LGBTQ Liaison Report for Thursday's Senate Meeting (Feb 16)

Hello, all:

     Below is my report for Thursday’s Senate meeting (and thank you, Carlos, for putting it in the minutes):

     The IVC LGBTQ student club is a go! We successfully tabled at Club Day on Jan. 27th and received over 20 signatures from interested students. Students spotted our rainbow flag like a beacon and came over and talked with Brooke Choo and Lisa Alvarez who were on hand. Student Jonathan Forde was also available on Club Day and submitted the paperwork to ASIVC to officially form the club, gathering over 20 additional student signatures. He created a club email address (IVCLGBTQA@gmail.com) and hosted the club’s first official meeting on Feb. 10th. Lisa Alvarez served as the advisor and reported that there were 12 students in attendance and they elected officers and discussed future activities. A lunchtime “picnic” was held in the quad yesterday, Feb. 17th, as a way to increase visibility and a social space for students to meet. The club plans to meet every Wednesday from 5-7pm. Email the club for more information. Michael Cassens, Lisa Alvarez, Brittany Adams and Virginia Shank have all volunteered to serve as club advisors to help the club get off the ground. 

Thank you!

Brooke

Feb 4 sentate notes: Intern'l students look for a better deal elsewhere

Hello Everyone [from Brittany],

     I am down for the count with the flu, but wanted to send these notes out from the world's most boring Senate meeting on 2/4. I was standing in for Roy, as he was out last week sick (perhaps being a Senator makes you ill...it is a decent hypothesis).
     Kathy S. was absent at a conference in San Antonio for the AACC Pathways. As such, the Senate meeting was run by VP Urell. There was not much on the agenda of notice and I really do not have much to report that is of great interest.
     Counselors announced that if you want to have a workshop in your class regarding time management, you can contact Amanda Romero.
     Bob Urell also mentioned that IVC is working on a pathways program with CSU (Fullerton?) to "guarantee" that you can become an accountant with an MA in five year (two years at IVC, two at CSU, one more year for a MA).
     The date of the Foundation Awards gala is going to be April 2 at the automotive museum.
     Edward Tiongson presented regarding the Annapisi grant. He seemed very enthusiastic and mentioned plans for a new multicultural center that will be placed in the B300 building once our new Hum building in unveiled from underneath the giant white sheet. There will also be a non-credit ESL center.

November, 2007

     Then, we spent about an hour discussing and approving hiring committees. We approved the two English positions (Lewis Long was present to check their accuracy).
     Also, we approved the appointment of Jodi Titus, Mark McNeil, and Elizabeth Chambers to the Social Science Dean hiring committee (unanimously supported with the exception of Kiana T, which was odd).
     If you are interested in the teacher of the year award committee (not being the TOY but picking them), please let senate know.
     At this point, I had to go to the dentist. The dentist was preferable to the meeting if that says anything.....(thanks Henry!)

Here are his notes:

     "Bob U. talked briefly about the Emeritus Studies program which would offer non-credit courses. He said we need a full-time faculty member to serve as chair of this program. Compensation for this would be a stipend equivalent to 3 LHE. Someone asked the question: “Do you need to have tenure?” Answer: “Don’t know, have to check back and see.” Bob said we should contact Cathleen Greiner if we're interested.

     Bob reported that the budget will be a concern over the next 3 to 5 years. Apparently there’s a big shortfall coming down the pike. Not sure if I understand all this budget stuff, but apparently we face increasing expenditures re: faculty and managers’ benefits (?). [Recall that our enrollments are flat; that is a major source of difficulty re funding. --RB] Steve R. pointed out: what about huge increases in administrative costs? This shortfall is also due, Bob said, to the fact that the big block grant we had will be gone by next year. We’ll have only 12% of this block grant next year. I didn’t catch the exact amount of the shortfall, but it was pretty big.

     Bob went on to report that international student enrollment is flat. Up to this point the international student program has been growing on its own accord. No more growth now. So what are we going to do about it? Mainly our international students hail from China, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Qatar and Saudi Arabia offer full government scholarships to their students coming here. Bob says that IVC is no longer on the Saudi government’s “approved” list (as of spring semester?). Not sure why. Someone said jokingly that “someone must have said something.” Melanie H. said this might be because many of these Saudi students were not well prepared (re: language skills) when they arrived at IVC and so they were not succeeding to the extent that the Saudi gov’t wanted. Bob mentioned that many Qatari and Saudi students have already migrated (en masse) to Saddleback, which has cost IVC $500,000 in lost revenue. Jeff W. mentioned that since Saddleback offers Arabic, these students can take that for credit. Maybe that’s a big incentive for them.

     Martin McGrogan mentioned that American colleges are now encountering steep competition for international student money from British and Australian Universities offering 3 year degrees: “Get your degree in less time!”

     Brett gave a report on professional development. Upcoming speakers are listed on the website.

     Diana’s report: “nothing.”


November, 2007

     Biology wanted to add someone to their hiring committee. This required Steve R. to reopen the motion and we voted on it. Unanimous “yes” to biology getting another person for their committee.

     Meeting adjourned early. Everybody happy."



The January 21, 2016, meeting: enrollments flat, advertising inadequate, and Internationals are no-shows

Report: the January 21, 2016, meeting of the Academic Senate Rep Council

   During public comments, Brittany brought up the unfortunate “free speech” episode of January 20 (i.e., the day before). Brittany and others described what actually occurred. An effort is being made to organize some sort of response, a public forum, which will help students understand what occurred and the challenges presented by such events (“hate” speech). As you know, thanks especially to Brittany and Anissa, the Director of Student Life, the forum was held yesterday [Tuesday]. It went well and was well attended.

     Our own Summer S provided a brief “basic skills” report. She mentioned three initiatives, including the state’s providing $60 million for basic skills. Those who apply for this money are limited to $1.5 million per project. These applications are rated based on six “evidence-based practices.” She mentioned a second grant, involving a partnership between CCs and the California State University system. She said something about increasing BSI allocations by $30 million—that’s over and above the $60 mil. It sounded pretty positive.

     Kathy Schmeidler, Senate Prez, reported briefly on the work of the district’s Strategic Planning task force, which met last week (relative to Jan 21). Senate leadership will be away for the next meeting and must thus miss it. Anyone interested in taking leaders’ places?

     Craig Hayward yammered about strategic planning, but I don’t think I heard a thing he said.

     VP Bob Urell yammered a while. Enrollments are up slightly, but not enough to alter the big picture, which is that we are flat for this year. “We need to do more” to increase enrollments, he said. He referred to Davit K’s budget report. We should take a look at this budget “update,” available here:

http://inside.ivc.edu/committees/SPOBDC/_layouts/PowerPoint.aspx?PowerPointView=ReadingView&PresentationId=/committees/SPOBDC/Lists/201617%20Planning/Attachments/5/Spring%202016%20Professional%20Development%20Budget%20Presentation.pptx&Source=http%3A%2F%2Finside%2Eivc%2Eedu%2Fcommittees%2FSPOBDC%2FSitePages%2FHome%2Easpx&DefaultItemOpen=1

Kathy S

     Enrollments for International Students is flat as well, which is disappointing. (You’ll recall that, last year, some shone with dollar sign eyes contemplating exploitation of the growing International student in SoCal phenomenon.) The upshot: we face a drop in funding somehow. We’re attempting to understand the situation. We’ll get backatcha.

     Bob mentioned that the CEC building(s) have been “completely redone.” Oh good.

     Diana H (curriculum maven, officer) complained that the college needs to do more advertising to compete with other local colleges. Craig hears us and says “we’re working on it.”

     Steve R carped that the budget once included money for advertising—budgets per area in The Arts—but that has long since disappeared, which is not good. Grumble, grumble, hiss, spew. 

     Kathy commiserated and asked that she be reminded to pursue the need for advertising at “Instructional Council.” Traci F, Dean of the Unsocial Sciences assured that a discussion is in the works, or so it has been reported to her. 

     Bret, chair of Ac. Affairs, announced that our first DAL will occur on Monday (the 25^th) [DAL = Distinguished Academic Lecture.] Someone named Michelle Evans. A former X-15 pilot. [The X-15 was an experimental rocket plane that made various historical flights starting in the 50s and thereafter.] Bret mentioned a subsequent DAL concerning some kind of self-help stuff. I didn’t catch the details.

     I think Diana (?) reported on a visit to the CTE (Career Technical Education) Academy in beauteous Sacramento. She learned a lot about how to make a [CTE] program “fly,” she said. She reported that courses that only involve “minor revisions” should pass through the curriculum bureaucracy “right away.” But that’s not the reality: there’s a bottleneck at the State Chancellor’s Office. Any change, even a minor one, to a certificate or degree requires various global changes, and so, instead of breaking logjams, new logjams are being created. There’s much frustration about this. Example: our business people are currently gnashing their teeth over some perverse bureaucratic problem of this kind, and they’re plenty peeved. 

Diana H

     Kathy S bemoaned the fact that “people” are forgetting that proposed search committees must be vetted by the Academic Senate. She referred to searches for, in particular, an International Student counselor and a Veterans’ counselor. She read out the lists of proposed members. In each case, yes, faculty from some outside [of counseling] area are included (but just barely). If there are any changes to a committee, said Kathy, it is important to inform the Academic Senate, goddamit.

     Kathy announced that the college is looking for faculty to serve on the Early College Task Force. IS ANYONE INTERESTED? Can be anybody. We need full-timers especially.

     You’ll recall that worries over flat enrollments inspired a proposal to create some sort of quasi-complete “Weekend College” (complete for a handful of programs—perhaps in Business)—for nontraditional students who cannot attend during the week. The senate approved preliminary efforts to pursue this. It sounds as though we’ll be launching some sort of less-than-complete program in the Fall, and if that looks promising, we’ll go all-in for the comprehensive Weekend College (in the Spring, 2017). Little has been accomplished thus far, said Tracy F, but we’ll be going forward. We need to think about how to MARKET the Weekend College, said Tracy. 

     We were asked if there are any faculty who are willing to become a, or the, “faculty chair” over our Emeritus offerings.

     We talked about the recent failure of some safety system somewhere (BSTIC?), but I didn’t pay attention, having fallen into near unconscious  disgruntlement and irreversable abject curmudgeonliness. I was a veritable toxic substance.

     Cheryl D alerted us to some pilot program involving an assessment tool for SLOs called CLA+. Evidently, CLA+ is a nonprofit company. The task force (which one?), said Craig J (we were told) were satisfied about the quality of this assessment tool. Senators seemed generally skeptical. Evidently, we have reason to worry that we’re not doing enough to review our success in SLOmanship and so that’s why institutions are looking at the likes of this CLA+. 

     Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me. But what do I know. Apparently, the item will come back in future for discussion in the Senate.

     That was about it.

 c. 1988

Point of interest: student teaching evaluations unreliable (and biased against women)

Bias Against Female Instructors
(Inside Higher Ed, January 11, 2016)

     There’s mounting evidence suggesting that student evaluations of teaching are unreliable. 

Flex week senate meeting

     This is an abbreviated version of our pal Mel's notes for this meeting. (Thanks, Mel.)

     As you know, no actions are taken during these flex week general assembly meetings.

ACADEMIC SENATE

GENERAL ASSEMBLY (FLEX WEEK)

January 14, 2016

•       Senate Business: According to Ed Code, faculty have a vital role in anything related to academic student success and student services. Kathy reviewed the Senate’s role along with faculty’s rights and responsibilities. We have increased the amount of faculty seats on many district and school committees to make sure we have a voice.
•       Planning and Decision Making Manual Revision: revision is now complete and in use.
•       SLO Update (Cheryl Delson): SLO Deadline is June 1 for fall and spring SLO results. You only need to report each class once per year. Other schedules of reporting are fine if you can give the plan to Cheryl.  SLO task force meets 8:30 - 10 on alternate Fridays. All are welcome. We’re still figuring out how to attach SLOs to Curricunet….
•       SSAMMO Update (Brenda Borron): Reviewed assessment process.
•       VP Bob Urell, Budget info: Davit’s presentation from Tuesday is posted online. Prop 30 is phasing out and our raises will impact our budget, but so will good news from the Governor’s office. … Enrollment management important: faculty need to be involved in bringing our enrollment up. 
•       Brett McKim, Academic Affairs: New professional development webpage launched last night. DALS (lectures) – three coming up. 
•        Kathy S.: Scholarship process underway. Deadline is February 16th. Every reading group of scholarship applications needs faculty, and we need volunteers. We’re using a new program; many training opportunities coming up. Finals schedule is better but please let us know if there are any conflicts. Some are apparently inevitable.

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

Nov. 19 Senate Meeting: the fall of the House of Beno

     The agenda can be found here.

     A student, representing student government, asked for faculty volunteers to participate in a “group event” at the upcoming Talent Show. It’s probably something really stupid. Interested?
     The new Foundation Director (Elissa Oransky?) spoke. She seems nice. She reported that they’ve adopted a new program or system for scholarship data, replacing the hideous old STARS system. (This elicited some cheers.) Evidently, the new system is popular among community colleges. So there’s that.

     They’re looking for VOLUNTEERS for THE APPLICATION REVIEW COMMITTEE (I think). The committee must be at least 50% faculty, you’ll recall.

     Senate Prez Kathy S provided an update on FACULTY HIRES. A list of new IVC hires was approved by the board. Here’s where our prospective hires appeared on the list: 

   3. English/basic skills instructor

   13. Humanities

   14. Philosophy

   15. English/basic skills

     I think one School high on the list deferred a position (reading?). We don’t yet know how many of these positions will actually go forward.

     At IVC, one must live with uncertainty.

Oransky

     Kathy reported recent events re our accrediting body, the much despised ACCJC, headed by the secretive Barbara Beno. A few weeks ago, at the Senate Plenary, our local senate’s contingent presented a resolution (before the state senate) challenging the ACCJC to defend its reliance on the discredited philosophy behind SLOs. As occurred at the Spring Plenary, the gathering rejected the resolution, this time on even more absurd grounds: (1) sponsors did not cite any study (we were dinged for doing exactly that last spring); (2) gosh “we’re tired of talking about SLOs.”

     I have always believed that the state senate is worthless.

     Meanwhile, there’s been an effort to round up letters in support of the recommendations (including cutting loose the ACCJC as CCs’ accrediting body) from a task force put together by the Board of Governors or the State Chancellor’s Office. You’ll recall that the Our Fords—i.e., Prez Roquemore and Prez Burnett—refused to support such a letter on the grounds that the Task Force failed to consult with CEOs (this appears to be flat false).

     Our senate, you’ll recall, wrote a letter in support of the Task Force recommendations. We were pretty enthusiastic about them. Makes you proud.

     In any case, on Monday, the Board of Governors of the state Community College system voted unanimously to cut ACCJC loose as the accrediting body for California community colleges!

     I asked: will WASC [Western Association of Schools and Colleges] (the umbrella body) now construct a replacement agency or will an independent agency be created?

     –Don’t know. The task force’s recommendations urged that California’s CCs just join WASC and be accredited by that body (which accredits 4-year institutions).

     I asked about the length of the transition from ACCJC to whatever replaces it. “Could be 10 years,” said Kathy. But we really don’t know. It's anybody's guess.

The Ear is back!

     VP Bob Urell (he of the impressive salary) reported that we are working hard on the college’s budget. Unfortunately, our enrollment is now flat. That’s not good, since, 2% growth was projected/expected. Upshot: we’re in danger of losing as much as a million bucks should we fall short of our target.
     Consequently, there’s some scrambling to reverse the situation. It’s the IVC way.

     For instance, we’ll be beefing up “outreach” at the feeder high schools (we’ve been relying on the solitary Ann Akers; she’ll get assistance).

     Unfortunately, IVC lacks the party reputation of OCC, and that hurts us. Our great transfer rate is not so shiny a bauble, it seems.

     Maybe more bouncy houses? 

     International enrollments are suddenly down (not just flat). How come? Don’t know. We’re exploring the causes, said Bob. As you know, we recently hired a full-time director or something, and so this really blows.

     NOTE WELL: the VPI has announced a change in philosophy. When a course hits the 85% enrollment mark in (early?) enrollment, the VPI will urge us to add another section immediately.

     Where will we put these added courses? We’re contemplating adding PORTABLES out at the (largely unused) basketball courts—at a cost of about $60-70K. Sounds expensive, but not when you consider the potential cost to us if we don’t meet our target (of 2% growth).

     Faculty are urged to participate in outreach to attract more students. If there’s anything you can do or if you just want to help, then contact Ann or Mikiko at Outreach and Community Relations.

     Another idea being contemplated: WEEKEND COLLEGE. More about  that momentarily.

Sunny, cat

     Among the more interesting policies or regulations that came up for discussion was the one governing INDEPENDENT STUDY. Traci Fahimi (aka, “her deanship”) presented proposed changes made to the policy.

     Traci was also called upon to present/explain the WEEKEND COLLEGE (WC) idea. There are a few half-baked Weekend College programs around the state, but very few that seek to offer all courses needed to satisfy IGETC (etc.) requirements. (That’s us.) Evidently, there’s a big (successful?) program in Austin (Texas, I assume), and we might want to take a gander at that.

     A WC would involve courses offered late Friday afternoon through Sunday. A typical schedule would be, Sat and Sun, 9-12, then 1-4, and then at night. If we do this thing (attempting to attract that demographic that can’t attend during the week but that seeks an AA degree or transfer or a certificate), we’ll have to commit for years (as per Early College). It can’t be a one-time thing that we immediately drop like a bad habit.

     Support, on the weekend, could include such things as child care, health facilities, etc.

     Traci F seemed excited about the prospect. So was Bob, though he urged us to go slowly and carefully. Success in such a program, he said, depends on “support,” and there’s no guarantee that this thing will be supported sufficiently to work. Some have noted that, as it is, the college fails to support the NIGHT PROGRAM, which is half of what we do.

     There would be definite pluses to pursuing such a program. For instance, our increased room usage would put us in a better position to ask for new buildings. We can be a leader in something important—we can be the only game in town, etc. The start-up costs should be relatively low, and, if it works at all, it will help with our flat enrollment difficulty, where we stand to lose as much as $1 million.

Flow chart

     A motion to approve exploration of this idea was made. Traci wanted something stronger—she already wants to schedule for Fall 2016—but that’s what we went with.

     WE WERE URGED TO DISCUSS THIS PROPOSAL WITH MEMBERS OF OUR SCHOOL.

     We didn’t have time to discuss Calendar options, so we put that off until next meeting. (See D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, and D6.) PLEASE EXAMINE THESE OPTIONS.

     We put off discussion of the Early College program.

     A nice looking gal stood up and discussed all things technological. There’s some group and she’s hoping for faculty volunteers to join the dang thing. Any interest?

     There’s been work on the Planning and Decision-Making Manual. As things stand, there’s an official flow chart showing SPAC (a group that includes significant faculty representation) making recommendations straight to the COLLEGE PREZ, and the PEC, the President’s Executive Committee (VPs and no faculty), is indicated as a consulting body. That looks pretty good, I guess. Evidently, someone (i.e., Glenn) is urging adoption of a chart in which SPAC recommends to PEC, and then PEC recommends to the COLLEGE PREZ, which pretty much leaves faculty out of the loop.

     “That sucks,” said Kathy, essentially.

     We’re supposed to bring this back to our school. THAT’S YOU. Got an opinion? Let us know.

     Kathy (or somebody) also said something about how, from now on, any communication with the Publication Office must cc the dean. Or something. People were groaning about that but they were also packing up and half way out the door. So maybe I didn’t get that quite right.