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DOCUMENTS OF THE GENERAL FACULTY
Following are the minutes of the regular
Faculty Council meeting of March 18, 2002.
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR FACULTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF
March 18, 2002
The sixth regular meeting of the Faculty
Council for the academic year 2001-2002 was held in Room 212 of the Main
Building on Monday, March 18, 2002, at 2:15 P.M.
ATTENDANCE.
Present: Mark I. Alpert, Anthony P. Ambler, Katherine M.
Arens, Matthew J. Bailey, Glen S. Baum, Harold W. Billings, Douglas G.
Biow, David G. Bogard, Joanna M. Brooks, Kathryn E. Brown, Cindy I. Carlson,
Michael J. Churgin, Richard L. Cleary, Donald G. Davis, Patrick J. Davis,
Lesley A. Dean-Jones, Thomas W. Dison, John D. Dollard, John R. Durbin,
Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Larry R. Faulkner, Alan W. Friedman, Omer R. Galle,
John C. (Jack) Gilbert, Nell H. Gottleib, Michael H. Granof, James L.
Hill, Sharon D. Horner, Julie R. Irwin, Judith A. Jellison, Ward W. Keeler,
Martin W. Kevorkian, Robert C. Koons, Stefan M. Kostka, William S. Livingston,
Glenn Y. Masada, Melvin E. L. Oakes, Melissa L. Olive, Alba A. Ortiz,
Thomas G. Palaima, Bruce P. Palka, Theodore E. Pfeifer, Esther L. Raizen,
Linda E. Reichl, Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, Mark
R. V. Southern, Janet Staiger, Michael P. Starbird, Frances Elizabeth
Valdez, James W. Vick.
Absent: Efraim P. Armendariz, Neal E. Armstrong (excused),
Victor L. Arnold, Joyce L. Banks (excused), Brigitte L. Bauer (excused),
Gerard H. B³hague (excused), Lynn E. Blais, Daniel A. Bonevac, Dean A.
Bredeson (excused), Dana L. Cloud (excused), Patricia L. Clubb, Andrew
P. Dillon, Edwin Dorn, John D. Downing, Minette E. Drumwright (excused),
Robert Freeman, Dorie J. Gilbert, Lita A. Guerra (excused), Marvin L.
Hackert, Donald A. Hale (excused),* Von Matthew (Matt) Hammond, Barbara
J. Harlow (excused), Thomas M. Hatfield, Kevin P. Hegarty, Manuel J. Justiz
(excused), Karrol A. Kitt (excused), David R. Kracman (excused), Richard
W. Lariviere, David A. Laude (excused), Steven W. Leslie, David R. Maidment,
Robert G. May, Francis L. Miksa, Patricia C. Ohlendorf (excused), David
M. Parichy, Elmira Popova, William C. Powers, Mary Ann R. Rankin (excused),
Johnnie D. Ray, Kevin Robnett, Victoria Rodriguez, David J. Saltman, Juan
M. Sanchez, Dolores Sands, Salomon A. Stavchansky, Frederick R. Steiner,
Ben G. Streetman, Teresa A. Sullivan (excused), Janice S. Todd, Jarrad
Allen Toussant, Daniel A. Updegrove, Phyllis Boyd Waelder, N. Bruce Walker
(excused), Ellen A. Wartella, Mary F. Wheeler, Barbara W. White, James
R. Yates, Michael P. Young.
| Voting Members: |
41
|
present, |
33
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absent, |
74
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total. |
| Non-Voting Members: |
10
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present, |
26
|
absent, |
36
|
total. |
| Total Members: |
51
|
present, |
59
|
absent, |
110
|
total.
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*Correction made on April 22, 2002, to reflect excused absence.
1952
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I.
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REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.
There were no questions about the written report (D
1776-1779).
The secretary said that the School of Architecture had nominated no
one for its position on the Faculty Council, even though he had warned
all voting members of the faculty during the process that architecture
and two other colleges had no nominees at that time. As a result,
the College of Architecture will not have a Council representative
for 2002-2004. Richard Cleary (architecture) said he had tried to
encourage members of his college to nominate or agree to serve. He
said one problem was that most members of the faculty in the college
teach on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.
The secretary also commented on the generally light participation
in General Faculty elections. Alan Friedman (English) wondered if
it would be better to return from electronic voting to the use of
paper ballots distributed through the University mail system. The
secretary said he would raise the issue of participation with the
Faculty Council Executive Committee.
On remarks on proposed catalog changes, the secretary called attention
to a change in calculus courses offered by the mathematics department,
and urged those from academic units affected to give careful thought
to the new possibilities for their students. M408C/D will remain unchanged,
courses M403K/L are being dropped, and a new three-semester sequence,
M408K/L/M, will be added. The content of M408K/L/M will be essentially
the same as that of M408C/D, except the first semester will include
precalculus material in which many students are deficient, and the
overall pace will be more deliberate than that of M408C/D. For many
disciplines, M408K/L, which covers the basic concepts of calculus,
will be sufficient; other disciplines, such as those in engineering,
may prefer to require M408L/M, expecting students to test out of M408K.
The secretary said that, because the changes had been approved so
late in the year, the Committee on Undergraduate Degree Program Review
did not rush individual academic units to decide on what they would
require at this time.
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II.
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APPROVAL OF MINUTES.
| A. |
The minutes of the Faculty Council
meeting of February 18, 2002, were approved by voice vote (1793-1798).
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III.
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COMMUNICATION WITH THE PRESIDENT.
| A. |
Comments by the President.
To remind the faculty of the scope and importance of the University's
work, President Faulkner read part of his introductory remarks
from testimony to the legislature's Joint Interim Committee
on Higher Education Funding on February 21.
In the remarks, he called attention to the number of degrees
the University has awarded in the past five years, and said
that few institutions in America have a comparable record of
performance. He said we have elevated our freshman retention
rate to 92% and our six-year graduation rate above 70%.
We are the No. 2 producer of doctoral degrees awarded to Hispanics
in America; the No. 2 producer of minority doctoral degrees;
and No. 4 in the nation in bachelor's degrees conferred on Hispanics.
During the past five years, 2,919 migrant students from around
the nation have completed their high school requirements through
the UT Migrant Student Program; more than 300,000 students
have
participated in UT's distance education programs, including
50,000 police officers trained from communities across Texas
each year; 38,000 Texas managers have been trained at the UT
Red McCombs School of Business„none of whom were full-time
students. Another 3,500 managers have been trained from other
states and
countries during that period.
UT students have been awarded two Rhodes, three Marshall, and
four Truman scholarships during the past five years. The faculty
who made all that possible also attracted, over the past five
years, $1.4 billion in research support„$1.1 billion from non-state
sources, nearly all of that from outside Texas.
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1953
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Scores of companies have been spun off from
the University, including Tracor, Radian, National Instruments,
and Evolutionary Technologies. In the past decade, the Austin
Technology Incubator (at IC2) graduated 64 companies that generated
2,500 new jobs and more than $1 billion in revenue.
The president sketched the contributions to the state from UT's
recruitment of Dr. Sharon Vaughn, a leading researcher in the
field of reading, and Dr. Adron Harris, leader of the newly-established
Waggoner Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research. He also
sketched UT's steps in the field of nanoscience.
He said: "This is all evidence that we may have begun
to reach the bar set by our forebears, who defined in the Texas
Constitution a particular responsibility for the state to establish
and maintain a university of the first class."
However, he also said: "The single point that I want to
make right now is that the top of American higher education
is a tough, competitive business. Every day, Texas is sized
up by agenda-setters everywhere, both inside and outside the
state, to see whether we have the brainpower, the skill, the
facilities, the organizations—the competitiveness—to
meet the challenges of the day. Like any other competitive
business,
this one requires the right talent, continuous reexamination
of resource commitments, and strategic reinvestment. It requires
benchmarking on a national scale, and constant testing of program
quality. We are all attuned to all of that at UT Austin. It
is also what you should expect."
In other comments, the president noted that the University had
reached its original goal of raising $1 billion in the We're
Texas Campaign. He said that in a celebration of that achievement,
on March 2, he had announced two initiatives. The first, the
Knowledge Gateway Program, has a goal of providing every Texan
with a tailorable portal on the Internet into the University's
resources. The second will be the creation of a committee of
125 leading citizens of the state to make recommendations for
the future of the University. This is tied to the 125th anniversary
of the University's founding, and is a successor to the Committee
of 75 and the Centennial Commission, which were created on the
corresponding, earlier anniversaries.
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| B. |
Questions to the President.
There were none.
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IV.
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REPORT OF THE CHAIR.
Chair Bruce Palka (mathematics) reported on recent meetings of the
Texas Council of Faculty Senates and The University of Texas System
Faculty Advisory Council. He said there was concern about possible
consequences of the state's "Closing the Gap" initiative,
which has the aim of bringing 500,000 new students into higher education
by 2015. He said the plan was being proposed without corresponding
plans to increase capacity and the number of faculty in the state.
The chair also said the System Faculty Advisory Council had recommended
to the UT System that assessment/accountability initiatives, planned
for mathematics, writing, and other areas, not be extended beyond
mathematics and writing until the success of those programs has been
fully evaluated.
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V.
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REPORT OF THE CHAIR-ELECT.
Chair-elect Michael Granof (accounting) urged members to plan
to attend the joint meeting with the Texas A&M Faculty Senate in
College Station on March 25.
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VI.
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SPECIAL ORDERS — None.
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VII.
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PETITIONS — None.
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VIII.
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS— None.
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IX.
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REPORTS OF THE GENERAL FACULTY, COLLEGES AND
SCHOOLS, AND COMMITTEES — None.
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NEW BUSINESS.
| A. |
Protest to Proposed Engineering/Biology
Dual Degree Program in the College of Natural Sciences Chapter
of The Undergraduate Catalog, 2000-2002 (D
1723-1724, D
1800).
The secretary had filed a protest to this proposal because
the Committee on Undergraduate Degree Program Review had not
recommended approval due to lack of sufficient knowledge about
the details of the proposal. That committee was expecting
more details about the proposal, from the College of Engineering.
Therefore, the secretary moved that the item be tabled until
the April 15 Council meeting. The motion to table was approved.
[Based on later discussion in the Committee on Undergraduate
Degree Program Review, the secretary withdrew the protest.]
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| B. |
Philip Doty (library and information science),
chair of the committee, presented the report, which is reproduced
in D 1780-1788.
The final version of the report contains an addition, in
D
1782, which was made by Professor Doty at the meeting. Harold
Billings (director of general libraries) emphasized the
important
role played by the University's consortial relationship with
other schools in the UT System. He also emphasized that
the
University's libraries are important not just to academic
and research units on the campus, but in supporting information
and research needs across the state. He thought this message
should be stressed to the legislature and to others.
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| C. |
Report from the Faculty Welfare Committee,
Benefit Program Survey 2001.
Elizabeth Richmond-Garza (English), chair of the committee,
presented the report, which is reproduced on D
1789-1792. Professor Richmond-Garza said that mental health
care had not been addressed by the survey, and she thought
that would be a critical question to raise in the next survey
on benefits. Other comments were made by Mark Alpert (marketing
administration), whose students had helped carry out the survey.
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| D. |
Report from the Committee of Counsel on Academic
Freedom and Responsibility.
This report was presented by Janet Staiger (radio-television-film),
chair of the committee. A formal version appears in D
1811-1811a.
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XI.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS AND COMMENTS — None.
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XII.
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QUESTIONS TO THE CHAIR — None.
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XIII.
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ADJOURNMENT.
The meeting adjourned at 3:15 P.M.
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Distributed through the Faculty Council web site on April 9, 2002. Copies
are available on request from the Office of the General Faculty, FAC
22, F9500.
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