Academic Council Minutes, March 29, 2004

I.     Potential Honors at Commencement

--Trudy Wortham and Gail Harrington brought two issues to the Council regarding commencement.  The first involved recognizing employees who receive degrees as they cross the stage.  We agreed that all permanent benefits-eligible employees should be recognized.  The second involved recognizing honors students in the fall graduation based on actual GPA’s.  We agreed to insert a list of honors recipients in an insert to the bulletin for spring only.  This solution will be taken to the Student Senate. 

--We briefly discussed soliciting money with an envelop at commencement, but decided it was an issue for Cabinet.

II.  Minutes

--Accepted the minutes of the March 1, 2004 meeting.

--Trudy asked where we were with classifying students with 54 sch’s as juniors.  Dean Bullock will bring back a recommendation, since only Business Administration courses have “junior status” as a prerequisite.

III.     General 

• Data Collection—no developments

• Instructional Technology/Online Issues

--Joe Ferguson noted he asked for a .5 FTE ITV person in the budget hearings, that email recovery was over, and the m-drive service for off-campus usage was in progress.  In Chari Norgard’s absence, the Provost noted that Vista training for faculty has begun.  He also noted that he requested $15,000 for software at the budget hearings.  The money would be held in the Provost’s Office, and Chari’s ISS faculty committee plus an IT representative would make recommendations on expenditures.

• Fort Bend Issues   

  --Security in and around the trailers has come up.  The President and Provost will have a follow-up visit with off-campus faculty on April 5.  There will be a presidential coffee with staff on April 7.  The President finished an off-campus faculty guide.  Charles raised questions about new faculty orientation, and others chimed in.  We decided to put it on the agenda for next meeting.

 IV.  Specific 

·     Student appeals.  

--The Council approved two student appeals to graduate under old degree plans, approved an appeal to use old TOEFL scores if we have them on record, and denied three appeals to walk in the spring commencement ceremony even though their degrees would not be completed.

• Faculty Development Requests and Reports

--Approved early a development grant for conference presentation ($200) to Dr. Horace Fairlamb for the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Conference, in Los Angeles, CA, in March.

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($393) to Dr. Yong Glasure for the Southwest Economic Association meeting, in Corpus Christi, TX, in March.

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($1,000) to Dr. Sandy Venneman for the American Psychological Society 16^th Annual Convention, in Chicago, IL, in May.

--Accepted grant funded conference travel reports from Drs. Roy Foley, Yong Glasure, Mary Natividad, David Satava, and Harold Smith.

• Other

--Summer registration.  The Council agreed that disenrollment will occur at noon on the Fridays before the two summer sessions begin, that students can re-register and add using VIP on the first day of class, that they will need a dean’s signature for the rest of the first week, and they will need to appeal to be admitted to a class after the first week of classes.

--We agreed to move Academic Council meetings to the Wednesdays on which the Cabinet does not meet starting in fall pending advice from Kathy Walton. 

DPJ/kw
3/30/04