Department Heads Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, June 5, 2001, The Center

I.          Call to Order.  Chancellor Yackel called the meeting to order.

II.            Chancellor's Report/University Budget.  Chancellor Yackel thanked the department heads for their input and reported that the budget is on target including the EMME (Extraordinary Merit Market Equity).

Chancellor Yackel announced the resignation of Cliff Chancey to accept a department head position at Northern Iowa University, Cedar Falls, wished him well, and said we are sorry to see him leave PUC.

III.            Strategic Planning and Assessment Update.  Chancellor Yackel reported that the task force is on target with the goals to be presented at the July Board of Trustees meeting, cryptic objectives have been outlined and identification of ten peer institutions are in process.  Rab Mukerjea, PWL Director of Strategic Planning, would like to have this information about mid-June so the task force is now meeting twice weekly to identify the peer institutions, regional institutions with missions and programs comparable to PUC.  Chancellor Yackel said the few vital issues to be addressed will need to be developed into workable goals with identification of funding resources.

Chancellor Yackel reported on the AQIP process and the Colloquium held on campus this past Sunday and Monday to discuss participation in AQIP and use of the opportunity to establish connections.  Institutions participating in the colloquium were Illinois Valley Community College, Northwest Technical College, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and University of Central Oklahoma, together with PUC deans and heads of schools.  Chancellor Yackel said good information was exchanged about the continuous quality improvement and self-assessment process.  The Higher Learning Commission Chicago Director of AQIP, Dr. Stephen Spangehl, joined the colloquium on Monday.

IV.       ARIBA Electronic Procurement.  Phil Brown reported on the upcoming transition of this opportunity of electronic business process, which will be in effect within specific areas of PUC in approximately one month.  The 1996 Procurement Redesign Team is in a pilot mode at West Lafayette and PNC since May 2000.  Strategies for PUC were identified with 70% of the campus planned for participation by July 10, 2001, the remainder by mid-September through December, with systemwide implementation by March 2002.  The vision for this procurement process is to provide excellent customer service while achieving the lowest cost of acquisition for goods and services.  ARIBA is part of a continued process by the University to move from doing business via paper to "E-commerce."

Phil Brown reported that the timeline includes users to be identified by June 8, vendors established by June 22, and user training sessions for staff to be made available with resident experts (8 sessions choices will be available at 4 hours per session).  Phil Brown said needs are being evaluated by inclusion in the process; all purchases will be processed through ARIBA with the exception of those on standing orders.  Purchase cards will be made available for those areas most in need; infrequent purchases will be processed by the business administrator offices. Commodities restrictions for furniture, computers, radioactive purchases, will route automatically to purchasing of the appropriate Radiological and Environmental offices.

Phil Brown outlined the benefits of the electronic process as reduction in requisition processing time; electronic routing and approval; electronic acknowledgment of receipt of goods will authorize payment to be made (no need to route invoice vouchers for signatures); delegates will be authorized to place orders, orders will not require routing to Purchasing Department; ability to follow the status of requisitions; and electronic availability of historical information on requisitions.

Phil Brown gave a short demonstration of the process.  He said that building of additional necessary routing will be an available add-on, called dynamic routing.  Phil said that department head impact will include being able to access ARIBA to click on approve rather than signing a stack of requisitions.  Notification will be made by e-mail of those requisitions to be approved.  Remote access will also be available.  Training schedules will be issued on Friday.  The website will include access to links.  Phil responded to a question on whether there will be criteria for users by stating that any faculty or staff member who has access will be a member, with the system requiring a change of passwords on a regular basis.  Key people in departments will be identified with assurance of sufficient memory for heavy users.  Internet Explorer will be used rather than Netscape as the web browser. 

V.            Records Management Project Update.  Colleen Robison reviewed the project objectives and progress of the project goals reporting the education sessions held participation by every department; the official records clean up campaign was successfully completed across campus last week; all questions received have been documented; and the lessons learned throughout the project have been documented.  Colleen reported on the upcoming plans including the after space study survey to be completed by June 14; a department coordinator survey completed by June 30; the proposal for future records management at PUC by June 30; and, an ice-cream social for the campus on July 12.  The Before and After Space Study Subcommittee reported ten barrels for shredding with most of the remaining paper cleanout going to recycling.  A dozen filing cabinets were also reported as being turned in to the warehouse.  Colleen said that although the cleanup will be ongoing for a while longer for some departments, the next report on this project should provide substantial measurements from the After Space Study survey.

VI.            Announcements/Q & A.  Leo Bryant reported on comparisons of Summer 2001 vs. Summer 2000 enrollments with a +351 credit hour variance.  The total credit hours reported is 13,014 with 14,040 billing hours, $16,000 in budget billing hours.  Student headcount is 3,002 compared to Summer 2000 at 2938.

With no further announcements or questions Chancellor Yackel adjourned the meeting.