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June 11, 1996 Minutes


Present: Bible, Bourgeois, Ford, Hays, Hunter, Parkin-Speer, Pascoe,
Sawey, Simpson, Stimmel. Absent: Caverly, Horne, McGee, Weller, and
Winek

Guests: Wilbon Davis (Computer Science)

CONTENTS:

FACULTY SENATE ADMINISTRATIVE ASST. II POSITION
LIBRARIAN PAY AND STATUS
OMBUDSMAN SEARCH
SUMMER SCHOOL ENROLLMENT
B.S. IN RADIATION THERAPY
ROUNDROCK CLASSES
PARKING
a. THE PIT
b. ALLOCATION OF PARKING FUNDS
AUDIT (Letter from Prof. Savage)
TARSITANO/TILTON GRIEVANCE
FACULTY BONUS

02 MINUTES OF 4/30/96, 5/1/96, 5/13/96
NEW ITEMS

The meeting was called to order at 3:05, Chair Bible presiding.

FACULTY SENATE ADMINISTRATIVE ASST. II POSITION

The opening for an assistant in the Senate office was posted and
several applications have been received. The deadline for applications is
this Friday, June 14th. A committee was appointed to screen and select.

LIBRARIAN PAY AND STATUS

A letter has been received from Pres. Supple notifying us that
Assoc-VPAA Tangum has been appointed to work with Dr. Mears (Director,
Learning Resource Center) on the suggestions offered in the Senate
Subcommittee's Report of March 1995 and the follow-up survey of
professional librarians of April 1996.

OMBUDSMAN SEARCH

The Senate's search committee has sent up its recommendation to the
Administration. [Note: Prof. Laird has done an admirable job of mediation
in this post, but is stepping-down from his tour-of-duty as of September.]

SUMMER SCHOOL ENROLLMENT

Summer school enrollment is down, especially in pre-freshman year
enrollment. This dip in enrollment was projected, but this a count year
and projections are for increased enrollment in the following years. If
projections come to pass, it will mean that State funding based on a low
count year will have to cover increased numbers of students in future
years. That is less money for more students.

B.S. IN RADIATION THERAPY

An ad hoc team for the Coordinating Board has tabled the plan sent
forward by the University and a counter-plan involving a "consortium" is
being considered, according to CAD discussion today. Details are not yet
known regarding: Who is proposed to be involved, how much it will cost,
who is in charge, what this will mean in terms of accreditation. [Remember
one of the reasons this was rushed through SWT's hierarchy was that the
program could get in under Shivers Cancer Center accrediation and this was about
to run out].

In addition to the accreditation timeline, we are still in the same
fog concerning written contracts. This is the problem the Senate had in
understanding the original proposal--there are no written agreements
regarding who is in charge, what the costs might be, etc. If other
institutions of higher ed. are to be included, this makes the situation
even murkier, e.g. who gets SCH. More detailed information will be
requested. [Note: Consortia can be both useful and fun, but a pre-nuptial
agreement is advisable.]

ROUND ROCK CLASSES

As in the above proposal, the details of teaching of graduate
courses by SWT (which started this summer) have not been made public.
Prof. Simpson who is on the Task Force to examine the situation said the
group had not met yet. He is also teaching in the program this summer and
does not know if he will be paid mileage. Apparently mileage, and whether
one is teaching on- or off-load, is up to the individual department. So
far the main Schools involved are Education and Business with 103 students.
The interest survey done last year [Was this done by the Round Rock school
district?] indicated a broader spectrum of classes, but most of those did
not make apparently. [Note: Dean Willoughby has offered to work with the
Senate on info regarding this program, which we will share with you as we
get it.]

In a coming election the voters of Round Rock will be deciding on
whether to vote in a "community college district," which will mean higher
taxes for residents. Meanwhile, St. Edwards and UT are making unhappy
noises about our involvement. In addition, there is complaint that
students cannot access UT libraries for research. [What happened to
reciprocal agreements among state university libraries?]

PARKING

a. THE PIT

There will be a meeting tomorrow regarding parking in The
Pit--1:00, JCK 922. Prof. Hays volunteered to attend to keep the Senate
informed.

b. ALLOCATION OF PARKING FUNDS

Additional data regarding flow of funds into and out of parking
(permits and fines) has been received from UPD Chief Megerson. [The Senate
thanks the Chief for responding so promptly to our query.]

AUDIT (Letter from Prof. Savage)

Prof. Savage's detailed letter to the Senate has been passed on to
the Administration.

TARSITANO/TILTON GRIEVANCE

Profs. Tarsitano and Tilton are not satisfied with the decision by
the Administration to override an affirmative decision by the Grievance
Committee on their appeal regarding the NASA/JOVE grant cancellation.
Prof. Tarsitano has asked the Senate to investigate the manner in which his
department chair and school dean handled the grant issue. In addition, new
grievances involving the grant issue have been filed against the school
dean and an Assoc-VPAA and are now pending.

After much discussion the Senate agreed to send Prof. Tarsitano a
letter stating that in view of the pending grievances, the Senate declines
to conduct the requested investigation at this time. The Senate believes
that specific disputes involving faculty and administrators should be
resolved through the formal grievance process. Once this process has
concluded, the Senate may revisit the issue of whether the requested
investigation should be conducted.

While the Senate is not a judicial body, it does have investigative
jurisdiction in matters of policy regarding faculty. If processes (e.g.
how faculty grants or agreements with outside agencies are handled) are
involved, it is our concern. Although no vote was taken, it seemed to be
the general consensus that newly-elected Senator Stimmel not recuse himself
from the Grievance Committee.

FACULTY BONUS

Discussion in the Council of Academic Deans and the Executive
Planning Council indicates that a number of potential uses of the up-coming
$531,000 in bonus money are being contemplated, including a proposal to
distribute the money on the basis of projected activities tied to the
Strategic Plan. While the Senate thinks these activities are essential,
there are monies already allocated for this and the bonus 1 percent of
recalled funds from departments were to be for salaries/ benefits on past
performance. The Senate's thinking, in general, was that the bonus was for
"super-merit." This is based on past performance, not on hypothetical
proposals, for which SWT has funds allocated to jump-start new ideas.

After much discussion, the following ideas were voted upon to send
upward: (1) Individual faculty should be rewarded in salary or benefits
(the individual might want to get the benefit in travel pay or other
nontaxable item, rather than salary); (2) Faculty need to be involved in
setting criteria for and selection of bonus recipients; (3) Schools
should receive a proportional share of the monies they produced in the
give-back.

02 MINUTES OF 4/30/96, 5/1/96, 5/13/96

The minutes were approved as read.

NEW ITEMS

(1) Prof. Parkin-Speer introduced a letter from Prof. Lydia
Blanchard (Chair, English) describing the situation of Visiting Prof.
Stanton Garner who is retired from UT-Arlington and teaches part-time at
SWT, but not every semester. While he has an office in the Dept. of
English, he has encountered difficulties in library privileges and e-mail
access during semesters when he is not teaching. "Apparently many other
universities routinely offer library, e-mail, etc., access to retired
faculty living in their area." This is particularly important when the
faculty member is teaching for us.

(2) The next meeting of the Senate will be July 10 from 3:00-5:00.

Meeting adjourned at 5:15 p.m.


Ramona Ford
Secretary


ADDENDUM TO SENATE MINUTES OF 6/11/96

From: Dean Rumaldo Z. Juarez

I am providing the following "amplification" or "clarification" to the
Senate minutes of 6/11/96 in hopes of enlightening this issue a bit more
and providing what I think is information that more accurately describes
the status of the RT proposal.

1. The proposal was tabled at the meeting of the Coordinating Board's
Health Professions Educational Advisory Committee meeting of June 10, 1996
with the expectation that the HPEAC would reconsider it at its September
23, 1996 meeting. There were several questions raised by the HPEAC that
they would like us to address. As we understand them, since we have not
received the formal questions in writing from the CB, these are: (1) the
need for developing "articulation" agreements that will clarify how we are
going to accommodate the different types of applicants that we may get from
the current A.D. RT programs in the state and as well as applicants with
different levels of preparation. In other words, they are concerned about
the transfer of credit hours as well as the credit that may be given to RT
technologists that are already out in the profession and may want to come
back to obtain their bachelor's degree. We have already had a similar
experience with this issue in the Respiratory Care Program when it went
from an A.D. to B.S. degree. (2) Curriculum--they want to see more
detailed information regarding the RT Curriculum, specifically, how will
the current level of training received in the A.D. programs differ from a
bachelor's degree? In other words, how are we going to accommodate the
higher level of learning required for the B.S. program?

2. Regarding the "consortium" issue, this is perhaps the most
misunderstood item of all. Yes, the word "consortium" was mentioned at the
CAD meeting. However, as I also stated at the CAD meeting: The HPEAC Ad
Hoc review team kept insisting that we develop a consortium of the existing
programs in the state. During my formal presentation to the HPEAC I stated
that asking us to form a consortium as a prerequisite to the approval of
the proposal was an unfair request and not justified by any policies that I
am aware of in the CB for the approval of programs. To make the long story
short, the Ad Hoc review clarified its request by saying that what they
were really interested in was how we were going to accommodate applicants
from the other RT programs as well as those who are already out in the
profession, i.e., Item 1 above. In sum, we are not creating a consortium
under the current proposal.

The Senate minutes make reference to a number of other questions related to
this "consortium" misunderstanding. So let me address those now:

To start out, it is not a consortium. We are looking at "articulation"
agreements which we often refer to them also as "course transfer guides."

1. "Who is proposed to be involved?" Possible current RT programs that
could be included in articulation agreements are: M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center, Amarillo College, Texas Oncology, PA, and Galveston College-UTMB.

2. "How much it will cost?" The budget we submitted to the Senate is
exactly the same one that is currently being reviewed by the CB. No
changes have been made. If the CB decides it wants to make changes, then
they will have to request those monies themselves from the state
legislature.

3. "Who is in charge?" This has never really been an issue. The School
of Health Professions at SWT is in charge.

4. "What this will mean in terms of accreditation?" The correct
institution that currently has the clinical accreditation is Shivers Cancer
Center, not Seton Hospital as stated in the Senate minutes. When the
program is approved, SWT will have to go through its own accreditation for
the academic portion--all clinical facilities and training equipment are at
the Shivers Cancer Center.

Regarding the Senate minutes paragraph about "written contracts." How can
we be expected to have contracts for a program that does not exist? From
our perspective, we are not in the "fog," the fact that other institutions
may be involved does not make the issue any "murkier" and the issue of who
gets SCH is not an issue because SWT gets the SCH. In my opinion, there is
a lot being read into this that is not warranted and creating more work for
us than we already have. We are working very hard to make this a success,
so please let us do our jobs as we go through this challenging and time
consuming process.