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Faculty Senate

October 3, 2018

8^th floor Mary and John Gray Library

 

Attending:

 Arts and Sciences: Brian Williams, Jennifer Fowler, Tom Sowers, Sanaz Alasti, Stacey Knight, Gretchen Johnson, Pat Heinzelman, Jing Zhang, Sujing Wang, JP Nelson, Suying Wei, Robert Vallin, Ted Mahavier, Joseph Kruger, Martha Rinker, Cheng-Hsien Lin, Cengiz Sen, Christopher Martin, Valentin Andreev, Ashwini Kucknoor Business: James Slaydon, Mandal Purnendu, Tim McCoy, Education: Kaye Shelton, Donna Azodi, Janice Kimmons, Johnny O’Connor, Israel Msengi, Kim McGough, Cristina Rios, Dorothy Sisk  Engineering: Berna Tokgoz , John Gossage Fine Arts and Communication: Jacob Clark, Amber Marchut, Cherie Acosta, Nandu Radhakirshnan, Ashley Dockins Library: Michael Saar College Readiness: Melissa Riley Lamar State College Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel

Absent:

Arts and Sciences: Garrick Harden, Lisa Donnely, Gwinyai Muzorewa, Maryam Vasefi, Business: Seokyon Hwang, Vivek Natarajan, Kaushik Ghosh, Karyn Neuhauser Education: Connie Ruiz, Wendy Greenridge Engineering:, Gleb Tcheslavski, James Curry, Mien Jao,, Xuejun Fan Fine Arts and Communication: Nicki Michalski, Paul Hemenway, Sherry Freyermuth Library: Scott Crawford

 

Call to Order: 3:32 p.m.

 

Guest Speaker: Juan Zabala,Vice President for University Advancement and Executive Director of the Â鶹ÊÓƵ Foundation

 

• Zabala began by introducing the next capital campaign.
• University Advancement conducted a comprehensive feasibility study on their donor base.
  • Reached out to current donors to see if they could up their gifts to the university.
  • The study concluded that, while current donors understand the needs of the university, they suffer from donor fatigue.
• University Advancement conducted a capacity study to ascertain which potential donors have the capacity to give major gifts to the university.
  • The study consisted of reviewing 4000 alumni and other potential donors.
  • Historically, Advancement concentrated their efforts locally. This study concluded that of the potential donors, 80% live outside of a 75-mile radius of the university.
• Zabala introduced the new hires in Advancement. Jeffrey Spoeri is the Associate Vice President for University Advancement. He is an experienced fundraiser.
• Frank Newton was hired as the Executive Director of Foundation Relations and Strategic Planning for University Advancement. Previously, he served as the President of the Beaumont Foundation.
• Development officers are traveling 2-3 days per week pursuing major gifts.
• The Center for Innovation, Commercialism, and Entrepreneurship has several products that are about to be commercialized.
• The new capital campaign will publicly kick-off in 2023.
  • We are in the silent phase of the campaign.
  • Past campaigns focused on students and athletics. This campaign focuses on faculty.  This is a new experience for Lamar.
  • The campaign will be couched as providing research funds for faculty to increase experiential learning experiences for students. This is modeled after the program funded by Chuck and Becky Mason in the College of Education.
  • Physical Plant needs will be addressed in this campaign.
  • Advancement is working on a Case for Support – a glossy printout that contains a couple of pictures and a couple of paragraphs – to show to potential donors. Advancement asked the Faculty Senate to review the document and to offer suggestions.

 

Approval of the Minutes:

• Tom Sowers made a motion to approve; Ashley Dockins seconded the motion. The motion carried.

 

President’s Report:

• James discussed Tuition Revenue Bonds.
  • President Evans will ask for 40-50 million dollars in Tuition Revenue Bonds. Additionally, he will ask for 25 million to remodel library.
  • There might be a raise if the numbers are good in the Spring.

 

Committee Reports:

Academic Issues:

• The committee will meet on October 17.
• Teresa Hefner-Babb will attend the meeting to discuss the SACS Self-study.

Faculty Issues:

• The call for the Piper Award nominations is out and nominations are due by October 19.
• The committee is working on reviewing the Faculty Grievance Policy.

 

Budget and Compensation:

• The travel survey found wide discrepancies among travel funding across departments and colleges.
• The committee is working on proposals for a uniform Faculty Travel Policy.
• There was discussion about the ORP policy and raising Lamar’s contribution to 8.5% for every one.

 

 

Distinguished Faculty Lecture:

• President Evans is funding the event. The budget was reduced from $10,000 to $7,000.
• The lecture is November 27^th. The speaker is Dr. Mohammed Hamza. His lecture concerns the happenings in Syria.
• The schedule includes a 5:00 reception on the 8^th floor of the library, the lecture at 6:30, and an intimate dinner at 8:00 at President Evans house - for the speaker and his family.
• Sisk asked that you encourage your students to attend the lecture and offer incentives, if possible.
• The committee would like to dedicate this lecture to Nancy Evans.

 

Research and Development:

• The website is up and Dr. Nordgren sent out the first announcement email. The deadline to apply is November 12^th.

 

Emerging Issues:

• The committee looked into the rumor of a “hit list” of assistant professors and instructors who are targeted for removal because the fail rates for their classes are too high. There was a discussion with Dr. Marquart and Dr. Nichols and they claim that this is misinformation. The proof offered is that no one has been fired.
• Andreev referred to a 2016 article in regards to Lamar being viewed as a drop out university.
• More than 40% of the incoming freshman class consists of special admits with ridiculously low SAT scores. Andreev stated that this in the new normal and that the faculty should think of ways to address it. One idea is to think about pathways for other core courses. There is a fear that Lamar will choose to outsource the core to LIT, LSCPA, and LSCO.
• Issues with the advising center were discussed. The advising center is placing students way above the level that they should be – doing a disservice to the students and attributing to larger fail rates.  Additionally, students are being isolated from their home departments by only being advised by the advising center the first two years.

 

New Business:

• Kassy Aiena from the Associate Provost will serve as the Faculty Senate Liaison. She will handle travel paperwork for the faculty senators and administer applications in Competition Space.
• There have been complaints about the new id cards listing Faculty as Employees instead of Faculty. Some are concerned about losing some educator discounts.
• Additionally, there is concern that the new id cards are meant to track the coming and goings of faculty members and employees.

 

 

Call for Adjournment:

Valentin Andreev made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Kim McGough seconded the motion, and it carried. The meeting was adjourned at 4:28 p.m.

 

Submitted by:

Jennifer Fowler