Taft College Academic Senate Minutes
December 5, 2011
Cougar Room
President Bill Devine, Vice-President Michelle Beasley, Secretary Geoffrey Dyer, Craig Johnson, Tony
Thompson, Don Bandy, Dave Berry, Dave Reynolds, Greg Golling, Lourdes Gonzalez, Sonja Swenson,
David Layne, Diane Jones, Vicki Herder, Darcy Bogle, Shelly Getty, Juana Rangel-Escobedo, Candace
Duron, Jessica Grimes, Kamala Carlson, Sharyn Eveland
1)Public Commentary. None.
2) Review of November Minutes. After misspellings of names were pointed out, Diane Jones moved to
approve the minutes. Tony Thompson seconded the motion, and the minutes were approved.
3) Establishing Prerequisites through Content Review. Michelle Beasley referenced Title 5, Section
5500 and asked the senate to decide if prerequisites should be established by content review, statistical
validation, or both. She also said that Patti Bench, Vice President of Instruction, was drafting a policy for
establishing prerequisites and had requested feedback from the senate. Sonja Swenson talked about
how classes that have UC transferability can have prerequisites determined without statistical
validation, in order to articulate with a UC course. Vicki Herder explained what statistical validation
means in the context of establishing prerequisites, and she added that even when content review is
used to determine a perquisite, statistical analysis must still be used within three years in order to
validate the prerequisite. Sonja Swenson and Vicki Herder pointed out that both content review and
statistical validation have been used at Taft College.
Craig Johnson moved to allow prerequisites to be established either by content review alone or by
content review with statistical validation. Vicki Herder seconded the motion. As further discussion,
Diane Jones added the caveat that the senate review Patti Bench’s procedure regarding establishing
prerequisites. The motion unanimously passed.
4) SLO Assessments. Vicki Herder announced that three days of January in-service had been reserved
for SLO related work. She reminded faculty to save copies of student work that could be assessed. She
also pointed out that the SLO and Planning Days set aside in January would conflict with the Presidential
Search Committee meetings, as she had brought this up in November and had requested that the
schedule could be adjusted to accommodate more widespread faculty participation. Diane Jones
pointed out that four teaching faculty, herself included, would face this unfortunate conflict and have to
do their SLO assessments on their own time. Vicki Herder reminded the senate that SLO assessment is
“not an individual process,” and that the assessment results would require discussion and
communication.
5) Procedure for Faculty Positions. Bill Devine explained that although the Planning Council had ranked
faculty positions in the past, the ranking of faculty positions is the responsibility of the Academic Senate.
Faculty identified, because of pending retirements and unfilled positions, the necessity for seven new
faculty members. Bill Devine volunteered to work with Dr. Geise, Superintendent, on identifying the
needed number of positions. Bill Devine also volunteered to facilitate a senate-driven process for
ranking faculty positions. Diane Jones urged division chairs to have recommendations for new faculty
positions in their areas by January. Bill Devine asked that chairs also bring justification for these
recommendations to the January meeting.
During the discussion, Craig Johnson and Sonja Swenson delineated past procedures for recommending
faculty positions and discussed the roles of the Planning Council, Budget Advisory Committee,
Partnership for Excellence, and different superintendents. Various members pointed out the delay that
these different processes had created. Craig Johnson contrasted these time-consuming processes with
the speed with which management positions are flown. He also recommended that the positions of
retiring faculty be filled immediately.
Throughout the discussion, Diane Jones emphasized the importance of the senate’s involvement in
recommending new positions. She cited the fifty-percent rule, and several members pointed to unfilled
positions. Sharyn Eveland said that academic programs are suffering without adequate faculty.
6) Special Admittance High School Students. Darcy Bogle opened the discussion with a number of
questions which all revealed how the existing practice of allowing high-school students to take classes at
Taft College for free and participate in various programs impacts the student body as a whole.
At the end of the discussion, Sharyn Eveland moved to create a task force to report by February 6th
specific recommendations concerning special admittance high school students and the potential
impacts of those recommendations. D.B. (Darcy Bogle? Dave Berry? Don Bandy?) seconded the motion.
The motion passed. Sharyn Eveland, David (Berry? Layne? Reynolds?), and Juana Rangel-Escobedo
volunteered to serve under Darcy Bogle on the task force
7) Al Baldock Resolution. Bill Devine reported that the recent senate resolution to rename the Cougar
Sports Center the Al Baldock Sports Center had been placed on the January board agenda.
Meeting was adjourned at 1:00pm.
--Submitted by Geoffrey Dyer