Report to the Academic Senate

Senate President’s Report
Available as Word doc, too
October 6, 2008

Most of my time over the past few weeks has been spent, in conjunction with Erin Farmer and VPAA Robin Steinback, shepherding in the Accreditation Midterm and Special Report. As I mentioned at our Special Meeting on September 22, 2008 when the Academic Senate approved the reports, Shared Governance Council served as the review group for these documents and we met on three different occasions to come to full agreement, twice before our last Senate meeting and once on September, 18. During the week of September 22 the ASCC, EC and Shared Governance Council all approved the reports. The Board of Trustees approved the final version during their October 1st meeting. While I cannot say that the Accreditation Midterm and Special Report remained exactly as they were when they crossed the Senate’s desk, I can assure you that Erin and I worked diligently to ensure that the spirit of what the Senate approved was maintained. It was, to say the least, a challenging task. The final version of the reports is available on the Intranet under Events and Activities.

While the Board of Trustee meeting minutes are available for viewing, I thought you might like a few highlights. The Board gave Dr. Tanaka a certificate in recognition of receiving his 8th degree black belt, making him one of only 14 people in the United States with this honor. They accepted our Superintendent/President’s resignation. Finally, the Board approved the Accreditation Midterm and Special Report.

During Gerry Fisher’s retirement event on campus, I had the opportunity to speak with our new Interim Superintendent/ President, Lisa Waits, who would like to continue with the tradition of meeting one on one with the Senate President. I am glad that she has decided to meet with me because it is a great opportunity to bring Senate issues and concerns directly to the President of the College.

I have continued to meet with the Basic Skills Initiative Committee. Early on in the semester they agreed that their committee needed to formalize its proposal process and as a result they have been reviewing proposals. The full minutes can be found here, but it is worth mentioning that there are several valuable initiatives being generated by this committee, including a Center for Academic Success (similar to that at Butte College,) formalizing an Umoja group on campus. The complete list and estimated budgets are here:

The Fall State Academic Senate Plenary session will be upon us soon, November 6-8, 2008. In order for us to participate we need to register before October 27, 2008. The event takes place in Los Angeles. A full description of Plenary is available here. Senators should consider if they’d like to participate. In the past we’ve sent four representatives.

I received a letter from the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. They are calling for nominations to represent the Senate on the Chancellor’s Office Counseling Advisory Committee (CAC). Nominations for representatives to the Senate must be accepted by October 9, 2008. Additionally, the ASCCC President’s update can be found here.

Finally, I wanted to announce that the junior Senator from Humanities, Lisa Giambastiani, has graciously accepted a request to be the Senate Secretary.