Norfolk Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes
January 31, 2006
Present: Al Costa, Anne Pinkerton, Cameron Russell, Al Thompson, Jay Glosser, George
Martin, Barbara Blake-Gonzalez, Carolyn Williams
Visitors: Carol Allain, Sylvia Ross, Helena Krohn
Motion to approve last meetings minutes with changes, seconded, and passed.
Old Business:
Convocation Analysis
Went well, but needed more input from Administration on who they wanted to speak. Last
minute additions to the schedule took some rearranging. Wouldn’t be a problem if we had more
notice. Next convocation, need to really sit down with provost and deans to hammer out
program.
Food was great (especially pastries) from ODU. Needed a bigger room, there was an overflow
of faculty that came (which is great).
Presented the Faculty Senate Survey results in a powerpoint presentation. Jay Glosser and
Cameron Russell gave the overview. Ran out of time to ask questions.
Nancy Jolemore asked for a workshop or training on travel and professional development
paperwork.
Suggested that one day per semester be only for training, workshops, professional development,
which could be worked into the academic schedule.
New Business
Faculty Responsibilities Paper
Will be presented to the faculty since it has been approved. Mark Greer and Maureen Cahill
with help advise as to how, when, etc. Date to be @ late February. Questions need to be
answered to help with briefing:
1. Will this paper be included in New Faculty Hire packets?
2. Will this paper be included in the Full-Time Faculty Handbook?
3. Can it be revised as needed?
President DiCroce will pay for the publishing for the faculty.
C&I Prerequisites
Survey needs questions and editing and will be out in February timeframe.
Senate Initiatives:
1. Technology Survey
Jay will be sending that out as soon as possible with help from Deniz.
2. Thomas Moss Scholar’s Award
Cameron still needs help regarding specific activities to raise money. Suggestion to raise money
using restaurants. Need to run that by the Education Foundation. Al and Cameron need to make
an appointment with Wendy McGrady (Pollentz) to discuss dos and don’ts of fundraising. We
could possible piggy-back with Spring Fling to bring massage therapists in from a school to raise
money.
3. Follow up on Faculty Senate Survey
Reggie Osby is having a workshop on travel paperwork. Need to have more help with tuition
reimbursement, and other paperwork help.
4. Get minutes on TCC Homepage.
Deniz to help.
Request from Scott Langhorst
Mandatory or optional on-line evaluations (per email from C&I)? At this point the college does
not have any differences between online courses and face-to-face courses. So the evaluations
should be the same. If they are different, they should be optional. Otherwise, they need to
follow the same format as the course evaluations in place and then they could be mandatory (or
given to the student to fill out if he/she wishes to). We don’t require them to fill out the
evaluation in a face-to-face class, but they have the opportunity to. So it really shouldn’t be
mandatory (such as grade withholding if not done).
Overload Payments – One or Two per year
Ask Phyllis Milloy about this issue. Apparently, two payments may save TCC money, but the
overload calculations are for the year, not for each semester. Which is why it is one payment at
the end of the spring semester.
Independent Study Course Definition
Will be done on a case by case situation. Otherwise, check with Lonnie Schaffer.
Withdrawal/Delete for financial aid students
Faculty must comply with policies regarding participation and registration, due to Federal
Financial Aid laws. Marilyn Medley and Christine Damrose-Mahlmann are working this.
Online Training v. Technical Training
Ask Scott Langhorst to work with this. There is a need for an “online student pretest” to see if a
student is computer literate to participate in an online course. Many of our students in online
courses are not computer savvy, and it takes too much time for the instructor to try to “teach”
computer literacy and the specific course.
At Risk Students Identified
Already trying to do so. Hopefully, prerequisites will help with this situation.
Carol Allain (visitor)
Wanted to know grading scale for her health class. She says that other campuses are doing it
differently. She was given the correct information, 93-100 = A, for health classes.
Helena Krohn (visitor)
Asked about how selection committee members are assigned. We said the Dean assigns
personnel to the committee. Needed to be addressed to the particular Dean.
QEP
Will focus on the student’s first year experience at TCC. It will be a holistic approach to help
students be successful.
Computers and Online Classes
Thank you to the campus for getting new computers in the OCL. The Assistant Manager of the
Testing Center will manage the OCL.
Can the requirement for two proctored events be put in the schedule? Can the student handbook
have a definition of a proctored event? (Can faculty have that definition too???).