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Meeting Minutes Collin Faculty Council November 16, 2007
I. Call to Order President Cathy Donald-Whitney called to order the regular meeting of the CCCCD Faculty Council at 1:23 pm on November 16th, 2007 held in Pike Hall at CPC.
II. Roll Call Vice President Paula Miller called the Council representative roll A. Absent: none B. Substitutes: Ralph Long for Loren Miller; Peggy Brown for David Garrison.
III. Approval of September 2007 Minutes A) Cathy Whitney asked for a motion to approve the minutes. B) Amina El Ashmawy moved to dispense the reading of the minutes and accept the minutes as distributed. A second to the motion was made by Sondra Andrus. C) Motion passed.
IV Treasurer’s Report Treasurer John Glass reported on the Sunshine and Scholarship fund balances. A) Sunshine fund has a balance of $135.31. Money totaling $48.69 was spent on flowers. B) Faculty Scholarship fund deposit issues were discussed. Cash and checks were given to the foundation and they accepted all cash and some of the checks. The checks accepted totaled $575. However, $85 in checks will have to be re-submitted by either correcting the checks or rewriting the checks so that they have the Foundation endorsement. Once all the money is deposited, we will still have enough money for the scholarship and some extra for next year. C) A contribution made to the faculty scholarship will be credited to that account if it is so indicated. It must be earmarked for this account. The FC president will check into this situation for future reference. Please make any checks to the Collin Foundation and in the memo portion make a note that it is for the faculty scholarship. Without the faculty scholarship designation, the money will go into the foundation fund for general scholarships.
V. VP’s Report Paula Miller reported that she needed to correct her previous report made to the Council. The pilot project for faculty advising in BIET has been tabled due to questions by the administration. The group will meet again on Nov 19th to discuss the faculty role in advising. As a follow up note, this group did approve mini student orientations and will conduct research on students who drop in the first three weeks to ascertain the reasons why they withdraw.
The FC president referred to a newspaper article reporting that students are not prepared for college work. There is a need to focus on getting students ready for college instead of focusing on retention issues. We cannot increase retention without properly prepared students. Even if the courses are watered down, it would still not help retention percentages. As a follow up, courses should not be watered down.
The THECB has a draft on college readiness, Texas College Readiness Standards (TCRS). There is a link to this document on the Faculty Council website. Academic departments need to discuss this issue. Please meet in your faculty groups to possibly develop a response paper on issues presented in the TCRS.
VI. President’s Report
· Lateral Transfers Certain areas have a problem with large numbers of lateral transfers due to instructor shopping. The lateral transfer policies will most likely be different for each department and program. We should look at what is happening for each area to develop some type of guideline. The FC would like feedback on this issue. Some information has already been collected from last year. Although suggestions were sent to the Leadership Team in the past, nothing was done. Remember that extenuating circumstances should be considered when guidelines are developed. There should be district wide benchmarks for initial guidelines and then fill in the specifics for each area. The FC president will mention this issue to the deans. In addition, transfer between campuses needs to be addressed.
· LRC Research Different levels and types of research are being done by faculty. The time frame for checking out materials used for research is limited. The FC would like, as a courtesy, to have an extended amount of time. The LRC will have a District meeting and will address this issue.
· Adopt-A-Highway at SCC is underway. The first event was held on November 8th from 4-5 p.m. Remember that this is a district wide activity, so please support this effort.
· December FC meeting. The meeting is scheduled for December 7th at PRC. Food will be provided.
· CHEC Brenda Kihl held meeting on Nov 7th at CPC earlier this month. The minutes are in final draft form and are being reviewed at this time. Once reviewed, the minutes will be sent out to the faculty.
· CWID follow up We should be able to use CWID instead of SSNs once Banner is up and running in the spring.
· Full Time substitution policy The current HR policy states that someone cannot be paid for substituting during the normal 8-5 work day. Some faculty will substitute for another faculty as a courtesy. HR sent an email to the deans stating that the supervisor can revise faculty hours on the form so that the substitute can get paid. The signature has to be your direct supervisor, i.e. your dean, for initial approval. If a second dean is involved, then that dean must sign as well. However, there are still inconsistencies with this policy that need to be addressed by the administration.
NOTE: The FC president will attend the Academic Planning Team (APT) meeting in January to address the deans as a group in order to get their responses and solutions to various inconsistencies that are occurring in several areas of the college.
· Chair/Dean/VPAA Update The panel discussion with deans was the most valuable portion of this meeting. A lot of chairs have been doing the deans job and this is not appropriate. The FC president will follow up on this issue at the APT meeting in January. No other issues on this topic were addressed by the FC reps.
· CAB approved mandatory syllabi template This document was sent out earlier in the semester. Some deans are not requiring their faculty to use this particular template. However, this is a SACS issue and the syllabi template was a response to their concerns. Having a link to this material is fine, but it should be at a centralized location. There are things that are required for each syllabus, so make sure you include these items. The department chairs need to make sure that their associate faculty use the template for their syllabi. The generic syllabi will still be available on line for students.
· Executive team meeting in December 4th with Dr. Israel. With the announcement that Belinda Newman will be leaving Collin to become the Ombudsperson at UNT, the FC executive team anticipates discussions about the Provost position with Dr. Israel.
· Faculty Evaluation Task Force There is a meeting scheduled for Friday, Nov 30th. The main focus of this group is to restructure the multi-year process. A webinar will be reviewed and discussed at this meeting. COE has already looked at the multi-year contract and is making revisions as needed.
VIII. Committee reports: Please send a synopsis to post on the FC website.
Committee on College Policy: Co-chairs: Barbara Lusk & Mary Milford No college policies have come forth since the last FC meeting. Academic Dishonesty issues came up recently. Some faculty members are concerned that the college is lacking in guidelines as to what faculty can do. We will be looking for pointers on what faculty members elect to do when a student is found guilty of academic dishonesty by the Dean of Students. Roundtable discussions on academic dishonesty guidelines will be set up in the spring.
Committee on Faculty Council Procedures and Nominations Co-chairs: David Garrison & Loren Miller Nothing to report
Committee on Teaching and
Learning: Chair:
Sonja Andrus
Committee on Technology:
Chair:
George Jackson * The Presidium Learning contract for WebCT online support was renewed for one year. * There is an issue with placing multiple sections into one WebCT shell to allow for student interactions and retrieving assignments. To enroll students into this type of shell requires manual data entry and it takes a lot of time at the beginning of the semester. The hybrid and daily flex entry courses are primarily affected. * Online courses are in the process of being approved and Sherry Schumann is in charge of this process. Concerns were expressed that one course being taught by multiple faculty would have to be approved multiple times. Only one course approval is needed as long as the faculty are teaching from the same template. * Faculty wanting to teach online will be evaluated on their skills. Approval is being conducted by the TLC and online training modules are in the works. We will be migrating to Blackboard 6.0 in the spring. As such, we are currently in a limbo state for training in WebCT 4.0. * There are over 2,000 students who take courses only online. Demographics show that military and the infirmed are included in this population. * On November 30th, David Hoyt will be addressing IT concerns with the committee. One big issue is that WebCT has to come down (off line) for regular maintenance and this is a problem. The solution is easy: mirrored servers, which will allow for consistent access. With the increase in the online student population, this is a major inconvenience. Suggestion from the Council: the technology committee should further pursue the issue of FC voting online.
Committee
on the Collin Community:
Co-Chairs:
John Glass & Donna White a) Funds for Feet project. Selena Brody’s students and the English Honor Society were inspired by the Book-in-Common. This is an attempt to gather donations so that prostheses can be bought for kids injured by land mines. The cost is $25.00 per foot. Today, $60.00 has been collected during the chili cook-off. Look for the containers in the common areas and announce this effort to your students. b) The committee has gathered ideas for projects. A ballot was sent out to committee members to vote for top three so that faculty efforts can be focused. c) An email will be sent out to request that faculty let the committee know about the work that is being done in the community by individual faculty members.
Committee
on Academic Freedom:
Chair:
Kyle Wilkison The FC president’s response followed. First, please read the reference document and then read the committee’s response. Actions such as posting on Website vs. sending it elsewhere can then be decided. The course reform document is in a research state. Please think this through. Work with the committee and come up with solutions as to what we want to do. The committee has reviewed and responded to this issue and would like to move forward. Kyle Wilison made a motion to adopt this response as a resolution. The motion : to adopt the committee document as the FC official position in response to the THECB documents on Closing the Gap and Texas Course Redesign, and send this response forward to administrators and others. A second to the motion was made by Donna G. White. Discussion Summary: Some of the Council members were concerned that there was not enough time to discuss this with other faculty and that all the faculty should have a chance to review both documents before the FC representative’s vote. Kyle Wilkison withdrew original motion and made a request that original document and the draft response be sent out to the entire faculty for their review. Further discussion and a motion will be made at the next FC meeting in December. The FC president will remind the faculty that this is an open meeting. This will be a public position for the faculty at large if the proposed committee response is adopted as a resolution.
IX. COE and ACC updates: · Council on Excellence - Dan Lipscomb. The council is in middle of contract reviews, doing lots of work with great care. There will be a meeting today after the FC meeting. Regarding the faculty evaluation revision task force, COE has looked at the self evaluation form and discussed some recommended changes, including streamlining the document so there are less blank sections. Also, the process of the multi-year review is being looked at in order to bring the deans/AA together so that everyone can be more consistent. Consistency is front and foremost as the deans approach the process of multiyear contracts. Dan, Kim Russell, and Thom Chesney have been meeting about the three year roll over in order to chart out the dates and the process. The three year roll over will happen and there will be no requirements to prepare a document for COE. The dean will make the determination for approval of the second three years. The faculty member still has ability to go before COE for review if the dean does not approve a roll over. Remember, this will be an appeals process. Classroom evaluations will still occur over the 6 years and also student evaluations will be reviewed. When and how many classroom and student evaluations will be required for the new multiyear contract are currently being discussed.
·
All College
Council - Dawn Richardson. * Employee recognition had their first meeting to delegate responsibilities. * The ACC bake sale which will take place during the Chili Cook-off is ready to go. * Habitat for Humanity: The Plano project was selected. The location and date has yet to be determined. The FC was asked to participate last year, but the council is waiting on more information concerning this year’s project. * A new ACC brochure will be available at the All College Day in January.
X. Announcements: MLK Day · The MLK Power Breakfast is scheduled for Monday, January 21, 2008. The administration would like more faculty presence at this event. Collin’s MLK committee is co-chaired by Vernon Hadnot and a committee representative. Amina El-Ashmawy also serves on the committee. Please encourage your students and colleagues to attend. · A bioterrorism presentation is planned for April at CPC. · The Board of Trustee’s meeting in November at SCC will be Tuesday November 27th. Rosemary Karr will be honored as the “2007 U.S. Professor of the Year.”
XI. Adjourn · Movement to adjourn was made by Amina El-Ashmawy · Second to the motion was made by Donna G. White. · Motion passed. · Cathy Donald Whitney adjourned the FC meeting at 2:35pm.
Minutes submitted by: Mary Weis
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