Senate meeting, Rep Council, IVC, March 30, 2017

Academic Senate meeting, March 30, 2017

(See agenda)

     Brittany and I walked in five minutes late—in the middle of discussion about the child care center, which has been losing money for years. Costs us half a million a year. Now looking at situation of day care center. (Closing it?)

Executive reports:

     Prez Kathy: blah blah blah

     VP Bob U: working through process of review of resource requests. We’ll have something in the next few weeks. We have some significant budget challenges, shortfall situations. Well bring more information in next couple of weeks.

     Chris of Curriculum: Curriculum workgroup looking at residency requirement.

     Target date for new and revised courses Aug 25, for Fall 18

     April 21 for revised courses.

Board Policy/AR review process:

     Board policies on nepotism. Blah blah blah. (Laughter about nepotism all around us. Resignation.)

     4011.3 – recruitment of classified staff. Much better, greatly improved.

Item 9: faculty student club advisor handbook – update

      “Cessa” (aka Anissa Heard-Johnson, Director or Student Life) gave the report.

     At each flex week we have advisor meetings, address any issues and concerns. Passes out notes from last two meetings. Blah, blah, blah.

     It seems to me that Cessa yammered endlessly and inarticulately, seemingly scrambling to disguise the fact that, at this late date, she’s got nothin’: the handbook is far from finished/helpful. On and on she went, making little sense. “My timeline is your timeline,” she said, handing us some gooey hot potato, I guess.

     Lots of issues related, she said; hard to go forward. There are some people willing to come together to work all of this out. E.g., Must one be faculty to serve as an advisor? Different answers float around. Need to arrive at policies, but can’t do that unilaterally. (I’m paraphrasing.)

     So my notes say “Cessa offered inarticulate blatherings and a general ‘don’t be blamin’ me.’”

     I looked around the room and could find no faces encouraging me to suppose that others regard Cessa as I do.

     So, make of that what you will.

Item 15 – residency requirements. Are we ready to discuss? See E

     The item was continued

Item 16 – Sanctuary campuses

     Very prominent in the news. 

     June McLaughlin (Law): Saddleback sent out an announcement—something about a “safety net.” See website. Not quite sanctuary. Statement of solidarity or support.

     Kathy: our district chancellor has sent out a statement in support of students: no one will be hunted down, that sort of thing. The UC system has identified specific support services to be provided.

     The senate had a pretty good discussion of this topic. Most senators seemed interested in taking some kind of action. But at least one senator clearly was agin’ any kind of sanctuarifyin’.

     The ever-demure Ilknur kept pressing: don’t want to get in trouble, don’t want to get in jeopardy, very worried about making any kind of “sanctuary” move. (I do believe that VP of SS Linda F made similar noises at a recent senate meeting.)

     June: some students were kids when they were brought to this country and they had no say in their status. They did not bring about their situation, and they’re scared.

     I suggested that “we” (Brittany and I, the School of Hum) will try to come up with ideas, verbiage for resolutions, whatnot. (If we want anything on the agenda, we’ll have to make that move by this Thursday.)

    ANYBODY INTERESTED?

     I indicated that many of my colleagues seem interested in “doing something.”

Item 17: Faculty ONLINE instruction handbook (See drafts.) 

     Roopa M, chair of the relevant committee, seemed a bit defensive about the new handbook draft with its online course evaluation procedures, etc. She said peer review is not a faculty evaluation; it is a course evaluation. 

     Take that!

     Bob U seemed somewhat skeptical about these recommendations. If all this stuff is not for faculty evaluation, what’s the point? Required by accreditation, says Roopa. Bob: peer review is used to improve the course, you say. What if the instructor does not take the committee’s suggestions? Now the process becomes a faculty evaluation, doesn’t it? “I’m just trying to figure this out,” he said, not wishing to ruffle Roopa’s fine feathers.

     Bob: who would do peer review? Roopa: volunteers who go through proper training. Rubrics used, assessing accordingly. [See drafts.]

     What is accreditation requiring? Answer: I think it’s online course review. Someone going into courses, have met xxx requirements, interaction, etc. They don’t want any online course to be a de facto correspondence course. Accred says no.

     Roopa: its quality control. “We want to get ahead of the curve and design our own process, rather than wait for something that is shoved down our throats.”

     Kathy: one of the arguments against this: but we don’t require this for face to face or hybrid courses! The answer is that they’re gonna require this, and if we keep carping they’ll require it for face-to-face courses, too. The Feds (and ACCJC, WASC) say we have to do this kind of evaluation. Specific questions must be asked. We can’t get around this.

     Some community colleges have implemented procedures to satisfy the Accreds. Some made these changes quite a long time ago—e.g., Mt. SAC. Stopped all online for a year or two in order to set up an elaborate set of procedures, standards. Everyone gets certified, etc. It’s been that way for 15 years. We’re not way ahead of anything here if we do this. But we do want to be ahead of enforcement. Other colleges have done similar things.

     Ilknur was bothered again. Blah blah blah, she whispered (not). Others spoke.

     Bob: I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. But these questions have to be discussed in an open senate environment, cuz it will effect what and how we teach.

     Brittany mentioned academic freedom. Kathy: well, it is peer reviewed and voluntary.

     Someone said that these “rubrics” don’t go into content. It’s accessibility, etc. “We don’t want to be evaluating each other’s content.”

     Skipping ahead to item 19: Senate elections.  OK. Nominations now open.  Kathy nominated for “past president.” Nominations still open.

     Item 20: Institutional set standards. See G.

     The Accreds require that colleges set Institutional Standards. These standards involve percentage of students who pass relative to census number. Our number is fairly high (it’s a “floor” standard—we won’t allow going below line X).

     We will send in this report, discuss later. We’re adopting these recommendations.

Item 18: Disability accommodation

     Kathy: Wendy, are you ready to make a recommendation re this policy. Nope. (Not warned that she’d be asked.) Item 18 continued

show image slideshowMar

Senate meeting, March 16, 2017

Academic Senate meeting, Rep Council, IVC 

March 16, 2017

NOTES (See agenda.)

The scholarship review process:

     During “public comments,” I raised issues about the scholarship review process.

     There seem to be serious problems again.

     Some faculty seem randomly assigned to scholarship applications.

     There seems to be no norming process.

     To quote Brittany: “I don't understand why the same reviewers would not be assigned all applications in one group so that there would be consistency in how people score.” How’s that fair to applicants?

     Take the Cesar Chavez Scholarships which target engagement with Latino heritage or community groups. There seems to be no order to how students are getting sorted into this.  We’ve been asking that this be addressed for years.

     I noted also that letters of recommendation seem no longer part of the process. What gives?

     Elissa O, Exec. Director, answered our questions. She said that, if the donor does not specifically ask for such letters, we do not require them. She explained that she was uncomfortable requiring letters when the donor has not requested them. 

     Also, some students asked for letters and never received them.

     From where I sit, I meet with donor, talk about requirements. Would you like letters of rec submitted? I’m not honoring donor intent by automatically including request for letters.

     Senators spoke. One said she, too, found herself placed on a committee without her say-so.

     Essentially, decisions are often based on student’s essay. Is that adequate?

     Kathy hoped that an effort would be made to see if the “committee” is meeting with faculty to make sure that the process still needs changes.

Report by Foundation: great event, blah blah blah

School reports

     I mentioned the publication of Lisa and Andrew’s collection/book, that it appears to be a great success.

     “Otherwise, we remain thoroughly disgruntled,” I said.

     Diane kept asking: What are you disgruntled about? I finally said: OK, Accreditation, whitewash, bullshit.

Accreditation:

     Not missing a beat, in her report on Accreditation, Kathy said that it was a “wonderful, happy, whitewash.”

     The district calendar committee met last week. IVC proposal was accepted with one change: Classified staff preferred Thursday commencement for logistical reasons.  Will be on May 24^th (next year, 2019)

LGBTQ events planned.

Item 3: curriculum. Revised ballot.

     For Fall 18, courses need to be revised. Should be completed by the end of April of this year. Why? E-catalog is the reason. “Getting it current and whatnot.” Make sure your faculty rep is keeping you apprised.

Re policy revisions.

     Workgroup on AR met recently. The group wants all hiring procedures as similar as possible. Kathy grumbled about: you should be able to discuss candidates as you see them, not wait until everyone’s been interviewed. This change is in the new classified AR, but we weren’t allowed (able?) to make that change in the policy for faculty hires. We want to make these improvements when we can.

FIASCO:    

     Pathways project is puttering along. Preview day? Lots participated. Rolled out notion of meta-majors. Preview Day—which included organization around notion of meta-majors—was a fiasco in this regard. Badly done.

     Evidently, at one point, Kathy went over and screamed at VPSS Linda F. Really screwed up. Badly done. 

     The idea was to organize the department discipline booths in clusters that would represent the course clusters, meta-majors, etc. It was done all wrong. Hence screamage. We will have more extensive conversations about how to do this in future (Laser Week).

     Professional development: Brett: no longer accepting requests for proposals. That makes things easier to schedule.

     DE coordinator co-chair. Meredith Warner (?). new person interviewed—Emiko Kiyochi, Japanese instructor. Approved by co-chairs. 

     Item 20 was the IVC Online Education FACULTY HANDBOOK.

     SEE drafts

     A draft has been submitted and has been approved, I believe, by the “taskforce.” It includes an “online course review process,” which seems to be required by the Accreditation folks.

     Faculty training. Peer review.

     Other colleges seem to be ahead of us on this. Yes, part-timers can teach online, but they must be trained.

     Yes, said someone, “Lots of our adjuncts are already trained or experienced.” Why should they go through training? That’s ridiculous.

     Roopa M, who was involved in producing this draft, said: everyone should get the training, get up to speed, even if they’ve been teaching online for 15 years. “No grandfathering.”  If you get training anywhere else, send that info to the committee, we’ll process that.

     Any objections to this document? Read it. We want to control this before others swoop in to set standards for us. Roopa: we didn’t just come up with these requirements; it is being demanded by the Accreds (ACCJC).

     Diana commenced carping. The training was too much for me, she said. Had to bail. She just wanted to learn how to use Canvas. Do you have a basic skills course for Canvas? Yes, see your email.

     Bob U, VP of the Senate, suggested that Roopa, et al., bring the draft back or a second reading.

     Kathy: Celina Lee is willing to continue as TATF co-chair. Roopa: still looking for co-chairs. Send any inquiries to Asenate@edu.com.

     Item 18: senate approval of residence requirements for Certificate of Achievement and Proficiency

Diana: took this to curriculum committee, hashed it out. Created a sub-workgroup. (Natch.) Coming up with wording that satisfies everybody. So we’ll continue this item.

Two items left:

Sactuary campuses.

June M:

     2016, after election, some colleges objected to anti-immigration rhetoric/actions by administration. That same month, 30 colleges declared themselves sanctuary campuses. Declared that they would not turn people over who are undocumented, etc.

     The UC people came out with a letter, though they did not declare themselves to be sanctuary campuses.

     There’s a sister movement that is encouraging campuses not to turn over information, not to collect it, etc.

     Kathy: some in state legislatures seek Cal declaring itself a “sanctuary state.” Possibility.

     Would we lose federal funding if we do this? June M: we just don’t know.

     In general, there is a great deal of unclarity, a lack of info, concerning “sanctuary” activities and their ramifications.

     Ilknur E-W seemed to blow a fuse about “illegals.” (Previously she seemed to have a “bee in her bonnet.”) She went to a lot of trouble doing things legally (as student guest in US), but these people go to DMV and get green cards. Good grief!

     Kathy: there are intermediate steps available re this sanctuary business. Should look into that.

     Wendy G was on hand to explain that the chancellor search is going to ultimately recommend some number of people to go forward as candidates. Don’t know how many. They’ll be invited to do presentations at the colleges.

     Item 21 concerns “faculty responsibilities respecting disability accomodations”

     What are our obligations relative to that?

     Somehow, we focused on the phenomenon of students seeking “note-takers” for courses. (It is my understanding that Wendy G encountered some trouble in this regard.)

     Wendy (who is an attorney) could not find in title 5 or ed code that the instructor is responsible for getting note-taker for student. Instructor “may assist”, but no “shall do.” Not in contract either.

     We don’t pay note-takers. Why not? We need paid note-takers. We also need to get out of the function of providing note-takers. Too ill-defined.

     Wendy: a remedy: a statement in faculty handbook. DSPS should have something on their website. Nothing there now. Other colleges do that.  Senate should have an active role in any of this language.

     We’ll return to this at next meeting.

     Announcement: it looks like enough ballots are in; June M will be new Senate Prez, Jeff K will be VP.

Senate meeting, March 2, 2017

           These are my notes. They’re a bit sketchy, but you get the general
idea:

 

MARCH 2, 2017, meeting of the IVC Academic Senate, Rep Council

THEME: “we’re shiny, happy people and everything’s swell!”

 

See: AGENDA

 

June M, future Senate Prez, noted that many universities, etc., have declared themselves to be safe havens for immigrants. Discussion ensued among Senators, mostly supportive, of pursuing such a declaration, though VP of SS Linda F opined (if I understood her) that we ought to consider the issues and problems that attend such an action. 

Natch.

We decided to make this a discussion item at the next meeting.

 

Executive reports:

Kathie (qua president):

Kathie presented some slides. Don’t know what that was about. I think it was supposed to be a funny presentation of whatever theme is plastered on these free mugs we’re getting. “Take charge – 10+1,” a reference to the Ac Senate’s zone of responsibility/expertise.

 

Accreditation:

We (IVC) got one recommendation for improvement. We’re in compliance, but could improve. It was some point about assessing SLOs. Or something.

The district had one rec for compliance, and it is more serious: HR and evaluation of folks. 

Lots of commendations. Mentioned DRAC (District Resources Allocation), which is way transparent, they said. College/district were commended for everybody working well together. The #1 commendation: impressed by how cohesive the college is. Everybody is working together, everyone has eyes on the prize. (Shiny happy people.) They went on and on about it. Everybody participates, they said. 

We participate through Ac Senate. Get your free mug if you haven’t received it already. Chirp, chirp.

Commendation for openness of resource requests process. Very open. Commendation for the path that we’re on.

We show “family”-ness, or something (some goofy Hawaiian word). 

Nothing about distance ed. That’s good, said Kathy. If they don’t mention something, they’re happy with it.

Diane H: now that we got a pat on the back, let’s look at how we did SLOs in outlines. That was pretty messed up, as you’ll recall. Let’s not drop that issue. 

Kathy: that will be a high priority for our senate under its new leadership. Hope we can have “productive and more thoughtful process” in how we approach these things. This is tied to the broad pathway stuff. 

Kathy: we haven’t even decided, as a college, how we’re going to understand SLOs. Until we have that discussion at a high level, and decide on something, there’s no point working on the logistics, Diane. Let’s works with the band-aid we’ve got right now

The Accreditors like everything, so there’s no issue coming from them about our understanding of SLOs, etc. They didn’t say we have to change anything, they just said, “now do it better.” 

The really important thing, of course, is what the Commission writes, and we won’t hear about that for months.

 

VP Bob U:

We (SPAC; strategic planning) haven’t met much because of Accreditation activities. We’ve received 500 resource requests. We’ll fund 2 mil out of categorical. Then we will turn to general funds (nothing available yet). 

 

Brett (of Academic Affairs):

Process for professional development and fund recoup

We’re blessed; we have substantial money to offer for reimbursement. Not all community colleges do this for their faculty. We have a website—we’re making it work. Not streamlined, but it does work. Pre-approval request site. Takes us 2-3 days to go through this. Lately: accreditation has slowed us down. 

Post activity approval: We need receipts, credit cards, etc. Show that things have been paid. Need those specific things asked for in emails. Next, Stef enters into Workday. 

Posting to Workday. Need to wait for district to generate a check. 6-8 weeks. Not pretty. Asking: perhaps explain from a different angle. Here’s what I need you to go back with. Faculty have yelled at Stef on more than one occasion. Stop that! 

We don’t usually get the right kinds of receipts the first time out. Documents have to show that the charge is paid. Brett and Co seemed genuinely miffed that some faculty “yell at Stef.”

Please follow instructions. Yell not at Stef. Please do the documents thing the way we’ve asked you to do it. 

Let us know when or how our instructions could be improved. Work with us. #1 thing you can do to help: go through the instructions, follow them.

 

Chris L of curriculum: 

IVC/SC course comparables list has been distributed. We need to respond to that. Tell Curric Committee Rep.

Revised course deadline: April 21 (for Fall 18/Spring 19)

New courses: August 25^th.

 

Ballot for curriculum: blah blah blah

 

Board policies: nada

 

Reminder: Preview Day on Tuesday. Will be organizing with pathway clusters in mind. Pretty excited about that. (Can’t imagine why.)

 

Item 13: DE coordinator co-chair

Any nominations? Let us know. 

 

The committee RECOMMENDATION.

Academic Calendar: Miriam can’t make it today. Workgroup could only come up with one idea (see here) that satisfied all criteria. Here it is. Bear in mind that every little change has often surprising ramifications. Lots of suggestions just don’t work.

Looked at proposal, projected on screen

Questions about Caesar Chavez day (not in compliance since 1995)

If you have a tangible suggestion, bring it, but be aware that it is difficult to make changes work.

 

The recommendation (not numerous, just one) was projected. See folder for today’s meeting.

 

District calendar meeting, next Thursday. Two of us will be able to attend. 

https://inside.ivc.edu/committees/asenate/Meetings/2016-17/17-03-02/IVC%20Proposed%20Calendar2018-19_022317.pdf

 

Motion to approve: unanimous. 

 

Let’s skip to #21.

Arleen Elseroad came before us. Blah blah blah.

Integration of SSSP-SEP-BSI

 

International students (#22)

Reserved seats for I students.

Christina Delgado, Dir of Inter program

These students must enroll in 12 units per semester

Owing to law, students can’t take tests until just 2 weeks before class (they’re restricted from arriving earlier). Not good.

A solution. Lowering caps, etc. Seats reserved for these students. 

 

23: pathways logistics. Blah blah blah

 

Item 26.

Laser Week work group. 

Bob U: discussed freakin’ Laser Week. Hold during flex week?

 

Item 25: residence requirements for … getting a certificate from IVC.

Ben came in to discuss this, December. Remember?

We had a robust discussion; came to no conclusion. Sent people back to their schools for further input, opinery.

Bob: we discussed it in Business. Not in favor of it (in business). We can’t insure that these students are proficient if they’ve taken their courses elsewhere. 

Sent back to curriculum for revision.

 

Item 24: manual

Changed motion: left Diane Oaks part out (there was a change that essentially placed Diane on some important committee—PEC?—so that she could hold Glenn’s hand or something). She was added to the PEC, or whatever it’s called. We bracketed that part. Voted for the manual as such. (Sending a message to Glenn and Diane.)

 

Item 16: bylaws revision

 

Last day for nominations p and vp

Add to ballot bylaws revisions; now or never

We approved option 2 to be placed on ballot