April 1, 2020

Faculty Senate 

April 1, 2020 

Meeting held via Teams  

 Attending: Arts and Sciences: Brian Williams, Jennifer Fowler, Larry Osborne, Matt Hoch, Cynthia Pipkins, Kelli White, LeAnn Chisholm, Pat Heintzelman, Jing Zhang, Sujing Wang, Gwinyai Muzorewa Christopher Martin, Cengiz Sen, Robert Vallin, Melissa Riley, Joseph Kruger, Jim Armacost, Cheng-Hsien Lin, Garrick Harden Ashwini Kucknoor Business: Vivek Natarajan Education: Cindy Cummings, Kaye Shelton, Donna Azodi, Eunjin Kwon, Cristina Rios, Praphul Joshi, Dorothy Sisk Engineering: John Gossage, Yueqing Li, Berna Tokgoz, Chun-Wei Yao, Mien Jao Fine Arts and Communication: Awais Saleem, Ashley Dockens, Serdar Ilban,  Nicki Michalski, Travis Prokop, Xenia Fedorchenko  Library: Sarah Tusa, Scott Crawford   

Not Attending: Arts and Sciences:  JP Nelson, Suying Wei, Charles Popp, Jeremy Shelton Business: John McCullough, Tim McCoy, Ashraf El-Houbi Education: Lisa Wines, Khal Hamza,  Robert Nicks,  Engineering: Ruhai Wang,  Fine Arts and Communication: S Jordan Wright, Brian LeTraunik Jacob Clark, Paul Hemenway Lamar State College Port Arthur: Mavis Triebel   

Call to Order: 3:34 p.m. 

Approval of Minutes: Xenia Fedorchenko made a motion to approve the minutes of the last meeting. Robert Vallin seconded the motion, and it carried. 

President’s Report: 

• The executive committee met with the administration to discuss the Covid 19 situation. 

• There is concern about implementing a pass/fail policy for the semester. 

• It would need to be an opt-in format otherwise it could mess things up for some students who need an actual grade. 
• Faculty will have to do a grade change to give students an SE/UE 

• There will be a meeting tomorrow about how this will affect tenure and promotion. It looks like there will be an option to toll the tenure clock. 

• There are still issues about the status of directors: whether they are equivalent to chairs, an administrator, or faculty. Jennifer will be calling a meeting to review the issue and formulate recommendations. 
• Dr. Nordgren has asked that all elections be held electronically. This should not be a problem since many are already done that way. 

Committee Reports: 

 
Academic Issues: 

• A motion was presented by the committee: 

• Moved, that the Faculty Senate, being made aware of inconsistencies between how workloads should be reported, as it is described in the Faculty handbook and THECB policy guidelines regarding workload, and how they are actually reported in different academic units, strongly encourage all university administrators, including chairs and deans to follow the policy guidelines set forth in the Faculty handbook and THECB guidelines. We also encourage departments to set forth a clear, transparent, and equitable process for granting release from teaching workloads. 

• This motion is necessary because it was brought to the committee’s attention that there is significant discrepancy in reporting of hours, course load and so forth. We need to stop people receiving credit for jobs they are not doing. 
• It is noted that the state requires posting of how these loads are determined. 
• There are also accreditation guidelines that need to be followed. 

• This really is a question of workload, not course load. It is about the amount of work required which can vary depending on class types, level, and other issues. 

• The vote was held, and the motion carried. 

Faculty Issues: 

• The committee did not meet. However, the information from the lawyer was sent to members for review. The committee will be making revisions and getting back to Bennett. 

Budget and Compensation: 

• The committee is discussing compensation across venues. They would like to discuss with the handbook committee uniformity across face to face, distance ed, and AP. Perhaps this needs to be based on the number of students, not the number of classes. 

Events: 

• Staff appreciation day has been canceled due to the Corona virus. 
• The Distinguished Faculty Lecture has been put on hiatus due to the loss of the sponsor and concerns about the lack of support from faculty and the community. 

F2.08: 

• The motion from last month was passed on to the administration. 

Student Success: 

• We will be getting information out about how to deal with retention in light of the Covid pandemic. 

Handbook: 

• LeAnn Chisholm has been elected co-chair. 
• The big issue is making sure that everyone involved in the process is on the same page. 
• The university committee did not meet this month. 

Investigation: 

• We are still working on public information requests. LU has still not provided the information they promised we would have in January. 

Research and Creative Activity: 

• There was passionate discussion about the goals and plans of the committee. 

• The committee met with Provost Nichols. 
• The use of competition space will be increasing. We will include uploads of the leave reports so people can see what others have accomplished on their leaves, perhaps gain insight about the process. 
• We need to keep track of all types of leaves so that we are not duplicating awards. 
• Faculty Development Leaves are currently on hold due to the pandemic. 

New Business: 

• Going online due to the pandemic has made it clear that we expect our students to have laptops, but we do not have a laptop policy. We need to look into adopting one so that students will have access in the future. 
• Elections will be held online. Jennifer will be contacting people to run elections in each of the colleges. 
• If anyone has retention data by college or department, please send it to Vivek. 

Adjournment: 

Xenia Fedorchenko made a motion to adjourn the meeting. It was seconded by Robert Vallin. The meeting was adjourned at 4:39 p.m.