FACULTY MEETING -- JULY 18, 2003

ATTENDEES: Drs. Butler, Boucias, Buss, Capinera, Choate, Crow, Fasulo, Frank, Foltz, D. Hall, Hoy, Koehler, Lawrence, Leppla, Liburd, Maruniak, McAuslane, McSorley, Oi, Slansky, Webb, and C. Tucker, Debbie Hall, S. Hoopaugh, and M. Litchfield.

Meeting convened at 10:30 am.

Capinera went over the budget releases for the department:

Academic Programs $292,006
(Actual 62,000)
Extension 45,157
Research 196,208

Budget did not go down but some expenses did increase. The academic programs budget consists mostly of scholarship money, not operations money.

Tuition: Passed out college tuition policy. A recap was that the provost mandated all grants be charged $6500/year for tuition for a full time graduate assistant. State funded graduate assistant's fee will come from the fee waiver authority that the dean has. Right now everybody contributes $90/pay period but will be paying $270/pay period. The dean has money to refund the difference between $90 and $270 but the $270 will have to be paid from grant monies of the faculty and the dean will give $$ to the department to reimburse faculty members. This reimbursement will not be biweekly. This will become effective in August and applies anywhere a graduate student is paid from grant funds. The money from the dean will not go back into the grant but some other fund. Anytime a grant is written that includes the salary for a graduate student you have to budget $6500/year for tuition (increase this $500 per year for years two and three). This is a fixed number to accommodate either in-state or out-of-state students. The department will have to move some students from state $$ to grant $$. This would need to be accomplished through internal bookkeeping. If we have more graduate students in the fall and spring we may have a deficit. The dean has promised $64,000 but they may not be able to give us all of it. It was suggested that when a grant is written that one or two months of summer salary be included. The funds can be used to offset the tuition costs.

Lay-offs: Last year the tenured faculty were asked to give 20% of the salary for their technicians in order to avoid lay-offs. We have regained most of those funds. Capinera asked the faculty if they wanted to continue to contribute the 20% and make sure that the department had enough $$ to cover tuition and salaries or did they wish to keep the 20% and hope that the department has enough funds. There ensued some discussion and then the faculty decided that they would keep these funds. Sharon will not assess the 20% from faculty but we will re-visit the issue if deficit looms.

New Teaching Lab: Schematic drawings for the new teaching lab were passed out (scheme A-1, A-2, A-3, and A-4). Discussion followed on whether or not a larger lab was needed. Student and course enrollment has increased to the point that the smaller labs are not sufficient to hold the large number of students that register for the course and lab, therefore two to four lecture/lab sessions have to be held for one course. This ties up the faculty's time and limits the number of courses that can be taught. Due to the enrollment in the DPM program, courses need to be taught every year instead of every other year. The third larger lab will give more flexibility in offering courses and labs. Faculty discussed the schemes and decided that A-2 was the most suitable. Dr. Capinera asked for volunteers to design the particulars of the lab. None were forthcoming.

Student Awards: Dr. Don Hall announced that he needed to get on a time-table in order to get faculty and the Graduate Committee more involved. If a student wishes to be nominated for an award he/she needs to talk to their committee chair. Dr. Hall wants to get the faculty and Graduate Committee more involved in deciding which students will be the recipients of awards so the decision will not be solely that of the Graduate Coordinator. Dr. Hall will send out an email whenever he is notified of available awards for students. Dr. Butler will be retiring at the end of the month and will not be on the Graduate Committee anymore. Jim Maruniak and Marjorie Hoy had been nominated to serve on the Graduate Committee. Dr. Hall passed out ballots for the faculty to vote. Hoy was elected. Dr. Hall asked the faculty if there was anything he could do as Graduate Coordinator to please let him know as he was still learning about his new position.

Meeting was adjourned at 11:40.