Skip to main content
Jaguar Logo

President

President’s Cabinet
9:30 a.m., April 14, 2021
Teams Meeting Minutes

Present: Beran, Cantu, Cobler, Colwell, Faulk, Field, B. Glenn, C. Glenn, Lake, Lambert, Locher, Martinez, Pisors, Smith, Teixeira, Tomek and Walyuchow

Absent: Figueroa

I. Organizational Business

A. President’s Update

President Glenn said he expects the university to be in Phase 4 by the summer with 70% occupancy. The state expects the workplace to work normal hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.  The Executive Committee will be reviewing weekly. 

B. Minutes

The January 13, 2021, minutes stand approved by consensus.

Motion carried unanimously.

II. Business

A. Academic Affairs Updates— Chance Glenn

Arts & Sciences Dean Search

Provost Glenn announced four Arts & Science dean search finalists have been identified to visit campus by virtual meetings. There will be meetings scheduled throughout the day for each candidate’s visit. He feels this is a good pool of applicants and the plan is by May to announce the new incoming dean.

Academic Strategic Plan

The Academic Strategic Plan is now moving into the implementation phase, now that the Faculty Senate, Staff Council and Student Government have endorsed the plan.

COVID and Task Force

The COVID Task Force meet weekly to assess conditions and make recommendations to the Executive Committee; currently considering Phase 4. Provost Glenn announced that Dr. Vaugh is leaving, and Jessica Helms will take over the COVID Operation Center.

Partnership with Victoria College (VC)

Provost Glenn said UHV continues to work on joint programs with VC. He said VC is open to a joint partnerships program in music. The faculty have bought into this program and it is now being spear headed by Dr. Justin Bell.

Texas Zoo

Provost Glenn said there have been detailed conversations with the zoo concerning working with us in the possible development of ag science and animal science programs. He said they are very interested in working with UHV.

Faculty Salary Plan

UHV’s goal is to get all faculty up to CUPA level. He said they are close to finalizing the details and plans are to implement by fall 2021.

UHS

Provost Glenn said the System Provosts are working on a pipeline Ph.D. and professional degrees.

B. Facilities & Finance Updates—Wayne Beran

Budget

The Executive Committee is in the middle of budget but will have to wait to the end of the legislation session to see where we stand.

Federal Relief Funding

UHV will be applying for all we can to ease the loss revenue. The university had a loss in housing, food service, health and wellness fees due to COVID-19.

Fire Marshal

The Fire Marshal approved the new STEM building and the remodeled Northwest Campus.

Ben Wilson Street Project

UHV should have final approval on the Ben Wilson Street Project from the Victoria City Council by July.

Parking

A new parking lot will be established just south of campus this summer on the corner of Ben Wilson and Red River where the current practice soccer field is located.

Risk Management

The Risk Management team want the state to reimburse the university for the expenses that were incurred by the winter storm and are preparing expenses documents to be submitted to the state. 

C. Enrollment Management Updates—Jose Cantu

Enrollment

Dr. Cantu shared enrollment reports that showed enrollment down 10.2% and the semester credit hours (SCH) down by 4.4% compared to last year at this time. He said it was a little early to be stressed. He discussed the need to retain new students. Dr. Cantu said the university is looking to maintain or slightly increase enrollment from last Fall that had a 9% increase. Enrollment Management is working on a freshman count of 300. UHV will have a large graduate class with 200 additional students graduating, with the majority of those graduating having earned an MBA from Business. Last year we had 425 students graduating and this year we will have 625 students graduating.

Virtual Communication

Dr. Cantu feels virtual CRM (Customer Relations Management) communication is better with students.

Dr. Cantu said the university is very focused on a year of challenges.

D. Student Affairs Updates—Jay Lambert

Homecoming

Dr. Lambert said even through UHV had a virtual homecoming he just wanted to thank everyone involved. So far, we have received positive feedback from the students.

Focus Group

Last week Dr. Lambert and Dr. Tomek started a series of focus groups with students. They should have a report on what they heard from students, the good and bad in May. So far, it has been mostly positive.

Housing

The university typically uses Jaguar Court for summer housing, mostly because it is the most affordable for students. This summer UHV will be shifting to Smith Hall but charge the same rate as if they were living in the Court. For fall, this year the university purposely kept students in singles and will continue to offer this option next year and will also allow any student who wants to double or triple room that option.

Career Services

Student Affairs are in the middle of evaluating Career Services. Hopefully within the next month Dr. Lambert will be able to give a brief report regarding the assessment.

In January, a survey was sent to all students and received 360 responses. We are also in the middle of conducting focus groups with employers and students and will hopefully have valuable information to help us serve our students.

The Student Service Fee Committee recommended the funding of a new position and a little more M&O for Career Services, but they did not see it as an incredibly high priority. This is not inconsistent to what was reported by the surveys.  

Virtual Commencement

UHV’s first virtual commencement is set for May 15. Dr. Lambert said he wanted to thank the committee for pushing this forward. In the next week, planning will start for a face-to-face commencement sometime around late July or early August.

E. University Advancement Updates—Jesse Pisors

Virtual Alumni Celebration

The university had an outstanding “Virtual Alumni Celebration” with over 90 alumni and friends tuning in at noon on Friday April 9. He said that they expect to have many additional views on Facebook and UHV YouTube.

Fundraising

UHV’s overall fundraising update for FY 2021 is $2,779,255 from 927 unique donors.

Kay Walker Memory Garden Project

Upcoming Alumni Engagement Events and Activities

F. Other Items

Dr. Colwell said the Arts & Sciences Dean Search is moving along. He said he felt the candidates were very qualified and appointments are being scheduled for a virtual visit of four finalists. Each candidate will have a meeting with the President, Executive Committee and an Open Forum time. Staff will work on campus on a rotating basis. The school has a new clinical professor in Management and is working on filling two Business faculty replacements.

Interim Dean Martinez covered recent activities of the School of Education, Health Professions & Human Development. She said there have been meetings with VC Nursing. A VISD cohort has a funded grant for 20+ students where classes will be offered to students working toward becoming educators. Dean Martinez also said a university school partnership focusing on teacher education with the deans of UH, UHD and UHV was submitted on Friday. Currently there are 22 coalition members. The school is strongly partnered with the VISD school district and she hopes to get Katy people involved too. She said 100% of the faculty buy in. She closed by saying there are a lot of searches going on and she is happy to fill the spots.

Dr. Teixeira announced all program changes have been approved by the Faculty Senate. One of the agenda items for the upcoming May meeting will be faculty salaries. Faculty salaries will be brought to the CUPA level within 3-5 years. The Strategic Plan is another item on the agenda. Dr. Teixeira said the university has a great opportunity in the way of doing things—respect one another.

President Glenn said we are a family, that does not mean we get along all the time. We can get cross ways with one another but that does not mean we cannot be civil with each other. President Glenn emphasized that it is his expectation that each of us is intentionally civil in all our interactions, especially those interactions where we are in disagreement on an issue.

Ms. Field reported that President Glenn discussed shared governance with staff. Incorporated things in Staff Council to show we are all responsible. The next Staff Council guest speaker will be Provost Glenn. Ms. Field said staff have a lot of questions concerning returning to campus. Compensation Committee is working with HR on policies and changes. 

Mr. Faulk said IT is going well. He said VISD have been very cooperative with IT while working on the fiber installation; they have been good to work with. The next part of the Duo project is to include UHV’s VPN (Virtual Private Network) service. He reminded everyone that to meet System requirements for security, the current VPN service is changing to Sonic Wall. Everyone needs to check out the new VPN service prior to May 24, date of retirement of the current service.  He expressed kudos for Mr. Nelson’s Stream Team group for all their hard work. It is time for the copier fleet to be updated. The upgrade will happen August to September. He closed by saying now that construction is finishing up, he is looking forward to returning to normal work.

Ms. Lake said the Diversity & Race Task Force has been very busy. April’s events include:

Ms. Locher said the library is in the process of moving items/manuscripts to their new location in the Northwest Center; and reported nothing remains at VC. She said the Explore your ROAR virtual workshops on TEAMS, which has been a success will be carried into the fall semester. Ms. Locher said the Library is now able to spend diversity funds.  The Library has opened a couple of job searches. She said the Library is starting to see more use of the major space.

Ms. Smith noted she had emailed the Board approved holiday schedule for FY 22. She pointed out that the number of holidays allowed each fiscal year is per State Government Code. UHV will have 12 holidays available for the new year. Ms. Smith encouraged those that are about to retire to attend some of the upcoming HR seminars. She has been working with the Staff Council’s Staff Compensation Committee to make sure everyone understands HR policies.   

Dr. Tomek said the Student Success Center is working on two summer bridge programs – a commuter program for Summer I and a residential program for Summer II. She thanked Dr. Cantu and Mr. Pisors for their help with these. The Success Center is back up and running on campus, with a rotation each Monday through Thursday. There will be one administrative support staff member and one success coach to help students each day. There is also some face-to-face tutoring taking place, in accordance with safe social distancing practices. Teams tutoring is also seeing an upswing in the numbers of students seeking help. She said a work in progress is the expansion of EAB Navigate; the vice presidents of Enrollment Management and Student Life and Services and the deans are working to join advisors in the use of the tool.

Mr. Walyuchow said it had been a long semester. He credited staff and student athletes for working with Athletics on games and rescheduling. He said UHV will host the Aii conference golf tournament in May. Mr. Walyuchow said Athletics had gone six weeks with no positive COVID finds, then last week they had two. He announced that baseball and softball will qualify for conference tournaments. Mr. Walyuchow said some of UHV’s summer camp attendees have turned into some of our better players.

Ms. Cobler announced UHV has won a Gold ADDY in the District 10 American Advertising Federation (AAF) competition for creative excellence for the Athletics’ campaign designed by Larzell Cowan. District 10 includes Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. UHV’s Gold ADDY will compete next in the national AAF competition. Ms. Cobler said the ADDYs are the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting more than 40,000 entries every year in local AAF competitions. She said that Marketing & Communications launched an enrollment campaign this past week and continues to work on marketing the upcoming virtual homecoming.

President Glenn concluded the meeting announcing the next meeting of the President’s Cabinet will be on May 12.

Meeting adjourned at 11:10 a.m.

Submitted by Kathy Walton