Instructional Council Minutes Thursday, October 16, 2014 2300 Conference Room 9:00 a.m. Present: Dan Haskins, Eva Jimenez, Kate Mahar, Mike Mari, Tyler McLean, Susan Meacham, Frank

Nigro, Ralph Perrin, Meridith Randall, Kathy Royce

Absent: Will Breitbach, Andy Fields, Tim Johnston

Guests: Marc Beam

Topics Covered: Outreach Plan Automated Waitlist Area Plan Data BA Degree Application Evaluation List Classroom Use Late-Start Section Request Proctoring Grants Office Procedures Sample Syllabus Statement A&R Spring 2015 Timelines 2015-16 Proposed Calendar

Outreach Plan Meridith said Tim relayed that the resistance of the high schools is still “why do we have to do placement tests at all.” There is a placement test score and a placement based on the GPA and the student can pick the one they want to use. Even though we were going to go into the high schools to do the testing, they just don’t want to do them at all. Meridith is going to suggest to Tim that we collect contact information so that we can focus on follow-up as a part of the process. Automated Waitlist Meridith said she has been discussing a better way of handling waitlists with Tim. At the beginning of the semester there are spaces available in the class with students on the waitlist, but then those waitlisted students are not getting in the class. There is a way to let those waitlisted students enrolled by the faculty member giving a code to the student so that the student can enroll online instead of the manual process in place now. Area Plan Data Marc explained that there was a glitch in the system with the tables he used to support the annual area plan data set. He went over the types of errors and the size of the errors. They appear to be focused on certain semesters. Meridith said success data was also affected in areas such as MATH and FAID. This error was actually caught by Cathy Anderson when she said the listed success rates could not be correct. Marc said he is working to get this corrected and sent out but how long it will take to correct it will vary by discipline. There is the area plan data set and the additional data set and he suspects he will have to run both.

Instructional Council Minutes for 10/16/14 - Page 2 He will work on those first and they will repost all the area plans in Tracdat. Meridith said he should replace the incorrect area plans in Tracdat. Marc said it takes about three full weeks to do all of these plans so it takes quite a bit of work. What he is hearing is that IC would like to replace the old document with the new one and the new one will highlight the corrections/changes. Meridith asked Marc to let the Deans know when the new ones are posted instead of him contacting faculty directly. The Deans can then contact faculty. It could be tricky communicating this without faculty complaining that all the data we give them is wrong. Meridith said the new deadline for submitting Area Plans will be October 24. BA Degree Application Meridith said the pressure is on for us to apply to be one of the 15 colleges approved to offer a BA degree. The requirement is that the BA cannot be for something offered by any CSU or UC. Eva and Dan are working with local employers to find out where there might be a demand. Part of the application is that we have to show that a BA would result in higher pay. Eva said they are looking at Health Information Management and that will probably work well since we are in a medical community. Meridith said this will be a lot of work for everyone and the Senate will have to approve whatever we propose. If approved for a BA degree, we will have to hire new faculty and create a new admissions system. It will be $84 per unit and it isn’t yet clear whether we could collect FTES. We have to do an 8-year enrollment projection. Kathy said the real thing is whether it would be supported by higher wages in the community. Ralph said it becomes more competitive for areas where a two-year degree used to be sufficient. Meridith said it becomes the tail wagging the dog. You don’t need a four-year degree to be a very good nurse and she sees this starting to make our two-year degrees obsolete. We need to continue to make sure people see the value of two-year degrees. December 19 is the deadline to submit the application if we are interested. Mike asked about the benefit of this to Shasta College. Meridith responded there is the prestige of being one of the 15 colleges in the state. Maybe this is the wave of the future; 22 other states are already doing it. Evaluation List Meridith asked Dean to come up with 5-6 people who do not report to them that they want evaluation surveys to go to. She will get the list from each of them during their next individual meeting. Classroom Use Meridith said her understanding of how things work is that when developing the schedule and a classroom isn’t available, the AAs start swapping/trading available rooms. John Lutkemeier has looked at classroom usage and there appears to be some rooms that are somewhat underused. Meridith suggested moving sections with lower enrollments to smaller capacity classrooms to open those other rooms up for larger classes. She added that a 40 seat classroom is going to be built in the 1100 building. Frank said he would like to keep the discussion of scheduling software open and look at what other schools are doing. Meridith agreed. Ralph said you would have to consider the staffing needed to implement and maintain a system. Late-Start Section Request Meridith asked the Deans to think about general use and GE classes that faculty would be willing to teach starting no less than 5 weeks into the semester. The easiest option would be online sections, but we do have a lot of classrooms open on Fridays. Her request is for each division to identify 1-2 courses for spring. The reason

Instructional Council Minutes for 10/16/14 - Page 3 to not start them until at least 5 weeks into the semester is because of the 30 day advertising rule. We don’t want to advertise them at the start of the semester and then have them filled by the students who are registering with that group of students. She asked for the list within the next 2-3 weeks. Meridith said this will be done as a pilot to see how it goes. She wants to make sure we don’t fill it up with students who end up failing. Proctoring Meridith said some of our math faculty who teach online spoke at Academic Senate about their perception that there is a rapid deterioration in honesty of students taking math classes. They feel very strongly that online math classes should have in-person exams and expressed their opinion that it is the college’s responsibility to provide test proctoring at any time for students in their classes. Meridith said her position is if an instructor wants to make that stipulation for their online class, specific dates and times can be identified as to when the instructor will have the exam. It is the instructor’s responsibility to handle their own exams. Frank said this is based on two teachers who want someone else to take care of all their exams. He tried to accommodate that in the past and it is a bad situation. He has invited them to come in for a discussion and they have refused to do that. Meridith said the other point is why have an online class when you expect the student to have to take an exam in person. Meridith said these faculty don’t appear willing to look at alternate ways of doing exams. If they make an ultimatum, then the option is not to teach online. Susan said she sensed the other math instructors were not supportive of these two individuals. Meridith said we have to keep driving the issue back to what is best for the students. Grants Office Procedures Kate and Kathy have had discussions with Amy about how the Grants Office can better work with the other areas. Amy is working on procedures and looking at different ideas on the whole grant process. There are times people ask her about something and she invests time and effort and then nothing happens with it. Kate handed out a copy of proposed changes to AP 3280. The biggest thing is the feedback from everyone on how they want the initial procedure to go. When and at what level should Dean involvement be required? There was agreement that the Dean needs to be involved at the front-end and there should be a check-off in the beginning of the process. Eva said an administrator is usually tied to the grant because faculty often aren’t aware of or forget about the reporting requirements of a grant. The follow-up piece is important and the Dean should be involved at the gate. Should the Grants Office take a partial role in making sure those requirements are being met? Meridith said she understands the balance but, given some of the things that have happened in the past, it would be good to have someone keep track of reporting dates, etc. Kathy said Amy just wants to be serving the deans in what they need. She would like to have some idea where the grants are in case she gets questioned. Meridith said if an area gets a grant and it is mishandled, the whole college pays for it. That is an argument for having someone having oversight – it could be the double check. It is important to identify who is going to do the reporting and monitor compliance. You also have to address whether it will be ongoing after the end of the grant. Getting a grant is not an opportunity to make more money. It will sometimes get faculty release time but people should not write grants with the expectation that it will increase their pay. We need to make that clear.

Instructional Council Minutes for 10/16/14 - Page 4 Kate said even if Amy is providing assistance, the people with the content expertise will have to be doing a lot of work. Eva said faculty see that as the grant director’s role. She understands Amy’s role, but it takes away faculty’s desire to get involved. Meridith said Amy could put something in writing that clarifies her role. Sample Syllabus Statement Ralph said he is the rep on BIRT. They have done a lot of work on that committee developing a manual and brochures. One of the issues that came up was the abundance of behavioral problems over what occurred in past years. A number of colleges have used a statement in their syllabi that is similar to what is on the attached sample. This was developed by BIRT as something to suggest to faculty to include in the syllabus. This statement came from another college but was edited by BIRT. It points out the benefit that students get and, in return for that benefit, the next set of bullets are the expectations. Ralph said if IC sees merit in this, Susan might want to take it to Senate. Susan said she would. Ralph asked if Tyler would like to take it to Student Senate. Tyler said it is common sense to most people but he doesn’t know if there is anything he needs to bring to Student Senate. Meridith said when she was teaching she had have a paragraph about what she expected of the students and then followed it with what students could expect of her as the instructor. She asked if Ralph would bring that back to BIRT as a recommendation. Meridith said she has been involved in a couple discipline areas where faculty contributed to the problem with their behavior. Susan said she has heard several comments from colleagues about students who are getting especially attached to instructors and not respecting boundaries. Meridith said it would be a good idea to have include a statement such as “I am your teacher and am available to you in class and during office hours….” and then words to indicate they aren’t available 24 hours a day. Another good statement would be, “You are expected not to interfere with the learning of your classmates.” Meridith agreed it would be good to have something detailed enough for a new teacher to refer to. She’s had faculty who didn’t want to come down too hard on students but the STOTS came back in with negative comments about the instructor’s lack of control. Ralph will take it back and make edits and then bring it back. A&R Spring 2015 Timelines Meridith handed out the proposed registration dates for spring 2015. 2015-16 Proposed Calendar Meridith said the proposed calendar is at the Association level. Fall semester would start on 8/17, have a full week off at Thanksgiving, and then end about 12/18. Spring is going to be the issue. Because of Obama Care and being able to average people over an academic year, you are not allowed to have a break over three weeks in length. Next year we are looking at starting classes on January 12 or 13 and having the in-service day later in the semester instead at the beginning. Spring break would match Shasta Union High School District and the semester would end on May 13. Meridith said we aren’t out of compliance with Obama Care this year, but we can’t average some of our staff over the entire year. Other Eva said about 900 students were participating in FFA day today.

Instructional Council Minutes for 10/16/14 - Page 5 Kate and Amy just submitted the Lumina grant. Meridith said we are going to apply for a $2.5 Million award focusing on all our efforts with K-12, Gateway to College, Dual Enrollment, etc. Eva said Pathways Grant is coming back out in November and that is $6 million. Meridith said we have arranged sexual harassment prevention training and they would like to have as many faculty involved as possible, even though we can’t require they do it. Faculty will get flex credit for attending. It will clarify for faculty what their moral and legal responsibilities are to protect our students. We will send out more information on that. Meeting adjourned at 11:04 a.m. Notes taken by Caryn Bailey