April 9, 2012
FACULTY SENATE MEETING MINUTES
April 9, 2012
3:15 p.m., 601 Rudder Tower
http://facultysenate.tamu.edu
Present: Louise Abbott, Ergun Akleman, Jorge Alvarado, Carisa Armstrong, Hassan Bashir, Michael Benedik, Leonard Bierman, Doug Biggs,Edward Brothers, John Carhart, Gwan Seong Choi, William Bedford Clark, Mark Clayton, Jonathan Coopersmith, Joe Dannenbaum, Walter Daugherity, Darryl De Ruiter, Janice Epstein, Jose Fernandez-Solis, Edward Funkhouser, Norma Funkhouser, Holly Gaede, Fran Gelwick, Clare Gill, Ira Greenbaum, Mike Hanik, Ed Harris, Kevin Heinz, Kim Quaile Hill, Shelley Holliday, Wendy Jepson, Guido Kanschat, Andrew Klein, Karen Kubena, Paulo Lima- Filho, Thomas Linton, Carol Loopstra, Blanca Lupiani, Clint Magill, Vanita Mahajan, Christopher Mathewson, Kathryn McKenzie, Stephen Miller, Jeffrey Morris, A. Gene Nelson, Brian Perkins, Michelle Pine, Leslie Reynolds, Dale Rice, J. Maurice Rojas, Luis San Andres, Jason Sawyer, Karen- Beth Scholthof, Brian Shaw, Kathleen Speed, John Stallone, Bob Strawser, Mike Thornton, Manuelita Ureta, William West, Tryon Wichersham, B. Dan Wood, Richard Woodman, Jim Woosley, Keyan Zhu-Salzman
Absent: Derya Akleman, Jaime Alvarado-Bremer, Perla Balbuena, Judith Ball, Maria Barrufet, Charles Bollfrass, Patrick Burkart, Gwendolyn Carroll, Joe Cerami, Richard Curry, Robin Dabareiner, Swaroop Darbha, Ron Douglas, John Edens, Gioia Falcone, L. Paige Fields, Stephen Guetersloh, Janet Hammer, James Heilman, Richard Hutchinson, Igor Lyuksyutov, R.N. Mahapatra, Sam Mannan, Harland Prechel, Sudarsan Rangan, Elizabeth Tebeaux, Winfried Teizer, Grace Townsend, Wyoma vanDuinkerken, Gary Varner, Jijayanagaram Venkatraj, Wei Wan
Call to Order:
Speaker Benedik called the meeting to order at 3:18 P.M. There were two senators from Qatar and two senators from Galveston present via videoconferencing.
Speaker Comments:
Speaker Benedik called the meeting to order at 3:15 pm.
Speaker Benedik mentioned that the Aggie Spirit Award will be presented at the May meeting and we passed the hat for donations. Speaker Benedik announced that Vanessa Foster will be leaving the Faculty Senate Office.
He stated that this past week we were visited by the SACS accreditation team who reviewed both all the documentation required for accreditation as well as the QEP plan.
Speaker Benedik mentioned that he and Speaker-elect Stallone met with Chancellor Sharp after the last Senate meeting. They summarized as best as they could the eloquent comments made at the last Senate meeting and they repeatedly sent the message that the review process needs to be open and transparent. They suggested that some faculty member as well other university constituents be part of the process. Since that meeting there have been some significant changes.
Guest Speaker:
President Loftin
Speaker Benedik then invited President Loftin to address the senate. He summarized the history of the SACS accreditation process which culminated with an on-site committee visit last week, and said that their oral exit interview identified forthcoming findings in the areas of educational programs, educational support services, research within the educational mission, competence of our faculty (only 10 of our over 3000 faculty did not have adequately documented credentials), and a financial aid audit. Regarding TAMU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), they will address administrative support services and ask TAMU to demonstrate that sufficient resources to fund the QEP will be provided.
President Loftin said the dining services RFP’s will be reviewed by a broad-based committee including students and faculty, some with special expertise in outsourcing. He said there is no pre-determined outcome regarding whether or not to outsource dining services. TAMU already had a consultant looking at dining services; their report is due today.
He said the chancellor intends to appoint a single committee to review the proposals submitted for landscaping, custodial, and maintenance services and to submit the chancellor’s recommendations to the Board of Regents in early May.
The tuition and fee advisory committee recommended on February 15th that TAMU request a 3.95% increase in tuition. President Loftin is talking to regents individually about this. Regent Wilson is holding a hearing April 20th on tuition increase requests from all ten campuses. President Loftin said that if no tuition increase is approved, it will be a very challenging time for TAMU; leading up to the next legislative session in January there are substantial competing demands on the state budget for health, K-12 education, etc.
Kathryn Mackenzie (Education and Human Development) asked why outsourcing is being done at the system level instead of at the university. President Loftin replied that he is also concerned; since 99% of dining services in Brazos County is TAMU the chancellor returned responsibility for those RFP’s to TAMU, but the other areas are broader than TAMU and so will be done at the system level.
Clint Magill (Agriculture and Life Sciences) asked if it is true that TAMU will add 10,000 new students in the next three years. President Loftin said there is nothing official; he expects to continue the same size freshman class, about 8500. (Admission offers are made to about 17,000, of which about 50% come.)
He said any increase would be in the number of transfer and graduate students; this is decentralized at the college level and the numbers are down from previous years. We can expand in selected areas where we have capacity and that capacity is in areas important to the state.
Jonathan Coopersmith (Liberal Arts) asked about plans for the football stadium and deferred maintenance. President Loftin replied that the 12th Man Foundation has engaged a firm to produce a large number of design concepts for renovation of the football stadium, to be reviewed by fans. The renovation selected will be reported back in September. He said the deferred maintenance budget has been increased from $2 million per year to $15 million per year; he thinks it should be arpund $25 million per year. New construction will continue but some rehabilitation is underway as well (e.g., the Scoates, Francis, and Williams Buildings).
There was further discussion of outsourcing and where any money saved would go. President Loftin said that dining revenue is primarily from customers and that his view is that it should be essentially neutral, charging what is needed to provide the necessary level of service.
The March 19 Faculty Senate meeting minutes were approved. Motion Passed
FS.29.173
Attachment A
Consent Agenda The consent agedna was approved as submitted. Motion Passed
GRADUATE COUNCIL FS.29.174
New Courses - March 1, 2012 Attachment B
| INTA 663 |
International Transfer Pricing |
| NRSC 698 |
Behavior, Genes, and Evolution |
| NUEN 670 |
Introduction to Radiotherapy Physics |
| VIZA 693 |
Professional Study |
Change in Courses - March 1, 2012 Motion Passed BIOT 684 Directed Professional Internship FS.29.175
ESSM 612 Rangeland Vegetation Management Attachment C
Course Withdrawals - March 1, 2012 Motion Passed
MKTG 679 Retail Mgmt & Consulting FS.29.176
PSAA 662 Health System Plans and Policy Attachment D
UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE Motion Passed
Withdrawal of Courses - March 9, 2012 FS.29.177 Attachment E
| INFO 304 |
Business Forecasting Methods |
|
| INFO 362 |
Total Quality Management |
|
| INFO 432 |
Software Quality & Measurement in Information Systems |
|
| INFO 437 |
Knowledge Management |
|
| INFO 458 |
Simulation |
|
| MKTG 344 |
Marketing Channels Management |
|
Texas A&M University at Galveston Motion Passed
New Course - March 19, 2012 FS.29.178 MASE 474 Port and Harbor Engineering Attachment F
Change in Curriculum - March 19, 2012 Motion Passed
Texas A&M University at Galveston FS.29.179
Department of Marine Sciences Attachment G
B.S. in Ocean and Coastal Resources
W-COURSES Motion Passed
C certification: FS.29.180
MARA 416 Port Operations, Administration and Economics Attachment H
W recertification:
ENDS 112 Environmental Responsibilities and Design
INFO 465 Information Technology for Supply Chain Management
PHIL/ENGR 482 Engineering and Ethics
SOCI 312 Population and Society
SOCI 430 Contemporary Sociological Theory
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Motion Passed
Proposed Revisions to Student Rule 1.7 FS.29.181
Attachment I
Proposed Revisions to Student Rule 7.3 Motion Passed
FS.29.182
Attachment J
Proposed Revisions to Student Rule 8.4.3 Motion Passed
FS.29.183 Attachment K
End of Consent Agenda
Committee Reports
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE Motion Passed
AAC Report FS.29.184 Attachment L
Secretary Daugherity moved approval of Attachment L. Brian Perkins, chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, presented the report. The proposal to eliminate the “Freshman Grade Exclusion” was initiated by students since the grade for the excluded course remained on the transcript, with the result that some graduate schools included it in the student’s GPR although TAMU does not. The proposal to reduce the number of Q-drops to 4 for all students (subject to the state limit of 6, which might apply to transfer students) but to extend the deadline to the 60th class day.Extensive discussion followed until Andrew Klein (Geosciences) called the question. The motion passed.
CORE CURRICULUM COUNCIL PENDING
New Core Curriculum for 2014 Attachment M
Secretary Daugherity moved approval of Attachment M. Dale Rice and Janice Epstein, co-chairs of the Core Curriculum Council, summarized the process leading to this proposal, and listed its major points: dropping the two-tier science program; assigning the coordinating board’s 6 “floating hours” as 3 to math and 3 to science; establishing a four-year recertification cycle for all courses; and only allowing lower-division courses to be in the new core.
After the following editorial corrections:
Philosophy, Culture and Language, 3 hours Behavioral and Social Science, 3 hours
there was considerable discussion, especially regarding the restriction to lower-division courses, which Ray James said would profoundly impact Engineering, and Darryl De Ruiter (Liberal Arts) said would also affect Anthropology. Ed Harris (Liberal Arts) declared his vested interest, as an instructor in a current upper-division core curriculum course, and moved to strike “lower-division”. The motion was seconded.
Andrew Klein(Geosciences) spoke against the amendment, and a statement from the student government association in support of the amendment was read. Ed Harris asked to withdraw his amendment and then offer a new amendment but the original seconder did not agree.
After additional discussion Gene Nelson (Agriculture) moved to table, but was pre-empted by a quorum call, which failed to produce a quorum. Consequently, this item will be taken up as unfinished business at the next regular faculty senate meeting.
In the absence of a quorum the meeting was concluded.
New Business
Committee of the Whole
Adjourn