December 5-6, 2004

Committee Reports Academic Affairs Committee Report

 

Nancy Bright from OCG reviewed the process for student discipline related to academic dishonesty. There are two ways in which this can be handled. First, dishonesty is related to academic performance and expectations. In this case, faculty can grade the specific assignment accordingly. Faculty must ensure that assignments are constructed so that the expectation of individual work is expected. Then faculty can grade accordingly with the support provided by academic freedom without stringent due process being accorded to the student. For example, if a paper is plagiarized, the faculty member can give the assignment a 0 and state that the paper did not meet the expectations of individual work.

 

The second process is where the assignment is not constructed to allow for the faculty grade assignment above, or where the consequence is greater than that related to the assignment. In this situation, the faculty refers the incident to the Dean of Students to determine the consequence. Regents Rules Part I, Chapter 6 outlines the process that must be followed in these cases. Briefly the process includes the faculty making a referral to the Dean of Students (or their designee) that makes a determination of the outcome. The student can then appeal the finding, which requires a hearing. A hearing officer named by the Dean of Student conducts a hearing where the Dean of Students (or designee) represents the position of the faculty/university and the student is self-represented. Lawyers are only allowed in an advisory capacity. The hearing officer determines the outcome. This outcome can be appealed by the student to the President. The President reviews the existing record and process and makes a determination.

 

Nancy Bright offered that she is available to come to individual campuses to train hearing officers and/or to work with the Dean of Students on the process to be followed. The System also has a brochure that she will provide that is a guide to student discipline.

 

The important thing to keep in mind for faculty is that academic dishonesty can be dealt with in two ways: one by faculty within the academic realm related to a specific assignment and the second by the administration through the student discipline process for other situations.

 


 

II. Performance Measures

 

Robert Nelson reported that the three performance measures related to academic accountability were dropped by the Chancellor. Geri Malandra remains committed to incorporating these measures at some point in the future. The committee proposes that the following resolution be adopted by the FAC:

 

Be it resolved that the next iteration of the UT System Performance Measures include the following data:

 

 

III. National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)

 

The committee proposes that the following resolution be adopted by the FAC:

 

Be it resolved that the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is an effective tool in the continuous improvement process of student engagement, is a useful tool in the measurement of individual faculty student engagement for continual improvement on individual campuses and that funds be made available for additional questions related specifically to the UT System.

Faculty Quality Committee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health Affairs Committee

 

Governance Committee

 

 Health Campus Reports

 

UT Southwestern

Lona Sandon

 

  1. Fac senate discussed issues with purchasing and having to go through HUB vendors resulting in paying more or not getting the correct product.
  2. Fac Council discussed faculty mentorship of junior faculty, do not have opportunity to develop research skills. 10K seed money has been made available for junior faculty in Allied Health for research project, will be awarded to one person or split between two.
  3. Responsibility for recruitment for qualified allied health students is being put on the faculty, will have to spend additional time visiting feeder schools and providing information sessions. No financial support for recruiting for the allied health school is available.
  4. President says not to expect raises in salaries for next fiscal year.
  5. Rehab Counseling undergrad program is now accepting applicants again. Health Services Administration and Biomedical Communications still on hold for accepting applicants.

 

UTMDA CC

 

Apparent discrepancies between numbers presented by Administration and those presented at a Faculty meeting by Dr. David Farquhar, referenced at last meeting, have been addressed in a meeting between Dr. Farquhar and Mr. Ben Melson. Both sets of numbers presented were found to be correct, just looking at this from different perspectives. Most importantly, there appears to be a commitment from both sides to keep open lines of communication, and we will have our Senate Finance Committee move forward with this.

 

Our previously mentioned statement on this was accepted by Administration and we are beginning to look, with Administration, at the mechanics of performance evaluations, review and acceptance.

 

We now have a new Vice President for Clinical Research (this is a new position) who is to start January 1. This was a recommendation of the Blue Ribbon Faculty Committee.

 

We had an extended meeting with our president and EVP/CAO yesterday, articulating our thoughts and concerns and heard their intentions and perspectives. I believe the dialogue was helpful for both sides. My perception is that this is the beginning of a rigorous dialogue on the issues of salary, tenure, compensation and oversight of implementation processes.

 

As further evidence of increasing collaboration between Faculty and Administration, tentative steps are being taken by including the Senate Chair at selected Management Committee meetings, first one is later this month.

 

 

UTHSCSA

 

  1. A major task force examined the issue of academic integrity, especially student cheating. The committee has finished its examination of the problem and filed a formal report replete with multiple recommendations. In summary, the problem of cheating is viewed as severe, extensive and perhaps not surprising. The last devolves from the fact that many students come into professional schools with a long history of academic dishonesty in their prior educational experiences.

 

  1. Recent budget cuts have had the not unexpected result of causing significant loss of faculty to other institutions. Coupled with the recruiting difficulties accompanying those same cuts, replacements are not keeping pace with losses. In growing programs, the rising student censuses and falling faculty counts are causing a particularly severe problem.

 

  1. The budget cuts have also had a marked impact on our library. Just one indication of the severity is the fact that our journal collection has recently fallen from first to fourth quartile ranking among health related campus libraries nationally.

 

  1. A continuing issue in the Nursing School is the fact that their faculty is the only one in the system still on nine-month contracts.

 

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Barry Rittman

 

Budget

The Health science Center is still struggling to achieve its goals while dealing with the budget shortfall.

 

Although not part of the Health Science Center the Texas Medical Center Library is also facing a shortfall. Their aim is to cut approximately $250,000. This will have a serious impact on research and teaching on campus. A list of journal subscriptions to be cut has been circulated. There are some constraints as many are being kept because of contractual arrangements with the publishers. Currently the HSC and Baylor are negotiating to own the building. However the library collections are independent. The lease on the building has approximately 13 years to run. There will probably be approximately $250,000 required each year to operate the library.

 

A new grievance council is being formed with input from faculty to develop a postdoctoral fellow grievance policy. This is to meet institutional compliance recommendations.

 

Physicians Billing service. Currently the billing service is being submitted for bids and not all have been received.

 

Proposed tuition increases for non statutory tuition.

Medical School. $750/year for 2 years, for max of $1,500. Used for Master Teacher Program.

Dental Branch. $1,000/year for 2 years for max of $2,000. Equipment upgrades, faculty salaries for retention and recruitment.

School of Nursing.

BSN students. Residents. $10/credit hour/year for 4 years max. $45

Non-residents $25/CH/year over 4 years. Max $100.

MSN and DSN. New plan Residents. $10 CH/year for 4 years max. $45/CH.

Non residents $45/CH to max of $100/CH

Use for enhancement of programs.

Designated tuition for undergraduates to $12.50 /CH and graduate non residents Max. of $50/CH over 4 years.

School of public Health.

Already had a $10/CH for residents and $25/CH non residents in place and will be completed over 4 years (by 2006). Defray costs of Student Affairs Office, students organizations and student financial assistance

Graduate School. No changes.

School of Health Information Sciences. Increase of $20/CH residents and $40/CH for non residents and fore 2004 $40 and $100 respectively. Maintain educational technology and institute two scholarships/year of $2,500

 

Bylaws changes in Dental Branch. Most of the dental branch faculty basic science faculty have been administratively assigned to medical school departments but with adjunct appointments in dental branch departments. Ongoing debate about participation of these adjunct faculty on dental branch committees. Governance issue.

 

Reorganization according to Dr. McKinney is nearing completion. The Interfaculty council is concerned about the perceived distancing of the president from the IFC via the proliferation of Councils.

 

Grants. School of Public Health received grants of $20.2 million for various projects including epidemiologic studies of hepatitis B and HIV, bioterrorism preparedness training, studies of Hispanic health disparities, epidemiology of alcoholism in an ethnic population, genetic differences in response to exercise and body composition changes, and development of theories and methods to involve parents and families in health promotion activities.

 

Students Scholarship fund.

There is a Barnes and Noble Book Fair with art of the proceeds (if over $10,000) to go towards student scholarships. Staff Council has organized and operated the scholarship program for several years. The annual Scholarship Golf Class has raised $41,000 to go to the fund.

 

UTHC Tyler

 

UTHCT had a Research Gala on November 6 th, 2003. It was very successful, well attended by the faculty and employees of the UHTCT, raised about $125,000 for cystic fibrosis clinic and related research. On December 2 there was a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a new, 11.5 million dollar, research wing and a BSL3 facility, adjoining the Biomedical Research building. This year we have interviewed a number of researchers for recruitment at Biomedical Research facility of UTHCT. At present, we have some potential candidates, none finalized. Recently, with the administration’s initiative, research faculty and administrators have formed a committee to evaluate existing salaries and recommend necessary adjustments for making UTHCT competitive for attracting and retaining the faculty. For this, we planned to compare salaries at UTHCT with other UT health components. So far our research on salaries are limited to published surveys such as AAMC. Based on this, committee had made its recommendation to our president, Dr. Calhoun. We have started developing UTHCT research core facility. So far, Biacore is ready to serve, the details about it can be found on the UTHCT web page.

 

UTMB Campus Report 12/4/03

  1. 360 Degree Evaluation of Administration.

Deans from the 4 schools will speak on this topic and how they are

implementing it. They are being asked to address:

A. Frequency of evaluations,

B. Who will be included in the evaluation, and

C. Who will conduct the evaluation, tabulate results, and disseminate them.

A request was made for FAC members to send 360 degree evaluation

processes at their universities to rlederma@utmb.edu

  1. Faculty Salary Survey.

A current salary survey is being conducted by an independent

external firm: Watson and Wyatt. The results have not yet been shared with

the Senate.

  1. Student Diversity.

The President, Dr. Stobo, reported that UTMB has the largest body of diverse students among medical schools in the country.

  1. Non-Tenure Track Faculty.

A request was made of FAC members to provide information on work

done to address non-tenure track faculty review and evaluation regarding:

A. Who should conduct the evaluation--tenure track

faculty, non-tenure track faculty, or both?, and

B. Who should participate in hiring non-tenure track

faculty?

 

Reports on non-tenure track faculty were generated last year from 2

UT System schools, and the past FAC Chair requested that they be sent to R.

Lederman by email or to: 301 University Blvd., Galveston, TX 77555-1029.

  1. Merger of Two Departments at UTMB.

Part of the UTMB School of Medicine are six basic science departments; four are currently without a permanent chair (Microbiology; Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics; Anatomy & Neurosciences; and Physiology & Biophysics). The search for a neuroscientist as new Chair of the Department of Anatomy & Neurosciences resulted in an offer to a cell biologist (Henry Epstein, M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston) to chair a new Department of Neuroscience & Cell Biology (as of January 1,

2004). The new department will be formed by consolidation of the Departments of Anatomy & Neurosciences and Physiology & Biophysics. To merge the two departments was a decision of the Dean of Medicine and was done without prior consultation of the 50+ faculty involved. According to the Dean, the merger will not result in lay-offs of faculty.

 

Academic Campus Reports

 

The University of Texas at Dallas

Murray J Leaf, Speaker of the Faculty

 

One important item for discussion among the Council, and some developments at UTD.

 

  1. Academic Integrity. We have been trying to tighten our handling of academic dishonesty. It is a major concern to our good students and we have had feedback from important local employers the effect that our degree is not to be trusted because our graduates cannot be trusted. We have streamlined our handling of discipline cases, made evidence of vigilance in regard to honesty part of our teaching evaluation, and greatly improved and increased the flow of information to our faculty. While there is still more to do internally, we have run up one important barrier to further tightening that seems to be imposed by the system. This arose when faculty found that graduate students who cheated were not being assessed any greater penalty than failing the class (which is the same as the usual penalty for undergraduates). Discussions with the Dean of Students on this point led to another.

The Dean hesitates to assess stiffer penalties because students must agree in writing to the penalty assessed in order to avoid a formal hearing with the President, involving attorneys, a transcript, witnesses, and whatever else may flow from this start. She thinks that if we tighten up a little the number of students refusing to sign will increase a lot. The reasoning is that with suspension or expulsion facing them already, they would calculate that they have nothing to lose from the hearing process. But she does not have the staff to deal with it, the University does not have the money, and the President probably has more vital things to do with his time. The obvious need is for a simpler procedure that would still satisfy the requirements of due process.

Since this is probably a problem on all or most other campuses, it seems to us that we should approach it together, first to get a clarification of the position of the OGC, and then, if that position does not seem to provide a workable option, to see what might be done to change it. I have raised this with Robert Nelsen for discussion here.

 

  1. By laws of schools. At the start of the Fall 2002 term the UTD Senate recommended that all the schools of the university adopt written bylaws for faculty governance, following guidelines the Senate provided. By the end of Spring 2003 the Schools of Social Science and Brain and Behavioral Sciences had their bylaws and this semester the School of Arts and Humanities has had theirs approved. The bylaws for Engineering and Computer Science have just been placed on the Senate agenda for January. Management is still working on them (although it is actually a revision of their own version of bylaws that they had developed before this initiative from the Senate).

 

  1. Our Presidential search committee has not yet been finalized; we are anxious to talk more with our brethren from U T Arlington about their experience.

 

  1. We still face a serious budget shortfall (about $3 million), assuming our tuition plan is approved. We are also, therefore, still limiting hiring although enrollments are up in most areas.

 

  1. Our new master plan has been posted on the web. If you are interested, go to our home page, click on the alphabetic head “C” and then click on “Campus Master Plan.” We have also improved our Senate website.

 

UT-Pan Am

 

Presidential search:

The presidential search advisory committee was named by the Board of Regents. The inaugural meeting for the committee was held on December 1, 2003 at the UT-Pan Am campus. The ad is to be out soon. Tentatively and ideally, the search committee will conclude its work by May 2004.

 

Faculty salary increases:

The administration proposed awarding salary raises to the top 50-60% performing faculty. The faculty senate drafted a resolution requesting the president to use the existing merit process to determine salary increases that take effect January 04 rather than creating a new process at this point. The president concurred with the faculty senate request.

Faculty salary equity adjustments (using data from comparable institutions) as well as merit raises recommendations have been concluded and approved to take effect January 1, 2004.

In addition, the president/provost instructed the deans to work with their faculty in their respective colleges to develop incentives and rewards at the college level to be implemented for the next cycle of evaluations.

 

UTPA’s data from the UT system faculty satisfaction survey:

The faculty senate has established a committee to analyze the UTPA's local data. President Nevarez has expressed interest in seeing the results along with the committee’s recommendations.

 

New policies in process:

A faculty senate committee is currently drafting a “Peer Review Policy for Lecturers.” The administration has indicated its support.

A draft policy for “Faculty Development Leave of Absence” has been proposed by the administration. The draft policy is to be reviewed by a faculty senate committee.

We were thrilled that we’ve come to a draft "Receivership Policy" version acceptable to all parties. However, the bad news came out about the rejection of the UT-Arlington policy by the office of the general council. So the status of our policy is unclear at this point.

 

 

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON

 

New President:

 

Mr. James Spaniolo, Dean of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University, has been appointed UTA’s new president by the Board of Regents. He will begin his presidency and Interim President Sorber will depart on 1 February 2004. President Spaniolo will meet with the full Faculty Senate on 17 December 2003.

 

Merit Raises:

 

Tuition increases have yielded a announced 2% merit salary increase (across the board for staff members) for faculty members for Spring 2004 and a 4% merit increase for the 2004-2005 school year.

 

Current Faculty Issues and Concerns:

 

· Shared governance

· Senate reform of system of sabbaticals, development leaves, and research enhancements

· Recruitment of GRAs and GTAs

· Salaries and salary compression

 

WAGS Visitation:

 

Representatives of the Washington Advisory Council will visit UTA in early December 2003.

 

UTA Compact:

 

Interim President Sorber has submitted a draft of the UTA Compact to the Faculty Senate for consideration.