September 23, 2005

President Wilson convened the third SPBC meeting of 2005-06 at 8 a.m. 

The Committee agreed to divide its time between two agenda items -- discussion of a draft document on benchmarking and a review of the current budget model and schedule for preparing the operating budget.

Professor Gardner and Vice President Hanna reviewed the history and purpose of a benchmarking document that a subcommittee of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee had developed in 2003.   The President then opened the discussion of benchmarking in general and the draft document in particular to SPBC members.  A number of members indicated that, given IWU’s institutional distinctiveness, they doubted whether it is possible to identify a group of peer institutions that could serve as suitable benchmarks for all aspects of the University’s vision.   Part of the difficulty is that, although IWU’s mission clearly establishes liberal arts as the core of the University’s curriculum, the most prominent institutions with which we have application overlaps are large universities, both public and private, with missions quite different from liberal arts colleges.  In addition, our resources are more limited than those of many of the most distinguished liberal arts colleges, so comparing ourselves to them may be unrealistic.   Finally, some members suggested that our unusual calendar and General Education curriculum make direct comparisons with other institutions difficult.  The President noted that today was simply the beginning of the discussion and that the Committee would return to the topic in subsequent meetings.

Vice President Klotzbach reviewed the budget cycle and the budget model, using historical data as illustrations.  He stated that he would soon be preparing a preliminary 2006-07 budget to submit to the Trustees in late October.  He and President Wilson indicated that they would very shortly be bringing issues related to that preliminary budget to the SPBC.   

The Committee affirmed that all work group members would be elected by their constituencies within the next week or so.  As soon as members are in place, the co-convenors will call work groups together to begin their tasks.  The SPBC agreed to meet again on October 7.

Distributed to all faculty and staff: 10/7/2005