Senate seeking UIF input

By Nancy Wick
University Week

Next week, the Faculty Senate will send out a survey to gather comments from the UW community on the University Initiatives Fund (UIF) program. The survey, which will be sent over e-mail and can be answered on the Web, is part of a comprehensive review of the program that is now under way.

“The purpose of the survey is simply to get perspectives from people on campus about the effects of the program,” said Faculty Senate Chair Mary Coney. “Then we will hold a public forum at which people can also give their response.”

The forum is slated for 3-5 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 22 in 120 Kane.

The UIF was created in 1996 as a mechanism for reallocating University resources. Its goal is to fund innovative new programs, strategically selected to strengthen the UW and to seize opportunities that would otherwise be lost. Money for the fund comes from 1 percent assessments on all University operating budgets. The program was originally designed to be in effect for five biennia; awards for the third round will be announced this summer.

The review is being sponsored by the Faculty Senate and the Office of the President. In addition to its survey and forum, the senate’s Committee on Planning and Budgeting, chaired by Senate Vice Chair Brad Holt, is studying how strategic planning was used by individual units in determining where their cuts should be made.

Concurrently, the Provost’s Office is conducting reviews of the 10 UIF projects funded in the first round. Each project is being evaluated by a committee consisting of two UW people and one outside content expert. After the review, each committee writes a report with recommendations.

“The committees are reading the original UIF proposal for the project, as well as the yearly progress reports that are filed,” said Debra Friedman, associate provost for academic planning, who is managing this part of the process. “Then they spend a full day with involved faculty, students, staff and other constituencies - such as deans and chairs - to get their views on the effectiveness of the project.”

She said that five of the 10 project reviews have been completed. When all 10 are complete and have been seen by the President and provost, they will be posted on the Web.

The Faculty Senate also plans to post its survey results on the Web. The survey, which asks respondents to weigh in on the impact of the UIF on the University, especially their own units, will be sent to the campus community via e-mail with a URL attached. Respondents will have the option of printing the e-mail and mailing responses or going to the Web to fill out the form and submitting it electronically.

“We are very interested in what the campus community has to say about this and hope that many people will respond to the survey,” Coney said.

Those who would also like to speak up in person can do so at the forum. A dean, a student, a staff person, a department chair and a UIF recipient will comment briefly and then the floor will be open for questions and comments.

All of the materials gathered in the various reviews will be supplied to an overall review committee that includes both campus and off-campus members.

Chaired by Social Work Dean Nancy Hooyman, the committee includes Rita Colwell, UW alum and director of the National Science Foundation; William Richardson, former UW graduate school dean and now president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Robert Craves, chair of the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board; Gregory Miller, UW professor of civil and environmental engineering; James West, UW professor of Slavic languages and literature; and Gorkem Kuterdem, president of the UW Graduate and Professional Student Senate.

That committee will also receive basic information about the UIF as it was originally conceived, descriptions of all the projects funded so far, information about how the budget cuts to sustain the UIF were taken in the individual units and comments on the UIF from members of the UW community.

The committee will meet on campus April 5-6, at which time it will talk with key University people - including faculty and deans, senate leadership and some of the participants in individual UIF projects - and discuss all the information it has received. A report with the committee’s recommendations is expected soon after.

“We will make the committee’s report available to everyone in the University community,” President Richard L. McCormick said. “Then, in consultation with the faculty leadership and the deans, I will in good faith try to use the recommendations as I consider the future of the UIF.”