May 04, 2015 Meeting
Agenda
Taft College
Monday, May 4, 2015
12:10 – 1:00
Cougar Room
Call to Order Public Commentary
Approval of Minutes, April 6, 2015
Agenda
- Standing Committee Updates – provided electronically in advance of meeting – 5 minutes for any questions
- President/President-‐Elect Comments – Tony Thompson/Geoffrey Dyer – 2-‐3 minutes
- Regular Effective Contact Proposals – Dan Hall – 5 minutes
- Accreditation Site Visit Information – Dr. Maloney/Dr. Berube – 25 minutes
- Screening Committee Appointment by Senate President Process – Candace Duron – remaining time
Next Meeting, August 18, 2015 – Fall Inservice – 10:00 – 12:00 noon – Location TBA
Minutes
Taft College Academic Senate Minutes
Monday, May 4, 2015 Cougar Conference Room
Members Present: President Tony Thompson, Vice President Vicki Jacobi, Jennifer Altenhofel, Megan Andrews, Kanoe Bandy, Paul Blake, Adam Bledsoe, Jill Brown, Kamala Carlson, Joe’ll Chaidez, Geoffrey Dyer, Juana Escobedo, Sharyn Eveland, Shelley Getty, Greg Golling, Lourdes Gonzalez, Jessica Grimes, Dan Hall, Brian Jean, Craig Johnson, Diane Jones, Danielle Kerr, Kelly Kulzer-‐Reyes, Julian Martinez, Mariza Martinez, Janis Mendenhall, Michelle Oja, Ruby Payne, Joseph Polizzotto, Stacie Rancano, Joy Reynolds, and Sonja Swenson
Guests Present: Dena Maloney, and Mark Williams The meeting was called to order at 12:16 p.m.
Public Commentary
None.
Review of April 6, 2015 Senate Minutes
- Corrections to April’s minutes: 1) Stacie Rancano’s first name was misspelled on last page of the minutes; 2) Brian Jean and Paul Blake should have been mentioned in the list of members present; 3) The first page of the minutes mention AB3270 but should have said AP3720.
- A motion was made by Jennifer Altenhofel and seconded by Stacie Rancano to approve
the April 2015 minutes. The motion carried.
Standing Committee Updates
- The standing committee updates were distributed electronically.
- Vicki reminded the senate that any new courses to reviewed by the Tech Review committee
and the Curriculum committee need to be submitted by May 5th.
Engineering Program Funding Update
- Greg updated the senate about the grant-‐funded (CEED) Engineering program. We still
do not know what will happen to the Engineering program after the grant runs out in
a year or two, but we want to keep the program and we will work towards that goal.
AS President/President-‐Elect Comments
- Tony expressed his thanks to current and previous Senate vice-‐presidents and secretaries who have served along with Tony during his tenure as president. Tony has enjoyed being in the role of senate president and he has learned from being in this position. Tony thanked the entire senate for its support of him.
- Geoffrey thanked Tony for his service to the Senate. Geoffrey then updated the senate
on what he learned from attending the AS Plenary event.
- At the plenary, there was an emphasis on the role of local senates in the creation and the implementation of our Student Equity Plan. This plan is located on the Taft College IR webpage.
- There was also an emphasis on including the involvement of adjunct faculty into the academic senate.
- A local AS constitution has been created and will be available soon for review.
- Three separate resolutions were passed that encourage each local senate to create and adopt three additional positions within the AS: 1) Legislation liaison, 2) a non-‐credit liaison, and 3) CTE liaison.
- A resolution was passed to work with the Chancellor’s Office and other partners to develop anti sexual assault and violence prevention programs, and related student guidelines at their colleges. Our TC Governance Council has already been working on these issues.
- Much work is yet to be done with the OEI.
- David Morris, the statewide AS president, will be speaking with our senate on Aug. 18th.
- Tony encouraged Geoffrey to chart his own course with the senate. Tony offered his
on-‐going support of Geoffrey.
Accreditation Site Visit Information
- Dena thanked Tony for his service as AS president.
- It’s Faculty Appreciation week and Dena let the senate know that she appreciates the faculty and all that we do.
- Dena gave us an update on the Self-‐Evaluation Report:
- We started this process 2-‐years ago.
- A Steering Committee was put together and has provided oversight to the process.
- Eleven teams were formed consisting of 68 people. The teams wrote through 2013/2014.
- Final drafts were submitted in December 2014.
- In January, an editing team was formed and they went through all of the standards.
- Eric is writing an introduction to the report.
- We still need to write the eligibility requirements and the commission policies.
- We also need to create a response to prior recommendations.
- Since beginning this process, we have developed an Education Master Plan, a Strategic Plan, and we have updated the Technology Plan and the Facilities Plan.
- The Governance Council has worked on our Integrated Planning Model.
- The editing team is close to finishing their work. In our review of the document, ask: Is it complete? Is it comprehensive? Is there evidence to support what is being stated? Is it a candid and frank appraisal of ourselves?
- The document is now ready for the senate to review. Submit any factual corrections in an email to Eric. Focus on the areas that are of interest to you.
- The final draft of the document will likely be brought before the board in June and then sent off to ACCJC in July.
- Our site visit has been schedule for September 28th to October 1st.
- The site team chair is Jowel Laguerre from Solano College.
- The site team will consist of 10 to 11 people with a range of experience and expertise.
- The team will have read the Self Evaluation Report and will even start writing their report before coming to our campus.
- The team will identify issues they need clarified or want to validate or verify when on campus.
- The key with the Self Evaluation is to comprehensively describe our process and how things work here so that the team does not have to spend their time on campus getting oriented to our local context.
- The team will likely identify people they will want to interview ahead of time, but they will also have a couple of open meetings.
- The ACCJC will issue their accreditation decision in January 2016.
- Dena asked the senate members to take a look at the Self Evaluation report and send any corrections or any input to Eric.
- Dena speculated that we might receive “Recommendations” in regards to Distance Education, SLOs and WESTEC.
- We are currently under the old standards for this cycle, but after our site visit, we will be under the new standards that were adopted in 2014.
- ACCJC will be changing to using a 7-‐year cycle.
- Dena sees that the ACCJC is moving towards a more collaborative partnership with colleges.
Regular Effective Contact Policy in Distance Education
- Dan talked about the need for a Regular Effective Contact policy for our distance education courses.
- Michelle suggested a formation of a Task Force to take on the responsibility of vetting and editing a REC policy that would meet our needs. Michelle, Kelly, Juana, Mike, Dan and Joy volunteered to be on this Task Force. The Task Force will then send their recommendations to the senate.
- Tony will call a special AS meeting, sometime before the end of the semester. The
special meeting will be devoted to REC policy issue. The purpose of the meeting is
to have the senate vote on accepting the policy either as is or with some modifications.
Process of Screening Committee Appointments by Senate President
- Tony first pointed out that we have two versions of our constitution and by-‐laws, and we are not following either of the two. Geoffrey will have this matter on his agenda next year.
- The process of selecting participants of screening committee was discussed. Tony reported that Human Resources and the senate president routinely dialog about screening committee candidates only in those positions where the senate president has the opportunity to appoint.
- Juana offered that there have been inconsistencies in the selection of screening committee members. It seemed to be practice that the selection process was based on first come, first served; yet, that practice was not recently followed.
- Michelle liked the idea of having criteria to be used when selecting the committees.
- Tony stated that the statewide senate encourages the involvement of adjunct faculty into college processes -‐ that includes screening committees.
- Dena reported that HR will likely be establishing procedures for selecting screening committee members.
Meeting adjourned at 1:08. Respectfully submitted by Dan Hall