Present: John Ronnau, Farhat Iftekharuddin, Betsy Boze, Eldon Nelson, Sylvia Pena, Jose Martin, Amanda Fuhro, Jim Holt, Delayne Hudspeth, Victor Fuhro, Pat Wade, Cynthia Lerma, Edna Claus, Deborah Suzzane, Rene Villarreal, Wayne Lewis, Jon Steingass, Raymond Rodrigues- Presiding
 

Tom Ehrlich: The agenda for his visit on Oct 19-20 was presented and discussed.

Teaching Goals Inventory: Victor distributed a document about Iowa’s Teaching Goals Inventory process for instructional improvement.  This on-line document can be used by faculty to check their teaching goals against the goals of faculty teaching similar courses across the country.

Post-Tenure Review: The deans agreed that the Provost’s list of faculty to be reviewed this year was accurate.   Victor will be sending out faculty salary lists for Deans’ verification.  Sylvia said we need to get wage increases for staff because we are experiencing the loss of good people.  The Provost reiterated the choices that need to be made at the time the budget is established.  He asked whether the deans would support staff increases above faculty increases.  There were no responses.

Visas: There is now more opportunity to hire foreign faculty since the federal government has allowed more visas for this purpose.  The Provost noted that some institutions require the faculty being hired to begin their visa paperwork on their own prior to being hired.

Environmental Issues: There was general discussion about environmental hazards on campus and in the community.  Pat offered to be trained for Indoor Air Quality certification.  The deans thought it would be helpful.

Employee Charitable Campaign: Amanda gave presentation on the campaign.  The Provost urged all deans to contribute.

Grade of D in Graduate Courses: John presented information about the grade of D in graduate programs throughout Texas.  50% of the institutions he checked indicated that they used the D grade.  50% did not.

Distance Ed Guidelines: Betsy presented a DRAFT HOOP on guidelines for Distance Education.
There was a general discussion about Con Ed supporting distance ed and institutional infrastructure.  The Provost said that the Office of Distance Education must include Continuing Education Distance Education in the DE strategic plans, for CE uses DE resources.

HETS: Wayne discussed how HETS will continue its Continuing Ed focus.

Web-Mail: Edna informed the group that web-mail is up and running. She discussed the process about how students get signed up and logged on.  There was general discussion about current problems with the system “kicking off” users. Delayne mentioned the possibility about US becoming our own phone company, something that is becoming more common.  Wayne noted that we had checked into that, but that the negatives outweighed the positives.  That was also the conclusion of other UT System schools.

Staff Recognition Awards:  Victor Summarized the efforts to identify a process to recognize staff monthly by having special parking spots for them.  He will propose a process for Academic Affairs to use when we meet with the department chairs on Friday.