September 19, 2002 Academic Council Report

at Portland State University

Submitted by Bob Turner

 

Present at the meeting:

Shirley Clark, Chair		Lorraine Davis, UO	John Miller, EOU
Nancy Goldschmidt		John Mosley, UO	John Minahan, WOU
Yvette Webber-Davis		Howard Thurston, OIT	Lesley Hallick, OHSU
Jim Arnold		Mary Kathryn Tetreault, PSU	Tim White, OSU
Grattan Kerans		Terry Rhodes, PSU	Charles Lane, SOU
Dave McDonald
Vicki Falsgraf	Guest:	Bob Turner, WOU, IFS

 

 

From the Minutes of the July 17, 2002 Academic Council Meeting by Conference Call:

Discussion of conversion to the semester system is totally off every campus’ radar screen.

 

Board Executive Committee Meeting Agenda/Issues

Budget Reduction Planning Strategies are intended to be in order by Board’s October 18 meeting

Strategic Planning slide show will be presented on September 19 by Roger Bassett

Autonomy/Flexibility Matrix sent out late yesterday (I’ll obtain a copy of this before the October 4 IFS meeting - BT)

 

Western Oregon University’s Certificate Program in Rehabilitation Counseling with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adults approved with minor comment.

 

Dean of Educations Council met at WOU with vouchers being the major topic of discussion. (Tuition vouchers are given by an OUS institution to districts as partial compensation for placing student teachers in the district). With the institution of RAM, vouchers are “giving away something we don’t have”, particularly in the case of teachers who show up at one campus with vouchers from a second one. The absence of knowledge of real costs and real revenues did not prevent several solutions from being discussed; the thread running through them all was to decrease the value of the vouchers in one way or another. Other items discussed were enrollments, statements on the status of enrollments and saturation of the job market.

 

Gratten Kerans presented a legislative status summary of the fifth special session, which already have been reported in the press. Community colleges are preparing for failure of the January vote on the income tax surcharge by planning for cuts in winter term, and by limiting access through eliminating sections and wait listing. Provost Mosley advocated a tuition increase strategy that supports the cost of spring term even if the income tax surcharge fails, with tuition refunds if the surcharge vote passes in January.

G. Kerans: “Good managers in OUS produced continuity of academic programs without publicizing the losses. My advice is ‘don’t’ do it again!’ “

This portion of the meeting generated much conversation without any new insights or initiatives of substance. There was agreement that the present is uncomfortable, and the future may well be less so.

 

 

Dave McDonald described two approaches to addressing access and financial aid issues. The first is the Oregon Opportunity Grant coalition of OUS, community colleges and independents that is working to increase state funding of total student costs from current 11% to 15%, with funding of all who are eligible. Background documentation of the need for this funding is provided in the Oregon Student Assistance Commission’ s report “College Access and Persistence in Oregon” of August 2002. This report was distributed to the Academic Council. This 80 page document covers, with many graphs and tables, the value of higher education, national and state studies of access to and persistence in college, statistics on financial aid in Oregon and the impact of financial aid on college participation in Oregon. One of its recommendations is the move to state support for students at the 15% level. Once this goal is attained, OSAC recommends consideration of a merit-based program.

The second of Dave McDonald’s contributions was the announcement of “GEAR-UP (Gaining Early Awareness & Readiness for Undergraduate Programs)” - a 5 year, $12.4 million grant with a (mainly in-kind) match from a variety of partners. The grant will assist current middle and high school low income, diverse students make the transition into higher ed, in part by programs that would impact them now, and in part with scholarships that could be used anywhere. These students will hit the OUS pipeline in 5 to 6 years. Each OUS institution has been partnered on paper with high schools and middle schools in its vicinity that serve diverse, low income students. Activities cited in the Briefing Packet provided are “teacher professional development, implementation of standards, early outreach, partnership development, student academic development, use of state and national assessments and parental participation.”

 

Nancy Goldschmidt presented a brief report on the Lumina Project, that is developing policy and strategy ton the issues of access and affordability. There was a little comment on the affordability of OUS relative to the independents, with no concrete information presented.

 

The final item was a progress report on an Associate of Science/Oregon Transfer Degree in Business. A draft was provided of the course requirements for this transfer degree from community colleges directly into an OUS institution’s Business major. This generated some concrete discussion, particularly on the part of Provosts Moseley and Minahan, that the competitive nature of entry of OUS undergraduates into the Business major is not consistent with automatic transfer into the Business major of those with a community college associate degree.

 

The meeting closed with a reminder from Shirley Clark that of an upcoming joint meeting of the Academic Council with the community college Academic Council.

 

 

I can provide copies of the following to anyone interested:

            OSAC’s “COLLEGE ACCESS AND PERSISTENCE IN OREGON”, August 2002

            OUS’s “Admission Rates and College Success, 1996-97 through 2000-01”, May 2002

            OUS’s “Where Have Oregon’s Graduates Gone, Survey of the Oregon High School Graduating

Class of 2001”, July 19, 2002