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Minutes, January 31, 2000

4 P.M.

Present: Azukas, Blakemore, Coleman, Columbus, Cox-Hanley, Hartman, Hydorn, Norwood, Smith, Stevenson

I. Roy reported on the last steering committee meeting, including information on the upcoming visit by our SACS liaison in February, concerns about keeping up with both parts of the self study, the need to make specific recommendations for achieving the transition we envision, and asking for guidance on the number and size of programs for which we might be planning academic support.

II. Old Business

A. We worked at some length on generating sources for information needed to deal woith the questions we raised for ourselves.  Those we have generated so far are inserted here:

Questions from Academic Affairs Committee of the Self Study

1. Staffing - how can we best staff the common/overlapping functions of multiple campuses and programs.  This includes areas such as registration, advising, etc.  How will this change as the size of programs increases?
 David Ayersman - IT
 Bernie Chirico - Student services
 Rick Pearce - Student accounts
 Joanne Schrass - advising, disabilities services / MWC
 Susan Stevenson - registration
 Sallie Washington Braxton - advising / JMC
 ?? - Physical plant

2. Faculty services to students - how should we handle faculty services such as advising if programs have considerably different requirements?  Should faculty continue to advise students for all programs?  For example, what if we had not only BLS, BA, and BS degrees but nursing or technical programs as well?

3. Resources - how can we best guarantee the staffing and monetary resources to support any new programs which might arise over the next few years?
 Bill Anderson
 Meta Braymer
 Rick Hurley
 Ron Singleton

4. Student access to courses - how do we minimize problems arising from two or more student bodies competing for common courses, especially if they are required in more than one program?  What structure would best minimize conflict?
 John Morello

5. Academic records - how should we handle the location of and access to records of student progress and activities?

6. Academic standards - how can we best handle an increasing diversity of policies on admissions, academic progress (probation and suspension), honors, etc.
 Jenifer Blair
 Debra Harber
 Joanne Schrass
 Marty Wilder

7. Course scheduling & staffing - how can we best satisfy possible conflicting expectations of students and faculty about frequency, timing, and staffing of courses for programs with different missions and student bodies?  To what extent should staffing of multiple programs involve overlap of physical and faculty resources (e.g. teaching in multiple programs at the same or different locations)?
 John Morello
 Mark Safferstone
 

8. How many programs should be added in the next 5/10 years?  Should they be primarily degree programs or certificate programs?  Should Ahybrid@ students be allowed to enroll in both types of programs simultaneously?

We also worked a bit on just what sort of questions we might ask of our sources.  For those on campus we might ask about the current status of coordination between campuses, what that configuration should look like, and recommendations for making any needed changes.  (Of course the answers would be more useful if we could provide guidelines on the sizes and number of programs projected for each campus.)  We would also like to hear from appropriate administrators at other campuses what advantages and disadvantages come with the organization they use, especially if they have recently gone through a transition like our own.  The committee is also concerned about the interaction of the various offices: how would organizational changes in one affect the functioning of others?

B. We did not get to the question of an overall model for organization as a university.  One committee member did respond to the request for input, suggesting that simply expanding our current administration to serve an additional campus at a distance does not seem to work now and would work even less well as JMC grows.

We adjourned at 5:20.

Our next meeting is scheduled for February 28th.  The location is not firm, pending an offer from JMC members of a meeting place on that campus.  Absent such an offer we will be back at the same place.

This Page Last Modified on: March 29, 2002