Florida Board of Governors

08/26/2011

ACTIONS TAKEN: Meeting of the Florida Board of Governors’ strategic planning committee, August 26

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Present:
Chair Frank Martin
Vice Chair John Rood
Committee members – Governors Dean Colson, Patricia Frost, Mori Hosseini, Tico Perez, Rick Yost
Also present: Chair Ava Parker, Governor Michael Long

In regular business, the members of the Strategic Planning Committee today took the following actions:


The Board of Governors’ Strategic Plan for the State University System of Florida through 2025

Background: Following up on strategic planning meetings and discussions that have been occurring during the past year, Chair Martin convened a committee conference call in June; over the summer, he and Vice Chair Rood also have met several times with staff to review state and national data, and to continue moving forward on the exercise to update the Board’s existing Strategic Plan. At the full Board meeting in June, vital discussion continued with Board guidance to staff and steps to be taken. This entire effort takes the current strategic plan, which ends in 2013, through 2025. This phase is termed “Vision and Overarching Goals” (with additional work completed today, see below). The staff team responsible for the extensive research necessary in this effort will continue, and more information will be brought forward to the September meeting so that, as Chair Martin has stated, this phase is concluded at the end of this calendar year.

Today, Chair Martin finished the committee’s intended dialogue work on both the “Plan Vision and Goals” and “Immediate and Longer-term Strategic Actions” and how the Board wants to monitor its own progress. Chair Martin shepherded extensive dialogue on the three major concepts for the updated Strategic Plan: preeminence, competitiveness, and strategic priorities, all for a knowledge-based state economy.

The committee is finalizing an updated mission statement and vision statement to present to the full Board of Governors meeting in September, in addition to a proposed Table of Contents. The Strategic Plan document emphasizes a high-level vision and goals, not implementation strategies per se. The full Board will discuss at its September meeting more on that. Chair Martin reminded the committee of the discussion and time dedicated at the Board of Governors’ “annual meeting” in January to discuss the strategic planning process of taking a closer look at how the 11 institutions compare to other highly ranked institutions in the nation that are peer organizations (whether research universities, liberal arts honors colleges, etc). The Board and the committee also in the past have talked about taking a closer look at the metrics underlying certain rankings, determining which of those indicators are most important, and trying to determine what it would take to “move the needle” on some of those metrics. For now, the guiding principles and goals were reviewed, along with proposed key progress indicators, in order to move forward on the committee’s work.

Some of the potential strategic actions discussed included:
♦ Provide items to the Legislature and the Governor on the structural changes and additions to the State University System needed to accommodate increased student and research demand.
♦ Avoid unnecessary and costly duplication of academic degree programs across the State University System and promote greater cost efficiencies through collaboration.
♦ Work with the universities to expand the role of e-learning (which includes but is not limited to distance learning) in achieving access and production goals.
♦ Evaluate appropriate and predictable operating and fixed capital outlay funding necessary to ensure a high-quality, well-run System. With recent statutory changes, the System now can predict the amount of revenue to be generated from tuition increases; however, state funding for operations and facilities is more volatile and less predictable than ever. The recent decline in state funding combined with the increased tuition mean students are paying a greater share of total cost. Within the next couple of years, the System could receive a majority of its operating revenues from tuition, and, at some institutions, this already has happened. A determination needs to be made on what is an appropriate percentage that students should pay toward the cost of their education.
♦ Work with the Legislature and the Governor to identify sources of appropriate and predictable capital funding.
♦ Work with the Legislature and the Governor to identify sources of appropriate and predictable operational funding.
♦ Continue to consider the current and future relationship between the State University System and the institutions in the Florida College System that offer four-year degrees. (This began a discussion and remarks regarding the ongoing work of the Higher Education Coordinating Council, which is obligated in Florida Statutes to send a report, with any recommendations, to the Legislature by Dec. 31, 2011.)


“Organizing the State University System for Success”

Background: As part of laying the groundwork for the necessary update to the Board of Governors’ Strategic Plan for the State University System of Florida through 2025, staff have had ongoing reviews of the Board regulations, which number about 100 in total and are grouped in broad subjects, from student admission standards, to guidance on consistency for a wide range of academic and budget/state funding issues. Regulations are the Board’s legal framework to fulfill its statutory and constitutional obligations. Many regulations involve issues that the universities have specific policies to address for their campuses. Most regulations provide flexibility in how they are carried out in university policy. (Eds: The Board “regulation” process is not the same as the state rule-making process. Please do not substitute the word “rule” for “regulation.”) The regulations provide general consistency among the 11 universities for over-arching topics. Board regulations provide flexibility for how they are carried out and further detailed in each university’s own policies and procedures.
Today, the Committee voted unanimously to recommend to the full Board of Governors to re-notice two of the three regulations simply in order to follow our own process; if regulation content changes during the public comment period, it must be re-noticed.
• Continued forward to the September meeting for final adoption, as previously scheduled: Notice of Intent to Amend Regulation 8.002 - Continuing Education
• To be re-noticed: Regulation 8.004 - Academic Program Coordination
• To be re-noticed: Regulation 8.009 - Education Sites

The content of all three regulations is on the web site in the back-up materials posted. Of the three regulations, two were amended from language in the 1970s-1980s during the time pre-dating the Board of Governors, during the Board of Regents, when the System was much smaller with fewer universities. Updating these regulations is critical and necessary in order to ensure unwarranted duplication in the System – and to ensure for the Legislature and to stakeholders that the Board is meeting its constitutional obligations and responsibilities.


About the Board of Governors and the State University System of Florida
The State University System is comprised of 11 institutions with a total enrollment of more than 320,000 students, making it the fourth-largest public university system in the nation in terms of enrollment (some states have more than one university system). The Florida Constitution (Article IX, Section 7) was amended by the State’s voters in 2002 to establish a statewide system of governance for all Florida public universities. As a result, the Florida Board of Governors was created to oversee the State University System of Florida. Responsibilities include defining the distinctive mission of each institution and ensuring the well-planned coordination and operation of the System. The Board is comprised of 17 appointed members – 14 are appointed by the Governor and three are members by virtue of their designations (a faculty member, a Florida Student Association student representative, and the Commissioner of Education). The Board of Governors appoints a Chancellor who serves as the chief executive and administrative officer of the State University System. For more, including the Board’s 2010 Annual Report that reflects accountability measurements and benchmarks occurring at each institution, see www.flbog.edu.

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