March 19, 2010

University Planning Council

Minutes for March 19, 2010

Present: Becky Doyle, Jane Fernandes, Vic Foster, Archer Gravely, Bill Haas, Bill Haggard, Jeff Konz, Jim Kuhlman, Keya Maitra, Ted Meigs, Cortland Mercer, Patrice Mitchell, Kevin Moorhead, Linda Nelms, Adrienne Oliver, Dan Pierce, Christine Riley

Absent: Buffy Bagwell, Amy Lanou, John Pierce, Anne Ponder, Louise Thompson

Guests: Debbie Griffith

UPC met from 3:00 to 4:30 in HU 224.

1. Ms. Nelms convened the meeting and announced that Chancellor Ponder was in Chapel Hill today serving on the UNC President’s Search Leadership Statement Committee. She also reported that an offer has been made to an individual with UNC experience to fill the General Counsel position.

2. Ms. Mitchell provided UPC with a follow-up to our last meeting’s discussion of the strategic planning North Carolina workgroup. At the February UPC meeting, there was considerable discussion about disbanding this workgroup given the activities of the Provost’s Enrollment Management group. Ms. Mitchell stated that the Provost’s Enrollment group would continue to manage enrollment and that the strategic planning enrollment workgroup would periodically review enrollment benchmarks. Ms. Mitchell reported on the very positive impact of the new University web site on admissions activity. The new web design provides students with the ability to see the status of their application and we now have pages designed for parents and high school counselors.

3. Ms. Griffith met with UPC today to review the academic reputation strategic plan benchmark.

This benchmark does not have its own workgroup and Ms. Griffith asked UPC to help define the meaning of “academic reputation “by posing the following questions:

• What comprises academic reputation
• Whose opinions define reputation: prospective students, parents, thought leaders, peer university administrators, guidance counselors
• What steps to we need to take to improve our academic reputation
• How do we measure academic reputation
• Who should serve on a workgroup

UPC had an extended discussion of various measures of academic reputation such as success of our graduates in graduate school, the value added by UNC Asheville based on what we do with students and what they do when they leave. Ms. Griffin distributed peer comparison data on academic reputation as reported by U.S. News and our rating on academic reputation by both enrolling and non-enrolling freshmen admits in 2008 and 2009. UPC voted unanimously to form a planning workgroup to work on the academic reputation benchmark.

4. Provost Fernandes gave an update on the Campus Climate Survey now underway. The response rates have been less than ideal but should be sufficient for setting planning benchmarks. She also noted that the strategic plan has a set of student outcomes (http://www2.unca.edu/sp/) that are different than the student outcomes recently approved by the Faculty Senate. The strategic planning outcomes were articulated as part of the planning process several years ago and can be woven into the new student learning outcomes. Ms. Nelms noted that next month’s UPC meeting will discuss assessment and we can further discuss this issue at that time.