Report to the Faculty Senate
Institutional Planning Committee
November 17, 2004
Present: Richard Schmertzing, A. Blake Pearce, Joan Futch, Alan Bernstein, Linda Bennett Elder, Mike Holland, Fred Ware, Michael Noll, Marsha Krotseng, and Ruth Salter. Chuck Hudson attended as an invited guest.
Meeting was called to order at 4:00 pm.
The IPC met for the third time in the academic year 2004-2005. At the meeting, the new member Alan Bernstein (Library) was welcomed to the group, Michael Noll reported on the Executive Committee meeting from November 4, and Ruth Salter reported on the UPAC meeting from November 3.
As a first point of discussion, Mr. Hudson explained potential ways to improve the use of BANNER for Advising and Wait-listing. In response to the IPC’s recommendations from the meeting last month, Mr. Hudson has already put into motion BANNER
improvements which will give advisors more information to use in the advising process, such as the information whether or not a particular student has successfully applied for graduation. Next, Mr. Hudson discussed the possibilities to create wait-lists in BANNER. These could be used as a way to track students who want to register for a class that is full, and to see how many people have submitted their names for the wait-list to allow department heads to add sections for high demand courses. However, it was pointed out that this feature could potentially create unrealistic expectations for students, and that it prevents students from registering for classes that conflict with the wait-list class. The IPC members expressed appreciation for Mr. Hudson's time and efforts to move immediately toward enhancing BANNER’s capabilities, and for continuing to consider additional improvements to BANNER.Another point of discussion was the report on the first meeting of the Communication Task Force from November 16. In its initial discussions, representatives from the students, faculty, and staff shared their specific views on and experiences with communication problems at VSU. Among other things, it was mentioned that too often changes occur in the interpretation of issues from initial source to end receiver (i.e. what people hear in official meetings does not get accurately shared with persons not attending the official meetings / the "telephone –game"). In addition, the question of accountability came up as it is not always clear who the appropriate contact person is regarding specific issues. At its next meeting the Communication Task Force will continue its discussions with the goal of developing action steps that will address communication problems at VSU, so that the task force can eventually make recommendations on how to improve the flow of information between the various structures in our community.
As a final point of discussion, the IPC revisited the issue of Summer Schools in the light of the current budget situation. The IPC would like to strongly encourage department heads and deans to collect data about denials to support the thoughtful and fiscally sound creation of additional summer course sections. In this context it was also pointed out that
particularly teachers desperately need certain courses in the summer and/or students whose graduation otherwise might be delayed due to the lack of course offerings. The IPC also addressed the need for an official source to better explain the VSU funding process for summer schools to the VSU community (i.e. from an accountant's point of view it seems counterproductive to limit the amount of cash flow by reducing the summer teaching by 15% across the board, instead of only cutting courses that don't show enough enrollment and therefore do not provide enough cash flow in terms of tuition and fees).Meeting adjourned at 5:10 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael G. Noll, Chair.