Under the Senate Constitution, the Senate has primary responsibility in the establishment
of new academic programs, and advisory responsibility on issues of financial management.
To facilitate the advisory responsibility on issues of financial management, the Senate
proposes that Senate proposals for creation of new degree programs include
documentation of the financial implications of the new program. This information allows
the Senate, and especially the Senate Finance Committee, to provide consistent and
complete analysis of the possible financial implications of the new program as part of the
Senate's advisory role in financial decision making. Guidelines for items to be included in
the financial documentation follow. Items one to six should be provided by the proposing
unit. Items seven and eight should be provided with the Provost's Office assistance.
- Relation to University Strategic Plan
- Relation of program to the university's educational and research goals.
- Consistency with the university's resource allocation criteria.
- Impact on University Enrollment
- Projected number of students in the program.
- Source of new students; in particular, will the students be drawn from.
existing programs, or will they be students who would otherwise not have
come to MTU?
- What is the likely correlation between demand for the new program and
existing enrollment patterns at MTU?
- What is the current enrollment in the unit?
- Impact on Resources Required by Department in Which the Program is housed.
This would include, but not be limited to:
- Faculty lines.
- Faculty and student labs, including ongoing maintenance.
- Advising.
- Assessment.
- Impact on Resources Required By other Units Within the University. This analysis
would include, but not necessarily be limited to, the impacts on:
- Other academic (e.g., Gen Ed) units with regard to faculty, labs and
assessment. (NOTE: The current Student to Faculty ratio for the university
as a whole is approximately 12:1 per Institutional Analysis.)
- Information Technology, the Library, central administration and career
planning with respect to the impact on the need for computing services,
library resources, advising, record keeping, development of employer
relations etc.
- Assessment of the ability to obtain the necessary resources assuming requested
funds are obtained
- For high demand fields (e.g., business fields, etc.), will it be possible to fill
allocated lines
- Past proposals. Has the department initiated any other new degree programs in the
last five years? If so:
- Describe the extent to which the new program has met the original goals with
respect to:
- Enrollment,
- Costs,
- New faculty,
- Other resources required for the program
- How have degree programs added in the past five years affected total
enrollment in the department?
- Departmental Budget contribution
- What is the department's total general fund budget?
- How much tuition does the department generate? This information should
be provided for both the credit hours taught by the department and the
number of credit hours taken by the department's majors.
- How do the benefits from this program compare to other alternatives that are
currently under consideration or development. Will approval and allocation of
resources to this program preclude the development of other programs?
Introduced to Senate: 1 September 2004
Adopted by Senate: 15 September 2004
Approved by Administration: 18 October 2004