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.”
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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