Approved Minutes
Sacramento City College
Academic Senate
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Meeting
President: Ginni May
Vice-President: Greg Rose
Secretary: Troy Myers
Past-President: Connie Zuercher
Senators Present: Irma Rodriguez, Kris Janssen, Andrea Greenwell, Josh Roberts, Steve Cirrone, Cathy ChenuCampbell, Jonathan Segal, Deb Bryant, Paul Prue, Deborah Gambrell, Barry Kalar, Jang Ha Oh, Gayle Pitman,
Ken Naganuma, Barbara Toupadakis, Norma Olivarez, Norman Lorenz, Nicholas Miller, Lewis Bair, Liam
McDaid, Brian Mom, David Carmichael, Andrew Jones, Dianne Bennett, David Fabionar.
Senators Absent: Jennifer Laflam, Pamela Richmond, Norman Walker, Marcia Bonawitz, Lynne Giovannetti,
Gabriella Nuttall, Amy Zannakis, Lori Petite, Karen Carberry-Goh, Danette Ocegueda.
PRELIMINARIES
Call to Order: meeting called to order by Ginni at 12:00.
Approval of Minutes: Minutes from 12-3-13 approved by consensus.
Elections: elections are coming up. If you have served for two terms, please contact your division to find
someone to run for your position. All the officer positions are up for re-election. Troy and Ginni will be running.
Connie needs a few volunteers to serve on the election committee: there is very little work involved. Andrew and
Norma volunteered, also Barry K. and Gayle as Parliamentarian and David F.
New Senators:
Brian Mom, Bus
David Carmichael, KHA Adjunct
Moved and seconded to approve Brian and David to the Senate; approved by consensus.
Announcements
Accreditation Update: so far 69 faculty have agreed to serve on writing teams! More are welcome.
Academic Senate Elections: Ginni distributed the roster so that all of us could check it for accuracy.
Picture on email: do we want a faculty picture on our emails? Ginni is looking for feedback; it will be on a future
Senate agenda.
Modernization Report: a report from Bob Martinelli was distributed regarding the building modernization
schedule.
Extra faculty position: there will be one additional beyond what we expected because the Counseling position,
approved by the regular process, will be funded by the SSSP dollars. Moving one step further down the list means
that English will be hiring.
INFORMATION ITEMS
411 Faculty Website
M. Poindexter
Happy New Year from Michael! And Michael thanked us for all our hard work. Michael would like all of us to
visit the student 411 site. It is so easy to use that it can be used right in the classroom and a link can be included
on the syllabus so students know about the site. More than 10,000 students have used the site so far. A similar site
for faculty is now under construction to provide faculty with key information. A survey will be distributed to
faculty to see what kind of information we would like to see on the site.
DECISION ITEMS
Campus Issue 13-14-02
(1st Reading)
S. Terry
This issue came from the Staff Development Committee. We have discussed this before, but we are considering
this a first reading. Sharon Terry came to speak on the issue. Per her recollection, the SRC functioned best when
we had two .5 persons. Since then, funding has been reduced, and she feels that one person at .5 is not enough.
The job is not a 50 percent job. Sharon also believes because of the Student Success recommendations there will
be greater pressure on the SRC, and the position needs to be fully funded. This has been a longstanding goal for
that area. It was a 1.0 position years ago, then went to .5, then two .5’s, and now is back to .5. We need a stable
funding model and a permanent person. Sharon thinks one person is better than two at .5. Those who serve at .5
have a challenging time managing workload semester to semester, and the workload is greater than .5 no matter.
Norman considered the possibility of changing his proposal, a “friendly amendment,” that there could be two
persons, one each at .5, one each from faculty and from classified staff.
The plan is going to be rewritten and will be coming back to us. Ginni wants to wait for the rewrite so that we can
make a decision on the new language; this will again be considered a first reading.
Someone raised the concern that rotating the position is beneficial as new ideas are introduced. Also, could this be
a Dean position, and the funding come from the administrative bucket? Several faculty raised concerns with
having this be a full time administrative position; there should be at least a fifty percent faculty presence because
the position is concerned with faculty training. Norman said that the position would rotate on a two year basis
even if it is a full time position; we would not be hiring someone to run the SRC for the rest of his or her career.
DISCUSSION ITEMS
Hiring Request Process Modifications
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G. May
Ginni feels this would be better discussed at future meetings when there is more information to share.
Shared Governance Process
M. Richardson/L. McDaid
Michael feels we have made improvements on our shared governance process over his years at SCC. Any
shortcomings in the explicit process were made up by good working relationships between faculty and
administration. This faith has been shaken by major decisions made by administration over more than a year.
Staffing changes were made in his division without faculty consultation. Michael feels shared governance was not
respected. In response, faculty had meetings at the local and division level. Those meetings did not go well.
Although these decisions had a major impact on the department, administration did not feel the need to share the
decision process with faculty. As a result, Michael feels it is time to redress the shared governance process.
Is the Executive Council isolated from the day to day lives of faculty? There is only one faculty person on this
committee (the Senate President). How can one person have access to all the information? The people with the
most relevant information need to be on the EC. Could department chairs serve on the EC? Or the Chair of
Chairs, or other faculty persons?
Someone else noted that the term “shared governance” (as opposed to “participatory governance”) is not in AB
1725 or in Title 5, but that term is the language that was used across the state when those laws were being drafted.
The spirit of 1725 is for administration to rely on faculty for key decisions. The “10 plus 1” covers specific
ground. Some areas of academic and professional matters require administration to “rely primarily” and some
only require “mutual agreement.”
What was the specific departmental issue in this case? The issue related to departmental support. Two classified
positions for lab support, primarily in Chemistry, were lost, so lab techs from other departments in the division
were asked to share their time among departments. Someone noted that in Astronomy he received very little lab
tech support before, and now he gets zero.
Someone else noted that in Los Rios there is an explicit and defined planning process and that planning includes
the allocation and use of staff resources. This process, which includes faculty, has added classified positions in the
past. Why were faculty not consulted when staff positions were removed that directly affected faculty and
instruction? Is the planning process truly serving faculty and departmental needs? Michael feels the key issue was
the lack of communication.
It was noted that this is probably a SUJIC issue and the Union needs to be involved as staff support affects
workload and workload is a Union issue. The Senate’s area of concern relates to collegiality and communication.
Do curriculum documents describe staff support needs and expectations? If so, this is clearly a pedagogical issue
as well as a workload and therefore the Senate has a stake.
Schedule Notes on Online Schedule
Students are not seeing schedule notes when they register for their classes electronically, including the very
important online class orientation information. Some classes fill before this information is even available, and
students do not always see it once it is available. This is a serious problem for online instructors.
Reports
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2.
Upcoming Meetings
1. Senate: Meets 1st and 3rd Tuesdays at noon in RHN 258
Tuesday, February 18, 12:00-1:00, RHN 258
Future Agenda Items:
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5.
6.
Senate Constitution/Bylaws Review and Update Committee Report
Skateboard Locker – J. Steever ( 2nd Reading)
SSSP/Degree Qualifications Profile (2-18-14)
Institutional Learning Outcome Proposal
Picture on email
Honors classes (2-18-14)
To place items on future agendas, email Ginni May at mayv@scc.losrios.edu