Texas A&M faculty concerns about visiting family in countries on the Governor's "Foreign Adversary" list

This podcast contains comments from the May 12, 2025 Texas A&M faculty senate meeting.This is the first summer break that employees at Texas A&M and other state agencies are banned from professional work in countries that the governor has listed in an executive order (GA-48) as "foreign adversaries".There were no university administrators at Monday's faculty senate meeting (May 12) to address concerns from faculty who wanted to visit family in targeted countries.A university spokesperson tells WTAW News that "Following guidance from The Texas A&M University System, Texas A&M University has taken steps to ensure full compliance with GA-48, “Hardening State Government Against Foreign Threats.” We are in the process of finalizing our implementation plan by the end of the month and will have it fully enacted by July 1. As one piece of this effort, employees report their personal travel to certain foreign countries through a secure, online system and confirm their planned compliance with the order. More comprehensive information will be shared as that implementation plan is finalized."At the faculty senate meeting, assistant instructional professor David Bapst said the governor's ban includes countries that he knows of A&M faculty have family, such as China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.Bapst said one colleague told him that they were surprised about the university's compliance requirements. According to Bapst, employees must certify that they "will not participate in any university agency activity, access university agency software platform or networks, nor travel with any university agency related data, equipment, or property."Bapst says that means not checking among other things, university e-mail accounts and/or making Zoom calls, for as long as three months, as affected employees are not getting paid during the summer break.