Academic Affairs and Research Council Meeting Notes

Academic Affairs and Research Notes

Monday, May 14, 2007

AARC Agenda:

1.      Infrastructure—Rick McDaniel:  A new process for ordering infrastructure requested items was examined, wherein academic affairs would gain a savings of approximately $41k dollars by purchasing items in bulk.  Concerns of losing flexibility were raised and Mark Hoeting recommended a review of those items that would be most cost effective to order in bulk.  AARC concluded the savings was not significant enough to fundamentally change processes this year and rather than discard the proposal, made a decision to purchase some items by “piece-meal”.   Mark Hoeting’s time and effort to provide this information is certainly appreciated.

2.      Rotation of Academic Capital- Rick McDaniel:  Academic Affairs is making a great effort to examine its resources for maximization. Some non-academic units such as the Graduate School, Honors, Assessment, Military Sciences, etc. will receive fewer funds in their rotation than originally shared, such as Graduate School, Honors and Assessment will receive $5,000.00.   Academic Affairs will retain a contingency fund for flexibility.  The Capital Rotation proposal was unanimously accepted by the Council.

3.      Indemnification-Rick McDaniel:  Contracts with entities other than state agencies should contain an indemnification clause.  When entering a contract with another state agency, it is sufficient process to line through any indemnification clauses.  Further sufficient process can include the following language, “Licensee shall restore the Premises to the same condition as existed prior to the beginning of the stated term in paragraph #1”.

4.      Budget Update-Robin Hicks:  Today is the last payroll for 9 month faculty.  We will be cleaning up salary accounts over the next few days.  Information to provide to Robin immediately.

·        Review supplies and travel accounts and get your funds encumbered; they will otherwise be swept on May 15^th.

·        Open IDT’s which are not reflected in current balance

·        Summer GAs

·        Summer school dollars that will not be spent (to be reallocated)

·        Year end carry forward (with a strong justification)

·        Buy-out and approved reassignments for fall and spring; In the past departments have moved the dollars for reassignment, this year Stacy or Robin will move those funds to assist the units with better tracking of resources.

·        FY08 finalized off-budget looks good.  Stacy and Robin are working on ESA and hope to be done within the next 2-3 weeks.  We have approximately $72,793 which is down from last year.  You will see an increase in your supply account for postage and part-time labor.

      Dr. Jones plans to meet with Dr. William Allen relatively soon regarding on-line course delivery.  He will share the plan prior to implementation.

5.      Unit Spotlight (Research & Technology Transfer Office)-Beth Hood:  Pre-Award’s are the main focus of the ORTT.  Grant proposals are submitted to this office with the new cover page that can be found on RTT’s web page together with the new faculty budget page. A recent focus has been research compliance.  ASU has gone increased its research efforts and has been given more attention from the federal government agencies.  Limited personnel also assists in facilitating the following:

·        Sign research contracts

·        Issue non-disclosure agreements

·        Material transfer agreements

·        Distribution of Indirect Cost Funds (which have increased from 3m to 17m)

·        Assists with faculty travel, faculty reassignment

·        Faculty research grants

·        Technology transfer

·        Intellectual Property Disclosure (Beth will come to your college and share a 20 minute proviso upon request)

This year we received 16 disclosures, we have 2 patents issued and 10 pending.  You may visit Research and Technology Transfer on line at http://researchoffice.astate.edu/

6.      Looking Forward-Glen Jones:

·        AARC meeting time will change from 8:30 a.m. on the second Monday of the month to 10:30 a.m. effective June 11, 2007 (next meeting).

·        In preparation for FY 07-08 Budget planning, realistically consider your priority requests and be prepared to justify.

·        Graduate School Adhoc committee is underway to reviewing issues

·        New Accounting Tech position to work with HSS and the Graduate school budgets

 Announcements:

1. Sue Marlay-(Handout-Engaging Faculty FULBRIGHT) Faculty Fulbright session available to assist faculty to apply for a Fulbright scholarship.  We can bring Fulbright faculty in for lectures-Fulbright pays and ASU provides incidental needs and/or low cost expenditure.  We have a Fulbright faculty currently Bolivia.
2. Beth Hood added-“we serve more than ABI, we’re spreading funds over colleges.
3. Gil Fowler-Two (2) students in Honors are awarded a $4500 undergraduate internship to work in ABI during the summer, and the internships are most appreciated.