Meeting Minutes: Committee on Academic Affairs

November 3, 2000
Macon State College, Macon, Georgia

MINUTES

Welcome and Introductions, Approval of July 18, 2000 Minutes
The administrative Committee on Academic Affairs held its spring meeting November 3, 2000 on the campus of Macon State College. Chairperson Bettie Horne called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. Dr. Horne welcomed the Chief Academic Officers and asked that each person introduce him/herself to the assembled group.

The minutes of July 18, 2000 were approved as distributed.
Overview of System Office Changes
Dr. Bettie Horne introduced the three new senior vice chancellors whose departments comprise the operational areas of the Board of Regents. These individuals are the following: Dr. Daniel S. Papp, Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of Academics and Fiscal Affairs, Ms. Corlis Cummings, Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of Support Services, and Mr. Thomas E. Daniel, Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of External Activities & Facilities. Dr. Papp opened the discussion by explaining how the organizational alignments changed with the departure of Dr. Lindsay Desrochers, former Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of Fiscal Affairs and Facilities. Dr. Papp further explained that instead of completing a national search for the position of Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of Fiscal Affairs and Facilities, the Chancellor reviewed the capabilities of individuals within the System and empowered the aforementioned Central Office staff members to become leaders of specific divisions within the Central Office.
1. Office of Support Services -- C. Cummings
  Ms. Cummings, Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of Support Services, introduced herself by providing a brief description of her professional background and experience in the University System. A practicing attorney, Ms. Cummings' tenure with the Board of Regents spans five years. Ms. Cummings has actively practiced law for 13 years, worked for the City of Atlanta as an attorney during the Olympics, and later, joined the Board as an Assistant Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs before assuming her current responsibilities. In her current role as Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of Support Services, Ms. Cummings leads the Offices of Legal Affairs, Internal Audits, and Human Resources. Ms. Cummings explained that the Legal Affairs office serves as a hotline for the Presidents, Chief Business Officers, and Chief Academic Officers. Current and future activities of the division include, but are not limited to, the following: modification of the Policy Manual and Business Procedures Manual, Memorandum One procedure analysis and modification, making Alternative Dispute Resolution available to students, focusing on the reporting requirement changes (GASB) for Internal Audits, and developing the processes and procedures for Human Resources (i.e., open enrollment, benefits counseling, modifying the current dental plan to enable increased participation, etc.).
2. Office of External Activities & Facilities -- T. Daniel
  Mr. Daniel, Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of External Activities & Facilities, introduced himself by discussing his role in the gubernatorial campaign of former Governors George Busbee and Joe Frank Harris and his subsequent role in 1982 as special assistant to the Chancellor. Before being appointed Interim Senior Vice Chancellor, Tom Daniel was the University System of Georgia's chief liaison to the Georgia General Assembly. Mr. Daniel emphasized the roles of the offices under his leadership: the Office of Facilities, the Office of Media & Publications, and the Office of Development & Economic Services. Mr. Daniel provided a sampling of the projects in which these departments will be engaged in the near future such as the integration of technology master planning into the capital outlay process, the development of new marketing publications, meeting the needs of business and industry through enhancement of ICAPP, and preparing for the legislative session in terms of special funding initiatives.
3. Office of Academics and Fiscal Affairs -- D. Papp
  Dr. Papp, Senior Vice Chancellor for the Office of Academics and Fiscal Affairs, introduced himself by providing a brief description of his professional background and experience in the University System. A former faculty member and interim President, Dr. Papp's tenure within the University System includes his academic and administrative roles at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Southern Polytechnic State University, and Yamacraw. Dr. Papp explained that Academics & Fiscal Affairs comprises four offices: Information and Instructional Technology, Fiscal Affairs, Strategic Research and Analysis, and Academics, Faculty, and Student Affairs. The senior vice chancellors of these divisions meet on a weekly basis. Dr. Papp announced that a search is underway to fill the position of Vice Chancellor for Academics, Faculty, and Student Affairs. In addition, Ms. Margaret Taylor was appointed to the position of Deputy to the Senior Vice Chancellors. Discussion ensued concerning the "umbrella impact" of having fiscal affairs, academic affairs, strategic research, and information and instructional technology, underneath a single administrative unit.

Report of the Senior Vice Chancellor
Dr. Dan Papp provided an overview and update of several issues pertaining to increased efficiency and effectiveness, accountability, inter-agency relationships within and outside of the University System, and value-added processes.

Comprehensive Academic Program Review
Dr. Papp informed the group that a first step toward implementing comprehensive academic program review involves the accuracy of the Degrees and Majors, a comprehensive list of all Board approved degrees and majors in the University System. A memorandum had been disseminated earlier requesting institutions to verify whether all Degrees and Majors listed for a specific institution were included on the official list and whether the information was depicted correctly. The deadline for institutions to submit revised information is January 2001. By next fiscal year, stage one of the comprehensive academic program review process will commence.
"The Nonsense Memo"
Dr. Papp reminded the group that the Chancellor sent a memo to all Presidents concerning the processes that add value to the campus and the Central Office. The fundamental question that required a campus response involved the processes that should be revised or terminated which do not lend value to campus decision-making or to Board approved items. Topics solicited from the group that require revision include the Memorandum I procedures, the Policy Manual, and differentiating between Institutes and Centers.
Faculty Sick Leave Policy
The Chief Academic Officers were asked to provide by mid-November a copy of their institutional sick leave policies. This request was made in order to gather the foundation for a System faculty sick leave policy.
RESA Boards
Dr. Papp announced that several Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs had been asked by their presidents to attend RESA board meetings. Dr. Papp encouraged the Chief Academic Officers to encourage their presidents attend these meetings in order to gain information on the needs of area high schools in their geographic regions.

Admissions Standards
With the focus on student success, Dr. Papp explained that by Summer 2001, the heightened admissions standards would be fully implemented. The admissions policy will also encourage students to prepare early to meet the requirements and break old entrenchment cycles. Data impacts with the new admissions standards were identified as follows:

Statistic	1994	1998
SAT Score	981 (avg.)	1,016 (avg.)
% of Entering Freshmen requiring Learning Support	38%	26%
% of Students Completing 100% of CPC Requirements	75%	88%
Freshmen Retention (Entering Fall 1993)	66%	77%

Combining the new admissions standards with HOPE Scholarship requirements heightened the increased proficiency levels of students. The clear message is that the University System is steadfast in its approach to "raising the bar" in admissions. There are some special programs and issues underway regarding admissions. These special activities include the following: university colleges are established on a pilot basis; two-year and four-year institutions are collaborating to offer programs on a pilot basis; and, presidential exceptions are provided for a limited number of high school students. Discussion ensued concerning the admissions requirements for non-traditional students, postsecondary options, PACTS (Performance Assessment for College & Technical School), block scheduling, SIRS reporting codes, and determining the difference between non-traditional learning support students from traditional learning support students.

Benchmarking and Accountability
Dr. Papp explained that data and information in the University System is less than perfect for summarization and analyzation when making inferences or developing accountability reports. In order to achieve data consistency, it will be important to define, aggregate, and execute categories of information accurately. The benchmarking and accountability project is an attempt to proactively provide information to the Governor's newly created Office of Educational Accountability. This office has been charged to monitor and issue a report card on the activities of educational entities in the State. The University System is assisting the effort by participating in the development of a template to be used in the accountability matrix. The University System's task regarding its own data is to correct existing information, complete data cleaning, and determine feasible indicators of accountability. Such indicators may include student information (full-time or part-time status, gender, race), graduation data (graduation rates), retention data, and students in learning support. The goal will involve identifying best practices that are above the normative range across the University System. A retreat has been scheduled for the Board of Regents in May 2001 to address these issues. Discussion ensued about how this information would be used in determining performance funding and faculty requirements.
Data Warehousing
Integral to the benchmarking and accountability efforts, Dr. Papp discussed the use of data warehousing as a systematic, technology-infused method of obtaining and analyzing data. The challenges to data warehousing involve common definitions and data standardization. The Office of Informational and Instructional Technology has contracted with Empower Solutions to develop the archetype for a data warehouse. The Data Warehouse project has been requested at 7.5 million in the budget for FY 2002. The implementation of the project will require added campus and system office support. Discussion ensued concerning whether investments in institutional research were OIIT initiatives, the connectedness of BANNER and PeopleSoft, and the number of campuses slated for a data warehouse or data mart.
Information Technology Issues
1. Technology Master Plan
  Dr. Papp explained that during the November 2000 Board meeting, Central Office staff will request additional funding via the Information and Instructional Technology Committee to move forward on the System Technology Master Plan. The System Technology Master Plan will allow institutions to integrate and synthesize technology with physical master plans. The funding request will also inquire about support for individual institutional technology master plans.
2. Board of Regents Technology Committee
  The Board of Regents has established a new committee, the Information and Instructional Technology Committee. The Committee will be comprised of a sub-group of Regents who will make recommendations concerning technology issues in the System.
3. Information Technology Purchasing Guidelines
  Dr. Papp and Mr. Randall Thursby explained that Governor Barnes, under the auspices of the Georgia Technology Authority, had developed information technology purchasing guidelines. Although the University System is exempt from the Georgia Technology Authority, collaboration and cooperation is required. The Georgia Technology Authority has requested that the University System provide information on all technology purchases above $10,000. A memo with more details concerning this request has been sent to all Chief Information Officers.
University System Relationships with the Department of Technical and Adult Education
Dr. Papp and Dr. David Morgan announced that the technical institutes have been renamed as technical colleges. Some DTAE institutions claim that all technical courses are completely transferable. Dr. Papp explained that universal transferability does not occur in all cases according to a letter from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. The letter indicates " . . . the fact that substantial numbers of students in a course or program do not transfer does not legitimize flexibility in applying faculty credentialing criteria on the part of a baccalaureate degree granting institution when it evaluates credits for transfer into a baccalaureate degree program."
Off-Campus Educational Centers
Dr. Papp announced that as a general rule and guideline, off-campus education centers are to be offered within an institution's geographic area. However, if an institution goes beyond its geographical area, it is imperative that the host institution actively participates with other institutions to determine whether there is any overlap or duplication of educational services. Regardless of whether there are issues involved in the establishment of off-campus education centers, Board approval is required before implementation of any programs.

Committee Reports
Dr. Bettie Horne asked that each committee representative provide an update concerning the activities of specific committees regarding academic affairs.

eCore™ Update -- J. Lord
Dr. Joan Lord informed the Chief Academic Officers that Dr. Kris Biesinger would be the contact person for all aspects of eCore™. Dr. Biesinger informed the group that the University System through Georgia GLOBE would be responding to an RFP from the Department of Defense. A grant has been submitted to provide eCore™ to several bases around the country and in Georgia. Other grant submissions include a Price Waterhouse Systems Integration Model for institutions with a technical component. Dr. Biesinger also informed the group that grants were being accepted by the SREC for SOCAD (Service Persons Opportunity College for Army Dependents) member institutions with an emphasis on the training of military personnel. To be eligible to participate, institutions must be SOCAD member institutions, accept life experience, and transfer course credit. The number of participants will be accepted on a limited basis.

To further implement the eCore™ courses, Dr. Biesinger and staff are actively seeking nominations for teaching faculty other than those who developed the on-line courses. To fully implement Areas A - E, courses on this list include World History II, Human Communication, an integrated humanities courses, Introduction to Biology, Physics I, Calculus I, World History II, and Introduction to Computer Science. Area F courses planned for development include Early Childhood Education, Introduction to Education, Human Growth and Development, and Exceptional Children courses.

Drs. Lord and Biesinger explained that eCore™ assessment will facilitate SACS substantive change processes as they relate to distance education. An ad hoc committee will meet in December to develop an assessment plan. In the interim, student evaluations will be used as components of the assessment process with an emphasis on the course, instructor, and materials. At an upcoming meeting of the eCore™ Sub-committee discussions will be focused on meeting the needs of transient students.
Council on General Education -- R. Haney
Dr. Robert Haney announced that President James Burran had issued a call for agenda items. The next meeting of the Council on General Education will be held next Thursday in Macon.
Faculty Information System Ad Hoc Committee -- B. Goldstein
Dr. Goldstein informed the Chief Academic Officers that after the summer meeting, an ad hoc committee was appointed to discuss needed improvements to the Faculty Information System. The members of the committee included Dr. Anne Gormly (Georgia College & State University), Dr. Jeanne Clerc (Georgia Perimeter College), Dr. Elliott McElroy (Clayton College & State University), Dr. Michael Thomas (Georgia Tech), Dr. Bettie Horne (Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College) and Dr. Barry Goldstein (Medical College of Georgia and Chair of the Committee). Central Office staff members involved in the activities of the Committee included Dr. John T. Wolfe, Ms. Albertine Walker-Marshall, and Mr. Randall Thursby.

The two primary issues addressed by the Committee were 1) the ongoing problems of the Faculty Information System and 2) the flexibility, procedures, and changes associated with appointing faculty. Dr. Goldstein explained that the current system was created using specialized coding that was not decipherable or transferable into another software package. To prepare for Y2K issues, the system's coding was stripped. This presented the campuses with a dilemma because the FIS system was used for campus reports in addition to Board agenda appointments. The Committee recommended that the Central Office work with the campuses to devise solutions to the following:
1. Combine information from Banner, FIS, and PeopleSoft so that interface and more comprehensive reporting occurs;
2. Provide for more than one portal for entering faculty appointments;
3. Provide a 48-hour turnaround on faculty administrative appointments;
4. Provide increased institutional flexibility and autonomy in appointment renewals; and,
5. Develop a template for the electronic submission of faculty promotion and tenure.
Discussion ensued about the need to submit faculty emeritus appointments to the Central Office.
Immunization Policy and Distance Education Immunization Exception - D. Morgan
Dr. David Morgan and Ms. Tonya Lam discussed the proposed changes involving Board of Regents Policy 408: Immunizations. Summarily, distance education students are exempt from the immunizations policy. The revised policy indicates " . . . Institutions may exempt from this policy students who receive instruction solely via a medium that does not require physical attendance on a University System campus or off-campus site (i.e., students who receive instruction via electronic media, correspondence). This exemption would become void were a student to register for or attend classes on a University System campus or off-campus site."

The motion was accepted unanimously.

The implementation strategy, although not part of the Policy Manual, will include entering a code in the student information system indicating whether a student has been immunized. According to the implementation strategy, "the waiver will include a validation program that would be run against the course registration system every time a student registers. If the system determines the student is registering for courses other than distance learning courses - and the student has not submitted proof of immunization - the student's registration would be denied."

Benchmarking Follow-up -- M. Taylor Slide Presentation (PDF 246K)
Ms. Margaret Taylor, Deputy to the Senior Vice Chancellors, indicated that benchmarking was a proactive response to results-based budgeting, strategic planning, and the accountability environment. The objectives of benchmarking are to increase system and institutional effectiveness and efficiency, develop baseline information for future System and institutional performance evaluations, and to support the Governor's and Board of Regents long-term accountability agenda. The benchmarking process will involve the selection of indicators that depict resource efficiency and effectiveness, state need, customer needs, and the value-added to graduates. These indicators may be derived from best practices, other state's indicators, benchmarking efforts completed by professional associations, and the availability of other sources of data. The indicators comprise primarily three categories: academic, financial/administrative, and economic development/research. These categories will be used to answer the following questions: "1) Who are our students?, 2) How does the University System serve them?, and 3) How successful and satisfied are they?" The indicators will be reviewed as a cohesive whole because they are interrelated. Based on a normative scale, the indicators will be assessed for outliers. Information from this analysis will be used to determine how the System can best improve performance. To date, the following indicators have been reviewed: SAT scores of entering freshmen, race & gender of students, part-time students, and unrestricted state/local appropriations & tuition revenues per FTE student. The following is the projected Board schedule for Benchmarking Analysis:

Board Month	Benchmarking Topic
November 2000	Retention and Graduation Rates, Financial Data
January 2001	Management Review (Four Campuses to be Discussed)
February 2001	Graduate and Professional School, Employment and Background
March 2001	Economic Development
April 2001	Research
May 2001	Board Retreat, Developing Independent Studies
June 2001	Action Plans

Ms. Taylor enumerated the following potential issues for further consideration and Board strategic planning:

Revisit regional and state SAT data after full implementation of the admissions policy
Work with HBCUs to continue progress on SAT scores
Devise opportunities for improvement in two sectors for minority enrollment
Address issues of low enrollment for African-American males
Look further into how well USG institutions meet the needs of part-time and other non-traditional students
Further review financial data and include variables considered in developing annual allocation recommendations
Study relationships between the enrollment of part-time students and funding per FTE student.

Additional issues will be identified with each benchmarking presentation to the Board of Regents, and the Board will have the opportunity to address all of these issues during a strategic planning retreat in May 2001.

Admissions 2001 Workshop Report -- D. Morgan
Dr. David Morgan, Deputy to the Senior Vice Chancellor, announced that a two-day admissions workshop would be held next summer with all admissions officers. The objective of the meeting will be to review policies and interpretations of policies as they apply to various student admissions scenarios. All questions and agenda items regarding the admissions workshop will be directed to Ms. Tonya Lam, Sr. Advisor for Student Information Systems. Participants in the upcoming meeting will discuss the possibility of linking the Academic Affairs Handbook and Georgia Easy to facilitate questions concerning the admissions process from parents, students, and high school counselors. Additional topics of discussion on the agenda include the formulation of a new Central Office committee that includes admissions officers, a review of additional academic units, discussion of the GED pilot to be extended to two-year colleges, improving access for non-traditional students, a review of DTAE and mini-core SACS compliance, and a more detailed discussion of SACS faculty personnel standards as it relates to cooperative Associate of Applied Science and Bachelor of Applied Science degrees. Regarding the cooperative Associate of Applied Science and Bachelor of Applied Science degrees, institutions must check to determine at what level courses are taught before accepting the transferability of credit. To assist in the assessment of faculty credentials, DTAE has volunteered to develop a database of faculty with details concerning their credentials. According to the current model, if a student matriculates from a technical institution to a two-year college and then, to a state college or university to ultimately become a student at a research university, the research university is still required to validate the credentials of any DTAE credit since it is a receiving institution.
SACS Substantive Change for Distance Education
Dr. Kris Biesinger requested that the Chief Academic Officers indicate whether their respective institutions were eligible to participate in a SACS Substantive Change review for distance education. The review encompasses institutions participating in eCore™ and those institutions that offer 50% or more of an academic program at a distance. This definition includes GSAMS, satellite, Internet, and videotape delivery. Dr. Biesinger explained that key components of the SACS review involve the assessment and evaluation of student learning experiences when using distance education delivery modules. Dr. Biesinger further explained that all lottery and state funds received for the Faculty Development Institute must be used for faculty experience and teaching with technology in the classroom.

Announcements and Updates
Dr. Anne Gormly briefed the group on Georgia College & State University's progress in implementing the degree audit program entitled CAPP, Curriculum Advising Planning Program. The program analyzes institutional retention practices and strives to ensure that students are matriculating satisfactorily toward a four-year or six-year graduation. In addition to projecting graduation timelines, the program provides admissions officers and students a progress report in terms of degree attainment and transferability of credit. In order to accomplish these outcomes, Dr. Gormly described the following internal steps: 1) all deans reviewed the institutional catalog and corrected any inaccuracies; 2) institutional committees reviewed residency and transfer requests; and, 3) all department chairs worked with the consultants to determine the consistency and transferability of courses. Dr. Gormly explained that Georgia College & State University would officially implement the CAPP program January 16, 2001. A report will be provided to the Chief Academic Officers during the spring meeting.

The Advanced Learning Technology Meeting will be held in Athens February 18 - 20, 2001. Institutions are requested to send a group of eight (8) faculty members. This meeting was formerly called the Video Exploratorium. Please contact Dr. Louis Levy (Valdosta State University) for more details.

The National Institutes of Health has recommended that all clinical and exploratory investigations involving human subjects obtain "clinical competence". The Food and Drug Administration has made this a regulation for all institutions including those seeking federal funds. The Medical College of Georgia has a web-based module which meets this federal requirement. Please contact Dr. Barry Goldstein (Medical College of Georgia) for more details.
Summer Meeting Plans (Date/Location/Theme)
Dr. Bettie Horne announced that the summer meeting would be held June 3 - 5 at Sea Palms.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:15 p.m.

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Meeting Minutes: Committee on Academic Affairs