Meeting of April 15, 2003

President Sepe addressed the committee and stressed his commitment to making changes that will improve the College's operations and services to the students, generate more revenues or decrease costs.

It was noted that the budget situation will not be improving any time soon. As a result we should be looking for suggestions that will allow CCRI to better utilize or even reallocate existing resources.

It was noted that the committee's charge consisted of two phases. The first phase is to solicit and evaluate suggestions from the College Community. The second phase will deal with reviews of various functions to determine if they can be completed in a more effective manner. Many of the functions to be reviewed may arise from suggestion received in phase one.

Some of the examples of possible changes mentioned indicated that improvements can come in many forms such as: 1. The reduction in the cost of an operation. 2. The creation of additional resources (financial as well as personnel). 3. The improvement of an operation to make it run more effectively. 4. The improvement of our information gathering system to support better decision making. 5. The reallocation of existing resources.

It was noted that communication with the College Community is important and should be ongoing.

The committee was asked to submit recommendations to the President's Council for its consideration or for further review. In some instances the committee may not be able to perform an in depth review of a particular suggestion that warrants further study. In these instances the committee may make a recommendation to the President's Council for it to possibly form another group to conduct a more in depth analysis.

It was emphasized that this is not a "witch" hunt and that it will not be possible to implement all suggestions.

It was noted that a good source for suggestions would be contained in the projection sections the NEASC report and in the results of the recent student survey.

The committee also spent time discussing how to get the college community to participate. The committee members agreed to continue to urge participation from the College Community at the various meetings that they attend. It was also agreed to send out a memo along with a form to all faculty and staff requesting them to submit suggestions.