March 30, 2006

Note: At the end of these minutes there are revised versions of three past CPC Policy documents that we are sending to the faculty for comment.

Present: Judith Anderson (chair), Bob Becker, Sandra Dolby, Rosemary Lloyd, Al Ruesink (recorder), and Rick Van Kooten.

The meeting convened at 4:15.

The minutes of March 23 were approved unanimously after several amendments were made.

CPC members received copies of the final budget-building document that Dean Swamy distributed to chairs and directors on March 24, one that included a number of items that had previously been discussed with us.

We discussed an issue relating to hiring faculty and staff with disabilities. Presently if facility accommodations must be made, the expense must be borne by the hiring department. For a small unit, that can be difficult. The CPC believes that a small sum of base-budget money housed in the Dean of the Faculties office might be a better way to meet such needs in individual units, since they appear infrequently and rather randomly.

David Zaret, transition team leader, joined us at 4:33. He is working with Swamy to develop a balanced budget for the coming year that is as realistic as possible. He shared many of the issues with us, noting that "Things are tight." Hiring in the College appears to be about finished for the year, though several units are still courting candidates. Overall the College faculty will stay about constant in size, though it would shrink were it not for the CTE initiatives. The number of retirements is high. Provost McRobbie is convening a task force to advise him on the Life Sciences Initiative; Jeff Palmer (Biology, IUB) will chair it. McRobbie is also likely to convene a task force on environmental sciences at IU. When we noted that we were returning soon to our consideration of all CPC Policy documents, David noted that he would like something that would further facilitate the interaction of faculty across units. There are still concerns (by faculty and grad students) about the huge increase in graduate student healthcare costs. Over $700K in additional expenses for graduate health care will be billed to the College next year. Nevertheless, concerns persist about the adequacy of graduate student health coverage by IU insurance. David announced that he would soon be sending out the same promotion and tenure guidelines that were used last year. And he will soon appoint the P&T advisory committees. He left our meeting at 5:16.

There was more discussion of disability issues--for students as well as faculty and staff. We were reminded that Jeff Hart generated a working document for the CPC about a year ago that we should now look at again for some guidance.

Judith reported on the schedule of classes issues and noted that Dean Larson has worked very hard to get a printed version out for fall offerings (IDS of April 5).

It was announced that Hal Evans (Physics) will substitute for Rick on the CPC for the academic year 2006-07 because Rick has professional commitments that preclude his involvement for the year.

After some discussion, the CPC approved a version of the Budget Policy Guidelines policy statement [see below] to go to the faculty for comment. And we will send one on "College Salary Policy--1996" to the deans for comment before possibly making some adjustments and sending it on to the faculty for their input [also in the group below].

The meeting adjourned at 5:50.

Questions or comments regarding the minutes and actions of the College Policy Committee may be addressed to co-chairs Judith Anderson (anders@indiana.edu --855-3845) and Bob Becker (becker@indiana.edu --855-3014). Past minutes and College Policy Statements can be found at the CPC web page: www.indiana.edu/~college/faculty/policy/policies.shtml.