Faculty Senate Minutes
November 7, 2018
8th Floor John and Mary Gray Library
Attending: Arts and Sciences: Brian Williams, Sanaz Alasti, Garrick Harden, Stacey Knight, Pat Heintzelman, Sujing Wang, Gwinyai Muzorewa, J.P. Nelson, Cengiz Sen, Valentin Andreev, Ted Mahavier, Joseph Kruger, Martha Rinker, Christopher Martin, Cheng-Hsien Lin Business: Karyn Neuhauser, James Slaydon, Kaushik Ghosh Education: Cristina Rios, Kaye Shelton, Dorothy Sisk, Johnny O’Connor
Israel Msengi, Kim McGough Engineering: Berna Tokgoz, John Gossage, Xuejun Fan Fine Arts and Communication: Amber Marchut, Ashley Dockins, Jacob Clark, Nicki Michalski, Paul Hemenway, Sherry Freyermuth, Cherie Acosta Library: Michael Saar, Scott Crawford College Readiness: Melissa Riley Lamar State College Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel
Not Attending: Jennifer Fowler, Tom Sowers, Gretchen Johnson, Jing Zhang, Robert Vallin, Mayam Vasefi, Ashwini Kucknoor Business: Seokyon Hwang, Tim McCoy, Vivek Natarajan, Janice Kimmons Engineering: Gleb Tcheslavski, James Curry, Mien Jao Fine Arts and Communication: Nandu Radhakirshnan
Call to Order: 3:33 p.m.
Guest Speaker: Richard Lightcap, technical application manager, Information Technology
- Over the past year and a half, IT has been instituting a new ticketing system.
- It will be easier to use and can help you fix some issues on your own.
- You access it at lamar.edu/service desk
- It allows you to see open tickets (anyone involved in the ticket can see the same information), review status so you don’t have to call the helpdesk for updates.
- Approval of workflow process is included for projects that require higher level approval (purchase of software, etc.).
- You can submit new tickets and the process has been streamlined.
- It is synced with the directory to help with fill-in
- You will get an email verification, but it might take up to an hour before a ticket number is assigned.
- The “find answers” section will help you figure out how to perform certain tasks on your own.
- It allows you to jump directly to LU Connect and Microsoft 365.
- There are quick access items on the bottom of the page for frequently used items.
- If you ask questions in the search bar, it will pull information from the library of articles.
- The soft launch will be December 1, 2018.
- There may be a flier sent to faculty but currently they are focusing on face to face meetings.
- The question was asked if there are plans to streamline the travel process.
- IT is not over that process. If they ask for help, IT will be happy to help.
- Another question was asked about the directory.
- The directory is managed by HR, so IT doesn’t have much to do with it.
- Another question was asked about the increase of telemarketing calls to our office phones.
- That issue will be taken back to the telecom people for review.
Approval of Minutes:
- We need to correct the budget number in the minutes from last month. It is $7,000 not $8,000.
- A motion to approve the minutes as amended was made by Ted Mahavier and seconded by Michael Saar. The motion carried.
President’s Report:
- The fall TSUS meeting and TCFS meeting was held in Austin.
- President Evans made the request that LU be held harmless for damages and losses from Hurricane Harvey. The area is still in recovery, and it would be detrimental to punish us for the results of a natural disaster.
- There is a request for $3.75 million dollars for the midstream management program.
- There is a request for $45 million in tuition bonds for a digital learning center.
- Some schools evaluate their president and provost. We might pilot that in the spring.
- We might need to make a resolution this year to speed up the evaluation of deans to two years instead of three. The current three year time line may be too long to wait if there are serious problems.
- We might need to make a resolution this year to force the administration to match ORP and TSR contributions equally. That is not a system decision; LU is in charge of its own policy about that.
- Travel is going to be a big issue for senate this year.
- There are many obstacles to approval (people aren’t approved before they need to make their arrangements).
- Faculty are being told to recruit on international trips.
- There is little consistency about how departments are funded or how much.
- A question is asked about if positions are actually being funded this year.
- Positions have been pulled in both Business and Engineering, some even after an offer has been made and accepted.
- LU cannot afford to get a reputation for pulling offers. It will make it hard to recruit faculty.
- This issue will be referred to either Academic of Faculty Issues for investigation.
- Committee meetings will be held the second week of November. The executive committee meeting with President Evans and Dr. Marquart will most likely be on the 29th.
Committee Reports
Academic Issues:
- We need to clarify what is needed for the SACS self-study.
- Theresa Hefner-Babb attended the last committee meeting to address this.
- Subcommittee meeting minutes need to be uploaded as well as Senate minutes.
- We need memos between the Senate, Dr. Evans and Dr. Marquart to illustrate the flow of how things are accomplished and implemented.
- The handbook needs links to Senate minutes about the various policies so you can navigate from the resolution and discussion to the actual policy that was implemented.
- The online roster needs to be updated.
Faculty Issues:
- The Piper nomination process has been completed. Ken Aung is going to be LU’s nominee.
- Competition Space was used this time.
- There were a few issues getting forms filled.
- We will review the process to try to make the application process begin earlier.
- Since the ombudsman idea was scrapped by President Evans, the committee wants to review the grievance process.
Budget and Compensation:
- The focus at this point is on travel.
- There seem to be more hurdles to receiving funding.
- There is no money is the Provost’s budget for this.
Research and Development:
- There has only been one application for leave so far.
- A second request has been sent out.
- The committee usually meets a lot in November to review applications.
- There will be a meeting with Beverly Kemp on Monday.
F2.08 Task Force:
- We will be working on crafting a document to remind deans that each department needs to make their own criteria. It is inappropriate for every department in a college to have the same criteria.
- We will begin investigating the process of how to implement our new system.
Strategic Issues:
- Retention is the big issue for this committee.
- Forty-six percent of our admissions are individual approval.
- There is an increased number of students for whom we are required to complete early alert reports.
- There are issues with the UAC that need to be addressed.
- This committee can use some additional member. If you are interested, let Valentin Andreev know.
Distinguished Faculty Lecture:
- Posters are available. If you would like one, pick it up at the end of the meeting.
- The suggestion is made to have Dorothy email the jpeg to all Senate members to help with distribution.
- There will not be a dinner as in previous years. Before the lecture there will be a reception on the 8th That will be followed by the lecture. After the lecture, Dr. Evans will host a small (approximately 12 people) dinner at his house for the speaker and his family.
- This year’s lecture is going to be dedicated to Nancy Evans.
- We need to think about finding a new sponsor. The President’s Office picked up the cost for this year, but it probably will not again. Joann Brown, from the Foundation, is assigned to help with this.
- A suggestion is made that this can be part of the capital campaign since this time’s focus is on faculty. Juan Zabala should be reminded about including this.
Discussion:
- It is embarrassing that the Senate minutes are not available on the web.
- We are in the process of migrating minutes from one location to another. They should be accessible through the committees and councils page on the LU website.
- In order to upload minutes from committees, we need copies sent to us.
- Is there anything going on with the 20/20 goals Dr. Marquart discussed?
- There is information in the handout from the TSUS meeting.
Adjournment: 4:22 p.m.
Dorothy Sisk made a motion to adjourn. It was seconded by Stacey Knight and carried.
Submitted by: Nicki Michalski