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The Arts and Sciences Council and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Meeting, March 20, 2018, 3:30-5:00

Meeting Minutes

Representatives present: Julio Baena, SPAN; Christine Brennan, SLHS; Janice Brown, ALC; Barbara Buttenfield, GEOG; Brian Cadena, ECON; James Cowell, LING; Priscilla Craven, FRIT; Cathy Comstock, RAPS; Kim Dickey, AAH; Erica Ellingson, APS; David Ferris, HUMN; John Gibert, CLAS; David Grant, MATH; Kwame Holmes, ETHN; Leslie Irvine, SOCY; Janet Jacobs, WGST; Berit Jany, GSLL; Daniel Jones, HNRS; Joanna Lambert, ANTH; Julie Lundquist, ATOC; Ramesh Mallipeddi, ENGL; Stephen Mojzsis, GEOL; Yuko Munakata, PSYC; David Paradis, HIST; Lonni Pearce, PWR; Jason Potter (for David Boonin), PHIL; Patricia Rankin, PHYS; Kelly Sears, FILM; Ted Stark, THDN; David Stock, EBIO; Carol Wessman, ENVS; Ding Xue, MCDB

Representatives not present: Holly Gayley, RLST;  William Kleiber, APPM; Carl Koval, CHEM; Matt McQueen, IPHY;

Also in attendance: David Brown, Robert Ferry, ex officio, Amy Lavens, Laura Michaelis-Cummings, Kristy Tiampo, Loretta Wahl, Jim White

Stephen Mojzsis called the meeting to order at 3:34PM.

Chair’s remarks, Stephen Mojzsis

Professor Mojzsis has been in contact with the Provost concerning the timeline for the search for the new permanent dean. Originally, the timeline was promised in March; it has since been delayed. The Executive Committee will discuss the delay and be in contact with the ASC.

The Strategic Planning Committee is finishing its process and will be preparing a final report.  Professor Mojzsis will propose, at a future date, a new ad hoc committee be formed to discuss and review reorganization and restructuring of the College of Arts and Sciences. This new committee would have members from the Strategic Planning Committee, Academic Futures and additional members to insure the work of the SPC is implemented.

The College intends to form a committee on the status of instructors; more information will follow.

The election, or re-election, of the next chair of the ASC will be held April 17; Leslie Irvine is presiding and accepting nominations.

Dean’s remarks, Jim White

Dean White has been meeting with the BFA committee on instructors. 30% of the campus faculty are instructors and 1/2 of the student credit hours are taught by instructors so the many issues affecting them, governance, service load, parental leave, contracts, are of great importance to the college.

A committee is working to find a solution for the recent decision to remove course fees. More information can be found on the Budget & Fiscal Planning website.

The College’s Budget outlook, Amy Lavens, Assistant Dean Budget & Finance

Asst. Dean Lavens distributed handouts that showed the sources of funds on the Boulder campus, breaking apart the general fund and how the continuing base budget is distributed. Some key points:

• Approximately half of the Continuing Budget goes to administrative costs, half to the academic units.
• The Continuing Budget is affected by merit increases, the campus growth enrollment budget and DAICR
• The Budget Committee is looking at how other universities allocate funds.
• AD Lavens’ office wants to minimized overhead and increase "cost of goods sold" or the money going into what the academic units create.
• Grant money comes with funds for overhead that goes to the campus.
• Gift funds receive distributions from the endowments.
• The state no longer funds building
• The continuing budget is not based on the amount of students enrolled but uses a historic budget model.
• All continuing funds are allocated.
• Expenses exceed available funds; discrepancies paid by temporary money.
• Temporary budget is create through vacancy savings.
• The campus growth algorithm was changed by campus finance and lowered the amount of money received.

A general conversation ensued. Any further questions should go through the Budget Committee.

Guardian Scholars Program, Loretta Wahl, Director, TRiO Student Support Services and the Guardian Scholars program

The Guardian Scholars Program has been in existence since 2008 with a commitment to serving students who have been in foster care. It is a scholarship program available to students who have been homeless or been in foster care after the age of 13.

There are 20 students in the program, 5 new students came in this year and 3 graduated. Nationally, the graduation rate for students who have been in foster care is approximately 2%; the Guardian Scholars graduated approximately 70% of the students in their program.

The program provides community mentors; people in the area who committee to providing social support through the student’s college career.

The average GPA of the students in this program is 3.1. These are students with no safety net who often have younger siblings in foster care who they want to help.

The program can use help in by donations of money or time; the students would benefit from time spent with a faculty member discussing their discipline. Currently, in A&S, the Guardian Scholars has students in MCDB, IPHY, PSYC, SOCY and IAFS.  Faculty members are encouraged to join in the monthly community dinners or initiate a panel discussion on their discipline.

Parliamentarian of the ASC

A Motion: That we put forward nominations for Parliamentarian of the ASC at our annual March all-hands meetings, beginning with the present (March 20, 2018) assembly.

Professor Mojzsis nominated Barbara Buttenfield who is a previous chair of the ASC. Discussion and vote will take place at the April meeting.

Academic Futures, College Restructuring and the role of the ASC, David Paradis, Budget Committee

Dr. Paradis spoke about the inequity of the representation that the College of Arts and Sciences receives with the Provost by having only one dean for the college that represents over 60% of the university’s students. With the need for reinvigoration in the Arts and Humanities and the size of the Natural Sciences, more than one dean is needed to properly represent the college.

The Provost and Vice Chancellor have stated that any change must be initiated by the college. There is a widespread consensus that the college should be kept together while working to find a way to have more representation.

Restructuring the College, David Paradis

As a consequence of the Academic Futures project, several white papers have proposed significant changes to the ���������� Boulder’s “Academic Organization, Structure and Rewards.” Many of these proposals advocate either for increased interdisciplinary studies (Braider, Farmer, Hulden, Labio, Grabham, Geography, Chester) or for enhanced instruction in existing programs (Murray, Goodman, Coleman, MENV, Dike, Pflaum). Although several papers have suggested reorganizations at the campus level (Balch, Bowers, Klymkowsky, Wise, inherent conservatism) the Cumalat-Julian proposal document outlines a plan for reorganization of the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) and is therefore most relevant to the interests of the Arts & Sciences Council.

A fundamental assumption of Cumalat-Julian is that the CAS has become so large that any individual who occupies the position as its dean is “spread too thin.” Consequently, the dean often spends more time on issues of administration without knowing the details of the forty specific departments and programs in the CAS. By advocating for the elevation of the CAS divisional deans to have more autonomy and seats at the Provost’s Deans Council, Cumalat-Julien argues that the CAS would receive more proportional representation at the highest levels of the university. In addition, these three deans would be more familiar with the specifics of their various disciplines’ needs at the Divisional level (Social Sciences; Arts & Humanities; Natural Sciences).  Cumalat-Julian also proposes that a position of executive dean of CAS would be responsible for many of the “college infrastructure” issues: “Academic Advising and Student Success, Finance and Operations, Advancement, Undergraduate Education, Academic & Curricular Affairs, CAS Personnel Administration, Budget Office, Communications, the Financial Service Center, and Space Management and Construction.” This part of the proposal seems to need the most refinement, but a task force to investigate the proposal can determine that issue.

Aside from the key issue of representing the CAS more equitably, Cumalat-Julien advocates for an organizational structure that addresses key challenges facing the CAS. In addition to the proposals listed above, at least one other proposal emphasizes the need to reinvigorate the Humanities (AHUM), which has suffered serious declines in majors and credit hours in the last decade. Cumalat-Julian proposes giving the Humanities division its own seat at the Provost’s Deans Council, a move that will likely facilitate the reinvigoration of the Humanities. Apparently, this necessitates a new Division.

In conversations with both the Provost and the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, the administration stated that it would be willing to form a task force to investigate the merits of the Cumalat-Julien proposal by examining similar frameworks at other universities.  However, they were also clear that the CAS would have to request such an investigation before they would lend support for such an effort. Therefore, I am asking that the Arts & Sciences Council discuss the Cumalat-Julien proposal in order to consider having the Provost use the considerable resources at his disposal to organize such a task force.

Strategic Planning Committee, David Brown, chair SPC

The SPC has been talking to various stakeholders on the campus getting feedback on the Strategic Imperatives-what the committee expects to accomplish with the strategic plan. Professor Brown would like the ASC to go to the SPC website and answer 4 questions or write to him at david.s.brown@colorado.edu .

Professor Brown also asked that the departments be encouraged to participate.

On March 22, the conversation on the structure of the college will begin. The conversations will center on the following question: Will restructuring the college help or hinder us in what we want to do? 

Enhancing the College’s Inclusive Excellence, Daniel Jones, Chair Diversity

The Diversity is trying to better serve underrepresented students better through the Inclusive Excellence Initiative. After talking to various involved people on campus, the Diversity Committee decided they could provide the greatest amount of help in the space where students and faculty meet. The committee is looking at working within already existing structures like FIRPA, FCQ’s and FTEP workshops and collaborating with the BFA.

The assembled representatives shared various views on the challenge of better serving under-represented students.

On the radar

Ted Stark announced that Academic Futures have started to hold open houses; they are interested in feedback from the academic units. Watch your e-mails.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:00.

Minutes submitted by Janice Jeffryes