Thursday, February 14, 2002

February 14, 2002


Notes:

ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING


February 14, 2002


     HIGHLIGHT: the stuff about the board’s plan to change the “delegation to academic senates” policy, at the end.

“Bliss”


     The meeting started at 2:17. Among the guests: Donna Sneed and the ASIVC Pres. and VP.

CURRICULUM:    

     On behalf of the Academic Affairs Committee, Miriam C requested “feedback” regarding something, I know not what.

     Jan H, on behalf of the Courses Committee, announced that the board will vote on recent curriculum work at the next board meeting.

     We examined an edited (for readability, owing to the full document’s great size) list of the PROPOSED CURRICULUM ACTIONS—the result of many months’ work. Despite the edits, the document before us was 12 pages long.

     Dottie S was not happy. She was concerned that the action listed re Math 13 did not reflect “the change we made.” “I don’t want to vote unless I know what I’m voting for,” she added, evidently annoyed at the truncated state of the document.

     Natch, Jan, owner of the unabridged version, cleared up the problem, which was only apparent.

     After a few minutes of such exchanges, Lewis began to look desperate; clearly, he sought a motion. I gave him one.

We approved the list, and everyone was happy. Ms. Sneed left without having to say a word; she too was happy. The world seemed happy.

COMMITTEES:

     Item 3 concerned “committee appointments.” Despite repeated solicitations, several college committees still lack faculty representation. Something was said about the “program review committee,” but my notes here fail me, owing to addlement caused, in turn, by a growing pre-holiday bliss.

     At one point, we examined the list of persons currently proposed to serve on the Physics Hiring committee, which comprised such lights as Roy McCord, Larry Olderwurtle,  Ray Chandos, Dale Carranza, etc. The president of the college, noted Lewis, can add another administrator to this list. Somehow, this was a problem or might be thought to be one, but, in view of the crew already slated for membership on this committee, I could not see how anything he might do would make things worse.

Expect “Flat Earth” seminars soon.

     Julie W made a plea for a volunteer to serve on the Program Review Committee, an organization she characterized as a “well-oiled machine.”

No one said anything.



THAT LOOK:

     This brought us to Item 4: the Academic Senate Officer Election.

     Nominations will be closed at the next meeting. So far, we have only these nominations:

     Jeff K:     PRESIDENT

     Greg B:     VP

     Lewis gave us that look. No one said anything.

Desperate, he arranged to have himself nominated for “past president.” The room grew darker, quieter.

     Lisa floated the notion that Ted W might be nominated to serve on the election committee. Jan H suggested Gary R. Gary yammered about his debate schedule, gratuitously praising his team’s successes.

     I don’t care.

     Item 6 concerned the senate bylaws and the Academic Senate Committee Structure. Once again, nominations were needed. No one said anything. Lewis, flexing, warned us about future “arm twisting.”

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY POLICY:

     Item 7 was the “second reading” of the Academic (Dis)Honesty Policy. Next time: final reading.

     Lewis opined that, in his view, a good Academic (Dis)Honesty Policy should keep academic chairs out of the process re dishonesty, owing to the absence of adequate remunerative compensation. After all, these processes can lead to litigation and Sturm und Drang.

     We discussed grounds allowed by state law for reversing an instructor’s grades (issued to students): bad faith, mistake, fraud, and incompetency, I think. The proposed academic dishonesty policy seemed to imply a broader range of grounds. Once again, worries were expressed at the power given, by the policy, to the dean in settling disputes between instructor and student (re cheating).

     Despite these problems, Lewis urged the group to view the proposed policy as basically sound, the result of good work. We only need to “clean up the language,” not start from scratch, he said.

     Dan once again directed us to points 12 and 13 of the “instructor procedures” portion of the proposal:

     12. If an appeal is filed by a student, the instructor may be requested to submit a written statement supporting his or her position to the School Chair [dean]. The instructor may also be requested to attend a meeting between the School Chair [dean] and the student. The decision of the School Chair [dean] is final and may not be further appealed.

     13. If an instructor must assign a course grade before the School Chair [dean] can meet with the student, a grade of incomplete should be given and the appropriate grade will be assigned after the school chair [dean] has met with the student and a course of action has been decided upon. In the absence of the instructor, the School Chair [dean] will assume the responsibilities for the instructor.

     Dan again expressed the obvious worries. Lewis was in favor of simply striking the offending language (e.g., the verbiage about the dean’s decision being “final”).

ELITISM REARS ITS UGLY HEAD:

     Item 8 concerned the “Distance Education Course Approval Process.” We were to decide approval of a “method of implementation” of a process that already passed in the Senate last year.

Part of that method was a FORM entitled “Distance Education Course Outline Review.”

     I noted a problem with line 7 of that form. Line 7 reads:

7. Describe any partnership (with K-12 schools, business, etc [sic]) that involves the faculty or department that creates an influence on this course or the students.

I suggested that line 7 is “incomprehensible.”

Oh my.

Lewis, playing the moderate to my conservative, offered a brief and gentle diagnosis of the problem, viz., something about that-clause pile-ups. (In truth, looking back, I think I was more offended by the sentence’s drivel about “partnerships” than by its confusing syntax.)

     Later, to a colleague, I expressed surprise that a college instructor could defend sentence 7. The colleague expressed even greater surprise that a college instructor could write such a sentence.

     Item 9 concerned AR 5604—the proposed regulation governing BP5604 (eligibility for admissions of K-8, et al.). You’ll recall that, contra the “delegation of authority” policy, the board rammed BP5604 down our throats. Now, a committee, comprising various governance groups, has been formed to propose this regulation, which we examined.

     Lewis is apparently on record as insisting that the Senates should have “the last word” regarding this regulation. I think we approved the proposed document.

THE PRESIDENT’S REPORT:

Lewis addressed the “rumor mill” re the selection of an interim president at IVC. Evidently, the selection will occur on Feb. 25.

The trustees, added Lewis, want to move forward ASAP in selecting a permanent president. That is, the interim president will soon be replaced with the permanent president.

Lewis reported that the “atmosphere” of Mathur’s “Chancellor’s cabinet” is similar to the “atmosphere” that seemed to pervade the President’s cabinet meetings (with Senate officers) here at IVC. Lewis declined to specify the nature of that “atmosphere.”

I have been told, however, that conversations with Raghu tend to be remarkably one-sided. I guess that’s a kind of  “atmosphere.”

As you know, when the board fails to take the advice of the Senates (in ten key areas), it is obliged (if asked) to produce a letter explaining the “extraordinary circumstances” for that action. In response to two such requests, former Acting Chancellor Jones has provided two letters—evidently, his “swan songs.” We examined them.

I noted that (1) one letter appeared over one year after our request. “Is that acceptable?”, I asked, rhetorically.

     (2) Neither letter provides anything that could be reasonable described as identifying “extraordinary circumstances” for declining to accept the Senates’ advice. In both cases, the board appears simply to have disagreed with the Senates.

     Lewis again noted that the board has agendized a change in BP2100.1 (Delegation of Authority to Academic Senates). In particular, they propose to strike out the sentence “This policy is a mutual agreement between the governing board and the academic senates and may be modified upon mutual consent of the parties.”

     The board’s (chancellor’s) agenda item re 2100.1 offers this point:

     The amended version…puts the policy in concert with Title 5…: “The governing board of a community college district shall adopt policies for appropriate delegation of authority and responsibility to its college and/or district academic senate.” The addition of the word “appropriate” in the first paragraph is taken directly from the Title 5 section cited.

     Here is that addition:

(proposed addition, 2100.1:) In response to…Title 5…, the governing board delegates to the college academic senates appropriate responsibility for and authority over academic and professional matters….

     After noting the utter speciousness of the board’s reasoning, Lewis opined that, since the change—especially the stricken language—has no legal effect, the only reason for the action is to say “screw you” to the senates.

     Lewis alerted faculty to a retreat at the Irvine Spectrum the focus of which are the new Accrediting Standards, which, as you know, are very “learning outcome oriented.”
     Lewis warned about allowing non-discipline experts (i.e., deans) to interpret or define these outcomes.

     It turns out that IVC will be one of the first colleges to which the new standards will be applied.

     Lewis reminded us that the new Chancellor has promised to read all of the filled-out “needs” questionnaires that are returned to him. This, he seemed to imply, is a good reason to write lengthy comments and to forward them to Raghu.

     Finally, we discussed the need to select a commencement speaker—and the importance of good faculty turnout to this event.

--Roy

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