Colleagues,

At Saturday’s Love.Honor.Care women’s basketball game, the recipients of the $5,000 Cancer Research Awards (and their mentors) were announced. Information about the donors for the awards and a list of winners and their projects are attached (Please note - attachment is available by contacting the Provost's office). Congratulations to all.

Now, about this week’s Three. There are two important topics I want to cover this week, both lengthier than normal, so here is the Weekly Two:

Promotion and Tenure – I am pleased to announce the faculty members who recently received promotion and/or tenure and a promotion for one librarian. This is a significant accomplishment in their academic careers and an acknowledgement of their dedication to teaching, research and scholarship, professional engagement and service. Please join me in congratulating these outstanding colleagues.

Promotion to Full Professor

Denise Taliaferro Baszile, Educational Leadership

Ron Becker, Media, Journalism, and Film

Jennifer Blue, Physics

John Bowblis, Economics

Martha Castañeda, Teacher Education

cris cheek, English

Yu-Fang Cho, English/ Global and Intercultural Studies

Jeong-Hoi Koo, Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering

Kate de Medeiros, Sociology & Gerontology

Amanda McVety, History

Stephen Quaye, Educational Leadership

Gokhan Sahin, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Valerie Ubbes, Kinesiology & Health

Tenure

Jennifer Rode, Associate Professor, Nursing

Leslie Stoel, Professor, Marketing/Fashion Program

Suzanne Stricklin, Associate Professor, Nursing

Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor

Katherine Abbott, Sociology & Gerontology

Katherine Batchelor, Teacher Education

Kristen Budd, Sociology & Gerontology

Karen Brown, Nursing

Amelie Davis, Geography/Institute for the Environment & Sustainability

Bob De Schutter, Armstrong Institute of Interactive Media Studies

Scott Friend, Marketing

Mack Hagood, Media, Journalism, and Film

Frank Huang, Music

Yao "Henry" Jin, Management 

Seonjin Kim, Statistics

Dominik Konkolewicz, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Jonathan Kunstman, Psychology

Jeff Kuznekoff, Interdisciplinary and Communication Studies

Michele Navakas, English

Barbara Oswald, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Andrew Paluch, Chemical, Paper and Biomedical Engineering

Alexandru Alin Pogan, Mathematics

Andrea Righi , French & Italian

Amy Roberts, Family Science & Social Work

Brody Ruihley, Kinesiology & Health

Chris Sutter, Management 

Eric Stenstrom, Marketing

Sarah Watt, Educational Psychology

Promotion to Associate Librarian

Carrie Girton, Library

Board of Trustee 5 yr Budget Resolution – As you know, at their December meeting, Miami’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution directing the President and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Services, David Creamer to develop, by the Board’s February meeting, a detailed five-year base budget plan that would address the University’s anticipated budget challenges over the next decade, provide funds for established university priorities, provide sufficient investment in the priorities to be identified in the new strategic plan, and prioritize for faculty and staff annual salary improvements.

That long-term budget plan was presented at Friday’s Board of Trustee meeting (02.22.2019) and was adopted. The final Board Resolution and the five-year budget plan (Please note - attachment is available by contacting the Provost's office.) includes the budget directions announced by President Crawford at the February Faculty Assembly meeting and in his Feb. 7 email (Please note - attachment is available by contacting the Provost's office.) to campus (1.5% budget reduction in administrative units, 2.0% reduction on Auxiliary units and 1% re-allocation of funds in Academics).

Please note, the board resolution includes language permitting the University to accelerate the base budget plan in the future under certain enrollment and other scenarios, and as such requires that administrative and auxiliary operations have fully executable plans for all budget reductions across all five years identified by the May 2019 Board meeting.

I have included information about the resolution and Miami’s current and future budget priorities to stress that:

1. This is a board-mandated timeline for our budget decisions this semester.
2. The directive for budget reductions and reallocations by President Crawford and the strategic priority recommendations that will emerge via the the Strategic Planning Steering Committee will impact all areas of the University. For Academic Affairs, it will mean a thoughtful, critical review of academic majors, programs and staffing, and I am currently working with the Deans to determine the methodology for this review. Right now, there is misinformation about the process circulating within the division. I appreciate your patience until you receive correct and final details directly from us.
3. Funds recovered through this University-wide budget process will be invested in three priorities identified by President Crawford and approved by the Board:
   • merit and need-based scholarships
   • our most important academic initiatives and priorities, and recommendations identified by the Strategic Planning Steering Committee
   • to attract and retain talented faculty and staff.
4. The budget reallocation and strategic planning processes that we are currently conducting are critical to Miami’s future growth, viability and competitiveness.

Please note: The board-approved Base Budget Model attached, includes totals for a 1% and a possible 2% academic reallocation. The plan for the Oxford and Regional campuses, as communicated consistently by the Board and President, is the 1% reallocation.

The final budget reallocation decisions will likely find that some areas of our division will receive budget increases as we invest in new initiatives and academic priorities while other areas will experience budget reductions. Processes like these budget reallocation measures, university investments in Boldly Creative and other academic priorities, Miami’s aggressive fundraising campaign strategy and the innovations coming forward through our strategic planning process will position Miami for the future and help us plan, prepare and advance in challenging times.

These budget decisions will not be simple or easy, so I appreciate, in advance, your assistance and input as we work through these important processes this semester.

Until next week,

Phyllis

Please note: The Weekly Three is formatted for use with Google Mail. If you open the e-mail through Outlook or other e-mail services, it will likely affect the formatting of the message. All this information can also be found on the Academic Affairs website.