A. Human Resources

A. Human Resources

The institution employs qualified personnel to support student learning programs and services wherever offered and by whatever means delivered, and to improve institutional effectiveness. Personnel are treated equitably, and evaluated regularly and systematically, and are provided opportunities for professional development. Consistent with its mission, the institution demonstrates its commitment to the significant educational role played by persons of diverse backgrounds by making positive efforts to encourage such diversity. Human resource planning is integrated with institutional planning.

1. The institution assures the integrityand quality ofits programs andservices byemploying personnel who are qualified byappropriate education, training, and experience to provide and support these programs andservices.

a. Criteria, qualifications, andprocedures for selection ofpersonnel are clearly andpublicly stated. Job descriptions are direcdy related to institutional mission andgoals andaccurately reflect position duties, responsibilities, andauthority. Criteria for selection offaculty include knowledge ofthe subject matter or service to be performed (as determined byindividuals with discipline expertise), eHective teaching, scholarly activities, andpotential to contribute to the mission ofthe institution. Institutional faculty playa significant role in selection ofnew faculty. Degrees heldby faculty andadministrators are from institutions accredited by recognized US. accrediting agencies. Degrees from non,US. institutions are recognized onlyif equivalence has been established.

Description

The policy for hiring faculty is found in the Board Policy 5000. The current faculty hiring procedures were adopted by the Academic Senate and the Board of Trustees in November 2000. The procedures outline the entire process for hiring of both full-time and adjunct faculty.

Faculty job descriptions are jointly developed by area faculty and Human Resources. The job

description includes description of the position, minimum qualifications and desirable qualifications. The job descriptions include information on courses to be taught, academic

responsibilities, academic and work experience needed, and knowledge of and commitment to working with students of diverse backgrounds. The Screening Procedure and Application

Procedure are also outlined in the job description. Faculty degrees must be from an accredited

institution. Applicants claiming equivalency must follow Board Policy 5001 and go through the

Equivalency Procedures prior to interviewing.

Faculty make up the majority of the faculty hiring committees. There may be up to five faculty on the hiring committee. The Committee screens the applications and determines who to interview. The Hiring Committee develops the interview questions and answer criteria. They determine the teaching demonstration topic(s) and any other requirements (tests, syllabi, etc.) of those applicants to be interviewed.

There are no Board Policies on hiring for Administrative or Classified Personnel. The Personnel Polices for Management Council does contain information on recruitment and selection of management and confidential employees.

However, pursuant to the classified collective bargaining agreement, representatives from both the classified employees association and the Human Resources Office collaborate to develop classified job descriptions. Job descriptions include: description of the position, minimum qualifications, duties, conditions of employment, working conditions, screening procedure and the application procedure. Classified job descriptions must be approved by the Board of Trustees. Additionally, classified employees participate in the hiring process of classified positions.

When a management position opens up, the supervisor responsible for the management position works jointly with the Human Resources Office to develop a job description. Job descriptions

include: basic function, representative duties, required knowledge and abilities, education and

experience, working conditions, screening procedure and the application procedures.

Management job descriptions must be approved by the Board of Trustees.

Selection of management positions include input from at least one faculty representative

(appointed by the faculty association) and an equal number of faculty representatives who are

appointed by the Academic Senate President. Additionally, the District may invite additional

faculty, a CSEA member, an adjunct faculty member, and/or a student and community member

to serve as needed.

Evaluation

The College partially meets this standard.

The policy and procedures for hiring faculty, both full time and adjunct, are well established and

public. The policy and procedures fully meet this standard.

The College does not adequately meet the standard as it relates to the hiring of classified staff or of administrators. There are no Board Policies regarding the hiring of classified staff or administrators. While there are some procedures that are outlined in various places, such as contracts, the procedures are not comprehensive and are not easily accessible to members of the campus community or to the public in general. In addition, the lack of concrete procedures leaves open the possibility that hiring of these positions will not be uniformly implemented.

An example of a problem occurred when hiring a classified position in Computer Services.

During the interview, the job description and classification were altered and a person hired,

without re-opening or announcing this new position.

The Accreditation Survey did identify concerns among all groups about hiring personnel based on

established criteria. However, the statement also includes hiring to meet the goals and objectives

of the College. It is not possible to determine whether either or both of these factors are the

concern for these individuals. Nearly twenty percent of all groups feel that the College could improve its handling of hiring.

Planning Agenda

1. Human Resources will work with the appropriate groups and develop comprehensive hiring procedures and Board Polices for classified staff and administrators.

b. The institution assures the eHectiveness ofits human resources by evaluating aU personnel systematicallyand at stated intervals. The institution establishes written criteria for evaluation ofallpersonne~ including performance ofassigned duties andparticipation in institutional responsibilities and other activities appropriate to their expertise. Evaluation processes seek to assess eHectiveness ofpersonnel and encourage improvement. Actions taken following evaluations are form~ timely, and documented.

Description

The Board of Trustees conducts an evaluation of the Superintendent/President yearly, to be completed no later than June. Board Policy 1001 outlines the evaluation procedure for the Superintendent/President.

Board Policy 5070 states that Full-Time Faculty will be evaluated yearly prior to tenure and every other year after tenure. Currently, non-tenured faculty are evaluated yearly, but tenured faculty are evaluated once every three years. The evaluation procedures were developed jointly by the Academic Senate and Administration and were included in the COSTA Master Agreement. The evaluation process for faculty identifies the purposes of evaluation as: "recognize and acknowledge good performance, to enhance satisfactory performance and help employees who are performing satisfactorily to further their own growth, to identify weak performance and to assist employees in achieving needed improvement, and to document unsatisfactory performance."

Board Policy 5560 outlines the evaluation procedures for Adjunct Faculty. Adjunct Faculty are evaluated during their first semester and at least once every 6 semesters after that. There is no

statement of purpose(s) for the evaluation in BP 5560 or in the master agreement for this group (COSAFA).

Classified personnel evaluation is set forth in Board Policy 6000. The procedures are outlined in the master agreement with CSEA Classified personnel are evaluated yearly. There is no statement of purpose(s) of evaluation for this group.

There are no Board policies regarding the evaluation of management and Confidential employees. The Personnel Policies for Management Council lay out the evaluation process for these groups. Each administrator and confidential employee is formally evaluated at the end of his/her initial year and every two years thereafter. The evaluations include Action Plans for improvement.

The criteria for evaluations of all employees are stated in the procedures and evaluation forms.

Responses to evaluations are completed within set deadlines for each group of employees.

Recommendation 3 from the 2000 Accreditation Visiting Team Report directed the College to "Review the faculty evaluation process including tenure review of faculty, and implement appropriate changes with all due speed." Mter review by the Academic Senate and negotiation by the faculty association, the faculty evaluation process was altered slightly. The format of the evaluation was altered, the student survey was altered, the Division Chairs were removed from the process, and the timeline and specific responsibilities were delineated. No dialogue and no changes to tenure review have occurred.

Evaluation

The College partially meets this standard. There are established Board Policies for Faculty (full

time and part-time) and for Classified personnel. There are procedures for the evaluation of all campus constituencies. These policies and procedures appear to be uniformly applied.

The College does not meet this standard as it relates to Administrators and Confidential

Employees. There are no Board Policies for these groups. In addition, the availability of the

procedures is limited. The Personnel Policies for Management Council is not widely available.

Members of the Management Council have copies, but they are not currently available on the web

or in other locations.

Only the COSTA Master Agreement stipulates the purpose of the evaluation process as to promote improvements. The Accreditation Survey identifies a serious deficiency in the effectiveness of the evaluations and their ability to bring about improvement in job performance. A very large percentage of all groups disagree that evaluations lead to improvement. It can be assumed that the perception is that in many cases evaluations are merely forms that must be completed. It is particularly troubling that the faculty evaluation procedure has been recently changed and still this perception persists. It must be noted that this statement does not distinguish between perceptions of the evaluations within a group (ex.: faculty have issues with faculty evaluations) or perceptions of evaluations of other groups (ex.: classified have issues with administrator evaluations).

The criteria for evaluations are set out in forms used for each group. There have been some issues related to which criteria should be mandated in the evaluation process for faculty. One such area is the participation in institutional committees by faculty, which is not currently required. The Accreditation Survey assessed the perception of Faculty and Administrators on this subject. It should be noted that job announcements for faculty generally include in the description of the position "participation in the governance of the College by way of committee assignments ... ".As can be seen, the majority of faculty and administrators believe this is important and agree that it should be included in the evaluation of faculty members.

Planning Agenda

1. Human Resources will work with the appropriate groups and develop Board Policies for the evaluation of confidential employees and administrators.
2. Academic Senate will review the evaluation process and content of faculty evaluations and make recommendations for changes that will reflect professional obligations, other than teaching, and will strengthen the connections between the evaluation and improvement in job performance.
3. CSEA will review the evaluation process and content for classified staff and make recommendations that will strengthen the connections between the evaluation and improvement in job performance.
4. The President's Cabinet will review the evaluation process and content for administrators and confidential employees and make recommendations that will strengthen the connections between the evaluation and improvement in job performance.
5. Human Resources will initiated a change in Board Policy 5070 to reflect the practice of evaluating tenured faculty once every three years.

Standard III: Resources. A. Human Resources

c. Faculty and others directly responsible for student progress toward achievingstatedstudent learning outcomes have, as a component oftheir evaluation, eHectiveness in producing those learning outcomes.

Description

The evaluation of faculty includes an evaluation of teaching methods, materials and effectiveness. Faculty are evaluated based on their ability to "assist students in attaining the learning goals of the course" (COSTA Master Agreement). Faculty are to develop specific goals and objectives for meeting the official course outlines and their success as an instructor should be judged on how they meet these specific goals and objectives.

Evaluation

The College does not meet this standard. The College is in the early stages of developing student learning outcomes. Identified student learning outcomes do not currently exist for all courses; and more importantly, there are no established assessment criteria to determine how well individual instructors are producing those learning outcomes.

Planning Agenda

1. The Academic Senate will make recommendations that incorporate the assessment of how effective the faculty are in achieving the student learning outcomes of their courses into their evaluation process.

d. The institution upholds a written code ofprofessional ethics for all ofits personnel.

Description

Within the Personnel Policies for Management Council is a "Statement of Ethics." This statement discusses: the definition of ethics, the importance of ethics and the District's expectations for ethical behavior. There is no information about whether the College upholds this policy.

A Statement of Professional Ethics was adopted by the Academic Senate and is published in the

General Catalog. There is also a written policy on Academic Freedom. There is no information

about whether the College upholds this statement.

There is no written code of ethics for classified personnel.

Evaluation

The College partially meets this standard. Written codes of professional ethics for administrators and faculty do exist; however, there is no such policy for classified personneL There is also no information as to whether these policies are upheld by the College or the respective constituencies.

Planning Agenda

1. CSEA will develop a written code of professional ethics for classified staff.

2. The institution maintains a suHicient number ofqualified faculty with fulhime responsibility to the institution. The institution has a suHicient number ofstaHand administrators with appropriate preparation and experience to provide the administrative services necessary to support the institution's mission andpurposes.

Description

A comparison of numbers of types of personnel between Fall 2004 and Fall 1999 is shown in the Table below. There has been a decrease in full-time faculty and classified and an increase in parttime faculty and administrators.

Fa112004 157 284 191 30

Fa111999 160 256 221 32

Percent Change -1.25% 10.9% -15.7% 7.1%

The College has generally maintained a high percentage of full-time faculty. In order to meet funding criteria by the State, the College will be hiring six new full-time faculty beginning Fall 2006. Full-time faculty positions were lost during the fiscal crisis the State and the College experienced several years ago.

Although the numbers indicate an overall increase in the number of administrators, this is somewhat deceiving. Some administrative positions were established because of grant requirements. In addition, some areas of the campus, most notably Academic Services, have lost administrators which have not been replaced.

The loss of classified personnel over the last several years has been the most severe. The impact of these reductions is dependent on the departments affected. The majority of these losses were due to not replacing retiring personnel during the time of fiscal constraints.

All personnel hired must meet the minimum qualifications for their respective positions. This includes educational background and work experience.

Evaluation The College substantially meets this standard. There are sufficient numbers of full-time faculty.

The sufficiency of administrative and classified personnel is problematic and area dependent. Some areas have sufficient staff, others may not. Planning Agenda No planning agenda is recommended at this time.

3. The institution systematically develops personnel policies and procedures that are available for information andreview. Such policies andprocedures are equitably and consistently administered.

Description

Board Policies related to Human Resources have been developed and approved periodically. Review of Board Policies in general begins in the area associated with the policy, in this case Human Resources. Policies are taken to the College Council for review and input. Some policies related to Human Resources must be reviewed and approved by the appropriate constituent groups (Academic Senate, COSTA, CSEA, COSAFA and Management Council). After approval by the above groups, policies then go to the Board of Trustees for final approval and adoption. All policies related to personnel are available on the College website.

Procedures related to Human Resources are developed in a similar manner. Most procedures are available on the College website. The exception is the Personnel Policies for Management Council. This publication is not available on the website. Current members of Management Council do have copies of this publication.

Each constituent group has a process by which they can protest if they feel a policy or procedure was not equitably applied in a particular instance. For those groups represented by bargaining units (COSTA, COSAFA, CSEA), there are formal grievance procedures. Administrators and Confidential employees have a procedure outlined in the Personnel Policies for Management Council.

Evaluation

The College substantially meets this standard. For those policies that exist, they are updated as

required and available for information and review. One area of concern is the lack of availability

of the Personnel Policies for Management Council to the College as a whole.