3/3/06 Administrative Council Meeting Minutes

 

In attendance: Dr. Claudia Limbert, Dr. Sam Gingerich, Nora Miller, Dr. Bucky Wesley, Perry Sansing, Mary Margaret Roberts, Patsy McDaniel, Anika Perkins, Susan Sobley, Melanie Freeman, and Elizabeth Montgomery.

 

Absent: Dr. Tom Velek.

 

Dr. Claudia Limbert called the meeting to order.

 

1.                  The minutes from 2/3/06 were approved.

 

2.                  IHL Best Practices - Dr. Limbert announced that the IHL Board set aside money for the best practices among the IHL institutions in four categories. Four first place awards in the amount of $10,000 and four second place awards in the amount of $5,000 will be given. The money is to go back into the units. MUW submitted five entries: Honors Learning Community, outsourcing facilities maintenance services, creating cost effective public network, radKIDS, and Wellness Learning Community.

 

Nora Miller added that MUW created a public network because the students wanted to be able to download music and games, but the system wouldn’t allow it. For $5,000, we bundled five DSL lines through BellSouth which allows us to keep the public network separate from the administrative system.

 

3.                  Budget update - Nora reported that there is a Senate bill for IHL appropriations that includes a five percent raise for employees, $6,000 raise for nursing faculty, 11 percent increase for insurance premiums, and retirement contribution. She said this shows that the legislature is sticking to its promise that this would be higher education’s year. It may not be a 3-year commitment for raises because that will cross over an election year.

 

Dr. Limbert added that she is encouraged by this and said that reports indicate that the Mississippi economy is improving.

 

4.                  Trademark registration - Perry Sansing said that MUW’s trademark registration has gone through and that this will protect us from others using our name without permission.

 

5.                  April IHL Board meeting on campus - Jill O’Bryant reported that the campus committee has met a couple of times to discuss the April 19-20 visit and that much progress has been made in the planning progress.

 

6.                  General updates -

 

Dr. Limbert reported that the IHL President’s Council met this week and were joined by six SGA presidents, including MUW’s Elizabeth Montgomery. They discussed the Senate appropriations bill, the MSU presidential search, a trustees reunion at the March IHL Board meetings, allocations for budgets, and campus crisis plans. The firm handling the university’s search for a new vice president for institutional advancement said there is a good pool of candidates. MUW’s Economic Impact Study will be unveiled this afternoon with a power point presentation and a tour of Cochran Hall. The employees will be given an administrative leave with pay on Friday, March 17, because the power will be out for most of the campus for high voltage upgrades.

 

Melanie Freeman mentioned that the Director’s Council has planned a table top disaster response training session for March 23.

 

Dr. Sam Gingerich reported that the published schedule of classes will be released today, and registration is on Wednesday of next week. The class schedule also can be found on the MUW website. The catalog is being reviewed for the last time. It will be available on campus in June. A meeting on the program review section of the Academic Master Plan was held recently with approximately 15 people in attendance. Those people left the meeting with a better understanding of the process. The Academic Council has a retreat scheduled for next week that will include discussion about the plan. There will be one more campus meeting about the plan, and then it will go through the official approval process.

 

Nora said the Economic Impact Study is broken down into categories. They are institutional operations, student expenditures, community outreach, money spent in the community by university visitors, and construction projects. Direct and indirect employees were compared with a total labor income of $39 million. $26 million of that is from direct employment of 592 positions. Student expenditures account for $38 million. Visitors to campus spend $850,000 in the community. From 2002 to 2004, average construction income is over $6 million with approximately 143 construction workers employed.

 

Dr. Limbert added that the study is not just about how we impact our community financially, but culturally too.

 

Nora continued with her update by reporting that the internet servers have been down some because of a few glitches with the firewall. These are being worked out. There has been an update to Banner 7, which is web-based. Training will be offered because of the changes. A legislative bond bill is going through the process. It includes the $5.5 million MUW asked for to cover repairs of drainage system, roofing, mechanical, and streets, and purchase of equipment for Poindexter. Sodexho currently is doing a deferred maintenance study.

 

Elizabeth Montgomery announced that $300 was raised for St. Jude with the dance marathon, bake sale and sale of cheesecakes. Elections are set for March 30. MUW may host the SGA presidents at the end of April.