UTMB Faculty Senate

March 11, 2013

4:30 – 6:00 pm

MINUTES

 

Present:  Drs. C. Wiggs, Chair, S. Al-Arabi, P. Boor, W. Braun,  L. Cain, S. Clark, P. Crane, S. Croisant, J. Graham, A. Jones,  B. Leonard, B. Luxon, N. Mendias, R. Rupp and D. Wild

 

Absent:  Drs. B. Ameredes, J. Badalamenti, J. Davis, R. Ellis, S. Elsaid, S. Fisher, L. Lawrence, J. McBride, A. Oberhauser, S. Sarna, T. Wen, H. West and D. Young

 

I.        The meeting was called to order at 4:30 pm by Dr. Carol Wiggs, Faculty Senate Chair.

 

II.     The Approval of the February 11 minutes.  The minutes of February 11, 2013 were voted and approved by email on February 27, 2013.

 

III.   Provost, VP and Dean’s Report

 

      Executive Vice President, Provost and Dean, School of Medicine – report provided by Dr. Jacobs.

o   Dr. Wiggs asked the Senators to inform their colleagues involved in Nursing Services and Clinics of the required TB screening and the deadline of April 30th.

VP and Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences – report provided by Dr. Cooper.

VP and Dean, School of Health Professions – report provided by Dr. Protas.

      VP for Education and Dean, School of Nursing – reports submitted by Dr. Watson.

       

IV.  Legislative Update – Ryan Micks, Director of Communications, Health Policy and Legislative Affairs

Mr. Micks gave a PowerPoint presentation and here are some highlights:

o   State of the State – January 29th

§  $3.7B of Rainy Day Funds for Water and Transportation

§  $1.8B in Tax Breaks

§  No Medicaid Expansion

§  Public Education

§  Higher Education

§  Dedicated Funds

§  No Social Issues

 

o   UTMB Appropriations in HB1 and SB1

§  Both bills increase total UTMB funding over FY12-13

v  FY12-13               $472,189,151

v  FY14-15, HB1     $486,510,921

v  FY14-15, SB1      $494,061,157

§  $11M debt service increase

§  Formula funding increase

v  House                     $3.4M           .76% increase

v  Senate                  $10.9M         2.44% increase

§  Hospital and Special Item funding at FY12-13 level

§  Indigent care funds reduced by $1.7M

 

o   UTMB Historic and Proposed Funding

 

1.      Base adjustment after Hurricane Ike; does not include $150 million TRB debt service or $150 million Ike Match

2.      Reduction of 16.65% from prior biennium primarily in hospital General Revenue funds

 
Biennium                                                                  Amount

FY08-09                                                     $457.7 million

FY10-11                                                     $566.6 million(1)

FY12-13                                                     $474.2 million(2)

FY14-15 Senate Proposal                           $494.0 million

FY14-15 House Proposal                           $486.5 million

 

o   UTMB Legislative Priorities

§  Growth in formula funding to support:  Education of health workforce; Necessary infrastructure; and Research

§  Continuation of 2012-13 levels of funding for the Health System and existing special items with a new Hospital Formula

§  New Exceptional Item Funding for: Vaccine Development; Regenerative medicine; and Emerging infectious disease research

§  TRB funding for Inter-professional Education Building

§  Correctional Health Care Funding

 

o   UTMB Student Day at the Capitol – February 5th

UTMB students from the School of Medicine (SOM) and the School of Health Professions (SHP) visited the Capitol in February. They were greeted by Representative Greg Bonnen, Representative Craig Eiland and Senator Larry Taylor.  The SOM students were introduced to the House and the Senate, where they declared it “UTMB Day” at the Capitol.  The Texas Medical Association recognized the SOM students at their awards luncheon with two awards: Largest group and the Largest percentage of membership from a medical society.  The students visited with their hometown legislators and discussed affordable tuition, loan repayment, and the need for more Graduate Medical Education slots in Texas.  Also the students meet with Rep. Eiland, Rep. Bonnen and his wife Kim (Rep. Bonnen and Kim are UTMB graduates), and the Higher Education Chair Dan Branch, to discuss the future of medicine. 

 

o   Ben’s Blog:  http://blog1.utmb.edu/hpla/

 

V.           Reports by Faculty Senate Chair

      Dr. Wiggs announced that they attended the UT SysFAC meeting on March 1st, where eight (8) resolutions were created and approved.  Dr. Wiggs read and discussed with the Senators and extracted below key words from the resolutions for the ones that involves UTMB:

                  Resolution on Guns on Campus to the Chancellor, … where the carrying of firearms on campus by anyone other than law enforcement officers is detrimental to the safety and security of all on campus.  

                  Resolution on Encryption, … encryption programs can directly inhibit certain kinds of research and communication,…. establish committee with faculty membership to make recommendations for some exemptions of University owned computers/mobile devices.

                       A Senator mentioned that they had purchased some laptops with touch screen features that when they were encrypted, the touch screen features no longer worked.

Resolution on Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Communication to the Chancellor, the Executive Vice Chancellors of Health and of Academic Affairs,…work that is considered to be integral to the duties of faculty as teachers and scholars are already reported in annual evaluations and other personnel processes…, recommend local policy not requiring faculty to report such information in annual Conflict of Commitment and Conflict of Interest disclosures unless…, there is a prima facie conflict.

Resolution on Faculty and Staff Rights to Privacy to the Chancellor and to the Executive Vice Chancellors of Health and of Academic Affairs,… UT System should not disclose information on employees’ associations, activities, speech, or sources of income outside their relationships to the university and not within the scope of their employment in the university.  This includes but is not limited to; information on their domestic arrangements, business, charitable, political activities, associations, publications,… and employment in other organizations outside the university…

Resolution on Space Utilization to the Executive Vice Chancellors of Health and of Academic Affairs,… new Space Utilization metrics that the THECB and UT System have imposed on UT campuses… do not allow universities to appropriately utilize specifically configured classrooms,… UT SysFac Council resolves that System work to reform space utilization policies and develop better metrics in consultation with faculty governance bodies to allow for appropriate room usage as determined by local campuses.

Resolution Faculty Analytic Tools to the Executive Vice Chancellors of Health and of Academic Affairs,… implementation of any analytic tool (e.g. Academic Analytics, SciVal, MyEdu) either by System as a whole or by individual campuses for faculty assessment purposes shall be subject to regular review and approval by campus faculty governance bodies and/or by the System FAC Council. Further,…CAO or designee shall ensure that there will be a regular mechanism for improving the usage of these tools when these bodies or individual faculty members reveal omissions, absences, and flaws in the analytics and/or raise issues with their usage.

Dr. Wiggs provided the draft copy of the UTS 180 policy “Conflicts of Interest, Conflicts of Commitment, and Outside Activities to the Senators.

  

      The Senators discussed the Guns on Campus and Senator Boor made a motion for the Faculty Senate to support the UT Sys-FAC Resolution, Senator Mendias seconded, discussed and was approved unanimously to support “The University of Texas Faculty Advisory Council believes that the carrying of firearms on campus by anyone other than law enforcement officers is detrimental to the safety and security of all on campus.”

 

VII.      Reports by Executive Committee and Committee Chairs

 

      Dr. Cain mentioned that the Health Affairs committee of the UT System’s Faculty Advisory Council is preparing two resolutions.  One resolution encourages the UT System to implement research bridging grants for faculty who are struggling to receive funding for their research endeavors. The other resolution suggests that in light of the current difficulty in receiving grant funding that NIH and NSF grants should not weigh as heavily in regards to criteria for faculty promotion and tenure.  The Health Affairs Committee will present these resolutions to the faculty advisory council in April.   

  

      Dr. Cain also stated that the “Low Producing Program Document” has been approved by the Academic Committee of the Faculty Advisory Council and is now in the hands of the Executive Committee.  Following a review by the Executive Committee the document will be sent to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and other significant individuals.

 

Dr. Crane for Faculty Quality Committee mentioned the Exigency policy and they are working with Dr. Wiggs on combining the policy with abandonment of programs.  Dr. Wiggs mentioned that she was asked to compare with the UT System model policy on exigency.

 

Dr. Wiggs for IHOP stated that the Post Tenure Review policy is ready to go back to the COD.

 

Dr. Croisant commented that the Faculty Compensation plan will be rolled out the next couple of weeks and will be in many venues and up close and personal with the Administration.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 6:00 pm.