January 17, 2002

Conference Call

Campus Members Present OUS Staff Present  Shirley Clark, Chair Jim Arnold Burr Betts, EOU Andy Duncan Bob Burton, OSU (for Tim White) Nancy Goldschmidt Lorraine Davis, UO Grattan Kerans Lesley Hallick, OHSU Dave McDonald Sara Hopkins-Powell, SOU Yvette Webber-Davis George Kartsounes, OIT  John Minahan, WOU  Mary Kathryn Tetreault, PSU

Guest Present  Bob Turner, WOU, IFS

The meeting was called to order by Shirley Clark at 10:05 a.m.

1. Announcements

Clark opened the meeting by requesting that George Kartsounes update the Council on recent developments at OIT. Kartsounes reported that, about three months ago, OIT was approached by a large corporation in the region with the offer of $75 million in endowment funds (which, eventually, could total up to $100 million), that would involve OIT making the move from its current status as a public institution to a private one. President Dow will update the Board on this development tomorrow at the Executive Committee meeting and seek permission to continue evaluating the impact of this conditional gift. An important question in this scenario is: would it be possible for OIT to make such a transition and allow this private source of funds to make up for a loss in state support? President Dow led an all-campus three-hour meeting on Tuesday with widespread participation of faculty, students, and staff. At that time she stressed that this was far from a done deal. Local legislators, as well as others, though, have expressed tentative support for exploring this idea, and Dow has spoken with many of the Board members about this already. Many want the campus to further pursue an evaluation of this generous offer. When asked about student and community college reaction to the proposal, Kartsounes expressed the belief that both Klamath Community College and its students would benefit. OIT would necessarily have to raise its tuition in a move to private status and hence there would exist a larger tuition differential between OIT and Klamath Community College as a result (compared to the present situation). Kartsounes estimated that OIT would need to raise tuition about 10% per year for a few years to eventually get to a target tuition rate. Clark thanked Kartsounes for the report and anticipates many questions by the Board members at tomorrow's meeting.

2. Minutes of the December 20, 2001, Academic Council Meeting

The minutes of the December 20, 2001, meeting of the Academic Council were approved as submitted.

3. January Board Meeting Agenda/Issues

Clark indicated that there will be an abbreviated meeting of the Board Executive Committee tomorrow, along with an afternoon meeting of the full Joint Boards. It was originally anticipated that the Governor may have his next budget proposal ready by this meeting, although chances for that seem remote at the present time. Also on the agenda are the OSU audit process and the presentation by OIT President Dow on possible privatization. Clark wanted to make sure that provosts understand they are welcome to attend the meetings tomorrow. The Joint Boards meeting will focus on a variety of workforce and K-16 issues, including information management mechanisms for CIM/CAM/PASS. State economists will be on hand to provide a framework for the workforce discussion.

Clark indicated that there has been much attention lately to the shortages in both nursing and teaching. Holly Zanville has just completed a draft report on teacher supply and demand that will be shared with provosts soon. Although the OUS production of degrees in education was up last year, in reality the number is about the same as it was four years ago. This finding suggests that the workforce supply and demand issues need to be viewed in a broader context. The current, bleak unemployment picture for the state of Oregon must be considered. Clark anticipates an interesting discussion, with Board members seeking to know what they can do.

4. Proposed New Programs

PSU Ph.D. in Mathematics

Mary Kay Tetreault introduced this program proposal by stating that she recently received an e-mail from Tim White indicating that the math department at OSU had not had sufficient time to analyze and respond to PSU's proposal. Tetreault suggested, therefore, that this item be deferred until the February Academic Council meeting. Bob Burton thanked Tetreault for this consideration and assured the group that the OSU math department chair would soon be conferring with the PSU math department on this matter. Lorraine Davis stated that this deferral would allow UO more time to respond as well. Tetreault indicated that PSU had recently developed a table that illustrated the relationship between programs; the table will be distributed to Council members prior to the February meeting.

PSU Graduate Certificates

* Real Estate Development

Tetreault then turned to discussion of three proposed graduate certificate programs, the first of which is in real estate development, to be offered by the College of Urban and Public Affairs. This program, intended for real estate professionals in order to enhance an interdisciplinary set of skills, draws on currently offered courses and would help developers with the complex issues in existence today. This is a program that is considered important to the urban community.

* Addictions Counseling

This certificate program would be part of the counseling curriculum in the School of Education. Tetreault indicated that there is a demonstrated need for counselors at the master's level who possess a specialty in assisting individuals with substance abuse issues. When questioned about who is eligible to seek such certification, Tetreault indicated that the proposal called for those PSU graduate students who wanted to add this to their master's studies as well as others from the agency community who would desire such a certificate. Some concern was expressed by Council members over the vagueness of the eligibility criteria for admission to the certificate program. If not already a (master's) counseling student at PSU, what credentials must be demonstrated in order to seek this certification? Clark requested that this issue be researched and clarified in a subsequent version of the proposal.

* Marriage and Family Counseling

Tetreault indicated that this certificate program would address a shortage of, and need for, counselors in this area. It would only be open to those enrolled in the counseling master's program. Davis indicated the desire to have the UO marriage and family therapy program acknowledged in the PSU proposal and Tetreault indicated that this would be done in a revised proposal by February 1.

Tetreault indicated her understanding that it is acceptable to proceed toward Board approval of the Real Estate and Marriage and Family Counseling programs; she will seek additional answers to questions about the Addictions Counseling program and contact Clark with that information.

5. Legislative Update

Grattan Kerans joined the meeting in progress and spoke to the latest developments in the efforts to balance the state budget. The Governor and legislature are in the middle of this process, with a recent legislative proposal to reduce the budget deficit by $240 million, of which the OUS share would be $24.8 million. This would be a net $60 million reduction, or reduce the OUS shortfall from 10.4% to 7.2%. Information about this process has been shared with institution presidents. The legislative leaders' proposal is going to the Governor today; the Governor has delayed, until at least next week, the release of his own plan for budget balancing. Under the present proposal, which is a moving target, the Cascades campus would continue, albeit with at 7% reduction in funding. The legislature is aiming at a special session sometime in February (date still undetermined), and is taking a pragmatic approach; they are working on creating a plan that they can agree on in a one-day session. With respect to the impact of the hypothetical 7.2% cut, Paula Rustan of the Chancellor's Office has recently sent out spreadsheets to reflect the individual-campus impact. 6. Update: Internship Definition Project and Other Performance-Related Issues

Nancy Goldschmidt first reminded provosts that the due date for the collegial scoring of performance indicators, relative to performance funding, is January 25, 2002. Two campuses have responded so far.

Goldschmidt indicated that she faxed a short document to Council members yesterday regarding "defining an internship" and "data elements for determining liability for student interns." The group working on these issues has met twice. The components for the definition are:

* direct application of academic knowledge and skills in a work setting (outside of regular classroom),

* experiential and participatory,

* approved by academic body and part of a program of studies (required or optional),

* academic credit awarded,

* two supervisors (faculty advisor/coordinator and on-site supervisor),

* identifies skill set/outcomes to be attained, and

* final product includes assessment of outcomes.

With respect to this definition, the "academic credit awarded" element did not achieve consensus: OSU took exception because of the MECOP program in engineering.

A coding system for internships was also proposed, with "P" indicating an OUS internship and "E" another form of experiential/cooperative education. Bob Kieran of OUS Institutional Research Services was part of the coding-development process. What this system would mean is that because no credit is awarded for MECOP participants, such students would have to be coded "E," with no state funds awarded for these types of internships.

Burton thought that this was likely an acceptable system to OSU; however, he would like to talk to the registrars more about this before expressing a final opinion. Another provost stated that he would like to see this definition run against current credit hours. Could we see a model of this? How big is this? What is at stake? Goldschmidt replied that since the internships are not now coded, it is unlikely that we can make such estimates. Clark agreed that a hurdle to any modeling in this area is an inadequate database.

Turning to the liability issue, Clark reminded the Council of SB 325, the passage of which mandated liability coverage for OUS students in off-campus activities; risk management is the issue. The effort here is designed to develop more information about students in off-campus activities and determine who is covered and who is not. How many students are involved and where are they? Inexpensive insurance needs to be obtained for those lacking coverage. Tetreault indicated that this was a very important issue for PSU, and Dave McDonald indicated that this is also an important issue for the Student Affairs Council as they are grappling with the question of coverage for student organizations. In the Student Affairs Council discussions, it was determined that liability is more related to the nature of the activity (that students are involved in) rather than organizational structure. At the present time, there are some instances where the placement of interns is not possible because of the absence of liability insurance. In order to obtain this insurance when not provided by other sources, OUS has to ask the campuses about the nature and scope of activity. Goldschmidt will meet with Ben Rawlins and Elizabeth Dickenson as soon as possible to reach consensus on necessary information elements to be sought from the campuses.

7. Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 11:00 a.m. in order to join the Administrative Council for a conference call discussion on tuition policy.

Submitted by Jim Arnold

Office of Academic Affairs/OUS

January 22, 2002