Sec. 61.057. PROMOTION OF TEACHING EXCELLENCE. To achieve excellence in the teaching of students at institutions and agencies of higher education, the board shall:

(1) develop and recommend:

(A) minimum faculty compensation plans, basic increment programs, and incentive salary increases;

(B) minimum standards for faculty appointment, advancement, promotion, and retirement;

(C) general policies for faculty teaching loads, and division of faculty time between teaching, research, administrative duties, and special assignments;

(D) faculty improvement programs, including a plan for sabbatical leaves, appropriate for the junior and senior colleges and universities, respectively; and

(E) minimum standards for academic freedom, academic responsibility, and tenure;

(2) pursue vigorously and continuously a goal of having all college and university academic classes taught by persons holding the minimum of an earned master's degree or its equivalent in academic training, creative work, or professional accomplishment;

(3) explore, promote, and coordinate the use of educational television among institutions of higher education and encourage participation by public and private schools and private institutions of higher education in educational television;

(4) conduct, and encourage the institutions of higher education to conduct, research into new methods, materials, and techniques for improving the quality of instruction and for the maximum utilization of all available teaching techniques, devices, and resources, including but not limited to large classes, team teaching, programmed instruction, interlibrary exchanges, joint libraries, specially-designed facilities, visual aids, and other innovations that offer promise for superior teaching or for meeting the need for new faculty members to teach anticipated larger numbers of students; and

(5) assume initiative and leadership in providing through the institutions of higher education in the state those programs and offerings which will achieve the objectives set forth in Section 61.002 of this code.

Acts 1971, 62nd Leg., p. 3072, ch. 1024, art. 1, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1971.