President’s Report
given to the University Senate on March 19, 2007
submitted by President Leland
President Leland provided senators with information regarding the faculty compensation study and the vice president of business and finance search. She also discussed her action on a motion approved by the Senate during the February 2007 meeting.
The April 16, 2007 faculty meeting will be devoted to a report on the results of the faculty compensation study. Representatives from the Pappas Group--the firm that conducted the study—will present findings and respond to questions. The president asked senators to encourage faculty to attend this important meeting.
The following candidates have been invited for campus interviews.
Christopher Corrigan currently serves as Chief
Financial Officer at Emory College in Atlanta, Georgia. This is Emory
University’s largest academic unit, with a $197 million operating budget and
a $350 million endowment. Mr. Corrigan previously served as Chief Financial
Officer at Andrew College and as Business Systems Manager at Sun
Microsystems. He earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of
Business, with a concentration in finance. He will visit campus on April 3.
John Whittaker was most recently Director of Resource Management at
the University of New Mexico. He previously served as Vice Chancellor for
Administrative Affairs at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, as Director of
Fiscal Affairs for the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, as Director
of Budget and Financial Planning for the Connecticut Board of Higher
Education, and as operations and budget analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank
of Boston and the National Shawmut Bank of Boston. He earned his Ed.D. from
the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and his MBA from Babson College.
His visit will be April 2.
Cornelius Wooten currently serves as interim vice president for
administrative services (facilities management, physical plant, purchasing,
public safety, transportation, information systems, internal audit) at
Alabama State University, where he is responsible for the day-to-day
administrative operations of the Montgomery and Southern Normal campuses.
Dr. Wooten previously served as vice president for administrative affairs
at the University of West Florida and the University of Central Oklahoma. He
earned his Ph.D. from Florida State University in Higher Education
Administration and his MBA from Atlanta University Graduate School of
Business. He will visit us on April 9.
President Leland noted that the schedule for each candidate will include an open forum (time/location TBA soon) and she encouraged senators to attend these forums if possible. Participants in the interview process, including the open forums, will be invited to provide feedback on candidates.
President Leland informed senators that she had deferred action on motion 0607.US.004.P, which authorized using course fees to support the library collection. The president noted that her reasons were based on policy language and implementation issues as well as a broader concern about the appropriateness of using course fees to cover operating budget expenses.
The president discussed the following issues related to the policy as currently articulated.
The policy refers to budgets rather than to expenditures. These can be quite different and total collections expenditures is the relevant measure.
The data provided to the University Services Committee during its deliberations did not include expenditures from the library endowment fund. Library collections expenditures from all revenue sources provide a more appropriate basis of comparison.
The policy needs to clarify whether the comparison to COPLAC institutions should reference expenditures per student FTE or expenditures per student headcount.
The policy statement provides no guidance for selecting among competing fee requests should the total student fee requests from multiple university departments exceed "the library collections budget per student on the average level of all COPLAC institutions."
The policy statement requires benchmarking against COPLAC institutions but appropriate benchmarking data is not yet available.
The rising cost of maintaining and increasing library collections is a significant problem across the USG. Nonetheless, general revenue library expenditures per FTE student at Georgia College are slightly above relevant USG sector averages. In contrast, total library personnel expenditures at GCSU are considerably above the state and regional university sectors.
The president also noted that GCSU falls behind COPLAC peers in all funding categories for which we have IPEDS data, expect for instruction. (The other categories are academic support, institutional support, student services, and other core expenses.) This situation should raise some concerns about establishing a precedent for using student course fees to bring GCSU up to COPLAC averages and warrants broader discussion, including discussion with the Budget and Planning Committee. Course fees are typically indexed to a specific course for consumable materials.
President Leland stated that providing adequate access to library materials for students and faculty is an important issue that needs continued attention.