Report of Status of Faculty Council Recommendations
Reports of Standing Committees
Dr. Allison moved acceptance of the March 11, 1997, Minutes. Dr. Horn seconded the motion. Dr. Bertholf reported that there were some questions raised about the statement in the minutes concerning the Long-Term Disability Insurance. The statement was interpreted to mean that we changed from a guarantee of 66% to a guarantee of 60% in order for the benefit to be tax exempt. The question was referred to Anne Matoy who replied by letter. She says that the current rate of 66% could have been continued as tax exempt but at a much higher premium. We were able to lower the guarantee to 60%, which gave the recipient a higher after-tax benefit than the current plan and not incur the large increase in rates. The minutes were approved. Dr. Warde moved acceptance of the April 8, 1997, Agenda. Dr. Allison seconded the motion. The Agenda was approved.
SPECIAL REPORT: PROGRESS REPORT ON BIDDING PROCESS AND PPO PROGRESS -- Michael Branson
Dr. Branson reported there were two different bidding processes going on simultaneously. One was the bidding process the administration initiated for the total benefits package and the other was the bidding process initiated by the Health Care Committee for a PPO provider. The PPO bidding process was done by the Health Care Committee in consultation with Buck Consultants who did a feasibility study and recommended that OSU would be much better served by joining a PPO. With the help of Buck Consultants the committee reduced the list of bids to three, PPO Oklahoma, Preferred Community Choice, and Blue Links. Blue Links was a possibility if, and only if, Blue Cross was chosen as the third party administrator for the OSU health care plan. When the administration chose American Fidelity as the third party administrator for the health care, that eliminated Blue Links. The Health Care Committee recommended that OSU affiliate with PPO Oklahoma. Through a subcontracting arrangement, PPO Oklahoma will contain 95% of the Stillwater doctors. Everyone in the A&M system will have access to the same benefits that they currently have. The PPO is not something that an individual faculty joins or does not join. OSU contracts with the PPO which in turn contracts with the individual doctors. If an OSU employee goes to a doctor in the PPO then they automatically get the PPO coverage. If the doctor is not in the PPO then they get the same coverage they currently have. Services rendered by a PPO provider will be 90% covered by insurance and only 10% is paid instead of the current 80-20 split. Most physicians will file the claims for PPO services. This makes the system work more like the prescription card service. All employees are to get a book listing all the doctors and hospitals that are in the PPO. In Tulsa and OKC about half of the hospitals and doctors participate in the PPO. OSU has gone about 6 years without an increase in premiums. A year-and-a-half ago a prescription card service was initiated. This service costs the system $1M per year over the conventional service. This is in addition to inflation. Last summers estimates were that premiums would have to be increased 25-30% this year. With the PPO the premium increase should be about 10%. Dr. Ackerson presented a list of questions which Dr. Branson answered. 1. What physicians outside the immediate area will participate? Answer-64% statewide but it varies with the area. 2. How will coverage be affected outside the PPO service area, when traveling or on sabbatical? Answer-same as now. 3. Is there a "pre-approval" process? Answer-same as now. 4. What role will Stillwater Medical Center have? Answer-same as now. 5. What are the emergency care rules? Is there a penalty if someone seeks care (e.g. for chest pain) and the results are negative (indigestion). Answer-maybe. Our plan does not cover this completely now. It depends on how the physician codes the diagnosis. Same as current plan. 6. What will be an individual's aggregate total coverage? Answer-same as now, $1M lifetime and $250K annual. Dr. Oehrtman said the $250K limit has been retained to give Health International the leverage to negotiate with the hospitals. Diane LaFollette asked if we will have a card. Dr. Branson replied that you will probably have a card but Stillwater doctors will know the plan when they learn you are with OSU. Dr. Gasem asked if there was any downside to a PPO. Dr. Branson replied that he did not know of any. Dr. Finn said that the only difference would be in the amount of time the doctor is willing to spend with the patient.
SPECIAL REPORT: TRANSFER STUDENTS -- Joe Weaver
A transfer student is one who has at least 7 credit hours from another college or university before entering OSU. In the fall 1996 about 38% of the undergraduate students new to OSU were transfer students. Seventy percent of the transfers are from Oklahoma and about half of the instate transfers are from "Tulsa area" schools, TCC, NEO, NOC, NSU, and Rogers. On average, new transfer students have a somewhat lower first-year retention rate than new freshmen (68.4% vs. 75.5%), but slightly higher six-year graduation rates (51.4% vs. 48.2%). The last comparison is a little misleading since the six years start when the student enrolls at OSU and the transfer student has at least one semester somewhere else. In fall 1995 the difference between transfer GPA and first semester OSU GPA was .44. For comparison, new freshman students at OSU in fall 1995 saw their first-semester grades at OSU drop .5 points from their high school GPA. However, in a group of selected OSU courses chosen because of their high enrollment of both "native" and transfer students, only 71.64% of the transfer students received a "C" or better grade whereas 76.88% of the "native" students had a "C" or better. The number of transfer students is probably going to increase over the next few years since fewer students now qualify for freshman admission to the comprehensive universities. Between 1989 and 1993 the enrollment in the comprehensive universities dropped from 20.9% to 18.9% of total system enrollment while two-year college enrollment rose from 49% to 49.8% of the total. OSU does not collect the same kind of background data on transfer students as they do for new freshmen. (e.g. ACT scores and high school GPA are not collected for transfer students). This makes it much harder to compare transfer performance with that of native students. Dr. Lawry asked how OSU compares with other institutions in the state in the number of transfer students enrolling. Mr. Weaver replied that he did not know but could get that information.
REPORT OF STATUS OF FACULTY COUNCIL RECOMMENDATIONS:
President Halligan, Executive Vice President and Vice Presidents
The following motion from the February 11, 1997, meeting is added:
REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES:
A. ACADEMIC STANDARDS AND POLICY -- Joe Williams
Four recommendations were presented to Council from this committee. The first recommendation was to update the Oklahoma State University Policy and procedure 2-0207 to reflect current committee structure, committee names, and changes in administrator's titles. The statement "Faculty members accept the assignment for teaching class." was deleted from 1.03 and the statement "Faculty members are expected to adhere to the assigned class schedule." was added as 2.01. The motion passed. Dr. Williams asked Dr. Lau to present the next recommendation concerning recognizing Bachelor's Graduates who have Achieved Academic Distinction. The recommendation asks Dr. Halligan to implement a program to recognize graduates with 60 resident semester hours of OSU credit as graduating with distinction if their GPA is 3.7 or higher, with High Distinction if their GPA is 3.8 or higher, and with Highest Distinction if their GPA is 3.9 or higher. This recognition should appear on the qualified graduate's transcript and diploma. Dr. Schwarz asked why not put this into Latin. Dr. Lau replied that the committee had no objection to putting it into Latin, but chose English because many of the universities that use Latin for distinctions also have the entire diploma in Latin. Mr. Nizam added that his undergraduate university used Latin for distinctions but had the rest of the diploma in English. The committee accepted an amendment by Dr. Schwarz to use the Latin terms "cum laude," "magna cum laude" and "summa cum laude" for the distinctions as a friendly amendment. Dr. Williams added that the committee also considered using the Cherokee language to describe the distinctions. Dr. Ackerson asked why grade point was being recommended. Dr. Lau replied that some universities use percentages but the committee felt that the grade point would be easier to implement. It would also allow the university to tell the students before hand what it takes to graduate with distinction. Dr. Ackerson added that there are large differences between the GPA's of students in different colleges. Dr. Lau said that the range of percentages of students eligible for summa cum laude in the Spring of 1996 would be from 5% for the highest college to 0% for the lowest. Dr. Moretti said that we could adopt this method now and make adjustments in the future if need be. Dr. Williams said that the recommended GPA's are easily recognized by students that want to set this as a goal. Dr. Halligan said he gave a talk to honors high school students and told them to take all the difficult courses and they were paying no attention. A counselor told him that the students think that as soon as they get into the top third they should not take another difficult course so they can maintain their standing. The motion passed. Dr. Williams asked Ken Eastman to present the third and fourth recommendations. The Faculty Council recommends to President Halligan that: The blocks for final times be changed to: 7:30-9:20am, 9:30-11:20am, 11:30-1:20pm, 1:30-3:20pm, 3:30-5:20pm 5:30-7:20pm and 7:30-9:20pm. The common final exams scheduled in the 7-8:50pm block be moved to 7:30-9:20am and the 7:30-9:20pm block be reserved for evening classes only. Dr. Eastman also pointed out the new schedule removed the lunch break. Dr. Lawry asked if this schedule had been checked with the Registrar's Office. Dr. Eastman replied that there was a representative from the Registrar's Office at the committee meeting. He also added that the new schedule would go into affect when the next class schedule is printed. The motion passed. Dr. Eastman then presented the recommendation for changes in the guidelines for requesting common evening and final exams. Common hours for evening exams and final exams can be used provided that: 1) an instructor has two sections of the same course with at least 100 total students; or 2) an instructor has three sections of the same course with at least 90 total students; or 3) multiple sections of the same course taught by multiple instructors who use the same exam. Instructors with multiple sections of the same course who do meet the above requirements may still petition for and evening and/or common final exam. These requests must be routed through the appropriate channels and will only be approved if time and space are available. In the course schedule book, common finals should be listed in descending order according to total course enrollment. In case of student conflicts in common exams lower listed courses must cede to higher listed courses and the student allowed to take a make-up exam. Dr. Marks asked if multiple sections automatically appear as common exams. Dr. Eastman replied that they had to be requested. Dr. White asked about the problem of finals for Saturday classes possibly occurring during graduation and whether the common evening exams mentioned in the guidelines referred only to the exams during the semester. Dr. Eastman replied that this recommendation did not cover Saturday classes and that the common evening exams are only given during the semester. The motion passed. See the attachments to the April Agenda for the full statement of the recommendations and rationale.
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