Academic Senate Meeting
Minutes
October 4, 2006
Voting Members Present: Best, Butler, Cheever, Fawver, Ferris, Furtado, Furusa, Herbert, Gould, Hancock, Jacobs, Jones, Kalayjian, Kaplan, Kowalski, Lauerhass for Heinze-Balcazar, Levine, Malamud, McClane, Moore, Newton, Shakib, Sneed, Vanterpool, and Williams.
Voting Members Absent: Berlin, Bohman, Clark, D’Amore, Faraji, Ganezer, Lopez-Morin, Ma, McCarthy, Papa, Park, Pawar, Pu, and Welch.
Ex-Officio Members Present: Blue, Bowman, Bradfield, Dote-Kwan, Gordon, M., Hohm, Long, Lyons, Maki, Mori, Robles, Rodriguez, Strong, Tubbs for Hart, and Yao.
Guests: Belu
Call to Order at 2:30p.m.
Approval of Agenda Amended M/S/P
Approval of Minutes Amended M/S/P
Chair’s Report-Butler reported that during open forum we would continue the discussion on the PTE questions. Butler also explained that at the last meeting we had to cut it short because of a dispute over the room. As it turns out, instructors were changed and the new instructor was never notified by the College of Education about the room change.
Consent Calendar:
Exec 06-03-Resolutin in Memory of Dr. David L. Heifetz-Jacobs read the resolution honoring David Heifetz. MSP.
TC: 3:00 p.m. Andrew Long, University Ombudsman-Long introduced himself to the senate and said that he had worked in the College of Health and Human Services as an advisor and then was promoted to the Director of the University Advisement Center and University Ombudsman position. He has been involved in the freshman first year experience program and as the ombudsman he has set up an email address for better communication, to avoid phone tag. Also, an email has gone out informing students of the service and there will be an article in Dateline and the student newspaper and a brochure is being created. Long said that he is there to help students or direct them to the right person or office and he will make himself available in the evenings if necessary to accommodate students. Long said that his role compared to the deans office role differs in that there is far more variety, and concerns are far broader than what the dean’s office might handle.
TC: 3:15 p.m. Jan Gasco and Tiffany Herbert-Academic Calendar-There was a discussion about approving the academic calendar for 07-08 and 08-09. The main problem with model A is that at some point we have to lose a week and the problem is deciding what week should be removed. The senate decided to table this item until the next meeting when the provost would bring the number of students on financial aid taking courses during the second session of summer (they are the ones that might be affected because of financial aid time lines).
TC: 3:30 p.m. Min Yao-Re-organization of Information Technology-Yao passed out a document that mapped out the transition of Information Technology; he said that the transition has been smooth. See attachment.
Parliamentarian Report-Kalayjian announced all of the appointments for the various campus committees. There was an election for one faculty member to serve on the University Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Committee. Carl Sneed was elected by acclamation. MSP.
EPC Report-Jacobs reported that her committee was working on a resolution for hybrid courses and she asked the senators to please send her comments. Malamud asked what a hybrid course was and Jacobs said the course has to be greater than 1/3 distance learning or online and less than 2/3 distance learning or online, and it must go through UCC.
FPC Report-Furusa reported that he has his committee together and they will be meeting to work on issues within the next week or so.
Statewide Senate Report-Vanterpool reported that the interim statewide faculty affairs meeting will be October 19, 2006 at the LAX Hilton from 10 to 4 p.m. The topics will be textbooks costs and bundling and MPP hiring practices.
Provost’s Report-Mori reported on the new enrollment software called “Hobson’s EMT”. He said that it will assist us in recruiting new students and retaining them. Mori said that we are 3 to 4% down from our enrollment target and our enrollment in spring is generally less than in fall. Mori said that we admitted more first time freshman approximately 1,024, he said that we draw students from 3 pools-1st time freshmen, upper division transfer students and undergraduate students. Mori said that 6 to 9 Community Colleges in Los Angeles are down in enrollment. He said that El Camino is 1500 FTE’s down and that Compton lost 4,000 head count, and that no one knows where these students went to so far. Mori said that with regard to credential students the College of Education is down significantly and that Los Angeles Unified and Long Beach Unified are hiring fewer teachers. He said that 100,000 teachers will retire in next 5 years.
Mori talked about the Enrollment Management Committee (EMPC) and said that all divisions on the campus are represented. He said that the Days of Dominguez have been a huge success. Mori said that our students, alumni, administrators and faculty are all involved and visit different high schools and community colleges to get students to attend Dominguez Hills.
Mori said that many new programs, options and majors were brought on line such as Criminal Justice, Child Development, and Hospitability Management. Mori reported that the University has a new image campaign.
Dote-Kwan gave a demonstration of the new Hobson’s EMT software and the new My Toro Space, as well as the virtual advisor which responds to 91 different questions.
President’s Report-Lyons reported that there has been a budget and enrollment shortfall but that it’s too soon to figure it out. We are still collecting enrollment information. We meet the 21st of this month to discuss. We met with the Vice President of El Camino and El Camino is down 1500 FTE and several thousand students have disappeared from Compton College. LA Harbor College was happy we came to recruit and their enrollment is down as well.
Lyons reported that we received funding to hire a firm to work with us on an image campaign. “My University My Life” is the motto. The campaign has a sassy look and instead of using models we used our own students.
Lyons reported that the WASC team will be visiting next week. He said that there was no agenda or trying to keep people away from the team but there are certain groups on the campus that the team must meet with.
Lyons reported that Trustee Chandler will visit on October 17 and will be here the same day the social work team will be here.
Lyons reported the University is bringing school principals and superintendents to discuss the early assessment program.
Lyons reported that the collective bargaining has moved to impasse and there will be an arbitrator which is unfortunate, Lyons said that hopefully it will work out.
Open Forum-Butler projected a power point of all the PTE questions for the senators to review. It was suggested that the PTE’s need to be evaluated with online programs. And Rudy will get copies of other campuses PTE’s to do a comparison. Williams said that there should be something that would measure outcomes maybe a separate instrument. Bradfield asked if the PTE’s should be used to assess the students’ satisfaction or how the instructor is teaching. There are different ways of interpreting this. Also, if there is an ESL problem is the student a proper evaluator of this kind of problem. Gould said that what is important is the impression on the student. Kaplan asked how your teaching would be effective if you have not expressed yourself clearly.
Question #3 and #4 are the same and should be re-worded or combined. Gould said that he could see the difference between #3 and #4 and they should not be changed. Gould said that there should be better wording on #8 and that we need a concept of fairness on the test. Butler suggested more open ended questions such as: What did you like best, least about the class? Kaplan mentioned that what is learned in a course is often forgotten or not retained after the course.
Meeting adjourned at 5:20 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted by,
______
Mary Brooks, Chair’s Assistant Rod Butler, Senate Chair