Dean Team Minutes Present (*): Kathie Hunt* (KH) Samira Pardanani* (SP) Guests:
April 15, 2014 Kim Thompson (KT) Dan Fey* (DF)
9:00 – 11:00 a.m. Bob Francis* (BF) Gillian Lewis* (GL)
Central Conference Room Susan Hoyne* (SH) Alison Stevens* (AS)
Bayta Maring* (BLM) Ann Garnsey-Harter* (AGH)
/ Topic / Presenter / Discussion / Action Items /1 / Minutes / All / The March 21 and 25 minutes were approved.
2 / University of Phoenix Partnership / AGH / We have updated our articulation agreement with UP. Ann distributed statistics tracked by UP on how many students from SCC go to UP. The agreement we have includes a reverse articulation agreement and helps us with SAI points. Students get a discount on tuition if they got their AA before they transfer. UP is trying to be a true partner. We focused on 5 pathways: Business, Criminal Justice, Manufacturing/Machinist, Communications and Psychology. Business is the biggest focus. They are willing to get a roundtable together for Business. Ann reported the UP is the #1 place community college graduates in the state go. Ann will talk to Bob about Social Sciences and follow up with Gillian about Business folks having a meeting with UP.
3 / Acceptance of Online Lab Science Courses / Cynthia Okawara / Ann explained that several faculty who teach online lab courses brought this up as an issue because they heard advisors in International Education are advising against taking these courses even though they are not science majors.
Cynthia responded there are a lot of reasons why they do not recommend online. It does not make sense for International Students to take online in most cases. They need listening and speaking as well. If they are going to high level schools they need high scores on their TOEFL. They need to improve all areas of their English. Plagiarism is an issue Immigration wise they can only have one online class per quarter. There are some high level schools that do not accept certain online credits. Cynthia has specific examples. Our transcripts have an N section number on them indicating it’s an online course.
Does IE have an issue with hybrid courses? No. They are a great option for our students. Cynthia tells students if they want to take an online class, try a hybrid. They have face-to-face contact. If they are lost in a Science or Math class and no one is there to connect with them they are behind forever. There is no hope usually for them to catch up.
USC accepts no online; UC Davis won’t accept an online lab; Michigan accepts no online Math. We have new students coming in, and these are dream schools for many of them. A lot of our students want to go to the UC system. We can’t set them up for failure. UC Berkeley does not accept online. High level private schools won’t accept online course work.
UW is hard to get into for Business especially. They have a writing test. It’s a good reason for them to take extra Humanities classes. Bob said they are putting English prerequisites on their Economics classes. Econ schools now require a TOEFL. Many International Students have Math skills but not the written ability.
Ann said there are a lot of technologies around plagiarism we can implement. They piloted one in the English department that worked well. There is a moral dilemma with the fact student papers automatically become part of the database. Alison said you agree as an institution all papers submitted becomes part of it. It is integrated into Canvas. Kathie said they are finding plagiarism in art classes now. In photography they are stealing images. All of a sudden faculty have to start putting images through the database.
4 / Unacceptable Communication and Behavior / GL / Gillian spoke of incidents with students who have a lack of civility. There appears to be an expectation the world will change to accommodate whatever they need. Faculty are trying to deal and cope with this. It seems there should be in every syllabus some reference to appropriate professional communication required. Kathie talked about inappropriate things that are posted on discussion boards. There is a sense that anything is okay to say if you are feeling emotional or angry about something, or didn’t get what you wanted. Kathie doesn’t think it is just students; she sees this in other areas as well.
Gillian said we need the whole campus to get involved. Alison said there is a model code of conduct on its way from the WSSSC. It should go to the Faculty Senate. That will be helpful to us. Alison talked about how civility is very much cultural. Bob said we do owe our students some culturalization to appropriate behavior in the work place. Bob remembers this being an issue in 1974 and civility was a conversation then. He is not sure we have any greater incivility today than we did in 1974.
We don’t have mental health care like we used to, and we need more skills in understanding how to diffuse situations.
Bob said if we had conversations of our expectations every year (including behavioral expectations) we would be able to say when people are outside of our expectations. He has expectations in his syllabus, and he thinks you do have to say explicitly those are the expectations. When someone crosses the line, review the expectations.
5 / Noel Levitz Survey / BLM / Bayta said the Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Survey is being launched on April 23. The Student Parliament wants students responding and they have a lot of energy around it. They have branded the survey as a Student Voice Project – take stock, take the survey, take control. There will be posters, lawn signs and lapel buttons. They are filming a promotional video too. Bayta distributed the draft “wild card” questions; 4 are from Student Parliament, 4 are related to Global Awareness and 2 are about understanding student perceptions related to diversity on campus. Online students will have a separate survey. The diversity questions will be placed at the top; Dan recommended making questions #1 and #7 more intentional.
Bayta announced she has a new permanent Assistant Director, Juliet Scarpa.
6 / Retention / AS / Postponed.
7 / Standing Item: JUMC Update / BF / They determined the number for Senior Associate faculty. That will come out to you fairly quickly. Faculty have the right to say no. Deans asked Bob to put bumping on the agenda for JUMC. The complaint track spreadsheet is acceptable.
8 / Good of the Order / Kathie provided information from the recent ATC meeting she attended. They are being asked to vote on the following recommendations:
(1) “Community and Technical colleges that offer ENGL 100 as a composition course below the ENGL& 101 (English Composition I) level, will need to renumber ENGL 100 to a two-digit number (e.g. ENGL 99) effective (date TBD).” This will impact all planning sheets and information. This would be effective Fall 2015. WE have to figure this out; it also means it has to go through the Curriculum Committee.
(2) ENGL 100 courses currently being used as a career and technical English course need to change the ENGL prefix to one that reflects career and technical coursework (e.g. WRT). They want to make a distinction between English and things that are Prof-Tech. The reason for this is CCN. Anything English is considered transfer. It has become an issue because of all the movement toward baccalaureates in prof-tech areas. It has to be changed to make it clear what is a transferable class, and it has to be clear to people transcripting things.
If English 100 becomes 95, it will not count as a college-level course. That is the issue. Up to this point we have been allowed to use it as a restrictive elective. It will affect everyone’s SAI points.
Another major thing ATC is talking about is Nursing pathways. They are making changes on what is acceptable for Humanities credits. The issue is one way they are able to make this work is no one else has access to these except Nursing students. They are specific to Nursing.
They are trying to push 3 credits of Wellness too. 14 of 28 schools have it as a requirement. 14 do not. Some have full-time faculty and some do not. It comes down to the local institutional level. They have to make choices and what do they value. At SCC we said to keep multicultural understanding. They are basically saying this isn’t a luxury either. There is a huge push right now.
Adjourned 11:06 a.m.
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