Meeting Place: RVS - 2265

Meeting Time: 9:30am

Participants: James Friedrichsen, Lala Guerra, Sal Valastro, Ron Johns, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Hadi Parhikhteh, Jan Smith, Dean Becker, Bob Blodgett, Karl Trappe, Larry Wigginton, Jeff Bechtold, C.D. Rao, Dale Biggs, Leslie Davis, Saad Eways, David Wolf, Cindy Carr, Cathrine Duncan

1.) Approval of Agenda

2.) Approval of Minutes from: December 2, 2005

3.) Information items presented:

a.) Introduction of John Conners – John Conners was introduced as our new Geology Lab Tech. that will be stationed at the Rio Grande Campus. Everyone gave John a warm welcome. It was explained to everyone that he would be working at the Rio Grande Campus half of the time and the other half at the Northridge Campus. John has worked for ACC in the Chemistry lab, Physics lab and Geology lab off and on for 15 years.

b.) Hector Aguilar – Nanotechnology Grant Proposal - Hector Aguilar and Alberto Quinonez from the Electronics and Applied Technology Department came by to talk about the Nanotechnology Grant Proposal. The purpose of this grant is for the Electronics and Applied Technology Department to make Austin a national HUB for Nanotechnology training, especially for the workforce side. ACC would be the prime contractor for this grant and our partner would be Semitic as a sub-prime contractor. This grant would allow ACC to recruit students from all over the state of Texas and bring them to Austin. We would then give them some training in Nanotechnology, and then put them to work somewhere and pay for their internship. Some examples of internship payment would be: two year degree students would get paid $4,500.00 a semester; 4 year degree students would get $7,800.00 for 26 weeks and Graduate Students would get $15,600 for 52 weeks. Mr. Aguilar also expressed that he would like for our department and other departments to let students know about the grant once it was approved. Questions, concerns and suggestions were brought up about the grant and Mr. Aguilar and Mr. Quinonez gladly responded to our questions, concerns and suggestions.

c.) Master Syllabi – The Master Syllabi for each department under Physical Sciences need to be updated as soon as possible. James Friedrichsen told everyone in the meeting that once the Syllabi were completed, to send them to him to collect and then he would send them to Paul Williams. Paul would then place them on the Physical Sciences Website.

d.) Portfolios - James Friedrichsen informed everyone that he was receiving a lot of portfolios. He also told everyone that if they had not submitted a portfolios, to do it as soon as possible. James also mentioned that he had not set the date for the physics evaluations yet.

e.) Required Training – James Friedrichsen reminded everyone again that all employees were required to take ADA and Sexual Harassment. James also informed faculty that are supervisors that there is a list of new series of supervisors training. Out of all of supervisors training the HIPAA training was required for all supervisors.

f.) SPAM – Ron Johns spoke to IT about the problems with SPAM. IT mentioned that there was a filter called SPAM ASSASIN installed. Bill Carter explained to Ron that 80% of the SPAM was caught in the filter. Everyone expressed their concerns and made suggestions.

g.) Planetarium - FOTAP worked with four students from a UT marketing class by Eugene Sepulveda this fall. The students went in and did a literature search to see what scientific studies had been done regarding education value of a planetarium and surveyed local educators in the school district. Some of the results of their research included: 1.) Trips to a planetarium are very memorable. Over 80% of graduating college students recall specifics of trips they made to a planetarium in the first, second or third grade. 2.) Less then half (46%) of the local educators surveyed felt that they had adequate resources and support for astronomy and space science instruction in the classroom to help them fulfill the science TEKS requirements in this area. 3.) Two-thirds (66.7%) of area teachers felt that they did not have adequate resources and support of science instruction in the community (museums, laboratories, etc. to take students to perform experiments) to help them fulfill the science TEKS requirements. 4.) Of the over 218 educators surveyed, nearly 90% would “definitely” or “probably” take their students to the planetarium as part of their curriculum. 5.) Nearly 85% of the area teachers felt it is necessary to build a planetarium here in Austin, and over 90% felt it is necessary to build a science museum here in Austin. We have been working with the Manor Education Foundation and other various participants like Eastside Story and a few other groups. Essentially what is developing is a plan for a science museum/planetarium complex. Pete Dryer the developer has already donated 100 acres to the Manor Education Foundation for just this purpose. Ron Johns said that things are progressing quite well.

4.) Discussion Items:

a.) Capital Purchases – Ron Johns informed everyone that we have received $15,000.000 from the Tech committee to purchase capital equipment.

b.) Planning/Budget and the Master Plan – Ron told everyone that if they had any ideas of things that they would like to include in the Master Plan and or get money for, to email him the information.

c.) Randy Stockton - Jeff Bechtold told everyone in the meeting that Randy Stockton a lab tech at that has worked at NRG for four years had been a victim of theft. Some of the items that were stolen were expensive and were necessary for work and school. Jeff then asked everyone in the meeting if they would like to make a donation to help Randy. Everyone in the meeting gave generously.

d.) Substitute Policy – Our Substitute Policy prefers faculty that are essentially on the eligibility list to substitute for other faculty that are under the same discipline. Everyone discussed this issue and made suggestions. It was decided that our department would come up with an unofficial policy where if worse comes to worse, we would then try to find someone from another discipline to substitute.

5.) Action Items:

6.) New Business:

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

November 4, 2005

Participants James Friedrichsen, Lala Guerra, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Hadi Parhikhteh, Dean Becker, Karl Trappe, Larry Wigginton, Jeff Bechtold, C.D. Rao, David Wolf, Dale Biggs, Saad Eways

Everyone at the meeting looked over all the General Physics Textbooks and picked four out of the group. The textbooks selected were: Cutnell and Johnson 7^th edition, Giambattista 2^nd edition, Serway 7^th edition and Wilson 6^th edition.

Minutes of GEOL/ESTE Subcommittee

February 3, 2006

Participants: Bob Blodgett, Cindy Carr, Jan Smith, Leslie Davis, Ron Johns

Ron briefly went over the highlights of the program review and thanked everyone for their input. The final report ended up being a 121 page long tale of gripping drama and adventure (with 24 tables of spine-tingling data). The plot needed some work, but the characters are interesting.

The group also went over the documents requested by the Core Curriculum Committee. The forms included “intellectual competencies”, “exemplary educational objectives”, and “course assessment workshop”. Ron will finalize these and forward them to the committee. The wording on the forms clearly indicated that they were designed by political appointees at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and the lack of science background showed. Nevertheless, the group filled them out as best they could.