COLLEGE OF MARIN
ACADEMIC SENATE
MINUTES FOR SEPTEMBER 4, 2008
12:45 – 2:00
Student Services Building, Conference Rooms A & B
Senators Present: Carol Adair, Yolanda Bellisimo, Michael Dougan, Eric Dunmire,
Ron Gaiz, Erika Harkins, Patrick Kelly, Robert Kennedy, Sara McKinnon, Arthur Lutz,
Joe Mueller, Meg Pasquel, Radica Portello, Derek Wilson, Blaze Woodlief
Guests: Rinetta Early, Paul Costello
Summary
Agreed to forward the discussion of a possible purchase of a lcd
projector to next week’s agenda.
The Senate voted to send its Memo of Understanding to UPM, asking if it
might contain workload issues, and if, in UPM’s opinion, the memo is in
conflict with the contract. After the Senate gets the union’s advice and,
perhaps after soliciting the advice of the Senate’s own legal council,
members can decide whether they want to submit the MOU, or to make the
desired changes slowly through Gold Book Policy and Procedure changes. The
Senate will ask the Union to send its opinion in two weeks.
The Senate agreed to send a letter to UPM and to the VP asking them to
consider waiting until 2012 to implement the compressed calendar. Consent.
Minutes
I.
Approval and Adoption of the Agenda.
II.
Reading and Approval of the Minutes of August 28, 2008. Accepted
III.
Accepted
Reports
President’s report. Yolanda Bellisimo: Written. Attached
Vice President. Patrick Kelly: Patrick reported that a new state law allows
part time teachers to teach up to 10 units a semester (up to 67% of a full time
load) if the local contract agrees. Because COM’s contract limits part time loads to
only 9 units, Department chairs from Science, Math, Art, and Basic Skills are writing
a letter to the Union Executive Board asking UPM to negotiate a side bar giving part
timers this right. Allowing such a change would greatly facilitate scheduling because
then part time teachers could teach two five-unit courses. Most introductory
courses in these departments are five-unit courses.
Treasurer. Ron Gaiz: At the last Senate meeting, five people signed for
monthly donations contributing a new monthly total of approximately $115 to our
discretionary fund with the Union Bank of California The balance in this Senate’s
account is now $1,441. The balance in the district account is $13,320. Ron
requested that the Senate include the possible purchase of a projector on the
agenda for next week.
Curriculum Committee. Derek Wilson: This week’s Curriculum Committee
meeting was a mostly a training session for new members. Also the CC indicated
that stand-alone courses should be listed in the college catalog. It is important that
students are well informed about these stand-alone classes because they can’t use
more than 18 of them for graduation. Derek will ask Cari Pogan to print list of
stand-alone classes. Finally, the committee completed the tech review on four
classes.
Academic Standards.
none
Community Education. Erika Harkins. Because registration for fee-based
courses has been so slow this semester, Community Education is trying not to
cancel courses because of low enrollment. Ericka also reported that the teachers of
the fee-based courses have a hard time contacting or communicating with the
Community Education staff and administration.
IV. Action Items
a) Class Size MOU.
Senate members engaged in a long and spirited discussion on the Curriculum
Committee/Academic Academic Senate’s Memo of Understanding concerning class
size reductions. As stated last week, the CC finds itself unable to approve courses
requesting a lowering of class size because the administrative members of UDWC
refuse to approve of any size decrease regardless of the affect on safety, facilities
or learning objectives. While all members of the Senate agreed that these academic
factors should determine class size, they differed on the process, form and wisdom
of the memo. Some members argued that sending such a memo to the
administration gives the appearance of direct dealing and the appearance that the
Senate and Union are in some kind of disagreement. These Senators insisted that
language in the contract and in the Ed Code assigns all responsibility of class size to
the union with its contractual responsibilities. Other members countered that
contract/Ed code language relates only to class size increase; that Union is
responsible only for workload and working conditions, that it is the Senate which is
responsible for the quality of teaching and for student outcomes - all affected by
the current inability of the CC to decrease class size. Finally, it was agreed that the
language in both documents could be interpreted either way and that the two
bodies must meet to sort out overlapping responsibilities in this and in other issues.
This agreement on language, however, left the Curriculum Committee in the same
untenable position. It is still unable to approve courses responsibly. Senators spoke
in support of the CC’s need to continue its mandated job. These Senators reminded
the committee that we can’t wait for two years until policy is rewritten or the
contract changes; courses are being taught now which are out of compliance with
safety, SLO requirements and even common sense – more students enrolled in a
class than the room allows or than there is equipment to accommodate. They
insisted that decisions affecting quality education are assigned to the Academic
Senate and that all of this is a 10+1 issue, clearly the province of the Senate and
has standing in court. To the suggestion that the Senate send the memo to the
Union for vetting, Senators pointed out that, often, when the Senate sends requests
to the union, the Union doesn’t respond. Members all expressed a desire to work
with the union on these matters and to avoid any appearance of disunity, but they
wanted a quick and useful response. The Senate voted to send the Memo to
UPM, asking if it might contain workload issues, and if, in UPM’s opinion,
the memo is in conflict with the contract. After the Senate gets the union’s
advice and perhaps after soliciting the advice of the Senate’s own legal
council, members can decide whether they want to submit the MOU, or to
make the desired changes slowly through Gold Book Policy and Procedure
changes. The Senate will ask the Union to send its opinion in two weeks.
b. Procedures – holding for action
AP 4225 – Course Repetition (applies to credit courses where a substandard
grade was earned)
AP 4100 – Graduation Requirements for Degrees &
Certificates
VI. Discussion
a) Impact of Non-faculty Staffing Needs on Instruction (Mueller)
The departments of Math and Science (Math, Physical Science and Live Science) are
the only departments on campus that don’t have a full time administrative
assistant. These departments serve 39% of the WASCH on campus. Instead of
reliable full time help, the departments have suffered with a variety of expensive,
short-term temps requiring constant training. The office is often left unstaffed. The
chairs and the facility can rarely depend on assistance. There is not much that can
be done about this problem now, but all three disciplines will highlight the problem
in their program review. IPC and the VP understand that this is an ongoing, serious
problem and their requests will get a high rating.
On the subject of program review, Senators asked how program review would
influence the overall decisions that affect us all keenly. For example, how can we
affect the hiring of a full-time IT manager, the person who oversees all our review
data and Banner? Who is reviewing the college at a macro level? It was suggested
that the Senate put this on a later agenda. Perhaps the Senate can write a program
review of the campus-wide academic processes.
b) Compressed Calendar Academic Issues (Kelly)
The Senate discussed the advantages and problems the college will encounter
under a compressed calendar. The advantages include: probable higher enrollment;
longer time between semesters allowing for intersession flexibility; longer
vacations. The problems include: fewer lab sessions for science and math courses;
courses being out of sync with text books which assume a longer semester; the
necessity of rewriting curriculum, perhaps omitting concepts and subjects; the
necessity of rethinking all sequential courses to redistribute concepts and rewrite
the matrices; the difficulty of rethinking and rewriting all this during the conversion
to Banner and during modernization when none of us are sure of classroom size or
adequacy. Patrick will create a chart with the advantages and problems for our
newsletter and for further discussion. In the meantime, it might be prudent to slow
down the change to a compressed calendar. The Senate agreed to send a letter
to UPM and to the VP asking them to consider waiting until 2012 to
implement the compressed calendar. Consent. The Compressed Calendar
Committee will meet on September 24. Sara McKinnon and Paul DeSilva are the
faculty representatives. The committee needs someone from math/ science and
from art to participate because those are the departments that will be most
affected. Arthur reminded the Senate that the Union all ready has a calendar
committee. He was assured that the Senate’s committee is charged only with
facilitating the transition whenever it is affected.
VII. Adjournment: 2:00 PM
For questions or information concerning the Academic Senate, please contact Carol
Adair: carol.adair@marin.edu X7367
Attachments
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
September 4, 2008
1.
Program Review for Learning Pathways
As a result of the memo the Academic Senate sent to IPC recommending
program reviews for the remaining “four houses” the VP of Student Learning
will be asking the deans from these areas to convene a group representing
each learning pathway. These groups will begin program reviews of Basic
Skills/ESL, Career Ed., Community Ed, and Life Long Learning to be
completed by spring 2009. These reviews will follow the model created by
Robert Kennedy for the transfer program review.
2.
Program Review Workshop
We will be holding a workshop to help programs complete this year’s
program reviews. The tentative dates are either September 19th or the 26th.
Derek assures us that most of the review can be completed during the
workshop, especially for those who have a program review in the template
format from last year.
3.
The SLO Facilitator Announcement
The SLO/Program Review Facilitator announcement will go out to faculty
next Monday. I’ll be going to the chair’s meeting in early October to review
the time line for this year’s program review and budgeting process.
4.
Out of Town
I’ll be out of town for the October 2nd Senate meeting (I have to go to Hawaii
for a family wedding). I’ll also miss the November 6th meeting, as I will be in
Los Angeles for the Academic Senate Plenary Session. I am now on a State
Senate committee and we have three meetings planned for Thursday and
Friday of that week. Our other meetings are in Sacramento and are all
tentatively scheduled for Tuesdays.
5.
Self-Study
Blaze is overseeing the self-study for the faculty but each section needs a
faculty co-chair. I’ll be working with Bernie on the governance section. I
asked Win Cottle to serve as co-chair for section II, which is the biggest and
most important section on all things related to teaching and learning. Each
sub section of section II will also need faculty participants. Win will be
attending the training, reading up on the WASC requirements for that section
of the self-study and thinking about people who can best serve as
participants for the sub-sections. This is an important responsibility and the
keystone to the self-study and I’m really pleased that Win will be working on
it.
6.
Compressed Calendar Committee Resuscitated
We can have Sara report on this at the meeting.