senate capers: • March 20, 2014 Senate Meeting

Thursday, March 20, 2014

• March 20, 2014 Senate Meeting

Senate Notes March 20^th, 2014

A. INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS – Josh J. from Chemistry and Brett Kaufman from English are the new Part Time Faculty Reps. Brett K. joins Carla from the music departments as the senator and Josh is the alternate. Craig Justice, Vice President of Instruction, was another guest.
B. Public Comments: 1) Ilkner Urbas White—she discussed the faculty advisor handbook for ASIVC, which has apparently been around for many years and now, under the temp “Helen Locke,” faculty advisors are being told to follow it. But its requirements are not always sensible, says Ilkner. It over-regulates. She wants to know the mechanism for fixing this. Kathy advised that Academic Affairs look into it. Also suggestion that she will take it to SAMMO meeting to bring this issue to the attention of the college and administrative bodies. The link to this document will be placed on the minutes for this meeting under the Senate web page- take a look and let us know your thoughts. 2) Diana H. made three public comments – a) Solicited money for Wendy G.’s AD 73 campaign , b) announced: next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at CHOC hospital – fundraising play – and some of our students and former faculty will be in the production “Choctown Abbey” – c) announced: Roopa hosting student success summit: peer to peer presentations. Please attend Friday April 25 730-430 – food too. Diana will be presenting as well. 3) Carla – April is Part Time Faculty Appreciation Month. 4) Bob U – Congratulations to Priscilla and Life Sciences for the successful opening of the new building.
C. BOARD POLICIES AND ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATIONS: a) The cash handling policy – at the last meeting we approved the proposed draft of the A/R (administrative regulation) for cash handling despite some reservations. Kathy explained that we needed to have an A/R on the books as we have auditors at the district right now, but she assured the group that small exceptions will be made to the very detailed A/R for small cash handling issues that groups noted. Tracy F. provided some examples of confusing and objectionable language in the draft. Kathy reiterated that the policy has a blanket statement, providing for exceptions. Will come back to the next meeting with a revised draft. b)BP - Student Travel – Kathy: one pervasive problem in this revised AR/BP is that those traveling are expected to give lots of personal information, and this seems unnecessarily intrusive. This actually increased the liability of the district, in KS’s opinion. E.g., IF you receive detailed information about a person, you are now responsible to check the credibility of the information. She believes that if you are looking to protect the district from liability, rejecting these intrusive questions is the way to go. C) BP – Civility – Faculty and faculty reps have voted against it – not the content, but the notion that this should be approached via this kind of policy. (We fear that it can be wielded to censor and otherwise harm faculty.) Kathy, on behalf of the academic senate, will let the board know that even though this has been approved as per process, the faculty remains opposed to this policy – and this has been shown in all the committees and bodies where they voted. D) BP/AR– reflected IVC policies about building access. Our policy will stay the way we want it; those who want or need access, they can request campus safety to let them in. Saddleback has a stricter policy. The BP does reflect the different policies at our separate campuses. E) The key policy - Police, facilities, and Glenn drafted a new policy. Will allow all full time faculty to request and received keys for the outside entrance and internal labs and classrooms. Adjuncts can request keys with approval of their dean. This is a new policy.
D. INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS PROGRAM: Kathy reviewed the history of this discussion re the growth/expansion of the International Students Program. This item—expansion of the program—will stay on the senate agenda until we decide as a body to recommend an action of some kind. As things stand, we take this position: as a campus, we need to try keep the size of the program about the same, add resources to support current students, and do further research to determine success rates and needs.
E. Academic Senate Bylaws – 1) part time senate reps will be seated for an academic year and 2) elections will be held in a timely manner (i.e., asap).
F. COLOR STANDARDS FOR FURNITURE FACILITIES – Curiously, the existence of a color standard is denied by those who seem to impose it. Kathy will be investigation further. Please swamp asenate@ivc.ed and Kathy with evident examples/stories/incidents of these standards being imposed via catalogs, etc. in any of the groups of design or building meetings –Roy says: let the “swampage” commence!
G. PLUS MINUS GRADING OPTIONS: Tracy F. – her school and department asked for this to be put on the agenda for discussion as her school favors a change for the sake of greater precision. Apparently, many colleges adopt pluses and minuses. Also, keep in mind, if we switch to allowing the option of pluses/minuses, the GPA calculation does change - sometimes to the detriment of students. There was quite a bit of discussion – re: different schools’ usage, ed code regs , gpa impact. E.g., the C- is not allowed as a grade because 1.7 GPA would not be a passing grade. A+ and A are both 4.0 per ed code (i.e., granting A pluses is permitted, but they are recorded as 4.0, just like an A). Other peculiarities. This item will come back for more discussion. Please send you’re your thoughts and comments to Roy or me so we can represent our school.
H. SAFETY AND SECURITY: Send safety and security ideas and issues to Priscilla Ross for the safety committee to look at – she is the faculty rep on this committee. They are working on a report to bring to the senate. Roy discussed the need (also) to look at administrative presence in the evenings: night deans, who have largely disappeared. He mentioned the apparent widespread phenomenon of classes being let out very early during the nighttime sessions. Night deans currently go off the clock at 7:30 p.m., but some classes go until 10:15 (labs). Craig weighed in stating there is a police administrator in the evening to handle issues. He believes professors should have ethics to motive them to teach their full hours. He doesn’t believe that having an administrator walking around with a check-list at 9:40 pm is a good idea. (RB: clearly, Craig was explicitly rejecting any call for more administrative presence in the evening, appealing to the ideal solution to the problem as though it were a practical solution, which, plainly, it is not. In truth, Craig is offering no solution at all.)
I. Journalism Production Course – Melanie and Roy made clear what is being proposed, including support for the instructor in the form of LHE. (Some asked why the old program and newspaper were allowed to die; we briefly explained, emphasizing that, nowadays, “things are different.” [See, even I can wield rhetoric.) The vote in support of the endeavor was 21-0. Kathy also said she will take faculty support to all appropriate meetings she attends.
J. GE Pattern for Discharged Veterans – Asked to approve giving Veterans credit for Area 9 Life experience in the GE Pattern of requirements based on their training by waving the Area 9 requirement for Veterans. Curriculum drilled down and looked at the details and vetted this – their training and work does meet Area 9 for Native GE Pattern – no units will be given, but a check in the box that the area 9 as complete with no further coursework needed.
K. Resolution about ACCJC - Oxnard College drafted a resolution asking the ACCJC to be more collaborative and amend their behavior – in support of San Francisco City College, whose accreditation has been withdrawn. Our Senate voted to put on the record their support for this resolution, discussing the many ways the ACCJC has moved away from its mission. We are asked to also reflect over the break about this and let our senate cabinet know what else we would like the cabinet to do regarding this, at plenary or elsewhere. (RB: there seemed to be lots of passion about the badness of the ACCJC and its demands.)
L. Curriculum – Pre-reqs, co-reqs, and advisories being examined by curriculum because it has been law for two years and we need to start paying attention to following the law – more to come.
M. IVC 2 IVC – [Shameless plug to follow] Melanie will be co-presenting with Patric Taylor on Monday April 7^th from 4-7pm. Taylor, from our theater department, researched, created and published (for his doctoral dissertation) a unique strategy for teaching the content vocabulary in any course. Melanie helped test the strategy in the course of his research. This strategy works well and is easily incorporated into lectures and teaching – and costs nothing. They’ll demonstrate the strategy and discuss the research support and data. Please join them! Rumor has it that there will be Starburst candy during the presentation…

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College and district acronyms

DRAC – District Resources Allocation

BAARC – Basic Aid Allocation Committee

CET – Chancellor’s Executive Team

BPARC – District Board Policy and Administrative Regulations

SPOBDC -- Strategic Planning Oversight & Budget Development Committee

SPAC -- Strategic Planning and Accreditation Council

APTC – IVC Academic Planning and Technology Committee

SSAMMO – IVC Student Success/Access/Matriculation/Marketing & Outreach
BDRPC – IVC Budget Development and Resources Planning Committee See
See What's "Bark"? And what on Earth is the DRAC?

The Faculty's Role in Community College Decision Making*

The Concept of Shared Governance

Shared governance is a process created by the California state legislature that guarantees faculty input in the decision-making process of community colleges. The purpose of the law, AB 1725, was to provide a mechanism to insure that the expertise of the faculty would be used in developing college policies. Although the phrase "shared governance" is not found in the legislation, it has become the commonly used description of the process that provides for faculty input. AB 1725 mandates that colleges "consult collegially" with local Academic Senates (the law also encourages colleges to seek active participation of other constituencies such as classified staff or students in appropriate areas). Consult collegially means that the district governing board shall develop policies on academic and professional matters through either or both of the following:

1. Rely primarily upon the advice and judgment of the Academic Senate

2. The governing board, or its designees, and the Academic Senate shall reach mutual agreement.

The state identified "academic and professional" matters as eleven specific areas:

1. Curriculum, including establishing prerequisites
2. Degree and certificate requirements
3. Grading policy
4. Educational program development
5. Standards or policies regarding student preparation and success
6. College governance structures, as related to faculty roles
7. Faculty roles and involvement in accreditation processes
8. Policies for professional development activities
9. Processes for program review
10. Processes for institutional planning and budget development
11. Other academic and professional matters as mutually agreed upon.

Since each college determines exactly how shared governance will be implemented on its campus, the process varies widely in its scope and details. With relatively few exceptions, shared governance has provided California community college instructors with a vehicle for input into the decision making process unmatched in any other state.

*Provided by 4Faculty

The SOCCCD Academic Senates sue their district (and win)

[UPSHOT: the Chancellor/Board essentially unilaterally changed the district's full-time faculty hiring policy despite a statute according to which the Academic Senate (i.e., the faculty) has important rights in the development of such policies. In the end (2005), faculty entirely PREVAILED.]

Part 1: From Dissent 66, Oct. 7, 2002

LEGAL STORMS BREWING

I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks. —Coleridge

Intervention sought: During an August meeting of the IVC Academic Senate, it was suggested that, given the Chancellor & Board’s exclusion of the Academic Senate from governance, there really is no point in continuing. It was suggested, too, that the Senate might better devote its energies to seeking redress in the courts.

* * *

On September 12, the exec. cabinet of the IVC Academic Senate sent a letter to State Chancellor Nussbaum, seeking his “intervention” “to secure rights granted to local senates under Title 5” of the Ed Code. The letter cited four examples of the Board’s many actions in violation of “law, policy and process.” The first concerned the Board’s action (Fall 2000) to revise BP6120 (academic freedom), despite objections from the senates. Example 2 was the Board’s adoption (12/01) of a revision of BP5604 (eligibility for admission) despite “vehement” senate objections. Example 3 was the Board’s decision (2/02) to unilaterally revise BP 2100.1 (delegation of authority to academic senates), despite the policy’s explicitly prohibiting such action.

The fourth and most recent example concerned “revisions to District hiring policies,” including revisions to the Full-Time Academic Employees Hiring Policy, developed over the summer by Chancellor Mathur. These revisions, said the letter, “are rife with numerous individual violations of law, policy and good practice.” Despite Title 5, “At no time were any of the governance groups on either campus invited to participate, or even alerted to the existence of the committee.” Further, governance groups were given only 8 days to provide “input.”

* * *

The Senate’s letter yielded a response—a letter discovered belatedly, and already opened, in the senate president’s mail box! Dated Sept. 16, the letter, from Ralph Black, attorney for the State Chancellor’s Office, requested further info to determine whether his involvement “would be warranted.” Black offers a jurisdictional point: “Unless faculty hiring is listed as an ‘academic and professional matter’ under the SOCCCD shared governance policy..., faculty hiring does not fall under the jurisdiction of [the Board of Governors’] regulations.” (More on this later.)

On Sept. 25th, Mathur emailed the Saddleback Academic Senate, suggesting that he is under no obligation to consult the Academic Senates regarding modifications of the hiring policy. To support this odd view, he cited Black’s letter and its point about jurisdiction, but he ignored Black’s remark, in the same letter, that Faculty hiring procedures are covered by [the] Education Code..., which requires that “hiring criteria, policies, and procedures for new faculty members shall be developed and agreed upon jointly by representatives of the governing board, and the academic senate….” (Ralph Black)

Late in 1993, the Board approved a “Full Time Academic Employees Hiring Policy” that makes clear that the hiring policy can be changed only upon mutual agreement between the district and the faculty senates. This, of course, is the crucial “further information” that Ralph Black needs and will soon receive.

* * *

Budget development, of course, is plainly listed among the academic and professional matters of the district’s “shared governance” policy (2100.1). Hence, a failure to consult with the academic senate regarding budget development would be a violation of “shared governance”—one that clearly does fall under Black’s jurisdiction. Mr. Black will be interested to learn that, at IVC, the senate has been excluded from the budget development process for years.

Part 2: From Dissent 67, April 14, 2003

[“Kurt Bozny” is one of Chunk’s alter-egos.]

According to a statute, faculty hiring policies are to be “mutually” agreed upon by the district (i.e., the board) and the faculty (i.e., the academic senates).

During the Summer of 2002, Chancellor Mathur established a committee, including no faculty, that developed a new hiring policy. The faculty were not even informed of this committee’s work. The product of the committee—a truly appalling and incompetent policy—was then adopted by the board.

Thus, at long last, the faculty senate sued the district. (It was about time!) Below describes the serving of papers and its immediate aftermath.

April 14, 2003

Saddleback and Irvine Valley Colleges' Academic Senates Sue the District

By Kurt Bozny

April 8:

Santa Ana, 1:15 p.m.: Wendy files the much anticipated “faculty hiring policy” lawsuit against the SOCCCD Board of Trustees and Chancellor RAGHU P. MATHUR. She’s well-prepared, and so she breezes through the paperwork. Soon, she’s out the door, headin’ south!

2:10: Wendy’s back at IVC. She and I decide to head down south together to serve Mathur with the writ and the attached documents—a big stack. It’s good to bring an observer, cuz some people get way squirrelly when you try to serve ‘em with a lawsuit, and Mathur’s definitely the type.

I briefly search for one of those neon green “legal observer” caps like they wear at the big protests in L.A., but I can’t find one. Dang!

Mission Viejo, 2:40: we’re up on the 3rd floor of the Library, closin’ in on Chancellor Mathur’s office. I catch a glimpse of Mathur exiting his office, movin’ towards Robina Husting’s desk. He hasn’t spotted us yet.

Wendy closes in, holdin’ the thick stack of legal papers in front of her. As it turns out, Mathur is holding a similar stack of papers in front of him. The two meet in the small space in front of Robina’s desk. Mathur just stands there. So Wendy places her stack on top of Mathur’s stack, sayin’, “You’re served.”

Mathur’s horrified. The indecorous fellow now jostles and squirms to avoid holding the papers, but it’s too late—he’s got ‘em.

I’m thinkin’: “Does he actually suppose that the lawsuit won’t happen if he avoids holdin’ this stuff?”

Finally, in a desperate attempt to avoid being served, Raghu shoves the legal papers forward and they fall to the floor. Fwap!

Legally speaking, such fwappage is irrelevant; he’d been served and, once again, he’d attained the title “Respondent Mathur.” Besides, leaving the lawsuit on his secretary’s desk counts, too, so Wendy now picks up the papers and places ‘em there.

Meanwhile, I size up the Chancellor’s unseemly conduct. “How rude,” I proclaim. We exit.

Respondent Mathur struggles to think of a comeback, but Attorney Wendy (and her cap-less Boswell) are already out the door.

Finally, he’s got one. He shouts:

“How rude are YOU!”

* * *

Wendy Gabriella

April [9]: The next day, the district issues a peevish press release. It says:

SOCCCD Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur…commented on a lawsuit filed by the IVC and Saddleback College Academic Senates that disputes a new SOCCCD faculty hiring policy, stating, “The district is following the guidelines established under Title 5 that defines the ‘Delegation of Authority to the Academic Senates.’ There are 11 areas within the scope of academic and professional matters for which the academic senates have primary responsibility.

“The State Chancellor’s office has confirmed our view,” Mathur said, “that our hiring policies do not fall within the primary responsibility of the faculty….”

This is classic Mathur. The State Chancellor’s office does indeed hold that hiring policies are not among the 10 + 1 areas in which faculty are assigned primary responsibility by Title 5, a state regulation.

The problem is that the lawsuit does not mention Title 5 and it does not allege that Title 5 has been violated. Rather, it alleges that the new policies, and the manner in which they were developed and approved, violate an Ed Code statute (EC87360) and utterly defeat the intentions of legislators.

Ed Code statutes, of course, are more than regulations; they’re laws. They count bigtime.

In other words, with regard to the issue of faculty “hiring” policies, we don’t need no stinkin’ Title 5.

Respondent Mathur is ignoring—or failing to understand—that, in reality, the State Chancellor’s office takes the following view:

Education Code section 87360 requires governing board and academic senate representatives to agree on hiring criteria, policies and procedures to be adopted by the board. (Letter from California Community College Chancellor’s Office, Ralph Black, General Counsel, January 29, 2002).

In the District’s press release, Board President Don “So sue me” Wagner offers his own spin, expressing “disappointment” that the senates have decided to force the district to “spend money on attorneys, rather than students.”

* * *

On the 10th, the Register reports that

In an unprecedented move, the faculty senates of both Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges have voted to sue their district chancellor and trustees over a new hiring policy that gives more power to college administrators at the expense of traditional academic hiring committees.

The lawsuit … asks a judge to set aside the new hiring policy because it was not approved by each college’s Academic Senate.

When the new rules were approved by a 4-3 vote by the …trustees in January, faculty representatives unsuccessfully pleaded with the board for more time to discuss them.

The state’s Education Code requires that hiring criteria and policies for new faculty members must be developed “and agreed upon jointly” by board members and the Academic Senate….

…Typically, new college instructors are selected by hiring committees made up of faculty members who are experts in the field and the head of the department. Their selection is usually ratified by the college president, the district’s board of trustees or both.

According to Wendy Gabriella, an IVC instructor and attorney who filed the lawsuit, faculty members were particularly unhappy with new rules that allow the district’s human resources director to change the scores awarded by committee members if she deems them too far off the norm and to unilaterally change interview questions.

Professors were also displeased with a new ethics and confidentiality section of the hiring policy that allows the human resources director to investigate and punish any member of a hiring committee who is accused of violating confidentiality.

“The policy allows the human resources department to accuse hiring committee members of bias, change their scores and discipline them without any due process or opportunity for appeal,” [said the] Irvine Valley Academic Senate President….

* * *

Also on the 10th, the President of the IVC Academic Senate, Greg Bishopp, sends a memo to IVC faculty. (The Saddleback Senate Prez later spams it to Saddleback faculty.) It says:

The Academic Senates of IVC and Saddleback College have filed suit in California Superior Court to block the implementation of a faculty hiring policy, which they believe to violate … the California Education Code. While the trustees and the administration of the SOCCCD maintain that their new policy, and the process used to develop this policy, does not violate the law, the Academic Senates claim that they do. In violation of the law, the Senates maintain, district administration has failed to allow faculty involvement in developing the procedures for hiring new faculty members. As a result, the adopted policy is fraught with violations of law, policy, and accepted practice.

Prez Bishopp also notes that the senates have “exhausted all internal means of appeal” and that, in January, Wagner “invited the Senates to sue the district to resolve the legality of the Board of Trustees’ alteration of board policy.”

That Wagner is quite a guy!

Bishopp closes by noting that the record

shows who has been responsible for wasting the district’s money in the past. Board President Don Wagner has stated that, “our district will again prevail on this misguided litigation.” However, in the seven legal actions brought by members of the faculty against the Board of Trustees, the courts have sided with the faculty and against the Board every single time, demonstrating that the Board, by violating the law, has been responsible for the suits, not the litigiousness of the plaintiffs. If the Board of Trustees does not wish to spend money on litigation, it should avoid breaking the law.

* * *

The district’s new faculty hiring policies (BP4011, 4011.1, 4011.2) are available online at the Saddleback College Academic Senate website.

Those who wish to read the statute should go to

Statute

To read a review of the statute and its relation to the historic AB1725 legislation, one might start by reading the local senates “handbook” on the State Academic Senate’s website:

Handbook

See you in court! —KB

Part 3

Judge Clay Smith
[10/10/09:]

Here’s what happened next:

Judge Clay Smith ruled that the district had indeed failed to include the faculty in the development of the faculty hiring policy, contrary to law. He thus ordered the district and senates to get together to develop a faculty hiring policy. But, in the end, the district’s representatives and the senates’ representatives did not see eye to eye on major issues, and so the district unilaterally pushed through the version of the policy that it liked, and it pronounced that policy the product of the committee. That policy was almost as appalling as the one that was neutralized by Smith.

Surprisingly, despite the vociferous objections of the Academic Senates to the new policy, Judge Smith ruled that the policy was indeed the product of “mutual agreement.”

It was an absurd judgment.

The Academic Senates appealed.

By summer 2005, the appellate justices unanimously acted to overturn and vacate Smith’s absurd judgment. The board tried one or two last ditch efforts to have the court reconsider, but to no avail. The academic senates had won, and that was that.

The senates had prevailed, period. That meant that the only valid policy was the one developed at the end of 1993 (that one was mutually agreed to). It was good from the faculty’s perspective.

The appellate justices urged the parties to work out their differences, and so, in the Fall of 2005, district representatives (namely, Mathur, the instigator of the original unilaterally imposed policy, and Lang, now the board president) and Academic Senate reps (namely, the two senate Presidents and the union president) mutually developed a policy that both sides could agree on.

That work was completed by late October, 2005. This mutually ageed to policy is a vast improvement.

At the time of writing, it only remains for the board to approve the new policy, and there is every indication that they will do just that. If they fail to do so, then the decidedly faculty-friendly 1993/4 policy will apply.

[The policy was approved.]

Thursday, March 20, 2014

• March 20, 2014 Senate Meeting

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