Academic Senate President Report

For a Word version go here.

Meetings

Shared Governance Council (SGC): SGC is working on how to best address the Strategic Planning review and ranking proposal process. Because this is the "first time around" with this process SGC felt the need to create these guidelines. When we have a final copy, I'll present it to the Senate.

An interesting item did come up regarding the timeline for the Strategic Planning Proposals. As a result of my reading on the faculty role in these matters, one item jumped out to me. The Academic Senate is NOT included in the "Process for Planning a New Strategy". In other words, a strategy could go through the process and the Senate (as a body) would not have to approve it. This raises some red flags. We will need to discuss this.

Additionally, we were presented with a draft proposal by S/P Waits to create a College Accreditation Steering Committee. While I favor the idea of this kind of committee, because we were presented with a draft copy that had not been finalized nor had been vetted with the Senate, I voted against its creation. I'm not sure, to be honest, if the proposal passed.

Superintendent/ President Meeting: Our discussion items included accreditation, institutional planning and budget, the final exam schedule mishap, curriculum and outreach, and a rumor about the State budget and SCC reserve funds.

• I gave Dr. Waits an update on the Senate's movement toward giving the Accreditation Committee shape and form.
  
• I also presented her with an application form and information on a joint ASCCC and CCLC presentation to our college on budget processes.
  
• She mentioned that Tom Henry has been working on an audit of the campus budget and that she will be presenting her findings to the Board during their December 3^rd meeting.
  
• I presented the idea of faculty forums to get our input on the upcoming possible 7% cuts. Dr. Waits has proposed that we hold a forum this semester and then subsequent forums in the spring. (See Plenary, below).
  
• She thanked me for my measured e-mail response to the final exam schedule errors.
  
• She also eagerly accepted Erin Farmer's suggestion that the college actively survey the community about the kinds of courses they might see us offer. This would not only allow us to serve the community's needs, but would help improve our image across the county.
  
• At the Academic Senate Plenary, we had heard a rumor that the State had the right to confiscate our reserves in excess of the 3-5% recommended amounts. Considering the College has somewhere in the area of 9-12% in reserves, this is a significant amount of money. Dr. Waits could not confirm this information.
  

RI/ Grant writer:
I've been working with Josh Stein, Tracey Schneider and Rob Simas on creating a Strategic Proposal for an Institutional Researcher and Grant Writer position for Solano College. For now, we have identified need, written draft language on the job description, have plans to propose the formation of an Academic Senate Grants Committee and generally been "dreaming" about how helpful this would be for the college. I'll pass on the documents as we get further along in the process.

Misc

Senate Plenary

• As a response to a recent legal decision interpreting Title 5 as prohibiting the failing of a student from a course based on ONE incident of academic dishonesty, the senate has passed a resolution to create a working group to develop a position paper promoting stronger faculty guidance in this area.
  
• The Senate voted to create a resource library compiling SLO materials from all colleges. This information-sharing will aid in the development and refining of SLOs and reaffirmed its opposition to use of student attainment of SLOs in faculty evaluations.
  
• In the course of chatting with faculty colleagues at other institutions, as well as during a keynote address from Bill Scroggins, CEO at the College of the Sequoias, we learned that at least two colleges have discontinued the services of Zampi and Associates in order to save money and to reduce contention between faculty and administration. The Ohlone College Senate representative noted that their college had spent approximately 3 million in legal fees in just a few years. And CEO Scroggins reported that one of the first things he did when he took over as CEO was to fire the firm because it was too costly and did not serve the faculty and students' interests.
  
• We also heard from several faculty members that their CIOs reported that they had learned at their recent conference "CCCCIO Fall 2008 Conference: CIOs Open the Golden Gate'" that the state can confiscate local district reserves beyond the minimum required by the state. This raised concerns for us as it might mean that our district could lose a substantial sum that would have served students, faculty and staff.
  
• Several workshops were dedicated to senate leadership in institutional planning and budget development. While the senate does not control the budget, we were reminded that the senate can and should take a leadership role in the college's budget processes. Considering the fact that colleges may face budget cuts of 7-10%, our first question should be, "How can all constituent groups participate in the decisions as to how these cuts will occur?" Some other districts, Santa Rosa JC, for example, have already established faculty advisory committees in anticipation of cuts.
  
• Information presented at a breakout session on the state of Information Competency at various colleges confirmed that Solano is among the leaders in local implementation of an Information Competency requirement.
  
• The state Academic Senate also passed of resolutions that may impact accreditation. One recommends that the ASCCC conduct research to gather data from colleges and share this research across the system while another recommends that ACCJC develop and implement more complete and thorough training for accreditation teams.
  

Accreditation Ad Hoc:
Will meet again with the group on Friday. Anyone interested, please feel free let me know and I'll include you in the group.

Correspondence:
I've received the following letters from the ASCC

• The ASCCC dues collection ($2,230.90)
  
• A reminder about the Board of Governors nominations.
  
• The ASCCC President's update.