President’s Report to the Board

Meetings:

Area B: I traveled to Lake Merritt College and participated in the Area B meeting in which we reviewed and discussed resolutions that would come to the floor in Plenary.

ASCCC Plenary: In addition to several great workshops… one that I presented at…J the Plenary is a time of giving guidance to the ASCCC through a series of resolutions. In the resolutions, of note, were several related to:

1. Support for the Consultation Council's recommendations to the ACCJC. (Resolution 2.03)
   
2. Plan to infuse cultural competency (Resolution 1.02)
   
3. Two papers on Equity and Diversity
   
4. The questions of transfer and articulation that Robin Arie-Donche brought to the Senate was referred to Exec. (Resolutions 4.04 and 4.05)
   
5. Opposition to Proposed Modification of the California Community College Mission (Resolution 6.01)
   
6. Chancellor's Office MOU with Kaplan (Resolution 7.03)
   

Additionally, I went to a presentation on CCC Assess. (This links to a 2009 doc that has some information but is not current). It is a system wide effort to provide a "centralized common assessment model". Meeting for statewide faculty input are set for May 7^th and 8^th.

In the Senate:

Academic Council: Dr. Waits brought to the Senate revisions to BP 5200 on the Academic Council that reviews petitions from students on matters pertaining to their academic performance, enrollment status or registration/withdrawal procedures. The Senate is always pleased to get information of this kind from the administration and Dr. Waits is to be commended for doing so. Of note in the revisions presented is the request that students provide documentation to support their claims and that the decisions of the Academic Council are final. (In the past, students were allowed to appeal to the Vice President of Academic Affairs.)

We received a Treasurer's Report. In addition to the budget allocated to the Senate we have monies that are donated by faculty to the tune of about $141 monthly. Our current balance on this account stands at $9,273.00. We will have a few expenses before the end of the semester still.

The Senate is at the beginning of our election process. Daryl Allen is chairing this committee. We have several openings: the Vice President/ President Elect, the At-Large Senator, an Adjunct Senator and a one year adjunct replacement. We have put out a call for nominations and should be holding elections in the coming weeks. I hope to present the new Senate President Elect by the last Board meeting of the semester.

Our Distance Education Committee reported that it has asked all divisions to work on departmental guidelines for online instruction to ensure that we comply with Title V requirements and ACCJC standards. Also, the committee discussed concerns over the excessive workload on our Distance Education Coordinator. While the number of students who login to online courses and the number of online sections has increased, the reassign time for the coordinator has not. The committee brainstormed possible solutions to alleviate the amount of work the DE Coordinator does.

One of our Math faculty members, Corrine Kirkbride, presented questions and concerns about cell phone use in campus buildings, especially around faculty offices. She is looking to create a board policy to this effect. The Senate provided some guidance and input on her proposal. It seems that, in the end, the District's current BP may extend to the areas she is concerned about. More to come on this later…

The Chair of our Distinguished Faculty of the Year Award, Thom Watkins, has put out the call for recipients of this award. Additionally, LaNae Jaimez has agreed to lead our preparations for the Senate Tenure Tea to honor those faculty who receive tenure this year.

Our representative to the Banner Committee, Richard Kleeberg, gave an update on the functions of Banner that are of interest to faculty, namely the Course Studio portion. It seems that there have been some changes in the committees that give input to the decisions around Banner and we are re-grouping, as it were. We expect to hear more on Course Studio in the near future. The potential is to have course web pages for all faculty through Banner.

Other topics:

I spoke with Dolores Davidson who is on the "Relations with Local Senates" committee. I've invited her to come to SCC for our last meeting of the semester to serve as a resource to our new President and Senators. She will be available on May 17^th from 2-3, be present during out meeting, and then be available from 5-6, if necessary.