Present: Jeff Brandon, Kathy Brook, Jack Burns, Richard Cabe, Steve Helmreich (for Jim Cowie), Hart Kayser, Nirmala Khandan, Steve Loring (for Gary Cunningham), Margaret Malamud, Harold Matteson, Cathy Ortega Klett (for Tom Bahr), Nellie Quezada-Aragon, Marilyn Pase, Tim Pettibone, Dave Rocks (for Mike Wolf), John Ronnau, Santosh Venkatraman.

Guests: Jim Peach and Cookie Stephan (co-chairs of the Strategic Planning Committee)

1. Approval of Minutes

The minutes of the October 24 meeting were approved as circulated.

Kathy Brook provided an update on the Research Roundtable Report. A majority of voting members of the URC voted in the e-mail election with all voting in favor of accepting the report. Dr. Conroy placed the report on the agenda of the Deans' Council on November 12. V.P.Tombes and Kathy provided background information. The only comments were a suggestion from Dean Townley for a minor modification of the report and a supportive statement from Dean Higbie. The meeting in Washington has been postponed from December to February.

3. Strategic Planning

Cookie Stephan and Jim Peach provided information and hand-outs on the university's strategic planning process. They indicated that the mandate of the committee is to consider virtually anything except changes in the land grant status, the public status and the geographic location of NMSU. The branch campuses have not been included in the discussion. The committee has met once to receive its charge from the president and has met once with a consultant. A list of proposed subcommittees was distributed and there was some discussion of where research would fit. A flier will be distributed soon seeking volunteers to work on the subcommittees.

4. January Meeting

The next meeting of the URC will be on Friday, January 31. The tentative agenda is a discussion of research issues with President Orenduff.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.

Recorded by Kathy Brook, Chair