Highlights of the College Park Senate meeting on March 13, 2008

1. Report of the Senate Programs, Curricula, and Courses (PCC) Committee (Carmen Balthrop, Chair)
   • Voted unanimously to rename the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Family Studies as the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Family Science
   • Voted unanimously to rename the Ph.D. in Journalism and Public Communication as the Ph.D. in Journalism Studies

2. Proposed Mandatory Health Insurance for Undergraduate Students, Report of the Senate Student Affairs Committee (Roberto Munster, Chair)
   • At national level, many private and public universities require students obtain health insurance, including 3 other universities in the University of Maryland System
   • Proposed in Fall 2006 and committee formed, several preproposals
   • Recommendation is to require mandatory health insurance coverage
     • Allow hard waiver
     • Applies only to undergrads
     • Keep current $100K maximum coverage for each injury
     • Increase financial aid to cover needy students
   • Implementation details to be left to future
   • Motivation for proposal
     • Mandatory coverage allows UMD to join local university consortium and negotiate lower costs.
     • Estimate cost of insurance will drop from $1300 to $800 per student
     • If health insurance is mandatory, then cost is eligible for financial aid
   • Some objections raised against taking decision out of students' hands
   • Questions raised as to current enrollment in health insurance plan. Current status is as follows:
     • 1600 (7%) undergrad students not covered by health insurance
     • 1300 (5%) undergrad students are covered under current health insurance plan
     • Remaining students covered by family's health insurance
   • Student representative noted that the SGA voted in favor of change
   • Motion was approved to send recommendation to president, with 9 voters against/abstaining.

3. First Draft of the Strategic Plan by Provost (Nariman Farvardin)
   • Committee has been working for about 6 months
   • Presented overview of current draft of 10 year strategic plan
     1. Values, vision, mission
        • Enhance standing as a world-class, preeminent institution of higher education
        • Achieved through unwavering commitment to excellence
     2. Priorities
        • Undergraduate education
        • Graduate education
        • Research - establish set of interdisciplinary efforts to tackle societal issues
        • Outreach
     3. Initiatives
        • General education (i.e., CORE) - add more flexibility
        • Graduate education
        • International programs
        • Surrounding community - East campus development, improving campus safety
     4. Enablers
        • Faculty & staff
        • Infrastructure
        • Resource allocation - adjust enrollment (fewer but better)
        • External resources - fundraising (increase endowment from $400 million to $1 billion)
   • Next steps
     • Comments on current version accepted online until March 21, 2008.
     • Campus forum March 26th.
     • Revised plan in April

Clyde Kruskal and Chau-Wen Tseng