President Stacey Thompson opened the meeting and the minutes and agenda were approved as presented. The Senate then granted the request of a reporter who wished to be present at the meeting; however, he did not attend. President Thompson then gave the following report.

• Faculty Senate Officers' Meeting with the Administration (January 13, 2003)-The officers discussed the problems that the faculty have with the term "Health Careers" building as it does not represent the applied science curriculum which will be taught at Eastview. The administration requested that we make a joint statement acknowledging that the faculty and administration do not need a professional mediator as recommended by the Comptroller in her review. The Senate asked that the plan for allowing in-district registration to occur before out-of-district be considered more carefully before it is implemented. The administration reported that a committee has been formed to consider the purchase of the Rio Grande campus from AISD. Asked about this year's budget, Dr. Fonte reported that we are "on target" and not in a deficit although because of lower tax revenue we are behind for next year's budget. The request to move the Teaching Excellence awards to graduation and the request to have student speakers were granted for this year. There will be regular forums for the department chairs directed by AVP Donetta Goodall. The counselors and the administration had a good meeting and have agreed upon a forum for discussion of their issues.
• Faculty Senate Officers' meeting with Board Member McRaven (January 13, 2003)-This was an information gathering session for the Board member. She wanted to know what the Senate felt of the Board and its performance. She also asked that information about Dr. Fonte.
• Board of Trustees Meeting (January 13, 2003)-In the presentation to the Board our concerns about the response to the Comptroller's report were voiced as well as our request that the Board begin the search for a new president immediately.
• Board of Trustees Work Session (January 27, 2003)-The Board discussed the South Austin Campus although the curriculum decisions have yet to be made about what will be offered at that site.

The administration made a new hire of a Communications Executive for the next 6-8 months.

Vice President of Business Services Ben Ferrell addressed us and answered our questions. We were extremely interested in the problems that he saw with the lapsed salaries and the hiring of new employees when there are serious budget woes and a hiring freeze. He could not account for either situation. He did agree that counting on lapsed salaries to balance a budget was a very dangerous gamble. He was very direct in his assessment of the budget woes that face our College. He was not aware of any plans to reduce the number of employees at this time.

The Senate then discussed the tremendous problems that the College is having in gathering and keeping records on the faculty and other employees. No one seems accountable for the disappearance of hundreds of documents including transcripts of the full and adjunct faculty. The response of the administration to date is not acceptable. The Senate officers will address this issue with the administration and will point out that these problems will lead to a SACS violation. The Senate prepared the statement:1. Recent faculty documentation and certification problems acknowledged by Human Resources reflect on-going systemic flaws likely to result in a negative evaluation by SACS.
2. The response from the AVP of Human Resources to the Senate's questions and concerns about these problems was inadequate and unsatisfactory.
3. Faculty should not bear the financial responsibility for replacing missing documents or workload responsibility for performing the functions of Human Resources.

The IRT department is developing a new form for technology requests. If any faculty members have suggestions, these should be forwarded to Ron Brey.

After a report from the Salary and Benefits committee, the Senate passed the following resolution:

Resolution: The Senate Resolves that the Board Policy F-10 should be amended to read as follows:

Principle #10 When a budget falls short of meeting the goals of this policy, the budget shall allocate between 4% and 6% of projected annual revenues for market-level adjustments, cost-of-living increases, experience adjustments, and awards.

Marita Peppard substituted for Sean Murray.