Senate President Dr. Melissa Miller-Waters:
Good afternoon, Chancellor, Honorable Trustees, colleagues, ladies and gentleman.
On behalf of the entire Senate, I would like to express our appreciation for Trustee Tamez’s leadership as chairperson of the board this past year. We very much appreciate your dedication to our institution and to our shared mission, and we thank you for your tireless service this past year. We wish you all the best as you continue your work on behalf of our students.
I would also like to express the Senates admiration and appreciate of Dr. William Harmon for his tireless service to Central College and his strong legacy. We wish you all the best.
Thank you, Dr. Melissa Gonzalez, for visiting the Senate this month. We appreciated your updates on our success in surpassing our completion goals, on phase two of the transformation, and on HCC’s legislative agenda for the upcoming session. The senators applaud your openness to our questions and your willingness to search for answers. Faculty always value dialogue and the opportunity to share responsibility to create solutions.
As we close out this year, I am proud of our collective accomplishments and am confident that we will see continued improvements in the New Year. In the New Year, the Faculty Senate plans to maintain our work on academic rigor and inclusive excellence, on shared governance, and on supporting our colleagues in other divisions as they transform.
We count on ensuring that policies, practices, and business processes will continue to be refined to eliminate unnecessary interdependencies and to best support faculty and students in the classroom. We look forward to working with the administration to make this happen, using the qualities of flexibility and responsiveness to guide our efforts. While we appreciate the opportunities we are already being given to make things better, HCC’s student success depends on our capacities to improve these still less than optimal processes. For instance, we aspire to improve consistency of service at campus locations (copier codes, available and functioning printers, work space access with ID badges, and so on). We anticipate continued input on streamlining HR processes that directly impact our ability to put highly qualified faculty in the classroom. Lastly, we look forward to supporting the ongoing efforts to empower instructional leaders in the field and appreciate Dr. Beatty’s exceptional efforts to provide our instructional leaders valuable opportunities for professional development.
I would like to invite you to our upcoming Faculty Senate conference to be held on Saturday, March 4. We will be giving you much more information about this event as it gets nearer.
On behalf of the Faculty Senate, I wish you and yours a blessed holiday season and best wishes for the New Year.
[Senate President Dr. Melissa Miller-Waters addressed the Board of Trustees as part of the regular agenda]