Registry about the university’s general education requirements, as well as changes to the Whitney Young program. BASC will work on the strategic plan.
University President Thompson introduced himself and noted that he attended the meeting because he wanted to address senate directly. He stressed the importance of shared governance and that faculty should be a part of that process. He promised transparency. Through working with CPE he was intimately familiar with KSU's challenges before coming to campus. He apologized that faculty could not be more intimately involved with the planning to switch over to textbooks, but the situation required swift action.
President Thompson evoked a number of the recent challenges faced by the university—organizational confusion, low enrollment, student success, negative media coverage—and emphasized that he hoped to generate positive press and called on the faculty to help. Citing the balanced budget, he noted that the university is at a sustainable place to grow and its small size offers it the ability to be cutting edge. While the university did not get all it had asked for from CPE (i.e., tuition stabilization funds), it did benefit from not having its budget cut like the other public universities, and it had land grant funds matched. The Board has charged the president with getting things done that have not been achieved in the past few years, but he did not specify what those items were.
One senator asked the President about low ACT subscores among first year students. The Senator noted he had some students with a subscore of 10 in English 101. He also noted concern about the exceeding of caps in English 101 courses from 20 to 25. The President responded that a sophisticated metric was deployed to determine students who would likely succeed at the university. He noted this is a triangulation approach that considers not only ACT scores, but also high school grades and other evidence of student motivation (such as leadership roles). He stressed that by itself, the ACT is not sufficient for predicting student success. Nevertheless, students who may be at risk will be closely monitored through intrusive advising and they will be coached on a “learning path” that ensures their progress is charted.
The Faculty Senate Parliamentarian indicated time was up and a motion was passed to extend time for ten minutes.
The President stressed that this year would serve as baseline data for the 2+2 program. A senator asked for clarification on the program and the President noted that students admitted under these auspices would earn a “milestone” degree and then, the university hopes, move on to a four year program. The development of milestone certificates, in addition to the associate’s degree, will be considered.
Time was again extended through a motion. A senator asked about the previous administration’s plan to build the budget around a projection of 600 new students. The President said that he did not feel this number was realistic and that he budgeted for 350 new first year students and 150 transfers. At present the university may be a little short on those numbers, but that possibility was anticipated in the final budget.