Academic Council Minutes, October 4, 2006

I.  Minutes

      --Approved as circulated 

II. Guest 

      --Carolyn Mallory addressed the council on PeopleSoft Level/Loads and the way graduate hours are classified in Financial Aid and Admissions.  Carolyn and Trudy Wortham will make a recommendation to the council in terms of what works best for UHV students and with PeopleSoft. 

III. General Agenda 

• Data Collection

--Trudy Wortham brought back to the table the Academic Dishonesty policy. The council approved the following to be placed in the catalog. 

Academic dishonesty may take a variety of forms,
ranging from breach of ethics to a criminal offense. 
The faculty and administration of UH-Victoria view academic dishonesty as a significant breach of ethical conduct which incurs various disciplinary actions. 
Policies and procedures are outlined in the Academic Honesty policy in the UHV Student Handbook. 

• Instructional Technology/Online Issues and Updates

--Joe Ferguson’s discussion covered: 

• Classrooms should be wired for everything
• Whenever designing classrooms they should be designed for flexibility
• Faculty training for the various technologies

He also announced that three plasma monitors would be placed in Victoria ITV rooms. 

--Trudy Wortham noted that the student side of PeopleSoft is still on schedule to go live in March 2007.  She covered various issues concerning options available in PeopleSoft—prerequisites checking and wait listing. 

She also announced that Craig Ness would be at the October 11 Cabinet meeting with an update on PeopleSoft issues. 

--Chari Norgard will arrange with Bev Hoerig to present Adobe Breeze to the council. 

• Fort Bend Issues and Updates

--Chari Norgard announced that the AAS/DE Directors meeting discussed the future of the community expectations and desires for the MITCs.  The perception noted was that the current situations are not working.  Ed Hugetz stated it is time to look at moving to branch campuses that articulation is not the way to go.   

Mrs. Norgard also stated that there is going to be a Faculty Showcase Workshop, November 10, at the University of Houston that will allow faculty to share what they are doing online.  Two of our faculty, Dr. Richard Gunasekera and Dr. Barba Patton, will be presenting.  UHV is also planning our own showcase for here in the near future.  

--Provost LaBrecque discussed office space assignments for the Sugar Land and Cinco Ranch sites.  She stated that administrators must notify Susan Reynolds and Kurt Czupryn before placing staff at these sites.  Also, be sure that UHV has the lead before housing staff at either site. 

Dr. LaBrecque announced in order to accommodate the new Sugar Land building; the current modular units will be moved. 

• Other

--Chari Norgard distributed The Coordinating Board Guidelines:  Institutional Report on Distance Education and Off-Campus Instruction that is due November 1.  Mrs. Norgard will prepare a draft response to share with administrators. 

III. Specific Agenda 

• Faculty Development Grant Requests and Reports

--Dr. Hsin-Hui Lin was awarded $900.00 for the National Association for the Education of Young Children 2006 Annual Conference, in Atlanta, GA. 

--Dr. Luh Yu Ren was awarded $563.00 for a publication award for his paper titled “Revised Mean Absolute Percentage Errors (Mape) for Independent Normal Time Series,” that has been accepted by The Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge. 

--Dr. Andria Young was awarded $600.00 for a publication award for her paper “Assessing the quality of online courses from the students’ perspective,” by Elsevier,   The Internet and Higher Education. 

--Accepted grant funded conference travel reports from Drs. Yixi Ning, Diane Prince, David Summers, and Ziad Swaidan. 

Note:   The council approved a change to the Faculty Development Grants; for reimbursement purposes, all faculty members must turn in receipts for travel within four weeks of travel. 

As recorded by,
Kathy Walton
10/9/06