Synopsis: The Senate

(1) heard that the administration approved Proposals 13-01, 14-01, 16-01, and 23-00.

(2) heard a budget update from Provost Wray.

(3) elected Hugh Gorman to serve on the Academic Integrity Committee.

(4) approved proposals 11-01, 17-01, 18-01, 19-01, 20-01, and 21-01.

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1. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL
President Keen called University Senate Meeting 352 to order at 6:36 p.m. on Wednesday, 2 May 2001, in Room B45 EERC.

Secretary Pickens called roll. Absent were representatives from Civil and Environmental Engineering, Education, ME-EM, Materials Science and Engineering, School of Technology, Keweenaw Research Center, and Student Affairs and Educational Opportunity. Liaisons in attendance were Anup Bandivadekar (GSC), Jake Young (USG), and Becky Christianson (Staff Council).

2. RECOGNITION OF VISITORS
Visitors included Kent Wray (Provost), Ellen Horsch (Human Resources), Max Seel (College of Sciences and Arts), Jason Keith (student), Marilyn Urion (Graduate School), Neil Hutzler (College of Engineering), Dave Nelson (Center for Biomedical Engineering), and Marcia Goodrich (Tech Topics).

3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
President Keen presented the agenda and asked to move item 6.F. to 6.A. and renumber the remaining items. There were no objections to the agenda as amended. [Appendix A. NOTE: Only official Senate and Library archival copies of the minutes will contain a full complement of appendices.]

4. PRESIDENT'S REPORT
Proposals 23-00, Amendments to Proposal 13-95, Faculty Grievance Policy and Procedures; 10-01, Supplemental Contribution to Eligible TIAA-CREF Employees; 13-01, Policy on Early-Term Class Survey; 14-01, BS Program in Bioinformatics; 15-01, PhD Program in Engineering Physics; and 16-01, Clarification of Proposal 5-98, Master of Engineering, were transmitted to the administration for approval. [Appendices B-G]

Proposals 13-01, 14-01, 16-01, and 23-00 were approved by the administration. [Appendices H-K]

The Budget Advisory Group met on April 26. The group is discussing the priority of various potential expenditures.

The Strategic Planning Working Group met on April 27. Their latest efforts will be presented to the Board of Control on May 9.

The Benefit Liaison Group met on April 28 and 30.

President Keen met with Provost Wray on April 26 to discuss various proposals. The policy on separation was one of the proposals discussed.

The Vice President for Research Search Committee met on April 30. They are reviewing resumes, and the search will proceed through the summer.

President Keen reported the results of the MTEPS survey. The results and various other information about MTEPS are posted as links from the Senate web site located at http://www.sas.it.mtu.edu/usenate/.

Keen reminded the Senate that there will be an informal meeting with President Tompkins and other administrators on Monday, May 14, at 3:00 p.m. in the MUB.

Keen thanked outgoing Senators for their service.

5. COMMITTEE BUSINESS/REPORTS
A. Kent Wray -- Budget Update
Provost Wray said that the budget has a great deal of uncertainty at this time. The governor in January recommended a 1.5% increase in base budgets with an additional 1% in one-time money if the legislature repealed the tuition tax credit law. The House Appropriations Committee proposed a 2% increase in base budget and declined to repeal the tuition tax credit law. It is hoped that the Senate will be more generous than the House or the governor. However, over the weekend the governor revised his recommendation to no funding increase due to economic conditions.

There are preexisting commitments of $4.8 million against this coming year's budget. Part of that amount is due to the phase-in of last year's pay raises, while the remaining items were previously covered by one-time funds. Other increases in expenses are a projected $1.4 million increase in health benefit costs and a $1 million increase in utilities from this year, while this year's utilities were $1 million more than was budgeted. The MPSERS tax will be $1.9 million next year. This liability is a result of MTU's decision to leave the MPSERS program; MTU was not informed of this liability until a year after it had left the MPSERS program. Wray presented seven scenarios to the BOC Finance Committee based on different state allocations. These scenarios included a transition away from using one-time funding for what are really base-budget expenditures. Some of the budgets were not balanced in the first year, but all were by the end of the second year. Next year's tuition would need to go up 35% with a 2% increase from the state and 21% if we received an 8% increase from the state to balance MTU's budget. The presidents of the seven universities paying the MPSERS tax are trying to get the tax eliminated through political channels. The BOC Finance Committee has asked for elaboration of some of the scenarios and has asked that cost-containment measures be implemented. The Provost has implemented position review. Open positions which do not currently have outstanding offers or scheduled interviews will be reviewed with the possibility that filling them will be delayed for at least a year. In addition, General Fund travel will be reduced by 10% for next fiscal year. Wray did assure the Senate that there would be no layoffs as a result of the budget problems this year. President Tompkins was very firm with the BOC concerning this issue.

Senator Seidel asked if the MPSERS tax was being paid by capturing an employee's salary when they retire. Director of Human Resources Horsch clarified that this is another MPSERS program where retirees receive 2% times their years of service times their salary as a cash payment at retirement. This program is being terminated this June 30, so many employees are using the option now.

Senator Beck asked if these freezes and cuts are university-wide, or do they apply only to the academic units. Wray responded that they are university-wide.

Senator Roggemann asked if the administration was evaluating overhead waivers on research contracts and tuition discounting from the general fund to enhance revenue. Wray responded that acting Vice Provost for Research Reed had been much more firm when overhead waivers were requested. Reed is also working with the funding agencies to get more consistent overhead rates. There is a lot of historical inconsistency with specific overhead rates charged and waivers granted, and they are working to make the MTU practices more consistent. Wray also stated that he agreed that tuition discounting from the general fund is larger than desirable.

B. University Elections
Academic Integrity Committee
President Keen presented the slate of nominees for the Academic Integrity Committee: Carl Dassbach (Social Sciences), Vernon Dorweiler (School of Business and Economics), Ashok Goel (Electrical and Computer Engineering), and Hugh Gorman (Social Sciences) and opened the floor for additional nominees. There were none. There were no objections to closing the nominations. Hugh Gorman was elected to a three-year term.

Subcommittee on Intellectual Property in Distance Learning
President Keen notified the Senate that John Sutherland and Jack Jobst had agreed to be nominated for this committee. He asked if there were additional nominees, and there were none. Next, he asked for the Senate's permission to forward these two names to the Vice Provost for Instruction and allow the Vice Provost to select a third member. There were no objections.

6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
A. Proposal 11-01, Amendment to Requirements for Graduation [Appendix L]
Snyder MOVED and Davis seconded the motion to accept the changes suggested by the Provost.

Davis MOVED and Blanning seconded the motion to consider Proposal 11-01 as an emergency proposal. The motion to treat Proposal 11-01 as an emergency proposal PASSED on a secret ballot with 29 Yes and 1 No vote.

The motion to approve Proposal 11-01 as amended PASSED on voice vote with no dissent.

President Keen asked that the Senate consider Proposals 17-01, 18-01, and 19-01 as emergency proposals. There were no objections to one vote to cover all three proposals. The motion to treat the three proposals as emergency proposals PASSED on a secret ballot with 30 yes votes and 1 no vote.

B. Proposal 17-01, Search Procedure for University President [See minutes, page 9085, for a copy of this proposal and Appendix M]
Keen reminded the Senate of our discussion concerning representation on the search committee. Specifically, the Senate will now select five members for the search committee, four from the faculty and one from the professional staff.

Prince MOVED and Snyder seconded the motion to approve Proposal 17-01.

Prince spoke in support of inclusion of a professional staff member among the Senate's representatives. Without this, the professional staff might have no representation on the search committee since the staff council could select two union employees.

The motion to approve Proposal 17-01 PASSED on voice vote with no dissent.

C. Proposal 18-01, Search Procedure for University Administrators [Appendix N]
Lutzke MOVED and Long seconded the motion to approve Proposal 18-01.

There was no discussion.

The motion to approve Proposal 18-01 PASSED on voice vote with no dissent.

D. Proposal 19-01, Search Procedure for College Deans [Appendix O]
Haapala MOVED and Davis seconded the motion to approve Proposal 19-01.

There was no discussion.

The motion to approve Proposal 19-01 PASSED on voice vote with no dissent.

E. Proposal 20-01, Department of Biomedical Engineering [Appendix P]
Barna MOVED and Adolphs seconded the motion to approve Proposal 20-01.

The Finance Committee submitted a list of questions to David Nelson that focused on current and projected staffing, SS&E, and support staff. Nelson responded that current support staff is one full time position and one half time academic year position. This staffing is currently adequate, but more help will be needed soon. Machine shop support is provided through Chemical Engineering on a fee for service basis. The primary space need currently is a student shop for senior projects. Space allocation will be made by the University Space Committee. They currently receive one GTA, and expect another next year. They also received one GA this year and expect another next year.

Senator Beck noted that the proposal calls for two new faculty members in the future, and asked if they could offer the program without the additional faculty. Nelson responded that they are currently using temporary positions for some tasks, and would need to continue that if they did not get additional faculty positions.

There was no further discussion.

The motion to approve Proposal 20-01 PASSED on voice vote with no dissent.

F. Proposal 21-01, Framework for Professional Master of Science Degrees: An Interdepartmental Professional Master of Science Degree with Specific Areas of Concentration [Appendix Q]
This proposal was forwarded to the Senate by the Senate Curricular Policy Committee with its support.

Senator Snyder provided background information about the proposal. It does not create any degree program, but establishes a framework which will provide consistency and reduce the effort in degree program proposal preparation when future degree programs are proposed. It also provides quality assurance across degree programs.

Blanning MOVED and Hwang seconded a motion to consider this as an emergency proposal.

Dean Seel provided supplemental background information. Although no programs are currently ready for submission under this proposal, there are programs that are in process such as the forestry bioinformatics MS. The Senate must approve any programs created under this proposal, and the proposal must specify information on anticipated enrollment and resource requirements.

Acting Graduate Dean Urion noted that one ramification of delayed action on the proposal is the requirement that the proposal be considered by the state academic affairs officers. This process takes a long time period.

Senator Barna voiced concern with acting on the proposal without discussing it with his constituents.

The vote to consider this proposal as an emergency proposal was 27 yes and 7 no.

There was no further discussion.

The motion to approve Proposal 21-01was approved without dissent.

7. ADJOURNMENT
Oberto MOVED and Long seconded the motion to adjourn. The meeting adjourned at 7:34 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by James B. Pickens
Secretary of the University Senate