I.
Call to order
President
Amina El-Ashmawy called to order the regular meeting of the CCCCD
Faculty Council at 1:18 pm on April 13th, 2007 held at the SCC
Conference Center.
II.
Approval of
minutes from last meeting
A)
Secretary Mary Weis began to read the minutes from the February 9, 2007
meeting.
B) George
Jackson moved to dispense the reading of the minutes and accept the
minutes as distributed. A second to the motion was made by Mary Jane
Tobaben.
C) Motion
passed and the minutes were approved as distributed.
III.
Approval of
Treasurer’s report
·
Sunshine Fun
current balance is $149.04. This fund is used for items that can not be
charged to agency accounts, such as flowers or cards. Two expenditures
of $71.00 and $68.00 for March and April were deducted from the
account. Donations will be greatly appreciated. A cup was passed and
approximately $35.00 cash was collected today.
·
FC scholarship
fund expense of $1000 has been debited from the former Faculty
Association account for its intended purpose. Account Balance: $4.26.
IV.
President’s
Report
* Faculty
Forums at all three campuses were held with Thom Chesney and a common
theme emerged: silos and inconsistencies across district. There are
action plans that Thom will take and Amina will follow up on these
items. A summary of the restructuring forums will be sent to both Thom
and Cary.
* A District
Retention meeting with the VPAA was held on April 10 and included the 5
areas of academic, student support services, academic support services,
advising and financial aid. El-Ashmawy and Joan Kennedy met with Thom
last week to provide Faculty Council input on the make up of the
district-wide committee. Each representative Retention group member will
go back to their constituents to get input and information for the three
target research areas:
1)
Role of faculty in advising
2)
Student success initiatives
3)
Improved student outcomes
* Lateral
change procedures. A follow up with the VPAA, as to what is in place.
Stephanie Meinhardt and Thom discussed and agreed that there should be a
consolidated form that could be used throughout the weeks up until the
census date. Any lateral change will be treated as an add drop;
currently a lateral change is just a formality. Thom is waiting to see
a draft of the new form from admissions.
* Two round
table discussions were held on March 2nd regarding textbooks
and on March 30th regarding Academic Freedom.
*The FC
president had a meeting with Collin president Cary Israel in early
March. The FC budget has since been moved under the Office of the
President. This change in structure results in transparency and is
significant.
*In the next
couple of weeks Amina will be working with Shirley Harmon to submit next
year’s Faculty Council budget. Although we didn’t spend all our money
this year, Amina will ask for the same amount next year and justify this
amount during budget defense. Amina and John will discuss to determine
line items and have input for the requested budget in addition to
meeting with Shirley Harmon. The justification is due to the transition
phase from Faculty Association to Faculty Council. Next year’s Faculty
Council will have to plan ahead so all the money can be used
appropriately.
* On April 25
there will be a 5:30 dinner and 6-8 pm Round Table discussion on
Scholarly Community in the SCC conference center. The FC president
encouraged all faculty to attend and will send out an email to the deans
and administrators to encourage their direct reports to attend. This
forum ties into previous discussions about Academic Freedom as a follow
up. It will also address our strategic goal: object 1.1 to
operationlize Collin’s definition of a Scholarly Community. There have
been RSVP from administration, so faculty need to attend as well to
contribute to questions that reflect what we think, how we define, how
we see ourselves as a scholarly community.
* FC Procedures
Manual finished and posted on FC website
* Elections for
2007-08 Faculty Council officers and campus reps close at noon on
Thursday, April 19. Loren has sent out the ballots, so please vote. So
far about 40-50 ballots have been returned. Loren will send out reminder
next week. Electronic ballots are easier than paper ballots. Not
anonymous but can structure Group Wise folders to minimize correlation
of names and votes.
V.
Committee
Reports
·
Committee on
Teaching and Learning – Joan Kennedy sent a report read by Amina.
o
The Committee
sponsored a round table on March 2 in order to disseminate information
from the Cost of Textbook Task Force. The document summarizing the Task
Force findings was e-mailed to faculty prior to the event. Around 35
people attended, participating in informative discussion of textbook
issues while reflecting on the Task Force findings and on current state
legislative proposals.
o
The Committee
sponsored a roundtable discussion of academic freedom on March 30.
Around 20 people attended, participating in a lively and stimulating
dialogue on academic freedom issues. The group focused on four
questions:
1.
What is academic
freedom?
2.
Does the College's
policy cover all your concerns regarding academic freedom? For
instance, technology?
3.
What is the
relationship between a scholarly community and academic freedom?
4.
Is academic freedom
the same for students and faculty?
A
subcommittee headed by Levi Bryant collected the information to use as
input for formulating a faculty position on academic freedom.
o
The retention
subcommittee headed by Sonja Andrus met with Thom Chesney to discuss the
district-wide task force recently formed. People selected for the
retention task force represent the following areas: instruction,
advising, student services, academic services, and financial aid. The
task force met for the first time on April 10.
o
Subcommittee chair
Levi Bryant and Faculty Council Executive Committee are sponsoring a
round table discussion of what it means to be a scholarly community
to be held at SCC on April 25. All full and part-time faculty and
others interested are invited for dinner and discussion.
o
Subcommittee member
Carrie Bottoms is organizing a brown bag lunch series for faculty.
·
Committee on
Technology – Mindi Bailey
o
David Hoyt, Feb
20th meeting. Discussed concerns and got updates
§
WebCT had to
start from the ground up. There were no backups at the time of the
crash.
§
There is a plan
to expand the space if the H:/ drive and possibly get a video server
for pod casts.
§
There will be
patches loaded on computers so that they can read Office 2007. There is
no move to install MS Vista until service pack 2.
§
USB extension
cables for podium computers will be made available.
§
The banner lab
room training room will go back to student lab space in 2008.
§
Banner software
will solve a lot of technical problems, especially with different logins
and passwords. A LUMINUS portal will have one sign in to access
everything.
§
Students can
keep cougar mail accounts as long as they log in every 6 months.
§
Centra is back
up and running again.
§
Status from the
subcommittee: Good feedback on all concerns. Banner training is pod by
pod.
§
Comment:
Cougarmail not working as expected. To send specifics of the problem to
the FC Technology co-chairs.
·
Committee on
the Collin Community- John Glass
o
Faculty event
to honor graduates is in the works and is tentatively planned for the
end of the semester. Still working on the logistics. Next year there
will be more time to discuss and implement a plan for the faculty to
honor the graduates and start a tradition.
o
The committee
is open to new ideas. Although this tends to be a default committee,
there are plans for a speaker series. The brown bag lunch scheduled for
today was cancelled due illness and teaching conflicts. See the FC
website for more information and useful links regarding the political
process as private citizens.
·
Committee on
Faculty Council Procedures – Donna White
o
Procedures
manual is on the website and contains information such as
§
Officers duties
§
Council
representative duties
§
Election
procedures
o
A draft was
circulated for input and good feedback was given and used.
o
There will be
an annual review of this document for any changes
o
Once next
year’s Faculty Council is elected, the committee chairs can come from
the faculty at large if not elected as a representative.
·
Committee on
College Policy - Nothing to report
VI.
Updates
·
COE: Dan
Lipscomb
o
COE Travel
funds: some money is available. Please get requests in ASAP as it is
first come first served. Priority is given to those who have not
previously requested monies from COE.
o
COE elections
are in process and the ballots were sent out. These ballots are due by
April 18th at 5pm to the COE secretary.
o
COE will have a
slightly different form for next year. The 16 member group will change
to 18 for the fall. The new structure will have better balance of
representation based on discipline area. Primary task is to review
multiyear contracts and there is a need to reference discipline areas
for point of discussion in order to give input and insight. It is more
important to have academic groups for input than campus based input.
o
COE is in the
process of wrapping things up for this year.
·
ACC: Amina El-Ashmawy
on behalf of Kemal Moula
o
Currently
working on the Back to School project.
o
District
smoking policy is being discussed as well.
VII.
New Business
·
The candidates
for FC officers are
o
Candidates for
President: Levi Bryant and Cathy Donald Whitney
o
Candidates for
VP: Paula Miller and Julie Turnbow
VIII.
Announcements
·
Next meeting is
Friday, May 4th. 1:00 lunch and a 1:30 business meeting.
Newly elected Faculty Council Officers and campus representatives will
be acknowledged.
·
Humanities
showcase on May 4th at 2:30 SCC.
IX.
Adjournment
Donna White
motioned to adjourn; Second by George Jackson and Kimberly Harris
Amina El-Ashmawy
adjourned the meeting at 1:50 pm.
Minutes
submitted by: Mary Weis
Preliminary approval of the minutes by: Amina K. El-Ashmawy
Final approval of the minutes by: Friday, May 4, 2007