Mission College Academic Senate
Ext.
5413
Minutes
Thursday,
August 10, 2006
I. Call to
Order/Roll Call
The meeting
was called to order by President Catherine Cox at 2:10 p.m.
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Senators |
A |
P |
Senators |
A |
P |
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Beggs (Ext. 5188) AAS |
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X |
Martin (Ext. 5356) Tech |
X |
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Brichko (Ext. 5222) CATA |
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X |
Moles (Ext. 5113) ESL |
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X |
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Cogswell (Ext.
5388) AAS |
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X |
Ostrander (Ext. 5274) Stud Dev |
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X |
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Cox (Ext.5165)
Pres/CommSvc |
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X |
Pembrook (Ext.
5275) CommSer |
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X |
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Juncker (Ext.5229) Comm |
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X |
Paicius (Ext. 5413) AF/CATA |
X |
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Kashima (Ext. 5319)
ESL |
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X |
Perlas (Ext. 5041) Stud.Dev. |
X |
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Laird (Ext. 5186) SocSci |
X |
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Rounds (Ext. 5288) Comm |
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X |
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Lavallo (Ext. 5399) Math |
X |
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Szabados (Ext.5289)
CATA |
X |
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Ting (Ext. 5330) Math |
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X |
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Guests: Stan
Arterberry, Harriett Robles, Ed Kleppinger |
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X |
Guest: Carol Qazi |
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X |
II. Approval
of the Minutes
The minutes
for the meeting of June 15, 2006, were accepted and approved as submitted (M/S/U – Juncker/Britchko).
III. Order of the Agenda
No changes were made to today’s agenda.
IV. Oral Communication
from the Public
Interim President Robles greeted the Senate and shared the goals she
stated in her application for the position of Interim President. One of her
major goals is to improve campus climate.
She also mentioned the numerous challenges faced by the college,
particularly the main building remodel, and the importance of improving morale
and respect on the campus. One change
she has implemented already in this regard is regularly scheduled meetings with
the Academic Senate and Classified Senate Presidents to improve
communication. Another goal is to
increase enrollment. The selection of
the interim Vice President of Instruction, Dona Boatright, was announced. The third goal was to reinstate the update of
the E&FMP, including program review. Finally, the college needs to complete
its accreditation self-study and also implement its emergency plan.
Chancellor Arterberry spoke up about
the need for Senate Bill 361, which would provide significant additional
revenue for community colleges, including about $3.8 million for WVMCCD in
equalization money, and urged faculty to support passage of this bill. A question was asked whether this bill would
hurt colleges that don’t get much equalization money, but a compromise was
reached to resolve that issue.
V. Information
& Announcements
Helen Ostrander announced that
she will be the interim coordinator for DISC, although as faculty she will
still represent her division on the Academic Senate.
Cathy Cox
announced the Technical Assistance visit from the State Academic Senate and the
Community College League of California on August 24 and 25. A special Board of Trustees meeting will be
called for August 24 at Mission College.
Friday, August 25, meetings will be held between the visiting team and
various constituency groups – faculty, classified, administrative staff, and
EMT. Senators are strongly urged
to attend both the Board meeting and the faculty session on Friday. A comment
was made that the team had requested that constituency groups prepare questions
prior to the meeting; the feeling of the Academic Senate presidents is that the
Senate has already taken steps to make the concerns of faculty clear. A written report back to the colleges is
expected within several weeks after the visit.
Curtis
Pembrook announced that on August 18, the District is upgrading to a new
version of the Angel software which supports distance learning. CDs with documentation and support are being
prepared for students and will be available through the bookstore at cost. All courses in the district will have a
“shell” on Angel.
VI. Administrative
Business/Actions/Appointments
A. Committee
Appointments
1.
Hiring Committee for District Director,
Facilities Construction and Maintenance –
There were two
responses to the call for volunteers for this position; Helen Ostrander and
Betti Cogswell. This is a hiring
committee for the permant position that has been held by Brigit Espinosa for
some time now, and the Board is anxious to have the position filled on a
permanent basis. Helen Ostrander was
approved by the Senate.
2. President’s Report - President
Cathy Cox distributed a written report of her activities, and apologized for
the length of the report due to the length between meetings this summer. She emphasized that the notes given under
“Shared Governance Meetings” are not official minutes, and
represent her personal views of topics discussed. She is trying to “sunshine” topics as early
as possible. A meeting of the Board Legislative subcommittee was held
Wednesday, August 9, and that was only the second time the committee met. A
faculty member had expressed concern at an item on the subcommittee’s agenda
regarding community colleges partnering with four-year colleges to offer BA/BS
degrees. This issue has surfaced at West
Valley with regard to the interior design program and accreditation, and has
originated from the college, not the Board.
Carol Qazi and Trustee Jack Lucas have also been in communication with
Cathy about the status of their international recruitment efforts. Cathy also reported on a discussion about
DBAC at the August 3 Board meeting in which the Chancellor spoke up to explain
and defend the shared governance process of the District. (A copy of the
written report is attached to these minutes.)
VII. New Business
Review and Consider Adoption of
Recommendations of the District Academic Senate’s Resolution Implementation
Task Force (Senate) (I/A)
President Cox distributed a draft of the “Recommended
Behavioral Objectives Requested of Board of Trustees, Administration, and
Senates by District Academic
Senate”, developed by the District Resolution Implementation Task Force. This draft contained a column with information
added by Angelica Buendia-Bangle, President of the WVC Academic Senate,
relating to progress that has already been made by the Administration and/or
the Board in some of the areas of concern.
Cathy also distributed a final draft of the same document which is
intended to be presented to the Board at their meeting on August 17 which does
not contain the update column, and a third document which contains specific
items from the original resolution which were not addressed by the Task Force
along with their reasons for eliminating them from the “Behavioral
Objectives”.
A meeting of
the District Academic Senate was scheduled for July 27, but quorum was not
achieved. The WVC Academic Senate met
August 1, and was given the draft document.
They agreed to accept the document for discussion, and will come back at
another meeting to make a decision. The
Board has asked for recommendations relating to the resolution, as have the
Technical Assistance Team and the Presidents of both Classified Senates. If both Academic Senates adopt the
recommendations separately, they will have the same effect as if they had been
adopted by the District Academic Senate.
There will not be another WVCAS meeting before the next Board meeting or
the Technical Assistance visit. If they
are passed by the MCAS, they will be presented to the Board at their next
meeting as “under discussion” by the WVCAS and “approved by” the MCAS.
Discussion
ensued about the recommendations of the Resolution Implementation Task
Force. A senator complimented the work
of the committee in highlighting major areas of concern and specific
manifestations of those concerns. The
committee tried to stay away from personalities and stick to the issues; they
also stayed away from the details of negotiations. Cathy mentioned that in
regard to one of the items concerning the March 15th notices issued
in 2003, apology letters had been sent from the Chancellor to all faculty who
received notices. She has received
comments from some faculty that they never received such a letter, and wanted
to point out that she has seen a large stack of these letters which were
returned to the Chancellor’s office due to incorrect addresses on file with HR.
One senator
mentioned that a decision had been made by the Task Force to ask the Board, on
several issues, to comply with existing policies, and expressed the hope that
the Technical Assistance Team will reinforce this request. A question was asked about follow-up to
ensure the objectives are achieved.
Cathy responded that the District Senate would have to make a judgement
on the District’s response on October 3, and expressed her personal opinion
that while the response might not be “perfect”, the Senate would be looking to
see what progress was being made on the issues and whether steps were being
taken to address the problems. A member
of the Task Force commented that she saw a lot of forward movement in attitudes
being expressed by various parties, and that some of the concrete steps being
taken could be used as signs of progress.
Most of the objectives given in the document are measurable. Many of the objectives will be partially
addressed by the Technical Assistance visit and the visit from FCMAT.
A question
was raised about the relationship of the FON penalty money mentioned in the
minutes of the MCAS meeting of June 15, and item C4, which deals with the 50%
law. Cathy explained that these are two
different items, and that the FON penalty will be one-time money returning to
the college which must be spent on academic and academic support services, and
cannot be spent on salaries.
Following the
discussion, a unanimous vote was taken to adopt the “Recommended
Behavioral Objectives Requested of Board of Trustees, Administration, and
Senates by District Academic
Senate”, dated 7/11/06, so that they might be presented to the Board of
Trustees at their August 17, 2006 meeting.
Cathy mentioned publications on various topics of import including an Executive Summary of the System Strategic Plan which is available from the State Chancellor’s Office, as well as some publications of the State Academic Senate such as Working with the 2002 Accreditation Standards: Faculty’s Role and Textbook Issues: Economic Pressures and Academic Values. Contact the Academic Senate office to request copies or view the pdf versions on the State Academic Senate website (http://www.academicsenate.cc.ca.us)
Also, Senator Phil Mancini passed away during the summer, and at his memorial service Mission College was well-represented. Discussion is ongoing about setting up a scholarship in his memory.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 pm. These notes are submitted by Cathy Cox.
Mission
College Academic Senate
August 31, 2006
Student Equity Plan: I’ve been
contacted by Student Services. Jim Bracy
wishes to convene a committee to revise the Student Equity plan (dated
3/05). He is requesting two faculty
representatives plus the Academic Senate president to sit on this committee,
and would like a response by 9/11. My
recommendation is that the Senate advise Student Services that although the
President may sit on the committee if there is sufficient release time to cover
the meetings, additional faculty representation will have to wait until the
District Senate resolution is lifted. I
further recommend that we identify who will be representing the Senate so that
if and when the resolution is lifted, the committee can begin work immediately.
Budget: One issue
from the past that has resurfaced is the “piloting” of the Activity-Based
Costing model (ABC model) for budgeting.
This budget model, which is strongly supported at West Valley College
and by the Facilities office here at Mission, would affect the process by which
money is allocated for supplies, duplicating and hourly positions in
departments. It does not address the
overall budget allocation model. While
there has been strong opposition to the model here at Mission, plans for a
pilot run with a few departments are proceeding.
I believe that it is essential for us to have a couple of departments
participate in this pilot. Not
participating means faculty are abrogating the authority we have under AB 1725
to participate in the development of budget processes – a key part of the “Ten
Plus One” of shared governance. If the
model is flawed, we must find that out before it is implemented, and we must
give our input. Hospitality Management
has already agreed to participate in the pilot.
One more department is needed at this time. Any interested department should contact the
President’s office for more information.
Equivalency: Sandi
Dillon, who has been hired as an HR consultant by the District, has been
working on updating the equivalency procedures.
She has added the procedures for the Senate to update the minimum
qualifications list, included the procedure for developing the necessary Board
agenda item, and clarified that equivalency is granted for an entire discipline
and not merely for a single course (in other words, if equivalency is
granted to a faculty member we are saying they are qualified to teach any
class in that discipline). She is
also developing a new proposed Board policy on the Board’s involvement in
equivalency decisions. Currently, the
Equivalency committee is reviewing the proposed policies and procedures. They will be brought through the
participatory governance process and reviewed by the Academic Senates of both
colleges before they are adopted.
As usual, please remember
that these are only my notes and not official minutes of the meetings.
MISSION
COLLEGE FACILITIES TASK FORCE, 8/17
·
Primarily an
organizational meeting to discuss process for dealing with the seismic
facilities issues at Mission.
·
The key decision
made was that by mid-October, the college and District need to come to some
concensus about what we do not want to do – which alternatives are not
going to be considered. That will allow
us to narrow our focus and begin the planning process for the future.
LAND
CORP. BOARD MTNG, 8/17
·
Major item on
the agenda was the carryover of funding for items that were approved but not
completed last year. Items approved in
March were carried over due to the lack of time they had to complete work. Items approved earlier in the year were
considered separately.
·
The carryover of
money for the International Student Program was one of the items that was
considered separately. Director Schwartz
spoke out against allowing the carryover, saying “The project has a terrible
history” and calling it “a shell game”. Director Stampolis wanted a full
proposal to come forward with timelines before allocating money. The initial
vote of the Directors was to deny the carryover. However, when I was allowed to
speak up I pointed out that the concerns of the MC Academic Senate were not
with the actual program but with the processes used to allocate
and expend the money. It was also
mentioned that both college presidents and the Chancellor have a written plan
to expend the money. The Directors
agreed to carry over the remaining money.
BOARD
OF TRUSTEES, 8/17
DBAC,
8/23
·
West Valley held
a forum last March to brainstorm on the topic of increasing enrollment, and a
15-page handout was distributed listing ideas that were suggested.
·
A suggestion was
made that faculty keep a list of where/when other sections of their courses are
meeting, so that they can immediately refer students to other sections
of the same course if they do not have room in their classes.
·
IS is moving
finance budget reports off of PARIS and onto WebAdvisor, using the “My Budget”
module, to ensure tighter security of financial data. Budget data on PARIS will not be updated for
the current year (06/07) – you must use WebAdvisor!
·
Users will need
to have a General Ledger (GL) security profile to login. Currently, each user will be restricted to
viewing the accounts set up in that profile – their own, and those subordinate
to them. Eventually (in 6 months or so?)
this will be expanded. A training packet
is available on PARIS.
SPECIAL
BOARD MEETING, 8/24
·
The specific
purpose of this meeting was to listen to the presentation by the Technical
Assistance Team from the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
(ASCCC) and the Community College League of California (CCLC). The meeting was well-attended, the
presentation to the Board on shared governance was informative, and the
discussion following was frank and intense.
The team took copious notes about everything that was said by participants,
and I believe their report will be very informative when it comes back to us in
a few weeks.
DC
COUNCIL, 8/28
·
Arlene Atondo
gave information about using WebAdvisor for online grading – it’s definitely
beginning this term, for ALL classes. Faculty
can log into WebAdvisor from any internet computer using their WebID number
(initials of first & last name followed by the Datatel ID number). The password is their six-digit birthdate
(mmddyy). Online grading will be
available all semester and will close for the term one week after the end of
the semester.
·
There was quite
a bit of discussion about the overall need for training of faculty, in
particular, on the many different
enterprise-level programs the college uses to support instruction – WebAdvisor,
Datatel, Curricunet, Classtracks, and others.
GAP,
8/30
·
Enrollment is
looking positive as of yesterday – about 100 FTES higher than this approximate
time last year.
·
Regarding the
Mission facilities issues, Harriett favors a multi-pronged approach to
gathering opinions from faculty and staff.
She wants to visit most of the major constituent group meetings over the
next few weeks to discuss the issue. My
recommendation is to agendize this topic as an information only item at the AS
meeting for 9/7, ask Senators to take it back to their Divisions for
discussion, and then to re-agendize it for further discussion and a possible
motion with our recommendation as a body in early October.