Senate President Report the Board

Meetings:

PERT: In the Process Evaluation Review Team meeting we reviewed one of the training video modules that Rob Simas and I produced on Operational Proposals, discussed the e-mail that Rob will be sending to $ALL soliciting performance indicators for our Strategic Objectives, and we discussed our systematic evaluation of the Integrated Planning Process to date.

Accreditation: As I mentioned in my Accreditation Update at the last Closed Session, I have held two informational meetings with the Accreditation Committee to give co-chairs guidance on how to move forward with the accreditation self-study this semester. My sense is that working groups have begun to meet and the campus has taken its first steps toward completing the 2011 Self-Study Report. Also, I have activities planned for the March 17 optional Flex Cal day. We had a nice showing for this work session today. Finally, there is a group of faculty, staff, and administrators who will attend the State Academic Senate Accreditation Institute this weekend. I'm sure we'll have plenty to report back on.

American River College: I went with Nancy Konecny and Susanna Crawford to American River College for a tour of their Learning Resource Center and to discuss how they have implemented their Basic Skills Program. We were able to glean some interesting insights that may inform our discussions

Distance Education: Rennee Moore has stepped down as the DE Committee for personal reasons and Dale Crandall-Bare has been selected by the committee to take over her responsibilities for the remainder of the semester.

In the Senate: This week the Senate met and had, as usual, a very full agenda.

Representatives from SunGuard came in to give us a glimpse of what a fully functioning MySolano portal might look like. In particular, Senators were eager to find out about the full range of services to available to facilitate communication with students. (Course Suites). Unfortunately, because while most of the services we were to see are "hidden" and not yet "turned on", the SunGuard rep was working from a remote server that had quite a few problems. The session served the purpose of introducing SunGuard to the Senate, but was not very informative. We do have plans to give it another try in the near future.

As the Board is aware, regrettably this semester because of budget constraints the College has had to eliminate the LD Specialist position and one of our faculty colleagues is being reassigned to another area. The Senate is always concerned about any possible steps toward Program Discontinuance that do not go through the District's approved policies. Our concern was that by eliminating a position there was the potential for a de facto elimination of the Learning Services Program. We had a very healthy and robust discussion of the topic. The Senate's position will be to ensure that the District follows its Program Discontinuance Policy. In our next meeting we are going to engage in the planned annual review of this policy to ensure that it meets our current needs.

The Senate will be holding a series of elections soon. The positions that are up for election are the Vice President/President Elect, one At-Large Senators, and about half of the Division Senator: Humanities Division, Math & Science Division, PE, & Athletics Division, and one Part-Time Representative.

Other items:

As Senate President I have requested faculty volunteers to serve on the FABPAC, the MySolano/ Luminus Committee, the Vallejo Expansion Committee, and the Equivalency Procedures ad hoc committee. Response has been strong for most areas. Mary Ann Haley from Cosmetology has volunteered for the FABPAC, Richard Kleeberg for MySolano, several faculty for the Vallejo Expansion and two reading and one DSPS faculty member for the Equivalency Procedures. I especially wanted to point out the Board the appointments to the Vallejo Expansion Committee. As I'm sure you recall this committee had no faculty voice and the fact that it does now is a very good step for the College.