Master plans and finances dominated the latest Faculty Senate meeting Nov. 8.
Senate members highlighted the Kell Munoz Master Plan and its presentation to the faculty senate as a main point of discussion. The Rev. Robert Gerlich, S.J., history professor, said the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., university president, contacted Kell Munoz, the architectural firm designing the master plan.
Henry Munoz, an architect with the Kell Munoz firm and leader of the team designing the master plan, agreed to meet with the Faculty Senate to address their questions.
The senate chose the format of an open town hall meeting, followed by a meeting with the Faculty Senate. The senate left it to Henry Munoz to select a date.
Faculty at the meeting also touched on two reports presented on Loyola’s budget and finances.
Craig Hood, biology professor, reported on the Finance Committee meeting of Oct. 12. That meeting focused on the 2006 – 2007 year-end report and the 2007 – 2008 projected budget.
Hood said the committee reported a budget surplus of $563,000 for the 2006 – 2007 budget.
The 2007 – 2008 projected budget is currently at a deficit of $3.3 million.
There are plans, however, to reduce the deficit to around $500,000.
The university could use two one-time federal grants, totaling $2.8 million, to achieve this, Hood said.
Many of the budget shortfalls are the result of having a smaller group of incoming students, especially freshmen, Hood said.
The operating budget was calculated without including potential faculty raises.
Maria Calzada, mathematics professor, said the budget assumes no raises. It did not state, however, that raises are out of the question.
Wildes, who couldn’t attend the meeting due a scheduling conflict, wrote an e-mail for Gerlich to hand out that addressed faculty raises – specifically, the rumor that there wouldn’t be any.
Wildes wrote that he was waiting to make recommendations about raises until he had a better sense of total enrollment and for the creation of the Educational Disaster Loan Program, a congressional program that will be designed to help all of the universities in the city.
“Once I have a more accurate sense of these two elements, I will make recommendations for salary increases. This may not be until sometime in the late summer, when we have a more accurate picture about enrollment.
“But we will structure such increases to be retroactive to the beginning of the contract period,” Wildes said.
Calzada reported that during the Oct. 29 University Budget Committee meeting, it was announced that Loyola had reached a settlement with its insurance company for the university’s interruption of business settlement.
An interruption of business policy covers costs of a temporary closure due to circumstances such as fire or other covered damages.
The amount of the settlement was not disclosed but it could be used to balance the university budget in the future, Calzada said.
Gerlich announced that the Faculty Senate noted during a previous session that Ignatian scholarships had fallen behind athletic scholarships.
Wildes verified this discrepancy, Gerlich said.
Tara Templeton can be reached at [email protected].
