Department Chairs Council meeting minutes
Thurs. March 6, 2014
Attendance: Debra Crumpton, Amy Strimling, Grace Austin, [an attendance sheet was NOT
passed around]
Amanda Davis (SCC Public Information Office) provided the following information regarding the
new SCC web page:
Mon. March 31 is now the launch date for the new SCC web site. In the meantime, open forums
will be taking place on March 12, 13, 26, and 27 from noon to 1 p.m. in B 240 – both staff and
students are welcome to attend.
Important information and key features of our new site:
 Improved site map makes navigation easier
 Event calendar includes event categories and other options
 Elaine’s office populates the “faculty and staff” calendar content
 Essentials and tools sections are organized and driven by the intended audience
 “Faculty and staff tools” contains a searchable document database
 We now have a footer on the web site (present on every page you visit)
 The web site search box is prominent and considered a “smart search” – no longer do
we have quick links
 We now have a responsive page design – the menu items, etc. respond to size
limitations of the device we are viewing it on (phone, tablet, computer).
 Read City Chronicles and upcoming emails regarding continuing changes
 Ingeniux content will still remain (for a while) but you will need to inform students (and
others) of the location of this information as it won’t be reachable (yet) from the new
SCC web page
Maria Regalado, Marybeth Buechner and members of the newly formed SLO Advisory
Committee discussed the work of the committee.
· Maria has been elected as the chair of the committee
· The committee has been meeting since January
· A list of issues have come up during their meetings and they seek our help regarding:
1. Program learning outcomes
2. Accreditation issues
· This committee is structured similarly to the curriculum committee (mostly made up of
faculty)
Marybeth:
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Departments have been sending course SLOs to Marybeth with regularity
However, only about 50% of the program student learning outcomes have been
undergoing assessments (similar to those for SLOs)
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Very few program review reports indicated that program SLO assessments being done;
as a result the latest program report form has been changed to more clearly indicate
this (required) information
Marybeth is working to assemble data/results from program SLO assessments to be
made available online (for students, etc), as per ACCJCs request
If our current Program SLOs don’t match up with our courses, we should probably
change them.
We may be undergoing ongoing program SLOs assessments without knowing it! (as they
are often similar to our individual course SLOs)
If we don’t get to more than 50% in program feedback, we may have issues arise with
accreditation
“We’re always assessing, sometimes reporting” – Marybeth
We’ve also been asked to set college standards for employment CT standards. Marybeth
will be speaking to us about this in the future.
Maria (SLOAC) spoke of the charge of the SLOAC committee.
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They formed to support everyone, campus-wide, on SLOs.
The group’s work is very closely tied to accreditation
They are directly accountable to the Academic Senate
The composition of the committee involves a faculty chair, 20 faculty (2 from each
division), staff dev. Coordinator, distance ed coordinator, classified (5), administration
(3) and student (2)
Maria asked us to talk to our departments to find individuals who are interested in
joining this committee – approximately 9 individuals are currently involved
Maria shared a copy of the group’s latest agenda
They are developing workshops and would like to know what we want or need support
with as we do program or course SLO reporting
Ginnie May shared her personal experience of using final example problems as part of
her course SLO assessment (“course-embedded”), which tie into the program SLOs –
these processes do not need to be made more difficult
A computer program for SLO purposes is under currently under discussion by this
committee
Marybeth encouraged us to reach out to Maria, Rick W and her for help and guidance!
Norman and Daniel Gilbert-Valencia are working together on creating a technology FLEX
related to SLOs
The committee currently meets twice a month, with an anticipated change to once per
month.