Corrections to the Minutes
ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING
Friday, May 29, 2009
SETB Third Floor Conference Room
Agenda
I.
Call to Order
The meeting of the May 29, 2009 Academic Senate was called to order by Karen Fuss Sommer at 1 p.m. at the
SETB Third Floor Conference room.
II.
Presentations Meloney Linder, Associate Vice President of Marketing & Communication presented the four new
commercials in both English and Spanish. They are putting together a new commercial which should be out in
July for technical programs. She indicated the primary markets for these commercials are 18 to 24 yr old or 1844 yr olds. The new campaign logo is “Knowledge Knows No Boundaries” which for the commercials is cut down
to just read “No Boundaries.”
The report on the new look of the UTB/TSC website is that 33% has completed implementation. Their goal is to
assist all departments to get their sections of the website updated. The statistic that her office has is that most
people that visit the UTB website visit two pages: the homepage and then one other page.
III. Senate Members in Attendance
Chuey Abrego
Leslie Arnim
Jude Benavides
Hector Castillo
Pat Celaya
Ethel Cantu
Charles Dameron
Eduardo Del Rio
Manuel Escotet
Doug Ferrier
Angelica Fuentes
Karen Fuss-Sommer
Peter Gawenda
Daniel Heimmermann
Elizabeth Heise
Gerald Hollier
Irma Jones
Joe Lacher
Charles Lackey
Eric Linder
Moustafa Malki
Bobbette Morgan
Eldon Nelson
Grant Olbeter
Cheryl Phelps
Martin Shane
Bashir Tiwana
Senate Members Absent
Janna Arney
Steve Benton
Steve Chen
Bill Davis
Brett Lefler
Emilio Garrido
Richard Gomez
Annabel Treviño
Antonio Zavaleta
Guests
Ruby de La Fuente, SGA
President
Susan Hart, New Senator
Eziquel Mendoza
Melanie Linder
III. Review and Approval of Minutes – Pat Celaya moved the minutes be approved as distributed. Gerald Hollier
seconded the motion. Motion carried.
IV. Senate President’s Report — Karen Fuss Sommer
The President and Vice President of the Senate attended FAC on May 14-15. This month they had dinner at
Bower house with the Chancellor. The new chair-elect of FAC is Dan Formanowicz., University of Arlington.
Our very own Bobbette Morgan will be secretary for FAC. The good news was that the handgun bill was not
passed through the House this time; however, the bill did make it through the Senate. Present at FAC was
Raymundo Paredes, Coordinating Board who discussed Coordinating Board approval for doctoral programs.
There are some pre-requisites like: a market in the area, jobs for graduates, must be competitive nationally,
have available local and state funding. Out of all the programs that were submitted only a third were approved.
Dr. Paredes believes we have too many doctoral programs. One priority should be on undergraduate education.
Franci Fredericks announced or introduced the new UT regents. Regents Rules are considered administrative
law so the FAC worked as a group on an Exigency Policy example.
Update on UTMB issue. The appeals process continues for faculty that has been rifted. Dr. Holzer put the entire
bulk of information including his appeal, documents and affidavits of his hearing up on the web for all to see. He
included the letter from Dr. Calendar, UTMB President who denied his appeal. UTBM will be getting about 1.3
billion dollars in resources from the legislature and others in order to reconstruct buildings. The last appeal that
will be heard is the one from the president elect of the FAC.
Congratulations to Eddie Del Rio as Interim Director of Dual Enrollment.
V.
Committee Reports
o
Welfare Committee Report — Karen Fuss Sommer distributed a research document that lists all the
different definitions that UT Senates have in their constitutions about faculty. This change in the
definition will require a change in the constitution. Regents Rules define faculty as a chief academic
officer, deans and department chairs of academic units. After much discussion, it was decided to add
the vocabulary indicating “chair or below” as part of the definition of faculty.
o
There is a new Vice President, Irv Downey that has been hired. The Senate congratulates him on his
new position. The Senate was disappointed to note that there was neither search committee nor
advertisement for this position. The position is not in the HOOP and neither is the Interim VP for
Research. This new position, the Vice President of Economic Development and Community Service
replaces the VP for External Affairs. Ben Reyna was given the legislative portion of that VP position. If
faculty positions require a national search to try to get the best people for the positions, the Vice
President positions should also require the same. That opportunity was not afforded to the senate this
time. Senate was also not asked to make comment or have input as to the dean of dual enrollment.
o
Treasurer’s Report — Elizabeth Heise Senate has no money.
o
Gender Equity Report – Patrick Smith is no longer with UTB. He has moved to UT-El Paso. He has
submitted his final report on Gender Equity which will be given at the next meeting.
VI. HOOP Policies Committee
o
HOOP 7.3.1 Faculty Workload Responsibilities There was a lot of discussion about
this policy. Ethel Cantu has been working on a faculty activity report in order to report what all the
faculty are doing in different areas of service, research, etc. This activity report outline was distributed
for the Senates review and consideration. This report will be a part of the workload so information will
not need to be duplicated. Elizabeth Hesie moves to accept the HOOP 7.3.1 as distributed for first
reading. Angelica Fuentes seconded the motion. Motion carried.
o
HOOP 7.3.xx Faculty Teaching Load – The separation of faculty teaching load from
faculty workload was done to try to have a policy that deals with lecture hour equivalents instead of
semester credit hours. Each division of the university works in a different measure so this policy is to
help standardize Lecture Hour Equivalents as the unit of measure for the entire university to use. A lot
of discussion was held about minimum teaching load of 18 instead of 24. Some technical faculty have
12 hour load because they must do research, so not all areas of the university use15 LHE. Pat Celaya
brought up the fact that the Senate completed an analysis about technical rank and academic rank and
what was discovered at the time was that there was only one area that was out of line with the teaching
load. For most of the other areas the load was 12 hours. This policy doesn’t preclude departments
from having 15 hours or a 6 hours load. Pat Celaya moves to accept HOOP 7.3.xx as a first read with
the change in vocabulary to account for the correct LHE’s designated for student teaching equivalents.
Dr. Escotet and Chuey Abrego will both work on that wording for the next meeting. Elizabeth Heise
seconds the motion. Motion carried.
VII. Old Business
o
Update on HOOP Exigency Plan. The new exigency plan was distributed. This plan was copied
from the UT Dallas plan which we streamlined to our university. There is no definition of what financial
exigency is in Regents Rules or our HOOP so that definition was one of the items needing inclusion.
One of the items that might be needed is an attempt to use the words “seeking concurrence” on #2 or 3
instead of advice and concurrence. The typo on #3, page 2 should include the word “To” at the
beginning of it. Kevin Buckler moves to accept this policy with the changes noted as first reading. Joe
Lacher seconded the motion. Motion carried.
VIII. New Business
Cheryl Phelps brought forth a suggestion made by the faculty in Liberal Arts which is to increase the time
between classes to 15 minutes since classes are now held all over campus and students need the time to get to
class on the other end of campus..The Senate needs to invite Emma Miller to see how that would impact
scheduling of rooms etc. Dr. Dameron, VPAA indicated that changing the time between classes reduces the
number of classes to be offered as we will tend to lose some of the later time slots. The Senate can discuss this
topic next year.
Kevin Buckler indicated he is having an issue using the databases through the library web site. The reason for
that is that the databases keep changing the IP address. Doug Ferrier indicated that if a faculty member enters
through BlackBoard, it should always work. Also, other faculty indicated that when the IP address changes, it
also affects the cell phone internet which drops the connection.
IX. Provost’s Report — As the Interim Provost was absent, there was no report given.
X.
Announcements
o
o
Next Academic Senate Meeting —June 12, 2009
SETB Third Floor Conference Room
XI. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 p.m. by the President, Karen Fuss Sommer.
Note: Welfare Committee meets immediately prior to the Senate meeting.