PRESIDENT’S ADVISORY COUNCIL

June 1, 2004

 

Minutes

 

Present:  Alcorn, Blackwell, Clapp, Goodson, Jaso, McCrohan, O’Connor, Rivera, Ross, Russell, Saxon, Smith, D., Ward .

 

Absent:  Brockman, Davenport, Hales, Hernandez, Kvinta, McGuill, Moya, Murphy, Peace, Post, Reddell, Schaefer, Simons, Smith, R., Soto, Stafford, Walker,.

 

I.  Organizational Business

 

A.  Approval of minutes:  The minutes of the March 2, 2004 meeting were                                            approved as written.

 

B.  Loleat Ross, Chair, Nominating Committee, presented the nominees for new membership.  Each member could browse through the nominees’ biographies that were included in the packets.  All nominees were approved for membership.  New members are:  1) Jack Wu, Vice President of Business Development at Formosa Plastics, representing Calhoun county, 2) Robin Thomas, home health nurse, representing Colorado county, 3) Willie Rollins, President & Owner of Tu-Son Service Co, Inc., representing Matagorda county, & 4) Dale Fowler, President of Victoria Economic Development Corp., representing Victoria county.

 

II.  UHS Regent’s Update on Presidential Search:  Regent Morgan Dunn O’Connor reported that the

Presidential Search Committee had received a total of 75 applications for the position of UHV President.  Sixteen candidates were chosen for the first phase of the selection process, checking references.  Seven candidates were invited and interviewed at the Houston airport.  From those seven, five were invited to the University of Houston-Victoria campus for three-day interviews.  Those interviews will be taking place during the month of June.  Regent O’Connor distributed a handout noting the dates of each candidate’s three-day interview at UHV.  From the five candidates, three will be chosen by the search committee to advance to UHS Chancellor Jay Gogue.  He will ultimately make the final decision.  If all goes well, a decision and announcement could be forthcoming as early as mid-late July.

 

III.  President’s Report

 

A.  Recognition of PAC Members - Interim President, Dr. Don Smith recognized the four PAC members whose terms are expiring as of August 31, 2004.  They are:  Ronald Peace, Mike Reddell, Roberto Soto, and Randy Smith.  A framed certificate, which had been previously prepared, will be mailed to them.  Dr. Smith also recognized the new PAC officers who will begin their terms on September 1, 2004. Mike Saxon will serve as Chair, Randy Clapp will serve as Vice Chair for the fiscal year 2005.

 

B.  UHS Strategic Planning – Dr. Smith gave a brief summary of the developments of the UHS Strategic Planning Steering Committee.  They had held open forums earlier in the spring with community and university community constituents from each UH campus.  Their charge was to develop guidelines for a long-range plan to enhance the educational offerings of each campus and meet the educational needs of their respective communities.  The long-range plan was delivered to the UHS Board of Regents in April.

 

C.  Enrollment/Resource Projection Model - Dr. Smith briefly explained the Enrollment/Resource Projection Model that the Budget Committee has been developing.  It is an Excel spreadsheet containing formulas that takes into consideration fluctuations in enrollment, projected budget surplus, revenue sources in dollars, tuition and fees for 12 credit hours (the average for all students), tenured/tenure-track faculty and faculty/student ratio, and revenue sources in percentages.  By manipulating any of the data, new projections can be seen through the year 2015.  This spreadsheet proved to be very interesting and informative to members.

 

D.  New Building at UHSSL – Dr. Smith announced that Wharton County Junior College and UHV are working on a collaborative effort to construct a new building on the UHSSL site.  The possibility of the new construction, which is just in the planning phase, is a part of the Strategic Planning effort.  With shared space, a bookstore, more classroom space, and a public Library is envisioned.  Students could more rapidly identify with the UHSSL campus if WCJC classes were offered there, making the transition to UHV easier.   Funds could possibly be found from the George Foundation, the city, county, and possibly the Legislature through tuition revenue bonds.  The timeline is tentative for beginning construction in the summer of 2005.  WCJC’s current enrollment is 5,900 students.  At Sugar Land, they have 2,400 students. 

 

E.  New Building on Ben Wilson Street – There is a possibility that UHV will construct a new building across Ben Wilson Street from the UHV campus to house the Small Business Development Center and the Victoria Economic Development Corp.  Negotiations are currently underway.

 

IV.  Regional Economic Development – Wayne Beran, Vice President for Administration and Finance,

announced that the possible new building on Ben Wilson Street is a part of the mission of UHV.  The mission states that the university will be an active part in the economic development of the region.  The UHV mission statement can be found on the UHV web site at the following link:  http://www.uhv.edu/pro/mission.htm.

 

V.  MAIS Concentration in Bio-Informatics – Dr. Richard Gunasekera, School of Arts & Sciences Faculty,

gave a brief explanation and PowerPoint presentation regarding a new field of study called Bio-Informatics.  Bio-Informatics combines biology, computer science, and information technology into a single discipline. By studying the human genome . . . . . . .

 

VI.  Brief Updates:

 

1.  Enrollment Updates – Richard Phillips, Associate Vice President for Student Services & Regional

Outreach gave a brief update on enrollment.  As of June 1, enrollment was down.  However, since June 1 was the first class day of summer sessions, enrollment was expected to continue.  The number of semester credit hours has increased even though enrollment has decreased.  He will bring a detailed analysis of enrollment to the September 7^th PAC meeting.

 

2.  Fund Raising – Dr. Smith gave a fund raising update for Carole Oliphant, Exec. Director of University Advancement, who was unable to attend the meeting.  To date $463,721 have been pledged, $350,000 of the pledges have been received.  The Friends of the University campaign has netted $188,000 in pledges, $132,000 received.  The 30^th Anniversary Angel Donors & Endowments campaign has needed $110,000 in pledges that included nine new endowments for UHV.  Overall, 620 donors pledged. Of those donors, 180 were new donors to UHV, 110 were UHV employees, and 290 were alums.  UHV also received a total of $13,000 in scholarships. 

 

VII.  There was no other advice or discussion.

 

The meeting was adjourned.