Academic Council Minutes, July 6, 2004 

Academic Council met on Tuesday, July 06, 2004, from 9:30-11:45 a.m., in Conference Room A.  Attending were Dick Phillips, Trudy Wortham, Gail Harrington, Joseph Ben-Ur (for Charles Bullock), Mary Natividad, Joe Ferguson, Chari Norgard, Paul Carlson, Joe Dahlstrom, and Dan Jaeckle.  Also attending for all or part of the meeting were guests Liz Branch, Carolyn Mallory, and Yolanda Gonzalez.  Minutes follow. 

I.  Guest--Liz Branch on PeopleSoft Update 

--Liz joined us from Houston for the morning and talked about the status of the PeopleSoft project.  A consultant will be brought in to review the process, with new recommendations on proceeding expected in fall.  Meanwhile, work continues on the academic structure.  The Council agreed that UHV’s academic structure should be loaded as soon as possible. 

II.  Minutes 

--Minutes.  The minutes of the June 21 meeting were approved as written. 

III.  General 

• Data Collection

--Trudy reported that Summer II enrollments this morning were 445, with 1659 semester credit hour’s, slightly up from last summer.  Fall enrollments stood at 1036, slightly down from last fall at this point.  She also commented on an internal audit of student debt between UH System campuses, and the need for a System policy on this matter.

• Instructional Technology

--Chari noted that the next Sugar Land open house would be November 4, from 4-7 p.m.  Sharon Baca is seeking names of advisors who will attend. 

Chari also reported on three recommendations from the FACT committee.

1. All faculty members should get a choice of laptop or regular computers.  Under review.
2. Faculty and staff should have ergonomic training and upgrades to their computers.  The training opportunities are under review.
3. All faculty should have flatscreen monitors.  This has already been approved by the Budget Committee.

--Carolyn spoke about the need for faculty to mark the last date of student participation for students who withdraw from courses so that we can accurately send financial aid monies back.  We would not need to mark these dates if we went to the alternative of a 50% semester completion formula.  She will investigate that option and return to us.  In any case, faculty need to check 12^th day class rolls for those who are not attending. 

--Yolanda presented a draft of the student satisfaction survey to go out in the fall.  The Council requested some changes and a couple of additions, and then approved the survey form. 

IV.  Specific 

·        Student Appeals 

-- Two student appeals for waiving the TOEFL were approved. 

·        Faculty Development Requests and Reports 

--Approved a grant funded conference travel report from Dr. Mary Natividad.

·        Other 

--Dan and Dick gave a brief review of the student civility conference they attended the previous week.  Discussions of civility and plagiarism ensued. 

--Dan gave a brief review of the activities surrounding the new building in Sugar Land.

DPJ/kw
7/6/04