ACADEMIC SENATE MINUTES
October 18, 2005
Attendance (X indicates present, exc = excused, pre-arranged, absence)
Behavioral & Social Sciences
Cannon, Elaine
X
McCrary, Ed
X
Widman, Lance
X
Wynne, Michael
X
Humanities
Breckheimer, Debra
Hong, Lyman
Vacant
Marcoux, Pete
Uyemura, Evelyn
X
X
X
X
Business
Thompson, Jacquie
Vacant
Vacant
Industry & Technology
Cafarchia, Vic
Hofmann, Ed
X
Kahan, Walt
X
Marston, Doug
X
Rodriguez, George
Counseling
Beley, Kate
Gaines, Ken
Raufman, Lisa
Key, Ken
X
X
X
Learning Resources Unit
Dever, Susan
X
Striepe, Claudia
X
Fine Arts
Berney, Dan
Georges, William
McMillan, Russell
O’Brien, Kevin
Storms, Harrison
Natural Sciences
X
X
Cowell, Chas
Stewart, Julie
Teresa Palos
Vakil, David
X
X
X
X
X
Mathematical Sciences
Health Sciences & Athletics
Van Lue, Nick
X
Morgan, Kathy
Moon, Mary (sharing)
X
Sinopoli, Louis
Stanbury, Corey
X
Vacant
Perinetti, Dale
Taylor, Ralph
Wang, Lijun
Vacant
X
X
Adjunct Faculty
Vacant
Vacant
Ex Officio Attendees: Janet Young, Francisco Arce, Jeff Marsee
Guests: Ann Collette, Ruth Banda-Ralph, Vince Robles, Moon Ichinaga, Chris Wells
Unless noted otherwise, all page numbers refer to the packet used during the meeting, not the
current packet you are reading now.
Summary of events during meeting
 Library funding for books is urgently needed. Librarians agreed to write a motion and to
contact the PBC chair about getting on the PBC agenda.
 Revised version of Independent Study policy, Statement on Academic Freedom, and
Curriculum Committee bylaws will be voted on during the next meeting.
 25 “questionable” degree-applicability courses to be reviewed in the coming months.





The independent studies policy had a statement about degree applicability. This was dropped
because it was assumed this statement was covered elsewhere. Further investigation required.
Full-time faculty hiring process will begin shortly.
Math, Humanities, Business, and Adjunct Faculty need to hold senate elections soon.
Human Development courses may already able to help with orientation. SD to follow up.
ASO is considering having student representation on some hiring committees.
President’s report – Susan Dever (henceforth SD)
At the College Council, there was much discussion about the council’s self evaluation, including
its role (to advise the president and act as a vehicle for communication across constituecies) and
the role of its members (e.g. union representatives, senate representative).
The Laptop Replacement form appears on page E13, and you can expect to see it soon locally.
This will be used to determine which order laptops are replaced. If there is not enough funding to
replace them all, then this form will be used to decide who gets replacements. The form will be
submitted to the deans. Then: deans  the division technology committee  academic
technology committee  college technology committee  Cabinet. If a department wants
desktops, this should be explicitly and clearly stated on the form. Desktop computers may be
problematic for some areas because of ergonomic issues.
The list of Academic Senate committees was redistributed to give members another chance to
sign up for committees. Calendar Committee needs another representative.
Minutes – approved as written
Educational Policies Report – Evelyn Uyemura
On page B1 is the newest version of the independent study policy. The old version was passed
last year. This new version has been sent to ECCFT and the deans for feedback, which should be
received before the next senate meeting. The version on page B1 is the administration’s version
with 2 additions: the last line of paragraph 1 and the entire second paragraph. The Ed Policies
committee wants to make sure that the academic standards are listed in the policy, not in
procedures. Also, a reference to the contract regarding what faculty are and are not allowed to do
is in the proposed version. Things removed from the senate-approved version include how often
students & advisors should meet, hours worked, and the maximum number of independent study
credit hours. The Ed Policies committee is satisfied with the version presented on B1.
Questions that came up: what is the fee for independent study? Same as regular courses, with 60
hours equal to 1 unit credit. Why are these not available during the summer? They are, in some
divisions.
Faculty Development – Lisa Raufman
Two handouts (on green paper) were distributed: committee minutes and a list of upcoming staff
development activities. The materials compiled during the Flex day workshops are being
assembled into a booklet/packet and will be distributed soon. Many workshops will be developed
based on the input during those Flex day workshops. An internship fair will take place Thursday
throughout the day, allowing faculty to interact with employers. Margaret Steinberg is
distributing emails about technology issues and online teaching. Ken Gaines was recognized for
doing a well-run Pre-Health Sciences Occupations workshop.
Finance and Special Projects – Lance Widman
PBC minutes appear on pages A32-35, with information regarding the final 2005-2006 budget on
pages A33-34. The last PBC meeting focused on the Auxiliary Services budget, which has been
cut 20%. The committee continues to discuss how to link planning & budgeting.
David Vakil reported about the morning’s Council of Deans meeting. ECC commissioned a
survey of people in ECC zip codes and ECC has an unusually high approval rating, usually seen
only for firefighters. The academic program viewed most highly in this survey was the Honors
Transfer Program.
The full-time faculty hiring application has been revised, with the hopes of making it more userfriendly, reducing unnecessary steps, and being applicable to areas (e.g. the library) that weren’t
easily incorporated before. This form will be distributed soon and applications will be due
November 9. See page E8 for relevant deadlines.
Julie Stewart noted that, last year, the senate passed procedures regarding the hiring process and
these still have not gone to the Board of Trustees. SD explained that all Board Policies and
related materials are being reviewed by herself and the VPs.
The Health Center has been operating with a reduced and negative-cash flow budget. The
governor signed a bill recently that will allow the school to charge Health Center fees to students
who have BOGG waivers. This will allow the center to increase its services.
Legislative Action – Pete Marcoux
Several divisions need to hold elections for senators: Math, Humanities, Business, and Adjunct
Faculty.
Curriculum Committee – Janet Young
The AA/AS task force has developed degree criteria and reviewed courses. 25 courses were
“questionable” in terms of degree applicability. Ann Collette and Janet Young met with the
deans regarding these courses. The courses will be reviewed by the Curriculum Committee at the
end of Fall and/or the beginning of Spring. These courses may be:
1. removed from the degree
2. justified why they should remain part of the degree
3. moved to a different degree area
4. revise the course itself
There will be no grandfathering of courses, so if no action is taken for a course, it will be deleted
from the list.
The committee’s bylaws are presented in the packet. Changes include renaming division
curriculum committees (to help with title 5 compliance). We will vote on this during the next
meeting.
Chas Cowell noted that the independent studies policy used to have a statement about degree
applicability. This was dropped because it was assumed this statement was covered elsewhere,
such as in the AA/AS degree requirements, but it may not be covered there. This issue will be
investigated further.
Student Learning Outcomes – Evelyn Uyemura
SLOs are accreditation driven. The SLO steering committee examined the college’s mission
statement and discussed how to develop SLOs for that. The big issue is how to measure such
outcomes.
Academic Technology Committee – Pete Marcoux
The next meeting is Friday, November 4 at 10am in Library 202, where laptops and software will
be discussed.
Accreditation – Ruth Banda-Ralph
The update of work done since the midterm report was submitted is due in January.
Unfinished Business
Enrollment Management
A list of activities suggested to boost enrollment appears on page A31 in the Council of Deans’
minutes. The school needs faculty to distribute information about dates and deadlines to students.
Other ideas mentioned were to give faculty some fliers to post and distribute and emailing
students with their actual email addresses rather than just their ECC email addresses.
Debra Breckheimer noted that the idea of having a mandatory orientation session is not on the
list and urged that this idea not be abandoned. Francisco Arce replied that it cannot be mandatory
according to law, only strongly encouraged. Some Human Development courses may already be
set up to help in this regard. SD agreed to follow up on that.
Academic Freedom
Julie Stewart noted that many of the suggestions she’s received have been incorporated into the
version seen on page B2. The biggest change regards item #3 about how one must leave no
impression that they are speaking for the college when, for example, writing letters to
newspapers. She investigated the state senate’s and the accreditation standards per the suggestion
at the last meeting and found no need to change the version proposed.
New Business
Library Funding
Claudia Striepe noted that the library’s budget for books used to be a line item in the budget in
previous years (2002 and before). Now new books are funded via various and variable funds,
such as grants. This means that the library cannot plan to buy books or to support new
curriculum requiring new books. Additionally, the cost of books has increased 66% in the last
few years while the budget has decreased from $70,000 to $300+unknown amounts from grants.
She asked that the library be given a specific line item in the budget, as has been done in years
past. Ms. Striepe also asked for Senate’s support in hiring 2 new full time librarians since the
library is now working under quota.
Two suggestions were made to help with this: 1) write a resolution that the senate can vote on. 2)
go to PBC, since this is a budget issue. Accreditation was also mentioned as means to help drum
up support.
Janet Young noted that this is a curriculum issue, since the acquisition librarian will need to
know if the library can support new curricula. Without funds to buy new books, the integrity of a
course’s curriculum could be compromised, for both new and recently revised courses.
At the end of the discussion, the librarians agreed to write a motion and to contact the PBC chair
about getting on the agenda.
Announcements
Student Representation on Hiring Committees
Justin Bagnall noted that ASO is working on getting student representation on some hiring
committees, including the VPs, President, administrative, and potentially deans. ASO does not
want to pursue student representatives on faculty hiring committees. The rationale for this
proposal is that the administrative positions have campus-wide applicability and therefore impact
students. Mr. Bagnall noted that UC & CSU have students on hiring panels while ECC does not.
He has heard that there are 3 reasons that students are not allowed on hiring committees:
1. Confidentiality – there are liability issues if students break it and these issues do not
apply to employees.
2. Schedules & time involvement – some committees require more work than can be
reasonably expected of students.
3. Training and reading the applications is an onerous task.
His rebuttal to these points is that students’ trustworthiness, abilities, and time management skills
were underestimated, particularly for students actively involved on campus who would be
serving on these committees.
Teresa Palos noted that students at other schools have advisory roles in hiring without being
directly/officially on the committee – this worked at her graduate school. Walt Kahan noted that
some committees do have huge time commitments (80 hours to read 130+ applications) and if a
student were to remove themselves from the committee, the process would need to restart.
Meeting was adjourned at 1:58pm.