APPROVED MINUTES of REGULAR MEETING
October 9, 2008, 2:24 – 4:15 pm
Board Room in Building 200
Submitted by Ming Ho
Senators
OFFICERS
Senate President
Ming-Lun Ho
Vice President
Mike Absher
SENATORS
Applied Technology
& Business
Mike Absher
Arts & Humanities
Dov Hassan
Counseling
Rachel Aziminia
Dara Greene
Health, Physical
Education & Athletics
Nancy Cowan
Ken Grace
Language Arts
Jason Ames
Linda Barde
Applied Technology & Business — Michael Absher
Arts & Humanities — Dov Hassan
Counseling — Rachel Azimina & Dara Greene
Health, Physical Education, & Athletics — Nancy Cowan & Ken Grace
Language Arts — Jason Ames & Linda Barde
Library — Jim Matthews
Part-time Faculty — Anne Brichacek
Science & Mathematics — Dave Fouquet & Wanda Wong
Social Sciences — Kathy Kelly & Sherri Yeager
Ex-Officios
ASCC — Ahmad Asir, ASCC Vice President
CLPFA — Shari Jacobsen, Membership Coordinator
Presiding Officer
President Ming-Lun Ho
ITEM
1.0
GENERAL FUNCTIONS
1.1
Call to Order
1.2
Approval of Minutes of September 25, 2008. MSC (Absher/Wong) as amended.
2.0
2.1
REPORTS I
ASCC — Ahmad Asir
Library
Jim Matthews
The ASCC Events Committee participates in a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
and has put together an extensive program in collaboration with local organizations.
Part-Time Faculty
Anne Brichacek
On October 21, the ASCC will host two debates. During College Hour is a debate about
Proposition 8. Later that evening, the candidates for the Area 1 seat of the Chabot-Las Positas
Board of Trustees will participate in a debate. Both debates will involve a moderator. Members
of the community are encouraged to participate.
Science &
Mathematics
Dave Fouquet
Wanda Wong
Social Science
Sherri Yeager
Kathy Kelley
EX OFFICIO
Associated Students
of Chabot College
Ahmad Asir
Chabot-Las Positas
Faculty Association
Shari Jacobsen
Senator Yeager expressed interest in participating in the Prop 8 debate.
2.2
CLPFA — Shari Jacobsen & Dave Fouquet
The next two FA meetings are on Oct. 16 and Nov. 20 in 1906. The District will send
representatives to answer questions about human resource, payroll, and retirement.
To meet new IRS regulations effective January 1, 2009, The District has contracted out to
Envoy Plan Services the management of all administration and compliance requirements of
the District’s voluntary 403(b) Tax Shelter Annuity Plan. Financial institutions have to elect to
be on Envoy’s list of qualified vendors to continue providing 403(b) to district employees. The
FA recommends that employees not set up new 403(b) accounts unless they are certain that
the financial institution is on Envoy’s list of qualify vendors. Payroll deduction to 403(b) plans
at financial institutions not on the list will cease by the November or December paycheck.
The FA Executive Board has joined the Faculty Senate in publicly opposing Proposition 8. At
its PAC meeting, the FA E-Board decided to contribute to the No on 8 campaign. The
contribution amount is to be determined.
The contract states that salary negotiations shall resume within 45 days after the state budget
has been signed, so the FA are working on on- and off-schedule enhancements. One
prominent issue is assigning load factor to lab sections.
Chabot Academic/Faculty Senate Approved Minutes of October 9, 2008
2.3
2
Public Comments
Senate Parliamentarian Senator Absher has ruled that abstentions are allowed in the Senate.
He will elaborate on the basis of the ruling at a future Senate meeting.
3.0
ACTION ITEMS — None
4.0
DISCUSSION ITEMS
4.1
Presentation of ASCC Textbook Rental Program
ASCC Vice President Asir showed a video presentation of a college’s textbook rental program
at the textbook summit meeting that took place at Chabot in Nov. 2007. The presentations
indicated some points to address for a rental program: Impact on textbook sales at campus
bookstore, warehouse for and recovery of rental books, faculty commitment to specific titles,
staff to run the rental program, and technological needs to process and track book rentals.
Asri asked the Senate for suggestions and comments. Senator Grace reported that all
sections of Health 1 have already made common textbook adoption. He suggested that ASCC
contact the deans to find out which courses already have common textbook adoption and
have the rental program start from those titles. Future success from these titles can be used to
encourage other faculty to consider common adoption to benefit the students. Senator Cowan
reports that some books have CD ROM that is usable only once, so those books may be
difficult to be in the rental program. Senator Kelley encouraged the ASCC to negotiate with
the publishers. She also remarked that textbook rental would be in competition with the
Chabot Bookstore, as the Bookstore is a profit-making institution, so she questions how much
fit there is for the Bookstore to be a partner of the rental program. Senator Wong suggests
that there are already online textbook rental services competing with the Bookstore for
business, so it might as well participate in the rental market.
Senator Aziminia asked if ASCC’s textbook scholarship can require its recipients to sell back
their textbooks to the rental program as a way to support the program. Asir responded that
students have legitimate reasons to want to keep their books. As for supporting the program,
Asir remarked that the Chabot Bookstore is supposed to give 3% of its profits to the ASCC.
The administration has not been forthcoming with the funds, and the ASCC is even
considering taking legal action against the Bookstore. The ASCC also has disagreements with
the Bookstore regarding the vouchers they give to its scholarship recipients. When a
scholarship recipient does not spend all of the amounts of the scholarship, the Bookstore does
not credit the remaining amount of the voucher back to the ASCC.
Grace noted that, before the construction of the building at which the Chabot Bookstore
resides, the ASCC used to provide food and refreshment of Chabot sports teams going on
competition and championships, the funding source of which was the 3% share the ASCC was
to get from the Bookstore. Athletics was told that supports for the sports teams had to be
suspended during the construction of the Bookstore building but will resume later; however, it
never did resume, and the ASCC isn’t getting its 3% either.
4.2
Allocation of Funds to College
President Ho would like input from the Senate for a general process for the College to follow
to allocate the funds it receives that don’t seem to have a responsible party authorized or
assigned to do so. On a more specific level, the discussion would help address the current
issue of the ESL/BSI Funds allocation, as the charge to allocate ESL/BSI Funds was
specifically removed from Basic Skills Committee’s charge. While those working closely on the
BSC have the best intentions, the expenditure plan presented to Senate at the last meeting
brought important questions from the faculty at large and was also unauthorized. Ho would
like to see the Senate work to resolve the problem.
As part of the discussion of the College’s budget process, a summary of types of funds and
who currently allocates them is collected as follows:
Type/Use of Funds
Equipment, federal/state vocational
funds, supplies, instructional block
grant, augmentation of
supplies/services
Account
5000s,
6000s,
some 4000s
Responsible Party
Budget Committee
Chabot Academic/Faculty Senate Approved Minutes of October 9, 2008
Type/Use of Funds
Account
Responsible Party
Faculty Personnel
1000s
CEMC (FTEF allocation), Faculty
Prioritization Committee (faculty
position allocation)
Classified Personnel
2000s
Deans
Categorical funds for specific purpose
Specific programs and authorized
committees (e.g. EOPS, Public Arts
Committee, Staff Development)
Grants
As stated in grant proposal
Benefits
3000
3
N/A – Tied to personnel allocation.
Senator Absher notes that the current process that has the Budget Committee allocate VTEA
and CTE Funds has become more transparent compared with when he first joined the
committee a couple years ago. Senator Matthews commented that people used to apply to
federal/state vocational funds, but now they don’t know that the money is there. Absher
believes that people know of the VTEA fund but are not sure if they qualify.
Some Senators pointed out that, when there is a budget cut, the administration cuts
professional staff positions first so they do not have to deal with faculty and the Faculty
Senate. While the administration tries to find alternative positions for those professional staff
whose positions are cut, the net result is that we have a significant reduction in services.
Senator Fouquet reported that in his Science/Math Division, there is low support for lab
technician and for computer lab. Senator Grace wanted to understand the way by which lab
tech support could be increased. He asked what happens to the part of the unit plan that
requests lab techs. The answer was that eventually, the deans hire professional staff, but if
they don’t have the money, they can’t hire more staff.
Senator Kelley expressed frustration that she often cannot get the proper accounting directly
from the administration/District for the budget of the program she runs. Some expressed
consent and noted that they have to do shadow accounting to get an idea of the status of their
budget, which is awkward.
Bringing the discussion back to the current ESL/BSI fund, Ho listed some possibilities to
allocate the fund and ask for other ideas: (1) Senate can authorize BSC to do so, (2) Senate
can suggest a committee of faculty and administrators to do so. FA Representative Jacobsen
expressed the importance of addressing the budget allocation process because she does not
want the ESL/BSI funds to be nibbled away by the administration. Absher reported that, in a
previous year, then VP of Academic Services gave a certain amount of ESL/BSI fund to Staff
Development, and IPBC didn’t even have a say as to how much should be given to Staff
Development or whether money should have even have been allocated to SD. Matthews
reported that, in the past, there were funds like PFE and Tech 2 that did not have a
responsible party to allocate it, just as it is with the current ESL/BSI fund. In those cases, IPBC
stepped in, and it seemed appropriate that it should do so, as it is a representative body for
planning and budgeting. Ho expressed concern, specifically to ESL/BSI fund, that those
involved in its allocation have the interest of the college at large, not simply advocate for their
individual division or program. That was the reason why the BSC was specifically removed
from funds allocation upon its inception, as its main focus should be to establish institutionwide priorities. At the end of the discussion, the consensus of the Senate is generally to have
IPBC consider what to do with “funds without a home” while maintaining Senate oversight.
5.0
REPORTS II
5.1
Senate President — Short on time, President Ho postponed the report to the next meeting.
5.2
Senate Committees
[To be filled in by Dave.]
5.3
Senators
Dave Fouquet reported that a faculty member in his division feels that, in the Senate’s
resolution against Prop 8, the section stating that Prop 8 “institutionalizes discrimination,
bigotry, and cultural rigidity in the California constitution” seems to suggest that supporters of
Chabot Academic/Faculty Senate Approved Minutes of October 9, 2008
4
Prop 8 are bigots, and the faculty member is hurt by the implication. In his interaction with that
faculty member, Fouquet explained that the Senate has made no statement about the
supporters of Prop 8, only on the effect the passage of Prop 8 will have.
6.0
Good of the Order
6.1
Future Agenda Items — Senator Absher suggested that we invite Interim Vice President
Gene Groppetti to give input regarding the process to spend funds allocated to the college that
do not have a “home.”
6.2
Adjournment — At 4:30 pm. Next meeting is October 23, 2008
6.3
Future Meetings — cf. http://www.chabotcollege.edu/FacultySenate/#MeetingDates