ESL Department Meeting
11/20/08 11:15 ESL 103
In attendance: Janine, John, Claire, Janet, Lisa, Sharon, Joanna, Melody, Andrea, Toni.
Excused: Elena, Tracey, Kathy, Judy
1. General Information from the Chair
a. Chairs’ Meeting news
i. Online student evals are now available; go to your roster and you’ll see them in a new column to the right of eCompanion “activate.” Do the same with the evals. You must “deactivate” them when students are done. YOU have to notify your students via email or in person that they can access the eval via their own student self-serve system. Once your final grades have been submitted, the results of the evals will immediately become available to you. Online instructors should always be using these. The District feels that evals should be tied to peer evals, but HR isn’t onboard with that, so they’re still working on that aspect of it. Don’t do this if you’re being peer evaluated this semester.
ii. The budget is bad news, but we probably won’t feel its full effect until F09. At that point there may be early class cancellations (3-4 weeks in advance) and fewer sections offered. Even if enrollment is up, we can’t offer classes for which we’ll not be funded. The college has an $18 mil reserve right now so we can weather the storm this school year, but the next 2-3 years are a problem as we have an operating deficit of $6-$8 million, and that is what needs to be reduced through cuts. The State has an $11.2 billion deficit. The college has frozen new projects but will continue with those already in progress. One way to save costs is through reducing the amount of paid subbing. As of now, there are NO subs for conference attendance. However, faculty may arrange to “trade” with each other. Equipment purchases are probably okay because they’re funded from other sources. Randy doesn’t want to over-react or take any extreme measures but cautions that the college will be looking carefully at places where they can trim the fat.
iii. Bob Adams and David Dever handed out info is posted in the workroom. They prefer to get the book orders as they are filled out rather than in one bunch, so continue to turn them in to me, and Pam will file them one by one online. Kickbacks from the publishers are something we should consider as our “contract” expires with McGraw-Hill. That money could be used to purchase media equipment. Workbooks and/or study books included in bundles make it impossible for students to sell them back. Also CD’s that require a PIN code can’t be repurchased by the bookstore, but others can. If we require them, we should order them separately from the texts. If your students say there aren’t any books left, tell them they MUST let “customer service” in the bookstore know because there are almost certainly copies stored elsewhere. They can only keep a limited supply on the shelves. Books at satellite campuses are sent over based on class location and they’re kept there for a short time only.
iv. Patricia Ramos is now Acting Dean of Workforce Dev until the position can be filled. Michelle King replaces Ramos for now.
v. New Assoc Dean of Outreach is Sonali Perera Bridges. She and Waleed would like for all webpages to eventually be migrated to the SMC site. We’ll deal with that when we have to. I let Randy and Jeff know (both at the mtg) that we can’t do this w/o substantial support from the college, (not simply training from Waleed), as it would be terrifically time-consuming for a dept like ours, who has hundreds of docs in FrontPage right now.
b. Summer 09 teaching requests will be distributed to instructors’ mailboxes Dec 1; they are due back to Toni no later than Dec 8.
c. Curriculum updates (14B, 14A; and unit changes for 14B, 15 – from 2 to 3 units); 14B approved for 3 units and DE; will be offered online Sp09; all unit changes occur in F09. 14A has been sent to Curriculum as an update.
d. PT Evals – should be completed by 12/1 and turned in to Toni.
e. Toni and Tracey have submitted a BSI grant proposal to “smart” BUS101 and to purchase a Multi-media cart for LA243, both primarily to support ESL10 instructors but also for use by 14A/B. The total cost is around $18,000, so we may not get it, but if they at least give us a Multi-media cart for each room, that will help. We’ve asked that it all be ready by the beginning of Spring. It would come from BSI funds, so the current budget crisis shouldn’t affect the cmmt’s decision. Melody will find out at today’s BSI meeting where our application is in the process.
f. Drop-in Counseling – they are interested to know what is working, what is not. Not many of our students are visiting them. My suggestion was to find out how many of our students are in fact at risk and if perhaps check to see if that population (night?) isn’t here at hours when counselors are, etc. I’ll be reviewing results with them.
g. Final Exams (days/times), final grades – reminder to hold finals ON the DAY and AT the TIME they are scheduled by the college! Also, get final grades in ASAP so students can enroll. Any waivers should be sent to Toni ASAP so she can enter them in ISIS. Keep sending them until your final grades are submitted as W09 enrollment time is short. Please distribute recommendation forms to students and remember to follow up with the SLO questionnaires. An email has been sent out.
h. Bond measure and the ESL Dept move to DH3rd floor – Toni, Kathy, Tracey, and Janet will meet over winter to begin to develop a strategy to make sure we are proactive and visible in this endeavor.
2. Other Reports
a. Tutoring (Janet) – tracking access to appts to gather data in support of greater funding; in fact we’re asking students to let us know (via email to Pam) if they try but fail to get an appt so we can maybe get even a larger budget to support our tutoring program. We will look carefully at the new course, Eng 920, to see if we can create something similar to solve our tutoring program problems (Personnel Commission). The issue of students bringing non-classroom work for tutor assistance was discussed. Introduced two of our new tutors, Katie and Catherine.
b. Non-credit (Melody) – there are still a few W09 classes available if there are interested instructors; today they meet to develop SLO assessments.
c. Post-common essay – Toni and Susan will meet this winter to begin discussion of the future of the c.e.
d. BSI/ESL consortium (formerly Outreach) – (Sharon) They had a meeting last week and are planning to invite Mark Roberge back to campus to speak to a group including constituencies across campus. They will seek BSI funding.
3. New Business
a. Departmental party and staff gifts – Sharon and Tracey will collect $30 from each FTer; PTers may contribute whatever amount they’d like (give it to Sharon). Lisa Saperston will see if the Overland Café is available for a party on 12/12 or 12/14 and, if that isn’t feasible, Janet has offered her house.
b. Departmental flexday (3/6/09) activities – we will see about inviting members of the Center for Disabilities to talk with us about better serving the needs of our hearing-impaired students and also about identifying and working with students with other disabilities. Our instructors will be invited to showcase their best lessons. Andrea Spector will take us through her newly developed 14B online (Voicethread, etc.).
c. CATESOL listserve has an essay contest for students to submit their work about an influential teacher they have known. Sharon will send the announcement out via email.
4. Announcements
Aug 20, 9-3 (Departmental Flexday)
Aug 21, 8:30-3:30 (Institutional Flexday)
Aug 22, 8-2 (Departmental Flexday)
Sept 25, Thursday, 11:15
Oct 24, Friday, 11:00
Nov 20, Thursday, 11:15
Mar 6, Fri, 9-3 (Dept Flexday) (next meeting)
Mar 19, Th, 8:30-3:30 (Institutional Flexday)
Apr 2, Thursday, 11:15
May 8, Friday, 11:00
June 4, Thursday, 11:15