PRESENT: Benson, Berkebile, Buck, Burnside, Billiot (E), Blount (G) presiding, Blount (K), Cabrera, Chopin, Christensen, Fox, Halcomb, Larkin, Lehman, Loter, Louchouarn, McDonald, McKee, Maurstad, Morvant, Mott, Moury, Silliman, Smith-Engle, Tissot, Vessey, Waldbeser.

I) Announcements: Congratulations to Bala on his election to Faculty Senate!

1. Important Dates and Deadlines:

April 13 – Island Days this weekend.

April 13, 5:30-7:30, 3261 Austin, Shower.

April 15 - Program Missions/Goals/Objectives due to Provost (see below).

April 25 – S&T College meeting, 3-5 PM, ST-101.

April 26-28 - Coastal Bend Science Fair. Need community judges too!

May 1 – SACS Report for BIOL-MS Program Review Recommendations.

May 10 – Spring Commencement (if you didn't attend Fall Commencement,

you MUST attend – else the Provost will get you!).

2. May 31 – completion of all annual evaluations!

II) Program Missions/Goals/Objectives statements (see handout). Key requirements are that individual missions MUST align with part(s) of the TAMU-CC mission, & goals must be measurable. The new PALS mission statement and the individual program statements were accepted unanimously. Louchouarn motioned for approval. Berkebile seconded. The final version of the report can be found by clicking here.

III) Shared Governance Update: Program Coordinator monthly meetings initiated.

Grady reported that CAMS is nor using coordinators to perform annual evaluations. While technically not allowed by current policy, Grady did ask for feedback on the possibility of having coordinators perform or at least participate in the annual evaluation process for PALS. Patrick Louchouarn stated that this is one of the recommendations that will be coming from his ad-hoc committee on merit evaluation. Suzzette expressed concern that the results of any such coordinator evaluation scheme include a component for equalizing results from the 6 different program coordinators. Grady discussed the increasing complexity of the department and that the Dean seems to be aware of this and has offered additional workload release hours. Suzzette then made a motion (Berkebile seconded) to request a "Associate Chair" position from the dean. This motion passed unanimously with all members voting "Baaaa". Grady made remarks on what shared governance means in terms of faculty responsibility (more work) and how he must proceed with caution so as not to give the impression of foisting his responsibilities off onto others. There was considerable discussion of the pros and cons of having rotating chairs. Kit suggested that we have a pool of willing persons to rotate through rather than forcing the position on everyone, even if they are not competent. A comment was made that the newly described Associate Chair (see above) might be a sort of Chair-in-Training. Faculty Senate will be making some recommendations on this subject soon.

V) Status of Teaching Effectiveness recommendations (Larkin). Pat presented the new students survey questions he had distributed earlier in the week. Benson motioned (Morvant seconded) to accept these questions for use as our new student survey for use in measuring teaching effectiveness. There was some discussion that Pat re-word some of the questions which have language which might seem inaccurate. He agreed to do this and will send the edited list back to the faculty. There was also some discussion as to how these questions should be incorporated into the creation of an actual survey instrument, particularly on randomizing question. Pat also agreed to look in to this and get an answer back to the faculty. Morvant made a motion (Louchouarn seconded) to allow both the old and new question sets to be administered and used for the spring term. After considerable discussion, the proposal was voted down 6-13.

VI) Report on first-round TA selections for AY 2002-2003 (Moury). Dave reported on 42 applications from new and returning candidates. He submitted a report which detailed a series of recommendations including assistance with selection of summer TAs and a new policy stating that after 4 long semesters of employment, any TA who still desired employment would be dealt with on a semester-by-semester basis. Suzzette moved (Joanna seconded) to accept all of the recommendations in the report. It passed with unanimous "Baaaas". Grady commented that faculty should not go outside their job descriptions by sparring with unruly TAs. Jerry Barnes dropped in for a visit and was used as an example of someone who never argued with TAs but always got what he wanted out of them. Cite the rules. Explain the consequences, and then sit back and watch them self-motivate.

VII) Faculty Senate Update (Cabrera). Cabrera and Morvant each have one more year left on their terms. Bala, as our newly elected rep. Has two years. Sandra made the first of what will now become monthly Faculty Senate reports to the faculty.
1) Grading scale - not resolved by Academic Affairs Committee.
2) Department Chairs - Discussion of Selection, Evaluation, and Retention (term limits?).
3) Workload Study Survey - not analyzed yet.
4) Tenure Proposal - to be revisited by Faculty Senate after the proposal was "tweaked" by system and deans (on agenda for April 26th. meeting).
5) Adjustment of Salary for faculty to meet aspiration group salary scale - Budget Analysis Committee (Budget Analysis Committee is bringing this up for discussion at April 26th. meeting).

VIII) Other Business. Grady requested that anyone interested in occupying Louchouarn’s office upon his departure send an email. As in the past, this assignment will be based on seniority and rank.