Tri-campus Steering Committee Notes
June 24, 2004 Meeting
Faculty Club, Conference Room

Agenda

1. July Regents' Meeting Presentation
2. Summer Task and Miscellaneous Discussion

1. July Regents' Meeting

   The main topic of discussion was to prepare for the July Regents meeting. The Regents have allotted an hour during a joint session of the Academic Affairs and Student Affairs Committees on the morning of July 16th. The group decided to present material in conjunction with PowerPoint slides.

   The meeting began with a general discussion of the report, which lead to the sequence detailed below. Fred Campbell felt that it was important to start from the beginning, as the Regents weren't here when Bothell and Tacoma were created, while Ross Heath noted that there should also be a piece about state funding as a boundary condition. The importance of telling the Regents a story was emphasized, as well as the need to show the identity and aspiration of Tacoma and Bothell, distinct from Seattle. (Robert Corbett and Kim Johnson-Bogart were asked to gather stats about Tacoma and Bothell graduates and majors. The final presentation also included numbers of graduates from UPS, PLU and Evergreen.)

   Campbell and Heath noted that the Regents knew the Steering Committee was a resource group, not an advisory group. Douglas Wadden characterized the presentation as "mid-term": so it was important to included stakeholder opinion. Also included would be examples of actual institutions to illuminate issues from the grid. The committee felt that the ultimate point of the presentation should be that there was no magic bullet, no one-size-fits-all solution.

   Alan Wood asked about organizing principles for the presentation, but ultimately also of the report. It was said that these were some: no magic bullet; don't let the design abstractly drive the process; align the plan with public policy; finally, maturity is long-term, so flexibility should be built in.

   Wadden said he would report on what the consultants had to say. As for other institutions, it was decided to concentrate only on the ones that the committee had personal contact on (Michigan, Colorado, and Arizona State).

   Campbell said that the last part of the presentation should be to ask the Regents what they want to learn from the committee. Concerning other stakeholders, Jack Meszaros said that the committee needed to hear from Seattle, at least more broadly than only from members of the committee. The committee discussed who from Seattle should be consulted, including past and present members of the Faculty Council on Tri-Campus Policy; members of the President's Advisory Taskforce; particular chairs who had a sense of tri-campus relations; and Seattle faculty who knew and cared about the issues. It was also suggested that the former chairs of the Faculty Senate and its councils be consulted.

   Wadden profiled the fall agenda including discussing the TCTF at the first Senate meeting, having a Seattle open meeting, and targeting specific faculty and administrators. Concerns about consulting with administrators sooner were raised, but it was felt that the committee wasn't ready to dig so deep. It was also said that the committee could take direction from the Regents if they wanted to know sooner.

   The committee then discussed the report and how to broadly and usefully distribute information. A long report wouldn't be read, but might be supplemented by creating tools on the web, such as the grid and by adding dynamic links such as a commenting mechanism, to make it interactive. The committee felt the basic issue was keeping the discussion alive. It was suggested that a staff person coordinate the site, but that idea was held off, as the committee felt it needed to know more about what it wanted to do with the Web site.

   Below was how the presentation was proposed to go at the June 24th meeting, as laid out by Campbell:

   Regents' Presentation:

   1. History: Remind Regents of the purpose of the task force and, within that role, the purpose of the steering committee. Present a brief history from the conception of the branch campuses to now; it was observed that some Regents have not been here through the development of the branch campuses. Some ideas include: when we started; the public policy issue addressing place bound students, strategy was to increase proportion of baccalaureate degrees, common vision of upper division masters level and interdisciplinary courses; the changing situation: since campuses have evolved in separate identities, should not be treated as necessarily having the same mission. Most of all emphasize we are at a point of change.

   2. Status Quo: Segue from history to current presentation. Ideas expressed: make the point that whatever we do it is built on the status quo; present stats, last five years of enrollment, degrees by field, goal is to show the contributions of the branch campuses; conditions that prevail today, statement on who we are at the moment.

   3. Stakeholders Input: Meant to provide a framework for what this task force is doing. (Meszaros)

   4. Consultant's Input: Important to separate their opinions from those of the Steering committee. Mortimer and Holland both stressed the importance of not implying that there is a "magic bullet" that is going to solve the institution's problems. PowerPoint slides can list the consultants, tell a little bit about them, and then list some of the quotes and facts of particular interest. This was one way of indicating possible future scenarios.

   5. Multi-campus University Models: Begin by introducing and projecting the matrix, verbally profile and highlight pieces of the grid; use models that have the same problems as the UW; use the models that Emmert identified in the spring meeting with faculty; limit the models to those we have actually interviewed; use the WSU plan; use the Draft Questions for TCTF-SC Researcher(s) Evaluating US Multi-Campus Universities (29 items); look at the models, analyze and show how the systems evolved.

   6. Matrix: Show the entire matrix on one slide, then move to one or two other slides of a couple of patterns.

   7. Conclusion; what is coming up in the fall: Getting on this fall's Faculty Senate agenda, launch a set of targeted questions; conducting a senator electronic survey; conducting a university-wide open hearing to hear input from various constituents. (There was a question whether the open hearing should precede or come after the convening of the Task Force.) In closing, ask the Regents what they wanted to learn from the committee.
      The consensus was to have the entire committee at the Regents meeting with 4 presenters; Fred Campbell, Ross Heath, Jack Meszaros and Doug Wadden. Present for no more than 30 minutes leaving time for questions and discussion.

2. Summer Task & Miscellaneous Discussion
   After determining what the direction the President and the Regents wanted to give to the committee, they would consider what to do for the summer. These tasks could include:
   • Meeting with Norm Rose and Donna Kerr;
   • An electronic survey; meeting with the Board of Deans;
   • Administrative input;
   • Meeting with Hal Dengerink, Chancellor of WSU Vancouver and Special Assistant to the President for System Implementation
   • Identify Regent liaisons to the branch campuses.
   • Put the TCTF on the senate agenda and launch a set of targeted questions, using the senate as a forum. Suggested to survey the Senators electronically this summer. (There was a question about whether this could be carried out in the summer.) This is separate from the open public meeting discussed earlier.
   • Should funding levels be added to the grid/matrix?
   • Meeting with Dengerink: Wood indicated that he had spoken to him already.

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Modified:   September 16, 2004