Present:	Sukanya Banerjee, Karen Brucks, Eduardo Douglas, Peter Geissinger, Joyce Kirk, Pat Kissinger, Kris Ruggiero, Daad Saffarini, Kathleen Wheatley
Excused:	Glen Fredlund
Guests:	Connie Jo, Kim Romenesko

1. Call to Order -- The chair, Peter Geissinger, called the meeting to order at 10:05 a.m. in Holton 241. Peter welcomed Kathleen Wheatley, Michael Liston's replacement, to the committee.
2. Procedural Matters
   1. Faculty E-mail Vote - The faculty e-mail voting that the committee authorized at its last meeting was stopped because university legal counsel said it was in violation of the open meeting law.
3. Automatic Consent
   1. Approval of Minutes #1, 2007-2008 (September 20, 2007) -- There were no corrections to the minutes; they stand approved.
4. Old Business
   1. Spousal and Target-of-Opportunity Hiring - Connie Jo told the committee that the College had put together a list of spousal and target-of opportunity hires for the past four years. She said she could pull together information about how much these hires are publishing, etc. Peter said the question is whether or not these hires are having an effect on the academic planning process of departments. He thought feedback was needed from departments.
   2. Possible Faculty Meeting Date for Spring: April 10 -- The Committee approved the April 10th meeting date.
   3. Distinguished Professors -- Peter said that ten additional faculty members now have the distinguished designation. However, he is going to check with the university committee to find out the status of the proposal that was submitted by the APGC a few years ago. The proposal was to create additional categories of distinguished professorships.
5. New Business
   1. Budget discussion
      Peter Geissinger began the discussion by informing committee members that another "new" campus is being discussed, in addition to what is commonly referred to as the Kenwood/Columbia campus, the Downtown campus, and the Wauwatosa campus. The "Harbor" campus is being used to denote the space now occupied by the WATER Institute, which would be refashioned into a "School of Freshwater Sciences." Development of a Ph.D in Freshwater Sciences is being discussed. It appears that Engineering would be heavily involved in the school, because the planning committee has been focusing on freshwater marine technology. Peter said that Glen Fredlund is part of the group developing this idea; he may be able to provide more information at the next meeting.

      The committee then began discussing the L&S budget situation. They asked Pat Kissinger if she could talk about how the state budget situation would affect L&S. Pat said it is clear that the college budget will be impacted but nobody knows by how much. The new money UWM will receive is earmarked for new initiatives; it cannot be used for deficit reduction.

      Connie Jo reported that the campus Academic Program and Budget Committee is conducting a review of Centers. She said that some people believe this is being done with an eye toward cutting budgets.

      Kris Ruggerio said that the Faculty Senate had a number of problems with the structure of the Master Planning Committee, including the fact that there are no faculty on the Executive Leadership Team and the subcommittees lack sufficient faculty representation. The Senate also questioned whether the subcommittees would have adequate time to conduct business before the consultants arrive in February, and suggested that the Kenwood/Columbia Subcommittee represented too many interests compared to the other subcommittees.

      Pat Kissinger said that Claude Schuttey emphasized at a meeting that students, faculty, and staff are more than welcome to attend any of the meetings of any of the planning subcommittees. APGC members thought committee meeting schedules should be prominently posted on the Master Planning web-site so that it was easy to find meeting times. Some members had difficulty finding the Master Planning Committee web-site; Kim said she would send the URL to members.

      Going back to the talking points having to do with the L&S budget problem, members asked Pat how this deficit problem compared with others the College has weathered over the years. Pat said the big difference is that this deficit is a result of the continuous erosion of state support; the only way to deal with it, in her opinion, is to spend less and bring in more. In response to a question about whether or not other schools and colleges on campus were facing similar financial crises, Pat pointed out that the professional schools are in a better budgetary position than the College, largely because they are able to charge more money for their classes. The College gets additional money for on-line instruction, though some of it goes back to departments. Committee members thought that an analysis should be done to find out how many on-line courses would we needed to solve the College's budget problem.

      Connie Jo said she thought it would be possible to achieve some cost savings without harming students or faculty. She told the committee about "U-PACE" sections that are being offered under Psych 101. Students who are in U-PACE sections complete Psych 101 at their own pace. They cannot move on to new material until they have mastered current material, which is measured by an on-line exam. There is some instructional savings with this program because discussion sections are not needed (although T.A.s are available to answer students' questions on an as-needed basis) and fewer lectures are needed.

      Daad Saffarini wondered if revenue could be increased by bringing new people to campus for something like a "summer institute." People could pay to be trained, for example, to use Biotech's cutting edge equipment, which is not used much over the summer. Connie said that the School of Continuing Education would have to be involved in any non-credit programming.

      Other questions:
      What is the break-even point for graduate instruction? (It is about twenty students, we thought, for undergraduate instruction, depending upon the instructor).

      Can L&S departments offer non-credit courses over the summer?

      Does the College benefit financially (in the aggregate) when faculty members receive grants?

6. Adjournment - the committee adjourned at 11:20.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Romenesko
Senior Administrative Program Specialist
Letters and Science Administration

Distribution: Dean G. Richard Meadows
Associate Deans Gajdardziska-Josifovska, O'Bryan, Schuster, Swain
Assistant Deans Weslow, Jo
Secretary of the University

Minutes #2, 2007-08.apgc