Cosumnes River College
Academic Senate
Regular Meeting
Oct. 26, 2007
Orchard Room
Senators Present: Kale Braden, Georgine Hodgkinson, BJ Snowden, Hiram Jackson, Lily Kun, Margaret Woodcock, Rubina Gulati, Collette Cole, Sue Palm, Norv Wellsfry, Debra Welkley, Richard Schuebert, Travis Parker, Michelle Barkley, Constance Carter, Marjorie Duffy, Jamey Nye, Gary Martin, Maha Myren, Tamyra Carmona, Dennis Daugherty, Greg Beyrer,
Guests Present: Lanny Hertzberg
Call to order at 12:37 pm
Announcements
CCE committee is working with Margaret Woodcock about a new mural for placement in the library between L-111 and media services. 9x40 feet. This will be painted directly on the wall instead of on sections for mounting.
Additions to and approval of the agenda
Using Technology for Forms – for a later meeting
Text book task force
Norv Wellsfry reports a district taskforce was created last spring to look into pricing of textbooks for students. LRCCD has joined a consortium that will examine electronic textbook use. There is a national study about this issue, and the taskforce will be doing a general context survey of faculty in November on four primary areas related to textbook selection and use.
Mental Health Senate Taskforce Update
Nurse Michelle Barkley announces the intention to add a mental health professional to be on campus for our student needs. This is being funded as an ESA for temporary work while consideration of a full-time position is prioritized through the VP-SS office.
Action Item:
Minutes of October 12 2007 approved by consensus.
Updates
Faculty Forum progress report
The groups are meeting my e-mail. Issues are going to be winnowed into top priority items to move forward jointly with administration.
CRC Mission Statement
Senate version moved to College Planning Committee. A new draft will be returned to us. The time for revisions is NOW. This work must be completed for the next catalog.
Basic Skills Initiative
Handout provided. President Jamey Nye and Budget Chair Gary Martin met with VP of Student Services Celia Esponito Noy to discuss process for spending Basic Skills money with Senate and faculty participation. Nye is soliciting faculty members to be lead faculty on a Basic Skills taskforce to work on assessing what is happening already so that new directions and budget allocations can be based on strategic planning, existing unit plans, and basic skills departments input existing initiatives and new directions.
Faculty and Staff Handbook Revision
Group is working on a time to meet.
Second Reading: Academic Honor Code
The revised and simplified draft honor code addresses modifications to simplify both the conceptual and linguistic language for improved student understanding and engagement. Handout provided.
Moved/Seconded/unanimous approval to adopt the code and move it forward to the Executive Council for adoption by the campus wide community.
Discussion Items
Faculty Prioritization
Meeting for Faculty prioritization will be Nov. 5. The negotiation process will include one additional faculty participant to join with the higher number of administrative participants. Sue Palm, Curriculum committee chair, will join the senate executive team to attend the meeting.
The senate annually reviews its own interests in priority criteria for guiding the
Exec. Team and Sue who will attend the meeting. Issues were listed on the board, consensus was gathered, and a final list was advanced to the Executive Team.
Compressed Calendar
Send comments to Georgine Hodgkinson.
Emeritus Professor
This issue is brought back to CRC Academic Senate. It was determined at District Senate that this was not a district-wide issue at this time.
A variety of benefits to retired professors are provided at different district colleges including free on campus parking (ARC) , ID badges (SCC). Lanny Hertzberg reports President Francisco Rodriguez was not ready to create this benefits under this own authority, which is why this issue now resides in the Academic Senate.
Handout provided. Some of the issues contained belong to the Senate, others belong to the union. Based on the discussion at District senate, it was suggested that any emeritus professor process should be based on campus needs (which would need to be identified), and also on a standard for granting the emeritus title. One idea would be to have the professional development committee get involved.
Georgine Hodgkinson, Colette Cole, BJ Snowden and Lanny Hertzberg will revise a proposal and involve professional development on a revised proposal.
Campus Sustainability Sub-Committee
A request by Debra Sharkey. Postponed until next time.
Interim College President Restrictions
Send comments to Jamey Nye. ACTION: Jamey will send pros and cons document to the senate.
Accreditation
Norv Wellsfry, the faculty lead on acredition announced faculty co-chairs.
Standard One: Colette Cole.
Standard Two: DanDuBray
Standard Three Gary Martin
Standard Four: Georgine Hodgkinson.
Other faculty will serve as chairs for the sub-sections of each standard
President Rodriguez and Dean of Instruction will be asked to visit senate to report on their recent accreditation site visits..
Adjournment at
Next meeting of the Academic Senate—9 November 12:30-2:00 Orchard Room
Senate Prioritization Values on the Board
Academic Integrity
Retirement replacement
2*History of requests
Program Review / Unit Plan
Growth areas
4*Programs taught primarily by adjunct/smaller-1 person depts
Diversity in faculty reflects student population
2*Recognition that Voc. Ed is valuable Mission
Fulltime/ part-time ratio
5*Difficulty of hiring adjuncts
Single-person departments
Disciplines of emerging importance
Critical evaluation of non-instructional faculty
Critical evaluation of split positions
Critical evaluation of coordinators
Interests of smaller programs
Avoid creating coordinator positions as new hires
1*Academic excellenceCurricular Academic breadth and depth
Faculty driven positions vs. Administrative driven positions.
High retention programs
Floating / rotating positions
Release time 1.0