Faculty Senate Meeting
Minutes
August 11, 2003

Members present:  Robert Larsen (presiding), Cecilio Acosta, Del Bullock, Tinker Clift, Terry Ehrhardt, Linda Martin, John Falkenbury,  Renelle Gray, Aniruddh Hathi, Linda Jaster(sub), Mark Long,  Amy Patrick, Greg Poston, Stephen Range, Richard Wheet, Pat Markham, Tracy Marshall, Roger Bowles, Lynn Tilden, Bonnie, Hopkins, Todd Ewing, Ronald Neuman, Jeff Looper

Guest:  Dale Norwood of NTS introduced himself to the faculty senate and explain changes made in his department to keep the back log of computer related work orders down. There has been a reorganization of the department to find out what the customers need and work out a plan to meet them. With the new procedures service requests have gone from averaging 40 a day to 10 a day or less. He is very pleased with the response of  his department to the changes that have been made.

There are improvements coming with the network even with the severe budget crunch. They were able to negotiate a very favorable deal with Cisco and making large improvements in the library and JCTC building infrastructure. They are focusing on these two areas first because they are the oldest parts of the network and the main choke points. This will  improve down time and bandwidth across campus. To address student needs they are looking to implement wireless in a couple of areas, the Red River apartments and possibly in the future around the Student Service building so that students can access the internet via their different wireless toys. It would only be available to students, there will be no administrative computing through wireless means for some time because network security is not there yet. There are no changes in the near future for Novell. NTS interfaces with Collegue but it is a Systems program. NTS is working with Systems about software licenses for Collegue and support agreements so that we can achieve and economy of scale with other campuses to reduce all our costs. 

 Presidents Cabinet meeting:  Monday morning Elton and John went to Fort Bend so Charles Reed was heading up the meeting. Summer commencement 6:00 at the Heart of Texas Coliseum faculty needs to be there about 5:30. Fall commencement will be the 12^th of  December. This sounds early but Christmas break starts on the 18^th of December. Report about the Texas Senate concurrent resolution #12. They would like to see more students at higher learning institutes participate in community affairs and community projects. Should be receiving an e-mail to let you know your contact person with Mr. Norwood’s group. There is a contact person from NTS assigned to each Cluster. This gives continuity to the service.

All departments need to start looking at Unit Action Plans soon. 

Questions for the Public Safety group: Amy Patrick asked for questions several meetings ago. It was suggested that Public Safety take a look at the yield sign at the end of Airline Drive where the Air Borne Express trucks have the right of way needs to be defined better. It is not clearly marked and poses a danger for those people not used to that intersection. A question was asked if that there wasn’t a fund for repairing parking lots. There is a fund set up for maintenance of the parking lots. It was brought up that Drafting and English must park on the dirt parking spot to let the students have paved parking spaces. This dirt lot is temporary so it will not be paved for the duration of the construction. Some parking lots behind TEL have been repaved but not remarked the parking spaces. It was questioned as to why as employees of TSTC should have to pay for parking when we are not guaranteed a parking space, why we don’t have individual parking spaces. This has been brought up to administration, and some administration have stated that faculty doesn’t need employee parking spaces period. The new parking stickers are in and they are much larger than usual about 3”by 5” this was explained as a move to use it as an advertising ploy.

GLM would like to have not only stop sign at both ends of Greenway and also street signs that say Greenway so that people using the maps of the campus will be able to find GLM. Additional questions for  Public Safety should be sent to Amy Patrick  and they will be invited to attend a faculty senate meeting to answer these questions. 

Resolution For Non-Renewal of Contract: Adopted:  The resolution dealing with the non-renewal of contracts has had the content amended to reflect the opinion of the faculty senate. This resolution was brought to the faculty senate in the June meeting. Richard Wheet made the motion to vote on the resolution and Tinker Clift seconded it. The resolution passed unanimously. The resolution will be carried forward to the Presidents Cabinet meeting in September. 

Bylaw Amendment for President Elect Introduced:  The change in the bylaws as regards to elections, under Article III Section 4 election procedure. Any office let vacant was to be filled by an election by the faculty senate. Changed to read that the office of president elect will be filled by an election of the faculty. The other changes to the bylaws will be discussed and voted on at a later date. This is to make it easier to keep the changes straight. There was a motion to make the change it was seconded and then tabled for next session. This special election would be handled just like a regular election with an nomination  committee to handle nominations.

Discussions from the executive board meetings as to what happens to a resolution. Does the executive board have the power or the right to carry a resolution forward even though the criteria set by the senate has been met. Point, the resolution that was passed in January to request more participation from the faculty in the President’s search. After it was sent to all the members of the Board of Regents it was felt by the President of the faculty senate that the conditions of the resolution had been met. In July when other executive board members urged the president to reintroduce the resolution it was felt by Mr. Larsen  that he did not have the right without the entire faculty voicing it. There needs to be some clarification as to what happens to a resolution after the wishes of the faculty senate has been met. Are resolutions open ended or is it the will of the faculty senate to reopen the issue.

The main issue was does the executive board have the authority to make decisions without the express consent of the faculty senate. The consensus of the faculty senate was that the resolutions need to be written in such a way to make it clear if it is to be carried forward indefinitely or if there is a time limit on it.

The question of the authority of the executive committee was still open, there was a question as to whether or not there is anything in the bylaws to cover this. The only thing in the bylaws on resolutions is the way it is introduced and adopted. It was suggested that all these questions about resolutions should be written into the resolution itself.

Presidential search resolution rescinded: A motion was made and seconded to kill the presidential search resolution. If the office of president once again becomes vacant the faculty senate will have to draft another resolution. Discussion went on to determine if the resolution was terminated at the time it was mailed to the Board of Regents because the conditions according to Bob Larsen. The resolution asked the Board of Regents for due consideration but nothing was in the resolution asking for a reply. The vote to kill the presidential search resolution was passed.

What happened to the question of tenure in the resolution. It was suggested that to specifically put tenure in would immediately kill the resolution from administrations point of view. It was suggested that a better approach to try for longer than one year contracts.

Meeting Adjourned 6:20pm