Faculty Senate Minutes
February 6, 2019
8th Floor, Mary and John Gray Library
Attending: Arts and Sciences: Brian Williams, Jennifer Fowler, Tom Sowers, Sanaz Alasti, Garrick Harden, Stacey Knight, LeAnn Chisholm, Gretchen Johnson, Pat Heintzelman, Sujing Wang, Gwinyai Muzorewa, J.P. Nelson, Suying Wei, Cengiz Sen, Robert Vallin, Valentin Andreev, Joseph Kruger, Martha Rinker, Cheng-Hsien Lin Business: Vivek Natarajan, James Slaydon Education: Donna Azodi, Johnny O’Connor, Israel Msengi, Shannon Williams, Kim McGough, Cristina Rios Engineering: Berna Tokgoz, John Gossage, Xuejun Fan Fine Arts and Communication: Nandu Radhakirshnan, Ashley Dockins, Jacob Clark, Nicki Michalski, Paul Hemenway, Sherry Freyermuth, Cherie Acosta Library: Michael Saar, Scott Crawford College Readiness: Melissa Riley Lamar State College Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel
Not Attending: Arts and Sciences: Kami Makki, Jing Zhang, Christopher Martin, Maryam Vasefi, Ashwini Kucknoor Business: Seokyon Hwang, Purnendu Mandal, Karyn Neuhauser, Tim McCoy Education: Connie Ruiz, Kaye Shelton, Dorothy Sisk, Janice Kimmons Engineering: Gleb Tcheslavski, Mien Jao Fine Arts and Communication: Amber Marchut
Call to Order: 3:33 P.M.
Guest Speaker, Michael Saar, Library:
- The library quality survey will be coming out soon. It is supposed to open next week and stay open for about 3-5 weeks. It will be available to all faculty, staff and students.
- The new dean of the library wants to make more data driven decisions, so it is important that this survey get a good rate of return. It will be a major element in the decision making for the library’s strategic plan.
- The survey should only take about five minutes, and there will be incentives (an iPad, gift cards, etc.) offered.
- Please spread the word as well as take the survey. It will be used to help determine what resources are used, need updating or inclusion in the library.
Approval of Minutes:
- Tom Sowers made a motion to approve the minutes; Vivek Natarajan seconded the motion. It passed.
President’s Report:
- James Slaydon has been appointed chair of his department and thus must step down as president. This will be his last meeting.
- Faculty should Google UT Dallas scandal. There has been an issue discovered up there that took place while our provost was still there. Faculty may be asked questions about it, so they need to be aware of the situation.
Committee Reports:
- Academic Issues:
- We have turned in the compliance narrative for SACSCOC after working on it during the break. We are waiting for comments and revisions from Theresa Hefner-Babb.
- Faculty Issues:
- We need to meet next week.
- Unfortunately we will not be able to accomplish a complete revision of the faculty grievance process before the end of this year. We will, however, focus on the structure of the committee(s) used in the process.
- Faculty who file grievances are asked under which process they want to be reviewed, chapter 2, section 5.2 or appendix I. A faculty member who recently filed was told that a secret committee had been convened to review their case and s/he is being kept in the dark about the proceedings. This is definitely an issue we need to work on.
- Budget and Compensation:
- We will meet next week to finalize the travel policy.
- Research and Development:
- We hope to get details next week about which leave proposals will be funded.
- We will meet next month to work on plans for how to share and publicize the projects that are completed during leaves.
- The question is asked if the senate can get a mailing list of all faculty so we can directly mail information about leaves and grants. In the past, the administration has wanted to control mailing lists through the office of vice-provost for academic affairs. It is suggested that talking with the CID may help disburse information.
- 08 task force:
- We are working on a statement to send to tenure track faculty to inform them about upcoming changes and urge the development of committees to begin devising departmental criteria.
- Strategic Issues:
- We have been talking with Craig Escamilla. The UAC seems to be trying to move in a better direction.
- We need to provide more structure for IA students. Perhaps a return to the I Will format, where they are required to sign a contract with guidelines are requirements, would help them to succeed.
- The last admittance day is still on the second day of class even though we were told by the administration that it would be moved back.
- If probationary students come and then leave, they do still count against us in the retention rate.
- It is suggested that it would be helpful to limit the number of courses an IA student can take per semester in the beginning. It would stop them from taking on too much and failing.
- We lost 500 undergraduates as a result of Harvey, and students are taking fewer hours.
- The staggered start dates have complicated student head counts.
- The hit list talk has died down.
- The information is still being gathered, so we need to be aware that it is still out there and will come back.
- Faculty should not be held responsible for IA (or other students) who don’t come to class or submit work. They are choosing to fail beyond what the faculty member can control.
- There is a freshman support center in development.
- Evans is promoting us as an “intimate learning” school, but Drs. Marquart and Nichols are still pushing larger classes. These views are in conflict with one another.
- We need to find ways to provide the necessary support without continually adding work for faculty.
Old Business:
- The board seems to be supportive of instituting a process for evaluating the university president as long as it doesn’t mean more work for them. San Marcos does it, and we should talk to Alex White about the process.
- We are expecting to be told there is not money for raises.
- Strategic planning is under way and a consulting firm has been hired.
New Business:
- Jennifer Fowler was nominated for president. Vivek Natarajan made a motion to close the nominations. The motion was seconded by Valentin Andreev and carried. Jennifer was elected by acclamation.
- We will do nominations for vice president via e-mail.
- The office of research and sponsored programs has said they do not have any money for research enhancement grants this year. This means that new faculty who were hired with the promise of this funding were misled.
- Despite lack of funding for faculty raises or research, there are still new administrative positions being created and filled. Although the system board has oversight, they usually go along with whatever the school president wants. However, it is sometimes possible to gain traction regarding such issues like salary and the faculty-administration ratio through drawing attention to it through SACSCOC.
Motion to Adjourn:
- Vivek Natarajan made a motion to adjourn at 4:13 P.M. It was seconded by Michael Saar.
Submitted by: Nicki Michalski