senate capers: Academic Senate meeting, August 15, 2019

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Academic Senate meeting, August 15, 2019

Academic Senate meeting, August 15, 2019 (Prof. Development week)

Babs

Trustee Babs Jay among us. (She sat next to former district HR guy David Bugay [nowadays a mere Business/Management Instructor].)

[IVC Prez] Roquemore introduces self.

VPI McDonald does as well.

Et al.

Bugay

June [M, the senate prez] hopes this semester to engage in “succession planning.” Get ‘em lined up ahead of time.

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

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College and district acronyms

DRAC – District Resources Allocation

BAARC – Basic Aid Allocation Committee

CET – Chancellor’s Executive Team

BPARC – District Board Policy and Administrative Regulations

SPOBDC -- Strategic Planning Oversight & Budget Development Committee

SPAC -- Strategic Planning and Accreditation Council

APTC – IVC Academic Planning and Technology Committee

SSAMMO – IVC Student Success/Access/Matriculation/Marketing & Outreach
BDRPC – IVC Budget Development and Resources Planning Committee See
See What's "Bark"? And what on Earth is the DRAC?

The Faculty's Role in Community College Decision Making*

The Concept of Shared Governance

Shared governance is a process created by the California state legislature that guarantees faculty input in the decision-making process of community colleges. The purpose of the law, AB 1725, was to provide a mechanism to insure that the expertise of the faculty would be used in developing college policies. Although the phrase "shared governance" is not found in the legislation, it has become the commonly used description of the process that provides for faculty input. AB 1725 mandates that colleges "consult collegially" with local Academic Senates (the law also encourages colleges to seek active participation of other constituencies such as classified staff or students in appropriate areas). Consult collegially means that the district governing board shall develop policies on academic and professional matters through either or both of the following:

1. Rely primarily upon the advice and judgment of the Academic Senate

2. The governing board, or its designees, and the Academic Senate shall reach mutual agreement.

The state identified "academic and professional" matters as eleven specific areas:

1. Curriculum, including establishing prerequisites
2. Degree and certificate requirements
3. Grading policy
4. Educational program development
5. Standards or policies regarding student preparation and success
6. College governance structures, as related to faculty roles
7. Faculty roles and involvement in accreditation processes
8. Policies for professional development activities
9. Processes for program review
10. Processes for institutional planning and budget development
11. Other academic and professional matters as mutually agreed upon.

Since each college determines exactly how shared governance will be implemented on its campus, the process varies widely in its scope and details. With relatively few exceptions, shared governance has provided California community college instructors with a vehicle for input into the decision making process unmatched in any other state.

*Provided by 4Faculty

The SOCCCD Academic Senates sue their district (and win)

[UPSHOT: the Chancellor/Board essentially unilaterally changed the district's full-time faculty hiring policy despite a statute according to which the Academic Senate (i.e., the faculty) has important rights in the development of such policies. In the end (2005), faculty entirely PREVAILED.]

Part 1: From Dissent 66, Oct. 7, 2002

LEGAL STORMS BREWING

I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks. —Coleridge

Intervention sought: During an August meeting of the IVC Academic Senate, it was suggested that, given the Chancellor & Board’s exclusion of the Academic Senate from governance, there really is no point in continuing. It was suggested, too, that the Senate might better devote its energies to seeking redress in the courts.

* * *

On September 12, the exec. cabinet of the IVC Academic Senate sent a letter to State Chancellor Nussbaum, seeking his “intervention” “to secure rights granted to local senates under Title 5” of the Ed Code. The letter cited four examples of the Board’s many actions in violation of “law, policy and process.” The first concerned the Board’s action (Fall 2000) to revise BP6120 (academic freedom), despite objections from the senates. Example 2 was the Board’s adoption (12/01) of a revision of BP5604 (eligibility for admission) despite “vehement” senate objections. Example 3 was the Board’s decision (2/02) to unilaterally revise BP 2100.1 (delegation of authority to academic senates), despite the policy’s explicitly prohibiting such action.

The fourth and most recent example concerned “revisions to District hiring policies,” including revisions to the Full-Time Academic Employees Hiring Policy, developed over the summer by Chancellor Mathur. These revisions, said the letter, “are rife with numerous individual violations of law, policy and good practice.” Despite Title 5, “At no time were any of the governance groups on either campus invited to participate, or even alerted to the existence of the committee.” Further, governance groups were given only 8 days to provide “input.”

* * *

The Senate’s letter yielded a response—a letter discovered belatedly, and already opened, in the senate president’s mail box! Dated Sept. 16, the letter, from Ralph Black, attorney for the State Chancellor’s Office, requested further info to determine whether his involvement “would be warranted.” Black offers a jurisdictional point: “Unless faculty hiring is listed as an ‘academic and professional matter’ under the SOCCCD shared governance policy..., faculty hiring does not fall under the jurisdiction of [the Board of Governors’] regulations.” (More on this later.)

On Sept. 25th, Mathur emailed the Saddleback Academic Senate, suggesting that he is under no obligation to consult the Academic Senates regarding modifications of the hiring policy. To support this odd view, he cited Black’s letter and its point about jurisdiction, but he ignored Black’s remark, in the same letter, that Faculty hiring procedures are covered by [the] Education Code..., which requires that “hiring criteria, policies, and procedures for new faculty members shall be developed and agreed upon jointly by representatives of the governing board, and the academic senate….” (Ralph Black)

Late in 1993, the Board approved a “Full Time Academic Employees Hiring Policy” that makes clear that the hiring policy can be changed only upon mutual agreement between the district and the faculty senates. This, of course, is the crucial “further information” that Ralph Black needs and will soon receive.

* * *

Budget development, of course, is plainly listed among the academic and professional matters of the district’s “shared governance” policy (2100.1). Hence, a failure to consult with the academic senate regarding budget development would be a violation of “shared governance”—one that clearly does fall under Black’s jurisdiction. Mr. Black will be interested to learn that, at IVC, the senate has been excluded from the budget development process for years.

Part 2: From Dissent 67, April 14, 2003

[“Kurt Bozny” is one of Chunk’s alter-egos.]

According to a statute, faculty hiring policies are to be “mutually” agreed upon by the district (i.e., the board) and the faculty (i.e., the academic senates).

During the Summer of 2002, Chancellor Mathur established a committee, including no faculty, that developed a new hiring policy. The faculty were not even informed of this committee’s work. The product of the committee—a truly appalling and incompetent policy—was then adopted by the board.

Thus, at long last, the faculty senate sued the district. (It was about time!) Below describes the serving of papers and its immediate aftermath.

April 14, 2003

Saddleback and Irvine Valley Colleges' Academic Senates Sue the District

By Kurt Bozny

April 8:

Santa Ana, 1:15 p.m.: Wendy files the much anticipated “faculty hiring policy” lawsuit against the SOCCCD Board of Trustees and Chancellor RAGHU P. MATHUR. She’s well-prepared, and so she breezes through the paperwork. Soon, she’s out the door, headin’ south!

2:10: Wendy’s back at IVC. She and I decide to head down south together to serve Mathur with the writ and the attached documents—a big stack. It’s good to bring an observer, cuz some people get way squirrelly when you try to serve ‘em with a lawsuit, and Mathur’s definitely the type.

I briefly search for one of those neon green “legal observer” caps like they wear at the big protests in L.A., but I can’t find one. Dang!

Mission Viejo, 2:40: we’re up on the 3rd floor of the Library, closin’ in on Chancellor Mathur’s office. I catch a glimpse of Mathur exiting his office, movin’ towards Robina Husting’s desk. He hasn’t spotted us yet.

Wendy closes in, holdin’ the thick stack of legal papers in front of her. As it turns out, Mathur is holding a similar stack of papers in front of him. The two meet in the small space in front of Robina’s desk. Mathur just stands there. So Wendy places her stack on top of Mathur’s stack, sayin’, “You’re served.”

Mathur’s horrified. The indecorous fellow now jostles and squirms to avoid holding the papers, but it’s too late—he’s got ‘em.

I’m thinkin’: “Does he actually suppose that the lawsuit won’t happen if he avoids holdin’ this stuff?”

Finally, in a desperate attempt to avoid being served, Raghu shoves the legal papers forward and they fall to the floor. Fwap!

Legally speaking, such fwappage is irrelevant; he’d been served and, once again, he’d attained the title “Respondent Mathur.” Besides, leaving the lawsuit on his secretary’s desk counts, too, so Wendy now picks up the papers and places ‘em there.

Meanwhile, I size up the Chancellor’s unseemly conduct. “How rude,” I proclaim. We exit.

Respondent Mathur struggles to think of a comeback, but Attorney Wendy (and her cap-less Boswell) are already out the door.

Finally, he’s got one. He shouts:

“How rude are YOU!”

* * *

Wendy Gabriella

April [9]: The next day, the district issues a peevish press release. It says:

SOCCCD Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur…commented on a lawsuit filed by the IVC and Saddleback College Academic Senates that disputes a new SOCCCD faculty hiring policy, stating, “The district is following the guidelines established under Title 5 that defines the ‘Delegation of Authority to the Academic Senates.’ There are 11 areas within the scope of academic and professional matters for which the academic senates have primary responsibility.

“The State Chancellor’s office has confirmed our view,” Mathur said, “that our hiring policies do not fall within the primary responsibility of the faculty….”

This is classic Mathur. The State Chancellor’s office does indeed hold that hiring policies are not among the 10 + 1 areas in which faculty are assigned primary responsibility by Title 5, a state regulation.

The problem is that the lawsuit does not mention Title 5 and it does not allege that Title 5 has been violated. Rather, it alleges that the new policies, and the manner in which they were developed and approved, violate an Ed Code statute (EC87360) and utterly defeat the intentions of legislators.

Ed Code statutes, of course, are more than regulations; they’re laws. They count bigtime.

In other words, with regard to the issue of faculty “hiring” policies, we don’t need no stinkin’ Title 5.

Respondent Mathur is ignoring—or failing to understand—that, in reality, the State Chancellor’s office takes the following view:

Education Code section 87360 requires governing board and academic senate representatives to agree on hiring criteria, policies and procedures to be adopted by the board. (Letter from California Community College Chancellor’s Office, Ralph Black, General Counsel, January 29, 2002).

In the District’s press release, Board President Don “So sue me” Wagner offers his own spin, expressing “disappointment” that the senates have decided to force the district to “spend money on attorneys, rather than students.”

* * *

On the 10th, the Register reports that

In an unprecedented move, the faculty senates of both Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges have voted to sue their district chancellor and trustees over a new hiring policy that gives more power to college administrators at the expense of traditional academic hiring committees.

The lawsuit … asks a judge to set aside the new hiring policy because it was not approved by each college’s Academic Senate.

When the new rules were approved by a 4-3 vote by the …trustees in January, faculty representatives unsuccessfully pleaded with the board for more time to discuss them.

The state’s Education Code requires that hiring criteria and policies for new faculty members must be developed “and agreed upon jointly” by board members and the Academic Senate….

…Typically, new college instructors are selected by hiring committees made up of faculty members who are experts in the field and the head of the department. Their selection is usually ratified by the college president, the district’s board of trustees or both.

According to Wendy Gabriella, an IVC instructor and attorney who filed the lawsuit, faculty members were particularly unhappy with new rules that allow the district’s human resources director to change the scores awarded by committee members if she deems them too far off the norm and to unilaterally change interview questions.

Professors were also displeased with a new ethics and confidentiality section of the hiring policy that allows the human resources director to investigate and punish any member of a hiring committee who is accused of violating confidentiality.

“The policy allows the human resources department to accuse hiring committee members of bias, change their scores and discipline them without any due process or opportunity for appeal,” [said the] Irvine Valley Academic Senate President….

* * *

Also on the 10th, the President of the IVC Academic Senate, Greg Bishopp, sends a memo to IVC faculty. (The Saddleback Senate Prez later spams it to Saddleback faculty.) It says:

The Academic Senates of IVC and Saddleback College have filed suit in California Superior Court to block the implementation of a faculty hiring policy, which they believe to violate … the California Education Code. While the trustees and the administration of the SOCCCD maintain that their new policy, and the process used to develop this policy, does not violate the law, the Academic Senates claim that they do. In violation of the law, the Senates maintain, district administration has failed to allow faculty involvement in developing the procedures for hiring new faculty members. As a result, the adopted policy is fraught with violations of law, policy, and accepted practice.

Prez Bishopp also notes that the senates have “exhausted all internal means of appeal” and that, in January, Wagner “invited the Senates to sue the district to resolve the legality of the Board of Trustees’ alteration of board policy.”

That Wagner is quite a guy!

Bishopp closes by noting that the record

shows who has been responsible for wasting the district’s money in the past. Board President Don Wagner has stated that, “our district will again prevail on this misguided litigation.” However, in the seven legal actions brought by members of the faculty against the Board of Trustees, the courts have sided with the faculty and against the Board every single time, demonstrating that the Board, by violating the law, has been responsible for the suits, not the litigiousness of the plaintiffs. If the Board of Trustees does not wish to spend money on litigation, it should avoid breaking the law.

* * *

The district’s new faculty hiring policies (BP4011, 4011.1, 4011.2) are available online at the Saddleback College Academic Senate website.

Those who wish to read the statute should go to

Statute

To read a review of the statute and its relation to the historic AB1725 legislation, one might start by reading the local senates “handbook” on the State Academic Senate’s website:

Handbook

See you in court! —KB

Part 3

Judge Clay Smith
[10/10/09:]

Here’s what happened next:

Judge Clay Smith ruled that the district had indeed failed to include the faculty in the development of the faculty hiring policy, contrary to law. He thus ordered the district and senates to get together to develop a faculty hiring policy. But, in the end, the district’s representatives and the senates’ representatives did not see eye to eye on major issues, and so the district unilaterally pushed through the version of the policy that it liked, and it pronounced that policy the product of the committee. That policy was almost as appalling as the one that was neutralized by Smith.

Surprisingly, despite the vociferous objections of the Academic Senates to the new policy, Judge Smith ruled that the policy was indeed the product of “mutual agreement.”

It was an absurd judgment.

The Academic Senates appealed.

By summer 2005, the appellate justices unanimously acted to overturn and vacate Smith’s absurd judgment. The board tried one or two last ditch efforts to have the court reconsider, but to no avail. The academic senates had won, and that was that.

The senates had prevailed, period. That meant that the only valid policy was the one developed at the end of 1993 (that one was mutually agreed to). It was good from the faculty’s perspective.

The appellate justices urged the parties to work out their differences, and so, in the Fall of 2005, district representatives (namely, Mathur, the instigator of the original unilaterally imposed policy, and Lang, now the board president) and Academic Senate reps (namely, the two senate Presidents and the union president) mutually developed a policy that both sides could agree on.

That work was completed by late October, 2005. This mutually ageed to policy is a vast improvement.

At the time of writing, it only remains for the board to approve the new policy, and there is every indication that they will do just that. If they fail to do so, then the decidedly faculty-friendly 1993/4 policy will apply.

[The policy was approved.]

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Academic Senate meeting, August 15, 2019

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