Professional Development Obligation for Fulltime Faculty

Professional Development Obligation for Fulltime Faculty

LACCD and the AFT local 1521, Los AngelesCollege Faculty Guild has agreed upon a flex calendar.Los AngelesMissionCollegeis on a 15 week compressed calendar (“red”-15 week pattern). There are 157 total duty days including 5 Professional Development Days. Each day in a compressed calendar is worth 6.7 hours. For fulltime faculty, during the duration of this agreement, the professional development obligation is 33.5 hours of professional development activities per academic year.

Mandatory Professional Development Day

For fulltime faculty, of the five professional development days, one day is mandatory (Flex Day.) Adjunct faculty members are welcome to attend the mandatory professional development day (Flex Day), but are not required.When subtracting the mandatory flex day 6.7 from the total responsibility of 33.5, 26.8 hours of professional development activities remain.

Variable Professional Development Days

For fulltime faculty, the remaining flex days that would total 26.8 hours may be completed on a variable schedule between July 1, 2011and June 30, 2012. These activities may be completed at times other then the times of the faculty’s contractual obligations.

Purpose and Goals

The purpose of Professional Development and the flexible calendar is to provide time for faculty to participate in development activities. Professional Development allows fulltime and Adjunct faculty the opportunity to work individually or with groups to achieve improvement in three distinct areas: Staff improvement, Student improvement, Instructional improvement (Title 5, Section 55720).

Flex is defined in Title 5 as “in lieu of instruction.” The Professional Development Program is a component of the Staff Development Program, which provides opportunities for faculty participation in development activities. The Academic Senate is responsible for recommendations on policies related to faculty development according to Title 5 Section 5320. Title 5 legislation authorizes colleges to provide for instructional improvement days in their academic calendar. LACCD and the AFT local 1521, Los AngelesCollege Faculty Guild has agreed upon a flex calendar.

Professional Development Obligation for Adjunct Faculty

For faculty with hourly teaching assignments, the hourly teaching professional development obligation for an academic year equals half the sum of the standard teaching hours for the fall and spring semester.

For example:

Faculty A. teaches 3 standard teaching hours in the fall and 6 standard teaching hours in the spring, they owe 3+6=9 divided by 2=4.5 professional development hours.

Faculty B. teaches 3 standard teaching hours in the fall and 0 hours in the spring, they owe 3+0=3 divided by 2=1.5 professional development hours.

Hourly professional development obligation is not related to the days a class meets or the dates of the assignment, applying equally to all whose assignments have the same standard hours.

*Standard teaching hour is the amount of time per week a class would be held in an uncompressed calendar system.

Purpose and Goals

The purpose of Professional Development and the flexible calendar is to provide time for faculty to participate in development activities. Professional Development allows fulltime and Adjunct faculty the opportunity to work individually or with groups to achieve improvement in three distinct areas: Staff improvement, Student improvement, and Instructional improvement (Title 5, Section 55720).

Flex is defined in Title 5 as “in lieu of instruction.” The Professional Development Program is a component of the Staff Development Program, which provides opportunities for faculty participation in development activities. The Academic Senate is responsible for recommendations on policies related to faculty development according to Title 5 Section 5320. Title 5 legislation authorizes colleges to provide for instructional improvement days in their academic calendar. LACCD and the AFT local 1521, Los AngelesCollege Faculty Guild has agreed upon a flex calendar.