CHABOT COLLEGE ACADEMIC/FACULTY SENATE
Board Room, Building 200
Thursday, January 26, 2006– 2:18 p.m. to 4:25 p.m.
A P P R O V E D M I N UT E S
Submitted by Norman Buchwald and Chad Mark Glen
Senator Attendance: Applied Technology & Business (Michael Absher); Counseling (Sally
Stickney & TBA); Health, Physical Education, & Athletics (Nancy
Cowan & Ross Shoemaker); Arts and Humanities (John Komisar);
Language Arts (Stephanie Zappa & Francisco Zermeño); Library
(Norman Buchwald); Science & Mathematics (Dave Fouquet & Ming
Ho); Social Sciences (Barbara Ogman & Michael Thompson); and
Adjunct Faculty (Anne Brichacek).
Guests:
Dr. Ron Taylor (Vice President, Academic Services); Shari Jacobsen
(CLPFA representative); Dr. Carolyn Arnold (Institutional Researcher
and Grants Coordinator).
Presiding Officers:
President Chad Mark Glen, Vice President Michael Absher.
ITEM
1.0 GENERAL FUNCTIONS
1.1 Call to Order: President Glen called the meeting to order at 2:18 p.m.
1.2 Approval of the Minutes: Nancy Cowan moved to table the minutes of
the December 15, 2005 meeting and Michael Absher seconded. The
motion carried.
There was discussion about the minutes and
supplementary documents that were also looked at. The District
Curriculum Council charge and issues regarding voting members,
especially the issue of two counselors and whether the voting members
could be overloaded with counselors was also discussed. There was a
request that the minutes be converted to a more readable format before
the Senate could approve them.
2.0 REPORT S
2.1 College President. Dr. Robert Carlson gave the Senate an update on
the plans for the Building program. Architects have been selected for
Phase I to build the future Student and Community Access Center,
building 700, and the renovation of the Planetarium and the P.E./Athletic
facilities. To keep the rising building costs in check and create
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January 26th, 2006
economies of scale the timeline is being accelerated. Buildings 700 and the
Student and Community Access Center will now be built simultaneously.
Because of this change in plans, there now needs to be a solution as to where
to have faculty offices while the new Building 700 is being constructed. Three
options include: portable/temporary buildings/trailers, make a classroom
building into a temporary building for offices, or have the Butler Building be the
location for temporary faculty offices. Faculty will be displaced for about two
years Dr. Carlson leaned towards the latter option, but will hear what faculty
desire. Phase II includes buildings 100, 300, 1500, 1700, and 1800. There’s
also been discussion of also building a central heating plant and that it would
be built near the men’s locker room where the Weight Room is now. Dave
Fouquet asked about building 2000 and faculty office space. Dr. Carlson said
that building 2000 is going to be renovated rather than razed. More faculty
offices are going to be added to other buildings. John Komisar wanted to
ensure that architectural continuity would happen with the new construction.
Dr. Carlson assured John that the integrity of the campus architectural look
and feel would not be compromised. The Butler building will be the last building
to come down, since it will be utilized as a transitional space throughout the
construction process.
2.2 ASCC. No report.
2.3 CLPFA. Shari Jacobsen announced that the CLPFA has changed their
meeting times to Tuesdays, but are still in room 1904. Due to scheduling
conflicts, faculty have had difficulty making the Thursday meetings in the Fall
Semester. She hopes more faculty will be able to participate at this new time.
Meetings are scheduled for 2/7, 3/14, 4/4, and 5/9. A new notification will be
sent out on updates in the negotiations. If there’s interest, more meetings will
be scheduled, especially on core meetings related to health benefits. In
general, Shari would like more faculty to participate in these important
meetings. David Fouquet added that there’s been slow movement on nonacademic issues in the negotiations, and at the pace that negotiations are
happening regarding health benefits, he predicts the status quo health plan will
likely remain in effect for one more year. However, work will be done by the
CLPFA to work with their health benefits consultant and to put together
suggestions this semester.
2.4 Public Comments: None.
3.0 ACTION ITEMS
No action items at this meeting.
4.0 DISCUSSION ITEMS
4.1 Draft 2006/07 Strategic Plan. Tabled.
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4.2 Educational Master Plan Revisions. Dr. Ron Taylor asked Senators and
their constituents to send feedback on any issues they may have on the current
Draft of the Ed Master Plan. President Glen advised us to look at sections that
relate to our divisions, disciplines and units for possible revisions and/or
additions. A revision of the plan will be submitted and it will become an action
item at the February 9th meeting.
4.3 College Council and IPBC Charges. Issues about the roles of College
Council and IPBC have been brought to the Academic Senate on a number of
occasions. In addition, there have been discussions of the possibility of
merging the two governance bodies. Michael Thompson said that overall, if
that happens, the goal would be not to give more power to college Council.
President Glen stated that if that if some of IPBC’s charge is changed so that
the Academic Senate takes on these duties, we would then have to take more
responsibility. He asked what that would mean to the Senate. He also asked if
the Senate should offer guidelines to IPBC.
There are concerns about IPBC, because a number of people have stopped
attending meetings or may have resigned. Some in IPBC felt the workload was
overwhelming, and that a lot of projects do not get done, or that projects
constantly get scrapped and worked on from scratch way too often. There’s
despondency as to how decisions are being made and the confusion as to who
makes decisions once IPBC has done its work. Former co-chair of the IPBC,
Dr. Carolyn Arnold believes the main problem is that there is a huge
communication gap between IPBC and the rest of the college. She does not
believe that IPBC should be reorganized.
Mike Absher thinks that College Council should be run like a clearinghouse
where different bodies report to everyone at large. It should also meet at
different days and hours of the week each month, rather than always meeting
on Fridays. As for IPBC-- his impression with the issues of IPBC is that faculty
do not participate because the workload seems overwhelming. But then when
decisions are made based on IPBC findings, faculty then find themselves
“thrown off” because representatives from their Division are not informed as a
result of not participating in IPBC meetings and projects. When IPBC charges
arrive, the faculty ask, “Where did this come from?!” He believes that IPBC
needs to have more people attending so the work involved can be shared
more, and there needs to be better delegation of the workload.
Dr. Arnold says that the dream is that IPBC would create a plan for all of us,
created and owned by all of us, independent of administration, since
administrators seem to always “come and go”. Ming Ho believes the issue is
the overall structure and that the planning has not been happening in an
efficient way. Dr. Arnold responded that there is a Dean on the books to
oversee institutional planning, but that position has never been funded, so there
have been challenges in planning in a clear organizational, time and work
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January 26th, 2006
efficient manner. She commented that IPBC did work on the Master Plan and
the Strategic Plan— the latter especially important as to focus what specific
tasks will be worked on in the next three years. President Glen asked who or
what structural organization will do a follow-up on IPBC’s plans? Dr. Arnold
said that IPBC does create summaries, but have no official follow-up.
Stephanie Zappa likes Absher’s ideas of “staggering meetings” for different
days/hours of the week for College Council. The issue for many is that for most
faculty members, Fridays are either their “paper grading” day or a day where
they attend to projects, and it is difficult to get to this meeting, which takes place
late on Friday afternoons. The Language Arts Division feels that the College
Council has “too much power.” President Glen said that the argument was
made to him that the Friday afternoons time period was in place because that
was a time when there are no classes— but perhaps a “staggering schedule”
may be a solution. Mike Absher said that when he was an adjunct instructor,
meetings of college-wide significance would often take place on Friday.
However, he would prefer that two meetings a month get scheduled at different
times, hours, and days. He repeated again that he wants College Council to be
more “reports based.” Stephanie Zappa suggested that a two hour meeting
take place with college hour in the middle. For example, a meeting would take
place 11:30-1:30 and faculty members could come and go, depending on their
schedule. President Glen liked the idea, but pointed out that with the future
remodeling program taking place there will be fewer classrooms available at a
given time, and there’s been discussion about suspending college hour. Shari
Jacobsen said there may be contractual issues if that were to happen. She
also commented two problems with the current College Council: one, that
Fridays are a difficult time for faculty because that is the time many get their
extended work done, even with College Council meeting in the late afternoon.
Two, faculty feel reluctant to speak and feel intimidated with College Council as
it is right now.
President Glen said he would propose the idea that College Council conduct
meetings in the manner as Absher has suggested, and that IPBC focus on
better organization and a process for getting work done more efficiently and
less intimidating. John Komisar suggested that IPBC meet on Wednesdays
and Fridays, if IPBC and College Council merge as a body. Mike Absher said
that one challenge remains that with the remodeling process, there will likely be
classes taking place also on Fridays, due to the challenge of classroom
availability. David Fouquet suggested that students could be encouraged to
take afternoon classes if the Disciplines could arrange a schedule for students
to take all of their related classes in one day.
Considering the issues of efficiency and workloads, a suggestion was brought
up so that an overlap of similar or even same projects and duties such as those
between IPBC and CEMC are investigated. For example, the Unit Plans and
the Discipline Plans seem to be very similar in nature. The same work ends up
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being done and to reduce workload and volume of paper there should be a
streamlining process. Different Committees should be aware of each others’
work so that there is not so much duplication. President Glen has suggested
that the key players of the two committees (IPBC and CEMC) should meet and
consult about their overlapping governance charges. The key players are Tom
DeWitt, Dale Waggoner (who is on both committees), the new IPBC Chair
Laurie Dockter, and Sally Jahnke.
4.4 Tree Planting and Naming. Tabled.
4.5 Accreditation Midterm Report. Melinda Matsuda could not attend today’s
meeting. But she asked the Senate to review the Accreditation Midterm Report
which has a March 15 deadline. She definitely wants us to give her feedback
before it goes to the Board. There will be an electronic copy sent to Senators,
in addition to the copies given to the Senators today, and a copy put in
Senators’ mailboxes, if needed.
5.0 REPORTS
5.1 Senate President’s Report. President Glen reported that since Student
Learning Outcomes are an important issue for our next accreditation cycle that
we need to stay focused on it. He is working with Marcia Corcoran’s Flex Day
Committee. The organization of Flex Day has changed through the past couple
of years. Flex Day used to be planned by Staff Development, two years ago it
was planned by both Staff Development and IPBC, and last year by IPBC,
alone. This year’s Flex Day ended up being assigned to the college’s newest
Dean, who called upon all on campus to help her plan this year’s event.
President Glen recommended that there should be an hour where Dr. Carlson
addresses the current issues on the campus regarding the budget cuts,
program eliminations, and prospective layoffs of classified staff members. He
recommended all faculty and staff submit questions, in advance, to Dr. Carlson
to address in a public forum. President Glen also encouraged Senators to
make it a point to ask such questions when Dr. Carlson submits his report to
the Senate at each Senate meeting. It’s very important to especially bring up
morale issues.
There’s a concern that before the entire campus can talk about Student
Learning Outcomes, and other key planning issues, that concerns faculty and
staff have over budget cuts be addressed first. Since a lot of work involving
planning, etc. depends on the budget, we need to be clear what is going on,
first. And how can morale be boosted, if we do not address the concerns many
on campus have over the budget cuts, program discontinuation, and classified
positions being eliminated? These concerns need to be addressed first.
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Mike Absher wished there were more practical forums for the required flex
days. In the past, there were sessions that met faculty members’ interest such
as the enabling of technology training. If the new SMART classrooms were up,
it would have been a wonderful opportunity to teach faculty how to use the
rooms, equipment, etc. President Glen reminded everyone that if they have
ideas on Flex Day, to send them to Marcia Corcoran.
President Glen also gave a report on the recent College Enrollment
Management Committee (CEMC) meeting. He mentioned that faculty are not
aware that the Distance Education Curriculum Support Committee is
streamlining their form. There was discussion on trying to reduce the long time
frame it takes for a class to get approved and appear in the catalog. There was
also a call for the Curriculum Committee take more of the role of being there to
assist faculty with curricular matters, instead of being a bit of a bureaucratic
entity, telling faculty what they can or cannot do. The Curriculum Committee
needs to be more encouraging of applicants, be more customer friendly and
less intimidating, and help expedite the process of getting a course approved,
and facilitate the entire process. The Program Review and Curriculum
Committees should work together. Mike Absher believes these issues are very
important and should be a future Discussion Item.
5.2 Senate Committees None.
5.3 Senators Mike Absher has submitted to the Academic Senate a summary of
official guidelines of Robert’s Rules of Order, but did not recommend that we
have to follow all rules to the letter (for example, we can still raise our hand if
we want to talk. Not stand up, etc.)
6.0 GOOD OF THE ORDER
6.1 Future Agenda Items, „Counselors assigned to Divisions. Mike Absher is
meeting with the new Counseling Dean. There’s a possibility that this does not
need to be a Senate issue. „ISLS and Program Closure Process. President
Glen would like the Senate to write a position paper on how this was handled. If
any Senator has suggestions or verbiage, please E-Mail President Glen.
Comments were briefly voiced that philosophical approaches to discontinuing
the program were not done appropriately. Scott Hildreth and Susan Sperling
will present an official statement to the Senate, soon. „Cheating Update.
President Glen says work needs to be done with District legal council, first.
„50% Law State Task Force. „Program Intro Process. President Glen said
there are two concerns. Right now there needs to be clearer definitions as to
what is a program. And that when a new faculty position or discipline is
introduced such as Digital Media that it be attached to an official program that
goes through the appropriate process (official programs are approved and then
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sent to the state). Then there is a question of what to do with those “programs”
that do not quite fit the definition of a program. How are they approved?
6.2 Adjournment. The meeting was adjourned at 4:25.
6.3 Next Meeting:
(Building 200.
Thursday, February 9th, at 2:15 p.m. in the Board Room
6.4 Spring Semester Meetings: 2nd & 4th Thursday, 2:15 - 4:15 p.m., unless
designated “*special”. February 9 & 23; March 2* & 23; April 6* & 20*; May
4* & 11* (*Special Meetings— not on 2nd or 4th Thursday).
NB/CMG
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