Christal Seahorn to serve three-year appointment on Texas Education Committee
Curriculum and standards for undergraduate students entering college are set by a statewide committee, the Texas Education Committee. Members are nominated by peers to the committee, who then select based on background and skill history of the nominee.
Christal R. Seahorn, assistant professor of writing at UHCL, received an email in August 2018 congratulating her for a three-year appointment to the Undergraduate Education Advisory Committee (UEAC) as part of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). Here she can use her voice to represent the greater Houston-Galveston region on a state level committee to help structure the undergraduate curriculum.
From 2014 to 2018, Seahorn served as the Writing Program’s First-Year Composition (FYC) Director. She focused on arranging professional development opportunities for faculty teaching writing classes, paying attention to student drop-withdrawal-fail-incomplete (DFWI) rates, and working with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness to conduct annual assessment ensuring the writing program meet the state requirements.
“So much research on student success at the university level provides evidence that core courses like the writing, math, and first-year seminar classes closely correlate with students’ likelihood of graduating in five years,” Seahorn said. “I believe that my work as the FYC Director has been important to UHCL’s four-year expansion and to the stable addition of two core writing classes to our already robust upper-division writing classes.”
The UEAC is made up of representatives from public community and technical colleges, universities, and health-related institutions, independent colleges and universities, and one non-voting student member. They meet at least twice a year in Austin, Texas, with intentions of developing and implementing innovative higher education policies to enhance student success.
“The greatest risk you face is an institutionalized system,” said Raymund A. Paredes, commissioner of higher education at THECB. “Over the years in Texas we have come to regard each college or university as a separate institution striving independently for success.”
Key functions for UEAC include providing a statewide perspective to ensure efficient use of higher education resources, developing and evaluating progress toward a long-range master plan for higher education, making recommendations to improve the effectiveness of transitions, and administering programs and trustee funds for financial aid as necessary to achieve the state’s long-range goals as directed by the Texas Legislature.
While working with UHCL’s undergraduate core curriculum, Seahorn plans on broadening the number of students she affects while on the board of UEAC. Seahorn said it is important to acknowledge that her role in UEAC is not only to represent UHCL but also to represent the greater Houston-Galveston region.
“I hope that my time on this committee allows me to strengthen my partnerships with other universities in the UH system and our community college partners so that I can accurately elevate our concerns to UEAC and fairly represent our region,” Seahorn said.
To receive a position on the UEAC, one must be appointed by a peer to the THECB. Still unknown to Seahorn who specifically submitted her name to the board, she believes she was commended for her work while serving as the FYC Director.
“I am not particularly unique for our core faculty,” Seahorn said. “The fact that I have successfully passed on my role as FYC Director this year to Professors Lorie Jacobs and Patricia Droz and that we are soon to elect a new CFAC Chair is a testament to the strength of faculty that UHCL recruited when we were preparing for the four-year expansion.”
Stuart Larson, associate professor of graphic design and department chair of communication and studio arts, said he could not think of a better person to represent UHCL’s student educational needs at the state level.
“Her advocacy for our students on the Undergraduate Education Advisory Committee will prove invaluable, as our student’s unique and varied situations often go under-vocalized to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board,” Larson said.
Larson describes UHCL as blessed to have a faculty of the highest caliber and said it never ceases to amaze him how scholarly and knowledgeable they are.
“It is one thing for us all to be committed and effective educators in teaching our individual classes,” Seahorn said. “It is another thing entirely for us to be successful leaders and advocates for our students and to be able to transfer leadership positions in ways that maintain stability and allow for continued growth.”
