UNIVERSITY
OF HOUSTON FACULTY SENATE SPRING ASSEMBLY/MINUTES – October 13, 2004
President Auchmuty called the 2004
Fall Faculty Assembly and October 13 Faculty Senate meeting to order in the
Farish Hall Kiva at 12:00 Noon.
BUS: W. Chin, S. Khumawala, M. Parks, D. Rude
CLASS: A. Jacobson, J. Kotarba,
J. Middents, D. Papell, G. San Miguel
EDU: M. Connell, S. McNeil, A. Warner,
C. White
ENGR: S. Kleis, G. Paskusz
LIB: S. Ferimer, M. B. Thomson
NSM: G. Auchmuty, P. Copeland, J.
Eichberg, G. Etgen, A. Ignatiev, E. Leiss, D. Wells
OPT: R. Manny, S. Quintero
PHA: C. Pedemonte
TECH: C.
Goodson
GSSW: H. Karger
MEMBERS ABSENT: [22]
ARCH: D. Kacmar
CLASS: K. Brown, B. Byrnes, S. Craig (w/E),
P. Gingiss, W. Herendeen, B. Lange, R. Murray, J. Rushing, F. Schiff, G. Trail,
R. Weldon
ENGR: T. Cleveland, O. Ghazzaly, T. Helwig, D.
Zimmerman (w/E)
HRM: K. Titz
LAW: M. Duncan (w/E), S. Huber (w/E)
NSM: D. Blecher, K. Kadish
TECH: K. Greenwood
ON LEAVE: [1]
CLASS: V. Brady (w/E)
VISITORS:
Jay Gogue
(UHS Chancellor and UH President), Jerry Strickland (Interim UHS Senior Vice
Chancellor and UH Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs/ Provost), John
Rudley (UHS Vice Chancellor and UH Vice President for Administration &
Finance), Elwyn Lee (UHS Vice Chancellor and UH Vice President for Student
Affairs), James Anderson (Executive Associate to UHS Chancellor/UH President), Marco
Mariotto (Dean of Graduate & Professional Studies), Ed Hugetz (UHS
Assistant Vice Chancellor and UH Assistant Vice President for Planning &
University Outreach), David Bell (UHS Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic
Affairs), Ed Apodaca (Associate Vice President Enrollment Management and
Admissions), Charles Shomper (Associate Vice President for Information
Technology and Chief Information Officer, UH), Wendy Adair (UH System Associate
Vice Chancellor and UH Associate Vice President for University Relations), Abel
Garza (Executive Director/Affirmative Action), Craig Ness (Executive Director,
Academic Budgets & Operations, SVP-AA), Brian McKinney (Director, Academic
Program Management), John Powell (Executive Speechwriter), Theresa Monaco
(Professor of CUIN), Maria Gonzalez (Professor of ENGL)
APPROVAL OF
THE MINUTES: The September 1, 2004,
minutes were approved.
WELCOME AND
REPORT ON FACULTY SENATE ACTIVITIES:
Giles Auchmuty
The Faculty Senate has been involved
in many different activities over the past half-year. More precisely the Faculty Senate has enabled
many faculty members – both senators and others – to participate in the policy
and decision making of the university in a variety of ways. The Faculty Senate generally acts as an
intermediary in this process and the Faculty Senate Office provides essential
resources to facilitate much of this. Senators
are always very appreciative of the efforts of the staff on their behalf.
While many faculty regard the Faculty
Senate as primarily a body that meets here in the Kiva on a monthly basis – and
perhaps holds some committee meetings the reality, as I’ve found out over the
summer, is that the Faculty Senate is regarded as being the collective
representative of the faculty at UH. As
such we end up being involved in many unexpected activities and call upon the
expertise of the faculty in a large number of different areas to provide advice
and counsel.
Much of the work is done through
advisory or ad hoc committees; and task forces.
Some do a lot of work and others rarely meet or are not very
effective. Today I will highlight some
of the significant groups working on, or resolving various issues at the
University. Nearly all of them involve
the collaborative efforts of many people; only rarely are they the work of any
single individual. An example of a
special situation was the advice various faculty members under the aegis of the
Faculty Senate provided recently on how to improve the acceptance of the new
telephone system.
In March, growing out of the
recommendations of the climate survey produced by a Faculty Senate committee in
2002-2003, the Faculty Senate established the Faculty Senate Commission on
University Governance (FS-COUG) which is composed of seven faculty members and
four administrative representatives who are reviewing current shared governance
procedures and processes and hopefully will provide some guidelines on possible
future structures and processes. I
believe, we have all been much happier with the very different approaches
adopted by our new President/Chancellor to resolving issues at UH. Much of what happens on the academic front
will depend on the incoming Provost – and we all wish the Provost’s search committee
all the best in their search for a chief academic officer. Certainly, we have an exceptionally
academically strong and diverse committee that merits our full support and
respect.
Currently there also is a much
smaller search committee that is seeking a new Vice President for Advancement and
I’m pleased to say that the President-elect Al Warner is on that committee as a
faculty representative.
In March the Faculty Senate voted
unanimously to join the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics and elected Joe
Kotarba as its representative. In this
we are joining over 50 other
One of my first acts as Faculty
Senate president was to improve the communications and internet presence of the
Faculty Senate. We would like to
encourage you to use the Faculty Senate Website as well as UH today and the UH
calendar as ways to find out what’s happening around the university. This is a very active and vibrant place and I
encourage you all to bookmark and use these websites.
Earlier this year, the recent
revision of the Faculty Handbook was completed after, literally, years of work
by Joe Eichberg, Elaine Charlson and others.
This summer it was posted on the web by Mary Brantley. It say that there are tenured and
tenure-track faculty as well as six other classifications of non-tenure track
faculty. Earlier this year another
group, library faculty, was added to the list. Currently this Faculty Senate
primarily involves just the T&TT faculty and the library faculty. This summer the quadrennial reapportionment
of the Faculty Senate was determined.
Three colleges (LAW, LIB and NSM) gained a faculty senator each at the
expense of ENGR, CLASS and TECH. In
looking at the comparable figures since 1992, one sees that the T&TT size
has remained at 855 +/- 40 over this time period – while UH enrollment has
grown considerably at the undergraduate level.
Overall graduate and professional enrollment has not gone up – and
demand has varied greatly depending on subject area.
Over this period, overall faculty salary
increments have barely matched
A major effort of Dr. Gogue’s first
year in office was the development of a draft UHS strategic plan. This was approved at the Board of Regents
meeting in August. There were
representatives of each of the faculty senates on the commission that helped
develop the plan. Subsequently the four
faculty senates joined to help arrange the inauguration of Dr. Gogue a couple
of weeks ago. The two senior officers of
each of the faculty senates meet on a regular basis to discuss system
issues. Currently, each of the
universities in the system has very different priorities and objectives, but we
also have many common interests and concerns.
It seems that there will be some effort to explore possible synergies
and co-operative programs in the system, as well as efforts to provide classes
in some new locations. I believe it is
very important for the faculty senates to keep in touch and cooperate on common
faculty concerns.
There are many other issues that
have been considered by the Faculty Senate, its committees or other groups such
as the group seeking to establish a Center for Social Research. This was originally proposed at a Faculty
Senate retreat and is gaining considerable momentum under the leadership of
Howard Karger.
Let me conclude by saying how much
I’ve appreciated the efforts of so many other people with whom I’ve worked on
many of these issues. UH is a remarkable
place with many remarkable people and it has been very interesting time so far.
STATE OF
THE UNIVERSITY ADDRESS: Dr. Jay Gogue, UH System Chancellor and UH President
Dr. Gogue thanked Dr. Auchmuty and
everyone for their support during the first year and for being civil when
mistakes were made. He said he
appreciated that. It has been said that
when a new president arrives he/she is supposed to be perfect and then
improve. Dr. Gogue said he didn’t start perfect
and everyone makes mistakes, so he appreciates it when the faculty nudge him in
a nice way tell him that UH needs to do something in a different way.
Dr. Gogue thanked the faculty and
Senate for the inauguration. From the all
the nice things he heard, he said he did not recognize who was being talked
about. The comments were very kind and
certainly his wife and he appreciated that.
Today he would like to talk about
some of the things that he thinks are good at UH, but also talk about some of
the things that need improvement in his judgment.
On the positive side: (1) Classrooms. He gives John Rudley and the folks who have
tried to address the classroom issues on the campus a lot of credit. They have made a lot of improvements with 50
classrooms renovated this past year and about 50 that were done the previous
year. That is not to imply that UH is
where it ought to be but the resources that have been focused on the classrooms
has been very important to this University.
(2) The new Library addition is near completion. The
Dr. Gogue said he wanted to talk
about a few items that UH as an institution needs improvement. He said that he went back and looked at the
2002 Faculty Climate Survey. He
especially noted the issues and concerns that were on the very bottom of the
list. The ones where UH is not making
the kind of progress it should. Dr.
Gogue said he would be remiss if he didn’t say that the previous administration
had begun to address these issues. They
tried very hard to begin taking the right steps to address some of the
issues. Dr. Gogue said he would mention
six of the issues. These are in priority
order of the things that faculty disliked the most in the climate survey: (1) Shared governance. Dr. Gogue said he hoped that in the past year
faculty have sensed some change in the way that the administration is trying to
address shared governance. As President
one of the awkward things that he has to deal with in shared governance is
dealing with eight different groups that feel very strongly that they have a
voice in the governance of the institution.
UH has the Undergraduate Council, Research Council, Graduate and
Professional Studies Council, Student Government Association, Staff Council,
Faculty Senate, Deans Council, and Department Organizations. Each thinks about issues but often do not
communicate with their colleagues or other groups. Dr. Gogue said he is not suggesting that
faculty issues require him to sit down with every group, but there should be
some discussion before it just arrives to him.
Because when it arrives to him without that discussion then he has to go
backwards in the system. Dr. Gogue said
he really applauds the group that is trying to look at governance and trying to
look at the structure. It is absolute
key. It is a strong belief of his that
the more the governance can be shared, it really improves communication. It really does a great job in making the
better decisions of an institution. UH certainly
is not where it ought to be but hopefully everyone senses there is a little
movement and a little improvement. (2)
Allocation of resources. For the past
biennium this institution has been operating under budget cuts; not really much
in the way of allocations but in cuts.
The current budget proposal that UH had to submit calls for a 5%
additional cut. The top priority of this
institution, of all the institutions in the State, is to try to figure out how
in the world not to have a budget cut again.
There are some good signs. The
economy of
Dr. Gogue said he appreciates having
the opportunity to serve as president. He
said he learns a lot each day. It is
always exciting to come to work when one has an opportunity to make a
difference in a large organization. He
said he cares deeply about this school and hopes that over time that everyone
will see a lot of the issues that need to be improved, improved. Dr. Gogue urged everyone to celebrate UH’s
successes and to work hard on the areas that need improvement.
Questions
and Answers:
Sen. Jacobson said the admission
group was described in the Daily Cougar and sounded like a wonderful idea. Its notion of continuing improvement sounded
really good. Sen. Jacobson said there
was discussion about whether raising admission standards would cost UH in diversity
and the head of the Student Government Association appears to agree. During last spring’s provost search that issue
came up because one candidate said if UH raises standards, it will lose
diversity. The minority faculty thought
that was false, so Sen. Jacobson was wondering if the admission group is
involved in the making the decision to raise standards and whether they might
have some way of looking at how to retain diversity, particularly if UH
retargets its recruitment. Dr. Gogue
said he thinks it is flat wrong to make the assumption that kids who are in
certain ethnic groups are just poor students.
Dr. Gogue said he didn’t believe that if the group does its job well
that it has to affect the diversity numbers.
Dr. Gogue said he has been at institutions in which graduation rates of
minority students exceeded that of Anglo students and their GPA exceeded that
of Anglo students. UH has got a
tremendous track record in maintaining diversity and it is going to be smart
enough to keep that going. Dr.
Strickland said the task force is quite diverse and that issue was on the table
at every meeting. Dr. Strickland said
that the folks who were selected for the task force have done what the faculty
would expect them to do and they are speaking out; that is an issue and
everybody knows it. Losing diversity is
a potential problem, but the group is not convinced that it is a problem at UH. Dr. Strickland said the other issue he wants
the group to focus on is the graduation rates.
Dr. Gogue said he was surprised to learn that there isn’t a high
correlation between SAT scores and the amount time to graduate for UH students. Dr. Gogue said that the task force is looking
at way the institution can address the problem.
Sen. Ignatiev said he applauded the
President and the rest of the administration for their work on getting the Tier
1 funds restored. He added that neither
he nor the Senate was satisfied with the way that the last administration
articulated how those funds would be allocated.
The faculty in the Senate should play a specific role to identify
research concepts for funding. The Senate’s
Scholarship and Community Committee needs to be incorporated into the
program. Dr. Gogue asked Dr. Strickland
to make sure that committee is also invited to the table.
Sen. Eichberg said growing UH
involvement with the
Dr. Gonzalez said she thinks now she
understands this memorandum of agreement between UH and
Dr. Gonzalez said she is a little
worried about undergraduate education, including the core. UH continues to have discussion about who is
responsible for the funding of the core as well as who is responsible for
making sure the core is delivered. What
resources are available to enhance undergraduate education? Dr. Strickland said UH has limped along with
the funding of the core. As a matter of
fact, the core is not the first priority but it is funded. It is funded by student credit hours just in
the same way UH gets most of its funding or by designated tuition. The administration will have to rely on the
Undergraduate Council to lead it in some further directions. If the University could place a moratorium on
the core and if it could come to some level of understanding as to who owns the
core, who should fund it, etc., then Dr. Strickland said he thinks that he
would recommend to the President that UH put the resources where the work is
being done. Where does UH get new
resources? The same place it gets the
resources for everything else. The core
is competing against new initiatives, but the University cannot forget that
undergraduate education is one of its primary goals. Dr. Gogue said it is really an important part
of the life of a university. Dr. Gogue
said last week he spent three days on another campus as a part of their
accreditation visit and the way that they had managed their general education
and their core curriculum was one of the things that created lots of red flags
relative to accreditation standards. Dr.
Gogue said the expectation is that, within its core curriculum, a university
has established clear learning objectives.
From these learning objectives the university gets feedback and then shows
how the feedback is used to modify the course so that learning objectives may
be slightly different in the fall than the spring. Dr. Gogue said the core curriculum is a very
important part of an institution. Dr.
Gogue said the core curriculum has changed nationally. A hundred years ago, the first three years of
study were core curriculum and one year was in a student’s major. Dr. Gogue said in today’s world it is about
one year in the core and about three years in the major, but universities are
beginning to change the core again. It
is not uncommon to see a core of 45 credit hours or 48 credit hours. Dr. Gogue
said he saw the other day where the University of Georgia has 52 credit hours
in their core so some changes are occurring in the way core curriculum is
addressed on campuses.
Sen. Leiss said UH used to have a
required 54 hours in the core. Dr. Gogue
said the change was probably because this is one of the few states that has a mandated
general education articulations. Sen.
Leiss said UH was basically forced to the lowest common denominator.
Sen. Jacobson said the Senate has
been talking about system committees and she has been trying to think of ways to
get the faculty engaged in the discussion.
She has heard two negative things:
(1) Faculty on this campus say no
collaboration with the other campuses will help UH research and (2) UH has seen
programs leaving this campus and the faculty here aren’t consulted. Nobody quite knows what is going on. Sen. Jacobson said an effort to get faculty
engaged is in UH’s interest to raise the quality of other universities in the
full system. There things that UH
faculty can do. They may not always be
successful. For example, small
departments might be able to collaborate and place a faculty member in one of
the other universities. She said she
thought if the faculty engage creatively in this, there are things that could
be done. Dr. Gogue said that is a good
point. Dr. Gogue said he would like the
faculty here to think about the faculty members at one of the other sites. Dr. Gogue said the tenure promotion guides at
the other locations all require research or scholarly activities. Dr. Gogue said when he talks with the people who
are hiring new faculty at UHV, UHD or UHCL, they will tell him that it is a
highly competitive market and they have got to do everything they can to bring
those individuals to their campus. Nearly
all of the faculty are professionals and they want to be engaged in scholarship
or research. Dr. Gogue said many of
those campuses do not have the facilities for these colleagues. They tend to be relatively small. The
question is how does this system, with the distance that it covers, help
professional colleagues work together in similar disciplines or on similar
interests? Dr. Gogue said it is not
going to be easy to find solutions. The
distance makes it difficult. The
teaching loads at the other sites are in some cases much higher than that of UH
faculty and their time of delivery is often different than that of UH. Dr. Gogue said he would argue that all collaboration
will help the students and graduate students and faculty need to figure out,
where it is appropriate, how to work with faculty at the other
institutions. Sen. Jacobson said an
incentive based program to develop models might be something that could be
done.
Sen. Paskusz said UH has a very
diverse student body but diversity is sadly lacking in the faculty. There have been some attempts in the past by
the administration to change that picture, but they were not very successful. Does the current administration have any
intention of trying to improve this situation?
Dr. Gogue said that when a search yields two absolutely excellent candidates,
of whom one is a minority and the other is not and the department decides not
to hire the minority, he has asked the Provost to figure out if there is a way
to recruit both candidates. Dr. Gogue
said there are some incentive monies that the administration can make available
to encourage minority hires. Another
factor is to make sure there is a diverse pool.
Dr. Gogue said he is willing to find some extra money for one or two
members of a search committee to go to other places to ensure a diverse
pool. Dr. Gogue added that he understands
that in certain disciplines lack a large diverse pool, but there are
disciplines in which the pool is a bit more diverse than what UH selection over
the last decade would have suggested.
These searches concern him the most.
Dr. Gogue said UH has areas in which it can do better. There may have to be some incentives, but he
would argue that UH should do the right thing.
Sen. Copeland said he had a
conversation with several women students in his department this week. He asked them how they would feel if UH made a
specific effort to hire women faculty next time as opposed to hiring just
anybody and they were really adamant in saying that this involved their
education here. The women said they want
UH to hire faculty because they are going to be good teachers and good
researchers. Sen. Copeland asked if the
President had spoken to students about whether they think this is a good
idea? Dr. Gogue said he has not. He added that he doesn’t disagree that one
would find individuals who would say that.
Dr. Gogue said he didn’t think anyone wants to be viewed as having been
hired because of gender or ethnicity.
Dr. Gogue said he is suggesting that search committees need to be smart
enough to go out and find people who maybe diverse in gender and ethnicity but
who do have excellent records and excellent potential to be great researchers
and teachers.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
UH Spirit Day will take place on
Wednesday, November 3, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Cullen Plaza. This
event is part of the University’s Homecoming celebration. The Faculty Senate
Executive Committee was asked and did approve a one-time exemption to the UH
Expression Policy rules on amplified sound.
The vote extended the use for an extra half hour.
KUDOS:
Kudos go to Jerald Strickland,
Interim University of Houston System Senior Vice Chancellor and UH Senior Vice
President for Academic Affairs and Provost, who was recently presented the Dr.
Jack Bennett Innovation in Education Award for his work on the Partnership
Foundation for Optometric Education. The
Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry presented the award to
Strickland, who was the foundation’s first president.
Kudos to one of the Senate’s own. Stanley
Kleis, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, recently received the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Public Service Medal. The award, one of NASA’s highest honors,
recognizes exceptional contributions to the mission of NASA by those who are
not government employees. Sen. Kleis is
being recognized for helping reduce space-related risks to astronauts during
long-duration missions.
REPORT FROM
AND DISCUSSION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON SYSTEM INTERIM SENIOR VICE CHANCELLOR
AND UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON INTERIM SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
AND PROVOST: Jerald Strickland
Dr. Strickland said he continues to
receive ideas and initiatives from various sources from within the system with
regard to the System Strategic Principles.
He encouraged faculty, the Faculty Senate, all of the Councils and individuals
to pay attention to the principles and forward any new initiatives or ideas
about initiatives to him for possible inclusion. The Board of Regents accepted the document as
a final draft but that doesn’t mean the final document. They want input from all groups and there is
a place for this university and everyone in the strategic principles to help in
setting up initiatives, timelines and activities that fit into that Board of
Regents strategic plan. The Faculty
Senate leadership has been very helpful.
One of the initiatives had to do
with the UHS being involved at the Health Science Center. Everyone is aware that a memorandum of
understanding was recently signed. It
outlines lots of things that UH is currently doing there. UH is authorization to offer a Bauer Executive
MBA program in the TMC beginning in January and will do that. For this campus that is important. UH wants to have a major presence there. That is a very good step in the proper
direction. The Provost Office has
established a Health Sciences Task Force made up of faculty from various
disciplines to bring something to the table and bring a relationship and bring
perspectives on health sciences and social sciences and humanities to the
group. UH is trying to pick up on what
faculty and administrators worked on in the middle 1990’s, following a
consultation report by the Kaludis group, Richard Scamell led a committee appointed
by then Provost John Ivancevich and in 1997 issued a report which outlines the
positives and negatives moving toward a division of health sciences and human
services on this campus and how that might be important in integrating into
activities at the TMC. The new task force
has met three times now and is focusing on some still quite relevant
information from both the Kaludis report and particularly the Scamell report. Senate President-elect Warner sits on that
task force. He was on the original
Scammel Committee. The basic question is
how does UH organize itself with regard to health science and health related
social sciences and humanities. There is
a range of interested people and ideas.
The task force hopes to have a broader discussion soon. The group will post its documents on the
Provost’s Website so everyone will be able to follow the discussions. The documents that will come forward are not
really minutes, but actions that are being considered. Dr. Strickland said he will give an update at
every Faculty Senate meeting.
UH is currently searching for 70
tenure-track faculty members. That is a
little bit more than were being searched for a year ago. Dr. Strickland said he didn’t know why. UH doesn’t have a lot more money. UH had 26 faculty depart.
There are college level
professorships which have been partially funded by the designated tuition
increase this past September. The
administration asked the students and they agreed to do this to set aside
$500,000 as matching money for college professorships. Deans are being asked to raise $125,000 per
professorship and put that into an endowment which would generate about $6,250
a year. So far there are 38, of those 30
or 28 are fully funded. Right now the
others are committed to be funded. These
are college based professorships available to current faculty only in the colleges
where they are funded. These will be
distributed some time in the next year. The
first college professors will be named by their colleges within the next twelve
months.
To follow up on the enrollment task
force that Dr. Gogue mentioned, this task force has been working diligently for
months. It has been led by Business Dean,
Art Warga. It is quite a diverse group
of folks, faculty members and a few administrators. They are trying to balance quality, access
and cost and keep an eye on diversity.
The group is focusing on admissions and retention. The goal is eventually to raise the
graduation rate for first time in college students. Right now it is something like 37% or 38% for
FTIC. A model like US News and World
Report runs shows UH is expected to graduate over 50% of its FTICs. Given their SAT scores and their
qualifications when they enter, UH is not graduating students at the expected
rate. As Dr. Gogue mentioned, there are
lots of reasons for that. They seem to
slow down as they get further along in their education. Why?
More than likely they have jobs, they are trying to have families or
there may be all kinds of reasons for it, but the further along in their
programming the slower they get in progress.
Frankly, UH would like for them to graduate in four years. Five years to graduate is also fine, but it
is taking six years and sometime it is seven, eight and nine years. UH is only graduating FTICs in five years 37%
of the time. This does not include the
transfers or anyone else, just the 3,400 folks who are first time in college at
UH. This task force is looking into
that. That is a major issue. It is a major issue of using the State
resources. It is a major issue of using human
resources, the students themselves.
There has been some discussion about
the research excellence funds. UH hasn’t
seen the color of the money yet, but it has to start planning for it. The Faculty Senate Scholarship and Community
Committee will be included in that conversation.
Dr. Strickland said he has been
meeting with all of the deans over the past couple of weeks, going over their
current budgets to find out whether there are any bumps in the road that have
occurred since September 1 or since they received their budgets in August. What kinds of things have happened to them in
their colleges and to try to close this loop of conversation about the current
budget. Then the conversations will
begin about how they are going to develop their budgets for the following year and
finding out from them what their plan was, and nudging and doing everything hr
can to encourage greater participation in budget planning. Without exception the Provost has gotten a good
reception from all the deans, associate deans and assistant deans who sat with him
during those conversations. Dr.
Strickland said he most recently had the same conversation with the Faculty
Senate President and Senate President-elect.
The same issue about what are the bumps in the road that are occurring
within their budget, what kinds of things do they plan to do since there is a
program that is going to produced next fall for sizeable expense -- the
Scholarship and Community Conference that happens every couple of years. What kinds of things are happening to the
Senate right now with computers, copier machines, and what kinds of things were
not funded the first time. He followed that conversation up with how do they
plan to develop the budget; what kind of process will be used; so he had the
same kind of conversations with the leadership of the Faculty Senate that he
has had with all of the deans. It has
been quite rewarding. There is more
interest in getting input than he has seen in a year from the deans and the
associate deans.
The total enrollment is up a little
for the fall. About half of 1% was
anticipated and that is pretty close to the final total. There is an increase of about 100 students on
this campus. Overall the entire system
is up about 1-1/2% and this campus is up about ½% or so. UH has awarded $253 million in Financial Aid
this fall. That is up from $207 million
a year ago at this time. Financial Aid is available. Looks like the students are using it. It may not be a much greater need, but
greater numbers are utilizing mechanisms of financial aid. That, of course, stresses the system. Mr. Apodaca has been looking at the processes
of all of that and sooner or later everything will be on-line. It is being done in some places on-line. Frankly, there is not a lot of need for human
to human interaction, so much of this is automated.
Questions
and Answers:
Sen. Ignatiev said talking about
bumps in the road in terms of the budget, several faculty members located on
the northwestern part of the campus worry about the new building that is going
up. He said he has heard that there is a
significant shortfall in funds to complete the building. Dr. Strickland said he has been assured that
the fund raising effort, run by UH’s Development Office, has set its sights on raising
the remaining $10 million. Also there
have been some savings realized. There
are some new federal funds. There was an
announcement a few weeks ago about the federal funds. A second round of federal funds is expected. It hasn’t added up to $30 million yet. That will be one of the first things the
Provost hoped would be discussed in deciding on the one time use of Excellence Funds. There is a need to have a serious
conversation about Excellence Funds. These
can’t be committed for a long time. He
is talking about one time commitments. Dr. Strickland said he will bring suggestions
to the Research Council and to others around the campus. UH wants to make this a very successful
facility; to make sure that it is
acceptable to start moving scientists in without any delay. UH wants to expand their science and to get
more research. UH wants to get more
collaboration. Right now there are two
colleges occupying it. NSM is occupying
60% of the new building and ENGR is occupying 40%. That is the balance at the moment. Both of these deans are certainly worrying a
lot about it and so is the Provost. He
added that UH wants to make sure that it gets done right and the money is on
the table when it is needed. He doesn’t
want to have to bring the construction folks back.
Sen. Jacobson asked about the Texas
Medical Center initiatives. She said
that the Provost mentioned that it involved humanities. Is there going to be any extra money to start
a program? For example, Galveston UTMB
has a wonderful program on the medical humanities and there are things going on
in CLASS. There are humanities people like
herself who are working with people at Baylor and there is an opportunity there
but is there an incentive? Dr.
Strickland said there is a small group that’s being formed and it is going to
be gathering more as it proceeds. Dr.
Strickland said it is a group that is focused around medicine and society. Bill
Monroe is working with it. Dr.
Strickland said he met with Dr. Monroe yesterday to talk more about the program. This does include folks from the TMC and
folks on this campus. It is trying to
look at the kind of courses currently offered on this campus that focus on
humanities in society and in science, too.
Interested faculty should contact Bill Monroe. Sen. Jacobson said medical humanities may be
different but she would contact him. Dr.
Strickland said ethnics is being discussed and the arts in health.
Sen. Paskusz asked what part of that
Financial Aid is in the form of student development rather than scholarships or
grants? Mr. Apodaca said the majority of
it is student loans. He estimated $257
million and $170 million in student loans. There is $58 million in grants and
about $28 million in scholarships. Dr.
Strickland said scholarships amount is tiny.
Dr. Strickland said he had the privilege of attending a banquet last
evening for the Terry scholars and the Terry Foundation has sponsored
scholarships at UT and A&M since the early 1990s. They have decided to sponsor sixteen full
scholarships on this campus each year so eventually UH will have 64 on this
campus. These are true scholarships and
last night he got a chance to meet the scholars and really meet the
Terrys. He put all of his money in
scholarships. He put $100 million back
fifteen years ago into an endowment. That money is feeding these
scholarships. UH is trying to grow the
scholarship endowment and that is what Mr. Apodaca needs. He needs the endowment, something that one
can plan on every year. Dr. Strickland
said he is glad that students can get the loans but to attract excellent
students then UH is going to have to have financial packages for them.
Sen. Pedemonte asked is there a
document on the college professorship in the University which faculty can see? Dr. Strickland said each dean will have it;
it is a college based professorship. Dr.
Strickland said every college has two; that is a given. They have to raise the money but two
professorships are reserved for every college.
The deans have three months to raise the money. On October
1 there were 38 professorship already funded.
Dr. Strickland suggested Sen. Pedemonte talk to his dean because he is
still raising money. There will be a
second round of these but it is intended for current professors. It is not for recruitment. Dr. Strickland said this is the way the
administration sold it to the students.
Sen. Jacobson asked how long do the
professorship last? Dr. Strickland said
five years; $12,500 a year and the money has to go into salary. Dr. Strickland said talk to the deans about
this.
CURRENT
FACULTY SENATE AFFAIRS: Giles Auchmuty
Pres. Auchmuty said in the last
faculty climate survey there was a comment that people didn’t think the
procedures for review or evaluation of deans was very good. Pres. Auchmuty said Dr. Strickland has
suggested that the Faculty Senate participate in this by nominating the
external faculty members who serve on deans review committee. In the past the faculty members from outside
the college were chosen by a variety of ways that were not transparent. Dr. Strickland suggested that all of the
deans review committees be made up from folks elected by the faculty within the
college plus two outside people: a
person who is the chair and who is named by the Provost and an outside faculty
member. It is not clear how that person
was named in the past. This year it decided
to seek advice and counsel from the Faculty Senate for a couple of nominations
for that outside person. Dr. Strickland has
asked the Faculty Senate to provide two nominations to him and the Provost will
select one of those two outside people for the committee.
Sen. Jacobson said when this first
came up she thought it was a fabulous idea.
Then she started to remember what happened with the merger of
CLASS. When one goes to choose a discipline, one has
to be careful as some disciplines can have a considerable hostility to another discipline. One of the big issues of CLASS was a
standards issue and she just wanted to mention it because she can see that
coming.
Pres. Auchmuty said the Faculty
Senate Executive Committee has discussed this.
This has all happened within the last week so this is brand new and the
Senate is very appreciative of this opportunity. There are some dean review committees
starting now so there is a need to do something now. The Senate is being asked to adopt the
following procedure for this first year to see how it works. The Faculty Senate members should nominate
tenured and tenure-track faculty to be on these committees. The person should be from outside the college
and have no conflict of interest. The
nominees do not have to be Faculty Senators to serve on these committees. The nominations will come to the Executive
Committee and the Executive Committee and the President of Faculty Senate will
decide on two names to go to Dr. Strickland who will choose one. This year there are four deans up for review:
Dean of the College of Education, Dean
of the Graduate School of Social Work, Dean of Graduate and Professional
Studies and the Dean of the Law Center.
Pres. Auchmuty said he would like senators
to submit their nominations for these four deans review committees by e-mail to
the Faculty Senate Office or to the Faculty Senate President.
Sen. Leiss said he applauds this new
process. He pointed out that, even
though there have been on the books requirements that the people from within
the colleges have to be elected by their various departments, this does not
always happen. There have been breaches and
he hoped the Provost Office would pay particular attention in the future to
make sure the wishes of the faculty are in fact reflected on the review
committee.
Sen. Ignatiev said the Senate has a
Committee on Committees that in fact does make nominations to the Senate in
terms of filling positions on a variety of committees on campus. My recommendation is for that committee to be
charged with identifying the faculty members who fit in this role. They
have the network in place to do that and, instead of having a flood of
e-mails, let the COC do it in a manner that follows past experience.
Pres. Auchmuty said the problem is
that usually the Committee on Committees has worked on the basis of the faculty
preference survey at the beginning of the year.
The reviews of the deans of colleges occur once every five years; they
are not annual reviews. They are
specialized and it is going to be different every year. This is a process that has never been done
through the Senate before and it has to be done in the next month or so for the
current committees. That is the reason
why the Executive Committee adopted this procedure rather than go to the
Committee on Committees this time.
Sen. Jacobson said the nominations
could go to the Committee on Committees.
The COC is very good. It has the
background of trying to find fits from across the college campus.
Pres. Auchmuty said the procedures
still have to be worked out, but he wanted to emphasize that this is a call for
nominations. He added that he would
appreciate Faculty Senators nominating good people for these four dean review
committees. Please send nominations to
the Faculty Senate Office so that there is a good pool from which to choose.
Sen. Paskusz asked is there a
deadline. Pres. Auchmuty said that hasn’t
been worked out yet, but it obviously has to be soon because Dr. Strickland
needs the nominations as soon as possible.
Sen. Ignatiev said I think I heard
you say was that Senate members can nominate anyone and I think that is the
wrong approach. This process needs to
structure the Senate into a position of privilege and importance to the University. That means that senators should be chosen for
those positions. Senators are
representatives of the faculty as a whole.
Senators should be playing a role in the deans evaluation as senators,
not simply identifying another faculty member on campus. This should be restricted to senators only as
those people who will serve on the committee.
Sen., Ignatiev moved that only senators be nominated to the Deans Review
Committees. Sen. Paskusz seconded.
Sen. Middents said he disagreed with
that. Part of the job of representatives
of the Senate is to recognize individuals who might be very good at this
particular task. This isn’t a political
placement kind of issue.
Sen. Pedemonte said he likes the motion,
but asked if there is time to postpone the vote until next meeting so that senators
can think about this and talk to constituents.
Pres. Auchmuty said it would be better if the Senate could vote
now. He added that he would be perfectly
happy to give preference to Faculty Senators.
The Senate Executive Committee can say it is going to give preference to
Faculty Senators.
Sen.
Leiss said he had the same idea, but then he thought what special
expertise is required that would not be represented in the Faculty Senate. What is needed is somebody who probably has a
little understanding of how the university as a whole operates and, by virtue
of being a Faculty Senator, one ought to be slightly more attuned to that
question. Sen. Leiss said he favors the
motion.
Sen. Eichberg said he would support
the motion. The more that the Senate is involved
in important evaluation of deans, the more desirable it will appear to the
faculty to become involved in Senate activities.
Pres. Auchmuty said the motion is:
“The nominations for the
deans review committee only be Faculty Senators.”
Pres. Auchmuty then called for a
vote on the motion. The motion passed by
majority vote (19 For, 4 Against).
Pres. Auchmuty said that means that
at least eight members of the Faculty Senate will be needed for the nominations. He urged senators to send nominations to the
Faculty Senate Office.
APPROVAL OF
NEW UH COMMITTEES
Pres. Auchmuty said he would like to
ask for approval of two new UH committees.
Pres. Auchmuty said the Senate Executive Committee has voted unanimously to
recommend the adoption of this committee to the Faculty Senate. The
Committee on Committees (COC) will have the task of selecting members for this
committee.
Sen. Ignatiev asked if the membership of this committee was meant to be six
tenured, not tenured-tenure track, faculty. Pres. Auchmuty said correct;
the feeling was that anything involving human resources could well be
contentious and should be dealt with by tenured people.
Pres. Auchmuty called for a vote on adopting this committee. It passed by
unanimous vote.
Pres. Auchmuty said the Senate is
going to issue a special call for nominations for these committees in the hope
to have them started in January. The
annual survey for membership of standing committees doesn’t go out until
February as they operate on the academic year, but once these committees are
approved, the Senate will ask for people who interested in serving on them to
let the Committee on Committees know and the COC will select them.
Sen. Ignatiev said in his experience
it is new tenure-track faculty who have the largest problems with purchasing
and planning. They should have the
responsibility to voice those concerns.
They are the ones whose future depends a lot on what is going on, so
they shouldn’t be excluded from this committee.
Sen. Ignatiev offered a friendly
amendment to change tenure to “tenured or tenure-track faculty”.
Sen. Leiss said he would like to go
one step further and strike “tenured.” He
added that this is one of the cases where it may well be good to have a
research professor on a committee. Sen. Ignatiev agreed and changed his proposed
amended to strike “tenured.”
Pres. Auchmuty called for a vote on
whether or not to strike “tenured” from the charge of this committee. The amendment passed by unanimous vote to
strike the word “tenured.“
The Senate approved the committee by
unanimous vote.
APPROVAL OF
NEW UH SYSTEM COMMITTEES
Pres. Auchmuty said he would like to
use the same process for approval of three new UHS committees. On this question, the Senate Executive
Committee had a ballot by e-mail, which had a problem, but in the end the overall
vote was in favor of recommending this to the Faculty Senate.
Sen. Jacobson said these are
extremely important issues at this University and that standing committees can
really function well and provide very good advisement on issues, but they do
not provide a strong faculty voice. An
alternative would be to keep these issues within Faculty Senate
committees. There would be an increase
of prestige in the Faculty Senate.
Sen. Kotarba asked what is the
status of the proposal at the other universities?
Pres. Auchmuty said each of the
other university Faculty Senates are looking at this. He said he has been in e-mail correspondence
with both UHD and UHCL. This Senate can
only speak for this University.
Sen. Jacobson said another aspect to
this is that these committees are going to provide the administration with a
reason to say they control the agenda and in three or four years this
university could be acting according to a system agenda.
Sen. Leiss said standing committees
frequently have been conduits for information for faculty, so in case something
controversial comes up, the COC should appoint strong faculty members from this
campus who would then raise questions.
Sen. Jacobson said standing
committees do not have a strong voice.
Sen. Leiss said standing committees
that report to the Faculty Senate would have.
Sen. Jacobson said standing
committees report to the Faculty Senate, but they have got to have some autonomy. It would be better for the Senate to be there
rather than hope it gets some word from them.
Sen. Leiss asked if the standing
committees being referred to were the 30 University standing committees. Sen.
Jacobson said they report to us. Sen.
Leiss said no, they don’t. The Food
Service on which he serves definitely does not report to the Faculty Senate.
Sen. Jacobson said they usually
report informally, they give the Senate reports.
Sen. Rude called the question.
The Senate voted to end debate by
majority vote.
Sen. Ignatiev asked if what is the
inter-campus relationship between whether this actually becomes an active
committee or not. Pres. Auchmuty said
advisory committees are actually run by the administrators and it is up to the
administrators to decide whether or not this functions, so all the Senate
saying is that it is accepting it on behalf of this University.
Sen. Leiss said an administrator
would be fairly ill-advised to say no, if the Senate says yes.
The UHS Faculty Advisory Committee
on Governmental Relations was approved by majority vote (12 For, 3 Against, 3
Abstain).
Sen. Jacobson said she wanted to
withdraw any objections that might have been implied to this one, saying this
is more like Human relations.
Pres. Auchmuty called for a vote on
adopting this committee. It passed by
unanimous vote.
Pres. Auchmuty asked if there was
discussion on the following UHS Faculty Advisory Committee on University
Advancement:
Sen. Kotarba said he shared the
concern about the effectiveness of a committee like this. On the other hand it would be useful to
experiment with some mechanism where UH faculty can operate with their
colleagues at the other universities. In
lieu of alternative ways of talking to them about concerns and issues, this
would be one way to start. If these
committees don’t work; they can be dumped.
Sen. Jacobson asked is there a
mechanism to disband committees? Pres.
Auchmuty said one answer is for the COC not to appoint members; that is
something that the COC can do at any stage.
The Staff Associate offered a point of information, saying the COC can
call administrators in to meet about their committees and has done so.
Sen. Copeland said if he doesn’t
hear any more compelling reason than if it doesn’t work out the committee can be
dumped, he is going to vote against it. Pres.
Auchmuty said that there are a lot of things that advancement does.
Sen. Copeland asked can’t the Senate
continue to interact with the officers? Pres.
Auchmuty said an advisory committee is presumably on continuing call where as the
Faculty Senate committees set their own priorities. In fact, this semester the one of the priorities
is going to be University Advancement because of the search for a new Vice President. The Scholarship & Community Committee has
been asked to consider criteria and advise the search committee. The proposed advisory is a permanent
structure.
Pres. Auchmuty called for a vote on
adopting this committee. It passed by
majority vote (13 For, 1 Against, 2 Abstain).
Pres. Auchmuty said the Senate will
put out a call for volunteers to serve on those committees.
Stating that in view of the time, Sen.
Ignatiev moved adjournment. Pres.
Auchmuty called for a vote to adjourn.
It passed by unanimous vote.
FACULTY
SENATE COMMITTEE REPORTS: The following
written reports were available at the meeting.
BUDGET
& FACILITIES COMMITTEE, CHAIR – Saleha Khumawala
Meeting: September 22, 2004
Members
Present: Peter Copeland, Steve Craig,
Stanley Kleis, Ernst Leiss, Sam Quintero, Al Warner, and Saleha Khumawala
(chair).
Guest: Dr. Libby Barlow, Executive Director,
Institutional Research
Topic: Faculty Rebuilding Plan
As announced at the FS meeting in
September, the BFC was able to get faculty data it requested from 1990-2003
from the Office of Institutional Research.
The committee is very appreciative of all the help it has received from
Dr. Barlow and her staff.
Specifically, the committee received:
Dr. Barlow explained the data set, especially
the different codes and the limitations of the data. Dr. Steve Craig is in the process of
analyzing this data. All interested senators
are welcome to join the BFC in this task.
COMMITTEE
ON COMMITTEES, CHAIR - Anne Jacobson
1. The
Slate: the COC is working on the
slate. Nominations, including
self-nominations, would be appreciated.
2. Existing
standing committees: The COC has been
reviewing reports sent in by the chairs of existing standing committees. The request asked for information that would
be sent to the COC alone, in addition to the standard public report. The extra information is helpful in
identifying possible problems.
Not all the reports have been received,
but it is obvious some of the committees are functioning well, and some have
problems. For example, close reading of
one very enthusiastic and supportive report on a committee revealed that it
hadn't met for over a year.
3. New
Standing Committees: As chair of the
COC, Dr. Jacobson has been asking two questions of the new committees,
particularly the System committees: (a)
How do they benefit the Senate’s constituency? (b) Who will decide what the
System issues and initiatives are that the committees address? Clearly, a new approach to the System is
being worked out, and it looks from the charge that the committees will have to
be involved in the early stages of the formulation of the approach.
Standing committees can work very well on
the details of faculty welfare, but they do not provide a strong faculty voice
on issues of policy; they are not designed to do so. That is the job of the Senate. The above questions reflect a concern that
the committees will have to at least work with issues before the Senate has
played its role in providing a strong voice for its constituency in shaping
them.
EDUCATIONAL
POLICIES & STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, CHAIR – Dan Wells
The last committee meeting was
September 27 and was held jointly with the Faculty Affairs Committee. EPSAC members in attendance were Dan Wells,
Peter Gingiss, Sara McNeil, Michael O’Connell, Guadalupe San Miguel, Kenneth
Brown, David Zimmerman, Carole Goodson and Michael Parks. Not in attendance were Ted Cleveland and
FACULTY
AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, CHAIR – Howard Karger:
See above EPSA report.
SCHOLARSHIP
& COMMUNITY COMMITTEE, CHAIR - Joseph Kotarba
The Scholarship and Community
Committee met on September 22. The
following members were present: Wynne
Chin, Ruth Manny, and Fred Schiff. Dr.
Allen Warner, President-elect of the Faculty Senate, was a guest. The SCC discussed preliminary plans for the
Scholarship and Community Conference, to be held in October, 2005. The working theme is increasing philanthropy
at the
The committee chair and President
Auchmuty discussed the future of the committee’s charge. Immediate tasks include: advising Dr. Warner regarding the criteria for
selecting the new Vice President for University Advancement and preparing for
the new UH System Committee on Governmental Relations.
The next meeting of the committee
will be on October 20, 2004 at 11:30 in the Faculty Senate office.
NEW
BUSINESS: None.
The meeting
adjourned at 2:20 p.m.