[ Email | Share ] Senate Executive Committee members at their Oct. 14 meeting heard several reports on simultaneous efforts being undertaken to improve campus academic operations.
Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise reported on the implementation of the newly minted Strategic Plan, a process she said is underway.
"We're really working (intensely) on it," she said, noting that 180 faculty searches are being organized to meet a goal of 500 hires in the next five to seven years, with many of the hires being made in "clusters" to address specific academic needs outlined in the plan.
As for unfilled administrative posts, she said committees are being formed to fill the dean positions in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as the Senior International Officer and Chief Information Officer.
Wise said leaders also are preparing to undertake an academic program review, a process that will be repeated every eight years, as well as to focus on finding ways to further improve undergraduate education.
"We'll be starting a series of conversations with campus to get input on how to improve the undergraduate, as well as the graduate, experience," she said. "We're going to be taking (these conversations) very seriously."
Ilesanmi Adesida, the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the conversation would go to the core of what it means to earn a U. of I. degree.
"What is it in our DNA that we hope to pass on to our students?" he said.
Adesida said the university's development of massive open online courses will be a part of that conversation, with the faculty-led MOOC committee preparing to soon release a progress report and recommendations on how to best use the new technology.
"We want to know how it can be used for our (campus) students, not just outside students," he said, adding that the question of how to make money from offering MOOCs continues to be an open one.
Wise said work also is moving forward to improve campus advancement mechanisms and increase the funding foundation.
"We realize that we lag compared to our Committee on Institutional Cooperation partners as well as our dashboard peers," she said.
SEC Chair Roy Campbell, a professor of computer science, said a three-campus task force that has been meeting since January to discuss ways for improving internal structures that govern the grant and contract processes would issue a report and recommendations in December.
He said the group had developed flowchart diagnostics of various university operations in an effort to streamline processes and discover "What sort of possible ways can activity be sped up?"
The committee is being led by Richard Messinger, an associate vice president for research, and has focused on pre-award and post-award functions, compliance issues and business processes around the university's grants and contracts enterprise.
"I think the results will be very useful," he said. "It's been a comprehensive sort of review."
Matthew Wheeler, who also serves on the task force, said such a review is overdue and that findings could lead to a more streamlined system.
"Some of the flow diagrams are as long as this table," he said, encouraging faculty members to read the full report when it is released. "We need to have a lot more faculty eyes on it."
SEC members also set the agenda for the Oct. 21 senate meeting, using a new statutory rule to postpone one item, a resolution concerning the proposed reorganization of the School of Labor and Employment Relations.
Several senators expressed discomfort over the resolution, citing an established protocol for reorganizations that includes committee review and finally a senate vote.
"We have a process that is laid out very clearly in the standing rules and the bylaws," said Joyce Tolliver, a professor of Spanish, in agreeing with an objection made by Abbas Aminmansour, a professor of architecture, who called the resolution "inappropriate."
Having the item come before the full senate without going through proper channels and lacking an ample explanation of the reorganization, "contradicts the processes we have already defined," she said.
Campbell was directed to write a letter to the submitting party explaining the senate's role in the program-reorganization processes and asking that the item be voluntarily withdrawn and sent to the education policy committee for further consideration.
Campbell said he is considering the recommendations of the Task Force on Faculty Issues and Concerns, which were shared with the senate Sept. 19, and will soon decide which senate committees will consider which specific recommendations.
"We're looking at which committee will be the best fit," he said.