Academic Senate President Report

There is not a great deal to report this time around so I'll keep it as short as possible.

Show Cause Report Post Mortem:

Dr. Steinback and I organized a discussion on the Show Cause Report. A group of about 20 people participated in the hour and a half long meeting in which the pre-writing/writing, evidence and action plan phases of the report were discussed. You can access the minutes at the Show Cause Wiki. I will be hosting more discussions through different online and face to face modalities this week and then meeting again with Working Group Co-Chairs next week to create a timeline and workflow to gear up for our next round of accreditation reports/work. We can expect another Special Report and then, of course, the Self-Study.

Shared Governance Council:

There was a continued discussion on budget reductions… we are on Draft V of the report. Here is a bulleted list of items that were discussed/requested:

• Add a list of consultants. Who? And, how long?
  
• Get soft bids on services of law firms for in-house legal services and categorize our current legal issues.
  
• ASSC provided a list of budget reduction suggestions.
  
• Dr. Jensen recommends that for any reduction to be seriously considered it must first pass through and Ad Hoc group that would study and rank reduction recommendations.
  
• The goal is to move away from the "last in, first out" model of budget cuts to something that is more vision/efficiency/data driven.
  
• There has also been a FTES reporting error to the tune of 2 million dollars in overfunding. Dr. Jensen is in discussions with the Chancellor's office and is pushing for a 3 yr payback.
  

Robin Steinback presented an Enrollment Trend Analysis. I would like for her to present these findings at a future Senate meeting. Part of her efforts focused on various measurements of class size and % Fill. The administration's goal is for the college to be at 525 WSCH/FTEF. In order for this to happen SCC will need to analyze high enrollment classes, compare ourselves with other colleges and establish benchmarks for successful programs, look closely at our scheduling, and Deans must closely monitor enrollments.

Dr. Jensen advised us that the five person ACCJC team would be coming on April 27^th. They will, as last time, want to speak to the Senate. There was also a rumor on campus that the wrong draft of the Show Cause and/or the Closure Reports were filed with ACCJC. This rumor is entirely false.

The VPABS job description was slightly modified to emphasize CPA experience.

Members of SGC were given a report on scheduling effectiveness from December 2003, "Recommendations from the President's Task Force on Scheduling Effectiveness." We will discuss it next week.

Finally, the letters that were sent from CCA/NEA lawyer, Joseph Colton, to Dr. Barbara Beno and those that Dr. Beno sent to SCC were discussed. I recommend that Senators who are interested in this item should check the SGC minutes and attachments. There are four letters to view (two from Colton and two from Beno).

A letter to ACCJC Chairperson Gaines:

I've got a letter that I want the Senate to consider that would be sent to Ms. Gaines as a way of preserving the "integrity of the relationship between ACCJC" and SCC. I'll bring copies to the Senate meeting today.