March 23, 2012

Performance  Funding  Report

Charlie Perusse, Vice President for Finance

No mandatory reversions this year. It will be business as usual. Revenue collections are ahead of schedule because of a growing economy.

A handout was distributed with an example of a performance funding model on one side and budget priorities on the other. In NC we have not redirected existing funds based on a performance model. Our proposed performance funding is also for new funds (additive) not for existing funds.

Goals: combination of student outcomes (2/3) and efficiency and effectiveness (1/3).

Seven measures are core measures for all 17 campuses.  Three measures are campus-specific mea- sures. Two campus-specific  measures will be chosen by the campus and one by GA.

There is a list of 10–12 campus-specific measures (maybe up to 15) from which campuses can choose as their measures. This is a work in progress. Much of the work has been done by the CAO/CFO group.

The next step is to set the targets for this work. This will be done with the campus administrations. This approach will award incremental progress rather than all or nothing.

We have asked for enrollment and performance funding money in our budget request (item 2a in the budget handout).

Overview of budget request

Q: Are these requests for additional funds on top of this year’s allocation? A:  Yes.

Q: The recruitment and retention fund encourages faculty to look elsewhere. This is not a good thing to do. Why are we not looking at pay disparities and addressing that issue?

A:  That is a good point. We are asking for the restriction on pay raises to be removed from the budget. This is also part of the priority.  We are hoping for across the board salary increases from the legislature.

Q: Choosing between making salaries equitable should be more useful than recruitment  and retention.

Q: Is there a possible performance  measure based on space utilization  and distance education?

We  need to make sure that distance education does not have a negative  effect on campus utilization measures.

Q: What are the limits of bounds on the campus measures. Maybe some of these measures are good to a certain extent but not in excess.  None of these measures capture quality.  Maybe we should consider employment after graduation or MCAT  score for example.

A:  Quality is a very difficult thing to measure. Many of these measures reflect national findings that we need more college graduates.

Q: This overemphasis on number may have a detrimental effect on quality programs such as small STEM programs. What happens if institutions set different goals? One institution may set a low goal and the other a high goal. Will  the rewards be the same.

A:  The devil is be in the details.  We have to make sure we do not allow people to game the system. Remember that this is additive.

Q: How is the baseline going to be set?

A:  We are working on this right now. We already have baselines on some of these values estab- lished right now.

Q: Some of these measures are of production only because they encourage low standards.

A:  We  can either take  the lead in establishing performance based standards or they will  be established for us. This is a coming trend.

Q: Are we taking steps to ensure that we have reliable data? A:  Yes.

Q: Universities have positive impacts on students who do not graduate. A:  I agree, but I am not sure to capture this in a performance measure.

Q: You mentioned the need for more college graduates. NC State and other universities are responding to incentives by reducing the number of undergraduates and increasing the number of graduate students.

A:  We are going to reexamine the targets each year to make sure we have the target calibrated properly. We know that this is an imperfect system.

Q: GA needs to look at the way funding is done in general. Universities pursue graduate students because they get more money for teaching them.  This can cause the numbers of students to become unbalanced.

Q: These measures really focus on things that incentivize campuses to reduce quality. This often comes by reducing rigor. We need to find measures that encourage rigor so we can graduate students that will be contributing members of society.

A:  Please send us your thoughts.

Q: Consider technology and DE measures? A:  We will look at that.

BOG   Educational   Planning  Subcommittee   on Faculty   Workload

Report

Kate Henz, Senior Director of Academic Policy & Funding Analyses

Charged to review existing faculty workload policies and data collection systems and recommend changes.  Group includes BOG members, two chancellors, Sandie Gravett (Chair of FA), and staff

from GA. Use Delaware Study to capture faculty teaching load, but that is just one portion of what faculty do. A group of deans and faculty met with the group to discuss faculty workloads.  The Pope Center made a presentation to the group.  The BOG members have a completely different view of faculty workloads than they did in August.

We will likely keep the Delaware data.

Q: We are using Delaware, too. In and institution  with a 4–4 load with release for service and research, but this does not capture the time it takes work one-on-one with students.  If we do not capture that, we are again measuring quantity and not quality.

A:  I agree. We  have had many discussion about that  very point  in our committee meetings.

Delaware data are at least comparable for all sixteen campuses.  The responsibility for ad- dressing quality is at the campus level.

Q: Budget cuts are increasing class sizes, but we still  get credit  for one course. How is this captured?

A:  Delaware captures the number of students per section and we are discussing the importance of this with the committee.

Q: What about people teaching with more preparations or even teaching in more than one field? A:  I understand. Delaware  does not count that, but we have been discussing this in the com-

mittee.  SG: The policy legislatively mandates the reporting, so we have to do it.  At least

Delaware satisfies the law that we have to report the teaching. We are trying  to make the point to the BOG that teaching is not all we do. We want to educate the BOG so they do not choose to micromanage our workloads.

Q: Could you describe what the committee is doing going forward and is there going to be a final report?

A:  Yes, there will be a report.  The committee will be recommending  a policy requiring timely reporting of Delaware data and streamlining existing policy. SG: We need to educate the BOG and legislature that we do not just work nine hours each week. We also need to streamline a cumbersome policy that has been ”accreted” over 17 years.

UNC Language Assembly Portal  Development and E-Learning  Hire

Alisa Chapman, Vice President for Academic and University Programs

A new Director of E-Learning position has been created and advertised. We have established a search committee and screened candidates.  We are in the interview stage.

Q: When are you looking to have the position filled.

A:  As soon as possible.  We are probably further than midstream in the interviews. Q: What does the job description say.

A:  (1) program development; (2) strategic planning, outreach, and engagement;  (3) technical coordination and online operations.

Q: What kind of experience/scholarly background mud the person show?

A:  We have it in the job description. We are looking for experience in DE and at least a Master’s degree.

Q: Is there any thought being given to consolidating online platforms between campuses?

A:  No.  Not at this point.   We  are not looking to homogenize our institutions  but  look for synergies we can use to work together.

Q: Does this come with any budget to help facilitate participants to buy in?

A:  We are working in a time of limited resources. We do have some limited resources dedicated to this are. We need someone to advocate for these funds to help with our DE efforts.

Q: There is a pretty common platform for online education (Blackboard). Is this person going to try to get expertise in DE spread around? That could be a really important accomplishment.

A:  This is an important point.  We have pulled together technical expertise in other areas and we have an opportunity to do this for DE.

The UNC Language Assembly Portal Development Language Committee–nine members (including Angela Anderson ECU Registrar and Julie Poorman ECU Director of Financial Aid).  The UNC Language Assembly proposed this site as a one-stop experience for students. Faculty of the UNC Language Assembly will develop the content for the portal.  We have to address issues related to students from different campuses participating (tuition,  transcripts, calendars, etc.).

This will be a multi-phased process.

Phase 1: Early fall–develop and launch a site.  We will not be able to address all of the issues, but we will have content. We have had a formal meeting to address issues associated with phase

1.

Q: We need to be aware that this program began at the Faculty Assembly and is designed to save programs,  not eliminate them.

Q: What will be the other phases?

A:  At this point we do not know. We do know that we have a lot to do and we cannot do it all before this fall. Our goal is a seamless system that will be available on all campuses.

Distributed Education  Taskforce Update

Jimmy Reeves, Chair

We have data from about 2/3 of the institutions.  There are a lot more similarities than differences across the system. There are varying levels of support for DE. All  institutions have support for DE development, which is usually voluntary. All campuses have some classification  for DE courses which have an additional fee. There were very few examples of requests for development of DE courses from higher administration.  Most campuses do not have a separate DE faculty.  In some cases faculty are incentivized, which implies the forfeit of copyrights. In most cases there is training available to faculty.  In most cases the training is voluntary.  Assessment is done in the same way as normal courses. There is another layer added some institutions to address quality, but not at most institutions.  All institutions provide support for DE students. This varies not in quantity but in quality. Everybody is using Blackboard except NCSU, UNC-Chapel Hill, and ASU. We plan to

collect more data and include previous reports. We need to make sure that we do not lose programs to DE on other campuses.

Legislative Agenda for Short Session and SB 575

Anita Watkins, Vice President for State Relations William Fleming, Vice President for Human Resources Leslie Cates, Director of Legislative Affairs

This year is a short session year for the legislature with limited items that can be considered.  We have asked campuses to focus on short-term efficiencies. The big items are making sure all student fees can be deposited into an institutional  trust account (not subject to reversions), consolidating all personnel under BOG (SB 575), lifting restrictions on salary increases, offering the optional re- tirement program to all employees, and more flexibility to regulate smoking on our campuses.

Q: What about the Millennial Initiative?

A:  We want to be allowed to dispose of property by lease for more than ten years.

Q: Is there any discussion about purchasing items at non-state contract vendors when there are significant savings?

A:  We are looking at changes and revisions in our E-procurement systems and the ability to get savings based on very large purchases across the system. We do not know how to answer the individual purchase issue.

Q: Is it possible for us to get a summary of what you are going to propose? A:  We will send the information to the FA.

Q: We are getting the same restrictions applied to trust account as are applied to state funds.

Why?

A:  Unfortunately non-state funds are subject to many regulations. Q: What is the impact of SB 575 on faculty?

A:  There should be no impact on faculty. We hope that it will help the campuses better manage SPA staff. EPA employees are already under the BOG. The change is that the current SPA faculty will be under the BOG.

We need to look at a university system and understand that it is intuitive that the employees are managed by one system focused  on what is best for the university,  not two  systems managed by different bodies.

Q: What is the timeline for the legislative session?

A:  Right now the leaders are saying that it will be a six-week session. Q: What about budget cuts?

A:  There are not as many holes in the budget this year. There is already a cut built into our budget. Unless something drastic happens, we will not have the same kind of budget cuts that we had last year.

Federal  Update  and UNC SERVES

Kimrey Rhinehardt, Vice President for Federal Relations

A handout was distributed with the BOG beliefs and priorities for federal funding.

Assembly Business

The Assembly voted to hold the April meeting in Chapel Hill instead of Wilmington. A handout about changes to the Conflict of Interest policy was distributed.

Elections

We elected a secretary (Andrew Morehead, ECU) and members of the executive committee.

Academics First  Workgroup Update

Bruce Mallette, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs

Academics First  Workgroup was created by Suzanne Ortega.  Members include Julie Poorman (ECU Director of Financial Aid).  The group is charged to reexamine BOG Policy 400.1.5. about financial aid regulations and to review policy 700.1.1 on minimum requirements for admission. The group will propose a common policy on satisfactory academic progress and hours attempted.

One question the group is considering is what is an exception for the purposes of admission. Policy

700.1.1 requires less than 1% of the undergraduate  admissions be by exception.

The group is also discussing drop/add and other policies related to academics and financial aid regulations.

Q: How many other universities have a minimum SAT and a sliding scale for GPA? Also, what is the ACT equivalence?

A:  We  will  review other system policies.  Statewide admissions officers will  have to consider students who take the ACT because every 11th grade student in NC will now take the ACT. We will now have ACT data on NC students that is unprecedented.

Q: The state publishes individual test score but not the composite math+verbal score. Is there any way to get that?

A:  There is going to be more and more disclosure about what is out there. Q: When will a final decision be reached. We need to plan now for Fall.

A:  If nothing passes the policy will remain the same. Admissions  officers are now preparing for

Fall 2013.

Q: We do not know how many currently admitted students would not have met the criteria. A:  The workgroup has the data now and will distribute it to the FA.