Present: John Ronnau, Farhat Iftekharuddin, Betsy Boze, Eldon Nelson, José Martín, Eli Peña, Jim Holt, Delayne Hudspeth, Victor Fuhro, Pat Wade, Cynthia Lerma, Edna Claus, Deborah Suzzane, Rene Villarreal, Wayne Lewis, Jon Steingass, Raymond Rodrigues- Presiding

Deans Council for October 17 was cancelled due to the VP/Deans retreat in Kerrville, Tx.

1. Handling Workload Conference: The Dean’s met on this item.  Betsy reported that the Deans recommend using the form submitted earlier entitled “Faculty Responsibilities and Workload Merit Form. A copy would be sent to the faculty when the Dean’s sends it to the Provost/VPAA.  The VPAA recommendation to the President regarding Level I Merit would be moved back (this year to May 15 instead of April 24) on the Personnel Calendar in order to allow adequate time for the faculty to act if needed. Jose asked inquired as to what the process was really designed to achieve. More discussion led to the need to convene Dean’s Council with a faculty group (probably faculty serving on the University Personnel Committee and the Academic Senate Executive Committee) to look at the whole issue of merit and possibly develop a new perspective.  The Provost accepted the recommendation to implement the Merit Form and new dates related to it.

2. Bi-literacy Report: Farhat shared documents produced as a result of a committee he convened to look at
Bi-literacy policy/procedure possibilities. The committee’s charge is to investigate ways that bi-literacy can be achieved within each of the majors.   He reviewed the various plans of different departments and the two detailed recommendations of two faculty.  The Deans Council agreed that the approach being taken was the most effective one, given all the contexts that we must work with.

5.   Consultant Directory- GEARUP: Alma Garcia reported on the need to identify and establish our.faculty as consultants to the GEARUP project. Forms and information were distributed for the purpose of faculty establishing themselves as consultants listed in the Consultant Directory that would be available to participating ISD’s. She asked that interested faculty returned the necessary paperwork ASAP.

4. Degree Audit Status: Eli reported on the process for implementing degree audit status.  Currently, all Level & I and II certificates are in the system.  Examples were discussed.  Inputting AAS degree information is next and should be completed in 6 weeks.  Bachelor’s degree work would begin, the first being the Business degrees.  These will take a great deal more time to accomplish. On a related issue, the Deans agreed that a 10 year limit to expiration should be established for courses in the catalogue.   The Provost assigned Pat Wade and Rene Villarreal to develop a formal recommendation for him to take forward.

6. Distance Education Section Numbers: Delayne proposed that the .800’s be set aside for Distance Ed
courses as the institution moves to 3 digits in the course section number.  The Deans concurred. Betsy proposed that a Master Plan was needed for the establishment of the 3 digit section number for courses.  Rene will bring back to Deans Council what the current status/ownership is of section numbers and this information will be used to establish 3 digit domains for the future.

8.   NCB’s: Pat presented information on the STING program. Dr. Rodrigues will request a presentation to the
      Deans Council on the program from Student Affairs.

9. & 10. Dual Credit Delivery & Registration: Single or Multi-semester: These items were tabled. Pat gave
      the Deans information related to each topic and asked that Deans review it prior to the next Deans Council.

11. TIF—The members agreed that building our infrastructure for distance education and computing should be our continued recommendation to the TIF’s new leader.