Members Present:   Kevin Arps, Tom Butler, Ron Brooker, Muriel Coil, Renee Cornell, Janet Downey, Terry Grygiel, Hank Mancini, John Nelson, Roberto Ribas, Donna Mosher, Scott Massey, Jane Marks.

Guests Present:  Fred Stahl, , Joyce Janiga, Casey Durandet.
 

Members Absent:   Maria Barillas, Marilyn Cristiano.

1.   Brief address by Fred Stahl, Dean of Instruction.

Fred reported on the pilot project in concurrent enrollment. He noted that the main concerns of PVCC faculty were the quality of instruction, control of the program, the hiring of instructors, and the size and quality of the program.

Fred cited three areas that are being monitored to address those concerns: administration of the program, pedagogy, and the quality of student performance. Fred noted that there were no snags in the administration of the program. He also noted that, with respect to pedagogy, our text books, our syllabus, and our grading rubrics were all being used. Finally, he noted that although there were some difficulties relating to the quantity of work assigned to students early on, there were improvements in later assignments. He indicated that it is too soon to make a definitive judgement about the quality of student performance.

Fred listed eight things that will insure the quality of the program: the adoption of the standards established at PVCC, the establishment of a learning community through the joint efforts of Renee Cornell and Jamie Pickering, orientation of the high school students to our standards, the support systems provided at PVCC, portfolios for evaluating student performance, monthly meeting of the coordinating team (Renee Cornell, Jamie Pickering, Gary Damore, and Fred Stahl), mechanisms available for intervention if students don't succeed, and continuous communication between Fred and Tom Butler.

With respect to the placement test, Fred did not feel that it is mandated and that it correlates with the skills needed for English 101 and English 102.

Fred concluded by saying that after the second semester, the flowchart for the program should be reviewed to make sure that it is accurate.

Tom posed the following question: given that Gary Damore will be proposing candidates for teaching concurrent courses and given that the department chair at PVCC will have a chance to reject them, if no suitable candidate is found for a course section, will the section be cancelled. Fred answered in the affirmative.
 
 
 

The Senate meeting was called to order at 2:35 PM by Tom Butler.

A motion was made to add under 'New Business' a discussion regarding relations with non-association members. The motion was passed and the agenda was approved as amended.
 

The October 4, 1999 minutes were approved as written.

Enrollment Management- Scott Massey
Scott reported that the Enrollment Management team has decided to focus on retention and that this may have some impact on scheduling. He also indicated that the Noel Levitz survey would be done again this year.

Employee and Organizational Learning - Ned Miner
No report.

Staffing Committee- Donna Mosher
Donna reported that the Staffing Committee decided on the following ranking for new faculty positions: 1. Chemistry, 2. Education, 3. Computer Information Systems, 4. English/Journalism, 5. Mathematics, 6. English/Humanities, 7. Biology, 8. Emergency Medical Technology/Health Care Core, 8. Library, 9. Music, 10. Dance.

Footnotes: if Bob Bendotti does not return to his Business faculty position in 2000-2001, the committee recommends that his faculty position be allocated to CIS and that the ranking for the CIS slot be reexamined by the committee. Also, if the English/Humanities position is not funded, the committee requests that the permanent English slot funded in 1999-2000 be reallocated to English/Humanities to permit the Humanities/Communication division to hire a faculty member who is qualified to teach both English and Humanities.
 
 

Professional Growth-Carmen deMiguel
No report.

Technology Coordinating Team-Jeanne Franco
No report.

Legislative Committee- Tom Butler.
No report.

Treasurer's Report - Ron Brooker
As of October 31, 1999 the balance in the PVCC Faculty Association checking account is $94.56 and the savings account balance is $7,043.86, with a combined balance of $7,138.42. Of the combined balance, the Scholarship Fund balance is $2,891.85, leaving $4,246.57 unencumbered..  The Treasurer's Report was approved as written.

Secretary's Report - Terry Grygiel
No report.

President-Elect's Report- John Nelson
EBAC

William Waechter intended to present a proposal that the Governing Board recognize the Employee Benefits Advisor Committee as the appropriate group to recommend employee benefits. This proposal was to be presented to the Governing Board at the October 26th Board Meeting for a vote.

This proposal set off a series of events.

At the October 12, 1999 FEC meeting an Executive Session was called to discuss this proposal.  It was decided at this session that Willie Minor meet with Dr. Cardenas to listen to Faculty concerns and see if he would pull the item from the Board's agenda.

Willie Minor called an emergency session of the FEC on October 22, 1999 to discuss these issues with Mike Napier, Faculty Association Legal Council.  At this meeting Mike stressed the seriousness of this proposal as a threat to the RFP, and he concluded by stating that this is a political issue.

A special edition of the PeerPoint which detailed the background of this proposal, the source of the problem, and the meeting with Mike Napier was issued on Thursday, October 28, 1999.

The EBAC proposal was pulled from the Governing Board's October 26, 1999, agenda.  However, new significant dates for this are as listed:

Tuesday, November 9, 1999, the Governing Board will hold an open hearing on the EBAC proposal at  5:30 p.m.

The Governing Board will hold a First Reading of the EBAC proposal  at its meeting on  November 23, 1999.  Meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.

On the Tuesday, December 14, 1999, Governing Board Meeting, the  Board will vote on the proposal.  Meeting time 6:30 p.m.

At our October 26, 1999, FEC meeting, we learned that the EBAC committee will not endorse the wording of Waechter's proposal.  He will have to present it as his own proposal to the Board.

At this writing , Willie Minor is considering the following strategies:
--Meeting with Mike Mauer, AAUP, to come up with a plan for a  national campaign.
--Contacting a local newspaper reporter
--Calling Bill Waechter to see if he would meet with five or six FEC members to discuss EBAC concerns.

Dual Enrollment

In the October 12, 1999 FEC meeting, Gay Garesche wanted to correct information given at a previous meeting.  At this meeting, it was reported that some faculty depend on dual enrollment for their jobs. Gay stated that faculty do not depend on dual enrollment for their jobs.  She explained that dual enrollment courses are counted in FTSE and that dollars do come to the colleges as a result.  However, she shared a scenario with the Council of a student who might take a dual enrollment course through one of the colleges.  Then, after graduation, the student enrolls in an MCCCD college, and the student does not have to take the course when it was completed as a dual enrollment class. The more courses taken by students while in high school, who then come to MCCCD, the lower the enrollment will be.

The Council discussed concerns about dually-enrolled high school students taking the COMPASS and ASSET tests and how these are used to place them in college courses.  ACT and other groups have said that these tests cannot be used to measure college-preparedness.  So, a dual enrollment program should require that the students take the ASSET exam in order to take the dual enrollment course at the high school.  Since this issue needs further discussion, it will be referred to the Dual Enrollment subcommittee.  They need to bring back a recommendation.

Jim Reed attended a meeting of the Dual Enrollment Finance Committee. He discussed several proposals for paying for the classes.  One way, Rio Salado has a system where tuition pays for the dual enrollment classes; money comes to the colleges only.  Another system is the "wash" system. In this policy there is a paper exchange between the college and the high school;  the college is compensated for FTSE, and the high school is compensated for ADA.   There is also a third model which is a hybrid
of the first two systems.

The committee emphasized that the District will only go with one system since high schools are cutting deals with four to five colleges to see which college will give them the best deal.   Jim stated that dual enrollment is a reality in Maricopa, and the colleges will get paid. The committee has to decide which model to use.  He further made the point that finance is not the important issue.  The important issue is quality of instruction.

Changes in "Y" Grade

Willie Minor informed the Council that the proposed changes in the Y grade were sent out last spring.  He stated that the proposed administrative regulation was posted on the web and not sent out over A1, thus many faculty did not know of these changes.  Also, he said that putting information such as this on the web was not the usual procedure.

Apparently, these changes in the  Y grade are in the current catalogues according to Joe Ortiz.  Since there are so few faculty and college DI's who are aware of these changes, it was suggested that a representative from each college as well as DI's sit on the Common Pages review committee.  Willie will speak with Mike Rooney about the Council's concerns and suggestions.

In the October 26, 1999 meeting, Willie Minor reported that he had met with Mike Rooney regarding this issue.  He reported that the request for this change had come from the Admissions and Records group.  Before the change was made, someone was supposed to contact the Deans of Instruction for their input on this issue, but no one ever contacted the DI's.  Willie requested that the Council review the process packets and stated that he told Mike Rooney that the Deans of Student Services should not be the overseeing body for instructional issues in the Common Pages.  Marie Fenske is the faculty representative on the Common Pages Committee; she will update the Council on the proceedings of this committee.

PeopleSoft

Numerous issues related to PeopleSoft were discussed at the October 12, 1999 FEC meeting.
--The payroll debacle of Friday, October 8, 1999
--Possible future delays in payroll
--PeopleSoft is the third software package on which the District has
spent time and money yet major problems were encountered.
--Possibly inviting Ron Bleed to an FEC meeting to explain PeopleSoft.
--Flex Credit dollars being included in the gross pay amount of employee paychecks.
--It was noted that Rod Brooker was compiling information from the responses to his A1 about the October 8th payroll delay.  Willie Minor asked to be given names of  others who could lend expert help in addressing Council's concerns on this issue, and he asked if each of the  colleges' Faculty Senate presidents would collect responses from their  faculty members.

In the October 26, 1999, meeting Willie shared with the Council an A-1 from Donna Schober asking for feedback on the October 8, 1999 payroll debacle.  Willie stated that he had read the articles in the November Peerpoint and believes that they reflect the feedback from the faculty.

LOA

Printing of the RFP this year has been held up because of unilateral changes made to the RFP by the District Administration during preparation for printing.  These changes were discovered by the Executive Council secretary, Carrie Taylor.
 

Most of the changes made outside of the Meet and Confer  process were related to Appendix B on Leaves of Absences.  During the spring semester of 1998, the two faculty members on EBAC reported that the Administration wanted to change all employee groups' Leave of Absence policies so that they would be uniform.  The Executive Council initially resisted, but ultimately agreed to the changes as long as the LOA policy remained in the RFP.

The Administration proposed to the Board that the LOA policy be changed to correspond with the Family and Medical Leave Act.   This Act says that employees returning from a LOA must be returned to the same or an equivalent position.  The wording of the RFP stated, as recently as the 1997 - 98 version , that a faculty member must be returned to the same position.  The administration changed the RFP to say that returning faculty would be returned to the same or equivalent position.  This is an important difference.  It would seem reasonable that most faculty would want to be returned to their original campus.

In the Executive Council meeting of October 12, 1999, the Council discussed further wording changes that relates to the definition of Catastrophic Illness in the RFP.  Willie compared for the Council the language in the 1998-99 RFP that was inserted unilaterally by Employment, and the language in the tentatively approved  document. Willie made the point that in the tentatively approved language, there was no definition of Catastrophic Illness, just a series of nineteen dots.  It was suggested that the dots remain in the RFP for now since the business world may have a broader definition of Catastrophic Illness than the language that was inserted into the RFP by Employment.

At the October 26, 1999, FEC meeting, Willie Minor reported that he and Carrie Taylor have read through the latest version of the RFP and, for the most part, it is clean.  He also informed the Council that the attestation page is currently being signed and, when it is signed by all parties, the RFP will go to print.
 

Meet and Confer

At the October 26, 1999, Council meeting, Willie Minor noted that he had received an A1 from Dr. Waechter advising him of the timeline for proposals to the Governing Board regarding salaries and Professional Growth monies.  Each employee group will have to submit a proposal since the Employee Alliance is now defunct.

Janice Comer, Chair of the Meet and Confer Team, stated that the deadline for the salary and Professional Growth monies proposal is December 10, 1999.  She informed the Council that the Meet and Confer Team will ask for a step and a percentage of the salaries for the COLA this year.   She further stated that proposals are being developed (for the Meet and Confer process) for the issues of salary, Professional Growth, benefits, and other issues which concern the faculty.

Professional Growth Reassigned Time

The Professional Growth Committee chair requested that the Council support their efforts to obtain reassigned time for all Professional Growth Committee members.  After discussion of this issue, it was agreed that the discussion of reassigned time for Professional Growth representatives should stay at the college level.  College Faculty Senate Presidents should approach their DI's or college Presidents in order obtain reassigned time for these representatives.  Also, it was mentioned that this issue could be appropriately handled in the Meet and Confer process.  At the current time, seven colleges in the District are either giving reassigned time or extended contracts for this responsibility.

President's Report - Tom Butler

From the Budget Review Committee:

There will be very limited funds for new projects in this year’s budget.  The District has only about $900,000.00 in “contingency” funds to apportion among all campuses.  The Governing Board has emphasized the importance of tying funding requests to the Board priorities of advisement, articulation and transfer issues, diversity, and instruction. PVCC’s Budget Review Committee will have to whittle down approximately 25 funding requests totaling $1,800,000.00 to about $300,000.00 in top priorities, of which we may only get $100,000.00 funded. We will also be prioritizing over $800,000.00 in technology and other capital requests down to a maximum of $200,000.00.  There will be no doubt additional FTSE incentive funds for growth that will augment our budget.

From the Strategic Planning Committee:

Two of the most important issues we will address this year and next are the twins of Enrollment Management: how to maximize use of available, and limited, resources for the projected increases in FTSE over the next several years; and, ironically, how to improve retention of students from one semester to the next.  As FTSE grows, the demand for classes at peak, preferred times will grow, but we are already “out of rooms” at some of those times.  With the possibility of a new bond two years away, and new classroom construction completion another year or two beyond that, what can be done now to address space needs?

From the President’s Cabinet:

President Gina Kranitz reported that, at the Chancellor’s Executive Council, the college presidents acknowledged that there had not been enough academic dialog prior to the change in “Common Pages” policy to drop “Y” grades from students’ GPA.

Dean Fred Stahl reported that the Deans of Instruction want to rewrite the Common Pages because they are too convoluted and not easily understood.  He also reported that he would like to see an improved and more readable student class schedule.

Dr. Kranitz reported that next year’s budget will be very tight, and many requests will go unmet.  The County of Maricopa, which by statutory regulation is the “banker” holding the funds for the Community College District, will no longer continue to pay interest on the College District’s deposits, which could mean a loss of revenue to the District of $500,000.00 annually.  The District is fighting this.

Dean Paul Dale said that 30 classes would be randomly selected to administer the Noel-Levitz student satisfaction survey, an important assessment tool in our student retention strategies.

Dean Bob Bendotti reported that the city of Phoenix will work simultaneously next summer on road construction projects at the 32nd Street and Union Hills entrances.  The 32nd St. entrance will be moved north, several hundred feet directly opposite Michigan Avenue with a traffic light, and the Union Hills section will be widened and we may get a left-turn signal for westbound traffic entering the campus.   The Squaw Peak Parkway will be completed to Union Hills Drive in 2002.

Bob also proposed that we develop a time line for expenditure of new budget monies, after which, if the funds are not expended, they trickle down the list to the next prioritized but unfunded request.  His aim is to improve efficiency by insuring all needed funds are used and none are “rolled over” to the next year.

President Kranitz reported that she would like to see International Education become a more prominent program on our campus.  Dean Stahl said that he was working on three different grants related to international education.

President Kranitz asked all Deans and department heads to invite faculty to sit on any hiring committees for new positions.  She also said she will limit administrative reassignments and that upgrades of employees to higher positions must be processed through established procedures.

Scholarship refreshment stand at theatre events - Tom Butler.
The general consensus was that providing refreshments at theatre events would consume large amounts of time and energy and would yield very little payback. Tom will issue one more call for volunteers over A1, but if no more volunteers are found, the matter will be dropped.

 

Faculty Association web page- Tom Butler
Tom pointed out that there are no links to the Faculty Senate's web page, which contains links to the Faculty Association's web page. A motion was made to establish links to the Faculty Senate web page from the committees page and from the academic listings page. Tom will ask Jeanne Franco if there is any compelling reason why this should not be done.

Relations with non-association members- Tom Butler
There was general consensus that the Faculty Senate represents all faculty, including those faculty that are not association members. Any faculty member should therefore be able to brings issues to the Faculty Senate as possible agenda items.

Senate Goals 1999-2000- Tom Butler
Tom indicated that a questionnaire regarding the senate goals has been mailed to each senator. He requested that these be filled out and returned to him as soon as possible. Senate goals will be addressed at the December meeting.

Senate Goals 1999-2000.
PVCC Faculty Travel Committee Procedural Guidelines.
Other items as needed.

 
There will be a Food Service meeting on November 9. Tom encouraged members of the faculty senate to attend..
 

The meeting was adjourned at 5:10 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted by
  Terry Grygiel
  Senate Secretary

PVCC - Faculty Senate Minutes for November 4, 1999
© 1999 MCCCD. This page last modified on November 11, 1999.
Questions and Comments to Terry Grygiel at grygiel@pvc.maricopa.edu
http://www2.pvc.maricopa.edu/senate/min11499.htm