Present: John Ronnau, Farhat Iftekharuddin, Betsy Boze, Marilyn Dyer-Whelan, Sylvia Peña, José Martín, Jim Holt, Delayne Hudspeth, Victor Fuhro, Pat Wade, Cynthia Lerma, Edna Claus, Jon Steingass, Raymond Rodrigues – Presiding.

Victor presented draft of Spring calendar and asked for input about a possible date for a speaker that the President will be bringing to campus.

Consensus about AA’s representation on the SA’s Enrollment Management Committee was that no recommendation would be made until some closure takes place on the direction as to where the institution is heading related to Enrollment Management.  This closure will most likely be an outcome of the Oct 2-3 Enrollment Mgmt retreat.

Discussion about each college and school’s preparation in understanding / presenting enrollment trends in light of retreat activities and limited enrollment trend data at the institution.  The new IR Director’s coming aboard and the collaborative activities of that office with Data Management will be a welcome presence for each academic unit in gearing up for enrollment trend reporting and forecasting.

A general discussion about our latest arena registration occurred: The deans noted their concerns.

Cindy Lerma presented latest enrollment data- the day after arena.  The numbers are up when compared to Fall 98 counting year (an 11.79% increase in SCH’s), but, historically, that increase can be expected to diminish by the 12 th class day.

Edna reported that there were no reports of computing speed slowdown during registration.  During telephone registration, however, people continue being kicked off the system during peak times when trying to get in the system from outside the institution. Edna also presented the initiation of a student e-mail account to log-in and –out of the system. This will greatly enhance the institution’s ability to monitor lab use.  A general discussion about privacy and Internet use took place in the context of UT System rules and regs.

A general discussion  took place about faculty concerns relative to the workload plan and its contractural role and use in determining base merit. Any recommendation about the workload plan process would need to be addressed by the Personnel Committee.   Provost Rodrigues said that he would propose a revised workload report form.

This year’s general education assessment initiative was discussed.  Besides the intellectual competencies that have already been agreed to by each gen ed academic area, the main focus for the Fall semester would be writing and reading.  To this end, workshops will be planned by the Associate VPAA working with Liberal Arts and SM&T in order to present faculty with skills and tools they need to accomplish this work: General ed syllabi revision.  Revised syllabi will be due Oct 15.

The Noel-Levitz survey will take place and be paid for by the office of the VPAP who will also be able to utilize findings in IE processes.  20% student sample was recommended.

Regulations about travel to DC were discussed.  Basically, no report is necessary if you go as a tourist.  Otherwise all institutional employees must report their travel to Washington, DC.

The Provost asked whether we should bring a AAHE team to campus to head a workshop on post-tenure review or send faculty to their conference, with the expectation that the faculty present workshops or lead post-tenure review improvement procedures when they return.  The deans preferred to send faculty.

All were made aware that the internal auditors would be visiting campus units per the distributed schedule..  The purpose of the audits will be reviewing account reconciliation and segregation of duties.

The K-16 initiative was discussed and information about a K-16 conference was distributed.