∙ Mary Camarena-Hittle passed out a handout regarding an update to the union question list. Staff Senate wants to get union personnel to answer these questions.

∙ Dean Foster and Steve Liebhart have started the web page template for the new WNMU web page. They are working to place staff assessment information on the web page.

∙ Christy Miller announced two alumni meetings that are scheduled for the Albuquerque Alumni Chapter in Albuquerque on February 19 and the Las Cruces Alumni Chapter in Las Cruces on February 24. One of the purposes of these meetings is to talk about the Endowed Professorship and solicit donations by the May deadline.

∙ Alumni Affairs is planning a reception/fundraiser for the Endowed Professorship on April 23, 2005, in the 3^rd floor mall area of the Student Memorial Building from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The cost will be $25 per person and this year will honor Professor Emeritus Dorothy Blalock. They hope to have an outstanding faculty member wall and will honor someone different every year.

∙ Chris Casey reported on the legislative session.

o University Presidents are publicly supporting the recommend 3% tuition credit increase, compensation increase at 2% for both faculty and staff, inflationary increases for the library at 2.5% and 2.5% for utilities, complete funding of the workload, recommended funding for special projects, increases to student financial aid for $1 million, increase to adult basic education of $400,000.

o The Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) is also recommending a one-time funding of 100% for BR&R at 42 or 46%. This would represent over $1 million for WNMU.

o Chris Casey made two presentations on nursing and teacher education in the House and received a do pass. She don't know much about capital dollars because there are a large number of requests--will keep us posted.

o The Secretary of Education position is a big discussion.

o The CHE is not favorable towards the lottery.

o Dan Tressler asked about a recommendation of $1.5 million for residence halls. Chris Casey stated that because of past funding for Highlands we asked for funding which was a match from the State for what students had done for themselves.

∙ Sherry Bays had her baby on February 11 and got home yesterday. We don't know when she'll be back at work.

∙ Donna Rees had a visit from Michael Morehead, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at New Mexico State University. NMSU is interested in WNMU’s Gila Instruction Consortium. With the new CHECS proposal and networking putting K-12 on same network as higher education, it makes this type of project more feasible and attractive to NMSU.

∙ Mary Billings and Donna Rees attended a media production meeting sponsored by the Governor and UNM. They received good information from the film office on the Governor's vision for training film technicians and producing filmmakers. They also met with Eric Whitt, the Governor's Director of Legislative and Political Affairs and the Media Industries, and he liked our proposal. WNMU is more interested in creating the filmmakers than the technicians, and there are no other proposals like WNMU’s. Our budget request was good, and Eric Whitt will be in Silver City after the legislative session is over. WNMU wants to educate students to know how to make documentaries, training films, business productions, etc. Mary and Donna also informed him that WNMU partners with Hidalgo, Luna, and Sierra Counties and would be including them in our efforts. The Deming Film Office has asked for $250,000 for a sound proposal. Our staff in Deming helped develop the proposal.

∙ There will be a reception and open house tomorrow evening in Deming at the Mimbres Valley Learning Center from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. to show off the new nursing lab. Pat McIntire, T. J. Betenbough, and the Deming staff will be there.

∙ The CHE meeting on Friday for the final recommendation for the career technical center money was cancelled . Chris Casey said that this topic would probably be brought up at the April meeting which will shorten the time frame. Donna Rees's concern are that the Commissioners were unhappy with the way the money was allocated and that we may lose this money. The Governor was concerned because he thought large amounts would go to a few locations to build large programs rather than small amounts of money to a larger number.

∙ Donna Rees had a meeting with Peace Corps representatives from Washington. They like our Gallup program and it is showing up in Peace Corps publications. There will bee a Peace Corps open house in March which will have tables from all the countries in which Peace Corps students served. Community and students will be invited. Additionally, Teach for America is not sending any of their teachers to UNM; they are all going to WNMU.

∙ Katherine Woodard stated that a representative from Representative Udall's office met with Fred Wey and Elaine Jordan in Gallup. The representative is interested in recruiting students to be a part of Rep. Udall’s staff. One Social Work student has applied and some counseling students were also interested. Donna Rees will check with Elaine Jordan to see if this has progressed.

∙ T. J. Betenbough announced that WNMU’s School of Education has received an award from AACTE. Faye Vowell asked T. J. Betenbough to draft a letter to our legislators and include a copy of the news release. Donna Rees asked that Gallup/McKinley and Deming/Luna legislators also be included.

∙ The School of Health Sciences and Human Performance is involved in search committees for new faculty. Social Work has already gotten the list of applicants and has started reviewing them. They feel they have some good applicants.

∙ Dan Tressler stated that the WNMU Foundation is trying to get more press coverage. An article appeared regarding the loom that was donated to Expressive Arts and a picture with Dr. Parkhurst, Mrs. Parkhurst, and Michael Metcalf receiving a check from the Parkhursts for the Endowed Professorship program. The Foundation would also like more newspaper coverage about the program and the benefits to the institution and to the students.

∙ The Foundation received a call from Senator Bingaman last week regarding the Jess Bingaman scholarship. Mr. Bingaman’s estate has been settled and will make a contribution for a natural science scholarship set up in his memory.

∙ Dan Tressler went with Christy Miller to El Paso to present to the alumni the Endowed Professorship program.

∙ Chris Farren announced that Rotary will be holding a silent auction in WNMU’s Intramural Gym on Saturday, March 19 at 5:00 p.m. A list of some of the items to be included in the auction was passed out. The three VPs and the President have bought three tables. The auction starts with dinner provided by about 20 different restaurants. WNMU will receive 1/3 of the proceeds which will be used for a scholarship for the School of Education.

∙ The Admissions Office is active in marketing planning, have segmented the market area, and have an action plan for each of the market areas which will be tied to the calendar and specifically to the person who is responsible for that particular area.

o We are trying to get the maximum number of students on tuition waiver: 65 from El Paso, 200 from Arizona, and 15 from Colorado.

o The CHE approved the WUE program whereby a student can come from another state for 1-1/2 in-state rate. Chris Casey stated that this is a school-by-school program, but WNMU does not participate. Donna Rees will send the information on this program to Chris Farren.

o Student Affairs will also redo the posters on the competitive scholarship and hope to blanket the community colleges in Southern California. California has to export 300,000 students a year because they don't have the capacity to take care of them.

o We also are going to be doing branding and will give an example at the next meeting. This process identifies the major characteristics of an institution with one or two words. We will be relating who we are in a different way.

∙ The cafeteria is on schedule to be remodeled with the first phase during spring break.

∙ Document imaging will be installed during spring break with training to follow immediately thereafter.

∙ IT will do the conversion to new ID numbers during spring break which will be randomly generated.

∙ This Friday, February 18, 2005, at 1:00 p.m. in AV 2 in Miller Library, the PMT for the web will be looking at the redesigned web.

∙ Many institutions are creating a different URL for Admissions so that more interactive features can be used and the search time can be shorter.

∙ The University has recognized the tragic death of one of our students, Nick Arnold, with a memorial ceremony, a candlelight ceremony on the football field, and a dance this past weekend. Donations have been taken and given to family. Some students asked that the flag be flown at half mast, but we cannot do this unless the Governor of the State of New Mexico or the President of the United States orders it. Chris Casey stated that Benny Altamirano is sponsoring a senate memorial in honor of Nick Arnold. Chris Farren also stated that both counselors are available for those who need them. Maria Dominguez also contacted Joan Eng, and we could bring a crisis center on campus if necessary. Students asked if we could close the university for a day, but administration felt that this was not appropriate. Chris Casey stated that some players wanted to go to the funeral, but doesn’t know whether they will be going or not. Student Affairs is asking faculty to be understanding for students that attend the funeral.

∙ As of today, the updated enrollment figures show that we need 466 hours to meet the 5% window. We still have an opportunity to generate more hours with: (1) faculty have class for 1 credit hour to look at revised faculty evaluation system; (2) Gallup enrollment; (3) Ft. Bayard asked nursing for assistance in helping people get certification and have found an adjunct and will have 10 students for an 8 week program; (4) two block courses ("Values at Work" taught by Dr. William Charland which will target the community; and Business Administration is teaching a block course. Faye Vowell will put this on the Chairs Council agenda and ask for an estimate of credit hours generated; (5) request to look at courses to start at 9 weeks maybe another Student Success Seminar offered at this point.

∙ Student Affairs will have four new student orientations this year. The first will be on Saturday, April 9 and will focus on transfer students. We intend to telemarket this event, so we will know two weeks prior how many students will attend. There will be three orientations in the summer on Saturday, June 11, 2005, Saturday, July 9, 2005, and Saturday, July 30, 2005, which will also be telemarketed.

∙ Donna Rees--Clorinda Harrison and a faculty member from UNM/Gallup will present at the NACADA conference. The presentation is entitled "Traversing Emotional Crevasses and Securing the Summit of Student Success: Motivational Advising for the Rocky Path."

∙ Faye Vowell announced that Dr. William Charland is the interim Activity Director for the Title V program.

∙ Faye Vowell has sent out a list of advisees who are enrolled this spring and has asked faculty to get the corrections to Betsy Miller to be ready for pre-enrollment.

∙ The degree audit program will be tested in the Academic Support Center with the possibility of going live in April. Many thanks to Betsy Shook for all the hard work she has put in on this program.

∙ The articulation discussion regarding the 35-hour common core is moving ahead, and WNMU has five people who are participating. The deadline has been moved back to have this project finished by December 2005 instead of August 2005. Faye Vowell stated that implementation means that we will be ready to publish in the next catalog the name, common course number, and the outcomes for each of those areas in the common core. We probably will not have implemented the four alpha and four numeric numbers by this time.

∙ Faye Vowell announced that a group met yesterday to talk about how we organize and deliver support and services for on-line courses. We are going to consolidate the results of the brainstorming and schedule another meeting asking for more faculty participation. This is an endeavor headed by Mary Billings. We are attempting to do a gap analysis regarding services we are providing and services needed.

∙ Donna Rees stated that this spring we had 470 enrollments in on-line courses with approximately one-half of those outside of Grant County, quite a few in Deming, and 100 that outside the state including one in Japan.

∙ Mary Billings is working on how we can improve the on-line registration process. Last fall we had 289 enrollments in online courses and 470 this semester.

∙ We are currently marketing on-line courses by listing them on the website as on-line courses and posting courses on the New Mexico Virtual College website. Faye Vowell stated that if a course has any face to face component, it cannot be listed on the virtual website. If we have face to face components in primarily on-line course, how can we provide this in ways convenient to students? Donna Rees thinks we need to get past the point of asking students to come to campus--is it a good idea and is there value? Mary Billings is working on an on-line orientation to eliminate these first meeting orientations. NMSU did face to face at sites around New Mexico. What is the added value of making people travel to Silver City?

∙ Faye Vowell stated that today a group is meeting with the Forest Service with whom we partnered for diversity day; they would like to do increased partnering in the areas of multicultural programming and attracting Hispanic and African American students into forest service jobs. They are pushing to increase employment opportunities. Students need not be natural science majors to apply, and these internships could lead to good jobs and a foot in the door to a career after college.

∙ Faye Vowell spoke with Bill Charland and Trinidad Tolar earlier in the week regarding an exchange program with Nuevo Casas Grande. They have worked to construct a program that will pay for instructors with tuition generated. They are proposing to teach a summer program at Nuevo Casas Grandes with 3 courses; students would be asked to take 2 of the 3 courses in the areas of Spanish (language immersion), multicultural education, and art (working with one of Juan Quezada’s sons). They are hoping to have 8-10 students or more. They are also looking at teaching an immersion course in English for students from Nuevos Casas Grandes. The students would be doing ABE studies in the morning and field experience in the afternoon possibly at the Early Childhood Center. Nuevo Casas Grandes may be a possible location for practice teachers in the future. Trini will make connections with the schools while she is there for practice teaching locations. We will need to begin the paperwork to admit foreign students, the paperwork for transporting our students there, etc.

∙ Faye Vowell will be making an offer today on the Data Analysis position.

∙ Additionally, Chairs will meet this week and continue the discussion regarding long-range planning to increase enrollment.