December 3 meeting: "This is not trivial," he said. "We're in a crisis."

     SCHOLARSHIPS. An unfamiliar fellow said a few words about our troubled scholarship program. Yadda yadda yadda. Kathy S added some yaddas, emphasizing our obligation, as faculty, to “step up” to join the committees that review student applications. Recall that, last year, we brought it about that two of the three people on these review committees must be faculty. (This did not make classified happy. Kathy likes to remind them that "scholarship" has the word "scholar" in it.)

     EMPLOYEE CLIMATE SURVEY. I mentioned the curious fact that the district and colleges have done nothing to promulgate or discuss last year’s employee climate survey, which is scathing in all the predictable ways. Kathy S noted that the Accred Report process is a “crowbar” that will pry open the contents of that survey. You can run, but you cain't hide.

     Melanie, on behalf of Brooke, reported support for LGBTQ issues at the recent State Senate Plenary.

     Kathy mentioned yesterday’s presentations on “active shooter” situations. No details were reported.

     Positive news was offered re the Foundation and its new, expanded membership and its new leadership. Things are much improved, foundationwise.

     Accreditation is “chugging along.” Kathy reported Tod B’s comments this morning about a state meeting (CCLC meeting) he attended with the State Chancellor. Straw poll taken: 50% wanted to keep ACCJC but change its leadership. (You’ll recall that both Tod and Glenn refrained from supporting the Task Force’s recommendations re ACCJC, including the rec that we drop that agency as our accreditor. Meanwhile, our senate endorsed the recommendations.)

     I noted the fact that, during debate of this issue (re whether to endorse the Task Force’s recommendations), the faculty went one way (the only reasonable way, i.e., contra ACCJC) and our administrative leadership (Todd, Glenn) went the other way (essentially supporting ACCJC).
     As it turns out, that’s not quite accurate since, as I was informed, the Saddleback Senate did not  endorse the recommendations and instead maintained neutrality.

     Shame.

     We blew off the item re review of BPs and ARs, etc., since the committee hasn’t met.

     WEEKEND COLLEGE. Dean Traci F presented on the “Weekend College” proposal (see last meeting). WC would generate some FTES. How much? It would be a pretty “decent” revenue generator, she said. It would help with our problem with student headcount, namely, that we may fail to hit our “growth target.” We can survey our own students about this idea, said Traci or Kathy or somebody.
     Craig chimed in: we want to know whether students who are not here would find this program attractive (no such program operates in our part of the state). At the right scale, WC could be very feasible, said Craig. For a large group of students, said Craig, Sunday “is not their Sabbath. Saturday is." (No, he wasn't kidding.) Craig spoke of our “growth target” and how expanding WC would address that. He said we need to do more to “coordinate” this program.
     Kathy’s “sense” of things: we can start without a full-blown program and see how WC Junior goes. Traci chimed in to say, “yes, that’s what we have in mind.”

     Craig: we could market as we once did: theaters, radio. What about social media? We’ve done little there. We have little Twitter presence. “Diane is very open to [all] that,” said Craig. “Our enrollment has been flat two Falls in a row.” If we don’t get creative, we won’t hit our targets, thus losing $1.6 million. “This is not trivial,” said Craig, finally.

     The Liberal Arts Building is now scheduled to be opened in the Fall. So that’s good: more teaching space.

     You’ll be hearing lots more about enrollment management. In some areas, the only things holding us back is lack of rooms and instructors. Weekend College “is just another niche in providing enrollment.”

     Craig: many IGETC courses are highly impacted and we can easily increase sections of those.

     Kathy: perhaps we as a body (the Senate) can act to support a proto-Weekend College as a start. Motion: “Rep Council strongly supports going forward with this project (with adequate marketing).”
     I controlled both of our School's votes (Brittany was out of town) and I decided to split our vote down the middle. You know, like Solomon, but without the blood.

     Craig: we’ve got to grow, not just maximize things as they are (some such sentiment). We’re in a crisis.

* * *

Craig: "We're in a crisis"

     It seems clear that administration wants to pursue the Weekend College idea. NOTE WELL: In the past, questionable programs have been pursued and faculty have essentially been powerless to stop them (e.g., Early College). That's the pattern under Prez Roquemore. We should be very clear whether we want to take this WC path. Later, I doubt that we’ll be able to reverse gears. The Senate’s vote today gave administration pretty much what they wanted (though there were 3 negative votes, including, oddly, Kiana T's).

     Craig: I will continue to nag chairs to add courses that get filled up.

     FINAL SCHEDULE SNAFU. Kathy asked Craig to update us on the final schedule issue. Craig: the long and short of it: any changes to the current, published schedule have been retracted. We're going with the original schedule, OK? Still, there are some conflicts. Changing the schedule to fix conflicts is “inappropriate,” said Craig. About 50 classes have conflict issues. I will contact faculty to solicit info about these conflicts. The reason conflicts are inevitable, said Craig, is that not all classes use the block scheduling (e.g., some 8-week courses, etc.).
     You can join the group that is working on this issue. Contact Craig. Kathy’s in charge of it, I think.

     CALENDAR RECOMMENDATION MADE. Item 11: calendar. Have you heard from your faculty about the five proposed calendars? (I haven’t, not from anyone in my own School.)
     We discussed Fall first. One of the ideas had all of Thanksgiving “taken off.” (I.e., no classes that week.) D1 and D2 are the same for the Fall. D3: half a week off Thanksgiving week.  Finals start on the 13^th-19^th. D4 the same. Three arrangements for Fall, then. Also: day off day before Thanksgiving.

     Motion: D1 for the Fall. I split Hum’s vote. The motion got 13 votes (vs. 11) but a motion must receive 14 to pass.

     Someone moved in favor of D5 for the Fall. Wednesday before Thanksgiving a “contractual day.” We voted. Again, I split Hum’s vote.  Result: 14 to 10. So our body recommended D5 for Fall. (Not a done deal; it’s just our recommendation!)

     Now Spring. D5 and D6 have the same Fall. President’s weekend a 4-day. Final’s start on the 16^th. Etc. The discussion seriously got into the weeds. Motion for D6; that turned out: 14, 9, 1. So we’re recommending D6 for the Spring. (And since D5 and D6 are the same for the Fall, we’ve chosen D6.)

     Got it? D6 it is.
     See: D6

     PLANNING AND DECISION-MAKING MANUAL. We looked at proposed changes. We saw “participatory governance decision making process flowchart.” This was a sticking point. The issues here were mind numbing. Where shall the arrows go? And the boxes?

     Early College Advisory Task Force membership: change made. Traci: a huge task force and members never showed. So it has been streamlined. One semester meeting.

     Passed by a wide margin.

     WHENCE EARLY COLLEGE RECOMMENDATIONS? I asked about the Senate’s recommendations for changes in the Early College program, put forward last Spring. These included the notion that all EC colleges should be taken at IVC, among our regular student population. Kathy: Some high schools have essentially adopted our recommendations, but Beckman is adamant that they love the program the way it is and they don’t want these changes. (Said Kathy: our recommendations "arrived" just as the college signed a contract with the high schools, so that was one difficulty with our recs.) Kathy assured me that our recommendations are not “dead.” At the very least, we’ll make an effort to persuade the high schools of the wisdom of those recommendations (e.g., having all courses at IVC). Craig said that the “new dean” with oversight will be considering and discussing these recommendations in Spring. Motion passed by wide margin.

     FACULTY HIRES. Craig: We’re going forward with “no fewer than 11 hires” at IVC. Our FON numbers are OK. (Not so at Saddleback?) We were supposed to get state funding for additional hires. Basic Aid districts were excluded from money. But if we emulate the state model (via district allocations), we might get the money anyway.
     Oh good.

Teddy, cat