Officials: UT system changes not major at UTPB

A system-wide change in the University of Texas system will bring minor changes to the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.

Last week, the UT systems board of regents met for a board meeting and approved two new system changes. The first involved a change in the method of obtaining criminal background checks by employees and the second affects the review process for post-tenured employees in the UT system.

Derek Catsam, associate professor of history and president of the faculty senate at UTPB, said the changes in the post-tenure review process are not all that different from the university’s current methods of merit-based evaluations.

“It (the new review process) ties it more closely to tenure evaluations,” Catsam said.

The new post-tenure evaluation process in the agenda from Feb. 8 states the rule was reformatted to clarify the differences between annual and comprehensive reviews for post-tenure employees. Additionally, the board created four areas for evaluating employees: exceeds expectations, meets expectations, does not meet expectations and unsatisfactory.

Catsam said this process has been in discussion for a while now and said he is not opposed to an evaluation process for employees but had some issues with the cause for a new approach.

“I don’t think anyone would consider the post-tenure review process broken…” Catsam said. “Regents have varying ideas of tenure means.”

He said the university will start the process of creating a method to meet the new requirements of the regents, but is confident faculty performance will not diminish.

“UTPB will continue to have excellent faculty,” Catsam said.

Bill Fannin, UTPB provost and vice president of academic affairs, said the changes in both items are the regents’ attempt to clarify processes.

“Anytime we have someone working with minors, they must have a background check,” Fannin said. “They just clarified it.”

Fannin said the post-tenure review change was a slight one under the system’s current process.

The regent’s ruling states any regular employee must have a criminal background check on file and if one has not been made, it is required now. Employees are also required to report criminal convictions, excluding misdemeanor offenses punishable by fine.

The board book from the meeting states most institutions in the system had been requiring background checks since 2001, but many had not been conducting the checks on considered employee applicants.

Fannin said the changes are not big ones, as all employees are already required to have a criminal background check, but formed around the UT system’s desire for a more uniformity between campuses.

Rey Lascano, director of Continuing Education at UTPB, agreed. He said each summer the university hosts a number of summer camps, both academic and athletic, for students from kindergarten through 12th grade. He said summer camp employee candidates are already required to go through criminal background checks prior to hire.

Lascano said any time employees are dealing with minors there must be substantial criminal background checks and training prior to working with the children.

“If anybody wanted to work with minors they needed to fill out a background check,” Lascano said. “That person is idle until we get a response from our police department.”

@OASchools