UTMB Faculty Senate Minutes
Monday, December 11, 2023
HEC Room 3.222
4:30PM-6PM

Open Senate Meeting:

  1. Call to Order – Shannan Rossi, PhD, MBA, Faculty Senate Chair

  2. Attendance “Roll Call” & Establishing Quorum
    • Quorum Met 
  3. Agenda Adoption
    • Consent Agenda Adoption – Approved 
  4. Review & Approval of Minutes– November minutes were approved.

  5. Unfinished Business & General Orders
    • -None currently. 
  6. New Business
    1. IS Update & Security Changes
      • Senators would like for the IS department to find more efficient ways to communicate when software updates will take place. Means of communication could be: Email, Newsletters, or phone notifications.
    2. Faculty Senate Communications
      • The senators would like a means of communication to be put in place outside of the senate meetings. Options presented during the discussion are “Slack” or “WhatsApp”.
    3. Faculty Senate will have an IHOP Policy to review sometime between January-February to ensure compliance with Texas Senate Bill SB17 & SB18.
  7. The Chair will entertain a motion to move into executive session (closed session) for committee meetings.
    • Dr. Kelly Carmichael motions to move into executive session. Dr. Karren Lewis provided a second.
  8. Committee Reports
    1. University: Dr. Jacquelyn Svoboda- The committee would like to develop a tangible goal before the end of the fiscal year. Further conversation about the development of this goal will ensue during the year.
    2. Research:
      • Dr. Robert Abbott-The committee discussed managing research budgets as well as having real time access to the budgets.
      • Another point is dealing with start-up money year-to-year. Currently, UTMB operates with startups having an expiration date while other universities do not. This is a major issue in terms of competitiveness and Faculty retention.
    3. Clinical: Dr. Karren Lewis-The committee discussed RVU’s in the FCIP. The faculty would like more clarification about what items are accounted for in the RVUs.
    4. Education: Dr. Sarah Samreen- The committee had a discussion regarding engaging “Gen-Z”. The committee would like to begin doing research to develop 2 surveys (1 for Faculty, 1 for students) to be distributed to all schools. Based on the results, there would be targeted training for the faculty on how to further engage the newer generations of students.
  9. Announcements: None

  10. Adjournment
    Dr. Robert Abbott motions to adjourn, Dr. Kelly Carmichael provided a second.