Meeting Minutes
May 10, 2002
Those in attendance: John Struve, Steve Thien,
Ronald Downey, Dennis Kuhlman, Terry King, Wayne Nafziger, David
Griffin, Jan Leach, Al Cochran, Marc Johnson, Ruth Dyer, Gwendolyn
O'Neal, Ron Trewyn, Denis Medeiros, Jim Coffman, Frank Blecha,
Chwen Sheu
- Jan called meeting to order. She noted that
the committee had accomplished several things and Jan summarized
the agenda. She asked if there were any additions to the agenda.
- Jan then summarized the Provost's charge to
the committee.
- Wayne noted the importance of the Gorman Report
to the committee's work.
- Ken asked, are we moving towards becoming a
"private" university?
- Marc noted that we will continue to be a public
university, but growth in funding will be from sources other
than from the State.
- Jan commented that one way to think of this
issue is that the committee's definition of excellence doesn't
depend on defining the source of funding.
- Terry noted that the foundation's plan for
fund raising says that new funds will come from new sources
of money.
- Marc said that, as a land grant institution,
we need to stay responsive to the public.
- Ken said that the land grant traditions will
go if we go private; the ratio of private to public funding
will increase.
- Ron D noted that decreases in the percent of
funding from the state is a national trend.
- Ken asked what we mean by being a Top 10 land
grant institution? Jan said that it depends. She indicated
that President Wefald had indicated Top 10 land grant institution
without medical schools. The provost said that we may be able
to separate out medical school funding and compare with just
the "main" campus.
- Terry indicated that we need to set goals and
that there may be too much focus on ranking. Jan agreed, right
now we can not agree on the rankings.
- Wayne - The engaged university puts emphasis
on service to the public and summarized his e-mail. Ron indicated
he would forward Wayne's e-mail to the committee members.
Ron T. said the engaged university report related mostly to
urban universities. Ron said he would put the Executives Summary
from the report up in the "resources" part of the web site.
- Ken noted that we are becoming something that
doesn't currently exist, there are no models for us. Marc
discussed Texas A & M as a potential model.
- Ruth summarized the Targeted Excellence Retreat
and the results of the multi-voting technique. A draft of
the retreat materials was handed out. It was noted that John
Struve worked on these materials.
- Jan asked if the top items from the multi-voting
are accurate, do they really make a Top 10 university? Ron
D. noted that the retreat materials need some explanations
and needs to be better organized. Ruth asked what was the
next step, how do we use these? It was noted that the Brain
Storming Session III identified 22 items.
- David asked, what do we compare ourselves to?
Jan said this harks back to Ken's question.
- Terry said we need to get metrics on the characteristics
and outcomes not the strategies. Jan asked; do we start with
the outcomes or strategy? Terry answered; start with the objectives.
- It was noted that the top item from the retreat
list was related to the "intellectual university" and the
question was asked; how do we measure this?
- Marc thought we needed to identify a list of
institutions and identify what makes them Top 10. Ron D. indicated
that there is a strong correlation between population and
an institutions' salary rankings.
- Ruth indicated we need to look ahead. Ken asked,
how did we become competitive in athletics?
- Terry said that his advisory group noted that,
when you identify the basis for comparisons then other factors
fall out. Marc provided a description of Koch's strategy,
it attempts to identify their strengths and support those
areas. Wayne said that Jerry Reeck described Top 10 universities
as those with breadth, and maybe we should focus on that.
- Denis asked; why we were focusing on just departments,
we should be talking about programs. Marc noted we need to
focus on the potential for partnering with other institutions
here in Kansas and develop program across institutions.
- Ruth said she would send Ron D. another resource
on interdisciplinary programs that addressed the issue of
how to keep from setting up "programs" that continue forever.
- Jan/Ron/Marc all asked, how do you develop
programs/faculty/a university with this (interdisciplinary
programs) in mind? How do you inspire this? Marc said you
need to separate money and the action people (grants and university).
Terry said we need to develop strategies for doing this; if
5 years worth of funding were provided. It was asked, what
about teaching programs that are interdisciplinary? It was
noted that supporting for interdisciplinary programs hasn't
happened.
- Jan noted we needed to focus on quality programs.
Jan asked, are core courses needed? Terry noted that money
and teaching are separated.
- Ken noted we needed to go back to the multi-voting
results. Ken said we needed to give them different "titles".
- Terry said that strategies stay stable; objectives
change.
- Terry and Ken noted that we need to condense
the multi-voting list. Marc said we needed to identify contextual
variables. Wayne suggested we appoint a drafting committee;
have them draft a revised multi-voting list. Marc agreed,
a drafting committee could do this. Jan indicated she had
appointed a committee with Al as chair and Terry, Gwen and
Brad as members. Their assignment is to provide a draft for
a meeting in early June. Jan indicated her goal was a preliminary
report in October for review by the full committee.
- Jan then summarized some of the campus concerns
about the Targeted Excellence Committee. She had received
input from several groups: A & S caucus, AAUP, etc. Jan
thought the website will help. She asked if there are other
ways to deal with the concerns? Chwen noted we needed a buy-in
process. Ron D. indicated that we had used the CCOPs in the
past to do this. Marc suggested that rather than move quickly,
the committee could go back to faculty for input and ask;
What are we good at? Jan reiterated that the committee was
not identifying programs right now and that this approach
might suggest that it was.
- Denis indicated that both Marc and Jan have
an important point; "process" is important.
- Ron
T indicated that we needed to be careful not to set up a problem
situation. With the current budget problems, this may be the
wrong time to do this; maybe we need to slow down.
- Ruth indicated we needed to work on the process.
The summer is the time for the committee to work on a draft
to take to the faculty. Terry noted that this process would
help get buy-in. Denis asked, what is the problem? Dennis
K. indicated that it was historical and that summer is a potential
problem since many faculty are not here. It was suggested
we go to the Department Heads and ask them to take the issues
to the faculty.
- Jan said that the materials are drafts
and we need to make sure that they have these labels. Chwen
said there are too many questions and we need to try and answer
them.