MSU FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES October 2, 2002 MEMBERS PRESENT: Marlow for Gipp, Sherwood for Giroux, White, Kommers, Schlotzhauer, Linker, Leech, Taylor, Howard, Jones, Nehrir, Conant, McMahon for Weaver, Levy/Bandyopadhyay, Bogar, Jelinski, Idzerda, Pratt/McKinsey, Fisher, Lynes-Hayes, Prawdzienski, Kempcke, Knight, Faculty Affairs Committee Chair Metz. MEMBERS ABSENT: Young, Morrill, Engel, Anderson, Stewart, Chem Engr, Comp Sci, Lefcort, Amend, Locke, English, Bond, Lynch, Hoffman. The meeting was called to order by Rich Howard, Chair, at 4:10 PM. A quorum was present. The minutes of the September 25, 2002, Faculty Council meeting were approved as distributed. Chair's report - Rich Howard. - Student enrollment has increased this semester. During brief discussion, it was noted that there may be various factors influencing the increase. Discussion of President Gamble's comments regarding the role of faculty in student retention. - The updated report on recruiting and retention is found at http://www.montana.edu/wwwprov/rrtfupdate.htm - The President defined retention as a faculty issue, and it appears he is serious about getting faculty input and their being proactive. It is in the best interest of faculty to guide students to appropriate disciplines and impact faculty issues through this process. - Recruitment and retention is differentiated across campus. The university needs to consider which areas have faculty/student ratios that have increased and areas where the available resources haven't kept pace with enrollment. Qualitative issues need to be addressed. It appears the administration takes a broad brush of the campus when recruitment and retention are considered. - What per cent of the top 10% of students don't re-enroll? Consideration must be given to why any student leaves, not just the top 10%. - Retention appears to be a matter of "enrollment management". Potentially, there are programs that could absorb more students; some have too high of drop out rate; some have gates that can't be met by all, and where do those students go? Students need to be redirected before they fail or drop out. - Concentrated advising centers in each college may be helpful. - There appears to be little data concerning students' reasons for leaving MSU. - If faculty are interested in working on a retention plan, please contact the Faculty Council Chair or Chair Elect. Faculty Affairs Committee report - Walter Metz. - The Committee has finished a draft of a post-tenure review proposal and will submit it to UGC Steering Committee. Enrollment and Retention - Vice President for Student Affairs Allen Yarnell, Director of Admissions and New Student Services Ronda Russell, and Registrar Chuck Nelson. - Vice President Yarnell addressed the issue of exit interviews raised earlier in the meeting. They are done at MSU, but most students, in keeping with national findings, say that they leave for personal or financial reasons. The information is not viewed as particularly useful. It appears that out-of-state students who don't pass the academic gates do not choose another discipline at MSU but leave. - Since tentative enrollment numbers were brought to UPBAC, they have been updated and are higher than reported at that time. - Officially, MSU has 11,934 paid students this semester. There are 2120 freshmen enrolled, up 225 from last fall. There is an increased number of Montana students, and the projection of non-resident students was surpassed. There is a small increase in high school GPA and ACT scores. The number of transfer students was lower than anticipated. - An electronic survey is underway to determine why students came to MSU or did not come. Money appears to be a big issue - cost and the lack of fee waivers or scholarships. - Out-of-state students, particularly, are choosing a university at the end of their sophomore year of high school. Parents are playing a decisive role in the choice of school. - This year, the entire campus pulled together to make recruiting successful, and this appears to have made it a more positive experience for students and their parents. The improvements in the efficiency of Financial Aid, with letters sent out much earlier, was a key to successful recruiting. Forty per cent of the applications were received electronically. - Now, what can be done to retain students? Many of them who leave aren't leaving because of their grades. - Royall was contracted by MSU a year and half ago to help recruit students from geographic areas where MSU does not normally recruit. Although the company felt it was too late to impact this year's class, a targeted mailing was distributed, at a cost of $35,000 (including services). So far, 17 non-resident students, paying $11,000 tuition plus room and board, have been tracked to Royall's activity. Royall is now into the second cycle of recruitment. - A proposal has been made to the President's Executive Council that Royall services be expanded to include Montana high school students, with focus on Native American populations. In Montana, the recruiting will begin with juniors instead of sophomores, because Montanans tend to make a decision about higher education later than students do in many parts of the country. - Montana high school classes will begin to decline after this year. Traditionally, MSU draws more students from the eastern, less populated parts of the state. The intent is to recruit more heavily across the entire state. All high schools students meeting MSU's admission requirements will be included in the recruiting. - Reasons Montana students leave the state for higher education include non-competitive honor scholarships, the lack of other competitive scholarships, and the fact that many students like to get away from home when they graduate from high school. - In response to a question, VP Yarnell stated that it is his personal bias that the Commissioner of Higher Education's attempt to make the smaller units of the University System more attractive by making them less expensive has not had an affect upon where students enroll. - In states on both the east and west coast, tuition and board/room are still higher than non-resident tuition and housing at MSU. In some cases, non-residents wonder why it is not higher. - UM and MSU are each others' largest feeder schools. As there was no further, discussion, the meeting adjourned at 5:00 PM. Joann Amend, Secretary Richard Howard, Chair