USVI Public Records

Document text

RESTRUCTURING TASK FORCE – PROGRAM GROUP IDENTIFICATION Draft minutes of the meeting of March 19, 2004 Prepared by Lynn Rosenthal 1. The meeting was called to order at 2:30 in T115/713. Members present: Aletha Baumann, Eustace Esdaille, , Adam Parr, Lynn Rosenthal, Gwen Moolenar, Lorna Young-Wright, Denis Griffith, Joan Marsh, Debora Fontaine, Solomon Kabuka, Linda Thomas. (Gwen Moolenar had a UVI event on St. Croix, and Bob Stolz continues to have a conflicting commitment at this time.) 1. The minutes of March 5, 2004 were approved. 2. Program Groups – general a) It was agreed that all proposals will include the responsibilities for each position and the number of credits of release b) The last release of the responsibilities of Provost, Chancellors, Deans and Head from that team was discussed. Members noted that almost all of the verbs used to describe responsibilities of the Deans implied a leadership role as contrasted with a management role, leaving the actual detailed work of day to day management to the Head (and coordinator where present.) c) It was again noted in terms of the leadership v.s. management roles of the Deans and Heads that while centralization of support under the Dean creates possibilities for efficiency it will be critical that support by administrative assistants be available to carry out management responsibilities for Heads and coordinators. d) Members agreed to provide feedback on proposed responsibilities for Chancellors and Deans. e) It was noted that the existing structure was designed to alleviate previous problems with delays in processes on St. Croix and insufficient/inequitable allocation of resources on that campus, problems which will be recreated unless care is taken in implementation of the new university wide groups. 3. Individual Program Group proposals a) The education proposal has been revised to include the responsibilities for the graduate program with those of the Head, retaining release for day to day management on the campus on which the Head is not resident. b) The social science faculty have developed a draft proposal which will include all of the basic program groups in this discipline, a single Head, and management support on the campus on which the Head is not resident. This draft will be submitted and circulated as soon as it is finalized. c) The member from the nursing program group reported that none of the faculty supported a single Head for both the A.S. and B.S. programs. d) The humanities program groups requested costing and review of two alternate proposals: 1) the basic program groups comprising English (including coordination of English skills,) modern languages, music, communications/speech/journalism, 2) groups consisting of English (with skills coordination,) modern languages, communication/speech/journalism, and performing arts (with coordination of music, art, dance, and theatre.) e) Business Administration continues to recommend the separate School described in their previous proposal but has also developed a proposal which accommodates the requested conformity to the two school framework. This proposal includes a Head, management on the campus on which the Head is not resident, and coordination for: marketing/management, accounting/finance, CIS, and the graduate program. f) Extensive discussion continued in a Science and Mathematics Divisional meeting on March 18, 2004. No further proposals have been generated for program groups beyond those received from mathematics and computing sciences, so the biology and physical sciences basic groups remain by default at this point. Faculty in science and mathematics disciplines have a strong desire to retain their successful collaboration and teamwork, and, even without a Chair, they expect to continue interdisciplinary meetings of all program groups, interdisciplinary grant initiatives, outreach initiatives, work by committees responsible for areas such as retention, physical facilities, professional development, compensation and support for research, etc. Discussions continued to note the critical needs to: 1) provide management in science programs on St. Croix, 2) retain flexibility across program groups in faculty assignments in order to deliver the interdisciplinary GED science courses and in order to implement grant initiatives, 3) retain flexibility in allocation of resources across program groups in response to intermittent but heavy instrumentation and laboratory expenditures. 4. All proposals, including alternate structures where these have been developed, will be revised to include responsibilities and requested release for all positions and will be circulated and submitted to the costing team.