CAPRA MEETING MINUTES
September 7, 2012

Attending

Paul Bingham, Jackie Collier, Deb Dwyer, Kane Gillespie, Bill Godfrey, Norm Goodman, Gene Katz, Kosta Plakas, Meg Schedel, Pam Wolfskill

Administrative matter

The committee needs to select a chair/co-chairs for the 2012-2013 academic year. After some discussion, it was unanimously recommended that Norm Goodman and Bill Godfrey be reappointed co-chairs. Since Norm reminded the group that he and Bill had served as co-chairs for 3 consecutive years, that the Executive Committee would have to be asked to approve the committee’s selection. Meg Schedel will e-mail the Executive Committee with this request. It was also agreed that additional members will be “trained” to serve in this position for the future.

Subcommittees

It was decided that all subcommittees other than the MA/MS subcommittee be continued for this year. The elimination of the MA/MS subcommittee is due the fact that the Graduate Council has now accepted the responsibility of reviewing the new or expanded MA/MS programs, and that Jackie Collier is a member of both these groups and can keep CAPRA informed of the Graduate Council’s work on this issue. Each committee member was asked to send Norm their preferences for which subcommittees they would like to serve on. Faculty and staff generally serve on two subcommittees, students on one.

Flow of funds subcommittee

Larry Wittie, chair of the subcommittee, couldn’t attend the meeting but sent Norm a brief report as follow: I spent two weeks on three of the 19 expenditure files for F09, F10, F11 and have about half of FY10 data processed. Half the time was spent relearning the many accounting codes used in the files and finding major sources of the large negative "expenditures" - shifting blocks of expenditures to different accounts, such as sabbatical salary halves to cover other expenses and dept expenses to provostial special incentive accounts. I am only 1/9 to 1/6 done with the files. Finishing the analysis will almost certainly take me most of the semester.

Given the establishment of the new RCM model of budgeting, it was recommended that this subcommittee only look at the previous academic year academic budget as a baseline for budgets emanating from the new model.
[Subsequent to the meeting, Larry Wittie indicated that he would like to continue examining the budget data for the past few years that he has accumulated to provide an historical perspective on campus budgeting.]

Strategic Plan, RCM, and Faculty Resources subcommittee
Paul Bingham discussed the progress of Finance and Budget Committee (on which he represents CAPRA) established under the RCM model. Paul reviewed in general terms the issues that F&BC is currently discussing, including algorithms for distribution of IDC, tuition, state funds to units; possible structures for decision-making within the RCM (departmental versus decanal focus, for example); schedule for implementing RCM; and, finally, scheduling for the initial public release of a summary of the key details of the implementation of RCM proposed by F&BC. This document will not be the final policy, but, rather, will represent a draft for commentary by the University Community. An F&BC-internal draft is currently planned for October 30, with the release of the public draft on November 30. Paul will report to CAPRA about these proceedings as permitted by F&BC consensus. It was agreed that Mark Maciutaitis and the Provost will be invited to CAPRA meetings in December to discuss the public document and other RCM issues.

Paul was asked to remind F&BC about the Senate’s recommendation that there be a faculty governance committee, independent of F&BC, to advise on substantive RCM matters, including non-financial valuation of programs, services and functions. Paul was also asked to assess the current status of Humanities representation on F&BC.

Satellite campuses subcommittee

The Marine Sciences 'Semester by the Sea' program is having a successful first semester this fall, reaching its target enrollment, with 21 students living in the dorms on Southampton campus and additional students taking classes but living off campus, despite having a very limited time to advertise the program. The Arts programs appear to have been less successful in reaching their enrollment targets, with 4 students currently living in the dorms. SoMAS is under pressure from the administration to dramatically increase enrollments, and to expand the program to the Spring semester. The program is currently being extensively advertised.