Redwoods Community College District
Facilities Planning Committee (FPC)
Meeting Notes March 21, 2008
In attendance: Tim Flanagan, Tricia Hawkins, Paul Agpawa, David Maki (by conference
video CRMC), Stephen McCollum (by phone CRDN), Bill Connors, Tracey Thomas,
Michael Bailey, Mike Mendoza, José Ramirez, Roxanne Metz, Leslie Haddock, Debbie
Williams
Agenda Item #1:
Meeting notes from March 14, 2008 approved. Note: date change remarked – change
“2005” to “2008” on Agenda Item 1.
Roxanne Metz spoke about the new Intranet site, which should be available by mid-toend of next week (3/26-3/28). The site for “CR Assessment and Program Review” will
have a Search capability and will provide links to Program Reviews. Links will also
include access to Accreditation, Curriculum, IEC, IR, etc. The Public areas will cover
basic information including a link to Title 3. Access to Internal sites will be password
protected.
There will be an email sent to all when this site is ready.
The website is: http://inside.redwoods.edu
Agenda Item #2:
There was a discussion regarding one item in particular within the Feedback on Process
for Linking Program Review to Functional Planning Efforts. It concerned bulleted item
(the fourth from last) “The linkage flowchart was confusing to some”. The area of
confusion is where it lists “Functional Team or Area”. Roxanne asserted that column
headings could be clearer (i.e., “Facilities Planning Committee”, “Institutional
Effectiveness Committee”).
In response to Roxanne’s request for ideas for future processes, a discussion ensued. The
question arose regarding why we review things that are already decided. Tim explained
that we are clarifying “long term”, “ADA” and other needs before actions are taken. It
also keeps FPC aware and proactive regarding the different department/divisions’ needs
as they see them. The discussion generated the idea that there needs to be a formal
process in place. Roxanne agreed to be responsible for coordinating feedback and
questions.
José requested to see the entire database report instead of only the “screen capture” that
has been available. Roxanne suggested that summer break may give someone a chance
to clear up the database process, and Tim hopes that the database will become more userfriendly and effective through implementations such as having a scanner available in his
office to ease document transfer to the database.
Agenda Item #3:
The fact that the form needs to show more information was brought up, again. Michael
Bailey observed that access to the forms such as the FPC at the Eureka campus were
privy to at the March 14 meeting should also be available to the remote sites. Direct
computer access to the forms by all participants would be favorable and alleviate some
communication problems. It was suggested that links to original PRs would be useful,
but Roxanne mentioned that links can be “tricky” due to the constant updates needed to
keep links viable when changes [constantly] occur. Tracey asked if Blackboard could be
utilized for FPC. This is a possibility, but will require dedicated time for development
and upkeep. There is a probability that the Blackboard issue could prove important as the
general campus community will expect FPC to be developing the capability. Tim, Paul
and José will look into the possibility.
Roxanne added that a Facilities Planning Committee link could be added to the new CR
Assessment and Program Review website. But the fact that discussions and other
capabilities of Blackboard would be beneficial was brought up and the general feeling is
that since we have the technology we should use it.
Further discussion concerned the roll of the FPC. PRs do not go into the “what” and
“why” of the departments’ wishes. The problem of cross-matched requests came up.
Tim commented that all the committees do summaries which are what trickles down to
the FPC. The “whys” make them more like competitive grants than program reviews.
“Why” needs to be separated from justification (“more students in classes”, “satisfy overscheduling”, “expected outcomes”). Mike Mendoza interposed that the flowchart shows
that these decisions are made long before they get to FPC and that our input is limited to
Safety, Community, and Facilities issues. “Our scope is fairly narrow”.
Tracey conceded the above but also thinks that the FPC is supposed to give feedback on
PRs, as the FPC is more “all-seeing” compared to each division/department seeing less of
the whole picture. The whole process is new and we also need to help the Program
Review improve their process. They advocate for their needs, but the FPC sees the
bigger picture.
Bill mentioned that a single person could likely be responsible for the “Safety,
Community, Facilities” database choices, but that the committee as a whole will more
likely catch issues that can be moderated to include usage by more than one department;
for instance in that the Justine Shaw Anthropology Lab request might be more useful as a
general wet lab with various storage areas for different disciplines. Tracey agreed that
FPC might be more “creative” in deciding what could be done to save money for all areas
as opposed to each individual request involving millions.
Which brought the discussion back to defining FPC guidelines/roles/interests/scopes and
its impact on facilities. Stephen chimed in, telling us about a grant through Rural Human
Services in conjunction with CRDN and the Hospital/Tourism area: his point being that
the FPC needs to be adaptive to the constantly changing dynamic of the school
community – the picture changes all the time and the FPC should be reacting to as much
of that dynamic as it can.
Michael Bailey brought up the idea that a methodology for identifying the uses each
classroom has, and the capability for using that information to define what space is
available would be very useful. Paul agreed, and added that a “Technology inventory”
for classrooms exists (or is in process), and that it might be utilized to determine other
categories for classroom uses. It was confirmed by all that it is a very good idea, a
“database of classrooms”, and that it should be a job for the FPC. Tricia mentioned that
Matt Hanson has been inventorying the remote sites, and that his information could be
incorporated also.
Tim then announced that the Accreditation visit has been moved up and will be on Friday
April 4th. There is no schedule at this time. It was recommended that at our next meeting
we conduct an overview of FPC goals and accomplishments since the Accreditation
Commission’s last visit.
Also mentioned: FMPDT (Facilities Master Plan Development Team) is meeting
Tuesday and Wednesday next week (8am-3pm in the Lakeview Room).