The Faculty Senate met yesterday to continue discussion about issues such as state budget cuts, the presidential search and scholarly publication rights.
University President John T. Casteen, III focused on issues such as AccessUVa, the recent state budget cuts and the capital campaign and endowment.
"The growing cost [of AccessUVa] is related to two things," Casteen said. "One is that our cost - the prices that we charge - are going up, and they will continue to go up as long as the state continues to decrease our appropriations as they ... face shortfalls. The other reason is more students are [entering the University] with financial need."
Casteen also addressed the idea that students with the most financial need often go to high schools that lack the funding to pay for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs.
In addition, more schools have advised students to strive for a GED rather than complete high school since the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act, Casteen said.
Schools often give this advice because those students who leave to pursue a GED are not counted as dropouts but rather as students who simply "disappear," he noted.
Although the University does have students who enter with GEDs, these students do not undergo the same preparation for college as other students.
The University also hopes to have need-based financial aid and scholarship programs for international students, Casteen said, even though federal and state money cannot currently be used for those purposes.
On the subject of state funding, Casteen noted that the new round of state budget cuts will be alleviated somewhat by money made available from the Stimulus Act.
Though Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has cut the state's budget for the University by 15 percent, he has made stimulus money available so that the cuts will be about 8 percent, Casteen said. Kaine also has considered requiring all state employees - including University employees - to take a one-day furlough, or an unpaid absence from work.
Leonard Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer, said the University administration does not agree with this plan, adding that it is still not certain if the furlough requirement will be enacted.
The Board of Visitors has expressed concern about the University's future finances, given that Casteen's impending retirement will occur around the time of the projected end of the capital campaign in 2011.
"I can't say I liked it at first but I agreed with their logic," Casteen said. "But I can say 20 years is enough ... I've enjoyed every day of it."
Senate Chair Ann Hamric reviewed the current progress of the Special Committee on the Nomination of the President, noting that the current committee is significant for its inclusion of six faculty members and the first-ever graduate student on a presidential search committee.
Though the committee will make an effort to be somewhat transparent, Hamric stressed the importance of confidentiality in the search process.
"One of the things I have learned is that the major cause of failed searches at other universities is breaches of confidentiality," Hamric said. "That issue has absolutely derailed other searches, where the very best candidates, when people start talking about them, withdraw their names from the search."
To allow for discussion and input, however, Hamric said the Senate will focus on how to improve methods of communication between senators and their faculty constituents.
Additionally, she reported that the Task Force on the University's Policy for Non-Tenure-Track Faculty has submitted its report to the deans of the University's schools, which will soon be distributed throughout the schools. Batten School Dean Harry Harding also discussed his school's objectives for the upcoming year as well.
Among the school's goals are completing renovations of its new home, Garrett Hall. The Batten School also hopes to establish a faculty and develop a curriculum for its full-time Masters in Public Policy program, Harding said.
Faculty senators also expressed goals for the University as a whole yesterday afternoon, especially noting the work of the Task Force on Scholarly Publication and Author's Rights to make copyright agreements more flexible and to have a University repository for scholarly work.
Edmund Kitch, a member of the task force and 2008-09 Faculty Senate chair, noted that one major issue in scholarly publication is publishers, rather than the original authors, often end up withholding the copyright to the published work.
"The good news is a lot of publishers have ... made a lot more flexible the terms of their copyright contracts ... but not all publishers have," Kitch said.
To address these issues, the Task Force is preparing a resolution modeled after one at Harvard that requires faculty to give the University a non-exclusive right to add their work to a public repository, noted Madelyn Wessel, a task force member and special advisor to the University librarian.
"I think it is very important for universities today to reinforce with their [faculties] that their work is being done in the public interest and for the benefit of the public," Kitch said.
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