COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING

Unapproved

MINUTES

Friday, March 16, 2007

 

Committee Members: 

 

Present:   Larry Steuben, Kathy Schultz, Joe Ryan, Gene Womble,

Joan Canty, Josh Bigelow, Vonna Breeze-Martin, Meryl Brooks, Anne Cavagnaro, Melissa Colon, Jeff Fitzwater, Laurel Grindy, Patricia Harrelson, Raelene Juarez, Alicia Kolstad, Maryl Landess, John Leamy, Ray Liedlich, Lynn Martin, Morgan McBride, Ida Ponder, Nate Rein, Laurie Sylwester, Jim Toner, Adrienne Webster, Bill Wilson, Jeri Perez, recorder

 

Guests:              Dr. Joan Smith, Dr. Dennis Gervin, Dimitri Keriotis

 

The meeting was called to order at 1:35 PM by President Larry Steuben

 

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER:

 

1.         Dr. Joan Smith

A.        The College Council is working on the Mission, Vision and Core Values Statement. The Council is taking all of the planning units and developing an Educational Master Plan; we currently do not have a Master Plan and need to put one into place before the Accreditation team arrives in the Fall. Dr. Smith will be working on this over the summer and will bring it back in the fall for Faculty review. She commended the Council for their participation and contribution to the project. They will be participating in two back-to-back retreat days.

B.         Tom O’Neil has resigned as Dean of Arts and Sciences and as of Thursday he is no longer on campus. There will be a district wide announcement asking for qualified candidates who would be interested in being the interim for up to 1 year. The application period is for two weeks, if we do not find an interim within the district during that time, it will be opened to the public. We plan on having the position filled by May 1st. Dr. Gervin will be Acting Interim until an interim can be established; Dr. Smith will be assisting Dr. Gervin with his Vice President’s duties to help keep things on schedule and running as smoothly as possible. Dr. Smith, Dr. Gervin, Connie Mical and 2 faculty members will be on the interview panel for the Interim Dean position. Dr. Smith assured everyone that she will be asking very hard questions to make sure that we will have the best person possible for the position. She could not comment on whether the structure of the division would remain the same or change. She will keep faculty informed via e-mail on what is going on at the college.

C.         Dr. Smith commended personnel for the great job they did during the pipe bomb incident. She has received questions from people as to why everyone on campus was not notified of the situation and had to hear about the incident through the media. She informed the Senate that the situation was not deemed high risk since the bombs looked very old and were not likely to explode and the area was safely contained. Security is high on her list and she is taking our security concerns to the Board. She reminded everyone to send her an e-mail if they have any questions or concerns.

 

 

 

2.         Dr Dennis Gervin

A.           Dr. Gervin informed everyone that communication is very important as he steps into the role as Interim Dean during the transition time. Now he is more aware and understands more about that office and his role. His first plans of actions are: 1. Schedule, 2. Planned spending and 3. Meet with areas to find out what the needs are. He will be holding a meeting on March 20 to discuss the schedule and debrief about “Big Friday”. He would like to have an open discussion on how the process can be more effective. He plans on making as many general meetings a possible and appreciates everyone’s patience and offers of help.

B.         Dr. Buck has the Summer Schedule now and it should be available to everyone early next week. The Fall Schedule is planned to be entered into Datatel on Monday and then should be available to faculty for review. The descriptions should be in the Fall Schedule. For the first time Datatel, the catalog and the schedules will all have the same information

 

3.         High Sierra Institute at Baker Station- Dimitri Keriotis, Coordinator

A.        Dimitri handed out a packet listing the course offerings at Baker Station and the revised Mission and Vision Statement. He has taken over the Coordinator position from Jeff Tolhurst who had previously laid down a great foundation for the Institute. Dimitri plans on keeping the momentum going and branch off from there with some new things. IBM volunteered to donate 10 brand new laptops; currently there is no internet access but there is a possibility it could be available in the future. He invited faculty to contact him if they have any questions about the Institute and if they had any inclination of offering a course; the Institute is open from June 1st to September 15th. A document for prospective instructors should hopefully be available by fall. He offered an open invitation to visit when there are not any classes being held there. Other Institutions have used the facilities besides YCCD, but YCCD will always have priority. (Baker Station is where Columbia College has been holding its Faculty Retreat for the past 2 years. The Faculty Retreat will be held there again this year on August 17th and 18th).

 

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: for February 23, 2007

 

ACTION:   The minutes were approved with clarification changes to Page 3, item 3, prerequisites

 

ACTION AND DISCUSSION ITEMS:

 

1.         Resolution SP07-A, Faculty Scholarship Awards (Second Reading) –Maryl Landess & Mike Hill

      A Resolution to increase the Faculty Scholarship awards.

ACTION:   Amend the “Therefore” segment of Resolution M/S/P: Liedlich/Harrelson

 

Resolution will be changed to say, “Therefore, Be it Resolved, that the Academic Senate increase Faculty Scholarship awards as follows: for other candidates, a minimum of $500 per award, up to a maximum of five candidates”.

ACTION: To accept the Resolution as amended

                    M/S/P: McBride/Canty

 

2.                   Resolution SP07-B-Larry Steuben

This Resolution has been cancelled.

 

OTHER INFORMATION ITEMS:

 

1.             Elections Report-Larry Steuben

Congratulations and thank you to the following faculty who were elected for the 2007-2008 academic year: Anne Cavagnaro, President Elect, Jeff Fitzwater, Representative-at-large, Craig Johnston, Adjunct Representative and Joe Ryan, Curriculum Chair.

 

2.             Faculty and Teacher of the Year- Larry Steuben

Nominations and criteria for nomination went out via e-mail on Monday. All nominations need to be accompanied by a letter of why you have selected the individual as a nominee must be turned in to Jeri by Friday, March 23rd. Let Jeri know if you need to have the information sent to you again.

 

3.             Curriculum Members Needed- Larry Steuben

The Curriculum Committee needs the following positions: One member for Voc ED and one faculty at large – both voting, and 1 faculty intern.

 

4.             A.C.C.J.C.- Larry Steuben

The Accreditation Commission is seeking nominations for 2 faculty positions. If you are interested, let Jeri know and she will put the information and application in your mailbox.

 

5.             Two Faculty/Staff In-services This Semester-Jim Toner

There will be two speakers here on campus this semester:

1.      On 3/30 the speaker is Aftab Omer who an incredible speaker and will be in the Manzanita Community Education room from 1:30-3:30.

2.      On 4/20 is Malidoma Some who will be speaking about Community Building from 2:00-4:00. He will also be having a workshop on 4/21. It is very exciting to have these speakers available to us and Jim would really like for everyone who can to show up for the in-services. If you would like more information, please call Jim

 

6.             Smoking Areas on Campus-Jim Toner

So many of the beautiful places on campus are designated smoking areas. It would be nice to have a few areas designated as non-smoking areas so that classes and people could gather there and not be bothered by the smoke. It was mentioned that this issue is addressed in the Campus Master Plan. It was also suggested that Jim take the issues to the Facilities Committee.

 

7.             MJC Resolution

Larry reported that MJC had been working on a Resolution to address the number of times a student could drop a class. They had to withdraw the Resolution since it didn’t follow Title V guidelines. A “W” cannot be treated as a failure. Larry felt this would be a good discussion here at Columbia and the opportunity to look into other interventions such as the Early Alert. One suggestion from the Senate was to have students be required to have an instructor’s signature in order to withdraw from a class. Counseling informed the Senate that this could not happen; students have the right to withdraw from a class, and they can drop on-line. Another suggestion was to ask the student to fill out a survey asking why they were dropping the class, even if it is on-line, when they withdraw.

 

8.             Middle College

Some Senate members wanted to find out more information about the new Middle College program and how it is going to work and where the students would be instructed. The general information provided by other Senate members were: There will be about 32 students who will be going to class here from 8:15-11:10 and will be instructed by a high school instructor. They are scheduled at this time to meet in the MCR with their instructor. After the scheduled time they may or may not be programmed into college classes; they are on individual plans at that time. Students will receive 3 to 1 credits for college classes.

 

REPORTS: See attached written reports for detail information

 

·                     Representative to the Board-David Baggett

There are 7 candidates set to interview for the Chancellor position. The interviews will be conducted on 3/29 & 3/30 and after the interviews are completed the top candidates will be invited to open forums at both colleges on separate days. The screening committee hopes to have the new Chancellor hired by 4/11/07. There is a possibility that the position of Assistant Chancellor of Instruction may be reinstituted.

 

·                     Curriculum-Joe Ryan

The Curriculum Chair, Deans and Dr. Gervin met last Wednesday to work on a system to have an Addendum to the catalog. A process was developed and will be submitted at next Wednesday’s Executive meeting for more developing if needed. If anyone has input, show up and let us know.

 

·                     YFA- Gene Womble

1.       Detailed information saved for the YFA meeting held after the Academic Senate Meeting.

2.       There is an YFA Adjunct Representative position open for Columbia. Anyone who is interested should let Gene know. Keep in mind that YFA meets every Wednesday and you can either drive to the meeting (where there is always food and comfortable chairs) or you can do it through phone conference here at Columbia, video conferencing is not yet available. Melissa suggested that Marty Gang be contacted about setting up a web cam and if necessary she would be willing to help.

3.       A YFA Meeting is scheduled for Friday, March 23 at 1:00 in Cedar 1. Gene will go over the outcome of current negotiations.

 

·                     President Elect Kathy Schultz

1.       Kathy Schultz contacted Connie Mical as to why faculty and staff did not hear about the assault that took place on campus a few weeks ago. Connie meant to send out an e-mail report to let people know, but then the pipe bomb incident happened and she did not get the message sent out. The policy is to send out information if the situation is an on going situation, which this turned out not to be. Connie has sent out a flyer on “Night Safety”. Kathy also shared copies of the “Annual Safety Report”.

 

2.       Mission/Vision/Core Values Statement

Dr. Smith covered most of this in her address to the Senate. Kathy reported that the new statement will have a shorter mission portion and a longer vision and core values description. She asked everyone to take a look at the drafts that are included in the packet and get back to her by April 6th if they have something they would like to contribute.

 

·                     President-Larry Steuben

1.       Dean of Arts and Sciences

Larry informed the Senate that anyone who is interested in being on the Interim Dean Search Committee should contact Kathy Schultz and let her know. Some of the Senate felt there should be 3 faculty on the committee; Kathy will talk to Dr. Smith about that being a possibility. There also needs to be a classified person on the committee as well. Larry will recommend that they have Area Chairs for the Interim’s time here and for awhile or forever with the permanent Dean. When dividing the departments, he will take into consideration how many adjuncts are within the different departments. These Chairs would help the Dean with Unit Plans, Curriculum Review, Program Review, etc.

 

2.       Retirement

Larry announced that he will be retiring as the Librarian for Columbia College this summer. He also announced that he will be applying for the Interim Dean position.

 

ADJOURNMENT:

The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 by President Steuben

 

Next Academic Senate Meeting is Friday, April 13, 2007

YFA Meeting followed