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Governance Minutes ArchiveJanuary 14, 1992
The following are the official Faculty Senate minutes for 1/14/92. Faculty Senate Minutes 14 January 1992 32 Pamplin Hall 1. The meeting was called to order by President Leon Geyer at 7:00 PM and visitors introduced: Peggy Rasnick, Staff Senate John Ashby, Spectrum Ray Smoot, Vice-President for Business Affairs Robert Pillow, University Libraries (Senate alternate) 2. Roll call Present: Vinson, Feret, Flick, Geyer, Webb, Wang, Barker, Falkinham, Ficenec, Holtzman, Miller, Murray, Olin, Simmons, Snoke, Sorrentino, Tideman, Webster, Williams, Fern, McDaniels, Hardell (for Crittenden), Brown, deWolf, Hasselman Neu, Walker, Gordon (for Asche), Jones, Beamish, Norstedt, Beagle, Carrig, Eng, Saunders. Absent: Bunce, Kerns, Marriott, Wright, Howard, Poole, Hult, Hicks, Rakes, Clowes, Michelsen, Pierce, Barbeau, Parsons 3 Announcements by the President: a. Because of reorganization within the University Libraries, Linda Richardson is no longer eligible to serve in the Senate. Her replacement is David Beagle. b. The President is planning to call a meeting of the Presidents' Round Table to discuss several issues, including senate implementation of revised shared governance. c. The Senate Cabinet will meet on 31 January. d. Nominations have been received for the Senate representative to the search committee for the Associate Vice-President and Director of Facilities. e. The Senate officers met with Delegate Joan Munford and Senator Madison Marye in December. Both expressed willingness to support a general obligation bond bill. They also indicated support for a tax increase, but believed that such a measure should have broad-based backing from the legislature. f. The Senate officers will meet with President McComas on 15 January. g. The Advisory Committee on the budget will meet on 22 January. 4. Program: Charles M. Forbes, Vice-President for Development and University Relations a. Mr. Forbes outlined the success of the university's fund-raising programs: (1) In ten years, the assets of the Virginia Tech Foundation have increased from $10 million to $200 million. (2) The Campaign for Excellence raised $118 million. (3) or the past five years, about $25 million has been raised each year. (4) Virginia Tech, with an endowment of $150 million, ranks twenty-fourth among public institutions of higher education. Ten years ago, the university was unranked. b. Foundation support (1) On-going projects (a) Supplemental grants to faculty. These numbered 160 last year. (b) Radio station WVTF, Roanoke. The station has a number one Arbitron rank in its category. Communication has been improved by building transmitters at Charlottesville and Marion. (c) The Corporate Research Center. The CRC has assets of $15 million and employs about 500 people. A fifth building is now under construction there. (2) Foundation expenditures this year are $25.2 million. This money supports many university programs and funds new initiatives, facilities, and equipment. c. Mr. Forbes discussed the organization of his administrative unit. Except for the Colleges of Education and Human Resources, each college now has a development officer. Emphasizing collegiate-based giving has meant an increased level of support for the colleges, but has decreased the amount of unrestricted funds received. Other organizational areas include trusts and estates, the Corporate Foundation Program, the Annual Fund, and major gifts. d. Mr. Forbes detailed what he considered to be critical issues for future development: (1) The need to mount a new major campaign in an uncertain financial environment. (2) The need to pay for the cost of fund raising and operating the Foundation. (3) The need to project what can be done in the future. e. Additional comments by Ray Smoot (Vice-President for Business Affairs) (1) Foundation operational costs are rising at a time when (a) Only 5% of the money received is unrestricted (b) Interest rates are declining (c) Considerable money has been advanced for construction projects, which takes away from unrestricted investment (2) Mr. Smoot also commented on recent press accounts of Hotel Roanoke funding and differing interpretations of "public funds." Question: How would faculty membership on the board of the Foundation be considered? Answer: It's not necessary. No university employees are on the board. All board members are donating members of the Foundation, elected from Foundation membership. Question: Is any of the donated money going into the university general fund to support programs that may be wiped out during the coming year? Answer: The Foundation distributed $25 million to the University in the past year: $12.7 million to current operations of university programs; $6.3 million to endowments (professorships and scholarships); $1 million for facilities and equipment; $5.8 million to research programs. Question: Is there any way to divert some of this money to the library? Answer: The Foundation cannot make grants unless a project is requested by the university. If the library has a request, it must go through university channels. The Development Office does not set the priorities. Question: Would it be possible for the Faculty Senate to propose a program (say, $100,000) for support of new faculty? This would be similar to supplemental grants. Answer: I have no problems with supporting such a request. Supplemental grants was established to support young faculty along the tenure track. Another possibility would be to increase level of funding to the present program. Question: Perhaps the Faculty Senate Cabinet should look into this. It would be a morale-booster for the faculty and would reflect well on the Foundation. Answer: Dr. McComas is very sensitive to faculty needs and probably would support such an endeavor. This could also be part of the general fund-raising appeal. Question: How much is the amount for supplemental grants? Answer: $125,000. Question: What are the procedures that need to be followed when a donation is made to a college? How are departmental scholarship committees to obtain information about available funds? Answer: Accounts are established in the Foundation for each scholarship fund. Printouts showing the status of the funds are sent to the deans and account-holders each month. I am perplexed by your question - any scholarship grant would have to involve the dean, and the Development Office should be sending acknowledgement letters to the department. Answer (Mr. Smoot): Departments handle these accounts in various ways, and some department heads may not communicate the information to the department. If your scholarship committee does not receive the necessary information, there is a breakdown of communication somewhere. Answer: Gary Small (development director for Arts and Sciences) will be in touch with you regarding policies and procedures. Question: A number of endowed professorships seem to be in the red. How is the Foundation handling this? Answer: The endowments do not run out of money. Perhaps this is being confused with the Eminent Scholars Program, which is funded by the General Assembly and for which funding has been reduced. Answer (Mr. Smoot): Some of the professorships are on hold until the endowment is complete, but none are in the red. Answer: The Foundation is holding $19 million for the professorships. Question: What goes on at the Corporate Research Center besides the Computer Center? Answer: VTLS, IBM, the Management Systems Lab, Delta Electronics, a reaction science group, a biotechnology group, an environmental research unit, faculty-owned small companies. About half of the 500 people who work there are university employees, chiefly in the Computer Center and MSL. Question: Are supplemental grants exclusively for foreign travel? If so, why? Wouldn't a restructuring of the supplemental grant program satisfy some of the concerns expressed earlier? Answer: The program was started to help younger faculty. The travel component became important when the state placed restrictions on paying for travel abroad. The program is run through the Provost's Office. The Faculty Senate should feel free to make recommendations about the program. Question: Could there be better interaction between companies that would like to use the university as a research and development center and the Development Office? Answer: Yes, the Development Office functions as a facilitator. Enough lead time is needed for contacts to be made and proposals to be written. Question: Do you have any plans for evaluating the effectiveness/benefits from your expenditures? Answer: We have begun to make a comprehensive evaluation study. Some sources, such as the Annual Fund, are evaluated frequently, because they have high operational costs. Other areas have such small staffs that the expenses are not great. 5. Agenda: The agenda was approved with the addition to new business of faculty representation on the Board of Visitors. It was also clarified that nominations for officers will be made on 17 March, the election of officers will be on 14 April, and the other elections will be held 28 April. 6. Approval of minutes. The Senate minutes for 10 December 1991 were approved. Comments: (Senator Murray): CUS Documents do not appear with the minutes although they have been submitted. The secretary will investigate. (Senator Snoke): Are there copies of corrected minutes? Can senators receive hard-copy minutes? The President responded that hard-copy minutes could be made available on request. There are copies of corrected minutes, but these have not been put online. The Senate Cabinet will discuss distribution of minutes at its next meeting. 7. Council, Commission, and Committee Reports Commission on Faculty Affairs: The document on Faculty Review will not go to University Council next Monday but will be on a future agenda. Honorifics Committee: Tech has submitted five names to SCHEV for the state teaching awards, which pay $5,000 apiece. 8. Unfinished business None 9. New business a. Elections (1) Senator Flick was elected to the Commission on Faculty Affairs. (2) Senator deWolf was elected to the Committee on Committees. [For the following election there was unanimous consent for the Senate as a whole to act as the Committee on Committees:] (3) Senator Beagle was elected to the Committee on Elections and Credentials. b. Faculty representation on the Board of Visitors (1) President Geyer presented the background of faculty representation on the BOV. Over the years, the Senate President has attended at the request of President McComas, and has become more involved in the board's discussions. The student representative is a non-voting member of the board. For a faculty member to serve on the BOV, legislation would be required. Delegate Munford would support such legislation if the university administration would request it. The Senate officers will discuss this matter with President McComas tomorrow and need to have an indication of the sense of the Senate. (2) Discussion. There are few negatives to membership, other than being liable, just as all members are. There ia a positive relationship between the BOV and the faculty representative, to whom the board frequently turns for faculty opinion and perspective. Other universities in the state may be interested in this kind of representation. We could pursue this with the help of past Senate presidents; we could ask the AAUP for assistance in determining how this is handled in other states. Other aspects of the discussion covered the power of the BOV and the relative power of the faculty member if he/she were a full voting member. (3) Motion: That the Faculty Senate supports full voting membership of a faculty member on the Board of Visitors on a one-year, rotating basis. (Senator McDaniels) (4) Further discussion centered on the pros and cons of voting membership (the student member does not vote) and on how the representative should be selected. A friendly amendment was put forward that the representative be the immediate past president of the Senate (Senator deWolf). Having a voting faculty member might be construed as a conflict of interest; the purpose of having a representative should be educational. On the other hand, we should have more than symbolic representation, and our representation should be at least that of the student member. The importance of working with other institutions, such as UVa and George Mason, was also pointed out. An amendment was put forward to substitute "formal representation" for "full voting membership" (Senator Barker) This amendment passed. (5) Amended motion: That the Faculty Senate supports the formal representation of faculty membership on the Board of visitors, and that this member be the immediate past president of the Faculty Senate. The motion passed unanimously. 10. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Marilyn L. Norstedt Secretary
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