June 15, 2005

The June 15 Executive Meeting focused on the following areas of concern in the Comprehensive Standards: the Libraries; Student Affairs; Financial and Physical Resources; Environmental Health and Safety; and the Fact Book.

Dr. Tomasovic thought that Comprehensive Standard 3.8 gave straight forward details on what we have. He stated that we needed to expand on the information for the following two libraries - M. E. Keeling Center at Bastrop, with material that is more oriented to research than to the students, and Science Park's library at Smithville. A catalog was being developed to support the student curriculum at the Keeling Center and a computer was installed. Kathy Hoffman was writing up an improvement plan for the library. Dr. Tomasovic said that the library at Science Park is in good shape and that they have a librarian. The reviewers would be expecting us to have a curriculum of material either in the library or online to support the student environment. Kathy Hoffman and Stephanie had a plan to visit the library at Presbyterian Hospital.

In regard to Student Affairs and Service in Comprehensive Standard 3.9, Dr. Tomasovic stated that the first two standards were okay. For Comprehensive Standard 3.9.3, Qualified Personnel, our consultant had some concerns. Dr. Candelari was recruiting for a new student development manager having a terminal degree, a master's. Several candidates had already been interviewed and they had the position with the description for which they were actively recruiting. Dr. Tomasovic said that since we would need to show who the Health Science Center has working with them, we would want to include evaluations, CVs, transcripts and other credential materials for all of HSC's directors, Registrar, Financial Aid, and other leadership personnel. This would enable the reviewers to see that we are paying attention to this issue since HSC is a part of our school.

Dr. Tomasovic didn't feel there would be any problems with the Financial and Physical Resources section. He stated that we had the current biennium appropriation which was a 7.564% increase over the last biennium including some new formula funding. This would allow us to document that our GR appropriation for the next biennium was increasing rather than decreasing.

For 3.10.6, Environmental Health and Safety, Dr. Tomasovic affirmed that we had extensive documentation with a lot of information on the facilities along with the master and redevelopment plans. He also stated that we had been fortunate moving the schools into new, impressive facilities during the last year. Since the Health Science Center building will be torn down in several years, Dr. Tomasovic added that text would be provided to show the reviewers our plans for the school.

Due to the fact that universities usually have Fact Books, we also created one. Our Fact Book contains a list of topics that we already report to different agencies, i.e. the number of students and faculty along with demographics. Dr. Tomasovic mentioned that the 17 appendices were sent by Federal Express to the reviewers on Friday, June 10. In addition, the two catalogs were printed. He said that a briefing with the Executive Committee and Faculty Senate would be set up if they wanted it plus more briefings with the students and faculty who would be selected to participate in the video conferencing. There would also be a briefing for the Regents.

Submitted for review by Virginia Peters, Institutional Research

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