Fullerton College Faculty Senate

Approved Minutes

January 19, 2006

 


 

Present

 

 

 

Academic Services............................

Gayle Cebrian

 

Business...........................................

Dale Craig, Joel Willenbring

 

Counseling........................................

 

 

Fine Arts...........................................

Chuck Ketter

 

Humanities........................................

Danielle Fouquette, John Ison,

Robert Lundergan, Miguel Powers, Jeff Rodine

 

Library..............................................

Michele Fitzsimmons

 

Math/Computer Science.....................

Kelly Klassen, Deborah McQueen

 

Natural Sciences...............................

Jeff Feaster, Jacob Sapiro

 

Part-Time Faculty..............................

 

 

Physical Education............................

Pete Snyder

 

Social Sciences.................................

Diana Kyle, Arienne Turner

 

Student Services................................

Paul McKinley

 

Technology/Engineering......................

Dennis Howey, Kevin Sampson

 

 

 

 

At-large.............................................

Callista Lee, Mike Moore, Sally Moore,

Marcus Wilson

 

 

 

 

Associated Students..........................

Alejandra Goodrich

 

 

 

 

President..........................................

Joumana McGowan

 

Past President...................................

Rolando Sanabria

 

Secretary..........................................

Jane Troop

 

Treasurer...........................................

Ken Collins

 

At-large, Curriculum Chair...................

Doug Eisner

 

 

 

 

Guests:  Connie Lopez, Jonathan Morrell, Karen Rose, Pat Wilson

 

 

 

Absent

 

 

 

At-large.............................................

Elise Donley

 

Fine Arts...........................................

Bill Hayner

 

Counseling........................................

Karyn Nguyen

 

Part-Time..........................................

Jim Book

 

Physical Education............................

Jim Kiefer

 

Social Sciences.................................

Susan Grabiel

 

I.                     CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 3 p.m. by President Joumana McGowan.

 

II.                   APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING

M/S/U (Kyle/Fouquette) to approve the Minutes of the November 17, 2005 meeting.

 

III.                  APPROVAL OF AGENDA

 

M/S/U (Fitzsimmons/Kyle) to approve the agenda for this meeting.

 

IV.                PUBLIC COMMENTS

            President McGowan introduced Dr. Jonathan Morrell, the new Vice President of Student Services.

 

            Connie Lopez read a statement about being happy to be a part of the Technology Division and reported that the transition has gone smoothly. 

 

            Chuck Ketter announced the play to be presented as a fund raiser, The Guys.  It will be performed on February 2-4, 2006, at 8 p.m. in the Bronwyn Dodson Theatre.  Tickets are available for $10. 

 

            Pat Wilson stated that she was happy to be a part of the Technology Division. 

 

            Gayle Cebrian announced a teaching flex day activity on February 26.

 

V.         EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORTS

 President’s Report

 

President McGowan reported that at the last Board of Trustees meeting, SCE and the adjunct union made their yearly report presentations.

 

Dr. McGowan thanked those who attended the joint United Faculty/Senates meeting held January 12. An issue was raised at the meeting concerning the 16-week calendar. This issue was previously introduced into negotiations between United Faculty and the District, but it was never resolved. The Fullerton Senate President had discussed this issue with the United Faculty President and learned that the reason it was not pursued by UF was that a survey of faculty concerning this change resulted in a nearly even split between those in favor of the calendar change and those opposed. At the joint meeting, the Chancellor mentioned that the District was not opposed to the 16-week term. The United Faculty president, Tony Jones, will attend the next Faculty Senate meeting on February 2 to discuss the matter. 

 

Dr. McGowan announced that the Staff Development Coordinator position will be flown during the spring 2006 semester.

 

Treasurer’s Report

 

The Treasurer thanked Dr. McGowan for providing the refreshments for this meeting and reported that the Senate has no money.

 

VI.                CURRICULUM COMMITTEE REPORT

 

The issue of class size was discussed. This issue involves the curriculum for a Geography class that was sent to Dr. Hodge’s office for signature and was left unsigned because of a class size reduction. The initiating faculty member presenting the class and Dr. Eisner will put together an explanation of the reason for the lower class size and resubmit the curriculum. It was indicated that even if Dr. Hodge does not sign the curriculum, it will still go forward to DCCC. The UF contract outlines the procedures for contesting a class size, but does not specify what happens when the college president will not sign. Dr. Eisner will forward a suggestion to the United Faculty negotiating team, through the United Faculty president, that the contract be clarified on this issue.

Since the Cosmetology Department is now a part of the Technology Division, the Academic Services Senator and Curriculum Committee representative technically no longer have their own seats on the Senate or on the Curriculum Committee. Because this change happened in the middle of the academic year, however, they will both serve until the end of the spring semester.

 

Curricunet is proceeding well, and training is still scheduled for February. It was announced that there will be an optional place for SLOs (student learning outcomes) on the new curriculum forms. The SCE curriculum issues are still being discussed in the special district-wide Curriculum Task Force, but there are currently no resolutions.

 

Relative to SLOs, Dr. Eisner will be putting out the training schedule for this semester as soon as he determines the most convenient times.

 

VII.       ELECTIONS

 

No elections were held at this meeting.  The divisions electing Senators this semester are as follows:

 

                                                                                    Number of

Division                                                                      Seats Available

Business/CIS                                                                      1

Counseling                                                                          1

Humanities                                                                          2

Library                                                                                1

Math/Science                                                                      2

Physical Education                                                              1

Social Sciences                                                                  2

Student Services                                                                 1

Technology                                                                         1

At-large                                                                               2

 

Nominations will also be taken for President-elect, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Faculty Senate this semester.

 

VIII.             LIAISON REPORTS

 

Associated Students

No report.

 

United Faculty

It was reported that the District has officially responded to the salary proposal from UF. The District’s response, which was COLA, was e-mailed to all faculty. This is different from the proposed 6%, additional step, and 10% increase to benefits that were made by UF. The UF Board will meet next week and, using the feed-back received from Faculty, decide the UF counter-proposal.

 

It was also announced that the UF negotiating team has started discussing a variety of issues with the District after undergoing a review of the Interest Based Bargaining process.

 

Adjunct Faculty United

No report.

 

IX.                 UNFINISHED BUSINESS

The Academic Freedom Policy is still under discussion in the FC, CC, and SCE Senates. The three Senates have not yet reached mutual agreement on all the elements. It was expressed by several Senators that the language in the Policy should be specific enough to protect faculty and must include a peer review process.

 

A Senator brought up the current news story about an organization paying students at UCLA to provide lecture notes and/or tapes that “prove” instructors have a particular political position. This type of activity would clearly fall under Academic Freedom.

X.                   OLD BUSINESS

 

On November 17, 2005 Karyn Nguyen brought AB 540 to the attention of the Senate.  This is a new state law that allows all persons who have attended three years of high school in California to be exempt from nonresident tuition including undocumented aliens.  The Senate decided to refer this issue to the Vice President of Student Services; he can provide clarification to the Senate. 

 

XI.                 NEW BUSINESS

 

Karen Rose sought the Senate’s feedback on the proposed Student Achievement Record Program draft.  The goal of this program is to create an official record/documentation of a student’s participation in co-curricular activities to enhance university, scholarship, internship and job applications.  Some ideas on this proposed program have been presented to PAC (President’s Advisory Council).  The Student Leadership class that will be offered next fall can be tied in with this.  This process is still in development.  Associated Students have endorsed this program, and the sense of the Senate is that it should keep moving forward.  Three Senators volunteered to work with Ms. Rose on its development.

 

The issue of the Dynamic Fund evaluation was introduced. The faculty was requested to comment on the Dynamic Fund procedures, but feedback was poor. The Senate discussed various issues related to the Dynamic Fund allocation process. The general comments from the Senate included:

 

·         The proposal selection criteria needs to be better defined.

·         The process of voting needs to be better defined.

·         Allowing debate in the PAC over the selection of proposals should be allowed.

·         The individual divisions should be able to prioritize their own proposals.

 

A generally supported concept was that the Dynamic Fund money should be taken from the very large and currently unspent carryover funds.

 

M/S/P (Wilson/McQueen) that the Budget Committee work with PAC to restore all ongoing funds to the divisions and ask them to review funded proposals and if the activity is deemed valuable, move to institutionalize the funded activity.

 

A draft joint resolution on salary negotiations was presented to the Senate. This resolution has been approved by the SCE Senate. This resolution was jointly written by all three senate presidents and has been approved by the SCE Senate. The Senate discussed changing the resolution and requesting both the Board of Trustees and United Faculty to strive to complete negotiations prior to finalizing the budget.

 

M/S/P (Wilson/Craig) That the Senates urge the Board of Trustees and United Faculty to actively work together with the other bargaining units for a timely completion of negotiations this year and subsequent years and to build good relationships between the Board and employees for the benefit of all employees and the District as a whole.  In addition, Fullerton College Senate supports the joint resolution on negotiations and reaffirms its policy that its representatives on DPC do not vote on any budget items until negotiations are complete.

 

Proposed changes to Administrative Procedure 3720 were presented. Senators were previously sent a copy of the proposed changes by e-mail. This policy is being presented jointly by the IS Directors at the campuses and at the District.

 


Many Senators expressed strong opposition to the changes to this policy. It was pointed out that this policy would be unenforceable and would result in “criminalizing” activities such as using a wireless-enabled PDA on campus. Senators indicated that this policy would directly affect instruction and should be discussed by the various divisions on campus.

 

Other Senators indicated that the implied reason for introducing this policy is to improve computer and network security. The opinion was that the policy could not improve network security since it is so poorly written and so easily circumvented. If this policy was written to improve network security, then it was stated by a Senator that the job competency of the individuals writing the policy must be called into question.

 

The policy also included a “release” form that is to be signed by all staff within the District. There were a number of concerns about being forced to sign this form and the issue was raised as to whether this is a union working condition issue since such an agreement is not part of the employees employment contract.

 

The Senate President recommended that the Senate work with members of the ACT Committee to discuss this policy in a participatory governance environment (since it was not previously discussed with the faculty prior to the policy being created). The sense of the Senate was that this policy should be immediately discussed in the ACT Committee and the results reported back to the Senate. It was also the sense of the Senate that Senate members who are also members of the United Faculty Board bring this issue to UF and ask about the legality of having faculty sign the agreement.

 

Coverage of the Skills Center was discussed. The issue is that the Skills Center closes during finals, summer, and intercession when there is still student demand for the services offered by the Center.

 

M/S/U (Wilson/M. Moore) to request that the Senate PAC representatives introduce the request that the Director of the Skills Center develop a proposal to increase the coverage by the Skills Center so that it can be open during finals week and other times when instruction is being conducted.

 

Faculty members will not call each other by their academic rank.

 

Mr. Powers and Dr. Collins have developed information about dean and summer elections. Dr. McGowan will be forwarding it to the Senators to be discussed at the February 2 meeting.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

/s/

 

Jane Troop, Secretary