Faculty Council

April 24, 2003

1008 Evans Lab

3:30-5:30

Present: 25

Guests: 6

3:30 1. Announcements

Chair Gene Mumy made announcements regarding the Budget Situation. He thanked Faculty Council for their involvement in the signature and letter writing campaigns, and noted that their participation helped. He also noted that he met with the new Vice President for Government Relations, Ellyn Perrone.

At the recent Faculty Cabinet meeting the President and Provost announced that there would be a white paper on ASC Restructuring before the end of the month. President Holbrook noted that it stresses responsibilities rather than roles. He announced that there will be a stand-alone Executive Dean.

3:40 2. STRS Situation

Mr. Bob Brown, a consultant from Human Resources, described the situation at STRS. Last year, the fund for retirement benefits lost four billion dollars. The current subsidy is 3% X the number of years of service=total premium, and a 50% subsidy for spouses. STRS has offered many possible solutions, one of which is to cut benefits to 2% x years served, with no benefits to spouses. This would also include no coverage for those with less than fifteen years of service.

STRS focused mostly on plan design and the system of healthcare procurement. They would like to solve the problem in one step. The working group (Health Care Advocates) has proposed to solve the crisis through several more gradual steps. Several of these are to: only slight decrease the amount of funding towards the premium to 2.5%, to not preclude spouse, dependents and survivors, to decrease the level of funding for name-brand and mail-order drugs.

Mr. Brown noted that STRS has been cooperative and open to suggestions, and the working group has been holding discussions with FCBC as well as Faculty Council. Chair Mumy asked how these policies would affect hiring policies. Professor Julia Watson asked that HCA look into policies about faculty who were hired under former assumptions but may not reach 15 full years of service before retirement. Vice-Chair Grady Chism noted that there are potential long-term negative consequences for STRS if their policies are put in motion. This sort of unpredictability may prompt those who are able to opt-out of STRS. Mr. Brown referred Faculty Council to an article in the Columbus Dispatch from March 1, 2002 titled “Retires Likely to Feel Squeeze.”

4:22 3. Library Policy

Dean Joe Branin, the Assistant Director of Libraries, Pat McCandless, and Chair of the Council on Libraries and Information Technology, Professor Lewis Ulman, spoke to Faculty Council about the current policies for use of library materials. Faculty seemed to be unclear about the current policies of the library. Dr. Branin explained that there is only a fine for late materials that have been requested by another user. The fine was recently raised to $10 a day which they hoped would increase awareness regarding overdue materials. Dr. McCandless noted that even though the fine was raised by 1000% they are not making more money than they were in the past. This indicates that people are responding to the new policy by returning their materials in a timely manner. She also told faculty council that the library first tries to send an email to notify a user of an overdue fine, if the email is returned, they send a notification through campus mail. There was further discussion and clarification of the policies.

4:43 4. Internet and Connectivity

Ilee Rhimes, Chief Information Officer, Chuck Morrow-Jones, Director of Enterprise Networking, and Bob Kalal, Director of IT Policy, from the Office of Information Technology came to discuss the future of HomeNet and Connectivity with the Faculty Council. Mr. Rhimes told Council that the equipment that supports the HomeNet service is aging, breaking and no longer produced. He added that HomeNet would not be cancelled as was originally planned. The service instead will be supported as long as possible until the equipment will no longer work. Meanwhile, the Office of Information Technology is working to implement discounted Internet services for OSU Faculty, Staff and Students with local Internet Service Providers (ISPs). There are also several inexpensive options available at http://www.osuweb.net/. He explained that most people in the University are moving toward a broadband connection, and that this allows more competition and reduced costs for better service. Mr. Rhimes told Council that it would take at least $.5 million to get the dial-up connection working at 56KB/sec, and that he thought this money could be better invested on future technologies.

5:10 5. Chair and Vice-Chair

Chair Mumy encouraged Senators to run for the Vice-Chair position. A list of all eligible candidates was distributed to all members by the Senate Office.

The meeting was adjouned at 5:17pm.