September 17 Senate meeting
Student
reps came up to urge improving course availability. Lugubrious pleas were made,
tears were shed. Possibly, these two students were under the impression that
faculty don’t want to teach these high-demand courses. In general, they seemed clueless.
(At the last meeting, one of these kids acknowledged—in the course of soliciting faculty
support of student government—that the only reason he participates
in Student Government is because it looks good on his record. Nope, I'm not making that up.)
Kathy
explained the various considerations that make it difficult to address the high-demand course availability issues.
VPI
Craig Justice also responded to these students. We’re well aware of the
problem, he said. In the case of the high-demand physics courses, efforts are being made to
double the number of labs. Takes time, but we are responding. (He alluded,
darkly, to a confidential personnel matter over in physics land.) Re attempts
to provide enough writing courses: there were some empty seats for Wr 201 this summer, yadda yadda yadda. We’ve experienced bottlenecks because we’ve been
growing so fast as a college. Things will get better; we’re “working on it.”
So
said Craig.
Brittany
pleasantly assured these students that faculty are indeed concerned about course
availability. There are limits to the number of courses adjuncts can teach, and
sometimes we have too few faculty for what should be offered. Faculty share
your concerns, she said, and you should not worry that faculty are unwilling to
teach courses that are in high demand.
Kathy
explained: increase demand in certain physics courses is a new phenomenon and
we haven’t had a chance to respond. Takes time turning the Titanic around. Blah blah.
Melanie
H again described her anti-breast cancer efforts (Susan B. Komen). Showed us
“Bunco for Boobies” swaggery. “Pink things for sale.” Contact Melanie if you want to support these anti-cancer hoofers.
In
the interest of time, Kathy forewent providing a report. (Whew!)
Bob
U had no such reservations:
If you plan to do resource requests, he said, consider getting training
at the workshop. Those people will help you (Bruce Hagan, Davit, et al. Thursdays all
day.)
On
behalf of a colleague, I asked a question about the budget:
RE the Budget document: Why is there a tab specifically for Faculty Salary
Calculations, and not one for Administrative Salary Calculations?
Kathy
offered an answer: Because of faculty salary schedules, it is easier to guestimate
new faculty salaries. So budgeters can plug in a number that’s pretty close.
Not so for administrators and managers, whose salaries fall on a wide and
irregular spectrum.
Kathy said that this is the answer we always get to this
question, and so perhaps it is true and correct.
Diana H (of Curriculum) kinda looked like she had just rolled down a hill. Still breathless, she had only had one point to make, she said. One of our goals is
to “relook at” native general education courses (I think she was referring to
those who pursue an AA degree but who do not follow the special college-transfer tracks.) There are two
separate agendas here, she said. Tiffany wants a “good solid review.” D’s
agenda: to reduce the number of courses. Cut it down so that faculty can have
more freedom defining majors. We can’t double-count units the way the rules are
now written. GE is bloated. So she said.
We have new people on Curric committee, said Diana. That’s fine, but we need
grizzled veterans too. Tell your grizzled veterans to come and help, she said.
(Everyone looked at my and Steve’s hair.)
Kathy responded to Diana: The GE pattern: yes we can change that for
the native pattern. The other issue: how many courses fulfill a particular
category: a different question really. These two agendas can coexist. And so on.
(The
proportion of the studentry that takes this “native” [non-IGETC, etc.] path is
small, evidently. So we were discussing Zebras, not horses.)
Item
6: BPs and ARs
I
raised a question about campus security (one of the BP/ARs going to the board
concerns safety or security). I noted that there’s been longstanding concern about safety
on our campus—e.g., safety for faculty (and students, et al.) arriving at empty
parking lots late at night. Blah blah blah, said Kathy. Yep, that hasn’t been addressed.
Eventually we discussed how best to handle difficult situations in the classroom.
Apparently, if you are confronted with a troublesome knife-wielding student, and
you’re on the phone with the cops, and you don’t want to come right out and
say, “send a cop,” you can say, “I’m calling Mr. Armstrong.” It’s code for: lunatic
afoot!
Didn’t
know that, eh? ("What about Ms. Armstrong?" I mused aloud.)
We
voted on making Dan D the rep for Calendar committee. Passed unanimously. Sorry, Dan.
Re
Calendar committee, etc:
I
noted that at least one among us (in Humanities) had an issue: she is
displeased at having the Wednesday before Thanksgiving an instructional Day. She offered several reasons. I
think Brittany jumped in to make the case. (Maybe I remember that incorrectly.
Brittany?)
Kathy
explained that the pros and cons of teaching on that Wednesday have been duly
considered by the calendar committee. Hey, they haven't just now fallen off a turnip wagon. They are aware of all the considerations. It's a complex
matter, she said.
Re
contract ed (etc.):
I
mentioned possible meddling by Crean administration with respect to faculty
assignments. (We’ve long provided contract ed for Crean Lutheran. Years ago,
the Crean folks pressured some of our instructors to sign some crazy oath the
gist of which was that they were on board with Lutheran dogma and would squawk accordingly in the
classroom. Some such nonsense. We blew this up into a big issue on Dissent the
Blog. We made a big stink.)
Craig
attempted to put the onus on faculty. If the Crean people are meddling, he said, faculty
should inform the dean, inform the chair—immediately. He sniffed.
Brittany
chimed in to describe an instance of meddling this summer. It sounded pretty bad.
Those Crean people didn’t like who we had teaching a course.
Craig
listened and then, looking concerned yet peeved, pronounced: “They don’t get to do that.” Again, he said,
“report this stuff right away to Cathleen [Greiner] or Karima.”
After
the meeting, Cathleen Greiner approached Brittany and me, holding the Crean
contract, which clearly says that IVC departments should be calling the
shots re teaching assignments and the like.
Yes, yes, yes. The real issue here is that faculty have plenty to do, and so we aren't especially careful to monitor what happens at Crean and other off-campus sites. So shit happens. Eternal vigilance is the thing, but who's got time for that? When we aren't paying attention, amazing shit happens. That's the pattern. Adjuncts, who do almost all of this kind of teaching, are not motivated to squawk, so, generally, they don't.
Next,
we discussed the resolution (to be sent to the State Academic Senate, for their
consideration) challenging the Accreditor (ACCJC) on its continued reliance on
the discredited educational philosophy behind SLOs.
Kathy displayed the version of the resolution that was presented—and oddly
rejected—at the State Senate last Spring. She discussed some perceived problems
with it. (Some didn’t like reference to the relative success of “other
countries” who eschew SLOs. Some wanted citations of actually research.)
Let’s
slowly craft an edit of this res that makes it stronger, she said.
There
seemed to be much support for the resolution idea.
I
noted that ACCJC is essentially under the umbrella of WASC [the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the big accreditor out west], and it is likely
that, upon being challenged, the ACCJC will simply direct us to WASC, which
does seem to embrace some version of the SLO philosophy, no doubt because of pressure from the Dept of Ed during the Bush years.
Kathy
then seemed to say that the way SLOs are required (by WASC) in non-community
colleges is essentially consistent with the learning objectives those colleges have listed on course
outlines; but in the Cal CC system, owing to the eccentricities of the ACCJC
and its leadership, we are compelled to come up with SLOs that are somehow
distinct from learning objectives. –Something like that. The upshot is that we're involved in a massive waste of time and money that other systems are not.
Maybe
so. In any case, if we’re going to bring a res to the State Senate, we’ve got
to get going on its content, since the next meeting is in late October.
If you have any suggestions about this, please send them to me, or to Kathy.
We discussed
staff development funds. There was much discussion about amount, process,
limits. The adjunct Senate rep made quite a plea for the importance of these
funds for part-timers. It sounds like the Ac Affairs committee is not done
discussing these issues.
I
noted that one among us (in Humanities) hopes that the committee will “consider splitting the
application for funds period by semester so that those of us more likely to
attend conferences in spring but less likely to have them organized within the
first four weeks of fall can still have a shot at reimbursement.” This suggestion
was immediately embraced as a “good idea,” and Brent was told to write it down
and do something.
Don’t hold your breath.
Craig
Hayward came up to make a plea for the Senate’s support of IVC’s participation
in the AACC [that's a national community college organization] Pathways Project. You can
read all about it here:
Essentially,
teams will be created to show up at some national conference to learn about
“research” about how to increase all-important “completion.” The money for all of this comes
from the Gates Foundation.
Hayward
seems to think that this whole thing is just swell, but some of us weren’t so
sure. Brittany noted that the Gates Foundation has had a mixed record, having
sometimes funded problematic projects (e.g., charter schools in the K-12
system).
I
noted that some of us find this project problematic because it seems
insubstantial and because it fully embraces the current “monomania” about
completion, a sensibility that many of us find offensive.
We
were running into overtime, and so Kathy seemed to want to put this up for a
vote. I attempted to stall the vote until the next meeting, but Kathy (oddly)
suggested that we vote now – and we can always rescind our support later
(huh?).
In
the end, the vote was 14 – 4 – 6. It passed. So, unless we make a stink, our
Senate is on record supporting this goofy “Pathways” project. Just think of all the valuable research we'll learn about! It will rock our world.
Not.
--And that was about it.
--Roy
