College Academic Senate
of the
Sequoias
General Session Minutes
Wednesday, September 24th Rm 1 4:10-5:30 p.m.
1.1 Call to order by Jeff Basham
1.2 Approval of agenda from September 10th 2008 M/S/A
1.3 Approval minutes from September 10th 2008 M/S/A
a. Approval of minutes from August 27th 2008 M/S/A
1.3. a. Faculty/staff comments concerning those items not on the agenda
Carol Enns, our State Representative, shared that because of her position; she cannot make or second motions. Joni Jordan, curriculum chair, is not able to make or second motions either. She informed the Senators that no Executive board committee members can make or second motions. She encouraged other senators to not be shy about making motions.
Carol informed new Senators that the Senate is essentially an advisory of the board. Their responsibilities are outlined in the 10+1 card that is carried by the Senate president. These items describe the position and responsibilities of the Senate. Jeff and Carol highlighted the areas of responsibilities of faculty. She further encouraged the Senate to embrace their responsibilities which includes making and seconding motions.
b. Faculty/staff comments concerning those items on the agenda
1.4 President’s report – (Jeff Basham) attached
1.4.1 Communications
1.5 Committees:
a. Curriculum Committee – Joni Jordan
Joni reported “nothing earth shaking” although there are currently 141 courses in the pipeline. Soon the committee hopes to raise the number of courses to 300 a year. Currently the committee has been working on the honors course addendum. It is currently in curricUNET. Joni reported that as of yesterday, it was perfect. The committee also has a new SLO page that reflects more robust SLOs as suggested by Dr. Scroggins. The new SLOs are more elegant and functional. The committee also approved a policy from 1995: no courses will be approved as GE courses until they have been approved through the Curriculum Committee. This approval was made to address courses going into schedule as GE without an official approval. M/S/A
b. Facilities Committee report –
No Report
c. Equivalency Committee – Jeff Basham
Jeff reported that as of their meeting yesterday, they had only one applicant from the Fine Arts Division. The committee approved the equivalency, and it was moved on to HR.
d. Governance/Professional Matters (Committee A) – Linda Amaral
Linda reported that the committee met today and has begun gathering information.
e. Bylaws/Election Process (Committee B) – Gina Haycock
Gina reported that the committee met yesterday (with 100% attendance). They reviewed the progress made last year; the committee feels that a resolution would be a culmination of what committee did last year. Last year Jesse had talked with Dorianna in the bookstore, and they had a plan for the COS textbook rental program. The program was still in need of funding. When the semester ended in May, the committee was under the impression that the program would be funded by the foundation; however, the administration has now agreed to fund the new program with $10-15,000. The committee also had a lot of really good ideas. For example, they would like to have at least one student representative serving on the committee – a student from the ASB is preferred. Dorianna is in the process of setting up procedures for the program. The administration/bookstore is hoping to launch the pilot program in the Spring. Resolution: “COS Bookstore Textbook Rental Program Resolution” (attached) M/S/A.
f. Distance Learning/Committees/Professional Ethics (Committee C) – Janice Brown
Janice reported that the committee held its first meeting on Monday and is in need of more members. They have been charged with working with Dr. Scroggins and TCOE to integrate the charter University High School. The decision to open the high school was initiated over the summer. The committee has been asked to develop a motion for Senate to approve, and they are in the process of doing research. Fresno State University has a university charter high school; the committee will be meeting with the principal of this school. They have also begun looking at possible issues and/or problems that will arise with the opening of the high school. Some of the questions that the committee is currently asking are: What type of students will be invited? Will we limit enrollment to honors students only? Who will teach these students? How will we integrate high school students to on a college campus? What will COS do to ensure the safety of younger students from possible predators? The committee obviously has many issues to investigate. Another significant question is the location of the school. The science building is a possible location. FSU charter high school was moved farther away from campus – FSU’s decision leads to other questions: what problems did FS encounter that made them move the campus? One possible reason is the congested traffic caused by parents dropping of their high school students. FSU has remedied the situation by building a separate building for the high school. Deborah Nolan has much prior experience with high schools on college campuses; she has been invited to the committee’s next meeting.
g. COSTA Liaison Committee – Steve Howland
No Report
h. FEC – Chris Knox
No Report
i. Student Learning Outcome – Jeanette Rollinger
No Report
j. Adjunct Faculty report – Andrew Kosten
Andrew suggested the formation of a committee to look into a compensation for adjuncts affected by the cancellation of classes and is requesting names from each division to serve on a committee. Jeff has requested that time faculty be included. No names have been submitted; Jeff will begin nagging division representatives for names soon. Representatives for this committee do not have to be Senate representatives. Adjunct and/or faculty are welcomed. Balance and broad representation needed.
k. DECOS – Deborah Nolan
Deborah reported that the committee met yesterday. She requested that Senators return to their divisions and ask what distance education issues they would like DECOS to discuss.
l. ASB – Student Rep. – Ashlee Seylaz
Ashlee reported that Relay for Life was successful; the fundraiser earned $3,000. Walkers were on the track for the full 24 hours!
m. Honors Program – Cynthia Johnson
No Report
n. ELI – David Hurst
No Report
1.6 Unfinished Business
a. Program Review (action item) – Thea Trimble
Thea was with us at the last meeting. Jeff called for any questions and or discussion from Senators. It was mentioned that the “Request for Proposal” included no proposal to establish new administration positions. Some senators believed the lack of procedure for administrative positions was a hole in the document. Lisa Brandis, with Student Services, felt that the new procedures were a long time coming and presented a very welcome change in her department. Student Services feels supported by the Senate and are grateful. It was also mentioned that College Council is not included in the “Request for Proposal” document. For College Council to get any of this information it must go through the budget committee which is a sub-committee. This committee decides on funding and categories; we need faculty representation on this committee. These separate committees will be making the recommendation which goes to the appropriate VP. This is sent to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Scroggins; if they decide to alter the priorities, they will send a rationale back to committee explaining the change. Any misunderstanding will be explained. College Council will not be reviewing all the program reviews. It was suggested that having College Council involved seemed inappropriate. Jeff and Thea already presented the proposal to Dr. Scroggins; these committees would be making the decisions. This is the document is what they are sending forward.
Because this college is set up with the ideal of shared governance; all parts of the college should be included. However, we are not going to dictate to administration how they should hire. Faculty members are not the sole decision makers.
Folks from College Council (represented in Senate by Hunter and Carol) were surprised to hear that deans and administrators were voting in Instructional Council. The issue seemed to need some amount of clarification.
“Request for Proposal”: M/S/A.
1.7 New Business
a. Time conflict Position (added to agenda)
Dr. Johnson has proposed a specific procedure. He has suggested that we need to set up guidelines to more successfully deal with time conflicts. The general idea is that instructor who is willing to give up 15 minutes of their class so that a student may attend to another engagement, must provide proof that the student has made up the work and time. The 15 minutes may be as simple as a review of material during the instructor’s office hour; however, this time must be documented and submitted by the instructor. The documentation will be turned into the dean of the instructor’s department at the end of each semester. Previously, two forms did exist, but they were out of date and in need of revision.
b. Course Auditing (added to the agenda)
The major problem is that community members cannot currently audit classes. COS has recently revised its mission statement to include the terms “community education.” The proposal is that after the first two weeks of classes (after paying customers get first shot at the seats) community members can come in and then audit the class. It was recommended that this proposal go back to the divisions.
Adjourned: 5:17 pm
Members present: Gina Haycock, Joni Jordan, Alicia Crumpler, Jeanette Rollinger, Adrian Beltran, Keith Eddy, Vinetta harper, Glena Crumal, Jane Thomas, Deborah Nolan, Carol Enns, Ashlee Seylaz, Greg Turner, Andrew Kosten, Vincent Baldini, Linda Amaral, James McDonnell, Stephen Chance, David DeSilva, Andy Hinojosa, Janice Spencer, Jan Woodall, Janice Brown, Josh Muller, Steven Howland, Jesse Wilcoxson, Heather Moore, Jeff Basham