Discussion of Civil Engineering (Minutes of the General Faculty Meeting of May 22, 2001)
MINUTES
President Hull opened the meeting at 12:35 pm. by announcing that he would like to make some comments before handing the floor to Barbara Danowski, Chair of the AAC. He said he presented the preliminary Plan for Union to the Board of Trustees last fall, and at that meeting he announced that there was a need to hire more faculty to fill holes in the liberal arts curriculum. At that time two Trustees asked why Union had to have engineering. There was a spirited give-and-take on that issue. Ron Bucinell and Sigrid Kellenter, the two Faculty Trustees, can confirm that President Hull had defended the need to have engineering, that in his judgment, it would be a major mistake to not have engineering as a way of distinguishing Union from other liberal arts colleges.
When in January Dean Balmer first came up with the concept of converging technologies, and when the proposal was put forward to phase out Civil Engineering, President Hull made the determination not to bring the issue to the AAC at that time. He felt that if the Trustees were to hear about the phasing out of a part of engineering when they had just been talking about the elimination of all of engineering, it would fan the flames. So Dean Balmer proceeded with the presentation of converging technologies on March 1, and afterwards one Trustee turned to Dean Sorum and said, "Bob Balmer just saved engineering."
That presentation was also the one in which Dean Balmer spoke to the issue of phasing out Civil Engineering. President Hull thought it was good presentation and that it was also one that clearly needed to be followed up upon by discussion on campus, as he told the Board of Trustees at the time. And with the following of procedures as outlined in the Faculty Constitution.
President Hull continued by noting that he then asked Dean Sorum to begin discussions of the issue with the AAC and FEC the following week. Those discussions needed to continue, so he also asked Dean Sorum several weeks ago to meet with the FEC to have them appoint a committee that would continue the process as it exists under the Constitution.
He added that he would also like to speak briefly to the charge to the committee. The conversations need to be wide-ranging but cannot be open-ended. He has suggested to the FEC that they have an end date of October 1. Much of the information has already been gathered, so that work can be done in an efficacious way by October 1. He also mentioned to the FEC that he does not want a committee to come back and say, "Hull, raise more money." That would not be an acceptable solution, in his view. The committee needs to understand that if Civil Engineering is going to continue at Union, it will continue at the expense of some other piece of the academic program. It is up to the faculty to give him their input, and ultimately it is a recommendation that he will have to decide upon before going to the Board of Trustees in October.
President Hull continued by noting that the issue is an emotional one, and he recognizes that. It is important to understand, at least in his mind, that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. He will defend at all turns the right of Civil Engineering to question any decision. The First Amendment right is basic to this country and to an institution like Union College. Some of the Trustees have indicated that they cannot understand how someone who works at the institution could harm the institution, and President Hull has a harder time defending that decision. He believes personally that it is unconscionable to have anyone at the institution urge alumni not to contribute to the institution. That harms everyone at the institution and no one has that right. However, given the choice between an abridged first amendment right and the right to have people not harm the institution, he will defend the First Amendment right, as he did as recently as the day before.
He noted that this is a difficult issue. It is a resource based issue, in part a product of the fact that the endowment did not do as well in the past several years as anyone would like. When faced with having to make hard decisions, the College has to follow procedures and have a thorough discussion, but he would hope that it also be a civil discussion, and that it be done with the institution as a whole in mind.
He then turned the floor over to Barbara Danowski.
Prof. Danowski stated that the AAC has discussed the formation of a sub-council and heard also from Tom Werner that the FEC highly recommends forming the committee. The AAC has been working to define the charge to this committee over the last two weeks. The AAC will be forming a sub-council, and she has been working with the FEC to select members for the sub-council. Tom Werner and Steve Leavitt of the FEC joined the AAC meeting last week to discuss the composition of the committee.
In light of the October 1 deadline, the AAC felt that the sub-council should be small enough to get this done. It should have one civil engineer, one administrator, three additional faculty members, and one student. Although the AAC discussed the possibility of having an AAC member and an FEC member on the sub-council, they decided that that would be too limiting. The AAC is also interested in having as broad a representation as possible across the campus, so they are trying to do that. They were also concerned about getting people who were well respected by administrators and faculty alike, people who can look at large volumes of data, see possibilities there and offer alternative solutions. The committee has not been fully formed yet, and she will notify everyone once it has been formed and what the charge is.
She added that as charge is not yet finalized, so she will not read the formal charge at this time. She then opened the floor to questions.
FROM THE FLOOR: At some time will the sub-council want to meet with the faculty as a larger group?
Prof. Danowski answered that this would be up to the sub-council to decide. Written into the charge will be a deadline of September 14 for the sub-council to give their recommendation to the AAC so that the AAC has some time before the October 1 deadline to discuss the recommendations. If the sub-council wants to meet with the faculty they will decide it.
FROM THE FLOOR: Is the September 14th deadline a reasonable one, or in light of all of this information and meeting with the faculty to get their sense; would not before the February meeting of the Board be a more reasonable time?
Prof. Danowski responded that she does not believe so. It is a tight deadline, but it is a doable one. It is in the best interest of everyone involved to have this dealt with efficiently. A lot of data has been collected so far; the Civil Engineering Dept. has done an impressive job of assembling lots of information, and there is information from the administration. The sub-council will begin by examining the information at hand. They will then decide what additional information they need and organize people to start gathering that information. They will decide if they want to interview various people on campus, whether alumni, Planning & Priorities members, administrators.
FROM THE FLOOR: Tom Jewell of Civil Engineering stated that he wanted to applaud the formation of the committee, that their case has now been heard, that the issue had not been thought out properly, but that he wanted to go on record as taking exception to a couple of the things President Hull had said. First, President Hull insinuated that Prof. Jewell and other Civil Engineering faculty did not have the institution's best interests in mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a large constituency of students, alumni, and faculty that would argue that the dept. truly does have the institution in mind. The second thing he takes exception to is the insinuation that Civil Engineering has been encouraging alumni not to give. That is not the case. No Civil Engineering faculty has urged any alumni not to give. That is their decision. Students may have urged them, but that's their business, not Civil Engineering's. In fact, Civil Engineering is urging alumni to give more and is trying to seek corporate sponsorship as well. Civil Engineering is trying to reverse the negative impact of this decision.
He added that he agreed with the previous speaker that the September deadline might not be feasible, that everyone would just have to wait and see.
He also wanted to recommend that the sub-council be expanded to include a couple of alumni and two students, one of which would be from CE. This would be more representative of the various constituencies involved.
He applauded the charge, saying that it was as it should be, a broad charge.
Prof. Danowski responded that while the charge is not yet finalized, it will include the point that the sub-council should be looking at resource shortages in Division IV in light of existing college-wide academic resources. Their task will be to find solutions to the resource shortages that will include looking at the proposed elimination of Civil Engineering.
Regarding additional sub-council members, she stated that she had brought Prof. Jewell's suggestions to the AAC and that the committee had unanimously opposed including alumni. Alumni input is very important, and the Civil Engineering Department has already done a wonderful job of getting alumni input. If the sub-council needs more from alumni, they can get it. Alumni input will be there and student input will be there. The AAC is concerned with having a manageable committee that can reasonably meet at the times they need to meet. Secondly, the AAC is an academic affairs committee, and its focus should be on the academic impact of this proposal to eliminate Civil Engineering. While the decision affects many people, and alumni are clearly bothered by this, the process needs to stay within the context of academic affairs. It would be setting a bad precedent to start appointing non-academics to academic affairs sub-councils.
Tom Werner, chair of the FEC, added that as the governance system requires that the FEC be consulted on the formation of AAC sub-councils, it is the unanimous opinion of FEC members that alumni not be included on this sub-council, for the same reasons Prof. Danowski already mentioned. There is already considerable alumni input on this issue, and there can be more, but to set a precedent of putting alumni on a sub-council considering resource allocation would not be a wise decision.
FROM THE FLOOR: An engineering professor stated that the explosive allegation that is not true, and that Prof. Jewell corrected, is that people in Civil Engineering told alumni to stop donating--
Prof. Werner interrupted to say the everyone has to be clear on this issue. In the newsletter that the civil engineers put out, there was a letter from a student, and in that letter the student asked alumni not to contribute. The civil engineers had control over what went into that newsletter. This has to be clear. One does not have to tell the alumni not to give money--they can figure that out for themselves. Prof. Werner added that as a faculty member, he himself was offended by that move, to be honest.
FROM THE FLOOR: The same engineer responded that if it is not true, the Trustees should not be given the impression that it is true, but that Prof. Werner may know more about it than he.
President Hull added that the Trustees have seen the same newsletter that Prof. Werner just referred to. They can draw their own conclusions.
FROM THE FLOOR: A Civil Engineering professor stated that the Trustees should also draw their own conclusions from the letter that President Hull himself sent. In light of the new development of the formation of the sub-council, the speaker would like to request that President Hull and the Dean of Engineering send out two more letters indicating that the sub-council has been formed and will be reporting back to the AAC.
President Hull responded that he sent that letter last week.
FROM THE FLOOR: If the issue is a resource-based concern, linked to the performance of the portfolio of the College, why is it not acceptable that the College has to raise more money to do this?
President Hull answered that the Plan for Union is a very aggressive fund-raising effort. There was a $150 million capital campaign in the first half of the last decade and Union was one of four colleges (the others were Davidson, Vassar, and Williams) that succeeded in a campaign of that magnitude for a college of Union's size. Since then Amherst and Middlebury have announced $200 million campaigns. Union is about to go out for another $200 million in the face of a fraternity decision that many alumni are upset about and in the face of a proposal to phase out Civil Engineering. So Union will be going after more money than any other school its size has attempted in a fifteen year period. Union has made some choices coming out of the Middle States Review that had input from 80% of the faculty, and within that plan, there was a range of choices. It is not realistic to either cut things out from a non-academic area or to go out and raise more money.
FROM THE FLOOR: The same faculty member responded by asking for confirmation that it is not the principle involved but more a practical question of assessing that Union would not succeed in raising the extra money even if it wanted to.
President Hull agreed.
FROM THE FLOOR: A Civil Engineering professor stated that such calculations were placing a specific value on how much Civil Engineering is worth.
President Hull responded that all the individual members of the Civil Engineering Department are worth a lot, but that if one wanted to calculate how much the equivalent in Civil Engineering lines would cost, it would be in the neighborhood of $9 to $12 million.
FROM THE FLOOR: The same faculty member responded that he thought that the basic idea was that two faculty lines needed for Computer Science would come out of Civil Engineering.
President Hull responded that the basic idea is that there is a resource issue that results in there being too many non-full-time faculty.
FROM THE FLOOR: The same professor asked if too many adjunct and part-time faculty is such a horrible stigma that one has to eliminate a whole department just to have fewer adjunct faculty?
Dean Sorum responded that there are adjuncts that are very very good teachers, but it is a fundamental premise of this sort of school that it have real faculty teaching its students. People do not pay the amount of money they pay to send their children to schools like Union only to be taught by adjuncts.
FROM THE FLOOR: A faculty member stated that President Hull had said that it would not be appropriate to look at the non-academic portion of the planned capital campaign to solve the problem. Can one infer that he might think it appropriate to consider allocations within the academic portion of the campaign?
President Hull said that yes, it would be appropriate. He added that he does not want to mislead the faculty. He will keep an open mind, but he and others have already spent a lot of time thinking about the issue, and they have not come to their conclusions frivolously. What comes out of the sub-council is going to have to provide new information, or a new approach, or a new suggestion, that has not been thought of to date. This is not a clean slate. He will keep an open mind, and depending what comes out of the sub-council, they will continue as planned or they will not.
FROM THE FLOOR: Athletics is included within academic budgets, so is it conceivable that this sub-council consider cutting the athletic budget to free up money for the engineering program? A second question is to what extent will the faculty be able to consider the relative distribution of finances between academic and non-academic budgets? Is the growth of the non-academic budget up for consideration?
President Hull responded, saying that first, it is not in his judgment realistic to just lop things off the athletics side. The reason for that is very simple. Of the $150 million raised in the capital campaign, a total of $250,000 went to athletics. He stated that he had to reiterate during that campaign that he would not seek to raise any money for athletics until the College had first dealt with the other pressing academic needs, first the Nott, the theater, then the library, upgrading classrooms. The College is in real danger of not having the physical facilities that the students want. A tremendous number of students are athletes in high school. The College has to go with a physical plant that is better than what it currently has. Second, he would not support re-examining everything on the campus. There is an on-going process, and the faculty has the right to ask any questions at any time, and the College should rethink things that are not right, but that the College drove down its work force from 732 people when President Hull first arrived, to a low of 660. There is not any excess capacity in terms of the work force.
FROM THE FLOOR: The same faculty member followed up by saying that at least one school Union compares itself with has eliminated its football program.
President Hull said that Union does not really compete with Swarthmore, and interestingly, Swarthmore has said that they could not afford football with a $1 billion endowment. Middlebury, Williams and Hamilton have all added $25-$40 million in athletic facilities in the last decade. Each is planning additional building in those areas. Union did one thing and one thing only, fixing the basement of Alumni Gym with very good results, but Union has to face facts. There are many facilities the College has to support.
FROM THE FLOOR: A Civil Engineering faculty member stated that he is amazed that there are so many constraints put on the sub-council. First, there are, in his view, unrealistic time constraints. Then they have to choose between Civil Engineering and some other program. This already frightens the sub-council into having to declare that if Civil Engineering should persist, some other program should go. Third, they are already being told what solution to come up with--do not come back and say that the College should raise funds. Also, no alumni should participate. To suggest that the alumni are a bunch of turnips, that based on one word that a student has written, they will not take responsibility for their actions--the alumni are thinking individuals, graduates of this institution, they can think. These are actions they come to decide on their own.
President Hull responded that there cannot be an open-ended no-time-limit review of everything at the institution. He is not saying, "Tell me what to eliminate;" he is saying, "Tell me, if you're going to tell me to raise money, tell me what not to raise money for in the academic campaign."
FROM THE FLOOR: Another civil engineer stated that the Board of Trustees has asked why there should be engineering. Right now there are four departments, The assignment the President gave to the Dean of Engineering was, "I want you to add one plus one plus one plus one and the outcome will be zero." The Dean came up with the recommendation to eliminate one of the ones, but the equation still resulted in something different from zero. The next step will be to remove one more, and there will be a remaining one plus one, but the outcome still must be zero, and he is not sure how many ones have to be removed in order for the outcome to be zero. Another issue is what makes the opinion of a few people more valid than the opinion of the entire community?
President Hull stated that on the first point, the analogy is with the fraternity system. He is receiving letters every day telling him that he has just killed the fraternity system with the U2K plan. Now he is hearing that by phasing out Civil Engineering he is killing engineering at Union. There are forty-six engineering programs in the country without Civil Engineering. Second, in President Hull's judgment, while it is right for students to have choice in their social life, the College cannot have a social system where fraternities dominate. Similarly, it is right for Union to have engineering, considering its long history and the fact that it distinguishes Union from other schools. In his judgment both calls are right, but it is very difficult to convince people because they change the institution. The gist of all the letters that he is receiving is the same: he is killing fraternities and engineering by trying to change things. He reiterated categorically that it is not his intent to kill either one.
FROM THE FLOOR: A faculty member had a question for Dean Sorum. Will the tenured faculty in Civil Engineering continue to be employed should it emerge that the department will be eliminated?
Dean Sorum replied that that is correct. Those faculty that wish to stay will be able to stay. The College will probably borrow against their tenure lines to hire in other areas. They have done this in other instances.
FROM THE FLOOR: A faculty member stated that the situation is so bizarre that he was not sure where to begin. President Hull's statements are a belated explanation of what has been going on. This faculty member found it stunning that people who have for years been so interested in following proper procedure now have jumped aside and sought to avoid procedures when it suited their needs. What can be done? The first step has been made. Following this faculty member's language, the engine has already been brought out of the roundhouse with a head of steam built up, but at least finally now there will be some faculty input to these decisions. The faculty should be very disturbed that this administration sought to bypass the procedures that the faculty--and in fact the people who are doing it--have thought were so sacrosanct in the past. On the substance of the issue, there have been a number things that have been brought up as problems facing Union College which bear a little bit of scrutiny. At every turn there is a different answer about what is going on. It is a classic case of bait-and-switch--keep the target moving. The question is why this is going on. Is there possibly a hidden agenda? He is not sure. What about the resource issue? In the past ten years Union College has run budget surpluses ranging from half a million dollars to eight million dollars. Those are their numbers, which you can read in the GLEAN team report. Maybe there really is a resource problem, but it is interesting that Union borrows $10 million for an urban renewal project, that Union is talking about borrowing $20 million or maybe $30 for a project in "social engineering" [i.e. U2K]. These may be good things, but do they hint of a serious financial problem? People have to look into a lot of things that have gone into this "decision." People should think about how this train got started down the track and who was pushing the train, who was in the driver's seat with the throttle full forward. Perhaps now this sub-council will help get the train back on the right track. He is not sure what the right track is, but he is sure that the track it's on has some very shaky foundations. He hopes that the faculty will stand up and deal with the issues that are of importance to them. The faculty should ask why the administrators are so keen on slipping such issues past the faculty without having them examine them. [Scattered applause]
Diane Blake stated that the college has not had any operating surpluses on the scale that faculty member was talking about. She explained that year by year it has been very difficult to reach a balanced budget, that the faculty members on Planning & Priorities are aware how hard it has been to balance the budget.
President Hull clarified that there are two ways to look at counting surpluses. As accountants do it today, one counts in the revenues the money that comes in contributing to the overall capital of the institution. That is how one can get a "surplus" of $8 million. But that is not how the College maintains its budget. The college budgets in a very hard-nosed way each year, and it sticks within the budget. That shows a surplus that has ranged from $1400 one year all the way to about $1 million this year.
FROM THE FLOOR: Another faculty member said that all faculty share a certain distrust that has emerged over this incident. It reflects a feeling he has had that he does not really know what goes on financially at the institution. It has been a chronic problem, but the issues have not been severe enough for people to do anything about it. But now that the situation has been characterized as a financial crises, it would make sense to put together an institutional response, and he would like to see a faculty/administrative/student committee that examines in some detail the question of the financial crisis that is being presented. The AAC sub-council is addressing the particular issue of the financial constraints surrounding engineering, but it is being ask to do so in the context of the broader financial situation.
President Hull responded that there is no financial crisis; there are balanced budgets, there is money coming into the institution through fund-raising. This is an issue of how to best allocate the funds that the institution has.
FROM THE FLOOR: A faculty member clarified that the Planning & Priorities committee asks for proposals from center heads on their budgets, and the P&P committee then gives them about 10% of what they asked for. The athletic director had a great list and the committee only gave him only one item on that list. The College is being starved, its programs are starved. The College needs people, the buildings need upgrades, the College is not rich. People have to understand that. The administration is also not fat. The CEC has been under-staffed for years and years. There is not the kind of money that everyone would love to have to bring the school to a higher level.
FROM THE FLOOR: The previous speaker asked rhetorically if this was supposed to allay his fears? If it is not a "crisis" perhaps it should be called "an acute competitive disadvantage." Whatever it is called, it still has to be examined on an institutional and systemic scale. P&P is responsible for looking at money on a year-by-year basis, but the financial situation that requires the elimination of a program should be looked at more closely.
President Hull responded that the institution has 2000 students, 1700 in the liberal arts. Union competes for 85% of its students in the liberal arts. Union is primarily a liberal arts institution. Union competes for example with Hamilton, its biggest competitor. They are a school of 1700 and 100% of their resources go into getting their 1700 students in the liberal arts. Union competes for those same 1700 students, but Union has to do it with significant investment in the engineering program. Engineering has to continue, but the College is predominantly a liberal arts institution. Union competes on two fronts, and it can continue to do it, but it will have to make choices to do it.
FROM THE FLOOR: A faculty member on the AAC stated that at the beginning of each year there is a discussion in the AAC about the fact that AAC discussions are confidential until they are presented in the minutes. He is concerned about President Hull's allegation that he could not take the issue to the AAC for fear that it would get back to the Board. What is the source of the lack of confidence in the AAC's ability to maintain confidentiality, or perhaps he has misinterpreted the situation?
President Hull said that it is a fact that word gets out when committees discuss things. He stated again that he had a heated discussion defending engineering, and he was concerned that the Board was not ready to address the issue of what to do with engineering. He wanted to have a plan to present to them before the issue was addressed. He chose to delay bringing the issue to the AAC for four weeks.
FROM THE FLOOR: A Civil Engineering professor stated that the two Board members who had raised questions about engineering at Union needed to be educated about market forces, that civil engineers are required today, that in the incoming class the CE students are higher than ME and EE collectively.
President Hull reiterated that no one is questioning the importance of civil engineering as a discipline. The question is whether Union can be all things to all people. College campuses always engage in a kind of one-plus-one math. They only know addition, they do not know subtraction. With the exception of geology in the 1960s, no program has been cut from this institution.
FROM THE FLOOR: The same Civil Engineering professor responded by asking if one should cut what is weak or what is powerful. The community does not feel the plan presented to President Hull makes as much sense as the President does.
President Hull responded that that is why there is a sub-council looking into the issue.
FROM THE FLOOR: An engineering professor stated that in the comparison with fraternities the analogy is flawed because the President never eliminated a specific fraternity.
President Hull replied that taking the fraternity houses is tantamount to the same thing as far as the alumni are concerned. He then clarified in response to a question that the Trustee who put up the money for the most recent study of engineering was not one of the members who had raised concerns about engineering as a whole. This individual wanted to preserve engineering in a more focused way.
FROM THE FLOOR: A faculty member asked what is the annual savings for not having Civil Engineering.
President Hull responded that the savings are not what this faculty member is alluding to because the tenured faculty will be continuing as long as they choose to stay at Union.
Dean Sorum added that there will be no money saved, that the money will be reallocated to address weaknesses in other academic programs. The amount of money would be what would support six professors in Civil Engineering. She stated that she could later supply the specific numbers. President Hull then stated again that he thinks it is unacceptable to have 36 to 47 courses taught each year by adjuncts in engineering.
FROM THE FLOOR: The same faculty member stated that he found it unacceptable to have some sixty students in history classes their first year when the College advertises a strong student-to-faculty ratio.
President Hull agreed. He then stated that when the ratio is 6-1 in engineering and 11-1 overall at the institution, this means that the majority of the students are getting the short end of the stick.
There followed a brief discussion of how to calculate these numbers, and President Hull stated that the equivalent faculty lines in adjuncts have to be included and one also has to take into account the fact that half of engineers' courses are taken outside the division. In response to a comment he agreed that the problem is most severe in the Computer Science Department. One Civil Engineering faculty member then said it does not make sense to eliminate Civil Engineering in that context.
FROM THE FLOOR: The Plan for Union has twenty new lines as a part of it, but it has been stated that these lines would not be used to solve the adjunct problem. What is the reason for that?
Dean Sorum stated that the Middle States committee recommended fifteen new faculty, and the most specific recommendation was in the arts, and also to provide a better sabbatical system. When the Board was discussing this, Dean Sorum told them that fifteen faculty was not enough. One of the trustees told her to come back and tell them what they really needed. President Hull, Diane Blake, Dean Sorum other Deans then came up with a proposal for a $347 million capital campaign. When talking about adding faculty, it was specifically in terms of the liberal arts, and it was specifically in terms of the liberal arts that the trustees approved those twenty lines. Engineering was not brought up at the time, but the Board of Trustees is certainly aware of the engineering issue now.
FROM THE FLOOR: Isn't Computer Science part of the liberal arts?
Dean Sorum is willing to consider Computer Science a part of liberal arts, but in the context of that conversation Computer Science was not considered because it is part of Division IV. It may be that that department should be moved.
Dean Rosenthal stated that he has been made more and more aware of the pressures on the liberal arts curriculum. There are larger history sections, a quarter of the Precept classes were taught "off-load", that is not as a part of the regular teaching load, there is a shortage of GenEd science courses, there is a serious shortage in the English department, introductory social science courses last fall ran to 36 on the average. He is more worried about the institution staying where it currently is.
FROM THE FLOOR: A Civil Engineering professor stated that President Hull, when arriving at Union, stated that he would not take a public stand on any issue until the day it was to go up for approval by the Board of Trustees. In this case, President Hull has sided with one side from the very beginning. The professor was concerned that perhaps people had decided that the recommendation was a good one because President Hull had already announced his support for eliminating Civil Engineering. He asked why President Hull had sided so early one side?
President Hull clarified that he had never said he would not take a position on issues, just that, in the case of the fraternities, he would not make his position public before the Board meeting. He then reiterated that his goal was to defend engineering at Union while at the same time making it possible for the College to move to the next level. That was why he sided publicly with Dean Balmer's proposal.
FROM THE FLOOR: An engineer asked how many Board members there are. After President Hull responded that there are 27 members, the faculty member asked if two are opposed does that in itself threaten the program? He used the analogy of hockey and football--if two Board members opposed hockey and football, does that threaten hockey and football?
President Hull responded that depending who the people are, one should be prepared for a hard fight. At the meeting no one was speaking in defense of engineering other than President Hull, Dean Sorum and Ron Bucinell. He clarified that the defense was a defense of engineering as a whole, not Civil Engineering in particular. Prof. Bucinell has not taken a position at all on the Board level on the issue of Civil Engineering.
FROM THE FLOOR: Will the sub-council have resources to use other sources from other schools, such as a distinguished panel from outside that could clear the air, giving very good input?
Prof. Werner responded that the sub-council would be gathering information form a number of sources, and having another committee formed of outside people would make meeting the deadline problematic, and some outside experts have commented on Civil Engineering in the documents prepared by the Civil Engineering Department.
FROM THE FLOOR: People keep referring to the information gathered by Civil Engineering. This is a huge database that ultimately comes to the recommendation that the College should keep Civil Engineering. Should people expect that the sub-council will come to the same conclusion if this is the data they are using?
Prof. Werner responded that certainly the sub-council will have access to that database.
FROM THE FLOOR: If this is the data to be used, the conclusion is clear. There are 207 letters and two of them are in support of this recommendation. And these two are from people who graduated 61 and 63 years ago. There are over two hundred letters that state that this recommendation is so ridiculous it should not even be considered.
Prof. Werner stated that the large body of data will go to the committee, and it may well sway what the committee recommends. The Civil Engineering professor replied that he is still concerned about there being enough time to sift through all the data.
Dean Sorum added that there is considerable other data that was put together beginning last fall. Much of that data has been given to the AAC, and they will receive more.
FROM THE FLOOR: The professor who had suggested the distinguished panel stated that data and letters tend to "just sit there" while actual people are often heard, so the distinguished panel makes some sense.
Dean Sorum stated that the issue is not swaying people. It is also not whether civil engineering isn't an important discipline. The issue isn't even the trustees who questioned the need for engineering at Union. The issue is having sustainable programs, staffing and resources to programs, so that they can be as good as possible. Outside experts can come in and say that the school should be this sort of school or that sort of school, but that is not the resource issue that the charge is asking the sub-council to consider.
FROM THE FLOOR: A Civil Engineering professor responded that he had thought that the decision to eliminate Civil Engineering had to do with its not fitting as well with the topic of converging technologies.
Dean Sorum responded that Dean Balmer was very much concerned about converging technologies, but that that was not the issue that was troubling her. For her the issue was a resource problem.
President Hull said the two issues are tied together. What it was that stopped any discussion on the Board of eliminating Civil Engineering was Dean Balmer's presentation of converging technologies. They saw it as something exciting. It is a skeleton of an idea, an exciting idea. At the same time there is a resource issue that is triggered by the courses taught by adjuncts, something inconsistent with an institution like Union. The proposal was to phase out Civil Engineering, and Civil Engineering in particular was chosen because the other disciplines seemed to tie in better with converging technologies. That was the recommendation that came from the Dean. He suspects that this particular issue is what the AAC sub-council will be considering.
FROM THE FLOOR: There is an issue of income and expenses with this issue. The College is looking at the expense side for reallocating resources. He wonders if the supply side might also be considered. Are people considering how to improve the performance of the endowment? A second issue is improving the endowment. Have people looked at the success of Union's alumni in comparison to other institutions in respect to their capacity to help out with their giving?
President Hull stated that there was a presentation from the head of the Board Investment Committee on the performance of the endowment and how the problems developed there, and the second issue goes to the Career Development Center, and the answer is that Union's alumni do well.
President Hull then adjourned the meeting at 1:50 pm.
submitted by Steve Leavitt