UTMB Faculty Senate Minutes
Monday, January 8, 2024
Teams Virtual Meeting
4:30PM-6PM

Open Senate Meeting:

  1. Call to Order – Shannan Rossi, PhD, MBA, Faculty Senate Chair
  1. Attendance “Roll Call” & Establishing Quorum
    1. GSBS – Dr. Maria Micci
    2. JSSOM – Dr. Kelly Carmichael
    3. SHP – Dr. Rajkumar Rajendran
    4. SPPH – Dr. Brian Downer
    5. SON – Dr. Rebeka Watson Campbell
  2. Agenda Adoption
    1. Consent Agenda Adoption – Approved
  3. Review & Approval of Minutes– December minutes are approved.
  1. Guest Speakers
    1. Lauren Beamon and Rohan Hebbar, Department of Legal Affairs, discuss Senate Bill 17 & 18.
      1. SB 17 “Responsibility of Governing Boards Regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives”: Texas legislature passed, and Governor Abbott signed into law to commence implementation starting January 1, 2024
        1. Prohibits offices, divisions or other units that are established for influencing hiring or employment practices.
        2. Promoting differential treatment/ special benefits.
        3. Promoting policies or procedures in reference to race, color, or ethnicity.
        4. Conducting trainings, programs, or activities in reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
        5. Restricted from signing employees or contractors to perform the duties of these offices.
        6. DEI Training:
          1. Prohibited from conducting training designed or implemented in reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation.
          2. Prohibited from hiring or assigning employees of contractors to conduct DEI training.
        7. DEI Statements:
          1. Restrictions on requiring or giving preferential consideration to candidates on the basis of providing a DEI statement.
            • DEI statement is defined as “A written or oral statement of a persons commitment to furthering D.E.I. based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender identity or gender orientation.”
        8. Exceptions:
          1. Academic Course Instruction.
          2. Scholarly research or creative works.
          3. Registered student org activities.
          4. Guest Speakers.
          5. Programs to enhance student academic achievement that are designed and implemented without regard to race, sex, color or ethnicity.
          6. Data collection
          7. Student recruitment or admissions but see SCOTUS SFFA ruling.
            • Please note, exceptions should not be used to circumvent restrictions on DEI training, activities & programs.
        9. For questions, please email SB17@UTMB.EDU
        10. SB 18: Amendments to the Texas Education Code-Section 51.942- Faculty Tenure. Provisions for terminating Tenured Faculty.
          1. At UTMB, termination of Tenured Faculty is governed by regents rule 31008 and UTMB Policy 050310. These policies have been updated to comply with the SB 18 amendment.
          2. Tenured Faculty members can only be terminated for “good cause”.
            • Examples of “Good Cause” include:
              1. “Failure to successfully complete a required Professional development program.”
              2. “Continually or repeatedly failing to perform duties or meet professional responsibilities of the faculty members position.”
              3. “Violation of laws or UT system policies or UTMB policies substantially related to the performance of the faculty members duties.”
              4. “Conviction of a crime affecting the fitness of the faculty member to engage in teaching, research, service, outreach or administration.”
              5. “Falsification or misrepresentation of the faculty members academic credentials, scholarly work, research data or other type of research or academic fraud or misconduct including but not limited to falsification, plagiarism, or misrepresenting publications.
          3. The statute in UTMB policies now allow for summary dismissal. Under limited circumstances a tenured faculty member could be terminated immediately but that tenured faculty member would be able to appeal that termination.  
    2. Cara Geary, MD, PhD (UTMB Chief Wellness Officer)-Wellness Survey
      1. Survey Timeline:
        1. January-February
          1. Educate campus and begin marketing.
          2. Finalize Questions
          3. Finalize participants and reporting filters.
          4. Prepare for Post-Survey response.
        2. March 15-April 21
          1. Survey Open
          2. Marketing to optimize response rate.
        3. April-June
          1. Share results.
          2. Identify improvement needs.
          3. Plan and budget resources
      2. Access to Survey Data
        1. PWAC Vendor sponsoring survey with all emails routed through them.
        2. UTMB only receives data in any filtered groups if it is greater than or equal to respondents.
        3. Reports provided through My Wellbeing Department
        4. Only Wellbeing Department can access data.

           

  2. Unfinished Business & General Orders
    1. None currently.
  3. New Business         
    1. Dr. Alfredo Torres motions to discuss a topic. Dr. Rossi approved.
      1. Procurement Dilemmas
        1. Dr. Torres requests that the senators notify him of any continuing issues with the procurement process with the intent of relaying these issues to the Procurement management team.
    2. University: Dr. Jacquelyn Svoboda- The committee discussed having a shared sentiment of lack of traction with previous initiatives. Due to this, the committee members are interested in developing a survey to determine what the rest of the faculty have a more vested interest in moving forward.
    3. Research: Dr. Robert Abbott- The committee is reaching out to respective faculty to gather information about major issues they face. One of the main dilemmas is money issues and where money is being allocated in tandem with NIH and UTMB policies disagreeing on money distribution. Further research is being done.
    4. Education: Dr. Brian Downer-The committee had a discussion about a podcast that speaks to artificial intelligence in medical education.
    5. Clinical: Dr. Crystal Douglas-RVU structure discussion to distinguish the differences across the campus. Currently the committee is still gathering information in an effort to develop better suggestions for improvement.
  4. Committee Reports
    1. Dr. Juliet McKee motions to move into executive session, Dr. Watson-Campbell provides a second.
  5. Announcements: None

 Adjournment at 6:00 p.m.