Some of this is important, I suppose.
A health professional by the name of Stacy Lavino (MS, LMFT ) gave a presentation of mental health services here at IVC. It all sounded pretty good, I guess, except that Lavino is our only “mental health” specialist and she’s available only 25 hours a week. Meanwhile, student are freaking out over the usual things plus the latest Trumpian horrors.
The last item, Item 22 (COR, SLO, Syllabus), was placed first. Essentially, the issue concerns new Accreditation demands regarding “course outlines of record” (CORs). The Accreds, it seems, require that a course’s SLOs appear—really, not just sort of—on its COR, but that’s not the case for IVC CORs. Shiny new VPI, Chris McDonald, thought he had solved that problem by adding a red box on each COR labeled “SLOs” and pointing at the existing “Learning Objectives” per outline. (I.e., he sought to magically turn our LOs into SLOs via such labeling.)
That won’t pass muster. (What was he thinking?)
So what to do? McDonald then hatched the minimalist plan of cutting and pasting existing course SLOs from TrackDat, where they now reside, into an unused box on the CORs (under “methods of evaluation”). But Kathy Schmeidler (senate prez) and her crew carped, owing to the absence of “vetting” of said SLOs through senate committees/processes. The unstated premise here was perhaps that some of these SLOs are south of excellent, albeit duly authored by “faculty experts.” Of course, if they are south of excellent, they are so wherever we put them. And so it seems that Schmeidler and crew were advocating some massive effort to get our SLOs up to snuff asap as per some Senate process. (Note: SLOs are only an Accred concern; the Cal CC bureaucracy only cares about LOs.)
Natch, some faculty took umbrage, noting that existing SLOs were penned by faculty experts, so “why is the senate sticking its nose in where it don’t belong.” And many of us have taken the position that SLOs are “bullshit” and that we may as well produce easily-conceived bullshit SLOs. The “quality” point goes nowhere with that crowd no matter who’s the judge.
Whatever. The senate got bogged down in a debate over this. Growing weary of such down-boggery, I moved that we accept McDonald’s recommendation and, soon, that passed (20/3/2). Done deal. The only compromise: Schools/disciplines will be able to revise their SLOs (getting them up to snuff, I guess) up to December 5. After that date, McDonald’s cutting and the pasting begins.
Item 16 was “Basic Skills Coordinator.” Brooke Choo is now an interim dean and so we need her replacement on Basic Skills. Angel Hernandez has agreed to finish up the semester and Brent Monte has agreed to serve in this role in Spring.
Item 17 was “Senate Elections: Open Nominations for Curriculum Chair, Assistant Curriculum Chair, Academic Affairs Chair, Recorder, and Past President.”
Schmeidler and Urell are not pursuing the P and VP offices. We need candidates.
We’ve received no nominations. (Historically, it is about now that Ray Chandos pops up as a nominee. You don’t want that.)
Meanwhile, Chris L is a nominee for Curriculum, Cheryl D is a nominee for recorder, and Brett is willing to continue as chair of Academic Affairs.
No action taken. Nominations stay open until the next meeting.
Item 20 is “Hiring Committee Appointments.” We need a member of faculty to volunteer to serve on the search committee for VPI. In the end, we gave it to Diana Hurlbut (because Chris L didn’t want to compete for the role).
Kathy Schmeidler will serve on the Chancellor search committee.
—Roy
