The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College

Academic Senate Minutes

April 2, 2004

I. Call to Order

Ms. Cantu called the April 2, 2004 meeting of the Academic Senate to order at 1 p.m. in SETB 3^rd Floor Conference Room.

Members of the Senate in attendance Included: Ms. Ethel Cantu (*), Dr. Edward Hymson (*), Mr. Steve Benton (s), Dr. Betsy Boze, Mr. Domingo Molina (s), Mr. Tom Welther(*), Mr. Roberto Cortina (s), Dr. Charles Lackey, Mr. Doug Ferrier, Dr. Rey Ramirez (s), Dr. Deborath Huerta (s), Dr. John A. Sutterby (s), Dr. Charles Dameron, Ms. Cheryl Phelps (s), Ms. Mabel Hockaday (s), Dr. Rafael Otero (s), Dr. Gerald Hollier (s), Dr. Renee Rubin (s), Mr. T. Jay Phillips, Dr. John Ronnau, Dr. William C. Davis (s), Mr. Victor Fuhro, Dr. Ruth A. Ragland.

In Julie Larson’s absence, Rene Rubin, Senator from the School of Education, agreed to serve as secretary and take minutes for this meeting.

II. Review and Approval of the Minutes from the February 27, 2004 Academic Senate Meeting.

Ms. Cantu called for review of the February 27, 2004 minutes. There were no corrections. Minutes were approved as written.

III. Treasurer’s Report

Dr. Edward Hymson reported that $800 had been moved from the Academic Senate’s Maintenance and Operation line item to its Travel line item so that members could make required trips to Austin. Dr. Hymson also discussed the expense of making hard copies, and members voted to reduce copying by sending e-mail rather than hard copies when possible. Hymson mentioned that the Academic Senate is sometimes charged a $30 service charge by the bank and requested that the Provost’s Office, which manages the account, get the $30 fee waived. Mr. Victor Fuhro agreed to check into this matter.

IV. Presentation and Discussion: Student Advising

Dr. Eli Peña Academic Advising Center Director, reported on changes in student advising. He began by explaining the need for change. In 2003, the Academic Advising Center had more than 20,000 appointments. Currently there is only one advisor in the Academic Advising Center for every 1,000 full-time students. National standards call for one advisor for every 250 students. There is a long wait time for advising appointments. In addition, degree plans are not audited until the semester of graduation, and 40 to 50 problems arise every semester. Other problems were discussed, such as the lack of campus-wide coordination of advising, limited advisor/faculty development and training programs, and the complexity of academic programs and curriculum.

Eli Peña then explained the proposed changes for the 2004-2005 academic year. The new student advising fee of $25 per semester will allow the center to double its staff and have approximately one advisor for every 550 students. The Academic Advising Center will be centralized with all full-time academic advisors housed together. All the advisors will have knowledge of all advising procedures and policies, but individual advisors will be assigned to academic departments or programs. Academic advisors will also conduct faculty development in advising procedures and policies. Students will receive initial advising through the Academic Advising Center. Once the student is assigned to an academic department, a faculty advisor will be assigned to the student. Dr. Peña said faculty advisors would be assigned almost immediately in some programs, such as industrial technology, but in other programs, such as School of Education programs, the students would not be assigned until they had completed their first 60 hours and met the admission requirements for the School of Education. The new system would require degree audits a minimum of one semester before graduation.

Dr. Peña then answered faculty questions. He said efforts would be made to assign students to faculty in their program so that faculty would be able to give proper advising. Dr. Peña said that substitutions in the core can be approved by Mr. Jay Phillips, Dr. Ruth Ann Ragland, and himself. Substitutions in the major should be approved by the appropriate department chair. He said that students can do degree audits themselves on-line except for about 10 percent of substitutions, old courses, or electives. Ms. Linda Fossen said that on-line advising would also help with class planning. However, she said that they are not quite at a point where they can give faculty advisors a list of students who are stop outs or have changed majors so that faculty advisors can remove them from their files. If stop-outs return to the university, they will go back to the Academic Advising Center rather than the faculty advisor. Dr. Peña said that they are working on updating the catalog on-line to include all new Programs of Study, but there are approximately 600 different Programs of Study and most majors have changed in the last three years. He advised faculty to call him or Ms. Fossen if students were being allowed to register for classes without proper prerequisites. He added that this problem had been reduced since arena registration was eliminated. There was a discussion about changing catalogs and that students could remain in the same catalog if they stayed within their original major, but should change catalogs if they switched majors. Mr. Welther asked if the advising center addressed academic responsibility, such as taking too many classes while working full time, and Dr. Peña responded, “Every day.”

V. Presentation and Discussion: Campus Compact

Dr. Hector Castillo and Dr. Marilyn Woods presented a draft of the Campus Compact, which is a report on the current status of the university, five short term priorities, and five long-term priorities,. The compact also includes future initiatives of high strategic importance, other critical issues related to institutional priorities, system and state priorities, and information on the development of the compact. They said that the compact has been written in close conjunction with the UTB/TSC Futures Commission.

Dr. Woods and Dr. Castillo then answered questions about the compact. They said that the university is expected to meet the objectives of the compact but that one of the purposes of the compact is to let the state know where we need assistance in order to achieve the objectives of the plan. The compact includes a discussion of using the School of Business’ capstone courses for service learning projects. Dr. Hymson said that this plan had not been discussed with the School of Business faculty members. Academic Senate members then voted to have a special meeting to discuss the Campus Compact before it is finalized in July.

VI. Senate President’s Report

Ms. Cantu discussed the March 11, 2004 Texas Southmost College Board Meeting. She said the board discussed real estate transactions in closed session but did not take any action in open session. They approved a new Certificate and Associate Degree in Web Design. They heard about the successful passage of the student referendum to build a Wellness/Recreation Center and a report about updates to the master plan. The full report was distributed at the meeting and is in the appendix to these minutes.

VII. Faculty Advisory Council Report

Ms. Cantu reported that she and Tom Welther attended the March 4-5 Faculty Advisory Council meeting in Austin. Two of the major issues discussed were the campus compacts and the relationship of tenure and salary. The full report was distributed at the meeting and is in the appendix to these minutes.

VIII. Academic Affairs Partnership Committee Meeting

Ms. Cantu said the main purpose of this March 4, 2004 meeting was to approve the proposal for the new Certificate and Associate Web Design Degree program, which was then sent to the TSC board. The full report was distributed at the meeting and is in the appendix to these minutes.

IX. Discussion: Library/Master Plan

The Academic Senate discussed the pros and cons of renovating the current library, building satellite libraries, or building a new centrally located library. Dr. Edward Hymson moved and Dr. Rafael Otero seconded a motion that the campus development plan include a proposal for a new library centrally located to classrooms, dormitories, research areas, and that the architects be directed to come up with such a plan. The motion was approved.

X. New Business

Mr. Roberto Cortina brought up the fact that both full-time and part-time faculty evaluate administrators on campus. He said most part-time faculty do not know administrators beyond the chairs. Cortina said this seems to be an empty evaluation. Ms. Cantu said that the HOOP policy would be also would be reviewed on this matter.

Mr. Molina asked when chairs were voted on and how chairs’ terms should be renewed. Ms. Cantu said HOOP policy also would be reviewed on this matter.

Mr. Welther asked when faculty members would hear about personnel actions. Dr. Martin said notices should go out soon.

XI. Provost/VPAA’s Report

Dr. Martin announced that Terry Tomlin had won the chancellor award. He said there were quite a few wonderful candidates and that it was an honor just to be nominated.

He said that the Rio Grande Regional Science and Engineering Fair had been successfully conducted on campus on March 6 and thanked those faculty and staff members who had helped.

He said there will be 23 new faculty positions next year. Dr. Martin added that this is not enough, but it will keep us even.

Although Barnes and Nobles does not have a legal responsibility to release textbook adoption lists, the university has agreed to do this. Therefore, in the future the textbook adoptions will be placed on-line.

Dr. Martin said that additional classes will be offered in Harlingen to meet growing demand there.

Dr. Martin also discussed newspaper articles concerning the low 8 percent student retention rate of UTB/TSC. He explained that this number is misleading for many reasons. First, he said that we have a good retention rate for comparable 2-year institutions but low compared to other four year institutions. He said that our students often take longer to graduate because most of our students need to work while going to school, over 50 percent of our students need developmental courses, and many students are the first in their families to go to college. In addition, if students come to UTB/TSC and then transfer to other universities for majors that we do not offer, they are counted as dropping out when in reality they graduate from another institution after getting their foundation at UTB/TSC. Faculty members also discussed the value added to students and the community even if the students do not graduate. Dr. Martin said efforts are being made to increase the retention rate with a revised speech course, which will include university experience information and be taken the first year at UTB/TSC.

XII. Adjournment

The meeting stood adjourned.

Appendix

Senate President’s Report

April 2, 2004

TSC Board Meeting

I attended the TSC Board meeting of March 11, 2004. The board first met in executive session to discuss real estate (Novillo Canyon, E. Jackson St. & Ft. Brown Villa Condominium). No action was taken on real estate matters when the board convened in open session. The board adopted a resolution granting tax exemptions for certain historic sites, authorized negotiations to conduct the election of TSC trustees, approved final payment to JDS Construction for the business incubator at ITECC, approved a budget amendment to account for the sale of Duffey Plaza and expenditures for ITECC and East Loop, and approved the Certificate and Associate Degree in Web Design. The board also heard reports from the Institutional Effectiveness Partnership Committee about the publication which will be distributed to the public and from the Student Affairs Partnership Committee about the successful passage of the student referendum to build a Wellness/Recreation Center. The board then heard a presentation from the design firm 3DI about the update to the master plan. The next meeting of the TSC Board of Trustees will be April 22, 2004.

Faculty Advisory Council

Tom Welther, Academic Senate VP and I attended the FAC meeting March 4-5 in Austin. Major items discussed included the Accountability and Performance Report (accessible through the Academic Senate website under Reports, UT System), the campus compacts, tuition waivers for faculty and staff, and the relationship of tenure and salary. Resolutions passed by FAC included:

• Recommend a representative from FAC be on the Pornography Committee
• Make preliminary drafts of each institution’s compact available for stakeholders including all faculty through the faculty governance body.
• Recognize and applaud the efforts of Chancellor Yudof and staff for addressing the appropriation shortfall through tuition deregulation and conveying to each institution greater control of their financial future.

Details of the FAC meeting are provided in a summary submitted by FAC Secretary Lona Sandon and included in the packet for this Academic Senate meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Ethel Cantu

Academic Senate President

Academic Affairs Partnership Committee Meeting

March 4, 2004

Provost Jose Martin and TSC Trustees Mary Rose Cardenas and Dr. Roberto Robles met on March 4, 2004 with the primary objective of approving the proposal for a Certificate/Associate Web Design Degree program. The program was approved and will be placed on the TSC Board meeting agenda. Dr. Luis Colom presented an update on the Biomedical Grants proposal; Dr. Ruth Ann Ragland reported on the Rio Grande Regional Science and Engineering Fair that UTB/TSC will host; Dr. Carl Stockton announced that eight student teachers in Science Education won a competition at a NASA conference; Dr. Charles Dameron announced that several institutions from China are interested in collaborations with UTB/TSC; Dr. Eldon Nelson announced the possibility of an exchange of nursing students with China; and Dr. Jose Martin reported on the Bahia Grande wetlands restoration project.

Respectfully submitted,

Ethel Cantu

Academic Senate President