Dean's Council Minutes - January 7, 2015

Dean's Council Minutes Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Attendees

Ron Rosati, Scott Mickelsen, Jan Gilbert, Eric Reed, Brad Ramsdale, Doug Smith, Barb Berg, Jo Bek, Paul Clark, Dottie Evans, Catherine (Recorder), Tina Smith (Guest)

The NCTA Dean’s Council Meeting was called to order at 9:00am with the above referenced individuals in attendance.

WELCOME

  • Dr. Rosati welcomed everyone to the meeting with a reminder of high confidentiality for today’s discussions

EXTERNAL STAKE HOLDERS VS. EMPLOYEES OF NCTA

  • Two lists were created by faculty about the top five benefits for external stake holders and employees of NCTA. 
    • External stake holders:  Focus on agricultural academic programs, hands on/applied education, student/faculty ratio, affordability, high graduate employment rate.
    • NCTA employees:  size of college, quality of students, focus on agricultural academic programs, NU benefits package, rural setting

VACANCIES ON CAMPUS/ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

  • Vacancies and a draft organizational structure at NCTA was discussed
  • Some rearranging and combining job openings was discussed

PENDING AND ONGOING INITIATIVES

  • Heifer link     
    • Four donors have come forth so far
    • Reminder to put in the memo of donors checks – NCTA heifer link
    • NCTA is wanting funds and not live animals.  However if someone wants to donate a live animal it will have to meet some criteria
  • Professor of practice
    • Dr. Doug Smith has received this recently.  Dr. Barnes is also someone on campus who is a professor of practice
  • BAS
    • Currently have two juniors in this program
    • Approximately four will start this spring
    • Currently also working on offering specializations in BAS
  • Urban ag
    • Diversified ag degree offered in Lincoln
    • Omaha home for boys
      • Carpentry and Ag Entrepreneurship offered
      • In final stages of hiring a faculty member for each of these courses
  • Vet tech – Lincoln
    • confidential
    • Working on funding for the vet program in Lincoln to offer this and for some new facilities
  • Prison ag workforce development
    • Confidential
    • There has been some expression from legislature to offer some of our programs to prisons across the state
    • Concerns
      • Different location then Curtis
      • Decrease access to tools
      • No budget for guards
  • Mauritius
    • Island off east coast of Africa
    • Group coming with Dr. Sleight January 27th to further discuss and take a tour of our campus
  • Earn to learn
    • Students would work on campus to pay for their tuition and fees
  • Policy updates
    • All policies were available for faculty to review.  
    • Dr. Rosati addressed the faculty about conflict of interest
      • We cannot buy anything from our employees
      • We need to be fragile in our travels
      • Please utilize the IANR apartments when you have travel in Lincoln
      • Tobacco policy
        • Scott will rewrite the tobacco policy and bring back to our next dean’s council meeting
      • Alcohol policy
        • We will continue to follow UNL’s policy

 

REAFFIRMATION OF ACCREDITATION PREPERATION

  • A master to do list for our accreditation was given to each council member for review.
  • Some concerns with our to do list:
    • How do you measure integrity?
    • Need to have our curriculum lined out more clearly for each major offered at NCTA
    • This semester without exception each faculty member needs to list student learning outcomes for each course offered.  Please list what you are doing and how you will improve the course.
  • Planning and budgeting
    • Ron and Jan are working on building a fund of up to 15% of our budget to have in savings
  • Correcting deficiencies
    • As council member we need to: Identify gaps in our plan, develop solution and then implement solutions
  • Process moving forward
    • Continue updating the master to do list of accreditation
    • Work on the website for our vision, mission and value statements to be easily viewed.  Mary Crawford will work on this and get it fixed on our website.
    • Scott will change policy for students who want to take more than 18 credit hours a semester.  If students want to take more they have to have advisor approval before signing up for additional classes.
  • Each faculty and staff member needs to provide Linda Cole with an updated resume and transcripts by March 1st

STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

  • The dean’s council reviewed the appendix of the strategic plan to update
    • General education has been revised with learning communities
    • NACTA is a competition that needs more financial support
    • NCTA needs to provide a councilor on campus for students
    • A veterans affairs person should come down to talk to students in the army who are enrolled in classes
    • Meat lab is done and Dr. Smith has nine students in his class
    • Tuition for dual credit will increase 50%.  We need to submit this for changes.  Jan Gilbert is following up on this.

ACADEMIC QUALITY (SLO ASSESSMENT & REPORTING, FACULTY TRAINING)

  • Student learning outcomes are due January 15th! No exceptions
  • Scott is working on this with a student worker.

BUDGET

  • Jan Gilbert went over the allocation of our budget
  • Council members would like the business office to give them copies of where they are at with their budgets in a more timely and accurate manner. 
  • When funds are requested the faculty member who requested the fund wants a form back stating whether or not they were given the money they requested.
  • Jan will bring all suggestions from the council back to our next dean’s council meeting.  She will give each division chair budget reports.

 

This meeting was adjourned at 4:23pm.  Our next dean’s council meeting will be TBD.

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