Senate President’s Report to the Board

Meetings and Events:

Scholarship Foundation Awards Ceremony: I had the good fortune to be able to present awards again this year. It is a great pleasure to see our students and their friends and family come together to celebrate their success. The Scholarship Foundation Committee always does a great job and this year was no exception. In particular I wanted to highlight Dorothy Hawke's leadership. She has promised that even though she will be retiring this year that she will continue to work on this committee. (I wish she would also make time to continue to come to our FaBPAC meetings, but that might be asking too much!)

Flexible Calendar Committee: We are planning our Spring professional development activities around global citizenship. There will be an interesting keynote address by Peter Menzel around his book of photography, The Material World. Ron Zack, our photography instructor, was instrumental in bringing this renowned artist to the campus. Connecting to this theme as well is our citizenry in the College and our participation in the accreditation process. We will offer several workshops to prepare us for our next accreditation Self-Study. Many thanks to the Flex Cal Committee, and in particular Chuck Spillner, for their hard work. Chuck was highly motivated to complete this task because he goes in for hip surgery soon. Keep him in your thoughts in hopes of a smooth procedure and a speedy recovery.

Accreditation Visit: I had the opportunity to speak with both of the Commission representative, Drs. Nixon and Stephens. I think that everyone is in agreement that Solano is on the right track. Dr. Nixon was interested primarily in our campus dialogue and you…the Board. I assured him that while we have room for improvement that Solano is moving in the right direction. Dr. Stephens was primarily interested in the Integrated Planning Process (IPP). Solano should be very encouraged by its work in this area. Dr. Stephens mentioned that we had done such a good job that we should consider "franchising" our processes.

In the Senate meeting:

The Senate received its now customary report from Dr. Laguerre and then moved on to discuss the Student Services Board Policy on "Standards of Student Conduct" and the Academic Integrity Policy. Dr. Waits was present to walk us through the changes in the Board Policy revisions that brought this policy in line with current Community College League (CCL) language. Senate feedback, I think, strengthened the revised document by localizing it to SCC.

Within our new Integrated Planning Process (IPP) the Senate and the Academic Deans serve the Review Groups for Strategic and/ or Operational proposals that are related to our Strategic Goal #1, Quality Teaching and Learning. Because we are in the first year of the IPP this is the first time that we've had these kinds of discussions in the Senate. We reviewed four strategic and two operational proposals. I think it is a testament to the clarity of the process that Senators had a good idea of what was expected of them and how to address these proposals. From here they move on to Shared Governance, then FaBPAC, then the Superintendent/ President's Cabinet and ultimately to you (the Board).

Other thoughts:

The Senators from the Academic Senate wanted to extend their most heartfelt condolences to Board President A. Marie Young. We are saddened by the loss of her husband and hope that she finds comfort in the lifetime of memories his life has brought her.