17³Ô¹Ï Academic Senate Minutes
March 22, 2004; 2:30 – 4:30 pm, Room
6712
Meeting was called to order at 2:36 p.m.
Bea Cashmore will be replaced by Janet
Spybrook and Mary Hawkins in Spring and Fall.
Consent calendar was approved.
Part-time faculty issues – Rich Storer discussed the various
activities FA has been engaged in to help advance issues and
increase benefits for part-time faculty. These include office
hours, health care, and comparable pay for comparable work. The
part-time equivalency (resolution) would roll PFE into base
funds, which will allow COLA and growth funds for part-time
pay. FA drew up part-time equivalence, including language to
gain support and bring issue to the board of governors. FA
noted that the percentage of classes taught by part-time
faculty is now equal or greater than 50%. FA has tried to
convince the State to hire more towards the 75/25 full-time /
part-time faculty ratio, rather than the current 50/50 ratio.
Motion: Proposal to support the resolution
passed with two abstentions.
Faculty speaker - Dolores Davison informed the Senate on the activities
related to faculty speaker. Included in the latest language was
the ability of faculty for nomination and self-nomination. One
faculty speaker nomination has moved to the student (services)
group. A motion to approve the resolution passed unanimously.
Faculty handbook –
Bernadine Fong and Warren Hurd
Bernadine Fong noted that the faculty
handbook was the only record of faculty practice and what is
covered during faculty orientation. If the plus/minus grading
issue is resolved at the April 19th board meeting it should be included in the
faculty handbook. Adding a cell-phone policy is another
possible inclusion. Stanford is now part of our service area as
well. The disclaimer issue was the principle topic discussed.
Language to the effect that “Faculty handbook was
reviewed but not written by Senate members” was
suggested. The Senate discussed language that would say the
handbook represented ‘best practice’ the document
has been reviewed by the Senate to update (better) faculty
practice. The faculty handbook is a descriptive document of
best practices. The faculty handbook is the primary document
that new faculty are given during orientation (aside from the
FA agreement) Senate represents faculty academic issues and
past practice. Faculty handbook covers what responsible faculty
do – it is a ‘normative document’. The
faculty handbook committee will go back discuss some of the
language.
Curriculum committee issues – Shirley Treanor Barker addressed
the senate on some recent curriculum issues. In particular,
some of our courses may not be transferring, even when they
have been articulated. Online education, in particular, may not
be accepted by some of our educational partners in the CSU and
UC system. General education issues have also been a focus of
recent curriculum committee activity that faculty should be
aware of. Shirley will provide a hyperlink to some recent
documents, including a list of classes that can be audited.
Parameters are also being developed for online, hybrid, and Web
enhanced courses. It was proposed that Shirley meet with the
Senate executive leaders to discuss some of these issues, and
also to increase the contact between the Senate and the
curriculum committee. In the online area, information regarding
student success rates, and gathering both student and faculty
perspectives of online education were suggested as important
areas of focus.
College Committees – Paul Starer will be circulating an urgent
message to college committees to see which committees are
active, what their charters are, their current membership, etc.
This information will be used to update a master committee
list, and those committees that are not active will be
disbanded. Eventually this information will be available
through the 17³Ô¹Ï Senate website.
Plus / minus grading – the plus / minus grading issue will be
discussed at the April 19th FHDA board meeting. Draft language will be
circulated as soon as we determine what that language has
become.
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