1995 was another year the IFS became involved in the politics of higher education finance. The effects of measure 5 were still undermining state support. OSU President John Byrne, Chancellor Joe Cox, Senator Cliff Trow and OSSHE lobbyist Grattan Kerans spoke of the difficulties of increasing funding for higher education during the 1995 legislature and what steps were planned to sell the system to the legislature. There seemed to be more welcome for presidents and faculty in Salem than in the last two sessions. Kerans noted Faculty Information Teams had been put together and asked that 2 IFS members be identified to interact with the 102 members of the teams. Dave Soper and Tamara Phillips participated. IFS members testified at a number of legislative hearings and reported having positive impact. Faculty productivity continued to be an issue. Many legislators still have the impression only class time counts but the faculty presentations seemed to make an impact. This session may have been a turning point because future contacts with legislators in the next few years lacked the, ³and how many hours are you in class², questions so prevalent in the recent past.

Central Oregon University Center, the focus of some past interest by IFS, was becoming a serious point of discussion. Richard Markwood, director of COUC, spoke to the October meeting. The expansion of this program into a full fledged 4 year institution is the goal of a number of people in the Bend area and pressure will continue to rise for expansion in future years. IFS members were concerned about how this expansion will be funded.

Faculty representation on the board was an issue at the October meeting (it runs as a thread through many of the meetings). AAUP proposed two faculty on the board to Senator Luke. IFS feels it should be involved. It is interesting to see that the feeling at that time was that no bill would be successful without Chancellor Cox¹s blessing. When it was passed in 1997, the board and Chancellor were arraigned against it. There was a feeling that the effort might be a waste of energy better directed toward other means of influencing board action.

Restructuring the State System was moving ahead and IFS needed to be involved in the planning along with the various campus communities. IFS members did participate in the committee meetings over the next many months of planning while the restructuring developed. Whether IFS had a major impact is open to question but points raised by IFS participants were incorporated in the final result.

IFS involvement in the board meetings was a major issue. The consensus at the February meeting was that IFS should push to improve contacts with the board.

At the February meeting an IFS resolution supporting the long term goals of the OSSHE board was drafted. Those goals include: accessability with minimal tuition increases, preparation for the expected 40% increase in state high school graduates, and faculty salary equity with national scales.