How To Hold A District Academic Senate Meeting

Transcription

1 District Academic Senate Meeting Thursday, February 14 th, 2013 Los Angeles Harbor College MINUTES Attendance Present Officers Don Gauthier (President), David Beaulieu (1 st Vice President), Kathleen Bimber (2 nd Vice President), Alex Immerblum (Treasurer), Angela Echeverri (Secretary) City John Freitas, Dana Cohen East Alex Immerblum, Jeff Hernandez, Lurelean Gaines Harbor Susan McMurray, William Hernandez, Joyce Saxton, Delia Renteria Mission Angela Echeverri Pierce Tom Rosdahl, Elizabeth Atondo, John Zayac, Blanca Adajian Southwest Leonard Apenahier Trade Tom McFall, Lourdes Brent, Inhae Ahn, Larry Pogoler Valley Josh Miller West Adrienne Foster, Helen P. Young Guests June B. Smith (DAS Senator Emeritus), Johnny Baez (ASO, LAHC), Blanca Sanchez (ASO,LAHC) 1. Call to order/approval of Agenda: President Gauthier called the meeting to order at 1:35 pm. Agenda was approved (Freitas MSP). The agenda was updated to reflect that Vice Chancellor Yasmin Delahoussaye will visit the next DAS meeting at Valley on March 14, rather than this one. 2. Approval of December 13 th Minutes: Approval of minutes of the 12/13/12 DAS meeting at LACC were postponed to clarify the vote on the DAS Constitution (Pogoler MSP). 3. Public Speakers: None 4. DE Authorization: Gauthier reported that many states have responded to the request for authorization agreements for Distance Education (DE) courses. So far none of these states are charging fees to have students take Distance Education classes offered by the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). Discussion Item 5. Testimonial/Presentation to June Burlingame Smith: Gauthier asked for a motion to move the agenda (Bimber/McFall MSU). Gauthier recounted how June B. Smith, former Senate President at Harbor, fought tirelessly for many years with former presidents and chancellors to advance and uphold faculty rights. Beaulieu also thanked Smith for her service and for helping create a harmonious atmosphere within the DAS during the last several years. He recalled things weren t always this way; twelve years ago there were some interpersonal divisions within the DAS and Smith was instrumental in overcoming them. He recounted that there was a long period when Smith held the line against a very difficult administration. In response, some tried to personalize the issues and belittle the senate leadership. He added he was reminded of the situation at Mission, where the senate president has recently come under attack for similar reasons. On behalf of the DAS, Gauthier presented Smith with a token of appreciation (an engraved glass apple) for her many years of distinguished service. Smith accepted the gift and thanked Gauthier and the DAS 1

2 members for the recognition. She stated the DAS is a fraternity/sorority and if its members don t fight for faculty and academic integrity, no one else will. She added that somehow there is a disconnect between what we consider our mission and what administrators consider their mission. The DAS meetings should provide a shot in the arm and support faculty so they can go back and carry out appropriate battle on their campuses. She stated she always tried to make disagreements impersonal and instead focus on policies and processes. She added she didn t believe in making deals behind closed doors or one-on-one agreements. Senate leaders have to go to their constituencies and inform them of what is going on. She recalled she would write biweekly reports and send them to the whole campus. She sent out one of her last reports shortly after Harbor s former president (Linda Spinks) retired. Smith concluded by telling DAS members they can never go wrong as long as they are always honest and true to themselves and their students. DAS members gave June B. Smith a standing ovation. Action Item 6. Election Committee (Freitas): Freitas announced that the nominations for DAS Officers closed yesterday. Elections will take place at Valley College at the March 14 meeting. He added that the Election Committee will also take nominations from the floor. All nominees must have served on the DAS for at least one year out of the last five. They must have also attended at least one meeting during the current year, in addition to the election meeting. Bimber announced the following candidates have submitted their nominations so far: Gauthier (President), Beaulieu (1 st Vice President), Atondo (2 nd Vice President), Echeverri (Secretary), and Immerblum (Treasurer). Discussion Items (Continued) 7. DAS Consultation Agenda Items (Gauthier): Gauthier reported he has inquired about delays with job announcement postings. Some have reported delays of up to a year for Instructor Special Assignment (ISA) positions. One reason the approval timeline has been extended is because of objections raised by the Teamsters. Deputy Chancellor Barrera informed Gauthier that a committee with representatives from three groups (Teamsters, Personnel Commission, and Human Resources) would handle the review of job announcements to ensure there are no contract violations. Gauthier added this decision was not consulted with the DAS and no timeline was provided as to when the group will meet or whether they meet on an ad hoc or regular basis. Barrera promised to follow up on the issue. Immerblum stated he would like to be more aggressive and have the DAS take a proactive position on this issue. He reported that an assignment for a 0.5 Basic Skills instructor at East took over 6 months to get approved. These delays affect the college, student success, and the Achieving the Dream initiative. Immerblum argued the DAS should become more involved and have a say in this task force, which will review job descriptions for deans, ISAs, and other positions. Hernandez stated the process needs to be transparent. Ahn added she would like a standardized process throughout the district. Beaulieu said the DAS did a lot of work on administrative hiring two years ago; a logical next step is to review the ISA process. Echeverri discussed her concerns about attempts to replace a faculty STEM director position with a dean position at Mission. McFall stated he was concerned about SFP positions and faculty/administration roles. Freitas added ISA positions are nebulous and colleges usually do internal searches for these positions. Gauthier promised he would bring these concerns to Barrera. Pogoler discussed accreditation sanctions given to some of the LACCD colleges because of district problems. Gauthier replied during the last accreditation visit in 2011, there were five district areas of concern to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), but the LACCD has addressed most of them. There were issues regarding minimum qualifications (MQs) and bond program finances. Many of the bond program issues had to do with criticisms leveled against the LACCD by the press and politicians. Another area of concern was the district budget allocation model. The ACCJC does not like to see problems linger for more than two years. McFall asked about plans to hire an accreditation dean. Gauthier suggested 2

3 the LACCD needs a Vice Chancellor for Accreditation & District Planning and a Dean of Student Success. He added he would present a proposal to the administration. Beaulieu said budget and planning development is one of the Academic Senate areas. The District Planning Committee would take on accreditation. He added the DAS officers were working well with Delahoussaye after an initial bumpy road with Board Rule Hernandez said planning is underway for ; it is likely that all colleges will be undergoing accreditation at once and there will be a tenth team for the District Office. Beaulieu reported the District Office is running close to a $2 million deficit. The Vice Chancellor position Delahoussaye now holds was formerly covered by two separate positions: the Vice Chancellors of Institutional Effectiveness and Educational Programs and Services (Academic and Student Services). The District needs another person to cover all of those areas, not just accreditation. The prospect of having a single accreditation cycle for all nine LACCD colleges is very daunting. It is not clear whether the Chancellor can fill the position in the near future. Beaulieu said the DAS is usually visited during the ACCJC site visits. Gauthier argued we need a cultural change and can no longer postpone focusing on accreditation until the last moment. There are small numbers of people who do most of the accreditation work; this requires leadership by the senate and others. He added that Trade and their ongoing issues were discussed during the last consultation meeting. Senate reassigned time was brought up again along with the increasing workload to ensure we have coverage. Gauthier and Immerblum reported that Board Rule 8603 is scheduled to be on the Board agenda on March 20. Gauthier encouraged DAS members to try to attend Board meetings. DAS members inquired whether there was student support for the board rule. Gauthier replied that there were still student objections, but the chancellor and Board are going have to decide for themselves. He reported that the chancellor handed him a list of 14 proposed consultation agenda items. Gauthier is going to come up with a response. One of the items, assignment of faculty to more than one campus, is a union issue. Veterans and MOOCs (Massively open online classes) are also on the list. McFall inquired about the Swan Bill, which awards college credit for industry experience. Bimber stated the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) needs to research this bill. 8. DAS Bylaws: Gauthier passed out a handout with draft language for the first three articles of the DAS Bylaws. He indicated it was a mistake to try to revise the entire constitution at once. Immerblum stated line 30 was not accurate and suggested putting a period after the words DAS budget. Freitas suggested article III of the bylaws be removed. Gauthier will make the corrections and bring the bylaws back for approval. 9. Adult Education Task Force: Gauthier explained that one of the proposals coming from Governor Brown s Task Force is to shift the responsibility for Adult Education from the K-12 system to the community colleges. Under the current plan, the California Community College system would be given about $300 million to do a job that currently costs around $ 900 million. Chancellor La Vista is setting up an Adult Education task force, which will be chaired by Vice Chancellor Felicito Cajayon and will include Nancy Sanders (West), Ann Gee (Valley), and Beaulieu. Gauthier will serve as an alternate. McMurray asked whether people understand that adult education is not solely workforce development. If this bill goes through, noncredit education will cease to exist. Beaulieu expressed his concerns from a budget and academic perspective. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) provides one-fourth of the adult education in the state, while the LACCD only receives one-tenth of the state funding. The District s percentage of the $300 million would be much less than what is needed to do this job adequately. McMurray expressed several concerns, including the difficulty of coordinating areas with different and sometimes conflicting missions. We also need to consider facilities and planning for outcomes. Gauthier replied the Adult Education Task Force is being formed to examine these issues. Cohen added that the DBC discussed the cessation of noncredit if this proposal passes. Immerblum asked when this transition is expected to begin. Gauthier replied it might happen in the summer of 2013, since a bill will likely be 3

4 finalized in spring. The legislature is going to require that community colleges have a plan in place by fall. Pogoler said the Adult Education issue must be discussed beyond the task force. He requested allotting considerable time to the discussion of Adult Education at the March DAS meeting. Pogoler requested that the DAS notice a motion on Adult Education in March for approval in May and send to the ASCCC. Gauthier added that the Adult Education Task Force would report to the chancellor and the Board. Hernandez noted that the Adult Education proposal by Governor Brown might not be approved by the legislature. The legislators have already told the governor they would not approve the 90-unit cap and performance based funding. The legislature needs to be informed of faculty concerns; the DAS needs to prepare resolutions for the ASCCC meeting. Beaulieu said this is essentially a state evel decision; other urban community college districts have incorporated Adult Education. We have not done so and are a big urban anomaly, which makes us vulnerable. The governor wants to revamp funding for all education. Adult Education has been decimated by budget cuts. The argument that community colleges should take over Adult Education is compelling, but it might be even better to form a separate entity for this purpose. 10. Standing Rules on Election (Freitas): Freitas discussed a handout titled LACCD Standing Rule Procedures for Electing Officers. Cohen/Gaines moved to adopt the procedures (MSP). Pogoler asked why the DAS would need paper ballots. Freitas replied we could have a roll-call vote. Smith explained that if you operate under the Brown Act, you cannot use a secret ballot. It takes political courage to let people know how you vote. The paper ballot is set up, so that if someone challenges the results, the committee can check how people voted. Signed paper ballots must be produced upon request for one year. Reports 9. President s Report (Gauthier) a. TPPC (Technology Planning and Policy Committee): Gauthier reported that the new academic and student s would be available after Spring Break. Valley and Pierce are already using the new system. All LACCD will be sent through the official academic account, but messages can be forwarded to other accounts. Foster expressed concern about the cost of business cards being updated. Hernandez explained that administrative servers would be separate from the academic servers. His understanding is that the new laccd.edu accounts would also help address the logistical problems that arise when faculty work at multiple campuses. Zayac asked whether the LACCD would go to cloud so that s are no longer housed at college servers. Gauthier replied that a new version of Windows will be unveiled in summer and will have cloud . He added that the old s will still work for some time, but he didn t know for how long. The LACCD will roll out the new to all campuses by the fall opening day. Hernandez said that faculty at East have two separate accounts: one administrative and one academic. He added that the notion of a single account is to encourage communication. b. AFT-DAS Reading discipline workload: Next Friday 2/22/2013 is LACCD Discipline Day. Gauthier asked DAS members to make sure anyone who teaches reading attends the meeting. The AFT will be discussing the workload of the different disciplines that teach reading. It is important to make sure that all disciplines teaching reading talk to each other. The load is 12 hours for some of these disciplines and 15 for others. c. BR ASCCC-CCLC Agreement update: This is the part of the Board Rules where the Academic Senate role is spelled out. We want to update the language from the 1992 version to the 1998 version of the agreement between the Community College League of California (CCLC) and ASCCC. Freitas has been working with Delahoussaye and Eric Kim to finalize the language

5 Past President/1 st Vice President Report (Beaulieu) a. Equivalency and Personal Development/Counseling Classes: Beaulieu reported that the Equivalency Committee did not receive any equivalency claims and therefore did not meet last Monday. He stated that a cross-listing issue needs to be fixed because state auditors are coming. Bimber explained that the LACCD got rid of all crosslisting between disciplines last year; faculty had to submit new requests to crosslist all their courses. Many disciplines did not submit requests to re-crosslist; this could be a problem in an audit. People who are teaching in a previously crosslisted course may no longer have the proper minimum qualifications to teach in that discipline. Examples of previously crosslisted courses include Child Development and Psychology, Chicano Studies and Art, African American studies and History, and others. There could be fines incurred by the colleges and we have a few weeks to try to fix what we can. The counseling representatives (100 people) want to retitle all Personal Development courses as Counseling courses. The proposal will be considered at DCC s next meeting. Bimber will send out the proposal to DCC and DAS members. b. District Budget Committee: DBC has met twice since mid-january. The passage of Proposition 30 continues to be deeply appreciated and means about an additional $50 million for the LACCD: about $15 million is paid down in deferral, $31 million in forestalled cuts, and $4 million in growth money. The DBC is discussing phase two of the allocation model. The goal is to determine how we should redistribute funding, to some extent, by allocating more to colleges with high population density and low participation rates. Beaulieu has been making the argument that Southwest, City and Trade have greater needs under these criteria. This redistribution is analogous to what Governor Brown is trying to do with the K-12 system. The LACCD approved phase one of the allocation model one year ago. The other issue is that the DBC has made a couple of recommendations to reduce the contingency reserve from 7.5 to 5% and to distribute this money to the colleges. The Board has not approved these recommendations yet; if they do, the 2.5% (about $10 million) will go to the colleges. Beaulieu added that the current Board favors hefty reserves. Freitas said the Board established the higher reserve percentages without a DBC recommendation. Beaulieu said the Board did this in an attempt to protect the LACCD financially. This current year, the contingency reserve has not been spent much at all so far. DBC also passed a motion to assess the colleges for funding gaps; the DO has not given out a list of these items. Echeverri inquired about the LACCD s settlement in the Inspector General lawsuit and where the money to pay for the settlement would come from. Gauthier replied the he believed the money would come out of the bond contingency fund. Beaulieu reported that the District Office (DO) has a $1.9 million deficit. Immerblum asked if we would ever have the opportunity to look at the DO budget to ask where money could be saved. Beaulieu replied that about four years ago the DBC reviewed the DO budget. Unfortunately, the work that former Vice Chancellor Gary Colombo started to determine the functional map was never finished and we never finished the efficiency assessment. Hernandez stated that the reason there is a deficit goes back to the unrealistic six-percent cut the colleges and DO were asked to take, which was too much. Gauthier stated that the DO budget is $28 M and the Information Technology (IT) budget is about $7 or 8 million. Beaulieu added that the DO gets no growth money under the current allocation model. McMurray said colleges are the money generators and serving students must be the LACCD s priority. DE Report: The DE Committee met in January and they are meeting again to discuss Article 40 of the AFT Contract. Gauthier expressed hope they could meet soon with Armida Ornelas and Joanne Waddell. He said there are two issues. The first one has to do with governance; the other involves the role of DE committees in certifying faculty to teach online. This will probably require a contract change and further certification. The union views all faculty as the same and believes that DE faculty should not be expected 5

6 to undergo DE training without additional compensation. McFall asked about the DE Committee composition. Gauthier replied that is the governance issue. He added that in order to teach DE at some colleges, faculty have to pass a course, set up their course shells, and then the DE committee decides whether or not they should be able to teach online. The union views DE as a mode of instruction, so faculty can t be required to do additional things. A lot of colleges are not willing to give credit for online training at other institutions. Etudes requires that users of their Learning Management System (LMS) take their online training course, which generates enrollment (full-time equivalent students or FTES) for Foothill De Anza College. Gauthier said the other union objection is that they don t want a committee to perform faculty evaluations. Freitas said there is still murkiness regarding online certification requirements; we need to know where the union wants the line to be drawn. Hernandez added that San Bernardino Valley College has various cafeteria-style approaches to ensure regular and effective teacher-student contact. The solution is to use the evaluation process to make sure the teacher-student contact requirements are being met. Hernandez added he doesn t think we currently have effective monitoring to make sure online classes are visited. Bimber stated the ASCCC has established guidelines for DE classes. The AFT says the department chair and evaluation committee should have access to online classes. Gauthier said the ACCJC is beginning to look at online education very closely, and given the Governor s proposals for online education, we need to be concerned as well.. Beaulieu reported that the DE Committee is well attended now. With all the talk about MOOCs, the DE stakeholders are engaging in a lot of dialog. DE is primarily an academic program. The DE Committee will meet in March and May this semester. Gauthier commended Beaulieu on doing a great job with the DE committee nd Vice President Report (Bimber) a. DCC Report: Bimber stated she wanted to commend the Curriculum Committee chairs for responding well to a crushing workload due to Title 5 changes. They have had to deal with crashes, glitches, crosslisting issues, and disability identification. There have been changes from Physical Education, Kinesiology, Counseling, and other disciplines. She reiterated her plans to retire this June and stated that learning curriculum takes years, perhaps as a warning to her incoming replacement. b. TMC Degrees: The adoption of Transfer Model Curriculum (TMC) degrees has been another pressing issue for Curriculum Committee chairs and faculty. It is the main focus of the Discipline Day event planned for Valley College. c. Discipline Day: Bimber reported that during Discipline Day on 2/22/13, presenters will focus on how to access the C-ID system. Atondo will give a presentation on how to preserve IGETC and CSU certification. During the second half of the day, faculty will break up into discipline groups. So far, there are 213 RSVPs to the event. Pogoler stated that curriculum is a faculty issue and that he did not understand why a full-time curriculum dean is necessary. Bimber explained that the deans upload the curriculum and follow up with Electronic Curriculum Database (ECD) glitches. Many of the curriculum deans are also in charge of catalog, schedule, curriculum, and one or more departments. She added that DCC gets little to no curriculum support from the District Office. The curriculum deans are supposed to have their own meetings with Bobbi Kimble, but they have not met in over one year. She stated that the DCC now has a good group of Curriculum Chairs to work with. Bimber added that former Dean Nadia Swerdlow (Mission) and Dean Sherrie Berger (Valley) have attended DCC on a regular basis. 6

7 Treasurer s Report (Immerblum) Immerblum presented a written Treasurer s report dated 2/5/2013. He announced that up to 11 LACCD faculty plan to attend the upcoming ASCCC Spring Plenary Session in San Francisco. He added that mileage money will be disbursed by end of the spring semester. 13. SIS Report (Atondo/Weber): Gauthier distributed and discussed a memo by Kalynda Webber-McLean (City), a member of the Student Information System (SIS) Steering Committee, about the Academic Structure Training that took place between 2/11/13 to 2/13/13. The memo dated 2/14/2013 highlights two potential areas of SIS customization that are of particular concern to faculty: The challenges posed by LACCD s present course numbering system The ability to offer a wait list option Gauthier encouraged DAS members to discuss the memo at their local Senate meetings. One challenge is that the LACCD course numbering system does not follow a particular convention (e.g. transfer courses are 200 level or above ). The SIS consultant recommended streamlining the LACCD course numbering convention to make the system s implementation more manageable. Zayac asked whether DCC has discussed the impact of common course numbering. Bimber replied the impact would be enormous and needs to be discussed at DCC and DAS. She added the LACCD needs a system that can handle its current course numbering system. Colleges must also make a decision about whether and how they are going to use waitlists. The use of waitlists for disciplines that are highly impacted (e.g. Biology) has been discussed. Bimber stated that the administration s concern is that any kind of customization will cost the District money. Gauthier added that there is an unfortunate tendency to force policy changes due to software limitations, rather than have the needs of our academic programs drive changes to the software. Meeting adjourned at 3:55 pm. Minutes submitted respectfully by DAS Secretary Angela Echeverri 7