December 2, 2014
Executive Summary
1. Call to Order
Chair Zonderman called the seventh meeting of the sixty-first session of the NC State Faculty Senate to order at 3 p.m.
2. Remarks and Announcements
The next Faculty Senate meeting will be January 13, 2015.
3. Approval of the Minutes, Meeting No. 6, November 18, 2014
A motion passed to approve the minutes
.
4. Remarks from Provost Arden
Tuition and fees
Provost Arden reported that recommendations that came out of the Tuition and Fees Committee were sent to the Chancellor and then to the Board of Trustees for approval. They will now be sent to the Board of Governors for consideration.
Provost Arden reported that the recommendation for each of the next two years is a 3 % tuition increase for in-state undergraduates and for most other categories. The recommended increase for out of state undergraduate students is 6 percent.
Provost Arden stated that NC State is currently at the bottom of the fourth quartile of its peer group in pretty much every category. The Board of Governors would like to see the university move toward the third quartile. He noted that the difference will be about $4,000 for the university to reach the lower end of the third quartile.
Provost Arden reported that NC State is recommending 3.9 % increase next year for fees covered by the 5% cap, and 3.5% for the following year.
Provost Arden stated that the Board of Governors is also dealing with the evaluation of Centers and Institutes. There are a total of eight that remain on the list for Phase II evaluation and four of those are in the Marine and Coastal Studies category. He said since there has been a fairly extensive review of coastal and marine programs, they are being put aside and may be reconsidered in the February/March time frame.
Provost Arden announced that even though four of the current centers and institutes are being evaluated, there will be a meeting of the subcommittee of the Board of Governors this Friday and there will be a subsequent meeting the following week for those that are still under consideration. Those still on the list are the Institute of Emerging Issues, the Japan Center, the Turfgrass Center, and the Ergonomics Center.
5. Presentations
Potential Changes to Graduate Student Support Plan
Dr. Duane Larick, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Strategy and Resource Management reported that the group was charged with looking at growing doctoral education with the recognition that the graduate student support plan be a key piece to growing it. Larick stated that he would like to see the university get to the point where capacity, faculty, and the resources that it takes to recruit, will determine whether to take a new graduate student or not; if we do, the graduate student support plan will be there.
Dr. Larick reported that a subcommittee is working on training grants. He stated that there are some training grants on campus today, but we are woefully short of where we should be and part of it is because we don’t incentivize faculty to go out after those grants. There is a group looking at some of the incentives for that.
Dr. Larick reported that this year the Provost provided funding for 60 first year stipends, which worked very well. He said they are also talking about what can be done in the future in relation to that kind of program.
Dr. Larick reported three things that will be a part of the report from this group. The first will be an earmark from enrollment increase money. The second will be to hold the graduate student support plan harmless to campus initiated tuition increase. The third will be F&A, because right now 1.5% off of the top, which calculates to $685,000 this year, goes directly to the graduate student support plan. .
Capital Campaign
Brian Sischo, Vice Chancellor for University Advancement stated that he has been in higher education and advancement for 24 years. He went on to give an overview of the capital campaign and talked briefly about the next steps that are coming in a couple of years.
Mr. Sischo said today’s comprehensive capital campaign represents an opportunity for the university to coalesce the variety of university wide, school, college, and unit wide priorities into a comprehensive effort. The key is to attach it to a specific timeline. He stated that in a lot of ways this is about coalescing all of these great ideas under an overarching umbrella and then using that as a way to articulate it to our broader constituencies, i.e., alumni, parents, friends, corporations, foundations, and others.
6. Old /New Business
Senator Fleisher raised an issue about past practices of the Faculty Senate composing resolutions to recognize deceased senators. The issue was assigned to the Governance Committee for review.
7. Adjourn
A motion passed to adjourn the meeting at 4:32 p.m. Meeting Minutes
Present:
Chair Zonderman, Secretary Daley, Chair- Elect Moore, Parliamentarian Fath; Provost Arden; Senators Aday, Allaire, Ash, Auerbach, Banks, Barlettr, Baumer, Bernhard, Bird, Borden, Brady, Bullock, Cubbage, Davidian, Devetsikiotis, Fleisher, Holden, Laffitte, Levy, Lunardi, Nfah—Abbenyi, Orcutt, Scearce, Sotillo, Steer, Williams
Excused:
Senators Byrnes, Krause, Moore, Smith
Absent:
Senators Edwards, Fuentes, Gunter, Heitmann, Spontak
Guests:
Brian Sischo, Vice Chancellor for Advancement; Michael Mullen, Vice Chancellor and Dean for Academic and Student Affairs; Marcia Gumpertz, Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity; Marc Hoit, Vice Chancellor for IT and CIO; Duane Larick, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Strategy & Resource Management
1. Call to Order
Chair Zonderman called the seventh meeting of the sixty-first session of the NC State Faculty Senate to order at 3 p.m.
2. Remarks and Announcements
Chair Zonderman announced that today is the last meeting for the fall semester. He thanked everyone for their work during the semester. The Senate will reconvene on Tuesday, January 13.
3. Approval of the Minutes, Meeting No. 6, November 18, 2014
Minutes of the November 18, 2014 meeting were approved as submitted.
4. Remarks from Provost Arden
Tuition and fees
Provost Arden reported that the recommendations that came out of the Tuition and Fees Committee were sent to the Chancellor and then to the Board of Trustees for approval. They will be sent to the Board of Governors for consideration.
Provost Arden stated that the new four year plan from the Board of Governors says that you can’t increase in-state undergraduate tuition more than 5% per year for the next four years. NC State’s recommendation for each of the next two years is 3 % for in-state undergraduates and for every other category other than for out of state undergraduate students where the recommendation is a 6% increase. He explained that the reason that is different from the others is because another directive from the Board of Governors states that we should move out-of-state student tuition toward the third quartile of our peer group, which means that we take our sixteen peer group and divide it into four.
Provost Arden said NC State is currently at the bottom of the fourth quartile of its peer group in pretty much every category. The Board of Governors wants to see it move toward the third quartile and for the university to get to the lower end of the third quartile is about a $4,000 difference. He said we have the most head room between where we are now and what it would take to get to the third quartile of any university in the system.
Provost Arden stated that 6% will either get us there or be very close over a four year period. There is headroom of about half that for out of state graduate students, so $2,000 and a 3% increase would get us there over that period of time.
Provost Arden reported that on the fee side, for fees covered by the 5% cap, we are at about 3.9% recommendation for next year and 3.5% for the following year. He stated that we want to remain a very reasonable tuition institution. As we continue to be challenged in our state appropriations it is not possible to remain at rock bottom all the time, because we will not be a good value education since we won’t be able to maintain the quality of what we are doing.
Provost Arden stated that our fee recommendations include some select program fees. There are already some that exist and one of them is going to be increased. For example, the Professional Golf Management Program already has a $500 fee and that is so students can get access to other golf courses that they need access to in addition to our own course. This would also expand the fee for engineering students. They currently pay $90 computer fee, but is it clear that the cost of an engineering education is significantly more than many other forms of undergraduate education and for us to stay competitive in what we are providing to students we have to continue some investment of resources and so that fee is scheduled to increase to $500 next year and then $1,000 the following year.
Provost Arden stated that the reality is that if you look at many of our competitive engineering programs the base tuition of in-state undergraduate is significantly higher than ours and on top of that they charge a one to five thousand dollars fee to engineering students,. This is extremely conservative in hopes that our engineering students will stay very competitive. That will probably go to the Board of Governors in January.
Provost Arden reported that the other issue that the Board of Governors is dealing with is the evaluation of our Centers and Institutes. Essentially there are 56 centers and institutes that are on their radar for being evaluated. These are mostly centers and institutes that are receiving some form of state appropriation. We have a total of eight that are still on the list for Phase II evaluation and four of those are in the Marine and Coastal Studies category and because there has been a fairly extensive review of coastal and marine programs they are being put aside for the moment and may be reconsidered in the February/March time frame. Though we have four of our current centers and institutes that are being evaluated there will be a meeting of the subcommittee of the Board of Governors this Friday and for those that are still under consideration, there will be a subsequent meeting in consideration the following week. The ones that are still on the list are the Institute of Emerging Issues, the Japan Center, the Turfgrass Center and the Ergonomics Center.
Questions and Comments
Chair Zonderman commented that it sounds as if the Board of Governors is not voicing any criteria for why certain ones are on the list
Provost Arden stated that they actually have a list of criteria which is sort of this long complicated flow chart. For example, one criterion was those criteria that receive less than $50,000 in state support, which is probably how the Japan Center was included on the list. There is also another clause that any Board of Governors member can reinsert any center or institute at any time in the process that they choose to.
Chair Zonderman stated that as far as our campus, there has been some chatter among faculty that it is “political” but given the list at our campus it seems rather eclectic to say the least.
Provost Arden stated that in fairness to the governors he thinks they are trying to do due diligence here and ask the fundamental question, is the state and the system investing in entities that have return on investment. “I think the fundamental questions that are being asked seem reasonable. I think we are very well positioned and I actually expected it to be a fairly positive outcome for us.”
Do we have provisions for students who qualify, but don’t have the resources, to become engineers?
Provost Arden responded that all undergraduate students that qualify receive financial aid. We currently meet about 80% of all documented needs through the FASA system, which is pretty good. Yes, if you want to go into engineering and you are a student that qualifies, then yes there are avenues for you to go.
Provost Arden went on to say that even though this is an increase we have to keep in perspective that compared with either our peer engineering schools or even our UNC peers we are still rock bottom. Given that appropriation is tailoring off we are going to have to continue to maintain the quality of our program.
5. Presentations
Potential Changes to Graduate Student Support Plan
Dr. Duane Larick, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Strategy and Resource Management noted that there is a plan, whether you like it or not. He stated that the graduate student support plan is a policy that if any of us could define from scratch with unlimited resources there is no way we would have come up with the graduate student support plan we have today. The key is resources.
Dr. Larick stated that the group was charged to look at growing doctoral education with the recognition that the graduate student support plan is a key piece to growing doctoral education. He said he hopes that we will get to the point where capacity, faculty, and the resources that it takes to recruit that student will determine whether we take a new graduate student or not. If we do, the graduate student support plan will be there. He stated that when you hire a new faculty member you don’t necessarily think about the benefit. There is an assumption that the benefits will be there for the new hire. My dream will be that the day will come that we are the same way with our enrollment plan for graduate education.
Dr. Larick stated that a subcommittee is working on training grants. He said there are some training grants on our campus today, but we are woefully short of where we should be with them and part of it is because we don’t incentivize faculty to go out after those grants. There is a group looking at some of the incentives for that.
Dr. Larick reported that this year the Provost provided funding for 60 first year stipends, which worked very well. He said they are also discussing what can be done in the future in relation to that kind of program.
Dr. Larick stated that they had a faculty member from UNC Chapel Hill who is the coordinator of the BSSP Program, which is basically a first year life science program and all of the programs in the life science at Chapel Hill fit under this umbrella of admissions of doctoral students into a first year program. The program is funded by the university and then the students decide where they are going to go within the different curriculums. We have a subgroup that is looking at making a recommendation for what we might do with that kind of pilot first year program at NC State. We have those kinds of things that could incentivize the number of doctoral students that we recruit. We have talked about how we would fund those.
Dr. Larick stated that three things that he knows will be part of the report that comes out of this group would be an earmark from enrollment increase money. He said if part of the enrollment increase funding that we receive from the State is associated with an increase in graduate students numbers, then we could earmark a portion of that money directly to support of graduate students, whether that be stipends or whether that be the graduate student support plan. Directly allocating a portion of the money makes sure those additional students are drawing in the enrollment increase money. Directly earmarking some of it toward those students is one proposal.
The second which is something that we have done in the last few years related to the tuition and the campus initiated tuition increase would be holding harmless the graduate student support plan to campus initiated tuition increase.
The third one would be F&A, because right now we take 1.5% off of the top of F&A, this year it calculates out to $685,000 that goes directly to the graduate student support plan. Is that enough or should it be 2 or 3 percent?
Dr. Larick explained that the calculation of hold harmless is if a student is on a teaching assistantship funded by the state and the support comes from the state for the GSSP. The tuition and the health insurance are coming from the state. If the GSSP has to pay that tuition, the CITI raises it and we take money out of that and put it back into the GSSP to cover it. It doesn’t hold the faculty member who has written a grant harmless to that increase.
Dr. Larick stated that there has been a lot of discussion about two features of the GSSP—one would be those of you that have North Carolina residents, international students that can’t become a resident for tuition purposes are paying 25% of the out of state tuition every year out of whatever the funding source is.
Senator Orcutt asked is there is a way to deal with the differential overhead.
Dr. Larick responded that overhead returns to you. He noted that if you have a stipend in your grant more of the overhead could return to you.
Secretary Daley asked —Is any of the F&A dedicated to the support plan?
Dr. Larick responded that 1.5 percent is dedicated to the support plan.
Question: Can that be doubled?
Larick stated that there is a recommendation to continue that if needed. He said it wouldn’t be just the part that comes off of the PI.
What if you combine the two? – No response
Dr. Larick said there have been a lot of ideas submitted to the group. We have broken it into things that are going to cost the university money, things that might save the university money and then one that would be cost neutral.
Dr. Larick stated that the cost neutral one is probably the most bold. Speaking of which, the College of Management has proposed many times, just give us an enrollment target, give us the GSSP and leave us alone. Forget all the rules of eligibility and just give us the money and let us manage it.
Larick said it would only be cost neutral this year because as the number of students grow, if we propose enrollment increase and then the number of students grow then we would need additional support to hit those targets as we move forward.
Dr. Larick stated that if we change the eligibility to make more students eligible or make students eligible for a longer time it is going to cost more money. We have heard a lot about the fact that the length of time you put students in the GSSP and the fact that if the student has a master’s degree there is a different time for a student with a master’s degree versus a student who goes from a bachelor to a PhD. If we were to change that and just say it’s up to eight years regardless if an internal masters or an external masters then it will cost a little more money and again we are working on what that cost will be. The group is committed to not putting forth proposals if there is not some recommendations as to how much it would cost or where the money will come from.
Dr. Larick stated that that another proposal that they have heard many times would be the fact that the clock for a student starts when they first enroll at NC State, not when they are first appointed to the GSSP. For many programs in the STEM areas those things are one in the same. You don’t recruit a PhD in Aerospace Engineering unless you have a stipend for that student, but in the College of Education it is not uncommon for a student that would be pursuing an EDD or a PhD in Education to stay on as a Principal at their school while they take one course at a time. They didn’t use up their GSSP but they used up their eligibility, because the clock started four years ago.
Dr. Larick stated that another one that is getting the most discussion would be master’s versus doctoral students. The university’s strategic plan and the university’s enrollment plan talks about growing doctoral education and then growing master’s education in focused professional areas. We are increasing the third cohort in the institute for the masters of Science and analytics. The discussion is what kind of master students the extreme would be, no masters students would be eligible for the GSSP, you would only do the GSSP for doctoral students. The next thing would say some doctoral students plus masters students in terminal degrees or master of science students who are funded or maybe it would be that doctoral students have 100% of the GSSP covered and masters students have one half of it covered, but some discussion about priorities, doctoral students versus masters students and if you want to increase doctoral students you want to increase the time line that they are eligible, you want to let them start in the GSSP whenever they get a stipend, not when the clock start at day one, and one way to come up with resources to do that would be to fund fewer master degrees.
Dr. Larick said that is under the proposals that would save the university money, reduce GSSP benefits for master students, eliminate the GSSP for master students, and create a differential GSSP eligibility for masters versus doctoral students. Another one would be to increase the minimum stipend to qualify for the GSSP. Of all the GSSP related ones, the one most likely to happen would be that. He noted that $8,000 is not a living wage for a student, it ( $8,000) has created a lot of weird incentives.
Questions and Comments
How many students are forced to drop out due to lack of funding?
Larick stated that the number one reason for a doctoral student to leave is the loss of funding with mentoring being a close second.
Senator: In my leadership program 99.9% of students work full time. Has there been any consideration of the different formulas in programs in the university where a vast majority of the students work full time?
Larick stated that they have had the discussion about a differential GSSP for masters versus doctoral but not within doctoral.
Senator Cubbage commented that he thinks Dr. Larick is far too modest because the GSSP is one of the best plans we have at NC State. He stated that he understands that he is more focused on PhD to raise the caliber of the institution but the number of credit hours that are going to be generated for just PhD’s are not going to be nearly as much. If we are funded based on credit hours you are also risking our formula funding to some extent if we take away support for masters.
Senator Devetsikiotis commented that lack of master students is certainly not a problem in the engineering program. This is a big school with many aspects.
Dr. Larick said he thinks the big challenge is the breadth of NC State between what seems to work very well for one, while change that makes sense for one might be a disadvantage for the other. At some point there are strategic and financial decisions that have to be made and it has to be a combination of both.
Senator Devetsikiotis: In programs with very h3 departments such as engineering, I think we need to grow the master’s program and the PhD program together because that is the only way we can really justify teaching so many classes,. I think our recent increase in the master’s population has been very good for us because now we have very viable, very rich graduate education program.
Senator Lunardi inquired about the training grants. She stated that they are harder to get.
Dr. Larick stated that he thinks faculty need help with writing and help with managing training grants. He asked-- will there be some standard that a faculty member could expect if they are willing to put in the time and energy to create a training grant.
Chair Zonderman stated that there are departments in CHASS that don’t have any graduate programs or only a master’s and some of them want to get doctoral programs, but given GA politics and the broader national politics, and the job markets, getting more doctoral programs in the Humanities is extremely difficult. Given that we are a Research I university and we have some pretty impressive faculty in CHASS that can be a serious effect on morale, retention, and recruitment of faculty.
Dr. Larick said that is the discussion of what is a terminal masters. He stated that an example of a terminal master’s would be like the MBA. English which doesn’t’ have a PhD program, maybe we should consider the master’s there a terminal degree. That is the discussion.
Dr. Larick stated that he welcomes feedback from the faculty. He is open for ideas and thinks this is an opportunity to rethink funding for graduate education on our campus.Capital Campaign
Brian Sischo, Vice Chancellor for University Advancement, stated that he has been in higher education and advancement for 24 years.
Mr. Sischo stated that NC State has a tremendous amount of momentum in many different ways, whether it is the research profile or whether we are talking student attractiveness. He said this is also a place with a huge amount of incremental growth opportunities.
Mr. Sischo stated that the downside of an NC State is that it is relatively new. He noted that we only started keeping track of donors and records in the seventies. The good news is that NC State alumni in particular are extremely passionate about this university. He said the challenge for him and his staff is to translate that passion and that culture of caring into a culture of giving. Early evidence referenced by the N&O is that this is a university that is quickly approaching that tipping point to really see our brightest days ahead of us.
Mr. Sischo gave an overview of the campaign and the next steps that are coming in a couple of years.
Mr. Sischo stated that what we have here is a hybrid, but we also have a central core particularly organized around the specialty areas. This is a university historically that we have totally decentralized and it has only been in the last ten or twelve years that the university has begun to invest in central organizations in some of these specialty areas like gift planning, corporate and foundation relations, and advancement services.
Mr. Sischo stated that the advantage of the centralized model is that it is the easiest to manage. The advantage of the decentralized model is everything is a tub on its on bottom. The challenge with hybrid organization is it is the most challenging to manage because the key is to make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
Mr. Sischo stated that the job of the development staff primarily is to understand what he calls donor centricity as opposed to us trying to label someone as a prospect for this. He said what we really need to find out is what they are most interested in and then target their action and their engagement toward that. When we do that they tend to give more money than trying to fit into a certain box.
Mr. Sischo stated that today’s comprehensive capital campaign looks like or what it really represents is an opportunity for the university to coalesce the variety of university wide, school, college, and unit wide priorities into a comprehensive effort. The key is to attach it to a specific timeline. He said in a lot of ways this is about coalescing all of these great ideas under an overarching umbrella and then using that as a way to articulate that to our broader constituencies, i.e., alumni, parents, friends, corporations, foundations, and others. He said the challenge in that of course is ultimately agreeing on what those priorities ought to be. In translation we need to make sure we have all the ideas on the broader menu, but also the opportunity to highlight the specials for the university as a whole and an example of that would be professorships. The idea would be that we would have every position endowed at the university; endowing professorships is a key university priority, whether you are in CHASS or Engineering. That becomes a key special that we look to market in this campaign, as an example.
Timeline
Mr. Sischo explained that there are typically three phases to a campaign, which includes planning or reach back phase, nucleus phase, and public phase.
Mr. Sischo explained that the planning reach back phase for NC State started essentially given the arrival of Chancellor Woodson in 2010. We started the nucleus phase on July 1, 2013 and our objective is to start the public phase two years from now, fall 2016. We have a window that begins with the Chancellor’s arrival. The public phase is designed to go five years. We will look to conclude the campaign in 2021. The reach back phase is the period during which we get our act together. We look to really scour the university, fill out that menu. The nucleus phase is the time during which we really seek to identify, solicit, and close the transformative level gifts that will set the stage for the public phase. The objective in the public phase is to have a broad base approach to all of our constituencies.
Mr. Sischo reported that during the planning/research phase we would identify those gifts that were made to NC State that we would consider as important to those university priorities. He said in our case we looked at six figures and higher level gifts, because in 99% of those cases those would be directed to the priorities you all would know and appreciate as being the university’s highest priorities. This would include the $50 million commitment to endow the Park Scholars; $40 million commitment from the Poole family to name the Poole College of Management and it would also include the $100,000 scholarship that was created in CHASS.
Mr. Sischo stated that when they started the nucleus phase of the campaign, they counted all gifts. He reported that for the period, July 1 – June 30, 2014 there was a total of $187.1 million in gifts and commitments. That coupled with the amount that was included in the reach back phase brought us to a running total of more than $500 million at the start of this fiscal year. To date in this fiscal year there has been a total of $65 million through the end of October, which puts us at approximately $570 million in the campaign.
Mr. Sischo pointed out that the funds are not sitting somewhere in a bank account, these are funds that the donors allocate to the things that are most important to them. What we will be doing as we move toward the nucleus phase, which is the launch of the public phase is to really hone in on the specific themes that we see as being broad based for all constituencies to consider, but under which, the kinds of things that are important to each and every department and each and every faculty member can find a home. The most typical things would be students’ scholarships (undergraduate and graduate), professorships, support for center and institute programs, departments, facilities, and then ultimately annual operating support. The idea is that we are testing a $1.5 billion goal. Our target has been to reach approximately $900 million by the public launch of campaign two years from now, an affect that would require the kind of performance we have seen in the last couple of years. If so, there would be some sense of confidence that achieving a $1.5 billion target would be within reach. He said this is all to be evaluated over the next two years so that we can understand what our potential is. The reality is you can always go up but you can’t come down.
Mr. Sischo commented on the five overarching goals for the campaign.
Mr. Sischo reported on the use of money that will be raised. He said not all the money raised will be for the endowment. Some will be earmarked by donors for facilities or annual operating support. He anticipates that as much as half of the campaign will be used to help grow the overall endowment of the university.
Mr. Sischo reported that another key goal is enhancing our reputation. Many would say that the overall university reputation is not greater than the sum of the parts. His observation is that if you break down the individual areas within the university, the reputation and understanding of those individual pieces is h3er than the overall university reputation. He said efforts are being taken with a lot of work around the “Brand Refresh” to help enhance that and other steps are also being taken.
Sischo stated that it is important that we mobilize our alumni network to be successful in this campaign. He noted that two thirds of NC State’s alumni reside in the state of North Carolina and we need to take advantage of that.
Mr. Sischo stated that we need to continue to build our culture of philanthropy. This is expressed in the number of donors that support the university. There has been a 35% growth over the last five years but there is still a lot that needs to be done. He said one of the ways that we are looking to underscore this is by showcasing the impact of philanthropy. It is one thing to talk about numbers, it is one thing to talk about donors and it’s another to show what the impact of their giving is on our faculty and students. We are beginning to do that in a number of ways, and in some of the recent announcements that we have coordinated including the Zelnak Dean’s Chair in the Poole College of Management and the Khayrallah gift at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences are two examples that we will see more of to really drive home what their gifts have meant to the students and the faculty.
Mr. Sischo stated that we need to build a lasting advancement infrastructure in our efforts to try to play catch up. He urged the faculty to work closely with the unit base development staff in their home units as well as those in the central operation. He asked them to identify alumni, friends, and companies and to be willing to be involved in engaging those folks. He stated that in order to be interested and invest you have to get engaged.
Mr. Sischo stated that it is important to be able to create/define compelling opportunities to help fill out that menu discussed earlier. He said it is not just the million dollars idea, but in some cases we need to break down to the 25 and 50 thousand dollars chunks since some times that is all the donor has or is capable of providing.
Mr. Sischo encouraged the faculty to lead by example by making a gift to the thing that they are most passionate about. He said if a donor does come knocking on their door to say he or she has given, it’s important to also say “I’ve given as well. “
Questions and Comments
Is there something explicit in this campaign about graduates, PhD, fellowships, etc.?
Mr. Sischo stated that he has been in dialog with Dean Grasso and she has put forth some creative ways that they could present to some specific donors, depending on the sum of funds donors would be able to share in a strategic way, where over a five year window, donors would fund year one, two and five and the university would fund year three and four. The money in a sense gets prorated and thereby there is a way to get that sum at a more reasonable level for some donors. The idea is to have some specific examples of where donors could come in at different levels depending on what their capacity is.
Sischo stated that he talks to donors about what they are interested in and try to really tease out within that particular area. What are the kinds of things that would get them excited? He noted that steering donors is always a dangerous practice.
Is an endowed professorship given by an individual or is it a collective mission of trying to get donors that are far below that ability to push toward that within the college?
Sischo stated that from his experience the sole donor method is most effective. The challenge in the group effort is the challenge of people making a large contribution in someone else’s name. Donors typically at all levels have some form of ego. It does work, but the challenge is having a pool large enough.
Have you tried to get a donor to give a name for the Research Building at the College of Veterinary Medicine?
Sischo stated that they have inventoried across the university that if a donor was really interested in having their name on a particular facility there are formulas that we can use, but in some way it is a combination of art and science to say that there is a price tag. He noted that right now as part of the Engineering Oval project there is a price tag on each of the original three buildings.
6. Old /New Business
Senator Fleisher raised the issue at an Executive Committee meeting that in the past, resolutions have been done to recognize deceased senators. Chair Zonderman assigned the issue to the Governance Committee.
Senator Bernhard commented that this has been a long standing practice at Cornell University. The information is on the internet. He encouraged the Senators to review the information.
Secretary Daley stated that in past years, the department heads were responsible for doing this.
Chair Zonderman suggested that one possibility would be a practice in the Senate where we mark past senators as a gesture of respect.
Senator Orcutt noted that they have been memorializing folks within the libraries with a book in honor of members of the faculty, current and retired. He recalled that the criteria are for either active faculty or retired from NC State. It is also done if a current student at the university passes away.
7. Adjourn
A motion passed to adjourn the meeting at 4:32 p.m.
