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DOCUMENTS OF THE GENERAL FACULTY
Following are the minutes of the regular Faculty Council meeting of October 20, 2014.
Dean P. Neikirk, Secretary
General Faculty and Faculty Council
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING OF
OCTOBER 20, 2014
The second regular meeting of the Faculty Council for the academic year 2014-15 was held in the Main
Building, Room 212 on Monday, October 20, 2014, at 2:15 PM.
ATTENDANCE.
Present: Gayle J. Acton, Dean J. Almy, William Beckner, Lance Bertelsen, Simone A. Browne, Noel B. BuschArmendariz, Angeline Grace Close, Dana L. Cloud, Patricia L. Clubb, James H. Cox, Catharine H. Echols,
Brian L. Evans, Melanie Diane Feinberg, Gregory L. Fenves, Philip M. Gavenda, Sophia Gilmson, Andrea C.
Gore, Michelle Habeck, Barbara J. Harlow, Louis Harrison, Hillary Hart, Jay C. Hartzell, Kevin P. Hegarty,
Susan S. Heinzelman, Steven D. Hoelscher, Hans Hofmann, Coleman Hutchison, Brent L. Iverson, Jody Jensen,
Geetika Jerath, Christine L. Julien, Susan L. Kearns, Can Kilic, Donna Marie Kornhaber, Judith Langlois, John
C. Lassiter, Naomi E. Lindstrom, Bradford R. Love, Timothy J. Loving, Julia Mickenberg, Jennifer Moon,
Douglas J Morrice, Dean P. Neikirk, Donald P. Newman, Gordon S. Novak, Patricia C. Ohlendorf, Sheila M.
Olmstead, Gage E. Paine, Keryn E. Pasch, Domino R. Perez, Jorge A. Prozzi, Kornel G. Rady, Vance A. Roper,
Stanley J. Roux, Cesar A. Salgado, Cinthia S. Salinas, Snehal A. Shingavi, Vincent S. (Shelby) Stanfield, Kirk
L Von Sternberg, Maria D. Wade, Brian Wilkey, Karin G. Wilkins, Hannah C. Wojciehowski, Charters S.
Wynn, Edward T. Yu.
Absent: Rebecca M. Callahan (excused), Kate Catterall (excused), John R. Clarke (excused), Lydia Maria
Contreras (excused), M. Lynn Crismon (excused), Stephanie W. Crouch (excused), Arturo De Lozanne
(excused), Douglas J. Dempster, Randy L. Diehl, Andrew P. Dillon, Tarek El-Ariss (excused), Bradley G.
Englert, Ward Farnsworth, Thomas W. Gilligan, Vernita Gordon (excused), Roderick P. Hart, Linda A. Hicke,
Robert L. Hutchings, S. Claiborne Johnston, Manuel Justiz, Susan R. Klein (excused), Daniel F. Knopf
(excused), Desiderio Kovar (excused), David L. Leal (excused), Alice Chang Liu (excused), Sharon Mosher,
Dennis S. Passovoy (excused), William C. Powers (excused), Kenneth M. Ralls (excused), Soncia ReaginsLilly, Wayne A. Rebhorn (excused), Yaneli Rubio (excused), Juan M. Sanchez, Paul R. Shapiro (excused),
James C. Spindler (excused), Rajashri Srinivasan (excused), Frederick R. Steiner, Taylor Strickland, Alexa
Stuifbergen, Jeffrey D. Treichel, Debra J. Umberson (excused), David A. Vanden Bout (excused), Gregory J.
Vincent, Sharon L. Wood, Luis H. Zayas (excused).
Voting Members:
Non-Voting Members:
Total Members:
55 present,
10 present,
65 present,
22 absent,
23 absent,
45 absent,
77
33
110
total.
total.
total.
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I.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.
Secretary Dean Neikirk (professor, electrical and computer engineering) gave a brief summary of the
secretary’s report (D 11919-11925). As tradition, Secretary Neikirk reported that two new memorial
resolution committees had been formed to prepare resolutions for Professors Emeritus Creed Abel and
Charles Walton, both from the College of Pharmacy, and that two will soon be finalized and signed by
the president. He then gave a quick update on the status of legislation since the last meeting. He said
that six proposed Undergraduate Catalog changes had received final approval from UT System and/or
the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and five catalog proposals and one item related to
budget council authority were under review by the chancellor’s office. He noted that there was no
legislation pending approval from the president or provost and that they had moved everything through
very expeditiously.
II.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES.
In the interest of time, Secretary Neikirk announced that he would switch to the unanimous consent
mode for approval of the minutes of the regular Faculty Council meeting of September 15, 2014 (D
11905-11918). He asked the Council if there were any changes to the minutes, which had been posted
and distributed to the members prior to the meeting. Hearing no changes, the minutes were approved as
distributed.
III.
COMMUNICATION WITH THE PRESIDENT.
A. Comments by the President—None.
President Powers was not in attendance.
B. Questions to the President—None.
IV.
REPORT OF THE CHAIR.
Because of scheduling issues, Chair William Beckner (professor, mathematics) announced that
Athletic Director Steve Patterson would give his report on Athletics next and invited Past Chair Hillary
Hart (distinguished senior lecturer, civil, architectural, and environmental engineering) to make the
introduction. Dr. Hart reminded members that Mr. Patterson came to the UT Austin from Arizona State
University last November. She said that he had earned both an undergraduate degree in business and a
Law degree from The University of Texas at Austin and was “obviously dying to get back.” In her
preparations for the meeting, Dr. Hart discovered that the media had reported that being athletic
director at UT Austin is “the most coveted job in college sports.” She said that she had met with Mr.
Patterson several times to talk about the flow of information between faculty and the athletics
programs and that she was delighted that he was here to talk with the Council. See section VIII. New
Business, item B. for Mr. Patterson’s presentation.
Following the athletics presentation by Athletic Director Steve Patterson, Chair Beckner commented
on the Ebola crisis and referenced President Powers’ letter, which indicated that the campus and the
city had made it a high priority item and would be ready to act if something unexpected were to
happen.
Chair Beckner reported on the recent System Faculty Advisory Council meeting (SysFac) and a
number of topics that had been discussed, one of which was the Intellectual Property Task Force
Report. He encouraged members to review and provide feedback on the report, which is posted on the
Council’s website under Spotlights and Events < http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/20142015/Task_force_intellectual_property.pdf>. A second topic to follow and keep track of high priority
for the Board of Regents was new activities of the Institute for Transformational Learning (ITL). He
said even though ITL is mostly involved in special projects related to the medical campuses, they had
recently received a large amount of money, and “they don’t exactly know how to spend it, I think.”
Also related to the medical campuses, questions about how clinical faculty at the two new medical
schools, one here and one in the Rio Grande Valley, would engage with the regular faculty since these
new schools would be part of the main universities. At the SysFac meeting, it was also reported that
increasingly, universities, federal agencies, etc., are accumulating large databases, which may include
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parts of faculty research, and Professor Beckner said these entities may distribute access to these
databases without the people who did the research getting much credit, much less claim to the
intellectual property. He also mentioned that the president and provost were reviewing the
Thanksgiving Break proposal and that he would not be surprised if it were to come back to the Council
in some sense, at least a report on it’s progress at the November meeting of the Faculty Council.
Chair Beckner turned the floor to Chair Elect Andrea Gore (professor, pharmacy) to discuss a request
form UT System for information.
V.
REPORT OF THE CHAIR ELECT.
Chair Elect Andrea C. Gore (professor, pharmacy) provided information on a topic discussed at the
SysFac meeting in which the Board of Regents had asked UT System to engage the provosts of the
different campuses to get information about how to make comments on the course instructor surveys
publically available. In turn, UT System had asked the campuses for their input on whether and how
the comments from the surveys should be used. The Faculty Council Executive Committee (FCEC)
unanimously opposed sharing comments primarily because the purpose of the surveys is to give
confidential feedback to instructors to help improve their quality of teaching. It was felt that if those
comments were to be shared with the students’ peers, the spirit of the comments would be quite
different because they would be targeting a different audience.
Chair Elect Gore invited Christine Julien (chair, Educational Policy Committee and associate
professor, electrical and computer engineering) to comment on a meeting of the Educational Policy
Committee (EPC), which had met to discuss the issue. Professor Julien said that both students and
faculty members on the committee felt that the survey comments were intended to be confidential,
anonymous communication channels between instructors and their students. Without exception, the
students on the committee said that if they knew the comments were to be released to their peers, they
would craft their remarks very differently, and if the comments intended for the instructors were taken
out of context, very often they would not make sense or could be misconstrued. The students did,
however, agree that getting feedback from their peers was a good way to choose classes and
instructors, but they did not believe that the course instructor survey comments was the right tool for
doing that. The committee also discussed concerns how making the comments public might violate
FERPA law, particularly handwritten comments. They said the tone, sentence structure, word choice,
or anecdote in a comment might make it possible for someone to identify who wrote it. So,
“Anonymizing them to be released publically would require a human to go through every single
comment and to try to figure out whether or not this needs to be redacted to comply with FERPA,”
which could be cost prohibitive, and after the comments were redacted, the information left may no
longer be very useful.
Chair Elect Gore said that the FCEC was working with the EPC to craft a consensus statement to be
given to the provost within the next day or so. The chair elect added that SysFac as a whole would also
be making some recommendations to UT System and that she believed the message from the other
campuses was very consistent. She asked members to contact her or the chair with feedback, questions,
and/or comments. Professor Brian Evans (electrical and computer engineering) pointed out that there
are many websites where students can posted their comments for other students to view. Chair Beckner
remarked that he didn’t feel it was in the faculty’s best interest to promote the use of commercial
websites for instructor and course evaluations. Chair Beckner also clarified that UT System had not
asked for input from the faculty directly, but that the provosts of each of the academic campuses had
received a letter from System asking them to consult with both faculty and students on their respective
campuses, thus the reason for the joint FCEC and EPC letter.
VI.
VII.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS—None.
REPORTS OF THE GENERAL FACULTY, COLLEGES, SCHOOLS, AND COMMITTEES—
None.
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VIII.
NEW BUSINESS.
A. Report on Campus Conversations.
By way of introduction, Chair Beckner remarked on the recent Campus Conversations symposium
held September 5 saying that it had been “one of the most energizing conversations I’ve ever had
as a faculty member on teaching. And, it brought forth a lot of interesting ideas. I’m sorry that
some of them might require some resources. But it certainly was exciting to be there.” He then
asked Executive Vice President and Provost Gregory Fenves to give his report on the topic.
Provost Fenves stated that one of his goals since becoming provost one year ago was to continue
the “substantial attention and progress the faculty had devoted to high quality undergraduate
education.” He commented that nearly a decade and a half ago upon the recommendation of the
Task Force on Curriculum Reform, which came out of the Commission of 125, the School of
Undergraduate Studies was established, which, he said, “was really ahead of its time if you look at
American higher education.” To continue that progress, the provost wanted to create a mechanism
that would engage the faculty across campus in looking at how UT Austin could continue its
leadership in high quality education, and the process of the conversations began. The
conversations, he said, were intended to be broad-based discussions of the core issues facing
undergraduate education and what UT Austin could be doing to lead the nation. He said there had
been a lot of questions being asked about what is happening at universities. “Are students learning
anything? Can they get a job? Can they afford it? Is the debt that they may graduate with too high?
What is the purpose of research? Why aren’t we just teaching more students?” The provost opined
that there had been some very distressing criticisms that were “totally unjustified about what we
do and why we’re here.” The conversations with the faculty highlighted some of these issues.
The Campus Conversations kicked off in January with several sessions throughout the spring that
focused on the use of technology, how to integrate research with teaching, and the residential
experience. The provost said these were useful, but what he wanted was more engagement with
faculty on identifying the key issues. So, he began talking with Professor Jeremi Suri (history and
LBJ School), and a working group was formed to define and drive the process. Professor Suri,
Faculty Council members Hans Hofmann (integrative biology) and Julia Mickenberg (American
studies), and others began thinking about “How do we engage in a deep conversation about
undergraduate education at the University?” They identified some fundamental issues: 1) Culture;
Goals of undergraduate education; 2) How do we work on an enormous campus with 40,000
undergraduate students and over 100 degree plans? 3) How do we work in a governance structure
that is faculty driven? 4) What is the role of the Faculty Council and it’s various arms and the
ultimate approval process in changes to degree programs and requirements?
The provost thanked the working group, along with David Laude (senior vice provost for
enrollment and graduation management and professor, chemistry), Carolyn Connerat (associate
vice provost), and Brent Iverson (dean, undergraduate studies) for their leadership and planning of
the symposium, which was held on a Friday and was open to all faculty members; about 150 to
160 attended. Initially, the provost said he was a little worried about having the symposium on
Friday, but he said it was very interesting to see the progression of the conversation throughout the
day. He said it started out a little tentative, but by the afternoon, there were more people in
attendance than in the morning, “So, either the word got out or people left and came back and
brought colleagues, I don’t know. But, it went extraordinarily well.” The discussions centered on
two key questions: 1) How should we best connect research and discovery with teaching? 2) What
could be done to best motivate, enable and empower the changes that we have talked about? What
are the ideas? The provost encouraged Council members to look at the website where one could
view diaries of the conversations and ideas on how to affect change, including culture, incentives,
motivations, how we measure things. He said some of the ideas would be easy to implement, some
impossible, some would require resources < http://www.utexas.edu/campus-conversation >.
Following the symposium, the working group asked “What do we do now?” and decided to form
six working groups composed of faculty from across campus. The provost stressed that the groups
would be fairly fluid to “flush out in more detail the ideas that were discussed during the
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symposium and other ideas that have come in since then.”
The first working group, Principles of Degree Studies, would address the question, “ What are the
principles of a degree from UT Austin?” Provost Fenves said that this was a very big question, one
that every department and every major deals with. He said that the University has a “vital”
governing structure in place that approves degree plans. But, he asked, “What are some of the
fundamental principles that we should be looking at in how we define degrees of study?” The
provost said “this is so important because it will touch every type of decision-making and every
governances associated with degree plans.” He asked Professor Suri to chair the working group.
The second working group is a Teaching Discovery and Innovation Center. It will look into the
question “How do we encourage entrepreneurialism and incubate innovations in teaching?”
Provost Fenves remarked that he thought this was perfect timing because Senior Vice Provost
David Laude, Vice Provost Harrison Keller, and he had been discussing how to use the resources
and facilities we have to better support faculty innovation in teaching undergraduate education.
Provost Fenves asked Professor Mickenberg to co-chair the working group.
The third working group is Faculty Professional Development. It will address the question “How
are we supporting faculty in continued innovations and support for teaching, especially integrating
research into the undergraduate educational mission?” The provost asked Professor Hofmann to
co-chair the working group.
The fourth working group is Public Communications. The provost remarked “the public simply
doesn’t understand what we do, why it’s important, or why they should pay taxes and tuition for
it.” The questions to be addressed are “How can we do a better job communicating the value of
undergraduate education? What is the benefit of what we do? How do we convey those messages
to audiences that will actually make a difference?” The provost opined that he didn’t think we
needed to convince our students, instead we needed to communicate the benefits of an
undergraduate education to the parents, taxpayers, and citizens across Texas, and the nation as a
whole, as well the federal government.
The fifth working group is on curriculum and would focus on the questions “How do we continue
to bring research and scholarship into the undergraduate education mission? What are different
ways this can be done?” Provost Fenves commented that some universities are doing some really
innovative things, and he was pleased to have heard lots of ideas on how this might be done here
at UT Austin. The provost asked Professor Jennifer Maynard (chemical engineering) to co-chair
the working group.
Finally, the sixth working group would focus on evaluation. “How should we be evaluating the
individual faculty member teaching a course, and how is that assessment being done?” Provost
Fenves commented, “The provost’s teaching fellows have done a really great job of thinking
through evaluation. They have a website on the provost’s teaching fellowship website with some
videos. So, there is a lot already going on in that area.” But from a broader perspective, he asked,
“How do we know what we’re doing is really affective?” He said the evaluation should give us
that answer. The provost said, “We need to think about how do we evaluate what we are doing and
make changes to improve it, where we can do that and have it make sense.”
Going forward, Provost Fenves said he would be working on the scopes of the six working groups,
their memberships, and action plans. He stressed that as part of these conversations it would be
very important to be “thinking about some important crosscutting aspects across these working
groups, and in general, what we’re doing to continue improving undergraduate education.” He
referenced President Powers’ State of the University Address where he asked, “How do we
develop this culture and mechanism for innovation and support innovation?” The provost
remarked that not every idea is a good idea, but one wouldn’t know that unless the idea were to be
tried and tested, one may have to start over or “pivot” from the original idea; but in the process,
something was learned. He said that is why creating these platforms for innovation across
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education is important.
Provost Fenves said a big theme that came out of the Campus Conversations was, “How do we
support interdisciplinary aspects of degree programs, flexibility in degree programs, co-teaching,
especially across departments and colleges?” He remarked that currently there were a lot of
disincentives for doing this, and he asked faculty to be thinking about how best to support
interdisciplinary activities in a broader way than we currently are doing.
Another crosscutting issue to be thinking about is how technology can work in the classroom. The
provost mentioned that many departments on campus are already working on this in individual
classes, certificates, and in some degree programs. He added that his office was organizing to
provide support services for using technology. He pointed out that this was part of the
communication problem—that many people either don’t realize we use technology or feel that
we’re against it. The provost said, “We’re actually way ahead of many other universities.”
Given the limited resources available, the provost stressed that the recommended changes
resulting from the Campus Conversations would have to be cost effective and would require
“prioritization and some decision-making and looking at how we best effectively use the resources
we have for the highest quality education possible.”
Provost Fenves said another symposium was being planned for mid-February. He encouraged
faculty members to participate. In the meantime, the working groups would work on how best to
engage with faculty and students. He emphasized that students are part of the conversation and
would be part of the charge of each working group.
The provost closed his remarks by again acknowledging the tremendous leadership of Jeremi Suri,
the faculty who participated in the working groups, David Laude, Carolyn Connerat, Harrison
Keller, and Brent Iverson.
B. Athletics.
Athletic Director Patterson said he was grateful for the opportunity to address the Council and to
talk a little bit about the former LASP ticket process and some changes that would be
forthcoming.1 First, he gave a short overview of athletics, where they are, what they do, the
changing environment they are in, and where they are headed.
Mr. Patterson said athletics’ purpose is to provide opportunities for 500 plus student athletes to
attend college, of which 85 percent would not have been able to do so otherwise and that same
percentage are first time college attendees in their families. He said that offering athletics
scholarships changes the lives of these students and in many cases, the lives of their families as a
whole. He added that next to the GI Bill, athletics scholarships are the next largest single source of
college scholarships in the United States.
Largely due to Chris Plonsky (women’s athletic director) and DeLoss Dodds’ (former men’s
athletic director) innovative programs, licensing, merchandising, and sponsorship, Mr. Patterson
said, “We’re tops in revenue, also tops in expenses.” The athletic director went on to explain that
the Directors’ Cup is a way to evaluate all athletic departments in the country, taking the top ten
men’s and the top ten women’s teams and ranking them across all sports. UT Austin’s athletics
program was ranked sixth in the Director’s Cup last year, with Stanford being ranked first. He
said, “We’re going to hunt them down, and be first in the Directors’ Cup year in and year out.”
Mr. Patterson also pointed out that under the leadership of Randa Ryan (executive senior associate
athletic director), last year, the average student athlete GPA was 3.1 with one third of the 500
student athletes carrying a 3.5 GPA or better. He said that was “pretty phenomenal” considering
the amount of time they invest in their sports, at least twenty hours or more each week.
1
See Appendix A for related PowerPoint Presentation.
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Also under the athletics umbrella is the Frank Erwin Center, which the director said had been
losing money for many years. However, under the direction of John Graham (executive senior
associate athletics director), the arena was now operating in the black and was able to put a little
money away for capital repairs and maintenance.
Mr. Patterson gave a brief summary of current revenues and expenses saying that costs are ever
increasing, especially with the changing landscape in the NCAA, which had resulted in multiple
lawsuits—approximately one dozen at UT Austin at a cost of $52 million and probably an
additional $5 or $6 million per year on a go forth basis for name, image and likeness expenses,
and for full cost of attendance for our 500 student athletes. He stressed that costs would likely
continue to go up dramatically.
The director pointed out that athletics carries about 22 percent of the University’s debt load. He
said that number would likely increase one to two times over the next five to six years given the
major capital projects scheduled through the next decade that will cost $750 million. These
projects include the new tennis and volleyball facilities, improvements to the south end zone of the
stadium to support our football student athletes, and in the not so distant future, the arena will
likely have to make way for the new Medical School as well. Mr. Patterson said that for most
years, athletics had operated either breaking even or just slightly in the black; but, with $750
million in capital expenditures on the horizon and other increased costs, “We’re not going to be in
the same position that we have been in in the past with surpluses or being able to break even.”
Mr. Patterson went on to pointed out the athletics gives about $25.5 million back to the University,
some for services, but some also “to support things that are important to the University, to the
president, and to the faculty and staff.” He mentioned that half of the Longhorn Network revenues
go to endowed chairs, and the Club gives money to support extra hours at the library. In addition,
athletics supports the kinesiology department; pays close to $4 million a year in tuition payments,
administrative services, housing and the rest. Athletics also supports the Longhorn band giving
them more than $1 million dollars last year; in addition, they give hundreds of thousands of dollars
in rent to RecSports for the use of their facilities. He said that all parking revenue goes directly to
Parking and Transportation Services.
Athletics’ goals, Mr. Patterson said, were to light the tower every year, be tops in the country in
academics, continue to be financially self-sustaining, and to operate ethically, year-in and yearout, without issues of compliance.
Regarding the former LASP ticket program, the director said that a new federal regulation by the
U.S. Department of Education prohibited tying ticket sales to registration, which led athletics to
develop the Big Ticket program. Mr. Patterson said that attendance was up 800 to 900 from last
year, and overall, he felt the student body was happy. He explained further that if a discount
greater than 20 percent is offered and the person does not claim the tax on it, then the institution
becomes liable. He said the other issue was that you have sports fans sitting in the same section,
some who paid 85 percent less than the person sitting next to them, which created a huge
distortion in the market place in terms of the large discount given. Also, he said many of these
discounted ticket holders resell their tickets far below the market value. He said the pure discount
lost to the athletic department last year was $2.1 million, and adding in the lost income from the
number of seats that were scalped, which was approximately $1 million, the total loss to the
department was over $3 million. He pointed out that two-thirds of this loss results from
approximately 200 accounts, which are seated roughly between the two forty-five yard lines. He
said the lost income “makes it tougher and tougher for us to try to fulfill the obligations we’ve got
to take care of the students, and take care of all the obligations we’ve got on campus.” The
bottom-line was that the department had to find a way to restructure the ticket program to prevent
tax liability and lost revenues. He then opened the floor for questions.
Professor Charters Wynn (history) asked if there was some way to identify who was selling their
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tickets and why this had not been an issue in the past twenty years? Mr. Patterson responded that
some could be caught, but not all, for example, if the ticket holder sells their ticket online for cash,
it can’t be tracked. He added “It is also an issue of tax exposure, and how do you wind up issuing
1099s to all the faculty members and staff members that use it? It’s also, you know, a real
financial issue for us.” He said he didn’t know why it had not been an issue before, perhaps
because “IRS wasn’t making it an issue.” Professor Wynn opined that the new ticket program had
discouraged older fans from going to the games and had led to a lot of discontentment, especially
when one see a lot of empty seats, especially at basketball games and when one can watch the
games on TV. Mr. Patterson said the biggest issue centered on football and the lost revenue from
the 200 accounts between the forty-five yard lines, “the magnitude of the loss in trying to live up
to the increased expenses we’ve got coming, it’s something I can’t get to work.” However, he said
he would be happy to talk with a faculty committee to see what might be done “in terms of
location.”
Professor Joy Jensen (kinesiology and health education) pointed out that “faculty have a great
relationship with athletics, and I guess, it’s been nice to have that kind of perk.” She asked the
director if he could share strategies that might be implemented that would help faculty members
feel like they are not taking the burden. Director Patterson said parking would no longer be a
direct expense to the Longhorn Foundation, that it would become a “pass through expense to
people who want to buy parking.” He said they had created a sales and service team to go after
some of the empty seats, which totaled approximately $7 million a year with unsold inventory;
they had downsized their athletics staff and are currently working to increase our philanthropic
fundraising to focus on endowments and have had a fair amount of success. He said “football
makes money, basketball makes money, baseball, we’re lucky if we makes some money, it’s one
of the few baseball programs; everything else loses money.” For the teams that do not generate a
profit, they are trying to moderate the costs and find new ways to generate revenue, partly through
endowed scholarships and endowed coaching positions. Referencing the tennis program, he said
he had met with them recently and the changes make them “a little bit antsy,” because “it’s a
change in culture; it’s a change in mindset.” But, he felt that they were coming around,
particularly given that they have to find a new home.
Professor Martha Hilley (past chair, 2013-14, music) a non-Council member asked for permission
from the Council to speak, which was granted. She said she was one of the ticket-holders between
the forty-five yard lines and asked for clarification “You will take my season tickets, and then give
me an option to buy somewhere else less – not quite so nice a seat for more money?” The director
said yes, that was true, but invited her and a group of representatives to meet with athletics’ chief
revenue officer, Steve Hanks, “to try to come us with some plans that work for different folks and
different scenarios, because everybody’s in a different place.” He said that there are literally
“faculty and staff that are nothing but fronting for scalpers—and I’ve got them by name.” And,
then you have the loyal thirty-five year fans sitting in the same seats with a very different mindset.
Professor Hilley asked, “Have you asked faculty if they would be willing to pay the tax?” Mr.
Patterson said that the tax is only one issue and that faculty and staff ticket holders would “have to
make decisions individually about their tax situation; I can’t do that for them. I try to stay out of
liability.” Chief Financial Officer Kevin Hegarty pointed out that when he signs for his tickets, he
fills out a tax form claiming 100 percent and that the form is sent to payroll and appears as taxable
income. Mr. Patterson responded saying “not everybody does.”
Professor Angeline Garcia Close (advertising and public relations) advised caution from a public
relations standpoint, “there’s a big history and culture of us serving, in the sense to professors by
giving us a perk and having us in the middle. And emotionally, that is a big deal.” She added,
there could be backlash, and it’s a matter of being “proactive PR versus reactive PR… I’m really
worried that we would get in a situation where we would have to have reactive PR.” Mr. Patterson
asked what her solution would be? She responded that she liked the alternative financing methods,
at least it would offer options, and “It doesn’t look like the faculty is getting the quote-unquote
punishment.” Mr. Patterson stressed that he would be more than willing to listen to a committee.
He again pointed out that “For some people, it’s going to be seat location, most important to them,
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some people, it’s going to be price; some people, it’s going to be, I want to be around my friends;
some people, it’s going to be different sport.”
Professor Brian Evans (electrical and computer engineering) asked if the parking restriction prior
to game night could be extended from mid-night to 3am because “is just too early for a lot of us on
campus.” Mr. Patterson said that was not under his control, but he would be happy to carry the
message to Parking and Transportation Services.
Professor Beckner said “There’s a real value in having the faculty, and students, and staff on your
side. I appreciate you coming out today.” He said it would be a good idea to form a committee to
speak with the athletics director about the issues discussed and thanked the him for speaking to the
Council.
C. Update on Transition to Workday.
After hearing Provost Fenves’ report, Renee L. Wallace (associate vice president for
administrative systems modernization) commented that she was very energized about the
conversations going on, “I’m not a faculty member. I think it’s very exciting, and that is really
what our mission at the University is. It’s exciting even as an administrative person to be part of
that.” She said her presentation today would be about the administrative systems, which was not
nearly as energizing, but important.
Ms. Wallace said the Administrative Systems Modernization Program (ASMP 2.0) is a program
under the overall umbrella for Transforming UT . She explained the program’s vision “is to
transform our administrative operations to efficiently support productivity and innovation
throughout the University serving as a model for operational excellence in higher education.” She
then gave a brief history of how we got to where we are today. In 2008, the Strategic Information
Technology Advisory Council (SITAC) was formed with a charge from President Powers to come
up with a strategic approach to our information technology area. This group recommended an
administrative systems master plan be created to set the vision for what we needed to do in our
administrative systems. As a result, the Business Services Council (BSC), one of the IT
governance groups, was charged with creating the Administrative Systems Master Plan. In 2012, a
report was issued by BSC recommending that the existing systems be replaced with a more
modern set of operational systems to support the administrative processes. It had been determined
that our mainframe-based technologies had not kept pace with the advances in the industry and
were constraining our ability to incorporate new capabilities, and therefore was putting the
University at risk by continuing to use aging and obsolete technologies. The replacement would be
selected based on being able to deliver and support the business needs of the campus. Ms. Wallace
explained that ASMP 2.0 is the implementation of that master plan endorsed in 2012. Workday
had been selected as the solution for HR, payroll, and finance, however, she pointed out that it was
just one part of the overall all program. She referenced slide three of her PPT presentation, which
is a graphic that shows the key recommendations from the Administrative Systems Master Plan,
and how they are to be implemented through AMSP 2.0. The associate vice president went on to
say that the core purpose of AMSP 2.0 is to modernize our business processes, data management,
and information systems to facilitate the pursuit of the University’s mission. So, this is a business
initiative, it is not an IT initiative.
Referring to slide five, Ms. Wallace said there are four major project tiers under the program: 1)
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Implementation, 2) Technology Architecture, 3) Enterprise
Data Management, and 4) Application Modernization. She explained that the ERP implementation
project relates to the implementation of Workday for Human Capital Management (HCM)/Payroll,
would involve identifying the integration points in the ERP system, the selection and
implementation of a new student administration system, and the selection, design, and
implementation the new student portal. She said the portal tool itself had already been selected.
Because the mainframe will be retired in the near future, a team is working to identify a new
technical architecture that would support third party vendor packages that we already have that
would need to connect to the Workday system. Ms. Wallace said the new environment structure
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would be very different from the current one. In addition, nine work groups had been meeting with
various representatives across campus to identify the hardware requirements needed to support the
new future state of our technical architecture. She said that work was ongoing and would
ultimately roll into the implementation phase of the program. The focus of the Enterprise Data
Management portion of the project is to determine “What are our data needs on campus and
providing more governance, continuity, access, and transparency to that from an enterprise
approach, more so than has been done in the past?” She pointed out that this had been underway
even before the kick off of ASMP 2.0. She said it was important to be able to leverage off of our
current IQ infrastructure and environments so ensure reporting continuity as we’re going through
the implementation. The Application Modernization portion is the parting dealing with getting
everything else off of the mainframe. The associate vice president said that there are
approximately 1000 applications currently running on the mainframe. It will have to be
determined which of those applications will be replace, retired, etc. before the mainframe can
actually be decommissioned. So this part of the project would provide support and coordinate
those kinds of activities through the transitioning off of the mainframe, which is scheduled to
occur in 2020. These four projects fall under the umbrella of Program Management, which is a
team that is helping to manage the program activities. And, underneath, supporting all of that is
Enterprise Readiness, a team that is working to identify and track the changes that we need to be
prepared for. They are working with different units to understand what will be coming down the
pipeline so the campus can be ready to make all of the massive changes as they come down.
Ms. Wallace referenced slide six which lists the guiding principles used when making decisions,
particularly with respect to design aspects of Workday itself or other components of the program.
Since we’re completely replacing our core systems, she said by challenging the status quo, we
have a real opportunity to improve our business processes, make important changes as we
implement this program. Ms. Wallace said that Workday would come delivered with some best
practice business processes. So, the question to be asked is, “Can we make our processes work
with what’s delivered as opposed to complicating it?” Because Workday is cloud-based software
and not customizable, she explained that every client uses the same core code base, which means it
has to be highly configurable to do things that are unique to different industries’ needs. She said
that can be both good and bad, because potentially, we could configure it to be very complicated,
whereas a better choice might be to keep it simplified and as streamlined as possible. By doing so,
she said it would be less complicated to maintain and it would make training easier.
Slide seven is a timeline that gives you a sense that there are a lot of moving parts in the program.
Ms. Wallace said the targeted go live dates for HR/payroll are spring 2016, and fall of 2016 for
finance. She said the project teams are beginning to fill out the planning parts of the program, and
she expected to announce the official go live dates later in the fall once more information has been
gathered about exactly what’s involved in the transition. The associate vice president said that the
Student System, being much more complex and comprehensive, would be phased in much later.
She added that it was important to evaluate the Student System very carefully and to engage the
campus in understanding what the requirements are, and allowing more time for identifying
potential policy changes that could improve our business processes. Also, she said phasing in the
HR/payroll and finance systems first would give us an opportunity to learn from that very
significant implementation process so that we will be much more expert at it when it comes time
to do the Student System.
Some of the benefits of Workday are presented in slide eight. Ms. Wallace said that it was an
exciting product in terms of functionality and what it will be able to deliver to campus. She said
reporting is a big selling point of the Workday system, “giving you information at your fingertips
much easier than we’re able to do today.” In addition, they have consistent update cadence rolling
out significant software improvements twice a year. The system has a modern look and feel, is
completely web-based, leading edge technology, and has intuitive navigation. She said that at a
future meeting, she would be happy to give a demonstration of what the system would look like.
Overall, she thinks the system will be an improvement, and we will be able to work with the
vendor to add additional features and functionality as we mature our relationship with them.
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Referring to slide nine, Ms. Wallace reiterated that data management is critical in making sure that
the availability and integrity of our institutional data is and that we have continuity through the
planning and implementation process. She said the large number of systems that will need to be
taken off of the mainframe gives us an idea of just how large the scope of the program is. She said
it would impact “every corner” of the campus. She said over the next six years, the technical
people in the individual units that help to support the applications and programs currently running
on the mainframe will have to have some focus on working through this initiative.
Slide ten is a chart that gives a sense of the engagement and governance that is in place for each of
the work streams. Ms. Wallace stated that Workday would be radically different from our current
financial data model structure. She said there is a lot of complexity involved in defining how to
classify pieces of information that all come together to make a meaningful financial information
system. “It’s going to be much more powerful in terms of getting financial information out.” She
further explained the chart saying that at the lowest levels are the SME groups, which are the
subject matter experts. They are very broadly represented across campus and are engaged in
providing information about their business needs. The advisory groups are at the next level; they
provide policy recommendations and input on to changes to the business process. A smaller group
of key decision makers on policy and guidance overall is found at the Operational Sponsor Level.
Ms. Wallace said each of the other work streams—technology architecture, enterprise data
management, and application modernization—have a similar governance structure. All report up
through a steering committee for ASMP 2.0, which then reports up to the Business Services
Council of the IT Governance.
In closing, Ms. Wallace pointed out that the purpose of her presentation was to provide awareness
about the scope of the initiative, that it will involve the whole University and will require
significant coordinated efforts across campus to achieve all of the objectives. It is a multi-year
project with a planned mainframe retirement date scheduled for August 2020. During this period,
she said we must sustain our current business continuity and continue to meet regulatory/statutory
requirements. She added that we would also need to continue to support the strategic University
priorities through the process. There will be some prioritization decisions that will have to be
made to make sure that we can continue to do all of the things that we need to do, but to also be
successful in this initiative, which is a significant investment by the University. At the same time,
she said we would have to try to avoid overloading our staff with competing demands and avoid
proliferation of an investment in the mainframe and systems that must be eventually replaced. “So,
a lot of nice choreography is going to be going on over the next six years to try to make sure that
we are able to accomplish all of these things.” Ms. Wallace finished by asking for question and
comments form the floor.
Professor Snehal Shingavi (English) asked the associate vice president to explain the relationship
between ASMP 2.0 and Shared Services. He stated that the previous Shared Services model was
called Accenture Workday, and this initiative seemed to be a rollout of part of that. He asked how
the two were connected. Ms. Wallace explained that Share Services is also a Transforming UT
initiative under the umbrella of improving our overall administrative operations and cost savings.
The implementation of ASMP 2.0, which Workday is a part of, is to follow through on the
requirements of the Administrative Systems Master Plan. In 2012, it was determined that the
administrative systems we currently have would not be sustainable for the future and would have
to be replaced. Some of the work that is done as part of that implementation can also support
Shared Services activities. She pointed out that the current systems were not very flexible in being
able to support that kind of model. She said that this program would have had to go forward
regardless of whether there was a Shared Services or not to replace infrastructure that was no
longer sustainable.
Professor Hofmann commented that what he found most interesting about Ms. Wallace’s
presentation was what she didn’t say. He asked, “Wouldn’t it be a great opportunity to reduce the
regulatory and administrative burden and just simplify everything?” She responded saying that the
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federal government, particularly with respect to faculty and research, imposes a lot of the
regulatory and administrative burden upon us, although there are some initiatives at the federal
level that are focusing on trying to relieve some of that burden. She agreed that we definitely want
to improve and streamline those burdens where we have the opportunity to do so. She requested
feedback on the kinds of things perceived as being within our direct control on campus so that she
and her team could explore the opportunities for relieving those burdens. Professor Hofmann also
suggested that she survey faculty and staff asking “what really gets on your nerves?” and find out
what’s going on in their departments, to get input on things that how things could be made less
complicated. Ms. Wallace said her team is putting together a survey to reach out to faculty and
other higher-level executives to get that feedback. In addition, they are working closely with
departments, partly through the SME groups, to get information on particular “pain points.” She
said that she also wants to identify the things that are going well so that they don’t inadvertently
get broken. She thanked Professor Hofmann for his very good suggestions.
Professor Gore thanked Ms. Wallace for meeting with the group and engaging the faculty. She
asked for clarification on whether the Workday project included what’s going on in sponsored
projects and research with respect to research compliance and would those be rolled into some of
the Workday initiatives? Ms. Wallace confirmed that there is a grants administration module of
Workday, which is what we refer to as the post award and would fall within the scope of our
finance implementation of Workday. It does not have a pre-award module right now, but they are
starting development of that, and we will probably be participating as a design partner to provide
input into what a pre-award system should offer. She added that her team is collaborating with
both Workday and the Office of Sponsored Projects—both pre-award and post-award teams—to
identify what all the needs are for our campus and to make sure that we have software that delivers
that. During the process, she said they would be engaging faculty to get their input as well.
Professor Beckner—making reference to his notes about Workday being configurable and being
able to add functionality, but not being customizable—asked if in 2020, would “we still be able to
make some configuration changes, add functionality, and in this duration, are there any potential
problems with communication with another unit that we’re associated with like UT System about
communication between transmitting information?” The associate vice president confirmed that he
was referring to electronically transmitted information and stated that one of the challenges of the
mainframe today is that it is not as flexible in talking to other technologies, which has been a real
problem. The new technology architecture would make it a lot easier to communicate and plug
into different reporting needs of System, which are still being clarified. In terms of Workday not
being customizable but configurable, that means we would have a lot of control over structuring
the system, whether it’s a business process or using different labels that are more representative of
our business needs on campus. As an example, Ms. Wallace said this capability would make it
easier to bring the Medical School on board. Right now, she said, we don’t know what their
administrative processing needs will be, but those could easily be incorporated into the system
once defined. She added that from a long-term administrative maintenance perspective, the “not
customizable piece” is to our benefit. She went on to explain that because clients using Workday
are on the same code base, when Workday upgrades their system and makes enhancements and
improvements to it, UT Austin would consume that and take advantage of it without messing up
our customized structures. She said that might not be possible with other software platforms. An
added benefit is that Workday, as a company, can continue to invest in their newest version of
product and not expend resources continuing to support older platforms that other customers
happen to be on.
Professor Mariah Wade (anthropology) asked “What is the vulnerability of this system,
particularly in the interface between one to the other, from the system that you have now? How
vulnerable is it going to be in terms of records?” Ms. Wallace said that question was one of the
foremost questions asked when evaluating whether to go to a cloud-based system. Workday has
multiple layers of security in their whole system. She said that even data in transit would be
completely encrypted within the system in a way that it doesn’t exist in our current systems
making its infrastructure more security sound than what we currently have. Ms. Wallace said that
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UT Austin’s ISO office had looked into it the security of the system, “When they say it’s okay,
then I’m okay with it.”
D. Gender Equity Council.
Chair Beckner reminded Council members that in 2008, a Task Force on Gender Equity looked at
some issues of disparity across gender on campus, and from that, one of the recommendations was
to establish the Gender Equity Council for Faculty. The chair said Senior Vice Provost for Faculty
Affairs Janet Dukerich had taken on “a reinvigoration of making that council actually effective”
and invited her to say a few words.
Senior Vice Provost Dukerich said that in 2008 two councils were established, the Council on the
Status of Women Faculty and the University Gender Equity Council. She said Professor Janet
Ellzey had chaired both councils and had done a fabulous job. She said that after she joined the
provost’s office last January, gender equity was transferred to her portfolio, so she began attending
the meetings that were held that spring. That summer, after consulting with Professor Ellzey, the
provost, and the president, a decision was made to combine both councils since there was overlap
in the membership and in terms of their functions. A mission statement, which appears in
Appendix C, was created, and the membership was clearly defined to include one representative
from each of the colleges as well as some ex officio members. Membership would have rolling
three-years terms, which could be renewed once. She said after brainstorming, they decided to
create three standing committees of the Council charging them with working on different
missions. The Committee on Employment Issues would look at issues such as salary disparities,
recruitment, startup packages, endowments, and promotions. The Committee on Family and
Health would look at family friendly policies including childcare, eldercare, and dual career
placement help. And finally, the Committee on Climate would gather perceptual data from the
faculty in terms of support and work—things can be done to make UT Austin a better place to
work. At the first meeting held October 1, members were asked to sort themselves into the three
committees with relatively equal numbers on each. Each committee was then charged with
electing a chair and/or co-chairs, establish a regular meeting schedule for the semester, and think
about any data needs that they might need from the provost’s office. They were to report back to
the larger group at the end of the semester. The second slide in Appendix C lists the membership
of each of the standing committees. Dr. Dukerich reported that the Committee on Family and
Health had met and elected its co-chairs, the Committee on Family and Health would be meeting
this week and would elect its chair, and Hillary Hart had agreed to serve as chair of the Committee
on Climate for this semester. The vice provost said that she was very hopeful that a good deal of
progress would be made over the next several years on gender equity.
E. Update on Travel Services.
Chair Beckner introduced Patricia L. Clubb (vice president for university operations) saying that
one of the important things that came down to us from UT System last year impacted travel
services and that Vice President Clubb had some good news to share with the Council.
Vice President Clubb said that a notice announcing the new policy had been sent to the campus
community just a few weeks ago. She reminded faculty that in May of 2013, UT System mandated
the use of Anthony Travel, the full service travel agency, and Concur, the online service. She
pointed out that it was the online mandate that was the problem, not Anthony Travel, which had
nothing but good reviews and would continue to be the University’s full service travel agency.
After a lot of work identifying airline transactions made outside the travel agency system and
reviewing and comparing reimbursement files, the travel office was able to persuade UT System
to permit UT Austin to use any online system, one does not have to use the Concur system.
However, because of contractual arrangements that the UT System has with the travel agent, when
faculty members turn in their reimbursement, they need to write, “Online selection is best value as
consistent with institutional priorities.” Dr. Clubb said this information was included in the
October 7 communication, which can be found in Appendix D.
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Related to travel, Dr. Clubb reminded faculty members that it is a requirement that the Request for
Travel Authorization (RTA) be approved before booking travel. She also encouraged members to
sign up for the ISOS, a program that will provide assistance if something happens while traveling
domestically or internationally, and to file their itinerary with the ISOS before traveling. She then
asked if there were any questions. Professor Hofmann said that her did a lot of international travel
and had signed up for ISOS. But because he doesn’t purchase his airline tickets through Anthony
Travel or Concur, there was no easy way to enter his itinerary, that it was very time consuming.
He asked if there was a way to upload it? Dr. Clubb asked Director of Travel Management
Services Lee Loden to address the question. After some back and forth discussion, Ms. Loden said
if the airfare was not purchased through Anthony Travel or Concur, the itinerary would have to be
entered manually. Dr. Clubb interjected saying it is something they are working on and that in the
future, “we hope programmatically, it will upload no matter how you have purchased the ticket.”
Dr. Clubb added, “You have to weigh the risk of not having your information in [the database]
versus the possibility that you might need services form ISOS.”
Past Chair Hart thanked Dr. Clubb, Ms. Loden, and her staff “for listening to faculty all last year,
lots of comments from faculty, and working hard on this and acting and finally being successful in
pushing back on something that was totally imposed on you from System.” Chair Beckner echoed
Dr. Hart’s comments.
IX.
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND COMMENTS.
A. Chair Beckner reminded members that on November 17, 2014, the annual Faculty Council
photograph would be taken on the south steps of Main Building at 2:00 PM followed by the regular
meeting of the Faculty Council at 2:15 PM in Main 212.
B. Professor Shingavi spoke on a resolution in support of Professor Steven Salaita, a faculty member
who had been offered a position at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champagne (UIUC). The
handout had been given to Faculty Council members as they signed in the meeting. Professor
Shingavi said the chancellor at UIUC had rescinded the offer leaving Dr. Salaita in limbo since he
had already quit his job at the University of Virginia. According to Professor Shingavi, the
resolution outlines issues that are important about the case, not the least of which he said are
issues of academic freedom and faculty governance. He asked members to seriously consider the
resolution and review it before the November 17 meeting and to contact him and the other authors
of the resolution with questions, comments, concerns, and/or revisions.
X.
XI.
QUESTIONS TO THE CHAIR—None.
ADJOURNMENT.
The meeting adjourned at 4:10 PM.
Distributed through the Faculty Council website (http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/) on November xx,
2014.
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Appendix A
16
17
18
19
Appendix B
Slide One
Slide Two
20
Slide Three
Slide Four
21
Slide Five
Slide Six
22
Slide Seven
Side Eight
23
Slide Nine
Slide Ten
24
Slide Eleven
25
Appendix C
Slide One
Slide Two
26
Appendix D
Group Email Message from Travel Management Services
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Travel Policy Change
Effective immediately, faculty, staff and students may use any online travel reservation
system for business travel arrangements in addition to the university’s online tool, Concur.
If you decide to use an online reservation tool other than Concur, the purchase invoice
submitted to the Office of Accounting for reimbursement should now include the traveler’s
statement: Online selection is best value as consistent with institutional priorities.
International reservations made through sources other than Concur or a contract agency
will need to be entered into the ISOS database manually by the traveler prior to departure,
per the Chancellor’s 2010 directive.
Please note that State of Texas contract airfares are not impacted by this policy change and
remain available only via the Concur online tool or through one of the contract travel
agencies. Agent assisted reservations should continue to be made through the university's
contracted travel agencies, Anthony Travel and Corporate Travel Planners.
Feedback from you and your peers was the impetus for this policy change. Thanks to
documentation provided by faculty and staff, we’ve been able to modify the exception
process for online reservations to meet the needs of our community. Please feel free to
forward this email to anyone you believe may benefit from this information.
Safe travels,
Travel Management Services