Meeting Minutes for Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Approved 4-27-2011
Meeting Minutes for Wednesday, April 13, 2011
BC 214, 3:00 – 5:00 pm
Members Present: Ignacio Alarcón (President), Cornelia Alsheimer, Barbara Bell, Cindy Bower, Susan Broderick, Stan Bursten, Priscilla Butler (for Gail Reynolds), Angel Cardenas, Gary Carroll, Stephanie Durfor,Esther Frankel, Jack Friedlander, Tom Garey, David Gilbert, David Morris, Kenley Neufeld, Dean Nevins, Kathy O’Connor, Ellen Stoddard (for Sally Saenger), Lou Spaventa
Members Absent: Steve DaVega, Zuma Vallejo-Howard (Student Rep), Gail Reynolds, Sally Saenger, Jan Schultz
Guest(s):Marsha Croninger, Johan Hammerby (The Channels), Laurie Vasquez
1.0 Call to Order
1.1 Public Comments – no request received
1.2 Approval of Agenda so approved with added agenda items 2.4 and 2.5 and 3.3
1.3Approval of Minutes 04-06-11
M/S/C To approve the meeting minutes of April 6, 2011 w/requestedinformation added about credit/non credit Music coursecontent (Carroll/Nevins) 1 abstention
2.0 Information
2.1 A Big Thank You to V.P. Ofelia Arellano for Her Session to Discuss Continuing
Education Landscape/Recent History with the Academic Senate on April 6
2.1.1 Summer 2009, and Summer 2010 C.E. Offerings (pg. 7)
2.1.2 C.E. Enhanced Funding Overview (pg. 8-12)
Senate President Alarcón reported the two agenda attachments are the documents V.P. Ofelia Arellano brought to CPC, item 2.1.2 is a new document not previously seen by the Senate about enhanced funding.
2.2 Academic Senate Summer Meeting to be Held July 13
Ignacio announced the date for the Senate summer meeting: Wednesday, July 13, 3-5 p.m. in BC214.
2.3 Luria Library Reception on Occasion of the Award for 2011 Excellence in
Academic Libraries, Library Patio, April 14, 1:30 – 2:30 pm
SBCC’s Luria Library is the national winner in the community college category for the Association of College and Research Library’s (ACRL) 2011 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award competition.
Ignacio congratulated Senate Vice President and Library Director Kenley Neufeld. Kenley reminded everyone that the Library willbe hosting areception on April 14, wherethe President of the Association of College and Research Libraries and the YBP Library Services V.P. of Sales will present the award. There will be live music and food.
2.4 Continuing Education Representative on the Senate - added agenda item
Ignacio announced that Ellen Stoddard would be sitting in for Sally Saenger today.Due to a teaching conflict Ellen may be subbing for Sally at remaining Senate meetings this term. Ellen wanted to comment on one of the attached documents provided by Continuing Education Vice President Arellano on April 6. This document is found on page 12 of the agenda. In particular, the last sentence where it states “…on behalf of CE students, the CE Division…” and Ellen wanted to point out that there was no shared governance, no conversation, no discussion with faculty who know nothing about this. Ellen is a full time instructor in Continuing Education and when she saw this document it was the first time she had seen it. This paper does not represent the Continuing Education Division. Ms. Stoddard said she wasn’t sure of who in Continuing Education Divisionwas responsible for this document.Ellen also referred to the conversation at the last Senate meeting about the Band and Music classes. Ellen said that they were not told they could not offer the courses. An outline could have been written for older adults that would allow the music classes to continue; Ellen is on the Curriculum Review Committee and this could have happened. Aboutthe requirement that a majority of older adults is needed in a class for older adults, Ellen said that this is not true. The course outline of record needs to reflect the needs of older adults, but the classes are offered as open enrollment classes, like any other Continuing Education class. For example, Parenting Education classes need to be written with parents in mind but anyone can take the class.
2.5 Follow up on the visit by Business Services V.P. Joe Sullivan
Lou Spaventa wanted to ask the VP of Business Services: Why are we looking at tens and five thousand dollars while we have overruns of millions of dollars in construction projects? It seems that every time we get a bid we get jobbed. We are paying millions of dollars and breaking our budget and squabbling over thousands of dollars. How do you control that and where is the responsibility? How do we get a handle on that? Isn’t that a budget breaker right away? Gary Carroll said that his understanding is that we have to take the lowest bid. Jack responded that we are supposed to go with the most reasonable bid; the problem is that with a remodel you don’t know really know what will take place. These overruns are not unusual with these types of construction projects. From what we have learned from past experience we are now being proactive and for the CampusCenter we are paying more money up front to do a full forensic study of the building and that information will be in the specs when we go out to bid. Tom Garey said that for most buildings the college does not have as-built drawings, so we find problems only after going into the structure. Lou believed the budget discussion to be a moot point when we have these millions of dollars of overages that we have to account for. Lou said it was very frustrating to argue overreaderand tutor budgets, while we are paying millions of dollars in overages.
3.0 Hearing/Discussion
3.1 Faculty Recognition Committee Recommendations for Nomination for Rice
Diversity Award, and for Faculty Excelence Awards 2011-2012
Barbara Bell, on behalf of FRC chair Laura Welby, reported that for the individual Rice Diversity Award the nominee is Ignacio Ponce American Sign Language instructor from the School of Modern Languages Division. The Rice Diversity Award program nominee is the Veterans Support Program.
Barbara also announced the nomineesfor the 2011-2012 Faculty Excellence Award and they are:
Blake Barron-Biological Sciences
Cindy Bower-Associate Degree in Nursing
Dixie Budke-School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management
Paula Congleton-Physical Education, Dance, & Athletics
Steve Conti-Disabled Students Programs and Services
Pam Guenther-Mathematics
M/S/C To move the FRC recommendations to action (Carroll/Broderick) Unanimous
M/S/C To approve the FRC nominations for the individualRice Diversity Award nominee Ignacio Ponce and the program nominee Veterans Support and also the nominees Blake Barron; Cindy Bower; Dixie Budke; Paula Congleton; Steve Conti; Pam Guenther for the 2011-2012 Faculty Excellence Award (Carroll/Broderick) Unanimous
3.2Criteria to be Considered forReductions of Class Offerings (pg. 13-15)
Jack reported that there will be a workload reduction. Starting with academic year 2011-12 the state will be paying us less money for enrollments and our funded FTES cap will be substantially lower than what the cap was for this year. How much lower that funding will be depends on what happens with the finalization of the state budget. We know for a fact that starting summer and going forward we will be getting paid less for enrollment than we are generating this year. This year we are going to be slightly over our FTES funded cap. Given that we have already cut beyond the “low hanging fruit” from credit and our budget TLUs aretied to a dollar amount,we could sit down with the deans andindividual department chairs we could see what we could do knowing that we have to reach a certain target. We have never taken the approach of saying to every department that they have to cut 5 or 10%. The end result, however, is that we have to get to a certain overall cut and we can’t not offer the courses students must have to complete certificates, degrees and/or transfers. We have a whole array of elective classes in IGETC and we may have to restrict the breadth and diversity of those offerings. We also know going into fall that we do not have some critical sections that students must have. Jack then referred to agenda page 14 the Guidelines Chart and began to explain the Tier levels. Jack wanted to preface by saying: everything we are offering now we offer for a reason. There is nothing we currently offer that does not have a good rationale otherwise it would not be offered. Tier one cuts would be the lowest priority courses, not essential to the primary mission of the college and they would be cut first. Non-credit is also tied into this. It is all a part of the same pool. The more non-credit offerings we approve, the more we’ll have to cut in credit. The state gives us a certain amount of dollars that they reimburse us for FTES. How you get to that dollar amount between credit, enhanced non-credit and non- enhanced non-credit is up to the institution right now, although the state has given clear priorities. The Chancellor’s Office, the federal government, all have given clear priorities as to what is at stake and what the focus should be on.
Gary Carroll asked about PD courses – PD 100 is transferable but not required and probably should be at Tier two or Tier three. Esther asked about Skills Competency Awards as they are not state approved but they do prepare students for a job. Esther is not hearing much about the Career Technical area and is worried that a whole Career Technical Education area may be left out because of where on the Tier level these courses and awards may fall. Personal enrichment is often declared, when it is actually workforce development. Jack clarified that what is not being proposed right now is Program reductions. SCAs may fall on Tier level three. Tom said he had a question about definitions. We use terms such as avocational, recreational, personal enrichment. For some students these could be part of their major. How do we draw the distinction?How do we adjust cuts to make sure that the students who need those classes for their major can get them? Stan Bursten asked if Tom wanted declared majors to be a part of this conversation and the response was: declared majors and then some. Jack said starting this summer and especially for fall students are going to be asked to update their major goal and objective every enrollment period. We are looking at changing priority registration. Priority would be given to students who have declared a major and not only on accumulated units. That would allow us to look at those scarce classes; an analysis of courses students must have for their IGETC requirements and the narrowest way to get the major requirements. Something has to go and we also have to make sure we have enough sections for what studentsreally need to take. We will have double pressure on us this fall. We have a large increase in the number of new full time transfer-oriented students and we are getting many students who in the past would have been accepted to a UC or CSU and are now not getting accepted and they are in our transfer center asking: what do we have to do to increase our chances of getting in.
Dean Nevins commented that he would like to advocate for the system we have now, where decisions are made in consultation with chairs and the deans. They are the area experts. Jack said that is always a given. Dean wanted to know how we are going to track what is being eliminated and what has been eliminated. He would like the process to be tracked and visible to be available publicly to see what has been cut. The experts are the faculty and they should be trusted to know what courses should be offered. Dean recommended letting the deans and chairs have a first attempt. Senators agreed.Jack explained that he trusted the current methods and he appreciated the discussion. The Guidelines were basically suggestions and information to help the deans and chairs with some parameters before they started cutting; to consider them voluntary guidelines. Lou Spaventa echoed that we need to trust each other and depend on our integrity. It is essential. We also need to communicate not just with each other we need to get involved in communicating this to the community/the public about what we are doing. Kenley added if it is a severity issue he wanted to make sure there is ample time to have the conversation with departments before the TLUs are distributed and before any scheduling deadlines.
3.3 Senate Support for the Partnership for Student Success - added agenda item
Kenley reported that on February 23, 2011 the Senate heard and reviewed the PSS Year 4 Report with Kathy Molloy.Dean Nevins said that it would be good to consolidate PSS funding, put the funding source for PSS in one place. Portions of PSS are in the budget but not all PSS items are in the budget. Kenley said the handout provides some background on the PSS proposal and specifically about Superintendent/President Serban’s visit to the Senate, where she had expressed her desire to make this “part of the ongoing annual budget as a line item…” There wasan October 28, 2009 unanimous vote from the Academic Senate to endorse Superintendent/President Serban’sdesire. Kenley explained that this has not yet happenedand the request before you is to reaffirm the motion to havePSS a line item in the budget.There is no doubt about the commitment and that commitment has been: we will find the money somewhere to fund PSS next year. For a large and important award winning program such as this it would be very beneficial that it become an explicit commitment; to have presence and become a part of the budget building process.
M/S/C To move the reaffirmation of support for the PSS Funding Recommendation/Endorsementto Action (Broderick/Spaventa) Unanimous
M/S/C To approve the reaffirmation of unanimous support for PSS Funding with the recommendation to consolidate the entire PSS budget in one placeand to be a part of the ongoing annual college budget as a line item(Broderick/Spaventa) Unanimous
4.0 Action
4.1 Sabbatical Proposals Reviewed and Approved by Sabbatical Leave Committee
(Collette Barr, Jan Schultz, Eric Wise)
Ignacio announced that Rob Dependahl has declined his Sabbatical which leavesEric Wise next in line, and Eric has confirmed that he is ready and willing to go on sabbatical leave in 2011-2012.
M/S/C To approve Sabbatical Leaves for Collette Barr, Jan Schultz and Eric Wise (Garey/Bell)
4.2 About Recommendations for Budget 2011-2012 Building by Executive Committee
- Scenarios for $10.5m Expenditure Reductions through 2013-14 (pg. 16-18)
Added Reference: The green handout with added scenarios 4, 5 and 6, considering $6.8m reductions.
(agenda p16-17) Scenario’s 1-3 assume a $10.5million revenue reduction and assumes Prop 98 is suspended.
(green handout) Scenario’s 4-6 assume a $6.8million revenue reduction and assumes Prop 98 is not suspended
Kenley Neufeld reported that Planning and Resources met yesterday and discussed the six scenarios. Scenario 1 identifies all $10.5 million in cuts coming from California resident credit FTES. Scenario 2 identifies $9 million in cuts from credit FTES and $1.5 million from non-credit non-enhanced FTES. Scenario 3 identifies $9 million in cuts from credit FTES and $1.5 million from non-credit non-enhanced and enhanced non-credit FTES. Scenario 4 identifies all $6.8 million in cuts coming from California resident credit FTES. Scenario 5 identifies $6 million in cuts from credit FTES and $800,000 from non-credit non-enhanced FTES. Scenario 6 cuts $6 million from credit FTES and $800,000 million from non-credit non-enhanced and enhanced non-credit FTES. P&R voted on Scenario 5 but there seemed to be a lack of clarity as to whether we should start the cuts in Spring 2012 or not. The second motion P&R passed was the non-credit non-enhanced cut should be spread out in a similar way that the credit cut is being spread out.
Kenley added that he voted against Scenario 5 because of the non-credit piece. He believed that cuts to non-credit FTES should be delayed and paid for out of reserves until those courses have a fee-based structure in place.
Option/Scenario 2 would follow the same pattern as Option/Scenario 5 however P&R wanted to focus on the $6.8 million and not be super pessimistic and based on the supposition that Prop 98 would not be suspended.
Esther asked after reading Scenario 5 that it sounded like we are planning to offer the same number of Continuing Education classes but rather than being state supported some of the courses would be fee- based. Esther wanted to know if that was a true statement. Jack said some would be self supporting fee based classes. The state will reimburse us for much less but the college would still be getting revenue from fees the students are paying. Esther asked if that was taken into account, in the fee reduction in other words is that net or a reduction in TLUs? Kathy O’Connor said that is the reduction in FTES. Esther continued: so, actually the reduction would be less than what it says here because the college would be getting revenue from the fee-based courses, is that a true statement? Jack said in essence that is true, the college would be saving money because the college general fund would not be incurring the direct and indirect cost of providing those courses which are now fee based which would cover direct costs and overhead and we have taken that into account. Esther had another observation: There is a number hanging out there, $3million that is not accounted for and she wanted to point out that there have been some discussions at a division meeting with Andreea and Jack where we talked about ideas of increasing revenue and those ideas are not included even though this is a ‘scenario’ the revenue side is not included in the scenario. Esther wanted to point out that the $3million dollars in the scenario could be less. Esther understood there are a lot of ways to that $3million to have an impact and we could offset that by increased revenue or by decreased cost expenses. David Morris wanted to understand this correctly: in the $6.8 million plan, $3.3 million of needed reductions are not identified. Jack responded, that is the money that is reduced every year. The college’s proposal is to get to that reduction over a three year period, by making use of the reserves. The cuts are ongoing. Few schools, like us, have the luxury of phasing the cuts in.