Department Chairs Council - Plans for Productivity and Results

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1 Department Chairs Council (DCC) Meeting Thursday, February 19, :00-12:50 pm RN 228 In attendance: Debra Crumpton (Chair: DC below), Chris Daubert, Mari Carmen Garcia, Beth Forrester, Josh Roberts, Barbara Toupadakis, Rachel Spangler, Susan Griffin, Jeff Karlsen, Daniel Styer, Robin Roffey, Marisa Alviar- Agnew, Melodi Randolph, Mel Duvall, Tom Cappelletti, Chris Seddon, Kelly Gould, Michael Hunter, John Polagruto,Tim Taylor, Kandace Knudson, Daniel Gilbert- Valencia, Troy Myers. Introductory Comments (DC) DC began by emphasizing the importance of the DCC. Faculty leadership is extremely important at SCC and DCC should be a vehicle for organizing and amplifying the collective faculty voice. Distance Education New roles and accreditation concerns (Kandace Knudson and Daniel Gilbert- Valencia) Kandace and Daniel walked the chairs through an SCC DE 411 document (attached) that they previously shared with the Deans Council. Roles David Martin provides immediate support for D2L and other DE needs. The DE coordinator leads planning and implementation of DE, helps faculty develop courses and attends to policies and regs.. Instructional Development is the primary coordinator for D2L and also handles more involved faculty projects. Possible new LMS The Chancellor s Office has chosen Canvas as the Learning Management System (LMS) that will be provided to colleges, including support, at no cost. We can expect that our district will adopt it but there has been no announcement of this. Canvas is currently in use at Sierra, Woodland and Yuba. Word- of- mouth on this system has been positive. Will it be possible to export content from D2L and import it to Canvas? Yes, but past experience shows we can t expect this to be seamless. Canvas will be available in the Fall for testing. Can we find people who have actually ported from D2L to Canvas? Possibly. In any case, support for any transition will be available. Faculty qualifications to teach DE Academic Senate has a policy on this topic, consisting of a list of 4 criteria of which faculty must meet at least two. The DE team is working with deans to make sure they are aware of this policy and that it is being followed. When will the next online institute be? Administrators will have an institute in Spring. Faculty institute will be in Fall, during the semester.

2 Isn t this a faculty issue? Chairs should be recommending who is qualified to teach online. Deans ultimately assign classes, so they need to be informed of the criteria. Is there a mentorship program? Experienced faculty can be extremely helpful. Regular Effective/Substantive Contact/Interaction We need to be able to show that our DE courses are NOT correspondence courses. Will accreditors be auditing online courses, popping up? There are rumors about this right now, but we don t know. We ll let you know when we know. Ask yourself the following to see if you are likely in compliance: Do you post regular news items? Do you participate in discussion boards? Nothing is saved in D2L when you via the class list, so if you are doing this it may be difficult to use as evidence of regular and effective contact. The team will want to see the record inside D2L. If you teach hybrid classes replacing class time with online time- - you need to maintain regular/substantive contact during that time. Some faculty aren t aware of this. Putting things in My Progress can be a way to collect evidence. It is important to show that you are making an earnest effort. Chairs should go to department faculty and make sure they are doing this. There are several outstanding issues that create problems, such as the class schedule and eservices, which make it very difficult to understand which courses are online and what an online course entails. The interface is not created by us, but the notes on classes come from the departments, so we may be able to work on that. We can also put material on department websites explaining how much of a program can be completed online. Are any programs at SCC fully online? No. Daniel and Kandace welcome contact on any of these issues. Proposed Institutional Standards & the Institutional Standards Checklist (Troy Myers) Dept. of Ed is driving AACJC standards; PRIE is trying to anticipate and coordinate with tools like this checklist (attached). The idea is to create a baseline, to measure current status. For instance, look at the last 5 years and take the year with the lowest number of graduates; that is your baseline, and if you dip below it, you need to figure out what the reason is. The Academic Senate believes that department faculty should have control of this process, of what you measure. Track what you decide is meaningful.

3 One section of the checklist mentions setting a goal, which does not seem to be mandated by the regulations, and we may want to ask it be removed. Isn t this already in Program Review? Why do we need it separated out? Important to show that depts. are considering data. Plus, accreditation teams need this sort of thing specifically. Not clear hos frequently it will be needed; possible it would be annual. Frequency of Program Review for CTE is increasing to every two years. So workload mounts. CTE issues. This won t be a good measure of success since so many CTE students get jobs but don t complete their program, so it doesn t look like success. Stats at SCC never include a standard deviation. Without this, the numbers are meaningless. What is the purpose of this data? Could it lead to program discontinuance? It could, but that is a process with lots of faculty input. Anytime you collect data, it can be used for something. We are going to have some kind of form, one way or another. The standards and checklist have been through a first reading at Academic Senate. Chairs should send comments to DC she will bring these to the Senate s second reading. The Budget Process (Chris Seddon) Chris ed some documents shortly before the meeting and asked that chairs review them at their leisure. If you have comments about those documents, please him. The budget process draws a distinction between Maintenance- of- Effort (MOE) requests and one- time requests. MOE requests are considered by the Budget Committee, but the VPA needs to look at it and find ongoing funding. One- time requests are the primary requests heard by the Budget Committee. Deans are supposed to bring chairs or other closely related faculty to the Budget hearings. If you don t hear from your dean about this fairly soon, contact them to be sure that you can be there. It is important that someone well- informed about the request be present at the hearing. Closing remarks DC asked chairs to consider how can we make faculty voice stronger. Chairs should be significant voice within departments.

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5 Institutional Set Standards (ISS) for Instructional Programs Federal regulations (US c.f.r (f)) state: The institution must set standards of satisfactory performance for student achievement, and evaluate itself against those standards at the programmatic and institutional levels. The regulation also requires the Accrediting Commission to examine those standards when a team visits the college. As a result, we are asking each instructional program to set standards for the program for course success rates and number of degrees/certificates completed. PRIE will conduct needed analyses and assist as needed in other ways. After you ve agreed on the ISS, send the information below to PRIE. The data needed to do this is already available on the unit planning/program review website: (note that this website is only available from a campus computer). Degree/certificate completion number: Click on Awards : This shows the last several years of degree and certificate awards for the program. These are broken out by the student educational goal. It also shows the number of students declaring a major in your program. You can use these numbers to compare the number of students who say they want to get a degree or certificate to the number that actually do so. Use this data, any other info that you have in your department, and your professional judgment to set a minimum expectation for your program. For example, you can set this as the lowest number in the past 5 years. The department offers the following degrees and certificates: The department sets as the minimum expectation for the number of degrees and certificates awarded each year. If the number of certificates falls below this standard, we will work in our department and with other departments as needed to assess whether this decrease is significant, and what it means for the program. If a department wishes, it can also set a goal toward which it is aspiring. The department sets as a future goal for the annual number of degrees and certificates awarded. Course success rate: Click on Success : This shows the last several years of course success rates for your program; it also shows the overall course success rate for the college. Use this data, any other info that you have in your department, and your professional judgment to set a minimum expectation for your program. For example, you can set this as the lowest rate in the past 5 years. The department sets as the minimal expectation for course success in courses. If the course success rate falls below this standard we will implement actions designed to improve course success. If you wish, the department can also set a goal toward which you are aspiring. Comments: The department sets as a future goal for course success in courses.

6 From the ACCJC Checklist used by visiting teams Standards and Performance with Respect to Student Achievement The institution has defined elements of student achievement performance across the institution, and has identified the expected measure of performance within each defined element. Course completion is included as one of these elements of student achievement. Other elements of student achievement performance for measurement have been determined as appropriate to the institution s mission. The institution has defined elements of student achievement performance within each instructional program, and has identified the expected measure of performance within each defined element. The defined elements include, but are not limited to, job placement rates for program completers, and for programs in fields where licensure is required, the licensure examination passage rates for program completers. The institution-set standards for programs and across the institution are relevant to guide self-evaluation and institutional improvement; the defined elements and expected performance levels are appropriate within higher education; the results are reported regularly across the campus; and the definition of elements and results are used in program-level and institution-wide planning to evaluate how well the institution fulfills its mission, to determine needed changes, to allocating resources, and to make improvements. The institution analyzes its performance as to the institution-set standards and as to student achievement, and takes appropriate measures in areas where its performance is not at the expected level. Regulation citations: (a)(1)(i); (f); (a-e). Conclusion Check-Off (mark one): The team has reviewed the elements of this component and has found the institution to meet the Commission s requirements. The team has reviewed the elements of this component and has found the institution to meet the Commission s requirements, but that follow-up is recommended. The team has reviewed the elements of this component and found the institution does not meet the Commission s requirements. Narrative: