Vote of support

At the end of the meeting the chair moved that the committee vote that it "fully supports the Provost's budget request." The Provost was still in attendance. I didn't object to the vote, but I abstained. I found it difficult to vote on this without discussion and with the Provost in the room.

Meeting, continued 1/18

(I called in)

Meeting began with discussion of the role of the committee, particularly regarding the "support" that the committee might request of the faculty at the senate meeting tomorrow.

The Provost suggested that the Faculty Committee/Faculty Senate might suggest to him the strategic goals that are of highest priority to the faculty.

Veteran committee members suggested that the presentation tomorrow focus on a summary of the total amount of new requests going towards each of the strategic goals with examples of the specific initiatives that are proposed to meet each goal. Emphasis might on the fact that the budget IS, in fact, distributed across the strategic plan.

Provost meets with committee 10:30

The Provost read his proposed budget to the faculty members of the committee. While this was infomative, it provided is no room for faculty input as we did not see the original requests from the deans to compare to the winnowed-down version presented by the Provost. How did the Provost set *his* priorities? Some Strategic Plan goals MUST have received greater weight, since the Provost is requesting only about half of the budgets put foward by the deans.

While we were permitted to take notes, the committee is not allowed to leave with a copy. We are not able to really have much independent discussion of the requests.

Provost will not release materials for committee review

Apparently the Provost has decided not to allow faculty to review drafts of the budget.