I.
Call to Order
Mr. Harris called the January 10, 2003 meeting of the Academic Senate to order at 2:35
p.m. in the SETB 3rd Floor Conference Room.
Members of the Senate in attendance included: Dr. Warren Anderson, Dr. Betsy Boze,
Dr. Steve Chamberlain, Ms. Carol Collinsworth, Mr. Roberto Cortina, Mr. Doug Ferrier,
Ms.Linda Fossen, Mr. Victor Fuhro, Ms. Kim Morris-Garcia, Mr. Bill Harris, Dr.
Deborah Huerta, Dr. Edward Hymson, Dr. Farhat Iftekharuddin, Dr. Anthony Knopp, Dr.
Charles Lackey, Ms. Julie Larson, Dr. Jose Martin, Mr. Domingo Molina, Dr. Rafael
Otero, Mr. Jay Phillips, Dr. Ruth Ann Ragland, Mr. Pat Wade, and Mr. Tom Welther.
Visitors included: Ms. Ethel Cantu and Dr. Therese Gallegos.
{At this point in the meeting, Dr. Hymson asked Mr. Harris’ permission to suspend the
agenda and address Dr. Martin. Mr. Harris agreed. Dr. Hymson asked Dr. Martin to
accept his apology, on behalf of the Senate, for the poor attendance of faculty members at
the Academic Affairs meeting convened by Dr. Martin earlier that day.
Dr. Martin accepted Dr. Hymson’s apology and apologized himself to the senators for his
use of inappropriate language at the Academic Affairs meeting. Dr. Martin explained
that the Academic Affairs meeting is the only opportunity for new faculty to be
introduced.}
II.
Approval of the Minutes from the November 22, 2002 Academic Senate
Meeting
No minutes were available for this meeting.
III.
HOOP Policy 7.4.11- “Program to Assess, Certify and Improve English
Proficiency of Faculty”
This was the second reading before the Senate of this policy. The purpose of this policy
as stated in the policy is “to establish uniform procedures to assure that all instructional
personnel possess the state-required oral English proficiency.”
Dr. Hymson, at the November meeting where the policy was first presented, expressed
concern over several parts of the policy. At this meeting, Dr. Hymson distributed a draft
of his proposed revisions to the policy. Dr. Hmyson’s suggested revisions to the policy
included a change to paragraph “C1”. This change would add a second sentence to that
paragraph which would read, “faculty members will be conclusively presumed to meet
the requirements of English proficiency by having completed one or more University
degrees at a University where the language of instruction in the majority of the
individual’s courses was English.” Dr. Hymson also proposed the following revision to
paragraph ‘C4”: “faculty shall be financially responsible for any additional training
required to remedy the deficiencies. Only the additional costs incurred by the University
as a result of attendance by a faculty member in existing classes in English offered by
UTB/TSC that would have been offered, whether the faculty member attended or not,
will be charged to the faculty member.”
A discussion followed Dr. Hymson’s presentation of his proposed revisions. Dr. Hymson
explained to the Senate that the proposed changes would minimize financial burdens and
minimize the number of people who need remediation.
Dr. Hymson then moved that the Senate accept the first revision to HOOP Policy 7.4.11;
paragraph “C1”, second sentence- “faculty members will be conclusively presumed to
meet the requirements of English proficiency by having completed one or more
University degrees at a University where the language of instruction in the majority of the
individual’s courses was English”. Dr. Chamberlain seconded the motion. Mr. Harris
called for a show of hands vote. Mr. Harris and Ms. Larson counted six- for and twoopposed. The motion passed.
Dr. Hymson next moved that the Senate accept the revisions to HOOP Policy 7.4.11,
paragraph “C4” changing the paragraph to read: “faculty shall be financially responsible
for any additional costs incurred for training required to remedy the deficiencies. Only
the additional costs incurred by a faculty member in existing classes in English offered by
UTB/TSC that would have been offered, whether the faculty member attended or not,
will be charged to the faculty member.” Dr. Knopp seconded the motion. Once again
Mr. Harris called for a show of hands vote. Mr. Harris and Ms. Larson counted eight-for
and one- opposed. The motion passed.
Dr. Knopp then moved that the Senate adopt HOOP Policy 7.4.11 as amended. Dr.
Hymson seconded the motion. Mr. Harris for a third time called for a show of hands
vote. Mr. Harris and Ms. Larson counted nine-for and zero- opposed. The motion passed
and HOOP Policy 7.4.11 was approved as amended.
IV.
Faculty General Assembly Meeting Report
Mr. Harris reported the General Faculty Meeting was held on Wednesday, January 8,
2003. Mr. Harris asked Ms. Larson to give the report.
Ms. Larson reported that the meeting was sparsely attended. She also reported that Mr.
Harris discussed what the Senate had done over the previous semester. Mr. Harris,
according to Ms. Larson, reviewed the following items:

Technical rank- Mr. Harris told the faculty that the community colleges used for
comparison purposes in terms of salary equity includes Austin Community
College, Alamo Community College, Brazos County Community College, and
Tarrant County Community College.

Ombudsman- Mr. Harris told the faculty that the Senate is looking into creating
an ombudsman to handle faculty concerns.

Parking- Mr. Harris told the faculty that the Parking Committee will be surveying
the faculty and staff to gather information on the parking situation at UTB/TSC.

SLIP accounts- Mr. Harris told the faculty that existing SLIP accounts will not be
disconnected.

Chancellor’s visit- Mr. Harris talked to the faculty about Chancellor Yudof’s visit
to UTB/TSC on December 6, 2002.

Budget- Mr. Harris told the faculty that funding from the legislature for next year
will be a tough fight.
Ms. Larson ended her report by deferring to Dr. Gallegos who voiced her concern about
the Library at the General Faculty Meeting. Mr. Harris invited Dr. Gallegos to the Senate
meeting to voice her concern.
Dr. Gallegos presented the following list of complaints to the Senate regarding the
Library:
1. “UTB/TSC continues to invest in online databases, but they are often inadequate
because the graphics, illustrations, and/or tables don’t print, making them
unusable for some types of assignments.
2. The online abstracts are so general that isn’t until the article ordered through
inter-library loan arrives that the student can tell that the article isn’t appropriate
for the assignment. The abstracts in the old bound issues are far superior; the
databases we buy should have abstracts of the same quality.
3. In some cases, articles ordered through inter-library loan never arrive.
4. In trying to help my students find articles that I know will be appropriate and
which I know are in our library in hard copy or in the online databases, I often
cannot locate the articles using the obvious keywords and descriptors. Since one
purpose of having students do research is for them to learn use the library tools, I
can’t just walk then over to the journal in the stacks, so they lose the opportunity
to use some of what we have here (and have paid for}.
5. Many (most) journals brought at considerable expense (including key journals in
certain fields, e.g. TESOL Quarterly) are no longer kept and bound instead;
instead they are sold for 25 cents! (Other journals available today for a quarter
are recent copies of English Language Teaching Journal and Journal of
Abnormal Psychology and many in the health sciences.) At least some of these
should be kept.
6. Old bound magazines are taking up valuable space in the stacks. For example, as
of this afternoon, there are 7 selves of old U.S. News & World Report, 4 selves of
Sports Illustrated, and 4 selves of Texas Highways and Texas Gardener.”
In addition to complaints, Dr. Gallegos had the following suggestions:
1. “The library should actively solicit complaints about online databases that don’t
print graphics or which have almost worthless abstracts so that better databases
can be bought.
2. A complete list of journals routinely sold off and indices that the library is
considering dumping should be made available so that faculty have the
opportunity to tell the library what we want kept.
3. If binding is too expensive, we can keep the journals in those metal bins.
4. Space can be made available if the old bound journals (e.g. Sports Illustrated) are
purged of journals not necessary for a college library.
5. When the library is out of space for storing journals, they should be offered to the
departments so that key journals are still available in hard copy.
6. And of course, we need more space at the library. Maybe it is time to move the
computer classrooms over to the old student union building and reclaim that part
of the library.”
Mr. Ferrier responded to Dr. Gallegos by thanking her for her concerns. Mr. Ferrier
explained that the journals sold in the library are either multiple copies of that journal or
gifts. He also explained that the Library is not dumping hard copies of any journals. He
said that if a journal is online, the library doesn’t keep a hard copy and in such cases, dual
subscriptions have to be paid to receive both a hard copy and the online version of the
journal. The Library opts for the online subscriptions instead of the hard copy.
V.
Faculty Advisory Council (FAC) Report
Ms. Collinsworth attended the December meeting of the Faculty Advisory Council (FAC)
and present the following report to the Senate:

The FAC received information on the issue of Free Speech at UT-System
campuses.

The FAC received a visit from the UT Regent Robert Estrada. Mr. Estrada talked
to the FAC about himself and his plans.

The FAC received an update on technology transfer policies.

The FAC received an update from Ed Sharpe on the K-12 Initiative. Ms.
Collinsworth said that Ed Sharpe reported that 4.1 million students would be
involved at 7,000 different school campuses. Ed Sharpe said the K-12 Initiative is
aimed at preparing students for attending college.

The FAC’s Faculty Quality Committee will be conducting a satisfaction survey.
This survey will be funded by the System, will be conducted online, and the
results will go to an independent party not the local campus administrators.
In addition, to Ms. Collinworth’s report, Mr. Harris reported that Chancellor Yudof has
signed off on a policy allowing for leadership committee on system campuses. A
leadership committee would consist of the University President, the Provost, the
President of the Faculty (Academic) Senate, the President of the Staff Senate, and the
President of the Student Government Senate.
VI.
Other Business
There were four items of “Other Business”.

Mr. Welther reported that he attended the October meeting of the Texas Council
of Faculty Senates (TCOFS) in Austin, Texas. Mr. Welther reported that the
following items were discussed at the meeting: (1) 5, 000 new faculty members
will be needed across Texas by 2005 to teach the growing number of students in
higher education; (2) Texas pays its faculty the lowest salaries in the United
States: (3) the status of intellectual property in terms of Distance Education; (4)
Distance Ed is essential in “Closing the Gaps”- but Distance Education has
problems including a high drop-out rate, loneliness of the student, and the idea
that the professor could become nothing but a content-provider.
Mr. Welther also reported that 32 colleges were represented at this meeting. He
further discovered that part-time instructors at UTB/TSC are the lowest paid
among the 32 colleges. He said 31 of the represented colleges paid between 2 and
3 thousand dollars. Mr. Welther also said that Texas A&M Texarkana and
Texarkana Community College are interested in setting up a partnership similar to
UTB/TSC.

Mr. Harris presented five nominees to the Senate for consideration on the
Curriculum Committee. The five names presented by Mr. Harris were: Steve
Chamberlain- Education; JoJo Estrada- Business; Mary Ann Lubno- Health
Sciences; Pat Wade- Science, Math, and Technology; and Cheryl Phelps- Liberal
Arts. A motion was made and seconded to accept these five nominees to serve on
the Curriculum Committee. The Senate approved the five names and Mr. Harris
will forward the names to Dr. Ragland.

Mr. Welther moved to approve Kathy Vanderslice Carter’s nomination to serve
on the Academic Standards and Records Committee. Mr. Cortina seconded the
motion. The Senate approved the nomination.

Mr. Phillips said that he has three faculty members who report to Developmental
Education. He said since Developmental Education does not belong to a school
or college, his faculty are disenfranchised. Mr. Phillips, therefore, proposed that
the three Developmental Education faculty be allowed to vote with Professional
Staff.
Dr. Knopp requested that this matter be referred to the Executive Committee
before the Senate votes on this matter.
VII.
Senate President’s Report
Mr. Harris had four items in his report.

Mr. Harris reported that Ms. Fossen needs 16-20 faculty volunteers for the
Enrollment Management subcommittees. Mr. Harris said if anyone is interested
he/she should contact Mr. Harris or Ms. Fossen.

Mr. Harris reported that elections for Senate officer and senator positions will
take place this spring. He asked Senators to start thinking about who they think
would be good candidates for these positions.

Mr. Harris reported that he and others met with the new UT-System Chancellor
Mark Yudof on December 6, 2002. Mr. Harris reported that he expressed to the
Chancellor our need for more resources.

Last, Mr. Harris personally thanked Ms. Karen Fuss-Sommer and Dr. Lucy Willis
for organizing the Holiday Party. Mr. Harris reported that the party was a huge
success.
VIII.
Provost’s Report
Dr. Martin had eight items in his report.

Dr. Martin welcomed everyone back for another semester and wished everyone a
Happy New Year.

Dr. Martin reported that enrollment for spring is over 9900 students. Dr. Martin
reported that a smooth operation occurred at arena registration. Dr. Martin said
the location of arena registration was changed from Jacob Brown to the Library.
He said that seemed to work well.

Dr. Martin reported that the dedication of the new dorms will take place on
January 11, 2003 at 8:30 a.m. The name chosen for the dorms is the Village at
Fort Brown. Volunteers are needed to help students move into the dorms.
Volunteers will receive a T-shirt. Move in will begin at 8:00 a.m.
IX.

Dr. Martin reported that UTB/TSC’s Bachelor of Applied Technology (BAT)
degree is a finalist for the Bellwether Award. Dr. Martin said that other
institutions in the UT-System are now interested in this degree.

Dr. Martin reported that several people at UTB/TSC (Dr. Strong. Dr. Mancillas
and others) spent their Christmas vacation writing a grant proposal for a science
reform grant. The grant for 20 million dollars would involve 5 schools and
reform the way science is taught in the schools.

Dr. Martin reported that he has been appointed to the UT-System Committee on
Accountability.

Dr. Martin reported that the campus is working on eliminating social security
numbers as identifiers. He said illegal use of social security numbers may result
in identity fraud.

Last. Dr. Martin reported that the challenges facing the University in terms of
funding continue to mount. Dr. Martin said it is not time to put the white flag and
surrender. He did point-out that education is much cheaper and more rewarding
than prison.
Announcements
Mr. Harris announced that the February Academic Senate meeting will be moved from
February 7, 2003 to February 14, 2003.
X.
Adjournment
Mr. Harris entertained a motion to adjourn. Dr. Knopp so moved, with a second by
acclamation. The meeting stood adjourned at 4:25 p.m.