Faculty Senate Council
April 14, 2010
Advising and Counseling
Jeanne Strieck
Business/Intra-American Studies/Social Sciences
Amelia Acosta
Betsey Barnett
Hope
Georgia Pierce
Sharon Stewart
Guy Hamilton, Chair
Terry Taylor, Vice-chair
Humanities
Mimi Harvey
Dutch Henry
Jo McEntire
Science
Stephen Bogart
Leoned Gines
Amar Yahiaoui
FACTC Rep
Library/Media Services
Volunteers for Gates Achievement Grant interviews?
1. Approval of minutes for March 10, 2010
Motion: Amelia
Second Betsey
2. Approval of Agenda
Consensus
3. Comments
Cost of textbooks – Bookstore markup higher than other colleges according to Publisher’s rep – as much as 33% should be factored into discussions of text prices. Need to confirm information.
Bundled texts ordered but only the text came from wholesaler at a higher cost than the bundle.
Many students are buying books on line with considerable delays. Under orders anticipating that students will buy elsewhere.
Talk about ways to find money as opposed to making cuts all the time. Explore cooperative programs with 4 year universities. (The college wants faculty to initiate these contacts but industry and universities often want a dean or vice-president to conduct these discussions.)
One example programs with China for auto servicing.
Non-students requesting career counseling could be a fee-for-service opportunity.
Nursing lacks clinical capacity to support additional students from abroad making exchanges difficult. Spokane conducts classes online and clinical experience remains in student’s home countries.
4. Wait lists
Problems of large lists this year. Students showing up and others on the waitlists not showing up. Tuition waiver students couldn’t get in. You can only be on one waitlist per course but up to four different classes.
Online classes – student has to have permission (takes up to 3 days) this creates problems for students in catching up with the work.
Bump up your class cap the day before the quarter starts. Those students get rolled in. Monday you can change to permission only. Some are concerned that permission only didn’t work.
Can’t deactivate waitlists on first day due to lack of staff in Registration. This will not be an option.
Consider drop for non-attendance again within the first week.
Some problems this quarter with student confusion about start dates since other area college’s schedules had different start dates.
Information to students on the waitlists. Online students get no information. Students on campus get written instructions.
As a Learning Centered College we need to provide students with more information on the waitlists.
*Recommendation that online students get better information on what to do when on the waitlist. Make it easier to contact students on waitlists.
Chris Melton asked us to discuss if we would remove the requirement for students to get permission to drop class with a W. It might be ok if faculty received notification of the drop. However the benefit of talking to the faculty is that some students will reconsider the drop after discussing their status in the class. Students also might not be aware that they could lose financial aid or impact visa status, etc.
Some students are able to get W grade without having the signatures.
5. Update on make up of Curriculum Committee:
Committees with too many deans. Discuss with curriculum committee.
6. Input on reorganization of the college.
The new plan will be revealed in the Fall after summer discussions by administrative staff.
More discussion with the areas being moved would have been desirable.
Beyond this year’s cuts:
How will we look as a smaller college in the future?
Creating a college built around centers. For example: Allied Health Center, Automotive Manufacturing Center, Solar Sustainable Center, etc.
Administrative coordination and mergers with other schools would be one way to deal with some reductions.
We can submit comments to SET after our next meeting. Communicate by e-mail and finalize our comments by next meeting. Present comments to SET that week.