Present: Sylvia Peña- Dean of Education; John Ronnau- Dean of Graduate Studies; Farhat Iftekharuddin- Dean of Liberal Arts; Betsy Boze- Dean of Business; Eldon Nelson- Dean of Health Sciences; T. Jay Phillips- Interim Dean of Science, Math, Technology; Jim Holt- Dean of CE; Doug Ferrier- Library; Eli Peña- Academic Advising; Delayne Hudspeth- Distance Ed; Wayne Lewis- Academic Computing; Deborah Suzzane- IR; Jon Steingass- Developmental Ed; Victor Fuhro- Asst. VPAA; Pat Wade- Assoc. VPAA; José Martín- Provost/VPAA- Presiding

I. Information Items: José discussed possibly changing Deans Council to Monday if the VP Council moves to Tuesday. Directors and others will be asked to come at the beginning of DC (9:00), a break will occur at 10:00, and only the Deans, Provost/VPAA, Asst. VPAA, and Assoc. VPAA will remain for the rest of the meeting. José asked that the submission of any agenda item include a brief clarification and appropriate type of action needed.  Jose also discussed the need to streamline the workdays prior to the start of semesters and asked for input from the Deans. Delayne added that a Master Schedule is needed on the web-site for the purpose of facilitating any and all planning.
Victor announced:  1. Bill Harris is the newly elected President of the Academic Senate.  2. The Student Fee Advisory Committee would be meeting that afternoon. The Deans expressed concern that such short notice was given in light of the preparation some would need to prepare properly for the presentation of their fee proposals.
3. Fellowship $’s are available for Liberal Arts experiential learning fellowships.

II. Deans/Chairs Agenda for 12/01/00: Jose discussed the agenda for the coming Friday meeting and asked for input and additional items. John will investigate if HOOP 7.6.5: Admission Categories for Non-Degree Seeking and Special Post Bac.Students needs to go before the Deans/Chairs. Jay felt that it might have already been there at a previous meeting.

III. Degree Audit at the Desktop: Pat presented the process to the group for creating course equates which is the first step needing to be completed in Colleague so degree audit can move forward. Discussion about the process led to consensus that the Deans would individually take care of their respective areas and that the course equate process didn’t need to be covered at Friday’s workshop. Pat will deliver the revised process and course listings to the Deans by the end of the week. The deadline for academic units completing the course equate process is Jan 31, 2001.

IV. HOOP 6.2.2: Academic Probation & Suspension – Graduate: John presented the policy revision and DC was in consensus on its acceptance. The policy will now go to the Deans/Chairs workshop for discussion.  John also asked that the status on HOOP 5.2.4.2: Student Membership on Graduate Committee be revisited. Deans Council could not reach consensus on a graduate student being included in matter related to personnel discussion. José asked that John and he meet to discuss other possibilities of graduate student involvement.

V. HOOP 7.2.2: Qualifications for Categories of Membership in the Graduate Faculty: After a discussion by all the deans this HOOP proposal was defeated.

VI. Student Cohort & Student Flow Data Management System: Deborah presented a graphic (Logic & Statistic Evaluations) of data variables available at the institution.  She envisions Excel spreadsheets on-line utilizing the databases in the IS that faculty and others would be able to access. José stated that we need to bridge the gaps between what is needed by the academic units and what is perceived as “do-able.” To this end, José created a Taskforce for this purpose: Jon, Delayne, John, Sylvia, Eli, and Pat volunteered. A suggestion was to create a list-serve for the purpose of keeping all updated on Taskforce progress.

José presented a follow-up e-mail he received from Wayne on 3 items. 1. TEXAN-III: Jose asked that Wayne involve our campus telephone people in these discussions and bring a proposal back to DC with necessary action needed. 2. TIF Priorities: The DC supports Wayne in writing a letter to the TIF Board for the purpose of addressing advanced notice funding cycles and equitable funding for higher ed.  3. Purchasing of computing equipment continues to be problematic. José stated that he had recruited Fitra Khan of the Computer Science department as a liaison to look into this problem area.