Academic Senate Highlights
President’s Report: Jennifer met with the
Enrollment Management Team. The members
of this group voted that they wanted to become a shared governance committee
(over the objections of Dr. Valeau). Jennifer
will work with them to develop the committee description, role, membership,
etc. that will go in the Committee Handbook.
Work
to update the Committee Handbook is continuing.
There is now a website linked to the Senate website (see header) that
lists committee membership. It is being
updated as she gains information. It has
been difficult to get this information from the chairs and only a few
committees have submitted updated information for the handbook despite repeated
requests over the past two years. There
are four committees for which she has no membership information or meeting
records at all--Diversity, Program Review, Staff Development, and Sabbatical
Leave.
Committee Reports
Curriculum Committee The Curriculum Committee (in reviewing its structure
for the Handbook update) will be discussing whether there is still a need for
the Tech Review Sub-Committee. Speak
with Kathy Mendelsohn if you have any opinions about this.
Nursing
curriculum issues are being addressed and there is an expectation that they
will have all the curriculum problems fixed by fall. After that point, nursing will operate under
the curriculum process just as all other disciplines do with no emergency
measures taken as “band-aids.”
The
committee will also be addressing the Drug and Alcohol Specialist program. As currently written it doesn’t meet any
certification requirements. It either
needs to be revised or discontinued.
With no full time faculty to revise it or help the program grow, it is
likely to be discontinued.
Finally,
a subcommittee of Curriculum will be working on an implementation plan for the
new Math 123 AA degree requirement. This
requirement will impact all AA and AS degrees for students starting in Fall
2009. Students who started before then
and DO NOT have a break in enrollment will be under the old requirements.
Discussion Items
Instructional Planning and
Growth Ignacio brought materials
to the Senate that he has also sent to Dr. Valeau and Dr. Hoffman. His handouts included data about spring
enrollments (http://www.hartnell.edu/academic_senate/dr_pando_enrollment.htm)
which are down by over 1000 students, ads from several colleges for multiple
faculty positions, and some questions that he believes should be
discussed. Chief among the questions
posed were:
- Why
are most colleges in enrollment growth when Hartnell is declining?
- Why
are other colleges hiring more faculty when Hartnell is not only not
hiring new faculty but not replacing those who leave (even in high need
disciplines like English, Biology, and Physics)
- Are
faculty aware of the Educational and Facilities Master Plan that was
updated in 2004? Why, although it
documents plans and goals for each department, is this document not being
used for instructional planning?
He brought forward the recommendation that the
Academic Senate take a leadership role by meeting with BOTH the administration
and the Board of Trustees to assess the Master Plan and then actually work on
implementing it. The senate also
discussed the Senate’s role in enrollment management in light of Ignacio’s
presentation. The state Senate has a
paper on this issue with recommendations for local senates. (http://www.hartnell.edu/academic_senate/enrollment_management.htm)
CSU Support
Resolution—A
resolution supporting the CSU faculty in their labor dispute and impending
strike was reviewed and will be an action item on the next agenda.
Action Items
Melissa Stave and Yvonne Reid were appointed to
the Equivalency Committee for the PE instructor/Head Football Coach position.
Mary Cousineau was appointed to the Tech Review
subcommittee of Curriculum.
The Senate Goals for 2007 were adopted. http://www.hartnell.edu/academic_senate/goals.html
Reminder: Minutes, agendas, highlights, related
documents, and links to resources can be found at the Statewide Academic Senate
website http://www.academicsenate.cc.ca.us/