ATTENDEES: Christiansen, Dean, Eberhart, Harrison, Kee, Mehta, Mitcham, Readey, Ross, Santi, Thiry, Voorhees, and Wolden

GUESTS: President John Trefny and Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) Nigel Middleton

REPORT FROM SENATE PRESIDENT - Readey

Readey made a report to the CSM Alumni Association that the faculty is not happy with the direction that the strategic plan is going and that the Senate had passed a resolution stating the fact. The Alumni Association had not been informed about the current status of the Strategic Plan.

Readey presented the Senate’s resolution regarding the strategic plan as stated in the August 19, 2003 Faculty Senate Minutes to President Trefny and all of the vice presidents. As a result of this resolution, the President requested time on today’s agenda to discuss this resolution and the Strategic Plan.

COMMENTS FROM GUESTS:

1. President Trefny regrets that there is a misinterpretation of the Strategic Plan. CSM will continue to be diverse and continue in the direction that President Ansell set in 1984 at the mandate of the Board of Trustees to change CSM from an undergraduate teaching institution to a renowned research institution that is known not only in Colorado but also throughout the world.

   President Trefny suggested that there is a need to get research momentum going again by establishing “mega” research centers and initiatives such as the Petroleum Institute (Abu Dabi) and CERI. CSM needs to establish a bigger base by increasing undergraduate enrollment to sustain it, especially inceased enrollment of out-of-state students. CSM needs to enlarge its infrastructure to support this. A large piece is to increase professional non-thesis degree programs such as the ETM program. This is only in its second year, but is one of the biggest graduate programs on campus. Not all of these programs would need to be delivered on campus. This is on the table to be studied.

   President Trefny said that “business as usual” will not allow this institution to survive. Cannot continue to depend on State support. CSM needs to build a systemic support for all the ambitions that CSM would like to have. According to CCHE’s latest numbers, CSM is about the same size as CU’s engineering program and CSU is about 50% as large.

   Bill Young, Director of Admissions, and Robert Moore, Vice President for Finance and Operations, have put together financial models that will be shared with various committees this year. Still have to look at many other pieces such as enrollment management, staffing profiles and other pieces before a decision is made as to whether or not CSM can indeed fulfill its ambitions.

   Senators’ Response:

   1. Eva Klein did not reflect what the faculty communicated to her last spring
   2. Strategic Plan flat lined PhDs; it does not indicate any room for growth in research nor does it encourage growth
   3. Instructing, budget, infrastructure all go hand-in-hand and cannot be separated
   4. CSM is not properly structured to handle students that it now has – some departmental student to faculty ratios are 40:1 and some are 1:1 – need to limit enrollment in programs that are overloaded
   5. Quality of professional degrees is very uncertain and is a major concern to a number of Senators
   6. The Strategic Plan appears to be based on revenues only. However, CSM cannot consider revenue without considering cost as well
2. VPAA Middleton will ask President Trefny to reconvene the Strategic Planning Committee. President Readey and VPAA will work together to put together the September Faculty Forum that will focus on issues regarding the Strategic Plan.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: The minutes of the August 19, 2003 Faculty Senate meeting were approved.

MUST DO ITEMS:

1. Committees/Representative and Chairs - Thiry
   1. Thiry will check with Carol Chapman, President’s Office, regarding vacancies on Student Board of Publications and the Diversity Committee.
   2. The Senators requested that Thiry notify the committee chairs as to who is serving on their committee.
2. Salary information
   1. Middleton suggested that the Faculty Affairs Committee contact the controller or Sharon Hart for this information.
   2. The Senators want aggregate information; not a list of individual salaries.
   3. Middleton indicated that the Faculty Salary Committee would be reinstated.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: The next Faculty Senate meeting will be September 16 at 2:00 pm. Lisa Dunn will explain copyright regulations.

The meeting adjourned at 3:50 PM.