Cabinet Minutes
for November 6, 2001

The spring schedule is available on the web. Advisors are encouraged to contact their advisees about an appointment to pre-enroll in classes. At that time, they need to verify majors or intended majors and to collect local addresses for students. In addition to spring classes, students may still enroll in the two credit hour Personal Finance class which will meet two weekends (Nov. 30, Dec 1, 2 and Dec 7,8,9).

Faye Vowell has been working with chairs to collect information about advisors for specific students and with IT to be sure we can put advisor names in Banner. By the beginning of next week, she hopes to have a list of advisees for each faculty member available. This is one of the AQIP advising process measures.

On Friday at 10:00 Faye Vowell is hosting a session on promotion and tenure for everyone coming up this year and for people who just want to know more about the process.

Faye Vowell was on a North Central Review last week at a peer institution. She brings back several good ideas: post the annual utility costs for gas, water, and electricity in order to sensitize people to the need to conserve energy; use faculty focus groups as part of major assessment; use an Ask Me button welcoming accreditation visitors and worn by faculty and staff; and take a photo of the accreditation team in its initial session and publish it in the local newspaper during the team visit to let the community know a visit is taking place.

Steve Reed reported on a meeting between IT, the Registrar, VP Vowell and VP Farren to create two new report forms for enrollment reports. IT has worked on IPEDS report and the National Study of Student Engagement.

April Matthews and Jason Collet are at Microsoft training this week. April Hanson is attending a Banner finance training at Socorro.

Email virus software has been received and will be installed soon. This will help resolve our virus issues on campus.

The web registration consultant was here last week. A test group of students has been identified to pilot web registration. Summer school registration in March or April is the target for full use by faculty and students. Advising is an issue when we implement web registration. Faculty will be involved in deciding what their role will be in registering over the web

Donna Rees and Rick O'Ryan will work to finalize the network for Deming and Gallup at a CHECS meeting next week.

Muir Heights' telephone wiring is in bad shape. Rick O'Ryan will talk with Peggy about what needs to be done.

IT has need for additional server room; Steve Reed is exploring the possibility of using the room in the CIT that was originally a control room.

In regard to the Social Work computer room electricity problem, Mike Martinez will cost out the materials needed to create more electrical connectivity and order them. He estimates that the work will be done within two weeks. As a side note, our maintenance people are licensed only to do repair electrical work; they cannot do expansion projects. For expansion projects, we need to hire a contractor.

Fall faculty evaluations are being run off now; they total about 8000 copies. Evaluation forms were made available to departments on Monday, 5 November. Evaluations can begin on Friday, November 9. Some departments have opted to begin before this day and have done so. Evaluations need to be back to the Academic Affairs office by Friday, 16 November. They will be sent to IT as soon as possible. IT has been asked to have evaluations back by 7 December. Chairs should hold evaluations until grades have been turned in. But Faye Vowell thanks all involved to try to get the evaluations back to faculty in a more timely manner.

A demonstration of the portal product Campus Pipeline has been scheduled for 8:30-10:30 on Thursday in AV2. The product has already been demonstrated to the Mustang and some student workstudies.

There will be a meeting in AV2 on Monday morning to demo tracking software for Title V and Perkins.

You will notice a new directional sign on the west of campus paid for by the Foundation, Alumni, Library and Museum. They are looking into ways to light the sign.

On Monday 12 November, the Marketing committee will meet again.

Blood drive went well. Two more visits are scheduled this semester. All who gave blood or attempted to give blood are thanked and urged to continue to do so.

The Deming campus scholarship awarded the first time. The SOE has 4 new named scholarships which will be awarded for spring.

An audio training on legal issues will be conducted for Foundation Board members today. The Foundation is collecting data for AQIP report.

A hospitality room will be available at the Holiday Inn Las Cruces from 5-6:30 on Friday before the women's basketball game. Come and visit with alums. Rsvp to Christie if you want to attend.

Dec 3 is the date for the next alumni meeting in ABQ. We will host Monday night football for area alums. An alum is providing snacks and the place.

The University Club party will be at the Buffalo Bar. Get your tickets from Christie Miller. Cabinet bought two group tickets.

Faculty Senate will meet today. Agenda was posted on the web.

Mike Metcalf did CPR training last week and urges others to do so.

This Friday two exhibitions will have openings.

Mike Metcalf is working on the Art in Public Places effort at the request of Regent David Darling.

Mike has worked to create local questions for the HERI survey. Copies have already been sent out.

Phone books are available in Julie Morales' office.

New edition of the Westwind is out.

Gwen Cassel is working with faculty in her school to create a sense of identity and get to know each other better.

A meeting will be held in the near future to discuss the weight room issue with Shawn Simonson, Gwen Cassel, June Decker, Faye Vowell, Scott Woodard, and Chris Casey.

Gail Gruber is fully in charge of NCATE and the process is gaining momentum. The first half of conceptual framework will be addressed by SOE faculty today.

URN President Daniel Garcia and his wife Adriana were on campus last week.

The discussions centered around a concept paper for a Title 7 grant for a teaching language institute. The Title 2 report and NCATE annual report are being developed.

Frank Renz, Dave Lapre, Tom Root and Jerry Harmon are meeting on Thursday to create guidelines for the distribution of loan for service for teacher education graduates and students. They will also discuss ways that community college programs articulate with 4 year teacher education programs.

The Assessment Committee met last Thursday. They decided to focus on three areas in GE: critical thinking, communication (written, oral, and visual), and multicultural perspectives.

The AQIP quarterly meeting was held last week. The three teams each gave a report. The advising team is probably further along in its thinking than the others since many of its members were part of the Advising Task Force from last year. Funding is working on baseline data. Communications is identifying the top 5 concerns of faculty, staff, and students. The group decided that we need to do more external and internal marketing on AQIP. Cabinet suggested that faculty and staff consider submitting a paper on AQIP for the NMHEAR conference.

We also need to expand our AQIP web presence.

We have ordered the Noel Levitz survey for this year. We need to figure out how to gather local addresses in Banner.We only have ACT scores for about 20% of our students.

Kathie Gilbert attended a NM First program on issues around the 3 border crossing areas. Water, energy, and work force development are the next three issues that will be addressed. Kathie urges your participation if you are interested. Tech, UNM and NMSU had students there.

The group meets twice a year. The ABE program assessed 138 new students in its last registration of the semester: these students tested at the 7th grade in language and at the 6th grade in math. A retention plan has been set in motion. Students will be tracked after they leave the program.

Tony Macias will meet with Stream this Thursday about establishing a work ethics program.

Gear up grant application materials have been received and Tony Macias will submit again this year in cooperation with Snell Middle School

Staff Senate is meeting tomorrow at 10 o'clock.

Concerns have developed in regard to the employee of the month program. Peggy Lankford is working through the issues with appropriate people.

Charlene Ashburn, Chris Casey, and Peggy Lankford are meeting on the sick leave policy that was proposed by Staff Senate.

The Mimbres Learning Center grand opening on OCT 30 was great. Western has a large sign in the lobby.

NM Virtual HS is a possiblity for partnerships on concurrent enrollment.

IT equipment is working at Deming thanks to Tim Turner and Rick O'Ryan.

Extended University is advertising for an Executive Assistant. in Deming; the search will close tomorrow. We are also readvertising for the Deming director position.

Tony Macias and Donna Rees are working to create training plans for the miners who will be laid off at PD.

Donna Rees, Pres Counts, VP Farren, and VP Vowell will attend a meeting on 19 Nov with Gallup faculty and also meet with area legislators. This semester there are 408 unduplicated headcount students in Gallup.

The RFP for energy conservation is due from vendors next week

The bid for work to deal with the Hunter Hall drainage problem will go out next week.

Basketball has begun scrimmages The exit conference for our annual audit will take place on Thursday.

Next week Chris Casey will be at the Board of Finance meeting on Tuesday. On Thursday and Friday she will be at CHE in Las Cruces.

Revised estimates of state income are that income is down. This legislative session does not look good. There will be $37 million in new money; but estimates for medicare and medicaid are that they will cost $58-100 million. Prisons need funding in addition to this. The talk is that the Legislative session will be taken up with ways to cut money from the budget. Achieving full formula funding will be a first priority followed by salary increases.

Open work order report draft will be given to VPs today. Go to your VPs office if you want to see where your work order is.

New Lamps have been installed on Graham Gym. Please keep watch to help prevent theft and vandalism.

Flow charts of processes in Student Affairs areas are being shared in the regular staff meetings. A minimum of 68% of our students receive federal financial aid including $ 5.2 million in loans this year alone.

Cabinet must attend civil right training

The Mustang will be out soon.

The President is writing an economic impact report to be shared with Dave Lapre.

President Counts shared Ernie Noack's suggestion to hire a work study student to turn off lights and HVAC at 8:15 each night in campus buildings. The President passed this suggestion on to Chris Casey for consideration.

Vice Presidents have received comment cards for September and October for action.

On January 8, an AQIP session is being planned. Western would pilot test some materials. Cabinet is encouraged to attend.

Julie Miller did a fabulous job testifying about our IT projects last week as did Jerry Harmon and Gwen Cassel on the public research proposals.

Next cabinet meeting will be Nov 27.