FACULTY SENATE MEETING
MINUTES
November 10, 2008
3:15 p.m., 601 Rudder Tower
http://facultysenate.tamu.edu

Present:    Louise Abbott, Derya Akleman, Carisa Armstrong, Karl Aufderheide, Wolfgang Bangerth, Guy Battle, Robert Bednarz, Michael Benedik, Tahir Cagin,Gwendolyn Carroll, Antonio Cepeda-Benito, Joe Cerami,Walter Daugherity, John Fackler, Holly Gaede, Melinda Grant, Michael Greenwald, Mike Hanik, James Heilman, Richard Hutchinson, Joe Jaros, Eluned Jones, Guido Kanschat, Larry Kelly, Rafael Lara-Alecio, Robyn Lints, Carol Loopstra, Sam Mannan, Lanny Martindale, Christopher Mathewson, Robert McGeachin, Kathryn McKenzie, Mary Meagher, Michael Messina, Tim Murphy, Adam Myers, Bo Norby, Brian Perkins, Dan Roelke, Lynn Ruoff, Roger Schultz, Robin Smith, Richard Stadelmann, William Stein, Bob Strawser, Ramesh Talreja, Elizabeth Tebeaux, Winfried Teizer, Frank Thomas, Theodore Turocy, Manuelita Ureta, John Van-Huyck, Gary Varner, Tom Vogel, Hank Walker, Kirk Winemiller, Gary Wingenbach, Debra Zoran

Karan Watson (Dean of Faculties)

Absent:    Stephen Atkins, James Aune, Tom Blasingame, Dragomir Bukur, Keith Chaffin, Iftekharudd Choudhury, Thomas DeWitt, Rainer Fink, Carlos Gonzalez, Robert Griffin, Mariah Hahn, Vikram Kinra, Andrew Klein, Andre Landry, Thomas Linton, Leon Luxemburg, Clinton Machann, R.N. Mahapatra, Peter McIntyre, Jeryl Mumpower, Ramona Paetzold, Frederic Pearl, David Peterson, Weston Porter, Angie Hill Price, Khalid Qaraqe, Jorge Seminario, Douglas Slack, Karen Snowden, Kathleen Speed, Susan Stabile, John Stallone, Robert Stewart, Hamid Toliyat, Jyotsna Vaid, Nancy Volkman, Robert Warden, Gwendolyn Webb-Johnson, Thomas Welsh, Matthew Whiteacre, Thomas Woodfin

Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 3:15 by Speaker Clint Magil. Speaker Magill opened the meeting by welcoming guests and senators. There were no senators from Galveston or Qatar present via videoconferencing.

Guest Speaker:
Speaker Magill welcomed guest speaker LtGen Joseph Weber, Vice President for Student Affairs. General Weber stated what he believed to be his primary charge as VP-Student Affairs: Closing the gap between Academic and Student Affairs.
General Weber opened the floor to questions/comments:
Senator Stadelmann:  Advising student organizations have become more difficult because of additional expectations (financial training, risk management, etc.) difficulties.
Response:  If the system has made it more difficult to be an advisor,   it is counterproductive and the problem needs to be fixed.

Senator Strawser:  What is the likelihood of bonfire being reinstated?
Response:   The issue has been deferred to Dr. Murano who must make a difficult decision; she will discuss the issue with parents of students who died or were injured in the 1999 collapse.

Senator Mathewson:  Thanked General Weber for upholding the integrity of the Aggie ring as he discussed the recent egg-throwing incident on campus.
Response: Student affairs should have seen problems with YC’s coming; he believed he should have been more pro-active and had discussion prior to the incident.

Speaker Comments:
Speaker Magill congratulated Senator Christopher Mathewson, a Regents Professor of Geology in the College of Geosciences. He had been named the first recipient of the Karl and Ruth Terzaghi Outstanding Mentor Award given by the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists (AEG).

He then discussed actions from the October Committee of theWhole discussions.He talked about Dr. Stadelmann's reading of an incomprehensible course description last month and how the EC especially Senator Tom Vogel spent lots of effort on the course requests for this month. Almost all of the problems found were associated with the Graduate level courses.

Speaker Magill thanked Senator Melinda Grant for helping find at least part of the former guidelines and he has received permission from the TAM Webmaster to create a link on the page that comes up under Faculty on the main Texas A&M home page where we can include “course paperwork”.  We intend it to have links to interactive forms as well as instructions for requesting new courses, course changes, core curriculum courses etc. and to provide access to the required boilerplate items such as the statements concerning ADA and Aggie Honor Code. 

He thanked all of the senators who were able to attend the special meeting with Dr. Vitter last week. He urged everyone to take advantage of our administration’s demonstrated desire to seek faculty input into our future directions and for their efforts to get us thinking outside of our traditional department and college “silo” mentality.   

Speaker Magill talked about the Chancellor's SET monetary rewards program, as revised by some very hard-working students with lots of help from Dean of Faculties Watson.  The program is going ahead and at least some of the problems raised in our October meeting have been addressed. All of the Speakers or Presidents, as some are called, of the Texas A&M System Universities got together as a side meeting of the Texas Association of Faculty Senates meeting which is held in Austin twice a year.  We passed a resolution asking that each school be allowed to develop its own plan so long as it meets the Chancellor’s approval. 

Another item of interest from that meeting was from a speaker from the Higher Education Coordinating Board.  She indicated that the CB will be seeking a major increase in funds for student aid and loans in the next biennium, but that all of it is being targeted to 2 year/community college students.  We also learned there will likely be a bill proposed suggesting that more credits earned in 2 year programs be required to transfer to 4 year schools. We will want our legislative affairs committee to stay on top of this.  A final item of interest that came from that meeting is an advising program run by Sam Houston University that provides professional advisors for all new students, all students on probation and for many programs, all the advising throughout the student career.  Students pay an advising fee of $50 per semester.  The center also provides student free access to training courses for various graduate exams like the GRE.