February 4, 2014
Executive Summary
1. Call to Order
Chair Zonderman called the tenth meeting of the sixtieth session of the NC State Faculty Senate to order at 3 p.m.
2. Remarks and Announcements
Chair Zonderman urged Senators to get the word out about the Chair-Elect elections.
Chair Zonderman explained the process for Senate elections and noted that he would like the elections to be competitive.
Chair Zonderman commented on the faculty list and communication. He informed the Senate that the list is used sparingly to respect the in-boxes of the faculty.
3. Approval of the Minutes, Meeting No. 9, January 21, 2014.
A motion passed to approve the minutes as submitted.
4. Remarks from Provost Arden
Provost Arden reported that the Faculty Excellence Program hiring is continuing and up to 27 faculty have been hired in those clusters.
Provost Arden announced that the inaugural Faculty Excellence Symposium will be in the Hunt Library on Friday, April 25th between 1 and 5 p.m.
5. Presentation: Susan Nutter, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries
Vice Provost Nutter informed the Senate that they developed a plan called ”Hill after Hunt.” Money was allocated in the last fiscal year to carry out some immediate changes to bring Hill along, and it has been successful.
Vice Provost Nutter explained the budget environment for the university and the impact that it has had on the libraries.
6. Old/New Business
Resolution on Transfer of Tuition Waivers for Dependents of Faculty and Staff – Second Reading
The resolution was presented for a second reading.
Senator Knopp proposed an amendment to the resolution; to replace the wording “at any institution” with “as permitted to faculty and staff.” The motion was seconded by Senator Laffitte.
A motion passed with unanimous support to accept the amendment.
The amended resolution passed with a unanimous vote.
7. Adjourn
A motion passed to adjourn the meeting at 4:20 p.m. Meeting Minutes
Present:
Chair Zonderman, Immediate Past Chair Kellner, Secretary Daley, Provost Arden; Parliamentarian Weiner; Senators Aday, Bernhard, Bird, Bradley, Devetsikiotis, Fleisher, Funkhouser, Heitmann, Holden, Knopp, Knowles, Laffitte, J. Moore, M. Moore, Penrose, Rucker, Tyler, Williams
Excused:
Senators Ade, Aspnes, Bartlett, Bourham, Lunardi, Morgado, Nfah-Abbenyi, Sztajn
Absent:
Senators Allaire, Baumer, Borden, Edwards, Fuentes, Krause, Lucia, Marks, Spontak
Guests:
Susan Nutter, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries; Chris Tonelli, Assistant to Director/Libraries; David Goldsmith, Associate Director, Material Management, Libraries; Marc Hoit, OIT; Mike Mullen, DASA; Betsy Brown, Provost’s Office
1. Call to Order
Chair Zonderman called the tenth meeting of the sixtieth session of the NC State Faculty Senate to order at 3 p.m.
2. Remarks and Announcements
Chair Zonderman urged Senators to get the word out about the Chair-Elect elections.
Chair Zonderman explained the process for Senate elections and noted that he would like the elections to be competitive. Chair Zonderman commented on the faculty list and communications. He informed the Senate that the list is used sparingly to respect the in-boxes of the faculty.
3. Approval of the Minutes, Meeting No. 9, January 21, 2014
The minutes were approved as submitted.
4. Remarks and Q/A Provost
Provost Arden reported that the Faculty Excellence Program hiring is continuing and up to 27 faculty have been hired in those clusters.
Provost Arden announced that the inaugural Faculty Excellence Symposium will be in the Hunt Library on Friday, April 25th between 1 and 5 p.m. There will be a keynote speaker and presentations by many of the Faculty Excellence hires or their cluster coordinator.
Questions and Comments
Secretary Daley asked if there will be another round of cluster hires formally announced.
Provost Arden responded that they were going to originally start the next round this fall, but because of budgetary limitations they have decided to put it off for another year. There will be calls for additional clusters during the 2014-2015 year with searches and hiring occurring during the 2015-2016 year.
Provost Arden stated that the state budget director has written to General Administration asking the university to at least plan for an additional 2% reduction above what is in the second year of the biennium. He will be paying close attention to this.
Past Chair Kellner asked the Provost to explain what the Chancellors of the system would like to see the Board of Governors do in terms of the state support versus tuition and fees.
Provost Arden stated that there are two overriding events . The first is that North Carolina is one of two states that have this relationship between appropriation and tuition. The second item on the tuition side would be to have the authority for tuition to come down to the level of the Board of Governors, because that’s the way it is in most public universities.
Chair Zonderman asked the Provost to update the Senate on where we are in the strategic resource reallocation process?
Provost Arden stated that there are a couple of processes taking place and one is a budget realignment taskforce that began a couple of years ago, led by Ginger Burks from Vice Chancellor Leffler’s office, and it asks the fundamental question --, is our base budget distributed appropriately across the university into new increases or decreases that come our way or is it still allocated by the same methodology?
Provost Arden stated that an interrelated process that has been going on since early in the fall, co-chaired by Duane Larick and Ginger Burk from the Business and Finance office, raises a slightly different question --- whether or not there are any significant opportunities to identify resources within the university that we could redirect to our highest strategic priorities? It turns out that the two overlap in many areas. For example, asking the question regarding resources that come to the university through on campus enrollment credit hour generation and resources that come to the university through distance education credit generation --, why are they handled differently and can they be handled in a similar and uniformed manner? Another example relates to a fundamental question about how to handle new resources and how to identify resources.
5. Presentation: Susan Nutter, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries
Vice Provost Nutter informed the Senate that a number of years ago they developed a plan called” Hill after Hunt.” Money was allocated in the last fiscal year to carry out some immediate changes to bring Hill along, and they have succeeded.
Vice Provost Nutter also explained the budget environment for the university and the choices the libraries have had to make.
Hill to Hunt Plan
Vice Provost Nutter stated that the first thing they did after moving into Hunt was to consolidate all of the staff into one location, which freed up public space for faculty and students. They have created four new major spaces, which include a visualization studio, Maker-space work shop (in the planning and design stage), the new graduate student commons has opened and a new faculty commons that will open after July 1t . The visualization studio will open March 1, and it was done jointly with Chapel Hill as a way to reduce cost. This is similar to the teaching and visualization space in Hunt, but in a junior capacity. It provides all of the aspects that anyone in teaching and research would use to teach and to use visualization. The studio is located on the second floor of the south tower. The space has been nicely renovated and will be supported mostly by graduate students.
Vice Provost Nutter stated that they are opening a Maker-space work shop, which is a large space that can fit a large group of people and provides the opportunity to do workshops and to have all kinds of machines and materials that they can work with. That will be housed on the first floor next to the main circulation desk. Graduate students will also be used to provide support for this area.
The graduate student commons opened at the beginning of January and it is the old Research and Information department space. This space is opened only to graduate students by card access. The space has three group study rooms, a seminar room that seats ten, and a total of seventy- four new seats in different spaces in that area.
The Faculty Commons will be on second floor of the West Wing of the library and will be accessible by card access. There will be a large space that will seat twenty- eight to forty people depending on the setup. In addition there are four, four-seat work rooms, and six seminar rooms. There is lounge seating in two open areas and there are chairs at tables in two open areas, so the total seating not including the large space is fifty-six. Coffee will also be offered for purchase on an honor system.
NCSU Libraries Permanent Budget Reduction
Vice Provost Nutter reported on the library’s status with the permanent budget reductions.
The libraries took cuts this year of $1.3 million that included twenty-seven positions being cut, of which fourteen were filled and thirteen that were vacant. The Hunt Library was opened with one half the staff that was needed. Nutter stated that trying to keep the same level of service that they have been able to offer is going to be a challenge particularly if there are further cuts.
The NCSU Libraries budget is 53% collections and 41% personnel; in the average research library this is flipped, with their money being in personnel. Nutter stated that they have understood from faculty that collections are critical, so they have tried to develop a library where the service is delivered effectively with fewer staff. She noted that the operations budget is quite small and that is a challenge.
Vice Provost Nutter reported that NC State’s collections budget is thirteenth among its seventeen peers, and is really off the median. This is going to require them to talk with students about the need to close one or both of the libraries overnight and that will depend on what happens with the budget cuts.
Vice Provost Nutter stated that they are open to consider a schedule where maybe Hill will be open during the week.
In terms of collections they are going to have to do another major collections review and the University Library Committee will be guiding that.
Vice Provost Nutter stated that she thinks it is time to begin looking at some data bases because that material is coming out in other literature and they may not need to be buying them. She wants to hear from the faculty as well. The list will be sent out before the end of this semester. The faculty reps will be working within departments to come up with their list, but all of the faculty will individually get an opportunity to respond. Those are going into effect for next year.
Vice Provost Nutter stated that if they need to create money to buy new research in areas that they have not been working in, particularly with the cluster hires who are going to need different resources than they have been able to provide in the past, it is going to be a challenge and they will have to take a bigger cut than expected. The libraries will try to be creative since they have done a pretty good job in doing that in the past, but she still seeks the faculty’s help and advice.
Questions and Comments
Do you receive any of the educational and technology fees?
The response was yes.
How much does it cost to keep the libraries open overnight?
Vice Provost Nutter stated that it gets complicated because you have to run three shifts. You have to run the third shift for the entire year in order to get staff who are going to stay and be serious about what they are doing, so for the two libraries the cost is approximately one half million dollars and that include two security guards in both locations.
What is the differential between the print versions versus the digital version of journals?
Nutter stated that it is often easier to just get the online resources, that when you try to add the print your prices really increase.
David Goldsmith, Associate Director, Material Management stated that in many situations the cost of the electronic is based off of historical print price with inflation, so it then becomes a question of if you want the print archive you will pay anywhere from 10% up to 90% depending on the publisher who is having it in dual form. That is why you see a dramatic decrease in the amount of print editions when there are electronic versions in the libraries, but there are still some disciplines and some specific journals which are not available online yet.
How will the cluster hires and the new graduate and doctoral programs that are going online impact collections.
Vice Provost Nutter stated that in terms of the cluster hires there is a lot in the area of medicine and human health that NC State doesn’t have, so those are going to be purchases that they will be encouraged to apply. The problem is that Duke and Chapel Hill have them electronically but NC State can’t share them unless faculty personally goes to those libraries.
6. Old/New Business
Resolution on Transfer of Tuition Waivers for Dependents of Faculty and Staff – Second Reading
The resolution was presented for a second reading.
Senator Knopp proposed an amendment to the resolution, to replace the wording “at any institution” with “as permitted to faculty and staff.” The motion was seconded by Senator Laffittee.
The motion passed with unanimous consent to accept the amendment.
The amended resolution passed with unanimous consent.
7. Adjourn
A motion passed to adjourn the meeting at 4:20 p.m.
