Collin Faculty Council

Meeting Minutes

April 11th, 2008

 

I.       Call to Order

President Cathy Donald-Whitney called to order the regular meeting of the CCCCD Faculty Council at 1: 15 pm on April 11th, 2008 held in Conference Center “E” at SCC.

 

II.    Roll Call

·         Vice President Paula Miller called the Council representative roll

A.      Absent: none

B.      Substitutes: several

            Martha Tolleson for Marilyn Massey

            Dawn Richardson for Valerie Smith

            George Jackson for Debra St. John

            Doug Boliver for Peggy Breedlove

            Daphne Babcock for Amina El-Ashmawy

 

III. Approval of September 2007 Minutes

·         Secretary Mary Weis began to read the March 7th, 2008 meeting minutes.

·         George Jackson moved to dispense the reading of the minutes and accept the minutes as distributed. A second to the motion was made by Sonja Andrus.

·         Motion passed.

·         One opposition by David Garrison.

 

IV   Treasurer’s Report

·         $68.00 was collected for the sunshine fund bringing the balance to $199.31.

·         The faculty scholarship fund has a current balance for next year at $195.00.

·         Please remember that donations should be in cash and that receipts will be given for any scholarship monies.

 

V.      VP’s Report

·         An email was sent out regarding the FETF survey. This document presented three items for discussion. Please send your comments and suggestions to Paula via email.

 

VI.                President’s Report

·     The next Faculty Council meeting will be on May 2nd, 2008 and is currently                   scheduled for CPC in Pike Hall D101.

·         APT update: The group met yesterday and discussed several items.

a)         The proposal for Faculty serving as deans is still in draft form. The FC executive committee along with Sonja Andrus and Amina El-Ashmawy are on this committee that submitted the proposal. Once APT is finished reviewing the document, the finalized draft will be sent to the council for review.

b)      The proposal to allow FT faculty transfers between campuses is still in draft form and will be presented to the faculty council in May.

c)       The hiring process was discussed and a second draft of the revised version is being clarified. Once finalized, this document will be presented to the council for review. The primary change is the clarification of faculty in the discipline to mean faculty in the district wide discipline.  Questions from those present centered on the concern that search committees are not faculty driven and that deans change the criteria set forth by the search committee even after they have given their approval.  There may need to be additional verbiage to address this issue.  A request was made from the FC reps to have the document to review before the May FC meeting.  The FC president will contact Kim Russell to obtain a draft so that the FC council can review and add their comments.

d)      The topic of retention was also discussed as Toni Jenkins presented a data sheet to show how this report might be generated.  The goal is to have data gathered from a common source and have a uniform reporting method.  In the sample report, a Jane Doe was used for classes taught three fall semesters.  Faculty were concerned as how they are going to use the data on the report and why.  The VPPs and deans all agreed that this data should not be used for annual review. Faculty commented that they should know how the number was calculated and the report needed to give additional statistics. The real goal is to try to look for strategies to help our students.  There are other factors and issues related to retention that are not on the data sheet. Faculty need to be keep informed about retention and how it is reported.

 

·         FC Nominations have been made. The election ballots were sent out via email and about 40% of the ballots have been returned.  Remind your faculty that April 18th is the due date.

After the elections, the current council stays on until June 1st and then the new council begins their work.

 

·         Collin Tidbits:

                                    a) Banner training for faculty is set for June.

                                    b) Course Redesign: Webinar to view

c) Need FC chairs on the campuses to help organize the elected reps on their campuses.  The FC council reps agreed.

 

           

VIII.             Committee reports:

 

Committee on College Policy:  

            Co-chairs:  Barbara Lusk & Mary Milford

            Not much has happened. 

The BOT took what used to be a guideline and has now made it a policy about notification on 3 day unexcused absences.

Committee on Faculty Council Procedures and Nominations

Co-chairs:  David Garrison & Loren Miller

Nothing to report

Committee on Teaching and Learning: Chair: Sonja Andrus
            Nothing to report

Committee on Technology:  Chair: George Jackson
            The original meeting was cancelled. The next meeting will be April 25th
            The teaching load for online faculty will be discussed with Sherry Schumann.
            Summer classes for the higher level courses can not be taught by FT due                                   to the current ratio of on campus vs on line teaching requirements.

Committee on the Collin Community:  Co-Chairs: John Glass & Donna White


There was a meeting held at lunch today.  The graduating student pizza party is set for April 30th.  Student life will be mailing out invitations in addition to emails.  Each campus will have two events scheduled at 12:30 pm and 5:30 pm on that day.  The graduation subcommittee needs a point person to help coordinate this event for each campus. Please contact Lupita Tinnen if you would like to help with this project.

The campus contacts for the toiletry collections will be Wendy Gunderson at PRC; Donna White at SCC; Elaine Fanini at CPC.  The deadline for this project is May 7th.  Please get your items in as these boxes will be collected and given to a charity after that date.              

Proposed Community Service Project:
The Plano City Pool has fallen into disrepair and other volunteer groups are working to restore this area. Perhaps the Collin faculty could work on the ground maintenance. More information will be sent out if this project is adopted.

 Committee on Academic Freedom:  Chair: Kyle Wilkison
                        Nothing to report at this time.

IX.                COE and ACC updates:

·         Council on Excellence - Dan Lipscomb

Ballots went out on Monday for election of COE reps.

Due date for the ballot is next Friday, April 18th.

We still have travel funds due unencumbered funds being returned.

Two project proposals will be looked at today. $5,000 is set aside for projects.  Any unused monies will be returned to the travel fund.

·         All College Council - Dawn Richardson

Election committee has counted the ballots and is waiting to hear from the top nominees.

                        Brenda Kihl gave LT updates to the group:

                                                               i.      Travel reimbursement has changed and guidelines will soon be available on the intranet.

                                                             ii.      BOT has adopted a no smoking policy for the campuses. The implementation of this policy will be discussed at a future meeting.

                                                            iii.      Cougar Alert has had a mixed response. Text messaging seems to work the best.

                                                           iv.      Institutional priorities for the 2009 strategic plan were presented.

1.       Increase the district wide average to 85% retention rate (course completion rate) while maintaining academic quality.

2.       Increase by 25%, the number of students earning 30 semester hours before transferring to another college over the numbers for the year 2007.

3.       Increase the number of degrees/certificates awarded by 10% over the numbers for the year 2007.

 

X.                  Announcements: 

·         Bioterrorist Presentation:  April 14th 2008 at CPC 12:30 pm in B201. The Collin County epidemiologist will be making a presentation entitled “The Sickening Salad.”

·         April Board Meeting: Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at CYC

·         During class today, the Medal of Merit was given to Donna White by Dr. Israel. The FC president reminded those in attendance who have this medal to wear it during the upcoming graduation on May 8th.

 

XI.        New Business

v            Distinguished speaker series:  Why People Believe Weird Things will be presented by Michael Shermer at 7:00 pm on Tuesday April 15th at the SCC conference center.  His bio and published works are available on his website. David Cullen has sent out an email with additional details.

v            VPPs will be our guests after the FC meeting.  Topic: Retention.

 

     XII   Adjourn

·         Movement to adjourn was made by George Jackson

·         Second to the motion was made by  Sonja Andrus

·         Motion passed.

·         One opposition by David Garrison.

·         Cathy Donald Whitney adjourned the FC meeting at 2:00 p.m.

 

 

Minutes submitted by:  Mary Weis
Preliminary approval of the minutes by: Cathy Donald-Whitney
Final approval of the minutes by: Faculty Council Representatives, May 2nd 2008