IV.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
Fullerton
College has been invited to participate in the
Foundation of Excellence in First Year
College. This is a foundation that
has worked with four-year colleges and is now seeking the participation of two
year colleges. Victoria Lugo indicated that she will be bringing a proposal to
the Senate requesting support.
Behnoosh Armani indicated that she
recently attended a teaching workshop at Lake
Arrowhead and, in discussion with faculty
at this conference, found widespread concerns. Behnoosh wanted faculty to send
her their concerns, and she will put these together in a list.
V.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORTS
President’s
Report
A proposal was made to cancel
the April 7 Senate meeting since most of the Senate Exec. will be out of town.
It was suggested that the previously tentative May 19 Senate meeting be scheduled.
Dr. Hodge reported on the
Accreditation Committee’s preliminary report, which was presented just prior to
the Senate meeting. This was a verbal report by the Accreditation Committee to
the staff of Fullerton College
on the major recommendations. These will be presented by the Accreditation
Committee to the Accrediting Board and will be considered for the final report.
The Committee praised the college for being forthright and open during the
review process and applauded the college self-study group. The Committee also
indicated that the program review process currently in place was excellent and
working well. The committee members also indicated that the college transfer program
was outstanding and that the TAP Program and the Cadena
Center were big factors in the
success of this program. The Committee also mentioned that morale on campus was
very good and everyone had a “passion” about the college. Finally, the
Accreditation Committee recognized the quality of the Curriculum Committee and
the role this committee has played. Dr. Hodge indicated that recognition by an
Accreditation team of a Curriculum Committee was rare and indicated its
outstanding quality. Dr. Hodge pointed
out that the Curriculum Committee has achieved this level without any support
staff.
The Accreditation Committee listed several recommendations that will be
submitted for the final report. The progress on resolving these recommendations
will be checked by an Accreditation Committee at some future date. The
recommendations are:
·
The District should review the budget allocation
model used to fund the campuses.
·
The District should provide strategic goals for
the campus that will reflect the budget allocations.
·
The campus planning process should be improved
and formalized. It should be linked with annual goals, the educational master
plan, program review, and campus technology plans.
·
Student learning outcomes should be defined at
the course, department, and college levels.
·
Although the campus has made progress on diversity,
it should be better institutionalized and should be supported by an action plan
and resources.
·
The college decision-making processes should be
more clearly defined and communicated to the campus.
Dr. Hodge indicated that these
recommendations are not new and there are already tasks in process to deal with
these recommendations. She also pointed out that there were no student issues
that rose to the level of a recommendation.
Roland reported on an upcoming
topic at the District Planning Committee. This is the issue of the new District
Budget Allocation model. This model would put future ongoing money into various
campus allocations such as FTES. The ongoing money would be allocated each year
to the campuses based on a fixed formula. This plan will be presented for a
vote at the next DPC meeting, and Rolando requested direction from the Senate.
It was pointed out that such a policy of preallocating ongoing money would
result in less money being available for negotiations. Since even the cost of
living salary increases must be bargained for, it did not seem appropriate for
automatic increases to be allowed for the various district budget centers.
M/S/P (Eisner/Keifer) to direct
Rolando to vote for this proposal only on the condition that salary
negotiations must be concluded before the money is distributed.
The Academic Freedom Policy has
been distributed and will be discussed at the next Senate meeting.
The unlawful discrimination procedure
currently under discussion will have an academic freedom clause attached as
well as a clause indicating that any time a faculty member is placed under
investigation that person will be informed.
Treasurer’s
Report
No
report.
VI.
CURRICULUM COMMITTEE REPORT
Doug indicated that the campus is
currently not following the Americans for Disability Act (ADA). One issue that
was raised was that faculty must include the ADA
statement in their syllabus letting students know where they can go for
support. This statement will be mailed to all faculty.
It was also pointed out that some
disabled students need textbooks three weeks prior to the start of class in
order to scan the books into an appropriate format. This is being worked on.
The Cal-State Systems will no
longer support the CAN system. This means that certain classes may have to be
renumbered.
The issue of non-credit classes
being used for credit funding was raised. The issue on campus is that Academic
Computing is using non-credit funding to pay for lab aids. In order to comply
with the law, students are automatically enrolled in a non-credit lab class. To
get student consent, they must agree to this class by clicking a button in a
dialog box.
Associated Students has passed a
resolution concerning implementation of the new prerequisites system. The
concern was about how easy it is for students to fix problems with missing
prerequisites since they will be blocked during registration. It is proposed
that a better system for dealing with blocked classes be created.
VII. ELECTIONS
President-elect Joumana McGowan
announced all divisional Senate seats were filled, except Student Services. One
of the seats from that division will be converted to at-large.
The hiring committee for the Vice
President of Instruction failed to send forward a candidate. Dr. Hodge
expressed a desire to hire someone to serve in this position for one year until
a suitable candidate pool can be selected.
M/S/P (Courchaine/ McQueen) to have
Rolando support Dr. Hodge in securing a “VP for Hire” individual to fill the
Executive Vice President position on a temporary basis.
VIII.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
None.
IX.
OLD BUSINESS
The issue of the formation of an
Educational Technology Committee was tabled.
The proposed campus-wide Smoking
Ban was discussed. The Senate voted not to support this ban. The vote was 11
for and 12 against.
M/S/P (Pourmorad/Keifer) – The
Senate proposes the creation of a committee consisting of various constituent
groups to study the smoking problem on campus and bring a recommendation to
PCC. This committee should complete its study by the end of this semester.
The proposal to implement the
Student Learning Outcomes committee was approved.
X.
NEW BUSINESS
Adam
O’Connor presented a summary of the two budget allocation models being
considered by the Budget Development Committee, a subcommittee of PCC. Adam
presented a summary of the two models under consideration and answered
questions about the models. Approval of a new budget allocation model will be
sought at a future Senate meeting.
The two models were based on allocating a base budget for all divisions and
areas on campus. The base budget will be allocated by averaging three years of
budgets and by removing Equipment and Supplies money from it. The amount spent
on supplies would be supplanted by state property tax money that is by law
allocated for teaching supplies and cannot be spent otherwise. Since the
college does not spend all the money currently allocated, this would allow
better distribution of these funds.
The money allocated to each division for equipment would be pulled out of the
divisional budget and placed into a college wide general fund. Each division
would then submit requests for this equipment money. Both budget allocation
models follow these two basic guidelines; supplanting teaching supplies with
State bond money, and centralizing equipment money. The only difference between
the two proposed budget models is that under the first model 100 percent of
equipment money would be subtracted from divisional budgets. Under the second
plan only 75 percent would be subtracted.
During
discussion, several Senators expressed concern that these models would make it
difficult for divisions to maintain the same level of academic preparation if
their budget allocations for equipment were not regularly funded. They felt
that having to request equipment funding would impact the ability of divisions
to maintain their programs.
XI.
LIAISON REPORTS
United
Faculty
Faculty
were reminded to return their salary survey forms before Friday, March 18.
Associated
Students
Araz
Pourmorad thanked faculty for listening to student concerns relative to smoking
on campus.
Adjunct
Faculty United
No
report.
The meeting was
adjourned at 5:15 p.m.
Respectfully
submitted,
/s/
Dale Craig for Jane
Troop, Secretary
