Institutional Planning Committee Minutes
September 10, 2003
The Faculty Senate’s Institutional Planning Committee held its first meeting of the Academic year on Sept 10, 2003.
Present were Jerry Siegrist, Kurt Kessler, Ruth Salter, Bruce Caster, Fred Ware, Michael Noll, Susan Wold, Blake Pearce, Russell Hoff, Linda Bennett-Elder, and Susan Thomas. Jennifer Paul served as recorder.
The chair welcomed new members Michael Noll from Arts and Sciences and the Chair Elect, Susan Wold from the College of Nursing, Russell Hoff from the College of Education, and Ruth Salter, Interim Director for Institutional Research and Policy Analysis. He also promised an exciting year. It was noted by Kurt Kessler that SGA would soon be having elections and would be assigning a student representative. Jeff Grant, COSA representative will join us for the next meeting.
The committee decided to meet in the VPSA ( room 1150) conference room in Nevins Hall on October 8th and November 12th and reaffirmed a starting time of 3:30 on Wednesdays, one week prior to the Faculty Senate meeting. The Chair also announced that the IPC Web Site was updated for this year and distributed the membership page for proofing.
The Chair and Ruth Salter gave an update on the first University Planning Advisory Council meeting on Tuesday, Sept 9th. Jerry distributed copies of the most recent Strategic Plan report, the selected Core Values from the meeting, and the proposed Mission Statement. He also reported briefly on the September Faculty Senate Executive Committee meeting and noted the steps taken to preserve the integrity of the university’s mission of teaching, scholarship, and service in an extremely "tight" fiscal environment.
The Mission Statement was discussed at some length, including questions about whether technology could be included under "innovation." Ruth Salter noted that previous Mission Statements were considerably longer and that the intent was to develop one that represented our core values as an institution. Bruce Caster rewrote the statement keeping the content intact but giving it what the committee felt was a smoother flowing statement.
The Chair has forwarded the following paragraph to Marsha Krotseng.
Valdosta State University is a student-centered learning community offering a personal approach to quality teaching, learning, research, and service to the South Georgia region and beyond. VSU provides opportunities and prepares graduates to meet the global challenges of tomorrow in a diverse, collaborative environment that is committed to innovation and continuous improvement informed by data.
The Master Planning Committee was discussed and the election of a member of the University Planning Committee, Bob Bauer, to it. Kurt Kessler provided a description of the role of the Master Planning Committee and its relationship to the UPAC.
The group discussed its focus for the year, and decided that it should continue to be an instrument for providing feedback to the Planning Council and other committees, and that the role of the Chair was to provide current information from UPAC and the Faculty Executive Committee on a timely basis.
The Chair noted that the IPC Bylaws as revised last February are on the Website and encouraged the committee and, especially, its new members to review it. We will finalize it in October.
Fred Ware noted that the Regents are meeting at VSU in October and suggested that it was important to make them feel welcome.
Respectfully submitted,
Jerry Siegrist, Chair.