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The Faculty Senate met on June 8. Below are bullets from the meeting. The complete minutes of the June meeting, as well as those from previous meetings, can be found at: www.uthscsa.edu/facultygovt/.

Campus Updates:
Theresa Chiang, Ed.D., vice president for academic administration, provided the Senate with an update on various searches at the Health Science Center.

Overview: Online student registration
Amy McGilvray, associate registrar in student services, provided an update on the current transition to the online services provided to students and faculty using the Peoplesoft system. Conversion to online registration for students in all schools is nearly complete. Information and instructions for online registration can be found on the student services web page: studentservices.uthscsa.edu/registration&records/registration1.html.

Overview: Classroom management software
John Littlefield, Ph.D., director of academic informatics services, provided an update on planned changes in classroom management software for the Health Science Center. Currently we have two software systems, WebCT and Blackboard. Maintaining the nearly redundant systems has become unjustifiably costly. There is likely to be a real reduction in functionality of the two systems if maintained under the current circumstances. Dr. Littlefield reported that he has recommended the move to a single classroom management system, WebCT. He then presented a plan for transition to the single operating system.

Overview: Faculty development coalition
Ellen Kraig, Ph.D., professor and chair, Women's Faculty Association, described a cross-campus coalition that will join forces for purposes of fostering faculty development/mentoring activities. The coalition will work in concert with Dr. Theresa Chiang’s office to support professional development efforts. Initial activities will include the creation of Tenure and Promotion Workshops and a Curriculum vitae review service, as well as to provide input into updates for T&P instructions and advice for new (and current) faculty members.

Chair’s Update: Keith Krolick, Ph.D., chair of the Faculty Senate, presented an overview of the June 2/3 meeting of the UT System Faculty Advisory Council.