MERC

MERC Board of Director’s Meeting

May 26 , 2004

Attending: Greg Burris, Don Doucette, Robert Stein, Mark Mabe, Russell Helm, Joel Lareau, George Rickerson, Rita Gulstad, Bill Mitchell, Bill Giddings, Nancy Piringer and Sherry Loyd

MERC Chair-Elect Nominations and Election Schedule – Piringer

Nancy Piringer reported that no nominations were received for the Chair-elect position.

Rita Gulstad, Central Methodist College, graciously volunteered to fill the Chair-Elect position. Since she had been nominated, and had accepted, to fill the Director-at-Large position for the Independent and Proprietary Institutions, she has also volunteered to contact Chad Shepherd to fill this position. Gulstad will report back to Piringer.

Greg Wirth, St. Charles Community College, has agreed to fill the position of Director-at-Large for the 2-Year Public and Technical Colleges.

Dave Imler, Logan College of Chiropractic, will fill the position of Director-at-Large for the second year of Bruce Vieweg’s two-year term for the Independent and Proprietary Institutions.

Per the Governance Procedures, electronic voting must be open for 30 days. Piringer will send an e-mail to the Institutional Representatives by June 1. These positions will be effective as of July 1, 2004.

MERC Budget Reserve Discussion – Burris/Piringer

The FY05 MERC budget has been revised since the materials were presented at the March MERC meeting. This change is largely due to refinement of the labor allocation methodology and the data underlying the labor allocation.

The impact of the HB3 reduction on public tail circuits and the HB3 shared network funds is unknown at this time. MOREnet will have plans in place for how it is going to deal with this reduction shortly after the start of the FY05 year.

Don Doucette moved, Gulstad seconded, and all were in favor of living up to the expressed wishes of the Institutional Representatives at the HELIX conference to begin the gradual spending down of the reserve by discounting membership dues subject to whatever financial information is available this summer. Invoices should state the membership dues amount, the discount amount and a total amount due.

Piringer is currently putting together a packet of MOREnet information to be sent to the Institution Representatives. This packet will include a letter from Greg Burris, which will mention that plans are underway to reduce fees and enhance the HELIX conference. Burris will have the letter to Piringer by June 4. Burris will also review the entire packet prior to it being distributed.

HELIX 2004 had a loss of $6,107.00, which MERC will be paying. Burris is committed to supporting the HELIX conference and subsidizing an additional amount from the reserves to bring in speakers for the FY05 conference. Gulstad and Piringer are going to start working on the conference budget. They will share what they find with the Board so a line item can be added to the budget and conference preparation can be started.

Bandwidth Management Task Force: Chair Selection - Burris

Burris explained that with Bruce Vieweg leaving, we need someone to fill the chair position. Gulstad volunteered to call Randy Raw to see if he would be interested. If Randy is unable or unwilling, Russell Helm will contact Jim Graham. Due to timing, this new chair will not be on the board. The chair will be invited to board meetings as needed.

External Performance Measures Project Update - Mitchell

Mitchell reported that Bill Elder from the MU Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis (OSEDA) will be the project manager for both the Missouri and National initiatives.

To date we have interest and a commitment from both Wisconsin and Kansas. Oklahoma and Indiana are interested; however, they haven’t committed. The hope is that there will be a pilot this fall in the higher education community.

There is a meeting June 15-16 at the Kansas City Airport Marriott. The goal for the meeting is to complete a methodology and a process. The goal is to deploy in the 2004 fall semester and to have results by the StateNets annual meeting in February 2005.

Piringer will be sending the June meeting information to Doucette and Stein. They are going to check their availability to attend.

Robert Stein said that he commends MOREnet for how they are going about it. He likes that they’re not just jumping in and getting it done, but trying to do it the right way. The results will be good to have for the next legislative session.

HELIX 2005 Preliminary Planning - Piringer

Piringer reported that HELIX 2005 will again run concurrently with the Spring Technical conference. The conference dates are April 6-7, 2005, and will again be held at Tan-Tar-A. Piringer and Gulstad will start working on the budget and pulling together a conference committee and they’ll send a report out to the Board via e-mail. It was asked of the board members to think of appropriate conference themes and e-mail Piringer with their suggestions.

MOREnet Services Update - Piringer

Centra: As of March 1, 2004, the following 10-pack purchases have been made: MLINC (1), NWMS (1), Ozark Tech (1), Springfield Greene Library (1), UMHC (1), UMKC (12), UMSL (12), UMR (1), UM Extension (5), St. Louis Comm. College (1).

RVA: To date there has been one one-time assessment done for William Woods College; Covenant Theological Seminary is in the process of purchasing a one-time assessment.

Filtering: To date 25+ organizations have applied. These requests have mainly come from K-12 and public libraries.

Please contact Nancy if you have any questions or would like more information on any of these services.

MOREnet Training – Piringer

Piringer reported that attendance at MOREnet training sessions has been down. The Board discussed possible ways to increase/encourage attendance and suggested training sessions be open and free of charge for the summer of 2004. Gulstad moved, Doucette seconded and all were in favor.

A decision was made to survey the Institutional Representatives and Professional Development Representatives to find out why attendance is down. Piringer will draft a survey and share with Burris and Doucette. MOREnet Training will be on the August 18 Board meeting agenda.

Thank You Greg

Don thanked Greg for his service and Nancy reminded him that he isn’t off the hook yet.

Adjourned 11:20 a.m.
Respectively Submitted by Sherry Loyd