Taft College Academic Senate Minutes Monday, January 12, 2015 Cougar Conference Room Members Present: President Tony Thompson, Vice President Vicki Jacobi, Jennifer Altenhofel, Megan Andrews, Nancy Artiga, Kanoe Bandy, Wendy Berry, Eric Bérubé, Paul Blake, Adam Bledsoe, Jill Brown, Kamala Carlson, Joe’ll Chaidez, Diana Champion, Bill Devine, Kelly Donovan, Geoffrey Dyer, John Eigenauer, Juana Escobedo, Sharyn Eveland, Bruce Ferguson, Tori Furman, Shelley Getty, Greg Golling, Loardes Gonzalez Jessica Grimes, Dan Hall, Brian Jean, Michael Jiles, Craig Johnson, Diane Jones, Danielle Kerr, Kelly Kulzer-­‐Reyes, David Layne, Steve Lytle, Mariza Martinez, James May, Mike Mayfield, Janis Mendenhall, Michelle Oja, Ruby Payne, Harold Pease, Joseph Polizzotto, Robin Polski, Natalie Ramirez, Stacie Rancano, Joy Reynolds, Becky Roth, Terri Smith, Sonja Swenson, Stefanie Walsh, and Susan Vaugh Public Commentary None. Review of December 1, 2014 Senate Minutes A motion was made by David Layne and seconded by Michelle Oja to approve the minutes as presented. The motion carried. Standing Committee Updates Strategic Planning Committee Eric Bérubé The SPC has not meet since the last senate meeting in December. Every three years, Taft College does the CCSSE survey (Community College Survey of Student Engagement) in the Spring. It’s been three years since this survey was conducted, which means the survey will be given this year. The survey has a very high sampling of sections of courses, so there is a good chance your course section will be selected to take the survey. The survey will take 50 minutes to complete. More information to follow, but expect the survey to take place within a few weeks after Spring Break. Budget Committee Sonja Swenson The BC has not met since the last senate meeting and will not be meeting again until February. Curriculum & General Education Committee Vicki Jacobi -­‐Vicki reported that there were just a couple of courses that needed updates. 1 We should be aware that all non-­‐credit courses are repeatable, so the students can take the courses as many time as they would like. There are five CC meetings left, and there are a lot of course revisions that are still needed. David Layne asked if we could run an update on CORs that need to be revised and be sent out to everyone. We were able to resubmit Kinesiology to the state. Academic Development Committee Kelly Kulzer-­‐Reyes The ADC is working on a Basic Skills Action Plan, which stemmed from the campus-­‐wide planning project. The ADC is also looking at the BSI budget for this year and making sure everything is in order. Future of Standing Committee Updates Tony Thompson It has been suggested that we try to do these standing committee updates via electronic format. Tony requested, for the remainder of the semester, these committees compose and send their updates electronically to Tony before the upcoming senate meeting. Tony will then forward the updates along with the meeting agendas and previous minutes to everyone. Ruby suggested that there should be room made on the remaining agendas that allow for questions about any of the committee updates. Library Collection Development Policy Terri Smith Terri referenced the email Tony sent out in December about the new Library Collection Development policy and asked for questions about it. Michelle asked about if there are others who participate in the selection process other than the librarian. Terri does want input from faculty about what should go into our collection. Terri stated that so far, no faculty requests for books to be placed in our collection have been denied. Michelle referenced page 3 of the policy pertaining to audiovisual material. This material should be “closed captioned”. Brian did not think that the purchase of audiovisual material not be should excluded based on whether they come captioned or not. We have the ability to caption audiovisual materials. Jennifer added that as long as the material is captioned before it gets to the students, it should be okay. Terri mentioned that faculty should periodically examine the library holdings. This can be accomplished by a party (as Michelle suggested) or by perusing the holdings via the library’s webpage. Sonja stated that the policy should reflect more of the faculty’s expertise to give input as to what should and should not go in the library collection. 2 Bill Devine motioned to accept the policy as stated, Mike Jiles seconded. Motioned passed. AB 86 Joe’ll Chaidez Tony stated that Dr. Maloney wants to make it clear that AB 86 issue is not to be directed by administration. She would like to have faculty directly involved in this issue. At the statewide Academic Senate meetings, they are saying that faculty MUST be involved in this issue. Joe’ll added that Dena all along has encouraged the AB 86 process at TC to be faculty driven. AB 86 is an adult education bill. We were given $159,000 for planning. As of now, we have spent about 40 or 50 thousand dollars on reports, consultants, and meetings. We may have money left over that will hopefully roll over into July when the implementation of the adult school does go forward. Our adult education consortium will focus on basics skills, adult literacy, high school diplomas, ESL, citizenship, career & technical training, working with adults with disabilities, and apprenticeship programs. Joe’ll has a list of all of the consortia and community members. In July, we hired two consultants and their reports are on our consortium website (www.westkernab86.com). Of note is that our Internet connectivity is poor in our area. In December, we had a meeting at the high school and talked about what this may look like when we implement this bill. By the 31st of this month, the state would like for us to have a draft of our plan for AB 86. But, we will not be submitting this report due to not having yet received enough input from all of the consortium members. The final draft of this plan is due in March. The Governor recently proposed that $500 million be allocated to adult education, which included the AB 86 grant. This means that our consortium could be receiving more money for our part in providing adult education. One of our consultants conducted a survey of employers (129 participated) in the west Kern and other Kern county areas. This survey asked employers to name skills and education degrees that they need from their employees. The ability to communicate well in a professional setting was the biggest response. Other skills needed were in technical training, and technician occupations. The employers are not having problems finding people with 4-­‐year degrees, it’s the 2-­‐year degrees applicants they are having trouble finding. The industry is looking for CTE and short-­‐term training courses. There was some discussion as to whether faculty will be compensated for their involvement with AB 86. 3 New Faculty Information Tony Thompson -­‐Sam’s position needs to be replaced. This position will temporarily (for the next 2 years) become a split position, with part of the job being the director of the CTE grant, and the other part being Industrial Health and Safety faculty. Tony reminded us that the Industrial Health and Safety faculty position was our top choice back in December. The grant director side of the job is grant funded, but both parts of the position are not guaranteed to last after the grant runs out. There was discussion about the merits of this decision. Michelle moved to vote to oppose the split position of the CTE grant position/IHS faculty position. Beck Roth seconded the motion. Motion passed. -­‐We will have a district-­‐funded Energy Technology faculty position for next year. -­‐A proposal to hire a full-­‐time computer science instructor and a full-­‐time life science instructor is going to the board this month. Senate Officers Elections Tony Thompson The reason Tony is bringing elections of senate officers up at this time is that there is a new approach to sending a team of people to the Academic Senate Plenary sessions. The effort now is to decide who gets to go, depending on the hot topics going on in the state at that time. Tony suggested that the new president of the senate for next year go to the next Plenary. In February, Tony will call for nominations for the senate president position. We will hold the election in March, giving time for the in-­‐
coming president to make arrangements to attend the Spring Plenary. Computer and Network Use Procedure (AP 3720) John Eigenauer The senate discussed the potential practical and legal implications of the proposal to make the computer and network use procedure a part of board policy. As a point of action, the faculty who are on the IT Committee will make edits to the proposed policy document and send it to the faculty for input. Once the senate has reviewed the revised document, the revised document will be giving to the ITC. President’s Report Tony will craft the document opposing the split-­‐position covering CTE grant director and IHS faculty position. Tony and Diane will take the document and meet with Dena and Mark. Meeting adjourned. Respectfully submitted by Dan Hall 4