The Board reviewed/discussed the Report of the Strategic Planning Work Group prior to accepting it; several minor changes have been made to the report to incorporate input the system has had since October's public disclosure of the plan. Both the OSA representative and I were asked to join the discussion. I raised two issues with the Board: that quality may deteriorate if institutions are permitted to enroll students over and above those funded through state support if these institutions don't have adequate funding (to be found through the flexibility initiatives) unless the Board carefully oversees such "over" enrollment, and that requiring a portion of tuition paid by all students be set aside to help the neediest students places an undue burden on students when such support should be coming from the state. OSA had previously asked that community college transfer students be explicitly mentioned in the access goal and that increased diversity among faculty and students be added as part of the vision statement. Both have been included. If you want to see the presentation material on the Strategic Planning Framework, check out www.ous.edu/board/dockets/hnd021220planning.pdf The Board also reviewed its Work Plan for the next several months that specifically addresses Board goals and how those will be achieved and by when. Some of these include developing an OUS policy on access, quality and accessibility; developing a policy on tuition and fees; exploring relationships with community colleges to enhance access; develop a policy on program initiation and review; begin looking at mission differentiation among the institutions; appoint a task force to look at enhancing financial aid; and outline possible new sources of revenue for OUS and look at possible new efficiencies in the system. To see the entire work plan, go to www.ous.edu/board/dockets/supp021220workplan.pdf. Vice Chancellor Anderes gave a presentation on connecting the RAM and the Deal in which he noted that The Deal is a revenue acquisition effort to complement the RAM. The system has decided that targeted programs should not detract from funding cell values (the last legislature cherry picked the interesting special projects to the detriment of cell funding); special funding such as the small school allocation will be tied to cell funding. Tuition rates will be set so that resident undergraduate students do not pay more in tuition than the state provides in general fund money. The system is assuming that funding for research will double by 2010. (See www.ous.edu/board/dockets/hnd021220deal.pdf)
The Board also agreed to a slightly different approach to its meeting schedule and operations for next year; executive committee meetings (which have occurred in the odd months except July) will be dropped in favor of monthly meetings of the full board in January, February, April, May, June, September, October and November. Executive committee meetings will be held only when needed. The Board retreat will continue in July. More effort will go into scripting visitations to campuses and Board members were admonished to attend (often only a few show up for campus presentations preceding the Board's meeting).
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