DRAFT MINUTES
Thursday, December 7,
2000
2:30 pm - 4:00pm
via audio conference
1. Call to order and roll call
Stacey
Banks called the meeting to order at 2:35 pm.
Members Present
Stacey
Banks, Chair and ASUAF President
Rudy
Candler for Scott Culbertson, UAF Staff Council President
Larry
Duffy, Faculty Alliance Chair and UAF Faculty Senate President
Mark
Graves, USUAS-Juneau Senator
Debbie
Narang, UAA Faculty Senate President
David
Rohwer for Kerry Digou, SAA President
Skye
Rubadeau, USUAA President and ACPE Student Commissioner
David
Woodley, Staff Alliance Chair and UAA Classified Council President
Robert
Sewell, UAS Staff Council President
Members Absent
David
Marvel, UAS Faculty Council Chair
John
Newman, USUAS-Sitka Vice President
Daryl
Royce, UAAAA President
Cindy
Branley, UAFAA Executive Director
Lynne
Johnson, UASAA Coordinator
Guests Present
Josh
Horst, Student Regent
Ann
Ringstad, Director of Government Relations
Pat
Ivey, System Governance
Brian
Brubaker, System Governance
2. Adopt Agenda
There
was no objection to proceeding under the draft agenda.
3. Approve September meeting minutes
MOTION: Moved by
Woodley, seconded by Duffy, passed without objection
“The
University of Alaska System Governance Council hereby approves the minutes of
its September 7, 2000, meeting. This
action is effective December 7, 2000.”
4. Chair’s Report
Stacey Banks said that he assumes that this time is better for these meetings than the 1:00 pm time that was used previously. He said that yesterday, Kevin Myers of Phillips Alaska and Richard Campbell of BP Alaska gave checks for their first yearly contribution to the UA Foundation, in excess of $1.5 million. There was a lot of media coverage present. This is a good thing for the university.
5. Student tuition and fees
Stacey
Banks said that this has become quite a big topic and there was a lot of
discussion at the last regents meeting.
There was a lot of discussion regarding freezing tuition in FY2002, but
these ideas did not get adopted. When
UA is compared to other tuition rates for other two year degree programs within
the west, we are fairly expensive.
Students will continue to pursue this issue in the future.
Josh
Horst said that the tuition debate was quite lively during the last board meeting. The goal is to try and reduce the overall
cost of higher education in Alaska. The
regents talked about books, room and board, and other costs. Perhaps faculty and staff could come up with
ideas to reduce costs that students haven’t come up with yet.
Being
more accountable towards fees is another area of interest. In the new draft regulation on tuition and
fees (05.10.01), an idea has been that syllabi and course catalogs should
better explain what student fees are used for.
Also, feedback on how students feel about the use of their student fee
dollars might be collected to improve services that are funded with fees.
Larry
Duffy said that the faculty generally feel that the university is extremely
understaffed. Cutting $13 million out
of the budget would exacerbate that problem.
Students receive a lot of student fee services that they are not
necessarily aware of. There is the
possibility that the regents could consider moving the community campuses out
of the same cost structure as urban campuses, but that might not be
likely. At UAF, we have high fees but
many of those are related to bond repayment for the Student Recreation
Center. It costs X amount of dollars to
deliver a service, and during the dark years students complained that they weren’t
receiving certain services, and so a lot of other programs were cannibalized to
continue those services.
At
UAA, with the increase in the availability of dorms, you now have the costs of
dorms. Larry Duffy said that he
believes that a $13 million cut to the university would be unacceptable.
Stacey
Banks said that the tuition freeze as considered by regents at their last
meeting was projected to cost $600,000.
Stacey
Banks said that Alaska has very little need-based financial aid. In a recent study, Alaska was ranked near
the bottom in college accessibility and affordability because Alaska has no
needs-based college aid. Chancellors
now have an increase in their tuition waivers from 3 to 4% of the total. This will help improve accessibility to higher
education.
Tuition
will come up again in March for the Board of Regents.
Larry
Duffy said that at UAF in the last 10 years, there was a false model of a
corporation used. It confused budget
efficiency with effectiveness. One
result was fewer financial aid staff.
It is easy to take cuts without fully realizing the long-term
consequences.
Stacey
Banks asked that students, staff, and faculty groups meet with each other and
try to come up with ideas on this issue.
He said that the issue will be on future Council agendas.
Larry
Duffy said that a lot of personnel costs to the university are required by
collective bargaining agreements. These
agreements and the cost of them can affect the money available for programs. Stacey Banks said that anything that regards
the university’s funding and costs is a big issue that can affect anything the
university does.
6. Candidate Survey Results
Pat
Ivey said that there was a sizeable response to the survey and a sizeable
number of the candidates who responded actually were elected. It is good to look at the individual
positions of the successful candidates as displayed in the survey. This will be a good tool as we prepare to
visit with legislators during the session.
Pat
Ivey said that an exponential increase in support for the university was
visible between the 1998 and the 2000 surveys.
Candidates had many good things to say about the university and can
become great advocates. She recommended
that members attempt to get these people involved in their local campus
councils and events.
Pat
Ivey said that this is the eighth survey completed by the Council within the
last 16 years.
David
Woodley said that a lot of responses indicated that candidates were confused by
what “full funding” meant. Ann Ringstad
said that they weren’t actually confused.
Stacey Banks said that there are apparently two definitions of full –
the regular one in the dictionary and the definition as understood by
politicians. Larry Duffy suggested that
in the future, full funding should be referred to as full funding of the
regents request.
Pat
Ivey said that there was a lot of support for funding the Alaska Scholars
Program with state money.
Larry
Duffy said that there are a lot of good ideas about scholarships and lowering
student costs. Larry Duffy said that
when you are going after state money from legislators, it is good to target
your ideas so that you can’t be played off another constituency (the old divide
and conquer). With regards to lowering
tuition and fees, the money has to come from somewhere. Perhaps forgiveness of tuition for teachers
would be easier to sell to legislators than scholarship programs. Students and statewide administration have
to decide what is feasible and what to advocate for and faculty will very likely
support what is decided.
Brian
Brubaker asked if anyone used the legislative candidate survey as a tool for
deciding whom to vote for. No one
responded.
Larry
Duffy said that he went to a candidate forum.
He was surprised by the power of incumbency. Many of the challengers were left in the dark because they didn’t
necessarily know the details of the issues being discussed and came off as
bumbling.
7. Legislative Update
Ann
Ringstad said that the oil companies’ gift from yesterday is not meant to
replace general fund dollars. She hopes
that legislators will understand this.
Ann
Ringstad said that they hope that the governor will fund the entire university
funding request as he did last year.
The budget request for FY2002 has many of the same issues and
initiatives that were included last year.
The governor’s capital budget request will probably only include a few
of the requested items.
Pat
Ivey pointed out that there isn’t much pressure on the governor right now to
fund the full $16.9 increase to the university’s operating budget for
FY2002. Ann Ringstad agreed, but said
that polls indicate the importance of university funding.
Ann
Ringstad said that the Alaska Scholars Program will be a legislative issue this
year. The legislative room scholarship
will also be addressed.
Ann
Ringstad said that there may be some legislation to merge the forms for Alaska
Student Loans and federal loans (the feds use the FASFA form). The goal is to streamline the process and
benefit the students. Hopefully there
will be a bullet sheet once this legislation is drafted. Two out of the three UAF, UAA, and UAS
Financial Aid Directors favor the goal of this legislation.
The
goal of the legislation is to enable “one stop shopping,” so that there is one
place and one form to apply for Pell grants, federal loans, and state loans.
Ann
Ringstad said that there may be some legislation forthcoming from the
Governor’s office to offer student loan forgiveness for specific classes of
graduates, such as teachers.
Ann
Ringstad said that they are preparing a new Who’s Who of legislators. She is also preparing a new publication
about the legislative process. The
first legislative newsletter of the year is also be prepared. The newsletter will outline what the
university did with the additional funding received last year.
The
website she is maintaining will include a calendar of events (which group is
going down during what dates) and other information.
Ann
Ringstad said that she would like to do workshops for anyone who is going down
to Juneau prior to any visits to the capital building. Regents are meeting on March 7 – 9,
2001. Her goal is that the times that
university support groups go down should be staggered, and not all at once.
Ann
Ringstad said that this year’s advocacy effort will include the publication of
quarter and half page ads featuring legislators who are UA alumni.
Ann
Ringstad said that Alaska Airlines has not yet announced the constituent
airfare deals, but indications are that they will be similar to last year’s.
Larry
Duffy asked how many alumni are in the House and Senate Finance
Committees. Ann Ringstad discussed some
of the appointments in the Senate and House.
Josh
Horst asked if there were maps of legislative districts that each student government
could get a copy of. Ann Ringstad said
she has three sets of these maps, which are fully laminated and somewhat
expensive. She got them from DNR.
Brian
Brubaker asked when the governor would announce his budget for the
university. Ann Ringstad said that it
will probably be early in the week of December 11, 2000.
Skye
Rubadeau said that the ACPE is meeting soon to consider changes to financial
aid forms and other issues.
Larry
Duffy asked how effective the voting stations on campuses were. Ann Ringstad said that the presidential
election and the tax cap issue brought out a tremendous turnout in Alaska. Stacey Banks said that Lt. Governor Ulmer
will come out with a report on youth voting in Alaska.
Ann
Ringstad said that the Lt. Governor of Florida was the keynote speaker at a
conference she attended. He made some
references to the presidential election and the recount controversy in his
state. He pointed out that across the
water in Cuba, there is a country where only one vote is counted. By comparison, that makes our election
pretty meaningful.
Stacey
Banks said that over 800 people took advantage of the absentee ballots
available in Wood Center at UAF. Skye
Rubadeau said that they ran out of ballots three times with 40-50 people in line
at all times at their absentee polling place on the UAA Campus. David Woodley said that this probably made
the difference in the very close Senate race between Terry Martin and Bettye
Davis. Hopefully this will be enough to
convince the Anchorage Municipal Assembly to have a polling place at UAA during
their next election in April.
8. Coalition of Student Leaders – Request
for Legislative Activities Funds
Pat
Ivey said that the Coalition is requesting funds for legislative
activities. The Coalition is planning
to have a signature campaign to convince legislators to fund the university and
so forth.
Pat
Ivey said that the Council has about $1,000 to spare that could be spent on
this initiative.
Josh
Horst said that last year was the first year in quite some time that the
governor fully funded the university in his budget request. The Coalition of Student Leaders received a
lot of credit for the postcard campaign that they conducted in the fall of 1999
to try and convince the governor to do just that.
Josh
Horst said that the Coalition also had a legislator trading card program in the
spring of 2000 that received a lot of press and a lot of attention on the
request for university funding. This
year, there is a need for rookie cards.
This
has looked like a well organized effort, but actually it has been more off the
cuff. This year, Josh Horst said that
the Coalition of Student Leaders is trying to start a separate fund for
legislative activities. The fund would
be used only for publication expenses and it will not be used for travel. This year the trading cards will return,
perhaps in color and with more and different statistics on the back.
There
will be a check campaign. The checks
will look real, and people will sign checks written out to the university for
$16.9 million. There will be an
adopt-a-legislator campaign and other programs. The goal is to raise $10,000 from student government
organizations, chambers of commerce, the Council, and other groups. President Hamilton said that he will match
any funds the Coalition raises up to $10,000.
Ann
Ringstad said that it should be stressed that these donations are from private
sources - or in the case of student governments, from student fee revenues
controlled by student governments. The
System Governance Council’s funds are from the general fund.
In
October 2000, Ann Ringstad offered $269 per ticket for 12 tickets for student
government leaders from various campuses to travel to Juneau. Homer students were the only ones able to
take advantage of the offer in the time allowed (before the good PFD fares
expired). Pat Ivey said that these
grants are still available.
9. System Governance Reports
9.1. Coalition of Student Leaders
Josh
Horst said that the Coalition had a retreat in Sitka. The idea behind this retreat was to learn about some of the rural
campus challenges and to try to deal with these. Some issues that came up were the cost of education, child care,
and the coordination of distance learning.
There is also a need for payphones at rural campuses and increased
financial aid.
One
example of a problem with the coordination of distance learning is academic
honors. Students who take courses at
more than one MAU are sometimes not eligible for academic honors (such as the
dean’s list). Only full-time students
are eligible for most academic honors.
If a student is taking six credits from one MAU and six from another
during the same semester, as often happens for distance learning students, then
they are a full-time student; but appear only as a part-time student in the
records of each MAU they are taking classes from.
On
April 10 & 11, 2001, the Coalition will be holding the first ever
simultaneous cross-campus student government elections via the internet. Lobbying programs and organizational
restructuring are other issues for the Coalition.
Josh
Horst said that his term and Skye Rubadeau’s term on the ACPE are coming to a
close in 2001. Elections to select
their replacements are underway.
9.2. Faculty Alliance
Larry Duffy said that the Faculty Alliance is meeting on December 15, 2000, from 11:30 until 1:00.
9.3. Staff Alliance
David Woodley said that the Staff Alliance has been very busy. They have been working on benefits and compensation issues. Recently they reviewed the regulations for terminations of employees who are at will and for non-disciplinary reasons. They are examining the ratio of benefits versus costs to employees. The first draft of the Staff Alliance newsletter (a new communications instrument) has been completed.
10. Local governance reports
10.1. UAA
David
Woodley said that the UAA Assembly has made progress on improving
communications. The goal has been to
try and avoid information overload. The
Chancellor’s goals for 2005 (Which includes becoming the university of first
choice) are being addressed. The Socks
and Sandwiches event this year gathered 354.5 sandwiches and 104 pairs of socks
for local shelters. This year there
wasn’t any press coverage as there was last year. Ann Ringstad asked if some of the pictures from last year’s event
could be sent to her for a publication she is preparing.
David
Marvel said that the Chancellor’s slogan, “university of first choice,” means
that many students who choose to come to UAA do so because UAA has the programs
and quality that these students want.
It was commented that this is kind of a catchy slogan.
Skye
Rubadeau said that USUAA had a Thanksgiving Day feast. More than 400 students and community members
turned out for a free dinner. Last year,
there were only 158 people. President
Mark Hamilton and Patty Hamilton attended the dinner.
Debbie
Narang said that the UAA Faculty Senate is excited about a new center for
faculty excellence. They have
instituted new electronic voting for emergency issues and they have just
started revising the general education requirements at UAA.
10.2. UAF
Stacey
Banks said that ASUAF is working on many of the Coalition issues. ASUAF is trying to expand child care and is
investigating whether or not they should create a new child care service. They are working on discounts for students
with local businesses. ASUAF recently
held their elections. They have two
nominees for student regent and one name for student commissioner. There was a three-way tie for second place
in the race for student commissioner; this tie may have to be broken by the
ASUAF Senate.
Rudy
Candler and Larry Duffy had no report for the UAF Staff Council or UAF Faculty
Senate.
10.3. UAS
Robert
Sewell said that he was recently elected as the new president of the UAS Staff
Council. They are organizing a holiday
dinner for faculty and staff. They are
also working on the Staff Alliance objectives for the year, which include staff
development and compensation. The Staff
Alliance will be holding a spring retreat in Juneau.
Mark
Graves said that the USUAS-J student government is working on preparing for
their legislative conference and many other issues.
David
Marvel was not present to make a report.
10.4. Statewide
David Rohwer said that SAA is working on the leave cash out issue so that leave over 240 hours won’t lapse if it is unused. They had a holiday potluck, canned food drive and are adopting two families at Christmas.
11. Date/time of next meeting
The date and time of the next meeting is January 25, 2001, from 1:00 until 3:00 pm. This time and date may change.
12. Agenda items for the next meeting
Two agenda items for the next meeting include student tuition and fees and the Coalition of Student Leaders request for legislative activities funds.
13. Other items of concern
There were no other items of concern.
14. Comments
There were no comments.
15. Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 pm.