President’s Cabinet
December 8, 2021

Members Present: Amano, Bailey, Blodgett, Cantu, Colwell, Faulk, Field, B. Glenn, C. Glenn, Hodge, Lake, Lambert, Locher, Martinez, Pisors, Smith, Tomek and Walyuchow

Absent: Beran, Figueroa, Olson

I. Organizational Business

A. President—Bob Glenn

• Funding

President Glenn welcomed everyone to the meeting. He discussed CCAP funds, previously called tuition revenue bonds or TRBs. He said $45 million was awarded by the State Legislature for instruction funds, campus infrastructure improvement. UHV was left out of this award. In special session UHV received $22 million, even though we had requested $65 million. Thanks to Geanie Morrison and Lois Kolkhorst, for assisting with some rewording of our request, giving UHV more flexibility, UHV ended up receiving $45 million.

• Academic Strategic Plan
  • Acquisition of property buildings on the northside
  • No significant changes in North
  • Fourth college: The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has approved the use of “colleges” over “departments”
  • Computer Science accreditation: Computer Science Engineering programs
  • Probably no new academic buildings: still have the 60,000 square feet in Northwest
  • 65 acres at the airport would need to raise $25 million to move forward (baseball would be first and that would take 2-5 years)
  • Ben Wilson Street should be ready in early 2023
  • In order to stay aware of SACS impact, Dr. Sharon Bailey was invited to join Cabinet

B. Minutes

Mr. Walyuchow made the motion to approve the August 11 and October 14, 2021, minutes and was seconded by Dean Colwell.

Motion carried unanimously.

II. Business

A. Academic Affairs Updates—Chance Glenn

• Provost Glenn noted some of the many things going on in Academic Affairs

• UHV has the Board of Regents’ approval for changing the named from “school” to “college.”
• SACSCOC Ten-Year Affirmation: The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges conference will be virtual this year and attended by several at the university.
• QEP:  Provost Glenn said the Quality Enhancement Plans (QEP) will have different concepts and these will be pulled together to serve as the QEP that addresses all areas. He requested all cooperate for whatever is requested from you and as quickly as possible.

Searches:

  Progress on Search for Dean of Education has begun with a meeting with a national search firm to identify the desired criteria for the new dean. Currently in the process of seeking applicants and nominees. The committee, along with the search firm, will identify first round of candidates by the end of February.

  Internal Search for Interim Dean for the College of Natural Science will be announced by Friday. The interim dean role will be in place for a year to allow time for a search.

• Update on the Student Success Center: With Dr. Tomek’s help UHV received a Title Regrant that shows a 66% increase identifying At Risk Student, a 9% increase in retention, a 3.06 to 3.12 average GPA over the entire campus, an 87-89% of increases in credits, and 12% higher for those students that attended tutoring and a 12% increase in supplemental instruction.                                                                                                           
• Our Title III has received a front-page article in the Victoria Advocate.
• Academic Affairs is currently working with Katy on tutoring, workshops, and bringing Biology to that campus.
• There were three ceremonies at the December Katy graduation. The 10:00 a.m. was the largest graduating class, last time and this time.

In closing Provost Glenn said he was grateful for the Academic Affairs team and faculty members.

B. Enrollment Management Updates—Jose Cantu

Dr. Cantu said enrollment is fluid and is too early to call.

• Student Enrollment
  • New student enrollment is up by 17

• Enrollment for the spring is up
  
  • Continuing student enrollments are down
  • Senior enrollments are a little slow
  • Graduate students are down by 18% (Meaning we are losing students because of the large number of Business graduating classes, so we all have to work harder to bring our numbers up.)

• Fall Recruitment
  • Applications are up by 41%
  • FTIC up by 80%
  • Transition students up by 16.5%
  • Graduates up by 72%

Dr. Cantu said the later the student applies, the more likely they are to come.

• Staff
  • Enrollment Management is currently down three recruiters
  • Admissions is down two analysists
  • Registrar is retiring, vacancy in January
  • Realigning and possibly restructuring in the Financial Aid Office
• Collaborations
  • Blinn College
  • Southwest Texas College
  • Brazosport College
  • Victoria College
  • Alamo College
  • All Houston community college systems

C. Student Affairs Updates—Jay Lambert

Vaccine

-Dr. Lambert reported there were 971 student submissions for vaccinations.

Student Service Fee Meeting

-Students voted for a five percent tuition increase for this coming year and no increases for next year

D. University Advancement Updates—Jesse Pisors

“Giving Tuesday”

Mr. Pisors thanked everyone in attendance and many others for contributing to the outstanding ”Giving Tuesday” on November 30.

-This one-day campaign had a goal of securing the greatest number of donors in 24 hours

-469 donors (compared to a goal of 300 and 256 last year), second highest ever

-$113,648 raised on or attributed to “Giving Tuesday 2021,” highest ever

-$10,000 matching grant for KMH Wealth Management/Keller & Associates CPAs

-New scholarship endowment: $50,000 gift commitment from Margery and Robert Loeb

-Special incentive for top seven funds based on number of donors on November 30

-Seven giving stations across Victoria and Katy, 25+ volunteers, gifts from 1:18 a.m. to 11:49 p.m., with gifts from five nations

-Crowdfunding was active and successful on this “Giving Tuesday”

Innovation Collective

-UHV has successfully reached our $915,000 goal to fund the launch of Innovation Collective through the College of Business: eight-$100,000 donors and serval $15,000 to $33,000 donors

Johnson Foundation

-Received final payment of the Johnson Foundation’s $2 million commitment to the Health & Wellness Center

-$300,000 from Johnson Foundation for scholarships for students preparing for health professions

Marketing & Communications Updates

-Interviewing for a new senior director (there will be open forums with finalists)

-Spending time with MarCom (Marketing & Communications) staff and consultants to identify ways to make our operations more efficient and productive

-Moving toward a larger focus on Marketing leadership for the campus through MarCom

E. Other Items

-Dean Colwell announced there is still capacity for giving to the city, working on raising funds for endeavors, working on something for VISD, Victoria College and UHV. He said a lot of this semester has been spent on program reviews. Transitioning out the ABA program (teaching students what the college feels the students need), progress on Strategic Plan; new programs Master’s in Taxanation, Master’s in Finance, MBA in Nonprofit Management and MBA in Data Analytics.

-Dean Amano said she has been working with the Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee. Everything looks good, most of the work has been divided up to rebuild the new college. She said she was looking to the future.

-Interim Dean Martinez met with Nursing directors of UHV and Victoria College on a dual enrollment plan. She said the System deans are concerned about the teaching shortage. There is a new System-wide grant program being worked on help with the shortage. There will be a Teacher Induction Ceremony in both Victoria on December 8 and in Katy on December 9. The Nursing Pinning Ceremony is scheduled for Friday, December 10.

-Dr. Blodgett said that the Faculty Council Committee on Plagiarism Academic Integrity will be meeting with UH Legal concerning their recommendations. Faculty are ready to support an Academic Dishonesty Policy due to the different levels of cheating they are seeing that are not being addressed. He also expressed his personal opinion that all online courses should have a synchronous component, so as to better engage students. Dr. Blodgett also believes that it is reasonable to expect faculty to come to Victoria for face-to-face courses to provide a meaningful learning experience, and that in doing so we will attract and retain more students.

-Ms. Field said a couple of University System Staff Executive Committee (USSEC) representatives drove to UHV for a meeting and said they felt the meeting was a real success. Spring USSEC meeting to be held at UH Main. Items the Staff Council is working on are a newsletter, a social media page, volunteering efforts, adopt a senior for the holidays and the Staff Council Potluck Holiday Celebration.

-Mr. Walyuchow announced UHV’s soccer teams had a good season. The men’s team had their third consecutive championship season and almost had an undefeated play in conference.  He said he hated to hear that our Registrar, Angela Bigby, was retiring.

Ms. Bigby has been very helpful in working with our student athletes and certifying eligibility. Mr. Walyuchow said that baseball and softball also had a good season. He said we have a set of twins joining our golf team. The ad for the Athletics Sports Information Specialist received 26 applications the first time around. Mr. Walyuchow stated there is a nation-wide shortage and it is a struggle in hiring right now. Mr. Walyuchow said Athletics is gearing up for the spring with their largest annual fundraiser scheduled for February 10 at the Club Westerner. He said mailings would be going out this week. Last time they raised $100,000.

Walyuchow brought it to the attention of the Cabinet that there is some confusion between the names of the North Building and the Northwest Building.

-Ms. Smith said staff class reviews that are done annually are due December 15.  She said the winter break holiday are December 24-December 31. With January 1 falling on a Saturday, everyone will return to work on January 3. She said this would be her last meeting as she was retiring.

President Glenn thanked Ms. Smith for her years of dedicated service to UHV.

-Ms. Bailey said she had her annual meeting with the writing team and it is quite small only two people and only one of those with writing experience. She said the writing team and the university will be in compliance before completing the report.

-Ms. Hodge said they have started advising season, and the kickoff was Priority Athletics Advising. This is our second attempt at priority registration for student-athletes and saw an increase of student-athletes utilizing the priority dates and getting registered. We held priority registration face-to-face in the Computer Lab in the North Building as well as virtually, through Teams and email. Ms. Hodge said they will be having their Professional Academic Advisor’s Council advising night to capture students who are unable to meet with an advisor during normal office hours. The advising night will be held on December 9 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. She said they are hoping this will capture more students before they leave for winter break. In addition to this advising night, she indicated they have been doing outreach campaigns to our current population since November 1. Ms. Hodge said on February 4 the Advisor’s Council will be having training that closes some of the training gaps that we have and have some education around best practices in academic advising.

-Dr. Tomek reported that the Student Success Center was working on a series of live events for spring to generate enthusiasm for being back on campus. The events will include activities for faculty, staff and students. The Success Center is also reaching out to local schools to rebuild some of the connections they had made before COVID and to generate interest in UHV among potential students for the summer bridge program. Another outreach program sponsored by Student Success group and the Provost’s Office that was successful in the fall semester and will be continued in the spring involves the E-Sport Tournaments. Members of the E-Sport team invite students from area junior highs and high schools and host tournaments in a number of different video games.

-Ms. Locher said the Library welcomed a new Instruction and Outreach Librarian Alexis Hickey from Seattle. She has been here at UHV for three weeks and when she arrived, she hit the ground running and has not slowed down. Ms. Locher said finals had students everywhere, but all is good in the Library.

-Mr. Faulk said the new copiers have arrived and have had good responses on the new units. He said by spring all copiers should be in place. He thanks Elizabeth Corte for all the hard work on scheduling the installation of the new copiers.

Mr. Faulk said IT facilities have gone through recent assessments and audits. He is currently working on procedures and standards to meet recommendations.

Mr. Faulk announced he is the Accessibility Coordinator for the UHV campus. There is increasing attention at the System level to accessibility and he fully expects everyone will be hearing more about this next year.

President Glenn closed the meeting by expressing his appreciation for all those around the table for all they do for UHV. He also wished everyone a safe holiday.

Meeting closed at 11:30 a.m.

Submitted by Kathy Walton;