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December 5, 2018

8^th floor, Mary and John Gray Library

Call to Order: 3:32 PM

Attending: Arts and Sciences: Brian Williams, Jennifer Fowler, Tom Sowers, Kami Makki, Sanaz Alasti Stacey Knight, Gretchen Johnson, Jing Zhang, J.P. Nelson, Cengiz Sen, Robert Vallin, Joseph Kruger, Ashwini Kucknoor, Martha Rinker, Cheng-Hsien Lin, Suying Wei Business: James Slaydon, Tim McCoy Education: Cristina Rios, Kaye Shelton, Donna Azodi, Dorothy Sisk, Israel Msengi, Shannon Williams, Kim McGough Engineering: Mien Jao Fine Arts and Communication: Amber Marchut, Ashley Dockins, Jacob Clark, Nicki Michalski, Paul Hemenway, Sherry Freyermuth, Cherie Acosta Library: Scott Crawford College Readiness: Melissa Riley Lamar State College Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel

Not Attending: Arts and Sciences: Garrick Hardin, Pat Heintzelman, Sujing Wang, Gwinyai P. Muzorewa, Christopher Martin, Valentin Andreev, Maryam Vasefi Business: Seokyon Hwang, Purnendu Mandal, Karyn Neuhauser, Vivek Natarajan Education: Connie Ruiz, Janice Kimmons, Johnny O’Connor Engineering: Berna Tokgoz, John Gossage, Gleb Tcheslavski, James Curry, Xuejun Fan Fine Arts and Communication: Nandu Radhakirshnan Library: Michael Saar

Guest Speaker Paula Comer, Director McNair Scholars

• There will be need for additional faculty mentors for spring.
• The program focuses on disadvantaged students (minority, first generation, etc.) to prepare them for masters and Ph.D. programs.
• There are 25 applicants this year and 15 slots.
• The expected workload is 20 hours per week during the summer.
• The faculty mentor gets a stipend.
• Although the program tends to focus on STEM students, it welcomes all majors and many students do interdisciplinary projects.
• Please support the program and encourage your students to participate.

Approval of Minutes:

• There is a correction that Scott Crawford did attend the last meeting.
• Tom Sowers made a motion to accept the minutes with the correction. Dorothy Sisk seconded the motion, and it carried.

President’s Report:

• We will be moving in the spring to institute a process for evaluating the president of the university. This is done at other TSUS schools.
• President Evans seems to support the matching of ORP and TRS contributions. There is a need to check with Vice President Ness about funding the difference.

Old Business:

• The F2.08 task force is trying to devise a path forward to the implementation of the proposed form and process revisions.
• Regarding the evaluation of deans, will the faculty be informed of the results? Yes, the results are supposed to be shared with the faculty.

Committee Reports:

• Academic Issues:
  • The committee is talking with Theresa Hefner-Babb about the SACSCOC website and the faculty senate page requirements. The group has split up the paragraphs of the report for review and checking of links. Their deadline for getting the draft report to Theresa is January 15.
• Faculty Issues:
  • The committee is revising the faculty grievance process.
    • They are planning a committee with members from each college.
    • Currently there are multiple processes and committees. These will be streamlined into one.
    • The plan is going to be based on plans in place at other TSUS schools.
    • The hope is to have a draft proposal for the February meeting with the final proposal done in April.
  • Budget and Compensation:
    • The committee is developing plans at three levels: university, college and departmental. President Evans wants to discuss this.
    • The committee is also working on the ORP/TSR matching situation.
  • Distinguished Faculty Lecture:
    • The presentation was great with about 350 attendees.
    • Unfortunately, the event was not recorded.
    • Because the committee was not in charge of the budget, there were some snafus including messed up photography and the reception invitations being sent out too late. In addition, the announcement was sent out too late. There were also disagreements about how to set up the seating at the reception.
    • Joann Brown has been assigned to find a sponsor for the lecture in the future. However, this does not seem to be a high priority for her.
    • Committee chair Dorothy Sisk is planning to meet with Dr. Evans to discuss the possibility of his office’s funding the program if outside funding cannot be found in time.
  • Faculty Research and Development:
    • Nine applications have been scored and ranked.
    • The provost is looking at his budget to determine how many he can fund.
    • The committee is working on a way to share the research that is produced during the leaves.
    • There has been confusion about eligibility issues; the committee would like to see those issues cleared up. They scored every application and will let the provost make the decision about eligibility.
  • Strategic Issues:
    • Retention is the big issue. Forty-six percent of admissions this year were individual admit. This is affecting our ability to retain. There was also discussion about athletes.

 Discussion:

• The staff appreciation luncheon are coming up. Mark Asteris has retired, so we will need to set up a committee to plan the event. There have been issues with funding. The amount raised from faculty donations has fallen for several years. However, the administration does not want us to solicit support from businesses.
• The focus of the capital campaign has shifted from what we were first told it would be. The new order is scholarships first. Faculty support has been moved down in the priorities.

 Adjournment:

Tom Sowers made a motion to adjourn. Dorothy Sisk seconded the motion, and it carried. The meeting was adjourned at 4:30.