Interim President Ben Allen spoke at the May 25 Professional and Scientific Council meeting, outlining his observations and goals.
"I know that this is a time of uncertainty for almost everyone on campus for a number of reasons. One of my goals is to meet with people across campus, to have conversations about what are the concerns and what are the issues," Allen said.
"My major task is to keep the momentum that has been created by this campus under Dr. Leath's leadership and move that forward during this transition so the next president will be successful, but also handle issues that might be here in the interim so that person can more likely be successful."
Allen said a state Board of Regents task force will work with the three schools on future tuition proposals.
"That task force will be working with the three regent universities, so we have an opportunity to have input to inform their decisions, to learn from their decisions, and to be a part of that," he said. "I think the goal would be to have a longer-term view on how we set tuition -- one that is more transparent to the public, one that is more predictable to the students and that is more rational to everybody. Because pricing tuition is a mix of politics, economics and luck."
Compensation recommendation
Council members voted in favor of the council's annual compensation recommendation, introduced by the compensation and benefits committee. The recommendation encourages:
- Competitive compensation
- Performance-based compensation
- Emphasis on employee wellbeing in the workplace
The recommendation asks for a minimum 3 percent increase for P&S employees to "provide meaningful and appropriate salary increases for high performance to attract and retain that high-quality staff."
Shared governance
The council also approved a motion to adopt its definition of shared governance and ask administration to establish a central shared governance website. The website would include the definition and a list of university groups that participate in shared governance. The motion was developed by a 2016-17 council ad hoc committee tasked with studying shared governance at ISU.
Other business
- Nominations are being accepted for two council vice president roles: university community relations and university planning and budget. Elections for the executive committee positions will be held at the July 6 meeting.
- Council members approved language that charge the policies and procedures committee with regular review of the council's rules and bylaws.
