President Kotarba called the March 21, 2007 Spring Faculty Assembly and  Senate meeting to order in the Rockwell Pavilion of the MD Anderson Library at 12:15 p.m.

MEMBERS PRESENT:  [31]
  ARCH:    M. Sabatino            
  BUS:      R. Keller, W. Chin, C. Pirrong
  CLASS:  E. Brown-Guillory, S. Craig, A. Gordon, W. Herendeen, T. Karner, J. Kotarba, D. Mazella, J. Middents, F. Schiff, G. Trail   
  EDU:      M. Clarke
  ENGR     A. Kamrani, Y.L. Mo, R. Willson           
  HRM:      K. Titz
  LAW:      S. Huber
  LIB:        D. Camille, D. Bruxvoort
  NSM:      P. Copeland, X. Gao, A. Ignatiev, D. Wells, J. Subhlok
  OPT:       R. Manny, S. Quintero
  PHA:      S. Sansgiry
  TECH:    K. Greenwood

MEMBERS ABSENT:  [21]                
  BUS:       S. Kadipasaoglu                      
  CLASS:   V. Brady, M. Haun, N. Houston, A. Kugler, M. McHenry, D. Montoya
  EDU:       J. Freiberg (w/ notice), S. McNeil (w/ notice), A. Warner (w/ notice)
  ENGR:    J. Richardson, J. Williams
  GSSW:   H. Karger                
  LAW:      M. Duncan, P. Linzer 
  LIB:        S. Ferimer (w/ notice)
  NSM:     J. Eichberg (w/ notice), G. Johnson, K. Kadish, T. R. Lee, M. Ru

VISITORS:   
Leroy Hermes (Chair, UH System Board of Regents), Don Foss (UHS Senior Vice Chancellor and UH Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost), Elwyn Lee (UHS Vice Chancellor and UH Vice President for Student Affairs), James Anderson (UHS Executive Associate to the Chancellor), John Powell (Assistant to the Chancellor/President, Communications), Elaine Charlson (UHS Executive Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and UH Executive Associate Vice President for Academic and Faculty Affairs), Ed Hugetz (UHS Assistant Vice Chancellor and UH Assistant Vice President for Planning & University Outreach), Marco Mariotto (Dean, Graduate & Professional Studies), Teri Longacre (UH Ombudsperson and Associate Professor, Management), Oscar Gutierrez (Assistant to the Vice Chancellor/Vice President for University Advancement), Sandy Frieden (Executive Director, Organizational Change Management), Eric Gerber (Director, University Communications), , Chuck Layne (Chair and Professor, HHP) Judy Myers (Librarian and Professor), Virginia Davis (Associate Professor/Librarian), Evelyn Brass (Senior Associate Librarian, University Libraries), Richard Guajardo (Senior Associate Librarian), Carolyn Meanley (Senior Associate Librarian, University Libraries), Miranda Bennett (Assistant Librarian, University Libraries), Mike Emery (Writer/Editor2, Internal Communications), Mayra Cruz (Daily Cougar)

MINUTES:  The minutes for the February 21, 2007 Senate meeting were approved.

REPORT FROM AND DISCUSSION WITH THE FACULTY SENATE PRESIDENT:  Joseph Kotarba

Pres. Kotarba reported on Faculty Senate activities, including:  (1) The Senate President and President-elect have participated in organizing UFEC’s International Studies Conference set for March 30.  He encouraged faculty to register and attend the event at UH-CL.  (2)  A committee was formed to review the Climate Survey and write a report; Joseph Eichberg will chair this group.  (3)  Spoke about the articles the Senate President has been writing for UHC News.  He mentioned the next issue will be about the importance of faculty travel.  (4)  An Ad Hoc committee, chaired by Steve Craig, is looking at long range planning for UH.  The group has been asked to define a research university and to look for models that UH might use.  (5)  The Senate President will attend the next meeting of the Student Government Association to listen to their concerns. 

Pres. Kotarba announced that:  (1) the Scholarship and Community Conference will be held September 26, 2007.  A steering committee will be formed soon.   (2)  Katy Greenwood received the top service award out for the College of Technology.  (3)  Amy Tucker, the Faculty Senate’s Office Coordinator, has completed her 6 month probationary period and was awarded a pin.  

Sen. Greenwood introduced the Executive Committee’s Resolution on Parking Rate Increases:

University of Houston Faculty Senate Resolution on Parking Rate Increases
(Passed unanimously by the Executive Committee on March 5, 2007)

The Executive Committee recommends to the Senate that University of Houston faculty parking rates increase
 no more in any given year than the average percentage provided for faculty merit salary increases that year. 

Rationale:  The cost of employment at the University continues to be negatively affected by factors beyond local control,
such as the increasing cost of medical insurance.  Parking costs are totally within the control of the University. 

PRESENTATION OF THE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE SLATE:  Katy Greenwood

The Grievance Committee has four open positions; three carry full terms of three years and one carries a term of one year.  Only full time tenured faculty or full-time librarians at the rank of Senior Associate Librarians are eligible to stand for election.  No nominations were made from the floor.  Voting will take place on-line from Monday, March 26, to Friday, April 6.   

REPORT FROM AND DISCUSSION WITH THE CHAIRMAN, UH SYSTEM BOARD OF REGENTS:  Leroy Hermes

Chairman Hermes reported on:  (1) Dr. Gogue is making rounds at Auburn University as he is the sole candidate for their next president.  It is a great honor to be selected by his alma mater.  (2)  Many things are in progress at the University including the long term master planning.  In the next 10 to 15 years the culture of UH will be changing.  (3)  The master plan includes a $100 million housing project to be built between the Business and Law buildings.  It is set to start later this year.  (4)  The legislative sessions are in continuance and over the next two to three months the Regents will be making trips to Austin a few times a week.  The focus will be higher education and hopefully more money will be going toward higher education, including a possible restoration of the10% budget cuts.  (5)  A personal goal is to start the search for a new President to in May and have a new Chancellor/President in place by January 1, 2008.  The topic of an Interim President will be discussed by the Board of Regents at its April 3 meeting. 

In response to questions about the Science-Engineering-Research-Classroom Building (SERC), John Rudley, UHS Vice Chancellor and UH Vice President for Administration & Finance, said that he and the Provost had inherited the SERC, but as he understood it the building was built as a shell and would be built out as new research was attracted to campus, including private fund raising and indirect cost.  He added that some HEAF had been used.  Faculty members pointed out that to finish the building would involve more than indirect cost, part of the SERC was needed to relieve existing research space deficits on campus and that the empty building was creating image problems for UH.  Don Foss, UHS Senior Vice Chancellor and UH Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and UH Provost, stated that the administration would revisit the SERC question.     

REPORT FROM AND DISCUSSION WITH THE UH SYSTEM SENIOR VICE CHANCELLOR AND UH SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT:  Don Foss

Dr. Foss said:  (1) The recent budget process had identified a large number of needs for the campus with requests over $30 million for new money.  The administration did the budget, requesting $9 million in recurring funds for new initiatives.  The administration will propose ranges of funding to the Regents at their April 3 meeting to discuss tuition.  (2)  Discussions will also be going on with community leadership and Prairie View for ways to serve the Northwest corridor.  (3)  Some colleagues from Weill/Cornell Medical School will visit UH on March 30th  (4) Faculty raises should be merit based. 

In response to questions, the Provost stated:  (1) the Senate should set some time aside to discuss the issue of salary compression if this is a priority of the faculty and (2) adequately funding start-up packages is a national problem, but the Vice President for Research and the Provost are looking at ways to manage costs, such as departments hiring faculty who might be able to share expensive equipment.

REPORT FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT:  Sandy Frieden

There will be many changes to PeopleSoft in the coming months.  The new academic PeopleSoft went live on March 5.  Different functions will be rolled out one at a time to ensure that no issues arise.  Dr. Frieden noted that the old system was 17 years old and needed to be upgraded.  The old system will be in use until the end of summer.  At this time spreadsheets are not able to be uploaded into this system.   Faculty will be able to input grades into this system to allow students to view their grades.  Faculty will have new self-service options, be able to download rosters and contact students.  There will be special training sessions available.

In response to questions, Dr. Frieden stated that:  (1) Colleges and departments are working with the PS team to input restrictions for courses and (2) she would check on how the system handles consent of instructor to registers for courses and let the Senate know.

Responses from Dr. Frieden: 

Can consent be required? 
Some courses have been set up by the department to require consent before a student can register.  This consent is set up in advance to happen in one of two ways:  1) the department can give the student a permission number which the student uses to register for the class (and so is allowed in); or 2) the department can attach the student’s PeopleSoft ID to a particular section to put the student into the class.

Does PeopleSoft check for prerequisites?  
PeopleSoft does check for various types of prerequisites, such as that they have to be in a particular program (like graduate business), or be in a certain major (for example, art, in order to get into a particular art course).  If they still want to get in, they can ask the department for permission, and the department can put them in the course.

At this time, the system is not checking for course prerequisites—that functionality will be loaded at a later date.

Can instructors override prerequisites?
Instructors (generally) don’t have access to the system, but can notify advisors or the department to allow a student into a course.

REPORTS FROM THE FACULTY SENATE COMMITTEES are available on-line at:  http://www.uh.edu/fs/FS_Cms_Reports_032107.html 
    Some highlights from the reports include

 Budget and Facilities Committee report outlines some ideas that emerged from the recent College budget hearings

Committee on Committees report lists the slate of candidates for the UH Faculty Grievance Committee

Faculty Affairs Committee report lists the Senators who will serve as liaisons to the colleges in completing the reports on College Bylaws.

Scholarship and Community Committee reports on its meeting with Michael Rierson, UHS Vice Chancellor and UH Vice President for University Advancement and lists the four areas for which the University Administration, Deans, and Department Chairs agreed funding should be used 

The meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m.