August 31, 2006

SENATE NOTES

August 31, 2006 “Meeting of the Rep Council”

We started off with a moment of silence for our colleague Alan.

Saddleback College Academic Senate Pres. Bob “Bee man” Cosgrove mentioned that there’s a move afoot to associate with Indiana University. The idea, I believe, is that students would take 90 units with us and then they’d transfer to IU to finish their Bachelors. There was a concern that this program wasn’t going through the appropriate Academic approval processes.

Someone joked that our new motto is: “Indiana wants you.”

As reported previously, the college is moving forward with strategic planning. The Academic Senate needs to “populate” five focus groups with faculty. Jan was approved as one of two faculty members for the Academic Planning focus group.

Obviously, these focus groups are important (at any rate, we’ve been assured that the planning process is “really real”), and so please do give some thought to satisfying your committee obligation by nominating yourself for one of these groups (Academic Planning, Enrollment management, Organizational effectiveness, Resources and budget, and Student success).

As this goes forward, the Strategic Planning Process is undergoing revision. (We’ve reported on this previously.) The 500-lb Chancellor Gorilla imposed a planning process unilaterally, blah blah blah.

Wendy reports that the district (i.e., the 500-pounder) is now backing off and allowing the colleges to do their own planning. For us at IVC, the new planning may yield a “new way of doing business.” I’m not sure I understood the point. Perhaps the point was only that, since these focus groups are working now, they may as well do the relevant work—so, for instance, the “Resources and Budget” focus group may as well be doing the work of the budget committee. The “Academic Planning” focus group may as well do all the academic planning, and so on.

Evidently, Glenn actually works hard on occasion, and he did so this summer with regard to the “model” for our college. I’ll try to get clarification on this. I think the model concerns only the Strategic Planning process. I got the sense that the changes entailed an undoing of changes made by someone referred to as “the old college president.”

I have a copy of the new 5-year SP Process that the senate approved. Let me (or Julie) know if you’d like to read it.

Not long ago, the Chancellor announced (proclaimed?) that the colleges should begin to focus on distance education (DE), a phenomenon (or method) about which he claims expertise. For a time, he seemed to promote the headquartering of DE at ATEP (i.e., somewhere in the dirt we own in Tustin). Evidently, all others said, “you can’t headquarter DE in some place, fool.” Well, he has now backed off of that and it now appears that each college will make its own decisions re DE.

I sense a pattern here.

There was more yammering about SLOs. Wendy and others testify that Jerry Rudmann’s two-hour SLO workshop is excellent. (It’s really simple, says Greg.) Says Wendy, those who need to learn about SLOs (e.g., for the sake of Program Review) will have a problem if they haven’t gone to one of these workshops.

I do believe that the next—and last—workshop will be held on Sept. 15 (12-2). (Frank?)

As you know, IVC has advocated an alternative calendar. SC doesn’t want to change its calendar. Surprisingly, the board doesn’t appear to oppose two different calendars. The 500-pounder was supposed to present a recommendation in May, but that didn’t happen. So this issue has been allowed to fall by the wayside, or, as Wendy put it, it was allowed to “roll under the bed.”

Meanwhile, it now appears that IVC will for the first time have input on planning the calendar (i.e., the status quo calendar), which, in the past, was entirely directed by SC. So we need to decide what that input will be. If you have any ideas, speak with Wendy or Julie. Evidently, Julie’s been on the district calendar committee since Bush I! Garsh.

IVC’s Accreditation Progress Report is now posted online. (It’s a preliminary draft.) Take a look at it. Let Wendy (or us) know if you have any suggestions. (I do believe that the draft was recently approved by the board. That’s interesting, for it is a fairly honest document.)

As you know, our colleges are on the low end of the spectrum, statewide, concerning reassigned time for senate officers. The matter was brought to the attention of the trustees—who seemed to have trouble with such concepts as OSH and LHE—and they have directed the Chancellor to work with the Academic Senate Presidents to arrive at “adequate” reassigned time.

January 19, 2006

January 19, 2006  Meeting of the Academic Senate Representative Council

[Senate Prez] Wendy [Gabriella] informed us that the Accrediting Agency (ACCJC) is looking for faculty to serve on Accreditation visiting teams. Any volunteers?

Wendy reminded us that, if one wants something on the senate agenda (of a Rep Council Senate meeting), one must inform the Senate cabinet before their meeting, which is scheduled on “off weeks,” again at 2:00.

There are open slots for some “Strategic Planning” focus groups.

1 for Organizational Effectiveness

2 for Resources and Budget

1 for Academic Planning

Nominations are open. Any volunteers?

Wendy announced that the hiring policy struggle is now over, now that the board acted (on a 6-1 vote, with Trustee Fuentes unhappy with the new policy’s alleged potential for faculty “cronyism”) to approve the new policy and they have paid our attorneys (Wendy and Carol). The new policy is “pretty close” to the old 1994 policy, though its language is clearer.

For a time it seemed that we would be hiring new full-time faculty, but in part owing to our enrollment problem, there is no chance of that now (we won’t be meeting our growth cap).

The Accreditation “progress report” has been submitted to the ACCJC, which held some sort of key meeting last week. Evidently, the district did not send a contingent up to Sacramento, and thus it was not necessary for us to do so. (We were concerned that Mathur and Co. would attempt to portray our circumstances inaccurately.)  We will likely receive the ACCJC’s decision in early February—perhaps the 1^st. It will come in the form of an “action letter” (this time, we’d better insist on seeing the entire document). We’ll either get new recommendations, or recommendations based on the old ones (from last year’s less-than-glowing ACCJC assessment).

As you know, in part owing to the ACCJC’s recommendations, the district has been pursuing achieving greater clarity concerning the “roles and responsibilities” of the various groups of the district. In particular, Mathur has been pursuing “technical assistance,” a process whereby parties representing (in this case) the faculty and the district come together and attempt to arrive at agreement. Our senate pursued representation from the AAUP (i.e., the American Association of University Professors, an organization that has long vigorously pursued a strong role for faculty), but this seemed to send the State Academic Senate leadership  into a tizzy. Negotiations (or discussions anyway) have been ongoing regarding the form TA will take. It now appears that, on February 13, at the district, there will be some sort of confab (called “level 1”)—from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.—in which the two parties will provide “Powerpoint” presentations for two hours. (The current State Academic Big Cheezes will do the honors on our behalf.) All of the trustees will attend this public meeting.

Wendy explained that it is important that faculty attend the meeting also, for apathy on our part will no doubt be used against us. After a break, there will be yet another meeting—called “level 3 issue resolution”—from 5:30 to 9:00. Lewis and Wendy will be our reps. If all goes well, the parties will make headway with regard to defining “roles and responsibilities.”

Faculty will be able to audit but not participate in the latter session, which will be held in the “student lounge” at Saddleback College.

If the session yield a stalemate, it is possible that the AAUP will finally brought in to represent us—at some subsequent date.

Item 14 concerned the “calendar” issue. You’ll recall that our senate endorsed a compressed calendar, but that the Saddleback College Academic Senate has been less enthusiastic about that innovation. Later, however, some sort of movement emerged from among the SC faculty to get on board our calendar proposal. Their senate is at the stage of reflection that we were at about a year ago.

[VPI] Dennis White was in charge of this calendar issue, but he has now been removed from that role, and it has been handed to Dennis McDougal. We have not learned why this has happened. In any case, the deadline for input regarding calendar changes is March 1.

In the meantime, we have a traditional calendar, and, evidently, yearly, a committee decides on the details of that calendar, but, historically, SC has always brought about embrace of a calendar favorable to SC, not to IVC. Much peevishness was expressed about this fact. Julie, however, explained that, in part, the situation that favors SC over IVC has more to do with our inaction than their action.

It occurred to some senators that if we provide “input” regarding this conventional calendar, we are acting in bad faith relative to our proposed reform calendar (I think that was the point). But if we don’t offer suggestions about how best to configure the conventional calendar, we’ll once again end up with a SC-friendly and IVC-unfriendly calendar, should the reform effort go south.

Wendy seemed to hint that the proposed alternative calendar has no future, in part because [SC] President McCollugh is dead set agin it.

Dennis piped up to suggest that the alternative calendar can be adopted as soon as a year from now.

IN the end, we decided to attempt to offer our two cents regarding how to configure the conventional calendar—as a contingency (i.e., if the big reform doesn’t go through). Dennis thought that unwise, for it “undercuts” our work re the reform proposal.

[Biologist] Chris Riegle, it seems, is now a senator for his school. He’s the guy to contact if you wish to provide “input” re how to configure the conventional calendar.

Item 16 concerned the proposed new “Student Conduct/Academic Honesty” policy. Evidently, our school has already provided valuable input, and that will be included in our recommendations. To be ready for the Feb. 2 deadline, we need to vote on this matter at the next senate meeting.

The discussion tended to concern an element of the proposed policy according to which extreme student wrongdoers are given a “Scarlet Letter” that cannot be removed, metaphorically speaking. Lewis seemed to favor that, but some senators pursued a more forgiving policy and seemed to nearly ridicule those who did not understand how, in our youth, we do stupid things, e.g., burning down buildings and the like. The discussion led to a fine “reduction ad absurdum” regarding the notion that we mustn’t do anything to students that “follow them.” Said Lewis, if that is our thinking, we need to eliminate the “F” grade immediately.

It appears that Wendy will arrange for the policy to be sent to all faculty in digital form. Do please read it and tell us (Julie or I) what you think.

Item 17 concerned the “Board Policy review process,” which had been chaired by Tom Anderson, a fellow who is now in charge of gopher holes in Tustin. Mr. Alan McDougal is now in charge, but his committee has grown large and unwieldy. It will be difficult finding times to meet.

Item 18 was a Curriculum Update. We were provided with a sheet that listed all courses “due for Revision Which Have Not Been Received” by the Office of Instuction as of 1/12/06. At first, it seemed to me that none of our courses was involved. But Traci [Fahimi] noted that the course listed as PS (Political Science) 45 is in reality, not a PS course, but a History course (which is cross listed). Hear that Frank and Toshio?

If these courses are not revised, they cannot be offered in the Fall.

Beth Mueller has been given the chief district Bean Counter job (upon hearing this, there was a great communal gasp), and so we’ll need to replace her here at IVC. Nominations are now open for a faculty representative on the search committee. Evidently, we need to offer a nomination within a week (of last Thursday).

Our Research person—Neena V—has moved on to greener pastures, and so we’ll need to hire a replacement. We’ve gotta scrape up two faculty to serve on the committee. As we stared at each other, the situation looked grim, and when someone expressed that someone “might” be willing to serve, that was seized as a full-blown nominations. “”Even a possibility is a nomination,” said one wag.

Item 22 concerned “program discontinuance” for the Electronics program. You’ll recall that, recently, our senate produced a formal program discontinuance policy, and we are now following those procedures re the Electronics program, a program that has everything but students. (Reportedly, Dennis has persisted in viewing that situation as a definite problem.) The senators were charged with finding faculty to serve on the discontinuance “task force” for Electronics. Suddenly, Dennis declared that no members of the School of Math and [......?]