Academic Senate President’s Report to the Board

Farewells:

Vice President of Technology and Learning Resources Jay Field. I wanted to personally thank you for your time and dedication to Solano College. Long Beach City College is fortnuate to have you and Solano will seem a little less without you.

Meetings:

Process Evaluation and Review Team (PERT): This group met for the first time officially and we reviewed the charge, scope and composition of the PERT. Additionally, we prioritized our first set of objectives for the year. We will meet regularly for the next few Fridays and then less frequently after that. I appointed Ruth Fuller and Tracy Schneider to this committee as senate faculty representatives. The Senate President is an ex-oficio member.

Accreditation:

The Report: Dr. Steinback advised us that the final draft of the report is available on the Intranet. I advised the Senate that there have been some minor revisions, so it is important for the Senate to read and ensure the final product is not substantively different from the one we approved last week.

Training: Last week Friday a team of Solano College faculty and administrators went to an ACCJC standards and self-study training. Because we have become, unfortunately, such experts on accreditation, there wasn't a great deal of new material. However, it was a good opportunity to meet some of the commission employees, ask direct questions about standards, and to come together as a team from SCC. Additionally, it was important to hear yet again that the Standards are not some arbitrary guideline established by the ACCJC in isolation but rather produced by us and our peers. I did receive an e-mail questioning why SCC was obligated to participate in the training. The answer is that we could have refused to participate. However, eligibility requirement 21 requires the college to maintain a healthy and professional relationship with ACCJC. Not going would have damaged that relationship.

Division Deans: I am in the process of meeting with Division Deans. My goal is to get feedback from them on the accreditation process at SCC, to see how they might contribute, and to on their division agendas to speak directly to faculty to answer any questions they might have and the solicit help for the next reports… especially the self-study in October.

In the Senate:

Basic Skills and Program Review. Dr. Steinback brought the Senate up-to-speed on the BSI coordinator positions that have gone through the appropriate channels and will soon be advertised to all faculty. Additionally, she presented a revised program review schedule that compensates for previous deficiencies and re-aligns this process with that of our accreditation self-study schedule.

Learning Communities. Brad Paschal reported that our Learning Communities Committee is focusing it's efforts this semester on PR, spreading the word about our LC courses and working to increase enrollment and faculty participation.

Working toward our goals: The Senate has established taskforces to achieve our goals for the year.

1. Election Procedures: Karen Wanek and Matt Borchert will be producing a report on how elections are going this year and then will pass that information on to Lou McDermott who will incorporate this information into his work exploring options for Senate election procedures.
   
2. Constitution/Proportional Representation – No report
   
3. Enrollment Management—LaNae Jaimez discussed the basics of this taskforce's plans to: raise awareness about the numbers associated with enrollment management, collaborate with other groups on campus to collect best practices for student retention and persistence, and report all findings at the end of the year.
   
4. Accreditation Committee: No Report
   

A question for the Senate?

We discussed a letter that Humanities Senator Lisa Giambastiani had presented from one of her constituents. In essence the letter poses the question, "Should faculty be obligated to sign the evaluations of their supervisors?" The Senate is currently discussing if this falls under our 10 + 1 obligations.

Other items:

The Senate office has been moved to 422.