March 15, 2017 Meeting

Agenda

Taft College Academic Senate Council

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

12:00pm to 1:00pm,
Cafeteria Conference Room

Call to Order
Public Commentary
Approval of Minutes of February 15, 2017 Meeting

Agenda

Action Items

  1. Replacing Retiring Faculty/Faculty Ranking Process (Jacobi)
  2. CTE Committee Charter (Fuhrman)
  3. Rubric for Evaluating Critical Thinking SLOOther/Open Forum
    Adjournment

Minutes

Taft College Academic Senate Council Minutes

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Cafeteria Conference Room

 

Members Present: Vice President Vicki Jacobi, Greg Golling, Gary Graupman, Mike Jiles, Danielle Kerr, Kanoe Bandy, Juana Rangel-Escobedo, Candace Duron, Tori Furman, and Vicki Waugh.

 

Guests: Diane Jones and Amar Abbott.

 

The meeting was called to order at 12:11pm.

 

Public Commentary

  • None

 

Approval of February 15, 2017 Meeting Minutes

  • The February minutes were approved.

 

Replacing Retiring Faculty/Faculty Ranking Process (Jacobi)

  • There is a history of following past practice with regards to replacing and ranking faculty positions but the changes in administration has made documenting the practices/procedures important.
  • There are three retirements announced, two possible non-retentions, in addition to the grant positions where funding is ending.
  • Three options provided in Action Needed: Clarify the Relationship between Requesting to Replace Retiring Faculty and Requesting New Faculty Positions by Geoffrey Dyer on March 9, 2017 were reviewed.
    • Option 1: Integrate ranking of retiring faculty position requests into process for ranking new faculty position requests. Move ranking process to January.
    • Option 2: Allow Divisions with retiring faculty to recommend an appropriate replacement position to administration, independent of new faculty position requests. Request that administration fill these positions within a maximum of one year, when sufficient resources are available.
    • Option 3: Recommend that retiring faculty are consistently replaced with another full-time, tenure-track faculty position within one year.
  • The Academic Senate asked that the council look at writing a resolution on this subject; Geoffrey Dyer drafted two resolutions: Annual FON Data and Projected Number of New and Replacement Faculty Positions and Integrate Retiring Faculty Replacements and New Faulty Position Requests (a resolution advocating option 1).
  • Discussion points:
    • Option one soften the need for new positions with combining with replacement positions.
    • Option one causes a concerns regarding the timeline. Currently the ranking occurred in August and it is now March with no discussions/answers from Administration. Moving to January is likely to delay the process even further.
    • Option two seems to be most in line with past practice.
    • Option three is vague, replacement of faculty not specific to division or subject
    • This process cannot take into account non-retentions, which cannot be predicted and is a lengthy process.
    • Retirement disclosure is a personal choice and the timing, although can be encouraged, cannot be enforced.
    • In general, the thought is that Divisions are the experts in the replacement of retirement positions and their needs on a case by case basis.
    • Similarities and differences between Faculty Obligation Number (FON) and 50% law and what they both mean were discussed. The faculty Association has a meeting scheduled to discuss the 50% law.
    • Full-time tenured positions need to be refunded; temporary full-time positions are not healthy for the institution. There are faculty who have been grant funding for four years, eight years, with no commitment from the college.
    • Administration knows what the budget, is able to have discussions with divisions based on need and FTES, and should be transparent.
    • Diane Jones would like to see purposeful, transparent communication between faculty and administration occur in a timelier manner.
  • The ASC will move the Annual FON Data and Projected Number of New and Replacement Faculty Positions resolution forward to the senate-of-the-whole. Discussion will continue regarding the options for the Integrated Retiring Faculty Replacement and New Faculty Position Requests resolution.

 

CTE Committee Charter (Furman)

  • This committee will give faculty a voice in the CTE decisions that are being made on campus.
  • This committee will look at annual program reviews that align with CTE goals, projects, and funding.
  • Recommendation to change the language of membership from up to six faculty members to at least six faculty members.
  • On a motion by Juana Rangel-Escobedo, seconded by Mike Jiles. Question from Kanoe Bandy, are current CTE funded projects were in the APRs? Tori Furman answered, some because of timing and impact, Kanoe asked, will the CTE Committee fix that? Tori answered, hopefully, this will give faculty a voice in the recommendations and provide an avenue for dialog, and Vicki Jacobi commented that as part of the Strategic Planning Committee Tony Cordova reads the APRs. The motion unanimously carried, the CTE Committee Charter was approved to move forward to the senate-of-the-whole.

 

BP 5145/AP5145 (Abbott)

  • In accordance with the law mandate on accessibility and to be ADA complaint BP5145/AP5145 was written.
  • There is a law firm back east that has recently become active in looking at accessibility of colleges specifically with regards to policy and procedures and websites.
  • This provides protection to the students, protection the college, and is in accordance with the Office of Civil Rights.
  • On a motion by Tori Furman, seconded by Mike Jiles, and unanimously carried, BP 5145/AP5145 was approved to move forward to the senate-of-the-whole.

 

Scheduling Feedback (Jacobi)

  • The VPI suggested new and innovated, maybe even non-traditional ways of scheduling classes.
  • Poster boards and sticky note/tabs were used to demonstrate the recommended schedule.
  • Tony Thompson was asked to provide class schedule options for athletes as they are a complicated group with a lot of regulations with regards to scheduling and timelines for completion. This was difficult to do depending on the sport and the individual major of each athlete.
  • There is a problem with scheduling conflicts and course overlaps when only certain courses/division change to a Monday/Wednesday schedule instead of the traditional Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.
  • Research has shown that students do better in a 90 minute class versus a 60 minute class session.
  • Across the board, not just in Social Science Division where we have seen this change of most recent, class offerings are few on Friday.
  • A recommendation made by Diane Jones to ask the faculty to change back to a 60 minute instruction time, offer Monday/Wednesday in class and teach the Third hour hybrid.
  • No action was taken.

 

The meeting adjourned at 1:08 pm.

 

Submitted by Candace Duron, Secretary.

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