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Meeting Minutes, August 27, 2013

Page 1

Council of Chair’s Retreat

Meeting Minutes9:00 – 1:00 PM, Vallecito Room

August 27, 2013

Present: / Anziano, Michael <>; Baranski, John <>; Boxer, Majel <>; Brandon, Maureen <>; Brandt, Keri J <>; Cardona, Nancy <>; Chew, Beverly <>; Colby, Chad <>; Elkins, Dennis <>; Erickson, Mary Ann <>; Juergensmeyer, Erik <>; Frazer, Lee <>; Greer, Kris for Fulton, Richard <>; Gilpin, Sandra <>; Gonzales, David <>; Haaland, Ryan K <>; Hannula, Kim <>; Hartney, Cathleen <>; Jung, Marcy <>; Kendall, Kathy <>; Lienert, Carl <>; Lyon, Douglas <>; McCormick, Peter <>; Meyer, Carrie <>; Morris, Barbara <>; Oliver, Astrid <>; Ortega, Joseph <>; Owen, Dugald <>; Paul, Ellen <>; Pepion, Kenneth <>; Reed, Marc <>; Riggs, Charles <>; Shuler, Phil <>; Smith, Carol <>; Smith, Pam <>; Snyder, Lisa <>; Sommerville, Les <>; Stanley, Kelly <>; Stremba, Bob <>; Wendland, Amy <>; Wilhelm, Suzanne
Next meeting: / September 3, 2013, 3:30-5:00 pm, Senate Chambers
  1. Announcements
  • Academic Calendar
  • David Maddox will present model at Sept. 17th Council of Chairs meeting
  • Enrollment Growth – There was some discussion DFW rates, if these rates are higher in first year courses and if there are any correlations between class size and DFW rates.
  • Searches – 12 full time faculty – President Dene Thomas would like to be part of the process when she is in the office
  • Budget Projections – PPT was sent yesterday. Budget looks good. College may get funding for GPE building
  • Deans Evaluation: Human Resources will be sending faculty a survey to evaluate deans in early October.
  • Departmental Expectation Statements: Sunset Review created a year ago – Spring 2014 departments will discuss these statements.
  1. Discussion

Student Success Collaborative

  • Documents were shared with Chairs prior to the meeting (SSC PPT, SSC executive summary, advising report, uAchieve and NSSE white paper from Richard Miller)
  • There was some discussion about the validity of the NSSE data and concerns raised about the small response rate and indirect evidence. It was suggested that the NSSE data be viewed as benchmark data.
  • The College is concerned that 4 year graduation rates are down to 18% and student retention has dropped from 65% to 61 %.
  • There was discussion about the use of data mining of learning analytics and a suggestion that qualitative research be used to provide more data about the complex lives of FLC students.
  • The SSC data may help departments to confirm what they think they know about students and their curriculum.
  • Departments and faculty will need to be open and confident that we want institutional success and not be resistant to recommending that a student transfer to another major if evidence shows they are not likely to be successful in their current academic program.
  • Discussion about the impact of these new systems (e.g. Student Success Collaborative, Mapworks, uAchieve’s degree tracking) on faculty advisors. What impact will this have on faculty resources and time constraints for those who have 80-100 advisees?
  • Is the college going to invest in hiring more professional advisors? The SSC has several advising models. One model partners a student success coaches with faculty advisors. Coaches monitor the data and communicate with students and faculty advisors. This model will be piloted and if it is successful it would require hiring additional student success coaches before it could be adopted college wide.How will information about the SSC advising model pilot be communicated with faculty?
  • Discussion about why students leave FLC and why many return. Will the SSC and uAchieve systems help to give information about the characteristics of successful students? Who will have access to this data?
  • Suggestion that the Honors program could be used as a model to increase student satisfaction.
  • Transfer Students: The significance of the revolving door population at FLC: Maureen Brandon reported on a recent US DOE decision to allow colleges to count transfer students in data sets. Orien McGlamery talked about some of the challenges of tracking transfer students who enroll into FLC and tracking those who leave. New federal regulations may require higher education institutions to track and report on both graduates and transfer students graduation rates, job placement, salary earning, placement in graduate schools. FLC transfer students are more successful and have a higher graduation rate.
  • Peer Groups: FLC has created peer groups in the SSC to compare data. Peer groups include schools that have native American students, first generation, high Pell grant recipients, etc. Institutional peers include COPLAC, Colorado & National institutions.
  • Academic Majors Night:Suggestion that to build relationships and help establish earlier connections between students and academic departments, that before registration, an Academic Majors Night, could be held. Representatives from majors could set up tables and help to recruit and “advise” students.
  • Suggestion that we shift our view to become more effective educators of students who are first generation, low income, from rural areas, etc.
  • Significance of Family Engagement: FLC is looking at how family involvement may benefit students. There are more families attending New Student Orientation this year than in previous years. The Native American Center is hosting an family orientation this week. In addition to parent/student orientation, FLC has homecoming, and parent newsletters. As Native and Hispanic populations grow how can the college help to increase/support familial ties in and out of the classroom?
  • First Year Experience/Seminar: This is a known gap at the institution. FYE has been shown to be an important program at other Liberal Arts Colleges. A FY seminar would not be possible at FLC until Fall 2016. What are other ways we can help students make connections?

Draft Policy and Procedures

  • Draft policies and procedures were shared with chairs prior to meeting (Program Review, Course Syllabus, LMS, Assessment of the Major, Online Course Evaluations)
  • Provost discussed the option of using a list serve to help facilitate communication about these and future policy proposals. Chairs were asked to share these documents with their faculty and to share feedback directly with her.
  • Further discussion about the policies will occur in Council of Chairs meetings. Policies and procedures will be brought to Faculty Senate for discussion.
  • Can program review schedules be modified based on need and rationale? Yes. For example SOBA will want to organize their program review schedule to coincide with outside accreditation.
  • Is the syllabus template required? No. The template is only an example. Faculty may use any format.
  • Is this LMS proposed policy stating that all faculty will be required to use the LMS? Yes. The policy draft states that faculty would be required to use the LMS to post their syllabus, and use the gradebook.
  • Would adjunct instructors be required to use the LMS? Yes. eLearning and the CTL would be available to support and train all faculty on using the LMS
  • Suggestion: Departments may want to add a question to the Online Course Evaluations to ask if students are majors in the department.
  • Suggestion: Remove the requirement in the Syllabus policy about the use of 4 evaluation measures for assessments.
  • Discussion about faculty concerns that the syllabus policy is too strict, rigid and limits faculty authorship.
  • Discussion about faculty concerns regarding the requirement of posting a syllabus to the LMS 2 weeks prior to the start of the semester. Recommendation that the requirement of a course calendar/schedule of assignments be changed to “tentative” and that faculty could post only major assignment dates.
  • There was a request for additional information about what should be included in a syllabus to meet federal compliance.
  • Kelly Stanley will provide references for the compliance with federal regulations andrevise the syllabus policy proposal based on comments and discussion from the meeting. Revised proposal will be sent to chairs this week.

Faculty Contract

  • Discussion about the lack of specific dates, time period or number of months on the faculty contract. Provost clarified the difference between the faculty contract and salary letters. The history of the 8 or 9 month faculty contract appears to be based on the stipends for grant monies.
  • Chairs commented on the number of hours and work required of them during the summer and discussed the possibility of additional compensation (e.g. stipend, 10 month contract).
  • Chairs asked for clearer expectations regarding faculty work/availability during the summer months.
  • Provost is seeking legal counsel regarding the language and time frame in the contracts.

Faculty Shared Governance

  • Tables discussed the current definitions of shared governance. Due to lack of time, not all tables were able to report out. The discussion of shared governance will be resumed during the Council of Chairs meetings this fall.

Meeting Adjourned at 1:00 PM