The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College
Academic Senate Minutes
January 13, 2006
I.
Call to Order
President, David Pearson, called the January 13, 2005 meeting of the Academic Senate to order
at 1:10 p.m. at the Gorgas Board Room.
Senate Members in attendance: Cantu Ethel (*),Collinsworth Carol (s), Corbeil Rene (s),
Dameron Charles, Davis Bill (s), Fossen Linda, Fuhro Victor, Fuss-Sommer Karen (*), Gallegos
Therese (s), Heise Elizabeth (s), Hockaday Mabel (s), Hollier Gerald (s), Jones Irma (*), Lacher
Joe (s), Lackey Charles, Larson Julie (s), Maldonado Maxwell Virginia (s), Martin Jose, Morgan
Bobbette (s), Nelson Eldon, Pearson David (*), Peltz Gerson (s), Pena Eli, Phelps Cheryl (s),
Phillips Jay, Phelps Cheryl (s), Ragland Ruth Ann, Stockton Carl, Sullivan James (s) Sutterby
John (s), Zieschange Paul Hermann (s).
Senate Members Absent: Celaya Pat (*), Ferrier Doug, Holt Jim, Macari Emir, Martinez
Rosemary, Otero Rafael, Rajasuriar Mahandran (s), Ronnau John, Silva Hilda, Sullivan Mary,
Sullivan Thelma (s), Zavaleta Anthony.
Guests in Attendance: Acevedo Suzanne, Lopez Genaro, Mugdh Mrinal.
II.
Review and Approval of the Minutes
Dr. Pearson called for review and approval of the minutes from the December 9, 2005 Academic
Senate meeting. Ethel Cantu mentioned that her report was listed in two sections with the
correct section being the one under the 7B section. Under the list of senate members in
attendance, Suzanne Acevedo should not be listed as many times and she is considered a guest
so should be listed elsewhere. Rodney Sullivan moved the minutes be approved as corrected.
Bobbette Morgan seconded the motion. The motion passed and the minutes were approved.
III.
HOOP Policies: Suzanne Acevedo, Associate Dean, Sponsored Programs
A.
10.10.1 Intellectual Property, 2nd Reading
The Senate recommended that section D—Classification of Intellectual Property be replaced with
new text taken directly from Regents Rules which was done. A new References Section was
added to the end which refers the reader to specific sections of Regents Rules for further
clarification or information. Dr. Lackey questioned section B-Scope where the wording has
“…and to candidates for master’s and doctoral degrees, …” He would like to suggest it read “to
graduate students” rather than the specific master’s and doctoral degrees because there are
graduate students that are working on certificates and or are non-degree graduate students so a
general term might be better for this policy. Carol Collinsworth asks why not just refer to students
in general instead of a specific level of student so you can put a period after students and post
and pre doctoral fellows. The change in this section would then be “…students and to post and
pre doctoral fellows.”
Julie Larson questions whether this policy applies to the UT System as well as UTB/TSC and if so
does this affect all system components? If this policy applies to UTB/TSC only, we may want to
delete the UT System. Someone answered that it may apply to RAHC people. Gerald Hollier
suggests using “UT-System and/or UTB/TSC”. Bill Davis asked Suzanne Acevedo if she took
this information as boilerplate from UT System Counsel so that this policy would be the same
across the state. Suzanne said this was modeled after the San Antonio policy, and it was
approved by the Office of General Counsel. Discussion ensued. Suzanne clarified that even if
this revised policy didn’t get to the Coordinating Board on time, UTB could meet their eligibility for
their application. Because we thought there was pressure to have a policy in place quickly, that is
when it was pulled from San Antonio and sent to the Office of the General Counsel to see if UTB
was on the right track. They replied that it looked great to them. Carol Collinsworth suggests
using the wording “working for UTB/TSC or at UTB/TSC”. Bill Davis indicated that if they keep
the original wording plus the first amendment suggested, it would clear it up. Julie Larson
disagrees with that. She states that the wording” UT System” would mean every component in
System. Why are we imposing ourselves on other component institutions? Bill Davis disagrees
with that interpretation. There were differing points of views presented. Rene Corbeil suggests
taking out “UT System” and leaving the rest. Gerson Peltz suggested, “employed by or working
at UTB/TSC”. Gerald Hollier suggests that this policy applies to “persons employed by UTSystem at UTB/TSC including but not limited to UTB/TSC full time and part time faculty….
Therese Gallegos makes a suggestion that reads:
“This policy applies to persons employed by UT System at UTB/TSC including, but not limited to,
full- and part-time faculty and staff; visiting faculty members and researchers; anyone using the
facilities of the UT System or UTB/TSC; students; and postdoctoral and pre-doctoral fellows.”
Dr. Stockton asks if this policy also has a Reference section at the end with a statement that this
policy and related procedures will be subject to review by the Division of Academic Affairs. This
would be a good statement to add. Who should review this section? Victor Fuhro indicates that
the old policy was reviewed by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Vice President of
Business Affairs. So we need to add a section entitled Review-This policy and related
procedures shall be subject to periodic review by the Office of Academic Affairs and the Office of
Business Affairs. Therese Gallegos moved to accept the document as amended. Gerald Hollier
seconded the motion. Motion carries.
B.
7.7.5 Misconduct in Research, 2nd Reading
On the Misconduct in Research Policy, the last statement was changed as passed by the Senate
in December. John Sutterby moved that HOOP policy 7.7.5 Misconduct in Research be
approved as revised. Gerson Peltz seconded the motion. Motion carries.
IV.
Presentations/Discussion: SACS Re-accreditation, Ruth Ann Ragland, VPAA
Dr. Ragland gave an overview of the status of SACS Re-accreditation with Dr. Eli Pena, who is
now our director, assisting her in answering questions. SACS will have their visit in the Spring
2008. This SACS is a different process than what we have known in the past. In the past, it was
one big section of compliance with must and should statements. Now it has two parts:
Compliance and Compulsory Mandated Information. Institutional Effectiveness is now the focus
of both parts. Emphasis will be on student learning outcomes and what we have done to
measure and improve it. First part is due in 2007. Dr. Mugdh, Cindy Lerma and various faculty
and staff in specific areas will be called upon for completing this section. Faculty may not be
called upon in such huge numbers as in the past. They will be called upon to work on the QEP
for student learning which needs full institutional input. UTB has five years to have the QEP
ready and five years to implement the program. We are learning what other institutions are doing
in the QEP area. This area has only been in effect for two years and new schools under this
program were just reported out under the new plan. There is not a lot of history to fall back on.
For the site visit this time, they will have a desk review where they look at all the materials on the
compliance part, and as long as we have done what we needed to have done, they won’t ask
questions about those things when they come. However, when SACS comes, they will ask more
about the QEP portion of the report. It is a good time for us to reevaluate ourselves.
Eli Pena mentioned the compliance part has 80 statements that must be answered. Dr. Ragland,
Dr. Phillips, Dr. Mugdh and others are helping him look at the 80 statements so they can identify
folks on campus who might be able to help with answering of those statements. Six questions
deal with student activities—Dr. Silva will look to see who can help with those. Dr. Gallegos asks
if he could make statements available to everyone. Dr. Pena says he will run copies for deans
and dept chairs. He will also scan them and put them online in answer to someone else’s
question. He will include what is needed for documentation. Dr. Ragland indicates that another
change to the process is that it is almost mandatory that there be an electronic component so that
it is easy to read and anyone on the site review can use a link and find the information needed.
Doug Ferrier has assigned someone to work on that.
With regard to the web site, David Pearson asks if there are any available models. Yes, the first
schools to be accredited, A&M Kingsville and TSTC were approved in December, so we are
going to draw upon those models. Each component must come up with a QEP. TSTC did theirs
on critical thinking. UNT is up for a site visit and their QEP suggestion is to talk about the effect
of student learning in large classroom situations. One of the consultants wasn’t sure if that one
was going to pass because it wasn’t focused on student learning. We need to keep it focused
and simple. TSTC wrote a Title 5 project to get the funds to implement what they say that they
were going to do. Bill Davis says that the UNT QEP sounds interesting. Could we use something
as broad as persistence and retention and have that be our model since that fits our goals
throughout? Would that be out of bounds? Yes, that could be. Our Student Success Task Force
could be the QEP or something that we find in the student success force could lead us to a topic.
This is unchartered territory. Is there only one topic for the whole university? Yes. Each
department could have a different topic but the entire University has to be behind it. If SACS
members stop a student in the hall and asked them about the QEP, students must know about it
so a lot of advertising and inclusion from all stakeholders is necessary. T-shirts and Hats are
coming—Eli. Very shortly we will need to report to SACS about our change in mission statement
because it is a substantive change and will require a visit with our new Doctoral Program in
Education. We may have to have a visit by SACS before we have the other visit. Dr. Martin asks
if you could have a Mr. QEP instead of just a Miss QEP. Chip Dameron points out that whatever
method we arrive at the QEP, we need to involve a wide area of the campus to do this. There
must be some process of involving all stakeholders. Dr. Pena suggests that when UTB went
through process of general ed core, it involved a large number of people, so we can do that this
time as well.
Senate President’s Report
V.
The major event occurring since the December 2005 meeting of the Academic Senate was the
regular meeting of the Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees, which took place on
Thursday, December 15, 2005, in the Gorgas Board Room. A number of items were mentioned:
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A memorandum of agreement has been signed between UTB/TSC and Goddard Space
Center, some of whose members will in the future come to our campus as adjunct
professors.
The members of our national championship chess team were introduced.
The Board received a briefing, “Sahyadris: Mountains of the Monsoon,” by Sandesh
Kadur, a part-time staff member at Rancho del Cielo.
Nineteen students recently took their Licensed Vocational Nursing exams, with a pass
rate of 100%.
The Winter Commencement, to be held on the Student Union Lawn on Saturday,
December 17, will include 1,155 degree candidates.
The firm of Long & Chilton completed an audit of UTB/TSC’s financial standing, resulting
in a rating of “unqualified”. The audit results were accepted by the Board.
The major issue raised at the meeting was consideration of a new tuition policy for the coming
years:
Each UT System component is required to develop a tuition and fee policy for the 2007-2008 time
period. Whereas tuition and fees are currently calculated on a one-year cycle, the new two-year
cycle is intended to provide students greater predictability in planning their educations. The core
principle of the UT System mandate was that in light of the institution’s strategic goals, any
increases be the minimum necessary to maintain academic quality.
In response, VPAA, Ruth Ann Ragland, assembled a 20-member committee of faculty, students,
and staff to develop the policy. During November 2005, the group met to discuss key issues.
Public hearings were held to gather campus input, and presentations were made to the Academic
Senate, Staff Senate, and SGA.
The committee determined that new monies were necessary to accommodate the anticipated 4%
enrollment growth during 2007-2008. Specifically, additional funding was required for the
following:
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33 new faculty lines.
New programs, including new doctorate programs.
Support staff.
Utility increases.
Scholarship set-asides.
The recommendations involved increases in statutory tuition, designated tuition, compulsory fees,
incidental fees, and graduate fees:
Statutory Tuition: This is the component of tuition managed by the Texas Legislature. In 2006,
statutory tuition was set at $50.00 per semester credit hour. It will rise to $52.00 in 2007 and to
$54.00 in 2008.
Designated Tuition: Until recently, increases in designated tuition had to be linked to increases in
statutory tuition. As a result of tuition deregulation, however, it is now flexible, and under the
control of each UT System component. In 2006, designated tuition at UTB/TSC was $44.00 per
semester credit hour. It will rise to $56.00 in 2007 and to $62.00 in 2008.
In total, whereas in 2006 a student at UTB/TSC paid a combined statutory/designated tuition of
$94.00 per semester credit hour, in 2008 this figure will rise to $116.00.
Compulsory Fees: These are fees which impact all students similarly. Recommended increases,
and rationales, are:
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Library Fee from $2.00 to $3.00, to extend Library hours.
Advising Fee from $25.00 to $50.00, to hire 10 new advisors and 10 peer advisors.
Computer Use Fee from $10.00 to $11.00, to provide “virtual hard drives” for students. A
system where students can store their papers, portfolios on a server and will be able to
keep it for a long time after they leave here.
Student Services Fee from $10.00 to $11.00, to expand services.
Athletic Fee of $1.00, to roll out new athletic programs.
In total, compulsory fees will increase from $47.00 to $76.00 per semester.
Incidental Fees: These are fees which differentially impact students depending upon their
program of study, resource use, and other factors. Recommended increases, and rationales, are:
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Library Print Fee from $.05 to $.10, to recover costs of printer equipment.
Nursing Exam Fee increases will be passed on to students.
Physics Fee, on top of existing $30fee, to add two courses. Most of the advanced
physics courses have an advanced fee attached to them, but two got left off the list so
they are just adding those two to the list.
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Industrial Technology, which has various lab fees.
Graduate Fees: The recommended increase, and rationale, is as follows:
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Tuition differential will increase from $19 to $30 per semester credit hour, in order to add
eleven graduate assistantships. Dr. Lackey clarifies—the advising fee for graduate
students is staying at $25 so the additional advising fee pertains only to undergraduate
students.
Dr. Ragland noted that, even with these increases, UTB/TSC will still have the lowest tuition of
any UT component.
The Board agreed that while any increase in cost is hard on students, the value of a quality
education is worth it. The Board voted to affirm the increases, which will go into effect in Fall
2006.
John Sutterby asks if anyone is collecting data on the length of time it takes to get advised so that
we have a first-line data collection. Dr. Ragland indicates that they are doing data collection. Dr.
Mugdh indicates there is one more variable, when we have more advisors; we have goals of
adding more students to those advisors. You can’t calculate pre- and post- if there will be a big
push to send students to advisors. Carl Stockton says there is some talk about assigning
advisors to colleges or schools which is another factor to consider. There is also a plan to do
more off-hour advising. Bill Davis says they are also trying to get technology to let students look
through the information themselves. Advising and degree audit is coming. It takes approximately
3 hours to input data for a Bachelors degree program, then you have to test and make sure that it
is correct and that it does what you are asking it to do. Eli says that when you have a degree
plan like Education and Business it is easier to enter it into audit. If, however, you have a degree
plan with minor and electives, and if you have 24 minors, then you also have to enter each of the
24 minors plus the electives that go with the minors. Bill Davis suggests that only the most
common three minors should be added to a degree audit and not all of the minors. Dr. Mugdh
says it goes beyond the degree audit to the undeclared students, who change their programs of
study regularly. These are the students you want to go to the advising center.
VI.
Committee Reports:
A.
Cardenas Hall Classroom Renovation Committee: Ethel Cantu.
Here are the highlights from this report. She convened a group of faculty from Liberal Arts and
Mathematics who teach at North and South. She prioritized their comments:
1) Crowding—Rooms have a lot of furniture in them, some of which is broken. 35-37 chairs in
less than 600 sq feet.
2) Improve the learning environment—look at chalkboard, variable light controls, window blinds
that are room darkening, mounting the projector screens so that they are invisible.
3) Install current media technology but Liberal Arts faculty does not want the audio-visual
equipment to be in a fixed station but moveable.
4) Noise—reduce the noise; rooms that are next to Mechanical Room are very loud, TV in the
lobby and traffic in the area make too much noise, events in the lawn or courtyard interfere with
instruction.
5) Classroom environment—pencil sharpeners and painting.
6) Being able to recover classroom space in North and South that has been converted to offices
instead of classrooms. Specific needs by department that need to have specific storage for
certain kinds of equipment like maps.
Dr. Nelson says it is wonderful for some departments to move into new classrooms with the latest
level of technology available to them. Carl Stockton clarifies that a lot of his faculty still teach in
the North and South Buildings. Dr. Nelson hopes that we might strongly consider upgrading
those classrooms and facilities in a major way. One suggestion was to have painting scheduled
at a time when school was not in session so that students and faculty did not get sick because of
it. North South remains the heart of instruction and letting it deteriorate and working with
cramped facilities do not serve the students. Having fixed equipment would become a positive
step in classroom space. Dr. Martin indicated that UTB has set aside $300,000 to put in fixed
equipment this year. Dr. Dameron publicly announced his appreciation of the work that Ethel did
to give us an opportunity to begin addressing some of the problems. Dr. Phillips suggests that
this report be forwarded with the approval of the entire Senate so that the report is from the
Senate and not a subcommittee which would make a stronger statement. Carol Collinsworth
says that when she taught there, the boards were chalk boards and were terrible. We need to go
to white boards. Ethel Cantu stated that this was addressed in the report and people wanted a
mix of chalk and white boards. The seam for the chalkboards is currently down the middle where
the two panels come together. There should be an entire panel down the center with the seams
on the sides. Karen Fuss-Sommers conducted exit interviews with her students and one item
that everyone discusses is the comfort and size of the chairs in the classrooms. Students
complained that they desks were not large enough. Rodney Sullivan asked that very question
and facilities said the chairs were within the minimum requirements for the room but the extra
equipment had to be taken out because they were blocking the exits. Dr. Martin stated that in
every new building that we have, the seats are purchased larger. Expectations have changed
and there is an apparent change in the way people are sized. In the Life and Health Science
Building, chairs are larger than in SETB. There is an implication that size is increasing and every
effort is made to get larger chairs. We are taking one step at a time. Fire code inspections take
place everywhere to make sure our classrooms meet the criteria. If we have a choice of sending
students away or exceeding fire code, we have to go with the fire code. Bill Davis moves that the
Senate endorse the North and South Building report and that it be forwarded to the VPAA,
Provost,Facilities Coordinator and the TSC Board. Carol Collinsworth seconded the motion and
motion carries.
B.
Review of the General Faculty Meeting: Karen Fuss-Sommers, Senate Vice
President
The meeting was not widely attended. Senate proposes that in order for the general faculty
meeting to be better attended that it actually be added to the end of the VPAA meeting so that
faculty are not actually dismissed. David Pearson gave a PowerPoint presentation and how the
Senate addressed the concerns identified in August 2005. Dual enrollment got a lot of heated
discussion. It was understood that 60 credit hours could be transferred in to the university by
dual enrolled students. The Senate needs to have the people from dual enrollment come back to
talk about this specific issue. There were major concerns that BISD has rules and regulations for
teachers at BISD that trump the rules that UTB might have established for dual enrollment faculty.
Workload issue was the next discussion. The graduate workload should be discussed when the
workload issue is presented. Graduate faculty currently teaches 9 hours and would like to have it
reduced to 6 hours. The Pan Am model has a grandfather clause for those faculty who do not
wish to go on the new workload. A number of considerations should be looked at. What happens
to those teaching two graduate classes and two undergraduate classes? How about the
number of hours and number of preps? The next issue was about the North and South Buildings
and the idea of having renovations done when students and faculty were not in the building to
alleviate health concerns. Discussion that department chairs not be part of the faculty
exceptional merit process but have a separate one of their own. Dr. Denise Joseph indicated that
she was on the Welfare committee when this number was arrived at. There is a cap of 10% of
faculty that can receive exceptional merit in a year? It was reported that the original number
came from a gentleman’s agreement by the welfare committee and VPAA that during any given
year approximately 10% would get it. This number has not been re-negotiated since that time.
Bill Davis asks if we have been hitting the 10%. The answer was yes. The 10% should be
apportioned to the schools and colleges depending on their size. The selection process for
exceptional merit is not equal for everyone and there is room for unfairness and problems going
on in several schools and colleges with it. It is this very reason why the process was reviewed.
B.
Exceptional Merit: David Pearson, Senate President
There were major recommendations from the Guidance to Personnel Committees which reviewed
exceptional merit, promotion and tenure. David would like to give an overview today with
discussion moved until the next meeting. David Pearson makes the statement that one of the
recommendations is to have department chairs go through a different process than faculty for
exceptional merit because department chairs get a large part of the exceptional merit pay the way
it is set up right now. Jay Phillips takes exception to the statement that there is a disproportionate
number of department chairs receiving exceptional merit because he doesn’t recall that being the
case. David Pearson says he does not have hard data about the number of chairs getting
exceptional merit.
Rodney Sullivan suggests that chairs are given release time for the department chair work and
are paid for doing that job but then so are faculty that have release time for doing research so are
therefore paid for doing that work so are neither one meritorious in the work that they do? David
Pearson agrees this is a difficult issue. One of the ways that the committee endeavored to
address this issue is that each department should come up with guidelines for the exceptional
merit process. Gerson Peltz asked if this should be done by department or should one set of
criteria be followed by all. Jay Phillips indicated that in terms of exceptional merit, if strict criteria
are set for each department, faculty might paint themselves into a corner. He doesn’t believe you
have to have a checkbox system. Maybe the Senate should completely re-evaluate the entire
merit system. Professor Phillips would prefer to have a new system instead of having rigid
criteria. Generic criteria should be established. Every individual going up for exceptional merit
should come up with an explicit statement about why they are meritorious and include that in their
portfolio. Jay Phillips agrees and recommends that happen. Therese Gallegos stated that it
would be hard for her to say no about a person not being meritorious because it is so subjective a
decision. In terms of personnel actions, it is the domain of the department to sit in judgment with
regard to the issues of tenure, promotion, merit. The department doesn’t seem to be making this
decision so it is at the dean’s level that decisions are being made. This setting of criteria is an
attempt to push decisions down to the department level. The amount of money available for
exceptional merit and how to spread it around was discussed. How do we keep it competitive
and still make it as available as possible? One suggestion was to continue with the 10% rule but
limit it to faculty getting merit once every three years. We will go over these issues in a future
meeting.
VII.
New Business
Ethel Cantu moves that Academic Senate thank Dr. Ragland for the public recognition of those
faculty members that received tenure, promotion and exceptional merit because it is the first time
this has been done publicly. Dr. Ragland still wants to have a party for the faculty receiving
promotion and tenure but it didn’t get coordinated this semester. Bobbette Morgan seconds the
motion. Motion carries. Genaro Lopez asks about the apple awards. The apple awards are
given only in the fall. Dr. Lopez didn’t receive his apple and Dr. Ragland vowed to see about it.
Cheryl Phelps asks what the senate can do to help faculty with the issue of smoking in the
courtyard. There are major concerns about the smoke that becomes trapped between the two
buildings so the smell is very strong when faculty walks through the areas where smoking is
occurring. Smoking is taking place on the catwalks and between buildings. The initial phase
would be of designating smoking areas around North and South. Although the designations
might be made, how would they be enforced? This concern needs to be addressed. Someone
asked what the state regulations are with regard to smoking within so many feet of a building? In
the Life and Health Science building, there are well designated No Smoking signs but people still
smoke. The trick is who wants to be the smoking police? The Dean of Life and Health Science
feels he should do something about it because it is his building; however, it is hard to approach
students that are indeed smoking and ask them not to smoke in that area. Bill Davis indicates it
should be the campus police needs to be the one to enforce it. Carol Collinsworth relates that as
a former smoker, you don’t realize how uncomfortable it is for others to smell your smoke since
you can’t smell it. Maybe there should be some education about smoking going on to tell the
smokers how unpleasant it is for those that do not smoke. Someone asks why can’t the entire
campus be Smoke free? UT-Austin just went smoke free on the entire campus. Enforcement is
still going to be a problem. One idea is to create a space away from North and South especially
designated for smoking. We already have designated smoking areas with benches with shade,
so the problem is not designating areas; it is enforcing the smoking only at those areas. If UTAustin has a campus-wide smoke free environment, it might be better for our students to follow
that lead indicates Dr. Nelson. David Pearson charged Cheryl to take a look at the non-smoking
policies at UT-Austin and then bring back a report to the Senate.
Provost’s Report
Dr. Martin indicated the main items of news are, of course, the appointment of Dr. Ruth Ann
Ragland to the position of Vice President for Institutional Advancement. Let me emphasize how
important this activity is and I may be repeating what President Garcia stated this morning.
Preparation for this: Dean Jay Phillips’ acceptance of invitation to serve as Interim Associate
Vice President for Academic Affairs, and the acceptance by Dr. Eli Pena of the appointment as
Director of Institutional Effectiveness. Other gradual steps: changing of responsibilities,
emphasis on advancement.
Accountability Report is out; for the 4th year in a row, we have led our System in percent increase
in research funding—work by many faculty and administrators, Business Affairs, and notably the
OS Programs.
Renovation is almost complete in one of the wings of the Rusteberg Building which will be
dedicated to the Department of Fine Arts, M1, which will be dedicated to Engineering, and M2,
which will be dedicated to Biology.
Programming is almost finished for the buildings to be financed by the bond initiative. Dozens of
our faculty and staff have been involved in this effort, and I want to thank you all for this. I also
want to reveal that we are expecting to have a small temporary storage and research facility at
the Bahia Grande, where faculty researchers can have a roof over their heads as they prepare to
do work on the Bahia.
Graduation—we are taking a fresh look at this issue, and we have dozens and dozens of faculty
and staff who are focusing on student achievement.
I have a request: I need feedback. I have not had too much criticism. You do not have to give
your opinions anonymously. Dr. Sutterby’s commencement question is a valid one, we are big
into benchmarking. Advising is a big candidate for QEP.
Registration is continuing. We understand that the university received 20,000 phone calls
yesterday, and 18,000 the day before, and many of these are for registration or requests for help.
Enrollment is over 11,000 and still climbing. We thank our Deans and Chairs for opening new
classes to accommodate new students.
We ask your support for our new Science and Math Academy as Dr. Deloria Nanze-Davis and Dr.
Stockton work to get it organized. This is an exciting new initiative, and it’s going to be a
wonderful experience for us all.
Reminder: Dr. Garcia will be moving to the Education and Business Complex. Dr. Ragland will
stay in her office in Gorgas this semester and will have an office at Young House.
The Rio Grande Law Enforcement Association is meeting today in SETB 3rd Floor. We have
about 35 top Law Enforcement officials here. Congressman Ortiz is participating as their Keynote
Speaker. The event was organized by Ben Reyna.
VIII.
Adjournment
Karen Fuss Sommers moved the meeting be adjourned. Dr. Therese Gallegos seconded the
motion. Motion passed and the meeting was adjourned at 4:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by
Irma S. Jones, Senate Secretary