August 14, 2006
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome back. It seems like only yesterday that we celebrated spring commencement, and now a new academic year is starting. This summer was very busy for us as we prepared for the coming year and tried to address many of the lingering issues from last spring.
I would like to bring you up to date on a couple of important issues. First is the budget. There is as always some good news and some bad news in the budget. The good news is that the Legislature did approve the Governor’s proposal to fund an average five percent (5%) increase in instructional and research faculty salaries. In addition, mandated increases in health insurance, retirement contributions, classified employee merit raises and Office of Risk Management property insurance premiums were covered in the University’s appropriation this year. Further, an additional $1 million dollars for the College of Pharmacy is also included, the second installment of a 3-year funding enhancement commitment from the Board of Regents. The bad news is that out of an original $2.2 million General Operating budget cut the University was assessed due to the storms of last year, only $800,000 was restored. The remaining $1.4 million reduction had to be absorbed in our FY 2006-2007 budget.
The Board of Supervisors will consider approval of our FY 2006-2007 budget at its August 25 meeting. We will post the budget online at that time.
The guidelines for distribution of the monies for faculty salary increases provided us by the Board of Regents are fairly broad. The policy mandates that Librarians and only those faculty whose primary function is instruction or research are eligible for increases from these funds. In our continuing efforts to push decision making down the hierarchy, several changes were made in both the development and control of the budget. Responding to faculty comments that the procedures for faculty salary increases be made more transparent, we asked the academic deans to work with their Faculty Budget Committee and develop a procedure for the distribution of the increases. The dean and faculty committee chair of each college will present their pay raise plan to the Faculty Senate for its review on August 17, 2006.
The second major change in the budget process was also in keeping this administration’s long term goal of changing our business model. The deans requested complete fiscal control over the funds allocated to their college, and we approved. This means that funds may be moved between personnel and non-personnel lines, deans may reallocate existing funds as they see fit, funds derived from vacant positions will stay in the college, and deans will have the authority and responsibility to manage those positions and funds. Each dean now has the authority and the flexibility to determine the proper business model for their respective college. The recommendations from Dr. Smith’s Reorganization Evaluation Committee will be able to help the deans identify areas of weakness and suggestions to remedy them.
The deans are in the process of developing college specific budget procedures that include the continued input from their college Faculty Budget Committees. Your respective deans are posting these budget committee minutes online and they will continue to keep you updated.
The summer has also seen a plethora of activities from the ad-hoc committees appointed last spring. Dr. Ruth Smith and the Reorganization Evaluation Committee are hard at work and are asking for your input through a survey and focus groups. It is important that we all participate. The Shared Governance Committee, under the leadership of Dr. Rettenmayer and Dr. Lisa Colvin, made a number of assignments to committee members and they will be meeting at the start of this semester. The Faculty Senate and University leadership engaged in the start of a team-building exercise this summer and we will be updating you on the progress from this effort.
In addition, over the coming weeks and months I will be reinstituting the Dear Colleague letters. Many of you commented in the survey this spring and in our team-building sessions that you wanted to see more direct communication from the President. These letters will be in addition to the online newsletter “ULM Weekly News Update.”
I know many of you are coming to expect physical changes when you return each fall and this year is no exception. This summer we completed two new “Smart Classrooms” in Stubbs and Strauss Halls and we painted the halls and classrooms in almost all of the classroom buildings. In addition, all of the residence halls are completed, and we are fully occupied for the fall. We plan to have a ribbon cutting for the residence hall project on August 15, 2006 at 10:30 AM. The site will be in front of the University Commons facility on Northeast Drive. Please join us if you can.
The work on Bayou Park and the Student Union Building is progressing with a completion date for both of these projects close to the end of the fall semester. The retail area in the University Commons will be completed by the middle of September with a grand opening for our new Starbucks scheduled for Monday, September 25, 2006. I hope you noticed the new entrance marker at Northeast and Cole. The lettering and additional landscaping will be in soon. Please take the time to thank Mr. Eddie Hakim for his kind donation making the entrance marker a reality.
Lastly, I would like to extend a personal invitation to everyone to attend the Academic Convocation on Monday, August 21, 2006. Eric Schlosser, author of our summer reading selection, “Fast Food Nation” will be our featured speaker. After the Convocation please join faculty, students, and staff at Grovestock for food, fun, and fellowship.
We in higher education get the benefit of two New Year’s celebrations . . . one with everyone else on December 31 and then our own special celebration the start of each new school year. Whether you were with us all summer or you are just returning for the fall semester, this is the time we get to start anew. The past year was the most difficult that many of us have ever experienced. Those memories need to be placed in the attic of our minds as we look at a new fresh beginning. This year will be filled with numerous challenges like every other year, but I pledge to you and I want you to pledge to me that we will continue to work together to rekindle the excitement we felt at the beginning of last year. I look forward to working with each and every one of you as we begin this New Year to reenergize the vision that propelled this institution during the first three years of this administration.
James E. Cofer, Sr.
ULM President