THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO
DOCUMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL FACULTY
SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE
FACULTY SENATE SPECIAL MEETING
OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2002
The first regular Meeting of the Faculty Senate for the academic year 2002-2003 was held in room 4.03.08, Assembly Room, on September 10, 2002 at 3:30 p.m. in the John Peace Library with Dr. James McDonald, Chair, presiding.
Present: Guy Bailey, Ron Binks, Fred Bonner, Steven Boyd, Felicia Briscoe, Stephen Brown, Aaron Cassill, Jan Clark Vic Heller, Paul Jacobs, Eugene John, Michael Kelly, Melvin Laracey, Randy Manteufel, Raquel Marquez, Kenneth Masden, James McDonald, George Negrete, Frank Pino, Walter Richardson, John Rundin, Michael Ryan, Ted Skekel, Minghe Sun, Yiuman Tse, Kenton Wilkinson, Mary Lou Zeeman
Absent: Ron Ayers, David Bruenger (excused), Manuel Diaz, Mansour El-Kikhia (excused), Ni (Phil) He (excused), Chris Reddick (excused), Todd Ryska, Woodie Spivey, Joseph Stafford, Armando Trujillo, Weining Zhang (excused)
Total members present: 27 Total members absent: 12
A. Provost - Dr. Guy Bailey
Dr. Bailey reported there had been good faculty participation in the Fall Convocation and thanked everyone who took the time to attend. The President plans to make this an annual event, which will, in the future, include more recognition of faculty achievement and faculty honors. The administration is also trying to identify sources of funding to help defray the cost of regalia rentals.
Dr. Bailey said that funds had been set aside for faculty compression studies for the last few years. For the first two years of these studies, a faculty committee had development the models. After that the committee, as well as the Faculty Senate, had questions and concerns about continuing with the same model. For one year, funds set aside for compression and a portion of merit funds were used to create a widespread cost-of-living increase of two percent and a focused merit increase of three percent. Upon the recommendation of the Faculty Senate, the compression study exercise was redone for the past year. An outside consultant who specializes in pay was hired to do the compression study. The resulting report contained six scenarios based on the amount of funding available (copy of report attached to and made a part of these minutes). Following the recommendation of the consultant, scenario four was used to complete the process. The consultant's report contains several recommendations for UTSA, which are considered to be worth pursuing. Dr. Bailey congratulated the committee for doing an outstanding job.
Dr. Bailey distributed a packet of information on current demographics of the student population. He noted that UTSA has changed dramatically in the last few years. Current enrollment is slightly over 22,000, which is a significant increase. This is important because 2002-2003 is a base budget year during which student enrollment is one of the factors affecting formula funding. Retention rates are also improving. The percentage of full-time first-time freshmen that return for the sophomore year has increased by nine percent over the past two-year period. Faculty involved in retention efforts, such as learning communities and freshman seminars, are instrumental in this improvement. Other factors include the improvements in the Office of Financial Aid and the addition of the advising centers. Dr. Bailey noted that retention rates are even better with Hispanic and African American groups than they are for Anglos. Other changes in enrollment are that more students are coming to UTSA from areas outside Bexar County, such as the Rio Grande Valley and Harris County. Also more students are full-time due, in part to the Texas Grants Program that has helped many students who would not have been able to attend full-time without assistance. The number of freshman coming to UTSA directly from high school has increased to over 3000 this year.
Dr. Bailey stated that faculty are doing well in the production of research and acquisition of external funding. The increase in doctoral programs has been significant and is expected to continue. The number of doctoral students has grown from 58 to 153 over the last two-year period and is expected to reach 300 next year. This is a remarkable transformation for the university that has placed faculty under a tremendous amount of stress. The university has done a lot of the right things in recent years and will begin to see the effects of these efforts during the next legislative session in areas such as improved funding.
Dr. Bailey noted that the report on faculty salary changes in Texas public universities showed UTSA had a percentage of increase that was higher than most other institutions in the state. Good progress has been made recently to allocate a significant portion of the budget toward faculty and staff salary increases. Because of enrollment growth, it is anticipated that funding for raises will be available even if the budget is flat.
Dr. Bailey reported that one of the biggest challenges for the university continue to be the faculty/student ratio, which is currently 24 to 1. Even with hiring 50 to 60 new faculty each year for the past several years, UTSA is still 153 faculty short of where it should be. To achieve the state average, UTSA would have to hire 470 new faculty over the next five years. Another major challenge is the lack of space and requests for additional tuition revenue bonds for buildings will be presented to the legislature during the next session.
Dr. Bailey said that UTSA is currently ranked 29 of 38 in per student funding allocations. This is an improvement resulting from increases in graduate programs and graduate students but it is still not where it should be.
B. Senate Chair - Dr. James McDonald
Dr. McDonald welcomed the members to the Faculty Senate's first meeting of the 2002-2003 academic year. His remarks follow:
I want to thank you in advance for your efforts over the coming year, and I look forward to working with you on a variety of important issues that we will be facing.
UTSA has changed remarkably since I came here in 1995. It's physically bigger, there are more students, and research as measured by external grants is up considerably. All of this growth and change, obviously, comes with a number of costs. For example, a number of faculty in my college - COLFA - work teaching overloads. I'm not saying this to complain (yet anyway), but to underscore that we have a very hard working and committed faculty.
Part of our growth and development also includes increased participation by the faculty in governance issues. It is critical that we work toward shaping the conditions of our day-to-day lives as well as the future of the University. The Faculty Senate needs to be central in this process. I would like to see us become a policy creating body.
One step toward that is the new set of bylaws you received in late July. I will talk more about those bylaws later in the meeting.
Policy Issues for the Coming Academic Year
There's a wide variety of issues that could be on our plates this year in addition to our regular duties reviewing academic programs and the like.
I have identified several areas that I think we need to address:
1. Periodic Performance Evaluation (PPE or post-tenure review by any other name). Former Senate Chair Patricia Harris began exploring revision to our PPE policy toward the end of her term a couple of years ago. Certainly one thing that a new PPE could be used for is a way to relieve salary compression for senior faculty. I know from my experience in the TFA that both legislators and Regents in Austin are scrutinizing PPE across the state. So it might well be in our own best interest to get out ahead of this issue.
2. Third-year review - evaluation policies and practices vary widely across UT campuses. Some treat it like a mini-tenure review and there is one campus that doesn't have a policy at all. Here at UTSA there also seems to be considerably variation in how third-year review is handled. My feeling is that all evaluation is serious and needs to have clearly defined procedures, as well as a reasonable mechanism for appeal. Currently the HOP mentions third year review and its possible consequence (non-renewal) but is moot on the actual process and vague on the timetable.
3. Administrator Evaluation - work in conjunction with the Provost's office to identify an instrument.
4. Idea Teaching Evaluation System - Revisit IDEA after its first full year of use and explore faculty experiences and how it is being implemented across campus.
5. Grievance procedure - experience over at least the past year suggests that the policy needs some revamping and streamlining.
6. Lab space policy - already worked on this over the summer. Will circulate a draft of our preliminary document to the appropriate committee.
7. New Faculty Issues - (1) We need to create a policy to help new faculty hit the ground running at UTSA (e.g., make sure they're in the system prior to 1 Sept so they can get parking decals, faculty card, library access, keys to their office, etc). (2) Need to create a better, proactive mentoring system for new faculty. COLFA has taken the lead on this and generated a study on faculty retention along with a working draft of a mentoring model. In general I am highly committed to faculty development issues and this would be a great place to start.
So in sum, we have a lot on our plates, but we've already gotten quite a bit accomplished over the summer - bylaws, lab space policy, and we also hired a new director of international programs (Chris Musick) who will be on board in mid-September.
Bylaws Comments
There's a long story behind the new bylaws draft. There have been numerous attempts to revise the bylaws since the Senate was formulated in 1994. For various reasons, those attempts have not gone through.
What you have before you springs from a recent attempt by the Senate this past academic year into the summer. In Fall 2001 a Faculty Senate committee led by Steve Boyd did a major revision of the document. Building upon that, Senators Boyd, Heller, Laracey, Negrete, and Rogers along with ex-officio Senate members El-Kikhia and Kelly got together this summer to give that document one final revision.
I think it's critical that we pass these bylaws so that we have rules of governance that fit within the new university structure and streamline the activities of the senate.
C. Committees
1. Nominating and Elections Committee - Election of Officers and Committees
POST ELECTION RESULTS:
Officers and Executive Committee:
James McDonald Chair
*Aaron Cassill Chair-Elect
*John Rundin Secretary
*Michael Kelly Parliamentarian
Jan Clark College of Business
Fred Bonner College of Education and Human Development
*Randy Mantaufel College of Engineering
Mike Ryan College of Liberal and Fine Arts
*Chris Reddick College of Public Policy
*George Negrete College of Sciences
* Vic Heller Chair, Graduate Council
Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee
Ron Alexander, CoEHD
*Fred Bonner, CoEHD
*Manuel Diaz, CoE
Tom Ricento, CoEHD
Rocky Shih, CoE
*Kenton Wilkinson, CoLFA
*Weing Zhang, CoS
Academic Policy and Requirements Committee
Stephen Boyd, CoLFA
*Kolleen Guy, CoLFA
Vic Heller, CoB
*Melvin Laracey, CoLFA
Kenneth Masden, SoA
Marita Nummikoski, CoLFA
Weing Zhang, Cos
Nominating and Elections Committee
Stephen Brown, CoS
*Ni (Phil) He, CoPP
*Eugene John, CoE
*Kenneth Masden, SoA
Deborah Schwartz-Kates, CoLFA
Minghe Sun, CoB
Thomas Thomson, CoB
*Armando Trujillo, CoEHD
Teaching Effectiveness and Development Committee:
*Ron Ayers, CoB
*Felecia Briscoe, CoEHD
Ellen Clark, CoEHD
Raquel Marquez, CoLFA
A.C. Rogers, CoE
*Walter Richardson, Jr., CoS
Kenton Wilkinson, CoLFA
University Curriculum Committee
Felecia Briscoe, CoEHD
Ruben Cordova, CoLFA
Ann Eisenberg, CoLFA
Kolleen Guy, CoLFA
Ni (Phil) He, CoPP
Paul Jacobs, CoEHD
Rafael Lopez-Mobilia, CoS
*Frank Pino, CoLFA
A.C. Rogers, CoE
Kent Rush, CoLFA
Todd Ryska, CoEHD
2. Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Senate Bylaws - Dr. James McDonald
Dr. McDonald reported that although numerous attempts have been made over the past several years to revise the bylaws, the Senate is still operating under the original set of bylaws. The ad hoc committee worked over the summer to make minor revisions to a bylaws proposal previously approved by the Senate. Dr. McDonald stated that it is critical to pass these bylaws at this time in order to have rules of governance that fit within the new university structure and to streamline the activities of the Senate
John Rundin made a motion to accept the proposed bylaws. Vic Heller seconded.
Dr. Ted Skekel asked what would happen to the positions of Chair and Vice Chair during the transition to the new bylaws. Dr. McDonald replied that he and Aaron Cassil were elected under the old bylaws and that would have to stand, so next year would be the first year for the new positions and terms. This and other details will have to be worked out during the transition.
Dr. Jan Clark noted the University Assembly bylaws had not been approved and it seems that it would be best for the two bodies to meet to ensure that each set of bylaws does not violate the bylaws of the other body. Dr. McDonald said that it would not take much to bring the two sets of bylaws in line but it is important for the Senate to take the lead and finalize the revision of its bylaws. These bylaws would create an autonomous body with some linkages to the Assembly, but not be dependent on the Assembly. The Senate will be the policy-generating body with the Assembly being an information dissemination body.
Dr. Rundin agreed that it is essential to pass these bylaws to legitimize the Senate and bring it in line with the present structure of the university.
Dr. Mary Lou Zeeman expressed the need for
clarification on the terms for the Chair and Vice Chair. She recommended
amending Article III.2 to read...then the Vice Chair will assume the
Chair's duties for the remainder of the Chair's term to office Vice-Chair's term of office. Discussion was held regarding
the time of the elections of officers. Dr. Skekel made a friendly
amendment to include the following: The election of officers will be
held at the April meeting of the Faculty Senate.
Dr. McDonald accepted both friendly amendments. Professor Ron Binks called the question. Dr. McDonald asked for a vote to approve the bylaws as amended. Motion passed unanimously.
None
None
None
VII. Meeting adjourned
Comments or questions to spottorff@utsa.edu
Last updated Aug. 29, 2005