College Senate: Minutes
Date: 04/15/2015
Location: Allied Health Bldg., Room 4510
Minutes Approved: _X__Yes
___No (Changes: )
Visit the College Senate website at http://www1.cpcc.edu/senate/ for the College Senate minutes,
SharePoint (items for open discussion), and information about NCCCFA, Senate bylaws, Senate
membership, committees, forms, etc.
President’s Report (Joel Moore):
Joel announced that this will be the last full senate meting for the 2014-15 year.
The eLearning consultant has completed the visit and the report; the report will be sent to the college
soon and will be available to faculty at a later date.
Two individuals have submitted their names for the position of President-elect for the College Senate for
the 2015-16 academic year. The election will be held via email in late April/Early May.
New senators elected for the coming year were introduced. Current representatives were reminded to
have their areas hold elections now so that we will have full representation in the Fall.
The salary study has been completed but results have not been compiled or released. Joel or Alison will
stay in touch with Debbie Bouton and Richard Zollinger over summer so information can be made
available as soon as possible
PDP- changes will be coming in the Fall. Changes include: new ratings will no longer be numerical, and
faculty on extendable contracts will be evaluated every other year. A request will be made to Debbie
Bouton to reduce the number of columns/ratings from five to three. The new process will be finalized over
the summer. The tool used for Spring conferences already reflected descriptor changes.
A new student evaluation form will be piloted over summer and in fall. Please get comments to Joel or
Alison. The Faculty Welfare Committee will look at it today during its monthly meeting. No descriptors
have been provided. This has been requested several times but has not been made available. The
question of how to obtain higher response rates has been raised. It was suggested that the survey stay
open through final exams; it appears that closes prior to the exam period. Other questions raised
included: Can the Student Opinion Survey be required? Should students be awarded extra credit for
completion? Can it be used to calculate weekly attendance for online classes?
Committee Reports:
1. President-elect (Alison Gagan):
Alison thanked Joel for his stellar service, representing senate well in situations that are not
always easy and positive. She suggested kicking off the first College Senate’s year by holding a
pizza party with a guest speaker in August.
Academic Policies (Pam McIntyre):
The committee is working with Amy Bruining about residency requirements for programs with
outside accreditation.
2. Credentials (Mona Yektaparast):
The Credentials committee will ensure that all divisions are correctly represented and have full
representation on Senate next year. This will be a priority for Alison for the year.
3. Curriculum (Pat West):
Handout (attached). Committee has finished work for the upcoming year’s changes.
4. Educational Resources (Roschella Stephens):
Educational Resources has no remaining money. A question was raised: if someone who had
been approved for the amount requested but only spent half of the money and then wanted to
reserve half of the amount for another conference, would this be allowed? The Senate needs to
address policy of what can be requested and what should be granted or spent.
5. Faculty Welfare (Fred Tone):
Several issues are currently before the Faculty Welfare Committee, all requiring outside
information that has been requested but won’t be available until summer. One issue is the
Student Opinion Survey. The Committee will meet immediately after the full senate meeting.
6. Professional Staff Welfare (Denise Keating):
Denise is working to fill all 23 seats available to Professional Staff in the Senate. Professional
Staff will be meeting during summer via Lync to set an agenda for Fall.
7. Student Welfare (Tony Beatty):
Students have been assigned to sit on the Student Welfare Committee. Tony has met with them.
A current concern is that facilities in the Kratt building are not handicapped accessible.
8. Technology (Kathy Watkins):
The Technology Committee collected feedback from Joel regarding eLearning’s role with faculty.
She will share this with the newly formed advisory committee that will work with the eLOT
steering committee. The committee and the college are waiting on results from the consultant. A
recent faculty survey identified Tech tools used by faculty. Many tools are not being used, the
main of which is WebEx. Gary Ritter formed a WebEx users group and held a meeting. There
will be a panel about using WebEx during the Learning Showcase. It is the only synchronous tool
sanctioned by the college. Other options may be investigated. The Learning Showcase is listed
in LearnerWeb, starting May 20.
Mark Coltrain suggested that faculty have access to two support services, with one person to be
a content person and one to be a support person; he offered to be this support person (as the
eLearning librarian).
Questions have been raised about the attendance policy for canceling classes for snow and
having to move the automatically-generated “p” to another day. Due to an outdated college
emergency closing policy there is a requirement that no work be completed when the college is
closed. It was suggested that the college website and LMS’s be closed if this is the case. The
solution is to update the policy; this is not currently a priority but will be pushed forward prior to
the arrival of inclement weather in the next academic year. Revisions to online course template
were posed due to faculty responses in survey.
Mark Coltrain presented changes to the template. It was acknowledged that the changes have
created much extra work for faculty. Feedback from students indicated that they felt “lost,” but
only 68 students responded. The committee listened to feedback and met with faculty. Mark
requested that divisions contact him so he can schedule additional meetings. The committee
wants to ensure that roll-outs happen in efficient and effective manner. Meetings will be held on
Levine Campus on May 21 and on Cato Campus on May 26 to roll out the new template.
Changes to the template include the following: bringing “announcements” back as entry point,
removing course home page. Faculty may continue to use the to-do module in future as
improvements are made. New shells will be blank so that course copies won’t result in duplicates
of areas. The syllabus tab will be included because students are familiar with that (it may be
called syllabus/course info). It could also be divided into two buttons—syllabus and course
information. “Course info” alone is considered too informal and not specific, but combined with
syllabus it might work. Instructor will be used; some opposed to this due to credentials/titles
earned. Coursework will stay the same. Collaboration will be used for email, discussions, blogs,
tools, etc. (instructors can call it the one specific item if only one tool is used, such as
“Discussions,” but if multiple tools are used then the title will be collaboration). Resources may
include tools as well. Grades will stay the same.
The following questions were raised: Shouldn’t changes to template should be course specific? Is
there flexibility? Where does the library fit? Can divisions make their own changes? Mark will get
back with an answer. Resources will include preloaded resources and instructors can add other
items. Are there permission issues to deal with? What if an instructor has a site license—can it be
included on Bb? Mark will check with Gary Ritter, who is compiling a thorough list of third party
resources to ensure that we aren’t double-paying.
The Accessibility/ADA committee will be meeting and discussing items to ensure compliance.
The template is for online only; it not required for hybrid or face-to-face courses. It was applied to
ALL sites last year—this shouldn’t happen this time.
It was brought up that requiring one template for all sections of one course doesn’t make sense—
students shouldn’t be in more than one section of the same course—the continuity should be in
programs or divisions, not courses. Continuity between online and face-to-face makes sense to
support students’ ease of understanding. Divisions between sections are after announcements,
instructor, and resources.
Announcements
Syllabus and Course Info
Instructor
Coursework
Collaboration (DB, blog, wiki, etc.)
Resources
Grades
Course copy issues should be fixed. Blackboard is due for an update over the summer.
Suggestions made include: “Syllabus” could be called “Course Introduction.” The template could
have a “Start Here” tab.
The committee has looked at other colleges’ templates as a guide.
One or two additional buttons will be allowed, not more like we used to have.
Mark shared that eLOT/ the College is considering requiring only one LMS. There has been
discussion about whether Moodle should “go” because only 10% of faculty use it. Years ago
faculty was encouraged to use Moodle due to cost. Moodle requires college staff to support; Bb
has external support. One person at CPCC supports Moodle.
Senators are encouraged to email thoughts or comments to Mark.
Other:
March meeting minutes were approved.
Online attendance concerns—senators shared that instructors have been punished for not keeping online
attendance weekly; summer loads were reduced for faculty who didn’t comply with requirements. Faculty
Welfare responded—summer loads are assigned at the discretion of the division director in terms of
number of courses and course limits. This may not be a just decision, but is at the discretion of the
Division Director. Associated Deans can address this. It appears that it was a Dean who decided to
implement this practice. The appropriate next step for appeals would be Human Resources. In some
Divisions there were announcement that overloads would be determined by compliance with attendance.
The concern is whether this was addressed/announced before or after the fact, so that faculty would be
aware of consequences ahead of time.
A question was raised about whether a manually-entered “0” is automatically entered as a “P” in the
attendance screen, especially with Moodle. The Tech Committee will investigate this, but it appears to
have been fixed.
Online attendance is also a question for students who self-pace and finish the course early. This is an
issue for attendance and financial aid. It has been recommended that adaptive release be used so that
students cannot self-pace. It was suggested that this should not be an issue for financial aid as long as
students complete the course.
When will budget decisions be made about open faculty positions and whether they will be filled? The
question is availability of funds as determined by Richard Zollinger. Are positions filled determined by the
number of positions or by the amount of salary in the budget (seasoned faculty members make as much
as 2 new faculty members). Some of this is how the Division Director states the case to the Dean, in
terms of how positions are filled.
There was a motion to adjourn, which was seconded and passed.
Next Meeting Time: 3rd Tuesday of September, 2015 (2:30):
Location: Allied Health Bldg., Room 4510
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Godwin
Secretary