University Senate

Memorandum

Date:                   September 3, 2008

To:                      The Academic Community

From:                  Jennifer Ballengee, Secretary

Subject:             September 8, 2008—Meeting of the University Senate

The first regular meeting of the University Senate will be held on Monday, September 8, 2008, at 4:00 p.m. in Rooms 314-315 of the University Union.

• CALL TO ORDER

• ROLL CALL

Absent were Senators Knutsen and Guerrero.

REMARKS OF PRESIDENT CARET

The President opened by remarking that he will be evaluated this year, his sixth year as president of Towson.  Since he has arrived, TU has pursued 8 goals, which he promised to accomplish.

• Master plan: implementing it, keeping it on track and budget.  Things are moving well, everything is largely on time and on budget.  The new Liberal Arts building looks great.   Expansion of Towsontown Garage is finished. The second phase of Liberal Arts is on time, will get into gear next Spring.  $13-15 million dollars of infrastructure are currently going into the ground along Towsontown Blvd.  TU is on track for 700 new beds/housing.  New mini-student union is also on track to be going up in the middle of the six new dorm buildings.  A major footbridge will be built across Osler Drive.  About $500 million of construction is in the works; possibly another $250 million of construction over the next 8 years. 

• Enrollment:  This is the tightest semester we’ve had in history. We had almost 2400 students who didn’t have classes, but that’s been taken care of now.  TU will be around just under 21,000 students this year. Satellite centers and online education have been developed to help with enrollment growth.  There are now 5 programs and a certificate program online.  There are 74 sections of classes online this year, an increase of about 30% since last year.  TU is on track to building a facility in Harford County, as part of its Satellite program development. 

• Out of classroom experiences:  The Board of Regents has mandated that every student will take at least 12 hours of credits in a non-classroom situation.  The number of interns at TU has increased substantially.  Civic engagement has expanded, thanks to VP Moriarty:  for example, voter registration; American Democracy Project deliberate polling; Green campus initiative is flying at the national level (the pledge of the American College and University Presidents), TU has taken many steps under Jim Sheehan’s leadership (hybrid car discount; electric cars for service personnel) and with the SGA.  Caret read a set of Green initiatives being distributed by Student Affairs, adding that it was good news, “for those of you who believe in global warming…”

• Diversity:  Achievement gap: There’s a system-wide and national agenda to eliminate the achievement gap between white students and African-American students (and other minorities, as well).  There is no such achievement gap at TU.  Kate Denniston and the Provost have been putting together a document explaining why we’ve been successful in this regard.  This is the only campus in the country that has embraced the reflective process in terms of diversity.  The purpose of this has been to have all elements of TU reflect on the state of diversity and ways in which we can improve. 

• Extramural funding:  We’ve gone from $8 million in grants and contracts 2003 to $240 million last year.  On the fundraising side, we now raise a dollar for every 30 cents we spend.  We’ve hit the $30 million mark in our current capital campaign. 

• Fill position of Provost and VP for Academic Affairs:  Obviously, this has been successful with Provost Clements.

• Enhance relationships with state legislature and within the system itself:  TU has vastly improved the kind of support we need, because of the kind of work we’ve done.  Dollars per FTE continue to rise (because our enrollments keep going up).  Most of the Board members have visited campus; we have the new ones coming in.  Capital budgets are an example of this support.  The MBA program (up to about 400 students) is another example of this success.  We had no problem getting our new peer group approved by the Board of Regents and USM.  Telling the TU story:  this has been very successful for TU. This had nothing to do with marketing the university in the traditional sense of the business: we didn’t need to attract students, but we needed to send the message about exactly what kind of university Towson is.  This has permeated up to the national level as you can see from Princeton rankings, U.S. News and World Report rankings, etc. 

• Workforce development:  putting out educated citizens who are going to be workers and taxpayers in the region.  Education has decreased, but Nursing has increased significantly, as has IT.  Pres. Caret has just been named co-chair on the Science, Technology, and Math (STEM) initiatives.

His beginning of year report tomorrow will look at future of Towson.

Prof. Sullivan asked for questions and/or comments, but there were none. 

• NEW BUSINESS

1.  Election of New Officers.

              Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Member-at-Large, Parliamentarian

              (Senate Nominating Committee)

Prof. Sullivan pointed out that there was no nominating committee this year.

Prof. Sullivan and Prof. Zimmerman were nominated as chair.  Prof. Siegel moved that nominations be closed; this motion was seconded.  Senator Vatz spoke in support of Prof. Sullivan and the excellent job he’s done as Senate chair.  Senator Siegel spoke of the experience that Prof. Zimmerman has had with AAUP leadership (he served as president after Tim), and suggested that he could grow easily into the job. 

The vote result was 12 for Prof. Sullivan and 6 for Prof. Zimmerman.  Prof. Sullivan was re-elected Senate chair.

No nominations for vice-chair preceded the meeting.  Isaac Meyer was nominated.  Prof. Bergman moved nominations be closed, Prof. Pitcher seconded.  Isaac was elected as Vice-Chair.

No nominations for Secretary preceded the meeting.  Prof. Pitcher was nominated by Prof. Siegel.  Prof. Pitcher was elected to the position. 

Prof. Zimmerman was nominated to be Member-at-Large.  Prof. Siegel moved to close nominations. Prof. Bergman seconded.  Prof. Zimmerman was elected.

Prof. Anthony was nominated to be Parliamentarian.  There were no other nominations.  Prof. Anthony was re-elected as Parliamentarian.

Prof. Sullivan announced that the Senate needs a UPTRM representative.  Prof. Bergman volunteered to serve again in that position.  Prof. Bergman was reappointed in this position. 

Prof. Sullivan welcomed us back again for another year.  The first regular business meeting will be Monday, Sept. 15, at 4 PM.  The meeting was adjourned at 5 PM.