The representative for classified staff scolded us for thinking
of pulling them out with faculty and treated it as though we were whining,
whereupon the difference in relation to market compensation for them and
faculty was re-emphasized by the OUS representatives.
I saw no willingness for the board to seriously consider our concerns. They are only concerned with keeping costs low, not looking at benefits as part of the compensation package. OUS did give notice to separate from PEBB. It had to be given before 1 January 2000 to keep our options open but does not mean that OUS will leave PEBB. The governor is still holding discussions and OUS has until March to make a final decision.
Dick Markwood (Director of the CCUC) presented a report on 4 year higher education in Bend. They are working to put in a new higher education building at Central Oregon Community College as they have outgrown what space they have now. It is still the intention to remain in cooperation with COCC rather than start a separate new institution. When they reach 1000 or more students enrolled, it will make it difficult to continue with the present model of cooperation on the COCC campus so the Central Oregon Regional Advisory Board (CORAB) is looking for money to move to a new model that will be effective at the larger size expected in about 5 years. The new model is still not expected to produce a new OUS campus in Bend. CORAB is now advisory but wants to become a governing board for CCUC. For the 2001-03 biennium, CORAB wants to request funding for between 500-1000 students @ $1,950 per student. Note that this is $1000 under the UG cheap cell in the new budget model for OUS. Is it too low for costs?
In the Legislative Update, Kerans noted that OUS can lease mineral and geothermal rights it controls. Then he discussed the new enterprise network which we are all being pushed to join. Problems with it include the necessity of having technical personnel at all sites because it is so much more complicated than ednet. At this point only OUS seems to be standing against it. He suggested that OUS line up all agencies and get them to look at how the enterprise network works for them and if it has the problems OUS thinks it has, get them all to move out of it. The questions to ask are: What is the price, level of service, and similar questions. Hill, who is pushing it, was nasty and chastised the chancellor for even questioning the enterprise network. Concerns OUS has are: rural sites have to be usable without engineers in residence (Lakeview, Burns). When demonstrated, there should be more than one site because the system degrades as sites are added to it. Reliability is a big question. The Committee members at the meeting Cox attended were uninformed and the Chair (Hill) was mostly pushing his agenda. Financial Aid Commission: House Bill 2993 does not expressly supply needs grants for private institutions but does not prohibit them. Privates are pushing to get a share of the funds. The FAC opens such issues because it is a sounding board and the private institutions will use the FAC to create negatives for OUS.
OUS is seeking legislative or referendum authority to float bond issues for backlogs of deferred maintenance. After 12+ years of backlog is cleared up, such a fund could provide money for new construction.
The staff tuition rate issue was discussed at a 7 December meeting and reported here. There is a proposal to go to the board in February that would allow the benefit to be transferable to a family member with possible implementation in Fall 2000. There may be quite a bit of campus latitude in handling it. For example, what would be the FTE requirement to be eligible? .5, or 1. or other?
Denise Yunker reported on the PEBB Governor's board meeting. There were assurances that opt out and cash back will have stability (but it depends a lot on health costs how stable it will be). With increased health costs coming the board need to do plan design rather than just have increased pay-in by employees. For OUS, the composite rates will be retained: no differentiation between single and married employees in the allowance, $470 for this year. A proposal was to have single employees receive something like $250 instead, thus reducing cash back substantially if not eliminating it. Many of the provosts felt we need to get out of PEBB now and take whatever political fallout there may be. If we stay, we may well be stuck. We might hurt in the next biennium but it may be a cost we should risk.
There is an Academic Program Follow-up Review: 1999-2000. The fifth year review of programs approved by the board is still in effect. The Board wants to know if the institution did what they said they would do when presenting the program to the board. Is the quality what was projected, were no additional resources required for programs presented as needing no additional resources? The programs up for review are: Joint Pharmacy Doctoral program (OHSU/OSU), OSU's Applied Ethics undergraduate certificate, OSU's English B.A. and M.A.; UO's Arts Management Masters, Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education licensure, Educational Studies B.A, B.S.; WOU's American Sign Language/English Interpreting B.S. These are to be evaluated in January.
The Review of Noncredit Programs came up again. OUS was invited back to the commission to say what OUS doesn't like about the review statement on non credit programs. OUS considers that the statement goes beyond the legislation and ties OUS institutions in ways that limit our response to changing fields of study. It penalizes OUS when it updates programs if a private has such a program. Strictly held to it would freeze OUS programs in their present (or past) state while leaving the independents free to move in any direction they wish. Provosts noted that the competition will come from out of state with distance education and we should be standing together instead of fighting for the crumbs that might be left after non-Oregon institutions take the pie.
Two programs were reviewed: OHSU MA in Physician Assistant Studies and UO BFA in Photography. The first discussed was the OHSU proposal. It proposes upgrading the physician's assistant program from a bachelor's to a master's degree in line with such programs across the nation that are generally going for the master's. Part of the reason for it is because of legislative concern for adequate rural medical support. A series of courses in anatomy, physiology and clinical medicine are to be developed or upgraded to beef up the present program. No money is supposed to be put into this program until the measure 5 cuts to nursing have been restored and it was reported that this has been done. The second program is the UO BFA in photography. This is a program that has been around for 25 years as a subset Visual Design and Photography. The proposal is simply to separate the two which are already independent. A student chooses one or the other. The consensus is that it is a name change, not a new program requiring new resources. Simply a housekeeping measure. Vice Chancellor Clark voiced concern that name changes and new programs ought to be treated as separate categories, not following the same path through the process.
The informal program advisory (announcing programs in the works and probably coming to the board this year):