Academic Council Minutes – October 1, 2008
I. Review of Minutes – September 3, 2008
· The minutes were approved as circulated.
II. General
A. Enrollment Management
1. Ms. Chari Norgard introduced Dr. Deneč Thomas, the LEAD Manager. Dr. Thomas previously worked as Dean of Student Services at the UT Health Science Center Dental School.
2. Ms. Trudy Wortham provided enrollment information as of October 1, 2008. Headcount as of October 1st was 3,215 which included 13 students who were enrolled in a second 8 week semester course. Ms. Wortham included additional information detailing semester credit hour by school and instructional area. Mr. Joe Ferguson requested that enrollment information include headcount for the original 15-county area. Dr. Jifu Wang asked if international student data could be added. Since the data is extracted differently, Ms. Wortham can provide the 15-county headcount while Ms. Elois Kraatz would provide the international student data. Dr. Dan Jaeckle asked if the information could be made available to faculty. Ms. Wortham e-mails the data to Academic Council. Dr. Jaeckle may share the information to faculty as the e-mail updates are received. Ms. Norgard stated that Shawn Brett is working on a digital table so that enrollment information will be on the web.
3. Ms. Norgard provided two options to implement the quick admit process. The first process would begin the week before registration and end the last day of regular registration. The second process would make quit admit continuously. Since continuously admitting students could create challenges for Admissions and Records and degree plan counselors, Ms. Norgard suggested that UHV follow the first option. Dr. LaBrecque asked how quick admit would affect financial aid. Ms. Norgard stated that if students have their transcriptions they shouldn’t experience a problem.
Ms. Wortham stated that schools may want to consider holding open houses well before the quick admit process. Admissions and Records will provide two admissions analysts in Sugar Land at these three days a week during the quick admit process. Sending admissions analysts to Sugar Land may mean that Schools will need to assist with admissions processes during quick admit.
Dr. Jeffrey Di Leo is concerned mentioned a third option which included charging a quick admit fee. Ms. Norgard researched the Texas Common Application database and found that 36 out of 47 institutions have some type of application fee between $10 to $60. Dr. LaBrecque stated that if a quick admit fee were to be established the fee should be significant enough to provide for the cost benefit of additional staff personnel. Ms. Norgard added that the tuition and fee process would not allow for a fee to be established for Spring 2009, but could be approved for Fall 2009.
Ms. Norgard will gather more information regarding quick admit fees for Academic Council review.
B. Information Technology
1. Mr. Chris Burford provided Vista 8 training information for on-line support technicians. UH Main Campus will be providing mandatory training for Vista 8 on October 31st. Tammy Hoskings, UH Assistant Director of Educational Technology will be notifying online support techs and making arrangements.
Blackboard is also providing online training for support technicians, but this training is not mandatory and can be taken online. The training consists of three parts which can be taken together or separately.
2. Mr. Ferguson had a question asked about faculty distribution lists. Ms. Sherrie Kroll provided handouts depicting examples of staff, school and faculty distribution lists. The pros and cons of separate faculty distribution lists for Sugar Land, Cinco Ranch and Victoria faculty were discussed. Dr. LaBrecque asked if there had been a problem with the distribution lists as they currently are. Dr. Tart stated that many faculty in Sugar Land do not like receiving e-mails that are specific to the Victoria campus. The problem is that some faculty may be officed in Victoria but also teach in Sugar Land. It would be difficult to approach a list based on where a faculty member is officed. If a faculty member is home officed in Victoria, but teaches in Sugar Land, they will not receive e-mail that may be important to them. A recommendation was made to leave the distribution list as it is currently. Mr. Ferguson will propose an e-mail policy to send to Dr. Hudson. He will ask the President to consider sending out the e-mail policy to all UHV.
3. Mr. Ferguson provided a schedule of the ITV rooms in Victoria and Sugar Land as a result of a previous discussion concerning the scheduling of ITV rooms. According to the schedule that Mr. Ferguson provided, no vacant times are available in the evening hours to meet the needs of additional ITV classes. A suggestion was made that each school be assigned a specific ITV room each semester. The School Deans will be able to work out schedule differences with other schools as needed. During vacant times, the room can be utilized for other purposes including meetings. Installation of equipment for one room is estimated at $55,000 and another $5,000 for additional staff services. UH Cinco Ranch was not reviewed since a problem with scheduling of rooms in Cinco Ranch hasn’t been identified.
It was agreed that an additional room is necessary. Mr. Ferguson stated that he would go forward with a request to the Budget Committee for funding of an additional ITV room in Sugar Land.
C. President’s Office Updates
1. Dr. Margaret Rice reminded Academic Council of the below events:
a. UHSSL Convocation - October 14th
b. Dr. Hudson to receive Education award at the African American Gala, Victoria Community Center - November 6th
c. Commencement – December 13th
D. Other
1. Dr. Rice recommended that Ms. Carolyn Mallory be added to the Academic Council since so many Financial Aid questions arise. Chari suggested that the discussions be added under enrollment management which is done at the beginning of Academic Council so that Ms. Mallory does not need to stay for the remainder of the meeting if time is a concern for her.
2. Dr. LaBrecque announced that she and Dr. Holly Verhasselt met last Friday via ITV with Dr. Dan Gardner, UH System Chief of Staff, and Mr. Ed Hugetz, UHS Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Outreach Programs. They discussed the draft mission statement recently submitted to UHS. Dr. Gardner and Mr. Hugetz felt that the mission statement was too general and did not provide the distinct features of UHV and the area that UHV serves. Dr. Verhasselt will be soliciting input from President’s Cabinet members and will compile the comments for discussion at the next Cabinet meeting. The mission statement will require recommendation by the Provost Council and approval by the Board of Regents. UHV will be moving fast to meet the required deadline in December set by the Coordinating Board.
3. The Chancellor discussed a progress report card at the May Board of Regents Meeting. The progress report card is a system-wide report card that can provide information on the UH System. The reports data on three goals which are system-wide criteria and three goals that is distinct to each individual campus. The three system-wide goals are national competitiveness, student success and community advancement. Dr. Hudson must provide UHV’s progress report card to UH System by October 15th.
4. Dr. Tong-Ai Zhang is working on the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) report. VSA began as part of AASCU in 2007. Dr. Verhasselt completed UHV’s Carnegie Civic Engagement report. The report was submitted on September 1st.
III. Specific
A. Student Appeals
1. None
B. Consent Calendar/Faculty Development Grant Requests and Reports
1. Approved an FY09 research grant for $500.00 to Dr. Hal Smith to research and provide photos for his book “Texas through Women’s Eyes.”
2. Denied an FY09 publication grant to Dr. Louie Ren for his publication titled “Revised Mean Absolute Percentage Errors (Mape) on Errors from Simple Exponential Smoothing Methods for Some Popular Non-Normal Independent Time Series” because the journal article has not been published.
3. Approved an FY09 conference travel grant for $993 to Dr. Hal Smith to present at the Southern Conference on British Studies in New Orleans, LA from October 9-11, 2008.
4. Approved an FY09 conference travel grant for $1300 to Dr. Joseph Ben-Ur to present at IABE 2008 Las Vegas Annual Conference from October 19-22, 2008.Approved an FY09 research grant for $1300 to Dr. Richard Gunasekera to research the mutations of the gene for glutathione.
5. Approved an FY09 conference travel grant for $625.64 to Dr. Mary Mayorga to present at the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Convention in Houston, Texas from October 22-25, 2008.
6. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $674.36 to Dr. Mary Mayorga to present at the Professional Growth Conference in Houston, Texas from November 5-8, 2008.
7. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $335 to Dr. Elsa Leggett to present at the Professional Growth Conference in Houston, Texas from November 5-8, 2008.
8. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $365 to Dr. Elsa Leggett to present at the Professional SACES Conference in Houston, Texas from October 22-25, 2008.
9. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $461.56 to Dr. Mary Natividad to present at the Professional SACES Conference in Houston, Texas from October 23-25, 2008.
10. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $1300 to Dr. Mel Damodaran to present at the 10th International Conference on Information Integration and Web-based Applications and Services in Linz, Austria from November 24-26, 2008.
11. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $1300 to Dr. Jun-Yeon Lee to present at the INFORMS Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. from October 12-15, 2008.
12. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $1300 to Dr. David Summers to present at the Mountain Plains Management Conference in Pocatello, Idaho from October 8-11, 2008.
13. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $760 to Dr. Jeffrey Di Leo to present at the Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association in San Francisco, CA from December 27-30, 2008.
14. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $540 to Dr. Jeffrey Di Leo to present at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Comparative Literature Association Conference in Auburn, Alabama from October 2-4, 2008.
15. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $650 to Dr. Xavier Garza-Gomez to present at the 2008 International Business & Economics Research Conference (IBER) in Las Vegas, Nevada from September 28-October 2, 2008.
16. Approved an FY09 conference grant for $650 to Dr. Xavier Garza-Gomez to present at the Global Business Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 12-15, 2008.
As recorded by,
Karen Boldt