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President's Regional Advisory Board :: Minutes
PRESIDENT’S REGIONAL ADVISORY BOARD
December 4, 2007
Minutes
Present: Alcorn, Cain, Hudson, Hyde,
Jacob, Leatherwood, Marshall, Morales, Murphy,
O’Connor, Rollins, Saxon, Schaefer, Thomas, Ward and Wu
Absent: Baynum, Clapp, Fowler, Goodson,
Jaso, LaCour, McCrohan, McGuill, Meyer
and
Walker
I.
Organizational Business
Chair Susan
Cain called the meeting to order. Ms. Cain pointed out the
Board Survey Question so the members could be thinking of
how the people in their community view higher education.
Approval
of Minutes
Morgan Dunn
O’Connor moved that the minutes from the September 14, 2007
PRAB meeting be approved as written and Tim Hudson seconded
the motion.
Motion Approved Unanimously
II.
President’s Remarks – Tim Hudson, President
Dr. Hudson introduced the new Marketing Director, John
Ellis. John Ellis spoke
on his background and
qualifications for Marketing Director.
Dr. Hudson discussed the following:
·
In October, Dean Charles Bullock and Dr. Jifu
Wang, School of Business
Administration, accompanied by President Hudson, made
a trip to China and
signed partnership agreements with five
universities for the Global MBA.
Pictures from their trip were passed around the
table for the PRAB members
to view. UHV is stepping out aggressively as an
international leader.
·
The Lighting Ceremony for the completion of
the LEARN (The Lonestar
Education and Research Network) upgrade which has
increased our
bandwidth 50 times was held on Wednesday, November 28 in
our Multi-
Purpose Room. This increase in bandwidth will allow us to
continue program
growth that depends on the internet.
·
Dr. Renu Khator, new UH System Chancellor and
UH President will be in
Victoria to “meet and greet” on February 1st.
We will have an agenda at a
later date. Dr. LaBrecque served on the search
committee for Dr. Khator.
·
The American Book Review (ABR) had a great
line up of fall speakers. All
reading series were well attended: Chitra
Banerjee Divakaruni, Dagoberto
Gilb, R. M. Berry and Robert Phillips. One of the
speakers, Dr. Gilb is an
award-winning Professor of English in Texas State
University (San Marco)
Creative Writing Department. He is a PEN/Hemingway award
winner for the
story collection The Magic of Blood and
recipient of a Guggenheim
Fellowship. He edited the recently released Hecho En Tejas:
An Anthology
of Texas Mexican Literature. Dr. Hudson stated he was
“absolutely fantastic”
with the students that attended his reading series.
·
The UH System Chancellor signed a Memo of
Understanding with Fort Bend
County to build a library on the Sugar Land
campus to accommodate both
University of Houston System at Sugar Land and
Wharton County Junior
College along with the county.
·
The University of Texas at Austin announced
plans to raise tuition. UHV has
a thorough process in our system before we increase
tuition and increases
must be approved by the Board of Regents. The
legislature can repeal the
legislation allowing board’s to increase tuition if they
choose, but the State
would have to make up the difference. Texas is spending less
per capita for
higher education than before tuition was deregulated. It is a
very complex
issue.
·
The Nursing Program has received approval from
Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools on our MSN program which
will start this Spring. The
first pining and graduation ceremony of our nurses will
be on Sunday,
December 9 at 12:00 noon at the Merrell Center in Katy.
·
The speaker for our Fall Commencement is
Senator John Cornyn. Please
visit our website for commencement information.
·
Our Student Senate has again sponsored the
Giving Tree – collecting
unwrapped gifts for children – newborn to 17 years old for
the CASA court
appointed children.
·
The Athletics Department – season passes are
available. Coach Puhl has
returned from Taiwan where he coached Canadian
National players. Baseball
and softball players participated in the Victoria
Christmas parade.
·
The Fundraising Campaign – if you would like
to participate, it is not too late.
III.
Texas Principals Excellence Program – TxPEP Deans
Bullock and Stansell introduced Dr. Stephanie Solansky. She
gave an overview of the TxPEP program of the partnership
between American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) and
University of Houston-Victoria. We received a $3.4 million
grant from TEA over two years based on House Bill 1 to
provide leadership skills to enhance principal leadership.
This program is mandated by the state for principals of
low-performing schools. There are 333 participants who
include 1st year Academically Unacceptable (AU)
campus principals required to attend and Non-AU principals
that volunteered to attend the program for professional
development. Learning Point Associates is the outside
evaluator for the program. This program provides three
face-to-face workshops, 16 one-hour webinars, two 360
evaluations, two statewide summits and 46 teams of cohort
consultants.
IV.
Promoting UHV in our Region – Dr. Margaret Rice
showed the Annual Report CD.
A.
Mr. John Ellis, Marketing Director, spoke on
developing marketing goals and
objectives and developing long-term plans and
strategies for UHV.
B.
Mr. Wayne Beran presented a Financial Aid overview on
types of aids
available, loans, waivers and contracts. Free
Application for Federal Student
Aid (FAFSA) workshops are held at UHV to help
students and parents fill out
FAFSA forms.
V.
Roundtable/Bright Ideas
Question
for discussion: “How do people in your community view
Higher Education?”
Discussion was held by the PRAB members and some of the
thoughts included:
a.
Students leave and move to the city and don’t return
to their small
communities. They can make more money in the big
cities.
b.
Students apply to four year universities and can’t
make it. They move back
and attend community colleges. They are ill
prepared for the big universities.
c.
Need to help students and parents fill out forms for
scholarships and financial
aid to attend college.
d.
Some counties are agricultural and parents don’t
encourage their children to
attend college.
e.
Career plans need to be implemented and follow
through with students for
them to meet their goals and emphasize the need
for college education.
f.
Show parents how college education is affordable and
encourage parents and
students to attend FAFSA workshops.
g.
Eric Murphy commented that one of the people he spoke
with, who has her
Masters’ degree, feels that our youth don’t place
enough value on higher
education. Another individual wishes that he had gotten his
degree…he
didn’t say what stopped him, nor did he indicate if he
intended to go back
to school.
Susan Cain thanked everyone for their input and adjourned
the meeting at 4:00 p.m.
Submitted by: F. Landry
Approved: 3/6/08 | 
