I.CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 3 p.m. by President Rolando Sanabria.
II.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING
The
Minutes of the January 20, 2005 meeting were approved by consensus.
III.
APPROVAL OF AGENDA
The
agenda for this meeting was approved by consensus.
IV.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
Mike
Fitzsimmons announced that the library is not moving until the end of the
semester.
It
was mentioned that the inability of part-time students to qualify for the
Dean’s List is a local issue, not a Title V issue. It is a matter of not having a local policy.
A
faculty member was concerned about PERS investments in the Sudanese
government. Dale Craig
will look into it on behalf of United Faculty.
V.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORTS
President’s
Report
DPC—
FTES Allocation—At the last DPC
meeting, the allocation of FTES funds to the campuses was discussed. A change
in the funding formula is about to be passed in DPC which will base funding
allocations on meeting growth targets. This will be good for Fullerton
College because we, unlike other
parts of the District, generally meet or exceed the annual growth targets
established by the District.
The
District has proposed treating the colleges in the same way the entire District
is treated by the State of California.
Each year, the District is paid to teach a specified number of students. This
number is often a percent growth from the previous year. If the District fails
to meet its growth percentage, it has a one-year grace period. If it fails to
meet its target a second year, its base-line funding will be decreased. This
same procedure will be applied to the colleges. The one-year grace period
starts in the next academic year, and the base year will be 2003-2004.
Program Discontinuance—Both college
presidents have concerns with the proposed policy on program discontinuance. This
policy has been worked on by the various faculty groups and includes a process
whereby faculty input is primarily relied upon when considering discontinuing a
program. Cypress College President, Dr. Margie Lewis, does not feel that
decisions should be made by mutual agreement with the faculty. It has been
reported that she is considering the elimination of six programs at Cypress
College and would like the ability
to discontinue these programs in three semesters, instead of the three years that
the proposed policy would require. The decision to discontinue programs would
be hers alone.
On
the other hand, Dr. Hodge merely wanted to know if a program where the
last full-time faculty member has retired must be continued throughout the
three year discontinuance process or whether this process could be abbreviated
in such special circumstances.
There
was extended discussion of the positions of Dr. Lewis and Dr. Hodge. Most
Senators felt that Dr. Hodge’s concerns could be easily addressed within the
proposed policy. However, the position expressed by Dr. Lewis to remove all
faculty input on program discontinuance was not well accepted. It was pointed
out that according to State Law (AB1725) as well as the Agreement between the
Board of Trustees and the faculty of North Orange County Community College
District, there must be significant faculty input on program discontinuance. To
ignore both of these authorities, as indicated by the statement from Dr. Lewis,
would seem at odds with most of the District.
It
was pointed out that the program discontinuance policy must be uniform on both
campuses and must have faculty input. Programs discontinued at Cypress
College can directly affect faculty on the Fullerton
campus. Faculty members at Cypress College
in discontinued programs have retraining rights under the United
Faculty/District contract. If the faculty members in question are transferred
to Fullerton College,
they will retain their seniority. One of the Senator mentioned that, “It may be
horrifying to watch a train wreck happen across the street, but it can also be
dangerous if one of the rail cars rolls your way.”
President
Sanabria mentioned that the Program Discontinuance Committee is scheduled to meet
with both Presidents on Monday to answer these concerns.
PCC—A
lot was done at the PCC meeting. This included discussion of a parking work
group to help with the current and future campus parking problems. The ACT
committee was also discussed, and the Senate is to elect five faculty for this
committee.
A
Campus Resource Committee was also discussed and will be formed. Dr. Hodge would
like this committee to help bridge the communication gap between the bond
projects and the various campus groups. The Resource Committee will disseminate
information about the bond projects and function as a think tank. It will not
oversee individual budgets or projects.
The
creation of an FTES work group was approved. This group will help decide on
allocations of FTES to individual divisions within the college. The idea applies
to the divisions the same model of FTES allocation being applied to the campuses;
divisional budgets will be allocated based on whether the division achieves its
growth numbers. Any such FTES considerations will be brought back to the
Senate.
Taher
Food Service will not be renewing their contract and will be leaving the campus
by March 31. No replacement has been
chosen.
Treasurer’s
Report
No
report.
VI.
CURRICULUM COMMITTEE REPORT
Curriculum
Committee Chair Doug Eisner reported that at
the DCCC meeting it was agreed that the District should purchase
Curricunet. Dr. Hodge supports this
idea. The price would be $90,000 for two
colleges or $100,000 if the School of
Continuing Education is
included. This is a software package
that will automate much of the curriculum process. The result will be that things will run more
smoothly. It can automate every step of
the process including Board approval. The
Districts that have used this package like it.
We would pay Curricunet $14,000 a year to run it and $8,000 a year for
hosting on its server. The program has the ability to automatically upload to
OSCAR, the state curriculum system. It
would involve a nine-month implementation.
A
question was raised about when faculty had input on the selection and purchase
of this system since it will affect the curriculum process.
A
question was raised about the current curriculum process and when material is
being forwarded to DCCC and the state. The Deans have been given more and more
curriculum-related work that used to be done by the Vice President of Academic
Affairs. It was pointed out that the Deans do not have to sign off on a piece
of curriculum in order for it to be approved. When the new Vice President of
Academic Affairs is hired, the Curriculum Committee may want to consider
requesting a realignment of curriculum responsibilities.
More
concerns have been raised from the universities about the quality of on-line
based courses. It has been proposed that a Distance Education Curriculum Committee
be formed that would include faculty who have taught online. This committee
would possibly establish some guidelines for online curriculum and judge new
online courses for viability and pedagogically related issues. The discussion
was whether this proposed committee would be a sub-committee under the
Curriculum Committee or a standing committee under the Faculty Senate. It was
the sense of the Senate to have the Curriculum Committee come back with a
recommendation at the next Senate meeting.
The
issue of prerequisites was again raised. The basic issue is that courses with
prerequisites would be automatically enforced by the Banner system. This means
that unless students had the exact prerequisite, they would be blocked from
registering for a class. However, students who have taken the required class at
another school will also be blocked because Banner only checks a student’s
enrollment record for classes taken at this college.
It
has been proposed that more people be trained to override the Banner block to allow
students without the specific prerequisite to enroll in the class. These people
would include department coordinators. It was pointed out that Title V
restricts who can override prerequisites and this would seem to be at odds with
including additional people to the list of those able to override Banner. It is
proposed that prerequisites only be applied to English and math courses
initially.
The
Curriculum Committee will discuss posting syllabi online.
VII. ELECTIONS
Elections
for several positions were held. Joumana
McGowan read Angela Henderson’s candidate statement. Renee Bangerter read Phil Mayfield’s
statement. Adela Lopez spoke on behalf
of Anita Varela. Marcus Wilson and Dale
Craig spoke on behalf of Richard Smead.
Arienne Turner spoke on behalf of Diana Kyle. Tom Morris spoke on his own behalf. Doug Eisner spoke on behalf of Paul
McKinley. Kevin Sampson spoke on behalf
of Pat McGrew.
Those
individuals listed below were elected to serve on committees.
Writing
Center Selection
Committee
Sharon
Portman
Phil
Mayfield
Connie
Eggers
Library
Ad Hoc Committee
Darren
Chiang-Schultheiss
Jenny
Langrell
Equivalence
Committee
Joumana
McGowan
Vice
Chancellor of Finance and Facilities Hiring Committee
Elias
Dominguez
Teacher
of the Year Level II: Term 2005-2007
Sunshine
Vidal
Julie
Felender
Connie
Lopez
Academic
Computing Technologies Committee, Term 2005-2007
Paul
McKinley
Dale
Craig
Richard
Smead
Diana
Kyle
Tom
Morris
Campus
Resource Committee, Term 2005-2007
Marcus
Wilson
Patrick
McGrew
Dale
Craig
Dr.
McGowan announced the vacancies for which elections would be held this semester. She also requested that the provisions in the
Senate Constitution relative to the timing of specific elections be suspended
for this semester to ensure that the elections would be finished by May.
Several
elections will be held this semester. The
positions and divisions are as follows:
|
Position
or Division
|
Number
Needed
|
|
Senate Treasurer
|
1
|
|
Senate Secretary
|
1
|
|
Academic Services
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
Adjunct
|
1
|
|
Business and CIS
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
Counseling add Guidance
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
Fine Arts
|
3 and an alternate
|
|
Humanities
|
3 and an alternate
|
|
Library
|
0
|
|
Math and Computer Science
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
Natural Science
|
2
|
|
Physical Education
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
Social Sciences
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
Student Services
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
Technology and Engineering
|
1 and an alternate
|
|
At-large
|
3
|
M/S/U
(Wilson/Lopez) that the section of the Senate Constitution that governs the
time frames when specific elections are conducted be suspended during the
Spring semester.
A
discussion was held about the representation on the District Equivalence Committee.
This is the committee that votes on faculty subject matter equivalency. Because
of various problems with the committee itself, it is being reformed. It is the
opinion of the current members of this committee that they are the best people
to decide how the committee should function. It was pointed out by a Senator
who had served on this committee that the administrators on this committee can
exert a large amount of influence on the outcomes and that any recommendation
made by the committee members should be discussed in the Senate.
Since
the committee structure and function will change, it was discussed whether to
elect a permanent member to this committee. The Senate can elect someone to the
Equivalence Committee until the committee structure changes. The Senate Presidents want to empower the
committee members themselves to make changes.
The current committee members will not all be back, and we will have a
new Vice President. It was the sense of the Senate to empower the committee to
evaluate itself and return with recommendations.
M/S/U
(Wilson/ Sampson) that the Equivalence Committee member elected should remain
in office until the committee recommendations have been implemented.
VII.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Restructuring
of PCC was discussed. President Hodge
was concerned because the classified people had not formed a Senate yet, but
she agreed with the following:
On
action items, PCC needs to provide the President with a single recommendation
with the understanding that the President has veto power
Faculty
membership in PCC needs to be equal to that of Managers
There
will not be any term limits imposed on faculty representatives
PCC
should have a smaller membership
There
will be no more than one representative from a single division in PCC
(excluding the Senate President and President-elect or Past President).
There
was an extensive discussion about this proposal. The main point of discussion
concerned the faculty representation on PCC. The proposed structure would be four
faculty, four managers, two classified, and two students. Given that classified
and students have never supported faculty proposals on PCC when their proposals
were rejected by the administration, it was felt that faculty should have a
larger voice on PCC.
The
issue of how decisions were to be made on PCC was discussed. If PCC is a voting
body, then the four faculty votes will never be enough to overcome the six
votes on the other side. If PCC operates on concurrence, then the number of
members is more symbolic than practical.
It
was pointed out that in the extensive discussion last semester about this
issue, faculty did suggest four members on PCC.
The
Senate was not in agreement on these recommendations, and the Senate President
indicated that this will be brought back to the Senate for further discussion.
It is currently at first read within PCC.
XI.
OLD BUSINESS
None
XII.
NEW BUSINESS
The
proposed Student Equity Plan is now endorsed. This plan contains a number of
tasks that the faculty must complete.
Dr. Hodge empowered the Senate to decide what to do next. It was
determined that the Senate will develop a committee to examine all of the
recommendations.
XIII.
LIAISON REPORTS
United
Faculty
United
Faculty is still in negotiations and still receiving surveys. The issue of load averaging among classes
could be proposed.
Associated
Students
The AS
President announced the Red Cross blood drive.
Adjunct
Faculty United
No
report.
The meeting was
adjourned at 5:03 p.m.
Respectfully
submitted,
/s/
Jane Troop
Secretary
