Draft Minutes, University of Alaska System Governance Council

April 29, 1994

Page 1

University of Alaska

System Governance Council

via audioconference

Friday, April 29, 1994, beginning at 9:00am

DRAFT MINUTES

1. Call to order and roll call

Voting members present:

John Dede, President, UAA Assembly; President, UAA APT Council; Member,

Staff Alliance

Karen Enochs, representative and past president, UAF Staff Council; Member,

Staff Alliance

John d'Armand, President, UAS Faculty Senate; Member, Alliance of Faculty

Senates

Bonnie Williams, President, Statewide Administration Assembly; Chair, Staff

Alliance

Toni Croft, President, UAA Faculty Senate; Vice President, UAA Assembly;

Member, Alliance of Faculty Senates

Joe Hayes, President-Elect, Associated Students of the University of Alaska

Fairbanks

Pam Doerner, Acting President, UAA Classified Employee Council

Voting members absent:

Donna Chantry, Chair, System Governance Council; President, General

Assembly; President, UAS Assembly; Member, Staff Alliance

Colin Read, President-elect, for David Spell, President, UAF Faculty Senate;

Member, Alliance of Faculty Senates

Chris Delez, President, United Students of the University of Alaska Southeast-

Juneau; member, Coalition of Student Leaders

Others present:

Pat Ivey, Executive Officer, System Governance

Jeannine Phillips, Admin Ass't, System Governance

Dr. Jerome Komisar, President, University of Alaska

Dr. Nanne Myers, Assistant Vice President, Academic Affairs

Bill Kauffman, Vice President, General Counsel

Tim Adamczak, Human Resources Representative, SW Human Resources

Paulette Wille, Budget Analyst, SW Finance

Scott Taylor, Director, UA Foundation

Mike Mayberry, {President. UAF Staff Council

Diane Owens, Vice President, UAA Faculty Senate

Paula Long, President-elect. UAF Staff Council

Tracy Cohen, Vice President, Union of Students of Kenai Peninsula College

Paige Adams, Vice President, United Students of UAS-Sitka

Thomas Goldston, President, Kodiak College Student Association

Chris Jamin, Student Advisor, Kodiak College

Carol Hagel, President, Kodiak College

2. Adopt Agenda

"The agenda for April 29, 1994 was approved and adopted without

amendment. This action is effective April 29, 1994."

3. Approve April 4, 1994 minutes

"The April 4, 1994 minutes were approved and adopted without

amendment. This action is effective April 29, 1994."

4. Workshop with President Komisar

UA Budget

President Komisar

The easiest thing to talk about might be the FY95 UA budget.

The legislature is still active and will be going for another two

weeks. We expect that the general fund will be down between $2.5

- $3 million and this is far more of a decrease than any of us would

have wanted, but it is less, by half, than was originally

contemplated by the house alone. We expect that out of the

conference we will be able to get closer to the Senate numbers,

which would be minus $2.5 to $3 million.

We have a couple of other bills up before the legislature. Of

particular importance is the bond bill for deferred maintenance.

We're not quite sure what is going to materialize with that, it is still

being heard. We're still somewhat optimistic, but time is growing

short.

The budget coming in at this low of level, added to the fact that we

have a fixed cost problem of close to $5 million within the

university, is going to place us under very severe financial

pressure next fiscal year. We're going to have to really scramble in

order to balance our books and be able to go through the year with

any degree of comfort. If this was just a one-year problem, we

would simply tackle it in that particular manner, seeing where we

could save money and how we could roll through the next 12 to 15

months. But it really is not going to be a one year problem. It is

hard to imagine the state income going up very high for very long,

given the fact that we are still dependent on income from the

taxing of one commodity.

Program Assessment

In order to try to bring some balance to our budgets and to face the

future with greater certainty than we have right now, the board

and I have initiated what we're calling the program assessment

process. This will be an invitation to all communities within the

university to begin to examine how the university is presently

spending its resources, what services we're delivering, with the

expectation that we will come out with two achievements. One is

to strengthen the basic and major purposes of the university and its

major programs - at the same time, reduce university expenditures.

The program assessment covers all programs that the university

has and those are administrative programs and you should think

in terms of both administrative programs and administrative

structures. It involves the research student service and extension

programs, as well as degree programs and non-degree programs.

It is going to be a very thorough review. It is going to have to be

done in a very short period of time, but I think it is a period of time

that will be ample enough to the purposes.

The first element will be to really develop the criteria about which

we will use in order to evaluate the programs. The criteria will be

the criteria that I hope we have always used, and that's going to be

criteria relating to quality, relating to service and relating financial

costs and financial benefits.

Compensation

We're going to be working over the next couple weeks, both

administratively and with governance in order to come up with

proposals to bring to the board at its June meeting. There may

indeed be a meeting of the Human Resource Committee of the

Board sometime in the first two weeks of May, possibly the 10th.

Financial Exigency

On the issue of financial exigency... this is a legal term. The calling

of financial exigency by a university means that the standard that

would normally be applied for maintaining contracts and

continuing contracts are lessened. I don't expect that we will be in

a position where we will have to call for financial exigency. In fact,

the whole program assessment process is being gone into with the

hope of avoiding the need to call for financial exigency. My sense

is that, though the university is under great fiscal pressure, I don't

expect that the pressure is so great that we will have to break our

contracts with people, or the awards that we have given to people.

The program assessment process will be a way of avoiding the

necessity of calling financial exigency.

The Board is looking to bring about greater unity within the

university to maintain the quality of the university programs and

to increase the efficiency with which we deliver university

programs. I don't think that the Regents goals have changed

because of the budget that is coming out. It is simply that it

becomes even more urgent that we fulfill the Regents mission.

Bonnie Williams

I'd like to ask you about financial exigency. The proposed draft

considerably changes how that would be declared from what we

had previously. Previously, the declaration was made for the

system and this draft proposes to make the declaration by campus,

by college, conceivably by department if it fits the definitions. We

know what happens if you declare a financial exigency for a

university. We know because of what has happened to other

systems that did that. Do you have any idea what would happen if

this new policy were to be put into effect and a department or a

college, for example, declared it, but no one else did. Would the

academic reputation remain intact, would we still be able to have

relative ease at getting federal funding?

President Komisar

I think under the current policy there was an ability to call

financial exigency below the level the entire university. I don't

know to what level you could identify a unit. I am also uncertain,

even now under the policy that we're considering at this stage,

what would be the nature of the information you would need in

order to call financial exigency at a unit below an MAU level. You

can visualize doing that for units that have generated certain

particular kind of income for themselves. If that income

disappears, they would be in a position of financial burden. You

might see that if you had an organization that was running on a

great deal of outside income, under a grant and the grant was

suddenly canceled - does the remainder of the organization have to

pick up the burden of debt, or can you call exigency over that one

particular program? That's really what we're examining.

When it comes to the national reputation of the institution, I think

the calling of exigency is not helpful, whether it be done on a large

level, or on a small level. I don't know if would interfere with the

gaining of federal contracts - I don't think it would, as long as we

maintained our obligations to the federal government, and I

imagine we would be attempting to do that.

Right now, we're looking at a policy that would give as much

strength as possible when you called financial exigency, to being

able to work out a financial problem. We're trying to base the

policy on what has been the changes in law and court decisions

over the intervening years between the prior policy and the one we

will be working on. But, going back, I hope that we're able to

avoid having to use that policy, either for entire universities or for

particular programs.

Bonnie Williams

You made it fairly specific to funding source, that a college or

department, or whatever, would be declaring it because some

outside funding thing had dried up. But, our basic financial

problem comes from general fund, which is the state. How do you

get a school or a college to this declaration if it's the general funds

that have been cut back too far, but there are still general funds

elsewhere on that MAU or campus?

President Komisar

General fund represents less than 50% of the income and I'm

not sure how you would approach a single unit if it's general funds

went down, except legislature might be going to the general fund

in that particular area - that hasn't been the case recently, but that

could be. But I see that as - there are other income flows. There

are a number of our programs that run on a lot of external income

and I imagine that would be the area, if you were going to use

financial exigency - in small units where we would most likely be

using it.

Toni Croft

I've heard some strenuous objection to this, to put it mildly.

When you have such a cut that it effects the entire university and

you declare an emergency that effects the entire university -

everybody can understand that situation. The way the revision is

set up, it turns into a discretionary management tool and I think

it's going to open us up to huge suits for abrogation of tenure

contracts and union contracts.

There are several different areas where I have heard people say it's

a really bad idea. One reason is that the draft would allow

exigency to be declared for a small unit, rather than exigency

which effects the entire university. The other is the definition that

is added in which says it can be triggered by shortfall in revenues

or even reduced appropriations, declining enrollment. Almost

every year that I have ever been in the university, you could

trigger that based on that definition. I think it's an opening to sue.

I don't think you can do that.

Another area that people were very, very concerned about is the

addition of the president's right to change the priority order

employee layoffs from the order that they had before, which

required that first get rid of part-time, than full-time, etc. This

changes it so that you can do it based on your designation of how

you think it needs to be done. In fact, it just abrogates all contracts

and I think that this is a very bad piece of change and that it is

potentially disastrous financially for the university. I also think its

disastrous in morale.

President Komisar

I don't know where you end up with that - and that is that we

should never have any way of declaring financial exigency?

Toni Croft

No. I certainly think we should as a system if it's necessary.

That's always been available if things are so bad that the entire

system is in that kind of need. And, that has happened outside in

different places. But, right now the university budget, even as it

stands with the cuts, has more in its budget than the State of

Alaska did in 1969. Now, I'm sorry but I think you're going to

have a hard time saying that we can declare this kind of emergency

under those situations.

I think we are going to have to readjust. Some of this is self-

inflicted. We may decide not to self-inflict some of the stuff that

we're talking about doing to ourselves. I do think we are going to

have to make some adjustments, but I think this is a very bad idea.

President Komisar

We have no plan to use that policy at this stage. What the

policy is attempting to do is give as much power to the

administration and to the Board, to be able to isolate financial

problems, so that it doesn't effect the entire university. We're

trying to write the exigency policy given the evolving standards of

exigency that have been developing across the country.

Now, the legal problems that we might run into would be

determined on how the policy is used, if it ever is. So, I think if we

immediately move to try to think of cases of where it could be

misused, we would have an infinite number.

Bonnie Williams

Is it not true that the university's budget is provided to it by the

legislature in four pieces, rather than one? That is, there is a

Statewide MAU portion, a UAF, a UAA and a UAS.

President Komisar

No, it is a single budget.

Bonnie Williams

So, you can at will, move.....

Paulette Wille

That is true. I just made a transfer from UAF to Statewide.

John Dede

In my discussions with staff here, and from my reading of this,

I'm equating this to using a shotgun to kill a mouse. This tool is so

broad and has such sweeping powers that it's difficult not to think

of applying it to specific cases. I know you have said several times

now there are no immediate plans to use this, but just having it as

a tool in the arsenal sort of begs the question of when it will be

used.

President Komisar

I think that it might be wise to have this discussion with the

people who are writing the policy. I haven't even recently read the

draft policy on this, or I'm not sure it I've seen it in its final form.

But, you might want to have a chance to talk to counsel who's been

working on this policy.

But, indeed, the whole concept of financial exigency is to give a

level of fiscal authority to administration -- that's a very

uncomfortable level, that's not something that we would look

forward to and something that's only used under the most dire

circumstances. The university has avoided calling financial

exigency in the past and I hope we're able to avoid doing that in

the future.

John Dede

Well, I think the concern here is perhaps the coincident arrival

of a financial exigency policy and a proposal for very quick and

sweeping program assessment, and I trust that it's a coincident

arrival. But, those two bundled together form a rather grim

picture.

President Komisar

Part of it is coincidental, I'm not sure all of it is. We have

begun, long before the budget became as dire and bleak as it is,

and long before we thought of program assessment, we began a

process of re-writing all the policies of the Board. The Board has

wanted that for a number of years, and this is an internal process

that we have just begun and one that governance will be very

much involved in. We moved the exigency policy early in the

process, and indeed we've put a lot of energy in it because of the

bleak budget prospects.

The program assessment was developed in order to avoid the

need to call exigency and if there was any degree of comfort in the

whole area of financial exigency, the program assessment process

wouldn't be into place. So these things are really tied together,

they're not totally separate aspects. If the program assessment

process doesn't bring about the kind of fiscal and financial savings

that we'd like to see, we might, down the road, have to call

exigency.

Bonnie Williams

I think that you could actually look at this in a positive way,

and that is to say that, for a change the university is preparing long

term. When I was down in Juneau, what I heard from members of

the legislature from both sides of the aisle was "bleak, bleak, bleak"

and perhaps as much as 30% reduction long term in the State's

total budget. Now, that doesn't mean 30% for the university, but

that's pretty serious and grim.

Toni Croft

There is two different issues here. The issue of whether we

have to get our act together is _______ and, while I may disagree

with some of the criteria for program review, and I also sort of

disagree perhaps with the way it's going, I think it depends on

who has to do it and a lot of other issues. But, financial exigency is,

as John says, using a shotgun to kill a mouse, it's a tool which is

like bankruptcy of a country. Once you get rid of all your contracts

and that really - I think even if this policy is changed the way its

proposed to be changed, you may have suits before you get to the

point where it's necessary to call it. I think there are people who

have tenure contracts and people who have union contracts who

would see this as such a dangerous policy that they might feel they

need to sue even before it was ever declared.

As long as it is an emergency for the entire university, and

effects the entire university, there are safeguards in calling it,

because it effects your accreditation. You still have that tool, but

there is a lot of reasons not to do it. If you get this so that you can

do it down to a unit, even an MAU, but all the way down to as

small as a department, I think you've got to say that it's a

management tool at this point, and you're in a bind as to who has

precedence - the ability of the Board to change this policy or the

law of contract.

President Komisar

I enjoyed the "shotgun" metaphor because what we're

attempting to do is develop a surgical process, rather than a

shotgun one. If you had a program within the university that was

supported by a $20 million federal grant and it suddenly

disappeared, do you think we should then take $20 million from

the entire university in order to bail that out? If you want to use

hypothetical metaphors, or hypothetical situations, that's what

we're looking at.

Toni Croft

Most of the time when you're supported by a grant, you have

people hired for its own soft money, at least in Anchorage you do,

and in that case you can get rid of them without having to declare

this for their department.

President Komisar

We have a lot of faculty in the system that aren't on that kind of

contract. Most of their income does come under the contract, but

they are on contract and they have tenure. I think you should raise

this with General Counsel, and one of the things that you might

want to press them on, is that this is being built upon the legal

structure that has developed around financial exigency over the

last decade or so. If people want to sue us on the basis of the

written policy, I imagine they can do that. People sue us on every

basis.

John Dede

In a lot of ways I agree with the President, that I think we have

a lot of concerns about the policy itself. I think the regulations and

the way they are written, they are very much a legal document and

how those are phrased will determine the level of litigation the

university eventually may, or may not, get involved in. But, I

think you've heard some of the concerns we have concerning the

policy aspects of it.

Proposals from the Resource Alternatives Task Force

John Dede

I'd like to discuss the proposals from the task force concerning

their plan for essentially short-term program assessment, between

now and December.

Paige Adams

If a program is looked at, and it's decided that it needs to be

discontinued, how would the discontinuation effect the students

who are currently in the program?

President Komisar

In part of the discontinuation analysis, would be how to protect

the students and enable them to complete the programs, and you

would expect that in any program review. We have an obligation

to students to enable them to complete the programs that they

joined the university to accomplish and we would try to meet

those obligations.

John Dede

As the president knows, we're going through a search here at

UAA for a new chancellor and we have talked with several of the

chancellor candidates as they've been coming on campus,

concerning this program assessment model, which this group has

modeled upon the Oregon State University, in essentially a three-

tiered approach of categories A, B and C. Several of the candidates

have looked at this at their institutions in the past as a possible

model and they raised several concerns about it. Some of them

have said that they have not used it because of these concerns and

have developed other models. The primary concern they had is,

once you have established these three categories of programs that

will not be scrutinized, programs that will have some scrutiny and

programs that will have severe scrutiny, they tend to turn into a

self-fulfilling prophecy. Because any program that has been put

into category C, the good staff and the good people, will try to

leave as soon as possible. And the same can be true for category B.

You've essentially set up a situation where the program is set up

for failure.

I definitely see that possibility with this program assessment

model. The other concern I have with this is the criteria that are

being proposed. Many of them are qualitative and non-

quantitative. It is very difficult to do a rational assessment based

on many of these criteria and these could essentially could very

easily turn into a political process, rather than assessment process.

So those, at least in a very broad task, are the concerns that I

have heard here.

President Komisar

Those are concerns that are easily shared. I think that every

campus and university that has had to go through this kind of

program assessment process, has always worried about the

labeling of programs and what effect that would have. But, if

you're in a public setting, there is no other way of doing this kind

of planning. As soon as you begin to talk about some programs, as

to whether you continue them, whether you withdraw resources

from them, or whether you put resources into them, as soon as you

begin a public process of that kind of planning, you are going to

raise questions about the long run viability of some programs. I

don't think that anyone who has looked at program assessment has

found an alternative way of doing this, unless there was some way

of conducting this in middle of the dark with no one around and

no one could hear you. That is simply impossible in a public

setting.

When it comes to the fact that you have qualitative, as well as

quantitative information, that's true in analyzing any type of

academic program as it is in determining whether you're going to

promote or tenure a faculty member. There is always qualitative

aspects that come into play, they are very often the most important

and it doesn't mean that you're being irrational. Qualitative

evaluations can be as rational as quantitative ones. It's a matter of

doing it with a certain amount of care.

The concern about the political aspects dominating the decision

making - that's a very real concern. The only way to avoid that is

to select good people from the governance structure to work on

this.

Tracy Cohen

I have heard that, and it's been spoken many times, that the

university can not be all things to all people. Programs that are self

supporting and show that's there is interest within the college

community will not fall under the categories of scrutiny. Another

point that I would like to make is that faculty, staff and students

are and should be involved in this process. We have to face the

facts that we are at budget crisis and this is the reason and the

motivation for this task force. So, I really urge people to take a

look at his and to, of course, pick out the areas that they think are

flawed, but to work with the task force, to work with the Regents

and try to come up with good, sound, rational choices. I urge all of

the campus community to get involved.

Toni Croft

Again, we have the problem that we've had in the past - of the

summer. If we had a year to do this, I still think we'd have trouble

getting the faculty to participate in some of this, but you literally

do not have faculty on contract in the summer and you're asking

us to do this and come back in September, and it cannot be done.

President Komisar

We're asking the faculty to concentrate their efforts starting at

the end of August and the beginning of September, and working

through the middle of November.

Toni Croft

Yes, but if you look, we have in May 1994, all governance

groups review the comments on proposed assessment criteria. At

this point, we finish our finals week on the eighth of May and

while some people turn in their grades and go at that point, you do

not have, even in May, people who can give the kind of - it's not

that you don't have individual people who can do it, I can look at

it, but when you're talking about this, you really need a large

number of the faculty who have read it, had a chance to look over

it, had a chance to comment on it and to think about it. You're not

going to get that kind of support. What you want is for all of us to

understand it and all of us to talk about what needs to be done.

You're not going to be able to get that, so what you're going to get

is a bunch of faculty mad as they can be when they come back in

September, in my opinion.

One of the more interesting things - I've talked to Ellen McKay

a little bit about this and they're looking at this criteria and she said

that no one went down and talked to the people at Oregon State

University - I am going to do that in about a week. I want to go

down and find out what kinds of problems they've had with the

system.

But, I really don't think you're going to get the kind of faculty

support you need with this kind of timing.

Bonnie Williams

Dr. Komisar, you stated in your original run-through that

anything and everything was going to be assessed?

President Komisar

I would hope so.

Bonnie Williams

So, there is nothing that is set aside that shouldn't be looked at?

President Komisar

Except the structure and operation of the Board of Regents -

that's about it.

Bonnie Williams

I was struck by one concern immediately and I wonder if you

have developed a plan to deal with that. Each of the units will be

examining themselves, but in some instances, we have programs at

multiple locations and perhaps can no longer afford to have them

at multiple locations, it's not that the programs should go away,

but that they should be consolidated at a particular site. How can

you get at that if each is looking at its own?

President Komisar

We will be using a new mechanism and let me go into that a

little. Luis Proenza will be leaving the vice presidency for

academic affairs I think by the end of the summer. I am not

beginning a process of searching to fill the position and have

created a new structure to lead the academic area of the university

and the structure is a very simple one. It consists of the three

senior academic program officers. So, Stell, Keating, and Beeton

are going to be the three people that compose the academic

council. With them will be Nanne Myers and Brian Rogers,

meeting with them on a continual basis, as well as other people

that will be meeting with them on occasion. This academic council

is going to be given the charge of not only working on their

individual campuses, but discussing with each other those

programs that cross campuses, those programs that are all

university programs and to try to bring in this all university view

that I think Bonnie is referring to.

Will the mechanism work? I'm not certain, but I have the

feeling it has a great likelihood of working and I will be relying

very heavily on them to deal with the criteria, to deal with the

program assessment, both on their individual campus and

systemwide.

John Dede

I think that the way to address academic programs and

transcend MAU boundaries - but what about any non-academic or

student services programs that transcend or are common between

the MAUs - is there some kind of structure to address those?

President Komisar

The student affairs officers and vice chancellors have been

meeting with some regularity over the last few months addressing

some issues. This will be an additional charge to them to look at

how they might be able to work together. Most of the student

service programs are really campus driven and campus based, I

suppose that's true about most of the academic programs as well.

The finance offices have had a long history of working together

and they will be doing the same thing. I am relying very much on

the academic officers and the chancellors to be working on these

intercampus issues.

John Dede

My other question deals with the assumptions behind the

program assessment in that this document is coming from a

committee whose charge is to save money and to reduce our

budget and that seems to be the rationale behind this program

assessment. It can be done on a six-month timeframe for this year;

however, is this going to be something that is an exercise done

every year as the university budget shrinks, or is this going to be

done comprehensively right now within the next six months to the

view of setting up something that will save us money or long

periods of time and address this shortfall that we are facing over

long periods of time? I have a very grave concern that as the

budgets are handed down in August, people will look at that

budget and say, "okay, we have to save $3 million" and they'll go

witch hunting to save this money and that will be the end of this

process.

President Komisar

I'm worried about this too. I think central to the whole process

has to be this concept of the long view. That doesn't mean that I

expect all the questions to be settled by December, I think there are

going to be some remaining questions. But the object here is to do

something that doesn't just patch things for a year, that gives the

university a sense of direction and stability over a long period of

time.

Toni Croft

Talking to one of the UAA Chancellor candidates about cuts at

his university - he felt that it was not a good system, and now he

may have changed his mind towards the end of the week, that it

would get the faculty at each others throats. Once they got into the

category one, they would be saying, "okay, I'm in category one, I

don't care what happens to anybody else", it will be very divisive

in the faculty. He felt that this system was not a good one because

of that.

Another concern is game playing. During discussions of the

FATFREE committee, they were discussing how do you decide,

"one third, one third, one third?" Are you going to say you can

have no more than one third in the category one, or are you going

to do this based on your analysis of the programs?

Looking at the money statewide, rather than the money locally,

it's really a very difficult political situation and I have some serious

concerns about the timing of when you pick or when someone

picks a program that's going to go.

John Dede

The only other concern I can think of, and this is a very minute

one, but I would just like to say it to you President Komisar, is we

will have a new chancellor as of July 1, and that new chancellor,

under this proposal will be placed in the role of having to come up

with a list right off the bat. I think that is a very difficult situation

for someone to be placed into, especially if they will be coming

from outside of the system. So, that I think just has to be factored

in at some point, not into the rationality of the process, but just in

the understanding of the process.

Paige Adams

How will this effect the small campuses, such as out in

Dillingham, that do basically continuing education for their adults

in the community.

President Komisar

I would expect that the small campuses would be reviewing the

different programs that they have, as the other campuses are

reviewing their programs.

Bonnie Williams

To follow-up on a question previously asked, if a program is

discontinued, the university has a legal obligation to provide for

any students that were already enrolled in that program so that

they can finish their degree. Legally, can you do that by providing

it or making it available at another site, or do you have to do it at

that specific site?

President Komisar

Well I think there are a lot of cases of that, and they've worked

out in different manners. I think the first one I was involved in

was a school that was opening, and it ended up not opening, but it

had accepted a class and what happened was that the university

paid for the first year of the student's enrollment at other

institutions. In most of the cases that I've seen, the specific campus

attempted to maintain the program on-site through the years

necessary to get the student the degree. Very often the program

was transformed from a classroom method of delivery to a self-

studying tutorial method because the number of students

dwindled very rapidly. But, usually, it's maintained on site.

Tracy Cohen

It was my understanding that the smaller campuses, as long as

they were showing that the programs were supporting themselves,

then they weren't likely to be impacted and here, at Kenai, that's

pretty much how we run things anyway. If we don't have enough

student interest in a program, we just aren't allowed to offer it

because we have to make sure that we have a certain amount of

students in those classes in order to even offer them.

Mike Mayberry

As far as the governance groups getting this information from

the task force in May, that's so that the faculty, staff and students

are aware of the assessment program being in effect over the

summer and to give them something to work on if they so desire.

So, when you come back in August and September, you won't just

be hit with this document cold. People should be aware that this

thing is available, it's not to completely finish the process before

the school year is out in May, but to let the governance units know

that this document is here and will be here in the fall. This way

people will be ready for it, and they can't come back and say, "oh, I

didn't know anything about this."

The other main thing in this document is, for FY96, 97 and 98, is

where the major impact will be felt, not so much FY95. So, it's not

a big rush to save money this year, we've got some other things

that need to be done also, but that's not the main thing and we're

not trying to rush this, we're just trying to expedite it.

Toni Croft

We are going to try. We've put it on our agenda for our next

faculty senate meeting and I'm writing up a bullet to send off on

the vax to tell people what it possibly means. But, I was waiting

until after this session this morning to get a little more of an idea of

the timing.

Tracy Cohen

The University of Oregon is not the only university that has

had to face something like this. A lot of the universities in the

Lower 48 have been hit with budgetary woes such as we are facing

right now and there were others, I believe it was the University of

Missouri, and other universities who have to face this.

Toni Croft

As I understand it, though, these were obtained primarily from

the Oregon State University process and Maryland process. And

since Oregon State is a little more accessible to me than Maryland,

I'd like to try to talk to some people down there and find out what

their experience was - what works, what didn't work, and what

would they change? And, I also want to talk to some faculty.

Tracy Cohen

I do have a copy of some of the criteria and the article that was

written. Missouri was hit with a $45 million cut to their system, in

which faculty, staff and students participated. Toni, if you would

like a copy, I'll see that you get one.

John Dede

Another aspect of this that Mike brought up, which I think is

interesting is that the program assessment is looking toward the

future and is looking toward the next four to five years. In order

for this to be successful, you would have to be able to accurately

assess what is happening in these programs four to five years from

now. You can't really take current enrollments and enrollment

trends and say that this is the way it is going to be. You can't really

take current student services, or administrative services, and say

we're going to be operating exactly the same way four to five years

from now. The impacts of technology and other things will make a

vast difference. If anything, you need to plan those in to your

program assessment process as you're doing it now. I'm saying,

what are the impacts of the new SIS, the new HRIS, etc.? Can that

be done in a six month period? It's possible, I'm not saying it can't

be done and I think perhaps Statewide Administration, or

Institutional Research, or some of these other programs have

collected information on state trends and on trends and technology

and on specific impacts of some of these new directions that the

university is beginning to go in, that would be invaluable in this

program assessment process. Otherwise, I think it behooves the

committees or the faculty senates, or whoever is doing this

program assessment, to really try to understand what is going to

be happening five years from now. We're not talking just of

program assessment, we're also talking about an entire university

program plan. And that's the thing I don't necessarily see in this

document. I see a document based on cost cutting and reductions

and assimilation's, but I don't really see something on

strengthening and trying to determine how we'll be working and

what we'll be looking like five years from now.

Mike Mayberry

I believe there is some mention in there of the planning. The

university mission and the six year plan and the strategic plans

and the different plans that the university is coming together with.

I think that those are some of the things in the criteria that are

supposed to be in consideration. So, there are some long range

plans that are built in to the criteria, it's not just a cost-cutting

measure.

John Dede

I'm not too concerned in this regard, I'm not talking specifically

about the academic programs. I'm talking more about any kind of

administrative services and student services that cross MAU

boundaries as they pertain to the Kaludis Report, and other things

such as that. Where they aren't specifically addressed in the six

year plan or the mission, but there will be significant impacts in the

next five years. And there has been talk about changing

operations.

Tracy Cohen

How did the Board of Regents felt about the Resource

Alternatives Task Force Recommendations and criteria? It was my

understanding that they felt fairly positively.

President Komisar

I think the Board reacted very positively to the process that was

being discussed, and to the whole program assessment idea, and to

the time schedule. We did not take before the Board of Regents the

criteria. They will be receiving that in the next couple days. What

I was concerned about was the Board taking a position on the

criteria before the faculty, staff and students had an opportunity to

review it and recommend some changes. So, the criteria will first

be discussed by the Board at the June meeting.

Tracy Cohen

The Board also charged faculty to participate in the program

assessment process and to report to the Board in June about how

they will participate and what they have accomplished thus far. Is

that correct?

President Komisar

I don't know if the Board went quite that far. I think the Board

did ask for all governance groups to participate in the process, but

I don't think there needs to be a report back in June.

COMPENSATION

Toni Croft

I had a short conversation with Joe Henri and I think he and

Sharon disagree on whether we should put this into effect this

year. I thought it was very interesting that at least one member of

the Board feels that maybe this is not the year to do this, that we

should put that off.

John Dede

My impression is there may be several members of the Board

after looking at the budget situation that may be feeling that also. I

don't know, President Komisar, do you have a feel for this or will

this be determined only after we look at the budget numbers?

President Komisar

There are clearly different opinions being held by different

members of the Board of Regents. I think that the Board's

discussion at it's last meeting really had the contours of what the

budget would look like. We'll be going into discussion at the

Human Resource meeting later this month and then at the Board

meeting early in June. I don't want to predict which way it's going

to go. The administrative position has been to go forward and

implement the change in policy and the new structure. My sense is

we've been working on this for such a very long time and a lot of

energy has gone in this year that we should just go forward and

get it done. I have been using, as an analogy, that you can end up

in terms of salary and benefits the way we have ended up with

deferred maintenance, that if we don't keep going and maintain

market level wages, that we're going to turn around in a couple

years and find ourselves with a very serious problem. So, I'm

going to be pushing forward, but I don't want to predict which

way the Board will go.

Karen Enochs

When the Staff Alliance took on the job of putting together a

new staff compensation package, that we knew that there was very

good possibility that it wouldn't go forward. But, I don't think any

of us wasted our time.

SUMMER OPERATIONS & FY95 MEETING CALENDAR

John Dede

I received an agenda matrix for all the policies, regulations and

various initiatives that the Board of Regents is undergoing this

summer. I am sure they will want our input on at least some of

these, not only the ones that we have talked about today, but I

think there is quite a few policies and regulations that are coming

down the pike.

One thing I would like to say at this time before discussing how

this group will be meeting throughout the summer and FY95, is

this is by far the most civil and productive meeting we have had in

months. We have a great deal of difficulty talking to each other

and discovering common ground to talk to each other. If we can't

find that common ground, this group should not be using

resources. I think when President Komisar comes to meet with us,

he provides that common ground, but I'm not sure about this

group meeting throughout the summer to productively talk about

things and I would like to open that question up to the floor.

Karen Enochs

I kind of disagree with you, John. I attended some of the old

General Assembly meetings, and if you want to talk about people

not communicating, that was happening then. I know the new

System Governance Council - we do have differences of opinion,

but I think as a whole we work together a lot better than what was

going on in the past.

John Dede

You're right, Karen, I'm a relative newcomer so I can't put this

in perspective necessarily. But, I do know that the amount of

substantive work that this group has accomplished in the last four

months could probably be put on the head of a pin, in that we

don't have a constitution, or bylaws, we can't agree on who our

members are and we don't get around to talking about the very

substantive issues which are before us, which are right now very,

very major. Now, I know all of us have limited time. That is the

greatest resource right now, especially if this program assessment

process is beginning, there will be some major work to be done by

the people who are involved with that and assisting the people

who are involved with that. That is just going to be another thing

that is added to the plate for those people that are involved in

governance and in the interest of the university. So, comparatively

this group may be improving its processes, but in an absolute

sense, we still have not accomplished anything.

Tracy Cohen

I know I am not an official member of this, I am a member due

to my affiliation with the Student Coalition. The original idea

behind this group being set up was the shared governance of the

university and I really feel that that's a very important concept. I

feel it's a concept that has been perhaps ignored in the past. I feel it

is very important that the staff, faculty and students are available

to one another and available to communicate. If it's just pure

communication, I believe that we are better able emphasize with

where each other is coming from. In that alone, I believe that the

shared governance of the university is a very important concept.

John Dede

It seems to be the pleasure of the group that we continue.

Hopefully, all of you have seen the agenda matrix of the Board of

Regents. Currently, we are set up on a monthly meeting schedule.

Is that appropriate for the summer and into the fall?

Pat Ivey

You do have a meeting scheduled for May 16, 9-11:00am.

Secondly, at the next meeting, I would like to come to you with the

survey instrument for the survey of legislative candidates and use

the council as an editorial board.

Does the group want to add to the May meeting a discussion of

the university budget, perhaps a workshop with Wendy Redman?

Bonnie Williams

Not in that two hour time frame, I think we ought to focus as

much time as possible on the assessment process, or we're not

going to have an intelligible reaction and response.

John Dede

I agree with Bonnie.

Joe Hayes

The only question I have about the program assessment is, the

assessment will look at each of the universities missions. I am just

wondering if the Fairbanks campus, knowing their mission is

primarily sciences and research, will the Fairbanks campus become

a science and research institution, and the Anchorage campus

become liberal arts, and Juneau becomes fisheries, etc., I guess

that's the only general concern I have about the program. Are we

going to hone into our missions so close that we lose all the other

aspects of our universities?

John Dede

Well, considering the recent discussions of the Board of Regents

and the recent discussions of the system administration, I think

that's a concern, because there has been talk about eliminating

duplication, focusing specific programs in specific areas, and this

could definitely be used as a tool towards those ends. However, it

wouldn't have to be. So, that's one of those things that could cut

both ways.