UTMB Faculty Senate

July 13, 2009

4:30 – 6:00 pm

MINUTES

 

Present:  Drs. T. Albrecht, G. Anderson, V. Brooke, N. Cintron, C. Cooper, R. Fox, C. Holzer, A. Hudson-Jones, E. Protas, C. Utsey, S. Watowich, P. Watson, C. Wigg, N. Wills and C. Wisnewski

 

Special Guests:  Mr. William Elger and Mr. Cameron Slocum

 

Absent:  Drs. B. Doucet, N. Garg, D. Heliker, M. Kanuth, R. Leonard, D. Munsell, M. O’Keefe, S. Peloquin, K. Sandor and G. Taglialatela

 

I.        The meeting was called to order at 4:32 pm by Charlotte Wisnewski, Faculty Senate Chair.

 

II.      Approval of Minutes of June 8, 2009.  Due to lack of a quorum, the minutes of June 8, 2009 will be sent out by e-mail for approval.

 

III.     Provost’s and Dean Report – Dr. Garland Anderson

·    UTMB has received the Clinical Translational Sciences Award (CTSA) from the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health.  Four medical schools in Texas have received this award.  This will be announced soon after Dr. Collins’ as NIH Director is announced first. 

·    Shriners Burns update.  Shriners delegates at their annual meeting in July have voted to reopen the Galveston burn hospital. They will be taking out insurance now and they will have five hospitals closing.  We want the Galveston burn hospital to be for Research and to be able to apply for grants; there is still a lot of work to be done. 

·       No pictures of patients may be taken at UTMB unless they comply with IHOP Policy 9.3.2.  We need to remind everyone of this policy.  This applies for UTMB searches with Yahoo, Wikipedia, no uploading of patient images to the internet, social network sites, e-mails or for personal use is allowed, even if patient identifiers have been removed.

 

Dean, School of Health Professions – Dr. Elizabeth Protas (written report provided by Dr. Protas).

People: 

·    The American Association of Blood Banks presents up to 2 AABB-Fenwal SBB Scholarship Awards to recognize outstanding research in the field of Transfusion Medicine by Specialist in Blood Banking students.  The Fenwal Award is highly competitive and the most prestigious national research award given to SBB students.  This year, they decided to bestow 2 Fenwal Awards and because of the excellence of a 3rd research paper, they have decided to give 1 award for Honorable Mention.  I received a congratulatory call from the AABB National Office notifying me that all 3 winners of this year's awards were from UTMB.  The AABB indicated that this makes the UTMB SBB Program was the most award winning program for a single year.  The winners and their submissions are as follows:   Fenwal Awards:  Leslie Cooper - "Uncontrolled Rate Freezing of Peripheral Blood Progenitor Cells Containing 5% DMSO," Rebecca Lam - "Knowledge of FDA Reportable Deviations", Fenwal Award Honorable Mention: Dee Gribble - "Cost Effectiveness of FDA Variance for Blood Collection from Individuals with Hereditary Hemochromatosis at a 398 Bed Hospital-Based Donor Center."  These outstanding accomplishments by UTMB SBB students are a testament to the excellent leadership, guidance, and educational skills of Janet Vincent, the UTMB SBB Program Education Coordinator. 

·    Sharon Jensen, Administrative Associate in Physical Therapy, received a STAR for June. Sharon is SHP Support Staff Assembly Chair and has served her department over 20 years. Dr. Suzanne Peloquin, Professor in Occupational Therapy, was selected as the faculty STAR and also has over 20 years of dedicated service to UTMB and SHP.

Education: 

·    A record number of students in the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences received Honor Awards from the American Society for Clinical Pathology to recognize students in the laboratory professions who demonstrate academic excellence, leadership and commitment to community service. Congratulations to J. Arias, N. Doyle-Wood, L. Feagins, S. McKelroy, J. Samson, A. Stanford, S. Wadhwania and S. Wilson.

Research:

·    Dr. Soham Al Snih received notice that her NIH R03 grant titled, “Obesity, muscle strength and disability in older Mexican Americans” was funded.

Community:

·    OT Chair Gretchen Stone recently returned from her visit to Nicaragua with OT students Melissa Booth, Nicole Holland and Megan Mullins, recipients of 2009 Fogarty International Research Fellowships which supported their study of women with chronic musculoskeletal pain living in a rural village. Partnering with a UTMB primary care team, they conducted 60 follow-up home visits and walked over 40 miles to observe how these patients complaining of pain performed tasks during daily activities and routines.  

·    Dr. Carolyn Utsey, PT Chair, recently escorted PT students to Camp-for-All, a camp for children with chronic illnesses and disabilities. 

Initiatives:

·    Faculty, faculty, faculty.  We have eight faculty positions still open; Building restoration; Setting up structure for Faculty Scholarship, Research, and Development Plan.

 

Vice President for Education - Dr. Pamela Watson (written report provided by Dr. Watson).

 

Dean, School of Nursing - Dr. Pamela Watson (written report provided by Dr. Watson).

·       Dr. Linda Rath has assumed the role of Director of the Baccalaureate Program ad interim, thus creating a vacancy for the Track Administrator of the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program.

·       Dr. Debra Armentrout (a graduate of our Nursing PhD program) will assume responsibility as Track Administrator, Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program formerly lead by Dr. Linda Rath.

·       Faculty recruitment continues to be a high priority and several highly qualified candidates are being considered for faculty positions.

·       The first floor mitigation and repair project will begin in September of 2009.  Several areas formerly on the first floor will be relocated to other areas of the building, with the library LRC space remaining in its former location on the first floor.  The cafeteria will not reopen and converted into two classrooms, the student service will be moved to the second floor.  Plans in process to hopefully have a Mod coffee house on the first floor.

·       We are interviewing candidates this month for the Senior Biobehavioral Research faculty position currently available.

·       Dr. Alice Hill, The James P. McGovern Distinguished Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Nursing PhD Program received The Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Black Nursing Faculty.  The award was presented in Kansas City Missouri at the Association’s annual conference.  At the conference, Dr Hill also presented her research findings related to pre-term infants. A Charter member of the Association, Dr Hill has been an extraordinary role model for the membership.

·       A very special recognition of Dr. Charlotte Wisnewski who has assumed the role of Chair of the UTMB Faculty Senate. 

 

Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences – Dr. Cary Cooper (report provided by Dr. Cooper).

·    On June 8, 9, and 17, the Bromberg Workshop in Teaching and Mentoring was held on campus.  The workshop was open to GSBS students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty who participate in GSBS teaching and mentoring.  The event was well attended and this was sponsored by Dr. Scott Weaver, holder of the GSBS Dr. Leon Bromberg Professorship for Excellence in Teaching.  Drs. Oma Morey and Ann Frye, along with Dr. Weaver were the organizers.  Certificates were awarded to participants on June 17 (copy of the program announcement, the workshop agenda and a group photo of participants receiving their certificates were distributed).

·    On August 4, the GSBS student Committee for Career Development (CCD) and Organization of Postdoctoral Scientists (OPS) will sponsor a workshop on CVs, Resumes, and Job Searches: Insights and Highlights for GSBS students and for research postdocs (copy of the announcement was distributed).

·    Additional workshops planned for the coming year by the CDD and OPS include one on Teaching Skills and another on Advanced Business Management.  Both of these will be taught on campus by faculty members from the University of Houston-Clear Lake schools of education and business respectively.

·    Dr. Watowich asked Dr. Cooper about the recent election process for program director.  Dr. Cooper said that the elections occur every two years, and this year, because of Ike’s impact on faculty rosters, faculty voted only in their program of primary appointment.  GSBS could consider having an election again in one year.  Another possibility is considering the appointment of program directors rather than elections, but this would entail a change in the GSBS Bylaws.

IV. UTMB Financial Report
Dr. Wisnewski introduced Mr. William Elger, EVP and Chief Business and Financial Officer and Mr. Cameron Slocum, VP Finance - Academic Enterprise.  Dr. Wisnewski had met with Mr. Elger earlier and Mr. Elger indicated that he could attend the Senate meeting and provide an update each quarter.  Mr. Elger should be a regular visitor every quarter until UTMB is on sound financial footing.  Mr. Elger thanked the Senate for inviting him and proceeded with a PowerPoint presentation on the Fiscal 2010 Budget Overview.  Highlights from this presentation are:  Adjusted margin, currently we are at break even.  Budget FY10, 1.4 million needs to get better than this, should be $25-$30 million.  Most of our revenue is patient care.  We need to increase percentage of revenue from research.  There are significant financial resources coming from the State although most are for capital.  Parts of these resources are: Revenue Bonds for the new Jeannie Sealy Hospital.  There is a contingency on these funds in that the County needs to contribute more financial resources toward care of the indigent.  It may take 5-7 years to work through with FEMA amounts they will reimburse UTMB.  Our key challenges are:  1) Restoring the physical plant with approximately 1 million square feet of damaged space.  We are going to see if we can find ways to shorten project cycle times.  2) Relooking at our clinical strategy both on island and off island.  3) Retaining faculty and staff and recruiting in key areas and 4) prioritizing new investments since demand will exceed available resources.  Mr. Elger and Mr. Slocum then opened for discussion.  A question was asked if we were in financial exigency, if so we will not get faculty here with that label on us.  Mr. Elger will check on this statement.  Another question was asked from the 30 appeals, how much did the University save?  Dr. Holzer asked why his money was frozen, he could not do his research, Cameron will check on this for Dr. Holzer.  Mr. Elger can attend the December Faculty Senate meeting to update the Faculty Senate.

IV.      Chair Comments – Dr. Wisnewski

·  We are having our Annual September Luncheon on Monday, September 14th.

·  Please read the Bylaws and if you have any questions or concerns bring to the next meeting.  Dr. Wisnewski was looking at the Bylaws in regards to attendance.

·  The Senators would like a list of faculty who have left UTMB since IKE.

 

V.        Past Chair Comments – Dr. Albrecht announced that the Board of Regents met last week and the topic was UTIMCO.  In August, a written report should show what is going on.  Texas Tech was approved to give 7 year tenure.  The Faculty Senate should receive quarterly financial reports.  The summary is very useful.

 

Extension of the Faculty Senate Meeting beyond 6:00 pm was voted on.  6 for / 2 opposed and the meeting was extended.

 

VI.      Senator Replacements

We have several SOM vacant positions and need to fill those seats.  The Special Election is under way.

 

VII.     Nominations for Chair Elect

          Dr. Wisnewski announced that Dr. Utsey was nominated and no other nominations were announced.  Dr. Utsey gave a statement regarding her willingness to serve and opened for discussion.  Dr. Wisnewski stated that the voting process will be sent by e-mail.

 

IX.     Subcommittee Reports

Faculty Quality Committee met today and they are working on the Post Tenure Review among the schools.  PTR and APT are in contradiction to Regents Rules.  IHOP are in accordance with Regents Rule.

 

A motion for adjournment was made and seconded.  Meeting adjourned at 6:23 pm.