Public comments:
There was once again mention that there will be updates for
an improved plan for maintenance. Once
again, nothing really solid to prove it.
There was concern also voiced about the way in which deans
have their contracts not renewed (aka the way they are fired).
Very little to zero input has been taken from faculty. People are concerned about the amount of
overturn that is seen among deans (especially in Biological Sciences and
Businesses). It was also announced that
David Gatewood will not have his contract renewed and he will finish the
remainder of the academic year.
Beverly De Nicola and Cathleen Griener presented the new
AB86 (adult education) plans. There
wasn’t much content presented. At the
end of it, it only became clear that it is unclear exactly what the role of IVC
and California Community Colleges will be in adult education. This may or may not affect faculty as
curriculum could potentially have to be written (and then of course taught…though
no one ever mentioned that).
VP report:
SPAC has sent spending recommendations for resource
requests. We are waiting on the
president to make decisions about what will ultimately get funded.
On November 17th at 1:30PM, there will be a
meeting about building and architecture projects at ATEP/"The College of the
Future.”
We have also received basic aid funding for better classroom
technology. There are discussions about lecture capture and voice lecture
capture being put into classrooms. (If
this goes through, I plan to videotape myself once and then simply just plug in
a video of myself teaching while I browse instagram and shop online. Good deal!). [Please note: academic humor.]
Academic Affairs
Report:
The bad news: all professional development funds are spoken
for.
The good news: you
are encouraged to still submit as often there is money left over. Additionally, it makes a better argument that
we need more funding for next year if more money is requested than budgeted.
Curriculum Report:
When new degrees are submitted or new revisions are
submitted for degrees, you will have to fill out six additional pieces of the
narrative. As new degrees are created
or revised, we will have to seek advice from our curriculum reps to figure out
how to do this properly. (More evidence that the state never ever wants us to
do anything new ever again.)
President’s Report
and Actions Taken:
There are new AR and BP that discuss and define the duties
and responsibilities of the academic department chair.
A board hiring policy was pulled by Saddleback (we reported
about this last month), and so for now, we have no new board hiring policy.
Arguably most
important developments at the meetings:
It was announced to the entire Senate that we, of the
Humanities and people who understand that gender is a social construction, are
going to try to realign Women’s Studies. Curriculum has been tasked with making a recommendation to AAC about
this. They are charged with looking to
see what other schools do with their women’s studies departments (this should
work in our favor as 0% of California campuses have women’s studies in G&C). They are also to look at the way that
counseling has updated their women’s studies curriculum (since G&C hasn’t
updated them substantially aside from deleting older courses since curricunet
has existed, this should also work in our favor). Eventually the Senators are going to take
action and vote on realignment. This
should not happen for a few more weeks.
Don’t worry, I will let you know when and where you should show up. I have been working on channeling the spirits
of Alice Paul and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
I will be ready at Senate, but we are probably going to need to bring
out the forces to show our school’s support.
Roy and I will let you know the dates where we will need support to show
up in solidarity.
The scholarship document that had been circulating was
approved with a few stipulations, including the requirement that two faculty
members be trained how to use the STARS scholarship system. This was agreed to by those tasked with the
scholarship process, who attended the past two meetings in some show of
understanding that there was major faculty concern. They are not the same people who ran the
system last year though they are still from financial aid. Hopefully this will translate to an
improvement in the process. We were
promised that new descriptions and requirements for scholarships will be sent
out to the people that offer or support the scholarships to make sure they are
correct. Additionally, there is
acknowledgment by our VPSS that this needs to work better than it has. We will
see. There have been loud voices among
Senate to try to improve this system. If
it doesn’t work, this will be a continued battle.
And perhaps most important, Roy reported to the Senate that
we in Humanities are no longer disgruntled, but “pleased as punch.” It was quickly noted that there was irony in
his voice.
No comments:
Post a Comment