November 04, 2020

Faculty Senate Meeting 

November 4, 2020 

Held on 8th floor of library and via Teams due to Covid 

Members began joining meeting at 3:05 PM. 

Attending: Faculty:  

Ashley L. Dockens, Berna E. Tokgoz, Brad Harden, Cengiz Sen, Cheng-Hsien Len, Christopher B. Martin, Chun-Wei Yao, Cindy Cummings, Cristina Rios, Debbie Troxclair, Donna S. Azodi, Edgardo J. Pujols, Eric C. Shannon, Eunjin Kwon, James Nelson, James W. Armacost, Jennifer R. Fowler, Jeremy Shelton, Jing Zhang, John D. McCollough, John Gossage, Kelli M. White, Travis C. Prokop, Trina Nolen, Virginia K. Shelton, Vivek S. Natarajan, Wen Liu, Xenia Fedorchenko, Yasuko Sato, Yueqing Li, Kelly O. Weeks, Kenneth Young, Kimberly Wallet-Chalam..., Lawrence J. Osborne, LeAnn J. Chisholm, Matthew Hoch, Melissa A. Riley, Mien Jao, Millicent M. Musyoka, Nancy M. Staub, Nicki L. Michalski, Pat Heintzelman, Paul Hemenway, Raymond Doe, Ricardo Colon, Robert Nicks, Ruhai Wang, Ruthie L. Robinson, S. Maryam Vasefi, Serdar Ilban, Sujing Wang, Tilisa N. Thibodeaux, Tim McCoy

Call to Order: 3:31 PM.  

Guest Speaker: Kenneth Evans 

Asked by Faculty Senate President to speak about the current state of higher education and how specifically Lamar University is being affected.  

Funding: Support from states across the US are significantly decreased – Texas is looking at 5-10% decrease, but State budgets appear to be strong and hopefully won’t require that much.  

Degrees/Certificates/Flexibility: Changes at LU are being made to create other options for students (e.g., certificates, etc.). There is some public sentiment that an undergraduate degree is overqualifying students for many jobs. Agility should be better among those with at least a bachelors. Texas as a state is changing the way they support education (e.g. 60X30 plan).  

Decreases in numbers of applicants: Traditional student applicants – In the US, we are seeing less high school graduates and therefore applicants to higher education due to decreases in birthrates approximately 18 years ago.  Covid has also decreased our numbers because 11/12th graders are dropping out. But students taking courses online – lower preparation – may affect matriculation and our costs at university level. Beaumont/Golden Triangle area not growing in population (Dallas, Houston, Valley, etc. have been expanded – increasing our Hispanic student enrollment). Student enrollment decline in internationals – Harvey – DC changes, etc. 

LU Numbers: Last 2-3 years of student recruiting has recovered the international and student decline from Harvey but mostly in the online space (ed counseling is highest because of changes in K-12 ratio of student to counselor requirements; MBA; MIS; etc.)  - Congrats to faculty and staff who’ve assisted in this. Retention and grad rates are highest they have been in an extended period of time. 

Funding to LU: LU is experiencing a 5% retroactive reduction in LU budget in last 7 months and projected another 5-10% decline. TX Education is changing cause of 60X30 plan – more heavily supporting the community colleges.   

Part of this work done at LU this summer was looking at advising funnels/clusters/meta-majors – help students pass through gatekeeping classes by switching to related majors – working with Deans on this shift to improve recruitment/retention/matriculation to timely graduation. 

Research – federal research has decreased funding in many areas with exception of NIH and Homeland Security – and Education (e.g., CARES,  and K-12 prep for online education) – LU does not have much external funded research at this point, which impacts our funding formula at LU (lessens with less external funds) – cross-disciplinary solutions required – have increased rate of applications but not rate of successful grants. Research Intellectual Excellence and our ability to move forward as LU – producing applications without success is not building a strong research structure – Tenure and Promotion: very few have outside review and journal publications are not in strong journals – all of this has also impacted quality perception and quality perception indices – what is LU’s reputation? Not as strong as other universities; faculty support has been increased at LU for the last few years but not seeing stronger outside validation and assessment (grants, external review, etc.) – integrity of our research and quality is being evaluated.  

Other barriers: Want to grow and continue to grow our on campus students (vibrant campus life, etc.) and international students. We have new competition in the online space because of Covid.  Retention and matriculation need to continue to grow dramatically. How will we measure our research and creative activity?  Other universities are open to vetting faculties work by external persons, groups, etc., LU historically and currently have not. Administration are willing and interested in working with faculty on how to make improvements, but think we must be willing to think big and explore outside opportunities because it will take diligent work on all our parts to elevate our goals.  

Meeting re: legislative money requests – LU can do well if they fully fund to formula; asking for an adjustment of about $8 million based on our size and coverage; $5.7 for Imelda adjustment requested; exceptional items on K-12 educational resiliency and another on crisis resiliency; and funds for library renovation to bring building to code (asking $75 million to gut and renovate) but starting to use HEAF funds to make some required changes 

Questions: Dorothy – research – does most of the funds that we have rejected from NSF, some Homeland, DOD, Ag, (NIH not as many) etc.; cultural change to online applications is rough  –NICHOLS: Cayuse has some issues with some interactions – but recommend asking Dr. Lin to come speak to our group. 

Approval of the Minutes: Motion to approve made by Dorothy Sisk. Seconded by Nicki Michalski. Motion passed.  

Faculty Senate President’s Report:  

Faculty Senate now has an office in the John Gray Center and is hiring an assistant. 

We have a legacy email: facultysenate@lamar.edu  

TX Council of Faculty Senates – Jennifer Met with TSUS (Vivek) on Oct. 23-24 and TX Council (Cheng-Hsien) – lots of reorganization and combining departments to lower administrative costs.  

Communication chain needs improvements – President/Provost/Deans, etc. – requested a legacy email that is direct sent to faculty from Provost  

Diversity (Harden and Chisolm letters – votes low and divided) – spoke to other institutions –(faculty senate members can sign and support either letter) 

Academic Issues: met online Oct. 21 – discussed Dr. Lin’s proposal to meet MW and TR and have no Fridays – but Nichols attended meeting and showed why that shouldn’t happen based on space usage reports for the last few years – proposed that we instead consider having Freshman in MWF or TR that we consider an alternate option with freshman in MWF-T/TH and then upper classmen and grads – M/Tu, W/Th, F/Sat – BN suggested an hour schedule: no 55 minute and 15 minute break, have 60 minute class and only 10 minute break

Academic advisor from athletics was telling students to ask for “I”s instead of a bad grade or dropping with a Q (Chris Martin) – may cause to be out of compliance with NCAA. This is being addressed.  

Nov. 18 next meeting  

Faculty Issues: met online Oct. 21 – discussed and moved forward with resending last year’s nominee (Christopher Martin), last year’s app was never received; discussed how to facilitate process next year on competition space and faculty senate webpage; moving deadline to earlier; creating email for each faculty senate committee for faculty to directly send concerns; discussed some about workloads but will send that on to the workload sub-committee (especially how research supervision is viewed – service, teaching, or research); faculty course releases seems to be changed about how they are being applied for and releasing info on who and why people are receiving releases

Matt Hoch – release is necessary to be updated in Handbook – what is the expected product of release time; sent email to Xenia about process of voting for college personnel committee representation, no clear mechanism on how that’s done – University level has a senate officer who communicates that to the Deans – perhaps dept senators (where not in personal conflict) could vote on department personnel committee 

Vivek Natarajan – faculty workload committee may can address Matt’s question and act as liaison between committees  

Nov. 18 next meeting 

Budget and Compensation:  

Nichols responded to questions about budget – cuts equaling about $4 million – made $2 million from admin level and $2 million from faculty level 

Researching to ask more informed questions 

Events:  7 applications and some who asked for extension to Fri., Nov. 6 – will meet week of 9th and evaluate  

Research and Creative Activity:  

Set up competition space template to make it easier to set each one  

Moving info electronically for signatures (Nichols wanted info to Chairs/Deans that more than one may be applying from departments) 

Post reports are now online (6 and 12 months) 

Legacy email addresses – chair and deans?  

Research incentive program  

Only 3-4 applications for development leave right now – deadline Fri, Nov. 13  

May need to fine-tune FDL  

Matt Hoch – FDL on RSP incentive on VP Policy webpage; summer options?  

F2.08: soliciting input from faculty of reporting software for automating and digitizing the F208 process (Engineering and Business in the past); many faculty are against this option 

Admin very interested in doing something similar with tenure and promotion process 

Admin wants a more granular look at performance on F2.08  

John Gossage – why are people afraid of using? Learning curve, flexibility issues, cost, admins using for manipulation of data, etc.  

Cheng-Hsien Lin – many departments don’t know how these work – can the committee provide a demo link, etc. 

Student Success:  

Created survey – sent via email – please review and send thoughts to Nicki  

Handbook:  

Matt Hoch – Monday there is an announcement for review of current MAPPs – illustrating how to get to it via academic affairs – there are limits to 500 words but you can go back in more than once – can be anonymous or can enter name/email – please each senator send to your college to remind them to comment 

Investigation:  

No new info from LU 

Next votes coming up 

New info (book) on votes of no confidence – setting up a virtual meeting for him 

State is sending out information and trying to drum up new numbers.  

New Business: 

Vivek and Jennifer and Cheng Hsien will send out notes from TX and TSUS info  

Executive committee meets with admin next week  

Adjournment: 

• Motion to adjourn was made by Dorothy Sisk. Seconded by Robert Nicks. Passed. Meeting adjourned at 4:49 PM.