PROVOST’s COUNCIL

WORKDAY MINUTES

October 26, 2016, 8:30-10:00

Present / Drew Thomas, Doug Keskula, Richard Starnes, Lowell Davis, Tim Metz, Brian Kloeppel, George Brown, Ricardo Nazario-Colon, Carol Burton, Susan Fouts, Dale Carpenter, Kevan Frazier, Tony Johnson, Jill Granger
Guests / Debra Burke for Darrell Parker, Neil Calvert, William Frady, Dale Cox
Recorder / Anne Aldrich

ANNOUNCEMENTS/INFORMATION

Enrollment strategies
(Carol Burton) / If we are planning any change in strategy around enrollment, such as a smaller honors class, please share those items with Alison so she can share that with Executive Council.
Change in School Calendar
(Dale Carpenter) / There are changes in the school calendar, giving latitude on the required 180 days of attendance due to the hurricane and storms in the eastern part of the state. This is impacting enrollment/admissions. UNCP is having significant issues.
Advising Day / Advising Day is next week, November 1st.

DISCUSSION

Electronic Form for Removal of Assets from Campus
(William Frady, Neil Calvert, Dale Cox) / Automation is a main goal. Neil reviewed a PowerPoint with the council regarding creation of a new automated process which is currently a paper process. The current process is an annual requirement that must be completed each year thus the goal to create an electronic form that will minimize the burden on those that process as well as those that have to complete the form. The new process will allow supervisors to electronically approve and employees will get an email prompt when it is time to renew.
Initially, we want to pilot this project to work out all the kinks. Please let us know if you are interested in participating. Undergraduate Studies and OIPE volunteered to be part of the pilot. Other members of the council will talk to their directors and get back to Neil and William as to their participation in the pilot. Discussion ensued.
We will still need hard copies from those that will not participate in the pilot process. This is a requirement of GA. Any item at $5000 value and above requires this form, in addition to items that are highly mobile that need to be tracked because it is state property.
Managing Faculty Medical Emergency Leave (Deans) / After policy change for faculty medical leave, this codified what the College of Arts and Sciences was already doing. If a faculty member goes on medical leave, the disruption at their return can be more difficult for the students. CA&S has been reassigning the course to another faculty member, paid from lapsed salaries.
CA&S has had many issues. One faculty member went on medical leave as well as having received scholarly development leave, therefore this individual was out for a full year. We had four faculty members goes on medical leave last year. The upper level classes provide more of a challenge.
This change in policy has boosted faculty morale as well as addressing the impact on students. This has allowed us to plan in a humane way to manage maternity leave. This academic year CA&S will have 13 faculty on some sort of medical or maternity leave. Discussion ensued.
One challenge is there are not always ready funds to cover overloads, etc. The new policy allows faculty to take 12 weeks leave at full pay and if extended longer, pay is reduced to half. Faculty do not earn sick or vacation leave.
Summer Annual Report (Lowell Davis) / Lowell distributed 2015 and 2016 Summer Session Annual Reports. This will be a major discussion item at Faculty Senate today. Lowell reviewed a PowerPoint presentation detailing the summer session process and revenue distribution.
Lowell is conducting a listening tour in collaboration with Bill Yang in order to plan for summer 2018 - we don’t know if students will decide to come to summer session at all. We still have too many salaries coded to summer. A lot of lecturers that are making $29,000 count on summer to boost their income. If we lose summer, we risk losing these faculty members as well. We want to hear from faculty about possible solutions to keep summer session viable and provide students with degree completion assistance. About 30% of faculty who teach in the summer come within $1000 of hitting the maximum of our compensation policy. Discussion ensued.
The reserves we thought we had in place, are not in place. The goal after the conclusion of the listening tour, is to bring those discussions back to a Provost Council Workday to develop a plan. That plan will then be taken to Faculty Senate. Discussion ensued.
It was suggested that Camps and Conferences can provide an opportunity for faculty to remain engaged and earn some compensation during the summer. We are okay for summer 2017 but we need to be proactive, understanding what is to come. The Jamaican cohort will not be here the summer of 2017 - no cohort will be completing next summer. Also, be aware that during advising day (next week), students can register for spring and summer as well.
Kevan currently has nothing on the books for summer 2017.
Student Access to Buildings After Hours and on Weekends
(George Brown) / George has previously raised this issue. It became a major issue over Labor Day weekend when all were locked out of the buildings after having made arrangements for access. There have been subsequent meetings since to provide electronic access to CFPA buildings. The challenge is that multiple colleges utilize some of these spaces - Belk, Coulter, and BAC. We are looking at a laptop requirement for all our students to deal with some of these access issues but that will still not resolve the problem. Many of CFPA students need weekend access for their projects, practice, etc. Discussion ensued.
It was suggested this be elevated to Executive Council, as it impacts our fundamental mission to support our students.
Courses Scheduling
(Carol Burton) / There is task force in place to discuss course scheduling, particularly those courses concentrated on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Is this the sense of the council regarding schedules?
Longer labs have become an issue as well as an ethical responsibility to allow our faculty to do everything we are asking them to do in addition to teaching. Alison envisioned us trying to be entrepreneurial utilizing Fridays and Saturdays. Everything is on the table. There are a number of reasons this needs to be reviewed - degree completion, student engagement, etc. Tuesdays and Thursdays continue to be the most challenging days on campus for parking.
With a projected enrollment of 11,000 students next fall, this will continue to be an issue.

3