REDWOODS COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
Meeting of the Associate Faculty Committee
Eureka: 7351 Tompkins Hill Road, RBC –B 110 (Forum 110)
Thursday, September 17, 2015
3:00 p.m.
MINUTES
1. Call to Order - 3:00 p.m.
2. Introductions and Public Comment: Participants are invited to make comments
regarding any subject appropriate to the Associate Faculty Committee. Sandra
Rowan (BUS) and Stuart Altschuler (ADCT) welcomed everyone, the group
introduced themselves. Opened the floor to comments – none.
3. Approve Thursday, April 16, 2015 Meeting Minutes – BEAUPRE/ALTSCHULER
move to approve the minutes. APPROVED
4. Reports
4.1 Associate Faculty Information/Reminders – Connie Carlson – Welcome
Back! Flex goals are due this Friday, September 18. Thirty Associate
Faculty attended the Associate Faculty Development Day last Saturday, an
informative event even though the CR website was down. Make a note for
the CCC Registry job fairs – Saturday, January 23 at the Hilton San Francisco
Bay Front and Saturday, January 30 at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport.
4.2 CRFO Update/Negotiations Council – Sandra Rowan – Jacqui Cain is one of
our representatives to CRFO, she is unable to attend as she teaches but she
submitted a written report that Sandra reviewed (see attached.) Question
about the agency fee vs. dues member - any person who teaches at CR will
pay the agency fee unless they choose to be a dues paying member (gives you
voting rights.) Stuart indicated that the assessment participation fee should be
per course (instead of a flat $20) and would like that reviewed in the contract.
In addition Stuart would like to see Article 10 (Transfer & Reassignment) of
the contract reviewed - deals with lateral transfers for Permanent Faculty, he
would like to have the same opportunity for Associate Faculty (i.e. Associate
Faculty with 5 years in the position could transfer to a permanent position.)
Kyle Falbo brought up IBB (interest based bargaining) discussion on how to
bring topics to the consultation council. The district and CRFO utilize IBB
when negotiations occur.
4.3 Academic Senate Update – Sandra Rowan – Covered at the meeting Friday,
September 4th (there is also a meeting tomorrow.) Discussed the search
procedure for full time teaching positions (questions about what happens
when there is a failed search – does it maintain its priority on the list, does it
need to be re-advertised?) The senate felt it should continue to be on the list
and not thrown back into the pool. Sheila Hall spoke about Counselor’s Day.
Middle school visits will be in February/March. Let your dean know if you
are interested in participating. The new Academy of the Redwoods principal
was introduced to the senate. Mark Winter spoke about acceleration
(placement tests determine what level of class the student would enroll in.)
Starting in low level classes can lead to students not completing their
education. Safe workplace – core values (trust, transparency, collaboration) –
currently we are all working to make our campus act this way. Looking for
recognition for the Associate Faculty – possible service recognition. Working
on a sexual assault handbook (policy and procedures.) Creative Arts and the
Cafeteria have a gender neutral restroom and the campus is looking for a
clean, safe place for breast-feeding mothers. Check out the Academic Senate
website, you can attend meetings or provide topics for the agenda. Jay
Scrivner is looking for written direction about handling mental health issues
with students. He was referred to the Behavior Intervention Team. The
group expressed interest in having more training on FERPA, Sexual
Harassment, Mandated Reporting, Fire procedures, CPR.
5. Discussion Items
5.1 Associate Faculty Website – Colette recommended that the Associate Faculty
have a Canvas site, used to communicate, have trainings on there – the question
was who would maintain the site. Talked with Reno – it is possible to set up a
Canvas site, but do we want a canvas site or a separate site? Marla pointed out that
Curriculum moved from MyCR to Inside. Redwoods, this might be better as there
is no deadline as there is in Canvas. Dave Bazard brought up Evoke – web page
building - this way a faculty member could maintain their own, it would be
accessible – another possibility. Kyle volunteered to look into this for the
Associate Faculty.
5.2 Year of the Associate Faculty – Stuart passed out a list of possible ways to
recognize the Associate Faculty – wants the school to declare 2016 – year of the
Associate Faculty. The group reviewed the list. Looking for volunteers or
additional ideas – email Sandra or Stuart. Vinnie liked the idea, but it seems like a
lot of work, maybe this should be a SARTCO consideration, might also want to
push it back to fall in order to make all the connections.
5.3 Flex Activities – Sandra was unclear as to why this was on the agenda
5.4 Future Scheduled Associate Faculty Committee Meetings – would like to send
out a survey monkey to find out when would be the best time for the committee to
meet. Possibly alternate between morning and afternoon meetings. Kyle would
like to see more meeting times (twice per month) if we alternate times of the
meetings.
5.5 Best Practices for Online Teaching – postponed until the next meeting.
5.6 Printing Orders – this was brought to Sandra’s attention that printing orders
were not coming to the new Associate Faculty office. Connie pointed out that
Jesse does bring orders to the Associate Faculty office.
5.7 Office Assistant – Colette thought that making a recommendation to the Senate
to request additional support for the Associate Faculty office. Recommended
looking at other schools for examples of how they function.
5.8 SARTCO – If you feel like you have been asked by your dean to do something
outside of your regular assignment, speak with your dean for SARTCO
determination. (i.e. write curriculum for a program) Need to ask for SARTCO
before you do the work
5.9 Dual Enrollment/Pelican Bay –Marla spoke for Joe Hash – Non-credit classes
are scheduled to start on September 21st; Credit courses are scheduled to start
spring semester; the task force (Mark Renner, Bob Brown, Michael Dennis, Eli
Naffah, Matt McCann, Ahn Fielding, Julia Peterson, Rory Johnson and Joe Hash)
will be visiting the prison on September 25th; teaching assignments at Pelican Bay
are on a volunteer basis – let your dean or Joe Hash know if you are interested;
there is a 10 hour mandatory safety training conducted by the prison that must be
done before teaching/working with the inmates – there is an additional 40 hours of
safety training that will be provided; an MOU is in place with CRFO which
compensates for the safety training and travel.
6. Announcements and Open Forum – please be sure to sign in for the meeting.
7. Adjournment – JOHNSON/ALTSCHULER move to adjourn – APPROVED – the
meeting was adjourned 4:07 p.m.
Attachment - CRFO Report for the Associate Faculty Committee
1. There is an opening for Associate Faculty Representative on the Executive
Committee. Elections will be conducted as soon as CRFO has an updated list of
members. The election is held using Survey Monkey - look for an
announcement with the link to be sent out via email.
2. Our contract with the District will expire in June. There are several procedures
that need to be followed, but we anticipate entering into negotiations later on in
the semester. We will be scheduling meetings of the Negotiation Council to
help identify and prioritize faculty and associate faculty interests to bring to the
Negotiation Team.
Changes to the contract must be framed as a shared interest. For example, we
would not tell the district we want higher wages. Instead, we would state that
we have a shared interest with the District in recruiting and retaining quality
instructors and we don’t want to lose Associate faculty to HSU, and that a
salary increase would be one way to meet this interest.
3. An ad-hoc committee met over the summer to propose changes to our
Constitution. These changes were necessary to include the new Agency Fee, as
well as clean up expired language. Removing references to the Mendocino
campus, for example. The Executive Committee will meet and schedule a
General Meeting to review this issue and will schedule a vote to confirm or
reject the proposed changes.
4. Peter Blakemore is on sabbatical this semester; Todd Olsen is the interim
Grievance Officer. If you have any issue that you think may be a violation of
the contract or a working conditions issue, you may direct your questions to
either your Associate Faculty Representative, Jacqui Cain, or to Todd Olsen.
5. It is important that all associate faculty understand that they should not perform
any work outside of their contract. Any activity that counts towards Flex is in
the contract and you are already being compensated for your participation. If
you are asked to do additional work, such as curriculum redesign, you should
either contact your representative or ask your Dean about entering into a
SARTCO agreement to compensate you for your work.
6. In order to increase participation and communication within CRFO, we are
going to be distributing a newsletter four times annually. The first newsletter
was printed and available at Convocation. All faculty should have received a
copy in their mailboxes. Additional copies can be found in FM108. The next
newsletter should be distributed in early November.