Report of the Strategic Planning and Budgeting Committee (SPBC)

November 1, 2010

Present: Dick Wilson, Trey Short, Dan Klotzbach, Michael Thompson, John Jordan, Joerg Tiede, Lynda Duke, Stacey Shimizu, Mike Young, Dan Terkla, Matt Kurz, Frank Boyd, Tony Bankston, Jenny Hand, Michael Seeborg, Jim Matthews, Kathy Cavins, Patricia Neustel. By telephone: Kathy Lewton, Todd French.

Approval of SPBC Notes of October 4, 2010

President Wilson convened the meeting at 12:05 p.m. He mentioned that the notes from the October 4th meeting were sent out and approved electronically, so no further action is needed. He stated that there are two main items on the agenda for today: the salary compensation study and an update regarding the self-study.

Salary Compensation Study

President Wilson noted that previous discussions concerning faculty compensation elicited spirited debate regarding which comparison group to use for benchmarking purposes -the AAUP’s Category II-B 80th Percentile Group or the Peer/Aspirant Group. After discussions with the SPBC, CUPP and Cabinet officers, President Wilson felt that regardless of which group we were examining for comparison purposes, the conclusions were essentially the same. He suggested that we track both groups, with the added benefit of further study concerning the Peer/Aspirant Group, if the overall comparisons significantly diverge at any point. The general consensus amongst the SPBC faculty representatives was to use both comparison groups when examining faculty compensation, but to use the 80th percentile of Category IIB schools as the primary faculty salary goal. Mike Young requested that this decision be put in writing to clarify any future questions on the subject. President Wilson agreed and noted that this decision will be included in the SPBC notes.

There was a question regarding the new task force on faculty compensation concerning its authoritative status – is it an advisory task force to the Interim Provost or is it developing and establishing policy? Interim Provost Boyd stated that it is within the purview of the chief academic officer to establish policy, but he’ll be co-convening the task force in order to observe and participate in the discussions concerning allocation preferences. The overall goal would be for the Provost to meet with CUPP on an annual basis to discuss salary policy. Revisiting the issue periodically would allow changing circumstances to be taken into account.

President Wilson then asked Michael Thompson to discuss his plan for examining compensation goals for faculty and staff. On the faculty side, Michael explained that he has collected data elements to examine the five-year average percentage increase differential between IWU and the AAUP’s Category II-B 80th Percentile Group, which are 2.2 and 3.4%, respectively. Using past behavioral trends, Michael will be able to project different salary increase scenarios over time. Questions from the Committee revolved around how the modeling would work with regard to the various faculty rank levels. In particular, it was noted that IWU is closer to the 80th percentile of category IIB schools when considering the mean salary across all ranks than for each rank individually. The Committee agreed to examine salary increase scenarios by individual rank in order to better observe and address salary compression. President Wilson asked Michael to include compensation (salary + benefits) in the model. John Jordan stated that he felt the Board of Trustees would be interested in tracking both salary and compensation, and that we should include both faculty and staff. President Wilson noted that Michael is also collecting staff compensation data, but that it comes with unique challenges because of the different titles and responsibilities attributed to various staff positions. individually. The Committee agreed to examine salary increase scenarios by individual rank in order to better observe and address salary compression. President Wilson asked Michael to include compensation (salary + benefits) in the model. John Jordan stated that he felt the Board of Trustees would be interested in tracking both salary and compensation, and that we should include both faculty and staff. President Wilson noted that Michael is also collecting staff compensation data, but that it comes with unique challenges because of the different titles and responsibilities attributed to various staff positions.

IWU Self-Study Steering Committee Student Survey

Jim Matthews and Michael Thompson presented a report based on the SSSC Student Survey that focused on the University’s strengths and weaknesses as perceived by IWU students. The survey was administered early in the fall semester and yielded a 23% response rate. The class distribution was balanced, with a much larger percentage of women responding (women = 72%; men = 28%).

Handouts were distributed showing the breakdown of strengths and weaknesses gathered from the survey with academics (i.e., programs, interactions, resources) emerging as a main strength. Another commonly cited strength was the IWU community, often described as supportive, strong, close-knit and welcoming. Weaknesses were more evenly distributed with no single item emerging as most important to the student respondents. Commonly cited weaknesses included diversity (in all forms), academic-related issues (i.e., limited number of courses, rigor), and administrative concerns (i.e., food, communication). It was noted that, in general, student life showed improvement since the last self-study. In addition, there was a marked improvement in the rating given to advising, which received only five complaints out of the 316 identified weaknesses. Jim mentioned that the survey results were presented to the Student Senate at their October 26th meeting, and that the SSSC would be conducting an open forum for students to provide additional feedback.

The last piece of information presented from Jim and Michael was a table entitled “IWU SSSC Student Survey Mean Scores,” which revealed the students’ level of agreement concerning twenty statements directly related to the components of the five criteria for accreditation. Overall, the University faired quite well on the majority of the items. Based on a five-point scale (5 = Strongly Agree to 1 = Strongly Disagree), the five highest and lowest mean scores of the 21 total statements were as follows:

Five Highest Statements

• IWU promotes student learning across the institution (4.36).
• IWU promotes participation and collaboration among students and faculty (4.30).
• Intellectual inquiry is an integral aspect of educational programs at IWU (4.24).
• IWU supports the creation of an effective learning environment in my educational program (4.21).
• IWU demonstrates that it values life-long learning (4.20).

Five Lowest Statements

• Results from course evaluations and assessments guide strategies for University improvement (3.53).
• IWU learns from its students to determine needs (3.57).
• IWU analyzes its ability to meet the needs and expectations of its students (3.75).
• IWU realistically prepares for a future shaped by multiple societal and economic trends (3.84).
• IWU’s administrators and faculty respond to future challenges and opportunities. (3.91).

The SSSC Subcommittees are still processing additional information from the survey and will submit reports in the near future. Survey results from students, faculty, staff and alumni will also be available.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:10 pm.
Distributed to all faculty and staff on November 15, 2010.