THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
T H E S E N A T E R E C O R D
Volume 35-----JANUARY 29, 2002-----Number 4
The Senate Record is the official publication of the University Faculty Senate of The Pennsylvania State University, as provided for in Article I, Section 9 of the Standing Rules of the Senate and contained in the Constitution, Bylaws, and Standing Rules of the University Faculty Senate, The Pennsylvania State University 2001-02.
The publication is issued by the Senate Office, 101 Kern Graduate Building, University Park, PA 16802 (Telephone 814-863-0221). The Record is distributed to all Libraries across the Penn State system, and is posted on the Web at http://www.psu.edu/ufs under publications. Copies are made available to faculty and other University personnel on request.
Except for items specified in the applicable Standing Rules, decisions on the responsibility for inclusion of matters in the publication are those of the Chair of the University Faculty Senate.
When existing communication channels seem inappropriate, Senators are encouraged to submit brief letters relevant to the Senate's function as a legislative, advisory and forensic body to the Chair for possible inclusion in The Senate Record.
Reports which have appeared in the Agenda of the meeting are not included in The Record unless they have been changed substantially during the meeting or are considered to be of major importance. Remarks and discussion are abbreviated in most instances. A complete transcript and tape of the meeting is on file. Individuals with questions may contact Dr. Susan C. Youtz, Executive Secretary, University Faculty Senate.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Final Agenda for January 29, 2002
A. Summary of Agenda Actions
B. Minutes and Summaries of Remarks
II. Enumeration of Documents
A. Documents Distributed Prior to
January 29, 2002
Attendance
III. Tentative Agenda for February 26, 2002
FINAL AGENDA FOR JANUARY 29, 2002
A. MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING –
Minutes of the December 4, 2001 Meeting in The Senate Record 35:3
B. COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE - Senate Curriculum Report
C. REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL - Meeting of January 15, 2002
D. ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR -
E. COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY -
F. FORENSIC BUSINESS –
G. UNFINISHED BUSINESS -
Committees and Rules
Changes in Constitution, Article II, Section 5; Standing Rules, Article II,
Section 6(e)1; and Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(f)1
H. LEGISLATIVE REPORTS -
I. ADVISORY/CONSULTATIVE REPORTS –
J. INFORMATIONAL REPORTS –
Admissions, Records, Scheduling and Student Aid
Change in Campus Location to University Park
Faculty Affairs
Best Practices for Recruitment and Retention of Women And Minority Faculty
Libraries
Trends in the University Libraries’ Budget Allocation
Outreach Activities
Update on the Status of Penn State’s World Campus
Senate Council
University Faculty Census Report – 2002-03
Report on Fall 2001 Campus Visits
University Planning
Update on Classroom Conditions
K. NEW LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS -
L. COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE
UNIVERSITY -
M. ADJOURNMENT -
SUMMARY OF AGENDA ACTIONS
The Senate passed one legislative report:
Committees and Rules – “Changes in Constitution, Article II, Section 5; Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(e)1; and Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(f)1.” This legislative report changes the Constitution to allow for retired faculty Senators to serve on the Senate Committees on Faculty Affairs and Faculty Benefits. (See Record, page(s) 11 and Agenda Appendix “B.”)
The Senate heard seven informational reports:
Admissions, Records, Scheduling and Student Aid – “Change of Campus Location to University Park.” This report gives an overview of enrollment trends at the campus colleges. With the creation of the campus college structure, new baccalaureate degree offerings at the campuses make it possible for students to pursue academic programs of their choice and to move among the campuses of the University. (See Record, page(s) 12-13 and Agenda Appendix “C.”)
Faculty Affairs – “Best Practices for Recruitment and Retention of Women and Minority Faculty.” This is a summary of faculty by gender and rank and other demographic data. Strategies for conducting effective searches, climate improvement for retention and administrative accountability are emphasized in this report. (See Record, page(s) 13-18 and Agenda Appendix “D.”)
Libraries – “Trends in the University Libraries’ Budget Allocation.” This report contains information on electronic resource expenditures, endowments, service trends, staffing changes and the movement of research libraries to new models of information delivery. (See Record, page(s) 18-20 and Agenda Appendix “E.”)
Outreach Activities – “Update on the Status of Penn State’s World Campus.” This is an overview of the growth of the World Campus, including new program/course development, considerations for faculty workload, new budget models, and collaboration with campus colleges. (See Record, page(s) 20-27 and Agenda Appendix “F.”)
Senate Council -- “University Faculty Census Report – 2002-03.” This report is a breakdown of faculty at the units across the Penn State system for election purposes. (See Record, page(s) 27 and Agenda Appendix “G.”)
Senate Council – “Report on Fall 2001 Campus Visits.” This report provides information on the Senate Officers Fall 2001 visits to 10 campuses identifying themes and areas of concern for the campuses visited. (See Record, page(s) 27-31 and Agenda Appendix “H.”)
University Planning – “Update on Classroom Conditions.” The Senate heard a presentation by the Office of Physical Plant on maintenance, repair, and updating of general-purpose classrooms. (See Record, page(s) 31-38 and Agenda Appendix “I.”)
The University Faculty Senate met on Tuesday, January 29, 2002, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 112 Kern Graduate Building with John S. Nichols, Chair, presiding. One hundred and eighty-three Senators signed the roster.
Chair Nichols: It is time to begin.
MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING
Moving to the minutes of the preceding meeting, The Senate Record, providing a full transcription of the proceedings of the December 4, 2001 meeting, was sent to all University Libraries, and is posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page. Are there any corrections or additions to this document? All those in favor of accepting the minutes, please signify by saying, "aye."
Senators: Aye.
Chair Nichols: Opposed? The minutes are accepted. Thank you.
COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE
You have received the Senate Curriculum Report for January 15, 2002. This document is posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page.
REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL
Also, you should have received the Report of Senate Council for the meeting of January 15, 2002. This is an attachment in The Senate Agenda for today's meeting.
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE CHAIR
Chair Nichols: Well, welcome
back for the new year. Although the
majority of the time of this Senate year has elapsed the majority of the Senate
meetings and, most of the workload is still in front of us. The Senate Officers very much appreciate the
hard work that you’ve done so far, but we really need your continued efforts
for the good of the order as we head down the home stretch of the Senate year.
I call your attention to a
number of announcements that I made to Senate Council including topics of
recent meetings of the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President, but because
they appear in Senate Council minutes and in the interest of time I will not
repeat them here. However, I do have a
couple of quick additional announcements.
First of all, I’d like to
introduce a new member of the Senate Office staff, Diane Mills. Diane recently accepted the position
previously held by Lori Campbell—Lori left us for the Schreyer Honors College. Diane joins us from the School of Nursing
and we might have to put a moratorium on new hires from the School of
Nursing. Diane is going to be working
on the curriculum side of the Senate Office.
Would you please say hello to a new Senate Office colleague, Diane
Mills.
Second, I would like to
remind you of the Senate’s 1999 resolution in support of the Penn State
IFC/Panellenic Dance Marathon. That
resolution remains in force, but the Senate Officers would like to reaffirm it
today. For the past 30 years the
Marathon has raised more than $17 million in support of the Four Diamonds Fund
benefiting families of children with cancer being treated at Penn State
Children’s Hospital. The Marathon, the
world’s largest student-run philanthropy recently committed more than $5
million toward cancer research dedicated to finding a cure for pediatric
cancer. The Senate Officers applaud
those achievements of the Dance Marathon, which has grown well beyond the
fraternity and sorority system to include hundreds of other student organizations. We encourage faculty at all locations to
support its activities this year. The
Dance Marathon will be held February 22-24, 2002 in REC Hall. For more information, the web site is
www.thon.org. Joining us today are two
among the THON student leadership: Lee
Kimball (overall communications chair) and Geoff Grivner (University/Faculty
Liaison and also student member of the Board of Trustees). Will you please give them and their fellow
organizers a round of applause to show support for this marvelous Penn State
student-run philanthropy.
Senators: Applause.
Chair Nichols: We also have
one more guest. As you know, it is the
practice of the Senate Officers to occasionally invite to the Senate those
whose activities have brought credit to the university and remind us of our
core mission and values. With us today
is Dr. Richard B. Alley, Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences in the College of
Earth and Mineral Sciences. Professor
Alley, internationally renown for his contributions to geology, hydrology, ice
physics, paleoenvironmental sciences and climate change, has been busy this
year. Among many other things he
chaired the National Research Council’s Committee on Abrupt Climate Change,
which received a whole lot of national and international attention and he was
good enough to informally describe for me the conclusions of the report for
those of us who are unenlightened. He
described it as: the world is weirder
than we thought. Also this year,
Professor Alley’s book The Two-Mile Time Machine won the Phi Beta Kappa
best book in science award. Described
by his colleagues and dean as a dynamic and engaged teacher, he won his
college’s outstanding teaching award.
And if I’m not mistaken, he was in this room earlier today trying to
enlighten a large number of undergraduates on science and he’s also found time
to help the Senate in its General Education reform. In short, Professor Alley is an excellent model although far from
unique in what so many Penn State faculty do on a routine basis—the integration
of high quality teaching, research and service. Richard, would you please take a bow.
Senators: Applause.
COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
Chair Nichols: Agenda
Item “E,” Comments By The President Of The University. President Spanier is in attendance today and
does have comments. While he is making
his way to the podium and as long as we’re passing out kudos, many of you might
have noticed that President Spainer will receive in March a national award
recognizing initiatives in student affairs.
He’ll receive the President’s Award from the National Association of
Student Personnel Administrators for his work in launching such programs as
Late-Night Penn State, the Newspaper Readership Program and Schreyer Honors
College among others. Last semester,
President Spanier invited me to join him on a whirlwind tour of Late-Night Penn
State one Saturday night. And I submit
to you that one does not fully understand this university and the importance of
student programming until you have had the opportunity to play bingo with a couple
hundred undergraduates playing for heavy metal CDs at midnight or watching
top-line movies in a packed house or dancing with many others in the
Ballroom. Although, I’m still upset by
the fact that President Spanier got several requests to dance and I didn’t get
any requests at all. But no matter,
congratulations on the award.
Senators:
Applause.
Graham B. Spanier,
President: Thank you for those nice comments and we probably could find a dance
partner for you. I do appreciate those
nice comments and I do want to commend you on being able to pronounce all of
the words in Professor Alley’s vitae.
He is indeed very distinguished and I add my congratulations to you on
your recent recognitions. While I know
some of you think it’s April, but the bad news is that you’ve got three more
months of classes, not three weeks, and I do welcome you back to this new
calendar year as well.
I’m going to just
give an update on a few different topics and then try to leave plenty of time
for questions. I think you are all
reasonably up to date, you read the Intercom and newspapers about our
current budget situation. We have had
to return $10 million of this current year’s operating budget to the
commonwealth. I want to say that
despite that, I think the state of the university is excellent. We are not in the position that a lot of
other universities are in, in many states.
They have announced mid-year tuition increases. We did prepare for this possibility and the
deans have worked very hard in their budget allocations internally during the
year to prepare for this so we do not expect to pass this on to our students
mid-year. Moreover, we are not engaging
in any system-wide hiring freezes. In
fact, we are going ahead with virtually all of our hiring. We might see it slow down a little bit in
some areas here and there, but for the most part we’re moving ahead. So I think we’re in pretty good shape right
now despite the fact that this is a big blow for us since we do operate so
close to the margin. We’re a little
more concerned actually with what’s going to happen starting next Tuesday. Next Tuesday is the day that the governor
announces his budget for the coming year and we have no early indication of
what that’s going to mean for Penn State.
We’re pretty sure they’re not going to grant us all the requests that we
advanced to them in September, which were somewhat ambitious, very realistic,
but ambitious to begin with. We
certainly do want to hold onto everything we had on July 1 and hope that they
can provide some help in the direction of our priorities in faculty pay raises,
keeping up with the cost of employee benefits and some of the most critical
initiatives that we have at the university.
Our appropriation hearings are early this year. Both of my appropriations hearings will be
on the last Tuesday of February, so four weeks from today, I think. The Senate Appropriations Hearing is going
to be different this year than it has ever been, namely, it will be a panel discussion
involving the president of all of the state related universities at one table,
all at once. I’m not sure what that
means about how much money the Senate thinks it has to give out. The fact that they put us all together in
one group discussion might suggest that they don’t feel they need as much time
talking to us this year individually as they have in the past. My House Appropriations Hearing will be that
afternoon and we do have an independent hearing there. The General Assembly will then use the next
two or three months to put together a budget for the state and over that same
period of time we will continue our process of looking very carefully at
tuition policy and tuition planning activities. Our goal, of course will be to maintain the quality of our
operations within the university. It’s
always been our first priority to maintain and enhance quality while keeping
tuition as low as possible. But of
course, there will be a tuition increase.
It will be higher than anyone will like it to be. We just hope it will be reasonable enough
and at the same time we will continue in our efforts to make sure that no
student is denied a quality Penn State education and that no student will be
kept from attending this university.
That’s a pledge we’ve been able to keep over the years by being able to
put a financial aide package together for 100 percent of our students through a
combination of federal grants and loans, work-study, state grants and loans,
scholarships, fellowships and internal support within the university. In fact, about 55 percent if I recall the
figure right—55 percent of all Penn State students do not actually pay the
entire cost of tuition so, we’re much more generous here at Penn State than
some people give us credit for. Actually
quite a significant percentage of students at this university pay no tuition at
all or have waived the equivalent of full tuition because of grants,
scholarships, and fellowships that they have and I’m saying that without
respective loans, that’s before loans are even factored into the equation. So that’s an area that we will continue to
pay attention to and enhance.
We’re at the point
in our admissions and enrollment cycle that we think we have a pretty
reasonable idea of how things will unfold for next year. Overall, if you look at the big picture,
we’re actually ahead of last year in applications to the university. The two areas of greatest increase are quite
notable. Graduate applications are way
up from where they were in the past.
This will however, translate only into a modest increase in graduate
enrollments. It will mean more
selectivity I’m sure because unlike undergraduate admissions, which are a bit
more of a top down phenomenon where we set the enrollment plan and then ask the
admissions office to follow it, graduate enrollments are completely bottom
up. Each department, each school sets
its own graduate enrollment targets and then where the university ends up is
the sum of the parts. Because we are
receiving so many applications and we did have a little bit of room in some of
the programs as well as the quality of the applicants is likely to be
exceptionally high, I do expect some modest increase at the graduate level in
some of our departments. At the
undergraduate level there is a profound increase in applications at the Pennsylvania
College of Technology, something else you also might expect because of the
state of the economy. University Park
applications are very strong once again.
We are actually going to be admitting fewer freshmen to the University
Park Campus this fall because we needed a larger than usual class of freshmen
last year to balance the fact that so many more students were staying at our
campuses for upper-division programs.
That’s now finally starting to settle down, but it will be very
competitive to get into University Park Campus and we will fill all of our
spots here. At our other campuses, some
campuses are even, some are a little up, and some are a little down. There’s a little bit of softness in the flow
to some of our campuses. Those of you
who are on those campuses that are in that situation are probably working on it
to make sure we convert those who have been admitted to actual
enrollments. But overall at the
university, I think we’re in a pretty healthy situation.
I want to give you
just a brief update on some of the searches.
Most people keep their eye on one search or two, but we actually have
several going on at the university. We
are in the final stages of the search for a new director of the Office of
Affirmative Action. We are right in the
middle of interviewing candidates for the provost and dean spot at Penn State
Erie so that should come to a conclusion within a month or so. We are just beginning the process of
interviewing finalists for the deanship at The Dickinson School of Law. That probably will be wrapped up within a
month or so. We are right in the middle
of interviews for candidates for the Campus Executive Officer position at the
Shenango Campus. And I think we are
getting close to being in a position to identify finalists for the deanship of
the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
Did I forget any? I think that’s
about it. So we hope to have a happy
ending on all of those searches this spring.
The one other search which we will launch this spring is for John Cahir’s
successor. We were holding off on that
because we didn’t think it would be possible to find a successor, but we
realize we have to. Actually, John is
going through the summer so we have a little extra time on that and that’s the
reason that we could wait a little longer to start that particular search.
I want to mention an
initiative that I have been very interested in launching and David Monk has
been helping me out here. We put
together a little group to explore the question of how this university can
become much more fully engaged with the K-12 agenda in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania. I know we have so many
different initiatives and projects, but as each month has gone by for the last
few years, I’ve been increasingly concerned with the state of K-12 education in
the commonwealth. As I’ve seen more and
more data about the performance of some of the youth in our state, it worries
me about the quality of education that’s out there. There’s a tendency for us at Penn State not to notice it quite so
much in this era as we might have 10 or 20 or 30 years ago because on the whole
we have more selective admissions. And
we are admitting students that have college preparatory curricula and just at
University Park for example, the average high school grade point average of the
students we’re admitting now is about 3.8.
Is that about right, John, 3.7 or so, and the average SAT score is over
1200. We are seeing the cream of the
crop. We are seeing students who
negotiated that system very well and come here well prepared. But if you look at the hundreds of
thousands, millions of students who are in schools in Pennsylvania, I’m not so
sure that they are learning what they ought to be learning, and are in quality
environments. Nor is it all falling into
place for them. And it just seems to me
that there’s got to be a way in which this university can lend its expertise,
resources, and become more engaged than we have in the past. There are 501 school districts in the
state. A couple of the big ones already
like Philadelphia and Harrisburg, I don’t know what the exact term is, are in
some sort of receivership or something.
Special rules apply now because the problems are very, very big there. We have school systems in the state, where
while here we are at the university thinking wouldn’t it be terrible if 20
percent of the students were absent on a given day, we have some schools where
20 percent of the teachers are absent on a given day. I’m not joking. I have
just been asking the question, what can we and should we be doing? So I’ve asked David Monk to put together a
group. He’s involved some of our
associate deans and others to begin talking about where there might be an
agenda out there for us to pursue. To
seek some funding from the federal government, the state government and the
cooperation of the state government to have us play a role in this regard. Although, I’m not saying what will come from
it, I don’t know, but it’s a question I have been asking.
The last thing I
want to mention before I open it up to your questions is to second what John
Nichols said about the Dance Marathon.
I think every year I say something about it and I go to the Dance
Marathon activities hoping to see many of you there supporting them, walking
around, and looking at what’s happening during this event. And we really don’t get too many faculty
there. For those of you who have an
opportunity to do so--and it can be any time from about 7:00 on Friday night to
7:00 on Sunday night--if you just went for a half an hour, I think you would be
amazed. You would be truly amazed at
what you saw, it is the largest student run philanthropy in the United
States. But it’s not just about the
money, it is about the spirit there.
And for any of you who come to class and sometimes think what’s wrong
with students today and what about this I’m reading in the paper and so on, if
you really want to get your spirits brightened up about today’s generation of
college students, just stop in at the Dance Marathon because thousands, and I
mean thousands, of our students are involved in this activity. And it is really pretty amazing what they
are able to do, so think about it. It
is in REC Hall and you’ll know where to find them, just follow the sound of the
music. Okay, questions?
Chair Nichols: As a
reminder, if you wish to ask a question of the president you need to be
recognized by the chair, then you must stand, and identify yourself and the
unit you represent before addressing the Senate. Thank you.
Melvin Blumberg, Penn
State Harrisburg: Dr. Spanier last week in the Patriot News
there was an Associated Press article with Pittsburgh on the dateline headed,
“Penn State pulls boxer clad riders diploma”.
I think you addressed this awhile back, but could you possibly put this
into context for us in terms of the university policy on revoking diplomas as a
result of reading here external to the university?
President Spanier: The
student has to wait a very brief period of time before receiving it and it is
very rare that we would ever do that.
So the first thing I would tell you is, don’t believe everything you
read in the papers. That’s a case where
a couple of newspapers had editorials, maybe more than a couple. I saw a couple and the editorials were
written with a tone of ridicule and all I can say about those editorial writers
is what suckers they were. They
probably saw some of the news story and decided to write an editorial and if
they had bothered to really find out what was behind the charges against the
student for inciting a riot…these weren’t our charges. This was a student who was adjudicated in
the criminal courts and then we have our own parallel sanctions. It is almost too juicy a story to pass
up. You know a student doesn’t get his
diploma revoked because he pulled his pants down and skateboarded through a
crowd. There is a lot more to the story
than that because if I didn’t know the inside story and I was just reading
that, I would say you know, what are they doing at Penn State? But you know the file is confidential so I
can’t talk about what all is in it, but actually, I think there is a public
video…is Bill Asbury here? I think Bill
has got a copy of the video, if any of you are really curious you can watch the
video of the riot. Then you could write
your own editorial about what you think.
I think the Office of Judicial Affairs really handled this just as they
would any other case. They did what
they had to do in relation to the criminal justice system. That office really works very hard and does
not get distracted by the media reports, by the PR campaigns of defense
attorneys, and others who might want to take a different point of view. They have hundreds, if not thousands of
cases a year to deal with, so it is not to say that everybody would agree with
how they handle every case. But I think
in that case as is true for virtually every other case they handled, they try
to do it well and there is just a little more to the story on that one then is
obvious from the write ups.
Joan S. Thomson,
College of Agricultural Sciences: Recently you sent an email at least to the
University Park community about the potential of a relationship between Centre
Community Hospital and Geisinger. And
within that email and I paraphrase it very severely as there was reference to
the way in which Geisinger identifies those who become part of its provider
network. Could you further flesh out
what the intended meaning of or our understanding of that statement should be?
President Spanier:
Well, okay let me just back up a little bit because I sent an email to
University Park faculty and staff. I
didn’t send it to the rest of you because there is a particular Centre County
issue right now that’s on the table.
Although, there will probably be a little smaller mention of it in Intercom
for the broader community. So half of
you here probably are not aware what happened and in a nutshell we have a
hospital in this community, Centre Community Hospital which is an independent
hospital with an independent board of trustees selected from members of the
community. They have no formal
governance tie to the university. But
the university donated the 30 or so acres of land that the hospital is on in
1968 and part of the understanding was that there would be an independent
free-standing community hospital.
Discussions have been going on between one particular health care
provider--the Geisinger Health System and Centre Community Hospital, which the
Centre Community Hospital described in their documents as a preferred
partner. A preferred partner
relationship. There are many of us in
the community, the majority of physicians in the community and certainly we at
Penn State as an employer are very concerned about any preferred partnership
with any one health organization that would involve building facilities, having
certain medical services provided, and/or setting the prices for those
services. This would be some sort of
profit sharing that would take some of the profits from that enterprise and
move them out of the county to a health care provider that’s headquartered
elsewhere. So why are we concerned at
Penn State? Because in my budget, our
collective budget, here we’re spending about $80 million a year in health care
costs. We are self-insured. This is a nuance not everybody realizes. We use health insurance companies to run the
system as an intermediary, but we are actually self-insured. We will pay the bills in the end for
whatever the health care is. And a very
large share of that money of course is expended here in Centre County. So to have a preferred relationship with any
one health care provider is a little bit scary for us as an employer
particularly in this area where health care costs are escalating so quickly. And where we see the possibility and this
maybe gets to the heart of your question…where we see the possibility from
previous experience that a preferred provider can set certain rules around who
has access to a facility or what the referral patterns are, what kind of
procedures are performed by who, who owns it, where the profits go and so
on. That could potentially threaten the
independence of the community hospital and so we just said we think that needs
more discussion. As a result of this
recent attention, there is more discussion going on. I’m very pleased with the direction that those discussions are
taking at the moment. Nothing has been
decided. I don’t really know how it
will come out. But we have pledged that
Penn State, our Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, and our College of Medicine,
we will do everything we can to make sure that whatever is in the best interest
of the community in the end, is the way we go.
So that’s really how we feel about it.
It is not about anything else.
There’s no sour grapes, there’s no bitterness, nor is there going to be
a great economic battle. We really do
care about what it means for the long-term health care of our employees and
that’s what we are interested in.
William A. Rowe,
College of Medicine: We obviously had some first hand experience
with the Geisinger Health System and it is important to bear in mind that
Geisinger is an insurer primarily and a provider of care only secondarily. And what that means is that for insurers, it
is in their best interest for less care or as health care providers it is an
interest to provide more. Most times
that works out into a balance when you’ve got an insurer as a disinterested
party. When that insurer is in fact
running the care, it makes a big difference as we have experienced for two
years in the College of Medicine, and we are very happy to be out of that
situation. As far as local providers
are concerned, the Geisinger Health System does have a modus operandi of
gathering up enough insured bodies in an area, contracting with local
physicians and once they reach a critical mass they tend to open their own
clinic. Restrict the insured population
in going to that clinic and shut out local providers. If there are those of you who do value your local physicians, it
is a strong consideration as far as this potential merger or preferred
partnership is concerned, then I do have to advise from first hand experience
extreme caution when it comes to that sort of thing. Just to expand on your comments.
Jamie M. Myers,
College of Education: We have a report today in front of us about
the transfer of students to University Park Campus and that’s a change of
campus location. My question has to do
with the targets that are established and the perception that a tax will be
levied at some point in the future if those targets are exceeded. I’d like to hear your response that that
perception is false and that there will never be any tax levied for any
location that exceeds a target. Because
I think it is a disservice. I think it
could very well interfere with the advising and academic relationship between
students and faculty at a campus location.
I don’t think it takes into account classroom space needs as well as
faculty at a location. And I think it
is very strange to lose tuition from a location, being taxed, and have to pay
the tuition of students that you don’t have.
I think that, in fact, it probably should be the other way and funds
should be provided for program development at those locations. So will there ever be a tax? I hope not.
President Spanier:
Well, never is a long time and I won’t be here that long. But I don’t think we’ve ever levied a tax
and I don’t predict that we ever will.
We did threaten it once, so I will admit to that, and it was frankly
motivated by one campus that was kind of running wild in admitting too many
students for the facilities and the faculty depth to accommodate. And of course the consequence of admitting
too many students to one of the commonwealth campuses is that two years later
we’ll pay the price here at University Park.
We end up with 500 more students from a particular campus than were
projected to come under our policy that anybody can move anywhere at the end of
their sophomore year. If we end up with
500 extra students that closes out 500 spots for someone else or puts a huge
unexpected burden on the faculty at University Park. So part of the whole enrollment management system is to get
everybody to do their part. So the
threat of the tax and other things got that problem fixed. We have never put any limits on someone
being able to transfer to the University Park Campus. So that was sort of an admission issue not a transfer issue. Have we done anything with transfers with
penalties or tax?
Rodney A. Erickson, Provost: We haven’t imposed
any tax and we have no intention of doing it.
All the campuses are really on target and there is no need to do
that. It was as Graham indicated,
something that had its roots probably what, John said about four or five years
ago when the reorganization took place.
It is a moot issue now, Jamie.
President Spanier: You
heard it from the source.
Peter D. Georgopulos,
Delaware County Campus: Following up on Jamie’s question. Do you envision that these targets will ever
change? That is, increase or will they
just go away sometime if this problem…
President Spanier:
Targets is another thing. To do
good enrollment planning and management, you have to have targets. Every year the Central Enrollment Management
Group sits down and makes predictions and sets targets for…I mean hundreds of
numbers. How many students are coming
in to any given campus. How many are
returning for each particular year.
Which cohorts followed through, how many transfer from one campus to
another. We have to have targets so
that we can plan the whole flow of students.
So there will always be targets.
Peter D. Georgopulos: Do
you envision the fact that we have a target goal right now of something like
4100 students…4193? In 2001 we only had
3584. The previous year 3670 so the
number seems to be stabilizing below the target number. I therefore ask, do you envision targets
going down then…target levels going down?
President Spanier:
You’re referring to the number of students…
Peter D. Georgopulos: Who
actually transferred…
President Spanier: Who
transferred from one of the other campuses to University Park Campus? I think that your observation that it is
stabilizing is what we think is the best description right now. What we’ve seen since we have reorganized
the campuses has really exceeded our expectations. We have seen collectively about 1,000 extra students staying on
the campuses voluntarily to finish their baccalaureate degrees. We ramped up to that level much more quickly
than we anticipated. But now that we
are up at that level it really looks like it is starting to level off. And unless we had a massive increase in the
size of the campuses or hiring new faculty or the demographics of Pennsylvania
changed in some peculiar way that we don’t now know about, I don’t expect that
that is going to massively increase. It
is going to stabilize at some level and with that stabilization we will have a
pretty good idea in a typical year how many students will move to the
University Park Campus. And because the
University Park Campus is going to have a level enrollment that we’ve set that
window of 40,000 to 42,000 and that in turn gives us a pretty good idea of how
many new freshmen spots are available here on this campus. I see stabilization in the years ahead. What growth we will see at Penn State will
be modest growth…some continued modest growth in upper-division programs at the
commonwealth campuses. That is where
our growth will be. But it is not going
to be growth of thousands of students a year, like we were seeing for a
while. It will be much more smaller
increments.
Chair Nichols: Vice
Provost Romano wanted to get a word in here and when this report is on the
floor he has agreed to stand for questions.
So I think we could postpone some of this until the report is on the
floor.
John J. Romano, Vice
Provost and Dean for Enrollment Management and Administration: I
simply agree with everything that Graham has said but to answer your question
specifically now regarding the change of location numbers that have fallen
below the target, is there any expectation that the targets for the individual
campuses would be lowered? The answer
to that question is no. It has never
been a consideration in the Central Enrollment Management Group. Those targets were established at a time
when we were making a fundamental change in the way students flow through the
university. And for a few years we
really didn’t have a good idea of how quickly these changes would occur. They have occurred. They have been rather dramatic and they have
been reciprocally of building enrollments at the upper-division level and
frankly the number of students moving from the campuses to University Park are
just falling simply because we think that is a stable factor. But there is no plan to lower the targets
for the campuses.
President Spanier:
Okay, thank you very much.
FORENSIC BUSINESS
None
Chair Nichols:
Thank you. Agenda Item “F,”
Forensic Business there is none. Agenda
Item “G,” Unfinished Business. This
item was listed on the green sheet Senate Agenda for today under
Legislative Reports. It should have
been posted here under Unfinished Business.
So we move to Senate Committee on Committees and Rules, changes in the Constitution
as listed. Jean Landa Pytel will
present the report. This report was
introduced to the Senate at the December 4, 2001 meeting. However, because the report is a change in
our Constitution it had to lay on the table until this meeting.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMITTEES AND RULES
Changes in Constitution, Article II, Section 5; Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(e)1; and Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(f)1
Jean Landa Pytel, Chair, Senate Committee on Committees and Rules
Chair Nichols: Are there any questions about this report? If there are no questions on this report, are you ready for a vote? It appears so. All those in favor of the constitutional change as listed, please signify by saying, "aye."
Senators: Aye.
Chair Nichols: Any opposed, "nay"?
Senator: Nay.
Chair Nichols: The aye’s have it. The motion is carried and the constitutional amendment is adopted. Just for the record, I can virtually guarantee that the action you just took is not going to make the front pages of the newspapers tomorrow. But nonetheless, it is legislation that’s demonstration of the Senate doing unspectacular but significant work in an incremental fashion. This was a recommendation that came out of the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs through the hard work of Valerie Stratton and others in the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs. And now the Senate Committee on Committees and Rules has brought forward one of their good recommendations as a legislative item. So again, congratulations on the good work of the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs and the Senate Committee on Committees and Rules.
LEGISLATIVE REPORTS
None
ADVISORY/CONSULTATIVE REPORTS
None
INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
Best Practices for Recruitment and Retention of Women and Minority Faculty
Vasundara V. Varadan: That is encouraging, very encouraging. Relay that to your department heads and other senior faculty in your area.
John J. Romano: Just to amplify that question just for a second. I recently took a look at how enrollments of minority students have changed at Penn State over the last several years. I took a look at 1993 and 2001 for which we have official data. Over that period minority student enrollment overall at Penn State has increased 52 percent. African American enrollments have increased 57 percent. Hispanic enrollments have increased 75 percent and Asian Pacific American students have increased 40 percent. Now that results from two things, the admission of students and the retention of students. And on the admission of students just to look at that same two periods from 1993 to the year 2001, the minority admissions at Penn State have increased 95 percent. African American admissions have increased 151 percent. Hispanic admissions have increased 108 percent and finally, Asian Pacific American admissions have increased 54 percent. So there is a pretty widespread and dramatic change over a seven-year period and today this represents the highest enrollments of students of color across the university that we have ever experienced. Thank you.
Vasundara V. Varadan: Thank you.
Winston A. Richards, Penn State Harrisburg: You know it would be nice if we heard this in actual numbers rather than in percents.
Vasundara V. Varadan: I’m sorry I didn’t hear you Winston.
Winston A. Richards: What I would like to hear is the report that he just gave in actual numbers. If we start off with 100 students did we increase to 150 students?
John J. Romano: That information is available and I would be happy to prepare it and maybe submit it through a report through the Senate Committee on Admissions, Records, Scheduling and Student Aid.
Brian A. Curran, College of Arts and Architecture: I just wanted to address the third commission on your list that doesn’t seem to be visible so far. The lesbian, gay situation…I don’t see anything in the report that deals with this and I am wondering if obviously perhaps maybe there is not a way. I am just relating the experience I’ve had that affirmative action as far as I understand it, the searches that I have been involved with it is not considered an actionable area for finding people, an affirmative action category. Where does this fit in because this seems like it is somewhat…
Vasundara V. Varadan: I’m glad you raised that question. I want to say that right now we have no mechanism for gathering data for this segment of the faculty and that is why you don’t see data presented for this segment. I believe the commission is working with university administration to see how this data could be gathered. I suppose we are not allowed to ask this question. Even the issue of race is something that we divulge voluntarily. So I think the commission is trying to see how it can gather some data with respect to recruitment and retention of this segment of the faculty. Nevertheless, we did consult with this commission in the generation of this “Best Practices” presentation. At the minimum, I think we should make faculty candidates and other people who are being interviewed for positions at Penn State aware of the existence of the commission. Provide them with any literature that we have available that caters to this segment of the faculty, staff body, and simply make them aware that support systems exist here. But nevertheless, one of the issues that has been identified with respect to this segment of the population is the lack of domestic partner benefits, which of course the Senate supported and endorsed a couple of years ago. This is definitely impeding our ability to attract some faculty to this system.
Irwin Richman, Penn State Harrisburg: I wonder if anybody has ever done a correlation with something that I find fascinating where you show an increase in the number of Ph.Ds by women and minorities, and correlate that with the demands in the different fields. Are these increases in fields that are less in demand than others? It is one feature I find interesting. Are these more in English and where is the most demand in other areas?
Vasundara V. Varadan: I don’t know. I am not aware of…I haven’t personally done a study nor any of the commissions here or our committee done this study. But I would simply point out that that is perhaps a more relevant question. If you think of the employment rates of Ph.Ds produced nationally in industry and in other places, if we look at their employment in universities I would say universities continue to teach all of these fields and that is why we are producing these Ph.Ds. So we must be recruiting faculty in these areas. Perhaps slightly more in some fields than in others, so even if you take a subject like English, I mean that is one of the biggest departments in the university and we do hire faculty in English. I don’t know what type of employment. I am not personally aware what they might find in the market outside of the university. But since we are only looking at their employment within the university system, I would say that it is perhaps less relevant to make that study than if we were to think of their employment outside the university. I think the more interesting question is what happens to these people who get the Ph.Ds, and where do they go? Why are they less likely to show up in the university as university faculty? That is perhaps a more interesting question to ask.
Chair Nichols: One last question? Seeing none, thank you very much Vasu and thanks to your committee. Senate Committee on Libraries, “Trends in the University Libraries’ Budget Allocation,” Appendix “E” in your Agenda. Mark Casteel will introduce Dean Eaton.
Nancy Eaton, Dean, University Libraries: I promise you I’m going to be brief. Since you have this report in your packet I want to just highlight a few things and then I’ll take any questions. The intent of this report was to show both the organizational structure of the libraries since its reorganization four years ago and to look at the patterns of expenditure given that there is always faculty concern for collections and services as compared to inflation impact on the libraries.
As you can see from this organizational structure, all of the libraries in the university system are part of University Libraries including Hershey, Dickinson and a dotted line to Penn College. That is an arms-length relationship because it has its own Board of Trustees, but we in fact have over-sight and do strategic planning with all the libraries in the system. In terms of services, we have clustered around the Commonwealth College as a special set of libraries. The other college libraries that are independent, report in a variety of ways to me for planning purposes or directly and within University Park we have gone completely to a subject libraries breakdown, which you see on the left.
The budget in the last three years has increased some $3 million and over the entire period from 1978 through the current it has actually gone up by 400 percent from $7 million plus to $35 million plus. The university certainly has put major emphasis on the libraries. The issue is how are we spending that money wisely. The trend that we want you to understand is that we have really made a major push to focus on the collections and to be as efficient as possible internally to reduce the amount of money being spent on salaries. And you can see from 1978 through the latest figures for 1999 that we’ve reduced salaries as a total percentage of our budget from 59 percent to 53 percent in 1989 to 47 percent this last period which is 1999. At the same time, we have increased the percentage going to collections and you will notice that operating has also gone up. This primarily comes from information technology fees because we have moved into new modes of delivery of electronic information. The other part of that comes from private giving which has supported technology too. This is at the same time as the growth in student body has gone up unlike the rest of the country and services such as, interlibrary loan and a variety of other services, but illustrated here interlibrary loan has also increased.
So basically, we have focused on collections as opposed to staff even though service demand has gone up during that period. The rest of the slides just illustrate the outcomes of this emphasis. You can see that compared to the other Association of Research Libraries, the unit costs have gone up even faster at Penn State given our science-technology medical focus and yet we are actually buying more titles compared to 1986, whereas the rest of the country has actually seen a reduction in the number of titles collectively. Similarly with books, our purchasing power has gone up, our total budgets have gone up and the number of titles we are purchasing annually has gone up compared to 1986. The rest of the country has seen a major decline during that period. Because of our focus on information technology, you will see that we have been going up at a much faster rate in the use of electronic collections than the other research libraries. The major reason for that is that because so many of the campuses have started four-year programs, the strategy that we have followed in order to support those programs is to put up as much electronically over the Internet as possible so that all students and faculty at all campuses have maximum access to those titles. There is simply no way we can grow the physical collections at the rate we need to support those changes in curriculum.
I also wanted to report to you what the capital campaign has been doing and fundraising generally has been doing for the libraries over this 20-odd years. You can see we have gone from about 11 collection endowments to 77 in the current year. The dollar value of that on an annual basis the interest off of these for collection development has gone from $20,000 to $713,000, and the last part of this campaign is focused on collection and program endowments for the libraries. Because we have focused on collections and services, particularly collections, you will see that we are at the bottom of the list in terms of comparisons with CIC libraries in terms of professional staff. We have about one librarian per every 466 students and things like support of electronic classrooms the staff has only grown by three while the demand, as you can see, of both carts and rooms has just soared. This is an area of particular concern but just illustrates again that we really have focused over this period of time on collections.
As a result, we continue to focus on process improvement to try to be as efficient as we can to reduce the amount of staff that we need but I would say at this point in time that even using things such as self-service models, on-line text, various resource sharing models with the CIC as well as other research libraries and experimenting with new modes of scholarly communication, we probably are at the bottom of what we can squeeze out of the staff. And there are some very selective areas that w