Academic Senate
Cosumnes River College
January 23, 2009
Orchard Room
APPROVED MINUTES
Attendance: Julie Oliver, Susan Scott, Dana Wassmer, Ralph Hendrix, Georgine Hodgkinson, Kale Braden,
Grant Parker, Debra Welkley, Michelle Smith, Darlene Mathias, Maha Myren, Sharon Padilla-Alvarado,
Michelle Barkley, Hiram Jackson, Calvin Monroe (ASG), Winnie Lanier, Gregory Beyrer, Dan DuBray,
Travis Parker, Constance Carter, Carol Bernardo, Ruth Oxman, Jamey Nye, Priscilla Hansen, Marjorie
Duffy.
Meeting was called to order at 12:36 p.m.
Announcements: Constance Carter on Feb. 3 will be leading a meditation workshop in the Orchard
Room at noon.
Agenda: Approved with the addition of a topic for discussion by Greg Beyrer.
Minutes from Dec. 12 approved with two spelling corrections.
UPDATES
Staffing CASSL - Marybeth Buechner has taken a new job at Sacramento City College. Her position in
CASSL had multiple sources of funding. The district is providing a .6 FTE release next Fall, and the senate
is asking for .2 FTE from the president and the ongoing .2 FTE from PD to make a full 1.0 available for the
Fall. At that time, two .5 FTE faculty would be asked to take on the CASSL job duties. This semester, Dan
DuBray will be helping with the Student Learning Outcomes work as the lead person taking a .2 FTE here
in the Spring. The Academic Senate is still looking for someone to handle an additional .2 FTE devoted
to Program Outcomes Assessment. Colette Harris has taken on some of the CASSL PD responsibilities
this semester for .2 FTE. There was another Professional Development portion that is also unstaffed. It
was suggested if that if the entire .6 FTE from Marybeth Buechner is not assigned, that the money might
be converted into an ESA for faculty in the PD committee who will have to pick up the work that needs
to be done.
Presidential Hiring Process: A job announcement will likely be posted the first week of February. The
Senate’s executive committee has seen the draft and made a couple of suggestions, including the
addition of transfer education to match up with the vocational list originally drafted. Otherwise, the
document seemed to be acceptable. The committee will have 18 people. Five of these were nominated
by the Senate, and the LRCFT union appointed Gabriel Torres. The Executive committee met to discuss
our nomination interests which included a range of experience, representation across the campus,
gender balance, ethnic diversity, and local and district Academic Senate experience. Ralph Hendrix,
Dana Wassmer, Ron Breitenbach, Marjorie Duffy, and Georgine Hodgkinson were nominated and
accepted by Chancellor Brice Harris. This group will be notified of the Senate’s concern and interest in
making sure the interests of Science lab faculty and campus culture must be part of the hiring interests.
The tentative schedule includes applications in March, interviews April 13, with impressions meetings
May 3, with a board item June 17 and the new president would start July 1. Other members of the
committee may include someone from the Foundation, someone from the community, Classified Staff,
and a District level committee chair, with Ann Aaker as support.
Discussion:
Shared Governance Committee Charge Review: Committee charges for Budget and Curriculum were
completed in the Fall. Cultural Competency and Equity and Health and Facilities and College Planning
started work last semester and are nearly complete. This semester the following committees will also
take on their charge review: Matriculation and Professional Development.
Accreditation: No update
Strategic Plan: Student Success. Document attached. There is a road map to Completing the Strategic
Plan. There are scheduled meeting for dealing with the strategic plan in its five primary areas: Access
and Growth, Student Success, Teaching and Learning Effectiveness, Organizational Effectiveness, and
Community and Economic Development. The College Planning Committee has already seen the
document and now the Academic Senate has an opportunity for review. For anyone who has changes,
please send them to President Jamey Nye.
Job Announcement CASSL Coordinator: A draft job announcement was provided. Concern for this .5 FTE
position still seems too broad with an overly extensive list of qualifications and job skills. The job needs
to note the job is ONLY open to Full time tenured faculty (teaching and non-teaching) on campus.
Fewer bullets would make it perhaps more doable. The Senate was worried that the position of this
faculty member would too easily become an arm of the administration. Currently, the Coordinator
handles planning for workshops, colloquium, or other professional development. A broad discussion
determined the broad call for identifying a person who must be an expert in the ‘change’ that CRC is
experiencing is unacceptable. A suggestion was made to have this person responsible more to the
needs of the committees that feed into the CASSL (Professional Development and the Cultural
Competence and Equity) and less on the generic planning and dissemination of research. Making the
job list much more concise is clearly a goal so that the primary job of enhancing student and staff
success, and facilitating the process of teaching and learning remain the focus. Specific edits (calling for
a minimalist approach) were noted by President Nye who will bring this document back to Senate at the
next meeting before forwarding it on to Dean Kathy McLain. An extended discussion about the term of
office for the Coordinator determined two years would be better than one, so a person has some
opportunity to learn the job and gain some success. It was noted by Ralph Hendrix that the description
should note the 2nd year would be contingent on funding. Georgine Hodgkinson volunteered to help
draft the opening paragraph of the job description.
The SLO and Assessment Coordinator job description will be discussed at the next meeting.
Desire2Learn: Greg Beyrer asks the question of “how do we determine” how the changes to D2L are
made. How can the faculty interests be entrenched into the development of the system? Changes of
course are partially driven by need, but also by funding and time. For example, can or should non-Los
Rios people be allowed to use the system. Right now, unless a person had a LRCCD ID number, they
can’t get access. Send feedback to Greg Beyrer.
Next Meeting: Feb. 6, 2009 12:30 to 2:00 in the GARDEN Room
Meeting Adjourned: 2 p.m.
Attachment:
A Roadmap to Completing the Strategic Plan
Overview: The CPC will explore and generate draft goals and objectives in each of the five goal areas
(access and growth, student success, teaching and learning effectiveness, organizational effectiveness,
and community and economic development) by reviewing:
 the relevant summit dialogues
 the relevant initiatives and outcomes from our previous strategic plan
 the relevant sections of the LRCCD strategic plan
 the College’s Mission and Vision statement
Group members from the planning summit will be invited to participate by attending and contributing to
the CPC’s dialogues and/or by responding to electronically to documents as they are generated.
Scheduled meetings and topics to generate First Drafts:
November 11th – Access and Growth
November 25th – Student Success
December 9th – Teaching and Learning Effectiveness
January 27th – Organizational Effectiveness
February 10th – Community and Economic Development
Ongoing dialogue will also occur at the CPC to refine and format the initial draft goals and objectives
documents in each of the strategic areas. As the committee completes their work on each goal area, the
section will be disseminated to for informal constituency review and input. This input will lead to
further refinements over the early part of the spring semester.
We hope to be able to disseminate these drafts for this informal constituency review process per the
following schedule:
Schedule to distribute “first drafts” for initial constituency review and input:
Friday, December 5th –Access and Growth
Friday, January 16th – Student Success
Friday, February 20th – Teaching and Learning Effectiveness
Friday, February 27th – Organizational Effectiveness
Friday, March 6th – Community and Economic Development
In that way the committee can present a Final Draft of the Strategic Plan for a formal constituency
review and adoption by the end of March.