Academic Council Notes & Work Papers
Notes - May 12, 2004
Attendees: Dr. Maximilian Buja, Ms. Linda
Brannon, Dr. Cynthia Chappell, Dr. Kim Dunn, Dr. Ronald Johnson, Dr. Phil
Pierpont, Dr. Leslie Roeder, Dr. Gary Rosenfeld, Dr. Gwen Sherwood, and
Dr. Jon Wiener.
Guests: Dr. Paula O’Neill and Dr. William Weems.
The minutes of the August meeting were reviewed and approved.
Dr. Buja presented a brief history and update of activities on the newly
established Diversity Council. Over a year ago, a Diversity Plan was written
for the University which received the support of Drs. Willerson and McKinney.
The Plan included the implementation of a Diversity Council. The Diversity
Council has been formed with the goal to go beyond the strict, more legalistic
aspects of affirmative action and reporting to the government in an effort
to deal with the culture here. Four working groups have been formed dealing
with: 1) organizational assessment and advocacy, chaired by Yolanda Davis;
2) workplace, career interests and community outreach, chaired by Sherry
Wilson; 3) students, chaired by Dr. Phil Pierpont; and 4) recruitment
of faculty and administrators, chaired by Dr. Gil Castro. The working
groups are in the process of meeting and looking at issues in their particular
area. With regard to organizational assessment and advocacy, this group
is trying to develop a Web-based town hall meeting in order to create
a dialogue across campus to get input from people regarding their views
of how diversity is perceived in their particular area, as well as suggestions
on how to move the agenda forward. At the next meeting in May, Dr. Harry
Gibbs, Development Officer at M.D. Anderson, has agreed to talk to the
Council about their program which, apparently, is quite well advanced.
(Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, Dr. Gibbs has been deferred to a
later date.)
Dr. Buja and Yolanda Davis, in relationship to her role as Diversity Officer,
have put in place more formal proceedings for the conduct of searches
for faculty and A&P. They have made presentations on this procedure
at each school. It is hoped this will hold the institution in good stead
in terms of seeking diversity and in increasing the numbers of women and
minority faculty and A&P.
Update on Status of UTHSC-H Admissions Policies
Dr. Buja followed up on his comments at the last meeting regarding this issue. UT System and the Board of Regents mandated each institution to review their admissions policies to see if they felt that they were not achieving as much as they would like in the diversity of their student body by using race neutral approaches. Each institution was charged with developing a rationale for why they were not achieving enough along those lines and how they might change their policies to include race and ethnicity. However, the use of race and ethnicity would have to be part of an “individualized and holistic admissions review process.” For our institution, each school had to look at their own policy and develop their own rationale. What began as a relatively small document is now a 52-page document that was submitted to Dr. Shine’s office by the May 1 deadline, which included changes based on a dialogue with Ms. Esther Hajdar who is a lawyer in the Office of General Counsel. The Medical School and the Dental Branch already had an extensive list of various criteria that were used in their admissions process so it was relatively straightforward for them to add one more criteria, i.e., race and ethnicity. The other schools were not that far along, but each school has proposed modifications in its policy that will allow a broader list of criteria to be used, including race and ethnicity. The School of Public Health is not in the habit of interviewing applicants, which makes this more difficult for them. However, they have agreed to engage in a review process, which might later result in a proposal. The School of Nursing reviewed their current policy and came up with a new set of criteria. The Graduate School and the School of Health Information Sciences are looking at how the use of race and ethnicity can be incorporated in their admissions policies. Dr. Buja said he hopes to get sign-off in principle on the proposal and then each school will probably have to go through the formal review process of a catalog change to reach the end-product. It was noted that this in itself may not make a difference in terms of a more diverse student body. For instance, in the Medical School, unless more scholarships are available, it is problematic that there will be a major change. We are currently waiting for UT System to say if our document is sufficient to allow us to use race and ethnicity in an individualized and holistic admissions process.
Education Software Update
Dr. Weems was invited to the meeting to give an update on the institution’s
software. Dr. Weems noted that the area of software, IT, enhanced learning
environment, etc. is so pervasive to everything done in academia that
to describe it is like trying to describe the cosmos. He distributed a
handout of a presentation he made on this subject earlier in the week.
Dr. Weems said the main focus areas that are taking off and going full
speed at this time are e-Learning management systems, such as Blackboard.
He noted that at this time there are almost 800 courses in the UTHSC-H’s
Blackboard system. Dr. Weems talked about learning objectives and the
appropriate use of Web servers vs. Blackboard. He said there is a lot
of confusion regarding Blackboard, i.e. What is blackboard? When do you
use blackboard? What does it mean to have an e-learning management system?
How does it compare with more traditional Web-type aspects? He said Blackboard
is an e-Learning management system designed to provide students, faculty
and staff with a personalized, private virtual classroom – it is
not a public information distribution system. Dr. Weems explained the
difference between public vs. restricted content and the advantages and
disadvantages of using Web servers. Courseware using Web space is accessible
by individuals other than class members, is easier to maintain, can be
displayed in a “new” browser window, and can be restricted
to authorized users.
Dr. Weems said that while we have had a person to handle the technical
support of Blackboard since its implementation, there was no one to support
it at the application level. He said beginning in September, the Office
of Academic Computing will have a full-time support person who will work
with the dedicated people at each school to answer the questions on how
to set up and use Blackboard for their courses. It was suggested that
training sessions be arranged for the faculty to help them understand
the instructional design of teaching by technology and to teach them in
the use of Blackboard.
Technology and Education Small Grants Program
Dr. Paula O’Neill was invited to talk about a new program developed to help the faculty in using technology as a teaching tool. Dr. O’Neill is Chair of the Learning and Technology Advisory Team (LTAT), which is a group that includes representatives from each of the schools. This group was formed several years ago to look at the Health Science Center’s requirements for academic computing and to plan educational and training opportunities for the faculty, as well as to encourage the faculty and staff to develop and implement new or enhanced academic programs using a variety of digital media. This past year, the LTAT prepared a report for Dr. Buja that supported Dr. Weems in his quest to raise academic computing to a higher level than in the past. One of their requests was to hire a support person for Blackboard and the other was to implement a small grants program. Dr. O’Neill distributed handouts describing the program. The HSC was unable to provide funding for the program at this time. However, a total of $30,000 has been made available from Dr. Moreno’s office for the first year of the program, which links well with the mission of the Office of Community and Educational Outreach. The purpose of the Small Grants Program is to stimulate research and delivery of education using technology as a teaching tool in the teaching and learning environment. A call for proposals should go out by mid-June or July 1, with a deadline of September 15 for submission of proposals. The main goal is to increase scholarship among the faculty, but another important goal is to update the way we teach. Faculty can put forth a proposal for $1,000 up to $7,500 for a one-year project. The project needs to have specific goals and objectives, an evaluation plan, use technology in the teaching and learning environment, and it needs to be a project that has the potential to be a pilot project for additional funding from sources that are far greater than a small grants program of this nature. Dr. O’Neill said the program is modeled after a successful small grants program developed by Dr. Linda Nieman, Vice Chair of Educational Affairs in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and a member of the LTAT, while she was at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. That program awarded $46,000 in small grants over a three-year period which directly resulted in five grants for a total of $370,000 of external funding for the education projects. The proposals will use three of the NIH form pages and follow NIH standards for formatting. Dr. O’Neill said an important part of this program is that there will be a mentoring group available from the LTAT to help faculty members who have not been involved in this type of project before. For the faculty who are awarded funding, the goal is for them to present papers at Advances in Teaching and Learning Day, as well as at national conferences. The LTAT will collect evaluation data for the program to assess its effectiveness. The LTAT will again request HSC funding for this program during next year’s budget process.
School of Health Information Sciences (SHIS)
Dr. Kim Dunn announced that the SHIS graduated its first Ph.D. students last week. Now the SHIS is ready to move forward in offering joint Ph.D. programs with the other schools in the HSC. They have had preliminary discussions with Dr. Chappell at the SPH. Dr. Dunn will work with a faculty member at each school to begin this dialogue and hopes to get something in place by the end of the summer. The School has hired a Development Officer with the number one priority of raising money for scholarships for students in the joint training programs. Another development priority is in terms of the outreach effort by using information technology as a strategic element for healthcare reform. They will also work this summer on updating the curriculum for the Masters degree.
Medical School
Dr. Gary Rosenfeld discussed two issues about which the Faculty Senate
and the InterFaculty Council have expressed concern. The first regards
e-mail storage and access. It is the faculty’s understanding that
for some period of time, a year or perhaps even longer, all e-mails generated
at UTHSC-H are stored somewhere. Dr. Weems said that is absolutely incorrect.
He said there is no more than one month’s storage on the back-up
tapes at any point in time. Dr. Rosenfeld said the faculty is very concerned
that there seems to be no policy or procedures regarding storage and access
of e-mails. Dr. Weems said he would discuss this concern with Rick Miller.
Dr. Buja suggested there should be a written policy.
The second concern is with internet filters. Again, there seems to be
no process for this. The faculty is concerned that the decision regarding
what should be filtered was made without input or discussion. They would
like to know the rationale for the decision. Dr. Rosenfeld said the issue
is not what we don’t have access to, but that there is no process
for developing a reasonable approach in deciding what topics should be
filtered.
The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m.