text:
Volume 34-----OCTOBER 24, 2000-----Number 2
The Senate Record is the official publication of the University Faculty Senate of The Pennsylvania State University, as provided for in Article I, Section 9 of the Standing Rules of the Senate and contained in the Constitution, Bylaws, and Standing Rules of the University Faculty Senate, The Pennsylvania State University 2000-01.
The publication is issued by the Senate Office, 101 Kern Graduate Building, University Park, PA 16802 (Telephone 814-863-0221). The Record is distributed to all Libraries across the Penn State system, and is posted on the Web at http://www.psu.edu/ufs under publications. Copies are made available to faculty and other University personnel on request.
Except for items specified in the applicable Standing Rules, decisions on the responsibility for inclusion of matters in the publication are those of the Chair of the University Faculty Senate.
When existing communication channels seem inappropriate, Senators are encouraged to submit brief letters relevant to the Senate's function as a legislative, advisory and forensic body to the Chair for possible inclusion in The Senate Record.
Reports which have appeared in the Agenda of the meeting are not included in The Record unless they have been changed substantially during the meeting or are considered to be of major importance. Remarks and discussion are abbreviated in most instances. A complete transcript and tape of the meeting is on file.
I. Final Agenda for October 24, 2000
A. Summary of Agenda Actions
B. Minutes and Summaries of Remarks
II. Enumeration of Documents
A. Documents Distributed Prior to October 24, 2000
B. Attached
Door Handout – Libraries Committee
Corrected Copy – Committees and Rules –
Revision to Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(l)
III. Tentative Agenda for December 5, 2000
A. MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING -Minutes of the September 12, 2000, Meeting in The Senate Record 34:1
B. COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SENATE - Senate Curriculum Report
(Blue Sheets) of October 10, 2000
C. REPORT OF SENATE COUNCIL - Meeting of October 3, 2000
Committees and Rules
Revision of Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(l)
Intercollegiate Athletics
Fan Behavior
Faculty Benefits
Benefits 2001
Penn State University Libraries: One Library Geographically Dispersed
University Planning
Budget Presentation for 2001-2002
The Senate passed two Legislative Reports:
Committees and Rules - "Revision of Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(l)." This report changed the membership on the Committee on Student Life to include the President of the Undergraduate Student Government Senate. (See Record, page(s) 6-8 and Agenda Appendix "B.")
Intercollegiate Athletics – "Fan Behavior." This report granted permission to use the name of the 'University Faculty Senate' as part of a series of announcements that might be made at selected Penn State sports functions. (See Record, page(s) 8-13 and Agenda Appendix "C.")
The Senate received three Informational Reports:
Faculty Benefits - "Benefits 2001." This report discussed the recent/current issues, the 2001 plans, and the future/projected issues in health benefits. (See Record, page(s) 13-20 and Agenda Appendix "D.")
Libraries - "Penn State University Libraries: One Library Geographically Dispersed." This report portrayed the collections and access to libraries resources, the reference and instructional services, and the technological infrastructure and facilities for libraries at the campus colleges. (See Record, page(s) 20-28 and Agenda Appendix "E.")
University Planning - "Budget Presentation for 2001-2002." This report summarizes the Penn State budget for 2000-01 and the University's appropriation request for the fiscal year 2001-02. (See Record, page(s) 28-39 and Agenda Appendix "F.")
The University Faculty Senate met on Tuesday, October 24, 2000, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 112 Kern Graduate Building with Cara-Lynne Schengrund, Chair, presiding. One hundred and seventy-five Senators signed the roster.
Chair Schengrund: It is time to begin.
Moving to the minutes of the preceding meeting, The Senate Record, providing a full transcription of the proceedings of the September 12, 2000 meeting, was sent to all University Libraries and posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page. Are there any corrections or additions to this document? All those in favor of accepting the minutes, please signify by saying, "aye."
Senators: Aye.
Chair Schengrund: Opposed? The minutes are accepted. Thank you.
You have received the Senate Curriculum Report for October 10, 2000. This document is posted on the University Faculty Senate's web page.
Please note that a memo from Louis Geschwindner, Chair of Curricular Affairs, to me is always included in the Agenda for the Senate meetings as Appendix "A" with information regarding the Senate Curriculum Report posted on it. This time Lou included a "Reminder" in the memo, and I would like to read it at this time. "All General Education courses and Diversity Focused courses (which are changing to meet the requirements of Intercultural and International Competence) must be reviewed for the new general education guidelines by the end of Fall Semester 2003. The general education designations and the diversity designation will be removed from courses that have not been re-certified as of January 30, 2004." And of the 800 courses that are out there, I think Lou said last night it was around 70 something…that have been done to date. So, he would really like people to move on this.
Also, you should have received the Report of Senate Council for the meeting of October 3, 2000. This is an attachment in The Senate Agenda for today's meeting.
Chair Schengrund: The Faculty Advisory Committee met on October 3, 2000 and discussed the following topics: Berks and the Commonwealth College search updates; Napster; United Way; aspects of the president's State of the University Address; part-time faculty; intellectual property; faculty workload credit for tutorial and mentoring activity; academic calendar; discontinuance of paper degree audits; consultation on new courses being developed (cost should be covered by?); and the lack of consultation prior to the removal of support from Kern Building. The next meeting of FAC will be on Thursday, November 9, 2000. If anyone has any items for FAC to address, please contact one of the Senate Officers or one of the three elected FAC members; Peter Deines, Elizabeth Hanley and Gordon De Jong.
The Senate Officers visited Penn State Mont Alto on September 25, 2000, and Penn State York and the College of Medicine on September 26, 2000. Our next visit was to Penn State Scranton on October 5, 2000, and Penn State Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton on October 6, 2000. On October 16, 2000 we visited Penn State Erie, The Behrend College and Penn State Beaver and Shenango on October 17, 2000. Our last visit will be on Tuesday, October 31, 2000 to the Dickinson School of Law.
One final announcement. As most of you know, there have been several incidents of hate mail in the last few weeks here at the University Park campus. Although the Senate has taken no formal action to date, the Senate Officers would like to note that these are intolerable acts. We wish to express our condemnation of such behavior and we wish to express our support for the victims of these acts.
Chair Schengrund: At this point I'd like to ask Dr. Spanier if he'd like to make some comments. President Spanier is here today, and does have comments. Let me just remind you to please stand and identify yourself and the unit you represent before addressing the Senate. Thank you.
Graham B. Spanier, President: Thank you, and good afternoon everyone. I'd like to begin where Cara-Lynne ended her comments, to reinforce what she mentioned. I think almost all of you on the University Park campus are aware, (perhaps those of you on the Commonwealth Campuses are not as aware) that we have had several incidents ranging from hate mail to other kinds of hate crimes, incivility, harassment, affecting a broad range of individuals and groups even beyond the recent more visible incidents of hate mail that were sent to a few individuals. We've always seen this around us, it's on the one hand nothing new, but there seems to be a concentration that we've seen in the last few weeks. We're very concerned about it, and I hope that all of you in here and your colleagues would see this not just as an issue for one or more groups of students, or a problem for the university administration, but an important university-wide issue that all of us, including the faculty, must be sensitive to. I'd like everybody to at least click on to Penn State's home page and you'll see in the right hand corner a heading that says, "Fighting Hate and Resources on Civility." You will see there a broad range of connections to university resources that are available, to statements that I have made previously and recently, to units on campus who deal with these kinds of issues on a regular basis. And to the extent that you can direct your students attention to these resources, I think that can be very helpful to them. We all have to be part of the solution and threats of the kind that we have seen, while they may be directed at just a few individuals, it really has broader implications and affects all of us. It's something I'm very concerned about, and have been spending a lot of my time worrying about over the last several weeks on campus. You'll also find from the connection to the home page, copies of a press release that we put out last Monday, about these incidents including a statement that I delivered at a program on hate speech and hate crimes last week, and references to virtually all of my State of the University Addresses, where at different levels I have spoken about these topics and other speeches, that I and others have given. It's important for everyone to be aware that this is something we're paying attention to, and that we will continue to pay attention to this. I myself, have several meetings this week focusing on these matters with many of our student groups.
I'd also like to point out that this is National Alcohol Awareness Week and last week Penn State joined with other colleges and universities around the country (all of the NASULGC National Association of State University and Land Grant Colleges), in a national awareness campaign. So I think you will see and hear more about this. The Faculty Senate has been very helpful in the past in bringing attention to these issues and again, I think this is an important concern for faculty. It's not just a student and administration issue. I gave the keynote address in Washington, DC this morning, at a national conference that's going on right now on this topic, and our vice president for student affairs is there with a team of Penn State staff members, where they are learning about what other colleges and universities are doing, and perhaps they will bring back some good ideas for us.
I'm a little surprised that with one of the most important historical events in the history of this nation about to take place any day now, namely a very hotly contested, very close election for the president of the United States, we haven't seen more discussion about that issue this fall. And I have this worry, that very few of our students are going to vote, because I've been spending a lot of time with students lately, and this is just not something they are talking about. So maybe you could all be helpful by reminding our students that there is an election about to take place. That we hope they have registered to vote, and that they indeed do vote. Maybe we will be surprised and the voter turnout will surpass our expectations, but to the extent that we as faculty members can encourage that, I think that's something helpful for us to do in terms of raising the level of awareness.
I want to take a moment to point out how pleased I am with the level of cooperation and collaboration that I'm seeing throughout the university in a number of ways. For many years now I have talked about my belief, that many of the most exciting advances in science, humanities, social sciences, medicine and almost every area of scholarship within the university, so much of the most exciting advances are going to occur at the boundaries between disciplines, and not necessarily traditionally within the narrow confines of disciplines, although we will continue to see some exciting things happen there as well. We established four university-wide consortia that were designed to bring anywhere from four to seven different colleges together around certain themes. We've also tried to do a number of things to lower the walls between departments to allow people to cooperate with each other. We have an increased number of interdisciplinary graduate degrees, and interdisciplinary graduate program emphases. We see lots of faculty members with joint appointments, and I would like to say that I think that we have seen more progress in this area than at any time in Penn State's history, and I would like to commend that and to continue to encourage it. In particular, we are seeing a lot of different units and faculty members cooperating with programs at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, and with our Dickinson School of Law. I heard a wonderful report from Dean Glenn yesterday about all the different connections that they had now developed with other units. The Schreyer Honors College has created marvelous opportunities for people to get involved with a unit that really spans the entire undergraduate curriculum, and I see opportunities for growing connections between all of our campuses and the other campuses, so I just want to point out how important this is, and how pleased I am with what we're seeing out there and I certainly hope that we will see more of it. Now I'd like to open it up for your questions and comments.
Anthony J. Baratta, College of Engineering: A number of years ago we had some problems with racial issues. It was suggested that the faculty take maybe 15-20 minutes of class time to discuss civility. Is that something you think would be worthwhile?
President Spanier: I think that would be great. I think that each faculty member has to decide how it fits into what they are doing but for any faculty member who has that inclination, I think that could be very positive. It's a teachable moment, as some of us say. It's a moment here that we have because of the visibility of these issues to talk, not just about a selected number of incidents, but the broader issues and what it means.
Tramble T. Turner, Penn State Abington: President Spanier, given your comments on this issue, would you consider an appropriate role for the university to perhaps lobby the legislature for its stand on hate crimes legislation?
President Spanier: Well, I don't know about lobbying the legislature per se. I've had an opportunity to speak to some members of the legislature about my views on that. I think many people in the legislature don't necessarily see it as a university issue, but it's really an issue for all of us. So I think that's an appropriate area of discussion, and I would agree with that.
Rajen Mookerjee, Beaver Campus: I wonder if you have any statistics on how Penn State compares to other Big Ten universities, in terms of Asian, Latino and African-American administrators at the highest levels of the university?
President Spanier: At the highest levels of the university? We kind of keep track of faculty numbers, changes in faculty, staff and student numbers. I don't know if we have any…you're talking about administrative appointments?
Rajen Mookerjee: Yes…
President Spanier: I just don't have good information on that.
James T. Elder, Shenango Campus: A few years back with budget streamlining, many fleet operations at different locations of the university were closed, and the burden of travel fell on the faculty member to use their own vehicle. With the gas prices that have been shooting up, I was wondering if there has been any consideration of raising that 30 cents a mile to soften this burden?
President Spanier: I don't know. I haven't heard any…
James T. Elder: Well, you're hearing one.
President Spanier: Yeah, I mean I haven't heard whether there has been any consideration. I suspect somebody has raised that question, but I don't know the answer. Does anybody else here know? It would seem reasonable to take that into account wouldn't it?
Chair Schengrund: That might fall under benefits, Len, for travel?
President Spanier: Take care of that, Len.
Phillip R. Bower, Graduate Student Senator, University Park: I was wondering if you could comment on the recent decision by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to allow the Temple University graduate assistants to unionize, and what implications that might have for Penn State?
President Spanier: Could I comment? I suppose I could, but I'm not prepared to.
Phillip R. Bower: Any opinions or?
President Spanier: Yes.
Senators: Laughter.
Phillip R. Bower: Any that you could share?
President Spanier: I have very strong opinions about it. I think they are known to most of you, but I have enough email this week already so I think we'll save that topic for further discussion, after we learn more about it, and whether Temple is going to appeal, and how the appeal turns out, and some other twists and turns. I'm just probably not up to date enough right now to say anything beyond what I've already said. But catch me in the hallway sometime.
Margaret B. Goldman, College of Medicine: Getting back to some of the other questions. Pennsylvania has the unfortunate reputation of having more hate crimes than any other state in the nation. I wonder if it would be possible to have some sort of initiative, I think they're having an initiative here at University Park and on all the campuses promoting more respectful attitudes to counteract these incidents.
President Spanier: I think it's a wonderful suggestion. We talked about this phenomenon a little bit in our Council of Academic Deans meetings yesterday. So all of the deans are represented there and covering all the campuses, and I think people are thinking about what to do, and what is appropriate given the circumstances and situation on their campuses, so I wouldn't want to send out a directive that everybody must do certain kinds of programs. I think those kinds of decisions are best made on the campus, in consultation with people on the campus, but I would be supportive, yes.
Chair Schengrund: Are there any other questions? Seeing none, thank you.
President Spanier: Thank you.
Chair Schengrund: We have no forensic business, and we have no unfinished business, but we do have a legislative report, and that comes from Senate Committee on Committees and Rules and it's a revision of the Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(1), that has to do with membership on the Senate Committee on Student Life and Deidre Jago, who's chair of that committee will present it.
Revision of Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(1)
Deidre Jago, Chair, Senate Committee on Committees and Rules
Deidre E. Jago, Hazleton Campus: Thank you, Cara-Lynne. If you would turn to Appendix "B," you'll see the legislation that the Committee on Committees and Rules is proposing. There is one correction, one editorial change, that I'd like to make and this will keep us in line with our Standing Rules of the Senate. Under the proposal, if you would please change under Membership (i), change the 6 to 7. So it should read Membership At least seven (7) elected faculty Senators. This will keep us in line with our Standing Rules, which state that a majority of the membership of the Senate standing, or a special committee must be elected faculty Senators. And since the vice president for student affairs sometimes is a Senator, but not always, we felt it was better to put the number seven under Membership (i), change that to seven. Also, the intent of this was an initiative from the Undergraduate Student Government association, and this will add an additional Senator from the student body to the Senate Committee on Student Life. Are there any questions?
John M. Lilley, Penn State Erie-The Behrend College: I would simply like to suggest under three (iii) Membership, that we adopt the language from a campus college, so that we avoid the "other than" language.
Deidre E. Jago: I think that would be appropriate. Campus college from a campus…
Chair Schengrund: That would exclude the Commonwealth College.
John M. Lilley: No it would not, it would be campus colleges.
Chair Schengrund: I'll have to ask someone that…I don't know. As long as the understanding is that it includes all of them, and not just one campus college.
George W. Franz, Delaware County Campus: John, I think the issue is that I think the normal nomenclature is a campus college is Behrend, Altoona, Abington and Berks-Lehigh Valley.
John M. Lilley: That is not correct. There is a group in the university called the Campus CADS, and that includes all campus colleges including Hershey, Dickinson and also the Commonwealth College, and that's fairly standard and used now throughout the university. So it's an undergraduate student from a campus college, that's all the campus colleges including the Commonwealth College.
Deidre E. Jago: The intent of our committee was to have this representative from a location, from some place other than University Park.
John M. Lilley: It's a nicer way of saying it…campus college. We don't want to be "other than".
Marcus A. Fedeli, Student Senator, Penn State Altoona: If we made that change, we would have to change terminology in all the other committees throughout the Constitution, is that correct? Not that I'm…
Chair Schengrund: That could be done editorially in the next printing for the following year, if it's appropriate.
Deidre E. Jago: We're not looking for more work.
Chair Schengrund: We'll also clarify the term.
James M. Donovan, Mont Alto Campus: How about campus or college? No?
John J. Cahir, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education: Ever since the reorganization has gone forward, the standard nomenclature used in the administration was campus colleges.
Chair Schengrund: Thank you. That's what we needed. So we will edit it accordingly, but not until the next printing which will be next summer. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying, "aye."
Senators: Aye.
Chair Schengrund: Any opposed, "nay"? The aye's have it, the motion is carried. Thank you, Deidre. Our next report is from the Senate Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics. It deals with Fan Behavior and David Christy will present the report.
David P. Christy, Chair, Senate Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
David P. Christy, Smeal College of Business Administration: Thank you, Cara-Lynne. I'm presenting this report that was initiated by the Faculty Athletic Representative at University Park, Professor Scott Kretchmar who is unable to be with us today. What Scott would like to do is really an issue, that can be put broadly under the heading of civility. Certainly not as contentious as the hate crime and mail that has been received by people, but what he'd like to do is try to raise the profile of behavior at our public gatherings, and in particular at intercollegiate athletic events. Scott recognized that during the past few years there seems to be increasing incidents of active negative cheering or booing when the opposing team comes on the field. We don't see that behavior from the athletes themselves. We tend to congratulate one another at the end of a contest, but that seems to start to become standard behavior and acceptable behavior on the part of fans. At several university athletic events, announcements are made prior to the contest to welcome our fans from another university, or welcome the team from another university. What Scott is proposing is that we agree that the name of the University Faculty Senate can be used in endorsing these kinds of announcements, and that quite simply is what is here. We're not asked to approve the language of the several statements that Scott penned himself. There used to be six of them, but in response to some comments they have been narrowed down, but those are just for examples. They would be professionally prepared by University Public Relations people to have the tone and message reflect the appropriate message of the university, but what we would like is to be able to say that this is endorsed by the University Faculty Senate. Any questions please?
Tramble T. Turner: Turning to those three statements I realize there was also a few others. My question is in listening to each of them the Faculty Senate, student government and Department of Athletics, I don't see Penn State administration. My follow-up to that is a question as to why student government and the administration wouldn't have been a more appropriate venue? Unless faculty are really doing a lot of negative cheering.
David P. Christy: We're not suggesting that faculty are booing a lot at all. What we're suggesting is that faculty endorse civil behavior and I can't answer for the administration or the student government.
Jacob Kosoff, Student Senator, Eberly College of Science: Do you think that this legislation, even though good at heart could have a negative effect like a backfire? So if the University Faculty Senate's name is attached to it and fans, alumni or students hear this and start booing louder, could just backlash even possibly blame it on the Faculty Senate. Do you think there will be a backlash?
David P. Christy: Dr. Kretchmar is very realistic about this, and if you read the entire proposal he even put down his analysis of the cons. The first one which is it could backfire and if it backfires I'm sure that we'll discontinue it. But at some stage you have to be willing to stand up and promote civil behavior. In The Daily Collegian yesterday, perhaps not correctly quoted that the president of USG was quoted as saying, "I'm not sure it would work and we're not willing to endorse it unless we're sure it would work." Well, we're not sure either, but we think it's still worth trying and there isn't a guarantee, but I am certain that if this results in greater negative behavior there will be a different tactic tried. But I think we're just asking to invite people to act in a way that we think represents the university community and our society.
Joseph J. Cecere, Penn State Harrisburg: I guess the question I have is, since it's in the spirit of all these announcements, would you consider taking the word football out of number two? You're not just dealing with football, you're dealing with other announcements such as basketball and other ones. Is that correct? You say work with football coaches and players wouldn't you say…
David P. Christy: This is just the talking points that he put together, but I agree that the intention is to use it at intercollegiate athletic events where appropriate.
Chair Schengrund: The only portion you're voting on is the portion in bold black print on the first page of Appendix "C". The others are examples or rationale but we're only voting on that one sentence, and basically we're only voting on the use of the Senate name in those announcements.
Alison C. Altman, Student Senator, College of the Liberal Arts: I'd like to know why you feel, and more importantly why the Senate feels that this falls under the jurisdiction of the Faculty Senate?
David P. Christy: There is no attempt here to control speech. We're just trying to endorse the kind of community that we think we'd like to live in, and encourage certain kinds of behaviors with regard to welcoming guests. It is the business of the Faculty Senate to decide when and where the name of the Senate can be used because we're representing the elected body of the faculty. We would never suggest that the name of the Faculty Senate was used without the Senate's permission. We're hoping that as a formal elected body of the university, this might indicate that this is more than just a general announcement coming out of the athletic department and the central administration, but it's something that we embrace as a value--that value being civility towards guests.
Melissa Landis, Student Senator, Commonwealth College: To go along with what she said, even in the functions of the University Faculty Senate, it says the actions shall be authoritative on all matters pertaining to the educational interests of the university, which has nothing to do with that, and academic standards for intercollegiate athletics participation which also has nothing to do with behavior. Also as far as I'm aware, these announcements are already being made, and are making no difference whatsoever, and I'm just wondering what you're expecting the change to be, if you just add a name to it?
David P. Christy: Well, we're always hopeful. There's no guarantee, and it's just like any kind of educational process. What we have to do is take step-by-step attempts to change the culture. President Spanier speaking out against binge drinking doesn't stop binge drinking, but it raises the issue in an important way. I guess I would argue to you, that using your tight definition of education, the discussion we had earlier about students receiving hate mail wouldn't fall into the jurisdiction of the Senate, but I think that we're interested in developing a community of scholarship, teaching and learning and building a good society, so I think that we can choose as a Senate to put our name behind this if we want to.
Robert P. Crum, Smeal College of Business Administration: I look at this, and I see it as well intentioned and then I think to myself, "gee I can think of some what I consider rogue coaches, rogue players throughout our conference and other conferences," and I'm saying to myself, "now how as a fan do I get a chance to protest the behavior of the rogue coaches the rogue players and that kind of a thing." And I say to myself, "gee you know, I just took away their way of protesting rogue behavior," and what we are attempting to do here is to take away what we are considering as rogue behavior.
David P. Christy: I don't think that we're shackling the speech of any individual, and it is not an attempt to squelch free speech. We're just inviting people to welcome our guests. In rare and unusual cases, there could be a reason for individuals to express what we might in otherwise not consider polite behavior, but you know, let me draw yet another analogy. If we had controversial speakers on campus, if we had a debate in Schwab Auditorium between Condelisa Rice and Madeline Albright, I think we'd be disappointed as a community if one of these people who was not embraced by the people in the audience came out and was booed. We can hold differences of opinion, but that's not as a university how we would like to invite people to greet our guests, but it's not an attempt to squelch free speech, it's just an attempt to invite people to what we consider to be more civil behavior.
Dennis S. Gouran, College of the Liberal Arts: At the risk of sounding uncivil, I am stunned that people would think that lending our name to an initiative to encourage civil behavior is somehow questionable.
David P. Christy: I have no comment.
Marcus A. Fedeli: I agree with the fact that I think by sticking our name behind this as simply supporting...I don't think there should be anything else.
Chair Schengrund: Did you speak to this issue before? Okay, I'm sorry.
James M. Donovan: I agree with the person that just spoke. I don't know if this is going to do any good or not. I don't know whether it's going to backfire or not, but I think we as a body to be silent, that is sort of implying that we don't take on civil behavior seriously.
Chair Schengrund: Do you want to respond, Dave?
David P. Christy: I certainly agree, and that's what we're trying to do.
P. Peter Rebane, Penn State Abington: Let that debate be as it may be, but I would like to suggest that we strike out any proposal that would have selective Penn State sport events. It seems to me that if we adopt this, that we should present this at any sports event be it volleyball, ice hockey, football and/or leave it as "selected events," it may suggest that somebody was or maybe that we could choose. If we adopt this, may I suggest that the committee strike out the word "selective," and if you go with this that we present this statement before every and any Penn State official sports event. Thank you.
Chair Schengrund: Do you accept that suggestion as a friendly amendment to strike the word "selected"?
David P. Christy: I'd really rather not over specify. I appreciate the sentiment, and one of the problems talking about civility is that it's hard to do it without sounding to smarmy, but to be quite honest at some athletic events we have no problem. Guests are roundly greeted at wrestling events, at volleyball events and so forth, but we have a specific problem at some of them, so I'd really rather leave it to the positive discretion of the organizers of the event.
Veronique M. Foti, College of the Liberal Arts: What bothers me about the proposal is that it simply adds another voice of authority and we've already got too much emphasis on authority and top down government in this institution. I think it would be much more effective if we follow a positive strategy of persuasion, rather than a voice of authority.
David P. Christy: Thank you.
Elizabeth A. Hanley, College of Health and Human Development: I've never found very much positive to come from booing anyone, and I think this occurs too often in professional athletics, so I think it's a wonderful, timely attempt to do something.
Adam Schott, Student Senator, College of Education: I think the main issue is the appropriate forum to discuss behavior at Beaver Stadium. What may be a more serious issue and the thing that is more easily enforced, is the throwing of water bottles from the upper levels of the stadium. I think that's a serious issue, someone potentially could really get hurt. Maybe that's something we should look at you know, before we get into this.
Paul F. Clark, College of the Liberal Arts: In the wake of a recent huge four page story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and reprinted in the Centre Daily Times four-day, four page story suggesting that Penn State places much too much emphasis on athletics, I wonder if this might be a symptom of that when the Faculty Senate spends a half an hour trying to decide whether we should monitor booing at the football games. It seems it might be as in the report here under the cons five and six, this may not be a terribly serious problem for us to be addressing.
David P. Christy: Well, that's certainly for the Senators to decide by the way they vote.
Howard G. Sachs, Penn State Harrisburg: Given the lively discussion we've had, I'd like a point of clarification. I'd like to know exactly what we're voting on? Is the issue we're voting on the bold paragraph if we accept the proposal, or could it be somewhat perhaps the narrower or more ambiguous statement that the Senate endorsement could be used right before the games to be a more welcoming approach? I'd like a clarification.
David P. Christy: What we're voting on is to authorize the use of the University Faculty Senate in these crafted statements that would be put on the public address system that would invite, and welcome visiting teams.
Howard G. Sachs: It would be nice if that was clearly accepted as a motion.
David P. Christy: We don't have the language because we would expect that to be professionally crafted…
Howard G. Sachs: You may want more legislation for the trouble it ranges from extremely narrow to extremely broad, and you're asking the Senate to give a blanket endorsement to some sportsman-like announcements. I for one don't know if this will do any good and we're legislating it.
David P. Christy: The reason I included the entire proposal by Scott Kretchmar is so that the texture and flavor of his proposal would be easier to understand. Sometimes that…
Jamie M. Myers, College of Education: At the risk of being booed, I call for the question.
Senators: Applause.
David P. Christy: Thank you.
Chair Schengrund: We'll take a vote to end discussion. That requires a majority vote. All those in favor of ending the discussion, please raise your hand. Okay, and opposed? The aye's have it, the motion is carried. We will now call the question all those in favor of accepting the proposal of Professor Scott Kretchmar in which he asks to use the name of the University Faculty Senate as part of a series of announcements that might be made at selected Penn State sports functions, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hand. The motion is carried the numbers were 124 in favor as opposed to 49 no's. Thank you.
Chair Schengrund: There are no advisory/consultative reports but there are several informational reports that I think you will find very beneficial to listen to. The first one is being sponsored by the Senate Committee on Faculty Benefits, and it's entitled Benefits 2001 it is found in Appendix "D" and it will be presented by Billie Willits who is the Assistant Vice President for Human Resources.
Leonard J. Berkowitz, Chair, Senate Committee on Faculty Benefits
Billie Willits, Assistant Vice President for Human Resources: Thank you for the moments to talk with you. Let me begin by talking with you a bit about the recent and current issues that are affecting particularly the health care benefits, and then talk with you a bit about where we're going in our year 2001 as it relates to those health care benefits, and finally a little bit of a picture about where we may be going for the future. Let me begin by saying that first of all I think we've all acknowledged that the health care provider community, be that physicians, hospitals, or clinics are definitely in a state of flux. We've experienced it here at Penn State University, in the recent few months. For example, some of you who are Senators from the Altoona area know that the Altoona Hospital is not a participating provider in either the Geisinger or in the HealthAmerica HMOs in this point in time, and that presents a problem for the people in the Altoona area. Similarly those of you who are from the Lehigh Valley area know that there are a number of providers including the Lehigh Valley Hospital who have indicated that they are not willing to be part of the HMO networks that we have in that part of the state. Clearly a state of flux, hospitals are in, hospitals are out, doctors are in, doctors are out, and for you the consumer and for us, it presents a significant problem for us. What we've done in the administration is attempted to adjust by giving you as much choice as we can; and many of you have noticed that the traditional open enrollment that occurs every November and it will occur this November, many times is not adequate for those of you who are in parts of the commonwealth where that flux does occur. And so what we've been doing is open enrollments for you mid-year so you can make some different choices. We've sent people to your campuses and colleges to talk with you if you have individual questions. We've been using email and telephone to try to give you as much support as we can when this flux does occur. In addition, employers generally speaking are modifying their plans significantly. They are, in many cases, decreasing the kind of coverage that they have in their plan; in other cases they are discontinuing benefits for retirees, in other cases they're shifting the cost to the employee. For those of you who have colleagues in other institutions and particularly in private sector you know that very often that employee contribution is significantly high for most families. Insurance companies are fluctuating their prices by the year. Many times they are changing their plan designs and many times they're actually pulling out of geographic areas. Those of you who have been following the popular media know that Geisinger Gold is no longer offered in this part of the commonwealth. There are other HMOs who have pulled their coverage for retirees out with very little notice. It is a state of flux for the insurance companies as well. I want to talk to you just for a moment about what is adding to this state. The single largest component adding to this increase, and to the flux really has to do with pharmaceuticals. And again, in the popular media, especially if you have been reading some of the New York Times you'll know what's going on with the pharmaceutical companies. They are by the month turning out brand new drugs, that's good, but in order to recoup their costs not only are they including the cost of their research and development, they are also in some cases including the interest they could have made on the money that they use to develop the new drug, and they are recouping their investment in approximately five years, that all adds to very, very expensive drugs. In addition, those who happen to be TV watchers know that they are advertising to us directly, and when we have allergies and we see that there might be a new drug out there we go to our physician and we ask for that new drug and that new drug is in many, many cases quite expensive because it's still under patent. In addition, the companies have decided to use a new approach. I'm going to use an example that you might know about. You know the drug Prozac? Prozac is prescribed by many physicians. Prozac is due to come off the patent in about a year to a year-and-a-half here in the United States. E.I. Lilley is already beginning to market that drug, it's pink, they're marketing it to women for PMS because it has been slightly modified, although as a drug it does nothing more than Prozac does but because it's being marketed differently it falls under a new patent. So the price of that drug will be able to remain high even though Prozac as a drug would go onto a generic list, and will have a price that can be used by us as consumers at a much reduced rate. So a lot of that is what we're facing in the area of pharmaceuticals. Before I somehow convey the picture that the pharmaceutical companies are the enemy, let me quickly say that they're giving us what it is we're asking for. We're wanting those drugs as soon as they can move them through the FDA and give us a better life style, we're wanting them and so to a large extent they're giving us what it is that we're asking for. But that is the largest single contributor to the premium rate increases. In addition technology, and I would say quickly that technology by-and-large they're giving us what we want. Everyone of us who have a community hospital who has an MRI, as soon as we were able to bring them into the community hospital and use them for a year or two definitely paying for that piece of equipment we now have open MRI's and so now we want all of that too and so we're paying for another piece of high expense equipment. It definitely improves our life and our opportunities but it's expensive. Followed by litigation, and I suppose most of us in this room would like the opportunity to sue if the outcome is not what we expected it to be so between the pharmaceuticals, the technology and the litigation our premium rates are going up in spite of what we might be doing in terms of plan design. Having said that let me share with you where we're going for the year 2001 here at Penn State University. We are not going to have any significant plan designs; other employers may, we're not. In addition, our Indemnity Plan, (I think most of us affectionately refer to it as Plan A,) will continue not to have new membership in it other than through exception, and one of the major exceptions are for those of you on the faculty who are on sabbatical leave. You may be in other plans at this point in time, but because you need coverage when you go on sabbatical leave and may be out of the network areas you need to have coverage and that will be through the Indemnity Plan. By the way, I'm not sure if the word has reached the faculty at this point, but the rate that we will be charging for the Indemnity Plan for those people who are on sabbatical leave will be the Healthpass rate, which is a lower rate. Because the rates have gone high, we don't think it's appropriate that because you happen to be on sabbatical leave in a semester, that you are necessarily paying that highest price, so we're going to be using that Healthpass rate. That word is just now coming out to the deans. I believe on the handout that you have there is a note there that says that in addition we're going to be adding some counties for HealthAmerica Point of Service, delete that. This state of flux is going so fast that what we found is that when we looked at the plan they had designed for it, it was not the design we wanted. While it gave you a reasonable rate, it had very high out-of-pocket expenses and so we decided to pull that plan so we will not be expanding the HealthAmerica Point of Service. That is to say that there are basically two components that are going to comprise the rate increases for us at Penn State University in the year 2001. One of those factors will be the rising cost of healthcare, I just talked to you a lot about that, and the second is that we will be continuing with our phase-in toward the 80/20 percent 70/30 percent contribution rates that we've talked about for the past two years. So between the two of those the rates will be increasing. I do want to share with you that this year I'm trying to meet a commitment that I've made to the Senate for a number of years now. While I can't totally control the rate increases of our healthcare costs, what I can begin to control are the administrative costs so part of what we will be doing this fall in November, actually starting November 1, is that you'll be able to enroll in healthcare benefits and other benefits on-line. I know that for many of you, it will be a positive, it will be much easier for you and for us in the administration, as it will move the enrollments faster. It means that it will give us staff time to support you when you have questions about either which healthcare plan you want, or during this next year if you need some advocacy from us we'll be available to give that to you. I was asked to give you a quick run down of how the on-line is going to be made known to you. First of all, I think many of you have already received a post card alerting you about that, and if you look at the back of that post card, it'll actually give you the menu that you're going to see when you go on-line. In addition, there have been a number of articles in the Intercom. The Intercom on October 5, 2000 actually told you step-by-step how to enroll in your benefits. There are a number of benefits fairs here at University Park. We're going to have a benefit fair on the 13th and on the 20th of November, and at campuses and colleges away from University Park on request. There is a letter that will be coming out to each and every faculty and staff member. That letter will also include the rates for all of the healthcare plans, dental and vision that we have as well as a paper confirmation statement of what benefits you currently have this year. I know that sounds contrary, here we are doing it on-line and I'm sending you paper but we've talked to consultants, we've talked to other employers who have gone on-line and the advice has been send paper at least in the first year of transition, so you're going to be getting a little bit of paper. It won't be anything like the size of paper you have been getting from us before on 'Time To Choose' but that's your alert November 1, 2000 to be able to sign on and get the benefits that you want. Let me quickly say that even if you do not want to change your benefits, if you are one of those thousands of faculty and staff members who use the flexible spending accounts, you must fill out a flexible spending account form for the year 2001, that's federal law. So please help your colleagues know that they do need to fill that out, even if they don't want to make other changes on their benefits. I've given you in your handout, the URL for this on-line benefit enrollment. That URL will take you to the benefits page in red. On that page then you will see open enrollment for 2001, click on that, and follow the instructions. We're hoping it's ATM simple, and that you'll be able to move through it fairly quickly. For the future benefit rate increases and the phase-in will continue as planned. If there are redesigns of any of our plans, we're going to try to do it for the purpose of better coverage. I wanted to remind you that about two years ago, when we were talking about point of service and PPO and indemnity plan, a couple of Senators said, "why don't you just do something more with the PPO instead of trying to come up with some of these other opportunities." Well after we watched the industry play around with point of service for the past three years, it's still not at the level that we want it to be, we're going to look pretty seriously at maybe modifying, adding to, enhancing if you will the PPO, that might be exactly the right answer. So for those Senators who are still here who gave me that advice a few years ago, I thank you and so does the university. Let me also say that there may be some minor plan redesigns, if there are, it will be to moderate cost. Specifically we still have a number of HMOs that have a $5 co-pay for office visits, there are others that have a $10-$15 co-pays, frankly the norm is about a $15 co-pay. So you may see those co-pays move up just a bit, if it can save us a couple of dollars on the monthly premium rate, it's probably worth doing. And it's definitely within keeping of the advice that the Task Force on the Future of Benefits gave us. Finally, let me make one comment about the industry. A number of faculty members have contacted me over the past few months and have said, "What about this defined benefits plan thing that I'm seeing in the press. Why couldn't we use that at Penn State University?" I just wanted to share with you that defined contribution plan is a plan where the employer puts out "X" number of dollars to each and every one of you, we give you money, and you go out and you buy whatever plan you want. Now from an administration's point of view that may seem simple because you're all going to get what it is you want, what it is you bought. I will tell you however, that if any of you have had to go out and look at the price of individual insurance or family insurance, you'll find that the cost is quite prohibitive. Group insurance is here at Penn State for a very good reason. I would suggest that we get better coverage for a much, much lower price than we would if we went to the defined contribution plan. If I were living in the middle of Manhattan in New York City I don't know that would necessarily be my position, but at this point in time in relatively rural Pennsylvania I think that a contribution plan would probably not suit any of us when we finally looked into it. So I just need you to know that we haven't missed that as a new idea, but it's one that we're letting pass us by. Let me share with you then quickly in closing comments that the increases are going to be significant for the year 2001. If you quickly translate the dollar increases into percentages, you're going to see percentages that are in double digits. In Indemnity Plan we're probably going to go up about 31 percent, in the PPO we're probably going to look at about a 38 percent increase. The Point of Service a little less increase, probably about 5 ½ to 9 ½ depending on the Point of Service you are in, the HMO is varied. The HMOs go up anywhere from 35 percent to 88 percent. Now after having given those percentages, let me tell you that percentages, as you know very well, can be deceptive. What we're talking about in the case of an HMO is probably $11 a month for family coverage, and as you know the single coverage is much less. We have one HMO that literally went up 35 percent from the year 2000 to the year 2001, and that's without the phase-in, so that's what is going on in those premiums in those plans. We've attempted to negotiate as best we can with all of those carriers, we think that the rates that you're going to be seeing in the letter, that you're going to be receiving in about a week are as good as benefits as we can. Some of you in the northwest will see that we have added a new HMO. We've done that in order to try to create some competition there, hoping that the rates will start to level out in that area. Some of you who are from the Hazelton area will find that we still do not have a strong enough network for some of the HMOs up there, it really varies across the commonwealth. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I do want to tell you though that we're doing what we can to keep those rates. I think that when you see them while in dollars and cents they're going up anywhere from $3.50 a month to much more than that, I think that you'll find that the coverage is still strong coverage comparatively speaking. With that I'll stand for questions.
Alan W. Scaroni, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences: On the issue of sabbatical and switching to Plan A, have you given any consideration to negotiating with the HMOs to bend their rules when somebody is on sabbatical and allow them to stay with the HMO?
Billie Willits: Yes, we have. That was one of the first approaches we used. It depends on the length of sabbatical, but they are by state law prohibited from providing you that benefit depending on how long you are away from the network. If you're away for a month, it's a non-issue but if you're away for six months, it's a state law but that's a very good point and as soon as that law might get made a little more flexible, we'll be on it. Thank you.
P. Peter Rebane: No trick questions today. I wanted to know if I could know projections and so on for some people who recently retired, or who might be thinking about the same path in the future, is there anything you can enlighten us about the benefits for retired PSU employees? Do you see any changes in our proposed coverage and are we still expected to drop dental and vision when one retires? Any indications in that direction for retirees? Thank you.
Billie Willits: I appreciate that question. Let me first of all address the HMO issue. We thought that the answer for our retirees really was what they call an HMO risk product, and as those of you in this part of the state know, that's probably not going to be the answer for most of us by the time we retire. The federal government simply is not reimbursing HMOs in rural parts of the country significantly enough for them to even stay in the business, so I don't think that HMOs for most of us as retirees is going to be the answer. At least not the way it is constructed now, and not unless the federal government decides to make a decision as to whether or not they want to pay fee-for-service if they want to pay for HMOs. So having said that, let me address the dental and vision. The Task Force on the Future of Benefits looked at those two issues very, very seriously. Let's face it, as active employees we hope to be retired some day, and we would really like to have that benefit, however, what we found Peter, in all candor is that it is a very high risk pool of people. We could not even get a dental company to quote us a rate on the dental for retirees. They don't want the business. The most we'd be able to do I think is to put the retirees in with the active employees, and when we looked at the rates for dental and vision if we were to do that it would cause the rate for the active employees and their families to go significantly high. So what we've pretty much advised is if you're getting ready to retire you get to your dentist about a year and a half in advance, and you get as much in your flex account as you can and you get as much of that dental work and as much of that vision as possible. Now I will tell you that I'm still looking at the possibility of some sort of a vision discount for retirees. We haven't been able to pull that off yet, but I'm not going to give up on that one, but that frankly, is an insignificant amount compared to the dental coverage for our retirees. That's probably not the answer you wanted, but that's where we're at with it.
P. Peter Rebane: The regular medical though, could you also say something about that?
Billie Willits: Right now we're going to stay with what we have, with what we call the supplemental, so that if you retire from Penn State University and are eligible for benefits into retirement, you're very welcome to stay in the Point of Service or in the PPO. If you want to go to the Indemnity Plan, you certainly are able to do that but you're able to stay in all of those plans. Once you are Medicare eligible then your real choice is pretty much only between that Indemnity Plan and the HMOs, and as I said in some parts of the commonwealth the HMOs probably are not going to be available for retirees.
Tramble T. Turner: Billie, to go back to that first section you were doing on recent and current issues, the second bullet was on employers and comparisons. My question to you is whether those comparisons and changes were primarily looking at private industry, business, or primarily other universities? Also, how is what you're presenting in terms of Penn State benefits compare to say other CIC Big Ten institutions?
Billie Willits: Good question. We looked at both, but let me remind you that we have some comparison universities who do not pay for their benefit costs as they are borne by the state, and so they in some cases actually have HMOs that cost the employee nothing. Now it may cost the families a little bit, but by-and-large do not cost the employee anything. Now my colleagues tell me that we might not want to be members of that particular kind of HMO, but I think it sets the stage to say that they have some HMOs that have very reasonable costs. I think we're comparable, we look at that literally by the semester to make sure that we are still comparable with our colleague institutions.
J. Christopher Carey, College of Medicine: I am both a provider and a patient, so I get from both sides of the issue. One of the things that I would like to suggest is that we as an institute, monitor the product we actually get. All too often in negotiations we buy our products, and now we're locked in for a year. The product that we get is often not what we bought, and the way that an HMO controls costs is by reducing what they call patient associated losses. That's a term that they use for the care they provide to patients. I can tell you as a provider that there is not a week in my office that I don't have to file an appeal to get some merit, and so we have a substantial market. Penn State spends a lot of money in the insurance agency, and I'd like to suggest that we have a mechanism whereby we monitor the product that we're getting, and use that information to guide our choices for the next year.
Billie Willits: I think that's a very good suggestion. We do have standards that we negotiate in the contract, but the one standard that we haven't negotiated yet has to do with that point and the way we address the concern that I think you're speaking to, is that we actually have a Faculty/Staff Advocate in the Office of Human Resources. And what we've asked, and I've asked you as Senators in the past is that when you or a colleague are having problems with an insurance claim, try to deal with the insurance company first time around but do not get frustrated with it. That is not what we pay you to do, so when you cannot deal with that claim, because you aren't able to talk their language or whatever, get it to us. Don't get frustrated with it, get it to us and let us work it through the system for you. It is true that there are some cases where the standard is to just move it to an appeal, we can get it to the appeal quickly and I think we've had some pretty good successes through the appeal mechanism but your point is very well taken. I would also quickly say that as I indicated before that flux that exists in the provider network is alive and well right here in Centre County where we have our largest constituency of faculty and staff, and we do not frankly have a lot of options in this immediate area. So we work with the companies as best we can and intend that maybe those long term commitments to the company will help turn around exactly the point that you're making. But I appreciate that, and I may give you a call and talk with you a little bit more about that. Thank you.
Pamela P. Hufnagel, DuBois Campus: One of my colleagues asked me to find out why we used to prefer either the 50/50 prescription plan or the maintenance plan, why not both?
Billie Willits: Without going through the same speech I just gave on the high cost of pharmaceuticals, it's cost. If we provided both the 50/50 and the maintenance prescription drug program the cost of your plan would be significantly higher. The maintenance prescription drug program here at Penn State University increased 26 percent this past year. The rest of the pharmaceuticals with the deep discounts that we get through large volume anywhere from 18 to 22 percent, so it would add significant cost and so we've tended not to do that.
Jamie M. Myers: Billie, in the spring 1999, yes, that's when it was, I think we passed an advisory/consultative report that should phase-in the increase in cost by a certain amount…
Billie Willits: Over seven years.
Jamie M. Myers: …are we within that? I mean you mentioned increased costs, but you didn't say anything about whether we're within that guideline?
Billie Willits: Yes we are. Actually that contributes to some of that increase in rate Jamie, that I quoted. We have two pieces, we've got the actual increase that the insurance company has raised the premium, and then we've got the phase-in and we're in the second year of that seven year phase-in so it's in there.
Chair Schengrund: If there are no other questions, I'd like to thank Billie for her report. Thank you, Billie. Our next informational report will be from the Senate Committee on Libraries, and Chris Bise will introduce our speaker.
Penn State University Libraries: One Library Geographically Dispersed
Christopher J. Bise, Chair, Senate Committee on Libraries
Christopher J. Bise, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences: Thank you, Cara-Lynne and good afternoon everybody. I'd like to call your attention to Appendix "E" of your Agenda report from the Senate Committee on Libraries entitled "Penn State University Libraries: One Library Geographically Dispersed". It's an informational report, and Mr. Jack Sulzer, who is the Associate Dean for Campus College Libraries will make the presentation, Jack.
Jack Sulzer, Associate Dean for Campus College Libraries, University Libraries: Good afternoon everybody. I'm very pleased to be here this afternoon and thank you madam chair and Senate Council for inviting us to talk with you this afternoon. Can you all hear me? Is that a little bit better? I had the mike down a little too far, there's problems of short people and tall people coming to the mike after one another. This is a great place to be on the Agenda, because I'd knew we'd have a good audience coming where I am between benefits, and the report on the budget from the provost. This afternoon I'd like to…I'm Jack Sulzer, I'm the Associate Dean for Campus College Libraries and two of my colleagues are here with me—Bonnie MacEwan, who's the Assistant Dean for Library Collections, and Rosann Bazirjian, who is the Assistant Dean for Access Services are here with me to help me with questions later on in case there is anything specific in those areas. I don't want to foul up the numbers if there is something specific that you need to know about collections or InterLibrary loan for example. I'm not going to read through the report. As Chris pointed out, it's Appendix "E" in your Agenda, and the slides that I'm going to run through highlighting some of the areas in the report are also appended to your Agenda so you can look at those. Those of you in your seats you can follow along if you just look behind me. As the university is legally constituted as one university and one system, with one system of government, we treat the libraries as one library collection and one system of library and information resources. The mission of the library is…to quote what we have in the report is to, "optimize organized access to information in all formats and to advance instructional, research and public service goals of the university faculty, staff, and students at all university locations." So I just want to take a few minutes to explain what it is that we mean by one library system geographically dispersed, and talk about how we are organized and how we operate through collections and access services, instructional services and our technology infrastructure. We have a library at all 24 locations of the university, that includes University Park and the Pennsylvania College of Technology. At University Park we have the Pattee/Paterno complex of libraries and six branch libraries around the University Park campus. Each of the 22 campus locations has a library, there are 12 libraries in the Commonwealth College and 8 libraries in the 6 campus colleges plus Hershey and Dickinson. Our relationship with Penn College is a little bit different since they have their own government, their own governing body, and they're owned by the university but they're administered separately, so too is the library but we have a very close collegial relationship with the library at Penn College and we do a lot of give and take with them. All of the libraries though function as one library system through the use of LIAS, that's Library Information Access System. We also function as one system through our resource sharing initiatives such as our inter-campus InterLibrary loan, and the application of electronic and telecommunications technology. We treat our collections—both electronic and current—as one collection available at all locations. Let me talk a little bit about our collections and tell you something about them. The libraries right now system-wide has over four million volumes, and we also have access to over 300 databases on-line and over 6,000 electronic journals in our catalog and in our on-line system on LIAS. We take a four pronged approach to our collections, and our access we must continually build our print collections of course, but we're also expanding our electronic access and increasing our InterLibrary loan services and providing more document delivery to the desktop, to the office desk and to your desktop computer. Let me just take a minute to talk a little bit about the last three. The electronic resources that we have are licensed for all locations except Hershey and Dickinson and that's changing a little bit. We are including Hershey in some of the licensing that we have, but we do this in special ways so that we negotiate through our consortia partnerships and through special education discounts that we receive. Access for Penn State as a whole is usually significant less costly than it is if we were negotiating prices for each location. This next slide gives you just an example of what we mean by that and what the differences would be. If you look to the left of the screen you see the cost to the University Libraries using centralized licensing for all of the journals—electronic journals of the American Chemical Society, if the ACS negotiated with each individual campus you can see the difference in cost that it would make in total for the libraries. This little bar over here on the right side is just meant to illustrate what would happen if the publishers negotiated with the individual campuses for those titles that particular campuses held, the cost would be a lot less, except by comparison to what we have if you negotiated full coverage with each campus but it's still more than what we manage to get by centralizing our licensing. One of the other ways in which we're expanding electronically is through our digital library initiatives. What we're doing is essentially creating full text electronic collections by digitizing special collections that we have in our own holdings. This is a part of our strategic vision of course, to support the entire system through further use of electronic resources. This slide just illustrates…it's just a matrix that provides you with a list of some of the projects that we're involved with right now in digitizing some of the library collections, and you can see some of the things that we have here. These are special to Penn State--Penn State Sports--of course, the archives that we have there and State College history but we also have things such as the collections of the Steel Workers' Organization, Pennsylvania State University Agricultural Extension Service and the County Agent Extension collection, geological maps of Pennsylvania counties and so forth. We're doing this as part of our own initiative but also as part of the initiative for the Digital Library Federation, I'll say more about that in a minute, but the DLF is a consortium of libraries working on different digital projects or projects for digitizing information that are held in those specific collections. Just let me pause for a minute here and show you just a slide that will run down some of the consortial partners that we work with. This slide also is appended to your report as kind of a list of acronyms so when you see these names and acronyms in the report, you can refer to that to pick them out. I just mentioned the Digital Library Federation, and that's the group of libraries that are working on digital projects, but we belong to some other key consortial groups. For example, the CIC—Committee on Institutional Cooperation—that's the academic arm of the Big Ten Universities. We're also active in PALCI and PALINET. These are two library consortiums and library networks in Pennsylvania that organize and unite the academic libraries in the state, and I will say a few more words about that in a minute, when I talk about our InterLibrary loan resources. In addition to this, we support our system through inter-campus InterLibrary loan and various document delivery services to try to ensure rapid delivery of print materials among all the Penn State Campuses, as well as to distance education and world campus students and to extension faculty. Access to information has been greatly expanded through our consortial partnerships which I just mentioned, and those partnerships are what make up some of the services that you'll find when you log onto LIAS. If you go to our libraries home page and click on the Do It Yourself tab, I have to try and remember what the labels on the tabs are, but if you click on the Do It Yourself tab and then get the Request it and Go link, click on that link, you'll get to this page and I am including this here just as an example of some of the services that we have, that give you direct access to InterLibrary loan, to making InterLibrary loan requests and to getting a hard copy of articles from journals all over the world. If you look at the things on the left hand side of the screen you'll see the CAT (these aren't hooked up right now, I didn't want to take that chance this afternoon, besides as I left the office a message came up from the server telling me that LIAS was going to be rebooted at 1:15 p.m., so we decided just to go with slides here today so I can't make any of these work which is probably good because it will slow me down anyway). The catalog is our catalog of course, if you happen to be at a campus and you log onto the CAT and there's something at University Park that you'd like to request you can do it right there or wherever you happen to be. If something is charged out you can personally reserve it through the CAT. PALCI is here, PALCI is going to get you to the materials in a consortium of academic libraries in Pennsylvania, including institutions like Lehigh, Lafayette, Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, Temple, and that's all more or less in one catalog. It's one catalog and one search to cover those libraries. The "VEL the Virtual Electronic Library" does the same thing for the Big Ten libraries. You can get into that and locate materials with one search in all of the 12 catalogs and put an InterLibrary loan request automatically. WorldCat is the database of the on-line college library center OCLC, and this leads you to…let's see I had some numbers down here for you. WorldCat will take you into over 38 million records that have been cataloged by the member libraries and some of those records going back are including materials as far back as the 11th Century. The things on the right hand side of the screen are services that will get you directly to articles on-line and you can order articles directly from any one of these services. I won't go into what each is except to point out that there is a dissertations link at the bottom of the screen that will take you to an on-line version of dissertation abstracts and allow you to order copies of abstracts and articles from dissertation abstracts. Let me take a minute now to change over to instructional services and talk a little bit more about how we provide service-wide access services with instruction. A couple of things that we do is the libraries has…last year we hired a head of library instruction and she is responsible for library instruction initiatives at all Penn State locations and she happens to be sitting right over there, it's Loanne Snavely, she's a member of this body. Loanne would you put your hand up so they can see who you are. Loanne is Head of Instructional Services and is in large part responsible for some of the things I'm going to show you right now. One of the things that we have done is put up several instruction modules on-line for distance learners and as well as anyone else…any other student or faculty member who can log on and get into our system. Again, all you have to do is go to the libraries home page and if you click on the instructional services tab and then choose the link that goes to learning modules you'll get to this page. A couple of things here, "Information Literacy and You," I'll say more about that in a moment, that's a general tutorial on how to set up a research program, or how to walk through the research process and develop information for a paper. "Training Wheels" was a tutorial that was developed at our campuses and this is more specific in terms of how you actually use the library facilities and it's specific to a couple of the campus libraries. "Brain Food" is an interesting little feature that we have here and "Brain Food" is really kind of something that was developed for the Pollock Laptop Library and it gives students an idea and a feeling of how to judge information and evaluate information that they're finding on-line and how to pull things together. This is just to illustrate what is behind the module for "Information Literacy and You". For example you can see by what we have on the screen here that a student can logon and actually walk through the research process and learn how to do it. Not only with on-line resources but also with print material. Now we wouldn't be able to do this unless we had a sound technological infrastructure so that's another area that we've been working very hard on in the last couple of years. The Libraries Department of Information Technology and the Library Computing Services have upgraded the technological infrastructure for all of the library locations in the last couple of years. This chart shows you what's been going on in terms of the growth in the number of PC's that we have out there and the amount of equipment that we're putting out at the libraries. It's a little confusing so I just want to call your attention to where the lines intersect at 700, that actually represents a little bit more than 1400 machines that we've placed throughout the library system. The red line represents LIAS terminals, those are the public terminals that run…that you find that have the LIAS system up and running on them and the blue line indicates what the I-Tech Department of the libraries has put out there for faculty and staff mainly and then some public machines. In addition to this, and in addition to those 1400 machines at University Park we've got another 800 open ports so that people can come in, bring a laptop, plug into the university network and get right on to the network. We all are building this up as OTC upgrades the network at the campuses…all the campuses now are on the university network but the lines out there need to be upgraded and OTC is in the process of doing that and as those things happen I'm sure that we'll be able to install more open ports in the campus libraries and indeed in some of the campus libraries we're actually experimenting with wireless technology. Finally, let me say that our challenge for the future is to sustain this operability that we've been able to build up and sustain the operability and the interchange of our collections and services across the university. We're about to take a big step in improving access to our collections information resources by implementing a new integrative library system in the spring 2001. LIAS isn't going away. LIAS will remain and will continue to operate as an umbrella for a suite of totally integrated software clients and web capabilities, but through SERCI the SERCI Unicorn System, we'll be able to enhance the ability of LIAS to provide integrated processes for database searching and retrieval, circulation, electronic course reserves, InterLibrary loan acquisitions, cataloging and serials control, so you'll have sort of one stop shopping all in one system that integrates the functions of students, faculty and staff and puts it all at your fingertips. I'll stop there and see if you have any questions at this point, and maybe Bonnie and Rosann can help me answer if there is anything specific. Any questions?
Brian A. Curran, College of Arts and Architecture: I just want to ask a question about InterLibrary loan. I don't know if anyone's run into this problem. Sometime around 1994, an enormous amount of journals that I personally am wanting to use, which deal with Art History, early foreign studies, things of this nature. I often find that those 1994 articles in these very major journals that were cut, I have to order on InterLibrary loan. I get a response automatically from the InterLibrary loan officer saying Penn State has the journal, but Penn State does not have the journal and then I end up in sort of a mea sum, and I end up not getting the journal unless I follow it up and move out of the system. A number have been discontinued years ago and I'm wondering if you're taking any steps to address journals that used to be bought by Penn State, but for now are not available, but which come up as being in the Penn State collection. That's been probably the most serious problem I've had with the system.
Jack Sulzer: Well there are two parts to the problem there, I'll try to take a shot at one, and then I'm going to go to Bonnie for the other. In many cases sometimes where we've converted to an electronic resource, that cuts us off at a certain point. Now, we may have the journals in the collection and without knowing exactly which titles you're looking for it would be hard for me to tell offhand, but you know, that's another area where, if you came in or called us up we could probably help you walk your way through that. Bonnie can explain I think, a little bit more about the difficulty between making that jump from a print collection to an electronic resource, because in some cases, we have cut journals. We have purchased the electronic access at the same time cutting the print journal because the rising cost of that journal it has been better for us to go electronically. Sometimes we have just discontinued the title depending upon the cost and its relative use. Bonnie would you want to add anything to that?
Bonnie J. MacEwan, Assistant Dean for Collections: You're absolutely right. In 1994 there was a huge jump in serial inflation and the larger issue was the increase in the library budget, and that is the year with the largest serial cut ever conducted in the library. Thank you for bringing to our attention that you're ending up in this strange loop with our InterLibrary Loan Department and I saw Rosann write it down, so I didn't, and so we'll look into your problem when we get back. I think it has to do with inferior or not as good holding information in the on-line catalog as we'd like, and the new system that Jack described that we will be bringing on more over the course of this year, has a much better holdings information system. I'll also remind you we have a brand new Arts Librarian, and if you wanted to make some adjustments in your serials selection you have one of the best Art Librarians in the US here…
Brian A. Curran: That I agree with and we're…
Bonnie J. MacEwan: You'll like having him on board and I think that he's a good person to work with, and there's always me if that doesn't work out.
Jack Sulzer: The buck stops at Bonnie's desk in journal subscription.
Howard G. Sachs: Can you comment on the reference and instructional services at the campuses? There is a statement in the report that indicates that every campus college will have two professional librarians in order to back up the reference librarians available at…
Jack Sulzer: University Park…
Howard G. Sachs: Could you comment a little more on that, how it operates?
Jack Sulzer: What we had…we had a condition with the campuses up until two years ago which at many of the campuses there was only one professional librarian. There was only one library faculty. When Nancy Eaton came, she recognized that as a problem right off the bat and began to make provisions to hire fixed-term faculty. What we were able to do from the libraries budget was to get to a point where we had enough money to hire a 9-month fixed-term faculty member for each of eight campuses where there was only one professional librarian. The Commonwealth College partnered with us to make up the difference and so at eight of the Commonwealth College campuses we were able to hire an additional faculty member. Now those faculty are fixed-term faculty, they don't have the same responsibilities that the head librarians do at those locations in terms of research and scholarship and so the intention of adding that faculty was to augment reference services and instructional services at those campuses, because prior to that point all of that had to be handled by the one librarian that was there. Hopefully, if we had a library assistant, a paraprofessional who was knowledgeable enough in some cases we were putting them in the classroom and that's not something that the dean wanted to continue, so she and I worked over the last couple of years to put those positions into place. Indeed we're trying to continue to augment the stat services that we have out there, the professional services that we have at the libraries. Does that answer your question? It didn't impact on Capital College because I believe at the time you had four professional positions in the library there, and we were just trying to get those commonwealth campuses that had only one librarian, up to a two librarian standard.
Howard G. Sachs: My concern is more on the growth of graduate programs across the commonwealth. At some of the campuses over the commonwealth system we're doing extended programs as you know, those kinds of programs at schools. I have a concern, and maybe it's not a library concern that we don't have full services supporting graduate programs in terms of the reference librarians. Now some of that is being taken by creating links to the reference magazine that may be based here.
Jack Sulzer: Let me answer that this way Howard, by saying that as we try to move our collections around we try to move the print collections around through InterCampus Loan and we're doing a pretty good job of that and now we can get it down to three days. We're trying to develop centralized licensing for electronic resources that everybody can share so by doing that at least for collections and access we're able to meet a lot of those programmatic needs but there's two problems with that. First of all, we're trying to extend the services now that we're providing with a limited staff both at the campus libraries and at University Park. University Park is where most of the subject specialists reside. At the campuses you have librarians that are more generalist and their responsibility is to adapt those electronic resources in the overall system-wide collection to the needs of the campus, so they do more reference service there and instructional service there. The problem that we have though is extending our reference services and our instructional services. The instructional services now are making inroads, Loanne is making great inroads on-line, so that we're developing more on-line kinds of instructional packages that we can use, but still that leaves us with a problem for reference services. So far we've been trying to handle that through email, getting mail to the appropriate subject specialist or to the librarian at the campus where the need exists. One of the things that we're experimenting with now in the Gateway Library…or that we will be experimenting with is some software that will allow us to put the librarians in a chat room, people will be able to logon, see a list of reference librarians, it won't matter where they are and pick out the ones that aren't busy and then communicate with them in real time. But again, that's kind of a labor intensive thing, there's a lot of people behind that technology and I think that's what we're running into now is the need for more professional staff and library faculty and indeed overall staff throughout the libraries. We're kind of running up against limits in our human resources, we have been for a long time and that's something we need to address. The other part of that which I almost forgot about is the sustainability of our electronic resources. For example, we had a Masters of Business Administration through the World Campus, and so far as the resources that we have for graduate study in business we have them. We have access to them but as we add users through the World Campus that's going to mean that may impact on our licensing, it may impact on the cost of those resources. In addition to that, as faculty expand those programs and develop those programs they're going to want more journals, they're going to want more access to a different collection of journals and that's going to add to our expenses. In some cases it will be a tradeoff between the journals that we have to buy and those that we can't afford to keep. We'll have to try to come to some balance there.
James E. May, DuBois Campus: I have two questions and perhaps they go to Bonnie MacEwan. First of all with the large number of serials being moved to annex, that are really a year or two old before you see them, are now shipped over to annex. If you do a certain amount of bibliographical scouting where you want to look through the journal you have to know what to look for. Can one at a branch campus request the volume itself?
Jack Sulzer: Yes.
James E. May: And the second question is, I understand that we're going to do away with the Telnet access to services like RLN and ESTC is that correct?
Bonnie J. MacEwan: We've actually…there are two answers to your question. Yes, Telnet is probably going away but I already had a group looking at web based access to those resources and I hope you've tried out the web based access, it's more powerful. The new librarians…we've hired some really topnotch new subject specialists in a variety of fields to come in from some of the top libraries in the country. Two persons on their interview or the first time I talked to them they said, "why are you still using Telnet access to RLN or to the ESTC? In my library we made this switch a number of months ago." They had recommended that we go to a web based access. The EUREKA access is now up and we did it more quickly than we had planned so that all of you can get used to it before Telnet goes away. If you're not finding that it's more powerful drop me a note and then we'll…
James E. May: It's more voluminous, that's my problem.
Bonnie J. MacEwan: You're getting more hits?
James E. May: You get more paper. This seems to be a problem with a lot of the new technology. You're accessing through CAT and you end up getting a huge amount of paper. In some cases three pages for every one that you need.
Bonnie J. MacEwan: I apologize, there are many more powerful search engines. If you want to request some volumes from the annex we'll be glad to work that out.
Jack Sulzer: Those materials that are not in the active working collection for example, either in Pattee/Paterno, or one of the branches here at University Park, we'll write in at some of the campus libraries. Because in some of the campus locations we have them transferring materials in from there also because we've got great space problems out there. Let me say a couple other things about the technology. The technology that provides us with access and retrieval is not always you know, fully developed or is an evolutionary process in itself, so that a lot of time what you retrieve you know, we are killing a lot of trees in some cases and those are bugs that have to be worked out. One thing on Telnet…in some cases Telnet, will probably be around for awhile because the technology hasn't gotten to the point where it can read a web page and make it reasonably clear to someone who's visually impaired, and so LIAS facilities that we now use for visually impaired people, the technology there doesn't work with the web so in some cases you know, Telnet is going to hang around a little bit but that will only be insofar as long as it takes for the technology to catch up with it, and be able to develop those kinds of interactive means for visually impaired people or disabled people.
Chair Schengrund: Any other questions? If not, thank you very much. The Senate Committee on University Planning has asked the provost to give his budget presentation and that's included in Appendix "F" and Provost Erickson will present it to us at this time.
Budget Presentation for 2001-2002
Peter Deines, Chair, Senate Committee on University Planning
Rodney A. Erickson, Provost: Good afternoon, you hardcore folks that are still left. I want to thank the Senate Chair and the Senate Council for the opportunity to present some remarks today concerning the Penn State budget. We're just in the process of switching over PowerPoint here. I realize that I'm probably the only thing standing between you and adjournment so I'm going to try to stick as closely as possible to the script here today but hopefully the information that I'll be providing to you will be good context for a lot of the kinds of choices that we're making around the university right now and really over the next several years. Those of you that are still wearing coats, you're most welcome to take them off. Would it be a violation of Senate rules if I did the same…okay, thank you Cara-Lynne. I think we need to pump oxygen into this room after two hours don't we. I'm going to begin with some information that was developed last March for the Commission on Postsecondary Education in the 21st Century. It was chaired by Representative Ed Krebs. The material was presented to the Board of Trustees in July, and some of it is included in your Agenda for today's meeting. I'm going to discuss several factors that strongly affect the university's budget planning and show you how Penn State budget compares with Big Ten and other Pennsylvania universities. I'll also review the highlights of the university's 2000-2001 budget and university's budget planning and appropriation request to the commonwealth for 2001-2002. Compared to the other Big Ten public universities, Penn State has the lowest educational and general appropriations for full-time equivalent student and the lowest total expenditures per FTE student and we have the unfortunate distinction of having the highest undergraduate tuition rate in the Big Ten. We can also compare Penn State's appropriation per FTE student with public universities in Pennsylvania. Penn State receives roughly half the E&G appropriation per student that Temple receives, and $1,400 less per student than the state system of higher education. You might be wondering why Penn State's appropriation per FTE student is so low. If we examine the percentage change in E&G appropriation over the last 21 years for Pitt, Temple and Penn State we see that they are relatively equal. There are minor variations but these mostly deal with special program issues and not the base budget. However, enrollment over the same period has changed dramatically. Penn State's FTE enrollment growth of 27 percent is well ahead of the other institutions. Temple has fewer FTE students today than it did in 1977 which explains why its current appropriation per student is so much higher. Because of the relatively equal percentage increases in E&G appropriation for these institutions and the growth in enrollment at Penn State, our university has experienced the smallest growth in E&G appropriation per student over this 21-year period. In the next series of slides we will look at the relationship between Penn State's appropriation level of tuition and fees over time. In this graph you will see that Penn State's appropriation as a percent of the general funds budget has declined since 1970-71. At that time the state appropriation was 62 percent of the general funds budget, and today it is 33 percent. At the same time tuition and fees increased as a percentage of the general funds budget. Today tuition and fees account for 60 percent of Penn State's general funds budget compared to 32 percent in 1970. The composition of the general funds budget has more than reversed and is almost a two-thirds, one-third proportion now. We can compare resident lower-division tuition rates at University Park over the last 30 years in both current and constant dollars. Constant dollars have been adjusted to a base year of 1970 using the higher education price index or HEPI. The HEPI measures the prices of goods and services purchased by colleges and universities and is a more accurate reflection of the inflation rate experienced by Penn State than the traditional consumer price index. This chart shows that tuition rates have increased significantly in current dollars but the tuition rates adjusted for inflation have shown a much more modest increase. Here is the same kind of comparison showing the education and general appropriation per FTE student in current and constant dollars over the last 30 years. You can see that the appropriation per student has increased steadily in current dollars but has actually decreased when adjusted for inflation. This slide represents a combination of the two previous slides in constant dollars. It shows the steady increase in the proportion of funds provided by tuition and the corresponding decrease in the portion provided by the E&G appropriation. Just as importantly we can see that the total funds available to the university per FTE student from these two sources when adjusted for inflation decreased in the 1980's and then rose slightly to a level not much higher than in 1970. In other words, the purchasing power of the university on a per student basis is virtually the same as it was 30 years ago. At the same time we have been dealing with numerous factors whose tendencies are to push the cost of education progressively higher. This is a very remarkable set of facts. Penn State's budget planning is affected by several factors. The competitiveness of Penn State's faculty salaries is a special concern. We regularly compare Penn State faculty salaries to average salaries in the Big Ten and with other peers sharing information through the Association of American Universities data exchange some of these charts are in your Agenda materials. We have concluded that our salary rankings represent a serious challenge to hiring and retaining top quality faculty. The cost of employee benefits and health care benefits in particular is increasing rapidly as we just heard in Billie's report. In terms of actual dollars the benefits portion of the university's budget has increased by $73 million over the past 12 years. New academic initiatives also impact the general funds budget. These include our School of Information Sciences and Technology and the new consortia in the Life Sciences; Children, Youth and Families; Materials Science and Environmental Studies. We plan to continue our financial investments in these areas until our initial multi-year commitments have been met and our investments are clearly paying substantial dividends. To enhance academic quality we have added about 300 new faculty positions over the past three years, funded improvements in general education, provided for first-year seminars and incorporated more active and collaborative learning in many of our courses. Improvements in technology have required significant investments. We are continuing to invest in computer labs, in access to electronic information as you just heard and telecommunications infrastructure and other learning technologies. In addition, we need to comply with various un-funded governmental mandates and maintain an ageing physical plant. Higher education is a very labor intensive business, 56 percent of Penn State's general funds budget goes to salaries and 16 percent goes to benefits. The remaining 28 percent goes to departmental allotments for such things as telecommunications, office supplies, travel expenses, maintenance and equipment. Here is one way to look at the budgetary implications of salary increases. We calculate income and expenses in one percent modules to provide some initial parameters in budget planning. For example, on the expense side a one percent increase in salaries and related benefits cost about $5.7 million last year—a one percent increase. On the income side, a one percent increase in the state appropriation, excluding Hershey and Penn College will yield about $2.8 million. A one percent increase in tuition will bring in approximately $4 million. This slide shows the cost of three different levels of salary increase—three percent, four percent and five percent. The cost of a five percent increase would be more than $28 million. Hypothetically, if we were paying for the $28 million out of our state appropriation loan it would require a 10 percent appropriation increase or if we were paying for the increase totally from tuition it would require a 7.2 percent tuition increase. However our E&G base operating appropriation increase this year is three percent or $7.2 million. This comparison shows that for any competitive level of salary increase a fairly substantial level of tuition income is required. With this background information in mind let's look at Penn State's budget for this academic year. We can start with a summary of the state appropriation for 2000-2001. We received a total appropriation of nearly $332 million this represents an increase of 4.2 percent or $13.3 million in new funds over last year. It also includes as a line item the $4.5 million for the School of Information Sciences and Technology that was funded last year through a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Looking at the other line items as I mentioned earlier, we received an increase in the E&G line item of three percent or just over $7 million. The Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension line received an increase of $2.2 million. This includes an increase of 5.8 percent for Agricultural Research, and an increase of 3.5 percent for Cooperative Extension. There is a $5 million line item for program initiatives. The line item we received last year for workforce development in the amount of $2.25 million was eliminated, and line item for Penn College received a base operating increase of $306 thousand plus an additional $2 million in workforce development funding for industrial technology programs. The state appropriation is just one piece of Penn State's budget. This chart shows the total budget. The activities on the left side are all self-supporting budgets. The medical center and restricted funds each represent about 20 percent of the total budget, auxiliary enterprises make up 10 percent. The items on the right side represent the general funds portion of the budget. Tuition contributes 28.4 percent of the total budget and the state appropriation just over 15 percent. For 2000-2001 the university's budget totaled $2.15 billion. Let's look more closely at the general funds budget. This is the budget that supports the university's academic and administrative activities and maintenance of our physical plant. The state appropriation represents one-third of our general funds budget this year--student tuition and fees contribute 60 percent. The other category of seven percent includes income on investments, recovery of indirect costs and departmental sales and services. This year the general funds budget totaled $911 million. The expense changes for the educational and general budget totaled $45.6 million. The largest item in this category was for salary adjustments. This reflects the people intensive nature of the university's work and the higher priority given to salary increases this year. There were also increasing costs for employee benefits, facilities operating costs, base support for the School of Information Sciences and Technology, as well as other program adjustments and grants-in-aid. The salary increase pool totaled 3.5 percent for merit-based increases, and for market equity and compression considerations, this required $17.4 million. In addition, the entire President's Excellence Fund of $3.3 million was directed toward supplementing the salary increase pool. This year's E&G budget allocated $20.7 million for salary increases, however, we will probably at best hold our own in the salary rankings among the Big Ten universities. This slide shows the benefit cost increases for the university's education and general operations, the net increase is just under $7 million. Healthcare insurance costs an additional $3.8 million—about an eight percent increase this current year. We are incurring increased costs of $1.8 million in the TIAA-CREF retirement program due to the increasing number of university employees participating in that system. $3.2 million was required for increased employer contributions for retirement and social security related to the salary increases. We budgeted $300 thousand to improve the health plan for graduate students and a savings of $2.2 million in FICA taxes was available due to federal legislation which exempted Penn State students and the university from payment of social security and Medicare taxes for students who perform services for Penn State. The next item under educational and general expense changes is facilities operating cost increases. We budgeted $2.9 million for the maintenance and operation of new or newly remodeled facilities. In addition, we are continuing the capital improvement program begun last year. The $4 million shown here represents the annual investment necessary in each of the next five years to support the $180 million of debt service and operating costs that are required to support the university's capital improvement program. Base funding support of $4.5 million for the School of Information Sciences and Technology has been included as a line item in Penn State's appropriation this year. While this does not represent new funding for the School we're pleased that the support has been included in the university's operating budget. Program adjustments in this year's budget total just under $4 million. The new expenditures were partly offset by $4.8 million from internal budget reductions resulting from one percent reductions in departmental operating budgets at University Park. We invested $1.3 million this year in the four inter-discipline areas that address societal needs—the Life Sciences; Children, Youth and Families; Environmental Studies and Materials Science. Adjustments of $2.5 million were recommended for high priority academic program needs in the colleges at University Park and other campus locations. Just less than $2 million was included for libraries and information technology, specifically for high priority student computing, telecommunications and information resource needs. $1 million was budgeted for student activities, student support services and expansion of the newspaper readership program to all students at 20 campus locations. The final three items included funds for program enhancement in the support units, deferred maintenance and funding designated in the state appropriation for the National Sea Grant College program at Penn State Erie. The last major E&G expense change concerns grants-in-aid. We allocated $800 thousand to add approximately four new graduate fellowships. This will help us to attract even more high achieving graduate students to the university. Also, $1.7 million was included for increased costs of the grants-in-aid primarily related to the tuition rate increase. The basic tuition rate increase this year was five percent in addition, the tuition increase included $31 per semester to support the capital improvements plan. $7 per semester was included for student support service, which included $5 per semester for the newspaper readership program. The tuition increase will generate an additional $29.2 million in income this year. There were also two student fee increases. There was a $1 per semester inflationary increase in the student activities fee, which will generate an additional $184 thousand. A $15 per semester increase in the information technology fee provides an additional $2 million. This year's budget makes salaries a top priority. We have also addressed critical operating needs, supported academic initiatives and enhanced student services. In doing so we have stressed efficient and effective use of the resources available to Penn State. Now finally I'll move on to a brief summary of the university's budget planning and appropriation request to the commonwealth for 2001-2002. Let me emphasize that the university budget for 2001-2002 is very much a moving target at this point. There are many steps in the process that will need to play out in Harrisburg and here at the university before the Board of Trustees gives final approval to the budget next July. We have requested a 4.25 percent overall increase in the state appropriation for our basic operating costs. Our top priorities will be to improve faculty and staff salaries, pay for escalating employee healthcare costs, and continue to support facilities improvement and deferred maintenance. In addition to the request for basic operating costs, we have made three special funding requests. Penn State's School of IST has been very successful in attracting top scholars and students to the information sciences. We see great opportunities to partner with business, industry and government through the IST Solutions Institute. For 2001-2002 the university is requesting an additional base appropriation of $4 million for IST. The new funds will be used to hire additional faculty, deliver IST courses on the web, and partner with external organizations to solve information technology related problems. We are requesting a $10 million increase in the base appropriation for the College of Medicine next year. This request is necessary because of changes in healthcare systems nationally. The College of Medicine can no longer be supported solely by clinical revenues and similar base increases will be requested in each of the next two years. The third special funding request is for environmental compliance. Penn State is requesting a special appropriation increase of $2 million as part of a two-year effort. Our activities will focus on improving air and water quality, hazardous materials management and removing contamination on lands owned by Penn State. As I mentioned earlier, Penn State's ability to compete for the best faculty has become a major concern over the past few years. We are proposing a multi-year plan to incrementally make up for lost ground. Since we cannot look only to the commonwealth for this increase, we are proposing to fund this special salary initiative through new tuition income. The salary adjustment plan that we have proposed looks like this. A basic increase of 3.5 percent in the salary pool, a one percent increase to be used for adjustments for merit, market competition and equity concerns from the President's Excellence Fund—a one percent increase from the special salary initiative that we have proposed to fund from new tuition income. To summarize the two income changes that we just discussed would yield $68.6 million on the income side of the budget next year. The requested base increase in state appropriation plus the three special initiatives would total $29 million. We have included increases in the rate of tuition to support the budget plan. A base increase of 4.75 percent has been proposed, plus a one percent increase for the special salary initiative and a one percent increase for the capital improvements program. The total tuition increase would be 6.75 percent, and would yield $35 million dollars. This slide highlights Penn State's appropriation request for next year. It includes the 4.25 percent basic increase and the three special initiatives which total $29 million. The total proposed state appropriation requested for Penn State is $361,288,000. If Penn State receives the full state appropriation that we've requested of 4.25 percent, then the required level of tuition increase would be a 6.75 percent increase at this point in time. This slide shows the level of tuition increases that would be necessary with other levels of appropriation increase. For example, if the base appropriation increase is only three percent, then a 7.6 percent tuition increase would be necessary to fund the proposed budget plan. If the state increases our appropriation beyond the 4.25 percent level, requested tuition increases may not be as high. Let me reiterate that we are still many months away from a final budget for 2001-2002. The bottom line to my presentation this afternoon relates to long range planning. Our goals are to bring faculty salaries to a level which compares more favorably with our peer institutions, to improve facilities and to enhance academic quality. To reach our goals, significant tuition and appropriation increases will be needed in each of the next five years. The magnitude of tuition increases obviously depends directly on the level of commonwealth appropriations for Penn State in the form of base operating support. We know that all of the changes we anticipate cannot be supported entirely by increases in the state appropriation and in tuition. We will continue to seek ways to improve our efficiency and to streamline our operations. We will continue to pursue private giving and the $1 billion goal of the Grand Destiny Campaign. Although everyone should be aware that these campaign funds are almost entirely restricted and therefore cannot be used for base operating support. And in order to provide needed funding for program enhancements and for new opportunities, some other activities and programs may need to be reduced, merged or even in some cases eliminated. Expectations for Penn State are high from our students, from the general public, from business, industry and from the state. Our academic quality depends on the quality of our faculty in a very fundamental way. We are seeking the financial support necessary to recruit and retain the very best faculty and students that we possibly can in order to meet these expectations and to fulfill the potential of Penn State. Thank you again for the opportunity to provide these outlines of the budget context for an indication of the current year budget, and also for some ideas on our planning for the 2001-2002 year. I'd be happy to take some questions at this point.
Tramble T. Turner: Provost Erickson, to go back a half an hour. One of the slides you had was appropriation versus tuition and fees. I was just curious, going back to 1976-77 year, you had 63 percent as a chart. What we have in the Agenda shows 54 percent at that point…
Rodney A. Erickson: It's a different starting point, I think. I'm sorry to fake you out there. We went back a little earlier for the 63 percent.
Jacob De Rooy, Penn State Harrisburg: We on the Senate of course appreciate the initiative that you're taking with the issue to improve and catch up on faculty salaries. But certainly we would appreciate and would like to understand some of these calculations a little bit better so that we could argue in support of your initiatives. One of your tables on page 37 indicated that for example, a 5 percent increase in salaries might generate and would require a 7.2 percent increase in tuition. In other words the big burden of any faculty salary increase would rest on the backs of our students. Yet in an earlier slide, only 53 or 56 percent of the total budget goes to faculty salaries. I know you made some assumptions about the lack of appropriations and money being used for salaries, but how could we readily explain to our peers and to our students how faculty, if they constitute 53 percent of the total budget, would we do a one and a half times elasticity increase in tuition? That is a 5 percent increase leading to the 7.2 percent in tuition. It's not quite fair…
Rodney A. Erickson: Well, part of the reason is that you left out the benefits part there, which is a very substantial part. If you add the 56 percent, if I remember correctly on salaries and add benefits to that you get the 72 percent. But as I told you in the one percent models, for every one percent increase it costs the university in salaries, wages and benefits about $5.7 million and you know that for each one percent increase in state appropriation excluding Hershey and Penn College, that yields about $2.8 million and we know that about $4 million is generated by each percentage increase in tuition. So it's pretty simple math, but it's a very direct comparison and all we're trying to show you in that case is that if we had to fund a 3, 4, or 5 percent increase, this is what it would take if we didn't raise tuition at all, and it all had to come from state appropriation or visa- versa and obviously in that comparison we've just dealt with that 72 percent of the budget that just deals with salaries and benefits. We haven't dealt with all of those other items as well that deal with operating a physical plant with 1300 buildings, new capital construction and all of the other things that are involved. I should say operating new facilities on the operating side of the budget.
Wayne R. Curtis, College of Engineering: In trying to analyze this, it seems to me as a faculty member there are two ratios that affect me the greatest. One would be the expenditures per faculty which we call salary, and the other is expenditures per student. One represents the resources to live my life, the other is to do my job. I've come to the conclusion that I don't have a life…so the salary issue to me is probably not as big, and I don't see people necessarily leaving Penn State for that. The other issue though that is the expenditures per student represents the resources. When I talk to my peers at institutions and I look at the number of bodies I'm teaching, the resources in terms of TA's I have to teach to do that, that to me is the bigger factor I think in recruiting and retaining faculty, and I was wondering since there was no direct charts that looked at the expenditures per student in the Big Ten, can you comment specifically what that really looks like?
Rodney A. Erickson: We're among the lowest. In fact, I think some of those charts are actually in the materials in your Agenda. Several comments, my hourly rate of pay has gone down over the years, too, Wayne so I understand that situation. You may not see it as readily in a very small microcosm of the university but I can assure you that every day we're losing faculty to competitive offers because I can tell you that for a fact because other deans come to me and say, "can't you help me out?" Even if it's to help a little on the financial end, or in some cases just to reassure faculty that we value them and want them to stay here at Penn State. It is happening. As the information that we showed you in the Agenda materials indicates, cumulatively we've fallen behind by about five percentage points in comparison to our Big Ten counterparts over the last five years, and if we continue to do that we will see the rating accelerating as well as…it's not quite as much of a problem on the recruiting end because you simply have to pay market to bring people in although we have lost…I was involved in a couple of recruitments there where other universities just offered what seemed like through the roof salaries, and we just weren't able to compete. But it is really the retention that's the critical aspect and you know, let's face it, a lot of other universities have received far more in the way of resources than we have, so it's doubly bad. The president and I were at a meeting out west a few weeks ago and the chancellor from one of the University of California campuses was bemoaning the fact that his state appropriation increase this year was only 17 percent, I darn near choked. So that sort of thing is going on all over and for example, last year at the University of Wisconsin, Madison the average salary increase was 7.4 percent. Well, other state universities, other state legislatures are investing quite heavily in public higher education at this point, so in order to compete it's obvious from the presentation that we don't have a lot of choices. What we can't get in state appropriation we have to make up for in tuition and your question about the resources to work with are right on target. We're right at the bottom of the Big Ten in terms of our resources, what we spend per FTE student, so that's also a concern for us and you have to have some of both, I mean you can't have a very high paid faculty who don't have the resources to do their jobs. On the other hand, if you lose your faculty over the years, it doesn't take too many years to go in to a spiral and decline from which it takes many years to recover, I'm not going to mention the names of any universities here but I could give you in the hall some universities that have done that, and it has taken them in some cases decades to recover from that, and we're not about to let that happen here.
Alan W. Scaroni: Sometimes I wonder if we're not a victim of our own success in the sense that we're spending less per student…per FTE student over the years a low percentage of that is coming from the state, yet the overall quality of a Penn State education is going up so it's sending a clear message to the legislature that we're doing quite well without their help, thank you. So what is the incentive then for them to increase?
Rodney A. Erickson: Well, one of them actually said to me the other day, "that you're doing so well on relatively lower appropriation levels if we didn't give you anything you'd really be great." That obviously, I hope was in jest but yes, it's clear that over the last 20 years and really over the last 30 years over which the data covered on the charts that I showed you as we have increased enrollments and made a Penn State education more accessible to the citizens of the commonwealth, we've actually been penalized significantly by it. That is really no longer a problem other than the fact that we've got this big gap because we're not growing any longer either. The fall data are out and we increased I think about 400 students university-wide, it was less than one half of one percent on a base of 81,000 students. There are pockets of growth here and there but overall the university is not growing, and to some extent over the years of that growth we did do a bit of mortgaging in the sense that as the number of students was growing there was always more income flowing in to support that growth, so now in a sense we're also not only dealing with these intense cost pressures but we're dealing with a situation of essentially flat enrollment which really was a conscious decision to not grow larger and larger.
William A. Rowe, College of Medicine: The recent merger followed by de-merger of the College of Medicine with the Geisinger health system wound up costing the Penn State College of Medicine entity somewhere between $100 and $150 million. How is that affecting the budget of the university, or is that entire debt being handled by the now subsidiary called the Hershey Medical Center?
Rodney A. Erickson: Well it's not affecting the rest of the university budget, there is a firewall between those two. But I would take issue with your numbers about what the actual cost of the de-merger was those are…
William A. Rowe: These were the numbers we were told six, eight months ago…
Rodney A. Erickson: Yes, I think that's as high as the figures that I heard, Dick do you remember at the Board of Trustees meeting? It actually turned out to be a fair bit less than we had…still significant no question about it but…
William A. Rowe: …still a lot of zeros.
Rodney A. Erickson: …it's still a lot of zeros, yes, but that was something that we simply felt we had no alternative to protect the integrity of the College of Medicine and the medical center, but no that has not impacted the rest of the university budget. We are however, as you saw, asking for a $10 million special increase to the base operating budget for the College of Medicine, not for the medical center, but for the College of Medicine. We're convinced that the College of Medicine can operate in the black, what we can't do is support the College of Medicine, the educational programs out of clinical revenue any longer. So that would be a special request for $10 million this year, and $10 million in each of the next two years. As probably many of you know, Penn State's College of Medicine ranks 75th among the 75 public medical schools in the United States. In terms of appropriation it's in the $5 million per year level, whereas the average of publicly supported medical schools in the country is over $40 million in some…UCLA at the top is probably in the $100 to $105 million something in that range. We provide far more money for veterinary medicine at Penn, than we do by an order of many times probably seven times as much for that as we do for the base operating support for the College of Medicine at Hershey. We believe we have a chance to get some of that support in the legislature, I think there is an increasing realization that the academic health centers in Pennsylvania including our own College of Medicine, are a tremendous valuable resource for the commonwealth and to neglect them in the way that has been done should not go on.
John M. Lilley: Would you comment, Rod about the Krebs Commission? You mentioned you gave testimony in front of them and tell us just a bit about that?
Rodney A. Erickson: I didn't give testimony in front of the Krebs Commission, I gave testimony in front of Krebs. We had a direct audience. Gary Schultz and I have talked to Representative Krebs. We have given presentations to both Secretary Paese in administration and to Secretary of Education Hickock. We have found that it's a useful way to talk with them about Penn State's situation. The discussions have been very frank, I think they have a better understanding of where we are, and how we got to this point. I think we have a little better understanding of what goes on in their minds about support for higher education at large across the commonwealth, and we will continue to take every opportunity that we can to have an audience with key members of the legislature, as well as obviously the administration to continue to try and make the case for a higher level of base support.
Guy F. Barbato, College of Agricultural Sciences: I'm just curious. On the 56 percent of the general funds that are going to salaries, is that only faculty salaries, or is that the total…
Rodney A. Erickson: No, that's the total salary budget, right.
Guy F. Barbato: What does that, out of curiosity, do you know what percentage is only faculty?
Rodney A. Erickson: I don't have that right here, do you know Dick?
P. Richard Althouse, Budget Officer: Ballpark, about half.
Rodney A. Erickson: We've got about 4,500 full-time faculty and around 15,000 full and part-time staff.
Jacqueline R. Esposito, University Libraries: In your slides it said there is $192 million of deferred physical plant maintenance, and that last year special funding for about $1 million was put to that. At that rate it will take 192 years to eliminate that deferred maintenance. That's about as much math as I can do.
Rodney A. Erickson: Now remember, that what that is, is an increment to the base budget so that will accumulate every year or so. In five years there will be an additional $5 million so it won't take 192 years if my math…I can't compound that quickly enough but it won't take 192 years, but it is a serious problem. As I indicated, we have 1300 buildings across the university and a very high percentage of them is getting into…we did a lot of building back in the 1960s for example, and typically when those buildings get into the 35 year range you start ending up with major maintenance needs. In some cases to go back through and put in HVAC, and things that we neglected or the state neglected on the DGS projects back when they were built. If I remember right, we've got about 28 percent of our square footage coming into that 35-year range in the next decade, so it will be a very significant cost element. I think one of the real success stories is I go around the university to the various campuses and see the general quality of the physical plant here and how it has been kept up the way it has, and the campuses really have the kind of inviting appearance that they do is really quite remarkable given the scope and scale of it, and the fact that we haven't had as much resources to spend on that as we would like. It's a big factor, by the way in terms of student recruitment. Students always tell us that the look of the campus is a big factor in their decision to come to Penn State.
J. Christopher Carey: Do you happen to have a list of those university's you mentioned earlier that were paying the exorbitant salaries…
Senators: Laughter.
Rodney A. Erickson: Not that I'd be willing to share with you, no.
Chair Schengrund: We'd make copies for everyone. Are there any other questions? If not, thank you very much.
Rodney A. Erickson: Thank you all.
May I have a motion to adjourn? The October 24, 2000 meeting of the University Faculty Senate adjourned at 4:06 PM.
Committees and Rules – Revision of Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(l) (Legislative)
Intercollegiate Athletics – Fan Behavior (Legislative)
Curricular Affairs - Curriculum Report of October 10, 2000
Faculty Benefits – Benefits 2001 (Informational)
Libraries – Penn State University Libraries: One Library Geographically Dispersed (Informational)
University Planning – Budget Presentation for 2001-2002 (Informational)
Revision of Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(l)
(Implementation: Upon Passage by the Senate)
The President of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) has petitioned the Senate Committee on Committees and Rules to include the President of the USG Senate as a voting member on the Senate Committee on Student Life. Currently, the committee includes one undergraduate student by virtue of his/her office and the vice president of USG's academic assembly. USG is suggesting that the Vice President of Academic Assembly remain on the Student Life Committee and that the President of the USG Senate be added. The number of students on the committee will be increased by one and the representation would change slightly.
(l) Committee on Student Life
1. Membership
(i) At least six (6) elected faculty Senators
(ii) Two (2) graduate students, at least one a Senator
(iii) Two (2) undergraduate students, at least one a Senator (of which one
shall be the Vice President of Academic Assembly)
(iv) The Vice President for Student Affairs*
* nonvoting unless Article IV, Section 2 of the Bylaws applies
(l) Committee on Student Life
1. Membership
(i) At least SEVEN (7) elected faculty Senators
(ii) Two (2) graduate students, at least one a Senator
(iii) One undergraduate student Senator (from a CAMPUS COLLEGE)
(iv) The Vice President of the Undergraduate Student
Government Academic Assembly
(v) The President of the Undergraduate Student
Government Senate
(VI) The Vice President for Student Affairs*
*nonvoting unless Article IV, Section 2 of the Bylaws applies
The USG Academic Assembly represents students on all academic matters, while the USG Senate is responsible for representing the student body on student life issues. Just as the President and Vice President of Academic Assembly hold seats on University Faculty Senate committees to represent the voice of students on academic issues, the USG Senate President should likewise have the opportunity to represent the voice of the student body on student life issues. Due to the nature of the USG Senate and the issues it deals with, the ideal University Faculty Senate committee in which to place the USG Senate President would be the Committee on Student Life. The Academic Assembly Vice President should retain a seat on the Committee on Student Life as well, as the committee handles issues dealing with the intersection of academic and student life concerns. As it is possible that neither of these students would be a member of the Faculty Senate, the committee should retain one undergraduate student Senator, to represent the voice of the student body and the Committee on Student Life on the floor of the University Faculty Senate. Since both the USG Senate President and the Academic Assembly Vice President will be from University Park, it is proposed that the one undergraduate University Faculty Senate student Senator be from a location other than University Park.
Mark A. Casteel, V-Chair
Joseph J. Cecere
Dwight Davis
Terry Engelder
Sabih I. Hayek
Deidre E. Jago, Chair
John R. Lippert
Arthur C. Miller
John W. Moore
Murry R. Nelson
John S. Nichols
Jean Landa Pytel
Dennis C. Scanlon
Cara-Lynne Schengrund
October 24, 2000 SENATE MEETING
Achterberg, Cheryl L.
Alexander, Shelton S.
Althouse, P. Richard
Altman, Alison C.
Ambrose, Anthony
Ammon, Richard I.
Andaleeb, Syed S.
Atkinson, Ann J.
Atwater, Deborah F.
Aydin, Kultegin
Baratta, Anthony J.
Barbato, Guy F.
Bardi, John F.
Beaupied, Aida M.
Berkowitz, Leonard J.
Bernecker, Craig A.
Bettig, Ronald V.
Bise, Christopher J.
Bittner, Edward W.
Blasko, Dawn G.
Blood, Ingrid M.
Blumberg, Melvin
Bonneau, Robert H.
Book, Patricia A.
Borhan, Ali
Borzellino, Joseph E.
Bower, Phillip R.
Bridges, K. Robert
Brown, Douglas K.
Browning, Barton W.
Burchard, Charles
Cahir, John J.
Caldwell, Linda L.
Calvert, Clay
Carey, J. Christopher
Carpenter, Lynn A.
Casteel, Mark A.
Cecere, Joseph J.
Cheesbrough, Kevin R.
Chellman, Alison C.
Chirico, JoAnn
Christy, David P.
Clariana, Roy B.
Clark, Paul F.
Crum, Robert P.
Curran, Brian A.
Curtis, Wayne R.
Davis, Dwight
Dear, Steven P.
DeCastro, W. Travis
Deines, Peter
DeJong, Gordon F.
Derickson, Alan V.
DeRooy, Jacob
Diehl, Renee D.
Donovan, James M.
Drafall, Lynn Ellen
Dutton, John A.
Eckhardt, Caroline D.
Elder, James T.
Ellis, Bill
Engelder, Terry
Erickson, Rodney A.
Esposito, Jacqueline R.
Evensen, Dorothy H.
Everett, Peter B.
Fedeli, Marcus A.
Fisher, Charles R.
Floros, Joanna
Foti, Veronique M.
Frank, William M.
Franz, George W.
Gaffney, Paul P.
Galligan, M. Margaret
Gapinski, Andrzej J.
Garwacki, Joseph
Georgopulos, Peter D.
Geschwindner, Louis F.
Gilmour, David S.
Golden, Lonnie M.
Goldman, Margaret B.
Gouran, Dennis S.
Hagen, Daniel R.
Hanley, Elizabeth A.
Hayek, Sabih I.
Holen, Dale A.
Hudnall, Amanda
Hufnagel, Pamela P.
Hurson, Ali R.
Irwin, Zachary T.
Jackson, Thomas N.
Jacobs, Janis
Jago, Deidre E.
Johnson, Ernest W.
Jurs, Peter C.
Kiefer, Daniel G.
Kosoff, Jacob
Koul, Ravinder
Lakoski, Joan M.
Landis, Melissa
LaPorte, Robert
Lilley, John M
Lindberg, Darla
Lippert, John R.
Manbeck, Harvey B.
Marshall, J. Daniel
Marsico, Salvatore A.
May, James E.
Mayer, Jeffrey S.
McCarty, Ronald L.
McCorkle, Sallie M.
Milakofsky, Louis
Miller, Arthur C.
Minard, Robert D.
Mitchell, Robert B.
Mookerjee, Rajen
Moore, John W.
Myers, Jamie M.
Navin, Michael J.
Nelson, Murry R.
Nichols, John S.
Ozment, Judy P.
Pangborn, Robert N.
Patterson, Henry O.
Pauley, Laura L.
Pell, Eva J.
Pietrucha, Martin T.
Power, Barbara L.
Prosek, Robert A.
Pytel, Jean Landa
Rebane, P. Peter
Richards, David R.
Richman, Irwin
Ricketts, Robert D.
Ridley, Sheila E.
Romano, John J.
Romberger, Andrew B.
Romero, Victor C.
Rowe, William A.
Sachs, Howard
Sandler, Karen Wiley
Scaroni, Alan W.
Schengrund, Cara-Lynne
Schott, Adam
Secor, Robert
Seybert, Thomas A.
Sharp, Jeffrey M.
Shirk, Alissa J.
Simmonds, Patience L.
Simons, Richard J., Jr.
Smith, Carol A.
Smith, James F.
Smith, Sandra R.
Snavely, Loanne L.
Spanier, Graham B.
Stace, Stephen W.
Stoffels, Shelly M.
Strasser, Gerhard F.
Stratton, Valerie N.
Strickman, Mark
Su, Mila C.
Tormey, Brian B.
Troester, Rodney L.
Turner, Tramble T.
Urenko, John B.
Varadan, Vasundara V.
Vary, Thomas C.
Ventura, Jose A.
Walters, Robert A.
Wanner, Adrian J.
Ware, Roger P.
Watkins, Marley W.
Willis, Daniel E.
Willits, Billie S.
Zhang, Jenny
Bugyi, George J.
Hockenberry, Betsy S.
Price, Vickie R.
Simpson, Linda A.
Walk, Sherry F.
160 Total Elected
5 Total Ex Officio
10 Total Appointed
175 Total Attending
Committees and Rules - Revision of Constitution, Article II, Section l (Membership) (Legislative)
Committees and Rules - Revision of Standing Rules, Article II, Section 6(e) (Legislative)
Undergraduate Education – Revision of Senate Policy 42-27: Class Attendance (Legislative)
University Planning – Recommendation for Developing an Ecologically Sustainable University (Advisory/Consultative)
Admissions, Records, Scheduling and Student Aid – Reserved Spaces Program (Informational)
Faculty Affairs – UniSCOPE 2000 Presentation (Informational)
Undergraduate Education – Summary of Student Petitions by College, Unit or Location (Informational)
University Planning – Long-term Debt and Debt Service of the University (Informational)
University Planning – A Grand Destiny, The Penn State Campaign (Informational)