Minutes Provost's Office UHV

Academic Council Minutes, April 8, 2002

I. General Agenda

  • Instructional Support Services

--WebCT training materials are being developed for Business, which has 7 new faculty members to train. The materials, while tailored to Business’ needs, will nonetheless be useful for developing similarly tailored training for Arts and Sciences and Education.

  • Information Technology

--Preparations have been completed for moving ITV equipment in Sugar Land to the new building. The auxiliary buildings, when in place, will have network, internet, phone, etc., access. It is assumed that UHV’s Fort Bend faculty will use their assigned laptops when in the auxiliary buildings. Printers will be needed for staff who do not already have them. At least one common printer will be needed for faculty.

--Upgrading faculty users with Windows 2000 is in progress, and replacement of Eudora with Outlook is planned shortly after the upgrades are complete. The new server for academic file services (for M and Q drive support) will be activated as users are migrated to Windows 2000, and the new Email server will be used as users are migrated to Outlook.

  • Proctoring

--Proctoring needs and issues were discussed. Although some faculty members would like more support for proctoring exams for online courses, the consensus was that exams should be moved online, as soon as possible, using available and emerging security measures. Any in-person exams should be limited in number and held for an extended period, since students must some times travel long distances to take them.

II. Specific Agenda

  • Student Appeals

--Approved the request of a graduate student from India that the TOEFL be waived on the grounds that his bachelor’s degree instruction was primarily in English and he has worked for a U.S. company for five years.

--Approved the request of a graduate student that an old score on the TOEFL be accepted, pending verification of the score.

--Deferred action on a request that UHV accept two political science courses from out of state as satisfying requirements for a second degree, pending determination of whether such courses would comply with Texas statutes.

--Reconsidered a grade appeal from a student and again denied the appeal with regard to a change of grade.

  • Faculty Development Grants

--Approved the request of Mr. Jianjun Du for a research grant ($1,700) titled "China Accounting Data and Performance of Foreign Direct Investment."

--Approved the request of Dr. Thomas Matula for a travel grant ($185) to present at the 2002 Marketing Educators’ Conference, in San Diego, CA, in April.

--Approved the request of Dr. Chun-Sheng Yu for travel grant ($1,100) to present at the International Conference on E-Business 2002, in Beijing, China, in May.

  • Other

--Added a qualification to proposed revised policy on graduate admissions and will review at next meeting.

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4/10/02