Faculty Assembly
THE FACULTY ASSEMBLY
THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY IN VIRGINIA:
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF TUESDAY DECEMBER 8, 1998
The meeting was called to order at 3:35 p.m. with 27 members present.
The minutes of the meeting of October 27th were approved as distributed.
I. Administrative Reports.
A. Provost Gillian Cell announced that the Personnel Policy Committee had met to discuss the proposed Disability Leave, that it had made only a few minor changes for clarification, and that the revised version would soon go out to all Faculty Assembly members for our approval at the January meeting.
She then turned to the issue of funding of Faculty Research Assignments, explaining that in 1996-7, about $80,000 had been diverted from the FR program into a "reinvestment fund" as recommended by the Self-Study, bringing the FRA pool to about $680,000. Some money has since gone back into the FR program through indirect cost recovery and supplements from the Provost's Office, but the full $80,000 has not yet been made up.
Following the Provost's invitation for questions from the Assembly, President George Bass invited Wanda Wallace, Chair of the Faculty Research Committee, to report on the activities of her committee. Professor Wallace commented on the high quality of the pool and the increase in the number of faculty applying (particularly younger faculty, those with seven years' experience), and reported that her committee decided to put a considerable share of the funds into FRA's, although they reserved some funding for Summer Grants.
Assembly members then proceeded to ask questions of both the Provost and Professor Wallace. In response to a question about whether all "fundable seven's" had received funding, Wallace replied that the committee was not always unanimous in its decisions about whether or not a proposal was fundable, and so that some proposals from faculty with seven years' experience that some committee members had considered fundable had not been funded. She emphasized that very few submissions are deemed unfundable, but that the competitive pool and constrained resources means that many fundable proposals cannot be funded. In response to questions about additional sources of funding for FRA's and about the decline in the availability of summer grants, the Provost noted that, if the indirect cost recovery rate were to rise, that funding would be returned to the FR program; that she would fix the numbers of Summer Research Grants vs. FRA's only if the Faculty Assembly requested that she do so; and that support for students and faculty were high priorities for the Development Office.
In response to a question about changing demographics in the faculty, and specifically about whether the Office of Institutional Research could project numbers of research eligible faculty, the Provost replied that the numbers of faculty applying for FRA's should continue to be high, given numbers of retirements ahead and hence of new faculty members being hired. She also noted that it was not expected that faculty applying for FRA's would have to provide matching funding from grants, since that would be very difficult for faculty in certain fields to do so.
From this point on, discussion became more general. Major issues of concern were the relationship between department-sponsored junior leaves and the College's FRA program (the FR Committee does not consider such leaves in its deliberations); the possibility of projecting future pools of faculty seeking research assignments; how the FR Committee makes decisions each year about how to fund proposals (Wallace replied on this issue that those decisions should be made on the basis of the "raw data" i.e., how many apply for what and so, in her judgment, should not be shaped by a policy that the Assembly might hand her committee); and considerations that the FR Committee might use besides traditional ones of length of service, productivity since last grant, and strength of proposal (Wallace gave as an example the timeliness of a project).
Questions to the Provost then turned to the Strategic Planning Update. The Provost distinguished between the budgetary exercise required by Richmond (the "SWOT" analysis) and the College's internal update of the 1994 Strategic Plan. In response to the concern expressed that there were no faculty on the steering committee for the internal update, Cell replied that the final report would be prepared by two groups (the membership of which overlap somewhat): BPAC, which has faculty representation, and a group consisting of the Deans, the Associate Provosts, and the Vice Presidents.
B. Vice President for Public Affairs Stewart Gamage reported on the present situation in Richmond and the College's plans for the upcoming legislative session. She reminded the Assembly of recent successes in Richmond the college got the peer group it wanted, money for salary increases, and funding for the renovation and expansion of Swem. She noted, however, that on the tail of the Chichester Report a report on higher education in Virginia commissioned by Governor Allen and prepared by a committee chaired by Senator John Chichester Governor Gilmore has appointed his Blue Ribbon Commission to once again study higher education. Although the state has between $7 and 9 million to be appropriated, there are also a number of proposals for what to do with the money (e.g., tax cuts or funding for K-12), and it's not yet clear how the Commission's recommendations will affect appropriations.
In response to questions about how faculty might help in the college's next legislative push, Gamage extended an invitation to Assembly members for the legislative breakfast on January 27th; she also stressed that any lobbying by Assembly members would be, on one hand, up to the Assembly and to individual faculty members, but on the other, that it might be most effective as part of the general William and Mary campaign, and particularly on behalf of student aid.
C. Marsh Pattie, Student Assembly representative, reported that the SA's recent letter writing campaign on behalf of student aid and funds for Millington had generated 160 letters. He also noted that the SA was working with the Virginia Student Legislative Assembly on issues affecting higher education.
II. Committee Reports
A. Committee on Committees Chair Wagih Dafashy announced that the CoC would solicit from Assembly members (via email) suggestions about what information it should seek from the chairs of the university-wide committees it would be reviewing. He also distributed a list of review committees for administrators about to be reviewed that the CoC had approved.
B. On behalf of the Academic Advisory committee, President George Bass reiterated that the Personnel Policy Committee has, with minor modifications, approved the new Disability Leave Policy and had forwarded it to him.
C. President Bass and Vice President David Lutzer reported briefly on the respective activities of the Executive Committee and the Liaison Committee: the Executive Committee will meet in January to set the agenda for the next meeting, and Professor James Stronge had spoken to the Board of Visitors at their November meeting on the School of Education's outreach to K-12.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:10.
Respectfully submitted,
Colleen Kennedy
Secretary
