Approved 2-24-10
Meeting Minutes for Wednesday, February 10, 2010;
West Campus, BC 214, 3:00 – 5:00 pm
Members Present: Ignacio Alarcón (President), Armando Arias, Barbara Bell, Cindy Bower, Stan Bursten, Gary Carroll, Steve DaVega, Monica DiVito, Stephanie Durfor, Esther Frankel, Jack Friedlander, Tom Garey, David Gilbert, Atty Garfinkel, Kathy Molloy, Marcy Moore, David Morris, Kenley Neufeld, Dean Nevins, Kathy O’Connor, Ana María Ygualt, Oscar Zavala
Guest(s): Allison Curtis, Darin Garard, Zak Estrada (The Channels)
1.0 Call to Order
At the start of the meeting, Ignacio welcomed Monica DiVito, newly elected English division senator. She will be taking over the remainder of Lou Spaventa’s term, who will be teaching in the Study Abroad program this spring.
1.1 Public Comments – no requests received
1.2 Approval of Agenda – so approved as amended
1.3 Approval of Minutes, December 2, 2009
M/S/C To approve the December 2, 2009 meeting minutes (Carroll/Bursten)
2.0 Information
2.1 To elect Spring: President Elect (2010-2011)- President (2011-2013).
According to bylaws, once there is a President Elect, the following Division Senators positions are up for election: English, Fine Arts, Modern Languages/ESL, Health and Human Services*, Sciences*, Technologies. Kathy Molloy will be making a campus wide announcement March 1 about the election and the call for nominations.
2.2 Changes in A.A./A.S. Designation (Kathy O’Connor)
Kathy O’Connor explained that the state Academic Senate passed and the BOG approved a change in Title 5 that all AA/AS degrees have to be placed according to their discipline; that anything in Math, Science, Technologies, and Engineering will be designated AS degrees and all others will be AA degrees. The goal for SBCC’s curriculum would be to make these changes effective for the next catalog publication. The process for how these changes will be made still need to be worked out. Note for Counseling: this may have an effect for student athletes transferring to an NCAA school because some do not recognize an Associate in Sciences degrees.
2.3 2009 Exemplary Programs Awards Special Presentation by Jack Scott, Jane Patton, and Paul Lanning on January 11 at the Board of Governors (Kathy Molloy represented SBCC to receive award) Kathy Molloy said that for this most recent award the BOG had been very complimentary and spent a long time talking about the fact that PSS had data to prove successes and how our senate was the prime mover of the program. Afterwards, two of the BOG personally paid a compliment to her about our school and the PSS program. Kathy also requested to have a way to publicly display the awards outside the Senate office.
2.4 Fall 2009 Faculty Evaluation in School of Modern Languages
Ana María Ygualt reported to the Senate that the newly created rubric specific to the School of Modern Languages was used during the fall semester and worked very well. It has made their evaluation process much faster and more efficient. She explained that it was the SLO movement that led to the creation of rubrics to enable faculty and students to know where they needed to be in order to accomplish the designated goals for the course. Instructors are informed at the beginning of the semester that they will be evaluated based on the rubric, so it is clear to them how to achieve a successful evaluation and be successful in the course.
Kathy Molloy asked if the evaluation takes the place of or is in addition to the approved regular evaluation process. Ana María Ygualt said her department decided the evaluations would be done on a semester basis so that if there was need for improvement the instructor would have a chance to do something about it, such as communications with the chair about what needed to happen in the classroom in case a specific person was not accomplishing something. Then there is also the Board approved evaluation process.
Jack Friedlander asked what kind of feedback they received from colleagues about the experience in using the rubric. How did you find using the checklists? Ana María Ygualt said it was much easier to conduct the evaluations. It is also possible to add written comments. It helps to eliminate the long narratives that needed to be written. The SoML department now intends to evaluate everyone each semester, which is time consuming. We have found the rubric/checklists have simplified the compilation process. Each full-time faculty has, on average, four adjunct faculty to evaluate each semester.
Kathy O’Connor stated she had expressed her concerns last year when this was first presented. There is not an issue until a problem occurs. How would this work relative to the approved evaluation policy that we already have? How would this procedure have an impact in the legal sense; would it have any merit at all or would it be thrown out because it has not been approved/gone through our normal approval process? Ana María Ygualt said that they were applying this process internally for their own purposes, in addition to following the standard approved evaluation procedure every three years.
Ignacio mentioned that our procedures state that they are the minimum requirements, and that individual departments may have additional requirements when evaluating their faculty.
Tom Garey said that, following up Kathy O’Connor’s comment, where this gets potentially problematic is if this rubric and criteria are being used to make appointment decisions, and if a similar rubric/criteria is not being used to make appointment decisions for other adjunct faculty at the College. This could potentially be a PERB decision. PERB doesn’t look at a specific department; they look at the College’s practices on employment. If faculty from one department get treated differently than faculty from another department for employment decisions it is problematic. There are a lot of issues, and it could be discriminatory. Another issue is: if you are using this for adjunct faculty, why are you not using this for full-time faculty as well? Ana María Ygualt said the same rubric would be used for full-time faculty in their standard evaluation cycle, only not every semester.
Dean Nevins reiterated for clarification: you are using this process with adjunct faculty every semester and you haven’t yet started with the full-time faculty. If it is only an internal process and that does not affect anything else and would not be used for any decisions except to help improve performance, no problem. If it used for employment decisions there is a problem.
Kathy O’Connor suggested that a legal interpretation may be needed.
Ignacio said that there were a number of good questions on this issue, and that this item would have to be put on the next agenda as a discussion item.
3.0 Action
3.1 Academic Senate Bylaws Revision
The Senate went over the Bylaws revisions page by page. Kenley Neufeld facilitated this by projecting the pages on a screen and making immediate changes based on recommendations and comments. The final approved copy will be posted at http://www.sbcc.edu/academicsenate/
M/S/C To approve the recommended changes to the Bylaws (Neufeld/Garey) Unanimous
4.0 Hearing/Discussion
4.1 Wait Lists Summer/Fall 2010 (Allison Curtis) handout
Allison Curtis announced the long awaited Banner update implementation is underway and the waitlisting feature will be in effect for summer/fall 2010 registration. She explained that although work continues, with several iterations, the handout identifies what is known today regarding the features of the Wait Lists.
Allison Curtis explained that waitlists are optional for departments and/or courses. You may choose to have a waitlist or not. If a department or course chooses not to have a waitlist, the add authorization codes can still be used exactly as they are being used now. If the waitlist option is chosen the add authorization process doesn’t kick in until the first day of class. You cannot use both waitlist or add codes. You have to choose one, or neither. On the first day of classes, if a waitlist has been used, it becomes inactive and the add codes start working.
Dean Nevins asked why we couldn’t have wait lists after the first day of class? Is this a programming issue? Allison Curtis said that this functionality would not currently exist for Summer/Fall 2010 registration.
Gary Carroll asked if there wouldn’t be access to the waitlist at all by the start of class, we would not know who is still on the wait list? Allison Curtis said that you’ll know who is on the waitlist, only the function of the waitlist would not be operational any more. In fact, she would hope that faculty would use the waitlist to prioritize how they would administer add codes. Kathy O’Connor wanted some clarification: we really can’t add people past our class limit until after the first day of class? Dean Nevins and Kenley Neufeld expressed that this was the case, if you choose to use a waitlist.
Allison Curtis continued to explain other features. The students on the waitlist are in priority order for registration. The process, from the student perspective, is a very intentional process. Students would need to put themselves on the wait list. The student knows and confirms that this is what they want to do. If someone drops from that CRN or the enrollment limit on that course is raised the first person on the wait list will receive an email notification.
Jack Friedlander wanted to elaborate on Kathy’s question. Example: if a class has a limit of 35 and the faculty member gives out add codes and will allow 40 students, the question is: does the waitlist preclude the faculty member from choosing to have a few extra students over and above the limit? Kenley Neufeld said that you would have to raise your enrollment limit accordingly or not use a waitlist.
Kathy O’Connor asked if a department chair could still increase the enrollment limit by calling the Scheduling Office two weeks before the start of school? Allison Curtis said that the waitlist students would be given the opportunity to register and then additional seats would open on the wait list.
Atty Garfinkel noted that students tend to get confused by some of the technology. How confusing would this be for a student in comparison to going through and doing your standard catalog copying down the CRN and putting it in your worksheet and clicking from there? Allison Curtis said that she wanted to talk with Atty and other students to come test the process and see how this works.
Barbara Bell: with heavily impacted courses such as English 110 when there is nothing open students now send emails to twenty instructors. My question is, if the student gets a seat in a particular class what happens to all the other waitlists the student may be able to get on? It was clarified that a student can only be on one waitlist for a particular course. Allison Curtis said that a student could be waitlisted in a course and then register in another CRN of that course, remaining on the original waitlist. When the student clears that waitlist the student then has a choice to either decline the waitlisted seat or drop the registered seat. On the other hand, a student who is registered in a class cannot then waitlist in another section of the course. If you are waitlisted you can register but if you are registered you cannot waitlist for the same course.
David Morris asked: if I get on one English 110 waitlist, I can’t get on any other section of English 110 waitlist? Allison Curtis said that this was the case. Dean Nevins said that students could still approach faculty who didn’t use waitlists. Allison Curtis said the communication needs to be very clear: if there is a waitlist do not email the instructor for the add code. David Morris described a possible scenario: on the first day of class you have a waitlist of six students, and a few registered students don’t show up and the waitlisted students can come in. The first two students on your waitlist aren’t there for the first day of class. Do they still have a right to those seats, despite the fact that they don’t show up? Allison Curtis said that this was one of the reasons why she was here and that she was hoping that what you would approve what will be the published information, and that is, that the order on the waitlist is only valid on the first day of class. If you miss the first day of class then that is no longer your spot and a faculty member can continue on through the list for the next available student. That’s a decision for the Senate to make.
Stan Bursten: What happens if a student is waitlisted for a total of 40 units and they get into four classes now they are at the total number of units they can take, does the system automatically delete them from those other waitlists? Allison Curtis said the student would have to make an add/drop decision consistent with their maximum units at the time they have the opportunity. Students are not going to automatically be dropped from waitlists. Stan Bursten said that then the waitlists can become jammed up? Allison Curtis responded that the students get the opportunity to move from waitlisted to registered including paying their fees, and that they have 72 hours to do that. They either move from waitlisted to registered or their time expires and they are off the waitlist and the next student moves into position.
Dean Nevins asked if faculty have control over the size of the wait list? Allison Curtis said that each section had their own individual size. Dean Nevis asked for scheduling purposes, should you inform your department chair if you wanted to change the waitlist size? Kenley Neufeld said the draft completed this week had the default set to five per section and if you wanted something different you would need to tell your department chair.