Administrative Council Meeting Minutes
May 21, 2012
Attendees: Dr. Sukant Misra, Dr. Cindy Akers, Dr. Norman Hopper, Norman Martin, Dr.
Eduardo Segarra, Dr. Steve Fraze, Dr. Leslie Thompson, Dr. Mark Wallace, and Dr. Rick
Zartman
1. Minutes from the April 16, 2012 Administrative Council meeting were approved as
distributed.
2. Dr. Misra reminded the Department Chairs that Dr. Galyean and Dr. Akers would both be
gone the next two weeks.
3. Dr. Misra indicated that within the next few weeks, we should be notified how many new
faculty CASNR will be allowed to hire. They have announced that University-wide, 50
new faculty hires will be allocated to the Colleges. Since our College has been targeted
for growth, hopes are that each department will be allocated new faculty hires on a
competitive basis. Chairs should discuss their department needs with their faculty and be
assessing what areas they need to target with new faculty hires and submit a justification
to Dr. Misra on why this need is important. These justifications need to be submitted
to Dr. Misra on or before June 8th. Please keep in mind that research is a priority, but
we don’t want to compromise teaching. Also, as a college, we need to strengthen our
quantitative/statistical expertise, particularly for service type classes and collaborative
based research. We would like a person to coordinate a multidisciplinary effort to
strengthen this area throughout the college. Dr. Segarra has identified a potential
candidate to fill that need – Agricultural and Applied Economics is willing to give up one
of their new faculty positions to house this person in their department, but any and all
recommendations will be considered if another department is willing to do the same. We
want to go ahead and move forward in advertising this position, but will wait a couple of
weeks before beginning this process. If you have any comments, questions, and/or
recommendations regarding this, please let Dr. Galyean or Dr. Misra know.
4. The Curriculum Committee is in charge of planning this year’s Faculty Retreat. They
have met and would like the topic of the retreat to focus on evaluating and assessing the
college curriculum – both undergraduate and graduate. Please encourage your
Curriculum Committee department representative to bring this topic up at department
(faculty) meetings in order to engage all faculty members in the planning process, and to
help develop possible topics/ideas for discussion.
5. It was agreed the next Administrative Council meeting would be a good time for
everyone to discuss this year’s CASNR/University award nominees. Please note on
your calendar that the June 18th Administrative Council meeting will be longer than
the regular meetings.
6. Other
Dr. Akers passed out a handout showing Application and Admission Information for the
upcoming Fall 2012 school year.
Dr. Akers also handed out a synopsis of the book, “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy
Egan. This book is on the President’s summer reading list for new and current students.
It is the untold story of those who survived the great American Dust Bowl. The author
will be visiting campus on October 12th as part of the Presidential Lecture Series.
Dr. Akers gave a report on the search for the Animal and Food Sciences Chair. The
search committee has met, and the position has been posted on the Texas Tech website as
well as additional national higher education websites. Letters have also been sent to
persons identified as possible candidates. As of this morning, no applications have been
received.
Dr. Segarra noted that AAEC is wrapping up the semester and they had lots of graduates.
Many of their graduates already have jobs.
Dr. Thompson indicated their two strategic hires have been posted/advertised and they
already have a few applicants.
Dr. Fraze and others in the Department of AE&C have just returned from their National
Research conference. They had several papers submitted from Texas Tech. Also, Dr.
Fraze noted there seems to be plenty of jobs available for graduates in Agricultural
Education and Communications.
Dr. Wallace reported NRM has made decisions on the two positions they have
interviewed candidates for. They are currently waiting on word from Human Resources
before they can post their other two positions. Terry McClendon, an adjunct faculty
member, will also be joining them in the fall to teach ecological modeling classes.
Dr. Akers also reminded the Department Chairs about summer supplemental funds, and
to make sure to watch enrollment numbers so those funds are not taken away.
7. Simone Barnhill and Chelle Hillis from SPAR, gave an update on Time and Effort
Certification. Simone noted that they will be going to a semi-annual effort certification
after July. However, in July faculty will be receiving two quarterly reports and both will
need to be completed. She asked the Department Chairs to please let their faculty know
to expect these two reports. The certifications need to occur by August 31st. Reports
here on after will be sent out in January and July.
8. Kathleen Harris from the Office of Research Services, fielded questions to address the
problem of how publication costs can be allocated on grants, and how to have the grant of
a research project pay for the publication of the paper associated with that grant.
Normally, the publication does not occur until 1 – 3 years after the grant has closed. As
of right now, there is no known way of being able to allocate these costs in an appropriate
manner. Dr. Harris will contact other universities to see how publication costs are being
handled elsewhere.