September 11, 2023
TAMU Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes
September 11, 2023 3:00pm
Via Zoomhttp://facultysenate.tamu.edu
The full video recording of the meeting can be accessed on the Faculty Senate website:
https://facultysenate.tamu.edu/Faculty-Senate-Meeting-Recordings
CALL TO ORDER
Speaker Hammond called the third meeting of the 41st session to order at 3:00pm the meeting was conducted via Zoom.Senator Andrew Klein will be monitoring the raised hand function and will monitor the chat. Registration function is being used to track attendance.
NEW BUSINESS
Installment of new faculty senators as follows:
Ivan Borzenets – College of Arts & Sciences
William Byrnes – School of Law
Jane Cotter – School of Dentistry
Daniel Debree - Bush School of Government & Public Service
Senarath Dharmasena – College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Wendy Greenwood – School of Nursing
John Hubbard – School of Medicine
Anxiao Jiang – College of Engineering
Fadi Khasawneh – School of Pharmacy
Johnathan McKenzie – College of Engineering
Bobak Mortazavi – College of Engineering
Jason O’Kane – College of Engineering
Michael Paolini – School of Engineering Medicine
Madhav Pappu – Mays Business School
Henry Potter – College of Arts & Sciences
Danny Pugh, Sr. – School of Education and Human Development
Frank Sottile – College of Arts & Sciences
Ahmer Tarar - Bush School of Government & Public Service
Jordan Szura – School of Education and Human Development
Winfried Teizer - College of Arts & Sciences
Karen Wooley - College of Arts & Sciences
SPEAKERS COMMENTS
Reminder Faculty Affairs has graciously agreed to host the senators and administrators in the University Club at 5:00pm. Therefore, I hope to finish this meeting at 4:30pm. I hope to see a great turnout and look forward to meeting many of you in person whom I haven’t met before.
I want to acknowledge all of you over the last few months in this very trying time. I have been so impressed at how engaged the faculty, students and staff have been to ensure that Texas A&M remains true to its mission to support the needs of the State of Texas and the students of the State of Texas.
In early July when things started to unfold with the McElroy hiring mishap. I spoke to a reporter about how much I love Texas A&M and how this event did not define the true spirit and core values of Texas A&M. I also said that I was sure that the Texas A&M community would ban together in response, and this would make us even stronger. The same reporter came back and reminded me of how highly I spoke of Texas A&M before and asked me given recent events, do I still feel the same? I paused and responded that I still love Texas A&M and the faculty, staff, and students and their rallying cries stating this is not who we are. These actions do not align with our core values and our core values define us at Texas A&M.
Last month, I spoke of Texas A&M being unique as at top R1, as well as a Land, Sea, and Space grant university. I believe Texas more than any other institution straddles two seemingly odd missions. That of our core value of excellence striving to become an academic and research world leader. And that of our core value of selfless service as we strive to serve the needs of the state and the people of Texas.
We don’t always get it perfect, but if you take a step back and look out a window or two I argue that we did a surprisingly, amazing good job. So thank you senators, faculty, staff and students for all your support during this time.
But before we get too ahead of ourselves, this doesn’t mean it’s time for us to start patting ourselves on the back. Now more than ever it’s in important that we remain vigilant, and we don’t give in to any attempts to whitewash our recent history. What happened was not good and we to remember it as it happened as only then can we grow and learn from it.
I will also say that we were strongly hurt by the recent events, that doesn’t mean we were surprised by them. Many of us have never been and are still not naïve but that doesn’t mean should react with bitterness. The world isn’t perfect, and neither is Texas A&M. Outside influence will always exist. Actions that hurt our community will happen again and what defines our university is not the bad actions that occur, but rather how the community responds.
Thank you for being strong for me, for others during the last few months. Personally, it has been a really hard time for me in the last few months with me feeling a huge burden on my shoulders. But hundreds of you have reached out providing me support in various ways and it’s helped me be stronger. I have seen you all help each other be stronger in our community as we move forward.
Now I must ask you to continue to be strong for yourselves, your colleagues and your new colleagues who just arrived on campus last month in this trying time. Reach out to them and let them know why they made the best decision in coming here.
Your students need you more than ever. We have 75.000 new students who arrived last month and for many of them it’s the first time they have been on campus.
Remember your first time on campus and make it special for your students and make sure your students feel included. Make sure that in your fear of recent laws that you don’t forget to reach out to your students. From the most introverted to the most extroverted. To the least experienced to the most experienced. From the most Texan to the least Texan. From the most rural schools to the most urban schools. Remember, these students come from different backgrounds. But we need to serve all students. For example, in my discipline Computer Science it is very hard if not impossible to get into if you don’t have a background in computer science. However, we admit many students who are valedictorians from rural schools who don’t even have a background in computer science. As a land-grant university, we have to remember to support our students.
Speaker Hammond took time to brag about the incoming students and shared a PowerPoint Presentation.
At the intersection of teaching and research upcoming events:
October: We will have frontiers of engineering with 500-1000 researchers and teacher coming into College Station.
November: We will have Texas Land Grants Day where the only two land grants universities Texas A&M College Station and Prairie View will join together to form an authentic collaboration in both research and teaching.
One more thing that has just begun is the IEEI reading group where we listen to a book for 20 minutes and then discuss how what we have learned can move Texas A&M forward. We just started reading Robert Gates’ book on leadership and much of that contains what he learned and how he led at Texas A&M. Many of us, me included remember Bob Gates and his leadership. It was a time of shared governance that many of us want to get back to. But remember, shared governance doesn’t mean blind adherence to the wishes of the faculty, it doesn’t even mean an equal vote. Rather it’s the creation of an environment where faculty share there needs and requirements without fear with the administration. And the administration truly takes that into consideration complete with the transparency of decision making. process and the rationale especially when the decision is anti to the decisions of the faculty.
The last few weeks under our Interim President Welsh, have given me renewed hope and maybe we will be reading a book of his experience and leadership during this time. This far, Interim President Welsh truly seems to listen to the faculty.
The Faculty Affairs Office has made remarkable improvements as well fixing what we call the gaps in our SAPS (Standard Administration Procedure).
GUEST SPEAKER
Dr. Heather Lench, Senior Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs.
Dr. Lench shared a PowerPoint presentation called Preliminary Progress of the Task Force on Academic Freedom & Faculty ProtectionA link was placed in chat for questions and comments to be provided to the Faculty Affairs Office https://tamu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_00sFBcPUG4RD50q
Dr. Lench took questions and comments from the following:Dr. Clint Magill – College of Agriculture, Dr. Adam Kolasinski – Mays Business School, Dr. Rajesh Miranda – School of Medicine, Dr. Blanca Lupiani – School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Dr. Tracy Hammond – College of Engineering, as well as questions in chat.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
APPROVAL OF MINUTESThe motion passed to approve the August 14, 2023 minutes as distributed. Attachment B1
July 19, 2023 Special Meeting minutes approved as distributed. Attachment B2
CONSENT AGENDA
The motion passed to approve the September 11, 2023 Consent AgendaCOMMITTEE REPORTS
No Core Curriculum report.OLD BUSINESS
None.NEW BUSINESS
Rule 1.3 - Student Registration – Attachment D1 – FS.41.078 PassedRule 21- Classroom Behavior – Attachment D3 – FS.41.080 Passed
Appendix III – FERPA of 1974 – Attachment D6 FS.41.083 Passed
The following student rules failed to pass and were sent back to the Rules & Regulations Committee:
Rule 20 – Academic Misconduct – Attachment D2 – FS.41.079 Failed
Rule 41 – Student Organizations & Rule 42 – Recognized Student Organizations – Attachment D4 FS.41.081 Failed
Rule 52 – Academic Misconduct – Reporting & Adjudication – AttachmentD5FS.41.082 Failed
Presentations by senators nominated for the Executive Committee
Senator Trevor Hale – Biography – Attachment D7 – FS.41.084
Senator Blanca Lupiani – Biography – Attachment D8 – FS.41.085
Senator Shelley Holliday – Biography – Attachment D9 – FS.41.086
Senator Robert Carpenter – Biography – Attachment D10 – FS.41.087
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
Dr. Jorge Alvarado – College of Engineering asked about the President’s search. Has a committee been formed? Speaker Hammond can speak to administrators and report back to the senate.
Dr. Amarnath Banerjee – College of Engineering, Given the recent events surrounding academic freedom. Requesting a committee be created.
Dr. Clint Magill – College of Agriculture, Serves on the Honor Council. Student used Chat GPT which rearranged their wording, and the student was accused of plagiarism.
Senator Jessica Simpson – University Libraries alerted everyone to two upcoming solar eclipses, the first which will take place on Saturday, October 14th. The library will be providing safe glasses the week prior as well as at the
Architecture Quad on the day of the annular eclipse. The university community is invited. She mentioned that the full eclipse next semester will take place on April 8th on a Monday during classes.
Dr. Elisa McNeill – School of Public Health, wanted to make everyone aware of how Disability Services is alerting faculty to the fact that they have students in their class that need assistance. She received 37 individual emails regarding students needing assistance and feels there could be a more systematic way of doing this.
Chat – Do we have any updates of the findings from the Investigation Committee of the events of the recent weeks? Mark Burge – Stated still proceeding. Have extensive information from public records requests. They are working through that as well as interview requests.
Dr. Farzan Sasangohar – College of Engineering, Requests that the Executive Committee or Speaker release to the Senators before a general release, any document that represents the senate.
Dr. Asha Rao – College of Arts & Sciences, Disability Services gave presentation during one of our meetings. Have Disability Services been given resources to assist with testing center availability.
Dr. Andrew Klein – College of Arts & Sciences, is on the Transportation Services Advisory Committee. For those who have a close encounter with bikes and PVE there are new regulations, and the students should be following these rules while on campus.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was returned to Speaker Hammond and was adjourned at 4:30pm
CONSENT AGENDA
Graduate Council
New Courses - FS.41.070 ApprovedMSCI 604: Foundations of Biotechnology
RWFM 616: Invasive Species Ecology and Management
Change in Courses - FS.41.071 Approved
ACCT 620: Management Accounting and ControlBUAD 693: Professional StudyENDO 600: Current Literature Review I
ENTC 641: Data Analysis, Simulation and Experimental Methods for IndustrySCMT 616: Supply Chain Management
Change in Courses – Course Inactivation Proposal – FS.41.072 Approved
IDIS 611: Current Issues in Industrial DistributionIDIS 624: Strategic Relationships for Industrial Distributors
IDIS 644: Industrial Distributor Information and Technology ManagementMEEN 622: Advanced Fluid Mechanics
MEEN 690: Entrepreneurship in Nano and Energy SystemsTCMT 635: Technology Commercialization
Change in Programs – FS.41.073 Approved
MNA-NARE: Master of Natural Resources in Natural ResourcesChange in Programs – Program Inactivation Proposal – FS.41.074 Approved
CERT-DIET: Dietetic Internship - CertificateW & C Courses
Courses with C – Certification – FS.41.075 ApprovedFINP 201-C: Professional Development in Financial Planning
Courses with W- Certification – FS.41.076 Approved
ANTH 458-W: Quantitative Ethnographic MethodsGLST 481-W: Senior Seminar in Global StudiesMARE 405-W: Fundamentals of Naval ArchitectureCourses with W – Recertification – FS.41.077 Approved
OCNG 203-W: Communicating OceanographyEnd of Consent Agenda