Nov 2, 2005 Minutes

Chair Stone, Senators Brennan, Conroy, Davidson, Hazlewood, Hindson, Homeyer, James, McCall, McKinney, Rao, Shah, Sorensen, Winek

Guests:

Rebecca Jackson, English, Michael Hennessy, English, Theron Stimmel, Psychology, Roselyn Morris, Accounting, Micky Autrey, Dir of Curriculum, Clayton Medford, Univ Star

Meeting called to order at 4:00.

Development Leave Applications: The Senate considered development leave applications from Blake Locklin, Modern Languages, Libby Allison, English, Ron Sawey, Computer Science, Tom Mijares, Criminal Justice, Kenneth Ward, Political Science, Victoria Bynum, History and David Snyder, Mathematics.

Survey Update: Chair Stone indicated that Joe Meyer, Dir of Institution Research, has everything in order for the Senate to survey the faculty regarding whether the evaluative comments of deans/chairs should be password protected.  The only question was whether to require authentication in order to be able to fill out the survey.  The Senate decided that authentication should be required.  The survey should be available this week.

Univ Curriculum Committee Recommendations:  Dan Lochman, Chair of the Univ Curr Comm forwarded the committee�s recommendations from their 9/16/05 and 9/23/05 meetings, which considered 701 proposed course additions, changes and deletions.  This includes 269 additions, 10 changes, and 422 deletions with most of the action coming from the School of Music.  The Senate will consider the recommendation at the next meeting so that the approved recommendations can go to the Board of Regents in two weeks.  Also discussed was the new structure of the University�s curriculum committees.  It was agreed that the new structure with department, college and university curriculum committees helped the process, but it still needs some improvement.  Of the 701 proposed additions, changes and deletions, 101 still needed some revision at the Univ Curr Comm level.  The process is getting better, but some work still needs to be done.  It was agreed to post the new curriculum committee guidelines on the Senate web page.  The Senate recognizes and applauds the great job done by Dan, Micky Autrey, Dir of Curr and Sarah Miller, Curr Coord.  More recommendations are coming.  These include two new programs recommendation and some program changes together with several new graduate leveling courses and graduate assistant training courses.

Presidential Teaching Awards Committee:  The Senate recommended the appointments of Byron Augustin, Geography, Gay James, HPER, and Laurie Fluker, Journalism to the Presidential Teaching Awards Committee.

PAAG Agenda for 11/09/05:  The Senate discussed possible topics for next week�s PAAG agenda.  The Senate agreed to request the following topics be considered:

�       Address concerns about the development of graduate leveling courses.

�       What is the perceived impact on our university of the restructuring of the Texas State University System hierarchy?

�       Concern about the future of two programs that support faculty research, the Testing Center and the Faculty Advancement Center.

�       What are the university's plans for dealing with the recently passed 120 hr. degree rule by the legislature?

�       Are there any specific plans to increase the size of the administration?

�       Rumors are that the Mc Coy College of Business has not announced to the business faculty the existence of the RRHEC incentives. When will the faculty in business be informed of these incentives?

Minutes:

Minutes for 10/26/05 were approved.