University of Minnesota, Morris

Campus Resources and Planning Committee

 

September 28, 2004

 

 

 

Members Present:       Andy Lopez, Lowell Rasmussen, Sara Haugen, Mark Fohl,

                                    Isaac Linehan-Clodfelter, Matt Croaston, Cassie McMahon,

                                    Jim Carlson, LeAnn Dean, Arne Kildegaard, Bryan Herrmann,

                                    Sharon VanEps

 

Guests:                                    James Morales, Gary Strei, Sandy Olson-Loy

 

 

 

(In these minutes:  Discussion about ideal campus size, Update on IRS Savings Plan-UMM Food Services, Update on the bonding bill and energy issues)

 

Announcements from Andy Lopez

 

1)    Lopez attended a meeting regarding the Faculty Affairs Committee proposal.  The Faculty Development Committee plans to resubmit the proposal again this year.

2)    There appears to be an interest in having a joint meeting of the CRPC and Consultative Committee to make sure the committees donšt overlap issues.

3)    He has spoken with Jeff Ratliff-Crain about the strategic plan.  There are a number of issues CPRC needs to be aware of.

 

Discussion about ideal campus size

 

Lopez stated he has thought about this and is not sure what the ideal campus would, perhaps 2000-2100.  He believes we need to have a better distribution among UMM majors.  Currently, seven majors encompass 50% of our students; the top seven disciplines encompass 1035 students.  According to the Institutional Data Book, Biology is number one for declared majors of our student body.  He added that there are a group of student leaders that are doing everything and we need to find a way to spread that load through the entire student body.  He would also like to see the percentage of students of color increase.  Jim Carlson expressed concern about the faculty being overtaxed in those seven majors.  Arne Kildegaard asked how many actually graduate in Biology.  Lopez said the average was 38.  Mark Fohl added that the high ability students we recruit are attracted to those majors.  James Morales said high ability students have a wide variety of interests and if we target those students we will shore up the other majors.  Lopez said we need to do a better job of selling our own programs and find a way to make some majors more attractive.  Morales added that we need to study migration to other majors.  Sharon VanEps added that staff are overtaxed as well as faculty.  Arne Kildegaard said he thinks a larger student population would be added stress on faculty.   Bryan Herrmann thinks we should shoot for the 2100 range, but going over that number could hurt us.  Morales added that his staff is constantly looking at the market and the new hot trends in what students are interested in.  Cassie McMahon expressed concern about putting restrictions on the number of things students leaders can do because no one else is willing to do it.  Kildegaard asked who came up with the number of 412 for next year and wondered if we would be disappointed if we had more.  Morales said he was shown a model of a projections chart by the senior leadership team and we would not be disappointed at all if we had more.  Sandy Olson-Loy stated ideally we would want 450, but added we do not want to diminish the quality of our students.

 

Update on IRS Savings Plan-UMM Food Services

 

Gary Strei provided an update on implementation of accounting changes recommended by the Budget Task Force.  Savings to UMM this fiscal year are projected at over $52,000.  The Committee expressed its unanimous approval.   Details of the changes are available through Streišs office.

 

Update on the bonding bill and energy issues

 

Rasmussen distributed a handout as outlined below:

 

Changes in capital process:

 

  1. All capital projects need to be included in the campus compact discussions.  Compacts are submitted to Central Administration in March.  CRPC will need to address bonding projects one year prior to legislative session. 
  2. Regents approval is being moved up to projects that are $500,000 or above.
  3. Projects that are $2 million or above must have pre-design and design completed before included in compact.  Approximately 2% of project cost required to be spent prior to the project being considered for funding.
  4. Projects that are $10 million or above must have pre-design, design and schematics completed before project will be considered.  Approximately 15% of the project costs.
  5. All new space request will still be required to provide 1/6 of project amount to be funded by campus.

 

Campus Planning Issues:

Current request:

 

2004 Bonding bill

1.  Biomass Plant                   5.5 M   (1M provided by IREE)

2.  Joint Football field             2.5 M   (1M provided by Public Schools)

 

2005 Capital Improvements (not using State money)

1.  Gay 2 sprinkler system  (tentatively $400,000 from ORL, $700,000 from Central)

 

2006 Bonding bill

1.  Indy Hall sprinklers

UMM - $150,000        Central - $150,000      State of MN $600,000

2.  Briggs Library

UMM - ????                Central $3.3M             State of MN $6.6M

 

3.  Blakely Hall Renovation (new item)

UMM ORL - $1M over 10 years        Central $1M    State of MN $2M

 

Total Request:                        $15 Million

 

Alternate would be to break Briggs Library into two requests over 4 years:

 

Alternate:                                $10 Million

 

HEAPR

 

Primary purpose is to renovate and renew existing space.  Does not require 1/6 match at present.  Morris campus is contracting for a facilities condition assessment ($70,000) to provide a ten year needs assessment.  Will be complete by spring 05.  Rasmussen expects it will show a 10 year need of up to 20 million to renovate and renew all academic buildings on campus.  That means to meet our needs we should be looking at a HEAPR request of approximately $4 million in each bonding bill.  We need to make the case to central that we need a number that we can set priorities and do strategic planning for campus renovations.

 

Energy Issues

 

Wind Energy:  WCROC will be installing a wind generator by March of 05.  The most recent plan is for UMM to purchase the power for the generator for use exclusively on this campus.  If we do this, we need to do the following: 

  1. Install an above ground line between WCROC and UMM.  Estimated cost of $500,000.
  2. Explore the use of thermo storage to allow for the use of wind generated power during times when the campus would not use the full amount being generated.  This would require building up to 1 million gallons of storage that could hold chilled water in the summer and hot water in the winter.  Estimated cost of $800,000.

This may require us to change our 2004 bonding bill to help cover these costs.

 

Biomass:  During the week of October 11-15, we will be doing a test gasification of 100 tons of corn stover and 25 tons of distillers grain in a prototype gasification system in Carterville, Illinois.  The cost of this project is approximately $130,000.  Minnesota corn growers, Chippewa Valley Ethanol, AURI and the UM IREE have agreed to help fund this test.  We will gain data to determine what the next steps are for the biomass project.  Test data should be published by November.

 

Meeting adjourned at 9:00 a.m.