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Minutes of the Academic Senate Meeting

November 16 2006 Special Meeting

Voting Members Present: (Senators) Donna Ayers, Charles Dirks, Clive Gordon,Ralph La Rosa, Said Pazirandeh,Rick Scuderi,Janice Silver, Robert Smazenka,Joyce Woodmanse,

Voting Members Absent: Stan Levine, Paul Kubicki,Leslie Milke, Terri English,John Orozco,Ruthie Grant

Exec, Members:Louise Barbato,Eloise Cantrell,Angela Echeverri, Vickie Oddino,Gary Prostak

Mark Pursley, Gwen Walker

Executive Members absent: None

Faculty Present:Pat Flood,Harlan Goldberg , David Jordan ,Joanne Kalter-Flink,Sandi Lampert, Margie Long,Lorraine Manoogian,Myriam Mekelburg, Richard Rains,Yolanda Ramil,Suzanne Ritcheson,Phoebe Rivera, Geri Shapiro, Curtis Stage,Sonia Soto-Bair, Ludi Villegas,Debby Wong,LouisZandalasini.

Visitors/Guests:Dean Alma J. Hawkins,President Ernest Moreno

1. Secretary Eloise Cantrell called the meeting to order at 12:03 p.m. and took roll of voting members.

There were 16 voting members present – a quorum is 13.

Approval of Minutes:None for the special meeting.

The minutes from the November 2, 2006 meeting were not attached to this special meetingagenda and will be presented and voted on December 7, 2006 along with today’s “Special meeting”.

2. Approval of the Accreditation Report Motion (Angela Echeverri – President)

  • Angela Introduced and handed out copies of the ACCREDITATION REPORT.
  • Mark Pursley made the following motion: “The Academic Senate approved and accepts the 2007 Los AngelesMission Accreditation Self-Study Report.” A second was made by Gary Prostak.
  • The motion was unanimously passed.

Angela referred to comments made at the last senate meeting (Nov. 2) concerning the status of the accreditation chair vacancy and referred to the fact that a formal announcement for the position was made in September and put in all faculty mailboxes to solicit interest for the position. She was asked by Dr. Leyba to spearhead the effort until someone would accept the job. Angela distributed a June 13th memo addressed to all faculty and staff from Dr. Leyba requesting attendance at a general meeting on June 14th to discuss the need for a faculty chair for Accreditation Self Study. The job description attached to that memo was also distributed.

3. Role of the LAMC Academic Senate (Louise Barbato VP)

Vice president Louise Barbato indicated that the LAMC Senate with its “Shared Governance “ concerns perhaps ask for help from the state academic senate in relationship to how shared governance is implemented on other campuses and of how it is conducted to ensure viability. Pat Flood asked why it is needed. Louise stated she would bring a motion to the December 7th meeting so it could be discussed further.

4.Faculty Hiring –President Moreno was invited to comment on faculty hiring and budget issues.

President Moreno thanked everyone for the opportunity to discuss these two pressing issues at LAMC.

He passed out two documents: the quarterly report from the LACCD and the 2005-06 and projected 2006-07 expenditure comparison of all the LACCD colleges. He reported that it looks like Mission will have a 1.2 to 1.5 million dollar deficit and this will be a concern for our accreditation visit and therefore, we will need a planning agenda to address the problems concerning the budget problems we face. He stated that he did not believe we can make our deficit go away.

We need to reduce our costs and be more efficient as an entire college unit. We need to increase our FTES and grow accordingly to our production. We need to find a way to promote our facility and need to ratchet up our expectation level to a much higher goal. There needs to be more creativity for all of us to get solutions.

President Moreno indicated that the district is not the source of funds when a college goes into a deficit but rather that other sister colleges provide the funding. The funding formula will require a change in our LACCD formula. The bottom line is that we are funded by the amount of FTES we produce. We ranked below Southwest. We were the lowest in FTESSouthwest balanced their budget. As we compare ourselves to other schools we spent more on faculty than other schools in our district. We need to explore the reasons for this. It would appear that by the data that our classified have higher classifications and therefore higher expenses for salaries. The earlier we intercede with the budget problems, the more money we can save. We are the highest percentage in benefits for the district. The real issue is that we do not have a major drive to increase FTES. We need to find a way to front load higher producing disciplines and earn more FTES. All disciplines need to be current. We want to look for full-time faculty that can enhance our programs in a way that brings us more FTES. Administration of Justice is a vacancy that will be filled as there is much potential for revenue from that discipline. Perhaps we need to identify schools who can feed into our college – like those who have nursing programs. We could offer pre-nursing courses. LAMC classroom sizes have been considered

The LAMC parking structure will be completed by late March. Temporary classroom (45 + occupancy) will be placed in the current faculty parking lots to allow us to offer larger classes. Some new ideas like the use of a large lecture hall with break out labs were suggested. Using the new state formula, only colleges like East and Pierce would earn enough funds. We are short of reaching our funding for CAP. We need to emphasize enrollment, recruit from high schools, and offer classes that maximize enrollment at times students will attend. We will run a deficit this year but in order to run efficiently, the academic side will need to find a way to earn more income. It will be essential to:

1. Re-direct our resources to FTES PRODUCTION

2. Maintain those disciplines that support college needs

3. Need to grow disciplines that earn income

Questions to President Moreno:

  1. Myriam asked about winter session grids. Students do not like the 4 day schedules. (Pres. responded with the question about the integrity of a program. He stated, “here are two sides to this question – we need to evaluate the issue:”)
  2. Lorraine commented about the campus being small and that small does not come cheaper.

And that we are not frugal in some areas such as shutting off lights not being used. (Pres. agreed.)

3. Harlan asked about the hiring committee and referred to a statistical analysis of the past and asked why the 3 names submitted for AJ were not considered. We have a standing hiring committee per our constitution and we are eager to convene and be involved in the hiring process...

(Pres. responded that the quality of applicants submitted was not sufficient enough to hire.)

Harlan referred to past administration who had a VP of Academic Affairs that favored some groups over others i.e. multi-media did not go through the academic senate hiring committee as required by the Academic Senate Constitution. (Pres. indicated that the campus must look at the investment (equipment) already purchased so we need to re-vitalize the program and make use of what we have invested.

4. Chuck stated if we have a commitment to class size then why political science hasn’t been approved for another full-time instructor. He asked why only one instructor in political science with it being a state graduation requirement and we have 7000 students at LAMC. He asked, “So what can we do?” Chuck indicated that for the last three accreditations the evaluating team had asked about why only one full-time political science faculty.

(Pres. indicated that this issue should be looked into further in the right forum and evaluated.).

President Moreno mentioned the great job that Angela and Pat have been doing on the accreditation report. He stated that the senate needs to resolve some important issues:

a. graduation issues -requirements

b. veterans request an example of the senate being the wrong place to present their issues

(only10 were found not paid) The senate should not be the forum for complaints where the senate does not have authority to solve the problem.

c. President Moreno recommended that if there are complaints – please send them to the appropriate authority. There are unresolved issues that veteran have with not being allowed to wave health and PE requirements for graduation. The senate needs to look into this issue as they do have the authority in this area.

5. Louise asked about budget cuts, where will they come from? (Pres. responded that we need to recognize that we need a greater return on our investment in order to survive and grow. Those that are not doing a good job need to be re-thought. We need to run an institution on the revenues we earn. Look at our ratios. What exactly are we doing? Ultimately, we need to make changes to be efficient.

6. Gwen asked about “shared governance” for the budget process. (Pres. stated we will begin to discuss issues at College Council. We need to d our process quickly. The longer we wait the more pain. We are projecting a deficit, need to reduce our costs and increase enrollment. We are chewing up our resources. Shared Governance – there is not a freeze anywhere – but there is a need for reduction...

Angela thanked President Ernie Moreno.

6. Shared Governance – (GwenWalker)

a. The forums on shared governance were put together by Gwen Walker, Louise Barbato and Leslie Milke who volunteered to get the shred governance structure process rolling.

b. Shared Governance Schemata handed out. –Gwen led the discussion of the proposed structure. Membership, roles, and sub-committees

c. Announcement of the 11-21-06 forum at 12 noon in CSB 110.

7. Public Address: (Margie Long)

a. Margie wanted to ask for the process for filling a position when someone in a discipline retires. What is the process? Shethanked everyone for the success of Rachel’s retirement affair.

b. Hiring prioritization committee (Angela Echeverri)

Review the form maybe we need– with more data.

c. Eloise asked that the hiring committee refer to the AFT contract for the replacements in disciplines with a vacancy caused by a retirement.

Meeting adjourned at 1:40 Submitted by Eloise Cantrell – secretary