Friday, January 31, 2020

3:30-4:30pm

Knights Valley Room

 

SFAC Members:

• Arden Childers, AS Vice President for Finance; SFAC Co-Chair
• Katryna Johnson, Student at Large;
• Melissa Ann Kadar, Exec VP of AS;
• Elias Lopez, Designee for VP for Student Affairs, and SFAC Co-Chair;
• Emily Miller, AS VP of External Affairs; (absent)
• Leonel “Leo” Navarro, Designee for AS President;
• Elizabeth O’Brien, as designee for Joyce Lopes, VP for Admin. & Finance; 
• Dr. Hollis Robbins, Dean, School of Arts & Humanities as designee for Provost, VP for Academic Affairs; (absent)
• Laura Watt, Chair of the Faculty; (absent)
• Hilary C. Smith, Research Services & User Experience Librarian; Student Affairs Committee Rep 

Non-Voting SFAC Members:

• Hayley Avery, Budget Manager, University Budget and Planning 
• Erik Dickson, Executive Director, Associated Students;
• David Crozier, Director of Financial Aid;
• Sue Hardisty, Administrative Assistant, VP for Student Affairs Office
• Laura Monje-Paulson, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs

Guest:  Katie Robinson, Budget Office, filling in for Laura Lupei

Meeting commenced at 3:32pm by Arden Childers, Co-Chair of SFAC.

 

1. Approve Minutes

Members approved the 12-4-19 minutes with no changes.

2. Fee Task Force Update of Category II Fees (information)                     --Katie Robinson

Task Force was formed to review category II fees. Laura Lupei chaired the task force and members include Elizabeth O’Brien, Anna Reynolds-Smith, Elias Lopez, Hollis Robbins, Erik Dickson, Brian Orr, Christina Gamboa, Katie Robinson, & Hayley Avery. Category II fees are mandatory fees that all students must pay. CAPS, SHC are examples. SSU Category II fees include CPI increases each year.

The task force was charged to review mandatory student fees in order to ensure the fee amount is appropriate to support the services provided to students, share findings with SFAC and provide a recommendation moving forward.

The task force compared our fees with other CSU campuses which were similar to SSU (Humboldt, Bakersfield, Stanislaus, Channel Islands). It was difficult to compare our CAPS fee because other campuses combined such fees with their SHC fees. They also received different amounts per FTE than we receive.

They first looked at Associated Students. Does fee support the program’s current level of operation. Does it seem adequate to support the program’s current level of operation going forward? Does the program’s activities and operations seem consistent with the strategic priorities of the campus?

Overall the task force was proud of their findings.

Oct. – Dec. 2019, Regular Task force meetings.

Jan – Mar. 2020: recommendation to SFAC (Feb. 14 meeting)

April meeting will be SFAC’s final review and approval. Then the recommendations will be sent to Cabinet for approval.

3. Workgroup Update on Course Fees & Category IV Fees (information) –Hayley Avery

They have 3 meetings scheduled for Spring semester. Should have a recommendation by mid-March. Lizzie, Erik, Hayley and Melissa are on this subgroup. They are looking at the spend down percentages of all course fees and are contacting courses that are not spending 50% or more of the fees they’ve collected to find out why they are not using the funds.  Anyone interested in being on this subgroup please let Hayley know. David recommended Nikki Andersen, Assoc. Director for Accounting and Financial Reporting, to join the subgroup.

4. Review Draft Online Form for Course Fees  (discussion)                       --Erik Dickson

Dickson explained that he decided to build the form into a WORD doc vs Qualtrics because it is easier to build this way and to edit. Built Category III Course Fee Request Form first and wanted to share with the committee before building the Category IV form.

The committee reviewed the contents of the form.

On the current form there is a field that asks if the School’s Student Advisory Council was consulted but not all schools have an active SAC. So Dickson changed it to notification of the School Senator who could then ask questions and loop back to SFAC with any concerns.  Final form will be submitted to the AVP for Academic Resources who decides if it needs to be forwarded to SFAC for review and recommendation, as he may be aware of other funding sources for certain requests. Once the AVP sends the form to SFAC, at that point the Trust Agreement would come into play. Also allows for good synergy for what the allowable expenses are. Ultimately the request will be in a Qualtrics survey format.

The first thing that would pop up is the definition and criteria for a course fee.

The questionnaire takes the place of the presentations previously provided by the department requesting a course fee, which is to basically explain the purpose for the fee and the outcomes. A new question asks “Is there an alternative resource to provide what is needed?” Questions are to inform specifically what the fee is going for and how it meets the requirements in the policy, with detailed revenue and expenditure projections.

Questions 3 and 4 are to delineate materials and services that are already provided by the institution from the things that are not provided that warrant a course fee. Lizzie: Defining “exceptional”, is there a definition section or an example provided? If they answer the question that students can get the materials through other resources, that could stop the application process which would be vetted through the AVP for Academic Resources.

Elias would rather see questions that explain the outcome and benefit to students. Discussion ensued about possibly pooling fees for similar expenses such as research methods. Also, who is authorized to initiate the application process?  The committee agreed the Department Chair or School Dean must initiate the process, not an individual faculty member. Hilary suggested that ample instructions be provided to the Chairs and Deans about what will be required to complete the form. Also, deadlines need to be clear as well.

Dickson invited the committee to review the content further and make notes in the Google doc.

Oct. 1 and Mar 1 (6 weeks into the semester) are deadlines for course fee applications in order to be implemented in time for the following semester. Due dates need to be clear.

5. Review Draft Online Form for Category IV Fees (discussion)                 --Erik Dickson

Dickson explained that he wanted the committee to review the online form for Course Fees before he created the form for Category IV fees so they could provide feedback on what they were looking for in terms of the process and description of these categories of fees. Expenditure portion will be more robust but otherwise very similar to Category III fees form. Comments requested by one week from today. Elias offered to help build the qualtrics form. Set up a meeting with Elias, Erik and Christina to build the form.

Items to consider for next meeting:

    Recommendations from Fee Task Force

    Course Fees Process Document

    Category IV Process Document

    Criteria for IRA, Course Fees, & Category IV Fees

Childers concluded the meeting at 4:29 pm.

Minutes submitted by Sue Hardisty.