Institutional Planning and Budget Council
Meeting Notes
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Approved
Present: Norma Ambriz, Jane Church, Bob Curry, Chad Mark Glen, Ken Grace, Gene Groppetti, Joe
Kuwabara, Rachel LePell, Marge Maloney, Melinda Matsuda, Clara McLean, Rick Moniz, Laurie O’Connor,
Gerald Shimada, Steven Small, Carolyn Arnold (note taker)
1. Review of March 30, 2005 Minutes
Melinda Matsuda called the meeting to order at 3:05 p.m. She asked IPBC representatives to review the minutes
from March 30, 2005. Minutes were approved as drafted.
2. Assessment Workshop Update
Carolyn Arnold reported that the team designated by IPBC—Deans Tom Clark and Gene Groppetti, Program
Review Faculty Wayne Phillips and Jonathan Traugott, and her self as the Institutional Researcher—attended
the Assessment of Student Learning conference put on by Norton Grubb and Norena Badway in San Mateo.
They learned a lot that they will report at a later meeting. In addition, they were successful in their major goal,
which was to find a way to imbed the assessment of student learning outcomes within the program review
process. The details need to be worked out with the Program Review Committee, and they will then send a
representative to IPBC to report on that. She did note that the conference leader encouraged us to use the label,
student learning outcomes assessment cycle (SLOACs) instead of student learning outcomes (SLOs), to
emphasize that once you write the outcomes, you need to assess, implement changes if necessary, and then
reassess for a complete cycle, rather than just writing them and leaving them on a shelf.
3. Grant Development Updates
a. Gerald Shimada announced that the college had been awarded the federal TRIO Student Support Services
(SSS) grant: $220,000/year for four years! The program targets160 economically disadvantaged students per
year and provides support services to help them succeed in courses and obtain degrees and/or transfer. Gerald
gave the credit to Kathleen Schaefer, our former Grant Developer/Writer, who wrote the proposal that scored
99.33 out of 100. The cutoff score was 99.33. He said our proposal was strong because we had established that
our students had a strong need for this program, by using Institutional Research data that showed that we had
many more economically disadvantaged students than could be served by EOPS and other programs. In
addition, the proposal contains a supplemental instruction component to retain five graduate students to be
supplemental instructors in general education courses. Carolyn Arnold added that we had preparing to apply for
this grant for many years, and had finally collected the data and had the experienced grant writer to do so.
b. Carolyn Arnold reported that the hiring committee for a new Grant Developer/Writer had not found a suitable
candidate, had put out a new notice, and hopes to interview in June. In the meantime, using the unspent portion
of the salary for that position, Carolyn had hired Kathleen Schaefer to do a small foundation search for grants
for three programs with immediate funding needs—program review, service learning, and Daraja. Since the job
will be unfilled for two more months, she asked for approval to hire Kathleen to write the preliminary proposals
to any foundations she finds. Then either she or the new Grant Developer/Writer could write the full proposals.
The group approved this decision.
4. Additional Spring and Summer Meetings
Melinda Matsuda noted that the unit plan reviews were going to take up most of the next scheduled meetings,
and we still had other business to complete by the end of the year and into the summer. Carolyn Arnold had
prepared a list of the business that needed to be completed and the possible dates for extra meetings. The items
were: establish the 2005-06 membership and elect new chairs, review accomplishments of 2004-05, plan for
Fall 2005 convocation and 2005-06 college participation in planning, program review, student learning
outcomes assessment cycles (SLOACs), prepare for the Fall 2005 update of the Strategic Plan. Gene Groppetti
brought up the issue that these major college projects—planning, program review, student learning outcomes
assessment cycles (SLOACs)—were still separate projects in the eyes of most faculty and staff and needed to be
integrated. Carolyn replied that this was exactly why we needed more meetings – to discuss how to integrate
them. She noted that SLOACs were going to be imbedded in program review, but agreed that there was a still a
ways to go to integrate everything smoothly.
It was agreed to add meetings on May 4th and May 18th, so we would have enough meeting time for both
business and for reviewing and making recommendations on the unit plan/budgets. Therefore, we have
meetings scheduled for each Wednesday in May—May 4, 11, 18, and 25. If we do not need them, we will
cancel, but it is better to have them.
In addition, we planned two summer meetings to continue to prepare for Fall 2005: Thursday June 16 and
Thursday July 21, which are the same days as College Council. The time will probably be around 12-2 since
College Council is 2-3:30. Those who can attend are encouraged to attend, but they are not required for faculty.
5. Unit Plan and Budget Reviews
The first unit plans and budgets were presented by the first three review teams. The teams were Steven Small
and Rachel LePell, Laurie O’Connor and Gene Groppetti, and Norma Ambriz. Each team was given about half
hour to present their seven units. These teams reported that all the plans and budgets had been developed in
different formats, which made it difficult to give uniform reports on the units, and not all the units had provided
budgets. Consequently, the reports about the different units varied wildly within and between review teams. In
addition, at the last IPBC meeting, the group had decided to make specific recommendations about programs
that were not strong or cost effective. However, these review teams found that they did not have enough
information on all the units to make recommendations. Therefore, no recommendations of this nature were
offered by these teams, and they simply described these units either quantitatively or qualitatively, since IPBC
had not provided a reporting format either. Most of the suggestions by the review teams were to improve the
formats of the unit plans and budgets for next year. Melinda Matsuda said that the KH Consulting cost
effectiveness numbers would be available after Friday, and these will be given to all the teams to use for the
subsequent reports.
For her team report, Norma Ambriz had typed up the facts she had about the units in her group, and IPBC liked
her format so much that they decided that all subsequent reports should use that format. However, those who
had presented today did not need to use that format, as a reward for going first.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 pm.
Respectfully submitted by Carolyn Arnold.