I. Roll Call.

Present: Bange, Barmore, Duquette, Grant, Heim, Hench, S. Kelly, Kraemer, R. LeDocq, Majak, Monte, L. Nelson, Nyatepe-Coo, Prucha, D. Riley, P. Taylor, Vogt, Voiku, Wingate

Excused: VanVoorhis

II. Approval of Minutes. The minutes of the February 24, 2000, meeting were approved as distributed.

III. Reports.

A.  Chancellor’s Report:  There was no Chancellor's report.

B.   Provost/Vice Chancellor’s Report:  There was no Provost/Vice Chancellor's report.
 
C.   Chair/Faculty Representative's Report:  There was no Chair/Faculty Representative's Report

IV.    A presentation on UW-L's EM 21 plan by Chancellor Kuipers and Provost/Vice Chancellor Hastad.

Chancellor Kuipers, Provost Hastad and Chief Financial Office Lostetter joined the Senate to explain the new enrollment management plan, EM 21. The presentation included a video that will be shown to the Board of Regents as well as more specific details of the plan.

Provost Hastad began by outlining the history of enrollment management in UW-System in general and UW-La Crosse specifically. This is the fourth enrollment management plan since 1987. EM 1, in which the goal was to reduce enrollment in the System by approximately 5%, began in the fall of 1987. During this time, UW-L reduced enrollments by approximately 10.3% from 9111 to 8177. EM 2 began in the fall of 1991. This time the System goal was to reduce enrollment by another 5.3%. UW-L reduced enrollment by another 3.4% during this plan, from 8177 to 7902. For EM 3, which began in the fall of 1995, System requested an increase in GPR funding that resulted in a large decrease instead.  During this time, UW-L was able to earn in excess of $1 million a year by exceeding enrollment targets and the base budget increased by $1.2 million. Despite this, GPR support per student at UW-L has been second from the bottom in the System (UW-Whitewater is the only campus below us). The goal for EM 21 is to maintain quality and increase support per student on our campus. We will do this by modestly reducing enrollment over the next 6 years and raise additional funds with special programs.

The senators then watched the video presentation that will be seen by the Board of Regents.

Ron Lostetter, Chief Financial Officer, then gave the senators the details and implications of the EM 21 plan. Currently, UW-La Crosse's per student funding is $300 less than comparable UW-System schools. The UW-La Crosse plan includes a phased reduction of 350 FTE students over the next 6 years. As part of this process, the campus will try to increase the number of out-of-state students by approximately 50 FTE and create special programs to enroll 100 additional FTE. In these special programs, we can charge what the market will bear and keep the resources that are generated.

With this reduction in enrollment, UW-System and the state are allowing us to keep a portion of the funding for these students. The effect will be that our per student funding will increase from $6500 to $6800, putting us at the average of comparable institutions in the state (Whitewater, Eau Claire, Stevens Point and Oshkosh). A spreadsheet was distributed to the senators outlining the funding implications of the plan. There will be a $750,000 loss of revenue from the decrease in numbers of students, but we recover approximately $552,000 from the additional out-of-state and special program students. It was pointed out that this is actually a very conservative estimate and we could very well recover all of the funds in this way. The bottom line is that there will be approximately $2.4 million available for possible reallocation on campus.

The floor was then opened for discussion. The discussion included the following questions and concerns.

• Will there be a problem with our decreasing the number of Wisconsin students while adding out-of-state student? It was pointed out that some of these students could be international students. This would fit well with the System plan. In addition, with special programs we can attract non-traditional students and increase access for this type of student.
• It was brought up that the phased reductions were not mapped to demographics in any way. It may be more difficult in some years to meet that plan, but our targets can always be adjusted.
• It was mentioned during the presentation that one result of this plan could be more investment in faculty. It was asked what this means. It was stated that the plan could result in dollars to help with compression, faculty development and a change in the student/faculty ratio.
• The Chancellor informed the Senate that UW-L is one of only two campuses that are reducing enrollments in EM 21.
• It was mentioned that if we reduce the number of students as indicated (approximately a 4% reduction) while receiving no new dollars, it seems the only way to provide increased support is to also reduce staff by 4%. In response it was stated that there may be some change in personnel, but they are not making the assumption that this is the only way to get increased support.
• The last point brought up the issue of position allocation within the system. UW-L is currently 39 GPR positions above what we are allowed as of January 1. There are approximately 400 instructional FTE on campus and we have 769 authorized GPR positions. So this is not a faculty issue alone. It is a System wide problem as well. The administration is not planning on reducing faculty or positions. They are not worrying about keeping the positions that we have. The concern is in being able to increase positions for special programs.
• The Provost indicated that in many cases, the special programs are not that far from what we are already doing. He pointed out that many of the programs that we already have could count as special programs if they are taught at night, off campus or using distance education.

Chair Bange indicated that there are actually two recommendations to consider.

M/S/P (by voice vote) to approve the nominations of Steve Brokaw  (Marketing), Tom Gendreau (Computer Science), Lise Graham  (Finance), Tom Hench  (Management), Akorlie Nyatepe-Coo (Economics) to the Search and Screen for the Dean of the College of Business Administration.

M/S/P (by voice vote) to approve the nominations of  Gerry Cox  (Sociology & Archaeology), Jonathan Majak (Ethnic & Racial Studies),  Laura Nelson  (Communication Studies), Sarah Shillinger (Ethnic & Racial Studies), Bart VanVoorhis (Psychology) to the Search and Screen for the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Studies.

VI. A proposal from the PTS Committee on faculty emeriti.

Chair Bange indicated that there is currently no list of emeriti priviledges. This proposal is an attempt to create such a list. The discussion included the following comments/concerns.

• The proposal indicates that faculty emeriti would have access to the general access labs located in Murphy Library. It was asked why other general access labs were not mentioned. The response was that it may interfere with student access.
• A concern was expressed about parking privileges given the limited space available. It was indicated that emeriti faculty already have this privilege.
• There was a request for clarification on the point of allowing the retention of the use of the University Master Card. Provost Hastad indicated that this may not be possible depending on the agreement with Master Card.
• There was some discussion of the 50% reduction in the faculty cost for using recreational facilities, tickets for athletic events and lecture and concerts. It was indicated that the university benefits from having the emeriti faculty participate in these events. In addition, emeriti faculty really support the Foundation and we benefit from this.
• A suggestion was made that some office space, computers and mailboxes by made available for emeriti faculty in the Cleary Alumni building.

VII. A report on the state of Undergraduate Research at UW-L.

Aaron Monte, Chair of the Undergraduate Research Committee, gave a brief report to the Senate. He stated that undergraduate research is stronger than it's ever been. The committee is about a year and a half old, but operated on an ad hoc basis for two years before this. The committee currently oversees the following.

• Student Research Grants Program (initiated spring '97)
• "Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creativity" (initiated spring '98)
• UW-L Journal of Undergraduate Research (initiated summer '98)
• UW-System Symposium for Undergraduate Research (initiated spring '99)
• Undergraduate Research Committee Website (initiated fall '99)

VIII. Old Business.   There was no old business.

IX. New Business.   There was no new business.

X. Adjournment.  The meeting adjourned at approximately 4:55 p.m.
 

Rebecca Lewin LeDocq, Secretary