UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

SENATE

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Regular Session

March 8, 2004

3:00 p.m.

W. T. Young Library

First Floor Auditorium

Lexington, Kentucky

Dr. Jeffrey Dembo, Chair

An/Dor Reporting & Video Technologies, Inc.

179 East Maxwell Street

Lexington, Kentucky 40515

(859) 254-0568

University of Kentucky Senate

March 8, 2004

* * * * * * * * *

JEFFREY DEMBO, CHAIR

GIFFORD BLYTON, PARLIAMENTARIAN

REBECCA SCOTT, SECRETARY TO SENATE COUNCIL

MARLA FRYE, COURT REPORTER

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CHAIR DEMBO: Welcome to the March 2004

Senate Meeting. Let's go over the agenda

briefly for today. We have some items

that we had not completed from our last

Senate Meeting, that includes the report

from the Provost, and also a report from

Dr. Nash on behalf of the IRIS project.

Following that, we have another action

item. Don't pay any attention to the

date up there. It's still back in

February. Following that, we have

another action item we didn't get to last

time, that is the proposal to change the

definition of a family, a very timely

topic I'd say. And after that, we're

going to have discussion about the

undergraduate writing requirement and

I'll talk a little more about that in

just a second. And the other thing -

and forgive me, this is my fault, I

forgot last time to ask us to approve the

minutes from the December meeting. So

I'd like to bundle those together and see

if there are any recommendations for

changes in the December and in the

February minutes for the University

Senate. Without objections, I can

consider that those are approved as - as

they stand. I'd like to introduce one

person to you. She's outside. Kim, are

you there? Kim Judd is our honorary

Sergeant-of-Arms for today. I wonder if

you could poke your head out and see if

Kim Judd could come in for a second.

Kim, raise your hand, please. Kim is the

treasurer of the Staff Senate and agreed

to act as Sergeant-of-Arms. She

understands full well that if anybody is

disruptive, that she will resolve that

issue quickly. She also, by the way,

helped to co-author the - the editorial

piece you may have seen in the

Herald-Leader that was assigned by Sheila

Brothers regarding the budget. I thought

it was very well written. It was on

target, and, I guess, the Legislature

can't hear that enough times as to - as

to how this all affects the quality of

our educational admission. Other

announcements? I want to see if anybody

can bring us up to date, perhaps,

somebody from LCC on where we are with

the legislative issues regarding LCC.

Becky, what have you got to report?

WOMACK: Becky Womack, LCC, just talked

to Dr. Kerley about half an hour ago. As

of midweek last week, there was 4 or 5

bills that had been left with - filed

with the Legislature. We liked all but

one. One of them, in essence, would have

delayed any decision for another year and

left us with the legislation

legislative process would have taken

place next year, and we would have been

on probation for another year and at risk

of losing our accreditation. So we -- we

definitely didn't like that one and -

and made sure that we let our legislator

know. There's a lot of shaping going on

right now, a lot of revising of language.

It's in the Education Committee, so

following it or at least Dr. Kerley's

following it every day, so we're hoping

to know something in two weeks or so.

CHAIR DEMBO: On other fronts, Richard

Grossman is continuing to spearhead the

graduation contract pilot proposal. He

and I have had a number of conversations

about the progress that's being made

there. I think it's well on target with

what was intended. And, Richard, is

there anything new to report in that

regard?

GROSSMAN: -- talk about it today.

CHAIR DEMBO: Excellent.

GROSSMAN: And then we have a Senate

Council soiree for the Monday after

spring break. So -- meet with Senate

Council, as I promised you.

CHAIR DEMBO: Excellent.

GROSSMAN: Thanks for asking.

CHAIR DEMBO: The Board of Trustees' election

for the faculty trustee, you probably

have all gotten the announcement that

nominations are open until March 19th.

That's a week from this Friday. You need

the name along with ten signatures. The

space being vacated is Davy Jones who has

filled in for Claire Pomeroy. And the

Rule states that the person substituting

will fill in for the remaining part of

that term. So, that's why he had less

than a full three-year term. The next

person will start with a full three-year

term. At the last moment, Kaveh Tagavi,

who's the chair of the Rules Committee,

pointed out, what looks like, a quirk in

the rules regarding the election that

under a very specific circumstance, it

could be unclear as to who would - who

would prevail. So we're going to

work - work on that and run it through

the Senate Council to see if we need to

change that in the very near future. I

think that's it for announcements. And

without further ado, I think, Mike, this

is a good time to come up and - and talk

to us. Do you want the lavalier or

the...

NIETZEL: That's fine.

CHAIR DEMBO: Okay.

NIETZEL: Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate

the opportunity to talk to the Senate

today. This is a chance to review the

accomplishments of this year, and there

are many, I think, as you will see. It

really is because of some excellent work

by all members of the University

community that we can talk about a lot of

achievements this year that we can be

particularly proud of. But I would say a

special tribute to - to the faculty for

helping bring forward a number of

important developments as well as on the

educational and research front really

outstanding progress under difficult

circumstances. And some of my

presentation will talk about what those

difficult circumstances are. But it --

it is an opportunity for you, I think, to

feel very good about what has been

accomplished during this past year. A

chance to survey some needs that the

institution has, some challenges that we

are in the middle of trying to confront,

and then, maybe, to suggest some

prospects for future thinking or future

opportunities for us. This will be

available tomorrow or the day after at

the provost site on the Web page, all of

the slides. So, if you want to have --

download it or take a look at it, I

think, we'll have it up by tomorrow,

certainly by Wednesday. Let me, first of

all, begin by looking at the context for

the University. It's - it's very much

like it was last year, that we have some

remarkable needs in this State for higher

education, and yet we have declining

support from the State for it. So, it's

an unhappy coincidence between what's

needed and what's there to -- to fuel

the - the growth by the institution. I

do want to talk about the overall context

a little bit with respect to what does an

institution like UK need to provide to

the State? What is it that the State is

looking to us for? And there are five

points. These five points were there

last year, that overall we have very

little educational attainment in the

State of Kentucky. We'll talk a little

bit about that. The research and

development record in Kentucky still

remains in the bottom 10 of all states in

the United States. High rates of poverty

still continue to be a problem for the

State. And then, we have this aspiration

that's shared within the University, as

well as given to us by the Legislature,

to be one of the nation's leading public

research universities. And we have a

particular covenant with the Commonwealth

that land grant universities in all

states have, and that has some particular

implications for how we prioritize and

how we go about our business here.

So, let's look at the

attainment issue first. This is to let

you know that as we project into the

future, eight years from now, there are

going to be about 5,000 more students in

Kentucky graduating from high school than

there are back in 2001. For the United

States, you see that growth as 11.3

percent. We're a little bit ahead of

that at 14 percent. SRB stands for the

southern region, and these are the

individual states that make that up. So,

there are going to be more students

coming out of high school needing a

college education over this next decade

that, somehow, the Commonwealth is going

to have to find a way to serve. This is

a particularly troubling table, and it

basically shows what happens to the

educational pipeline. If you look at the

average in the United States, you start

off with ninth grade students, a class of

100. Six years after they graduate from

high school in the United States, 18 of

those 100 have graduated from college.

In Kentucky, it's a third of that rate,

12 out of 100 ninth graders graduate from

college six years after they've graduated

from high school. So that gives them the

six-year graduation opportunity. That's

a discouraging figure for us to look at

and is one of the reasons why, I think

you see, how important higher education

and higher education reform in Kentucky

remains. This is another troubling

statistic, it shows the percentage of

adults in Kentucky with a bachelor's

degree or higher, again, almost 25

percent in the United States. In the

Southern states, 22 percent, and you see

we're fourth from the bottom in the

region at 17 percent of adults with a

college education or higher. Here's the

figures for research and development per

capita. The most recent ones I could

find were for the year 2000. Despite the

progress that we are making, and you will

see it is excellent progress in terms of

the research profile for this University,

we remain in the bottom 10 in R&D per

capita. And, actually, of this $68 here,

the percent of that that is federal money

is also very low in Kentucky in

comparison to the other states. So, you

see, it's about two-thirds of what the

national average is, and that has not

moved a great deal across the decade of

the '90s. And then, finally, we come to

how this translates overall into per

capital personal income. You can see

that Kentucky is in the next to the

bottom rung of states. Basically, we're

about $2,500 per person under the United

States' average for personal income. So,

what should the University like this,

which, no doubt, in terms of the scope of

this University, in terms of the students

that go here, in terms of the impact,

this is the premiere institution of

higher education in Kentucky. And what

is it that we, in terms of big ideas or

grand goals, need to be accomplishing for

the state. I would suggest that there

are four big themes. And I want to come

back and fill these out a little bit more

as we work through the presentation. One

is that this is an institution that can

help democratize society by equipping

people with a lot more knowledge than

they have without an institution like

this. That's true even for - for people

who don't attend this University. We

have an obligation for the discovery and

the dissemination of information that

goes beyond just the students who are at

this campus. This is a place where we

incubate ideas. Research and scholarship

is a defining quality of what faculty at

this University do across a spectrum

that's not matched at any other

institution in Kentucky. And by virtue

of that, we can help Kentucky begin to

imagine a future that without an

institution like this, it would not

imagine. I don't think there is another

institution in this State that can be the

intellectual heart and soul like we can.

And that is a calling that the public --

the premiere public research University

in a state should be responsive to. And

then, finally, we uniquely prepare

students here to help create that future.

I've often talked about the fact that

most good colleges and universities can

educate students to take jobs, but at UK

we're going to be educating students not

just to take jobs but to make them. And

that's going to be a difference with

respect to the products that we turn out

here or should be a difference from the

other very good institutions in the

Commonwealth.

So, we have this covenant that

land grant universities have that go back

to the Merill Act in the 1860s. What is

the covenant? What is the expectation?

What is the promise that we make to the

State of Kentucky? I would suggest it's

four things. And, then, I'd like to go

through and look at how we're doing,

particularly in the first three. I'm not

going to have as much to say just because

of time constraints on service and

outreach, a little bit.

First, is an excellent

undergraduate education. And, I think,

you're going to see some very good data

about this in terms of what we are

achieving here at UK. That we're the

institution that provides important

research and scholarship, again, across a

vast domain of knowledge areas. That we

provide outstanding professional and

graduate education. I think, there's

some very good data here to support that.

And then, that the University is

responsible for service and outreach that

improves lives and society. I think,

these are the contributions that we need

to return to each time when we talk about

why an investment in the University of

Kentucky is the distinctive investment

that the State makes in higher education.

And one way you do that is to help

everyone in Kentucky, particularly our

Legislature, understand that an education

here is both a public good as well as

conveying a personal advantage to the

students who attend here. It's a public

good in the following four ways. I have

a little bit of backup on this. The

discovery of new knowledge, the

development of new intellectual talent,

particularly, at the graduate and

professional level where we have a signal

kind of contribution to make in the

State. This preparing students to make

jobs not just to take them. And then the

multiplication of external investments

that you find at the University of

Kentucky. Basically, for every dollar of

external money that comes in to the

research program here, we add 80 cents to

that back into Kentucky's economy.

That's a significant investment. If you

think about this year, they'll be about a

quarter of a million dollars of research

expenditure at the - at UK. Here's a

way to think about both a personal

good - personal advantage and a public

good. The average lifetime earnings of a

baccalaureate student is about a million

dollars more over that of a high school

graduate. If you think about the

enrollment growth that's anticipated, if

you think about progress in retention and

graduation rates, this translates into a

significant impact on the Commonwealth's

economy. And I'll show you in a minute a

slide that indicates how much more

profound this lifetime earning effect is

if you talk about professional and

advanced degrees. And then the

University does provide artistic,

cultural, and performance opportunities

as well through the library that we have,

access to information that no other

institution, I think, in this State can

begin to match. Here is the chart that

shows in constant '99 dollars the impact

of higher levels of education. And

here's a bachelor's degree. Here is a

high school degree. If this were updated

now in '03 dollars, this would actually

be more than a million dollars

difference. You can see what happens as

you got up to a master's, to a

professional degree, to a doctoral

degree. The impact is considerable with

respect to the economic effects that are

achieved by virtue of the education of

students that a university like this

provides. We must remain relevant to the

State. I think, if you look at, as I'm

going to here in a minute, the strategic

plan, the 14 areas that we have

identified for the State, what we have

tried to do is look at areas that there's

already excellence at or possibility for

excellence at this University and marry

those to Kentucky's problems and

priorities in a way, again, that

positions the University in an ideal way

to be seen as - by public policy makers

as the important institution in the State

for progress overall for the citizens

here. So, reminding you of what the 14

areas are in the strategic plan, there

are five in the medical area:

cardiovascular sciences, cancer,

infectious diseases, neurosciences, and

pharmaceutical sciences and toxicology.

Each of these are areas within the

medical academic health center where we

have expertise or where we can develop it

and have some considerable national

prominence. Cultural studies of the

Americas, which is in both arts and

sciences, primarily, in arts and sciences

in a number of departments, digital and

now technologies, and emphasis in

engineering, although not exclusively in

engineering, also some in - in ag and in

arts and sciences, environmental and

energy studies, international studies.

I'll have something more to say about

that with the hope that we could develop

an undergraduate degree in international

studies as a platform from - from which

we could elevate the achievements in

international education that the

University should be making. Plant

bioengineering, largely an ag, public

policy, Martin School, Patterson School,

College of Education, other areas,

risk-related behavioral sciences which

spans the Medical Center and the College

of Communications and Arts and Sciences,

teacher preparation, and then vocal music

and performance. You'll recognize this

as the 14 areas in the University's

strategic plan. A list that addresses

well the new economy initiative as well

as some other CPE, Council on

Post-Secondary Education, initiatives

that have been announced for the State of

Kentucky.

Let's talk about student

achievements then in terms of basic areas

of education. I want to talk about who

we're enrolling, how well we're doing at

retaining and graduating them, what our

students have to say about their

experiences here by virtue of our

participation in the National Survey of

Student Engagement. That's, typically,

referred to as the NSSE, the largest

database in terms of undergraduate

evaluations that we have in the country,

and then some institutional recognitions.

All right. This shows enrollment.

You'll see undergraduate enrollment here

has increased since 2000 by about 1,300

students. That's a 7.6 percent increase.

And graduate enrollment has increased by

about 1,000 students, over 20 percent

during that same time frame. So, this

has been a period of - I don't know if

there's ever been a period where graduate

and undergraduate have gone up at this

great a level. This does match some

national trends for enrollment growth at

land grant universities as well. What's

more interesting is we look at some of

the quality indicators about this in a

minute. Also, a number of

African-American students, if you see the

past three years, we've begun a nice

trend up from - this 211 was the high

point, I believe, in terms of the number.

Loretta, are you here?

BYARS: Yes.

NIETZEL: Is 211 our high point?

BYARS: Yes.

NIETZEL: So, we're - we're coming back

up towards that, and for next years, I

can tell you at least, the number of

admitted African-American students is up

over 100 from - from the same time last

year. Now, how many enroll - the yield

is the crucial figure yet to -- to get.

Okay. This shows the first professional

enrollment for 2003, a little bit higher.

You have constraints on the growth in

these programs, but you'll see in every

case except pharmacy - and I'll say

something about that when I get there -

a little bit of an increase. Dentistry,

law, medicine. Pharmacy, I believe, this

slight decrease is as we phase out the

nontraditional Pharm D, we probably had a

little decrease in terms of the total

headcount, but that's going to be

replaced by an increase in the number of

students in the traditional Pharm D

program.

This is a very interesting

slide. A number of things I want to

comment about here. This shows the

number of students who have applied to

the University, the number that have been

admitted or accepted, and then this is

the enrollment line. Now, what you'll

see here is that during this period of

enrollment growth, we have been steadily

accepting just about the same percentage

of students each year, 81 percent,

essentially, is the - the percent of

students we've accepted who have applied.

What has changed is a remarkable increase

in the yield. These years right here,

it's about 45 percent of the students who

were accepted coming to the University.

Here, you've gone up to 50 percent. A 6

percent increase in yield is a very, very

big increase. You do not, typically,

find that at other institutions from this

short a time frame. And what this

illustrates is that at - the enrollment

growth has not been - and they'll be

some other data to show this in a

minute - has not been as a result of the

University really deciding to accept a

higher percentage of students. In fact,

the percentage of students we're

accepting, the percentage of those who

were selective admits, has gone up

dramatically. This is now at about 90

percent. What that means is that those

are students we have to accept. That's

an important thing as we think about

enrollment growth here, that these

students are automatically accepted into

the University because they meet - they

meet our admission standards. For next

year, this number is already over 10,300,

the application. It's up over 10

percent. This number is at 8,000. So

you can see that we are right on track

for a class out here of about 4,000

students. Now, the - the enrollment

growth is an issue that we're going to

have to deal with either through the

resource or the access side, but on the

access side, it really does come down to

a faculty decision about the criteria we

use for selective admissions because the

vast majority of these students are

getting in automatically. I'm not

suggesting we should raise those

standards. There's really only two ways

you influence this, probably, the - the

standards or the cost, and it's something

that is worth discussion when you think

back about that figure of 5,000 more kids

graduating from high school in eight

years than what we have now.

This - okay - let's go

ahead. This begins to look at the

student profile in the first - among

freshmen. It shows - this line shows

National Merit finalists. This line

shows valedictorians. And this shows

Governor's scholars. You can see that

there has been a gradual decrease in the

National Merits as we have reallocated

money - money from funding these

students to funding these students. The

University still ranks, even in 2003, in

the top 25 of public institutions with

respect to National Merit finalists -

first-time National Merit finalists. You

can see that the valedictorians have

increased to an all-time high, and, of

course, right here when we introduce the

scholarships for Governor's scholars, you

see the dramatic impact on enrollment of

those students. This represents 25

percent of all Governor's scholars and

Governor's School for the Arts' students.

It is more than all the Governor's

scholars and Governor's School for the

Arts' students enrolling in all the rest

of the Kentucky institutions of higher

education. This shows the middle-50

percent of ACT, an indication, again, of

the quality being maintained as the class

size increases. There are two bars here.

The ACT range for institutional research

is one that's based on the most recent

ACT. And the registrars or the

admissions is based on the combination of

the best scores if they have more than

one ACT that they've taken. And

that's - so you see this one's always a

little bit better than the institutional

research. The important thing to notice

is that by either version that we use in

fall 2003, you've actually had that

mid-50 percent coming up a little bit,

now being charted as 22 to 28 percent,

which puts us in good company. This

would be comparable, Phil, I think, it's

to, probably, 5 or 6 out of the 19

benchmarks as far as that mid-50 percent

ACT. Now, the next line addresses: Does

that matter at all? This shows you the

ACT composite score into some ranges.

And this shows you the graduation rates

by those ACT scores, four year, five year

and six year. And you will see for

every - whether we look at four, or

five, six-year graduation rates, there is

a linear relationship between ACT and

graduate rates. So, as a measure - as

one measure, not as the - as the sole,

but as one measure of student preparation

or capability, this is not a meaningless

figure for us to continue to pay

attention to. This is not a good story.

This is our retention rate. It has been

a sawtooth for as long as we have looked

at it. Unfortunately, that's a low

point, and that's a low point that

corresponds to a big class. It's hard to

be convinced otherwise that there's not

some unfortunate relationship between

class size and first to second year

retention. So, this is of concern.

There's some things that we need and that

we can talk about here that can matter.

A number of good things happening: Jane

Jenson being now the head of that

first-year Task Force. We're making some

other changes that in some to be

considered that, I think, can address

this, but it is troubling to see that

pattern.

It's good to see this pattern.

This is the six-year graduation rate, a

steady climb over these cohorts.

All-time high and it now puts us into

some really enviable kinds of comparisons

in that the overall six-year graduation

rate in Kentucky is 44 percent. So

that's among the public universities. UK

is remarkably ahead of the rest of the -

our public institutions. If you look at

public institutions' national average,

it's 56 percent. So we have gone ahead

of that for the first time. We still are

very low compared to our benchmarks, many

of whom will be in the 70s, and there may

be a couple, Phil, that make 80. So,

we've got a long ways to go, but this has

been an extremely good pattern to have

sustained. And the early data suggests

we'll make another increase next year in

the graduation rate. So, while - while

we suffer this first to second year

instability, we're doing a good job once

we - once we get through that crucial

period of retaining to the sophomore

year.

Degrees conferred, see up a

little bit, the last two years in terms

of baccalaureate degrees. Here, the

associate degrees in the pale green,

steady increase there. Graduate degrees,

you see a decrease from '99 through '01

which accounted for a real slack period

in - in enrollment in the Graduate

School. And, now, this is picking back

up. This past year, I would - I would

be willing to be almost anything that

number will increase, Jennie, and, again,

because now we have the beginning of that

1,000 cohorts at least coming through the

master's program, that increase of 1,000

graduate students. On the first

professional, it's been pretty stable, as

you would expect. Quite a nice jump back

up to these levels from '02, '03 over

'01, '02.

Let me do this one fairly

quickly. This is the survey that

first-year students and senior students

fill out at UK, along with seniors and

first-year students at about 300 other

institutions. And the items on this load

on five factors: How academically

challenged the students are; how active

and collaborative their learning

experiences are; what kind of

interactions they have with faculty

members; how enriching the educational

experiences are on the campus; and how

supportive overall the campus environment

is. The same items for first year and

for senior students. In the blue, you

see UK - these are UK scores right here

across - this is a scale with a number

of items on it. And this is the

predicted score that UK would have, based

on the academic credentials and some

qualities that the institution has. So

you can either exceed your predicted,

that's a good thing, or fall below your

predicted, that's not a good thing. The

residual out here shows whether you're

doing better than the data would suggest

you should, or that you're not doing as

well. In 2001, for the - for the

first-year students, there were three out

of the five factors that we did a little

bit better than was predicted.

Unfortunately, for our senior students,

only one out of the five, which was

interactions with faculty members, did we

outperform the prediction. 2003 - I

want to advance to 2003. First of all,

you can see our senior students on all

five dimensions. We are now

outperforming the predicted, and on,

again, three out of five for first-year

students we're outperforming. If you go

back and you compare this score to the

2001 score and come right down the line

and do that, you'll see almost without

exception some very good improvement.

So, that's very encouraging data with

respect to what our students are telling

us about the educational experiences

here. Now, what to make of these? You

know, you can - you can be skeptical

about what these mean. And yet, the fact

that there are areas where we do better

and where we do poorer, suggests that

there's not some sort of halo or anchor

effect that's disturbing these too much.

It is a remarkable data set of over 300

institutions that you've got some pretty

stable norms on. Other universities have

introduced interventions deliberately

intended to move some of these factor

scores, and have found that, in fact,

they do, adding some construct validity

to the idea here that we're measuring

something meaningful. So this is

something, I think, we should pay

attention to as we look at the quality of

undergraduate experience at the

institution.

Institutional recognition, a

year ago, top 15 public universities in

terms of the number of first-time

National Merit scholars. This year,

we'll be in the top 25. In 2002, we were

named a Truman Foundation Honor

Institution. There aren't very many of

those. Actually, as it turns out, I

think, there are only three schools in

the Southeast Conference that have won

that. Last year, one of four

institutions to be a Beckman scholar

institution. And then a top 50 ranking

in US News. Some of you may not be

familiar with Kiplinger's which is the

Best 100 Values in Public Education in

the United States. UK ranks 44th on that.

And in terms of costs, there are some

wonderful comparisons about our cost of

education at UK compared to other public

universities. I'll give you one example:

If you take tuition, room and board, and

say that's the cost of education for a

year at a public university, of the top

100 universities in the country in

Kiplinger's Report, UK ranks fourth. It

would put us first among the benchmarks.

So, that's a statistic that we're going

to be happy to share with legislators and

others as over these next two or three

weeks the issue of tuition increases

comes up as it, no doubt, will.

What are some educational

needs? I'll say something about the

graduation agreement in a minute. That's

making really good progress. A couple of

revisions in the University's studies'

program that I would urge you to give

consideration to. One is the written

requirement that you're going to discuss

today. A faculty committee has done a

very, very good job, I think, of coming

up with a - a good alternative to the

writing requirement we have, an unusual

development in which we can do it better

and cheaper. There is an oral com - a

change in the oral com that USP has

recommended that, I think, is still in

the process of being looked at. I may

say a little bit more about this in terms

of some difficulties we have with SACS

and why I would encourage the Senate to

give very, very strong consideration to

both of these with respect to some of the

problems we're having with those two

parts of USP.

I do think we need to expand

our honors program. Since 2000, there's

been a report on the honors program

recommending an expansion, perhaps, with

a social science component to it. And, I

think, we could, probably, reasonably,

add, maybe, 40 students to the 300

students that we bring in in the honors

program in the first year. And we're

going to need to do that. We're going to

need to find a way to have honors be a

little bit - have a little bit more

impact on the - on the first-year class

than we have these last couple of years.

International studies, we could

with one new course and a cap - a

capstone introduce a baccalaureate degree

in international studies. And we're one

of the few universities who - we -- we

may be the only university among the

benchmarks that does not have an

undergraduate program in international

studies.

And then the winter term pilot

is moving forward nicely, and, I think,

we can do some good things with that next

December. We already have eight courses

nominated and several more on the way, I

think, for - for us to consider. And

they involve a nice range of different

kinds of courses.

The graduation agreement,

Richard Grossman has been chairing this.

Here is the group that has served on that

committee. It cuts across a number of

offices and colleges, all parts of the

campus, and it has consulted extensively

with students, with deans, with advisors,

with Senate Council, and then a special

Task Force that was appointed to look

into this pilot project. Here are the

programs currently. I'm not sure if this

is all of them. This is nine programs.

Again, you'll see a nice array across the

colleges of programs that will

participate in the graduation agreement.

Ag Econ, three programs in Arts and

Sciences, one in B&E, Telecom, Mechanical

and Civil Engineering, Communications

Disorders, Art History and Art Studio,

Nursing, and Social Work. Richard, are

there any other ones? Is that the --

GROSSMAN: No, that's the -- that's it,

Mike.

NIETZEL: Okay.

GROSSMAN: For the first year.

NIETZEL: Okay. Briefly, and Janet

Eldred will talk about this, I suspect,

much more. But let me put my appeal in

on this recommendation for changing the

university writing requirement. We have

a writing requirement that's - that's

pretty expensive. And if you look at in

comparison to other universities,

probably not moving toward a different

emphasis on writing in the curriculum

that many of them are - are achieving.

We tend to have a writing requirement

that emphasizes learning to write, as

opposed to what you're seeing at many

other institutions which is using writing

as a way to learn. I think this proposal

is - is a very good one. Right now,

there are 6 credit hours in the first

year, or if you take 101, 102, or 3 if

you take 105, to satisfy the University's

writing requirement. After that, there

is no writing requirement for the

University. Now, that puts us a bit out

of step, as you will see, with what other

institutions are doing. Eleven of our

benchmarks require seven or more hours.

The average is eight and a half.

Minnesota requires somewhere between 16

to 18 hours of writing. And of the

benchmarks, only North Carolina, in

addition, of course, to us, lacks a

second-tier writing requirement which

means something after the first year.

Right now, writing is something that

first-year students do in the first year,

and then they can forget about it in

terms of developing that craft or using

that tool to intensify their learning

within their major field of study. Three

benchmarks, Purdue, North Carolina State,

and Michigan, have requirements that are

going to be very similar to the one, I

think, that Janet will be talking about.

Six of the seven, who require only six

hours, require work beyond the sophomore

level. So, you see, if you look at the

benchmarks, both they tend to require

more, and almost all of them require

something beyond that freshman experience

so that writing is seen as an

intellectual activity integrated into the

overall educational fabric of an

undergraduate education. And 12 of the

benchmarks have writing courses in the

disciplines. The proposed change is that

we would have a four-year first year

writing course, one of those, and there

would be no entrance requirements for

that course. I'll let Janet talk more

about the details. And then sometime

after the first year, students would

satisfy a second course, a 3-credit

course, by completing one of the writing

intensive, reading intensive, 200-level

courses already offered in the English

Department. These aren't new courses.

These are there. These are staffed with

instructors that we, probably, have not

been taking maximum advantage of in terms

of their impact on - on the - the

writing opportunities in the curriculum.

This provides a way that other

departments would not have to come up

with writing new courses -- new writing

courses, but if they wanted to, they

could. So, it achieves a number of

important things. It will reduce

expenses, as Janet, I think, can talk a

little bit about. Janet, where are you?

ELDRED: I'm right here.

NIETZEL: Okay. And it begins to move

writing into -- more fully into the

student's education rather than something

they simply kick out of the way after the

first year.

Moving to research and

scholarship, real quickly. Total

research, here you see a 50-percent

increase from 2000 in terms of total

grants and contracts. This was a record.

And for this year, we are 14 percent

ahead by the same time last year in terms

of grants and contracts. So the

University will cross, in all likelihood,

will cross the quarter of a billion

dollar mark for the first time in its

history. This shows just federal grants

which accounts for almost 60 percent of

that amount. You can - you can see that

NIH and National Science Foundation

account for the lion's share of that.

I'm going to come to the NIH data in just

a minute where UK is doing extremely well

in terms of public universities. Okay.

Here's our NIH rankings. The

College of Medicine is 32nd among all

public medical schools. And there are

nine departments in the University that

rank in the top 20. The combination of

Psychology and Behavioral Science, a

non-degree department - non-degree

granting department in the College of

Medicine is first. Aging, third;

Pharmacology is twelfth. Physiology,

Anatomy and Neurobiology, Surgery, Public

Health, Preventive Medicine, Family

Practice, and Microimmunology. That's

really a very, very good record in terms

of NIH. That's significant because of

the growth opportunities that we think

are still going to be there as the NIH

budget, hopefully, increases. There's

now some question about how much

discretionary increase there - there

will be. Because of this, Lexington is

actually 53rd among all cities in terms of

NIH grants and contracts in terms of

fiscal-year appropriations. There has

been - this shows you the increase due

to RCTF. A four-fold increase in chairs

and about a five-fold increase in endowed

professorships at the University across

these past five years.

What are some research and

scholarship needs? I'm going to go a

little more quickly on this. We - we

need to increase proposals. This is a

program that I started where if colleges

exceeded certain goals for writing

proposals, they got operating expenses.

We had a baseline in the year 2000 of 541

proposals. We set that as a goal in '02.

That's, actually, what we achieved in

'03. That's what we achieved. These

colleges, Arts and Sciences,

Communication, Design, Engineering,

Graduate School, and Social Work have had

two consecutive years of increasing the

proposals out of the door. Ag did not

set a goal of increasing proposals but

increasing the total dollar amount. They

went up by 64 percent. After we set this

goal, they declined a little bit the year

after, but to be up by 62 percent in two

years, still, we counted that as a

victory. Okay.

Space is critical for this

research program to continue to grow.

This gives you an idea of about 700,000

gross square feet under construction or

planned or open. This is BBSRB, 190,000

square feet. That building should be

occupied in January. Health Sciences, of

course, is occupied. Plant Science is

occupied. Mechanical Engineering. Gill

Hart, probably, shouldn't include this as

a research facility. It's more of a

clinical facility, although they'll be

clinical research going on in it. And

then the Biology and Pharmacy addition

which in the Governor's bill has - we

have authorization for 21 million of

State debt support - debt-service

support, 21 million from the University.

Unfortunately, in the current budget,

that's been put back a year. So, while

we still have authority, there'd be no

debt service provided until a year from

now. So, that's not the best news, not

the worst either. The authorization is

still there.

The futures initiative, this

was a plan whereby I made available about

half of the salary for strategic hires in

those areas that had been identified as

part of the strategic plan. The idea was

the provost would put up about half the

salary. The unit would put up about half

the salary for three years. And then it

would roll to the - finally to the

units. There are 22 positions associated

with this. Thirteen on the old North

Campus goes down to right here, and then

nine in the medical center. And you can

see a pretty good array of programs

represented there.

I wanted to update you on where

we stand in the top 20. Most people

think that the University's - the

University of Florida's center provides

the best data on this. I'll show you

over the last four years. There are nine

measures that we are evaluated on by the

center. This - the cohort we're looking

at here are just public institutions.

And here are the four years for which we

have data. Total research, federal, how

much we have in our endowment, and how

much is our annual giving. You can see a

pretty stable pattern here. Federal

research, nice improvement. Obviously,

the endowment and the impact of RCTF has

helped. Annual giving, we've had a

couple of - of rough years here the past

couple. We have not kept up on that one,

as one might have expected we would. So,

that's four measures. Then the next

table shows the other five. How many of

our faculty are in one of the three

national academies: Science, Engineering

or Institute of Medicine? We don't do

well here. How many of our faculty have

won 1 of 15 national awards? A broader

category than this. We have slipped

there. How many doctorates do we award?

Some progress. How many post-doctoral

appointments? Do quite well there and

nice progress. And this is our average

SAT score. And we're fairly low there

still when you look at the - the really

premiere public research universities.

UK is on 9 of these measures in the top

50 on 7 of them in 2003. And we're in

the top 40 on 4 of them. So that can

give you some - you can regard that as

progress, as encouraging, as

discouraging, as a stall. One could look

at this in a variety of ways and make

different interpretations about what's

happened over the four years we've been

tracking this.

Budget, now, okay, let's do

State appropriations, tuition, real

quickly, and then - this is a very grim

slide. This shows since 2001 the

cumulative decrease in funding from the

State. It's $74 million. This shows the

recurring cuts that began in 2002,

6 million. The recurring cut that began

in '03, 8.6. The recurring cut that

begins this year and carries forward

next, 5.5. A nonrecurring cut in

2001-2002, and then this real nasty one

here which is the one that came from the

attack on the restricted funds of about

$41 million, statewide. So across these

four years, assuming that the budget

holds that we have right now for next

year, the University will have lost a

cumulative $74 million in state support.

Until you look at the impact of this as

you go out over the years for a recurring

cut, you don't realize what's been taken

out of us. Okay. This gives you an idea

about that state funding that we're

receiving per student, and this is

equally ugly because what you see here is

as the State appropriation has been going

down, the number of full-time students

has been going up as we have this

enrollment growth, so that the state

funding per student - here's your high

point, 14,275 back in fiscal year '01, is

now down to this 13,000. That's a

9-percent decrease per student in state

funding. The juxtaposition of declining

appropriation and increasing enrollment.

Now, these state appropriation numbers

when you look more carefully at the - at

the presentation on the Web, these

numbers aren't going to be the same as

some other ones you see because they are

net of debt service and - and they

include mandated programs. So, you see

always the budget figures. Sometimes

they have debt service in; sometimes they

have mandated programs in. Just notice

the asterisk here to describe what's

included in this - in this figure.

What about tuition then? What

has the University done in terms of

tuition increases, and what are we

thinking about? This is a comparison of

the dollar increases that the benchmark

have had in the past four years in their

undergraduate resident tuition. If I

were to show you nonresident tuition, UK

would be the second lowest. What we show

here is the resident tuition. UK is the

fourth lowest in terms of the dollar

increase across the period of time.

Students don't pay percentages. They pay

dollars. And so we're particularly

interested in what that has meant in

comparison, again, with the peer and

aspiration group that we're contending

with. What are we thinking about for

next year? It's - it's premature to

say, but last year we had 20 million --

$22 million worth of obligations, and we

had a 15 percent tuition increase. Next

year we have about $33 million worth of

obligations if you look at the total

budget, and we're trying to keep that

tuition increase under 15 percent. But

what you're likely to see, in addition to

a tuition increase, is a further

differentiation in terms of program fees,

some differential tuition even at the

undergraduate level. We started at the

graduate level, at the professional

level, but we're going to have to begin

to look at allocating tuition in a way

that tracks what the cost of education is

in different programs. Some programs it

costs four times more to offer a credit

hour than it does in others. So, we are

going to begin in some programs,

engineering, B&E, some other graduate

programs, to look at differential tuition

or program fees to begin to address some

of the real costs of education associated

with whatever program it is that a

student is enrolled in.

This shows where our resident

tuition fees is with respect to the

benchmarks. We remain ninth - no,

actually, we - wait, I'm sorry, ninth is

another figure. We remain, I think,

14th - 14th out -- out of the array.

This amount here is actually a little

less than the median of all of the land

grant universities. So, that's another

good figure to keep in mind when you look

at undergraduate tuition at UK. We have

remained below the land grant median.

This shows our - the need for

us to address faculty salaries. It's -

it's not a good picture. This is LCC.

You can see that the gap to the - to the

national average for them has increased

this past year. Next slide. And here is

for UK, and you can see that we've gone

in the wrong direction for the most

recent year we have data on salaries.

That's why salaries are at the very top

of the strategic plan in terms of a

priority, somehow addressing what is

clearly compensation going in the wrong

direction, vis-a-vis, the institutions

with which we are competing. Okay.

Let me go through a few efforts

and show you cumulative recurring saving

of about $21 million in terms of

restructuring and reorganization. The

initial reorganization in terms of the

administration, 1.5, the next year about

7 million in reallocations from various

one source to another, for a total of

about 8-1/2 million. This, basically,

involves some changes with respect to how

we took cuts in the second year when we

had - the second year of recurring cuts

that began in 2001-2002. When we went to

the full provost model, there was a lot

of reorganization in terms of the Medical

Center and the integration of offices

there. That was a $2 million pickup.

We implemented a miscellaneous

fringe benefits model that charged the

fringe benefits to self-supporting units

and to federal grants and contracts

rather than paying those out of the

general fund. That picked up 3.9. We

allocated costs of certain central

services, purchasing, payroll, police, to

self-supporting units. Prior to that,

that had been picked up on the general

fund. It was moved off. That was

another 3.1. A management program

developed for pharmaceutical purchases

and hospital purchases, a sharing

agreement, saved about a million dollars.

And then general funds were removed from

several units, requiring them over a

period of two or three years to become

self-sufficient. Robotics, I believe,

that was 500,000. Development office

parking, Environmental, Health and

Safety, that picked up almost 3 million.

The total there is - is over 21 million.

What should we be looking at in

terms of the combination of goals and

savings, because it's clear for this

biennium, there's not going to, I think,

be new state money? Here's what I would

suggest we have a discussion about across

campus: What are the corps missions and

areas of greatest promise? That's where

we're going to continue to need to put

our focus. Are there some areas that we

could focus on that would leverage

resources? I'll suggest one in a minute

for you to think about. Are there ways

to have new mixtures of current resources

that will make us more efficient and

still maintain educational quality? The

writing program is an example. There are

some other examples in terms of

undergraduate students that, I think, we

could look at. And then, are there some

areas that we should look at where we

pull back a little bit in terms of

investments because they're, frankly,

ones that, perhaps, don't either, in

terms of centrality or promise, justify

the investment that has traditionally

been there.

There have been some

significant organizational administrative

issues. Let me talk about each of these

briefly. Let's go to the administrative.

In the past three years, the amount of

change at this institution

organizationally has been unprecedented.

And I made a list of things that have

happened in these three years for us to

look back on in terms of structural

changes. The provost model was a

significant one. The creation of the

College of Design and final resolution of

Human Environmental Sciences. We

centralized institutional research and

institutional effectiveness under Vice

President Connie Ray. The Medical Center

and North Campus budget offices have now

been completely integrated. We have

been, for the most part, through a

successful SACS reaccreditation. There

are still four important issues. I'm not

talking about LCC. I'm talking about UK.

There are four important issues out there

that I'm going to mention at least one

about in a minute because we have to be

attentive to this and find a solution.

We've had a new Master Plan by Air Saint

Gross (PHONETICALLY). And then you have

had a complete change in terms of the

administrative central leadership with

the appointment of a Provost, an

Executive Vice President for Financial

Affairs -- that's Dick Siemer, of

course -- Executive Vice President for

Health Affairs, Mike Carr; Executive Vice

President for Research, Wendy Baldwin;

and Pat Terrell, Vice President for

Student Affairs. Seven new deans have

been hired in the past two years, and for

the first time, we have a full complement

now of deans, full-time deans at the head

of all the colleges with the appointment

just at the last Board meeting of Jay

Perman for the College of Medicine.

Let me go back here to SACS.

We are under quite a bit of scrutiny from

SACS, for what they believe is an

over-reliance, on part-time instructors

and TAs. As an example, we hire 187 -

Janet, is that right - part-time

instructors --

ELDRED: That was --

NIETZEL: - 187 part-time instructors

for the writing program?

ELDRED: That's how many slots are

filled.

NIETZEL: That's how many slots are

filled, okay.

ELDRED: And it's - that was two years

ago, so it's up closer to 200 going and

over that.

NIETZEL: In oral com, I don't know how

many it is, Enid, but it's a huge number

of TAs and part-time instructors. Have

any idea what that number would be?

WALDHART: -- sorry.

NIETZEL: Okay. But we have to find a

way to address this because we are about

8 percent higher in the use of part-time

instructors and TAs than our peer

institutions. In a sense, SACS is

correct about the fact that we've made

some progress the last two years by

hiring some full-time lecturers, but that

is a figure that we are going to have to

put a dent in, one way or the other.

And, so, we're going to need to look at

courses in which they're heavy consumers

of PTIs and TAs and see is there a better

way for us to do it. I think Janet's

writing one is going to be a wonderful

illustration of how we can put a dent in

it. There are others that we need to

take a very serious look at or we're

going to have problems with this

particular issue. The oral com, is one

that I would suggest we need to look at

equally closely on

that - on that point.

Let me go back, though, just a

minute. One more back, Mark. Okay.

LCC, I think, we're pretty much - there

was an update on LCC that, I believe,

will come out of the committee on

Wednesday. I think, they have settled

on - there are five different bills or

resolutions. I think, they've settled on

the one they're going to go forward with.

If they do a resolution, as soon as that

resolution is passed, the - it becomes

effective immediately. And every

indication we have from SACS is that that

will resolve the governance issues, and I

would hope, would get LCC off probation

at that point. That would be a very,

very good thing for them and for their

students if we could get that resolved.

College of Public Health,

that's one that's going to be coming

forward before the Senate. I want to

talk about that real, real quickly

because it's an example of one of those

areas where, I think, it can leverage

resources. I was going to present to you

the budget figures for the College of

Public Health, but we don't have time to

do that. I'll be happy to come back at

the time it's considered at the Senate

and do it so that you can see what,

frankly, I think, has always been a

significant concern and a very legitimate

one is: Is the money there for a College

of Public Health? Do we have, in place,

the lines, the staff, the operating

expenses for the five units that would be

part of a College of Public Health? And,

so, that's one that we - I don't want to

rush through. I want to go ahead and be

able to present that and, hopefully,

answer questions the Senate would have to

show, in fact, that it's there. Many of

these units already exist, and what we're

looking at is a reorganization to bring

them into a college structure. Let me

suggest there are five reasons why -

substantive reasons why you want to

think - why a College of Public Health

would be a good idea for the University,

even in the financial situation where we

find ourselves now. One is that, in

terms of health indicators, Kentucky is

doing miserably. This state is, on a

variety of measures, at the bottom with

respect to public health. If you look at

overall health outcomes, we're 39th out of

the 50 states. And then if you look at

the individual indices that make up that

overall health outcome, like obesity and

smoking rates, on many of those we're in

the bottom ten or five states. So, there

is a profound need that has dramatic

economic impact on this state to - to

improve the overall health of Kentucky.

Second, it is a clear state priority. I

think that the CPE has now indicated that

they will be supportive of a public

health initiative with UK taking the lead

in terms of having a college other

universities having program. And the

state has made it clear, with some

legislation currently being considered,

that it will be a priority for them.

It's a national priority. Of our

benchmarks, nine have accredited Colleges

of Public Health and two more are looking

at introducing. And they're doing that

because they're also in context in which

public health is a significant quality of

life but also economic factor for those

states to cope with. And also, that

there's a lot of money out there to be

invested in public health initiatives.

fourth, there are some resources, federal

resources, that only accredited colleges

of public health can compete. And those

are significant resources. We are

handicapped at this University by having

many of the public health programs, but

not having the opportunity because we

lack the accreditation standard - status

to go after money that is earmarked only

for accredited colleges of public health.

So we're leaving money on the federal

table that could come to UK if we had

the - the organizational structure here

that would - would legitimize us in

public health eyes. Finally, we've got

about 120 students in these programs who,

at one time or the other, regardless of

whether we think this might have been a

good or bad message to send, we're led to

believe they were going to graduate from

an accredited unit. And that's something

that we -- we may want to do differently

in the future in terms of how things are

started. This was started a long time

ago, but we now have students in that

standing or in that limbo that, I think,

we have an obligation to address. Those

are both master's students and doctor of

public health students. That's a

significant, I think some students would

say, contractual expectation that they

have with the University. So, I hope, we

can come back and talk about public

health. But I do, at least, want to

begin the conversation by saying there

are very good reasons for us to consider

it and then, hopefully, be able to answer

what, I know, would be skepticism,

hopefully never, cynicism about whether

the money is there to actually support

this unit. Okay. Now, let's go forward,

and I'll get done in five minutes.

You think about a University

like this - as I put this together, I

thought how we manage some real

interesting paradoxes helps define how

good we can be and how, in terms of

faculty, staff, students and

administration, you come together to make

the institution be better, or you let it

languish and kind of drift. These

paradoxes are really present, I think,

for all significant major public research

universities. And here are some of them:

The first one is obvious from things that

you have seen. More and more demand for

our education with declining state

support. How do you manage that? Do you

become essentially an elite public

institution? I doubt whether we can do

that in the State of Kentucky. That's

not been part of the covenant that we

have had with the state. We're expected

to be constantly entangled with real

world issues, and, yet, why many of us

are here is that we're devoted to

thinking about the abstract, the

experimental - experimental, and even

the whimsical part of life and the world.

And how you marry those is important.

How you, on the one hand, address

practical issues and the same time

protect the freedom of the University to

think about what it wants to think about

in many, many areas is an important

paradox to resolve. We don't have an

impact unless we have the scale that we

have here. And, yet, our success, I

think, depends on still two people and

having a particularly good relationship

between a student and a faculty member.

So, how, in an institution like this, can

we keep that intimacy of the learner and

the - and the - and the teacher

protected, and at the same time, maintain

the scope that makes us quite special and

that allows us to have the impact in this

state that we need to have. How do we

take student's and faculty's private

curiosities which, I think if you

encourage them, makes for the best kind

of learning environment here, how do we

do - how do we indulge those and help

society understand that they're going to

get huge social benefits from that at the

same time? That when a student really

begins to sink his or her teeth into a

major or into a profession, because

that's the interest that's captivated

them, just like it's captivated the

faculty member that's inspired them to be

in that program, that's how you get the

ultimate social benefits from the

University. How do we expand access

without lessening excellence? Honors is

the way. Many universities try to cope

with that. There are other ways to cope

with that, but it's something that,

particularly, UK is going to have to

contend with because if you look at the

outstanding students in the State of

Kentucky, they generally are choosing

whether to go here or some institution

out of state. That's where we lose most

of our really good students is to some

institution out of State. How do we have

the global reach that we need but enjoy

the local embrace and support that we

have to have? Issues of how the - the

community accepts our students, accepts

campus life, accepts the kinds of

activities and priorities that we

establish on this campus, how they feed

into those and support those at the same

time, we're sure that we're educating

people for the modern world that extends

far, far beyond Lexington. And then,

finally, how do we stay obsessed with

quality and the process; it's very

important to a faculty, in particular,

but still be expected to become more

efficient and accountable as we do that?

That's a tough struggle. You'll see some

of those struggles coming forward as we

talk about a joint program in engineering

with Western Kentucky and UK where there

are some practical issues, very

unpleasant ones, quite frankly, that we

have had to contend with at the same time

we've wanted to marshal this obsession

with quality and process. How you make

those two work together so that the

University can be proud of what it is

doing and, yet, fulfill these

expectations that people external to the

University often have, or - or believe

they have, stronger than -- than we do,

is a significant challenge for us to

accept. I think that's it. I don't

know, Jeff, if you want - if we have

time for any questions. I - I know it's

been a while - gone on for a while, but

I could take a couple if - if we do have

time.

CHAIR DEMBO: We do have time for one or two

questions.

GROSSMAN: Bob Grossman, Chemistry. You

know, I think, I asked you this last time

too. I'll ask it again: One of the

things that we, as faculty, find very

frustrating is the budgets, is that as

our operating budgets are cut, the

service units at the University also have

their operating budgets cut, but they

just increase their charges to

compensate. And we don't have any way to

increase charges, and we have no control

over that price-setting process. So, I

was wondering if any progress has been

made in addressing some of those

problems?

NIETZEL: Well, there - there have been,

Bob, some - I mean, the - the budget

cutting has not been - it -- it has been

more dramatic on the nonacademic side

than on the academic side. Every time we

have taken recurring cuts in the

University, it is begun, first of all,

with the principle that the academic unit

cut will be smaller than the nonacdemic

unit cut. So, that has - there are

recurring general fund dollars in -- in

those units that you're talking about.

And they have had to absorb that at a

higher level than we have had. You're

right about the problem of turning around

and increasing, essentially, the fees to

you that have to be paid. It's not

unlike, of course, what students say

we're doing to them with - with tuition.

So this is - this can get - it's ugly,

depending on who the - who - who the

doer is, but it's kind of what we're

forced to do with students, frankly. I

- I agree with your frustration on it.

I do think there - that Dick Siemer is

attempting to make sure that those costs

and the services that you're given are

responsive to academic needs. I hope we

see improvement in that, and I think we

need to continue to have the policy of

having budget cuts on those units be

heavier than they are on - on the

academic ones. I can't give you, I

think, a completely sanguine response to

it, but I do think Dick is very concerned

about it, and you should continue to, as

I know you will, let us hear about those

problems.

CHAIR DEMBO: We'll take one more question.

NIETZEL: Yeah, Kaveh.

TAGAVI: Yeah, I notice you didn't use

the term "contract" in connection with

graduation contract. I'm just hoping

that it wasn't a type of sensor. I was

always not in favor of the word

"contract." You are using contract

agreement. Is that a change in that?

NIETZEL: That's a change. We liked the

word - would you like the word

"agreement" better?

TAGAVI: Thank you, yes.

NIETZEL: Yes, we do too.

TAGAVI: It was problem contract --

NIETZEL: I think agreement is now the

language everywhere in which that's

referred, and it is -- it is better.

TAGAVI: I agree.

NIETZEL: Yeah.

CHAIR DEMBO: Thank you, Mike, very much.

NIETZEL: Okay, thank you.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

CHAIR DEMBO: This - this will be the plan

for the - the remainder of the meeting.

We do need to get a discussion about the

writing proposal. Thereafter, we're

going to try to get the action item of

the definition of a family and with

patience, Dr. Nash, if we can reserve the

last 10 minutes for you. So my goal here

is to spend no more than 25 minutes

talking about this. Let me describe to

you what's happened. Back in December of

2002, Vice Provost Kraemer came before

the Senate to discuss what was then

discussed, I think, among USP and the

writing program where proposed changes

that would be coming down the line. From

my recollection in reviewing the

transcript, there were a number of good

questions that came up at that Senate

meeting. It's been since discussed,

modified, very thoroughly presented at

many different levels: Undergraduate

Council, the Advising Network, USP

Committee, the Senate Council. So, my

goal is for - to do several things here.

First, is to have Janet and colleagues

very briefly describe the essence of what

this is. Secondly, is to have members of

the various councils and committees that

it's gone through, give input along the

way. The next step would be for the

Senate to ascertain if it wishes to waive

the ten-day rule. As a reminder, this

did not get formalized on the agenda

within 10 days time. That's what the

Senate Rules currently are. And as an

aside, that was a rule that was carried

over from the time that mailings went out

to everybody. Now that we do it

electronically, we've charged the Rules

Committee with looking at, maybe, a more

moderate view of how long in advance of a

Senate meeting something actually has to

get on the agenda. Once you've heard

enough, you can decide by your vote

whether to waive the ten-day rule to

actually make this actionable item for

which a motion could be brought to the

floor and voted on, but I want all the

information to be brought up right up

front. So, Janet, this would be a good

time for you to present the essence of

the proposal. Up here with her is Ellen

Rosenman, the current acting Chair of

English, soon to be permanent Chair of

English.

ELDRED: Permanent chair.

CHAIR DEMBO: Yeah.

ELDRED: I don't have one of those

pointers. I'm not really good at power

point. So, I still use the templates,

and, you know, it will go through. Okay.

So, we'll just have to do it like this.

Okay. I just want to say, first of all,

that I don't have a problem with

something being expensive if it's

effective. The problem that we have with

the writing program is that it is, both,

expensive and not particularly effective.

It's a model from 1970s. Such models

were very popular. Throw as much as you

could into the first year. When

assessment came along, and programs had

to start assessing how well these

programs did, they didn't do particularly

well, and most universities have moved to

something like a writing across a

curriculum or a two-tiered model of some

sort. So, ours is not particularly

effective for several reasons. It's a

first-year-only requirement. So writing

skills atrophy, and we - we know that.

That writing skills that aren't used, if

skills aren't used, that they decline

over time. We know from the assessment

with students that they view something

as - they'll - they'll say, well,

careful writing in drafts and editing and

revision are something you do for English

classes, but you don't have to do it for

anyone else because they don't care. So,

when you get those papers that look like

nobody has read them but you, you know,

the pages are out of order and the fonts

go - messed up, and, you know,

they're - you just think how - did

anybody read this? The answer is, no,

you're the first person who's read it.

You know, they kind of took it out and,

likely, didn't even read it on the

screen. It is inefficient. Part of 102

repeats 101, in part, because we have so

many sections taught by nonfaculty that

we can't count on the instruction being

given in 105, and so we repeat part of

that in 102. These are older figures

that 187-plus sections two years ago with

the smaller first-year class were staffed

by part-time instructors. I'm not going

to go through a lot of this because Mike

did it, but - on his -- his slides. But

I do want to say, the students in the

Honors Program already satisfied the

writing requirement through the

curriculum, and, in fact, do more

writing, and that right now, we don't

have any exemptions except through

transfer credit. You saw the benchmarks.

Some of the goals we have, to encourage

students to write throughout their

college career so that writing skills

grow rather than atrophy, and this is a

proposal that moves us down that path.

But it - it doesn't get us to the end

point, I think, we want to be at. But

it - it's at least moving us in the

right direction to encourage students to

learn through writing throughout their

college careers. And then the last two

is we want to move toward writing across

the curriculum, and we hope that this is

the first step.

Proposed change, most UK

students would take a four-unit

first-year writing course to satisfy the

first-year writing requirement. And

there would no entrance requirement for

that course. Most students would place

into that. Sometime after achieving

sophomore status but before graduation,

students would satisfy the second

condition by successfully completing one

of the writing-intensive

reading-intensive 200-level courses

offered through the English Department.

When we brought the proposal up last

year, it was for a full-blown

writing-across-the-curriculum program.

And this body, rightly, said there's not

funding to support that at this time.

And with the budget cuts coming through,

there is less funding to support a kind

of full-blown whack. This particular

proposal says, we will continue to

deliver instruction through English; we

will reallocate the resources we have; we

will continue to offer the instruction

through English; and then as resources

become available, USP will work on

creating mechanisms so that other

colleges and programs can be on board.

We hope this is an interim proposal, but

it needs to stand solid as - as it is.

We really would like this proposal to

pave the way for future courses outside

of the English Department at that upper

division level.

For now in this interim

proposal, courses satisfying the 200-plus

requirement include the following: 230,

231, 232, 233, and 234, are new courses

that went through just last year. For

the first time, we have proposed that we

have some first-year exemptions. We have

kept them high, and so, it's not going to

be easy for students to exempt, but we

can, at least, make an offer if we're

trying to recruit good students and bring

them in. 15 of the 19 benchmarks offer

exemption. We have not in the past. And

there will be no exemption from the

200-level or above requirement, and this

is fairly consistent, again, with our

benchmarks who say, if the purpose of

doing this is to encourage students to

write across the careers, you really

don't want to exempt them from the - the

second tier. And so, that is pretty much

the end of - of all the slides I had.

And then I - I wanted Ellen to talk a

little bit about the English Department

support of the proposal.

ROSENMAN: Okay. I'm so primitive, I

don't even have power point. I'm just

going talk. The English Department was

strongly in favor of this proposal when

it was voted on in the fall. I think,

the vote was 13 to 1. And it was clear

that it was both a better program

pedagogically than we have now, a much

better use of our resources. We know

that students learn to write best if they

continue to practice, and also if they're

writing about a rich content area. And

this proposal addresses both of those.

It also solves one of the main concerns

that we've had for a long time about the

freshman composition program as it now

exists; we said - which is that it is

staffed almost, almost entirely by

part-time instructors and teaching

assistants. We have -- you've heard the

statistic now three times, but next year

there will be over 200 sections taught by

PTIs. And all - almost all of the rest

of them taught by TAs. One faculty

member every other year teaches one

section of freshmen comp. And having

seen the retention statistics from the

Provost, I think, it's pretty clear that

this is not a student's best introduction

into college life. With the new

proposal, probably, about 25 percent of

the courses would be taught by full-time

faculty members. And if you take out

Business Writing, which is something that

English professors don't really know how

to do. It's really a separate field.

Those English literature courses,

probably, about 60 percent of those will

be taught by faculty members. So, in

that respect, it's just a much better

writing experience for students at UK

then - then dealing so much with

part-time instructors and with TAs. And

it also will be very helpful for us in

fulfilling the SACS' requirements for TAs

because it will make it easier for us to

take first-year MAs out of the classroom

from teaching their own courses and allow

them to be supervised and trained before

they actually teach. So, it seems to be

a better educational experience for

students. It helps us meet our problem

of proliferating adjunct instructors

which is a problem nationwide and very

hard to make any inroads on. It's a

better use of resources, and it does, as

Janet says, pave the way for a more

full-blown writing-across-the-curriculum

program which seems to be the direction

that writing is going. Okay. Any

questions?

CHAIR DEMBO: Well, what I'd like to do is to

hold off on questions for us because I

want to put this in a couple of

perspectives. First is that there's no

effort to prevent a thorough and

thoughtful discussion about this, but

there is a time concern of which you need

to be aware of. Cindy Iten or Joanne

Davis, active in the Advising Network,

maybe, you could - Joanne is chair of

the Advising Network. Could you put this

in the perspective of how a decision, or

the timing of a Senate decision, could

impact what your job is?

DAVIS: Certainly. On March 19, 20 and

26 and 27, the University will hold Merit

Weekend registrations. These are for

incoming freshmen who have ACT composites

of 27 or higher and SAT scores of 1240 or

higher. This is the top of our pool.

They will be registering -- if there's no

decision made, they will be registering

before - with - with a major part of

their component unresolved. There are

going to be, probably, close to 800

students. When I left my office at 2:40,

there were 726 already confirmed to

attend at one of those two conferences.

And so, not having this resolved at the

time that we meet with them creates a big

unknown. For them, it puts the advisors

in a position of not giving the best that

we can give them in terms of planning and

advising scheduling. It will mean if the

proposal is, indeed, approved, then back

to those students and another means of

getting them registered, it just creates

a lot of questions for students who come

expecting answers, first of all, and the

exemptions will be of considerable

concern to them because that is a big

change that the exemptions provided for

in the proposal are quite different from

what this group of students, in

particular, is used to with the AP credit

that they've been awarded in the past and

all know about. And so, our Advising

Network has asked that it be brought to

the Senate for consideration prior to the

vote - prior to the first Merit Weekend

on the 19th and 20th.

CHAIR DEMBO: Hence, knowing a decision,

either way earlier rather than later,

helps everybody.

DAVIS: Right.

CHAIR DEMBO: Also, to that end, the writing

program and the Registrar's Office have

worked out a, I guess, a deal whereby

both possible options have already been

scheduled in terms of room allocation.

Jacquie, do you want to make a comment

about that?

HAGER: Sure. We worked with the

English Department early on when we heard

this was coming up. And, basically, what

Janet and I have done is talked about the

various scenarios that would need to be

built into the scheduling. We're

prepared to implement either one,

depending on what this body does.

SPEAKER: That was - that was kind of a

royalty --

DAVIS: Jacquie did most of that work.

And I said, wow, that's really good.

CHAIR DEMBO: That's how Jacquie tends to

work. So, rather than reinvent the

wheel, I'd like for, first, somebody from

Undergraduate Council if you have any

comments to make about the deliberation

that went on in that body, followed by

USP, and then the Senate Council. Is

there anybody from Undergraduate Council

who would like to - to make any comments

or, Phil, if you want to summarize what

you heard.

KRAEMER: I'll speak to both. I don't

want to preclude anyone else from having

the opportunity. But the course change

that we're talking about here going from

the two 3-credit hour courses to one

4-credit course, was evaluated by the

Undergraduate Council, and it was

approved. The USP Committee, this is a

proposal that goes back more than one

year. This has been under development

for quite some time. The USP Committee

thoroughly looked at the proposal

submitted last year. We brought that to

the Senate for discussion, and we took

very seriously all the comments. And,

again, the royal we was Janet who

redrafted to incorporate those

suggestions. And the USP Committee has

looked at this new proposal very

thoroughly and - and is highly

supportive of it. But, again, I don't

want to preclude if anyone else in the

Council or USP -- Steve.

CHAIR DEMBO: Steve.

YATES: Steve Yates, Chemistry

Department. I've seen this proposal from

three perspectives, from the Arts and

Sciences Council, from the University

Studies Committee, and here in the

Senate. And, quite frankly, I've tried

to be skeptical, as Mike as suggested,

but not cynical in -- in looking at it.

And, I think, that it has merged as a

very progressive proposal. I think the

overwhelming thing that sways me is that

this leads to an increase in the quality

of education because, while it wasn't

emphasized by either - either of the

young ladies, in fact, you're going to

have a better pool of instructors to

choose from. And, I think, this is -

this, by all means, is going to lead to

better instruction. I very strongly

support this proposal.

CHAIR DEMBO: Thank you, Steve. Is there

anybody else from the USP Committee, Arts

and Sciences Faculty Council, or the

Undergraduate Council that wants to

comment? Okay. At the Senate Council

level, there was also a lively

discussion, and while the Senate Council

ultimately voted to send it forward to

the Senate with a positive

recommendation, the vote was not a

unanimous one. And, I think, that you

should hear both - both perspectives.

So who from the Senate Council would like

to present their perspective? Professor

Tagavi.

TAGAVI: Yes. Actually, there was not

enough time on the Senate Council, so to

be fair to - to my colleagues, I did

bring this up because we were entangled

on a D, which is possible or not I'll

take -- talk about that later. But this

technical writing, it seems to me that if

you want to become top 20, you have to

have a technical writing. Now, we have

Business Writing, and I think we should

have Business Writing. And I ask you,

Janet, how many you have. I'm not going

to say the number yet. You told me a

number, and then I asked my colleagues,

how many Business Writing do you think we

have? And I asked them, they said, well,

I don't know. It's like, make a guess.

I was told 5, 10, 15. And I told them

it's 50. I have no problem with having

Business Writing 50 courses of classes,

but I think in Engineering College,

sciences, they also deserve to have

technical writing, and it's very

important.

CHAIR DEMBO: Other members from the Senate

Council that want to present their

perspectives. Well, I'll summarize by

saying that there were some who felt that

this was not a step in the right

direction, that it represented

diminishing the - the education that was

to occur. There's one more point. You

were asked about how many sections --

ELDRED: Yes, the - the humanities,

USP.

CHAIR DEMBO: Right. I don't know if that's

relevant information, but one of the

specific questions that came up with

Janet - why don't you describe the

information?

ELDRED: The question asked was how many

students in other departments take the

200-level lit courses, and I didn't bring

those. I did circulate those numbers

with the Senate Council. They're not -

it's, you know, five from Biology,

five - it's a long, long list. The

biggest number is either English - I

think, it's 60 percent - does that sound

right, Jeff - English or secondary ed.

So - and the secondary ed people - is

that right, Kaveh? You might --

TAGAVI: Yes.

ELDRED: -- remember those numbers

better. The secondary ed people do

this - the English major but with a more

writing-intensive focus. So, that's not

unusual. And then the rest of them,

really just go across a very, very long

list. I think, journalism was up there

with more than seven students. But -

but it's, actually, a few from here, a

few from there, a few from here.

CHAIR DEMBO: Professor Debski.

DEBSKI: Yeah. I guess, the concern was

that, specifically, this 200-level course

could also count for USP in their

humanities. And so, basically, the idea

was that you were getting double credit

for this course. And - and, I'm

wondering, that was from the - that

recommendation was from the USP Committee

rather than - rather than the English

Department.

ELDRED: No. I think --

DEBSKI: Is that right?

ELDRED: - I think from both. I think,

the English Department had a real problem

with turning the 200-level courses into

another writing course. The English

Department was very happy to have those

courses as USP courses. The content is

protected somewhat that way, and they had

a problem with saying, why is the same

course different? You know, why - okay,

the student takes it this time, it counts

for USP; the student takes it again, it

counts for writing. Nothing's changed.

It's the same course. And so, I think,

there were two ideas there that, one,

that the USP requirement protected the

humanities content of those courses so

that we just didn't end up with a

two-tiered writing requirement where

content somehow disappears from that

second tier.

DEBSKI: But in terms of diminishing, I

guess, that would be one of the points

that, I know myself, I felt that that

might certainly lessen the requirements,

and put together with the oral

communication and - and the possibility

that that might be dropped, and the cross

disciplinary - it was - it seemed, to

me, that there was a pattern, and that we

were sort of chipping away at the USP

requirements.

CHAIR DEMBO: Dean Hoch.

HOCH: I just want to - Jeff, could

you just inform the Senate what was the

vote at the Senate Council meeting?

Seven?

CHAIR DEMBO: Let's see if I have it.

SCOTT: Eight.

CHAIR DEMBO: It was, what, eight to --

SCOTT: Eight to two, to the best of my

recollection.

CHAIR DEMBO: Are there any other questions

that need to be answered for the Senate

to decide if it has enough information to

consider waiving the ten-day rule?

Additional information is needed?

GESUND: HANS GESUND, Civil Engineering.

Two questions, really. The first one

concerns engineering. We have to have

the technical writing as part of this

revamping. We simply cannot go with

business or any of these other things.

If you have ever bought a VCR, DVD

player, TV, any of these things, and have

tried to read the instructions for

activating these things, you will

understand how very, very, very important

good technical writing is. We need to

have that included, the technical writing

course. So, that - there is no way

Engineering can go without that. Number

two, what does this do for transfer - to

transfer students? How will you handle

transfer students who have had 101, 102,

all over the country, let alone all over

the Commonwealth?

ELDRED: First of all, I'd like to say

that Business Writing is staffed entirely

by adjuncts who get - who are paid

$2,625 a course. We have been working on

that course. It's very difficult to -

to find people to teach it. Our - the

CP has designated -- this campus has a

Ph.D. and a graduate program in

literature. The Ph.D. and the graduate

program in writing is at the University

of Louisville. What this means is that

we have, right now, two faculty members

in writing, Brandon Roorda, who is

director of the writing program now, and

I am in writing. That's it for faculty

members in writing. The other thing

is - is - is that it's - this money

for Business Writing comes directly out

of the English Department and the Arts

and Sciences budget. And there is no

additional money in there to build 204.

And so, part of the thing is is that we

don't have - first of all, we don't have

the expertise. We don't have the staff.

And already with the adjunct situation,

it is very difficult, as Professor Yates

alluded to, for us to find people who are

qualified to teach in those courses and

the - the problem is directly a problem

of compensation. When you are paying

people $2,625 to teach a course, it's,

you know, it's rather --

GESUND: Well, this is all very well.

But you have - you're going to have to

teach the Engineering students in - in

the Business Writing then. They've got

to go somewhere. They'll probably all

want to go into the Business Writing as

the nearest thing to their hearts. So

why not take some of the money that

you're going to have to spend for the

Engineering students anyway, and put that

into English 204, the technical writing

course?

ELDRED: It's very simple --

GESUND: It just doesn't make sense.

ELDRED: - don't have the faculty to

teach it. Don't have the expertise --

GESUND: Well, if you can buy it - you

can hire some people to do that.

ELDRED: This is a Dean question.

GESUND: You're offering the course

right now. It's in the - it's in the

schedule book. It's in the catalog. If

you can offer it with, I don't know,

three or four sections, I presume you can

offer it with ten or twelve. It

shouldn't be that difficult if you want

to do it. And what I'm detecting is a

great reluctance on the part of the

people who should be doing this, to do

it, and I resent that. I resent it

deeply.

ELDRED: I would -- I would just

respectfully say that, I think, the

Engineering College would be a good place

to house technical writing.

GESUND: We haven't got the budget,

either.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

GESUND: I'll make you a deal, you

transfer 10 or 15 or 20 sections worth of

funding to College of Engineering, and

we'll do it. All you've got to do is

give us the funds.

ELDRED: They're not - they're not a

whole lot. 10 times, you know, $2,625 --

GESUND: We can hire graduate students

just like you can. And then you haven't

answered the other question.

ELDRED: The transfer agreement is laid

out. What we're doing is if a student

has - it's - it's partly - and,

Cindy, actually, I'm going to ask you to

help me with this. But it's partly

already outlined in articulation

agreements that are beyond us. So, if a

student completes 101 and 102, they have

satisfied the first-year writing

requirement, and would take the second

tier. If a student completes only 101,

they have the option of either taking a

102 or going into the four-unit 105. If

a student earns an AP of three on the

language exam, they will receive credit

for English 101, and can take either 102

or 105 - 104 is the -- the number now.

But if we have students transferring with

writing-across-the-curriculum courses

at - at an upper division, we'll -

we'll evaluate those now on a - on a

case-by-case basis. They don't have to,

necessarily, be literature. We want them

to be writing-intensive. Literature

courses that transfer will not

automatically be counted as the second

tier because they might not have been