Foothill College Academic Senate Minutes
December 8, 2003; 2:30 – 4:30 pm,
Room 6712
Called to order at 2:36
Minutes for the November 17 and November 24
meetings were unanimously approved.
General Information:
Senator Priscilla Butler will be leaving
Foothill College. Richard Morasci will take her place.
The Senate thanks Priscilla for all her contributions.
Paul reminded all Senators that the $1.00
stipend on the December pay stubs is for Senate service for the
fall quarter.
Consent calendar was
approved with the following changes:
Rosemary Arca will not be serving on George
Beers’ administrative review committee.
Karen Gillette will not be serving on Julio
Rivera’s TRC.
Action Items:
E-Documents:
Both hard copy and electronic versions of all Senate
activities will be available to the public. The Senate
President will request that all documents submitted to the
Senate as official business in hard copy format will also be
submitted in soft-copy (electronic) format whenever possible.
The Senate President will inform presenters / guests that
documents submitted to the Senate will be distributed
electronically to the Senate’s constituents. The
Senate will maintain a document (files) archive for faculty and
Senate with these documents in read only format.
FA: In
order to keep close communication, the Senate will invite a
representative from the FA to present to the Senate each month,
or more frequently as time and situations demand.
Approximately 10-15 minutes will be allotted for such
presentations. The Senators agreed unanimously to include
FA on the agenda for future meetings.
Information Items:
Roundtable update: Paul Starer discussed that President Fong
presented lists and procedures for programs under consideration
for elimination, and that an educational resources meeting
would be held in the near future to further discuss the issues.
There is a drastic reduction planned for PT faculty
offerings in the next academic year. Approximately 60
positions are to be eliminated (this includes FT faculty
overloads). In addition, the district faces a fine if the
FT:PT faculty ratio is not adhered to, therefore 23-25 FT
faculty positions need to be filled within the year.
Positions may be lost due to bumping due to new hires
(esp. and DeAnza) and with a RIF. More will be known next
quarter.
Budget:
Verley O’Neal presented information from the Budget
meetings (meets every other Tuesday): Projected Fund 14
deficits are approximately $12.7M. This is the best case
scenario assuming no mid-year cuts and presuming revenues
remain flat with no increase in state support from last
year’s budget. The current charter of this
committee
is twofold: Come up with clear
numbers of budget, and where money can be saved, and to request
that all members of the college come up with more ideas for
saving money (or generating revenue) and send to
chancellor’s advisory board. Many items were
discussed, however some are non-negotiable because they are
state mandated (parking fees, malpractice and health insurance,
etc).
Creative writing FSA: The creative writing faculty in the Language
Arts Division would like to create a new FSA. This has
already been approved by the Language Arts division, and is now
before the Senate for discussion. Any person wanting to
qualify for this FSA must meet all the minimum qualifications
for an FSA (education, experience, etc). The Senate
agreed to the creation of this FSA. Next steps: Ask
DeAnza to consider this FSA. If the DA Senate agrees,
then the district and FA are consulted, with the final
determination negotiated between the district and the FA.
Class Lists Follow-up: Andrew Fraknoi discussed the issue further, and
wishes that this item be tabled until next quarter. The
FH Registrar seems to be planning a firmer approach to payment
of fees (by 1/16/04) and determination of class lists for the
Winter ’04 quarter.
Academic Integrity: Karen Gillette and Dolores Davison-Peterson
presented information regarding Academic Integrity, handling of
issues relating to the honor code, and due process.
Issues of academic integrity and violations of the honor
code have been increasing, especially with the increase in
electronic media and devices. Concerns have also been
raised over how these offenses have been handled, the role of
the Office of Student Affairs, role of the Deans, the processes
utilized for communication with all concerned parties and the
conduct of the hearings. Due process concerns were also
raised with separation of administrative sanctions from
academic sanctions, issues of confidentiality and privacy.
In addition, the academic integrity brochure (hard copy)
differs from that available on-line, therefore which is binding
during a hearing? Senators have been asked to
discuss these issues with their divisions and to report back on
the following items: a) Is due process working?
b) What recommendations should be made? c)
What issues should be focused on in the future?
Karen Gillette then discussed further
the current process, the members of the panel convened for
hearings. Clearly, the need for clarification of due
process needs to be established and adhered to.
In addition, Paul Starer would like to
approach the Dean of Student Affairs office for consideration
for changing the levels of punishment for honor code
violations, especially concerning when hearings are convened.
Methods to increase awareness of academic integrity and
the honor code were also addressed, including involving student
government, the Orientation class, staff development seminars.
The committee needs to consider recommendations.
All of the above recommendations, comments
and suggestions need to be collected by Senators and reported
upon at the second meeting in January (1/26/03).
ETAC 508 Compliance: Wayne Chenoweth from DeAnza discussed this
issue, which concerns accessibility for all students to all
educational materials. This is a state law, unfortunately
it does not receive adequate funding. Specifically, 508
compliance states that all videos need to be closed captioned
(“CC”). Therefore all videos currently in use
need to be submitted for closed captioning (if they are not
CC). New videos for purchase need to be CC, if not, state
funds cannot be used to purchase them. There is a special
purchase page that needs to be submitted with all video
purchase requisitions. Difficulties arise because not all
vendors clearly indicate CC status. Senators need to
convey this to their divisions.
Committee Members needed:
IPC and LOAN
Paul Starer thanked all Senators for their
hard work.
The meeting adjourned at 4:26
Respectfully submitted:
Maureen Mac Dougall
Secretary/Treasurer