Deans Council Minutes
24 February 1999

Present:  Doug Ferrier, José Martín, Betsy Boze, Farhat Iftekharuddin,
Mimosa Stephenson, Raymond Rodrigues--presiding

Travel Program Redesign--Ray asked the deans to read this and send any
concerns to him immediately.

Annual Staff Performance Review--The members were reminded of the
deadline.

Grant Monitoring--Mimosa Stephenson presented the concern of the
internal auditors that we were not monitoring grants appropriately,
namely that deans should monitor the appropriate expenditure of grant
funds.  The deans recommended that Mimosa explain to the auditors that
official sign-offs add time to the processing of purchase orders, and
deans must rely upon the advise of the PI's anyway.   We prefer not to
add additional steps that ultimately are not meaningful.

Council on Undergraduate Research--Material reminding the deans of the
functions of this organization were passed out.  We discussed the value
of membership and the need to encourage faculty to participate when they
have student researchers working with them.

Transfer Study--Farhat reminded the deans of their agreement to
determine why students transferred to other institutions.

Research Enhancement Funds--Based upon Mimosa's recommendation, we
agreed not to start the grant process until August when we would know
for certain whether funds exist.

Publishing Research Enhancement Funds:  Ray asked Mimosa to work with
Jim Holt to determine how we might publish the research enhancement
reports (and other faculty work) as an in-house publication.

Academic Assessment Reports Due--Deans and chairs are reminded that this
year's reports on assessments of the majors are due May 31.