Draft Faculty Senate Minutes
Thursday, March 17, 2011
3:15 PM to 5:00 PM, Gwynn Room, A 221
In attendance: (President) Mike Gavin, (Vice President) Rosanne Benn; (delegates) Barbara
Engh – Nursing; Sadra Thomas – Learning Foundations; Len Sekelick – Liberal Arts; Laura
Ellsworth – Public Safety and Law; Darlene Antezana – Liberal Arts; Eldon Baldwin – At-large;
Alan Mickelson – At-large; Jean McEvoy – Library; Nancy Meman – Allied Health; Barry
Berube – Health, Nutrition, and Physical Education. Invited guests: Allen Richman and Bridgid
Brennan. Others in attendance: Nick Plants – Philosophy; Clyde Ebenreck – Philosophy.
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The meeting was called to order at 3:21 pm.

Reports:
A. Senate President
a. Emeritus Faculty Proposal. Mike Gavin noted that the proposal has gone to
the Board as an agenda item and that it should be voted on in April, 2011.
Forms are to be made available shortly thereafter, and this should allow for
the College President to name faculty to emeritus status as soon as at PGCC’s
graduation in May, 2011.
b. Promotion/Tenure Referendum. Chairs are to be informed that an eligibility
form must be submitted by 6/10/2011 for next year. The window will be
small this year.
c. Short-term Disability. The item will go on the Board’s agenda in April, 2011.
There needs to be an initial 15% employee buy-in for short-term disability to
go forward as an optional benefit. If the minimum of a 15% buy-in is
reached, there will not be a minimum required thereafter.
d. Domestic Partnership Benefits. Gavin indicated that his intention is to
continue to push for this benefit no matter what happens in the Maryland
Senate.
e. Updates on roster via Owl Link and official roster. Gavin will bring this issue
to Academic Council next week.
f. Governance Structure. Results were not great in the Academic Council. How
do people perceive what is on the academic affairs side in terms of
committees. This will be on the agenda next time.
g. Extra instruction days for cancelled time. Gavin noted that he did not bring
up this issue as part of the form referring to weather-related closures, but he
plans to bring up the issue.

Academic Affairs Assessment System
Allen Richman spoke with the Faculty Senate on the process of creating an assessment
system at Prince George’s Community College. Core Learning Outcomes need to be
measured, as well as program outcomes and course outcomes. The final piece is to show
improvement in areas where students are struggling. This is a cycle of assessing data,
analyzing it, intervention, and then re-analysis. Richman talked about a timeline of three
to five years for this circular assessment to take place, at which point the process would
begin anew. Richman noted that there is a call for larger segments of students to be
evaluated and that there needs to be a range of considerations taken into account, such as
enlisting the participation of full-time and adjunct instructors. The interest is to combine
the evaluation of outcomes to move students through to improvement.
Assessment will be unified under one house rather than being segmented across campus
as a way to add to uniformity. A DAT (Department Assessment Team), a team of
faculty, will be charged with overseeing the process for a given department to make sure
that necessary steps are taken in order to move forward. This is a campus-wide initiative.
A committee will be selected to choose the software to find what will meet our needs and
to connect this to what we need in the classroom. Rosanne Benn asked what this
software will cost and whether it will do what we need, something that she noted did not
work out so well with Colleague. Richman indicated that the emphasis will be on what
software best meets our needs and that the user-friendliness and compatibility with
BlackBoard or whatever software is chosen will be the main considerations. Richman
suggested that this will not be as cumbersome as Colleague and pointed out that most
campuses are running several systems. Richman indicated that at this point we do not
have specific details on cost, and he likened the software-selection process to
negotiations with a car dealer.
Clyde Ebenreck asked whether an individual student will be assessed through the system.
Richman answered that this is potentially the case, perhaps for one assignment per
quarter. Richman noted that besides the cumulative grade, some inclusion of an
additional assessment would be necessary. Also, considering that many students come
and go at the College, assessing a single student’s performance across semesters is
admittedly difficult to do systematically. Courses with multiple sections could be
assessed, perhaps at a percentage representing 40 – 60%. What an adequate assessment
percentage would be has not been answered, but having only a few examples will not be
considered sufficient. Richman indicated that age, race, campus, and other differences
are things that need to be taken into consideration in order show progress. Clyde
Ebenreck asked about the possibility of using entrance exams across the board as a
baseline measurement. Richman said that the committee was open to a range of
suggestions. Referring to Ebenreck’s field, philosophy, Richman spoke about the
possibility of being able to see the impact of having students who have taken a certain
class such as Philosophy 1010 on students’ improvement following completion of the
course. Gavin asked about how to choose courses to be assessed, and Richman answered
that large enrollment classes are the ones that would be targeted for assessment.
Richman noted that programmatic outcomes would enter into the process as
demonstrated by what a given department believes to be the best evidence of
programmatic outcomes. Richman noted that 80% of the students at PGCC are in 20% of
the classes. By measuring what is going on in the 20% of classes referred to here, we can
see what is going on with students in the aggregate or within some subset of the student
body. Using courses with lots of students and many sections makes it easier to sample
with more students and analyze the outcomes.
Benn commented that this sounds a bit abstract and asked what is involved in all of this.
Richman replied that it comes down to compiling and running data and emphasized that
assessment is “our business” as an educational institution. It is necessary for whatever is
being done in given departments to be shared and brought forward. We have to
demonstrate that students are meeting programmatic outcomes. What this plan does is to
align work that is being done. Bridget Brennan made reference to the assessment system
document that addresses what will need to be done and how the shepherding will take
place. At some point in the future, departments will meet to determine how to come up
with rubrics and measure what will be going on.
Ebenreck noted that there are those at the College who have trouble getting grades turned
in on time; he wondered how time-consuming this process could end up being. Richman
addressed this concern by clarifying that the specific work required would be the
choosing of an assignment or two, administering it/them, and grading the assignment(s).
Richman says that information would be gathered from a rubric-based assessment
instrument. Richman said that the timeline will be three or four years and that part of this
process will involve learning how data can best be entered into the system. Richman
underscored that we have to have the data and then find the best way to measure the data.
Ebenreck noted that adjuncts who are already overworked will find this process quite
cumbersome. Richman noted that letter grades no longer hold water and that rubricbased assessment has become standard practice around the State of Maryland since 2005.
Gavin echoed Ebenreck’s concerns and noted that we do not have a system in place that
allows for adjunct inclusion because adequate infrastructure is not in place to foster such
inclusion. Richman pointed out that inter-instructor pass rates differ and that it is
necessary to create more consistency between instructors and between full-time and
adjunct faculty.
Nick Plants noted that a multiple-choice-type test is easy to assess, but other courses do
not offer the same kind of ready-made results. Plants went on to note that many of his
students in a general education course have more in common with developmental
students in that they have not jumped over certain hurdles in their educational process in
ways that other students in certain programs at PGCC are more likely to have had to do.
Richman noted that the learning outcomes are what will be addressed through
assessment, while he conceded that the range of students is something that is different
from one course to another. Richman also pointed out that the sequencing of courses and
the ordering of courses in different disciplines have an impact on a student’s success.
The assessment system is about finding ways to improve our practices and the ways we
address information. Plants asked for there to be flexibility in the process and noted that
in some disciplines there is no common assignment. Brennan commented that the
assignment does not have to be a common one, but the rubric would have to be uniform.
Plants noted that pedagogy should drive assessment, not the other way around. Richman
commented that they should work hand in hand. Plants pointed out that he views the
document as one that aligns more easily with certain programs at the College and perhaps
less well with the broad population in general education. Brennan commented that the
department DAT will get the results back.
Eldon Baldwin asked about how quality control would work. Baldwin noted that there is
a great deal of discrepancy between how one instructor grades compared with other
instructors who teach the same material/same course, even when a given assignment or
test instrument is the same. Richman noted that finding consistency between right and
wrong answers will be something that will need tweaking and will have to be worked out
in the rubrics. Baldwin noted that how quality control is to happen and how it will be
negotiated, integrated, and implemented within the culture of the College is something
that has never been addressed and that there has never been a face-to-face discussion of
how this is to be put into practice. Richman noted that this process is not intended to be
punitive and referred to improving conditions as the intended goal. Richman admitted
that the shift in culture will not be an easy one. Richman emphasized that outcomes are a
key point and that they are what we are guaranteeing our students. Richman commented
that the only way to improve this is to move forward with an assessment system.
Richman and Brennan noted that the document is not a final product but rather a work in
progress that will require more planning and input. Richman indicated that ultimately we
are moving towards a rubrics-based assessment.
Baldwin noted that departments have made an effort to limit the number of course
outcomes. Richman replied that reducing outcomes is about defining what the
parameters of a course are and identifying key components. The boundaries of the class
need to be defined; we do not need to reduce what we are teaching. The level of
specificity, where the number of items is smaller for outcomes, allows for a holistic view.
Brennan commented that we will learn a lot from the piloting experience.
Barbara Engh commented that she has been at College for 17 years and that the evidencebased fields at the College such as nursing are outcomes-based. The outcomes have to
drive the rubric. Assessment needs to be a part of this process.
Richman spoke of the flash-in-the-pan concerns that occasionally crop up. Since this
became part of Middle States in 2002, all we have seen is an increase in the use of
assessment with a rubrics-based yardstick. Accountability is a key component of this
process, and proving that we are able to meet these assessment goals will remain
necessary in the future in terms of meeting Middle States’ requirements as well.
Ebenreck suggested that having faculty buy into this could come from sharing how
students have fared from one semester to the next; he noted that we have been asked to
create assessment tools at different junctures in the past without little or no feedback.
Richman said that providing the sort of feedback Ebenreck is suggesting would be
possible with a large enough sample. Richman added that the data will come back to the
faculty unlike in some other cycles in which there has not necessarily been feedback.
Ebenreck noted that faculty members need to see something along the lines of feedback
in order to create enthusiasm. Baldwin commented that individual faculty members
never get feedback on how students do in subsequent courses. Baldwin added that he
sees very clear patterns when he looks at his students’ information. Plants suggested that
a chance to see the outcomes from data gathered in January, 2011 would be of value.
Richman noted that these data are being entered at present, but he noted that a grade of A,
B, C, D, or F does not tell us the real story. The percentage of adjuncts has gone up in
recent years since the number of students has increased. Following students’
performance across disciplines and looking at some particular skill like critical thinking is
difficult to measure. Jumping through hoops is not the same as being engaged. Baldwin
indicated that he views it as very challenging to involve adjuncts in implementing this
sort of assessment. Baldwin also noted that full-time faculty will likely have to take on
assessment tasks related to adjuncts’ courses in order to include a sufficient portion of
courses taught by adjuncts in a large-scale assessment system across the College. Alan
Mickelson pointed out that there is a systemic lack of inclusion for adjuncts at the
College.

Rosanne Benn adjourned the meeting at 5:03 pm.