The meeting was called to order by Vice Chair Howell at 3:02 p.m. in the College of Law, Room 146.

Present: Senators Baca, Burd, Chapman, Christenson, Conway, Cromwell, D. Davis, G. Davis, Eddy, Garcia, Gruener, Hancock, Hildebrand, Howell, Jones, Kiefer, Kinney, Larson, Marchalonis, Mitchell, Mitchneck, Mountford, Patterson, Pintozzi, Powell, San Martin, Silverman, Smith, Songer, Spece, Sterling, Strittmatter, Swanson, Tomanek, Willerton, Witte, Zizza and Zwolinski. Robert Sankey served as Parliamentarian.

Absent: Senators Bixby Brobbel, Bui, Chandler, Cusanovich, Dahlgran, Garrett, Jenkins, Joens, Likins, Pitt, St. John, Tatman, Timmermann, Ulreich, Vierling, Weinand, and Worle.

There were no speakers for the Open Session.

ASUA President Chapman reported that ASUA’s primary election generated a turnout of 3,580 voters, which is 10% of eligible voters and higher than 1989 which was the highest turnout to date. Provost Davis and former ASUA President and current Student Regent Ben Graff co-moderated a debate between the presidential candidates. ASUA and the Arizona Students Association (ASA) continue to work to overcome barriers to increasing the Arizona Financial Aid Trust (AFAT) which provides financial aid for need-based scholars. ASUA is continuing to lobby the Regents about tuition increases. Arizona Athletics is establishing a student section in the McKale Arena.

Senator James Eddy III, substituting for President Brobbel who is ill today, announced that GPSC recently held a successful GPSC Social for 280 graduate students. GPSC’s Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week will be held April 8-12. To date, GPSC has received 130 nominations for GPSC achievement awards, which is at least 50 more than last year’s total. GPSC is sponsoring an interdisciplinary symposium on medical liability on Saturday, March 5, 2005 in the College of Law:

No report.

Vice Chair Howell announced the results of the online voting for the General Faculty Primary Election. A total of 404 votes were received out of 2117 active faculty, representing a 14.8% turnout of the total voting faculty which includes 616 emeritus. The percent of votes is nearly double last year’s turnout. She congratulated the 15 re-elected senators-at-large and thanked them for running and announced that five new senators-at-large will be joining the Senate in May. Robert Mitchell, who resigned as Secretary of the Faculty in order to run for Vice Chair, submitted an unopposed petition for the general (second) election. Senator Jennifer Jenkins, who is on sabbatical, submitted an unopposed petition to run for Secretary of the Faculty. The Committee on Elections has therefore declared them elected. No additional petitions were received for the remaining slot on Committee on Committees, therefore no general election is necessary.

Chair Hancock congratulated the elected officers and senators-at-large and said he was grateful for a full slate in almost every category. The Higher Education restructuring workgroup has concluded that the best way for the universities to handle variable and unpredictable demographic projections is to "expand on demand." The Board of Regents will now conduct public forums on the revised proposal: there are still five weeks left to respond. ASU, he further explained, is going to differentiate by schools, rather than campuses, so the same degrees may be offered at all or several of its campuses, but the degrees will not be identical. Chair Hancock suggested that the Senate invite Dr. Tony Estrada, Chair of the Strategic Planning and Budget Advisory Committee to report to the Senate in April, and to distribute the "Tracking of Proposals to the Faculty Senate or SPBAC" to the Senate so that everyone is aware of the Senate’s relationship to SPBAC. He also suggested several other potential visitors to the Senate including Steven Mack, Director of Purchasing, Leslie Tolbert, Chair of the Financial Support Services Review team, and Janet Bingham and Kate Jensen of University Advancement.

Provost Davis thanked ASUA for inviting him to co-moderate the ASUA presidential debates, which attracted over 200 students and reporters, and presented an array of thoughtful questions to the carefully prepared and polished candidates. Today he attended a "topping out" ceremony, in which the highest girder was placed on the BIO5 structure; completion is still one year away. This facility will attract high quality scholars of vision to engage in research in medicine, science, engineering, agriculture and life sciences, as well as outstanding students who will benefit. Later this week, ABOR will receive a report evaluating the first three years of the Technology and Research Initiative Fund (TRIF 2002-04). The tuition decisions that ABOR will make later this week are of singular importance as each University is submitting a different proposal; UA’s proposal calls for a freeze on UA South tuition. The Board will discuss and act on program fees at its April meeting. Academic Council has met with Gwendolyn Johnson, Director of the Office of Institutional Research and Evaluation, who is gathering metrics to interpret UA’s excellence between departments here and nationwide in order to provide more effective support to colleges which is critically important to incentivize continuing research and scholarship. President Likins is in Phoenix today meeting with the Hispanic Coalition and discussing medicine and research in Maricopa County. The higher education workgroup’s "expand on demand" strategy will allow UA the opportunity to be smart, active and accurate in identifying and defining its fundamental mission. The public doesn’t recognize that the University’s research scholarship has a tremendous influence on Arizona’s quality of life and is closely tied to the economics of the state. The UA’s impact on the nation and the world is great and we need to describe it more effectively.

Senator Mitchneck asked Provost Davis to discuss the urgency of reviewing our instructional costs given the decreased funding and the increased demand for classes, and whether there will be reallocation. Provost Davis responded that there are five areas of budget challenges that he classifies as "uncontrollables," such as rising overhead costs, utilities, employee benefits such as healthcare and retirement, infrastructure, and the interplay between financial aid/tuition and the instructional costs of achieving course availability despite the past 5 years’ budget reductions and rescissions. While some savings from vacancies accrue in the Provost’s Office, the most that has been realized was in 1993-94 when Provost Sypherd decentralized college budgets. Compounding the problem of the increased demand for course availability is the slow growth rate on new instructional dollars and the slow rising slope of grant funding. Because of caps on majors, particularly in Eller, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences is gaining in enrollment and demand for classes, but struggling to maintain faculty in the face of these eroding funds and raids on faculty. Demand for service courses is also impacting the College of Humanities, which teaches everyone’s students. Furthermore, more majors outside of Science are requiring students to take classes in science and more engineering degrees are beginning to require a year of biology. Provost Davis wants to explore how to gain efficiencies within the system with deans and department heads, such as correlating teaching loads with research activity, limiting low-enrollment graduate seminars in the face of increased demand for fundamentals courses, or teaching across colleges. SBS and COH have helped the UA to achieve excellent advances in recruiting women and minority faculty; however, there is also a need to hire specialists. The Department of English has been reduced to one Shakespearean scholar. Reallocation is difficult to predict and will depend on President Likins’ decision, but there will probably be some reallocation, some of which could be driven by accreditations, APR’s and recruitment appointments. There will probably be efforts to increase revenue streams by raising summer school tuition rates and increasing grants and gifts. Central administration’s budgets have been significantly impacted so as to keep the academic budgets intact. Provost Davis emphasized that there will be no backing away from the centralized approach to investment. For the Provost to modestly sweep lines across colleges to reallocate may be necessary for his office to be able to act. Senator Mitchneck commented that it is important that SPBAC visit the Senate to discuss the financial situation as soon as possible.

The minutes of February 14, 2005 were approved.

Student Affairs Policy Committee Chair Don Davis explained that the interim Graduate Student Grievance Policy returns as a seconded motion [Motion 2004/05-31] and opened the floor for discussion. Associate Graduate College Dean Dianne Horgan explained that the interim policy precisely explains the process for filing a formal grievance process, the timetable, the composition of a standing hearing committee and a description of a formal grievance hearing. Senators’ questioned how the policy determines the start date of the grievance and whether students are notified by mail. Dean Horgan clarified that the grievance begins when the head of the unit receives the written complaint and that the appeal clock starts when the student receives the unit head’s response via certified letter. Motion passed.

Consent agenda item 1, detailed at the end of these minutes [Motion 2004/05-34], was approved. Items 2, 3, and 4, [Motions 2004/05-35 to 37] were removed from Consent Agenda.  Associate Graduate Dean Horgan explained that the text written under the "Description" heading of each item is the language as it will appear in the catalog. Changing the ten-year rule to be five years is an effort to improve currency of knowledge. Some senators believe this change will increase the number of petitions and that having to take the Comprehensive Exam again will be a deterrent to students whose knowledge is current anyway because they have been working in the field. Dean Horgan responded that many universities nationwide have adopted the five-year rule. Item 2 [Motion 2004/05-35] passed with four opposed and one abstention. Item 3 [Motion 2004/05-36] passed with one opposed and two abstentions. Item 4 [Motion 2004/05-37] passed with one abstention.

Provost Davis and Vice Provost for Instruction Jerry Hogle distributed the Provost’s Interim "Guidelines and Protocols on Requests for Differential Program Fees." Although ABOR already had some criteria in place, these guidelines and criteria have been developed by the Academic Council’s ad hoc Subcommittee on Differential Tuition, with input from ASUA and SPBAC. Provost Davis noted that with the "Changing Directions" initiative and the change to allow differential tuition rates, ABOR is more receptive to differential program fees for graduate and professional programs. For a number of UA’s national peer institutions, program fees are a reality. Program fees are a set amount of money in addition to tuition paid by all students in a certain department for that department’s extra costs such as laboratories, technicians, equipment depreciation or faculty salaries. Program fees are proposed by deans and must be approved by the Provost, President, and the Board of Regents. Program fee distribution typically involves 10% for the Provost’s office, 15% for financial aid, and the rest goes to the colleges. Tuition waivers only cover base tuition, not program fees. Senators’ questions and comments included 1) Is this a policy? These guidelines, while not yet a policy, are now a recommendation for wide vetting throughout the campus community. If the Senate wishes to make this a policy, it can do so. 2) What if 10% for central administration is not enough? A tracking/adjusting process must be in place to be certain that funds are not drained from central administration. 3) Who makes the decisions about need-based or merit-based financial aid for graduate students? The unit, in consultation with the dean, will make decisions about how to distribute aid to students in that program in ways that are compatible with UA policies. With differential tuition for undergraduates, however, the Vice President for Enrollment Management will receive the 15% to distribute. 4) How many programs currently charge program fees? College of Public Health, Pharmacy, Nursing, Law, Eller and the School of Information Resources and Library Science currently have program fees. Undergraduate programs in Eller, Engineering and Architecture are currently proposed for differential tuition. 5) What happens if a student leaves a program? If the student leaves the program early, such as within two weeks, then the program fee would most likely be refunded. 6) Course fees have also increased dramatically: students would appreciate knowing that more stringent controls will be implemented to control course fees. The University Fees Committee manages course fees and is attempting to be certain that cutbacks don’t impact students. Both NAU and ASU have long lists of course fees. 7) Hopefully as we interact with students about course and program fees, a generation of voters and taxpayers will be created who understand the costs associated with higher education.

The Senate recessed at 4: 43 PM to go into Executive Session.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:01 PM.

Robert P. Mitchell, Secretary

Appendix*

Motion 2004/05-31 Return of the seconded motion from the Student Affairs Policy Committee to approve the proposed Graduate Student Grievance Policy dated March 2004, which has been in effect as an interim policy. Motion carried.

Motion 2004/05-34 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee to approve the reorganization of the Optical Sciences Center as the College of Optical Sciences. Motion carried.

Motion 2004/05-35 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee to approve a change in the Graduate College Policies/Catalog changing the time to degree for doctoral degree as follows: "All requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy must be completed within 5 years of passing the Comprehensive Exam. Should a student not finish within that time period, he or she may be allowed to re-take the Comprehensive Exam with permission of the program." Motion carried.

Motion 2004/05-36 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee to approve a change in the Graduate College Policies/Catalog changing the composition of dissertation committees as follows: "The Graduate College requires a minimum of three members from the major, all of whom must be tenured or tenure-track or approved as equivalent. Many departments also require participation of faculty from the minor, in which case one member may be a special member. If a committee has only three members, all must approve the dissertation. In departments that require four or five members, there may be one dissenting vote. All dissertation members are expected to attend the final defense." Motion carried.

Motion 2004/05-37 Seconded motion from the Instruction and Curriculum Policy Committee to approve a change in the Graduate College Policies/Catalog allowing the authority to block non-degree students from registration as follows: "Non-degree students whose GPA falls below 3.0 for more than two semesters may be blocked from further enrollment." Motion carried.