Academic Council Minutes, July 20, 2005
 

I.  Guests 

--Liz Branch came to update the Council on PeopleSoft developments and prospects.  The date for UH and UHV to go live with the student records system is March 2007.  There is much work going on and to be done before then, and Trudy Wortham and Gail Harrington are heavily involved.  She indicated that she planned to retire soon, possibly at the end of this calendar year, but that we should have sufficient training completed to deal with the transition.

--Dick Phillips was present to discuss the latest adjustment to the university’s fund raising priorities.  He proposed that the Council meetings also serve for meetings of the campaign council, since most of the members were already present.   It was agree that holding the one meeting and adjourning to the other should work, with Mr. Beran added to meeting of the campaign council.  The proposed adjustment was approved.  

II.  Minutes 

--Approved as written 

III. General Agenda

• Data Collection

--No report 

• Instructional Technology

--Joe Ferguson indicated that Jody Gillit was moving from IT to ISS to fill a WebCT support position and that a .5 support position was being added in IT. 

He distributed a list of online training courses provided by Skillport.  A committee set up to coordinate and improve opportunities for internal training is recommending that the university purchase this service.  The Council favored pursuing this prospect. 

--It was recommended that the UHS planning effort involving WebCT be shared with FACT, if that has not already been done. 

• Fort Bend Issues and Updates

--An ad is out for a replacement librarian at Sugar Land.

--The ad still is not out for the academic administrator.

--A cubicle will be needed for the new Assistant Vice President, since she will be working there and in Victoria. 

IV.  Specific Agenda 

• Student Appeals

--The Council approved probational admission of a student with a GPA of 1.97, owing to confusion about a repeated course. 

--The Council also approved the admission of a student suspended three times several years ago at another university; the student had since gained admission to another university and compiled a good GPA. 

• Faculty Development Requests and Reports

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($1,000), pending receipt of a FY 04 report, to Dr. Jianjun Du to the 2005 Academy of Management Annual Meeting International Management Division Junior Faculty Consortium, in Hawaii, in August. 

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($1,000), pending receipt of documentation, to Dr. Richard Gunasekera to the IEEE Computer Systems Bioinformatics 2005 Conference, in Stanford, CA, in August. 

--Accepted a grant funded conference travel report from Dr. Richard Gunasekera. 

--Accepted a research grant report from Dr. Linda Hayes. 

• Other

--Joe Dahlstrom distributed and discussed a handout on the Library’s proposed purchasing priorities.  He asked that requests come from the schools rather than individual faculty members, so that the Library can be sure it is best serving the needs of all. 

DNS/kw
7/21/05