February 8, 2005
Present:
Pinkerman, Sauter, Buchanan, Rowe, Gulley, Simmons, Whitney, Herring, Smith,
Love, Stevens, Boozer, Myrick, Paschal, Harrington, McDaniel, and Mallory.
Dr.
Boozer opened the meeting with a prayer.
A motion was made by Mr. Pinkerman to adopt the minutes of the November meeting.
A second was offered by Dr. Paschal.
The motion carried.
President Gulley
reported the highlights of the Strategic
Plan progress. They are as follows:
Enrollment:
restructuring of the Admissions Office; training for staffing; Recruitment Plus
software is active for management and manipulation of data; web site management
(Mind Power) is enacted; inquiry count is at a record high; Scholar Weekend is
Feb. 12th; Dr. Buchanan is finalizing interviews for the football
coach-a decision is expected by the end of the month.
Curriculum:
undergraduate research discussion is ongoing within academic departments;
faculty teaching load reduction is also under discussion.
Library:
the campaign is in the silent phase-discussions with Board of Trustee members
are ongoing and expected to be complete by the end of April; discussions with
the Leadership Council will begin at that point.
A discussion of budget items
followed. President Gulley stated that
spring enrollment is currently at 91% of fall enrollment; the usual retention
rate is 95% for fall-to-spring. This
rate accounts for 98 students that have not paid tuition bills as of
today. The spring 2004 headcount was
979; if all students complete enrollment and pay, we will have a spring 2005
headcount of 969. The ACCEL Program
(formerly PSO and Joint Enrollment) can no longer be counted on as a revenue
producer. Due to changes in the
program, the College has to participate in the costs of educating these
students, an impact of $180,000 this year.
The projected headcount for next fall is 1,040. The salary pool in this budget is 2½%. A discussion of a 1% increase into each
employee’s participating retirement account is requested. This will create a decrease in available
salary raises by 1% leaving 1½% for salary increases for next year. After discussion, it was decided that a poll
of all employees will need to be done.
Data will be sent to all employees, displaying the impact a 1% increase
in contribution to the retirement plan will have. This data will be shown using different ranges of salary and
years until retirement. Ms. Whitney
agreed to facilitate this effort.
The next meeting
is scheduled for March 8th at
3 PM in the Bailey Room.
Respectfully submitted,
Shirley Harrington