Collin College Faculty Council

Meeting Minutes

March 27, 2009

 

1.       Call to order: Regular meeting of Faculty Council was called to order by President, Dr. Sonja Andrus, at 1: 20.

2.       Roll call: Absent: Sam Tullock; Kyle Wilkison; David Garrison

3.       Minutes: Dr. Andrus asked secretary for minutes. Motion to dispense with the reading by Mary Weis and seconded by Jon Hardesty. None opposed. Motion passed.

4.       Treasurer’s Report: Marilyn Massey.

Taking donations for $1,050.00 needed to meet Cabaret pledge. General Fund is different and must be noted as such when donating. Faculty Scholarship amount has been met. Clarification was given that faculty need to meet the amount of $1,250.00o annually to maintain Faculty Scholarship as an annual scholarship. Rollover does not count toward the $1,250.00. We can move to fund two $500.00 or one $750.00 or one $1,000.00 scholarship, but must decide by May 15th or Foundation decides.

                                                                 

5.       Vice President’s Report:

a.       Faculty Council ballots went out with information from Human Resources, but contained names of people who were not eligible. Suggestion to have people “opt-in” for ballot, rather than “opting-out.”

b.       Suggestion to improve attendance for guest speakers at Faculty Council meetings by moving speakers to beginning of meeting or to time outside of regular meeting.

c.       VP noted higher attendance in past Faculty Council meetings, probably due to it being a representative body. Cathy Donald-Whitney outlined council history and emphasized that we need to work with the system we have to maintain stability and that representatives need to be sure to be active to solicit input from constituents.

 

6.       Committee Reports

a.       College Policy-Mary Milford- no report

b.       Faculty Council Procedures- no report

c.       Teaching and Learning-Martha Chaloub-Two upcoming Brown Bag talks, one of which is on Monday at SCC.

d.        Technology-Tebring Daly– no report

e.       Collin Community-no report

f.        Academic Freedom-no report

7.       Council on Excellence- Martha Tolleson

a.       Ballots are due today and will be counted next week. Next Board meeting is on April 28th. Multi-year contract recipients should be in attendance for the board approval of contracts, as should faculty receiving contract extensions.

b.      UTD scholarships—Application date was changed to December 2009 for Fall 2010. Applicants must be accepted to UTD before applying for scholarship. There are eight faculty and two administrative scholarships. Applicants must sign a contract that if they terminate employment at Collin College within 18 months, they must donate $2,000.00 to the Foundation, which will be directly deducted from payroll. The requirement that the PhD program pursued be in the applicant’s field has been lifted.

8.       All College Council- -no report

9.       President’s Report:

a.       APT-Online student evaluation pilot program is underway. The online format affords reduced cost and turnaround time for review, and it is hoped that both quality and quantity will be similar to paper evaluations. Suggestions made to lock students out of Cougarweb, with two warnings prior that would direct them to evaluations. Some concern that this would produce negative evaluations. The possibility of collusion was also mentioned. Concern was also expressed that faculty can control paper evaluations to be given only to retained students, but the online evaluations were open to students prior to drop date, which allows for non-parallel data. Vicky Putman (IRO) has advised that the online questions are the same as the paper evaluations, but Cathy Donald-Whitney will follow up to verify this. Because there is a direct connection between student evaluations and what happens in the classroom with regard to teaching and retention, cost should not be a primary consideration, if it comprises the integrity of the evaluation process.

b.       Core Curriculum Assessment Group update—Looking at a holistic view of course outcomes. In Stage four, the group is reviewing matrices of course outcomes. In Stage Five, they will be looking at a plan of assessing the outcomes. This should occur in the next 4-6 weeks.

c.       Core Curriculum Review—Group looking at adding and removing courses from the core curriculum. It was recommended not to remove Computer Essentials, but to add other options in this category.

d.       Dickinson and LeBrecht chairs are up for renewal. The Call for Proposals went out today. Please consider applying.

e.       Retention Council is working on a plan and has a meeting on May 1st. Before finals, there will be an opportunity to talk with retention committee members.

f.        Faculty Council voting is ongoing. Please vote.

g.       Board of Trustees meeting on April 28th.

h.       VPPs have ongoing talks with APT and FC reps, John Glass, Sonja Andrus and Cathy Donald-Whitney.

10.   Old Business- Martha Chaloub is the new representative for the Adopt-a-Highway program. 

11.   New business

a.       Paula Miller moved to use scholarship funds to give two $500.00 scholarships. Lupita Tinnen seconded. Discussion: John Glass and Dawn Richardson serve on scholarship committee. Two scholarships not only get more money into the community, but help two students instead of one. All in favor. Motion passed.

b.      Associate Faculty representation-AF have ACC representation, but no voting member on Faculty Council. AF representation was debated in the past, but it was determined that the needs are different between the two groups. AF are welcome to attend Faculty Council meetings and also have the ability to organize own council.

c.       Cultivating Scholars event being held from 4-7today at PRC>

d.      Next Council meeting on May 8th, 2009.  

12.   Adjournment: Motion to adjourn by Bill Ardis and seconded by Mary Weis. None opposed. Motion passed. Meeting adjourned at 2:15 p.m.

Minutes submitted by:  Val Smith
Preliminary approval of the minutes by: Sonja Andrus
Final approval of the minutes by:  The Collin Faculty Council Representatives on          .