Academic Council Meeting Minutes-September 16, 2009

Present:

Dr. Suzanne LaBrecque

Dr. Jeffrey Di Leo

Dr. Lawrence Rossow

Dr. Farhang Niroomand

Dr. Kathryn Tart

Dr. Holly Verhasselt

Ms. Chari Norgard

Ms. Trudy Wortham

Ms. Carolyn Mallory

Dr. Denee Thomas

Mr. Joe Ferguson

Mr. Chris Buford

Dr. Cindy Schnebly

 

Guest: Ms. Elois Kraatz

 

I.                   Review of Minutes-September 2, 2009

1.      The minutes were approved as circulated.

 

II.                 General

A.     Downward Expansion

Dr. Suzanne LaBrecque announced that the Substantive Change Report that was delivered to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) September 1, 2009 will only need staff approval verses board approval. Dr. Sarah Armstrong, Coordinator of Institutional Support of SACS, will be over seeing the approval process.  Dr. LaBrecque noted that UHV cannot admit freshman until we have SACS approval. When UHV receives applications from a prospective freshman student, a response is sent to the student stating that UHV will notify them in January 2010 if they have been admitted.

 

Dr. Suzanne LaBrecque informed the attendees that Dr. Holly Verhasselt will be sending in the 5th year interim report.

 

Dr. Cindy Schnebly announced that the Undergraduate Affairs Committee is scheduled to meet this week. Discussion went on among the group about the processes of the Undergraduate Affairs Committee and it was noted that the committee is an open meeting, but those who would like to share their thoughts must be called upon.

 

Dr. Cindy Schnebly requested that committees need to choose the dates of their meetings and       distribute them.

 

Dr. Suzanne LaBrecque noted that the committee meeting minutes need to be sent to Theresa Hawken in the Provost Office for filing.

 

B.     Enrollment Management

Ms. Chari Norgard updated the attendees that the she will check with the Deans about possibly being in a pilot group to test the People Soft pre-requisite checking module.  She noted that UHV is only able to add features in People Soft as quickly as the University of Houston-Main Campus permits those features to be added.

 

a)      Admissions

Ms. Trudy Wortham provided the enrollment information to the Academic Council.  Headcount was 3,698 and semester credit hours were 28,594.

 

1.      3 Year International Degrees

Ms. Elois Kraatz brought information to the council for discussion regarding 3-year international bachelor degrees and whether or not to accept international students who hold the 3-year degrees into the graduate programs. She noted that the School of Business and the School of Arts and Sciences have created three year “Bridge” programs which have assisted international students transferring to UHV.

 

Key points of discussion:

·         UHV evaluates international degrees “in house” in regard to how the courses within the international degree compare to courses and degrees here in the United States.

·         UHV will, in instances when the equivalency is difficult for the in-house evaluator to determine, submit an applicant’s international documents/degree to SpanTran Credential Evaluation Agency, Houston, TX, and request an evaluation from them to give a clear picture of what they believe to be the equivalent of a United States degree.

·         International students may submit results from an outside evaluation agency, but UHV makes the final decision on whether the course(s) or degree(s) will be accepted for admission to the university, regardless of what the evaluation states as to the equivalency.

·          UHV’s website is not clear on whether it will or will not accept students with international bachelor degrees.

·         Previous Academic Council minutes do not reflect a decision to accept or reject 3-year bachelor degrees for admission to graduate programs.

·         The program the student is transferring from needs to be an accredited program, recognized as a degree-granting institution by the government agency of education in the foreign country, especially in the School of Nursing.

 

All of those present at the meeting decided that 3 year international degrees will be conditionally accepted for admission to the university, but would be subject to the admission requirements set by each academic school graduate program. 

Ms. Chari Norgard will draft wording that could be placed in the Course Catalog and bring it to the next Academic Council meeting for review.

 

2.      Graduate admission indexes below 1300

Ms. Trudy Wortham brought in a segment of the 2009-10 catalog that addresses the requirements for graduate admissions (see below), as there is confusion as to whether students with an index below 1300 can appeal. The Council decided that the first paragraph should be omitted.  Trudy Wortham and Chari Norgard will revise the entire admission index section for the catalog, including clarification that students will not be admitted with an index below 1300 and may not appeal.  The revised wording will be reviewed at the next Academic Council meeting.

 

 

 

b)      Financial Aid

Ms. Carolyn Mallory noted that the Veteran’s Administration audit was successful.

 

c)      LEAD

Ms. Chari Norgard reported for Dr. Denee Thomas that Hispanic Heritage month is being kicked off this evening, September 16th, with a reception for the art contest. She also noted that interviews for the recruiter positions will start next week.  It will be sometime in the middle of October before the positions will be filled.

 

                       

C.     Information Technology

Mr. Joe Ferguson reported that the renovations are complete in their area in the center building.  The computer lab, in UC room 201, is completed as well.  IT is now providing Help Desk Services in Sugar Land and Cinco Ranch.

 

Mr. Chris Buford noted that the next Black Board upgrade will be “Black Board Learn 9” system, but the update will not take place until 2011.

 

Dr. Kathryn Tart asked Mr. Chris Buford who the Black Board support person would be if both of her support techs in the School of Nursing were incapacitated.  Mr. Buford noted that in the event that both UHV Support Techs for one of the UHV Schools was incapacitated due to an emergency like the H1N1 (swine flu) virus while the school was open and either that school’s faculty or students needed course content assistance with their online courses, either the school’s Dean or the school’s faculty member may contact one of the other UHV Deans and request assistance from the other school’s Support Techs. The UHV faculty member requesting assistance can enroll the other school’s Support Techs into their online courses for assistance. The school requesting assistance does not need to contact UHV-IT for permission to enroll the other Support Techs nor does the UHV-IT Department need to be involved with enrolling the other Support Techs; all UHV faculty members can enroll other Support Techs into their courses without intervention from UHV-IT in emergency situations like this

 

D.     Library

No report

 

            G. Other

Dr. Suzanne LaBrecque noted that Ms. Angela Hartmann, UHV’s Research Administrator, sent out an email about the University of Houston Research Clusters. She encouraged the Deans to indentify faculty members who could be involved. Anyone who is interested should contact Angela Hartmann.

 

Dr. Suzanne LaBrecque informed the group that the Ad Hoc Faculty Handbook Committee meets weekly. It is not an open meeting, but they have created a Black Board class to show what is currently being worked on and to get feedback from faculty. The committee’s goal is to have the Faculty Handbook completed by December. They are trying to complete one section of the handbook every two weeks.

 

III.             Specific

 

A.     Student Issues

1.      None

 

B.     Consent Calendar/Faculty Development Grant Requests and Reports

1.       Approved an FY10 conference grant in the amount of $1170 for Dr. Thomas Cox to present at the American Association of Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) conference in Cleveland, Ohio on November 3-6, 2009. 

2.       Approved an FY10 conference grant in the amount of $1011 for Dr. Jane Fry to present at the AATC Conference in Arlington, VA October 1-3, 2009.

3.       Approved an FY10 conference travel grant in the amount of $ 1011 for Dr. Carol Klages to present at the AATC Conference in Arlington, VA October 1-3, 2009.

4.      Approved an FY10 conference travel grant in the amount of $1170 for Dr. Elsa Soto Leggett to present at the ACES 2009 Conference in San Diego, CA on October 14-18, 2009.

5.      Approved an FY10 conference travel grant in the amount of $1170 for Dr. Jeff Moe to present at ACES 2009 Conference in San Diego, CA on October 14-18, 2009.

6.   Approved an FY10 research grant in the amount of $1170 for Dr. Esperanza Camargo to support Mplus, which is a statistical package to conduct statistical analysis on family violence.  Funding will be used for contract upgrade, travel, training and books.

 

As recorded by,

Tessa Naff