Academic Senate meeting, August 15, 2019 (Prof. Development week)
 |
| Babs |
[IVC Prez] Roquemore introduces self.
VPI McDonald does as well.
Et al.
 |
| Bugay |
Senate cabinet updates:
Jeff [K, Vice Prez]: nothing to report
June: helping develop strategic plan for the year. Some concerns about what admin is doing. Got district to agree to add (another) faculty member to academic dean hiring committees. Manager evaluation draft…. Best practices at other colleges: soliciting input from people directly interacting with the dean. Also: soliciting input from those handled by dean, perhaps chosen at random. Re union: chancellor’s exec council: they seem to think they get to develop this policy. Will be an ongoing conversation to work with district to make the evaluation meaningful. “They” want to formalize by end of Fall, implement in 2020.
Letter this morning from HR re academic freedom. Limits of AF and free speech in the classroom. We’ve reviewed the memo, and we’re OK with it, said June. [Some senators were not OK with it; concerned.]
Did you all read the memo? (Most did.) Limits. Several IVC faculty have complaints against them; much more than Saddleback. I don’t know why we’re upsetting students, but they’re filing complaints. [The major IVC case concerns one of our historians.]
Profanity. Any definition?
From the memo:
…the court ruled that when multiple interests must be balanced by a College, “the College’s interest in preserving a learning environment free of sexual harassment, among others, outweighs Plaintiff’s claimed free speech and academic freedom interests.” Id. at 824. In Demers v. Austin, a case from the federal judicial circuit governing California, the court described that the same type of rule applies in evaluating the free speech claims for faculty based on their asserted academic freedom rights.
Jeff: yes, 90% of the complaints concern IVC Profs, but consider the sample size, etc.
Blah blah blah….
Dan [D of Academic Affairs]: spent summer endlessly revising flex week schedule; some people struggled with deadlines.
There is now a nighttime therapist for students. 4-7 for nighttime. Outside those hours, call campus police, who are good with those kinds of problems.
Will have return of distinguished academic speaker. Also, book groups (we’ll try “chapter” groups instead). Fundraising events. Encouraging faculty to develop ”communities of practice.” Revised faculty manual.
Rick Boone [of courses]: GOALS: Caught up on review of all courses and awards. (Awards = certificates and degrees) Bylaws for the curriculum committee: working to finalize. Trying to improve Curricunet (upgrade). We hope to go live this semester.
We’ve implemented Meta.
AA/AS gen ed cleanup. CWE blah blah blah.
There’s a list. (”Master queue”) See if your courses are “due.”Go to IVC.edu. In search, type “curriculum.” It’ll take you there (webpage).
We have the process [per course] down to about two and one half months. “Outstanding,” said someone.
The unleashing of praise made some among us uncomfortable: “we thank all previous curriculum chairs for their work,” said June, hastily.
End of reports
JUNE: asked office of I to provide current draft of faculty hiring priority list. Jeff: trying to understand the algorithms. Doesn’t seem to make sense. June: we meet with O of I a lot to talk this over. McDonald: no one seems to understand this algorithm. Key factoid: the ratio of full time to part time faculty. Iterative process. Blah blah blah. (He’s a math guy.)
June: this is not how SC does it. Is our way too cumbersome? Lots of horse trading at SC. They appeal to their “feelings” and such. (“Not to cast any aspersions,” she said.)
Deans have been asked to review Tier 1 and 2 at school meetings (today).
Jeff: in our approach, there exist inherent biases based on pedagogy. Some of us teach courses with high unit value and small class size. A full time instructor—in position of having a relatively low number of students. At universities, they go to grad students to teach such courses, but that isn’t available to us. A correction factor could be incorporated to address that bias. Small class sizes and high unit value. Special case.
2nd issue: we addressed the Tier 3 (?) issue last year. We discussed the status quo approach and we decided that the deans need to present a “position paper,” explaining their recommendation/decision. Their rational for the position. Some decisions from that body over the years have not gone well. We asked for that sort of justificaiton; it was provided last year. But is it a policy? Not sure. Should be.
Dan: need for more communication between those involved and deans. Perhaps have a meeting of dept. chairs and dean in one room before submitting [Tier 3] choice. Would take mystery out of the process. McDonald seemed agreeable.
June: a couple of difficult topics.
What our struggles are as a Senate. Got lots of valid and frank feedback. Admittedly there’s been some mismanagement.
Because of the vote of Censure and vote of NC: so this year let’s discuss leadership. Let’s have structured discussion about leadership at the college (and district). Board leadership too. Start there.
2nd: we have our program review chair here. Budgeting committee working to tie request for faculty to program review, etc. Tying resources. Annual updates; justify request for resources.
Some senator reminded us that 18 programs up for comprehensive review. You need to get started pretty early. Don’t wait! Thanks.
Also: (JUNE): comments about the photonic program. Career ed program. [You’ll recall that, last summer, Roquemore took inappropriate action to “help” this loser program, yielding a censure by this body.]
UPDATE: It will be relocated to another college. Pasadena CC. The adjunct is happy about this. Program discontinuance (and process) will be exercised this year. [Some senators were surprised that they had not been consulted about this new step.] We have low enrollments. Affects some more than others. This body will be looking at the new policy. Start with one program… Maybe: how do we revitalize this program?
Ilknur was upset about that. Maximo also didn’t know about this. “I’m trying to process this; this is serious stuff,” said Ilknur. June: it’s been low-enrolled, right? Right.
Someone asked: are our overall numbers down?
McDonald: flat or down all over county. There’s room for improvement here at IVC: growth potential. We lose 4,500 students from Fall to Spring. Shocking. 3.4% down from fall to fall (all over state? Country?) IVC: flat. Blah blah blah.
Ilknur emoted for a while, as she does.
June: some of the languages too are very nervous. The humanities: how to revitalize?
McDonald discusses cutting courses. Magic number? 18, sort of. Fewer than 18, class cut. Each dean is tasked with some value judgments. Weighing various considerations, not just cut if under 18. “Value judgments” seems to be the phrase of the day for M.
June: we should “challenge” these judgments. Discussion.
June: would should improve how we’re hearing from the schools [an allusion to failures last year]. “We’re not hearing everything.” Need to do better. (Slightly veiled criticism of senators, I guess.)
Kurt: two faculty now on committee. Had district take out word “majority.” 360 evaluation instrument [for managers, deans?]
June: faculty diversity task force. How to diversify our faculty. We’re very white around here.
Focus on hiring committees.
Adjunct hiring: the farm team, it seems, for many full time hires. No stated process for adjunct hiring. No standards, it seems. Data shows that adjunct hiring: … Senate need to discuss; is it [diversity] important? We should talk about it.
Rebekah: DSPS workshop. Oct. 10. 2:30 here.
District HR: another memo will come out: roles and responsibilities serving disabled students.
[Visitor] Lisa A: a committee chair has disinvited a member (of a task force). So what’s the process? What are the rules? Do they get to do this? Let’s take up this issue. Outrageous.
June: there is no process (she thinks).
Dan: an experience I had this summer. Taught two writing courses this summer. For first time – anxiety level was up significantly. Immigration status. Talking about that in public space. Chinese international students concerned about Hong Kong and US/China relations. Worried. Middle east students: did not want to identify their country of origin. So know that this is on the minds of our students.
Alissa (of foundation): thanked those who participated in fundraising, etc. PRO-IVC. Live auction coming up. Workgroup, scholarships.
Roquemore: are you aware of “StoryCorps”(?) Dialogue, face to face. A non-profit. A traveling opportunity. This college has been invited to participate. Volunteers? Next to the “great park.” A trailer. Interviewer. Questions. Air-stream trailer. Private. Quality dialogue. Learn something new about each other. Published by Libr of congress. Go to website: have access to…
I visited this summer: “My son interviewed me.” Really, a quality dialogue.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
StoryCorps is an American non-profit organization whose mission is to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. StoryCorps grew out of Sound Portraits Productions as a project founded in 2003 by radio producer David Isay. Its headquarters are located in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
StoryCorps is modeled—in spirit and in scope—after the efforts of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral history interviews across the United States were recorded. Another inspiration for the organization was oral historian Studs Terkel, who cut the ribbon at the opening of StoryCorps’ first recording booth in Grand Central Terminal. To date, StoryCorps has recorded more than 60,000 interviews among more than 100,000 participants in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and several American territories.
. . .
StoryCorps has been criticized on multiple fronts. While it has been called "an oral history of America,"[3] oral historians have critiqued the project's methodology, specifically the "highly sculpted techniques of the interviews,"[4] such as the pre-scripted questions, the 40-minute time limit, and the presence of a StoryCorps staff member in the recording booth. The result of the technique is that interviews often elicit "an often-rehearsed moment, story, or memory."[5]
Historians are also critical of the post-interview editing process, which they argue favor highly emotional and predictable narrative arcs.[6] StoryCorps stories typically feature tales of survival, which, as one historian has argued, perpetuates an "interpretive straightjacket of the neoliberal belief that people have their fates in their own hands."[7]
Kurt: two articles that impact our part time faculty. Health insurance stipend. Priority rehire rights. The health insurance stipend: most pressing. Article 27. Eligible faculty who do not have coverage, can receive a stipend up to $500. Have until Dec 10 to fill out paperwork. Meaningful comprehensive coverage. Lewis Long presented this on Monday. Also: priority rehire rights. Will come in soon. Article 15.
—Roy
