Faculty Senate.