2017-2018 Differential Tuition

Advisory Board Meeting (2017 – 2018)

Present:

• Amber Buatte (Business Services)
• Paul Barr (CEE)
• Jagath Kaluarachchi (College)
• Erik Olsen (Engineering Senator),
• Rose Hu (ECE/College)
• Darcie Christensen (EED)
• Derek Wilkins (E-Council)

Minutes

Differential tuition was put into place in Fall 2015. This was put in place of course fees at the 3000 level or higher. Differential tuition is to benefit the students and provide additional resources to help with teaching and other student related activities and events. Differential tuition is applicable to graduate students as well. Since the start of the differential tuition implementation, tuition was phased in over a three-year period starting from FY16 through FY 18. The college keeps 20% of the total revenue to support student activities and the remaining is given out to individual departments based on student enrollments and credit hours of teaching offered.

Amber presented the differential tuition distribution data discussing the different amounts spent by each department and the corresponding areas of focus such as TA wages, supplies, etc. It was indicated that per the original proposal, differential tuition cannot be used to pay salaries of tenure track faculty, but funds can be used to hire or pay salaries of teaching faculty such as lecturers and professional practice professors including supporting personnel such as technicians.

A question was asking if we feel like differential tuition is making a difference in the college. The answers are summarized as follows:

• Yes, the ability to pay for graders/TA’s allow our faculty to focus more on teaching which has helped immensely. For a long time, we never had a culture of having TA’s so differential tuition has helped significantly.
• The use of differential tuition funds within the college is very transparent and the students are seeing amazing benefits from differential tuition
• A few of the benefits that have come from differential tuition funds includes the following:
  • Computer lab upgrades
  • IDEA Factory
  • Metal Factory
  • Engineering Writing Center