Academic Council Minutes, November 30, 2005

I.  Minutes 

--Approved as written 

II. General Agenda 

• Data Collection

--Trudy Wortham reported that 1380 students had registered for spring—112 ahead of this time last year.   

• Instructional Technology/Online Issues and Updates

--A planning process is in motion for WebCT with UHV participating.  Disaster recovery is part of the plan.  UH may create WebCT shells for all courses, so that those can be filled in as need be if it is impossible for courses to meet face to face.   

--Also being considered is whether WebCT itself rather than another university might host our online courses, if the UH servers were to go down in an emergency.  It was noted that an anti-trust challenge is possible.    

• Fort Bend Issues and Updates

--Chari Norgard indicated that there would be an AAS meeting next week.  The proctoring proposal is still in process. 

She also noted that an instructional design specialist was coming in for an interview shortly. 

--The provost indicated that off-list reference checks were in process for five candidates for the academic administrator position.

--John Stansell indicated that Dr. Lynn Freeman would be the contact person for the VOICE program at Cinco Ranch, since both students and public-school personnel need an on-site contact. 

--Jeffrey Di Leo noted that Arts and Sciences had hired a half-time recruited to be stationed at Sugar Land. 

III. Specific Agenda 

• Students Appeals

--There were several appeals for waiver of the TOEFL.  The Council approved some of these and referred others to the academic school for follow-up and decision.  The provost raised the question of whether the requests should come to the Council or just to the dean, with any appeal of the dean’s decision coming to the Council.  Since this would be a catalog change, it would probably need to go through the governance process. 

--Two student appeals dealt with repeated lower-level courses in which the first grade was passing but the second grade was failing.  UHV policy is currently to count only the last grade.  Resolution was to count the repeat in the overall GPA but to accept the course as meeting the core curricular requirements. 

--The Council reviewed a grade appeal of a D assigned in a graduate course but deferred action pending opportunity for the school to provide relevant materials. 

• Faculty Development Requests and Reports

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($1,000), pending receipt of a FY 05 report, for Dr. Carol Klages to present at the International Literacy Conference, in Mandeville, Jamaica, in February. 

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($1,000), pending receipt of a FY 05 report, for Dr. Massoud Metghalchi to present at the International Business Research Conference, in Cancun, Mexico, in March. 

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($1,000) for Dr. Marie Plemons to present at the International Literacy Conference, in Mandeville, Jamaica, in February. 

--Approved a development grant for conference presentation ($1,000), pending receipt of a FY 04 report, for Dr. Steve Trowbridge to present at the International Literacy Conference, in Mandeville, Jamaica, in February. 

--Accepted grant funded conference travel reports from Drs. Jun-Yeon Lee, Mary Natividad, and Kathryn Oden. 

• Other

--A section in the catalog (p. 67) concerning Academic Probation and Suspension was reviewed in light of question of whether it applied only to undergraduate programs.  Conclusion was that it did, but that the intent should be further clarified.  The council also deleted as unnecessary a statement concerning exceptions.  The changes were considered to be clarifications and therefore non-substantive. 

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12/2/05